Sync Behavior

When you run recyclarr sync, Recyclarr processes your configuration through four pipelines— independent stages that each handle a specific type of data. Understanding how these pipelines work helps you interpret sync output and diagnose issues.

Pipelines

• Custom Formats - Syncs custom format definitions from the TRaSH Guides
• Quality Profiles - Syncs quality profile settings and assigns custom format scores
• Quality Sizes - Syncs quality definition size limits (min/max/preferred)
• Media Naming - Syncs file and folder naming formats

Dependencies and Failure Handling

Quality Profiles depends on Custom Formats - scores can only be assigned to custom formats that exist. The other pipelines are independent.

When a pipeline fails, Recyclarr skips any pipelines that depend on it but continues with independent ones. For example, if Custom Formats fails, Quality Profiles is skipped, but Quality Sizes and Media Naming continue normally.

Progress Table

During sync, the progress table shows status for each instance and pipeline:

Symbol	Color	Meaning
✓	green	Succeeded with no changes
Number	green	Items synced
✗	red	Failed with errors
--	grey	Skipped (not configured or dependency)

The row prefix indicates overall instance status. If it shows ✗, check Sync Diagnostics after the progress table for error details.

Example

Here's output from a sync where Custom Formats failed for one instance:

Legend: ✓ ok · ✗ failed · -- skipped

           Custom  Quality Quality  Media
          Formats Profiles   Sizes Naming
✓ sonarr        ✓        ✓       ✓     --
✓ shows         ✓        ✓       ✓      2
✗ radarr        ✗       --       ✓     --

The radarr instance shows:

• Custom Formats shows ✗ (failed) - the pipeline encountered errors
• Quality Profiles shows -- (skipped) - skipped because it depends on Custom Formats
• Quality Sizes shows ✓ - succeeded despite the Custom Formats failure
• Media Naming shows -- - not configured for this instance

The shows instance synced 2 media naming fields. The row prefix ✗ on radarr indicates failures. Check Sync Diagnostics for details:

╭─Sync Diagnostics─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ Errors                                                                       │
│ ──────                                                                       │
│   • [radarr] — 70 Custom Formats cannot be synced because CFs with matching  │
│     names already exist (e.g., '1080p', '10bit', '3D', and 67 more). To      │
│     adopt existing CFs, run: `recyclarr cache rebuild --adopt`               │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

The error explains why Custom Formats failed and what to do about it.