What is This Curious .thm Duplicate?!

[lancer]

Just recently installed a new Seagate Skyhawk 2TB drive. Pleased with it so far.

Today I have had a first from the box after many years ownership. I recorded Father Brown earlier today and Pointless later on. When I was looking at the various recordings on the box just now I noticed 2 files under Father Brown when only one should be present.

When I opened the top folder there was today’s recording of FB, as expected, together with another sub-folder headed as ‘Father Brown _20220103_1327.thm’

When I opened the sub folder it contained today’s recorded Pointless! But I also had a new top folder in the alphabetical list for today’s Pointless in the usual way.

I noticed that when I watched one of the instances of Pointless and switched to the ‘other’ recording, it was in exactly the same place on resume play and vice versa. i.e. it appears to be the same instance of the recording in two different locations (one recording, not two).

Can anyone explain what all this means and why it has happened?! Is it anything to do with the new Skyhawk or a coincidence?

Can I prevent a recurrence?

 

[Black Hole]

Is it anything to do with the new Skyhawk

I shouldn't think so, but if you're a CF user I recommend a fixdisk just to be on the safe side.

Can anyone explain what all this means and why it has happened?

It very much depends what else you have going on. Are you a CF user? Are you running decryption or any other post-processing? It seems inexplicable that a folder should have a .thm attached to it.

Can I prevent a recurrence?

Not until we can work out why it's happened, and we're only going to do that with a series of observations and diagnostics – not just one occurrence. One-off weirdnesses happen from time to time, and usually get dismissed as "just one of those things" presuming they really are one-offs.

 

[lancer]

Hello BH!

I am on the current CF, which I newly re-loaded onto new Skyhawk at your suggestion (i.e. I didn't transfer). I didn't select the package with decryption or any other package requiring post-processing to my knowledge. I have been recording since installing the HDD and CF on it last week and it has not done this until today.

 

[prpr]

Are you familiar with telnet or similar?
If so, can you provide a (filtered) listing e.g. ls -lR "/media/My Video" | grep "Pointless\|Brown" which just includes the above items, rather than everything on your disk.
Anything else will just be guesswork.

 

[lancer]

Thanks prpr. Can you give me a little more detail on the procedure you'd like me to follow? Thanks.

 

[lancer]

An update, in case it helps explain the odd behaviour.

Last night I deleted the Father Brown.thm sub file containing the Pointless episode and it moved to the ‘Deleted’ folder for later deletion. The Father Brown episode itself remained in the Father Brown folder. I also deleted the Pointless episode from its own folder. Both were therefore in the ‘Deleted’ folder last night.

Today, the Pointless episode is still in the ‘Deleted’ folder, but the .thm file, that was also containing the same Pointless episode, has gone - but it has been replaced by the Father Brown episode that accompanied it within the Father Brown folder yesterday! I did not, however, delete this episode myself last night!

Bizarre! The . thm file was clearly associated with FB, although they were shown as separated for some reason (and I know that a .thm file is one of the underlying individual files that get created as part of a programme recording).

Anyone any the wiser?!

 

[prpr]

Open a Command prompt and issue a telnet command e.g. something like telnet 192.168.0.1 obviously substituting the IP address for whatever your box is. Enter the PIN (usually 0000) and then select the "cli" option. You should get a "humax#" prompt and then you can issue the above command, or at least you could have done, had you not partially or totally destroyed the evidence by deleting stuff.
A succession of "exit" commands gets you out again.

 

[Black Hole]

Last night I deleted the Father Brown.thm sub file containing the Pointless episode

What does "sub file" mean? When I read your previous post I got the idea you had a folder called that (somehow). Where are you seeing this - on the MEDIA button with other recordings? Are you confusing the word "file" with "folder"? Did it have the standard folder icon next to it?

Files contain data, folders (AKA directories) contain files.

In case you are not aware, .thm should be a thumbnail file. There could be an orphaned .thm file (not a surprise), but you just shouldn't see it on the MEDIA list.

Can you give me a little more detail on the procedure you'd like me to follow?

You need to get to a command line for the CF. You can do that using the webshell package, or by Telnet. For Telnet see https://wiki.hummy.tv/wiki/Telnet, or for webshell install the package, reboot, then WebIF >> Diagnostics >> Command Line.

Then the pin is "0000" (unless you've changed it), and menu selection "cli" gets you a command prompt.

However, frankly, now you've been fiddling with it you've basically contaminated the crime scene and there's very little to be gained.