[HarleyRandom]

Yes, I should have looked in every list of TV episodes the minute I came close to 100 percent. For every episode with a yellow circle and an exclamation point, I should have said "keep until I delete". I didn't. But that was not a problem. There were always recordings in "Recently deleted recordings". Until last night. After I finished watching one recording, I went back to the list and instead of 100 percent it said 39 percent. The lists of episodes were much shorter and there were no recently deleted recordings. Only a few of the episodes had that yellow circle and I quickly fixed those. The rest had either green circles or blue ones. I did nothing during the time I watched a recording, but a new recording was made which should have resulted only in the deletion of an equally long recording from "Recently deleted recordings."

I called this morning when it was possible to do so, and after I unplugged the Roamio and plugged it back in and nothing changed, and was told to go to settings, then help, then troubleshooting, then restore defaults, I was told to wait an hour. I heard a program coming from the room so I checked and I needed to reload program information, which I did. But nothing had changed with the list of recordings. I called and was told I should have waited an hour. Figuring I might need to restart the process, I did.

I waited an hour and nothing. I called again. I have been told this is "a known issue" with the software and they'll get back to me in several days. I was given a case number. I was also told the unplug the Roamio and leave it unplugged for a while. I haven't checked to see if that worked. Meanwhile, now I have to tell the machine to record every single show I want to watch for the next week or so. I don't know how that will affect the recordings that should not have disappeared, since I don't have them to change to "keep until I delete". I also don't have the recently deleted recordings for the new recordings to take the place of.

 

[Mikeguy]

Perhaps this shows a danger of a nearly-full disk (which I often have succumbed to).

 

[JoeKustra]

My 1TB Roamio becomes physically full about every two months. It normally never gets more than 20% logically full. When it gets physically full, I kill one month's of programs from the recently deleted recordings folder. I've been doing this for about two years. I never use KUID, but my TiVo boxes will apply that flag to transferred programs after a week or two. Also, use Keep At Most: All and you'll never see a yellow dot.

 

[wmcbrine]

Only a few of the episodes had that yellow circle and I quickly fixed those. The rest had either green circles or blue ones.

I assume by "fixed those", you mean that you green-circled them? Either way, the fact that you mention green circles suggests that you use them a lot.

That was your mistake. It's counterintuitive, but the more you use the green circle, the more likely you are to encounter unexpected early deletions. It works like this: If you mark a program keep-until-I-delete, the TiVo assumes that it will NEVER be deleted, for purposes of calculating its future space needs. Thus, if your TiVo is half full of green-circle recordings, the drive capacity is effectively halved. The second part of this is, the TiVo takes all scheduled future recordings into account when estimating its needs. So the more green circles, the more yellow circles, and the more actual deletions.

The best thing to do with the yellow circles is to ignore them, completely -- despite the dire description, they're barely more likely to be deleted than an unmarked recording, and they can stay in the yellow state for literally years -- and the best thing to do with the green circles is to use them extremely sparingly.

 

[ThAbtO]

Never use KUID, or else when the drive gets full, it will stop recording.

This is what happens when you have been keeping it so full. >90% will run you the risk of getting shows deleted completely. Tivo over-estimates the amount of space it would need for recordings over the next few days.

My 4TB Roamio is kept only at about 35% and I have many seasons of shows still on there.

 

[HarleyRandom]

The big question is how to get the recordings back. The tech support person believed they were in there somewhere, and that nothing I did not tell the Roamio to delete would be deleted until the Recently Deleted Recordings was empty. And the Recently Deleted Recordings was not empty. The second tech support person, after hearing the first attempt didn't do it, seemed to suggest a software fix could get them back. But if I keep recording, those recordings will be "deleted" but something will have to be actually deleted, and that could come from the recordings that were still there last week. I deleted new recordings from the Recently Deleted Recordings.

I was so close to 100 percent that changing everything to green would have been the only way to keep everything safe. I've done it before. Eventually I got down to a reasonable level, but right now the other two are full.

I don't get the same type warnings on the Roamio but if I get a warning something won't record, then I have to use a specific date for some items and keep changing the date if I can't watch.

 

[ThAbtO]

You can only recover what is still in that Recently Deleted folder, but once its gone from there, its gone forever. Overwritten by the next recordings.

 

[HarleyRandom]

That's not what the person said. I'll find out the next time I talk to someone. But the recordings were not deleted to make room for new recordings and I didn't delete them. It's a software issue and it sounds like they're still there.

 

[HarleyRandom]

Never use KUID, or else when the drive gets full, it will stop recording.

This is what happens when you have been keeping it so full. >90% will run you the risk of getting shows deleted completely. Tivo over-estimates the amount of space it would need for recordings over the next few days.

My 4TB Roamio is kept only at about 35% and I have many seasons of shows still on there.

At this point that's where I am. I'm hoping a software fix will change that tomorrow. What I do know is that when I followed the directions to recover the recordings, I was warned my planned recordings would be deleted. They were still there when I went back to tell the Roamio to record them again. That's suspicious.

One detail I forgot which may relate to why all this happened: every now and then the yellow circles would turn blue again.

 

[ThAbtO]

80-90% of the time I do not trust Tivo CS, due to them being outsourced to Philippines and scripted.

 

[HarleyRandom]

They finally admitted they couldn't rescue the recordings but were trying to keep the same problem from happening again. I don't think they did everything they could since I didn't try unplugging the machine this morning, though I did clear the to do list and program information. I don't know why that was supposed to accomplish anything but at the end I was told that would keep that from happening again. But nothing like that ever happened. The other advice I was given was keep until I delete. Which I am doing now.

