Server Version#: 1.26.0.5715 (Linux)
Player Version#: Web 4.79.4
Tuner Make/Model: hauppauge quad pci
Anyone else having DVR recording problems since PMS 1.26.0.5715? I upgraded to 1.26.0.5715 two days ago, and since then, our single nightly recording fails to save to the TV Shows (two nights now). Last night, I noted that the dashboard said DVR was recording the show, and I saw disk activity, but it never showed up in TV Shows (I even looked in that directory on the file system…not there). Before this particular server upgrade, it had recorded fine for many months.
Also, this tv show does have commercial removal. I haven’t had time to investigate further. I downgraded to 1.25.9.5721 (previous working version) and will report back if the problem goes away. I have server logs that span the two nights when this happened—in case anyone would like to see them.
If you can post logs for the period of failed recordings (or DM me) I’ll take a look. No promises, but I’m happy to try to help.
I just updated to 1.26.0 on Linux last night and tested that I could play Live TV from my OTA tuner, but didn’t test recording. Guess what I’m doing right now…
Thanks. The ota tv seemed to be working fine on new version. Before I send logs, a quick update:
I downgraded to 1.25.9.5721 yesterday and waited for the scheduled airing to record. The dashboard indicated it was recording. About the time the show ends, I waited to see the usual commercial removal activity (lots of disk activity for a few minutes). There was none, but a “new” recording was available in Plex library. The name/details indicated it was the current show (correct season and episode) that just aired, BUT somehow an old show from last week was the actual content of the video! This was a show that we watched and I deleted through Plex UI a few days ago! Where did that come from!? The lack of commercial removal activity may be because this content had already had commercials removed. I don’t know where Plex keeps it’s cached/working copies of the recordings before placing them in Live TV library, but it got it from somewhere. And where did last night’s file go? Weird.
Wow, that’s weird behavior. Plex keeps recordings that are in progress in a folder named “.grab” that is in your TV library folder. If no recordings are in process then this .grab folder should be empty. After the recording is done it moves the recording file to the appropriate place in your TV library. Once a delete has been done, unless there are file system permission issues or something very strange, then the file is simply gone (outside of any backups you may be doing.) My first thought was that the EPG data for that airing could be wrong, or the station aired the wrong episode, but that doesn’t explain the lack of commercial skip resource usage. Debug level logs might show us something…
I’ve done two recordings on 1.26.0, one with marking commercials for skip and the other removing commercials, and they both were ok. They were definitely today’s airings (local news, so was easy to tell based on the headline stories.) Neither was something I typically record, so I’ll have to keep an eye on that as my normal recordings proceed.
I finally got some time to experiment with a few ad hoc recordings on 1.26.0 and couldn’t reproduce the problem either. So I optimized the database, updated my guide, deleted and recreated the offending programmed recording and let it do its thing last night. Unfortunately, the series I’m recording (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert) wasn’t a new episode, last night, so I had to temporarily set it to “new and repeat airings.” All the other settings were the same as before. It recorded, processed, and appeared in the library witouth a hitch. At this point, I’m just going to monitor and hope this was some kind of weird glitch during the upgrade.
Thanks for pointing out the .grab directory! I should have been able to figured that out! myself. It was empty when I first looked and I watched the file grow during recording and finally move over to the live tv library. I also looked through the logs, comparing the old, successful recordings and the several failed recordings and couldn’t see any obvious differences.
I guess from this point forward, no news is good news. Thanks again for the help.
I’m in the same boat . I’ve been setting up a new 1.26.0 PMS on Ubuntu 22.04 and testing has thrown up the same/similar problem, all recordings fail with a “Cannot access location.” As it’s recording to a mounted share I’ve been combing the permissions, in Ubuntu and NAS, for clues. I’ll go pull the logs, see inf there’s any clue there.
Now that sounds more like a permissions problem. There are some good guides in PLEX Support and elsewhere on the internet for Linux NAS shares and permission in general too. I have a local ext4 drive /mnt and remember fiddling around for awhile until I got it right.
Yeah, it does sound exactly like a permissions problem, 100%. But I’ll be darned if I can find it, everything checks out. I’ve been referencing the guides, Plex’s and others’ but getting nowhere with it. When I can here to post and saw I’m not alone with 1.26.0 DVR problems, I figured I’d throw my hat in that ring.
I’ll take a break, maybe inspiration will strike, start back on it again later.
If you don’t have success after your break, maybe start a new post with more details about your setup (e.g. NAS share), and mention if it’s a problem with all your NAS library access or just the DVR folder (i.e. TV Show). Good luck!
