Last updated on 27 January 2024
Spotweb Settings
We can now log in as the admin user and get some settings in place to grab all the Spots.
Login to the UI on the top right of the screen using the default credentials
user = admin
password = spotweb
Once logged we need to change the Admin password as this will be separate from the user we will use for all the other normal functions
Click on the Admin username > Change User and in the screen that appears change the password. Don’t amend the permissions at the bottom of the screen.
Once done click Change. Then Click the Admin user again, but this time select ‘Add User’ from the drop-down.
You can now create a new user for the main account you will use with Radarr etc. Fill in the required details then click Add. You will be given a password for the user you can change this later on if you wish.
Now let’s get our News Server details added, so the Spots can be retrieved.
Click on Config > Settings > Newsservers
Enter the details for your Usenet provider, this will be exactly the same as the ones used for SABnzbd or NZBGet.
Next we will change the Retrieve Settings on the next tab, by default Spotweb will download all the spots back to 2009 so ideally just leave that date as is. You may want to turn off ‘Retrieve Comments’ as they are generally not useful.
I would also typically leave ‘Retrieve Full Spots’ turned off as this will massively inflate your database as you will retrieve over 14 years of images and info for every single spot. This info is dynamically grabbed when needed.
After you press Change Spotweb will begin grabbing spots, there is an automated cron job to run every 5 mins, the initial pull will take a while.
These settings are only available to the Admin user so if you ever want to change them or the various other preferences login with Admin.
Finally log out of the Admin user account and log in with your main user you created.
You can find your API key for Sonarr/Radarr/Prowlarr in the Change User screen
Frequently Asked Questions
My Spots only seem to be populating from the day I set up Spotweb!
This seems to happen fairly often, I have raised an issue on Github I have created a separate page to solve the issue.
Where are all the releases?
Spotweb has over 14 years of releases, it is going to take some time to completely backfill your local copy, the cron job we set up earlier will begin this process for you automatically after 15 minutes and works oldest to newest.
Also note this will only backfill as far as your provider has days of retention.
How do I add Spotweb to Radarr, Sonarr, Prowlarr etc?
Click on your username in the top right and then ‘Change User’
In the screen that pops up, you will find the API key for your user, you can use this along with the IP address and port of your installation as a Newznab Indexer.
What are Full Spots, and should I turn them on?
Each release ‘spot’ in Spotweb will contain the NZB file, a description and associated images (such as cover art or screenshots) by default Spotweb will only fetch the description and release name for its database.
If you turn on ‘Retrieve full spots’ Spotweb will download everything related to the release and store it in the database this will take up a significant amount of space and substantially increase the retrieve times.
I do not recommend turning this on as this information is fetched dynamically when manually browsing the web UI and is never used with Radarr etc. (as of writing the 11 years database of basic information is around 900mb of data)
How can I send releases to NZBGet or SabNZBd while browsing the UI?
Click on Config > Change Preferences > NZB Handling. You can then fill in your details, using the ‘Call’ option. You will then find a download arrow appears in the WebUI next to each release.
I am having an issue that is not listed!
The best way to contact me is via Discord, Matrix or the help page.
| Historic Updates | Date |
|---|---|
| New guide Published | 03/02/2022 |
| Updated with DSM7.1 steps and screenshots | 20/06/2022 |
| Added new port settings and Docker Bridge Network | 23/07/2022 |
| Changed MariaDB container over to the LinuxServer version to help with permission issues | 26/08/2022 |
| Further note added in relation to over complex passwords | 10/01/2023 |
| Guide completely rewritten using a new base image from erikdevries and simpler setup steps due to the number of issues people were having with the previous jgeusebroek image | 11/06/2023 |
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Hi, I followed this manual but unfortunately I get the following error:
Table ‘spotweb.settings’ doesn’t exist
Any idea how to solve this?
On the first ever start up you need to give the containers time to create all the tables, so monitor the Spotweb log and you will see it creating them.. If you already stopped or restarted them you need to stop both containers delete all the contents of the MariaDB folder and start them again.. then watch the log it can take a while and sometimes spout the odd error but be patient and it should kick off.
Thanks for your reply.
Unfortunately stopping both containers and deleting all files and folder mariadb and the start both containers didn’t solve it. Same error.
Then I deleted both containers and images and then downloaded the images again and followed the above steps again. But unfortunately, again the same error.
When checking the logs I notice the following three issues:
SpotWeb v0.68.36.34 on PHP v8.1.26 crashed
PHP Warning: Undefined variable $retriever in /app/retrieve.php on line 296
PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to a member function quit() on null in /app/retrieve.php:296
Any ideas?
I will ping you an email later, In thr interim are you able to take a look the the newer guide were I am using the LinuxServer version of the MariaDB image, you need to just add the appropriate environment variables a bit like my other guides.
It’s in the menu take a look at the compose and explanation to add the right bits.
Ok thanks. Looking forward to your email.
Why not a Docker compose? I prefer that, thanks to you,. as it’s easier to troubleshoot and start over.
Make sure you are following the correct guide this is for the Docker package as per the top of the guide.
Hi, just wondering why you switched from jgeusebroek to erikdevries. I can’t find a note in the text or Updates. Also looking at the source pages, I can’t find specific advantages of one above the other.
I’m running jgeusebroek now from the tutorial of last year, not updated. I wonder if an update breaks and/or I should switch to the erikdevries container.
Hey so many people were struggling to get the old image set up I hunted down this alternative that was less fiddly. I changed over on the 7.2 rewrites I will tweak the June update note to make that clearer.
If you are working no need to change.
Thanks for the answer.
I was looking at the instructions to ‘copy’ the install way to other containers like grafana and smokeping. For Grafana I noticed the settings are inside the container so I wanted to make some setup external, just like the jgeusebroek container. This to keep the config when resetting the container.
Luckily I found saved filed of the old pages so I can fiddle with the settings.
Having said that, I never updated the jgeusebroek and mariadb containers … Afraid the working setup gets broken.
Ahh OK – Yeah this new version doesn’t require any mounts as its all stored in the database the Web elements are disposable.
With the latest DSM (7.2-64570) i’ve been updating all my containers last night. With that my working mariadb went fubar, which is only used by spotweb.
A reinstallation with this site (thanks btw!) work although a new installation with spotweb results in:
Unable to connect to database:
SQLSTATE[HY000] [1130] Host ‘172.17.0.5’ is not allowed to connect to this MariaDB server
Please make sure your database server is up and running and your connection parameters are set
I’m using the ‘default’ bridge with ;
172.17.0.0/16
172.17.0.1
All containers reside in this, as does the new spotweb.
Remark, i used to use jgeusebroek/spotweb in which i used;
“key” : “SPOTWEB_DB_HOST”,
“value” : “{ASSIGNED IP IN MY NETWORK-NOT 172”
So,i’m kinda lost here…
Hey I see you reached out on Discord let’s continue there.
Maybe I have the same issue, I did not follow “don’t fix it if it ain’t broken” principle and updated the spotweb and maria DB.
Now stuff is broken
Unable to connect to database:
SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] Connection refused
Please make sure your database server is up and running and your connection parameters are set
Hopefully there is a quick fix for this..
If you leave it running for a bit see if it connects again.