Failed to Record Ch4/E4/Film4

meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
edited 23 January 2023, 11:09PM in Support
Been getting Failed to Record errors on the channel 4 channels over the last few days.
First happened for Ch4 News (SD, 4, 7pm) last Thursday or Friday and has happened on each Ch4 News since.  Also happened for Mortal Engines on Film 4 (14, 6.40pm) on Saturday and Lego Masters Australia on E4 (13, 5.05pm) on Sunday.
In each case I've been around and lucky enough to notice in time enough to set up to record the programme on the respective +1 channel, and that worked, except today (see below).
I have two YouView boxes and since the first Ch4 News failure, which I usually only have on series record on one of them, I've set both boxes to series record Ch4 News on both Ch4 and Ch4+1 (to maximise the chances!), and both boxes have got Failed to Record errors on Ch4 for the last few days but recorded OK on the +1 -- except for today when one box failed on both Ch4 and Ch4+1 whereas the other box only failed on Ch4 but succeeded on the +1.
Both boxes are DN372Ts on 3.7.234/72.48.91, and I'm on the Crystal Palace tx.
Anyone else seeing the same or similar?

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Comments

  • Louise MurdochLouise Murdoch Administrator Posts: 146 admin
    Hi @meyou2

    We are aware of issues with the D3&4 MUX failing to record on Huawei devices and are looking in to this with D3&4.

    Are you able to confirm a few points for me to help narrow down the investigation?

    Are only series recordings failing to record, or are individual recordings also failing?
    Have any series recordings set after the 19th January failed to record?

    Thanks
    Louise.

  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    Both and yes. :)
    Of the aforementioned, Ch4 News (SD, 4) and Lego Masters Australia on E4 (13) are series recordings and were set up long before 19th Jan.  Ch4 News is, of course, daily while Lego Masters is weekly, on Sundays.  Mortal Engines on Film 4 (14) was a one-off, on Saturday, and I set it up to record earlier that day.
    All of those were on my main box and all failed to record, with Ch4 News failing to record every day since the 19th.
    Over the weekend (so since the 19th), having realised the Ch4 News failure wasn't a one-off, I set up series recording of it on my secondary box too, all of which have also failed to record, and set up series recording of it on Ch4+1 on both boxes and, as I said before, those worked except for last night on the main box.
    Those are all the recordings I've had set up on D3&4 in the last few days.  For the coming days I've got Ch4 News, daily of course, Peston on ITV1 (SD, 3) on Wednesday and The Last Leg on Ch4 (SD, 4) on Friday.  I'll report back on how those go....


  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    Update: On my main box recording Ch4 News failed tonight (Tuesday) with Failed to Record on both Ch4 (4) and Ch4+1 (15).
    However, on my second box I got a super short 3 second Partially Recorded recording on Ch4 but it recorded fine and in full on Ch4+1.
    FWIW, my main box is a DN372T.01.03.P and the secondary a .01.02.P.

  • Louise MurdochLouise Murdoch Administrator Posts: 146 admin
    Thank you for the detailed responses @meyou2.

    Would you be able to reset all of your series recordings on one of your devices, and see whether that results in successful recordings?

    Also, are you able to just set some recordings on channels not on the D3&4 MUX just to rule out anything else that may be going on?

    Thank you again for all your help with this.
  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    edited 25 January 2023, 5:29PM
    Well, @Louise Murdoch , if you mean delete the series recordings and set them up again, sure, I can do that on my secondary box (which has a lot fewer than the main box), although as I say above, I set up the Ch4 News series recordings on that box over the weekend, so not sure what difference resetting it now will make, but I'll do so anyway. :-)
    I have plenty of series recordings of programmes on other muxes -- some on each of BBCA (both boxes), and COM4 & COM5 (main box) -- and I'm not having any problems with any of those ... ummm, although I did lose the last minute or two of Newsnight last night; we'll see if that's just a one off.....
  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    edited 26 January 2023, 2:28AM
    Ok, so last night (Wed) there were two D3&4 programmes I wanted recording, Ch4 News on 4 and Peston on ITV1 (3), and they were due to series record on both boxes, both on their main channels and on their respective +1s (so four recordings on each box).
    On my main box, where the series recordings were already in place, only the Ch4 News on the +1 succeeded, the other three recordings Failed to Record.
    On my secondary box, where I'd reset all the series recordings, all four recordings succeeded.
    All recordings on other muxes on both boxes continued to work ok (inc. Newsnight in full).
    I'll try resetting the other D3&4 recordings on my main box too and report back.
  • John LJohn L Member, Super User Posts: 933 ✭✭
    edited 26 January 2023, 11:16AM
    meyou2 said:

