# "Stop and Keep" -> Please wait... -> forever???



## davevdg (Jan 3, 2008)

I've had my R15-500 about a month now (version 1184) and this has happened twice to me. I have recorded a basketball game with it set to record 1 1/2 hour past the end of the program. Started watching the game an hour or so after it started. At the end of the game it is still recording, I press Stop and choose the option to "Stop and Keep". Then I get "Please wait..." and it does not finish. (I let it "wait" about 30 minutes). All remote keys simply respond with an error tone. Finally pulled the plug to reboot it and the recording is now gone from the To-Do list.

Anyone else seen this? I searched the forum but did not find anything useful. If this is a known issue, is there a work-around to avoid the lock-up? Thanks in advance.


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## Supramom2000 (Jun 21, 2007)

I think a work around is to change the channel from the game to another channel and interrupt the live buffer before you start watching the recording. I don't know why or how - ThomsM - if he reads this - can explain it better. All I know is that if you are watching a recording that the receiver is still recording, there are problems when you try to stop it or when you reach the end of the show. It all has to do with the live buffer being on the same channel you are watching via recording.


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## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

The lock-up is not normal. It should be saving the program from the buffer to a permanent recording on the hard drive. This should take no more than 15-30 seconds.

Your system seems to have some defect doing this. (When you pull the plug, you clear the buffer, including the program you are trying to save.)

Try a reset-all to reformat the hard drive (you will lose all your existing recordings). If this doesn't solve the problem, you may need to replace your unit.


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=115550

Maybe it's got something to do with padding the recording?


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## Upstream (Jul 4, 2006)

Oh crap. If two people are seeing the same thing, it is probably a new bug introduced in the new software release.

So the work-around seems to be to change the channel instead of hitting "stop" or "exit"?

(I recommend they fix this before Super Bowl Sunday, for the benefit of the millions of R15 users who aren't reading this thread.)


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## Supramom2000 (Jun 21, 2007)

I'm telling you guys, it has to do with the live buffer and still being in it while it is still recording. I don't know if it is a bug or not. There are all kinds of weird things that happen to me until I realize that I am still in the buffer. If I remember this before viewing a recording, I will change the channel first and then have no problems with my viewing.


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

Supramom2000 said:


> I'm telling you guys, it has to do with the live buffer and still being in it while it is still recording. I don't know if it is a bug or not. There are all kinds of weird things that happen to me until I realize that I am still in the buffer. If I remember this before viewing a recording, I will change the channel first and then have no problems with my viewing.


You're exactly right. It is a bug/expected behavior. DirecTV never coded the R15 to write a recorded program to the harddrive if the show being recorded was currently in the Live Buffer. This is what causes the "Stop and Keep" prompt to come up when the recorded show comes to the end of the recording while you are still watching it because you started it late and also is causing the problem when trying to exit out of the recording.

Depending on how you look at it, it is a bug since most people wouldn't expect it to behave this way. It's expected behavior since DirecTV specifically coded the R15 to act this way when viewing a recording that was in the Live Buffer.

As Supramom stated, the workaround is to change the channel so that the recording you are watching is being recorded on the background tuner. That will write the show to the harddrive and you will be watching the actual recorded program as opposed to being in the Live Buffer.

- Merg


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

The "Please wait" cycling at the bottom never goes away. I even let it sit overnight. I don't see how anyone could argue that it isn't a bug.


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## davevdg (Jan 3, 2008)

I too think it is a bug for two reasons:
- obviously, the "Please wait..." never ends
- The actions I took as a user - I don't think I was in the "live buffer". I hit "List", choose my program from the List of shows, and Play it. I never caught up to live (probably at least 30 minutes from "live") when I pressed Stop->Stop and Keep.

One other thing that is odd... The game was scheduled for 2.5 hours in the guide. I padded it 1.5 hours past that. When I begin playing the program the timeline only displays 2.5 hours of time, not 4 hours. That seems wrong to me, maybe I'm just used to DirecTivo.

