Managing DVR Recordings

[BradGrove]

The very last 2 options under the DVR “Advanced Recording” section are labelled:

• KEEP
• DELETE EPISODES AFTER PLAYING

This is where you can configure plex to automatically manage which recordings are kept and which recordings are deleted. Unfortunately, the implementation of these options are seriously flawed which means that this potentially great feature is effectively broken.

I know that it may seem “logical” to only delete recordings if they are flagged as having been watched/played but this has not been thought out properly and is in fact illogical and has resulted in a lot of inconvenience representing another poorly implemented “feature” in the DVR module.

If I set the KEEP option to “Latest Episode” or say “5 Latest Episodes” then I expect that it will keep the latest or 5 latest episodes. It absolutely does not matter whether I have seen the previous episodes or not!

So you get to the next section labelled DELETE EPISODES AFTER PLAYING and I set that to “After One Day”.

Immediately you have a problem with the conflicting logic of these two options which now mean that Plex will just not delete any of the older episodes if you haven’t watched them. This is just stupid, illogical and very badly thought out. There are many scenarios where this is going to cause problems.

For example, I record the NEWS on several channels throughout the day so that I can set down in the late afternoon/evening and catch-up on the News when I want to without having to wait for the next News broadcast (the benefits of a DVR). I am not going to watch every News recording… am I?

I just expect that the next day when I sit down to watch the news, if there are recording for that day then the previous recordings will have been deleted (because I have set the option to keep the latest episode). If you want to keep all records or not have them deleted then you would set the options appropriately.

In other words, whoever implemented this has enforced a restriction which has effectively broken the system via clashing logic. YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE TO HAVE WATCHED A RECORDING BEFORE IT IS ELIGIBLE TO BE DELETED.

I used to use the old Windows Media Center and everything just worked because it had been thought out properly by smart people. PLEX is an ongoing problematic bundle of amatuer coding mistakes but unfortunately it is one of the few viable options left in the void created by the withdrawal of WMC by Microsoft.

So every single day I have to manually go through and delete recordings which I don’t want to watch even though there is the potential to have this managed properly by Plex.

Guys… really? Another failure.

[BradGrove]

Wow! I can’t believe I am the only one with this issue.

[BradGrove]

Maybe a plex staff member could make comment.

[SE56]

If you want to delete the single or selected episodes of a series, there a two methods.

a) Go to episode/Vertical Ellipsis/Get Info/Delete

b) Directly from your storage Directory/ Empty Trash in Plex Library interface.

I hear you about having Auto delete but how would you decipher it is ready for being deleted. What your asking is for a feature. Different criteria for Auto deletion, 24Hr, 48Hr, 7Days, after watching, after watching 75%.

I would suggest starting a Feature request.

864×864 4.39 KB

You can raise feature requests so that we know what you want in the product. We love hearing from you and we are always looking for ideas to make Plex more awesome. Here’s a quick guide to submitting feature requests and how voting works: BEFORE YOU SUBMIT A FEATURE REQUEST search on our forums to see if there are any requests similar to your need. If so, build upon this ask by adding your thoughts. If you find a similar post, like and comment on the post. If not, submit a new feature request…

[BradGrove]

I’m glad someone is at least ready to discuss this. Thanks for your reply. The topic is concerned with automatically deleting recordings (not manually deleting them). I think we all understand how to manually delete recordings as you have described.

Concerning my request and your response. I’m not sure that you have thought this through thoroughly. If you have set the option to “keep the last two episodes”, then it is crystal clear that you do exactly that. In other words it is an FIFO situation. The oldest recording is removed when a new recording is added so that you have retained “the latest number of recordings” for whatever number you have set. That is how Windows Media Center worked because that is the only scenario that makes sense for the option I have indicated.

The current situation (please re-read my post in detail) is flawed. I am a programmer and systems analyst with decades of experience.

[SE56]

Forgetting about the exact UX feature design, one thing has raised it’s head, a different approach is required. Hopefully you will gain some consensus in this part of forums which will follow you in a feature request. If you gain a Plex Employee or Developer interaction, that would be a positive.

As for manual deletion, you would be surprised what people don’t know. First things first, it a unwanted work around.

Moving forward, layout your vision and how it would be implemented to best suit all users and just maybe it will catch on.

[pshanew]

@BradGrove

If I set the KEEP option to “Latest Episode” or say “5 Latest Episodes” then I expect that it will keep the latest or 5 latest episodes. It absolutely does not matter whether I have seen the previous episodes or not!

@BradGrove

In other words, whoever implemented this has enforced a restriction which has effectively broken the system via clashing logic. YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE TO HAVE WATCHED A RECORDING BEFORE IT IS ELIGIBLE TO BE DELETED.

The Keep setting does (almost) exactly what you say you want. It operates only on unplayed content. So, if you have 20 episodes of a TV show recorded (all unplayed), and you set Keep to “5 latest episodes,” only the five latest episodes will be kept. Here’s an example from my TV shows library. First, with Keep set to “All episodes”:

And after setting Keep to “5 latest episodes”:

The caveat here is that it only operates on completely unplayed episodes; partially completed episodes will not be touched.