    On my secondary box, where I'd reset all the series recordings, all four recordings succeeded.

    @meyou2
    reading through your problem, of course the box will record when you have cancelled the series link & have then rekeyed it into the epg schedule. I have the same problem with Freesat (+ also happens at times with Freeview pvr) this week with another bug. It's mainly the broadcaster: itv/bbc/ch4 that have made the error. As much as it is very frustrating when recording fails, the problem is easily solved by following @Louise Murdoch link above. The problem won't go away until you cancelled/reset the series link.

    The bbc have a habit of running a new series batch of BBC doctors after a short break & often you find the series hasn't recorded due to epg data not being updated correctly. I overcome this in advance by cancelling series & then straight away redoing series link so that it works. Only takes approx 10 seconds to do. Just have to remember to do it. Have fun! John L

    Can't wait for the day when Youview get rid of the dreaded darkened banner when using fast forward/rewind recordings. 
  • Louise MurdochLouise Murdoch Administrator Posts: 146 admin
    That's great news, thank you @meyou2!

    Please do let us know how you get on with the recordings on your other device and I will feed this back to D3&4.
  • RoyRoy Member, Super User Posts: 17,812 ✭✭✭
    edited 26 January 2023, 1:24PM
    @John L

    Yes, I have seen the issue you describe. But if the BBC have simply changed the Series CRID, then the ‘failed to record’ is just something that you notice, not anything that the box reports to you, because the box hasn’t seen anything wrong, just a programme going by and being ignored, like thousands of others, because it doesn’t match the Series CRID of anything in the box’s recording schedule.

    @meyou2 is/was getting actual error reports on his Huawei, which is rather different.
    ‘Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful’ Wm Morris
  • John LJohn L Member, Super User Posts: 933 ✭✭
    Hi @Roy,

    Yes, appreciate this, but still unticking and reticking schedule hopefully in most cases will fix issue, until it happens again? My point really was @meyou2 was not resetting schedule as advised earlier. At the end of the day EPG data is input by someone at broadcaster.  John L
    Can't wait for the day when Youview get rid of the dreaded darkened banner when using fast forward/rewind recordings. 
  • RoyRoy Member, Super User Posts: 17,812 ✭✭✭
    John L said:
    Hi @Roy,

    Yes, appreciate this, but still unticking and reticking schedule hopefully in most cases will fix issue, until it happens again? My point really was @meyou2 was not resetting schedule as advised earlier. At the end of the day EPG data is input by someone at broadcaster.  John L
    @John L

    None of our ‘simplistic’ theories would explain why Huawei boxes are affected by whatever it is, though, and Humax boxes aren’t.

    It all points to some irregularity with the transmitted metadata on D3&4 that upsets the Huawei firmware, but doesn’t upset the Humax firmware; and we know from past issues that the two sets of firmware, despite doing nominally the same job, differ in some respects.
    ‘Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful’ Wm Morris
  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    edited 27 January 2023, 1:06AM
    @Louise Murdoch, nope, no joy unfortunately. :-(
    I reset all of the D3&4 series recordings on my main box and Ch4 News on 4 Failed to Record again this evening, so that didn't help.  As yesterday, it recorded OK on the +1 channel, as did all of the other, non-D3&4, recordings. 
    Ch4 News was the only D3&4 recordings set on the main box this evening.
    On the secondary box everything recorded fine, including Ch4 News on 4 and on +1, and also the new Grayson Perry programme on 4 and also on +1.
  • Louise MurdochLouise Murdoch Administrator Posts: 146 admin
    Hi @meyou2
     
    Thanks so much for testing this, and thank you for feeding back. Apologies resetting the series records doesn't appear to have worked on your other box. Would you be able to try a full retune of all channels?

