40 Interrupted Recordings

Channels DVR Server Troubleshooting
#1

I have a large group of recordings showing the "Interrupted" error. I Have Questions:

Is there a way to troubleshoot this?

When a show is recorded, from that point forward it will not let you record. Is recording blocked for a movie marked interrupted, or will it record automatically the next time it shows? If so, is the failed recording then erased?

If there is no auto procedure, in order to replace what must be a failed recording, do I delete the original so I can rerecord it if it shows again? I would prefer to keep the old one in case it does not reshow.

In that light. Can or should we make a back up copy of the directory (directories) in case of future crash, that could be rebuilt?

#2

I get a lot of these to and have the same questions.

#3

To try and determine what may have gone wrong with the recording, review the DVR log in the web interface. Any errors are logged there. You can also find just the log section relevant to the recording by finding the recording in the web interface and looking at the advanced options there.

To answer some of your other questions, Channels really doesn’t like recording the same thing twice (for obvious reasons). Are these recording being recorded from a pass, or are you setting them manually? If done from a pass, you can edit advanced pass settings I. The web interface to “re-record deleted”. I’m honestly not exactly sure how that works for manually created recordings. Hopefully somebody else will chime in.

1 Like
#4

I get the feeling that it would be fascinating to hear an example of where looking at the DVR log helped any end user. I get the Interrupted notice on recordings. When I open the log, which seems to never end, I can scroll for minutes at a time and see absolutely nothing that informs me about any issue. Maybe it's just me. I will point out that despite the Interrupted tag, I can't tell you there was an error from watching the show. They look and play fine.

#5

I have to agree with you that the average Channels user doesn't want to interpret log data and the devs have mentioned they're trying to surface more data to help those users.

For instance if a recording is delayed (started late) maybe display how many seconds/minutes late.
Same for interrupted recordings, how many seconds/minutes, could be 1 second.

I tend to check the logs when I have issues as I've become accustomed to reading and interpreting them, but I understand I'm in that minority.

#6

Thank you everyone for your comments so far! I also have viewed the log to no advantage. I'm sure if someone knows how to read it, there would be significant information there. I admit, I am a bit lost. I would welcome instruction if it exists.

I also noticed some recordings showing "delayed", and others "cancelled". Are there instructions for handling these? Including, should I try to rerecord them?

Are we able to back up a file, possibly rename it, then try to rerecord. I'm not playing with anything until I find some direction, I am just trying to find answers.

#7

The behavior I would expect is it keeps the interrupted recording and schedules it to record again when available. At that point it should delete the interrupted one.

#8

Channels DVR will not automatically try to reschedule a recording that shows as Interrupted, Delayed or Cancelled. That information is just presented to you as a user so you know something happened with the recording.

It would not be a good idea to automatically reschedule one (could cause tuner conflicts also) and delete the original, as who knows what the quality is on the new one until it's watched.

Also, Interruped could mean that one second of commercials was lost because of a network, tuner or TVE feed glitch.

The only way I know of to troubleshoot is to take one at a time, examine the logs starting at the time the recording was scheduled to start and see what the logs say for the duration of the scheduled recording.

#9

I'm showing logs here for a good recording, but assume I had an issue with this recording. Super Factories - S01E03 - NASA's Rocket Factory

I view the details of it in all recordings and find it was scheduled to record 7/29 at 7pm for an hour with 30 seconds end padding and recorded from channel 756.

So it should have recorded from 2020/07/29 19:00:00 to 2020/07/29 20:00:30.

I view the logs and search using CTRL-F for 2020/07/29.

I look at the timestamps and find 2020/07/29 19:00 which is 7pm.

There is some 'noise' in the logs, which is info unrelated to my recording which I ignore.

