# I need your help re: timers



## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

I need some testing help from those of you (read: all of you) that are having timers fail to record.

In this thread (and yes, I know you've been posting this in other threads, but I don't have enough time to sift through all of them again here), please post with as much excrutiating detail as possible what you were trying to record that failed.

I'm on a very tight deadline here, and want to attempt to replicate as many of the timer failures on my 921 as possible (to see if any of them will still fail). All of my results need to be done by Monday morning.

Please post timer situations that will fail for you - whether it be one timer, 2 timers, back to back timers, weekly, daily, one time, OTA, satellite, whatever. This thread isn't for split recordings, reboots, 0 second recordings, OTA channel failures, or anything else except for timers that fail to fire.

For example, if you have 2 consecutive HBO timers set, and an OTA timer set to fire at the same time as the 2nd HBO timer, please post exact details of the three timers so that I can set them up exactly the same way.

Thanks!


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## Cheezmo (Feb 5, 2004)

Here is one.

Timer on Satellite HD channel from 9-11
Timer on OTA HD channel from 10-11.
Leave 921 on and viewing a Satellite HD channel (not the one that is recording).

The message that comes up when it is time for the OTA timer to fire will say that the main tuner and PIP are both in use (what does PIP have to do with anything?). Don't select anything, let the dialog time out.

The OTA timer will fail (it will put up a screen saying the program has been blacked out in your area). Audio for the Sat channel you were viewing will continue, but you will have a black screen.

If you then try to delete the OTA timer that did not fire, it won't let you since it says it has already started the recording process (I wish!). I could go on with various other error messages, but I think you are just concerned with the timer not working here...


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## Cheezmo (Feb 5, 2004)

Here is another one.

Timer on Satellite HD channel from 9-11.
Timer on another Satellite HD channel from 10-11.
Leave 921 on and viewing an OTA HD channel.

The message the comes up with it is time for the 10 o'clock Satellite timer to fir will say that the "main and pip" are in use (again, what does PIP have to do with it?). Don't select anything, let the dialog time out.

The Satellite timer will fail, you will get a black (or gray screen). Display will indicate you are on channel 77 UKN.

Channel guide will indicate that the 10-11 show is recording (it will have a red dot) but it will not appear on the DVR screen.

If you try to tune to the 10-11 channel from the channel guide it will take you to the gray screen (77 UKN). If you try to tune to yet a 3rd satellite channel, you will get stuck in a loop with a dialog saying "Your request can only be carried out in live mode. Stop recording and switch". I'm afraid to do that since I actually want the first recording to finish...


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## Cheezmo (Feb 5, 2004)

Timer on Sat HD channel from 10:30 -> 11
Timer on another Sat HD channel from 10:30 -> 11
Leave 921 on and tuned to yet a third Sat HD Channel.

This actually works!!!!! Incredible!!!!!!


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Thanks Steve. I'll let you know the results for your two cases above. Keep 'em coming!


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Confirmed both Steve, and reported in detail.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

I don't know why, but my 4 Sunday morning weekly timers all failed to fire. This was after a GSOD Saturday night (only my 3rd one since L180 - but all were in the last week). The timers were all for different channels, and haven't been edited since right after L180 came in. Used Menu-7 to check the timers and noted that there were 'out of action order sequence'. That is, the timers should all be in time order, but they were not. A couple of Friday night timers followed the Sunday morning ones (which should've been the last timers in the list).

Also, sometime yesterday, my available time remaining took a large jump to the good side for no apparent reason. Just happened to notice that. No deletes were done, but some recordings may have been in process. No, nothing got auto-deleted. I only mention this because by pure guess and speculation, I wonder if some kind of internal clean-up routine executed and maybe screwed things up. Just something to check, if in fact there is such a program in the box.

Unrelated (I think, but who knows), I also did a non-timer recording today (hit the Rec button) with 'stop at end of show'. The timer did NOT stop. Stop button did not work. Stop via DVR menu did not work. Opening PIP and forcing a double channel change brought up the 'Can't do this ... switch to live' box. That DID work.

