A couple of timer setting oddities

[prl]

This week, The Bridge (usually SBS2 2030 Weds) has been bumped by the Iraq-Australia World Cup Qualifier. We have a series recording set up for The Bridge on our DP-Lite, and tonight's Bridge timer has gone, but it seems to have been replaced by one for the movie Black Out, staring at 2130.

Meanwhile, on our DP-P2, two simultaneous instances of recordings have been scheduled for Kitchen Cabinet, ABC2 2135 tonight Wed 17 Oct, one of which (obviously) failed. On top of that, we have had a single recording of Don't Blame the Dog (ABC2 2040 tonight) mysteriously appear without anyone setting it up.

We have since set up a series recording for Don't Blame the Dog, because we decided we'd give it a try.

All this is further complicated (or perhaps caused?) by the act that because we're away from home and on wireless broadband, IceTV only gets updated every couple of days.

Any ideas, IceFolk?

[IanHamilton]

Same thing happened to me on my Topfield. Paniced when I saw that the recording was some movie. Got onto SBS ondemand to see that I have not missed an episode

[prl]

It looked to me that (at least for The Bridge), the old timer for The Bridge wasn't deleted on the Beyonwiz as it should have been, and that was reflected back into IceTV as a manual recording of the movie, even though the timer didn't actually correspond to the movie's timeslot (but it may have overlapped). The timer on the Beyonwiz was unchanged.

I think something similar happened with Kitchen Cabinet, but I didn't check the details.

However, it sounds like he problem wasn't due to my less-than-optimal networking situation.

[grampus]

It looked to me that (at least for The Bridge), the old timer for The Bridge wasn't deleted on the Beyonwiz as it should have been, and that was reflected back into IceTV as a manual recording of the movie, even though the timer didn't actually correspond to the movie's timeslot (but it may have overlapped). The timer on the Beyonwiz was unchanged.

I think something similar happened with Kitchen Cabinet, but I didn't check the details.

However, it sounds like he problem wasn't due to my less-than-optimal networking situation.

Talking about

less-than-optimal networking situation

.
I have been in the unhappy situation that I blew my subscription out of the water, and am now down to 64KB rate.
This has been so for the last 2 weeks.
But over the last few days I have seen some oddities.
One I have reported on re a greyed out series timer on the website, that has been set and working for months.
This resolved itself.
Also I have been seeing some odditys with the timers in the Wiz.
The timers have been set, but only show the *ch7 , *ch 10 type of description.  This has been seen on 2 separate devices.
These timers had the correct description last night at one stage.  This morningg all timers were in that state. on one bpox, but the EPG was showing the correct decriptions.
About half were in that state on the other box.
On both boxes, there was only EPG entries up to about next wednesday,  Some channels were into thursday.
My assumption is that this is caused by the slow network.  I can only wait till a few more days are up, then we'll see.

On one box

[prl]

ACT Guide

We had another one of thee that I noticed today. IceTV was showing a single recording of Heartbeat (7TWO 19:30 Wed 24 Oct) that we had not programmed.

When I looked at the Beyonwiz timers, there was a timer labelled for Borderline for 7TWO 19:05-19:35 Wed 24 Oct. We had a series recording set for Borderline, but the IceTV guide times for it were for 19:00-19:30. This timer explains why IceTV was showing recordings for both Borderline and Heartbeat. I suspect that what happened was that when the timer for Borderline was first set by IceTV, it was for 19:05-19:35, but the IceTV guide was later amended to 19:0-19:30. When that amendment was available, somehow the timer didn't get updated.

Borderline was shown as running 19:00-19:30 in the printed weekly program in the Sunday Canberra Times 21 Oct, in the weekly program in Monday's Canberra Times 22 Oct and in the daily program in today's Canberra times 24 Oct.

[grampus]

My Access has now been sped up as I have now started a new month.  My timers and Epg are now in good shape with no anamolies.
I can only say that my previous problems were caused by the slow rate.
Seem to me that there may be no sequence checking/handshaking taking place with the protocol, UDP packets only?

[lukem]

Grampus,

It really depends on how your ISP shapes your data. If they drop packets and rely on TCP to retry, or in the case of UDP, the application would do this.

I have had similar experiences with shaping in the past, where you would think that 64k would be fine for small amounts of data yet for the simplest of web-pages or services, it just didn't work well (if at all).

Our service is over HTTP (over TCP) so it's really up to each manufacturer how they implement timeouts and retries on the box. We could also look at increasing any timeouts on our webserver for GET and POST data, which may help in these situations.

Thanks for your comments.

[prl]

I monitor the data rate on my 3G dongle while I'm updating the IceTV data on the Beyonwizes. Mainly so I can tell when the update has completed without turning on the TV, but it's clear from that that there's no TCP timeout happening during the updates on our BWs.

[Dave at IceTV]

When I looked at the Beyonwiz timers, there was a timer labelled for Borderline for 7TWO 19:05-19:35 Wed 24 Oct. We had a series recording set for Borderline, but the IceTV guide times for it were for 19:00-19:30. This timer explains why IceTV was showing recordings for both Borderline and Heartbeat. I suspect that what happened was that when the timer for Borderline was first set by IceTV, it was for 19:05-19:35, but the IceTV guide was later amended to 19:0-19:30. When that amendment was available, somehow the timer didn't get updated.

As surmised by prl they are false timers that appear due to the overlap between the old recording and the updated recording. They only appear in My Week or the TV Guide. They are not real timers, schedules, or reservations set on the recorder, and they will not record.

Any time that a timers' start time or duration changes you may see 'false' single recordings listed in My Week and the TV Guide for the show before or after the changed recording. As soon as the recorder and the IceTV server get in sync the 'false' single recordings will be gone.  i.e. Within 15 minutes to an hour - depending on your recorder's update frequency - the false recordings will vanish.

