AltEPG

I've noticed some oddness since switching over to AltEPG to do with reboots. On a few occasions now, TiVo has rebooted while a programme was being recorded as part of a Season Pass. After the reboots however TiVo hasn't automatically continued the recording as a separate entry in Now Playing as one would expect, but has just sat there on the same channel but not recording. If I manually restart the recording following the reboot using the record button, the new recording has overwritten the previous partial recording rather than leaving two separate partial recordings as expected.

Is this behaviour anything to do with the new guide data and lack of TMSIDs/OADs, perhaps? Or is some metadata about the programme length missing, so TiVo isn't figuring out that the whole programme wasn't successfully recorded?

The reboots have often happened while I've been using TiVoWeb or connected via telnet/FTP etc, so figure I've just been over-stressing TiVo at the time. I have noticed a few more random reboots than normal, but not sure if that's connected with AltEPG or if the hard drive is just getting on in years. FWIW I kept my existing TiVo setup during the AltEPG switchover and just followed the Clear Programme Data & To Do List followed by Guided Setup... Apart from these oddities, everything else seems to be working fine.

Edit: on further thought, it is almost as if the recordings are being treated more like Suggestions than Season Passes - as if TiVo realises it's missed the beginning of the prog so isn't going to bother recording a partial programme post-reboot unless manually told to.

Did you do a Clear & delete when you set up AltEPG?

If that isn't the solution, then try this

SolidTechie wrote:Did you do a Clear & delete when you set up AltEPG?

As mentioned in the original post I did a 'Clear Programme Data & To Do List'.

SolidTechie wrote:If that isn't the solution, then try this

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1) Are you using the AltEPG TiVo software? 
            (d) I'm still using  the original TiVo software
2) How did you configure your TiVo for AltEPG? 
            (b) changed the dial-in configuration code 
3) How do you connect to AltEPG? 
            (b) network
4) Have you run Guided Setup? 
            (a) yes and it worked ok 
5) Did you do a "Clear & Delete"?   
            (b) "Clear & Delete Programme Data & To Do List" 
6) On the "System Information" screen it says: 
            (a) Account Status 4: TiVo Internal Testing 
7) Copy the following from the screen next to "Phone Call" on the "System Information" screen
              Don't have this information to hand (not in front of my TiVo), but it is completing daily calls without problem.
8) What is your Dial Prefix?
            No Dial Prefix is being used

I should emphasise that I am not querying the reason for the occasional reboots (which may or may not be AltEPG-related), just the strange behaviour in terms of handling in-progress recordings following a reboot.

BobBlueUK wrote:As mentioned in the original post I did a 'Clear Programme Data & To Do List'.

Clearly, I hadn't had sufficient coffee - my apologies.

I should emphasise that I am not querying the reason for the occasional reboots (which may or may not be AltEPG-related), just the strange behaviour in terms of handling in-progress recordings following a reboot.

Yes, definitely caffeine deficiency at play.

I imagine that this is "TiVo" behaviour, rather than "Tribune" or "AltEPG" at fault - no doubt someone with more knowledge of these things will be along shortly to assist in diagnosis. Have you had a look for anything significant in the logos around the time(s) of the reboot(s)?

BobBlueUK wrote:Is this behaviour anything to do with the new guide data and lack of TMSIDs/OADs, perhaps? Or is some metadata about the programme length missing, so TiVo isn't figuring out that the whole programme wasn't successfully recorded?

Interesting, never heard of that behaviour before. The programme lengths should be fine. OADs shouldn't matter unless it's a niche "FRO" SP. TmsIds - could be the cause, I suppose. Won't know for sure unless it stops happening when TmsIds are added

How about this - perhaps some more people with the AltEPG disc image could do some experiments? Several people all pick the same programme. Someone sets it as a manual recording (ie from the TiVo-7 screen entering times), someone sets it as a one-off ("record this episode"), someone sets it as a Season Pass, someone creates a Wishlist that matches it. Then everyone pulls the power in the middle of it, restarts and sees who gets a part 2 and who doesn't? (We'd want to see the same "reason" appearing in everyone's Recording History)

Ideally this should be done with different types of programme data - at the moment we have (a) episodes, (b) generics, (c) one-off specials.

Repeat including standard tivo 2.5.5 images.

SolidTechie wrote:Have you had a look for anything significant in the logos around the time(s) of the reboot(s)?

