Understanding Recording Priority Rules???

[HarryH3]

Every now and then I'll see a recording conflict, but in nearly every instance, at least one of the conflicting shows is on the same channel again within 2-4 hours after the scheduled time. I'm trying to understand how the recording priority rules work.  Do they refuse to even look for alternate times for any of the shows that already have a higher priority?  Is it possible to set the rules to allow a different recording time, regardless of priority?  That would resolve nearly every conflict that I see on my system.  My current fix is to either A) manually reschedule one of the shows, or B) move the "new" show that is in conflict from the bottom to the top of the priority list.  Either way, then the conflict is gone after the EPG updates that night.

For example, the current conflict is at 8:00 PM on June 4.

Don't Record: In The Dark
Cancel: Mountain Men
Cancel: Blindspot
Cancel: Restaurant Impossible

Mountain Men episode is on again at 11:03 PM
Restaurant Impossible episode is on again at 11 PM

Can I set something to tell NPVR that it's OK to go ahead and change one of the recording times if it finds another timeslot available?

Sometimes I don't even notice that there is a conflict until after the recording has been missed. 

Logs attached.

[sub]

Basically, at the end of updating the epg, it'll also update the recording schedule. The general steps consist of:

1) Work its way through recurring recordings, in priority order, looking for matching shows to be scheduled. Any that match, but can't be recorded will get added to the 'working conflicts list'.
2) Work its way through one-off recordings, ensuring these are scheduled
3) Work its way through 'working conflicts list', checking if alternative airing of the same episode can be found on the same channel, and trying schedule it. If one can't be found on the same channel, it'll look for it on other channels. These alternative airings don't care what time a show may be airing, or any other rules. It just has to have the same unique ID.

[sub]

It looked like it did schedule Mountain Men at 8PM on Jun 4th.

2020-05-24 01:04:26.575 [INFO][151] UpdateRecurringRecording(345, 'Mountain Men'):
....
2020-05-24 01:04:26.684 [DEBUG][151] - Potential episode at: 6/4/2020 8:00:00 PM
2020-05-24 01:04:26.684 [DEBUG][151] ...check IsValid()
2020-05-24 01:04:26.685 [DEBUG][151] ...scheduling episode

[HarryH3]

It looked like it did schedule Mountain Men at 8PM on Jun 4th.

2020-05-24 01:04:26.575 [INFO][151] UpdateRecurringRecording(345, 'Mountain Men'):
....
2020-05-24 01:04:26.684 [DEBUG][151] - Potential episode at: 6/4/2020 8:00:00 PM
2020-05-24 01:04:26.684 [DEBUG][151]   ...check IsValid()
2020-05-24 01:04:26.685 [DEBUG][151]   ...scheduling episode

Thanks sub, but that is the time and date of the conflict.  I would expect it to reschedule Mountain Men for the 11:03 PM airing.  Either that or reschedule Restaurant Impossible for the 11:00 PM airing.  The conflict is still listed. 

[sub]

Thanks sub, but that is the time and date of the conflict.

Ah, sorry - right you are.

I would expect it to reschedule Mountain Men for the 11:03 PM airing.  Either that or reschedule Restaurant Impossible for the 11:00 PM airing.  The conflict is still listed. 

No - Mountain Men was higher on the priority list, so it's scheduling needs were taken care of earlier. It doesn't go back and reschedule higher priority shows if it has an issue scheduling a lower priority show. (This isn't a new NextPVR v5 thing - it has always behaved that way)

In the case of 'In the Dark', it found no alternative airings, on either the same channel, or another channel.

[HarryH3]

I would expect it to reschedule Mountain Men for the 11:03 PM airing.  Either that or reschedule Restaurant Impossible for the 11:00 PM airing.  The conflict is still listed. 

