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Two-Way Sync

Two-way sync in WatchState helps keep your play progress and watch state synchronized across multiple backends. It’s called "many-to-many" sync, meaning you can sync data between several backends, and they all stay up to date with each other. This sync is powered by WatchState's import and export features.

Use Cases

  • If you watch a show on Plex and want to continue it on Jellyfin or Emby, two-way sync ensures your progress is saved.
  • Keep your media backends synced so you always know where you left off.

How Sync Works

WatchState first pulls the latest play and progress information from your backends, then stores it locally this is the import process. The system checks to ensure the data is up-to-date, and older data is saved as metadata without overriding the most current watch state.

On the export side, we compare the backend's last sync date with any local changes. From there, we create a list of items that need updating for each backend. If there are only a few changes, we trigger a quick sync operation push mode. If the changes are more extensive, we perform a full export, which compares all remote data with the local data. This full export only happens when there are many changes and/or metadata is missing from the backend, which is why it's crucial to keep the Enable Import option enabled, or disable it only when you want that backend to stay in metadata-only mode.

Setting Up Two-Way Sync

To set up two-way sync, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Setting Up The Backends.

First, make sure you have completed the one-way sync guide to get your backends synced.

Step 2: Enable Sync Sliders.

Go to the Backends page. Here, you'll see two switches for each backend: Import and Export.

  • The Import switch brings data from the backend into WatchState.
  • The Export switch sends data from WatchState to the backend.

When you're sure the data looks correct, turn on the Export switch for your main backend and the Import switch for the others. This will keep your backends synced.

Enable Scheduled Tasks

If everything looks good and you want WatchState to automatically sync your backends, do the following:

Go to the Tasks page. Enable the two tasks by toggling the switches next to Import and Export.

Tuning The run schedule

To control how often these tasks run, go to the Configuration > Environment page, click the Add button, and select the environment variables WS_CRON_EXPORT_AT and WS_CRON_IMPORT_AT. These variables use CRON timer expressions. For example, if you want the export task to run every 6 hours, set WS_CRON_EXPORT_AT to 0 */6 * * *. For more help with CRON expressions, visit crontab.guru.

Important

The Import task can be resource-intensive, especially for large libraries. It may take some time to complete and could use a lot of CPU power. It’s recommended to run it a few times a day, with every 6 hours being a good starting point.

Enable Webhooks

For even faster sync operations, you can enable webhooks. For more details, check out the webhooks guide.

Troubleshooting

TBA