New Feature - Failed timer notifications

[Daniel Hall at IceTV]

Hi Guys,

Just a quick heads up that we have soft launched a new feature this afternoon, failed timer notifications.

This will send you an email whenever your PVR sets a timer to failed. The email will include a link to the failed timer under the My Week page of the website and include the details the of the timer itself (including the message from the PVR).

This is an opt-in service and can be enabled under the My Account section of the website, under the Account details tab.

If you set it up please send us any feedback you have as we hope to evolve and refine this feature over time.

[prl]

 

Enabled!

[Dave]

Good feature Daniel.
What about notifications when IceTV cancels a recording?  I've had an issue or two where shows are cancelled and I knew nothing about it until after the program was aired and I didn't record it.

[ChrisW]

Some feedback for you....

Firstly, thanks for this feature.

Issue 1: I stopped a timer recording half way through as I decided I no longer wanted it. A few minutes later I received one of the new alerts indicating that the timer had failed.

Issue 2: I had 2 consecutive timers set for the same channel (20:30 and 21:30). At 21:33 I received an email alert saying that the first timer (20:30) had failed, even though the show had actually recorded correctly (albeit without end padding due to the second timer kicking in).

Equipment is a Beyonwiz.

[grampus]

I have a similar notification, see below.

The show as scheduled Ok, was being recorded.  Had not gone past my post padding time.  Was chase playing the recorded show.  Then after complete ion of the show, prior to scheduled stop time, I manually stopped the recording, and deleted the recording.
Device is a Beyonwiz P2

I have also had a second notification.a. The lead up was exactly the same.

See second notification.
I had been chase playing  both shows, and skipping between each as I caught up to the current time on each

Show Name:   So You Think You Can Dance
Channel:   Eleven
Time:   2012-12-21 19:30:00
Duration:   120
Device Label:   dpp2
Device Type:   Beyonwiz P1 or P2
Message from recorder:   
Last Updated:   2012-12-21 21:57:33.

Show Name:   Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Channel:   ONE
Time:   2012-12-21 20:30:00
Duration:   60
Device Label:   dpp2
Device Type:   Beyonwiz P1 or P2
Message from recorder:   
Last Updated:   2012-12-21 21:42:34

[Daniel Hall at IceTV]

We've done some tweaking to this, alerts should no longer be generated after the timer start time.

[prl]

We've done some tweaking to this, alerts should no longer be generated after the timer start time.

Hmmm. I'm not sure what you've done, but I received two of the "failed timer" emails last night (23 Dec at 20:04 and 20:34), for shows that both started at 19:30 (one was 30 mins duration and the other 60min). The messages were each sent after the end of the nominal programming time, but before the end of the soft padding (set at 25 min). The shows recorded for their full prepadding+nominal record time, but without post-padding).

The padding was cut short because in each case there was another recording scheduled on the same service. This mean that even though the padding was cut short, only about a second or so of program material could have been lost, as the new recording was started.

The other thing is that the warning was sent out after it should have been of any use to me at all, since the timer had already been cut short when the email was sent. Given that these exchanges happen at 15 minute intervals, I guess that the error email could be sent out anything up to 15 min after the event. So even if it had warned about a real problem, it was too late.

Beyonwiz DP-Lite, firmware 01.07.350, ACT guide.

The warnings were:
Show Name:    Border Patrol NZ
Channel:    Prime Canberra
Time:    2012-12-23 19:30:00
Duration:    30
Device Label:    Xerxes
Device Type:    Beyonwiz DP-Lite
Message from recorder:    
Last Updated:    2012-12-23 20:04:32

Show Name:    The Manor Reborn
Channel:    ABC1
Time:    2012-12-23 19:30:00
Duration:    60
Device Label:    Xerxes
Device Type:    Beyonwiz DP-Lite
Message from recorder:    
Last Updated:    2012-12-23 20:34:31

[ChrisW]

I'm still getting alerts when a timer recording is manually terminated before the due end time.

[grampus]

Going back to the OP, I may have misread it.
I was under the impression that this would send an email if I had a warning Icon (yellow triangle).

Tried to test it out with that in mind.
Set an overlapping timer on a box that had 2 timers that would have been concurrent.

1. set overlapping timer.
2.  brought box out of standby.
3   At the first fetch cycle from the box, Ice Web site showed a yellow triangle as expected.
Since then saw another 3 cycles go by (3/4 of an hour), no email.