 

[ThAbtO]

The other advice I was given was keep until I delete. Which I am doing now.

Avoid using KUID as it would stop recording once it gets full. Delete shows when you are done with them and don't keep the drive so full.

 

[HarleyRandom]

If you notice the title of the thread, that's not a problem any more.

Hopefully this thread will help others with similar problems.

I am concerned about one thing. I was told to delete program information and my to do list. There was a warning I would delete this list of programs I wanted to record and it didn't appear that ever happened. I was told there was a software problem and if this is a software problem, what else is the software not doing? What if that problem is why what they told me to do didn't work?

 

[JoeKustra]

If you had looked at your TDL when the process completed it would have a blank TDL and all the programs in your 1P manager would show as "Updating". That process takes from 5 to 30 minutes. There is not problem with this process except for not showing how the time to complete has changed in the last 10 years.

 

[Wigohwt]

If you notice the title of the thread, that's not a problem any more.

Hopefully this thread will help others with similar problems.

What size HDD do you have? How long have you been using it? Do you have suggested recordings on?

I don't see how the TiVo would have normally deleted ALL of the recently deleted recordings, and so many of your yellow or blue recordings. Did you have an unusually large "To Do" list?

Maybe your HDD is failing. If you noticed any green KUID programs are gone, then this is very likely.

 

[HarleyRandom]

What size HDD do you have? How long have you been using it? Do you have suggested recordings on?

I don't see how the TiVo would have normally deleted ALL of the recently deleted recordings, and so many of your yellow or blue recordings. Did you have an unusually large "To Do" list?

Maybe your HDD is failing. If you noticed any green KUID programs are gone, then this is very likely.

I don't see how that would have happened either. Neither did the tech support person.

How big is my HDD? Where do I find that?

I bought the Roamio in July 2015.

I never look at my To Do list so I don't know what large would be. Approximately six hours of recordings per night doesn't seem excessive. Most of those are just newscasts where I would want only a small part of the content, or duplicate "Jeopardy" recordings because of problems with the season pass when I first tried to record the same episode twice on two different channels. In the event of big news or weather bulletins, a second "Jeopardy" recording is valuable.

No KUID programs are gone.

The fan is making a lot of noise, as if it's a VCR while it's recording. I don't turn the thing off at night because I might forget to turn it back on but if that fan has to be running a lot, it can't be good for the fan. This time of year, cooling is not a problem.

 

[JoeKustra]

https://support.tivo.com/articles/FAQ/TiVo-Service-Number-and-Model-Number-Table#TiVo Roamio Series

Where to get roamio basic or OTA cooling fan replacement

 

[Wigohwt]

How big is my HDD? Where do I find that?

Under System Information, check your Recording Capacity and divide the HD Hours by 150, this will give an idea of the size in TBs.

I ask, because a smaller drive has more issues with filling up and more preemptive deletion by the TiVo.

I bought the Roamio in July 2015.

So, only a little over 4 years. Could be a worn drive but usually not this early. You may want to replace your drive anyway, especially if it's 1TB or less. One problem is that if you keep near 100% and don't watch/delete many old recordings, the drive is running over and over the same part of the drive usually around 10% or less of the disk.

I never look at my To Do list so I don't know what large would be. Approximately six hours of recordings per night doesn't seem excessive. Most of those are just newscasts where I would want only a small part of the content, or duplicate "Jeopardy" recordings because of problems with the season pass when I first tried to record the same episode twice on two different channels. In the event of big news or weather bulletins, a second "Jeopardy" recording is valuable.

No KUID programs are gone.

Since you don't have a large TDL, there's no normal reason for the TiVo to do such a large preemptive deleting of recordings, hmm... At least you didn't lose any KUID programs which is a good sign.

The fan is making a lot of noise, as if it's a VCR while it's recording. I don't turn the thing off at night because I might forget to turn it back on but if that fan has to be running a lot, it can't be good for the fan. This time of year, cooling is not a problem.

Easy to replace. The fan is in use even in standby. Of course, if you mean to pull the plug, then you can't record.

 

[mbernste]

In skimming through this thread, all I can think of is where do all of you find the time to watch the stuff you've recorded in that you have so much recorded that you use up the terabytes of storage on the Roamio? I never watch Prime Time TV when it airs (I wait until the weekend) and at most I may use 3% of the available storage capacity. Once I watch a show, I'm not going to watch it again, so I delete it. With streaming options these days (many included with subscription to the associated channel), there's even less of a need to record a show and store it on the TiVo.

 

[Jonathan_S]

In skimming through this thread, all I can think of is where do all of you find the time to watch the stuff you've recorded in that you have so much recorded that you use up the terabytes of storage on the Roamio? I never watch Prime Time TV when it airs (I wait until the weekend) and at most I may use 3% of the available storage capacity. Once I watch a show, I'm not going to watch it again, so I delete it. With streaming options these days (many included with subscription to the associated channel), there's even less of a need to record a show and store it on the TiVo.

I tend to have some shows pile up during the fall/spring season since a) that's when network TV is airing all their new episodes and b) that's when I'm doing more activities and so have less time for TV. I catch up over the summer when there are less new shows.

(Also sometimes a new show will look interesting so I'll set a one pass; then once I get a chance to watch an episode or two I'll decide it's not for me and delete all of it. But even with streaming I might not be able to watch all the episodes if it turns out I do like it but hadn't saved them when aired. Current seasons often seem to only have the last couple episodes available for streaming)