Doing a power-off hard-boot now in hopes of stabilizing the box back to it's normally good performance.

Update: The out-of-action-order timers mentioned above are STILL there. the rest of my Friday night timers are in the right place in the list. The out-of-order ones DID fire correctly last Friday.


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## sgt940 (Jan 9, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> I need some testing help from those of you (read: all of you) that are having timers fail to record.
> 
> In this thread (and yes, I know you've been posting this in other threads, but I don't have enough time to sift through all of them again here), please post with as much excrutiating detail as possible what you were trying to record that failed.
> 
> ...


Mark, I have duplicated this three times now over three weeks. Each week on Saturday I set a OTA timer to record the Nascar Race on 004-02 and each time it has failed. Here is the sequence for Today. Last night I created the timer using menu, timer, create. Channel 004-01 was working at that time. This morning I checked to make sure that I was still recieving 004-01 and I was not (almost a daily drop out on this channel). I deleted all Digital channels and re-scanned. Verfied that all were working. I had to leave so I left the unit on an tuned to local satelite channel SD 8403 the race in SD. When I got home I the record lite was on, I tried to tune to the HD OTA channel 004-02 and got the warning message 822 "Can not currently tune to an off-air channel as off-air tuner is being used for recording". As in other weeks I tried to cancel recording and it told me I had to stop it first, tried to gain control of tuner with check swith no avail. Tried to delete timer and said had to stop first and of course that is not possible. As I learned in the past the only way out is to edit the timer (it will let you do this) have it stop in a coule of minutes. Let it time out and than you can switch to the channel. When you do this there was nothing recorded during the time the record lite was on. What I do not know is if it would have recorder if I had left it a lone until the end.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Mark- When my timers failed, I figured out what I did wrong and corrected that action. I really have nothing to report that I feel is a bug, although I do feel some of these menus and decisions are not at all user friendly and I also think Eldon needs to prioritize the timers to fire properly even if the 921 is tuned to the wrong channel. When a timer is set to fire, it should force the 921 to make that happen. I do think the software is heading in the right direction for making it better but the menu choices are still confusing.

I can confirm that what Steve reported also fails for me. But, I don't try to allow conflicts to time out. I correct the problem and if it means I need to exceed the 921's design, I move to the 6000 or DirecTV receiver for the additional live viewing and leave the 921 to work on recording only. i.e. whenever I have 2 recordings working or coming up and wish to channel surf, I worry that it will cause conflicts so I channel surf with another receiver or do what the manual says is allowed and record 2 channels while only watching a 3rd _"prerecorded"_ channel. Never a 3rd live channel. This is just how I avoid issues.

_"Timer on Sat HD channel from 10:30 -> 11
Timer on another Sat HD channel from 10:30 -> 11
Leave 921 on and tuned to yet a third Sat HD Channel.

This actually works!!!!! Incredible!!!!!!
"_

Well, this I can't do Steve. What other magic tricks do you do? Hey, just kidding. I think you just said you have 3 sat tuners in your 921 or did I misunderstand what you posted?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

What Steve meant with the last one there was that the 921 forces the channel change and the 2nd timer fires. That's the correct action to take - it just needs to take that same action with the 2 other conditions Steve posted that fail - those other 2 conditions seem to indicate that the 921 is putting the priority on what's being viewed live over the timer.

Sgt940 - what you posted is definitely a bug, but I don't think it's a timer related bug.


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## Cheezmo (Feb 5, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> What Steve meant with the last one there was that the 921 forces the channel change and the 2nd timer fires. That's the correct action to take - it just needs to take that same action with the 2 other conditions Steve posted that fail - those other 2 conditions seem to indicate that the 921 is putting the priority on what's being viewed live over the timer.