@dlarkin_dc - If you don’t have any luck, then if you can post debug level logs that covers the time of a failure maybe we can see something that will put us on the right track.
I turned debug on when I left town and now returned. Noticed 60 Minutes on Sunday wasn’t in my TV Shows library. It should be there since new episode. The Late Show are all repeats this week. I had recreated that recording schedule before I left, but it’s set for new episode only—so I don’t know if recreating the schedule helps yet. But definitely, 60 Minutes should be there.
Recording for “60 Minutes - E32 - Director of the FBI; Examining the Bin Laden Papers; Mayor Adams” starts at about 18:00 and finished up after 19:00 Apr 24. Nothing in the log is jumping out at me as to why the file is missing. Maybe you can spot something.
Here is the problem - it moved it to your TV library, but then “Deleted expired unwatched content”.
Apr 24, 2022 19:06:24.689 [0x7fecaaf60b38] DEBUG - [Grabber/41ffc4b80dc98a0c49b781424c2de2cc63d6d831] Garbage Collector: Deleting expired unwatched content for 60 Minutes (policy: -30 before 2022-03-25)
Apr 24, 2022 19:06:24.691 [0x7feca05c8b38] DEBUG - [Grabber/41ffc4b80dc98a0c49b781424c2de2cc63d6d831] Activity: registered new activity 6e0bcd65-e351-4994-ad72-8960bbc11e21 - "Updating Metadata"
Apr 24, 2022 19:06:24.694 [0x7fecaaf60b38] DEBUG - [Grabber/41ffc4b80dc98a0c49b781424c2de2cc63d6d831] Garbage Collector: Skipping deletion of episode 27 - (it's in progress).
Apr 24, 2022 19:06:24.694 [0x7fecaaf60b38] DEBUG - [Grabber/41ffc4b80dc98a0c49b781424c2de2cc63d6d831] Garbage Collector: Deleting episode 32 - Director of the FBI; Examining the Bin Laden Papers; Mayor Adams (beyond window of 30 days old)
Apr 24, 2022 19:06:24.701 [0x7feca1794b38] DEBUG - [Grabber/41ffc4b80dc98a0c49b781424c2de2cc63d6d831] Activity: Ended activity 24ca7921-014c-4a3a-b7a2-c951133a8f30.
Do you have this recording set to only keep episodes recorded in the last 30 days? If so, I read in a thread I can’t find right now that there is a date bug in 1.26.0, and that it may be fixed in the 1.26.1 beta. (Or you could remove this keep rule temporarily until this is fixed.)
Ah, yes, I missed that line “Deleting episode 32…”
Yes, both of these programs have deletion rules based on whether they are watched (DELETE EPISODES AFTER PLAYING + 7 days) and episode “age” (KEEP = 30 days).
That must explain it.
Thanks so much—hopefully a fix is forthcoming. I will install 1.26.1 and see.
Plex is still deleting episode right after recording on PMS Version 1.26.1.5772 with Ubuntu Linux 18.04.6 LTS. I changed the settings to not delete for now hoping that will take care of it until there is a fix in place.
May 01, 2022 19:05:39.084 [0x7f6254642b38] DEBUG - [Grabber/cd36cc8b2e894c081737603f16bf814658a60b8f] Garbage Collector: Deleting episode 33 - Harvest of War; Eurovision; Birds Aren't Real (beyond window of 30 days old)
I believe you nailed it. I changed the “keep” from “past 30 days” to “all episodes” and they’re no longer being deleted. 1.26.1 didn’t resolve the issue for me on my Synology NAS.
@sa2000 We appear to have a defect with the DVR function to “Keep Episodes” based on a date age. For example, in Advanced Record Options setting “Keep” to “Episodes added in the past 30 days”. If set, then Plex is deleting the newly recording episode immediately after moving it to the library from .grab.
Logs of this happening are in the thread above, as well as confirmation that 1.26.1 didn’t fix the issue, and that changing “Keep” to “All Episodes” is a temporary workaround.
I have this exact same problem now, but I don’t know what version it started. (Recently I jumped from a very old server to the then-current server.) I am currently recording the evening news, and I updated the recording, while recording, to ALL EPISODES. I checked just now (the news is over). IT FIXED THE PROBLEM!
FWIW, when, in the client, I went to the GUIDE and said RECORD, that show WAS SAVED. It just wasn’t saving the shows for which I had set up recordings.
I sure wish there was more regression testing in Plex…
