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They are also airing live events on USA network. But it also looks like those are getting marked as ‘new’ because its new to USA.
So its near impossible to use the EPG data alone to parse through which events should actually be recorded and which ones are repeats.
I just happened to notice the events around the same times each time, by chance. So I do not know how many more will be like this
This issue does not only apply to the Olympics. I have several recordings which show the same behavior since Plex does not correctly differentiate between airings.
Example:
90 Day Fiance and 90 Day Fiance Pillow Talk are two different shows. However, Plex constantly mixes them up or attaches both files to the same show. Some files have the correct Season-Episode naming and some just some date-time based naming.
This behavior is getting increasingly worse with each version where they try to “fix” the library scanners.
Once a week I go through and fix the titles but this is not a satisfying solution.
I ended up deleting my Series recording for the Winter Olympics and just set the recordings manually. Since I only want to record the content from the UHD channels, I just selected recordings for those specific channels.
My initial series recording for the UHD channels did work, but it wasn’t picking up the showings at 1AM on the UHD channel. So today I just selected the individual showings until the 18th. Since my Plex DVR guide only had data through the 18th.
I’ll check it again in a few days, so I can select the recordings for the final few days of the Winter Olympics.
And the EPG continues to be a problem (yes, I know, it’s really not Plex’s problem, but I have no standing to squawk at their provider.)
Lineup: Cannon Falls, MN (55009,) HBCI, channel 227 (USA) claims to be showing 2022 Winter Olympics mixed doubles curling, Italy vs. Sweden. What really is showing is 2022 Winter Olympics men’s luge.
Any update from Plex if this has been fixed? The Olympics have started. If there has been 6 months to fix this issue and it was ignored the entire time I’d be really sad. I guess time to ditch Plex for something more reliable.
Background: Experiencing similar issues with scheduled recording of new and repeat airings. The guide shows “recording scheduled” but it is not actually enqueued in the DVR (attached images). This is proving to be extremely frustrating, particularly since its been known since at least the Tokyo games. I really do not want to give up on Plex, it’s been a good user experience for several years now, but this is cutting it rather fine…a little transparency from the devs would go a long way here. Was this actually looked into? Is there actually a fix in the pipeline? Will it be released in time to actually have an effect before the end of the 2022 Winter Olympics?
What has worked (will continue to experiment): Removing past recordings from the series library, deleting the DVR, then re-adding the DVR, (not just a guide refresh). While this temporarily fixes the issue, I certainly can’t be doing this level of micromanagement after every recording!
Additional notes: I found that setting up a spare tuner on a separate Plex server, the recording behavior was correct, so this behavior is likely a conflict with past recording titles that have partial title matches. Removing past recordings for a show from the library (then refreshing DVR guide, series library, restarting server, etc) does not resolve the conflict.
How is this a bug and what could be done to fix it?: @Atomatth
When option to record both New and Repeat airings is enabled, ALL broadcasts for that show should be listed for recording in the DVR schedule even if it might produce duplicate recordings.
When the option to record both New and Repeat airings is disabled (i.e. just new airings), if a show is not listed on the DVR recording schedule, then the Guide tab should reflect that while the show is listed for recording, that episode is not going to be recorded
When the option to record both New and Repeat airings is disabled (i.e. just new airings), if it is tagged in the guide as New, then it should be recorded (and listed in the DVR recording schedule), even if Plex thinks it might be adding a duplicate (in which case add the standard time code in the filename/title).
I presume this is part of the bug: When recorded show titles partially match with future broadcasts that should be recorded, Plex appears to assume they have already been recorded and removes them from the DVR schedule. The episode title (excepting timestamp) ought to be a complete match before removing a recording from the DVR schedule.
When in doubt, record the program! or give users the ability to forcibly add a given episode to the DVR recording list, even when the option for recording all episodes/airings is enabled (since this clearly has been an issue for some time)…
I don’t disagree with your sentiments as I’ve been frustrated with this problem for over 3 years. However, the idea of “Repeats” relates more to weekly TV series. “New Only” means record only episodes being aired the first time (many think of this as record the current season). “New and Repeat Episodes” means record the episodes from the old seasons too.
Regardless of the choice, Plex absolutely will not record duplicates – it’s like their prime directlive – THOUGH SHALT NOT RECORD DUPLICATES. This is the frustration.
There should be a “Record duplicates” checkbox on the dialog box for setting up a recording. This would satisfy everyone. For people that want old episodes of a show recorded too (i.e. New and Repeats) but only the ones they don’t already have, they would leave the checkbox unchecked. For people that want something recorded even if it might be a duplicate, they can check the box.
The problem is that Plex errs on the side of not allowing us to record what we want to record. This idiotic problem has existed for more than 4 years. It’s one of the big reasons I am so critical of plex. It’s time for them to fix the problem.
I usually spin up a second plex server and record the over night programs from there, but you have to specify the time you want to record or it will record the first available. Like you want to record the overnight show, but the 5pm broadcast has the same title.
Also, becuase NBC segments the overnight broadcast to multiple broadcasts, at least per plex, I just realized, that you can set the record minutes after to span all the broadcasts, as long as they are continuous.
Hi,
Just reporting that this is still a full fledged disaster with the 2022 Winter Olympics. To be specific:
I did a couple of library updates, tried renaming the recordings. All to now avail.
Maybe I should be happy that at least the recording works, but it is quite frustrating to not be able to play back the episode that you select.
Is there a bug reporting system?
