# BUG REPORT L146: Error 679 HD Recording of 0 seconds



## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Twice this week, I've gotten zero-length recordings. When I try to play them, I get Attention 679:
The event you selected was not recorded.
Please delete this event. It is not viewable.​
Interesting choice of words :nono2: kindof a Catch-22 or such

Anyway, both shows were on 9454 CBSHD, the record light was on, another program was being recorded, and at "appropriate" times, the CBSHD program was displayed in the PIP window that is on the various PVR menu screens.

No trouble with any other recordings (that I know of).

I deleted one of them with no change in available disk space - BUT the available time seems much lower than it should be !!! :eek2: 

The 921 has NOT (yet) rebooted since the delete. Sure hope the dang thing does disk allocation validation during that ridiculously long 8 minute boot process.

Now that I think about it - that'd be about right to scan a high-speed 250GB disk. Of course, that can't be what's going on, because the box says it's getting info from the satellite, not that it's checking the drive.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Happened again tonight. I've deleted and recreated the timer - maybe that'll help.

As for the disk space issue, it seems to be OK - guess I miscalculated the numbers before.


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## borfhead (Feb 2, 2004)

I had the same error message (zero length recording) on a recording of Two and a Half Men (Monday night, 2/23) on CBS-HD on channel 9453 (NY). Since I'm on the west coast, it was supposed to be recording at 6:30 pm and I did not happen to notice if the record light was on or not. This same timer fired and recorded fine the previous two weeks (L145) and is right after a timer for Everybody Loves Raymond, which has worked all three weeks without a problem.

On Thursday, I happen to notice that the record light was not on for a recording that was supposed to be on at 6:00 pm on the same channel (CSI) and when I looked at the DVR list, the recording that was supposed to fire at 5:00 pm (Survivor) didn't record at all either. These are obviously different than the posted problem above with the zero length recording, but troublesome none the less.

I have now deleted all the timers and re-created them via the guide, since doing them manually doesn't work (weekly timers end up changing days on me from what I set it up for), so we'll see what happens over the next week.


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

It gave me the same error message for King of Queens. I'll kill the old timer and make a new one to see if it works next week (I'll also record the analog CBS feed just in case).


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## FarNorth (Nov 27, 2003)

I've had several instances where timers didn't fire. I have M-F timers set for Letterman and Leno and several times they never "took" and, no, these are not for OTA programming.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

FarNorth said:


> I've had several instances where timers didn't fire. I have M-F timers set for Letterman and Leno and several times they never "took" and, no, these are not for OTA programming.


What we are seeing is a timer that fires, creates a recorded event, but then the event is "empty" (0 seconds). Are you seeing that or just a non-executing timer?

BTW, I just got hit with it again tonight - this time on HDNET.


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## FarNorth (Nov 27, 2003)

I saw the "O" timer just once. I've seen non-firing timers 2-3 times. I wish I could be more specific but I don't always know what I have scheduled and therefore don't know what I've missed because THE DOLTS THAT WROTE THE SOFTWARE DIDN'T REALIZE THAT IT WOULD BE NICE TO KNOW THE PROGRAM NAME BEFORE IT RECORDS AND NOT JUST THE CHANNEL AND THE TIME.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Watch it, FarNorth. I realize that you (and most everyone else) is very frustrated with the current state of the 921, but your statement is out of line. If you are that upset with your 921, with the programmers or with Dish, I'm sure you would have no problems finding someone else to take it off your hands for what you paid for it.


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## FarNorth (Nov 27, 2003)

Actually, I'm not all that unhappy with my 921. It's rebooted a couple of times when it shouldn't have, missed a couple of timers but overall I'm reasonably happy. The HD performance is spectacular, the guide data is head and shoulders better than my 510 and it downloads the guide data smoothly and with no hassles; my 510 use to stop and get the data every day. I had a couple of 'blue line' sightings but haven't seen them lately and even the SD PQ seems to have improved. My biggest concern right now is the non-firing timers. If I miss something that is crucial if a timer doesn't fire, I will not be happy. And I still can't understand how Dish could release this machine with the software not showing the names of pending timers. My 510 does, my TiVo does, virtually every machine on the market does....except the all-new, state of the art, $1,000 921.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

If you're talking about the names not being in the 1-line summary of timers, yeah, it'd be nice, but not easy to do - not enough screen space - even with a smaller font.

When you use Menu-7, the program name appears when you highlight the timer.

When you use the DVR button, it does not. There's already at least one feature request in for changes to the DVR list (more lines per pages). If the guys are going to go in and mess with that, this would be a good addition.


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## John Quaglino (Aug 5, 2003)

Mark,

Does Eldon have any leads on the 0 minute recordings? While I feel the 921 is more stable with 146 and 147, it still is missing too many satellite recordings. Of my last two recordings, one was split (reboot) and one was 0 minutes. I think I'm running around a 80% success rate on satellite recordings.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Yes, I believe so. That's all I can say right now.


