DVR Offline Alerts? [SHIELD disk disconnection]

Is there any way to get an email notification (or any other method) when your DVR server is offline or not working correctly? My Shield missed a bunch of recordings this weekend because of a hard drive connection issue. It was a simple fix, but I had no idea anything was wrong for a few days.

Check out the site called Uptime Robot.

Awesome. Thanks for the tip. This looks like a great service and I went ahead and set it up, but this doesn’t look like it will fully solve my problem.

I could have choosen a better title for this post, but the issue was that my external hard drive lost connection somehow and I had to eject it, unplug it, and plug it back in. This has only happened once and I don’t know why. This doesn’t cause my DVR to become disabled or go offline. It just makes all of my recordings fail.

Any other ideas?

Can you look at http://x.x.x.x:8089/log?n=10000 and see what error messages the DVR was hitting while the drive got disconnected?

I couldn’t find any sign of the hard drive disconnecting in the log, but here is an example of a failed recording.

2018/04/15 20:01:02 [DVR] Error running job 1523836800-14 American Idol: stat /storage/A472-ACEC/NVIDIA_SHIELD/DVR: transport endpoint is not connected

We’ve seen this error reported by other SHIELD users before. It’s unclear why the drive disconnects randomly like that.

I’m going to reach out to our contacts at NVidia to see if they can offer any advice. Ideally the DVR itself could detect when this has happened and fix it somehow.

When you fixed it yourself, did you reboot the shield? Or physically disconnect and reconnect the drive?

Thanks so much for your help!

/I didn’t reboot the Shield. I went to the storage settings and it was showing it as connected, but with 0.0GB total and 0.0GB availible. So I ejected it, then physically unplugged it and plugged it back in and it started working again.

I am using a WD Elements Portable drive directly connected (no hub). I have been using this setup for a couple of weeks now and this has only happened once (knock on wood).

I did reboot the Shield earlier that morning and I wonder if this could have caused it. Maybe the hard drive never connected correctly after boot, rather than losing the connection? I don’t know if there is anything useful in here, but here are the logs for that day from boot to recording failure.

2018/04/15 10:19:46 [SYS] Starting Channels DVR v2018.04.05.2059 (android-arm64) in /data/data/com.getchannels.dvr/files/channels-dvr/data
2018/04/15 10:19:47 [HDR] Found 1 devices
2018/04/15 10:19:48 [SYS] Started HTTP Server
2018/04/15 10:19:50 [DVR] Recording engine started in /storage/A472-ACEC/NVIDIA_SHIELD/DVR
2018/04/15 10:19:50 [SYS] Bonjour service running for dvr-shield.local. [192.168.1.121]
2018/04/15 10:19:50 [DVR] Waiting 9h40m9.753862507s until next job 1523836800-14 American Idol
2018/04/15 10:19:50 [SYS] Created database snapshot: backup-20180415.101950
2018/04/15 10:19:50 [SYS] Removing old backup backup-20180321.142436
2018/04/15 10:20:00 [IDX] Pruned 36 expired airings from USA-OTA23323 in 147.478541ms.
2018/04/15 20:00:00 [DVR] Starting job 1523836800-14 American Idol on ch=[13.1]
2018/04/15 20:00:00 [DVR] Waiting 15h59m59.966104015s until next job 1523894400-3 Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
2018/04/15 20:00:00 [TNR] Opened connection to 1062D111 for ch13.1
2018/04/15 20:00:00 [TNR] Closed connection to 1062D111 for ch13.1
2018/04/15 20:00:00 [DVR] Error running job 1523836800-14 American Idol: stat /storage/A472-ACEC/NVIDIA_SHIELD/DVR: transport endpoint is not connected

What filesystem is your drive using? Is it usb2 or usb3? Are you using external power or powered via usb only?

exFAT, USB 3.0, powered by USB cable with a direct connection (no hub).

I think I may have figured out the problem but I can’t be entirely sure. I think it was Plex. I also use my Shield as a Plex server and store video files on the external drive for Plex as well as Channels. I noticed that the drive did this weird disconnection thing while I was streaming from Plex. I don’t know if this is when/how it was losing connection the other times, but it is very possible. So I removed my Plex library from the external hard drive to use it for channels only. It’s been going strong for 2 weeks now. :slight_smile: I’m starting to think Channels, the Shield TV, and my hard drive were never at fault. I’m afraid to go back to my old setup now, but if I decide to and it starts happening again, I will know for sure.

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Thanks, that’s helpful.

If it happens again, use about->send feedback to nvidia to report with a username and let me know what username you used so I can send it to NVidia and they can check out the system logs. Do you have any other apps installed that might be talking to usb (ES File Explorer has historically been questionable…).

No, I’m not using ES File Explorer. Channels DVR, Google Play Services, Google Play Music, Plex and Plex Media Server are now the only apps with storage permissions granted.

I will for sure if this comes up again. Thanks for all the help. :slight_smile: