I schedule two shows to record last night. Both created folders after the recording were done outside the “grab” folder, including the correct TV show name and season folder. However, only one show actually had the file in it. Can someone look at the log file and help me read it to diagnosis the potential problem. The show that ended up with a finished file from the 09-05-19 recording was NFL football, and the show in which the TV Show Name and Season folders were created with no finished file was FBI which was recording at 9pm CST. Plex Media Server Logs_2019-09-06_07-13-32.zip (2.5 MB)
Ok, so the same issue happened again last night as I continue to test the robustness of the TV recording. 2 of 3 shows recorded correctly. I have updated my Debug settings as requested as attached them here: Plex Media Server Logs_2019-09-10_07-16-45.zip (3.6 MB)
This time it was the American Ninja tv show that created the folders in my TV show locations, but there was no file present. Any help would be appreciated.
The show name was “American Ninja Warrior” that was suppose to record from 7-9 pm CST on channel 11.1 (NBC) on Monday, September 10th. When I look at the Airing Details, it shows that it was recorded succussfully but again, no file is present in the folder.
As far as last comment about the schedule recording for grandparent, I am not sure what that is, or how to delete it. I don’t see it as a schedule recording at any location I can find nor do I recognize it.
Have you done a full refresh of the guide to clear out old data? If that doesn’t work you would need to shut down Plex and remove the 3 tv db files.
So during the comskip removal it looks like it couldn’t move the file which is a problem some people have.
Sep 09, 2019 21:28:08.485 [24120] ERROR - Couldn't rename file "C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV\Recorded TV2\.grab\82ba7f3609592ab629e1cc08c4bf02cef8e6e070\American Ninja Warrior (2019) - S11E15 - Las Vegas National Finals Night 3.ts" to "C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV\Recorded TV2\American Ninja Warrior (2019)\Season 11\American Ninja Warrior (2019) - S11E15 - Las Vegas National Finals Night 3.ts": The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process
What log file name did you find the error you posted above about “Couldn’t rename file”? There are so many separate files, so if you could let me know what file name you typically look for and what timestamp you look for to start down selecting all the files in the log to find the specific error related to a specific TV show recording error would be helpful for me to trouble shoot myself in the future.
Second Question: I assume there has not been a solution to those that have this type of error? If not, is there anyway to recover the file that was not correctly renamed? Does Plex put the file somewhere even though it evidently deleted it after it could not rename it? I don’t see any of these files in my recycle bin but maybe they are deleted somewhere else?
Lastly, what file did you find the “grandparent” recording that is showing up that I don’t see on my Web interface anywhere as an recording scheduled. I can try doing a full refresh of the guide to clear out old data, but since I cannot see the old recording on my end, I would not know if that worked unless I can see what log file you saw the error, so I can run the update, and then may look at a new log file afterward?
If you open the zip file and look at the date modified type for a “Plex Media Server.log” you will see Plex Media Server.4.log and then search for the show in question looking for an ERROR. Using Notepad ++ I can filter on the process ID and just get all lines related to the recording.
The files may be left in the .grab folder. No solution but it is being looked at. You are on Windows 7 which will go unsupported soon.
Grandparent is the database field that stores program title, you will see others called out. You have no SQLITE errors so maybe just deleting the scheduled program and recreating will get rid of the extra database entries.
I already checked and the file is no longer in grab folder. I assume if the file is absent, there is no other way to retrieve it even if looking for the random file name it temporarily stores it under (i.e. 82ba7f3609592ab629e1cc08c4bf02cef8e6e070)?
In other posts, I have read that maybe running anti-virus software could be running in the background. I updated my Norton Antivirus to not scan the Recorded TV folder. I complete additional TV recordings last night and this time two shows did not correctly transfer over into the finished folder. Pulled the log files (Plex Media Server3) and similar to last time, there was an error for each one of them that the file could not be renamed. The image file shows which two shows did not correctly transfer over (America’s Got Talent and The Conners).
Previous post mentioned that Windows 7 will not be supported much longer. Does anyone have experience if this is a Window7 issue, or are W10 users experiencing the same? I have not migrated to W10 yet and Plex recording has been very problematic as compared to Windows Media Center so untili I know it can record reliability, don’t want to lose my WMC option.
Today, I am going to remove the Commercial Removal option to determine if that is impacting this at all and record a bunch of other shows all day to determine any change. Also, will try to figure out if the issue only occurs at a certain time of the day.
I also used a “Recuva” software to do a deep scan of my hard drive to find the original recorded plex file before plex tried to rename it in hopes I could find a way to recover files that failed to get named but it was not able to find any files like this. It would be helpful if plex would not delete the file when it cannot rename it, but rather just keep it in the grab folder.
It would be useful to know what is actually locking the file, but finding that is tricky because you need to know it at the time after recording has been completed and when it tries to initiate the actual move. It could be a handle not being released from Plex, an antivirus scan running after Plex releases the file from .grab after the recording and before the move, or something else.
