Recordings being skipped but with 6 tuners that should never happen

General Discussions Plex Features
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With a family of diverse viewing desires, I find that this upcoming TV season I’ve got lots of recordings that will overlap. This should not be a problem, as I have three (3) HDHomeRun Dual tuners attached to my Plex Server, giving me a total of 6 tuners available at any time.

Last evening, Plex was planning to record 4 different shows, all in US Central time:
7:00 - 7:30 BBT
7:00 - 9:01 DWTS
7:30 - 8:00 Young Sheldon
9:00 - 10:00 The Brave

This morning I find that only BBT, DWTS and YS actually recorded, so I went on a quest to figure out why The Brave didn’t happen, as with 6 tuners this should never be the case. I pulled the Plex Media Server logs as well as the Plex Tuner Service logs which I’ll attach here.

As a bit of background, I’m doing post-processing on all of my recordings using MCEBuddy and Comskip. The post processing of a standard 60 minute show takes about 20 minutes or so. As I’d previously found, during that time Plex will still show on the Live TV & DVR settings that the tuner is in use until the post processing finishes, at which point the tuner no longer shows in use.

However, I can not explain why the 9:00 show didn’t record. The Tuner Service log doesn’t show anything interesting at 9:00pm and all entries until the end of file are included in the attachment. Conversely, the Media Server log shows at 21:01 (the scheduled start time of The Brave according to the EPG):

Sep 25, 2017 21:01:00.390 [11816] ERROR - DVR:Recorder: Error 3 (The recording was aborted) starting the record, shutting things down.
Sep 25, 2017 21:01:00.390 [11816] ERROR - DVR:Recorder: Error 3 (The recording was aborted) starting the record, shutting things down.
Sep 25, 2017 21:01:00.390 [11816] ERROR - DVR:Grabber: Starting media grab failed.
S

There’s not enough data to show which tuner was being planned for the recording, so I’m at a loss as to why the recording aborted. I’d previously tested recording many shows with simultaneous start times. I haven’t yet had an opportunity to further test multiple recordings, followed by additional recordings scheduled while post-processing is ongoing.

I’ve had recordings missed before, and thought it was pilot error, so I carefully checked all my recordings to make sure they were planned and now I’m more convinced that something’s amiss in the selection of the tuner, or it still being thought “in use” during post processing, etc.

Suggestions and recommendations are much welcome, as I expect this will continue to happen giving the recording load that I know is upcoming, and I really shouldn’t miss anything with 6 tuners available. Maybe adding a round-robin or LRU type tuner selection algorithm?

Thanks!

2

There is a bug in the PLEX DVR that will only use 1 HDHomeRun device … it does not move on to the 2nd device… that is one of the reasons I use another DVR software as in my household we have 4 connects and 2 Primes.

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As mentioned this is a known bug and a fix is forthcoming.

If you drop back to version 1.61 and you will be able to record 6 shows at once - I have 3 primes and I’m able to use all of them.

If you don’t have 1.61 there is a post around here on how to download it . . .I’m looking for it but search for it and you should also find it.

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This shouldn’t be an acceptable fix for going on 5 months now… If we have to use 1.6.1 they should have a link handy for users to download.

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Just to add my observations on this problem. I have 2 connects and a dual. I have been having the same problems as other people with failed recordings and also recordings that fail to end. I deleted the dvr and started again adding a connect with ip ending .20. Recording one or 2 shows at a time was ok and the dvr settings page showed the homerun allocation correctly, i.e. connect .20 with 0, 1 or 2 tuners in use agreeing with the recording schedule and the homerun status web page showing the tuner status correctly. I added the second connect ip ending in 24. Nothing would make plex dvr record. more than 2 recordings at a time and live tv would not work while 2 recordings were happening. But the really strange thing is that plex dvr was showing that .24 was recording not .20 but the homerun web status page was showing .20 recording. I added the dual (ip ending in .17), which plex slotted in between the 2 connects. Now I could record 2 shows on the .24 connect and 2 shows on the dual but nothing more would record. Once again the plex dvr showed .24 recording but the homerun web status showed .20.
Plex appears to have a problem allocating tuners, and following which allocation it has made. I think it may be trying to reuse tuners it has already allocated because it thinks it has allocated to other tuners.
I completely removed Plex (Ubuntu installation) following the procedure on this site (including removing the plex /var/lib/folders and the /home/library folders) and did a fresh install of 1.9.2.4285. I added a dvr with just connect .20 and once that was working added connect .24. Once again only 2 shows would record but now the tuners shown as allocated in plex agree with the homerun web status page. I added the dual .17, which once again plex slotted in between the connects .20 and .24, and, as before, plex will allocate 2 tuners on the first connect (.20), then 2 tuners on the dual (.17) but usually fails to use the other connect (.24). Sometimes it will add this 5th show using .24, or allow live tv to be shown, but one of the recordings often fails.

I hope these observations give somebody a clue as to what is going wrong.

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@rlobbins said:
This shouldn’t be an acceptable fix for going on 5 months now… If we have to use 1.6.1 they should have a link handy for users to download.

Yes, I’d forego new features to make the ones that really drive the ability to cut the cable cord completely. And if there’s a version where multiple HDHomeruns worked, you’d think pushing the fixes into later versions would be pretty high on the list of things that need to get done

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@EABenton said:
As mentioned this is a known bug and a fix is forthcoming.

If you drop back to version 1.61 and you will be able to record 6 shows at once - I have 3 primes and I’m able to use all of them.

Any gotchas on going backwards on version? No issues with database formats, recording schedules, etc? Don’t mind going backward, just want to make sure I know what I’m getting myself into when I do. I’d rather have the multi-record features than pretty much anything else right now.

