Server Version#: 1.43.0.10467
Player Version#: All
Tuner Make/Model: HDHR Flex 4K
Guide/Lineup name: Standard Plex EPG
Using XMLTV?: No
Channel number/Name: 13.1 WTHRDT
I have Plex running on a 2019 Shield Pro (Central Indiana USA). I use it only for OTA DVR. Most of the time it works fine for shows that are single instances, like local and national news programs, late night network comedy shows, etc.
Several days ago, before the Olympics started, I set Plex to record the Olympics from my NBC affiliate. When I checked the library on 2/10 (yesterday) I had 25 recordings varying in length from 9 minutes to 2 hours and 19 minutes. They’re all over the map.
I also looked in the EPG on 2/10 and it shows NBC’s coverage varies, as they seem to take breaks for other programming occasionally. That would explain some of the segments I see recorded. But starting at noon on 2/11 the guide shows segments (to be recorded) at 12:00pm, 12:30, 12:55, 1:15, 1:40, 2:15-5:00pm, 8:00-11:00pm, then 11:35pm-01:00am. Crazy stuff. I don’t understand why some of these back-to-back segments aren’t being recorded as a single long(er) segment.
Today (2/11) I look at the EPG and it shows multiple Olympics segments throughout the day (including right now at 1:33PM). All with the red “recording” logo. Yet the Activity indicator at the top of the Windows app shows no activity is occurring on my server. Oh wait - I checked again 15 minutes later and now it is active. It started recording at 1:40PM. I clicked the previous segment and it says it was supposed to record from 1:15PM to 1:40PM. I cannot make sense of these timings. Good thing there is so much to watch on the Olympics since it’s evident I’m only getting random recordings. I watched several episodes last night, and now I have 22 waiting to be watched. Wild.
This is frustrating. Is the Indianapolis EPG messed up? Is Plex incapable of scheduling/recording long, erratically scheduled events like the Olympics? Anybody have any ideas what is going on?
Here in Raleigh, I had something similar with two episodes on Feb 10 being sub-30 minutes. One ran into the SuperBowl Pregame. No idea what happened with the other.
Looking at the schedule, it seems NBC is doing a variety of lengths - 30 minutes to 3 hours - and for the most part it seems to be working for me. This is a huge improvement over the previous winter Olympics, so I won’t complain. And all the evening “prime time” recordings seem to be completing without any issues, so anything “important” I miss during the day I have a second chance to see it that night.
The other lesson I learned two Olympics ago was to disable my postprocessing for Olympics recordings. They’re so large, the postprocessing was failing and causing missed recordings.
Must be related to your local EPG data. Ive had no issues. But the way I do the recording is I go into the guide, click on olympics show and go through and select each recording manually (I dont want to record everything). And its been working ok for me. My issue is with Plex sorting stuff alphabetically rather than by timestamp.
My segements have been pretty on point, Ive only had one that was like 15 minutes and was mostly commercials, I think thats because NBC’s airing didnt actually line up with EPG data.
My post processing script works fine as well, but I use a GPU for it, so even like a 3 hour recording is done processing in a few minutes.
Likely right. I’m looking at my episode guide currently and seeing hours and hours of “unknown airing” entries for my local NBC, even after I went into Settings and refreshed my EPG. One is running right now, and when I tuned to it, it’s Olympics. But since it’s “unknown” in my EPG, I have no way to record it.
So frustrating!
I stick with Plex because I purchased the lifetime Plex Pass a few years back to get the EPG for my DVR. But with the recurring problems, I’m starting to wonder if Jellyfin and paying for my own EPG would be more reliable.
Im not sure how much EPG’s data not being good is Plex’s fault, I dont know the relationship there. Mine in Southern California has been generally good. Some quirks, like Olympic zone are all marked as same episode so Plex wont record them unless I select “New and Repeat Airings”. But thats nothing compared to your problem.
I remember seeing guides on switching to a different source for the guide on Plex. Have you looked into that at all?
Haven’t really explored alternative EPGs. If I have to pay for a different EPG, I might as well go to a different media server like Jellyfin.
The latest wrinkle is that I just realized the DVR schedule is still seeing the Olympics episodes and recording them, even though they’re showing up as “unknown airing” in the guide. It hurts my brain trying to think of how the DVR and guide could be looking at the same data source and one’s fine with it, and the other just throws up its hands.
I’m just tired of things not working. Perhaps I’ve been battling entropy too long…
So the guide data is updated daily, perhaps some days its correct and so DVR adds them to queue then?
Or maybe something is up with your server to where the internal data is correct but it cant display it correctly? Like maybe a character like a back slash or an apostrophie in name or description.
Have you tried removing the tuner and setting it up from scratch? What about setting up a temporary plex server for testing purposes on another device like a raspberry pi or something just to see if it will injest the data correctly?
