johnsonx42 Wrote:why do we go through this so often? seems like 5 times a week we spend a day-and-a-half convincing a new user (and sometimes not so new) to post logs, not just one log, not just the couple of logs he thinks are the right ones, but the whole logs folder, and no, not with 7-zip or winrar, those skip the current logs. posting the whole thing is easiest, just right-click, the Send To->Compressed (Zipped) Folder... why do we have to spend so much time arguing about it?

My googling suggests that vBulletin allows customising of the email that is sent as part of the forum registration process. May I suggest ...

Quote:Please help us.

Please zip and attach logs to support posts. Please use Windows Explorer / File Explorer and right click on the Logs folder and select Send To ... Compressed Folder to zip the logs folder. Attach the zip file to your post using the paperclip button when you create a new thread. Further information including the location of logs is at ... http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post480931

Please tell us the date and time that we can look for in the logs. For example, a show that failed to record on January 28 at 21.00 or a Settings problem today at 11.30.

May I also suggest a couple of bells and whistles that might assist.

Pressing the Red button (or Alt-R) could add a line to all logs that says "Red button pressed" ... I can then press the Red button when I see a problem (tuner not listed in Devices, for example). Might sometimes a assist when searching logs.

It appears that an "API call" (whoever he is) to zip a folder is available in Windows so we might have a button on the Settings --> General screen to zip the logs folder and put the zip file in the Documents folder where it is easy to find.

Plus, we might also have a "Restart NextPVR" button on the Settings --> General screen to restart npvr.exe, nrecord.exe and to stop all ndigitlhost processes forcing all logs to be restarted (among other "reset" type actions).

I have carefully calculated the amount of work required to implement all this and it is zero ... for me.

Some good ideas

I suspect that most folks simply open the forum and do a search - in which case they will never see the sticky...

It might help if there was a clearly labeled link to the sticky on the banner at the top of the page...

Alex

ACTCMS Wrote:It might help if there was a clearly labeled link to the sticky on the banner at the top of the page...

... and (or) adding "Please read before posting" as a sub-forum under Information to go alongside NPVR Announcements and Community Announcements with the "Please read before posting" sub-forum containing a single post ... All we would need is a suitable post ... there must be one somewhere.

Graham Wrote:It appears that an "API call" (whoever he is) to zip a folder is available in Windows so we might have a button on the Settings --> General screen to zip the logs folder and put the zip file in the Documents folder where it is easy to find.

this seems like a pretty good idea. in theory forcing everyone to learn where the data folder and logs are located is a good thing, but in practice the amount of work required to squeeze logs out of people hardly seems worth it.

Quote:Plus, we might also have a "Restart NextPVR" button on the Settings --> General screen to restart npvr.exe, nrecord.exe and to stop all ndigitlhost processes forcing all logs to be restarted (among other "reset" type actions).

always tough to have a program restart itself along with services it depends on; probably have to call NPVRServiceControl.exe to do the work. (ndigitalhosts stop when nrecord does if they're not hung... if they are, I don't think they can be stopped without a reboot; at least I don't recall ever being able to "end task" a crashed ndigitalhost)

Quote:I have carefully calculated the amount of work required to implement all this and it is zero ... for me.

same here, clearly it should be done.

ACTCMS Wrote:I suspect that most folks simply open the forum and do a search - in which case they will never see the sticky...

You assume they search, going by the number of no video/audio black screen posts I doubt that many people even do that much.

Martin

Either way Martin, I still think it's worth sticking a link in the forum header - looking at the Hauppauge UK forum, they have some text just above the "Post New Thread" button - that might be the place to put it.

Alex

so there's a new example yesterday and today: "Junior Member" KNet made his first support post with a log so that's a small miracle, but of course it's not all the logs nor does the log show anything relevant to the problem, so then sub asks him to click "Update EPG" and then post the npvr.log but instead he does some roundabout thing where he posts an effectively empty npvr.log before an epg update, and then another effectively empty one after an epg update, along with useless screenshots, but not any log showing the epg update itself which is all anyone wants to see. If he'd just posted the whole logs folder in the first place it would've included logs showing some EPG updates and he'd probably have an answer by now, instead it's a day later and sub is wasting his time looking through log files with nothing in them and still begging for the right log(s). I've got some guesses about where the user error is, but don't feel like typing an "if this, then that, if this other thing, then that other thing" post when the user can't be bothered to post the logs... instead I just want to gripe in this thread.

I also noticed that at least one new member was unsure about posting logs in case they contained any sensitive info like passwords...

Alex

johnsonx42 Wrote:I've got some guesses about where the user error is, but don't feel like typing an "if this, then that, if this other thing, then that other thing" post when the user can't be bothered to post the logs....

Are you thinking along the lines of the user tried to set a recurring recording based on a currently playing show... and it didn't seem to work?

Alex