qBittorrent Scan Not Picking Up Downloads? Here's the Actual Fix
· Updated 18 September 2026 · SparkBox team
Torrents finish in qBittorrent, but Sonarr or Radarr never mark them imported — or a watch folder full of new torrents just sits there ignored. In most cases the "scan" isn't broken, it's looking in the wrong place: a category your app expects doesn't actually exist inside qBittorrent, or the box is so low on disk space that qBittorrent can't finish writing what it needs to.
Rather not chase category names and disk math by hand? SparkBox wires qBittorrent, Sonarr, and Radarr together with matching categories and save paths from the start, so this class of "downloaded but never imported" problem doesn't happen. See the walkthrough →
The 10-second version: Open qBittorrent's Web UI and check whether the category your Sonarr/Radarr download client is set to actually exists there with the right save path — if it doesn't, create it manually, don't rely on the connection test to have done it for you. If categories are fine, check free disk space; a scan or recheck can stall silently when a box is down to just a couple of gigabytes free.
Cause 1: Sonarr or Radarr is pointed at a category qBittorrent never created
Sonarr and Radarr don't just send torrents to qBittorrent — they tag each download with a "category," which qBittorrent uses to decide which folder the finished files land in. When you run the connection test inside Sonarr or Radarr's download client settings, it checks that the category name is accepted. That's not the same as confirming the category exists in qBittorrent with a real save path attached. If nothing ever actually created that category on the qBittorrent side, the test can still come back looking fine, and downloads quietly save to qBittorrent's default folder instead of the one your media app is watching. Nothing crashes — the file just never shows up where it's supposed to, so it never gets imported or "scanned in."
- Open qBittorrent's Web UI and look at the categories list in the left sidebar (usually under a "Categories" or similar heading).
- Check whether the category name your Sonarr/Radarr download client settings use (often
sonarr,radarr, or similar) is actually listed there. - If it's missing, add it manually and set its save path to match the folder your Sonarr/Radarr instance is configured to monitor for completed downloads.
- Go back into Sonarr or Radarr's download client settings and re-run the connection test — it should now confirm the category with the correct path.
- For any torrents that already finished under the wrong path, move the files into the correct folder (or re-download them) and trigger a manual import or rescan from Sonarr/Radarr.
Gotcha: Don't assume a green checkmark on a "test connection" button means the category and folder both exist correctly on disk. It's checking that qBittorrent accepted the request, not that everything downstream is wired up the way you expect.
Cause 2: Not enough free disk space for the scan to finish
Rechecking a torrent, or having qBittorrent scan a watch folder for new .torrent files, involves writing temporary state and resume data to disk. On a box that's nearly full, that write can hang or fail without qBittorrent showing you an obvious error — the scan just never completes, or completed torrents never get marked as such. This isn't unique to qBittorrent: other services on the same disk (media servers, photo apps, anything doing on-disk indexing) can start restart-looping for the exact same reason once free space drops to just a couple of gigabytes.
- Check how much free space is actually left on the drive qBittorrent (and its downloads folder) lives on:
df -h - If you're down to a few gigabytes or less, that's very likely contributing to the stall — free up space before troubleshooting anything else. Clear old completed torrents you no longer need to seed, or move the downloads folder to a drive with more headroom.
- Once space is freed, restart qBittorrent so it can retry the scan or recheck cleanly rather than resuming a half-finished write.
- Manually force a recheck on any torrent that looked "stuck" during the low-space period, so qBittorrent re-verifies the files against disk now that it has room to work.
Gotcha: If you're running qBittorrent alongside other self-hosted apps on the same disk (a media server, a photo library, etc.), a full disk can make several unrelated-looking problems show up at once. If qBittorrent's scan is misbehaving and something else on the same box is also acting up, check total free disk space before chasing each app separately.
Frequently asked
Why does qBittorrent say a category exists when it doesn't?
Sonarr and Radarr run a connection test against qBittorrent that checks whether a named category exists. If the category was never actually created inside qBittorrent, that test can still report success, because it's checking that the request didn't error, not that the category and its save path are real. The result is downloads that finish but never land where the *arr expects them, so nothing gets scanned or imported.
Why do my Sonarr/Radarr downloads finish in qBittorrent but never get imported?
Almost always a category mismatch. If Sonarr or Radarr is set to hand off downloads under a category name that qBittorrent never created, the files save to qBittorrent's default folder instead of the path the *arr is scanning. The download shows as complete in qBittorrent but the *arr app never sees it in the folder it's watching.
Can low disk space really break qBittorrent's scan or recheck?
Yes. Rechecking a torrent or scanning a watch folder requires qBittorrent to write temporary state and resume data to disk. When a box is down to a couple of gigabytes free, that write can fail silently or hang, and other services on the same disk can start restart-looping for the same reason.
How much free disk space does qBittorrent actually need?
There's no hard number qBittorrent publishes, but as a practical floor, keep at least a few gigabytes free beyond your active downloads and library. Boxes seen stalling out or restart-looping in the wild were typically down to around 3GB free or less.
Skip the category bookkeeping altogether
SparkBox sets up qBittorrent with categories and save paths that already match Sonarr and Radarr, and flags disk space before it becomes a silent scan failure.
Questions, or did this not match your box?
Every guide here came from a real problem someone hit. If yours behaves differently, say so — that is how these get corrected, and how the fix gets prioritised.
We answer there rather than in a comment box, because that is where the people who have already solved it are.