I'm looking for a way of automating my torrent workflow and I'm finding many tools are more focused on finding and downloading the torrents which is not what I want right now. My basic requirement is when I download a torrent I want to be able to either drop into the Watch folder and have the process automated from that point or still use the Transmission client to start the torrent download but the rest automated.

 

To explain when I say automated. Currently if I grab a torrent I need to move this file to the correct directory on my cache drive, start the Transmission client, insert the new torrent selecting the correct directory location depending on TV, App, Music etc, wait for download to complete, take a copy of the downloaded file(s) and select the appropriate drive/directory for either TV/App/Music within the unRAID array, possibly re-name/re-tag, start an XBMC client and re-scan library, have new media added to MySQL, finally I can use the new TV/App/Music...... A bit tedious!

 

I don't really download enough to worry about an automated RSS/torrent watcher so I'm just thinking about the process of once download plus as I'm a Windows user I would rather something ran on unRAID rather than keeping a Windows machine on 24/7.

 

Some of this I can do by using Transmission and the incomplete directory so I guess a script that watched the complete directory for new files could then copy these to the appropriate disk/directory when it sees something new, is this possible? This at a minimum would be very helpful but if it could insert records into MySQL so the XBMC clients picked up immediate that would be the icing on the cake!

 

I'm running unRAID 4.7 and the original Transmission package that came with unMENU.

 

Any help appreciated

I understand your problem and firstly it come to mind if ones we have downloaded all the software we can start to create the folders which we need to move our files from being downloaded all the way through to the media folder. This issue occur with my computer as well but after search i got the few ideas about Torrent.

 

 

I have a standalone windows VM that does my torrenting.  Almost everything gets downloaded automatically.  I hobbled together a powershell script that runs once a day that copies everything from the torrent VM to the proper location on my unRAID.  It has saved me a ton of time.

for me flexget is the best do it eveything for you

for me flexget is the best do it eveything for you

 

Looks interesting but I'm having trouble getting my head around at the moment Need to do some more reading.

 

I started playing with some basic scripts as I've found Transmission can run a script on completion of download. If all it does is copy's from the cache drive to the correct disk that contains the TV media then I will be one step in the right direction as that is the main time consuming part, from there I can simply rename directories.

for me flexget is the best do it eveything for you

 

Looks interesting but I'm having trouble getting my head around at the moment Need to do some more reading.

 

I started playing with some basic scripts as I've found Transmission can run a script on completion of download. If all it does is copy's from the cache drive to the correct disk that contains the TV media then I will be one step in the right direction as that is the main time consuming part, from there I can simply rename directories.

 

Running the risk that it is a sledgehammer approach, but if you are using sickbeard for your tv series it will manage all of this automatically... it will find out if shows have aired, it will search a torrent provider for the file, download it using transmission, figure out when it has completed, move it to the correct directory for that show and send you a message (twitter for example) to let you know it has completed... If you are using XBMC it can also tell XBMC that a show has been downloaded and make sure it gets noted in the "new shows" lists in xbmc ..

Which does sound ideal. The only reservation I have about using something like sickbeard is that I need this running on a Windows machine (?) and therefore another device left on 24/7, or at least during torrent downloads. I may have this wrong as I haven't looked into it enough yet but from your description I really should go and look at this further.

 

In the meantime I have managed to write a little script that runs at torrent download complete which copy's the downloaded files to the main array so I can then rename and place into the final directory structure. This at least takes the main pain away whilst I look into something more functional.

 

Many thanks

Which does sound ideal. The only reservation I have about using something like sickbeard is that I need this running on a Windows machine (?) and therefore another device left on 24/7, or at least during torrent downloads. I may have this wrong as I haven't looked into it enough yet but from your description I really should go and look at this further.

 

In the meantime I have managed to write a little script that runs at torrent download complete which copy's the downloaded files to the main array so I can then rename and place into the final directory structure. This at least takes the main pain away whilst I look into something more functional.

 

Many thanks

 

Sickbeard runs on your unraid system as a plugin, there is no need to have another box running 24/7 ..

 

What exactly are you doing with the script ?  It looks like you have written a script that copies completed torrents to another location.. Why dont you change the location that transmission writes its completed files to that some location ? Would that not accomplish the same thing ?

Ah, now that's good. I was just about to start reading up on it so this sounds good already.

 

Yes the script I have written copies the downloaded torrent from the cache drive to a drive in the array. Basically I duplicate so those downloaded can continue to be seeded whilst the files I copy over to the array can be re-named and tidied up to fit my naming structure. I re-seed the torrents as much as poss as the two main torrent sites I use are invite only and download ability relies on ratios so seeding is a must.

Ah, now that's good. I was just about to start reading up on it so this sounds good already.

 

Yes the script I have written copies the downloaded torrent from the cache drive to a drive in the array. Basically I duplicate so those downloaded can continue to be seeded whilst the files I copy over to the array can be re-named and tidied up to fit my naming structure. I re-seed the torrents as much as poss as the two main torrent sites I use are invite only and download ability relies on ratios so seeding is a must.

 

Aha.. understand... Try out SickBeard, you will most probably love it... There is a similar tool for movies called couchpotatoe.. Something for music called Headphones and something for books called LazyLibrarian.. All based on downloading stuff you most probably want and categorizing ad storing without human intervention.

Thanks, that's a great help I will report back how I get on but this sounds perfect for me needs

Let me know if you run into issues, some configuration is envolced, nothing difficult though..

