Missed DVR Recordings Should Alert Me Somehow

General Discussions Plex Features
1

Plain and simple, I shouldn’t have to babysit my schedule of DVR’d recordings. . .but maybe this suggestion can help ease the issue.

Over the last week and a half, I’ve missed about 5 (of 30+) recordings and I wasn’t made aware of them being missed until I scrolled through pages and pages of Sonarr listings (or sometimes by checking each individual folder). For example, I had Monday Night RAW set to record on Monday like I have been for months and it missed it for some reason (it missed Smackdown Live last week again for some reason).

When I look at the Calendar View of the Recording Schedule page, the Monday Night RAW recording listing/entry is gone completely. I didn’t even know it was missed until I tried to watch it the next day. Nothing was done (like watching a live channel) and there wasn’t any conflicts when the schedule I had set.

I’ve had a dozen or so DVR recordings missed since using it and I am told that I need to capture and send logs immediately when they happen. I can’t do that when I’m not alerted to the situation. At the very least, that scheduled recording listing should still be on the Calendar View of the Recording Schedule page even if it is missed (as things are right now, nothing is there) and with a big red X across it or circled in red or something.

I know Plex isn’t the best at actively alerting the user of actions, but at least make it so that the missed recording is visibly marked in the Calendar View so that when I check it on a daily basis (even though I shouldn’t have to) I can see at a glance if anything has been missed.

2

Wouldn’t that be nice?! I just discovered that for the 2nd time within a week that mine didn’t record shows either. It just “crashed” and stopped running.
I’ve had so many headaches and disappointments with Plex in my short time with it that I honestly regret cutting the cord and opting to use this for our DVR service. Spent several hundred dollars to get a good PC, tuner etc, and countless hours only to have numerous issues with buffering, transcoding, and now missed recordings.
No thanks.

3

Yes, this is absolutely necessary. I gave up on Plex a few months ago due to missed recordings and them just disappearing from the recording calendar/schedule as I described here: https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/293293/series-recordings-missed-when-only-generic-episode-data-e-g-episode-5-as-title

This seemed to be episodes of series recordings with just generic episode information. I wonder if it the same case with your missed recordings?

4

@cncb said:
Yes, this is absolutely necessary. I gave up on Plex a few months ago due to missed recordings and them just disappearing from the recording calendar/schedule as I described here: https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/293293/series-recordings-missed-when-only-generic-episode-data-e-g-episode-5-as-title

This seemed to be episodes of series recordings with just generic episode information. I wonder if it the same case with your missed recordings?

I’m not sure, I haven’t had issues with previous recordings of Monday Night RAW, Smackdown Live on a consistent basis, but it may have been some generic episode information in the EPG as you said. This past week I also missed out on a Mr. Robot recording and a few others. So while I could understand the wrestling shows not having a lot of detail about the episode, that shouldn’t be the case with Mr. Robot (unless there was a bug with the EPG data as you said).

The whole experience with Plex DVR has been hit or miss. I spent money on a tuner, pay monthly for the CableCard, spent time setting things up, on hold with the cable provider activating the hardware.

When it works, Plex DVR is great but when it hiccups and something isn’t recorded I get mad because I wasn’t told about it and then I have to go out and find ways to get that missing episode. Sometimes it’s not even possible and I’ll just be missing the episode entirely until syndication or a rerun comes on (which is rare for a new episode in a new season).

I’ve tried to get this resolved in the past and was told that I need to capture logs immediately. That’s impossible with someone who has a job and/or a life and Plex shouldn’t require that from us in the first place. Logs from a day later is more acceptable but to be told you have to immediately capture the logs is just too much.

# So my message to the developers are. . .

There’s obviously a flaw in the system and until it gets worked out then I think the team needs to work on letting people know when something has been missed.

Meaning, the shows I want recorded should be saved in a table somewhere. This includes the time, date, etc of the recording. If the current time is PAST that recorded time, then that episode should be available in the library. If it isn’t, then that show/episode should remain on the Calendar View (and never ever be removed) with some sort of indication that the episode/movie/recording is missing.

I have a fundamental understanding of how programming languages work and I honest don’t understand how something like this hasn’t been implemented already. The fact that the listing gets removed from the Calendar View when this bug happens baffles me.

5

Is something going to be done about this? In my opinion, a DVR is pretty worthless if you can’t depend on it to make recordings and have to babysit it (manually check that recordings were made as scheduled) especially when you are not alerted that there was any problem.

6

Since posting this I have switched over to recording my shows on an SSD (which then get transferred to a mechanical drive for longer storage). I haven’t noticed any shows missing their recordings, but I don’t know if this is the reason. I have my shows set to record even if it’s just a partial recording, so even if the hard drives take some time to spin up when it wants to start recording, then it should still trigger the recording when they finally do spin up

Either way, I’m still babysitting the DVR for now. I’m hoping the SSD fixes the issue I’ve been having. Not ideal, but I understand why it would be optimal.

7

Good idea and recording history and what happened and what tuner used. Windows media center had this was great for troubleshooting.

8

I just noticed a missed recording too. No notification either. So it is still happening. I really want to use this dvr full time but it is too unrealiable.

9

Agree - this would be nice to have especially given the problems that folks have experienced with the DVR feature in recent levels of the server.