All log data for duration of recording

2020/07/29 19:00:00.012455 [DVR] Starting job 1596074400-339 Super Factories on ch=[756]
2020/07/29 19:00:00.012549 [DVR] Skipping job 1596081600-8 NOVA
2020/07/29 19:00:00.012572 [DVR] Waiting 2h59m59.9874359s until next job 1596085200-336 Forces of Nature
2020/07/29 19:00:00.012707 [TNR] Sharing existing connection to 1323AADB/0 for ch756 SCIHD (clients=2, len=0)
2020/07/29 19:00:00.049410 [DVR] Recording for job 1596074400-339 from 1323AADB ch756 into "TV/Super Factories/Super Factories S01E03 NASAs Rocket Factory 2020-07-29-1900.mpg" for 1h0m29.987411537s
2020/07/29 19:00:00.154987 [IDX] Generating video index for job 1596074400-339
2020/07/29 19:00:30.460580 [SNR] Statistics for "TV/Impossible Engineering/Impossible Engineering S05E10 Texas Super Skyscraper 2020-07-29-1800.mpg": ss=95%-96% snq=100% seq=100% bps=3698198,918944-5426432 pps=356,109-515
2020/07/29 19:00:30.465975 [DVR] Finished job 1596070800-198 Impossible Engineering
2020/07/29 19:00:30.513349 [DVR] Skipping job 1596081600-8 NOVA
2020/07/29 19:00:30.513438 [DVR] Waiting 2h59m29.486571386s until next job 1596085200-336 Forces of Nature
2020/07/29 19:00:30.514435 [DVR] Processing file-2554: TV/Impossible Engineering/Impossible Engineering S05E10 Texas Super Skyscraper 2020-07-29-1800.mpg
2020/07/29 19:00:30.910388 [DVR] Running commercial detection on file 2554 (TV/Impossible Engineering/Impossible Engineering S05E10 Texas Super Skyscraper 2020-07-29-1800.mpg)
2020/07/29 19:04:15.889122 [DVR] Skipping job 1596081600-8 NOVA
2020/07/29 19:04:20.274802 [DVR] Rule 'Forces of Nature-706 4 episodes' (336) found 3 new airings
2020/07/29 19:04:20.286335 [DVR]   queued recording job for EP024683510002 @ Wed Jul 29 10:00:00PM (1596085200-336)
2020/07/29 19:04:20.289311 [DVR]   queued recording job for EP024683510003 @ Wed Aug 5 10:00:00PM (1596690000-336)
2020/07/29 19:04:20.309055 [DVR]   queued recording job for EP024683510004 @ Wed Aug 12 10:00:00PM (1597294800-336)
2020/07/29 19:04:20.956763 [DVR] Skipping job 1596081600-8 NOVA
2020/07/29 19:04:20.956851 [DVR] Waiting 2h55m39.043161702s until next job 1596085200-336 Forces of Nature
2020/07/29 19:13:47.135165 [DVR] Commercial detection for Impossible Engineering S05E10 Texas Super Skyscraper 2020-07-29-1800.mpg finished with 12 markers.
2020/07/29 20:00:30.000361 [TNR] Closed connection to 1323AADB/0 for ch756 SCIHD
2020/07/29 20:00:30.037175 [SNR] Statistics for "TV/Super Factories/Super Factories S01E03 NASAs Rocket Factory 2020-07-29-1900.mpg": ss=95%-97% snq=100% seq=100% bps=3704832,918944-5426432 pps=357,109-515
2020/07/29 20:00:30.043556 [DVR] Finished job 1596074400-339 Super Factories

Eliminating the 'noise'

2020/07/29 19:00:00.012455 [DVR] Starting job 1596074400-339 Super Factories on ch=[756]
2020/07/29 19:00:00.012707 [TNR] Sharing existing connection to 1323AADB/0 for ch756 SCIHD (clients=2, len=0)
2020/07/29 19:00:00.049410 [DVR] Recording for job 1596074400-339 from 1323AADB ch756 into "TV/Super Factories/Super Factories S01E03 NASAs Rocket Factory 2020-07-29-1900.mpg" for 1h0m29.987411537s
2020/07/29 19:00:00.154987 [IDX] Generating video index for job 1596074400-339
2020/07/29 20:00:30.000361 [TNR] Closed connection to 1323AADB/0 for ch756 SCIHD
2020/07/29 20:00:30.037175 [SNR] Statistics for "TV/Super Factories/Super Factories S01E03 NASAs Rocket Factory 2020-07-29-1900.mpg": ss=95%-97% snq=100% seq=100% bps=3704832,918944-5426432 pps=357,109-515
2020/07/29 20:00:30.043556 [DVR] Finished job 1596074400-339 Super Factories

NOTE: This is for a recording from an HDHR tuner, logs will look a bit different for a TVE recording

Incomplete Movie Recordings
#10

For reference, here a good recording from TVE channel BBC America [6087]

Earthflight - S01E01 - North America (Extended)
Guide shows 5:00pm-6:10pm

Since it's TVE, I always pre-pad 10 seconds (in case issues starting stream) and post-pad 3 minutes (want 2, but not a choice), so recording should be 16:59:50-18:13:00

Complete recording log

2020/08/01 14:17:52.109376 [DVR] Waiting 2h41m57.890640522s until next job 1596326390-ch6087 Earthflight
2020/08/01 16:53:35.184305 [SYS] Created database snapshot: backup-20200801.165335
2020/08/01 16:53:35.184635 [SYS] Removing old backup backup-20200704.145943
2020/08/01 16:59:50.009230 [DVR] Starting job 1596326390-ch6087 Earthflight on ch=[6087]
2020/08/01 16:59:50.009364 [DVR] Waiting 14h59m9.990653508s until next job 1596380340-25 NASA & SpaceX: Countdown to Splashdown
2020/08/01 16:59:51.704622 [TNR] Opened connection to TVE-Comcast_SSO for ch6087 BBCA
2020/08/01 16:59:51.705082 [DVR] Recording for job 1596326390-ch6087 from TVE-Comcast_SSO ch6087 into "TV/Earthflight/Earthflight S01E00 North America Extended 2020-08-01-1659.mpg" for 1h13m9.990563709s
2020/08/01 16:59:51.784590 [DVR] Refreshing metadata for Earthflight (8980579)
2020/08/01 16:59:51.973593 [IDX] Generating video index for job 1596326390-ch6087
2020/08/01 18:13:01.716837 [TNR] Closed connection to TVE-Comcast_SSO for ch6087 BBCA
2020/08/01 18:13:01.732148 [MTS] Statistics for "TV/Earthflight/Earthflight S01E00 North America Extended 2020-08-01-1659.mpg": skipped=0 unhandled_packets=0 discontinuity_detected=0 transport_errors=0 invalid_pts=0 invalid_dts=0 saw_pcr=true saw_pmt=true highest_pts=4398.470400
2020/08/01 18:13:01.741325 [DVR] Finished job 1596326390-ch6087 Earthflight

recording log with 'noise' removed

2020/08/01 16:59:50.009230 [DVR] Starting job 1596326390-ch6087 Earthflight on ch=[6087]
2020/08/01 16:59:51.704622 [TNR] Opened connection to TVE-Comcast_SSO for ch6087 BBCA
2020/08/01 16:59:51.705082 [DVR] Recording for job 1596326390-ch6087 from TVE-Comcast_SSO ch6087 into "TV/Earthflight/Earthflight S01E00 North America Extended 2020-08-01-1659.mpg" for 1h13m9.990563709s
2020/08/01 16:59:51.784590 [DVR] Refreshing metadata for Earthflight (8980579)
2020/08/01 16:59:51.973593 [IDX] Generating video index for job 1596326390-ch6087
2020/08/01 18:13:01.716837 [TNR] Closed connection to TVE-Comcast_SSO for ch6087 BBCA
2020/08/01 18:13:01.732148 [MTS] Statistics for "TV/Earthflight/Earthflight S01E00 North America Extended 2020-08-01-1659.mpg": skipped=0 unhandled_packets=0 discontinuity_detected=0 transport_errors=0 invalid_pts=0 invalid_dts=0 saw_pcr=true saw_pmt=true highest_pts=4398.470400
2020/08/01 18:13:01.741325 [DVR] Finished job 1596326390-ch6087 Earthflight
#11

To be clear the Log here refers to the Log tab at the top right of the DVR web UI.

There is a separate "Recording Log" link under each individual recording that we should maybe rename to Debug Log. That one is not meant for human consumption.

1 Like
#12

Hers a question... If a recording is interrupted and it's something syndicated, will it record again? I'm trying to record MASH episodes and didn't realize I was out of space. I have about 10+ episodes that say recording interrupted. So will I never get those episodes to actually record again when they air again? If not, this would be annoying.

And why isn't there some sort of alert for running out of storage? Seems like another basic tivo thing that should be basic here. I mean tivo is the holy grail of dvr's yet so many basic features don't exist here and some that do are often buried.

Add to that, it takes way to many button presses to get to exploring other episodes than the first unwatched.

Or, how do I swap the up next with recently updated? Recording old syndicated series, I don't need to watch them in order. It'd be nice if it would go to a list with the up next one highlighted so I can just scroll from there. Getting shoehorned into more button presses is tedious.

With that, I'm trying to go through and delete bad recordings... Tedious is a tremendous understatement. Literally have to go through season after season and scroll through every episode of everything I have recorded to try and find bad recordings. No indicators anywhere except on the episode itself. Why is there no indicator on the folder?

#13

I don’t believe so. You would have to either find it in the guide again and record it manually, or you can also edit the advanced settings of the pass and enable “re-record deleted” and delete the bad recordings. They would then re-record if they air again.

#14

This has been requested by others in the past, but I’m not sure if the Devs have ever commented. I think one thing holding this back is that there is no notification mechanism really. Thus far badges on episodes has been about all there is. There aren’t pop-ups, push notifications, or e-mails that the DVR server could send, for example. Not sure if adding something like that is on the Devs’ radar or not.

#15

It could just be in the menu as an alert of sorts. Not talking a pop up or something. Funny... Some things in this are just so well thought out and intuitive. Others are just disjointed, dysfunctional or non existent like Dvr's didn't exist until channels and they're starting from scratch. Tivo ruled the roost for a reason. Pull as much as you can from it. Especially considering a vast number of your user base actually used tivo at some point and probably found channels because they used tivo.

#16

Sigh. Between MASH and Big Bang I would constantly be out of storage space and forever micromanaging. Granted a larger drive will happen at some point, but still...

It should know the deference between "playback failed" set up to re-record, and missing a minute or so something due to an error. And in reality, it does know the difference because the icon for a playback failed show just shows the icon for the show and not the image of what's on when it starts recording. So if it knows the difference, it should be able to have an instruction set to keep it in the need to record section, or whatever they call it.