# The to do list limit is the problem !!



## Bobman (Jan 3, 2006)

This may be total noncense:grin: but I ran into a very smart tech type person over the weekend and we started talking computers, dvrs, etc......

I am not a big tech person but from talking to this guy he seemed to think the to do list limit is causing a lot of the R-15's problems. This may explain why people with only a few SL's have less problems than those like me who have 40-50 have many problems.

I dont remember all the technical terms and stuff but it was something like the list is restricted and cant populate fully for the people that have many SL's. This causes the R-15 to bog down as it doesnt know how to handle the problem of having to many shows for the 100 limit. The to do list never actually gets filled properly and things are waiting in the background to be added and this causes the lockup that happens when you try to delete a SL. It cant delete it properly as not all the shows it thinks there should be are in the to do list so it locks up.

They either need to remove the to do list limit completly or lower the number of SL's to only 20-25.  Thats what he recommended to fix some problems.

He also "speculated" that sometime next year there will be something to replace the R-15 and its never going to be fixed properly. Its been 7 months now and the same problems are still happening, no VOD, no showcases, etc... We are all really beta testers for DirecTVs next DVR and the R-15 will be phased out and replaced.


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## jonaswan2 (Oct 29, 2005)

You sound like your suprised that DirecTV will be phasing out the R15. But the R15 is probably going to have some of it's "problems" fixed before then. 

And please don't consider yourself a beta tester, this product is out in wide release, it's a final product.


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## ad301 (Mar 30, 2004)

If I were an r15 owner, I'd be rather upset by this news.


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## jonaswan2 (Oct 29, 2005)

ad301 said:


> If I were an r15 owner, I'd be rather upset by this news.


Like when the R10 was replaced by the R15? DirecTV phases out boxes to be compatible with new technology (mostly), not to piss people off.


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## ISWIZ (Nov 18, 2005)

Mine works much better than when first released. Perfect, no, usable, yes.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

jonaswan2 said:


> Like when the R10 was replaced by the R15? DirecTV phases out boxes to be compatible with new technology (mostly), not to piss people off.


But the R10 worked.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

ISWIZ said:


> Mine works much better than when first released. Perfect, no, usable, yes.


I guess usable should be clarified. During the summer when all we have is repeats and most are not even watching TV, sure, I would term it as usable.

When you have problems that could be the result of a limit on the todo list, and the todo list is overloaded because the buggy software keeps putting repeats into the todo list when the user says I only want first runs, that's not usable.

5 minute change channel message makes this unusable, unless you really don't care about watching a show. I don't like the bottom corner of my screen taken up by this message that has been there since day one and the developers have know about this problem since day one. Enough already, fix this one problem if nothing else.

I would like to know what bugs the development team is aware of and which of those they're working on. So far, it seems like none are being worked on.


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

Wolffpack said:


> I would like to know what bugs the development team is aware of and which of those they're working on. So far, it seems like none are being worked on.


I agree. Officially telling us what problems they're working on would go along way. I wonder if they're afraid admitting the problems could be used against them in a class action.


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

Bobman said:


> all the technical terms and stuff but it was something like the list is restricted and cant populate fully for the people that have many SL's. This causes the R-15 to bog down as it doesnt know how to handle the problem of having to many shows for the 100 limit. The to do list never actually gets filled properly and things are waiting in the background to be added and this causes the lockup that happens when you try to delete a SL. It cant delete it properly as not all the shows it thinks there should be are in the to do list so it locks up.


That makes alot of sense and kind of what I've been think/saying all long. I assume there work around of the todo list was to some how keep the todo list searching down to a set cycle so that it wasn't constantly searching for programs (or something to that effect). Maybe we'll be luckly and this next update will remove the 100 cap.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

jonaswan2 said:


> You sound like your suprised that DirecTV will be phasing out the R15. But the R15 is probably going to have some of it's "problems" fixed before then.
> 
> And please don't consider yourself a beta tester, this product is out in wide release, it's a final product.


1) *There is no "phase out" of the R15*.. not this year, and most likely not year, as there is no alternative SD DVR in the works as of right now. So even if they started today, it would be late last next year, which would be about 2 years after the R15's release.... which actually would just be a normal electronic cycle

2) This product is a "released" product, but it is not a "final product"

The 100 limit is an issue, they are working on fixing it.... 
Is it going to be corrected in the next release... I don't know... they know it is there, they know it is causing problems...


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## walters (Nov 18, 2005)

Earl Bonovich said:


> The 100 limit is an issue, they are working on fixing it....
> Is it going to be corrected in the next release... I don't know... they know it is there, they know it is causing problems...


Woah, do I read that correctly as a nearly official (about as official as we're going to get) confirmation of the jist of this thread?

I mean, we all agree the 100 limit (and moreso the 50 limit) is a usability problem, at least for some users. But is this an admission (from those in a position to actually know, through Earl) that the 100 limit is itself _causing_ stability problems?


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## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

cabanaboy1977 said:


> That makes alot of sense and kind of what I've been think/saying all long. I assume there work around of the todo list was to some how keep the todo list searching down to a set cycle so that it wasn't constantly searching for programs (or something to that effect). Maybe we'll be luckly and this next update will remove the 100 cap.


Perhaps, Earl can get answers to the following questions, to confirm/deny our speculation:

1. Do the caps (TODOand SL) exist because the machine cannot handle more than that? OR even more simply..Why are the caps there?

