Questions About Recurring Recordings

[LewE]

I've run into some situations where I try to make a recurring recording (same channel and time for this day of week) and it doesn't do anything, even after a long wait. If I then try to make a one-shot reccording it takes immediately as a one shot recording. I am running 1.4.7 but also have had this same problem with version 1.3.11.

In order to try to clean this up, I went into TV Recordings to the list of recurring recordings and cancelled the season for each program that had a recurring recording scheduled. I found that some programs had recurring recordings scheduled, each defined for the same times. I thought this would fix my problems but when I then tried to make the recurring recording it still didn't work. It only happened (this time) on two back to back programs. Exceopt for these two programs, I was able to enter all of my other recurring schedules.

Question 1: Do you have any ideas of what would cause this behavior? I've attached some logs.

Question 2: Although I tried the sequence of cancelling seasons/reenter recordings this morning (12/12), I also included a PVRX2.exe.3 log from the previous evening because it seemed to indicate some problems with locked data base. I don't remember what I was doing at that time and it may or may not be related to the issue of this posting. Any suggestions about what the locked data base indicates would be welcome.

Question 3: When a recurring schedule is entered, does it mean that GBPVR will only schedule it on the same tuner card each and every time it records it? If it is not allowing the schedule to be input then a reason why should be displayed ot the user at that time rather than the program just appearing to ignore the request.

Question 4: Does it make any difference to schedule a program that comes on once a week by using the recurring for this day/time/channel vs using the daily/time/channel criteria? It seems that since GBPVR looks for the particular program name, either method should give the same results.

[martint123]

These errors in the logs look like a culprit. I get them occasonally but have no idea why as yet. Rebooting or restarting the recording service and any associated apps like gbpvrtray seems to fix it for some time.

2009-12-11 17:43:37.507 ERROR [8] Unabled to save ScheduledRecording: The database file is locked
database is locked
2009-12-11 17:43:37.511 ERROR [8] at System.Data.SQLite.SQLite3.Reset(SQLiteStatement stmt)
at System.Data.SQLite.SQLite3.Step(SQLiteStatement stmt)
at System.Data.SQLite.SQLiteCommand.ExecuteNonQuery()
at GBPVR.Backend.Common.x396614b3dae3b1da.xc979432fcc5a510a(ScheduledRecording xe41d2b9d98dc1269)

[LewE]

I've run into some situations where I try to make a recurring recording (same channel and time for this day of week) and it doesn't do anything, even after a long wait. If I then try to make a one-shot reccording it takes immediately as a one shot recording. I am running 1.4.7 but also have had this same problem with version 1.3.11.

In order to try to clean this up, I went into TV Recordings to the list of recurring recordings and cancelled the season for each program that had a recurring recording scheduled. I found that some programs had recurring recordings scheduled, each defined for the same times. I thought this would fix my problems but when I then tried to make the recurring recording it still didn't work. It only happened (this time) on two back to back programs. Exceopt for these two programs, I was able to enter all of my other recurring schedules.

Question 1: Do you have any ideas of what would cause this behavior? I've attached some logs.

Question 2: Although I tried the sequence of cancelling seasons/reenter recordings this morning (12/12), I also included a PVRX2.exe.3 log from the previous evening because it seemed to indicate some problems with locked data base. I don't remember what I was doing at that time and it may or may not be related to the issue of this posting. Any suggestions about what the locked data base indicates would be welcome.

Question 3: When a recurring schedule is entered, does it mean that GBPVR will only schedule it on the same tuner card each and every time it records it? If it is not allowing the schedule to be input then a reason why should be displayed ot the user at that time rather than the program just appearing to ignore the request.

Question 4: Does it make any difference to schedule a program that comes on once a week by using the recurring for this day/time/channel vs using the daily/time/channel criteria? It seems that since GBPVR looks for the particular program name, either method should give the same results.

I went ahead and rebooted but it didn't fix the problem of being able to schedule a recurring schedule. I was still only able to enter a one-shot recording of the two programs.

Can anyone provide any insight into the four questions I asked?

[martint123]

Question 1: Do you have any ideas of what would cause this behavior? I've attached some logs.

I'm not in the US and this only works there, but could there be a problem with the "don't record duplicates" in capture sources of config. I have heard of oddities in the past. A quick test would be to untick the box and see if the problem changes.

Question 3: When a recurring schedule is entered, does it mean that GBPVR will only schedule it on the same tuner card each and every time it records it? If it is not allowing the schedule to be input then a reason why should be displayed ot the user at that time rather than the program just appearing to ignore the request.

No, any tuner capable of receiving the channel will get it. If there are conflicts they show up as different coloured boxes in the TV Guide and in the 'recording, conflicts' list.

[LewE]

I'm not in the US and this only works there, but could there be a problem with the "don't record duplicates" in capture sources of config. I have heard of oddities in the past. A quick test would be to untick the box and see if the problem changes.

You might not live in the U.S. but you nailed it.

I did have "Don't Record Duplicates" checked. I unchecked it and was able to get the two programs to record recurring schedules.

I don't know why I had originally checked the "Don't Record Duplicates" box because I don't know what it means. I would have chosen to not check it if I was to guess what it meant (i.e. record a particular Season/Episode of a program if it had already been recorded) since I would want to make the final decision of whether to make and keep any recordings rather than be programmatically overridden.

I suggest that someone who has the authority over the wiki add this caution to the page about Configuring the Capture Sources. It doesn't say anything at all about this field and a warning about a side effect would be good to have there.

In any event, thank you for pointing out the fix to what has plagued me for as long as I can remember.

[martint123]

In the US (and maybe Canada?) the program listings contain a unique number that attaches to a show. This is used in gbpvr to prevent recording repeats or reruns of the same episode of a show. I'm not sure how the logic works, but if a scheduled show has teh same number as one saved in the database it doesn't get recorded - if the box is ticked (and it mey be by default??).

A very handy facility, but with repercussions. Myself, I'd rather simply delete any duplicate recordings rather than miss one by mistake.

Anyways, glad to have helped.