In-progress recording sometimes starts playback from live instead of start

Channels DVR Server
#1

Sometimes I’ll start watching a recording that’s in progress. For example, an hour-long show started at 7:00, and I’ll start watching it at 7:20.

I go to the Recordings tab, click on the show, and click Watch.

Sometimes, the playback starts from the beginning of the show (which is what I expect), and other times the playback starts from the latest recorded spot (7:20 in this case). It’s this latter behavior that I want to avoid - I definitely want it to start from the beginning of the recording.

I can’t put my finger on exactly when it happens - sometimes it plays from the start, other times from the current time. But it’s frustrating not knowing what’s going to happen when I click “Watch”, in a spoiler-avoiding sense…

1 Like
#2

Hmm strange, I’ve never had that happen to me.

Are you transcoding, or watching at Original quality?

#3

Hmm…I assume I’m watching in original quality - I actually wasn’t even aware there was a transcode option when watching on ATV. :slight_smile:

#4

Here are my DVR logs around the time in question - I don’t see anything interesting in them, but maybe it will stir up an idea. It happened when I started watching Madam Secretary, probably about 21:15 or so.

2017/10/22 19:00:00 [DVR] Starting job 1508720400-37 Wisdom of the Crowd on ch=[4.1]
2017/10/22 19:00:00 [DVR] Waiting 59m59.939382154s until next job 1508724000-11 Shark Tank
2017/10/22 19:00:00 [TNR] Opened connection to 10484E44 for ch4.1
2017/10/22 19:00:00 [DVR] Recording for job 1508720400-37 from 10484E44 ch4.1 into "TV/Wisdom of the Crowd/Wisdom of the Crowd S01E04 2017-10-22 User Bias 2017-10-22-1900.mpg" for 59m59.939327578s
2017/10/22 20:00:00 [DVR] Deleting expired job 1508720400-37 Wisdom of the Crowd
2017/10/22 20:00:00 [DVR] Starting job 1508724000-11 Shark Tank on ch=[7.1]
2017/10/22 20:00:00 [TNR] Opened connection to 10484E44 for ch7.1
2017/10/22 20:00:00 [DVR] Starting job 1508724000-12 NCIS: Los Angeles on ch=[4.1]
2017/10/22 20:00:00 [TNR] Closed connection to 10484E44 for ch4.1
2017/10/22 20:00:00 [DVR] Waiting 59m59.433902785s until next job 1508727600-13 Madam Secretary
2017/10/22 20:00:00 [DVR] Recording for job 1508724000-11 from 10484E44 ch7.1 into "TV/Shark Tank/Shark Tank S09E05 2017-10-22 2017-10-22-2000.mpg" for 59m59.653617089s
2017/10/22 20:00:00 [DVR] Finished job 1508720400-37 Wisdom of the Crowd
2017/10/22 20:00:00 [TNR] Opened connection to 10484E44 for ch4.1
2017/10/22 20:00:00 [DVR] Recording for job 1508724000-12 from 10484E44 ch4.1 into "TV/NCIS Los Angeles/NCIS Los Angeles S09E04 2017-10-22 Plain Sight 2017-10-22-2000.mpg" for 59m59.433866672s
2017/10/22 20:00:01 [DVR] Waiting 59m58.994871458s until next job 1508727600-13 Madam Secretary
2017/10/22 20:00:01 [DVR] Processing file-474: TV/Wisdom of the Crowd/Wisdom of the Crowd S01E04 2017-10-22 User Bias 2017-10-22-1900.mpg
2017/10/22 20:00:02 [DVR] Running commercial detection on file 474 (TV/Wisdom of the Crowd/Wisdom of the Crowd S01E04 2017-10-22 User Bias 2017-10-22-1900.mpg)
2017/10/22 20:09:55 [DVR] Commercial detection finished with 14 markers.
2017/10/22 20:09:56 [SYS] Created database snapshot: backup-20171022.200956
