Recordings being skipped but with 6 tuners that should never happen

General Discussions Plex Features
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PMS Version 1.9.3.4290 for Win 10

Adding another incident since it is different.

I noticed that a news show at 6:30 didn’t record and that the two shows I set up for 7:00 didn’t record. Obviously, PLEX MS software was working for me to be able to view this info. I decided to exit and restart PLEX within Win 10 for giggles and the 7:00 programs began recording immediately. I probably missed 10-15 minutes of each show. The error just showed that the “recordings were aborted.”

Since I didn’t restart windows, only PLEX, it points to PLEX being hung up or unable to reach the HDHR Connects for tuning or was unable to see the RAID drives I record to because it was stuck.

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PMS 1.9.4 seems to have fixed the issue. I moved to PMS 1.9.5 Wednesday 11 Oct and all recording did fine the last two nights.

Update 15 Oct 2017: see new post below, same problem, still not fixed.

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Sorry, back to report that the same thing happened again tonight. Three shows, all CBS so same channel, none of them recorded. All three programs for this night were set to add extra time to allow for overrun of earlier sports programming. See the screenshot attached, the recordings were “aborted.” I WAS using PLEX to view a local channel earlier, but not at the same time and I was using PLEX to view previously recorded material before, during and after the recordings. I am still leaning toward the HDHomeRun Connect not being able to release a tuner for recording. Again, I did not have a problem during the TV season that ran until May of this year. This has to be a PLEX update issue.

Screen shot and logs attached.

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Haven’t heard from you since the 2nd. Still floating around out there? Any word on a fix?

@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.

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@fizban11 said:
Haven’t heard from you since the 2nd. Still floating around out there? Any word on a fix?

@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.

Actually, I sort of forgot to test this. Sorry. I’ll try to get to it. Thanks for the reminder.

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@rodgerzeisler said:
Actually, I sort of forgot to test this. Sorry. I’ll try to get to it. Thanks for the reminder.

It happens to the best of us! I restarted the server this morning and did not watch Live TV through the PLEX app all day, but did watch live with another app. It’s 7:00 PM on Monday, my busiest recording night. Currently, all 4 tuners are busy recording as they should. I am fairly certain it has to do with PLEX LiveTV grabbing a tuner for viewing, but then either not releasing that tuner for recording later or not rechecking tuner allocation when it’s time to record something. As a work-around, if I can remember to restart the server before prime-time and not watch LiveTV during, then recording seems to work.

I really hope you can get this issue into the hands of a developer for a fix soon. Thanks for looking into this.

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I too have an extend and a connect… Monday’s are the busiest recording day for our family and there are always shows missing where 4 tuners should have had no issues. We do not watch live tv and this problem has essentially started like others for this new fall season.

I will try to explore the 1.6.1 media server route cause it’s getting very frustrating.

Does it help if you split up channels between the two connect boxes?

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@rodgerzeisler said:

@fizban11 said:
Haven’t heard from you since the 2nd. Still floating around out there? Any word on a fix?

@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.

Actually, I sort of forgot to test this. Sorry. I’ll try to get to it. Thanks for the reminder.

Rodger, I just confirmed this is at least part of, if not THE, root issue. I was watching Sunday Night Football using the LIVE Channels App (no through the PLEX app) on the Nvidia Shield. I checked on the PLEX server and sure enough, the ONE program set to record at 7:30 pm did NOT record and gave a “Transcoder Error.”

I promptly closed the PLEX MS Server app on Win 10 and restarted, but that didn’t help. I then closed the LIVE Channels App on Nvidia Shield and restarted the device, at the same time, I rebooted the PLEX MS on Win 10, again. As soon as PLEX MS restarted, it immediately showed to be recording the 7:30 program, albeit 10 min late.)

Somehow, PLEX is NOT given priority over the tuners. Even though I have two HDHomeRun Connects (4 tuners) PLEX could not utilize any of the open tuners to record. Logs are attached.

