Odd recordings on Beyonwiz T4

[prl]

I'm not sure whether this should be here or in IceTV EPG Content.

We've had a couple of recording oddities in the last couple of days:

We have first run series recordings for "Hard Quiz" and "Shaun Micallef's Mad As Hell" set for Wednesday nights on ABC HD.

On 30 Sep, IceTV set timers correctly for both shows, but also set a recording with title "Shaun Micallef's Mad As Hell" for the timeslot (exactly the same times) as the recording for Hard Quiz.

When the recordings ran. we ended up with two recordings with the name "Shaun Micallef's Mad As Hell", but the earlier one actually had the content for "Hard Quiz".

We also have a first run series recording set for "Media Watch" for Monday nights on ABC HD. On Mon 28 Sep, IceTV set a timer, and it ran correctly. But it also set a timer for the "encore" of "Media Watch" at 00:15 on the morning of Tue 1 Oct which also recorded.

Everything that we wanted to record got recorded, but it was all a bit odd.

[prl]

We have a first runs series recording set for "Father Brown" for Saturdays on ABC HD, but on Sat 26 Sep, IceTV set a recording for the repeats of Father Brown being run on 7TWO (Canberra) - it recorded "The Sins of Others", s5 e11. The ABC is currently showing season 8.

[prl]

Our T4's My Week is showing a one-off recording for Ross Noble: El Halbador s1e1, ABC Comedy, 23:10 tonight. ACT Guide.

I didn't set a recording for that.

[csutak40]

I had some odd recordings too (mostly on 10Shake, I think.)  One I remember was Tosh.O (never heard of it)  It usually gives a reason why, (if it picked up a keyword or something) but this gave no reason

[Daniel Hall at IceTV]

Having a look through and most of these timers appear to be a holdover from the duplicated guide data that caused all the problems with the Topfield's this week.

I have tweaked some things and forced all series recordings to be re-checked which should clear up any outstanding random timers.

[prl]

OK. Thanks, Daniel

[IanL-S]

Thanks for the update Daniel - I had some random recordings on my U4 and one T2. Good to know that it is now sorted.

Ian

[prl]

Since Daniel replied, I got a recording of Rage from ABC that I never programmed. Presumably the same issue.

[IanL-S]

Yes, prl, that was one of the ones I got.

Not sure if it is a related issue or not but I have started getting the following error message on mt T2s:
Message from recorder:   Recording failed: Can't allocate program source (e.g. tuner)

In the first two cases the timer did not record, last night I got the message and the timer in fact recorded successfully. Could it be something to do with having extended pre and post padding - the recording last night started at 20:00 but the error message implied the error occurred at 20:40. The recording was scheduled for 9GemHD.

There should not be a tuner issue as rarely would I have three networks recording on the same T2.

Ian

[grumpy_geoff]

In the first two cases the timer did not record, last night I got the message and the timer in fact recorded successfully. Could it be something to do with having extended pre and post padding - the recording last night started at 20:00 but the error message implied the error occurred at 20:40. The recording was scheduled for 9GemHD.

Any live/timeshifting or streaming TV occurring at that time?
How many timers and networks involved at that time?
Any errors showing in the timer log entries for that timer (press INFO on the completed timer)?

[IanL-S]

I use the T2 for recording rather than watching, so time shift is disabled. No streaming on the T2.

I have deleted the recording so cannot check the information.

Cannot confirm the number of timers that were recording - I decided to install the latest Beta to see if that resolved the problem. Doing so deleted the completed timer listing. Also it deleted most of the recordings - I copied the one I wasted to my PC, edited them to remove pre- and post padding and any add, then used TFtool to convert them to native Toppy recording, and copied them to one of my Toppys.

As far as I am aware at the time there would have been recordings being made on 7Two, 9GemHD and Bold.

Ian

[grumpy_geoff]

I have deleted the recording so cannot check the information.

The completed timer should still have been present in the timer list, but...

Cannot confirm the number of timers that were recording - I decided to install the latest Beta to see if that resolved the problem. Doing so deleted the completed timer listing. Also it deleted most of the recordings

A firmware flash doesn't delete any recordings, it affects flash memory only.
I take it you didn't backup your settings before the beta install, nor restore that backup afterwards?

As far as I am aware at the time there would have been recordings being made on 7Two, 9GemHD and Bold.

That would be three providers needed for tuning, one more than a twin-tuner T2 can handle - do you have a USB tuner attached?

[IanL-S]

Each of my T2s has a USB tuner.

Had a seniors moment - it was not the firmware update that deleted the recording, I deleted them myself. I did not do a save of setting before I did the firmware update (on some to the T2s) - I have 3 of them and did the updates over the last 36 hours; it may be on the one I did today that I restored a rather ancient backup made in March or there about - thus no history.

It is really weird that this started happening in the last few days - not happened previously (had the T2s for several years now).

[grumpy_geoff]

Each of my T2s has a USB tuner.
...
It is really weird that this started happening in the last few days - not happened previously (had the T2s for several years now).

It's a pity you don't have the timer logs, as it'd show which tuners were used for the recordings.
If you still have the two successful recordings from that time, then take a look at the contents of the {recording}.ts.meta file relevant to each recording.  You should see a "Tuner-{x}" entry on the 5th line.  Then you can deduce which tuner was to be used for the failed timer.
My guess, in the absence of any details, is it was the USB tuner.  If I take a further guess, the failure occurred because either the USB tuner wasn't detected or was in a non-terrestrial mode (not DVB-T nor DVB-T2 mode).
Any time you start the GUI (from a deep standby or GUI restart), you should check the USB tuner mode (MENU>>Information>>Devices).  Restart the GUI if it's not DVB-T/T2.

[IanL-S]

@grumpy_geoff, thanks for the advice about the meta file. The first thing I checked was if the USB dongle was being detected, in Openwebif the USB tuner was recognised. One is only DVB-T, the other two are DVB-T/T2; only one support DVB-C if I recall correctly.

Ian