2021-10-07: misleading(?) "Failed recording" errors

[DuncanCorps]

At the time of writing, programmes being broadcast which should be recording have a little exclamation mark in a circle and are described as Failed recording, and the only explanation given is Recording failed due to a technical issue (which explains nothing).

Switching to the channel in question to watch the programme works fine, so the TV 360 is evidently able to receive and show the channel/programme.

And then, later, after the programme has finished... the recording is listed just fine, no symbols etc. as if all was well all along.

Is this some sort of bug... as if "recording in progress" is instead being reported in the UI as "recording has failed"..?

• Application version: 56_2021070
• Build version: 4.34

[roy247]

Not seen that message before, does it happen on every recording you make. Does it only occur on specific channels, if you set a recording now does it happen if it does then what channel / programme and I can see if I get the same message. 

[stevemorgan]

Your hard drive may be on its way out.

Are other previous recordings still playing ok?

A full reset may be the only option to rule it out, but you will loose all recordings.

If all else fails an engineer call may be required to swap the box out.

[japitts]

I'm not entirely convinced by this being a hard drive issue, but it's easily tested.

Pick a live TV channel to watch, this proves your signal feed. Now pause live TV for a short time and watch delayed - this is effectively a recording and uses the HDD in the same way.

Hard drive problems should become apparent quite quickly with this test.

[DuncanCorps]

I don't believe this is HDD failure, it feels more like a software bug. Be nice if I could see any sort of log of what the TV 360 has been doing. SMART reports, dmesg, stuff like that.

Anyway... After two programmes, both exhibiting this same inexplicable "Failed recording" behaviour, both finished at 21:00 I power cycled the TV 360 (WHY is there no REBOOT SAFELY feature in the menus?!? instead, the only way to reboot the box is probably doing damage...) giving it plenty of time for RAM to drain, HDD to spin down, etc..

When I powered it back on, bizarrely, it decided it was still able to record the 18:00 to 21:00 programme, and started recording BT Sport ESPN HD. In the list of recordings it still had Major League Baseball's Ep446: NL Wild Card Game: St. Louis Cardin..., but playing it showed - predictably to everyone and everything except the TV 360 - The Ocho's 2020 Table Shuffleboard Crazy Eights Invitational.

Since then, all has been well... but I expect something else random will unexpectedly misbehave without warning soon, requiring another powercycle... Given all the other problems reported in this Virgin TV 360 forum, my prime suspicion is buggy software. In this case, it's like it lost track of what state it was in and/or what time it was, what it was supposed to be doing at the time it thought it was, got some data corruption in its database...

Any other thoughts or insights from anyone? Including, any tips on getting TiVo back?

[japitts]

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@DuncanCorps wrote:

Any other thoughts or insights from anyone? Including, any tips on getting TiVo back?

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I can't help with your box issues (I use a V6), but the second part of the question above is easy. You can't.

A migration from TiVo/V6 to 360 is one-way and can't be reverted.

[newapollo]

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@DuncanCorps wrote:

Anyway... After two programmes, both exhibiting this same inexplicable "Failed recording" behaviour, both finished at 21:00 I power cycled the TV 360 (WHY is there no REBOOT SAFELY feature in the menus?!? instead, the only way to reboot the box is probably doing damage...) giving it plenty of time for RAM to drain, HDD to spin down, etc..

When I powered it back on, bizarrely, it decided it was still able to record the 18:00 to 21:00 programme, and started recording BT Sport ESPN HD. In the list of recordings it still had Major League Baseball's Ep446: NL Wild Card Game: St. Louis Cardin..., but playing it showed - predictably to everyone and everything except the TV 360 - The Ocho's 2020 Table Shuffleboard Crazy Eights Invitational.

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I thought there may have been a blip in the information in the TV Guide, but there isn't as according to the 360 EPG, the live game between Los Angeles Dodgers Wild Card and St Louis Cardinals was first screened on BT Sport ESPN yesterday between 1:00am and 4:30am and a repeat was also screened yesterday on BT Sport ESPN between 18:00 and 21:00.

The good news in case you don't already know the result is that it is available to watch until 14th October by searching "major league baseball"  when clicking on Home and Search.