    We'd recommend removing the aerial, retuning (you'll see no channels), then replacing the aerial and retuning once more.

    Thank you,
    Louise.
  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    OK @Louise Murdoch, I've done a full retune and we'll see what happens (I'm not at all clear as to why a retune would help, given your original acknowledgement of the problem, but, hey ho, let's see anyway :))
    I couldn't actually get down to no channels without an aerial -- I'm only a mile from Crystal Palace with line-of-sight to the TX tower -- but the thing that's bizarre is that the one and only mux the box managed to get with no aerial was the Local mux (carrying London Live + 5 others) which is a tenth of the power of the other muxes from CP!

  • LukеLukе Member Posts: 84 ✭✭
    edited 27 January 2023, 5:36PM
    meyou2 said:
     but the thing that's bizarre is that the one and only mux the box managed to get with no aerial was the Local mux (carrying London Live + 5 others) which is a tenth of the power of the other muxes from CP!
    The local mux's use something called QPSK instead of 64QM or 256QAM.  This results in a much improved ability to cope with a low signal to noise ratio.  This means that it can compensate for a weaker power level.   The disadvantage is that it cannot be used to broadcast as many channels at the same picture quality, which is why there are so few channels on the local mux compared to the others.

    By the way the local mus on CP is a sixth of the power of its other muxes, not a tenth.
  • John LJohn L Member, Super User Posts: 933 ✭✭
    edited 27 January 2023, 11:38PM
    meyou2 said:
    OK @Louise Murdoch, I've done a full retune and we'll see what happens (I'm not at all clear as to why a retune would help, given your original acknowledgement of the problem, but, hey ho, let's see anyway :))
    I couldn't actually get down to no channels without an aerial -- I'm only a mile from Crystal Palace with line-of-sight to the TX tower -- but the thing that's bizarre is that the one and only mux the box managed to get with no aerial was the Local mux (carrying London Live + 5 others) which is a tenth of the power of the other muxes from CP!

    Hi @meyou2 to clear the tuner's memory is the reason! If you read various feeds from forums inc. Youview, you will be guided to unplug, retune, replug retune. It usually works, it's like a clean installation of TV channels without any bugs in your hardware. Often the previous channel tuning can be left over and not be overwritten.  It's nothing to do with how far you are from transmitter. It's resetting your own hardware. John L
    Can't wait for the day when Youview get rid of the dreaded darkened banner when using fast forward/rewind recordings. 
  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    edited 28 January 2023, 2:09AM
    @Louise Murdoch OK well a full retune of my main box didn't help either.  Ch4 News Failed to Record both on 4 and on its +1.  The Last Leg also Failed to Record on it.
    On my secondary box Ch4 News also Failed to Record on 4 but succeeded on the +1, and The Last Leg also succeeded.
    All recordings on the non-D3&4 muxes on both boxes continued to work ok
  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    Lukе said:
    The local mux's use something called QPSK instead of 64QM or 256QAM.
    Oh yes, oops, of course. I'd forgotten about that!
    Lukе said:
    By the way the local mus on CP is a sixth of the power of its other muxes, not a tenth.
    I thought it was 20KW vs 200KW but will happily admit I haven't checked that out in yonks (and I may have misremembered too). :wink:
  • Stevef_fr8ysStevef_fr8ys Member, Super User Posts: 772 ✭✭
    Have you tried a maintenance reset of the box (keep recordings first).
    Might be worth trying on one box and testing, and if you don't mind losing the recordings on one box a factory reset, if the keep recordings options does not work.
  • RoyRoy Member, Super User Posts: 17,812 ✭✭✭
    edited 28 January 2023, 10:52PM
    Stevef_fr8ys said:
    Have you tried a maintenance reset of the box (keep recordings first).
    Might be worth trying on one box and testing, and if you don't mind losing the recordings on one box a factory reset, if the keep recordings options does not work.
    @Stevef_fr8ys