Possibly run a script in a loop just before a recording completes that identifies the locking process and writes out to a log? Then kill the script after the fail, and see in the log file if it caught the locking process by timestamp. I don’t run PMS on Win, and I’m having problems finding this for Win7. I found this for Win10. Maybe this? Everything I’m finding for Win7 is so old at this point…
Turning off comercial removal would seem to be your best option for now. There is another thread which talks about windows having problems with post processing in the .grab folder, the fix hasn’t been released yet.
After recording shows all day with commercial removal off, plex was able to record 21 shows until a Seal Team show being recorded between 8-9 pm CST failed to rename the file and deleted it (Plex Media Server1 file). Plex Media Server Logs_2019-09-11_21-43-13.zip (4.1 MB)
I did see this message after rename error (bold font) - not sure if related?
ERROR - Couldn’t rename file “C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV\Recorded TV2.grab\ccd049f46b43f5ae491af36bd704b9e43a512481\SEAL Team (2019) - S02E21 - My Life For Yours.ts” to “C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV\Recorded TV2\SEAL Team (2019)\Season 02\SEAL Team (2019) - S02E21 - My Life For Yours.ts”: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process
Sep 11, 2019 21:03:00.751 [9384] DEBUG - DVR:Subscription: Failed to resolve subscription for episode ‘grandparentGuid: plex://show/5cffa4b4d5c642001dd59282 grandparentTitle: SEAL Team grandparentYear: 2019 guid: plex://episode/5d68f740ec187b001f2b8fac index: 21 originallyAvailableAt: 2019-05-08 parentGuid: plex://season/5cffa4b4d5c642001dd59282/2 parentIndex: 2 parentTitle: Season 2 ratingKey: plex%3A%2F%2Fepisode%2F5d68f740ec187b001f2b8fac thumb: http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/2/Open/CBS/Program/37831836/SEAL_Team_6_1557289600550_1.jpg title: My Life For Yours type: 4 year: 2019’ to library item
I have continued to record TV programs, and time of day of failure seems to be now random during the day. Today, I had a failure after a 7 am show in which no other user was logged into my PC. I was thinking the other failures were occurring when someone else was logged in as another user on my PC, but that does not seem to be the case either. So I have had them at 7 am, 4 pm, 7 pm, and 8 pm so far. Really frustrating if you cannot count on this system to actually record a program. Unfortunately, I don’t think I am PC savvy enough to try and create some script to find out what other program is using the folder that is creating the conflict and it would seem you would need to run the script just at the right time which i cannot predict when a conflict arises since it is random.
It is possible that because some of your program recordings have doubled up guide information that it is double recordinging the show. This usually shows up on the recordings calendar view with double listings for recording.
If you only use this for DVR you could remove and clean the whole install otherwise you would have to:
1.) Remove tuner, takes a few minutes behind the scene to clean up after itself
2.) Remove scheduled recordings
3.) Shutdown Plex and delete 3 tv.* db files
4.) I found gracenote info in the cache directory that I deleted.
5.) Restart Plex and add tuner and schedule programs
Here is my calendar view for the one show that did was not able to be renamed and placed in the new TV Show folder. I assume this is where you would typically see a double recording listed? I have not seen that in any of the four shows that failed to get renamed correctly.
[quote=“Tiebierius, post:15, topic:457651”] If you only use this for DVR you could remove and clean the whole install otherwise you would have to: 1.) Remove tuner, takes a few minutes behind the scene to clean up after itself 2.) Remove scheduled recordings 3.) Shutdown Plex and delete 3 tv. db files* 4.) I found gracenote info in the cache directory that I deleted. 5.) Restart Plex and add tuner and schedule programs [/quote]
I do use Plex for other items besides DVR; DVR is actually the last thing I have been trying to implement but is has not been reliable. I can do steps 1, 2, and 5 ok. For step 3, where are the three tv.* files located at?
For step 4, I am not sure what you are asking me to do there. Please help clarify the action.
I will be out for a week so it will be a couple of weeks before I can get this reinstall
option a try and test it out.
After I shut down Plex I did a search for tv.plex.providers.* and you should find at least 3 files in the database directory with some random string in between cloud and db.
Probably under the your user since you have windows
.\Library\Application Support\Plex Media Server\Plug-in Support\Databases\
tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-*.db-wal
tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-*.db
tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-*.db-shm
For #5, I found a
.\Library\Application Support\Plex Media Server\Cache\Http\tv.plex.providers.epg.onconnect
that I deleted since Gracenote isn’t used any more.
I did not yet try resetting all the DVR files as suggested but I did find a work around that has so far fixed my issue after four days of TV Show recording and considering it is working I would have to assume resetting the DVR would not have mattered. I am fortunate to have a 2nd drive in my W7 pc and I changed the recording settings to save the the .grab folder to 2nd drive. After doing this I have had about 40 TV shows record without error. After the files are complete I am now using MCEBuddy to move the files back to my original PC C Drive where I want the recordings but at least this seems to be a workaround if one has a 2nd hard drive to use.
