Anyone who has read any significant portion of this thread should have ZERO problems recreating the issue. This is all diversionary noise IMO.
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I thought I would post my recent experience here. Recording was 1/2 hour into a show and I wanted to play catch up skipping ad portions. So I selected the show and was prompted for live or start and I picked start.
Worked ok for the first set of ads that I skipped forward on. The second set I overshot so I went to back up. It basically went back to the beginning over and over again. I tried accessing via the guide and it still went to the beginning.
Then on one attempt it went to where the show was live. And worse when looking at the recordings I had another version of the same show/time being recording starting at that time. Tried it again a few times and now I ended up with another version that started recording a few minutes later. Now three versions recording.
When the show ended I got the original one complete and was able to watch normally in DVR mode. But the other two versions said they went to 100% but never stopped recording and could not be deleted.
I was able to delete the original version but the other two stayed no matter what I tried to do. They basically would respond to no selections.
In the end I restarted the Plex server and that cleared the two “ghost” recordings. I did not bother to look at the logs or the files to see what was there. Just happy I recovered and are now back to normal again.
Found this thread and now I know realtime recording while watching is iffy at best.
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Any update?
Plex team. This does this every single time I use this feature. It is also causing marital stress as well! For me, I’m watching my local news. I start at 20 ish minutes after the start of the broadcast. I select “watch from start” from the live tv & dvr menu on my roku client. It starts around 14 or 15 minutes in, not at the “start”. I also cannot fast forward or rewind. The player controls “shows” its at the beginning. I can move the time line. However it plays from the same point (14 or 15 minutes in) no matter how I adjust (which is not the start). This is very reproducible. It literally happens every single time. The wife an I have to sit and wait for the news to be over so we can properly watch it from the start. Not convenient, and continously prompts the question from her - "why the hell are we using this crap software? " cmon guys, throw us a life line here…
I can see the tumbleweeds… Emby solved my marital stress… just look how long and old this thread is… it’s time…
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I set up an emby server this weekend to test things out and so far so good with live TV recording and time shifting using Nvidia shield and chromcasts as clients. My wife was excited at the prospect of watching our shows while recording. I still have some testing to do to make sure it handles every thing else we need well, but so far emby is promising just like others have said. I’ll post with updates after I test things like remote streaming, transcoding, etc.
“Hard to reproduce” = We haven’t looked at it, have no one looking at it, and have no intention on looking at it but I need something to say to make everyone stop recommending other products.
But in the meantime, here are some additional upcharge features (TIDAL) that have our developers working on and want you to pony up for"…
Wow… just wow.
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I’ve being using .grab folder as workaround and it works for me for the moment.
What are you using the .grab folder with as a workaround? More details would be helpful.
it is being posted here before. You need to create a video library with the folder .grab. That folder is located in the shows library and it is used by Plex to save the recordings. Then, the recording starts, you need to update the library to have the file available (ocasionally, I need to check other library and back to have the file). Then, it behaves like a normal video file, you can play, forward, rewind, etc… of course, if you get to the end it will stop. But, you can start it again and it will continue where it stopped. Due to the recording is still running and the file is increasing in length. The only problem is that if you stop the video after the show is finished. It will be erased and move to the tv shows library. But, it is better than to wait until the record is finished.
Thanks, that works good as a workaround.
I requested a Plex Pass refund (see below) and got this response:
Hi, Ben
The team is, indeed, actively investigating the issue. It has, unfortunately, been very difficult to reproduce while under a debugger, to be able to actually determine the root cause. It’s a very high-priority issue for us and it’s definitely not being ignored, though.
Regardless, I can look into a refund and cancellation for you. Note that it would be a prorated refund for time remaining in the subscription year. Let me know whether or not you’d like me to go ahead with that.
Thanks!
Ben Shrake
Aug 6, 7:20 AM PDT
Message:
I would like to request a refund of my Plex Pass, please. I have been a Plex user for a few years, and been very patiently waiting (months) for a fix for the broken DVR “Watch from the beginning?” feature, as have MANY other Plex users (not sure if you guys ever read the forums?). The CEO claimed last month that he was “looking into it”. I love Plex’s interface, but I GIVE UP!
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Totally gonna do the same. I bought Plex Pass solely for the DVR feature. And yes, for the most part there is no issues if you just set it to record and come back to watch another time. But whenever I try to tune into an in-progress recording, I have the issues described by almost everyone else. It happens the same on the PC Plex Media Player app, and on my Nvidia Shield or Pixel 2 XL app. Using the latest version of Plex Media Server on a Windows 10 PC.
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Too bad they are still having trouble nailing down what the cause is. I’m glad that they responded nicely to your refund request.
They are not having trouble nailing down the cause, there is no one working on it.
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Do you know this for a fact or are you just making things up?
This thread alone has been open since July 2018, search the forums and you will find older.
Meanwhile other up-charge enhancements (TIDAL) have been rolling out along with their numerous enhancements and patches.
. The most you will see the occasional obligatory “Send us your logs” even though the bug is is readily reproducible in all versions/platforms.
If you want to believe that Plex has had their “best engineers” working on this bug for over 13 months without a fix that is up to you.
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I don’t recall anyone saying their best engineers have been working on this issue for over 13 months, only that they are working on that now.
And the comment that the bug is hard to reproduce with the debuggers running is interesting, I’ve seen that in the past. Start looking for the issue, and it goes away. Also, they have to start a recording, and wait 20 minutes or more to reproduce the problem makes the debugging time consuming.
I suspect most people don’t use this feature. I didn’t know this problem existed until I ran across the forum posts. As such when prioritizing problems to work on, this one probably didn’t rise to the top of the list for a while. I’m sure their developers aren’t sitting around looking for something to do.
Calling to cancel your Plex Pass subscription is probably a good way to get them to assign a high priority to this issue. Money talks.
Ya, when your primary debug mechanism is logging you often have issues using real tools.
To me the responses and the actions are indefensible. It’s clear to me that it’s a calculated activity based on revenue. Lifetime members are no longer a revenue stream. They need new users buying Plex Pass so the focus is on shiny new spoons. Again they underestimated the mess they’d create in switching guide data. Hints to me that they built the software around the previous provider and it’s embedded deep in the system rather than building a guide system in their software and populating it from external sources.
All guesses but I’d bet a nickel on it. We’d only know by reviewing the software.
Calling to cancel a recurring subscription may have an effect but for Lifetime members they’ll pro-rate it down to near $0.
I don’t understand how anyone can defend this but I don’t have to, we all have freedom to think and speak our opinions!
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I love using Plex as my media server and will continue to do so. I recently decided to ditch my aging Tivo Roamio that I use for OTA TV in favor of an HDhomerun. I preferred to keep everything in Plex but this issue is basic DVR functionality that has existed for 20 years since Tivo and Replay TV started the DVR business in the late 1990s. I don’t get it. I hate having to pay more but will need to use Channels DVR (which works very well) when fall season starts if this has not been addressed.
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