I have a similar issue. Fire TV 4K stick, windows 7 server. I can only watch the recording after it finishes. This sucks for sports and has been ongoing for months. Please fix ASAP or refund us life time Plex subscribers!
@sa2000 - Thanks, but we need more - a plan/date to fix this issue.
I cancelled my subscription today, paying a monthly fee for a feature that doesn’t work doesn’t feel right. I’ll keep an eye on this thread in the hope that it’s resolved at which point I’ll happily resubscribe, other than this, Plex is a great product.
+1 I have this issues as well on multiple devices. Tried in multiple browsers and if I start from beginning of recording and then try to skip forward or back, it just repeatedly starts at the exact same point. It does not actually change the time at all in a browser. On my Shield, the Watch Live feature does nothing, it just spins. Then selecting Start from Beginning actually plays live. I cannot believe how broken this is. My family is so frustrated. After converting everything over Plex and getting rid of all other media servers and my DVR, I’m not looking for alternatives. Having this issue as well as randomly getting the “The Connection to this Server Is not Fast Enough” errors all the time (on directly connected Gigabit Ethernet) is just infuriating.
Same problem here. Shield TV is the server and recording the US on Fox OTA via Hdhomerun has been a joke.
Plus the new guide data is generic descriptions about the program, not about the episode. I hope this isn’t a permanent “feature”. Oh ya, we’re back to extremely flaky tuning, failing more often than succeeding.
I am in a similar situation, with problems spanning multiple playback devices (AppleTV, Shield, PC). I had to switch back to SageTV until these very fundamental issues are solved. It cannot be a case of not enough logs, reproducing is simple enough (and has been).
That is cool. I’ve been doing the hack to play the file from .grab folder due this bug. But, it will be better if this is fixed for good.
Add me to the list. Timeshift DVR is my #1 use case for Plex. Thankfully, its not NFL season so not such a problem for me at the moment. It took over a year to finally get the bugs in DVR playback in Android TV fixed and now 1.16 comes along and breaks it worse than ever. This needs to be fixed before NFL season.
Anytime I’ve tried this, if I pause and don’t continue watching the entire show to the end, the fact that I have it open from the .grab folder keeps it from being saved properly when the show ends.
Long story short: either watch to the end from .grab, shut playback off before the end of the real-time show, or it doesn’t get saved, for me anyhow.
I don’t have that behaviour. I can watch it from android tv player without disturbing the recording. I’ve created a new library with the grab folder. I play from there.
Any case, it is jus not the correct way to watch something from the beginning meanwhile is recording. But, it works for me until plex finally fixes the bug.
Just happened again with Great Performances on 10.1 at around 9:15pm CDT. No option to resume the in progress recording.
Logs attached.
Chalk me up as beyond frustrated with this as well. Since release, the DVR has never really worked reliably for me and the symptoms described here I experience nearly daily.
Odd that I have issues regularly with the same show someone else mentioned above, CBS Sunday Morning.
I’m on a 7700k server and Hauppauge WinTV Dual with multiple Shield clients. The DVR has literally never worked 100% with this “playback live show that is currently recording” issue the most frequent (daily) problem.
When this issue manifests and you try to repeatedly play the show, Plex complains of weak signal despite the actual signal strength not changing and being very strong. Other apps like Hauppauge’s tuner app, plays and records the channel just fine.
I’m similarly on the verge of moving to other solutions than Plex. The Plex DVR simply doesn’t work reliabily enough.
Good point on the “weak signal” error message. One of the core tenets of good software engineering is proper error handling, and conflated error messages are simply not helpful. Eagerly awaiting a response.
Looks like the 1 year anniversary for this thread. I was considering a lifetime pass, but this is a show stopper with the family. Any beta or viable workaround?
For a workaround try this:
While recording, the video is in the .grab folder. Set up a new media source and point it to the .grab location. See if you can play the video that is in there as it is being recorded.
Workaround = Emby
Im looking at it and have it installed. Im pretty fed up with Plex releases with huge glaring issues. They obviously have no QA process.
Honestly from what I see of Emby, feature wise it doesn’t impress me so far.
It looks like for my Hauppauge USB tuner to work, I need to install Hauppauge DVR software package 
I dont own that and would have to buy it. Only $10, but still, why do I have to buy and install a DVR software package? I thought that is what Im paying for with Emby?
From what I see, there is no commercial removal SW built in like Plex has with Comskip.
Have not spent too much time with it yet so dont have a solid opinion on it other than the couple of things above.
True, the commercial skip feature is something that Emby should have. However, being able to watch games while they are recording is a must have feature…