Good thinking! I found the following in Otverr.log at the time of the last reboot while it was recording:

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/var/log/Otverr/
Jul 12 20:21:46 (none) TmkAssertionFailure[254]: (BlockFailure, line 1771 ())
Jul 12 20:21:46 (none) tivosh[254]: Tmk Fatal Error: Thread tivosh <254> died due to signal -2
Jul 12 20:21:46 (none) tivosh[254]: Tmk Thread Backtrace: 1a344ec 1a32a44 1a2ed70 1b95e0c 1c4d5e8 1c85a50 1c89438 1c835f4 1c77e7c 1c61a10 1c8e4e0 1c77e7c 1c61a10 1c8e4e0 1c77e7c 1c61a10 1c8e4e0 1c77e7c 1c61a10 1c640f8 1c77e7c 1c61a10 1c8e4e0 1c77e7c 1c61a10 1c61798 19148b8 19230c0 1929274 1c98f2c 1c88c24 1c88f34 1919d90 1c61118 1c77e7c 1c61a10 1c849c0 1c85ec8 1c4d248 1c28cac 1800134 ipe
Jul 12 20:21:46 (none) tivosh[254]: Tmk Fatal Error: Thread died due to signal -2
Jul 12 20:21:46 (none) tivosh[254]: Invoking rule 834: rebooting system
Jul 12 20:23:30 (none) TvDbUtil[138]: CleanupRecordingNoRetry: Can't reschedule recording: error errTmActiveLockConflict
Jul 12 20:23:30 (none) DbObject[138]: Missing required attribute 0xe0010
Jul 12 20:23:30 (none) DbObject[138]: 1b58a20 1b526cc 1b893d4 1b891ec 1b418e8 1b42318 1c0c9f8 1c0c08c 1c0bf48 1c071b0 1c070c8 1c0736c 1c06cb8 1bf7094 1c239b0 1c2764c
Jul 12 20:23:31 (none) TvDbUtil[138]: CleanupRecording: Can't cleanup recording : hammer cancelled error: 0x00000000
Jul 12 20:23:31 (none) Recorder[138]: Error cleaning up recording 4072395: 0x00030008


From that it looks like the reboots probably are AltEPG-related (Rule 834 - did anyone find a solution to that?), and also that the TiVo recording oddness may be related to the CleanupRecording & 'Missing required attribute' log entries?

I don't like the "Missing required attribute" error Anyone any idea what the 0xe0010 means? a code for the attribute?

gcobb wrote:I don't like the "Missing required attribute" error Anyone any idea what the 0xe0010 means? a code for the attribute?

I've sometimes seen "attribute missing from schema" errors in the MFS browser in tivoweb. This happened when there was a hex value in an object that tivoweb doesn't know the text string for. In that case, if my notes are right, it was "attr 0x40019" that was missing, which turned out to be "ShortTitle" (in a series). I found it by downloading mfs-utils - it contains mfs_dumpschema which contains more values.

from the output of that was

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3 Program 1 Version int
3 Program 2 Expiration int
3 Program 3 Path string
3 Program 4 IndexPath string
3 Program 5 IndexUsed object
3 Program 6 IndexUsedBy object
3 Program 7 IndexAttr object
3 Program 8 ServerId string
3 Program 9 ServerVersion int
3 Program 10 Uuid string
3 Program 11 Unsatisfied string
3 Program 12 Bits int
3 Program 16 TmsId string
3 Program 17 Title string
3 Program 18 Series object
3 Program 19 Description string
3 Program 20 DescLanguage string
3 Program 21 ShowType int
3 Program 22 MovieYear int
3 Program 23 MpaaRating int
3 Program 24 StarRating int
3 Program 25 MovieRunTime int
3 Program 26 Country string
3 Program 27 NetworkSource string
3 Program 28 SourceType int
3 Program 29 EpisodeTitle string
3 Program 30 Advisory int
3 Program 31 Actor string
3 Program 32 GuestStar string
3 Program 33 Director string
3 Program 34 ExecProducer string
3 Program 35 Producer string
3 Program 36 Writer string
3 Program 37 Host string
3 Program 38 Choreographer string
3 Program 39 Genre int
3 Program 40 ColorCode int
3 Program 41 EpisodeNum int
3 Program 42 AltEpisodeNum int
3 Program 43 Showing object
3 Program 44 Recording object
3 Program 45 IsEpisode int
3 Program 46 ApgProgram object
3 Program 47 Bits int
3 Program 48 TvRating int
3 Program 49 OriginalAirDate int
3 Program 50 RootServerId string
3 Program 51 Url object
3 Program 52 AolRating string
3 Program 53 ShortDescription string
3 Program 54 NetworkData object
3 Program 55 GuideSource int
3 Program 56 DfbFileId int
4 Series 1 Version int
4 Series 2 Expiration int
4 Series 3 Path string
4 Series 4 IndexPath string
4 Series 5 IndexUsed object
4 Series 6 IndexUsedBy object
4 Series 7 IndexAttr object
4 Series 8 ServerId string
4 Series 9 ServerVersion int
4 Series 10 Uuid string
4 Series 11 Unsatisfied string
4 Series 12 Bits int
4 Series 16 TmsId string
4 Series 17 Title string
4 Series 18 Showing object
4 Series 19 ShowingDerived object
4 Series 20 Genre int
4 Series 21 SeriesStation object
4 Series 22 Episodic int
4 Series 23 ThumbData int
4 Series 24 GuideSource int
4 Series 25 ShortTitle string