OK, one other nit-pick. I really wish you could turn off the PiG. If I'm recording a sporting event and I turn the TV on to watch it before it ends, I really don't want to see/hear the game in progress on the screen - kind of spoils it! With DirecTivo I got used to simply hitting List prior to turning the TV on. Now I guess I have to hit Pause and List before turning the TV on and try not to look at the picture in the upper-right hand corner when selecting the program.


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

davevdg said:


> - The actions I took as a user - I don't think I was in the "live buffer". I hit "List", choose my program from the List of shows, and Play it. I never caught up to live (probably at least 30 minutes from "live") when I pressed Stop->Stop and Keep.


If it was still recording, there's a 50/50 chance it was still in the live buffer. I agree with the others that this is related to the live buffer issues. I just found it interesting that it happened to both of us while watching a "padded" recording.



davevdg said:


> One other thing that is odd... The game was scheduled for 2.5 hours in the guide. I padded it 1.5 hours past that. When I begin playing the program the timeline only displays 2.5 hours of time, not 4 hours. That seems wrong to me, maybe I'm just used to DirecTivo.


Yeah, it's always done that. I don't know why it wouldn't just show the full 4 hours.



davevdg said:


> OK, one other nit-pick. I really wish you could turn off the PiG. If I'm recording a sporting event and I turn the TV on to watch it before it ends, I really don't want to see/hear the game in progress on the screen - kind of spoils it! With DirecTivo I got used to simply hitting List prior to turning the TV on. Now I guess I have to hit Pause and List before turning the TV on and try not to look at the picture in the upper-right hand corner when selecting the program.


Me too! What I do is immediately hit mute then pause. Then go into the recording.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

The Merg said:


> You're exactly right. It is a bug/expected behavior. DirecTV never coded the R15 to write a recorded program to the harddrive if the show being recorded was currently in the Live Buffer. This is what causes the "Stop and Keep" prompt to come up when the recorded show comes to the end of the recording while you are still watching it because you started it late and also is causing the problem when trying to exit out of the recording.
> 
> - Merg


Wow! Somebody actually does pay attention to my lengthy posts about that infamous "live buffer"   

Don't feel bad, it catches me off guard even today! The EASIEST way to avoid problems with the live buffer is just to CHANGE THE CHANNEL before you start watching a show that was recorded in the past several hours on the same channel that the unit is still tuned to. This FORCES it to change the status of the show to RECORDED instead of being still in the live buffer.

Curious if your "recorded" show is still in the live buffer? Look at the "progress bar" by pressing PLAY. If the times listed are from the beginning of the show, it is stored on the drive as RECORDED. If the times are REAL CLOCK TIMES, it's still in the live buffer.....and the live buffer can be HOURS AND HOURS long if you have scheduled a string of shows one after another on the tuned channel.


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

ThomasM said:


> Curious if your "recorded" show is still in the live buffer? Look at the "progress bar" by pressing PLAY. If the times listed are from the beginning of the show, it is stored on the drive as RECORDED. If the times are REAL CLOCK TIMES, it's still in the live buffer.....and the live buffer can be HOURS AND HOURS long if you have scheduled a string of shows one after another on the tuned channel.


Are you sure about that? I thought it would do that if it was still recording, regardless of if it was the active tuner (thus, in the buffer). I'll have to check next time the situation arises.

BTW, another easy way to tell what channel is being buffered is to just hit guide.


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

Happened again.
Record a college basketball game and padded with an hour. When the game was over (and it was still recording the padded hour) I hit stop, selected Stop Recording & Delete. "Please wait..." has been scrolling at the bottom for about five minutes now. Before this I brought up the guide and verified that the game I was recording was _NOT_ on the active tuner.

This must have something to do with padding a recording. This is the third time in a month. Each time it was a padded recording. Also, Davevdg is the only other person I've seen post about it, and he was padding a recording.


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

qwerty said:


> Happened again.
> Record a college basketball game and padded with an hour. When the game was over (and it was still recording the padded hour) I hit stop, selected Stop Recording & Delete. "Please wait..." has been scrolling at the bottom for about five minutes now. Before this I brought up the guide and verified that the game I was recording was _NOT_ on the active tuner.
> 
> This must have something to do with padding a recording. This is the third time in a month. Each time it was a padded recording. Also, Davevdg is the only other person I've seen post about it, and he was padding a recording.


Your wrong. It must've been the active tuner. That's the only way this issue could have manifested iteself. C'mon qwerty, you should know better. :grin:

- Merg


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

Wow! I got it to go away. As I explained in this post I was able to hit the blue button to bring up the mini guide. From there I could change channels and bring up the menu, but if I selected anything that brought up a full screen menu with PIG, nothing else would work. I was waiting 5 minutes (or so) for the menu to time out and the picture to go back to full screen so I could hit the blue button and try something else. I finally tried surf channels all the way up to Discovery, which was recording Mythbusters, and, low and behold, it went away!


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

The Merg said:


> Your wrong. It must've been the active tuner. That's the only way this issue could have manifested iteself. C'mon qwerty, you should know better. :grin:
> 
> - Merg


Nope. I checked. It was still on 296 - Toon, from when my daughter was watching Scooby earlier this afternoon.


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

The Merg said:


> Your wrong. It must've been the active tuner. That's the only way this issue could have manifested iteself. C'mon qwerty, you should know better. :grin:
> 
> - Merg


Hmm...maybe you're right.  Why did I have to surf up to 278 (Discovery) from 206 (ESPN)? I checked the guide specifically to check what channel the active tuner/buffer was before I stop/deleted. It came up on 296?

BTW - it never deleted the game.


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

qwerty said:


> Nope. I checked. It was still on 296 - Toon, from when my daughter was watching Scooby earlier this afternoon.


Just being sarcastic and having fun with ya.

- Merg


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

qwerty said:


> Wow! I got it to go away. As I explained in this post I was able to hit the blue button to bring up the mini guide. From there I could change channels and bring up the menu, but if I selected anything that brought up a full screen menu with PIG, nothing else would work. I was waiting 5 minutes (or so) for the menu to time out and the picture to go back to full screen so I could hit the blue button and try something else. I finally tried surf channels all the way up to Discovery, which was recording Mythbusters, and, low and behold, it went away!


My R15 pulled a new trick on me today which may explain your situation!!

I was watching a show (and recording it) but wanted the "live buffer" to be created on another channel. So I switched to that other channel making it the "active" channel so to speak. Then I brought up my playlist, and selected the recording in progress on the first channel. Sure enough, I was once again watching the channel being recorded *but it was no longer the "active" channel being stored in the live buffer.* Pressing the blue button revealed the OTHER channel which was the current (live buffer being created) channel. But guess what happened about 10 minutes later? The R15 figured out what I was up to and it *made the channel I was watching/recording the active channel and stopped creating a live buffer on the other channel!!!* How do I know? I did a FF and noticed the progress bar had changed from "time since beginning of show" to "real time"!! Pressing the blue button again showed the CURRENT (being recorded) channel also. So much for my live buffer on that other channel. GRRR! 

It's always fun playing mind games with the R15. HA HA HA!


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

ThomasM said:


> It's always fun playing mind games with the R15. HA HA HA!


I feel like it's the other way around!


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

ThomasM said:


> My R15 pulled a new trick on me today which may explain your situation!!
> 
> I was watching a show (and recording it) but wanted the "live buffer" to be created on another channel. So I switched to that other channel making it the "active" channel so to speak. Then I brought up my playlist, and selected the recording in progress on the first channel. Sure enough, I was once again watching the channel being recorded *but it was no longer the "active" channel being stored in the live buffer.* Pressing the blue button revealed the OTHER channel which was the current (live buffer being created) channel. But guess what happened about 10 minutes later? The R15 figured out what I was up to and it *made the channel I was watching/recording the active channel and stopped creating a live buffer on the other channel!!!* How do I know? I did a FF and noticed the progress bar had changed from "time since beginning of show" to "real time"!! Pressing the blue button again showed the CURRENT (being recorded) channel also. So much for my live buffer on that other channel. GRRR!
> 
> It's always fun playing mind games with the R15. HA HA HA!


Ya know I think this happened to me last night as well. I noticed the progress bar had the actual time as opposed to the length of the show, but I could have sworn that I had switched the channel so that the show being played back was on the background tuner.

- Merg


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

Last night I recorded the NBA Skills Competition and padded it by an hour. I checked on it a little after the scheduled end time and it had ended. So, I went to live TV and flipped through a few channels to clear the buffer. Then I went back in to it and hit stop, the Stop recording & Save. I t stopped recording and no "please wait" I thought I was good. I rebooted to DL the CE. When I came back up, the Skills competition was gone.


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## Supramom2000 (Jun 21, 2007)

Every time that happened to me after a CE, I realized I had not changed the channel of the show I was recording and cleared the buffer. I lost both Numbers and Las Vegas several times because of this. But since you changed the channel, I am stumped. After Thomas helped me figure out what had happened, I changed the channel the last few times and then I had no problems. \

Maybe somehow going back into the recording and then not going to a live channel affected it somehow?


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

Supramom2000 said:


> Every time that happened to me after a CE, I realized I had not changed the channel of the show I was recording and cleared the buffer. I lost both Numbers and Las Vegas several times because of this. But since you changed the channel, I am stumped. After Thomas helped me figure out what had happened, I changed the channel the last few times and then I had no problems. \
> 
> Maybe somehow going back into the recording and then not going to a live channel affected it somehow?


I'm pretty sure if I changed the channel after I hit stop/keep, it would have saved it. I really think padded recordings have become buggy if try to stop them when they're still in the padded time. I'll try to see if I can replicate it when I get a chance.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

I was trying to annoy my R15 the other morning by watching the news on all three of the local stations by recording an early newscast on one station, recording a current newscast on the second station, and having the unit build a live buffer on the third station.

Meanwhile, I was watching the live buffer about 20 minutes behind "real time" and then the phone rang. I paused the live buffer news and then got involved in the phone call. Meanwhile, the live buffer had grown to over 90 minutes and was on it's way recording "The Today Show". I didn't think anything about it and just resumed playing my newscast. When the news ended, THAT'S when the "Live buffer has saved <show title> for you, would you like to keep it?" appeared.

I learned that this annoying prompt (that you always answer "yes" to if you know what's good for you) is generated when the live buffer is streched out to more than 90 minutes _and the show being watched from the live buffer ends._ Since other's experiences were with sports games (that usually ALWAYS last over 90 minutes) PLUS extra recording time specified after the end of the game in the guide, it appears that this is what locks things up as the R15 doesn't know how to deal with the "time buffer".


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## outbackpaul (Feb 9, 2006)

I have had the same problem twice now. This time I recorded the Daytona 500 and padded it an hour. I watched other stuff during the race and watched other recordings. I then started the recording and then pressed <stop and keep> and it kept saying "Please Wait". I finally got out of it after reading this thread by using the mini guide and changed several times in order to get rid of it. When it did go away my Playlist screen came up.


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

Did it again last night. Basketball game padded + 1 hour. When I got the "Please Wait" I hit the blue button and went up to another channel and hit record. Then hit the blue button and went to another channel and hit record. I was recording two different channels and still had the "please wait" cycling. There, I was able to hit stop and select "Stop/delete" to clear the "Please wait" message.


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

qwerty said:


> Happened again.
> Record a college basketball game and padded with an hour. When the game was over (and it was still recording the padded hour) I hit stop, selected Stop Recording & Delete. "Please wait..." has been scrolling at the bottom for about five minutes now. *Before this I brought up the guide and verified that the game I was recording was NOT on the active tuner.*...


I tried to duplicate this bug today. I didn't get the bug, but I did find out that just checking what channel the guide has highlighted does not indicate the active/buffered channel. I was watching a BB game on ABC. Brought up the guide. It had 501, HBO, highlighted. I stopped/deleted the game, and live TV was some kind of infomercial on ABC. I was able to RE over an hour back into the BB game.


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