PMS Bugs: Scheduled Recording Fails If Show In-Progress Upon PMS Launch & Ignores Record Button

PMS for Mac 1.28.0.5973
Plex for Mac 1.49.1.3146

When PMS for Mac is launched, PMS fails to initiate scheduled recordings for TV shows that have an EPG listing with a start time that has passed, even if by only one minute, and PMS refuses to initiate the recording even if the user manually clicks upon the [Record] button, despite the UI affirming that the “RECORDING [is] SCHEDULED.”

These bugs seem very similar to other long-standing PMS failure-to-record bugs:

  • PMS ignores user clicking upon [Record] button when TV show that is not-scheduled-to-be-recorded is in progress, and

  • (apparently) when TV show EPG listing indicates an episode that PMS “thinks” has already been recorded, even if that episode has been deleted, or the EPG listing was partially wrong.

These other long-standing PMS failure-to-record bugs have been evident for months, for all PMS for Mac versions, and all Plex for Mac, Apple TV and iOS versions (and significantly reduce the value of Plex for cord-cutters):

PMS for Mac 1.26.2.5797 – 1.28.0.5973 (& perhaps earlier)
Plex for Mac 1.41.0.2876 – 1.49.1.3146 (& perhaps earlier)
Plex for Apple TV 8.0 – 8.5 (& perhaps earlier)
Plex for iOS 8.0 – 8.5 (& perhaps earlier)

Do you have the setting enabled to “Allow partial airings”? If not, it won’t record after it starts.

(apparently) when TV show EPG listing indicates an episode that PMS “thinks” has already been recorded, even if that episode has been deleted

This should work. I have not seen another report about this. You cannot replace an existing recording, but if it’s been deleted, it should add a new one. If you manually deleted the file and hadn’t updated the library scan so PMS still “thinks” the file is there but unavailable, then yes, it will not re-record. This is currently the expected behavior. If it won’t record with no indication of the recording existing, then we’ll need logs from when it failed to record to investigate.

or the EPG listing was partially wrong

I don’t understand this. What do you mean by partially wrong?

Yes. From the moment of PMS install, both the DVR setting default and all scheduled recordings have had [Allow partial airings] enabled. Multiple times since PMS install, I have reviewed individually the settings for every scheduled recording.

While, I’ve only had a couple cases where a show episode was deleted by user Plex UI initiation and then later a user wanted to record a repeated airing, I was not able to convince PMS to record the repeated airing.

I have never manually deleted any PMS file.

Respectfully, failing to re-record a show is a very poor not-UI-alterable “expected behavior” in general, especially so for Live TV OTA cord-cutting use. Many factors can disrupt the content in recordings: EPG errors (which are common), broadcast signal weather disruption, host CPU or disk issues, network contention, etc.

What is worse, the UI appears to accept user [Record] initiation, only later to discover that PMS did not actually perform as directed.

Fundamentally, thinking algorithms are smarter than users is almost, IMO, always problematic at best (offering grace to well-intended decisions).

For PMS in particular, software design decisions appear to presume that the EPG is highly accurate, both generally and in real-time, neither of which are true. No slight to EPG providers, nor to Plex—change occurs stochastically, and humans make channel decisions that are imperfect. Even updating the EPG at 9am every day has not proven sufficient.

PMS’ “expected behavior” also makes it difficult to envision software design presumptions other than that OTA signals are always excellent—they simply are not. (While I have no Plex experience with streaming, nor knowledge if PMS even records streaming, past (considerable technical) experience demonstrates that streaming integrity varies greatly by provider.)

A specific example recently occurred with the CBS OTA broadcast of “The Late Show with Stephen Cobert.” (It might have been S7 E134.) A previous recording EPG listing had an episode number, but not the guests listing, that was the same as a later airing PMS did not automatically schedule for recording and also then refused to act upon my manual record initiation. Unfortunately, that previous recording had an EPG listing that apparently had the wrong episode number or the wrong guests list. (Since I can’t find a Plex user guide, I can’t know precisely under what circumstances PMS is supposed to presume duplication.)

The bottom line is that users almost always can make better informed decisions for themselves than can algorithms.

The obvious cord-cutting DVR behavior should be for Plex to alert users of possible duplication, asking users to decide; and, since the EPG can be very wrong for extended periods (eg, weeks), when Plex resources permit, add UI so users can schedule an OTA recording by specifying channel, date and time.

Thank you for taking your personal time and, especially, for caring.

Right, but PMS wouldn’t know any of this. It does not know if a recording is good and should be replaced. This is why we don’t do it automatically. But like I said, if you delete the old one, it should replace it. If you can recreate this I’ll take a look.

  • just before the replacement airs, delete the previous version (this is so the info will be in the log and I can check of it deleted properly or not
  • wait for the new episode to start
  • grab the PMS logs after about 5 minutes
  • let me know what episode it was

There is a feature request to allow recording all episodes, regardless. I think there is also a request to keep multiple recordings so it doesn’t replace the old one, just adds a version to it, which PMS already supports.

PMS did not automatically schedule for recording and also then refused to act upon my manual record initiation

The only reason I can think this would not let you manually record is if it thought the episode already existed, it thought it was already recording that airing, or something was just broken. I would need to see the logs from when you tried this to see if one of those was the reason.

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.