    While these are usually good things to try, i think that in the particular circumstances in which @meyou2 is helping YouView to tease out some acknowledged issues with D3&4 on Huawei boxes, I would not do either, unless specifically requested to by @Louise Murdoch
    ‘Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful’ Wm Morris
  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    Saturday: Ch4 News Failed to Record on the main box on 4 but succeeded on its +1, and succeeded on the secondary box on both 4 and the +1.  The evening film on 4, Hustlers, succeeded on both boxes on both 4 and the +1.
  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    Sunday: same results on both boxes.  Ch4 News Failed to Record on 4 but succeeded on its +1.  Lego Masters and Andrew Neil were set to record on (only) E4 and Ch4+1 and both succeeded.
  • Louise MurdochLouise Murdoch Administrator Posts: 146 admin
    Would you be able to let us know which channels the devices are left on prior to the recordings being made, and whether this is the same channel on both devices and if not, would you be able to test by leaving both tuned to the same channel (either on the D3&4 MUX or not).

    Also, just to rule out any clashing behaviour, do you have any other recordings set for the same time as the C4 News?

    And again, many thanks for your thorough testing!
  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    edited 30 January 2023, 9:09PM
    @Louise Murdoch, ha I thought you might ask that! And actually I have a couple of questions for you about it, but first...
    In response to your question, on the main box it's complicated as that's where I do most of my recording, and on both boxes it's complicated at weekends because Channel 4 News moves around.
    However on the secondary box during the week there are no clashes with Channel 4 News either on 4 or on the +1 recording schedules.
    In regards to your request, I can certainly try and note which channels the boxes are left on before the recordings.  It's unlikely to be the same on both boxes, except by luck, 'cos, as I say, the main box has lots going on on it, two screenfuls of  scheduled series recordings, whereas normally, before this problem arose and I start doubling up D3&4 recordings on it, the only regular series recording on the secondary box was Newsnight.
    For the same reason I don't think I'll be able to leave both boxes tuned to the same channel but I can certainly note which channels the boxes are left on and on the secondary box (which has a much simpler recording schedule) I can try and force the tuners to be on certain muxes, as per your choice.  ;)
    Now, my questions on that are:
    a) Do both tuners always stay on the muxes they were last used on until there is a need to change, either for recording or viewing, across power ups? (both boxes are on SMART standby mode and go into deep sleep overnight).  I think the answer is yes but please confirm (or otherwise!)
    b) Can I force both tuners to be on the same mux?  Clearly if I, say, record on BBCA and, at the same time, record or watch D3&4 then one tuner will be on BBCA and the other on D3&4.  But if I record, say, Ch4 and at the same time record E4 I know that only uses one tuner as they're both on D3&4, but if I then also at the same time watch Film4, also on D3&4, does that force the other tuner to D3&4 too?  Or does it do all three off of the same tuner leaving the other tuner tuned to whatever it was last used for?
  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    edited 30 January 2023, 10:56PM
    Monday: Ok, tuning noted ... and a first-time weirdness!
    Main box was tuned to view Legend (41) at around 5:45pm and it stayed there all evening.  So, one tuner was on the SDN mux all the time.  House of Games at 6pm on BBC2 (2, SD) successfully series recorded.  So, coming up to Ch4 News at 7pm one tuner was on SDN and the other on BBCA.
    Now, the weirdness: Ch4 News on 4 at 7pm looks in the list of recordings as if it's recorded ok, and Info shows it as Recorded, 58 mins, 6:59pm to 7:58pm.  But when I try to play it it shows nothing and immediately says This recording has ended.
    Furthermore, it showed it as a completed recording (marked Recorded, not Recording) of 58 mins, 6:59pm to 7:58pm when I looked to check at 7:05!  I.e. just 5 minutes into the programme it was listing that it had recorded the full hour of it!
    On C4+1 Ch4 News more simply Failed to Record, with Info saying it did so at 7:59PM.
    On the secondary box, I set that to view C4 beforehand (not sure what the other tuner was set to) and both Ch4 News on 4 and on C4+1 succeeded ok.  Info says the former was 7:00PM to 7:59PM and the latter 7:59pm to 8:59pm.
  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    P.S.  Don't you folks have the means to look at the logs on boxes remotely?  IIRC you need a sequence of Update software requests to identify the box, and to that end I did five rapidly consecutive requests at 10pm on my main box.
  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    edited 31 January 2023, 10:33PM
    Tuesday: same setup as Monday with almost the same results, bar the weirdness.
    Coming up to Ch4 News at 7pm the main box had one tuner on SDN and the other on BBCA.  Ch4 News on 4 gave a 2 second Partially Recorded and on C4+1 a Failed to Record.
    As yesterday, the secondary box was set to view C4 beforehand, and Ch4 News on both 4 and C4+1 recorded ok.
    If I can I'll try swapping round the tuning setup tomorrow.
  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    Wednesday: swapped them round with swapped results.
    Coming up to Ch4 News at 7pm the main box had one tuner on D3&4 and the other on BBCA, and Ch4 News on both 4 and C4+1 recorded fine.  Also recorded fine was Peston on both ITV1 (3) and ITV1+1.
    The secondary box was set to BBCA and SDN and Ch4 News on 4 Failed to Record although succeeded on C4+1.  Peston similarly Failed to Record on 3 but succeeded on ITV1+1.
    So, not to jump to any final conclusions yet, but so far it looks like the failures occur when neither tuner is on D3&4 beforehand.
  • RoyRoy Member, Super User Posts: 17,812 ✭✭✭
    edited 2 February 2023, 3:52PM
    meyou2 said:
    Wednesday: swapped them round with swapped results.
    Coming up to Ch4 News at 7pm the main box had one tuner on D3&4 and the other on BBCA, and Ch4 News on both 4 and C4+1 recorded fine.  Also recorded fine was Peston on both ITV1 (3) and ITV1+1.
    The secondary box was set to BBCA and SDN and Ch4 News on 4 Failed to Record although succeeded on C4+1.  Peston similarly Failed to Record on 3 but succeeded on ITV1+1.
    So, not to jump to any final conclusions yet, but so far it looks like the failures occur when neither tuner is on D3&4 beforehand.
    @meyou2

