Live buffer folder fills up. Low disk space message.

[chipwitch]

Title says it all. I've searched off and on for a solution for months. Still can't get it to stop filling up my hard drive. After a couple weeks, the hard drive is full and I have to manually delete 2000 4Gb files.

I'm using v3.8.3 on a Windows 7-64 machine. I was using Kodi as a front end, but uninstalled it and still experiencing the same problem. WMC is disabled. HDHomeRun tuner (3 channel).

It appears that whatever cable channel the current tuners are set to is being recorded to the buffer folder I set up in the recorded tv folder. But, it never gets deleted.

NextPVR works great otherwise and has been for almost a year.

[sub]

I was using Kodi as a front end, but uninstalled it and still experiencing the same problem.

If you empty out that directory, and start viewing live tv, you should see up to 4 files get created. When it creates the 5th file, the oldest is deleted. When you stop live tv, the four files should get deleted.

To help us narrow down on the cause, I suggest you start live tv on a channel and leave it running, to confirm you're seeing the behaviour I describe above. Depending on what behaviour you get, I'll suggest next steps to try.

[mvallevand]

If you are using Kodi with timeshifting enabled this is a known issue.

Martin

[chipwitch]

@sub, thanks for activating my account. I'll check the behavior you suggest and confirm. What I can tell you right now, even though I wasn't using any kind of viewer to watch live tv, and Kodi had been uninstalled, I saw 3 new files pop up. NextPvr window was open, but I was on the main menu and settings dialog. No viewer. Does that sound right?

@martin, thanks. So, just disable timeshifting in kodi settings? If I uninstalled kodi, should I still be experiencing this problem? I didn't reboot after. I suppose I could try that.

I should also mention, in case it is related, there are a dozen or so files in the buffer folder that won't delete unless I kill the npvr running processes. Some of them have 0kb size. I found that odd.

[mvallevand]

Yes disabling timeshifting does eliminate one cause of this issue. Without logs I can't tell if this is your issue or not.

Martin

[sub]

NextPvr window was open, but I was on the main menu and settings dialog. No viewer. Does that sound right?

No - highly unlikely that you got files just sitting at the ment. They may have been streams from earlier still running, but these files were definitely as a result of something trying to view live tv.

[chipwitch]

No - highly unlikely that you got files just sitting at the ment. They may have been streams from earlier still running, but these files were definitely as a result of something trying to view live tv.

Some of those files are a month old. Instead of stopping the npvr processes, I rebooted. Then I was able to delete the files. FWIW.

I have tried your suggestion. It works pretty much as you described with one exception. It looks like the buffer files are all 7 minutes long and it isn't deleting the first one. That one is persistent and can't be deleted. The second one keeps getting deleted anytime a new file starts. If I stop the live tv stream, ALL 5 files are deleted.

Unless you have anything else to add, it looks like it's just the timeshift Martin mentioned. I'll monitor more closely and let you know if there are any changes.

Thank you

[Android]

I have a similar problem.. amongst others.. The temporary files never get deleted, so I have taken to manually deleting them from time to time.
I never use the "Live TV" function though.. always watch TV by going through the guide. Should that make a difference?
Most other usage is watching recorded shows - if I can get them to record consistently..
Running Windows 10. Was using Kodi, but gave up on that, seems nextPVR offers all the functionality that I was using in Kodi anyway.

[sub]

The temporary files never get deleted,

Is that really the case?

Same advice as above - If you empty out that directory, and start viewing live tv, you should see up to 4 files get created. When it creates the 5th file, the oldest is deleted. When you stop live tv, the four files should get deleted. Is that not happening for you?

(as noted above by Android above, you may find the original file stays there too, until live tv is stopped)

[Android]

That sure seems to be the case... I have manually deleted a lot of files from the temp directory. I first noticed the problem when the machine complained that the disk was full. Took me a while to find the problem, but deleted over 250Gb (!) of files, only leaving the 4 that were in use. These files dated back to when I first set the machine up - approx. 3 months.
I will check it out again tonight and see if I can spot any deletion going on and get back to you.

Just a clarification, when selecting a channel to watch using the guide, that is the same as selecting a channel using Live TV? So when the channel is changed the files should be tidied up?