Guide Shows Recordings, DVR Schedule does not

[WiiGame]

@DaveBinM - Please be helpful here. Read my posts from the last 24 hours, if you have not. In fact, re-read the topic name of this thread.

People like me are not saying “Guide Shows Recordings, DVR Schedule does not” to be told “trust the DVR Schedule; that’s the truth.” This is not a yes or no question.

The core that you are not yet addressing is, "If I have a show that records on a regular basis, and it will be on the air with a new episode tomorrow (using Plex’s guide and other guides as a … guide), then WHY is the Plex DVR Schedule even indicating that it will not record that episode for no apparent reason? (And then of course, the truthful DVR Schedule executes its evil plan, so it was not an empty threat.)

As has been covered, this exact schedule works on every other day. On Day X, it does not work. On Day Y, it is forecasted to work again. Priorities have not change. There is plenty of space. The question is: What The Heck Is Happening??? And: How To Correct That???

If you’re still not getting me, I’ll state it another way…

HOW PLEX SHOULD WORK: Every episode of a series should record, without having to be watched like a hawk, esp. if nothing has changed by the user or by the providing networks. AND, if an episode is going to fail to record, there should be a clear indication of that fact (perhaps even a notification to the user), there should be a clearly stated reason easily findable in the app, and there should be a way for the user-admin to OVERRIDE the DVR Scheduler and force a recording of any episode that Plex is refusing to record.

HOW PLEX ACTUALLY WORKS: Sometimes, seemingly randomly, Plex will simply not record 1 or more episodes of a series, without explanation. The DVR Schedule is correct, it will not record … but the DVR Schedule should be saying it WILL record. Mostly we don’t see it coming until we go to watch an episode and find it is not there. Looking for why it did not record results is no information. EVEN WHEN WE SEE IT COMING, there is nothing we can do about it. The home administrators of these Plex systems, even when they are doing everything correctly, are left failing at their goals and are left powerless to stop it.

BOTTOM LINE: Plex as a DVR is [expletive], [expletive] frustrating and not reliable, while being the main reason we paid your company at all. Now PLEASE say something that addresses the actual problem here.

[DaveBinM]

If you add something to the schedule (so that the DVR scheduler runs), then download the logs from the server, the logs will tell you why certain airings are not recorded. It could be that it thinks you already have it, or that it’s marked as a repeat, rather than new, or any number of reasons. Without the logs, it’s rather difficult to say for sure why a certain recording hasn’t been scheduled. In this case, it’s not “failing” to record, per se, but opting not to schedule it, for some reason, which would be revealed in the logs. If you’re able to provide the logs, I can have a look and tell you why it hasn’t scheduled an episode.

[markbean]

I too have had frustrations with some programs not recording when I expected them to record. Thank you for your explanation as to how Plex works. In my case it seems that first airings of the missed episodes were not tagged as “new” so Plex never scheduled them to record. I see this happen most often on my US public broadcasting channels and while they may be first airings of an episode on a particular affiliate, they are not technically new episodes so they are not tagged as “new.”

While I understand what is happening, it is a bit frustrating that I cannot override and force Plex to record specific episodes. Unless I’m missing something, Plex is limited to to only one recording rule for each series. That means I cannot have my general “All Episodes” set to “New Airings only” supplemented with “This Episode” rules for those airings which are not tagged as “New”.

Any thoughts? Could we have the option to manually override programming guide tags?