# How should DVR live TV pause work? **URL:** \ **Category:** Live TV & DVR\ **Tags:** livetv-dvr, server-linux, android-tv\ **Created:** [May 29, 2020, 2:37am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-should-dvr-live-tv-pause-work/596898 "2020-05-29T02:37:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dkmcgowan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b19c9b/32.png) [@dkmcgowan](https://forums.plex.tv/u/dkmcgowan)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 2:37am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-should-dvr-live-tv-pause-work/596898/1 "2020-05-29T02:37:25Z")
Server Version#: 1.19.3.2852 Player Version#: 8.1.0.17967 Tuner Make/Model: HDHomeRun Quatro Guide/Lineup name: Using XMLTV?: No Channel number/Name: All I’m curious how DVR live TV pause is supposed to work. I could be bad at searching, but I can’t find specifics. I see older posts, but nothing clear that is recent. If I am streaming a live TV channel and click pause, it works. I can let it go for a few minutes, hit play, catch up, then skip to forward back to live TV at the next commercial and good to go. But… If I hit pause for a long period of time, and then come back, hit play, it will work and play for a time, no idea how long, then it dies. I’m not sure how long or what the pattern is, but eventually it just stops and freezes. I have to hit back, choose another channel, and then hit back again and choose the channel I was on again to get live TV for where I was. The normal behavior on other systems I’ve used would be say there is a 30 minute buffer, maybe should be a config option based on your storage capabilities, then once you hit pause and it’s hit that 30 minute buffer (or use MB/GB as buffer instead of time), it just kills the buffer and resets the stream automatically back to live TV, so smooth transition and your not stuck on a frozen screen. Right now I’m just not sure what it’s doing or what it’s supposed to do and can’t find clear documentation on it as a feature and whether this is normal or not. ---
**Author:** ![TeknoJunky](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/teknojunky/32/165055_2.png) [@TeknoJunky](https://forums.plex.tv/u/TeknoJunky)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 3:01am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-should-dvr-live-tv-pause-work/596898/2 "2020-05-29T03:01:52Z")
it may possibly be related to the size of your transcoder temp folder. are you using the default location, or have you specified a different path ? [Plex Web](https://app.plex.tv/desktop) \> settings \> transcoder \> transcoder temp dir if you can reproduce it, or the next it happens, grab the server logs. plex web \> settings \> troubleshooting \> download logs. drag and drop the whole zip file to a reply or new post. ---
**Author:** ![dkmcgowan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b19c9b/32.png) [@dkmcgowan](https://forums.plex.tv/u/dkmcgowan)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 3:10am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-should-dvr-live-tv-pause-work/596898/3 "2020-05-29T03:10:15Z")
I will reproduce and post logs tomorrow. I did not specify a folder, it’s on the default SSD OS drive, but there is over 230GB free on that drive and nothing else using it, and the drive is not running out of space or anything. I also have the session timeout setting to 0, but it says that doesn’t apply to live TV. What is default behavior? Stay paused until you run out of space? I can’t find it documented and no settings around it. – edit: just checked, 227GB free on the drive, and I paused for a few minutes and it wasn’t growing crazy. tomorrow when I have more time I will pause for longer and then check disk usage and when it messes up, grab logs –edit 2: even once it messes up, for whatever reason, seems it should delete temp buffer and reset stream to live TV, not just go to frozen screen, bad UX ---
**Author:** ![TeknoJunky](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/teknojunky/32/165055_2.png) [@TeknoJunky](https://forums.plex.tv/u/TeknoJunky)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 3:33am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-should-dvr-live-tv-pause-work/596898/4 "2020-05-29T03:33:31Z")
Unfortunately I don’t know what the intended limit is on paused live tv, I rarely watch live, versus dvr recordings. Some folks use a tmpfs/ram drive with limited space, is why I asked about the path. ---
**Author:** ![dkmcgowan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b19c9b/32.png) [@dkmcgowan](https://forums.plex.tv/u/dkmcgowan)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 3:48am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-should-dvr-live-tv-pause-work/596898/5 "2020-05-29T03:48:06Z")
Makes sense, I am pretty new to Plex, so not sure where it’s saving, I have it empty and whatever the default is, I will do a little digging to see where it’s writing things when I do another pause ---
**Author:** ![dkmcgowan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b19c9b/32.png) [@dkmcgowan](https://forums.plex.tv/u/dkmcgowan)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 2:31pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-should-dvr-live-tv-pause-work/596898/6 "2020-05-29T14:31:18Z")
So not a space issue, but I paused this morning and let it pause for 33 minutes. When I started it again, it played for about 3 minutes and then it stopped, waiting, eventually got the error message, and then was able to reload the channel again. In the transcode folder the session is just gone, and I can see this in the logs when it hits the error. TranscodeUniversalRequest: unable to get container: /livetv/sessions/fd5012e4-ef8d-4ea8-9bee-e248b007707e… I don’t know the logs well enough, so looking for another log file with the transcode or recording information to see why it might have deleted it, but not a space or resource issue ---
**Author:** ![pl\_5309](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2bfe46/32.png) [@pl\_5309](https://forums.plex.tv/u/pl_5309)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 2:41pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-should-dvr-live-tv-pause-work/596898/7 "2020-05-29T14:41:52Z")
How are you starting the Live TV session, by clicking on the channel number/icon or clicking play on the program. The difference is that starting via the program will kill the buffer 3 minutes past the end time. ---
**Author:** ![dkmcgowan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b19c9b/32.png) [@dkmcgowan](https://forums.plex.tv/u/dkmcgowan)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 2:46pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-should-dvr-live-tv-pause-work/596898/8 "2020-05-29T14:46:09Z")
I usually just go to the guide, find the channel, highlight what I want (name of the show) and just click enter and it loads up the session… I would also be fine if 3 minutes was the buffer, and I plan to test this more, but it seems like a 3 minute thing. But the UX should be much better. After 3 minutes, it should kill session like it does, but then just make it go back to the guide with nothing playing, or make a new session back to live on that same channel, or something. Not just freeze and error out edit… I re-read your post, I’m going to go try and click the channel number, never done that, but when I’m watching from clicking the name of a show, it does keep playing when the next show starts edit 2… I just went, on my guide I cannot select the channel on the far left, just like a normal guide, I can highlight the current playing show ---
**Author:** ![dkmcgowan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b19c9b/32.png) [@dkmcgowan](https://forums.plex.tv/u/dkmcgowan)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 2:51pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-should-dvr-live-tv-pause-work/596898/9 "2020-05-29T14:51:01Z")
I did some better searching and it’s probably this long standing issue > [@Plex Client Can't resume paused live tv after long pause](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-client-cant-resume-paused-live-tv-after-long-pause/454095/18): > > I’ve been running into the exact same issue. Windows 10 server with a core i5, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD for the OS, dedicated 128GB SSD just for recordings/transcoding (so resources are not an issue). I’ve confirmed the exact same behavior when streaming to an Nvidia Shield, 4K Firestick, and an older Xiaomi Mi box. The only way it seems to work properly is if I watch through a web browser where the stream is transcoded, but that’s not really a solution. One thing I can confirm though is it’s not th… ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 2:51pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/how-should-dvr-live-tv-pause-work/596898/10 "2020-08-27T14:51:03Z")
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