I disagree that it is "putting priority on what's being viewed live". It does not put its priority on what's being viewed. It clearly attempts do the right thing, to switch to make the recording and gets itself into a messed up state in the process. If it just "failed" and continued viewing the live channel, one could argue they decided to implement it that way, but this is clearly a case of no one ever testing these pretty obvious scenarios.


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## JOBY (Mar 27, 2004)

Last Night I had a sat timer recording TBS from 7:30 to 9:30PM. It was setup using the guide with padding. It stoped shortly before a weekly OTA timer that was setup with the time menu to recored KVUE ch 24 in Austin TX (no padding) started. I was watching a previously recorded discovery HD theater program. I noticed the red light went out, then came back on later. This morning I checked the recored list. The ota recording was complete, the TBS recording length was 34 min. I guess the OTA timer stoped the sat recording in progress.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

JOBY, what were the start and stop time settings for your OTA timer?


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## JOBY (Mar 27, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> JOBY, what were the start and stop time settings for your OTA timer?


8:00 PM to 9:00 pm no padding


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

One more question Joby - do you recall what channel your 921 was tuned to before you entered the DVR menu to start watching the DiscHD event? I don't know if it matters or not, but am just trying to get the complete picture.


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## JOBY (Mar 27, 2004)

Sorry Im not sure. I think it was a SD channel.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Hmm...I went through 4 test cases last night with a sat timer and an OTA timer firing while watching a DVR event, and in all cases, both timers fired correctly and completed recording.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Mark-
I think they really need to dump the whole concept of "padding" Padding can cause conditions that generate times where tuner and/or circuitry channels are exceeded in adjacent timers. I believe that the popular opinion is to think of the padding as being exempt from system limitations, which it is not. So, eliminating all padding options is a good step toward reducing conditions of user failure. It just simplifies the timer setup for no conflicts.
The second condition should be that the timer should be prioritized unless manually shut down. e.g. Say you are watching a sat channel and a background timer is about to fire on another channel. While this happens, you were in the process of recording another sat channel. This makes for 3 channels which is beyond the limits of the system. When the little warning clock comes up, it would be warning you that you are about to be switched to viewing the new timer channel unless you shut down the timer. If you do nothing, the timer would take over and when it fires you would not be permitted to continue to watch but would be switched allowing the timer to fire. At this time your system has reached maximum. Two sat tuners recording. Beyond watching one of those two recordings live, your only other option would be to watch another prerecorded program on the 921 hard drive. 

Funny thing- When the 921 is in standby mode (power button off) the timer is prioritized over what other channel you had left the 921 set to. It only seems to fail when you are powered on. FWIW- my old SVHS VCR's timer worked with priority set to timer. When the timer was about to start recording, if you were tuned to a different channel, the VCR would switch your live viewing to what the timer wanted. i.e. Timer was prioritized, not live viewing. 

In summary, change two things, eliminate padding settings altogether (they are superfulous and redundant) And, two, prioritize the timer over live channel settings.


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## JOBY (Mar 27, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Hmm...I went through 4 test cases last night with a sat timer and an OTA timer firing while watching a DVR event, and in all cases, both timers fired correctly and completed recording.


One thing that might be different is that in the setup, I turned off the warning icon that comes on before a timer fires because my wife was irritated by it. Your's may be on.

I will try to replicate the problem, If it does happen again, I will turn the timer warning back on and re-test.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

My "Mr. Blinkey" is turned off as well.


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

The padding (which is almost always needed for network programming), provides an easy way to set up the extended timers. But, if it's so difficult to make it work, it really doesn't need to be stored as such.

Just make the adjustments to the start/end times and let the user resolve any conflicts.


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## bobl (Jan 17, 2004)

Foreget getting rid of padding (it works great on the 721). Simply make the 921 work correctly in this regard as the 721 does.

