I’m running server Version 1.19.4.2935 and app version .3.0.18912 on the Shield.
Programs I tested with were at least 30 minutes in.
So I’ve done some more testing and have now seen it work in both Android & Roku apps. But I’ve also replicated a scenario in both where it doesn’t work, and I think I have a theory.
SD & HD versions of the same channel.
I set a recording on a channel which is only available in SD. 17 or 18 minutes in, selected channel to play in guide and got option to play from start.
Then I set a recording on a channel which has both SD & HD versions, selecting the program via the SD channel. My recording settings say to prefer HD if available. The guide shows recording icons on both SD & HD channels I think. Plex records the show on the HD channel. Now select to play the HD channel 17 or 18 minutes in and i get the option to play from start again. But select to play the SD channel (which is showing the recording icon) and there’s no from start option, and channel goes straight to playing live.
Is it possible this is what a lot of others are seeing too?
What is missing is playing an SD channel when the HD equivalent is recording, the option to play the HD recording from the start.
Hmm, if that’s the case, I think it would be expected that you wouldn’t get the prompt, because you’ve selected a different channel, rather than the one that’s recording 
People could select that for a variety of reasons, based on their device, bandwidth, etc. so we don’t want to override their selection and force them onto another channel. If they’re simply SD/HD versions of the same channel, with the same content, then I’d probably recommend disabling the SD versions (or HD versions if you want 
) of the channels, so you only have one. I tried several times yesterday to reproduce this, but was unable to. However, I have all my SD variants disabled, so only one version of each channel
I find your response a little obtuse to what i thought would be a pretty helpful finding.
If you’re going to show the recording icon on the SD channel (even when it isn’t recording), then it is reasonable for a user to select that channel to watch the recording in progress. From your logic, if a user set the program to record on the SD channel, then it should be the SD channel that records - ‘we don’t want to override their selection and force them [to record] another channel’
Yes I could disable the SD channels, but then the HD channels are WAY down the list of channels, with no means of placing them at the top of the list where the SD channels are.
The icons certainly need to be refined in terms of what they communicate. The red dot indicates that there is a scheduled recording for that particular airing / episode, not a particular airing on a particular channel (the three dots indicates a series / show recording). So it’s not a recording icon per se, indicating that that particular airing is being recorded, but more an indicator that that show or episode has a scheduled recording, but it could be on a different channel, or at a different time. Yes, I agree with you that
if a user set the program to record on the SD channel, then it should be the SD channel that records - ‘we don’t want to override their selection and force them [to record] another channel’
which is why we have the Limit to Channel option in the recording options, otherwise, it will find the best resolution or airing that doesn’t conflict with other things, regardless of channel
I still think Plex could recognise when someone tries to play an SD channel and offer the HD equivalent channel instead. If the HD channel is recording, it could offer to play live or play ongoing recording from start. This isn’t ‘overriding their selection and forcing them onto another channel’, this is anticipating what the user’s intent might have been and giving them the choice of what’s possible - Play SD channel live, Play HD channel live, Play HD recording in progress from start.
In the absence of this, there are other things which could be done to assist the user;
- Have a ‘Recordings in Progress’ strip on Home
- An option to have HD channels listed at the top of the guide
- Add the HD Channels Only filter to the Guide on the apps where it is currently missing
- Allow channel re-ordering on the Guide
- A Mark Channel as Favourite function, with either list Favourites at top of Guide option, or a Favourites Only filter
- An option to replace SD channels in their position on the Guide with HD equivalents if they exist
1 Like
Have a ‘Recordings in Progress’ strip on Home
Totally agree on the concept; some method of starting a watch from a recording-in-progress will mitigate a lot of the issues related to looking up the channel or program, and especially with recordings that start early and/or end late.
I’ve had mixed experiences with “limit recording to channel” actually showing and using the correct channel. I’m using 2 EPGs, 1 for antenna and 1 for cablecard. So many issues, but that’s for another thread…
Will we ever get the ability to resume playback for an in-progress recording? Currently, there is “start from beginning” and “start from live” (not sure of the exact wording) but no “resume from last position”. This is a problem especially in sports recordings that are several hours long. If you ever stop in-progress playback, it is a real pain to then try to manually fast forward to the last playback position.
3 Likes
There are almost 1,000 posts in this thread. From what I can tell reading through them:
(1) the two Plex staff participating seem to alternatively state that
(a) it is not a problem for most users or
(b) it is almost fixed.
(2) almost all users on this thread report the problem still persists after two years.