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

John Quaglino said:


> Mark,
> 
> Does Eldon have any leads on the 0 minute recordings? While I feel the 921 is more stable with 146 and 147, it still is missing too many satellite recordings. Of my last two recordings, one was split (reboot) and one was 0 minutes. I think I'm running around a 80% success rate on satellite recordings.


That's weird. Out of about 250 timer firings since Early January, I've only had two of the 0 minute recordings (both were on CBS-HD).


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## conner65 (Jan 26, 2004)

I have had two 0 minute recordings this week. Both were OTA. The thing that bothers me is that I was watching the 921 waiting for it to fire. When it didn't I manually started recording "Kingdom Hosptial" and manually shut it off. I went to watch it today and got the 0 seconds. I did a reboot. Do I need to re-enter the timers?


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## borfhead (Feb 2, 2004)

I had two last night....both on WCBS-DT on DISH (when it was off air). Tuning to that channel during the down time, showed only grey screen. No messages or anything, so it appears the 921 didn't record because there was no signal on the channel? Don't know....


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## John Quaglino (Aug 5, 2003)

BobMurdoch said:


> That's weird. Out of about 250 timer firings since Early January, I've only had two of the 0 minute recordings (both were on CBS-HD).


Bob,
It is probably really about 90%. I've only had three 0 minute recordings. I've had many split recordings lately.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

I had 2 more last night - both on CBS-HD. I was watching the second of them "live" (only because I was anticipating the failure). The 921 menus and lights showed it was recording while I was watching it. When it completed, it was 0 seconds.


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

SimpleSimon said:


> I had 2 more last night - both on CBS-HD. I was watching the second of them "live" (only because I was anticipating the failure). The 921 menus and lights showed it was recording while I was watching it. When it completed, it was 0 seconds.


Were you using a timer which was set up before the Viacom shutdown on Monday?

Many are recommending redoing your timers to lessen the chance of a problem..........


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

BobMurdoch said:


> Were you using a timer which was set up before the Viacom shutdown on Monday?
> 
> Many are recommending redoing your timers to lessen the chance of a problem..........


No help - I've done that more than once.

CBS-HD tonight kicked - while it was "recording" I "View"d it. "Start Over" didn't, "Skip Back" didn't, etc. No PVR functions. Hit "Stop" and it still showed as recording. Got a Info Banner showing channel 77 UKN (non-existent channel and I suspect UKN means UnKNown). The title was "Unknown Record". Remote power-down/up cleared it. "Rec" got it to start PVR'ing again - but now I have TWO Events "recording". I can channel up/down and the good recording is unaffected. BOTH Events are accessing the same disk data. Hitting "View" on the 'bad' (still showing as recording even tho it isn't) event caused a black screen. Channel up/down clears it.

After front-panel-5-sec-hold-power-off reboot, it's back to normal with the terminated event having good data and acting OK.

I could probably come up with more symptoms, but Eldon should have enough by now with what everyone's been posting. Sure would be nice to know if this is on the L148 fix list - or is at least acknowledged as a bug.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Simon, I've tried to replicate this on mine under L146, and now and under neither version have I been able to. It's known that it's a bug, but it's one of those that are being very difficult to track down because it doesn't happen on every 921, and it doesn't appear to be easily replicated. Every single detail you can provide is helpful.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

I'll keeping getting info, but if you'll allow me to speculate using my 3 decades of computer troubleshooting, something is causing the pointer to the program data (info AND content) to be lost. Without being privy to the design, I can't say more than that.

On a related note, it appears that I AM LOSING CAPACITY as mentioned in my opening post. I have 109 shows recorded for a total of 116:40 SD and 1:57 HD. The DVR menu is showing 07:30SD/01:04HD free space. Using the 7:1 SD:HD ratio, and doing the math, it looks like I've only got 137:45 SD or 19:40 HD total space!!! I realize that some space is lost due to fragmentation, overhead and such, but this is 25% off the advertised amount. I wish I could remember what the original free space numbers were - any help out there?

I've created a [thread=25193]poll thread[/thread] to see what kind of numbers we get. Maybe some folks can "do the math" for us?

Anyway, this capacity loss very roughly corresponds to the number of 0 sec recordings I've had and that scares the heck out of me!

If I may speculate, it appears that the 921 is booting faster since L146 or maybe L147. Did they used to do a disk integrity scan and dropped it to save bootup time?

Mark, is there any way to find out from Eldon what protection is in place to prevent and/or recover lost file fragments? I think you can see where I'm going - any info is appreciated.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Well, the bug originally reported in this thread SIX MONTHS AGO is back (or never left). Actually, I hadn't been watching CBS-HD because my 148 dish was out all summer, and I didn't bother to fix it - summer reruns aren't "compelling content". :lol:

I happened to catch them this time because I was watching while record and trick play didn't work. I went to the DVR menu, hit Stop on the event and it returned me to live view of CBS-HD. Still unable to do any trick play. Event showed 0 length.

Changed channels, and behavior returned to normal - trick play worked, and record button started a new event which records normally. Earlier I reported a reboot fixed it - no clue if I tried channel change before.


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

Funny, I've never seen a 0 length recording on CBS-HD (148 bird). I only do about 1 show a week on that channel, so perhaps that's a factor.


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