Bob


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## Cheezmo (Feb 5, 2004)

DonLandis said:


> The second condition should be that the timer should be prioritized unless manually shut down. e.g. Say you are watching a sat channel and a background timer is about to fire on another channel. While this happens, you were in the process of recording another sat channel. This makes for 3 channels which is beyond the limits of the system. When the little warning clock comes up, it would be warning you that you are about to be switched to viewing the new timer channel unless you shut down the timer. If you do nothing, the timer would take over and when it fires you would not be permitted to continue to watch but would be switched allowing the timer to fire. At this time your system has reached maximum. Two sat tuners recording. Beyond watching one of those two recordings live, your only other option would be to watch another prerecorded program on the 921 hard drive.
> 
> Funny thing- When the 921 is in standby mode (power button off) the timer is prioritized over what other channel you had left the 921 set to. It only seems to fail when you are powered on. FWIW- my old SVHS VCR's timer worked with priority set to timer. When the timer was about to start recording, if you were tuned to a different channel, the VCR would switch your live viewing to what the timer wanted. i.e. Timer was prioritized, not live viewing.


Congratulations Don, you finally seem to understand how it is supposed to work (and why the current behavior is a bug!). It is not a "funny thing" that it works when the power is off. Their bug only hits them when a tuner is in use and I believe it frees them both up when you turn off (or watch a recorded show which is why it worked for Mark in all those cases).

Note again, that if you are watching live and the dialog comes up, the default action is to use the active tuner for the timer. If you let it time out, it clearly attempts to do so (to the point of thinking it is, even though the show is not in the DVR screen).

The one tweak I would make to the "decision" dialog is that it currently comes up when the show is supposed to start recording and times out after 30 seconds. That means if you aren't there, you will miss the first 30 seconds of the show. The dialog should come up 30 seconds BEFORE the timer would fire so that none of the recording is missed.

Hopefully Mark's detailing of those scenarios will allow them to fix the problem (without breaking too much else!).


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

The sad thing is that I can see the missing lines of code in my head.

I wonder if I'm right.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Thanks Steve-

I think I understood how to make the timers work(as measured by my results) but failed to understand how others intended them to work. I still fail to understand how one can expect a timer with conflicts caused by overlapping paddings to fire, especially if it exceeds the system's design limits. 3 tuners in play during the padding time bothers me. The way they wrote the code allows this failure. I felt that people got the idea they could ignore the padding times in timer expectations. 

If the 721 workks well with padding timers, how does it deal with pad times that make the 721 exceed it's tuner count. Maybe it warns you you can't do that during timer creation. Then setting the timer pad to 0 allows the timer to be set and later executed.


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## Cheezmo (Feb 5, 2004)

They attempt to automatically change the padding to avoid such conflicts. But, like everything, it is buggy. You'll notice that if you create two timers that overlap (even if the padding doesn't come into play) it sometimes changes the start or end padding on its own.

I agree with you they should probably just drop padding entirely at this point. Get everything else working, THEN think about adding it back. It took ReplayTV a few releases to get padding in there, I probably would have muddied the waters quite a bit if they tried to do it on their first pass.


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## alipka (Dec 11, 2003)

Here is my timer failure:

Set channel 57-01 to record weekly at 8 PM on Wednesday (Enterprise).

The DVR event list shows it correctly; it even knows that it is WPSG and that the show on at the time is Star Trek: Enterprise (which appears in Yellow type).

One minute lead-in, zero lead-out.

No other timer set at that time.

At about 8:15 I look at the DVR list, and it shows that the event is recording - however, it shows the channel as MOMAX. When I select "View", it shows Enterprise in HD, and the banner indicates REC.

I then leave it alone for the rest of the hour. At 9:05 it has retuned to a different channel. I look at the DVR list and it shows the event (still listing it as from MOMAX along with the name of the show as whatever was on MOMAX at the time), with a duration of 0 seconds. When I try to view it I get a message indicating that it didn't record.

The exact same thing happened last week with this timer.

ARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!


