• The forum software that supports hummy.tv has been upgraded to XenForo 2.3!

    Please bear with us as we continue to tweak things, and feel free to post any questions, issues or suggestions in the upgrade thread.

Recording Failed: Unable to track programme

D

Doppa

Member
I have been getting the message "Recording Failed: Unable to track programme" for Emmerdale at 7.00 p.m. At first I put it down to all the football rescheduling in the last few weeks and thought it would settle itself now it's all over but it did it again last night. All other programmes record as scheduled and it only appears to be the 7.00 p.m. episode that is affected.

I don't know if this is relevant but I have the timer set to switch it on at 7.00 p.m. every night but this has never affected it before so I wondered if anyone else was having this problem or is it just me?
 
You should switch it on at least 15 mins before the scheduled recording. If you switch it on a 7:00pm and the programme starts at 7:00pm, the box possibly hasn't had time to boot.
The schedule routine 'starts looking' for your scheduled recording 15 mins before the scheduled start time.
 
Some broadcasters transmit the programme ID flag continuously, others only at the programme change-over. If the 'fox misses the flag, it won't know the programme has started.

What is this timer? An external timeswitch controlling the mains?? If you are referring to the internal timers, the fact you have a recording event scheduled should override them. The 'fox will enter a half-awake mode 15 minutes before time in case an event occurs early.

See also Things Every... (click) section 18.
 
Black Hole said:
Some broadcasters transmit the programme ID flag continuously, others only at the programme change-over. If the 'fox misses the flag, it won't know the programme has started.
Click to expand...
D-book Part A V 1 section 8.10.1 (which is available on-line via google search) explains that the EIT pf which recorders use for taking advantage of broadcasters' AR is repeatedly sent every few seconds. For events on its own transport stream it is repeated every 2 seconds and for other transport streams from the same transmitter it repeated every 5 seconds.
Humax looks out for a change of EIT pf to the EIT pf. Some other recorders (e.g. Vestel clones) don't look for a change as such but just for a match with what needs to be recorded and will start recording in the middle of a programme, if there has been a power cut causing it to miss the change over for example.
 
Yes, but I definitely recall AF saying that the flags are not always present throughout the data stream, regardless of what the D-Book might say.
 
Black Hole said:
Yes, but I definitely recall AF saying that the flags are not always present throughout the data stream, regardless of what the D-Book might say.
Click to expand...
That doesn't explain why you think it is down to individually broadcasters and not the multiplex operator.
 
Trev said:
You should switch it on at least 15 mins before the scheduled recording. If you switch it on a 7:00pm and the programme starts at 7:00pm, the box possibly hasn't had time to boot.
Click to expand...

Yes but I've always had it set like this and have had no problems until now. I assumed the football schedules had somehow disrupted it but wondered if anyone else had experienced the same thing.

Black Hole said:
What is this timer? An external timeswitch controlling the mains?? If you are referring to the internal timers, the fact you have a recording event scheduled should override them. The 'fox will enter a half-awake mode 15 minutes before time in case an event occurs early.
Click to expand...

Yes it's the internal Hummy timer I have set. It's been fine in the past and records anything at 7.00 p.m. but not now. I'm not sure if it's an intermittent fault but now the schedules are back to normal I will watch out for it happening every night or see if it's just a particular day.
 
With the internal timers it should be absolutely fine. The most likely cause is the service providers / transmission agents (whatever) playing free and loose with the flags.

We used to have a lot of this kind of thing, the situation has gradually improved. The advice in the past was to go over to Auto-Padding rather than rely on Accurate Recording, but now we have the custom firmware multimode package which allows for having AR as the default and then select individual recording reservations for padding when they are troublesome, or specify specific services to be automatically converted to padding.

You could also consider performing a factory reset - it tends to cure miscellaneous problems like this: Menu >> Settings >> Installation >> Factory Default. Your tuning and recording schedule will need setting up again afterwards, which may be part of the beneficial effect.

Further commentary: Things Every... (click) section 3.
 
I suffered similar disruption to the OP during the football - but with a slightly weird twist. Specifically, on Fri 1st :-
The 7.30pm Coronation Street produced a "Recording Failed: Unable to track programme" - 0 min entry
The 8.30pm episode did exactly the same but then, around 8.45pm I got a successful recording of the second half of the episode.

The exact same outcome recurred on Mon 4th as well.
This was from a series link that has performed fine for months (STV HD on Blackhill transmitter)

Never seen anything quite like that before but I, too, put it down to the disrupted schedules and the fact that there appeared to be
transmitter maintenance occurring on Fri 1st.

On Sunday I deleted the recording schedule for the series link and re-submitted it from the EPG. So far it seems to be working fine this week.

Plenty of other recordings, including series link ones, worked fine throughout the same period.
 
Doppa said:
I have been getting the message "Recording Failed: Unable to track programme" for Emmerdale at 7.00 p.m. At first I put it down to all the football rescheduling in the last few weeks and thought it would settle itself now it's all over but it did it again last night. All other programmes record as scheduled and it only appears to be the 7.00 p.m. episode that is affected.

I don't know if this is relevant but I have the timer set to switch it on at 7.00 p.m. every night but this has never affected it before so I wondered if anyone else was having this problem or is it just me?
Click to expand...
I have had similar issues this week with the 7:00pm Emmerdale, and have deleted its entry from my schedule, and rescheduled it to see if that fixes it.
 
Thanks for all your replies. I should mention that I don't have Emmerdale set as Series Record but only do them one at a time the night before. Tonights's episode recorded without a hitch but I'll see if tomorrow's is a success or failure. It would seem others may have had problems too so I'm glad it's not just me!
 
Doppa said:
I should mention that I don't have Emmerdale set as Series Record but only do them one at a time the night before.
Click to expand...
That seems like rather a stupid way to operate and it would have been helpful if you'd said that originally.
If the broadcaster changes the P-CRID between you setting the recording and the programme being transmitted then it will result in the programme not recording. Using the series link should prevent this (assuming the broadcaster doesn't change the S-CRID as well, and this has been known).
What is your opposition to Series Record? Do you like making work for yourself?
 
How charming! I didn't know we had EPG Police.

It's just my preference and is no big deal. I do use series record, just not for this.
 
Doppa said:
I wondered if anyone else was having this problem or is it just me?
Click to expand...
There have been a few 7pm Emmerdale's (channel 103) that haven't recorded but not using an HDR-FOX T2 but the latest Vestel and a DTR-T2100. When it happened the first couple of times it wasn't obvious that their had been a clash but last time there definatly was not a clash. On at least a couple of occasions the DTR-T2100 went on to record the ITV+1 SD version instead but the Vestel didn't, which is odd as the Vestel normally does if it misses an entire recording for some reason.
I haven't really been paying much attention this time around but I'll keep both series timers for 3 weeks and see if there is a pattern.
 
Black Hole said:
Those are valid points.
Click to expand...
What are? The OP's or prpr's rather rude reply to the OP's last. So At least two failures. Same programme. Different scheduling method. Different box. Seems more like a problem 'their end' and the method of scheduling seems to makes no difference.
I wonder why it would have made so much difference if the OP had said he wasn't using series recording in the first place.
 
Trev said:
What are? The OP's or prpr's rather rude reply to the OP's last...
I wonder why it would have made so much difference if the OP had said he wasn't using series recording in the first place.
Click to expand...

Yes, I was wondering that too and what difference series record makes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top