# Major iPad add series fail



## sriggins (Jul 1, 2010)

I was loving adding shows via the iPad guide until I got done adding 40+ series to find out that it only added 26.

Our HR34 is set to add shows for first run only. Is it possible that I added a show from the guide that was a repeat, and it is only a repeat, so it did not add a series?


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## sriggins (Jul 1, 2010)

wow 29 "remote bookings failed" because the show was no longer available. IN other words, this system is terrible. The iPad is getting a guide from DTV, not from the DVR, so the DVR had not seen those shows yet, thus the recording failed.


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## sriggins (Jul 1, 2010)

Wow even tho I told the ipad to hide SD duplicates, it set up the recordings it did on SD channels


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## Jerry_K (Oct 22, 2006)

Whenever I see i anything I run away as fast as possible. Bunch of ultra proprietary JUNK.


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## davring (Jan 13, 2007)

I don't know of a way to set up a series link if the show is not currently being aired, or in the current guide. It will indicate the showing is no longer available.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

Not from the app, thats where things like booleans work.


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## sriggins (Jul 1, 2010)

Well I can say that I cannot wait for the new HD UI because the current UI is terrible.

Someplaces it shows "HD" others not. SOmetimes it shows recording on the guide, others not. Sometimes the iPad app set up recordings on like NBCw or something, instead of channel 8 NBC (What?)

So now I have no idea what is recording on HD or not. For some reason in our American Idol Series Link, it was set up to record Wed and Sunday, but not Thursday.

I have no idea what it is going to record or not now, because I cannot trust the guide and series manager UIs. They are often out of sync.


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## sriggins (Jul 1, 2010)

Ok here is a question I need answered 

So I added Hot in Cleveland tomorrow at 8 as a series. It says all first runs are set to record. It added that show (which is last week's episode) but it has not added the episode on Wed (either at 8 or 10) which is a new episode.

I have it set to only record first runs.

Is the to do list just slow? Or because I added it [email protected] will it not pick up the [email protected] or 10 shows?


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## sriggins (Jul 1, 2010)

Ah ha! It is just slow. While I was writing this, it added that episode and updated the UI while I was looking at it. Cool


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## Groundhog45 (Nov 10, 2005)

sriggins said:


> Well I can say that I cannot wait for the new HD UI because the current UI is terrible.
> 
> Someplaces it shows "HD" others not. SOmetimes it shows recording on the guide, others not. Sometimes the iPad app set up recordings on like NBCw or something, instead of channel 8 NBC (What?)
> 
> ...


Both the old and new GUI use the same guide data. If it's incorrect, the series link will be incorrect.


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## sriggins (Jul 1, 2010)

Groundhog,

Yeah I expected that. I just hope the guide is better about showing me what will record and will not. Because the todo list has a show listed, but the guide shows no recording icon.

Maybe everything is just slow to update. We'll find out this week


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

Groundhog45 said:


> Both the old and new GUI use the same guide data. If it's incorrect, the series link will be incorrect.


Indeed. And setting up multiple recordings in large batches does take time, and some may not get actuated as they are bumped by a higher ranking series.

As with the DIRECTV® app for the iPhone, the app can only send a request, but not confirm that it will get done.


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## sriggins (Jul 1, 2010)

Laxguy said:


> As with the DIRECTV® app for the iPhone, the app can only send a request, but not confirm that it will get done.


They need to fix that. I work on an iPad app for a very large company. Their scrolling speed is nice, and the UI is nice, but if it tells you that it set up a program to record, and it actually has not, the architecture is severely flawed, almost to the point that the feature should be removed.

What should happen is that the app should send the request to the website. The website should ping the DVR and if the DVR cannot fulfill the request (but the site KNOWS it is a valid request), then it schedules to ping the DVR again in say 12 hours.

While my example is an edge case, other is setting something up 2 weeks out and not knowing that the guide data has not come down to the DVR. In other words, users should never have to know/care about this stuff.


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## markrogo (Sep 18, 2007)

The iPad app is architecturally almost entirely a 1-way app. Recording settings are 1-way, remote controlling the DVR is 1-way. The part where it knows what you're currently watching is one of the few examples where the app actually knows what's happening on the DVR. 

It will take a pretty significant overhaul before it knows about the to-do list and series manager. Removing the remote recording function until that happens is perhaps the most ludicrous suggestion I've heard here. It essentially has allowed most of us to set up recordings on phones (and tablets) collectively many thousands of times with very few misses. Why would that feature be removed because there is no confirmation? I mean seriously. 

A better suggestion is that you remove the app until it meets your meets. And the rest of us can use the "crippled" app until then.


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## sriggins (Jul 1, 2010)

Until you set something to record and it fails, then the attitude will change 

It should at the very least give a warning that the program added may not have been added at all. Oh wait, they probably don't want to emphasize the fact that it can fail silently.


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## Mike Bertelson (Jan 24, 2007)

I'm moving this to the Connected Home Forum.

Mike


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## Rtm (Oct 18, 2011)

I did this when I got my HR24 I wrote down all the series that I record on a piece of paper from my HR22.

I then preceded to use the iPad app to schedule around 30 series link to the brand new just plugged in and booted up HR24. I got done and only about 15 of the series were set to record and it was random order which ones were set to record and which weren't.

*Moral of the story is the new HR24 didn't have all the guide data yet it only had one or two days and it only set series/record to shows it had in the program guide on the HR24.* I ended up sorting it all out by going down the list and checking off the ones already set but it was painful.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

When I set up a new box as a replacement, I generally take pictures of both the To Do list and Series Manager of the old box. When I start up the new one, I don't even bother entering shows that won't be on that evening, I only set up series links for that day. Later that evening I may look for things from the next night, but I don't do most of my links for 24 hours to give guide data a chance to fill in.


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## sriggins (Jul 1, 2010)

Luckily I was prepared with a spreadsheet from my TiVo that had a priority column, an added column, and a title column.

I was able to just uncheck everything, sort by title, and go through slowly and re-add everything, delete the shows that ended up on oddball channels, and add them back to the dvr.

Then I set up our priorities, with some changes, like Conan has to be last now because of the east coast feed shoving him into the 8pm time slot. I should see if there is a west coast TBS feed, but I think it re-airs at 10pm, so if there is a 5 tuner conflict (man) he'll get bumped.

As an iOS developer my main mantra is never, ever, lose customer data, which is what this app does. They could do better, and I'll send them feedback. They'll get there, in the meantime, do not trust it to add recordings, always verify that they got there.


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## markrogo (Sep 18, 2007)

sriggins said:


> Until you set something to record and it fails, then the attitude will change


I've had it fail. It's just that it has failed <1% of the time (across the multiple mobile apps I've used).


> It should at the very least give a warning that the program added may not have been added at all. Oh wait, they probably don't want to emphasize the fact that it can fail silently.


Would you like the DVR to also warn you every time you bring up your recordings list that the hard drive might fail and all the recordings might disappear too? Because that clearly happens. And perhaps your car should also warn you on ignition, "This time, I started... but I'm not making any promises about next time, OK?"


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## sriggins (Jul 1, 2010)

markrogo said:


> Would you like the DVR to also warn you every time you bring up your recordings list that the hard drive might fail and all the recordings might disappear too? Because that clearly happens. And perhaps your car should also warn you on ignition, "This time, I started... but I'm not making any promises about next time, OK?"


This is not a valid argument.


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