2. Does DTV think the caps are contributing to the issues?

3. Do they plan on removing the caps, or was this a design "choice", which although maybe unpopular, is intended to be permanent.

It would be great if we could get some direct (no pun intended), if not too revealing answers form Earl's source. Often we speculate, then once we do it enough we seem to think that it's fact, when it is nothing but an oft repeated theory/rumor/educated guess.


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## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

EDIT: Don't you love when you ask a question and by the time you hit post, another post has been submitted adressing some of your question???


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

Earl Bonovich said:


> 2) This product is a "released" product, but it is not a "final product"


:nono2:


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## PlanetBill (May 8, 2006)

I can't think of the last thing I bought that was a "released" instead of a "final" product. Thankfully my car was a final version.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

If it was a "final" version.... then there would be ZERO UPDATES, NO ADDITIONAL FEATURES, NOTHING... just like your car.

But TiVo for example is not a "final" product.... it is a release products, but they continue to build on it, and fix it.

R15 same way.. it was designed to be updated, added to, ect over time.... 

That is how I am defining: Released vs "final"


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

walters said:


> Woah, do I read that correctly as a nearly official (about as official as we're going to get) confirmation of the jist of this thread?
> 
> I mean, we all agree the 100 limit (and moreso the 50 limit) is a usability problem, at least for some users. But is this an admission (from those in a position to actually know, through Earl) that the 100 limit is itself _causing_ stability problems?


Causing problems in the sense that..
1) People want it larger.... and that, yes... if you try to add a program and your to-do list is full, it won't add (even if it is in 14 days), unless you cancel a program.

2) The 100 limit isn't causing "stabliity" issues... they are issues related to what records and what doesn't record... not if the box freezes or hangs or reboots.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

mikewolf13 said:


> Perhaps, Earl can get answers to the following questions, to confirm/deny our speculation:
> 
> 1. Do the caps (TODOand SL) exist because the machine cannot handle more than that? OR even more simply..Why are the caps there?
> 
> ...


1) Grey answer Yes/No... The original limits (that are still there) where coded in... why, I don't know... but they where. A while back, it was explained to me that it wasn't a simple... increase the limit value, because other pieces of the system would need to be reworked as well.

2) Contributing in the sense to missed recordings... Yes... They know if a user tries to add recordings to a full todo list, you can't. and that goes for SL's into the future.

3) Is not a "permanent" thing.... They ware working on it, but I have no indications on when it will change.


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## ad301 (Mar 30, 2004)

Earl, will the upcoming HD dvr have the same limits?


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## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

Earl Bonovich said:


> 2) Contributing in the sense to missed recordings... Yes... They know if a user tries to add recordings to a full todo list, you can't. and that goes for SL's into the future.


Is it understood that some that never reach the 100 item limit have issues?

In my limited use, i had never hit 100 TODO items...or to be more accurate my TODO list never had 100 items listed. I believe it is possible that it should have reached 100 items (due to multiple SL of daily program), if all scheduled programs had been correctly placed in the list.

But I never broke 90, when I checked the list....

It also should be noted that te time of my issues was several updates ago, as I stopped using the R15. But from reading the forum, I do not believe a user needs to hit 100 TODO items for scheduled recordings to fail.


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## walters (Nov 18, 2005)

FWIW, cars aren't final products, either. For example, the 2005 Honda Accord (picked because of reputation) already has 24 TSBs and 4 recalls.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

ad301 said:


> Earl, will the upcoming HD dvr have the same limits?


I honestly don't know, but you can be assured it will be in the list of things I try out during my "review"


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## TheTooleMan (Apr 9, 2006)

jonaswan2 said:


> And please don't consider yourself a beta tester, this product is out in wide release, it's a final product.


The only reasons I don't feel like a beta tester is that this product didn't come free, and D* doesn't have any interest in hearing and fixing the problems we report. Otherwise, it's got enough bugs to make Windows 95 look like the creme de la creme!


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

Bobman said:


> This may be total noncense:grin: but I ran into a very smart tech type person over the weekend and we started talking computers, dvrs, etc......
> 
> I am not a big tech person but from talking to this guy he seemed to think the to do list limit is causing a lot of the R-15's problems. This may explain why people with only a few SL's have less problems than those like me who have 40-50 have many problems.
> 
> ...


I posted this about 3 months ago - that in my opinion (as a programmer, I do this stuff for a living every day) the TDL and SL caps are what is causing 99.9% of the issues with the box, period.

- when adding SL, check for all instances of program
- add all instances of program to TDL
- when downloading new guide data, check for new instances of program
- add new instances of program to TDL
- repeat each time new guide data is downloaded

That algorithm would GURANTEE it would record every episode of a show, except for those that are rescheduled inbetween guide data updates...the problem is that the R15 CAN'T do that because of the stupid TDL limit.


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## Bobman (Jan 3, 2006)

matty8199 said:


> the problem is that the R15 CAN'T do that because of the stupid TDL limit.


Sounds similiar to what that guy said to me but I am not a tech type person so some of it went over my head.


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## Bobman (Jan 3, 2006)

Earl Bonovich said:


> 2) The 100 limit isn't causing "stabliity" issues... they are issues related to what records and what doesn't record... not if the box freezes or hangs or reboots.


What makes you say this ?


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