Gate arr orphan deletion on ctime and stop the nightly permissions pass from restamping it — imports preserve the release's original mtime, so the age gate never actually fired for real content

Media/media_shares_permissions.sh

@@ -40,6 +40,9 @@
 #   Empty array guard    — warns and exits cleanly if no shares configured
 #   Folder existence     — skips missing shares with warning, continues others
 #   Separate passes      — directories and files chmod'd separately for correctness
+#   Conditional passes   — only entries whose owner/mode is actually wrong are touched.
+#                          chown/chmod restamp ctime even when the value doesn't change,
+#                          and the arr cleanups gate orphan deletion on ctime
 #   platform_require_cmd  — notify script validated before use
 #   Silent by default    — only failures produce output, success is silent
 #
@@ -143,6 +146,10 @@ SKIPPED=()
 TOTAL_DIRS_FIXED=0
 TOTAL_FILES_FIXED=0
 
+# Split for find's -user/-group predicates, which take them separately
+PERMISSIONS_USER="${PERMISSIONS_OWNER%%:*}"
+PERMISSIONS_GROUP="${PERMISSIONS_OWNER##*:}"
+
 for SHARE in "${MEDIA_PERMISSION_SHARES[@]}"; do
     SHARE_NAME=$(basename "$SHARE")
 
@@ -158,7 +165,7 @@ for SHARE in "${MEDIA_PERMISSION_SHARES[@]}"; do
             2>/dev/null | wc -l)
         FILE_COUNT=$(find "$SHARE" -type f ! -perm "${PERMISSIONS_FILE_MODE:-664}" \
             2>/dev/null | wc -l)
-        OWNER_COUNT=$(find "$SHARE" ! -user nobody -o ! -group users \
+        OWNER_COUNT=$(find "$SHARE" \( ! -user "$PERMISSIONS_USER" -o ! -group "$PERMISSIONS_GROUP" \) \
             2>/dev/null | wc -l)
         warn "DRY RUN — $SHARE_NAME: $DIR_COUNT dirs, $FILE_COUNT files, $OWNER_COUNT ownership fixes needed"
         continue
@@ -170,21 +177,34 @@ for SHARE in "${MEDIA_PERMISSION_SHARES[@]}"; do
     CHMOD_FILE_OK=true
     CHOWN_OK=true
 
+    # Every pass below is conditional — it touches only entries that are actually wrong.
+    # This is not just an optimisation. chown/chmod rewrite an inode's ctime even when the
+    # value is unchanged, so a blanket pass restamps every file in the share each night and
+    # erases ctime as an age signal. The arr cleanups need that signal to tell a file that
+    # just landed from one that has sat untracked for days — mtime can't do it, because an
+    # import preserves the release's original timestamp (measured 2026-07-27: 400 of 400
+    # files imported that week had mtimes over 7 days old, one of them 9613 days).
+
     # Count files with wrong ownership before fixing (diagnostic)
-    WRONG_OWNER=$(find "$SHARE" \( ! -user nobody -o ! -group users \) \
+    WRONG_OWNER=$(find "$SHARE" \( ! -user "$PERMISSIONS_USER" -o ! -group "$PERMISSIONS_GROUP" \) \
         2>/dev/null | wc -l)
 
     # Apply ownership first — affects all files and directories
-    chown -R "$PERMISSIONS_OWNER" "$SHARE" 2>/dev/null || CHOWN_OK=false
+    if [[ "$WRONG_OWNER" -gt 0 ]]; then
+        find "$SHARE" \( ! -user "$PERMISSIONS_USER" -o ! -group "$PERMISSIONS_GROUP" \) \
+            -exec chown "$PERMISSIONS_OWNER" {} + 2>/dev/null || CHOWN_OK=false
+    fi
 
     # Apply directory permissions — separate pass for correctness
     # Directories need execute bit — different from files
-    find "$SHARE" -type d -exec chmod "${PERMISSIONS_DIR_MODE:-755}" {} + \
+    find "$SHARE" -type d ! -perm "${PERMISSIONS_DIR_MODE:-755}" \
+        -exec chmod "${PERMISSIONS_DIR_MODE:-755}" {} + \
         2>/dev/null || CHMOD_DIR_OK=false
 
     # Apply file permissions — no execute bit on media files
     # Ignore "No such file" errors: race condition with volatile dirs (e.g. Emby transcodes)
-    _chmod_errs=$(find "$SHARE" -type f -exec chmod "${PERMISSIONS_FILE_MODE:-664}" {} + 2>&1 | \
+    _chmod_errs=$(find "$SHARE" -type f ! -perm "${PERMISSIONS_FILE_MODE:-664}" \
+        -exec chmod "${PERMISSIONS_FILE_MODE:-664}" {} + 2>&1 | \
         grep -v "No such file or directory" | grep -c "chmod:" || true)
     [[ "$_chmod_errs" -gt 0 ]] && CHMOD_FILE_OK=false