(*EDIT, even though PLEX MS on Win 10 showed to then be recording the 7:30 show starting about 10 min late, it only recorded 1 second. Program at 8:30 recorded fine. Program at 9:30 Transcoder Error, didn’t record.)

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Plex assumes that no outside app is using any of the devices/tuners. They have stated this multiple times on various posts. When a recording is scheduled, it “reserves” the devices, but not the tuner on that device. If there are no available tuners on the reserved device, the recording fails, even if there is another devices with available tuners. There is no logic to say “Oh, there are no tuners available on this device, but over here is another device with available tuners so I will go ahead and use that one instead”. I think the logic for scheduling was written when Plex only supported a single device and it has not been changed since.

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@rodgerzeisler said:
Plex assumes that no outside app is using any of the devices/tuners. They have stated this multiple times on various posts. When a recording is scheduled, it “reserves” the devices, but not the tuner on that device. If there are no available tuners on the reserved device, the recording fails, even if there is another devices with available tuners. There is no logic to say “Oh, there are no tuners available on this device, but over here is another device with available tuners so I will go ahead and use that one instead”. I think the logic for scheduling was written when Plex only supported a single device and it has not been changed since.

Rodger, From your earlier response about testing for this, I assumed you were a PLEX programmer. To clarify, are you? From your last response, you seemed a bit perturbed. I meant no disrespect and assumed I was addressing a programmer that could actually fix this issue. If that is not the case, then someone from PLEX needs to address the issue.

I fully understand that PLEX must assume it is the only program that has control over the tuners/OTA units. I understand that by using another app to access the HDHomeRun, I inadvertently caused PLEX to abort a recording.

However, IF PLEX is to support the use of multiple OTA units, each with multiple tuners such as the HDHomeRun OTA units, then PLEX not only should be able to, but MUST have logic which recognizes if a tuner is busy and switch to an open tuner. Otherwise, supporting LIVE TV tuning through PLEX apps (Roku, Nvidia Shield, etc.) and supporting multiple units is a conflict. There should be a setting for the user to choose which is more important, LIVE TV viewing through the app, or recording. PLEX should have the ability to tell the user on the viewing screen that it needs the tuner to record and kick the user off LIVE TV if recording a priority.

Now, to bring a possible solution, if what you say is true and PLEX assigns based upon OTA devices that you added to PLEX for recording, then 1 OTA unit with 4 tuners logged into PLEX would solve the issue. You could then use a separate OTA unit with 2 tuners to use for a different app for TV tuning. Again, you would have to do this because if what you say is true, then using LIVE TV tuning through PLEX can and will cause recordings to fail due to interrupted scheduling by using a tuner for Live TV viewing.

As for recording tonight, it’s getting ridiculous. From the screenshot I attached, I have already had 3 programs fail with “transcoder errors.”

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@fizban11 said:

@rodgerzeisler said:
Plex assumes that no outside app is using any of the devices/tuners. They have stated this multiple times on various posts. When a recording is scheduled, it “reserves” the devices, but not the tuner on that device. If there are no available tuners on the reserved device, the recording fails, even if there is another devices with available tuners. There is no logic to say “Oh, there are no tuners available on this device, but over here is another device with available tuners so I will go ahead and use that one instead”. I think the logic for scheduling was written when Plex only supported a single device and it has not been changed since.

Rodger, From your earlier response about testing for this, I assumed you were a PLEX programmer. To clarify, are you?

Nope. Just a Plex Pass user like most of us.

From your last response, you seemed a bit perturbed.

Not at all.

I meant no disrespect and assumed I was addressing a programmer that could actually fix this issue.

None taken. I am a programmer but not with Plex. I wasn’t trying to fix your problem, only laying out how it currently works.

If that is not the case, then someone from PLEX needs to address the issue.

OK

I fully understand that PLEX must assume it is the only program that has control over the tuners/OTA units. I understand that by using another app to access the HDHomeRun, I inadvertently caused PLEX to abort a recording.