No - Mountain Men was higher on the priority list, so it's scheduling needs were taken care of earlier. It doesn't go back and reschedule higher priority shows if it has an issue scheduling a lower priority show. (This isn't a new NextPVR v5 thing - it has always behaved that way)

In the case of 'In the Dark', it found no alternative airings, on either the same channel, or another channel.

Yes, I've had the problem in the past as well.  I think that In the Dark is a new show, so when my wife adds a new show, it goes to the very bottom of the priority list.  If there's a conflict, it never gets scheduled, even though there are other shows in the timeslot that could move.  That's why I was asking if there is a way to alter that behavior so that it would indeed go back and decide that "Oh yeah, I CAN move one of those other shows".  ;-)

[BrettB]

I would expect it to reschedule Mountain Men for the 11:03 PM airing.  Either that or reschedule Restaurant Impossible for the 11:00 PM airing.  The conflict is still listed. 

No - Mountain Men was higher on the priority list, so it's scheduling needs were taken care of earlier. It doesn't go back and reschedule higher priority shows if it has an issue scheduling a lower priority show. (This isn't a new NextPVR v5 thing - it has always behaved that way)

In the case of 'In the Dark', it found no alternative airings, on either the same channel, or another channel.

Yes, I've had the problem in the past as well.  I think that In the Dark is a new show, so when my wife adds a new show, it goes to the very bottom of the priority list.  If there's a conflict, it never gets scheduled, even though there are other shows in the timeslot that could move.  That's why I was asking if there is a way to alter that behavior so that I would indeed go back and decide that "Oh yeah, I CAN move on of those other shows".  ;-)

So I believe that your "solution" is to move shows which don't/won't have alternate air times higher in the priority list so that they get scheduled before shows where NextPVR would be able to find alternative airings.

I don't believe that there is a way to change the priority for recurring recordings in the web interface, but from the NextPVR.exe client or the remote GUI client (via knewc or Nlite), you should be able to change the priorities just like with v4.

[BrettB]

For example, the current conflict is at 8:00 PM on June 4.

Don't Record: In The Dark
Cancel: Mountain Men
Cancel: Blindspot
Cancel: Restaurant Impossible

Mountain Men episode is on again at 11:03 PM
Restaurant Impossible episode is on again at 11 PM

Sub: Would you consider modifying the routine for handling a conflict so that it would use the logic from the find alternative airings and if there are alternative airings possible, then either in addition to the "Cancel" option or in place of the "Cancel" option give an option to move to an alternative airing? So in Harry's case here, instead of "Cancel Mountain Men" and "Cancel Restaurant Impossible" he'd have options to "Reschedule to Alternative Airing".

[HarryH3]

Sub: Would you consider modifying the routine for handling a conflict so that it would use the logic from the find alternative airings and if there are alternative airings possible, then either in addition to the "Cancel" option or in place of the "Cancel" option give an option to move to an alternative airing? So in Harry's case here, instead of "Cancel Mountain Men" and "Cancel Restaurant Impossible" he'd have options to "Reschedule to Alternative Airing".

Something like what BrettB proposed would make it far easier to resolve conflicts.  Another idea could be to add a check box to the "Schedule a recording" box with something like "It's OK to schedule this show to record at a different time to resolve conflicts."  That could kick in regardless of priority to resolve conflicts automagically.  If no alternates exist, then in the end, the lowest priority of a conflict is still the loser. But alas, I'm not a programmer, so I'm sure that the code behind something like that is not trivial. 

I (apparently wrongly) thought that a higher priority just meant that in the event NPVR could not find any way to schedule all recordings for a timeslot, then the lowest priority would be the one not recorded, but only if an alternative airing was not available for any of the recordings.  I didn't realize that NPVR scheduled recordings in order, according their priority, and that once a recording was scheduled, it would not try to resolve a conflict further down the list by checking to see if any of the already scheduled recordings for that timeslot could be recorded at another time.

[Ricknextpvr]

It appears that the real issue here is the NextPVR lacks a "my wife scheduled it" priority indicator, which would override all others.  Seems a major failing of the software...