if the "e" is 14 decimal, then that list is

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14 Recording 1 Version int
14 Recording 2 Expiration int
14 Recording 3 Path string
14 Recording 4 IndexPath string
14 Recording 5 IndexUsed object
14 Recording 6 IndexUsedBy object
14 Recording 7 IndexAttr object
14 Recording 8 ServerId string
14 Recording 9 ServerVersion int
14 Recording 10 Uuid string
14 Recording 11 Unsatisfied string
14 Recording 12 Bits int
14 Recording 16 State int
14 Recording 17 Showing object
14 Recording 18 SelectionType int
14 Recording 19 ExpirationDate int
14 Recording 20 ExpirationTime int
14 Recording 21 BitRate int
14 Recording 22 Score int
14 Recording 23 UnusedA file
14 Recording 24 StartDate int
14 Recording 25 StartTime int
14 Recording 26 StopDate int
14 Recording 27 StopTime int
14 Recording 28 Bookmark object
14 Recording 29 CancelReason int
14 Recording 30 CancelDate int
14 Recording 31 CancelTime int
14 Recording 32 ExplicitlyDeleted int
14 Recording 33 Outage object
14 Recording 34 Part object
14 Recording 35 AudioMode int
14 Recording 36 ErrorString string
14 Recording 37 RelatedPrefs object
14 Recording 38 DeletionDate int
14 Recording 39 DeletionTime int
14 Recording 40 RecordQuality int
14 Recording 41 ContentType int
14 Recording 42 ProgramSource object
14 Recording 43 ActualShowing object
14 Recording 44 StartPadding int
14 Recording 45 EndPadding int
14 Recording 46 ConflictsWithRecording object
14 Recording 47 NSecondsWatched int
14 Recording 48 NVisit int
14 Recording 49 SaveToTapeStatus int
14 Recording 50 CreatedBy int
14 Recording 51 ServiceRecordingPriority int
14 Recording 52 Clips object
14 Recording 53 Anchors object
14 Recording 54 StreamFileSize int
14 Recording 55 ExpirationExtended int
14 Recording 56 AuxInfos object
14 Recording 57 RecordingBehavior object
14 Recording 58 UsedBy int
14 Recording 59 DiskPartitionId int
14 Recording 60 SubPriority int
14 Recording 61 RemoteHost string
14 Recording 62 RemoteHostObj object
14 Recording 63 BitstreamFormat int
14 Recording 64 TransferInfo object
14 Recording 65 CopyProtectedMilliseconds int
14 Recording 66 TuningPreferences object
14 Recording 67 TunedSignalType int
14 Recording 68 ApgStreamType int
14 Recording 69 PrimaryProgramSource object


So at a guess it's missing:
14 Recording 25 StartTime int

19hex = 25 dec

StartTime?

mrtickle wrote:So at a guess it's missing:
14 Recording 25 StartTime int

19hex = 25 dec

StartTime?

I think that for 0xe0010 you meant:
14 Recording 16 State int

But in that case I have no idea why State would be missing for the recording entry.

Oops, so I did. I blame tiredness

BobBlueUK wrote:On a few occasions now, TiVo has rebooted while a programme was being recorded as part of a Season Pass. After the reboots however TiVo hasn't automatically continued the recording as a separate entry in Now Playing as one would expect, but has just sat there on the same channel but not recording. If I manually restart the recording following the reboot using the record button, the new recording has overwritten the previous partial recording rather than leaving two separate partial recordings as expected.

I've experienced something similar, but not quite the same. But it had been happening before switching to AltEPG.

Sometimes, TiVo will appear as if it is still recording a programme (the red light is still on), but actually it has stopped recording data.

When visiting 'Now playing' later, the programme duration is listed as the full duration (with, in my case, the end padding of 2 minutes before and 5 minutes after, courtesy endpad.tcl), but play back shows only a partial recording - usually to around the 26 minute mark.

Sometimes I've visited the live TV of the recording programme, when it's been in this situation. Then TiVo reboots, and resumes recording.

Other times I've watched the recording from the beginning at about half an hour's delay on the live recording, and that's been a common way to provoke the situation.

My system isn't an AltEPG image, but it is one that was re-prepped by Dave @ tivoland after a hardware failure the other year. Dave's tweaks include an hour-long live buffer, and adjusted bit rates for High quality.