I am running the latest Plex server on an Ubuntu machine. I experience this inability to play a “recording in progress” from the beginning whether attempting to watch in (a) Samsung TV app; (b) FireTV; (c ) Xbox; or (d) a Chrome-based web browser.
To me, that – coupled with 1000 posts and two years of complaints – is a pretty strong indication that the damn thing is broken. It is incredibly frustrating for Plex to either not respond or state that they can’t control for every variable. But in addition to the very common Ubuntu server, I’ve seen users running Fedora and Nvidia Shield servers on this thread with the same problem. That is probably about 75% (or more) of all Plex server configs. If you can’t fix it for those, you simply can’t fix it. And you should stop charging for PlexPass.
Can you give the exact server version, and provide server and client logs covering the time period, and let us know what the airing was? I use this daily, and haven’t had any issues starting from the beginning in months 
I appreciate the response and the help.
Here is the Plex server version: Plex Media Server v1.20.1.3252-a78fef9a9.
Attached are the server logs. [Plex should consider anonymizing the logs; as it stands, the logs include the computer username for the server and the Plex username of login clients]. Plex Media Server Logs_2020-09-06_08-23-59.zip (6.5 MB)
I need to work on the client logs.
The most recent airing was the NHL Game 7 yesterday, September 5, 2020, between the Islanders and the Flyers. The ones before that are the hockey games in the prior three weeks. Before that, last year, it was football. Essentially, every sportscast.
This problem was happening in Nov/2018 when I first had a plex pass and was happening again during the first week again after I recently installed Live TV/DVR again.
I solved the problem by deleting the DVR and switching back to NextPVR.
Almost 2 years later, and the Plex DVR is just as buggy and still lacks some of the most basic features that you expect in a DVR. You almost can never watch a program that is currently recording. I couldn’t even get AGT to go into the recording schedule (wouldn’t schedule on the channel that I wanted) and it still lacks manual recording feature (by channel/time) that would at least let users work around the recurring EPG problems.
2 Likes
Dave, please note that Limit To Channel is not always working correctly either. This past Tues, I tried to schedule AGT to record. It was on two channels at the same time and one is much higher quality than the other even though both are HD. If I limited to the better channel, it would not appear in the recording schedule. It would only be scheduled if I selected the lower quality channel or ALL (which meant that the lower quality channel would be used). A DVR doesn’t get more basic that trying to record a program at a particular time on a particular channel and I couldn’t do that.
No idea why. I have 4 tuners and this was the only program being recorded that night. There were no previous episodes of AGT on my computer. I was only recording the single instance, not the series. It just wouldn’t work. Rather than fight with the DVR yet again, I deleted the Plex DVR in disgust and went back to NextPVR, which has a much more flexible/powerful/reliable scheduler.
As a Plex Pass owner, I am just appalled at the bugginess and lack of functionality in Live TV/DVR. Quite often, the features that are there just don’t work and it still lacks the most basic features that you expect in any software or hardware DVR.
Obviously, not being able to watch programs that are recording is a HUGE lack of functionality.
A simpler example: If you want to cancel a recording in progress, you have to cancel the entire series. Then you have to remember to add it back when the airing is complete. This kind of non-intuitive usage patterns is just so emblematic of the product.
I encourage you to try to look at Day 12 of the guide in the grid. Just expect to press the right arrow to scroll 240 times after selecting day 7. Who thought that made sense? Just try to review the guide during primetime for the next two weeks to schedule your recordings and see how awkward that is and how many clicks are necessary (made worse by Plex thinking prime time starts at 5:00 rather than 8:00).
Given the recurring EPG problems which completely breaks the DVR, the DVR is in desperate need of the ability to do manual recordings (by time/channel/length) to allow users to work around the problems. Still not there after two years. Even other free DVR softwares have key word recording so that you can try to schedule a program to record even when it is not in the guide yet.
Sorry for the rant. But Plex needs to understand that the problems are far more fundamental than just getting a new EPG provider, which was in a recent announcement. 1) The DVR needs to work reliably. 2) It needs to be more efficient and intuitive to use. The current guide grid design is a huge obstacle to this.
1 Like
We’ll need fresh logs that cover the same time period on both the server and client. The client logs will have already rotated out the data from Sept 5. https://support.plex.tv/articles/201869908-log-files/ will give you information on how to get logs from all devices. You’ll most likely need to reproduce, and then grab the logs immediately.
We understand the issues we are facing, and are actively working towards resolving them. In the specific case you’re mentioning, I don’t have enough information to tell you exactly why that happened, nor enough to see what we could do to resolve that. Prime time varies from country to country, and Prime Time in my country at least starts around 6:30pm - 7:00pm here, so there is no perfect timeslot for primetime. As for going to day 12, program information is only available 7 days in advance in my location, but I tend to look at the recommendations or browse the shows, rather than clicking through that many days. However, it is something we’re working to improve.