    Interesting… IIRC, there’s one mechanism to let each tuner on your box have the Present/Following indicator (the flag that tells the box when one programme is stopping and another starting) for the channel it is tuned to, and another that provides all the Present/Following indicators, for all channels, so if your box/tuner is tuned to a different channel, it still gets the Present/Following indicator for the programme you want on another channel.

    it sounds like the issue may be connected with this.

    I think P/F is done by channel, though, not by mux. Though maybe it is by mux?

    But would the YouView box still report ‘failed to record’, if it missed the P/F indicator entirely? Maybe it gets a sniff of it, but not enough to latch onto? 😛
    ‘Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful’ Wm Morris
  • meyou2meyou2 Member Posts: 98 ✭
    edited 2 February 2023, 5:05PM
    Roy said:
    meyou2 said:
    Wednesday: swapped them round with swapped results.
    Coming up to Ch4 News at 7pm the main box had one tuner on D3&4 and the other on BBCA, and Ch4 News on both 4 and C4+1 recorded fine.  Also recorded fine was Peston on both ITV1 (3) and ITV1+1.
    The secondary box was set to BBCA and SDN and Ch4 News on 4 Failed to Record although succeeded on C4+1.  Peston similarly Failed to Record on 3 but succeeded on ITV1+1.
    So, not to jump to any final conclusions yet, but so far it looks like the failures occur when neither tuner is on D3&4 beforehand.
    @meyou2

    Interesting… IIRC, there’s one mechanism to let each tuner on your box have the Present/Following indicator (the flag that tells the box when one programme is stopping and another starting) for the channel it is tuned to, and another that provides all the Present/Following indicators, for all channels, so if your box/tuner is tuned to a different channel, it still gets the Present/Following indicator for the programme you want on another channel.

    it sounds like the issue may be connected with this.

    I think P/F is done by channel, though, not by mux. Though maybe it is by mux?

    But would the YouView box still report ‘failed to record’, if it missed the P/F indicator entirely? