Thank you!!
I migrated from an existing installation RPi 4 on Raspbian with the Channels DVR Server installed on an external USB3.0 HD (EXT4 format)-- over to a new installation of Channels DVR Server for RPi 4 (USB Boot Image).
I've flashed the Boot Image to a 60GB SSD, powered it up and plugged in the same EXT4 formatted USB3.0 HD which has all of my old recordings from my Raspbian installation. I restored the latest DVR database from backup, but when I go to activate the previous DVR folder (from the prior Raspbian installation) on the web interface I get Error: no write permissions on dvr directory.
So I created a new, second DVR folder on the same USB3.0 HD, and now I can activate the DVR and start recordings, etc. But all of my old recordings made with the Raspbian installation are visible, but I cannot play any of them: I can only see that they are there. New recordings record and play fine into the new DVR folder.
But now I have two DVR folders on that USB3.0 HD, one from the old Raspbian install and one from the new USB Boot install:
My question is -- what is the best way to get access to my old recordings made with my Raspbian installation? Do I need to get a second blank USB3.0 HD, and copy over everything to that?
(I had hoped that I could connect to the Samba mount via the Finder and move the old recordings / folders, but I can't modify anything).
Thank you in advance for your assistance.
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Please click Support > Submit Diagnostics. I didn't test with ext4 so the permissions aren't right.
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Logs submitted as 71384cb6-5f9f-4370-9151-ca09604bf369. Thank you.
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Okay so you need to fix the permissions on the old DVR folder as follows:
chown -R 501:501 /media/EXT2TB/DVR
You will need to do this either on another Linux machine, or by enabling SSH on the Pi and connecting to port 22222
I couldnāt get the chown command to work exactly as you had it written, but hereās what I tried (unsuccessfully).
- I put the old microSD card with Raspbian back into the RPi 4 (basically my old Channels DVR setup) and the EXT4 USB HD shows up in /mnt, not /media.
- So in Terminal, I changed the chown command you provided to point to /mnt/EXT2TB/DVR (instead of /media/EXT2TB/DVR), and the chown command responded with a bunch of files with āoperation not permittedā.
- Then, trying to modify the permissions using the RaspbianOS File Manager, right-clicking on the /mnt/EXT2TB/DVR folder and changing the permissions gave a response about not being able to change permissions on symlinks. But the permissions tab Access Control now says Anyone can View / Change / Access content.
I connected the EXT4 drive to my RPi 2B, ran the chown command and it still gave me āoperation not permittedā. [The drive was mounted at /media/pi/EXT2TB/DVR, so I changed the chown command accordingly].
Since that didnāt work, can I assume it would just be easier to get a new blank HD and copy over the old recordings to the new drive?
Thanks again for your assistance.
I'm surprised it didn't work. Can you share some of the failure messages? Perhaps you need to use sudo in front?
Hereās a screencap of the errors with chown.
But when I put sudo in front of the chown, it completed without any errors. Maybe that worked?
@tmm1 So I confirmed that sudo chown did work, I can now enable my old DVR with the new USB Boot. Thanks!
How best should I consolidate these two DVR folders into one?
- Can I move the few new recordings from the DVR_New folder into the previous DVR folder (which I just ran sudo chown on, respecting TV / Movie folder structure)? I tried cutting / pasting from DVR_New ā> DVR and it gave a Permission Denied error.
- Or should I move the old recordings into the Imported folder of the DVR_New?
Thanks again.
Sounds like it worked with sudo if there were no errors shown.
I would move the files from the new folder to the old one. Do it with sudo, then run that chown again at the end.
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Will do - thank you again for your help!
I had everything working on my EXT4 formatted USB drive for about a day before I noticed that recordings were failing with a permissions error (read-only file system).
The DVR Support web page gave the following error under Disk Permissions:
Could not write to recording directories: /media/EXT2TB/DVR, /media/EXT2TB/DVR/TV, /media/EXT2TB/DVR/Movies.
I believe the DVR Server updated at least one time between it working and not working, I don't know if that contributed to the read-only errors coming back.
I re-ran sudo chown -R 501:501 /media/pi/EXT2TB/DVR (several times for good measure) and that seems to have fixed things for now: I no longer get the Disk Permissions error on the Support page.
I submitted this log c20e9bff-a229-42df-89f6-4644d1d6c21a via email as well.
Thank you.
PS. In the near future I plan to get a new 4TB USB3.0 drive and format it to ExFAT so I no longer have to deal with EXT4 and the permissions errors it seems to be causing.
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Edit - never mind - got it handled. Philo is good on the Pi.
Did you have any issues getting Philo to work? I'm using the boot image and all other sources (Spectrum, HD Homerun, Locast) work fine, Philo refuses to authenticate any channels. Philo works great through the app, my Synology NAS (using Channels) and web login, just not on the Pi4.
Just loaded this bad boy up last night, very impressed!! I am using a SD card though, should I be using a USB?
Again, so awesome
Does this use Plex for anything?
Pardon the stupid questions. Do you NEED a USB3 drive? I have smaller USB3 sticks, but not a bigger drive. I have a 2 TB drive, but not USB3. Want to test it before I spend more money on the setup. Also, how would this setup compare to using a earlier generation Shield as the server?
Any USB drive is fine. You can test it out with a stick or USB2.
Thanks,
How would this setup compare to using an earlier generation Shield as the server?
Not sure but it should be comparable
Should the Raspberry PI 4 be dedicated as only a DVR? Or can I run a VPN (Client) on it also?