2017/10/22 20:09:56 [SYS] Removing old backup backup-20170930.023848
2017/10/22 21:00:00 [DVR] Deleting expired job 1508724000-11 Shark Tank
2017/10/22 21:00:00 [TNR] Closed connection to 10484E44 for ch4.1
2017/10/22 21:00:00 [TNR] Closed connection to 10484E44 for ch7.1
2017/10/22 21:00:01 [DVR] Deleting expired job 1508724000-12 NCIS: Los Angeles
2017/10/22 21:00:02 [DVR] Starting job 1508727600-13 Madam Secretary on ch=[4.1]
2017/10/22 21:00:02 [DVR] Waiting 21h56m57.665597495s until next job 1508806620-15 The Big Bang Theory
2017/10/22 21:00:02 [TNR] Opened connection to 10484E44 for ch4.1
2017/10/22 21:00:02 [DVR] Recording for job 1508727600-13 from 10484E44 ch4.1 into "TV/Madam Secretary/Madam Secretary S04E03 2017-10-22 The Essentials 2017-10-22-2100.mpg" for 59m57.66554122s
2017/10/22 21:00:02 [DVR] Finished job 1508724000-11 Shark Tank
2017/10/22 21:00:02 [DVR] Finished job 1508724000-12 NCIS: Los Angeles
2017/10/22 21:00:03 [DVR] Waiting 21h56m56.72555398s until next job 1508806620-15 The Big Bang Theory
2017/10/22 21:00:03 [DVR] Processing file-476: TV/NCIS Los Angeles/NCIS Los Angeles S09E04 2017-10-22 Plain Sight 2017-10-22-2000.mpg
2017/10/22 21:00:03 [DVR] Waiting 21h56m56.425828044s until next job 1508806620-15 The Big Bang Theory
2017/10/22 21:00:04 [DVR] Running commercial detection on file 476 (TV/NCIS Los Angeles/NCIS Los Angeles S09E04 2017-10-22 Plain Sight 2017-10-22-2000.mpg)
2017/10/22 21:10:31 [DVR] Commercial detection finished with 18 markers.
2017/10/22 21:10:31 [DVR] Processing file-475: TV/Shark Tank/Shark Tank S09E05 2017-10-22 2017-10-22-2000.mpg
2017/10/22 21:10:32 [DVR] Running commercial detection on file 475 (TV/Shark Tank/Shark Tank S09E05 2017-10-22 2017-10-22-2000.mpg)
2017/10/22 21:20:03 [DVR] Commercial detection finished with 14 markers.
2017/10/22 21:20:03 [DVR] Deleting /volume1/media/DVR Recordings/TV/Wisdom of the Crowd/Wisdom of the Crowd S01E04 2017-10-22 User Bias 2017-10-22-1900.mpg
2017/10/22 22:00:00 [TNR] Closed connection to 10484E44 for ch4.1
2017/10/22 22:00:00 [DVR] Finished job 1508727600-13 Madam Secretary
2017/10/22 22:00:00 [DVR] Waiting 20h56m59.503732387s until next job 1508806620-15 The Big Bang Theory
2017/10/22 22:00:00 [DVR] Processing file-477: TV/Madam Secretary/Madam Secretary S04E03 2017-10-22 The Essentials 2017-10-22-2100.mpg
2017/10/22 22:00:01 [DVR] Running commercial detection on file 477 (TV/Madam Secretary/Madam Secretary S04E03 2017-10-22 The Essentials 2017-10-22-2100.mpg)
2017/10/22 22:09:48 [DVR] Commercial detection finished with 18 markers.
2017/10/22 22:12:07 [DVR] Deleting /volume1/media/DVR Recordings/TV/Madam Secretary/Madam Secretary S04E03 2017-10-22 The Essentials 2017-10-22-2100.mpg
#5

One more tidbit - sorry for all the posts, just trying to write down everything I can remember. When it happened, it took a few tries to get back to the beginning. I would click to pause, then seek back to the beginning with the track pad, and click again to play. No luck - it would, oddly, resume playing at the live point. I had to try a few more times, including seeking to like 1:00 instead of 0:00, and eventually I got it to start playing from the start.

