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Clone Wars S2/S3 grabbed at 720p instead of 1080p, root-cause diagnosis (2026-06-10)

Verdict: Not a bug, not the old min-size/4k trap. Two compounding causes. Future requests for already-existing series will repeat this; brand-new series will not. Read-only diagnosis, nothing re-grabbed.

What was requested vs what happened

  • Seerr request id 43, tmdb 4194, seasons [2, 3], is4k=false, profileId=4 (= Sonarr HD-1080p). So the user did ask for 1080p.
  • Sonarr series id 54 "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" sits on qualityProfileId=1 ("Any"), NOT profile 4.
  • Downloaded files: S1 = 1080p (14 WEBDL-1080p + 4 HDTV-1080p, pre-existing). S2 = 1x Bluray-720p + 1x WEBDL-720p (individual episodes).

Root cause #1: Seerr's per-request profile is ignored for an existing series

Sonarr only applies the quality profile when a series is first added. Clone Wars already existed in Sonarr (S1 was already present, on the "Any" profile). The S2/S3 request just turned on monitoring for those seasons and kicked a search; it did not rewrite the series profile to the requested 1080p (profile 4). So the request's "1080p" never took effect. (The Seerr global default Sonarr profile is id 6 "HD - 720p/1080p"; irrelevant here for the same reason.)

Root cause #2: the "Any" profile grabs-first-and-never-looks-back

Profile 1 "Any": cutoff = SDTV (the lowest rung) and upgradeAllowed = false. - Cutoff at the bottom means any accepted release instantly satisfies the cutoff. - upgradeAllowed=false means once an episode has a file, Sonarr never searches to improve it. - On the season search Sonarr fell back to per-episode grabs; the first well-seeded acceptable release per episode was a 720p single, it grabbed that, cutoff trivially met, locked in. It never reconsidered 1080p.

Were 1080p releases actually available? Yes.

S2E1 release probe: 21 releases. 1080p present but all three HDTV-1080p are full-season h265 10bit packs ("S02e01-22 1080p Ita Eng h265", 15-19 seeders). The 720p options were individual episodes. Because "Any" had already met cutoff with a cheap 720p single per episode (and won't upgrade), the higher-seeded 1080p season packs were never taken. The only 1080p on offer is also dual-audio (Ita/Eng) h265, less ideal than a clean English WEBDL.

Will future requests do the same?

  • Existing series already in Sonarr on "Any": YES, same outcome regardless of the resolution the user picks in Seerr, because the series profile is never updated post-creation and "Any"+no-upgrade locks the first grab.
  • Brand-new series (not yet in Sonarr) requested at 1080p: NO, they will be created on the requested profile 4 and behave correctly.
  • Note: even profile 4 "HD-1080p" has upgradeAllowed=false, so reassigning a series after 720p is already on disk will not auto-upgrade existing files; it only affects future un-grabbed episodes.

If Justin ever wants 1080p here (NOT done, his call)

  1. Set series 54 to profile 4: PUT /api/v3/series/54 with qualityProfileId:4.
  2. Because upgrade is disabled, force re-grab: delete the 720p episode files (they exist elsewhere? no, single copy) then POST /api/v3/command {"name":"SeriesSearch","seriesId":54}. The best 1080p is the h265 season pack.
  3. Optional durable fix: enable upgradeAllowed on profile 4 and set a 1080p cutoff so future 720p auto-upgrades.

Justin said 720p is fine, so the actionable takeaway is just the "why": existing-series profile non-application + "Any"-profile first-grab-no-upgrade. Related: reference_overseerr_seerr_request_pipeline.

[Claude Code]