Dave, I appreciate the response but we need to see the evidence that Plex is listening to us.
After two years:
- still can’t watch a live recording in progress for more than 30 or 45 minutes (and that’s on a good day) before it breaks
- still no way for us to work around the ever recurring EPG problems (i.e. manual recording by channel/time/length)
- still no way for us to efficiently browse what will be on in prime time over the next two weeks (a thing we do frequently in the fall when the new programs are starting up again)
No other DVR provider (free or otherwise) have these ridiculously stupid limitations.
As for when prime time starts, this is just not rocket science. There are extremely obvious solutions. For example, let us configure when prime time starts or provide an easy way to advance the grid 24 hours backward/forward. Plex is fully aware that we generally have 14 days of guide information in North America. But the grid only lets us reasonably show the first 7 days with the dropdown in the grid. Beyond that, you leave us with with pressing the right arrow 48 times to advance one day. Does anyone at plex get just how stupid that is? It has already been two years and nothing has been done about this painfully obvious UI problem.
People are constantly complaining that they can’t get programs to record or even appear in the recording schedule. But after two years, still no way for us to work around the problems.
The bottom line is that we want a DVR that reliably allows us to record TV. We don’t have that. We don’t want a DVR that we have to fight with all the time. And when we buy a Plex Pass, we are not paying the money so that we can become beta testers where the onus is on us to constantly provide logs and to get someone to try to listen to us. A certainly level of quality control is expected for paid features.
I am currently getting almost no value for my lifetime Plex Pass. I can’t use sync. I have uninstalled the DVR in disgust. I will be telling anyone that will listen that they should avoid wasting their money on a plex pass, especially if it’s primarily for the Live TV/DVR features. There are free alternatives that are far more reliable and far less frustrating to use.
2 Likes
If you think we’re not listening or working to improve things, then you should have a look at what myself, @sa2000, @cire12, and others have been doing for the last few years, and the time and effort we’ve put in to listening, helping and improving things.
As for providing logs, sometimes we can’t reproduce the exact scenario you have with server, network, client, reception and guide data. So logs are invaluable with solving issues we can’t reproduce trivially. If you can’t, or won’t provide them, there is only so much we can do to help. As for starting from the beginning, we’re unable to reproduce any issues with starting a recording from the beginning at this time.
I don’t doubt that you guys are working hard. But we’re not seeing improvement in the end product.
In one week of trying out the DVR product again:
- had the problem exactly as described at the beginning of this thread back in July/2018
- clicked on an episode of AGT in the grid to record and it would not schedule
- EPG did not get new content for 5 days
Logs are not necessary to improve the obvious abysmal navigation of the guide grid. Logs are not necessary to realize that it is extremely awkward to browse prime time. Logs are not necessary to see that a manual recording option is necessary to allow people to work around the constant scheduling problems that people are having.
Providing logs to solve scheduling issues is not practical for users. It will not solve the problem. By the time we get someone’s attention and get an answer, the program we wanted to record has already passed. We need a way to work around that. Every other DVR provider understands that EPG data is never going to be perfect and provides a way for users to deal with that.
I get that logs are important. I’m a recently retired systems/internet programmer and I know well the practical difficulties of debugging a problem that users are having. But as a user, I don’t have the time to be reporting bugs 2 or 3 times a week, especially when the bug reporting process is so screwed up. I don’t want to be posting logs publicly. So we need to get someone’s attention first so that we can direct message the logs.
And when we don’t see improvement in basic obvious things (like the guide grid), it really makes us feel like we are wasting our time (which is how I feel right now).
I wish you luck and I hope I see some improvement in 6 months, when I might have the patience to try the DVR again.
3 Likes
MovieWiz, many of us who have purchased a lifetime pass have just given up.on PLEX because of this. Channels DVR (from fancy bits) was the answer for me. It just works, always…
Exactly, I have pretty much tried them all and Channels DVR just plain works and it works reliably. When I gave up on PLEX I tried and tried to make Channels crash before I paid for a one year subscription. I could not get it to crash. IMHO PLEX is really sticking it to their subscribers. It takes forever for a channel to load, the dvr is buggy and I was constantly getting weak signal issues when my HDHomerun showed a strong signal and guess what, all of those “weak” channels work just fine. We are retired and watch a lot of TV. We record over 30 shows a week and timeshift a lot of football. Channels DVR handles every task without so much as a burp.
1 Like
