Help rebuilding Recording library with NextTool?

[clemon79]

Hi folks!

Frustratingly, I discovered last night that my DVR hasn't been working correctly for a few days now, and that the Recordings database has somehow become corrupted. Recordings that I have made in the past have disappeared from both NextPVR and Kodi, new recordings aren't working, the whole nine.

(Oh: Windows 11 PC, NextPVR as the backend, Kodi as the front, HDHomeRun Prime as the tuner. All updated fully.)

On the upside, the file themselves (the .ts, and .xml, and thumbnail and timing for more recent recordings) still exist for everything.

I'm thinking NextTool is the way to go to get my recording database cleaned and rebuilt. Problem is when I ran it the first time (with "nexttool --import <path to my Recordings folder which has no spaces>", and yes, I backed up the NPVR-Data folder first), it appeared to run, and it looks like it may have fixed some things, but it missed some folders in there, which leads me to believe that there is still some corruption in my Recordings database and that I'm best served recreating that from go, especially considering I have all of the proper metadata to do it right.

Other weirdness: the NextPVR web client can't find any files to play back, while Kodi and the NPVR desktop apps play back what it found just fine. It just either didn't find everything in my Recordings folder (even though the logs say they were processed), or there is still DB corruption.

I would rather not blow the whole npvr.db3 out and have to set everything up from scratch. How can I clear out just the recordings DB so that NextTool can rebuild my recordings directory? I am not afraid to go in there with DB Browser if I have instructions as to what to do.

Thanks much for the help!

-- Chris

[mvallevand]

Without logs there are no problems.

Martin

[clemon79]

Without logs there are no problems.

Martin

Very well.

[mvallevand]

Other than the first import failing because you typed NextDVR not NextPVR there are no clear database issues, what files do you see missing? Maybe they aren't in D:\NextPVR\Recordings

For the web client perhaps you didn't test after restoring 'D:\NextPVR\Recordings'

This error is not clear though

Code:

2026-05-12 23:34:00.174    [DEBUG][10]    Unexpected error in GetTargetName: System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'D:\NextPVR\Recordings\The Late Show With Stephen Colbert' is denied.
   at System.IO.FileSystem.CreateDirectory(String fullPath, Byte[] securityDescriptor)
   at System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(String path)
   at NShared.RecordingService.GetTargetName(ScheduledRecording scheduledRecording)
   at NShared.RecordingService.WorkerThread()

That seems more like a D: issue it read from that folder for importing.

Martin

[clemon79]

Yeah, I realized my error and fixed that for a second run.

The most egregious miss is D:\NextPVR\Recordinghs\NHL Hockey Kraken, which has over a hundred hockey games in it.

It appears that D:\NextPVR\Recordings\Talkabout and D:\NextPVR\Recordings\Whew! didn't get picked up either, based on what I am seeing in the NPVR web client.

If it's telling me when recordings are failing that access to the show's folder is denied, I must have broken some access rights somewhere, which MAY have something to do with why I get a "Recording not found" when I select anything to play in the web client. (Again though, Kodi and the desktop client still work.) So: Does D:\NextPVR need to be shared out, and if so, to what account? Possibly that will fix the importing problem as well, although I don't get how only those three folders would have problems.

[mvallevand]

Files got imported into the database and on a rerun they didn't so that means NextTool found them in the database. There were a couple of Talkabout files and one Whew! file so they were scanned. Lots of NHL Hockey Kraken too. Is D: a physical drive? If so it normally wouldn't need to be shared, but check the folder permissions and maybe do a chkdsk too.

If you give me an external link to your npvr.db3 file I can check if it is corrupt

Martin

[clemon79]

Well, NextTool might have found them but they aren't showing up in NextPVR's recordings.

Yes, D: is a physical drive inside the NextPVR machine.

I can check permissions but I don't know what to check *for*, is my point. I log into this PC as my own account, and I'm an admin on this machine, so one would think it can get to whatever it needs to, yet here we are telling me it can't access the drive, even as the desktop app is playing things back. The NextPVR folder on D: is shared out on my local network because there are times when I'm on other machines and need to get to it.

Here's a share link to a copy of NPVR.DB3:

[mvallevand]

The permission error could be part of your problem NextTool may imported them but the server might have removed them. I would change this config.xml setting to false if it isn't reaady <AutoRemoveMissingRecordings>false</AutoRemoveMissingRecordings> and try NextTool again.

Martin

[clemon79]

I made that change (it was set to true), and am rebooting now.

(A "chkdsk d:" came up clean, btw.)

Okay! It looks like that did import all of the recordings! Thank you for that!

Recording is still failing, however, even if I click the record button when watching Live TV. (I don't see any errors about that in the logs, but then I don't know what logs I should be looking in for certain.) Same thing, says it can't access the folder. Actually, no, what it says is "Access to the path is denied."

[clemon79]

I think I found it: Somewhere, somehow, the access for "Users" and "Authenticated users" got wiped out for NextPVR on down. So I readded those at NextPVR (Authenticated users can read and write, users just read), and clicked the box that says "and let everything south of here inherit these permissions", and now recording seems to be working.

I was doing some stuff trying to set up the Recordings folder as an NFS share a little while ago. I wonder if whatever I was doing there blew out permissions.