Interesting timing of this event. I ran into strange things yesterday on my MAC with latest prerelease - it hung forever, until I had to complete some unexpected privacy authentication on my MAC detailed here:
I wonder if this is related. I dont have a windows based server, but perhaps this is manifesting in different ways on different platforms. On my machine, it looks like I have remnants of two installs - see my screenshot. It was a little freaky for me as well.
The logs show:
2025/12/12 20:50:48.452941 [SYS] Starting Channels DVR v2025.10.30.0047 (windows-x86_64 pid:14312) in C:\ProgramData\ChannelsDVR\data
and
2025/12/12 20:57:01.066315 [SYS] Starting Channels DVR v2025.12.12.0245 (windows-x86_64 pid:38640) in C:\ProgramData\ChannelsDVR\data
I had a similar experience on my Windows 11 server.
The upgrade was taking a long time and nothing seemed to be happening.
It just happened that Windows was due for an update so I proceeded with the Windows update. The computer got restarted in the process. Once it was rebooted, Channels DVR restarted and it was at the latest version.
Not sure exactly what happened but everything was working after a computer restart.
Do you have entries in the DVR log from before 12/12/2025?
If you do, you can check the log entries for the time when you had the problem.
To see more log entries https://getchannels.com/docs/getting-started/faqs/subscription/#how-can-i-view-more-of-the-channels-dvr-server-log
No prior logs, no.
You can revert back to a previous release using symlink
If I can't find the symlink from File Explorer, how can I change it?
I run all my Channels servers on Linux so I can't help you on Windows. Maybe one of the Windows guys can chime in here...
In Windows you can use the command mklink from the Command Prompt. You will need to study the proper usage. I use the following commands to move my streaming folder to another drive, but that doesn't help you much.
List junction
dir /AL /S (drive or path of junction)
Remove Junction - remove directory
rd (link)
Create Junction
cd to (path of DVR folder)
mklink /J Streaming f:\Streaming
For Windows I would recommend not using mklink and just change the directory names or copy the files to the latest directory using File Explorer. The ChannelsDVR files are under the C:\ProgramData\ChannelsDVR folder. You will see all the dates of the previous versions. You would need to stop the ChannelsDVR server from running and then just copy all the files from a previous version into the latest folder. Then restart the server.
Again - File Explorer does not show me an entry named ProgramData under C:. I feel very lucky that I even know it's there.
There are lots of hidden directories and files in Windows. In File Explorer select View, Show, Hidden Items. Just be careful, they hide them so we won't accidentally delete or move the wrong item.
Or just open Explorer and manually type c:\programdata and then press enter.
Another upgrade to the latest pre-release failed - no "latest" shortcut was made, so the service didn't start. I posted another thread about it.
So I just launched an upgrade to the pre-release, 2026.01.14.0118. The server went away and never came back. The shortcut in the start menu was C:\ProgramData\ChannelsDVR\latest\channels-dvr.exe, but that path was not found. No "latest" shortcut exists in C:\ProgramData\ChannelsDVR. I tried to create one manually, but I could not get the syntax right. I edited the link in that start menu, so that at least this thing will start up automatically on reboot. This seems like a fixable install issue, please have a look.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
I have this upgrade that is pending and my server is also running on Windows.
Thank you for the warning and providing a manual fix for it.
Hopefully, the developers will see this thread.
@maddox @tmm1 @eric
Our updater checks for errors on each step of the process, and if there are any errors, they are reported in the logs and the update is cancelled.
The situation we have seen where files or directories are missing have been traced to anti-virus software going in and deleting things after we have done our process. There isn't anything we can do about the things that users run on their systems that interfere with our upgrade process.
In the case of @rthurlow61 I see in the diagnostics that the first time that the user attempted the update, it failed our verification check (which shouldn't happen under normal circumstances) which is another indicator that some anti-virus software was preventing the normal operations of the DVR system.
My system is currently in a broken state - how can I restore it? Specifically, what should the shortcuts look like? This was probably broken the prior time an upgrade failed, and right now the startup folder is hard-coded to the current release, and there's nothing that makes a "latest" shortcut work.
If the DVR is running, make sure you make a backup, then download the DVR installer and install the DVR again.
I ran the installer with the DVR running. Instead of a dated directory, it looks like the latest stable release is installed in a directory called "latest" - I thought I saw a shortcut before.
What SHOULD C:\ProgramData\ChannelsDVR look like?
Should be a shortcut in this folder that points to the exe file in the "latest" folder. It contains the running version. All the dated folders are previously installed versions. They are not used except for troubleshooting problems.