There are no gaps in logs - there is continual activity thru the night and the 2-3 hours either side of the EPG update time. I have set the power settings to prevent the computer from sleeping (even preventing clocking down the CPU). I actively monitor the system for availability using an uptime monitor - and there is no downtime.
In the “C:\Users\media\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Plug-in Support\Databases” directory - there are multiple dated copies of the database files - 5 total of each. Are these the backups? If so - yes - these are current.
The EPG database was already deleted and allowed to recreate to eliminate the possibility of any corruption int he epg database… And - a manual update still works flawlessly, and watching the filesystem when I perform a manual update it appears to recreate it from scratch anyway each time this is performed.
There are simply no events indicating the scheduler is operating to update the EPG. The only other ‘odd’ thing I’ve noticed - whenever using the web frontend it’s always ‘Generating video preview thumbnails’ - it just never seems to get done with this. Currently, working on a show that was recorded 4 months ago. I have not determined yet if this is ‘stuck’ - but if it is could a stuck job like this actually prevent other scheduled tasks from operating?
If a file is bad and processed over and over it could prevent the scheduled tasks from ever completing. Remove anything that is processed repeatedly. How long is your window, the epg refresh is the last thing done.
Nov 02, 2024 07:02:56.096 [16340] DEBUG - Butler: we’re in the window, starting.
Nov 02, 2024 07:02:57.098 [2180] DEBUG - CERT: incomplete TLS handshake from 172.20.1.1:6489: version too low (SSL routines)
Nov 02, 2024 07:02:57.260 [16340] DEBUG - Checking if time for scheduled update
Nov 02, 2024 07:03:55.187 [16340] DEBUG - EPG[cloud]: Purging 0 airings which completed in the past.
Nov 02, 2024 07:07:57.267 [12552] DEBUG - Checking if time for scheduled update
Nov 02, 2024 07:08:55.199 [17704] DEBUG - EPG[cloud]: Purging 0 airings which completed in the past.
Nov 02, 2024 07:10:01.702 [12552] DEBUG - EPG[cloud]: Next thing to start/end is at 2024-11-02 07:30:00 (in 1200 seconds)
There were no relevant events around the 7:30am timeframe +/- 30 mins…
The window right now is 7am thru noon. The video preview generation is still ‘stuck’ at approximately the same %age on the same file. I will try to locate this file and delete it.
If a file is bad and processed over and over it could prevent the scheduled tasks from ever completing.
That seems to be a poor design choice, but it’s good to know.
the epg refresh is the last thing done.
100% - this seems to be a factor with the issue I am experiencing. I’ll delete the ‘stuck’ file and restart Plex and see if it solves the issue.
It appears the show (when recorded) was interrupted. There were two files, one about 200k and gthen the main file much larger. I found one other episode of the same show in that folder that looked the same - so I proactively deleted that as well. Afterwards, I restarted Plex.
I will have a let it run for a few days to see if the EPG stays updated. Currently, I have DVR recordings scheduled out to 11/14 (putting this here just so I can refer back in a few days).
Thank you so much @pl_5309 for your assistance thru this - I very much appreciate it. Hopefully, this addresses the bad file that caused this issue. I would like to understand how to push this back to Plex - a corrupt video file should absolutely NEVER prevent other scheduled tasks from running, including EPG updates. We don’t yet know if this is the cause - but if my EPG now updates on the schedule it’s very likely.
Well - good news. Today, I looked at how far out the DVR has scheduled recordings. It advanced on day (11/14 to 11/15). So - at lest right now it looks like deleting the file worked to restore the EPG updates.
I will wait and see if this sticks - and wait for the first DB backup to confirm.
Well - confirmed. The stuck file was the cause of all the difficulties.
Backups are working as are EPG updates. Thew DVR is now scheduled out to 11/16 - so it’s extending the future schedule 1 day at a time, as it should. I have a DB backup show up last night as well.
Thank you so much @pl_5309 for the help thru this. Without your suggestions I would not have been able to get to a solution.
Does anyone know how to report the issue to Plex support? Clearly, file related issues like this should not cause failure of backups and EPG updates (two critical functions for a DVR system!). These two tasks should be prioritized in the maintenance window - or a separate priority thread used for them.
