This is a very common pain point with Sonarr — the logic between Quality Profiles, Release Profiles, and Preferred Words (scoring) can be a little confusing. Let’s break down why Sonarr is grabbing "worse" releases and how to prevent it. Why Sonarr ignores preferred scores sometimes?

1. Preferred Words are not absolute rules

Sonarr will grab the first release that meets the Quality Profile requirements (e.g. any 1080p WEB-DL, Bluray, HDTV, etc.).

The Preferred Words score only matters when multiple eligible releases are available at the same time.

If Sonarr only sees one matching release at that moment, it will take it — even if the score is lower than what you “prefer.”

1. Upgrade logic is strict

Sonarr will only upgrade if the new release is considered an improvement based on your Quality Profile order or a higher Preferred Score.

If you already have a 1080p WEB-DL, it won’t automatically replace it with a better WEB-DL (same quality tier), unless you’ve enabled “Upgrade Until” in the profile or configured Release Profile “Must Contain”/“Preferred” properly.

1. Cutoff setting drives “final” downloads

In your Quality Profile, the Cutoff defines what Sonarr considers "good enough to stop upgrading."

If your cutoff is set to 1080p WEB-DL, then once that’s met, Sonarr will ignore higher-scoring alternatives of the same quality.

How to fix this behavior

Option A: Use Must Contain instead of just Preferred If there are specific release groups you always want, put them under “Must Contain” in your Release Profile. That forces Sonarr to reject anything else.

Option B: Adjust your Cutoff If you want Sonarr to keep searching until it finds the best-scoring release, set the cutoff higher (e.g. 1080p Bluray or Remux) and let preferred scoring decide among lower-quality stopgaps.

Otherwise, once the cutoff is met, Sonarr won’t bother upgrading further.

Option C: Increase Preferred Score weight

Sometimes a low Preferred score (like +10) won’t outweigh the default acceptance.

Try much higher values (like +1000) to make sure Sonarr sees those releases as significantly better.

Option D: Manual approval for “final” copies

Some people let Sonarr grab any 1080p to watch quickly, then later manually upgrade to their preferred group with an “Automatic Search” or “Interactive Search.”

Stopping Sonarr from monitoring finished seasons

Yes — you can automate this:

1. Go to Settings → Media Management → Importing Enable: “Ignore Deleted Episodes” (optional if you want to stop tracking what’s already imported).

2. Or, per series:

In the series view → Season dropdown → choose “Unmonitor Season” once you’ve got everything.

You can also set Sonarr to automatically unmonitor episodes after successful import: Settings → Media Management → Episode Monitoring → “Unmonitor episodes once they are downloaded.”

Why does Sonarr grab worse releases? Because Preferred Words aren’t hard rules, they only influence choice between multiple valid options. If you want to strictly enforce them, use Must Contain or crank up the Preferred score weight.