Although you inadvertently caused Plex to abort a recording, there is no reason that a change in code shouldn’t have prevented this. As long as there is an available tuner for scheduled recordings, it is my opinion that Plex should utilize it.

However, IF PLEX is to support the use of multiple OTA units, each with multiple tuners such as the HDHomeRun OTA units, then PLEX not only should be able to, but MUST have logic which recognizes if a tuner is busy and switch to an open tuner. Otherwise, supporting LIVE TV tuning through PLEX apps (Roku, Nvidia Shield, etc.) and supporting multiple units is a conflict.

It supports Live TV, but only through Plex. Some conflict resolution is provided. Plex just does a bad job fully initializing multiple devices when it comes to scheduling.

There should be a setting for the user to choose which is more important, LIVE TV viewing through the app, or recording. PLEX should have the ability to tell the user on the viewing screen that it needs the tuner to record and kick the user off LIVE TV if recording a priority.

I believe it does. It just doesn’t provide the conflict resolution if you are using a non-Plex app to watch your live TV.

Now, to bring a possible solution, if what you say is true and PLEX assigns based upon OTA devices that you added to PLEX for recording, then 1 OTA unit with 4 tuners logged into PLEX would solve the issue.

It would possibly solve the problem depending on your viewing/recording habits. If you schedule 4 shows to record and 3 are currently recording when you fire up Live TV, then that 4th tuner would become busy and when the 4th scheduled show attempted to record, it would fail. A similar scenario if 2 TVs are watching live tv and 3 shows are scheduled to record.

You could then use a separate OTA unit with 2 tuners to use for a different app for TV tuning. Again, you would have to do this because if what you say is true, then using LIVE TV tuning through PLEX can and will cause recordings to fail due to interrupted scheduling by using a tuner for Live TV viewing.

With Plex you configure which devices it can use to record/watch Live TV. With HDHomeRun app, it just finds the first available tuner, whether Plex has it configured or not. To make using a non-Plex app for watching using one of your devices, you would need to block the Plex configured devices from being seen by the other apps. The way I have done that in the past is with a very smart switch that allowed me to firewall off an IP address so that only the Plex box could see it. This prevented the non-Plex app from see the Plex configured device, but it was allowed to see any other device on the network. I know a better solution would be to have Plex do a better job at scheduling and conflict resolution, but as I said, I’m not a Plex programmer so that currently is not an option. My solution to prevent a conflict was to hide the Plex configured device from other apps.

As for recording tonight, it’s getting ridiculous. From the screenshot I attached, I have already had 3 programs fail with “transcoder errors.”

Agreed.

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I had a similar problem when my system had both Plex and MythTV on it. If the MythTV back end was running it would take over the tuners. I had to go in and turn off the part where MythTV was always looking through the tuners to supplement the guide data (I can’t remember what it was called EIT or something like that). Also if I was watching live TV using Myth then it also hogged all the tuners (4) and Plex was not allowed access to them. If I am reading your question right you were trying to record using Plex and watching live TV using a different app on the shield correct? If so that may be the problem because I can watch live TV through the Plex app on the Roku and still record 3 other channels in Plex.

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@mwarcuri said:
I had a similar problem when my system had both Plex and MythTV on it. If the MythTV back end was running it would take over the tuners. I had to go in and turn off the part where MythTV was always looking through the tuners to supplement the guide data (I can’t remember what it was called EIT or something like that). Also if I was watching live TV using Myth then it also hogged all the tuners (4) and Plex was not allowed access to them. If I am reading your question right you were trying to record using Plex and watching live TV using a different app on the shield correct? If so that may be the problem because I can watch live TV through the Plex app on the Roku and still record 3 other channels in Plex.

Actually MythTV was even worse in the fact that it did not look for or honor any device/tuner locks. It assumed it was the only game in town and would take over a tuner even if another app was using it. Plex will ask if a tuner is available and the recording will fail if it is not available. Plex just doesn’t look for another device to record on if the device it originally scheduled to record on becomes unavailable.