When a show's start time or duration changes IceTV sets a delete message for the old timer and and a new record message for the updated timer. Until the recorder reports back that the old timer has been deleted IceTV will display that old timer as still existing... except now it overlaps another show so that other show now appears as if it has a single timer set.

[prl]

...
When a show's start time or duration changes IceTV sets a delete message for the old timer and and a new record message for the updated timer. Until the recorder reports back that the old timer has been deleted IceTV will display that old timer as still existing... except now it overlaps another show so that other show now appears as if it has a single timer set.

Hi, Dave.

There was some detail omitted for brevity and readability in my post.

What you've described is no doubt how it should work, but the detail of what I did was:

• Looked at the my IceTV My Week page, and saw the "false timer" for Heartbeat before connecting my laptop with the wireless broadband to the wired network switch that our Beyonwizes are connected to
• Looked at the Beyonwiz timer list and observed that the Borderline timer was different from the program times in the then current IceTV guide (19:05 start rather than 19:00 start).
• Connected the laptop to the Beyonwiz wired network and allowed IceTV to update.
• Refreshed the My Week page, and the "false timer" was still there.
• Looked at the Beyonwiz timer list, and the timer for Borderline was still set to start at 19:05 rather than the correct 19:00 start time.
• Reset the Beyonwiz timer by hand to the correct time slot.

It appears to me that somehow either IceTV did not issue a delete for the old timer, or the Beyonwiz did not delete it when it was instructed to.

[prl]

ACT Guide, early model Beyonwiz DP-P2 fw 01.05.350.

Now I have IceTV My Week saying I have the following recordings on ABC2 for Wed 31 Oct:
20:35-21:30 Don't Blame the Dog
21:30-22:05 Kitchen Cabinet
21:30-22:05 Kitchen Cabinet (yes, twice)
22:05-22:35 Mock The Week
22:05-22:35 Mock The Week (yes, twice again)
22:35-23:15 The Great Food Truck Race

The actual timers set on the Beyonwiz are:
20:40-21:35 Don't Blame the Dog
21:35-22:10 Kitchen Cabinet
22:10-22:40 Mock The Week
No timer for The Great Food Truck Race

Clearly The Great Food Truck Race is showing up on IceTV because of the actual timer for Mock The Week on the Beyonwiz overlapping the current timeslot for The Great Food Truck Race.

However, I just don't get the rest of it, especially not the doubled-up recordings on My Week.

I can leave the Beyonwiz disconnected from the net for a while to preserve the current state if anyone from IceTV would like to have a look at this.

"Never miss your favourite show again."

[prl]

I've realised that the doubled-up scheduled Series Recording icons in My Week probably have the same cause as the "phantom" Great Food Truck Race scheduled single recording icon.

The timer on the Beyonwiz for Don't Blame the Dog overlaps the IceTV Guide time for Kitchen Cabinet. And he timer for Kitchen Cabinet also overlaps the IceTV Guide time for that program - hence two "recordings" of Kitchen Cabinet in My Week.

Similarly for Kitchen Cabinet and Mock The Week.

[prl]

I've now had a second entry for Don't Blame the Dog turn up in My Week. It's still a "queued" recording so far, because I haven't connected the Beyonwizes to IceTV since I last posted.

IceTV My Week now says I have the following recordings on ABC2 for 31 Oct:
20:35-21:30 Don't Blame the Dog (series queued)
20:35-21:30 Don't Blame the Dog (series scheduled)
21:30-22:05 Kitchen Cabinet (series scheduled)
21:30-22:05 Kitchen Cabinet (series scheduled)
22:05-22:35 Mock The Week (series scheduled)
22:05-22:35 Mock The Week (series scheduled)
22:35-23:15 The Great Food Truck Race (single scheduled)

The two recordings of Don't Blame the Dog don't seem to be explained by timers not matching the IceTV guide times.

I haven't changed any of those timers on the DP-P2, but even if I had, IceTV has no way of knowing, because I haven't connected again since I last posted.

[prl]

I've just connected up the Beyonwizes to the net via wireless broadband on my laptop for their regular update, and these programs are now even more of a mess than they were before.

IceTV My Week now says I have the following recordings on ABC2 for 31 Oct:
20:35-21:30 Don't Blame the Dog (series recording failed)
20:35-21:30 Don't Blame the Dog (series scheduled)
21:30-22:05 Kitchen Cabinet (series scheduled)
21:30-22:05 Kitchen Cabinet (series recording failed)
21:30-22:05 Kitchen Cabinet (series scheduled)
22:05-22:35 Mock The Week (series scheduled)
22:05-22:35 Mock The Week (series scheduled)
22:35-23:15 The Great Food Truck Race (single scheduled)

The timers on the Beyonwiz remain unchanged.

The other recordings on Wednesday night are:
SBS1 20:30-21:35 The Bridge
Prime Canberra 22:35-23:30 Air Crash Investigations

Somehow the IceTV recording for The Bridge disappeared without my doing anything - I reinstated it between this update and the previous one.

There should be no timer conflicts; not even soft padding conflicts in this set of recordings.

So now three My Week entries for Kitchen Cabinet. Can I claim some sort of record?

I've now given up on this, deleted the timers of the Beyonwiz and re-set them manually from the IceTV EPG on the Beyonwiz.

What a mess!

"So many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible."
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

[lukem]

Hi Guys,

We are experiencing some technical difficulties at present and have the entire dev team investigating the cause.

Our sincere apologies for the inconvenience.. we are doing our best to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

Regards,
Luke