Anyway, the playback works quite well with Infuse…
I think I might have found my best solution for dealing with the Olympics at this point. Made an account on zap2it, then downloaded a xmltv guide for the next month with: https://github.com/daniel-widrick/zap2it-GuideScraping and then manually edited the episode numbers for any titles matching:
title lang=“en”>2022 Winter Olympics</title
to all have unique values:
episode-num system=“dd_progid”>EP04120884.0001</episode-num
episode-num system=“dd_progid”>EP04120884.0002</episode-num
…
episode-num system=“dd_progid”>EP04120884.0109</episode-num
This method could absolutely be coded into the guide downloading script. While I’ll certainly not hold my breath, I see no reason Plex could not straightforwardly do the same when generating/importing from their EPG to enable a record duplicates feature (starting episode index from any existing number if applicable).
While I’m dreaming of useful/basic modifications/options that would have sped things along, it would have been nice to have the option to use the Plex EPG for one dvr box and the modified xmltv guide for another. Presently have to use the modified guide on second server, such that it doesn’t cause issues with recording other previously scheduled shows on the first (even though titles match between guides, the scheduler appears to ignore them).
I am a fairly new plex user and have loved everything about Plex… except the DVR. From the perspective of normal TV broadcasts it has been fairly good for me.
However the 2022 Olympics broadcasts and recording them have been a disaster, as others have stated.
It just skips airings that are new, as described here ad nauseum by other members, so I won’t repeat my own findings that match.
We certainly won’t get a fix by the end of the games as it’s already a week in. But this is nuts, and should be easy to sort out and fix yet it seems it has existed since the last games last year… trying to sort it out with manual recordings but that’s just obnoxious.
I am a software developer myself and I work on some pretty complex software, but this is a huge feature and a huge shortcoming. I’ve had various DVR’s over the years and those that didn’t do this right did not survive long. If a re-architecture is needed here, spend the time to really think it through and re-design it.
This was reported recently for DVR’d content and not specific to the Olympics. It is being looked at but I don’t have any updates yet.
Time for my mid-Olympic update. For the most part, the “hack” that I’m using seems to be working alright. I’ve been able to record most of the content, except a day last week, when NBC ran long and caused issues, but I know there’s nothing that can be done when the shows don’t match the guide (except allowing us to just record the channel for a time block, which has already been mentioned a few times here and elsewhere for the last 4 years). But today I noticed an issue. On Wednesday (recall that I receive the west coast feed, so I get some extra content). I have two “episodes” labeled “Freestyle Skiing”, because of this I have to choose which one I want to record (photos attached). This leads me to a major question, why does Plex use names off the guide as the basis for what to record? Wouldn’t it be massively easier to use time as the record setting and pull the metadata while the episode is recording, or better yet allow for the episode to be manually named by the user? I’m no expert, but too me that seems like it would solve a lot of the issues we’re experiencing. Thanks.
So this did not work. It recorded the 7:30 PM feed, and refused to record the 8:00 PM feed. Meaning that the Women’s Gold Medal Hockey game is what was not recorded. Now I watched it live, but the fact of the matter is, this should have recorded. I just don’t understand why you would use the name as the guide for determining what to record. What if the name is wrong? Why is it so difficult to set this up so that users can record what they want, when they want, for as long as they want? If I want to record a channel for 24/day 7/days a week, and have the HDD space to handle it, I should be allowed to do so. Maybe I don’t understand how DVR software works, but my previous software didn’t have this issue at all. I switched to Plex because I thought it would work in a similar fashion. Overall I have to say it does, but the Olympics show a clear and glaring flaw in the way this DVR system works. Why are these problems and requests going unanswered for years? I appreciate the staff that attempted to address the problems over the last 6 months, but I don’t feel like anything has changed or was seriously addressed. I’m not going to threaten to leave, I’m not going to say that I expect better because of how much I paid for the service. I am going to say that I’m rather disappointed in the lack of support around this. I’m not blaming anyone, I’m just saying I know I’m not the only one having issues with this stuff. I certainly know I’m not the only one who has brought up the ability to record a channel whenever is desired. Plex, please, fix this stuff. Or perhaps write a clear explanation as to why it won’t get fixed. I would like to know more about how it all works. Thank you for being there and doing what you do. I just hope we can make it better. Thank you.
This is exactly what I had to do as well. It worked great for me and I recorded all the episodes that I wanted to record.
@Atomatth @anon18523487, given the Olympics are over and done. I’m sure there is little pressure to address these changes for the next 2 years before the next Olympics in Paris. I’m just wondering if anything that has been mentioned in this thread has been addressed. Has playback been fixed? What about being able to record the same event title, but a different timeslot? Or recording the channel as a whole? I know you guys are busy working on the software, but I’m just wondering if there is any chance of a response to some of these queries. If I need to look in other places in the forum for these answers, I understand, but this conversation has been addressed here, so I’m wondering if there has been anything from the dev team. I saw the new “discovery” feature this week, and while I think it’s great, I also think that Plex has taken its eye off of the ball regarding the DVR. If you want to be a one stop shop for content, fixing the DVR option should be pretty high up on the list. Thanks again for all you do.
The suggestions, issues, and frustrations mentioned here have been raised.
I don’t think we’ve “taken our eyes off of DVR”, if anything we’ve put a huge spotlight on it when we updated our guide. Also, there have been multiple fixes and improvements to areas around LiveTV and DVR this year (see PMS Releases).
@Atomath, thank you for the response. First, I will apologize for how my “eye off of the ball” phrasing came across. I did not mean to say that Plex was not working on the DVR. I should have said “I feel like” instead of “I think”. My opinion is not fact here and I understand that. That comment stems from the fact that some of the issues that have been raised in this thread are all over the forum and have been for years. Things like recording a channel instead of just a show, and being allowed to record the same thing even if it’s repeated. These just appeared differently in this thread because of the Olympics making these issues more apparent. I look forward to more fixes and improvements as time goes on, I certainly hope by the next Olympics in Paris 2024 that these same issues are not still around! Thank you again for your response.
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