Failed recording

[djtaylor]

I don't know what's up with the series that i'm trying to record, I think it's jinxed as I have yet to record more than one programme!

Other timed recordings have worked ok but on this one this evening I have a log file full of the following for the hour duration of the recording. Any suggestions?:-

26/01/2006 19:58:00.187 ERROR [35] Caught unexpected exception: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
26/01/2006 19:58:00.187 ERROR [35] at GBPVR.RecordingService.RecordingManager.WorkerThread()
26/01/2006 19:58:00.390 ERROR [35] Caught unexpected exception: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
26/01/2006 19:58:00.390 ERROR [35] at GBPVR.RecordingService.RecordingManager.WorkerThread()
26/01/2006 19:58:00.593 ERROR [35] Caught unexpected exception: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
26/01/2006 19:58:00.593 ERROR [35] at GBPVR.RecordingService.RecordingManager.WorkerThread()

[sub]

What are you using to schedule your recordings? Was it scheduled from the tv guide, or web admin, or plugin? If plugin, which one?

[djtaylor]

To be honest, I can't remember on this one. I think I might have done this season pass via the web interface. Pretty much every other recording seems to work apart from the odd failure with the machine locking up or something like that but this is the second time that I have seen this error repeating for the duration of the intended recording but resulting in a failed in the Recordings list.

Do you think it's worth deleting this season recording and doing it again? Is there something I should look for in the gbpvr.mdb that might help?

Is the error in the log particularly indicative of anything specific?

Thanks

David.

[sub]

Whats the exact name of the show? Jorm had this with one show also. I'd be curious if it was the same show.

[djtaylor]

Whats the exact name of the show? Jorm had this with one show also. I'd be curious if it was the same show.

Right, i've had a peek in the recording schedule table and I'm pretty sure I can see what the issue is.

The capture source is wrong in the schedule but it's how got there that's worth mentioning in case others hit this.

In the beginning, I had one capture source, a Freecom DVB stick and it's capture source oid was 1. I created recordings and recordings worked. Then one day I said "let there be more oids!" and so it was that I bought a Nova-T.

However, it was my intention that the new Nova-T would be the first device with the freecom stick second. The only way that I could achieve this was to remove and reconfigure the devices. The issue is that the capture source oid's don't appear to be reused but are used sequentially because they're an autonumber field and after a couple of goes, I now have capture source oid's:-

OID 4, Nova-T
OID 6, Freecom DVB

The recording that failed was a recurring recording that was set up when I only had the Freecom with OID 1. It looks to me like gbpvr always uses the values in the recurring recording record rather than using a free tuner capable of recording the programme at the actual time.

Is this deduction correct? If so that scuppers my plan to sometimes take my Freecom stick with me when I go away but to disable the channels in the config as it looks like I would stand to have failed recordings that were set for that device because gbpvr isn't using a capable tuner dynamically. Not really a problem now that I know.

Cheers
David.

[sub]

Ok, thats an interesting read, and I'm sure you're on the right track.

It looks to me like gbpvr always uses the values in the recurring recording record rather than using a free tuner capable of recording the programme at the actual time.

This isnt correct. After each EPG update it checks if there any shows that match season recordings, and for any that it finds it looks for a free capture sources with the requested channel, then schedules the recording agains whatever tuner it finds. It doesnt use the original capture source OID.

[djtaylor]

Ok, thats an interesting read, and I'm sure you're on the right track.

This isnt correct. After each EPG update it checks if there any shows that match season recordings, and for any that it finds it looks for a free capture sources with the requested channel, then schedules the recording agains whatever tuner it finds. It doesnt use the original capture source OID.

Ok, that's good to know so there shouldn't be a problem in that case if I temporarily disable a tuner by unchecking all the channels available to it, as long as the EPG has updated, it will recheck and re-schedule. That correct?

Thanks
David.

[sub]

It wont reschedule any 'pending' recordings that are already scheduled, but no new recordings will be allocated to that capture source while the channels are disabled. I know that is not exactly what you were hoping for.

[djtaylor]

It wont reschedule any 'pending' recordings that are already scheduled, but no new recordings will be allocated to that capture source. I know that is not exactly what you were hoping for.

Understood, so there's still the chance that forward scheduled season recordings would be scuppered. That's fine, I can work with that. I'd just whiz through the database to bump any scheduled on oid 6 to 4. I wouldn't expect support for this method.

David.