Suddenly missing recordings

[sharding]

We've just very recently started having some weird problem where our S3 isn't recording things it should be recording. We first noticed it Sunday night. At 9pm, it should have been recording Desperate Housewives and The Apprentice. We have season passes for both shows, and the guide data appeared to be correct for them (including showing it as a first run episode). They're both high priority in Season Pass manager, so I don't think there were any conflicts, and I don't see anything else that recorded that would have overlapped.

Around 9:15, we were watching a previously recorded program, and I noticed that it wasn't recording anything at all (neither red light was on). There were no partial recordings for those shows in Now Playing, so it doesn't look like it started and then stopped. Both tuners were on the right channels, though (seems unlikely to be a coincidence). I hit record on both channels, and it recorded both shows completely (using the buffer, since it was already on the right channel). I looked at the to-do list, and I didn't see any sign of those shows, but there were plenty of upcoming recordings showing. I shrugged it off to a one-time error.

But it's apparently happened again. Today, my wife tells me that it didn't record Oprah. I know that it was on the right channel for Oprah, because I saw it on the TV (muted). I didn't notice whether it thought it was recording or not, though.

It has been recording some things, so I know it's not completely failing to record. And it recorded the first two shows without complaint when I manually told it to. But this is just too weird -- I don't remember ever having anything like this happen with my Series 1 or Series 2. I've missed a few recordings here and there, but the cause has always been fairly obvious (e.g. a conflict, the cable went out, the guide data was wrong, the power went out, etc.). But none of those appear to be the case here.

Has anyone else seen this? Any tips for troubleshooting it? Not being able to trust that I'd get my shows was one of the biggest driving factors behind paying the $$$ for the S3 to get rid of our Comcast DVR...

[greg_burns]

Did you missing recording's channels call letters change? I've similar threads where that appears to have be the cause.

[eelton]

Did you check the To Do list to see if upcoming programs are listed? You can also check the recording history there, which will say why requested programs were not recorded.

[sharding]

Did you missing recording's channels call letters change? I've similar threads where that appears to have be the cause.

Hmm. Possible. I'll have to check for sure when I get home. We've now had missed recordings on two channels, both HD locals. Their "real" call letters didn't change, but it's possible the call letters used in the guide data changed. On the other hand, we haven't had any "a lineup change has occurred" messages, and I'm 99% sure that the call letters showing on Zap2it are the same ones those channels have always had.

[samual.icky]

Any chance you where not getting a signal lock on that station at that time?

[sharding]

Any chance you where not getting a signal lock on that station at that time?

Well, I guess it's possible, but it seems unlikely. For one thing, it happened on two channels at once. Also, when I rewound in the buffer, it played without a glitch from at least two minutes before the shows started, all the way through the end of the show. Also, the only other times I've seen that happen, I've ended up with a partial recording in Now Playing. In this case, I had nothing -- it really was as if it thought it didn't have anything to record.

I did look in the To-Do list, but I didn't pay specific attention to future airings of the problem shows. I'll check that when I get home. I will note that it did record something on one of the same channels only two hours before, making the changed call-letters seem slightly less likely...

[sharding]

Ok, this is very weird. I'm more confused now. It looks like pretty much nothing is going to be recorded from here on out. The call letters haven't changed as far as I can tell (what's listed in the Season Pass is the same thing listed in the Guide). And I see no trace of the missed shows in the Recording History.

Rather than trying to explain it all in text, here are some (poor) screenshots of what I'm seeing using the example of The Office:

http://dogcow.org/tmp/myspace-images/20070123-IMG_2553.jpg

http://dogcow.org/tmp/myspace-images/20070123-IMG_2548.jpg

http://dogcow.org/tmp/myspace-images/20070123-IMG_2546.jpg

http://dogcow.org/tmp/myspace-images/20070123-IMG_2549.jpg

http://dogcow.org/tmp/myspace-images/20070123-IMG_2550.jpg

WTF?

Our Series2 in the other room is working fine and is recording everything it's supposed to, including several Season Passes identical to the ones on the Series 3 (there are many more than you can see in the screenshot). As far as I can tell, all the stuff in System Information looks ok (including the date and time -- I was thinking that maybe that somehow got screwed up).

[andyf]

Reboot will fix it.

[sharding]

Reboot did indeed seem to fix it (though not immediately -- I rebooted last night before bed and it still wasn't showing any recordings, but this morning it's ok). How annoying...

[cbono]

Could this be the same problem being described in these threads?

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=325388
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=338100

Specifically, they deal with Season Passes "going dormant" and not picking up future airings of shows. The threads detail how to "wake up" the passes so they find shows again.

[sharding]

Yes, that sounds virtually identical. Rebooting fixed it for me, so I can't test if the other fix would have worked, but I imagine it would.

I wonder if this really is a new issue to the S3, or what. Like I said, I never saw it on my S1 or S2, which I've been using for years...

[cbono]

Interesting that a reboot corrected the problem. That was the first thing I tried when I noticed my To-Do List running dry, but it didn't help. I had to manually go in and revive each Season Pass.

I've not had any trouble since. Hopefully it's corrected in the forthcoming 8.1 update to prevent any other folks from losing shows.

[sharding]

Well, for me it was rebooting and waiting overnight. Immediately after I rebooted, it still looked like it had the same problem. I was frustrated and it was late at night, so I went to bed. When I checked it in the morning, it was fine. I suppose it's possible that it would have even fixed itself overnight without the reboot, so I can't definitively say that was the solution. However, it was broken for a few days before I rebooted, and it was fixed the morning after I rebooted...

[CrispyCritter]

Yes, that sounds virtually identical. Rebooting fixed it for me, so I can't test if the other fix would have worked, but I imagine it would.

I wonder if this really is a new issue to the S3, or what. Like I said, I never saw it on my S1 or S2, which I've been using for years...My guess is that this is all connected with the "duplicate channels" issues and the channels coming back after you tell the TiVo you don't want them issue. Your channel database is bad. When new shows come in, the scheduler associates them with the bad "duplicate" channel, instead of the channel that has the Season Pass on it, and thus doesn't add it to the ToDo list. When you reboot, the channel database is cleared up (at least until your first call to TiVo), and so the ToDo list is correctly rebuilt and you get your shows added.

This is pure speculation, but it fits the facts that I've seen reported. If true, then until TiVo fixes the channel bugs it might be worthwhile rebooting every two weeks if you've ever gotten the problem. (I don't have the duplicate channels and haven't had any problems).

This problem has been reported very rarely on S1 and S2. I suspect the channel database there gets corrupted much less often. The S3 is supposed to have multiple versions of the same station so things are more complicated. You can have the same station in various setups as OTA analog, OTA HD, cable analog, cable SD, cable HD (not to mention cable digital without QAM mapping). The TiVo has to reliably distinguish between all of these based upon possibly faulty info from the cable companies and obviously there's a bug in how TiVo does it.