The setting Delete episodes after playing operates only on episodes which have been marked as played. I use this setting as a kind of fallback in the event that I forget to delete an episode after watching it (of a show I don’t intend to keep). This setting only operates on shows which have been marked as played; again, partially watched episodes will not be touched. Also note that the episodes are deleted during the time period defined for Scheduled Tasks; so the reaping really occurs during the first scheduled tasks time period after the time defined by this setting has elapsed.

As you’ve probably noticed, there’s a bit of a hole that exists: Partially watched episodes don’t get reaped by either setting. I believe this makes sense as it protects you from losing an episode that you started watching but didn’t get to complete for some reason.

If you’ve tried these settings and they don’t operate as described above then troubleshooting needs to be performed.

[BradGrove]

@pshanew… There is nothing in your reply that we don’t already know. I’m not sure what you think you have contributed here.

If you have a look at the “KEEP” options, there is nothing that is labelled “x latest unwatched episodes”… is there?

Probably the best way to implement a correction to the UI is to disable the next section (DELETE EPISODES AFTER PLAYING) if, and only if you have specifically selected to keep a specific number of “latest episodes”. Either that or re-label this element of the menu and rework the options it provides.

[JuiceWSA]

The best way to implement anything that automatically deletes anything - is to disable it.

It can’t mess up if it’s not on - I hope.

I’m not yet so lazy I can’t scroll over to ‘Delete’ and press a remote button - or remove something from my library with File Explorer. When I get that lazy - Queue the Fat Lady.

[pshanew]

@BradGrove

There is nothing in your reply that we don’t already know. I’m not sure what you think you have contributed here.

Fair enough. But what I was attempting to contribute was a better understanding of how these settings work, in practice.

@BradGrove

If you have a look at the “KEEP” options, there is nothing that is labelled “x latest unwatched episodes”… is there?

No, it’s not shown in the options themselves, but if you have a look at the description below the setting it clearly says “unplayed.”

Per your original post, it seems you were interested in exactly that; if you have unplayed episodes from a prior day (or days), delete them once they exceed a certain threshold. Keep accomplishes this. Again, Keep only operates on unplayed (or unwatched, if you prefer) episodes. If you have partially played an episode, it has no effect. To my knowledge, there is no way to automatically reap a partially watched episode.

So, between Keep and Delete after... you have the means to limit the number of episodes in you library automatically. As long as they are completely unplayed, or completely played.

[BradGrove]

Yes… I know [Sigh]

[tarfu7]

I agree this is a poor feature design. I want exactly what you describe @BradGrove

I’m really trying to move my family from Tivo to Plex, but it’s a hard sell. And this doesn’t help at all. One of the main programs we watch every day is the news (morning and evening). We often start a news show to see the headlines etc, but 90% of the time we don’t finish playing it.

REQUEST: A setting that keeps a maximum of X episodes of each show, regardless of their “played” status - meaning that Plex automatically deletes the oldest episodes upon recording new ones (even if the oldest episodes are partially played). Tivo has been able to do this very easily for as long a I can remember (10+ years).

Because Plex won’t delete any partially played episodes, my News library (as well as my “On Deck” and “Continue Watching” hubs) are constantly cluttered with old news shows that are of no value to me. This is confusing, and also makes those hubs kind of useless.

The only way around this is adding an extra manual step - you have to manually mark the episode as played, or delete it altogether. But this is a hassle, and we often forget to do it. I want technology to make my life simpler, not more complicated.

Come on, Plex! Please implement this setting. Thank you!

[BradGrove]

Exactly!

[Honza1]

I completely agree with current logic being bug and not feature. As others, I time shift news and when we watch them, mostly they end up 75-90% watched. I have to remember to go every few days and delete old news files, since this dumb logic will not remove them. Other software we were using over many years (MCA, EyeTV) did not do this.
Change the logic. If I want to keep last N recordings, who cares what state they are? This is not safe, but annoying and illogical. Or add checkbox, which chooses : Operate on Unplayed or Any? And we are fine.
This annoyance is keeping me from switching from EyeTV - it requires obsolete macos and amazingly complex workaround for program, but recording management is simple and logical. And users - family - expect simple logic. No complexities…

[adyoull]

I would like the ability like on Sky, or any tv recorder to highlight an episode on the DVR and delete it, outside of any automatic deleting regime.

the Plex implementation is counter-intuitive and goes against all existing implementations of this idea.

[BradGrove]

You can already do this in Plex. I am constantly having to manually delete unwatched recordings because the Plex auto-deleting options are flawed. That is the whole point of this thread.

[CodeCat5]

Welp, at least I’m not the only one who’s discovered yet another bug with the Plex DVR. I have some shows set to only keep the latest 3 that I’ve never gotten around to watching, yet every one is still there.
The more I use this system, the more I miss WMC.

[BradGrove]

All those who agree with me on this topic, please support the feature request on this issue posted here…

FEATURE REQUEST - Auto-Deletion of Recorded Content Regardless of "Played" Status.