Automation
Set it up once and BackIssue keeps your collection current on its own.
Scheduled jobs
System → Jobs shows every schedule with its cron expression, an enable toggle, last-run result, and a Run now button.
| Job | What it does |
|---|---|
| Releases check | Fetches this week's releases and flags new issues of your monitored series |
| ComicVine match | Runs the CV matcher over any unmatched series (useful after imports) |
| Watch indexer RSS | Polls your indexers' latest uploads feed (usenet + torrents) and grabs anything that matches a missing issue of a monitored series — a new upload is caught within one poll instead of waiting for the next search. Each upload is considered exactly once |
| Search new releases | The fast lane for this week's comics: queues missing issues of monitored series released in the last N days (recentSearchDays, default 14). Unlike the backfill, failures are retried on every run while the issue is inside the window — new releases reach indexers over days — then age out |
| Wanted search | The patient backfill: works through the whole Wanted list in batches (wantedSearchBatch), skipping anything in flight or previously failed, so back-catalog gaps fill steadily without hammering sources |
| Zero-day pack | Torrents only: grabs the weekly 0-day pack and imports just your gaps — see Download sources |
| Back up database | Snapshots catalog.db into backups/ (keeps the newest 5). On by default, weekly — cheap insurance for the database that holds your collection, accounts, and reading history |
Plugins add jobs of their own — for example the AirDC++ plugin's announce-bot watch.
The three search lanes are complementary layers: RSS watch reacts to uploads in minutes, new releases actively hunts the current window (and retries), and the wanted backfill chews the backlog nightly. Anything one misses, the next catches.
Schedules use cron expressions (0 3 * * * = daily at 03:00). Each job runs at most one instance at a time, and every run is recorded with its outcome.
Suggested starting points:
Releases check 0 8 * * 3 # Wednesday mornings (new comic day)
ComicVine match 0 4 * * * # nightly
Watch indexer RSS */15 * * * * # every 15 minutes (the default)
Search new releases 0 */6 * * * # every 6 hours (the default)
Wanted search 0 2 * * * # nightly, batch of 25–50
Zero-day pack 0 9 * * 3,4 # Wed/Thu — packs appear midweekNotifications
BackIssue has a built-in notification centre — the 🔔 bell in the header. It records notable events and shows an unread badge; open it for recent notifications, mark them read, or click one to jump to what it's about. It updates live, so things appear as they happen.
Notifications are per user — some are broadcast to everyone (a download finished, a release-day heads-up), others are targeted (your request was approved). What you see:
- Downloads completed or failed, packs imported or failed
- A weekly release-day heads-up for series you follow
- Requests activity — a new request filed (for reviewers), or your request approved/declined
Sending events elsewhere
The Notifications Hub plugin sends the same events to Discord (rich embeds with cover art), Telegram, Pushover, ntfy, or any webhook — each channel with its own category filter. The in-app bell always records everything regardless.
History
Sidebar → History — every import, forever: when, which series/issue, which source served it, and where the file went. The paper trail for "where did this file come from?"
Logs
System → Logs — timestamped, filterable application log: searches, grabs, imports, tag results, failures with reasons. First stop when something didn't download; the reason is almost always spelled out here.
Stats
Sidebar → Stats — totals for series/issues/files, library size on disk, per-status issue counts, tagged/untagged and CBR/CBZ breakdowns — a quick health check of the whole collection.
Live updates
Everything above updates in real time — the UI holds an event stream to the server, so queue progress, badge counts, job status, and release ownership all move without refreshing. If the stream drops (sleeping laptop, network blip), the UI falls back to polling and recovers on its own.