# Any general tips for avoiding the timer/event limit on the 625?



## DerelictMan (Apr 4, 2006)

Hi,

New poster here, hopefully I'm not asking something that has been hashed to death but I did perform a search of the forums before posting...

It seems like I'm constantly running into the timer/event limit on my 625. The basic problem is that I have three people in my house, all of which like to watch shows that tend to come up several times a day. I like to watch syndicated shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy, and also The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. My wife watches shows like Trading Spaces, Clean Sweep, etc. And finally I have a kid who likes to watch Dora The Explorer, Spongebob Squarepants, etc. The bottom line is that all of these types of shows come up several times a day and a timer for any one of them generates a lot of events. It seems that I hit the limit on events before I hit the timer limit because frequently I only have about 32 timers or so before I get the dreaded "maximum number of timers has been reached" message.

Does anyone have any general tips they could provide on helping to avoid this limit, other than dropping shows from the schedule? I'd appreciate any pointers. Thanks in advance...


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## robert koerner (Aug 20, 2005)

I constantly run out of timers.

Many times I edit a timer to cover more than one show. I capture local news and national news with one timer, back to back shows.

One of my timers goes for 3 hours.


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## DerelictMan (Apr 4, 2006)

robert koerner said:


> Many times I edit a timer to cover more than one show. I capture local news and national news with one timer, back to back shows.


Great idea, thanks for that. I'm sure I can break some of my kid's shows and my wife's shows into back-to-back blocks and kill quite a few timers that way. Thanks for the help.


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## Jnel (Jan 17, 2006)

What is the limit? I have had over 70 timers & dish passes and haven't seen a message yet.


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## DerelictMan (Apr 4, 2006)

Jnel said:


> What is the limit? I have had over 70 timers & dish passes and haven't seen a message yet.


According to ekb.dbstalk.com/101, the limit is 96 timers or 288 events, whichever is reached first. I haven't actually verified these numbers myself. It may be that our timers generate more events that your timers do and we're hitting the 288 limit well before the 96 limit...


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## Jnel (Jan 17, 2006)

Well, I might be getting close though. I had to edit some of my timers, due to that problem of no scheduled shows, when there should be.

Thanks for the info...


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## DerelictMan (Apr 4, 2006)

Jnel said:


> Well, I might be getting close though. I had to edit some of my timers, due to that problem of no scheduled shows, when there should be.


Yes, this is very annoying. As mentioned in *this thread* I'm not sure if this is a case of getting too close to the event limit or just a plain old bug.


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## DishSubLA (Apr 9, 2006)

I have been a long time reader, but have never been motivated until today to register and reply because I do feel for you and your timer woes, and I must share what I have learned, the hard way, about 625 timers.
Yes, the total number of events is limited to 288. I do not know about the number of timers. Anyway, you must understand that even skipped events in your timers are all still counted towards your limit of 288. For example, MTV may air The Real World 40 times in one week. A few timers like those will really eat up your allowance of 288 events. In a situation like that, the solution is to use the “Weekly” timer setting. Of course as the air times pass, they are purged from the list of events and that allows more events to be entered in their place. So a one day marathon of MTV's Road Rules could suck up nearly 100 events, leaving you dumbfounded as to why you can't set a timer, but then, the next day, you can set tons of timers.
And beware of History Channel's Modern Marvels if you use “All or “New Episodes” timers with that show airing something like 45 times a week. Whoa, add that to The Real World and Road Rules timers and you may have used up all your 288 timer tokens on just 3 lousy timers! Do you get the picture? 
To really see the true number of total events in memory, you MUST select “Show Skipped Events” from the Daily Schedule menu. If you are viewing the “Hide Skipped Events”, that number reflects only the timers that will fire and will not tell you how close you are to the magic 288 events. Remember skipped events are still counted in the memory. In most cases, the more common 5-10 events per timer will not present a problem. However, please check all your timers to see which have the most number of events in them. You can make room by using any other timer modes. Instead of “All”, see if “New Episodes” will cut the number down. If you still want more memory, then work the remaining modes of “Weekly”, etc. that may be the only options for you.
I know it stinks to have to resort to “Weekly” when the “New Episodes” provides advantages (such as automatically recording the later air time of the exact same show and episode should you choose to record something else in place of the first air time, and the 625 knowing when the episode is new), but it is the only solution I know of. Dish should have provided for more events than 288.
I've gone on long enough. I hope this was of help to you and all.


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## DerelictMan (Apr 4, 2006)

DishSubLA said:


> I have been a long time reader, but have never been motivated until today to register and reply because I do feel for you and your timer woes, and I must share what I have learned, the hard way, about 625 timers.


I'm very grateful that you did; your post has been very helpful.


> I know it stinks to have to resort to "Weekly" when the "New Episodes" provides advantages (such as automatically recording the later air time of the exact same show and episode should you choose to record something else in place of the first air time, and the 625 knowing when the episode is new), but it is the only solution I know of.


It does stink, because it's just an additional step towards your DVR being a glorified VCR. It's the "intelligent" features of the DVR's that make them so useful and convenient.


> Dish should have provided for more events than 288.


I'm still dumbfounded that there is even a limit to begin with. The DVR should allow you to schedule as many shows to record as is possible given the show's air times, the number of tuners, and the available hard drive space. Neither Tivo nor ReplayTV has any such arbitrary limit, so what does Dish?

Thanks again for taking the time to respond. I still haven't had a chance to fix my timer situation yet but with the tips that have been covered in this thread I'm well prepared to do so...