I wish I could be more specific as to exactly what the sequence of events were!

#6

FYI, this happened again last night. And the same issue where it didn’t want to go back and start from the beginning. Ended up backing out, then going back into the show, and then seeking, and it eventually worked and got back to the start time.

I can imagine this is tough to debug if it’s not happening to you. :slight_smile: If there’s anything you’d like me to try or check on next time it happens, let me know!

#7

I’ve had this happen a few more times, and I’ve noticed something that might be helpful.

Normally, when you look in the guide and click on a program that’s recording, it asks if you want to watch live, or the recording.

But if I follow these steps:

  1. Go to Recordings, find a recording that happens to be in progress, and click to play it.

  2. Sometimes, the bug happens where it starts playing at the live point instead of from the beginning.

  3. After this happens, back out, and go to the Guide. Note that the program recording is a different color, as expected.

  4. Click on the program in the Guide - it doesn’t prompt for whether I want to watch live or recording, it just starts playing live. And, the playhead line is not purple - there is no indication that this program is recording at all.

So the behavior when clicking on a recording in progress is different, in the case where this bug is happening.

Hope this somehow helps! :slight_smile:

#8

What remote are you using?

#9

The regular Apple TV remote. The pre-4K version.

#10

FYI, the steps I mentioned above about starting the program from the guide does not seem to be consistent - it doesn’t seem to be related to this problem. When I see the problem now, and go out to the guide, I do get the prompt about which to watch most of the time. It usually doesn’t work (after the problem has occurred) and goes to the live point regardless, but it doesn’t show the weird no-purple-timeline thing I saw earlier.

The whole won’t-start-from-the-beginning thing happens at least half the time for me, it seems like. It’s very frustrating when it happens. And it takes a bunch of fooling around to finally get it to go to the beginning, as the regular seek process doesn’t work in this condition.

Please let me know if you think of any further information I can provide.

#11

I’m very confused by why no one else is seeing this.

Can you repro in the beta app and submit diagnostics?

One thing you can try is marking as watched, which should reset any resume position and force playback from the start.

#12

Let me jump in here real quick and say that I’ve seen similar behavior on a few different random, infrequent occasions. I have not been able to reproduce the behavior.

Specifically, these comments describe the behavior I have seen on said occasions:

I remember this happening and being very disappointed when I selected to start watching one of the World Series games from the start, but instead it started at the live point which was about 90 minutes in, and I ended up finding out the score of the game even though I was frantically and unsuccessfully trying to seek back to the beginning. Seeking back to the beginning and pressing play would just resume at the live point. I think I eventually got it to play from the beginning by exiting and re-entering the app, but I don’t remember if I had to force quit the app (double tap home button).

1 Like
#13

I made a change in the latest beta that might fix this.

1 Like
#14

This just happened to me. Chiefs game. When I started the recording, it looked like the beginning according to the time bar, but I was in which 3rd quarter and saw the score. I exited and tried to do it again and the same. On a commercial break at the end of the quarter I scrubbed back to the beginning and it started fine. I just scrubbed forward and am continuing to watch from live since it’s spoiled.

#15

Just to confirm, this was in-home streaming using Original Quality?

#16

Yes
I’m on 12.8.1657

#17

Where did you play the recording from? The Recordings tab?

Initially you said the cursor was at the front even though it was live. Later when you scrubbed back was it still there or was it at the correct position.

#18

Since you were using the beta app, please go to the bottom of Settings tab and Submit Diagnostics

#19

I did start from the recordings tab. I just submitted diags.

Eventually my cursor was current on the time line and that let me scrub back.

I think I it moved forward when I exited back to the recordings tab, the. Re-entered. It never prompted me to watch from beginning, resume or anything else, it always took me to current.

I do have tuner sharing on.

#20

Thanks for the logs. What time approx did you first start watching?