Entries in "Failed Recordings" for recordings which have actually succeeded

Martin Underwood

I'm using TVH 4.3-2375 (aarch64) on a Raspberry Pi4 that is running Debian 12 (output of uname -a is "Linux martin-pi4 6.6.74+rpt-rpi-v8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.6.74-1+rpt1 (2025-01-27) aarch64 GNU/Linux".

Although all the programmes that I schedule to record succeed and are listed in DVR | Finished Recordings in the web interface, when I delete recordings from there (after watching them or copying them elsewhere) some (not all) of those recordings end up in DVR | Failed Recordings with a status of "Time Missed". It's not a problem but it seems slightly bizarre behaviour.

I can delete them from there but after a few minutes they all reappear.

Is this normal (if unwanted!) behaviour, or is there something that I may have configured wrongly?

The only way of purging the ever-growing list in Failed Recordings is to reboot the Pi (I've not tried killing and restarting the TVH processes, because a complete reboot is guaranteed to start everything properly.

DeltaMikeCharlie

Martin Underwood Is this normal (if unwanted!) behaviour?

No.

Some troubleshooting steps to consider:

Do you see any log messages regarding this behaviour?

Are you using local or network storage for the recordings?

Do you have appropriate permissions to the recording locations?

What file system is used at the recording locations?

Martin Underwood I can delete them from there but after a few minutes they all reappear.

What do you see at the Operating System level?
Have the files actually been deleted?
Is there a TVH log error associated with this deletion?

Martin Underwood some (not all) of those recordings end up in DVR | Failed Recordings

Is there anything common about these recordings? Channel? DVR Profile? Storage location?

Martin Underwood

The files are stored on a local disk (local to the Raspberry Pi that is running TVH). The disk is NTFS. The storage location is SAMBA-shared. If I view that location, either from Windows looking at the SAMBA share, or by looking at directory using "ls -l" in UNIX, the files have definitely been deleted. Many, but not all, of the recordings are recorded from BBC One/Two HD. The DVR Profile is the same for every recording I make: I've not defined any other profile than the default one.

Here are the log entries showing me deleting the current contents of DVR | Failed Recordings at 23:16 and then them apparently coming back to life exactly 1 minute later. Notice that two recordings (Z Cars, recorded from Talking PicturesTV, and Last Word, recorded from Radio 4) had wrongly gone into Failed Recordings, but when I deleted them along with all the other programmes, they did not come back.

2026-06-17 23:16:31.555 [   INFO]:dvr: delete entry 86017f0e0ecb42e90e448cbbd353f341 "Casualty" on "101 BBC One Yk&Li HD" start time 2026-06-13 20:29:30, scheduled for recording by "192.168.1.70", retention "On file removal" removal "Forever"
2026-06-17 23:16:31.555 [   INFO]:dvr: delete entry 0da60940fa0e031634716f9e7137adea "Z-Cars" on "082 TalkingPictures TV" start time 2026-06-12 18:54:30, scheduled for recording by "192.168.1.70", retention "On file removal" removal "Forever"
2026-06-17 23:16:31.555 [   INFO]:dvr: delete entry 60979471a9f30cc08d43c02f868b1cf0 "Last Word" on "704 BBC Radio 4" start time 2026-06-12 15:54:30, scheduled for recording by "192.168.1.70", retention "On file removal" removal "Forever"
2026-06-17 23:16:31.556 [   INFO]:dvr: delete entry a390313d004bc47983ff8373c61351e3 "Who Do You Think You Are?" on "101 BBC One Yk&Li HD" start time 2026-06-09 20:54:30, scheduled for recording by "192.168.1.70", retention "On file removal" removal "Forever"
2026-06-17 23:16:31.556 [   INFO]:dvr: delete entry 8649c1dcd0b90b1de6f9b4e44d9bfea5 "Casualty" on "101 BBC One Yk&Li HD" start time 2026-06-06 20:19:30, scheduled for recording by "192.168.1.70", retention "On file removal" removal "Forever"
2026-06-17 23:16:31.556 [   INFO]:dvr: delete entry d815dfde7662c720457bbe501c5be09a "Who Do You Think You Are?" on "101 BBC One Yk&Li HD" start time 2026-06-02 20:54:30, scheduled for recording by "192.168.1.70", retention "On file removal" removal "Forever"
2026-06-17 23:16:31.556 [   INFO]:dvr: delete entry 397c5e1b0c68e01cce465bdf50a207dd "Casualty" on "101 BBC One Yk&Li HD" start time 2026-05-30 20:19:30, scheduled for recording by "192.168.1.70", retention "On file removal" removal "Forever"
2026-06-17 23:16:31.556 [   INFO]:dvr: delete entry 571c7580b7710efa731d770d286dcb4e "Who Do You Think You Are?" on "101 BBC One Yk&Li HD" start time 2026-05-26 20:54:30, scheduled for recording by "192.168.1.70", retention "On file removal" removal "Forever"
2026-06-17 23:17:31.505 [   INFO]:dvr: entry d22f8733aa6406f83e03a9227445d05c "Casualty" on "101 BBC One Yk&Li HD" starting at 2026-05-30 20:19:30, with broadcast id "crid://onid-2/m/1LMTK", scheduled for recording by "192.168.1.70"
2026-06-17 23:17:31.506 [   INFO]:dvr: entry 736d29a40b492ec373397266946b6411 "Casualty" on "101 BBC One Yk&Li HD" starting at 2026-06-06 20:19:30, with broadcast id "crid://onid-2/m/1LTIE", scheduled for recording by "192.168.1.70"
2026-06-17 23:17:31.507 [   INFO]:dvr: entry ec300f5fca297e6c96875a70c9878ce3 "Casualty" on "101 BBC One Yk&Li HD" starting at 2026-06-13 20:29:30, with broadcast id "crid://onid-2/m/1M043", scheduled for recording by "192.168.1.70"
2026-06-17 23:17:31.692 [   INFO]:dvr: entry 2ca4e16ad92c702bf3ee54d2fe2751b9 "Who Do You Think You Are?" on "101 BBC One Yk&Li HD" starting at 2026-05-26 20:54:30, with broadcast id "crid://onid-2/m/1LFOU", scheduled for recording by "192.168.1.70"
2026-06-17 23:17:31.693 [   INFO]:dvr: entry 13bdff128c6044730792d87c0eed412c "Who Do You Think You Are?" on "101 BBC One Yk&Li HD" starting at 2026-06-02 20:54:30, with broadcast id "crid://onid-2/m/1LN48", scheduled for recording by "192.168.1.70"
2026-06-17 23:17:31.693 [   INFO]:dvr: entry 6f5874494f9418c05bddcb4237c5dab5 "Who Do You Think You Are?" on "101 BBC One Yk&Li HD" starting at 2026-06-09 20:54:30, with broadcast id "crid://onid-2/m/1LTCR", scheduled for recording by "192.168.1.70"

Apologies: I wanted to attach this as a file but the forum will not allow text files to be uploaded so I've had to paste into the body of the message.

Martin Underwood

Forgot to answer a couple of your questions:

The directory /srv/ext/Videos where all recordings are saved, has 777 permissions and owner/group are both root. Within that directory, a separate directory is created for each title, and that has the same permissions and ownership. When TVH deletes a recording (ie when I do it from TVH's web interface) the recording .ts file and its containing director are both deleted.

All the recordings, both the ones that disappear completely and these "zombies" are made as a result of Series Record rather than being one-off recordings. I'm not sure whether I've seen the symptom with any one-off recordings, or just with series record, but it's not all series records that are zombies.

The spinning HDD where I record TV programmes is auto-mounted in /srv/ext by means of an entry in /etc/fstab

UUID=F45429CC54299282 /srv/ext ntfs defaults,umask=000,nofail,x-systemd.device-timeout=30 0 0

DeltaMikeCharlie

What is confusing is that the log entry is created on 2026-06-17 23:17:31.505 (for example), but the DVR entry is scheduled for 2026-05-30 20:19:30, which is in the past.

Maybe you could enable debug/logging on more modules to see if you can find any more clues.

davep

The "exactly one minute" part I've experienced when deleting a recording (via Kodi). 60 seconds after the deletion Tvheadend checks Series Recordings against the EPG to see if there are any new episodes to record. What doesn't make sense is scheduling timers from the past.

Martin Underwood

davep Exactly. "Dead" entries from the past are coming back to life again! The Undead are among us!

I've ticked all the boxes on the Debug page and filled in "subscription,linuxdvb,mpegts" in the Modules section. Are there any modules (ie not listed in the Help tooltip) which I could add to the Modules list?

I didn't have subscription, but when I added it (and saved the debug page) the resulting log file for deletion is the same, so nothing is being traced in Subscription.

davep

Martin Underwood Maybe 'dvr' and 'dvr_inotify'?

What's your setting for 'Recording info retention period'?