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@johnm_ColaSC said:
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/274585/issue-with-tuners-and-recordings/p3

Thanks! Wouldn’t you know I’d just cleaned up a bunch of updates, as things seemed to be working swimmingly during the summer when not a lot of new shows were in conflict. I shall now keep archives of all update versions on my NAS drive in case I have to roll backwards again.

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Version 1.9.3.4290 Win 10

Had a similar issue tonight - but not sure what has been discussed is the solution. Tonight, I recorded two programs from my HDHomeRun Connect. I have two units, so 4 tuners. My recordings were both on the same channel (CBS) and back-to-back, so different time slots. Only one tuner should have been used at any time. I tried to go into PLEX and just watch the live NFL game on NBC at the same time the programs were recording. As soon as I clicked on the NFL game, the recording on CBS stopped with a “Transcoding Error.” It acted like recording ties up the entire unit (both tuners) and isn’t seeing any additional tuners to allow for live TV.

Additionally, this week, I used the Time Shift to begin watching MacGyver which was recording on CBS (about 1/2 way through) at 7:00 CDT on Friday. As the time hit 8:00 CDT, Marvel’s Inhumans (ABC) and Hawaii-Five-O (FOX) began recording, but because I was using Time Shift to watch MacGyver (started at 7:00 CDT and finished at 7:59), I got an error that The Exorcist (Fox) at 8:00 failed with a “Transcoding Error.” Again, 4 tuners on 2 units, but using one for the Time Shift to watch the recording did not release the tuner when the recording time slot finished and did not allow for the 3rd program at 8:00 to record.

I hope this helps with generating a fix. Definitely, recordings need to be prioritized over Live TV and Time Shift with a warning on screen.

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@fizban11 What version of Plex are you running? PMS version 1.9.3 had fixes for multiple device support.

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@cabersc
Not that I’ve seen - many of us have done the uninstall / reinstall without issue - I’m on 1.9.3 now and don’t anticipate going back as it’s been solid all weekend long except for 1 issue

My one issue was attempting to schedule Z Nation from the iPhone Plex app and it got a timeout on trying to schedule the recording but what I didn’t know is that it kind of corrupted Plex and I didn’t get that night’s recordings - so I decided to just let Plex run for the weekend to make sure 1.9.3 is solid otherwise and it appears to be!

I think I will test the iPhone Plex app this afternoon if I have time before any recordings tonight to see if I can duplicate the issue.

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@rodgerzeisler said:
@fizban11 What version of Plex are you running? PMS version 1.9.3 had fixes for multiple device support.

Sorry, edited post. Version 1.9.3.4290 for Win 10 - 1.9.3 didn’t fix the issue as both incidents occurred after upgrading.

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@fizban11 said:

@rodgerzeisler said:
@fizban11 What version of Plex are you running? PMS version 1.9.3 had fixes for multiple device support.

Sorry, edited post. Version 1.9.3.4290 for Win 10 - 1.9.3 didn’t fix the issue as both incidents occurred after upgrading.

In the past, I know there was an issue where Plex would basically allocate that device (not the tuner) that the show was going to use and if no tuner was available on that device (even if additional tuners were available on another device), the recording would fail. Maybe I need to go back and do some more testing in this area.

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I have a hauppauge dual tuner and since the update every time I try to record two things at once I get a transcoder error on the second recording? Ideas?

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@rodgerzeisler said:
In the past, I know there was an issue where Plex would basically allocate that device (not the tuner) that the show was going to use and if no tuner was available on that device (even if additional tuners were available on another device), the recording would fail. Maybe I need to go back and do some more testing in this area.

PMS Version 1.9.3.4290 for Win 10

Rodger, thanks! It happened again tonight. It might have to do with allocation and it might also have to do with priority of those allocations. Monday is the busiest night for recording in my home and several of the shows overlap due to the networks not staying within the hour-long boundary. Obviously, I don’t want this to happen again. Would someone take a look at the logs and let me know if adding another HDHR Connect would be a viable solution?

FYI: I started using PLEX back in November 2016 with 2 HDHR Connect (4 tuners total) and did not have an issue recording 4 shows at the same time until I started recording for this Fall TV season. It has to be due to one of the PMS for Win 10 updates since May/June.

All times CDT

Lucifer 7-8pm - recorded fine
Dancing with the Stars 7-9:01 pm (didn’t record, no error, disappeared from the programming guide - may have been pulled by network for showing Monday Night Football for reasons unexplained)
The Voice 7-9:01 pm - recorded fine
The Gifted 8-9:01 pm - recorded fine
The Brave 9:01 - 10 pm - (trans-code error - didn’t record)
Scorpion 9-10 pm - (trans-code error - didn’t record)
News Channel 25 Nightbeat 10:00-10:35 pm - (trans code error - didn’t record)

Logs attached.

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@fizban11 During these recordings, were you watching Live TV?

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@rodgerzeisler said:
@fizban11 During these recordings, were you watching Live TV?

Not this time. I deliberately didn’t watch Live TV to try and avoid the issue. I was watching Lucifer which had already finished recording. As it hit 9:00 and then 9:01 pm CDT, I got the errors on-screen that the recording failed then checked the PMS on the PC and saw the transcode error triangle. I hope this helps. It really is just acting like the tuners are not being released for recording at the proper times.

Heading to bed (USA CDT) , wife is giving me the stink-eye. I’ll check again in the morning.

19

@fizban11 Do you have any extra minutes before or after the show set?

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@rodgerzeisler said:
@fizban11 Do you have any extra minutes before or after the show set?

No. The only day I have extra minutes allocated is for Sunday evening. American football tends to go over the designated time length and bumps shows on Sundays.

*EDIT: It would be helpful if the programs that do not record did not disappear from the programming guide (list) so we can see what did not record and why. Currently, after the appointed recording time, if there was an error, the program then disappears from the list.