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## rrg (Dec 19, 2003)

I've had the exact same failure on the same recording for the past two weeks: WPSG-DT Philadelphia (UHF channel 32, mapped to channel 57), recording "Enterprise" on Wednesday from 8 to 9pm. I end up with a 0-second recording although the red light is on for the duration of the event.

I didn't turn the unit on during the recording, though, so I can't speak to the channel anomaly that you saw.

At least once in the past (February) I was able to record "Enterprise" from this channel, and i've kept the recording to prove it to myself. I don't remember, though, whether that was a timer recording or just one that I started manually. I suspect the latter.

I recorded it simultaneously on the LG LST-3410A without problems, as well as on D-VHS using the Samsung SIR-T165 and JVC 30000U, also without problems. (Covering all the bases.)

I'll keep checking in here while I wait for the HD TiVo to arrive. Maybe even afterward.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Run this test on your Enterprise channels. While watching live, see if you can pause that channel, skip forward etc. Basic DVR control. You may have a channel that has the "No DVR function" bug. MY WJWB works the same way here. Fortunately, I have no desire to watch that channel but I understand Eldon is on top of this bug. Mark may be able to offer some details/updates on this bug fix ETA. 

If you do have DVR function on that channel then you clearly have another bug that doesn't allow you to record the program.


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## the_tx_dude (Jan 26, 2004)

DonLandis said:


> If you do have DVR function on that channel then you clearly have another bug that doesn't allow you to record the program.


I have noticed that almost all of (maybe all I am not sure) my 0 second recordings have come from the 2 OTA stations that I do not have DVR control. However, I have also had successful recordings from those channels without DVR control. I have also noticed that some of my 0 second recordings from those non DVR channels resulted after I attempted to watch the program live while recording. unfortunately, I have not found an exact pattern to replicate the bug. Therefore, I don't attempt to watch at same time.


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## bobl (Jan 17, 2004)

When I said that timer padding works well on the 721 I meant it works well as long as you keep in mind that that the padding shouldn't cause three tuners to be required at any one time (including just the overlapping of timers due to the padding). I'm always careful to make sure that the padding for timers never requires the use of three tuners at any point in time, therefore, I never have a problem. Padding does work well because you can simply extend a program (at the start and at the end) if you desire such as for a sporting event or for catching a couple minutes of a network show that tends to run a minute or two beyond the time listed in the guide. Good example-Letterman is listed in the guide M-F @11:35-12:35, however, it actually runs from 11:35-12:38. I simply can use the padding function to add three minutes which is much easier than having to edit the timer.

Please don't get rid of padding, just make it better equipped to handle conflicts.

Bob


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

_"When I said that timer padding works well on the 721 I meant it works well as long as you keep in mind that that the padding shouldn't cause three tuners to be required at any one time (including just the overlapping of timers due to the padding). I'm always careful to make sure that the padding for timers never requires the use of three tuners at any point in time, therefore, I never have a problem."_

OK, then we're on the same playing field. I do the same thing, in summary, careful to never set up conflicts or exceed the system design. What is needed is a better warning system for padding errors. but frankly, I don't see the need for it even with your explanation. If you know you want a program to end at 9:05, why not just time it for 9:05? Why the need to say, I want it to end at 9:00 so I select it and then say, but I really need it to end at 9:05 so I'll set it to add additional 5 minutes. Now if the padding was smart enough to apply it only when the program runs overtime, then that's where I can see it being a great option. Otherwise I see it an redundant. I'm sure there is something I'm missing with the redundancy advantage but so far, I find the need to go back in and change the pad time to 0 annoying. Besides, recording 15 one hour programs, look at the hard drive time I save with no padding. 60 minutes!


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## alipka (Dec 11, 2003)

FYI:

I have been able to record Enterprise via a weekly OTA timer several times. It just started producing 0 second recordings when 180 came out.

I have had DVR functions on this channel at all times, so it appears to be a separate bug from the DVR bug.