Not what I expected then?
I've left the failed timer in the server, it's due on thursday, just in case.  But don't really expect any interest at the moment.

[prl]

Going back to the OP, I may have misread it.
I was under the impression that this would send an email if I had a warning Icon (yellow triangle).
...

If you misread it, then so did I. That's exactly what I was expecting, too. Not to be that the recording had failed had failed to record whenall that had happened was that the padding time went into a following recording on the same service, which IMO is not in any way an error or unexpected behaviour.

[csutak40]

My PC was down for two days, so two recordings failed to record.  I got notified about the one yesterday, but not the day before

[prl]

We've done some tweaking to this, alerts should no longer be generated after the timer start time.

I'm continuing to get alerts generated after the timer start time, apparently because timer post-padding has been cut short (or eliminated). Mostly for back-to-back recordings on the same service, but sometimes because two competing timers on other services start while padding is still running for a third timer. The emails are issued when the post-padding is cut short or eliminated.

Curiously, though, for back-to-back recordings on the same service, there's a warning issued that the post-padding of the earlier timer has been eliminated, but no warning that the pre-padding of the later timer has been eliminated.

I still haven't had an IceTV server side yellow triangle warning to see whether an email is generated from that. I'll set one up to see what happens.

[prl]

...
I still haven't had an IceTV server side yellow triangle warning to see whether an email is generated from that. I'll set one up to see what happens.

I set up a conflict with three simultaneous recordings for a two-recordings-only PVR, got the yellow triangle, but no email.

So the main thing that I hoped this notification system would do, doesn't appear to work. I'd like an email notification when previously non-conflicting timers are brought into conflict by schedule changes (either via changes in the nominal schedule, or through IceTV's tweaking of start times).

If there's no intention of having an email generated when the IceTV flags a "Recording failed" triangle, I'm going to disable the feature, because it currently doesn't seem to be doing anything useful for me.

[lukem]

Hi prl,

Our system logs indicate that an email notification was generated for you. Our mail logs suggest that your provider had temporarily disabled receipt of emails from our domain, but it appears it was eventually delivered.

We have released an update today so that any timers which have started but subsequently stopped or deleted do not generate a notification. This should account for any pre-padding that the box applies to the original timer.

Please let me know if you still experience difficulties.

Best Regards,
Luke

[prl]

Hi, Luke.

I received two emails from the notification system last night, 30 Dec. Both appear to be from cases of two consecutive recordings on the same service, The Manor Reborn followed by Pillars of the Earth (ABC1) and from Border Patrol NZ followed by Coastwatch (Prime Canberra). The emails were generated after the respective ends of Manor Reborn and Border Patrol. See below for the details.

Neither flag events that I am in the least bit interested in.

The conflict I deliberately generated was for tonight 31 Dec (but detected and flagged on the web site Dec 30, but no email).

I retrieve my IceTV emails via POP from Yahoo into Thunderbird. I retrieve all emails, including my Spam folder on Yahoo. I have checked my Spam and Trash folders on Thunderbird as well as my inbox. I've also checked for any IceTV emails via the Yahoo mail Web interface. There's no sign of an email for the warning triangle I generated.

The unwanted notifications I receive appear to be being generated by truncated post-padding on the Beyonwiz, rather than having anything to do with pre-padding. I have Beyonwiz padding priority set to None.

I'm unclear why you now are saying "We have released an update today so that any timers which have started but subsequently stopped or deleted do not generate a notification" when on 22 Dec, Daniel Hall wrote: "We've done some tweaking to this, alerts should no longer be generated after the timer start time."

Did the 22 Dec tweaks not work?

I'll wait to see whether the latest changes stop me receiving these belated and unwanted emails, and then I'll try generating a deliberate scheduling conflict again.

I'm still skeptical about the utility of this feature to me.

Peter

Notification at 20:18 30 Dec:
Show Name:    Border Patrol NZ
Channel:    Prime Canberra
Time:    2012-12-30 19:35:00
Duration:    30
Device Label:    Xerxes
Device Type:    Beyonwiz DP-Lite
Message from recorder:    
Last Updated:    2012-12-30 20:18:31

Notification at 20:33 30 Dec:
Show Name:    The Manor Reborn
Channel:    ABC1
Time:    2012-12-30 19:30:00
Duration:    60
Device Label:    Xerxes
Device Type:    Beyonwiz DP-Lite
Message from recorder:    
Last Updated:    2012-12-30 20:33:31