4 tuners, 2 favorites = no recordings?

[kevpriest]

Last week I added a HVR950 to my HVR1600 (using both tuners) and my old 250. I only activated the digital tuner on the 950. This week, Heroes and 24 should have recorded, but it didn't record either one. The favorites are set to record 1st runs, any channel. The program guide shows both marked as 1st runs, and their both available on three different channels at the same time (2 * HD and 1 SD version each). But neither one was recorded. What should I be looking for (besides that web address for watching 24 online)?

[cslatt]

These are the potential reasons listed in the SageTV FAQ:

Q: Why isn't my Favorite set to record? It falls within the next 3 days, so it should be in my recording schedule.

A: There could be a variety of reasons:

* Is the airing outlined in white? If not, then it doesn't fit any of your Favorite's settings and will not be recorded as a Favorite.

* If it is already recorded & sitting in the list of SageTV Recordings, it won't be recorded again.

* If the episode is marked as 'Watched' or 'Don't Like', SageTV won't record it again. (Watched shows are displayed in italics; Don't Like shows are outlined in black.)

* Is it a ReRun & your favorite is set for First Runs only, or vice-versa?

* Is the Favorite set for a specific channel, but the show is aired on a different channel?

* Was a specific timeslot set for the Favorite, but the airing is outside that timeslot?

* Is a value set for the Favorite's Keep At Most option and that limit has been reached? (New recordings will cease if this is the case and AutoDelete is set to No.)

* It may be scheduled to record during another airing. (See above.)

* There is a conflict and that favorite was deemed to be a lower priority than another favorite or manual recording, so it was skipped. (Check for recording conflicts.)

[chrisc16]

Originally Posted by kevpriest

Last week I added a HVR950 to my HVR1600 (using both tuners) and my old 250. I only activated the digital tuner on the 950. This week, Heroes and 24 should have recorded, but it didn't record either one. The favorites are set to record 1st runs, any channel. The program guide shows both marked as 1st runs, and their both available on three different channels at the same time (2 * HD and 1 SD version each). But neither one was recorded. What should I be looking for (besides that web address for watching 24 online)?

Are you running 6.1? Ever since I upgraded to 6.1.8, I've been having random favorite recording problems such as this. I've checked all the suggestions in the FAQ, but the problem only started after upgrading, so I suspect there's a bug somewhere in Sage.

So at least be reassured that you're not the only one with the problem, and as you said, thank goodness there's another path to watch the shows after they've aired. It's a shame too, because I was always so confident that Sage would NEVER miss a recording; now I have to go through the guide and mark my favorites as manual recordings.

-Chris

[Opus4]

If you are having problems with recordings that aren't covered by the usual reasons (above), then enable debug logging and report it to SageTV. They could be getting recorded, then deleted due to corrupt recordings for some reason, among other possibilities.

Also, v6.1.9 is the latest version, so try updating to it from v6.1.8.

- Andy

[perfessor101]

Do you have any shows listed in the Scheduled Recordings Pane?

Periodically when I try something a little different crazy things can start happening and somehow all my tuners will have a BDA capture error and won't be able to record anything.
I usually try a restore of the SageTV directory from my Daily 3am Acronis True image backup.
If that doesn't work then I backup the wiz.bin and uninstall SageTV, uninstall java, reboot, delete anything left in the SageTV and java directories. Then install SageTV, run through the Setup Wizard, setup my recording directories and capture devices, channel lineups, shutdown SageTV copy the old wiz.bin back in and restart SageTV with everything working as expected.

Try setting debug_logging=TRUE and check the SageTV_#.txt log files for BDA capture error type thingies if you don't have any upcoming recordings listed in the Scheduled Recordings Pane ...


Hope this helps ...

Bobby

[kevpriest]

Thanks for the suggestions. I was already aware of the usual reasons why a favorite wouldn't record, but this seemed unusual. I didn't catch that the recordings didn't occur until after the shows ended, so I wasn't able to see that they were definitely marked for recording, but they were outlined in white and all parameters looked correct.

I do believe I've solved the problem, though, and it oddly appears to be two things that happened at once, and I can't immediately see that they're related:

#1: Fox seems to have moved. I stayed up late trying to troubleshoot this, and after dinking around with scheduling parameters I decided to try just watching plain old live, OTA, HD programming. I couldn't ("No Signal"). Odd. So I went into source setup and rescanned, and the physical channel for my local Fox affiliate came up different after the scan than it was before the scan. Once I'd rescanned, Fox came up no problem. (BTW, I'm in Atlanta)

#2: My OTA reception has seriously deteriorated. I don't know why this is, but my reception on ABC and NBC has fallen apart. I used to see 50s for ABC, and 80s for NBC, but now I'm getting alternating 10s & 60s for ABC, and steady 60s for NBC. For NBC, I'm getting a signal (60s) but no image on the main HD channel. The sub-channel (24 hour weather) comes in fine (also 60s). Weird.

Apparently, when the tuner was unable to get a signal on these channels, it just didn't write a file, so Sage proceeded as if it had been recorded, but no recording actually took place. Fox is now working correctly, and I'll have to keep dinking around with NBC & ABC later, but it's probably a reception issue instead of a Sage issue.

I will suggest that there ought to be some sort of error handling routine for catching a "no signal" issue like this, in case the signal loss was temporary. If that had been the case for me, I'm not sure that I could've figured it out. But that's a very minor quibble: my problem looks to be reception, probably something caused by adding the second tuner to the single antennae, nothing to do with Sage.

Thanks again,

KevPriest