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

DonLandis said:


> Otherwise I see it an redundant. I'm sure there is something I'm missing


The padding entry is nice when we are setting up timers from the EPG. In this case, you're not directly given the option to manually set Start/End times (yes, you can go back and reedit the timer).

So, if I wasn't clear before, my preference would be to keep the padding entry on the create timer screen - but then the software can calculate adjusted start/end times. The PAD remains a data entry convenience, but becomes a non-issue in terms of automatic conflict resolution and timer firing.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

David- Thanks, I understand your point of View. 

Can we agree to request the pad times then be default to 0 or allow a default dialog listing to be user set? All this assumes the programmers are smart enough to figure out how to make it work the way you described. If they can't then let's ditch the pad settings.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

I tested a timer conflict tonight that exceeded the tuner capacity. I was watching Disc HD channel when two other sat timers were set to fire. When the clock came up I also got a screen that asked me to move to one of the two timer channels. I selected one and I was moved to that timer channel. Both timers fired. While on one of the channels I also brought up the DVR screen and was allowed to watch the DVR recording while the two timers fired. 
Just wanted to report this conflict worked properly. A second test where I set up two background timers, tuned to a third channel and then put the 921 in standby mode. Both timers fired and I was not present to see or make the choice to switch channels. The 921 just did it as it was on standby mode. 

I will run this same test using OTA as one of the channels next time. But, so far this works as it should with all sat tuners. I believe this is in conflict with what Steve Martin reported, that his 921 is capable of tuning 3 sat channels, two recording while watching a third. Steve? Why didn't you get that same choice screen I did just before the timers were set to fire?


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## Cheezmo (Feb 5, 2004)

DonLandis said:


> I will run this same test using OTA as one of the channels next time. But, so far this works as it should with all sat tuners. I believe this is in conflict with what Steve Martin reported, that his 921 is capable of tuning 3 sat channels, two recording while watching a third. Steve? Why didn't you get that same choice screen I did just before the timers were set to fire?


No conflict at all. As I've stated, it works fine (well, except when I get "0 second" recordings like last night) if you turn off (put in standby).

But, if you leave it on, live, and aren't there to select one of the choices from the dialog, you get the failures. (And note that none of the failures I described involved 3 sat tuners. They all involve having to switch the "live" tuner from sat to ota or vice versa).

Resist the temptation to answer the dialog. Pretend you went to the kitchen or something and let it time out.

I'm not in the habit of turning off my ReplayTV's, satellite tuner's etc. so the typical case for me would be that the notification dialog is allowed to expire (selecting its default) in my absence.

I have never said I could do all 3 at once. I just said (and it has been detailed and reproduced) that it does not behave well if you aren't there to answer the dialog in 2 circumstances.


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## bobl (Jan 17, 2004)

Don,

Adding additional time to a timer is much easier when you're in the original timer create scrren which is accessed by selecting a program in the guide. Here you can simply add the padding needed all in one screen. Timers can certainly be edited to change the time from say 9:00 to 9:05, however, this requires creating the timer by inintially going through the guide and then editing the timer. The padding option is simply faster. I do agree that the padding times should not be 1 and 3 minutes but should be a user preference.

Bob


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

_"I have never said I could do all 3 at once. I just said (and it has been detailed and reproduced) that it does not behave well if you aren't there to answer the dialog in 2 circumstances."_

I count 3 sat channels you said you tuned at the same time. Mind explaining what you meant by _"Leave 921 on and tuned to yet a third Sat HD Channel."_ Unless you meants you can tune to different sat channels while timers are set for a future time. Yes, I can do that too but never while those recordings are ongoing. You will be given a choice, if you fail to make that choice the priority will be to abort the background recordings. I simply proposed earlier that the priority should be to make the recordings and not prioritize the current tuned channel.


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## Cheezmo (Feb 5, 2004)

Yes, I was indicating to leave it on and tuned to a SAT channel BEFORE (ie while waiting for) the 2 timers to fire.


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