Thanks for that offer Looks like Prostuff1 has created an unMENU package for sickbeard, just reading the thread now.

Use the plugin if I might advice.. More people use it..

If your on any of the 5.0b11 or above releases the plugin is probably a better option.

I'm still on unRAID 4.7, not been brave enough to try and of the beta's of 5 Plus I have no idea how easy/safe/possible it is to upgrade 4.7 to 5 or if that's a new install?? One of those situations where I have very limited Linux knowledge but with a lot of studying I have got unRAID plus some packages like Slimserver, MySQL and Transmission working and I have no idea how hard an upgrade to 5 will be??

 

If I stay on 4.7 I assume the unMENU package is the method to install sickbeard or have I misunderstood the package advice? I also assume I need to install SABnzbd first? plus obtain a usenet account? Very limited reading so far as I have a 5yr old running around, makes concentration challenging

The unmenu package will work fine, do not worry about it !

 

You do not need sabnzbd. Sickbeard can work with usenet or torrents.

 

If you want to expand the possibilities and make it even easier then you can start using newsgroups to give you media files instead of torrents, at that moment you would need sabnzbd, it performs the same function as transmission, namely actually downloading stuff. Transmission uses torrents, sabnzbd uses newsgroups.

 

The basic setup is as follows:

 

- Install Sickbeard

- Tell Sickbeard what series you watch (you can have it scan your directories to find that out automatically)

- Tell Sickbeard where it needs to drop .torrent files to have transmission start downloading

- Tell Sickbeard where transmission leaves its completed files

 

Now Sickbeard will find a torrent, it will tell transmission to download it. As soon as the completed download is placed in the completed directory by transmission Sickbeard will pick it up and process it (move it to the correct directory, change its name, download subtitles, all kind of stuff).

 

You need to tell Sickbeard how to SEARCH for torrents though, you most probably do that manually now, If you like the setup I would advice trying to get an account on tvtorrents or something like that.

Cool, that's a really helpful overview, thanks I understand the difference now.

 

TVtorrents is the main site I use for my TV stuff now so that works out well as I've just read on the sickbeard site that it uses the TVT site along with others.

Cool, that's a really helpful overview, thanks I understand the difference now.

 

TVtorrents is the main site I use for my TV stuff now so that works out well as I've just read on the sickbeard site that it links to TVT site.

 

I use it to,works great !

I've spent a long time playing with sickbeard now and it looks really promising, thanks for the tip I have it installed and setup, scanned my current TV media files and it's automatically set to catch the upcoming airings of the still current shows, love this. Integrates well with the projects I played with over Christmas as I now have my xbmc library on MySQL and a Raspberry Pi running xbmc which acts as a nice front end to sickbeard as it's always on. Shame that TV Torrents doesn't support backlog searches but I have now configured ezRSS to grab some missed shows although this only has limited airings. I even have Pushover notifications setup now

 

It seems to work fine apart from the post processing renaming and moving of downloaded torrents For some reason once the torrent is downloaded via Transmission the file is then not moved and renamed by sickbeard. When I find a missed show on ezRSS I select this as wanted via sickbeard, it notifies that its set as backlog followed by another notification that it has grabbed the torrent file. That then drops into my watch folder and Transmission starts the download. I am using the "incomplete" folder for Transmission and once finished this moves the file to the correct download folder. Sickbeard is set to the same download folder but it doesn't move the file(s)/ rename them / notify xbmc or update the library. All the bits I wanted this for.

 

I'll continue to trouble shoot.

Okay I think I've found the problem. Under the post processing settings I hadn't selected the scan and process button as I feared this would rescan all my tv torrents and potentially mess my library. Re-reading the configuration and it states I needed this selected so I now have done. Sure enough it is re-scanning everything so I'm receiving lots of 'download complete' messages but figure I might as well just leave it to chug through. Hopefully it will be worth the wait and influx of messages

 

 

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Yup.... this would work !

 

What are you using on your pi for xbmc ?  Raspbmc by STM Labs ? How is the performance, I am thinking of getting one..

It's working but duplicating everything in my library now I thought this would happen which is why I didn't want to select this but I guess once it's done it's done and then this will be working nicely.

 

I'm running OpenELEC Frodo on the RPi and it's working well. I did it just for something to do over the Christmas break to stop me going mad as the weather was so rubbish. This then led to having a go at MySQL install and now this The performance of the RPi is okay as long as you're not expecting it to be as quick as a HTPC device but for what it is you can't go wrong. I have overclocked mine, run OE from USB, library from MySQL and optimized the skin as much as possible and it works quite well to be honest. Blu-ray movie rips hang but I don't have a lot of these so I'm not that bothered. Bonus is that it acts as a nice head unit for something like this due to it being small, silent with very little power draw, it can stay on and sit between programs like sickbeard and the library DB.

People seem to be quite happy with this version also:

 

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=site:forum.stmlabs.com%20raspbmc

 

Its free and I am using the developpers implementation on the Apple TV 1 and it is working really well..

Looks good. I had a play with Raspbmc for a bit but I really liked the speed of OpenELEC as it doesn't have a Linux dist underneath, just what it needs to run as a MC. Some really neat things in Raspbmc though, gui access to the config file for tuning and tweaking plus it makes it very simple to run from a USB as it provides you the choice on install. In the end I went with OpenELEC due to it's speed and I also use OE on my main HTPC and I wanted to avoid any issues with sharing a MySQL DB between multiple devices and software.