Recordings Missing from Library

Channels DVR Server Troubleshooting
#1

Hi there, I recently did a migration of Channels to a new machine. I use an external disk for my channels recordings and library, so I plugged that into the new machine and did a backup restore per the instructions provided by channels. Everything basically went perfectly, except that a bunch of my DVR recordings are now missing in my library. I confirmed the files are still there and playable.

Is there any way to get channels to scan that folder again and re-add them? I could transfer over to my personal media collection, but I'd worry about losing the commercial detection / skipping on these since I recorded them from over the air.

#2

What does the DVR log show when you try to play them?

1 Like
#3

I can't play them at all through Channels since they no longer appear in my library. I meant that they are there in the file folders and playable through VLC locally on the Mac that runs Channels.

I did try moving a couple of them from the /Channels/TV/ folder where the recordings are stored to my Personal media folder, and they pop up upon personal media scan, but I have to manually re-detect commercials on them. I'm hoping there's a solution where I don't need to migrate them all manually and re-run commercial scanning on them all.

#4

It sounds like you didn’t do a proper restore of the backup after migrating.

Maybe try again.

#5

How many are missing? How many are there? Is there any pattern to the ones that are missing?

When you restored did you select the most recent backup? Are these recordings that were made after that backup date?

#6

I grabbed the latest possible backup before the restore and followed the support instructions and everything appeared to run correctly, though I didn't do a comprehensive check to make sure everything came over.

Unfortunately, the restore was a couple of weeks ago and I'm not sure if it's a recent issue or something that happened as part of the restore (though the restore theory is highly likely.) And I can't really try to backup / restore again as I don't want to lose the data I'd made in the past couple of weeks.

There are approximately 600 episodes it seems to be happening to. All made before the backup and restore. Interestingly, new episodes recorded do show up in channels to that folder.

#7

It sounds like you restored an old backup. Recordings made after that backup wouldn’t be in the library after you restore the backup.

It doesn’t merge the data, it replaces it.

#8

If its been a few weeks, the only remediation would be to move those video files from:

DVR/TV/Show/Episode.mpg

to

DVR/Imports/TV/Show/Episode.mpg

#9

Ah that did the trick! Didn't know about that. I kicked off a new commercial detection for these. My Mac mini is gonna get a workout tonight!