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## ubell (Apr 2, 2006)

DishSubLA said:


> I have been a long time reader, but have never been motivated until today to register and reply because I do feel for you and your timer woes, and I must share what I have learned, the hard way, about 625 timers.
> Yes, the total number of events is limited to 288.
> <snip>


Thanks for the explaination. I checked here about a couple of months ago and did not see one so I called Dish today becasue I could not get more than 32 timers. The woman insisted for about 1/2 hour it is because there would not be enough disk space to record the events. I told her that was really not the way the thing worked becasue some of the events may be 3 weeks form now and how much disk space would be available then?, etc. etc. She stuck to her guns. I avoided calling her an idiot. She never mentioned 288 events, but that is the number my system is showing.

Anyway so here is a follow up question: If you set a bunch of timers and then a new download of the schedule comes in and puts them over 288 events, what happens?

Mike


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## jumpyg2 (Jan 24, 2006)

Sorry for the dumb question, but why is there a limit of 288 events? I would assume this is an arbitrary limit in the code that could be increased by the programmers to any number. 

I'm not even sure what this means. Do you mean you can't have more than 288 events recorded during the 9-day duration of the current program guide? I've never had it happen, but was just curious.


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## DishSubLA (Apr 9, 2006)

*To answer your question of should an EPG download occur if you have 288 events: *There is no more memory for any events. Your expected timers for your beloved shows won't fire, in the short run. However, as time passes and timers and events pass and are purged, that makes room for more events. Let's hope the DVR scans soon after so it can place your timers in the Daily Schedual events--but only as many up to 288 total events. My advice is NEVER play it close to the magic 288. Please see my ealier post for hints on how to avoid cutting it close.
*Why is there a limit of only 288 events? Only Mark Jackson and his good friend Dave Cummer (did I spell that right?) know. I not sure they really saw this coming--for example MTV's coming marathon of Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County is sucking up 45 events!. Who would've thought? Perhaps the memory is all shared with other important memory regarding channel tables and all sorts of other stuff Dish loves to download and change and enhance the set-top-boxes. Someone should investigate if we can get more than 288 events. That is insufficient.
To answer the last question: You can only have 288 events in memory until the time for those events have passed and are purged from the memory. In other words, as each episode of MTV's Laguna Beach ends, that events is no longer needed in memory. Now you have memory for one event to replace it. Get it? So, by the end of the day Saturday, I'll have my memory back for 45 events.
Keep in mind that when your memory is freed, the DVR will replace it with events from existing timers (I've observed not always immediately--I think it scans the guide every few hours or so), so, you could get all filled up to 288 again and not be able to make new timers, unless you use some stragegy to creating timers.
I will share my strategy in a later post. I hope I did not confuse anyone, and I do hope this lengthy reply was of help.*


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## DishSubLA (Apr 9, 2006)

What follows is my strategy for not getting too close to our magic limit of 288 events: First, get to know your shows and the quirks of the networks on which they air.
Major Broadcast Network (ABC,CBS, etc. locals) shows usually air once or a few times a week, so it is very safe to use the New or even All episodes timer because a small number of events (2 or 3), including the skipped events, will take up memory.
"Cable" channels such as USA, MTV, History Channel, etc. are not always so easy. For example, I know that MTV and History Channel LOVE to air many episodes of some shows throughout the week. History Channel airs Modern Marvels something like 45 time a week. Avoid using New or All timers in such a situation, and use weekly or once instead. However, other shows on History Channel are limited in repeats, such as Declassified, and may only air 3 times in a week, so a New timer would work well.
Other channels like BBC America seem to *NEVER* play the heavy rotation games of History Channel or MTV, and so I always feel safe using a New timer on that channel.
Finally, it shouldn't be this way, but it is. If you think your gonna have a 288 issue, then you need to do timer maintenance--meaning, it is in your best interest to check your Daily Schedule listings and check how many events you have *after* you press "Show Skip". Also, go into the suspect timers (via the 'Timer" button and verify the number of events in those particular timers because one week there are only 3 events, but the next week that network decides to air that show 15 times, and that can unexpectedly suck away your memory. If you don't do some maintenance, you will become frustrated and clueless and feel out of control and not get your beloved shows recorded, and you won't know why.
Of course, all this is only for advanced TV watchers who LOVE to watch as much as they can. I have relatives who record a fair amount, but NEVER even come close to the 288 limit.
I hope that was of some help. Happy TV watching.


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## DishSubLA (Apr 9, 2006)

I Need to clarify what I wrote in an earlier post. What I wrote was: "Your expected timers for your beloved shows won't fire, in the short run."
What I meant to say was this: *All the timers in current memory displayed on the Daily Schedual will fire, but previously set timers that the DVR wants to enter into the Daily Schedual can't be entered because the events memory (Daily Schedual) is full (288 events).
Think of it as a que of wannabes who want to get past the velvet rope and into the nightclub. No one is getting in until someone leaves the club (if the club owners follow the fire code). Except there is a delay in letting new people into the club because the DVR waits for the next schedualed scan of the EPG. However, if room has become available, you can immediatly get into the club by creating a new timer because that will immediatly go into memory (Daily Schedual).*
I hope that clarification was clear. A good night to all


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## jumpyg2 (Jan 24, 2006)

Thanks for the excellent explanation. 

I guess I don't watch enough tv for this to be a problem. I hope they fix it in the future for the more active viewers.


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