Recorded TV shows missing

[pjpjpjpj]

I wanted to give a priority to my tuners, so, per instructions elsewhere on this forum (FAQs), I closed down SageTV on the server and went into the properties file and gave a priority number to each of my tuners (1 through 4).

When I started SageTV up again, only 1 of the 19 shows that I had recorded showed up in the Recordings screen.

They are all still on my hard drive though, and have not been moved... the path for recordings is still the same (there's only one)... absolutely nothing has changed, and the files are all still there, just only one of them showed up in the Recordings list.

Since then, new shows have recorded, and of course they are all there.

All show .mpgs - old (not showing up), and new (showing up) all have the episode numbers appended after them as they should.

I followed the instruction/suggestion to shut down SageTV, make the "advanced_video_file_recovery=true" change, and restart... no luck. I changed it back to "false" and came here to post.

I don't understand why changing tuner priority in the properties file would make 18 out of 19 files disappear (if nothing else, I would think it would have been "all or none", right?). I also don't understand why Sage still can not find the 18 files that are still sitting in that same folder on my hard drive where it is looking.

(Yes, when I said I "shut down" Sage, I completely shut it down, not just sleep to the system tray.)

Specs in my signature below. Help?

[GKusnick]

Are you sure you're not just looking at a filtered view of the list?

Have you checked Imported Videos to see if the missing recordings show up there?

Did you save a backup of your .properties file before editing it? If so, have you tried restoring that backup to see if that makes a difference?

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Are you sure you're not just looking at a filtered view of the list?

Yes. I have tried every option and "view" possible.

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Have you checked Imported Videos to see if the missing recordings show up there?

Yes, and they don't.

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Did you save a backup of your .properties file before editing it? If so, have you tried restoring that backup to see if that makes a difference?

No, I didn't. I didn't expect a simple change of the tuner priority lines to effect anything else. Why would changing the tuner priority make 18 out of 19 existing recordings "invisible"? I just don't get it.

[Opus4]

What program did you use to edit the properties file? If it isn't a simple text editor, such as Notepad with Word Wrap turned off, you could end up corrupting the properties file. Also, make sure Windows Explorer is configured to show file extensions -- when they are hidden, the .properties file may actually be the .properties.autobackup file. If using service mode, the service would have to be stopped.

Or, wiz.bin (the database) could have gotten corrupted by some odd chance because of something else.

If those directories are still listed as recording dirs by SageTV, then the files should be appearing somewhere. But, the best thing at this point would probably be to restore both the wiz.bin and .properties files from before the recordings disappeared... but it sounds like you may not have those files.

- Andy

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Why would changing the tuner priority make 18 out of 19 existing recordings "invisible"?

Obviously it shouldn't. So apparently that wasn't the only change that happened.

Are you sure you don't have a backup to compare against? When did you last upgrade Sage? The installer makes backups of your Wiz.bin and Sage.properties. Also look for the .autobackup file that Andy mentioned. Any of those may help you figure out what inadvertantly got changed.

[pjpjpjpj]

Thanks for the suggestions. I managed to get the missing TV recordings to show up under videos. While this is strange, because my normal recordings go into that same folder and don't show up under videos, they work, so no big deal. I just told my wife that she'll have to watch those shows from the "Videos" menu rather than the "SageTV Recordings". Everything since has gone where it should go (under recordings).

BTW, Andy, I did just use Notepad to edit the properties file, and I do have extensions turned on so it was the right file. I'll just consider this a lesson learned, that, no matter how simple or seemingly harmless a change might be, I will always back up the sage.properties, wiz.bin, and wiz.bak before I do anything!

[timnelsonic]

I've had a similar situation lately but was trying to gather more information before I posted. But, since someone else brought it up, I'll dive in with my scenario.

Shows record properly and show up in Recorded TV. While scanning the list on the HD extender and deciding which shows to watch, shows will disappear from the list even while scrolling. Now you see it, now you don't. This starting occuring after several weeks of absolutely stable performance.

It has become consistently unreliable. So much, in fact, that I can do the following:

1. Go directly to the TV folder on my hard drive and view the .mpeg files.
2. Go to the extender and scroll up and down the list a few times.
3. Files disappear from the list.
4. Go back to the folder on the hard drive and files are gone.

It only seems to occur with recently recorded files. Once something has been on the drive for a few days, it's safe. Scanning the list will wipe out anything recorded in the last few hours.

I use "keep until space needed" setting on all files. It appears to be related to HDD space, which is low, but not critical. If I delete a bunch of stuff, the problem seems to go away for a few days.

I tried logging to capture what was going on but Sage will no longer write a log file (what the...?). Something appears to be seriously corrupt with my steup, so I plan on a complete reinstall to clean things up. I have a new box on the way, a nicely equipped Quad Core, so I'm waiting for it to arrive before I do anything.

Since I'll be reinstalling from scratch, I'm not looking for any advice necessarily, but I thought others would be interested in my experience since it's so odd.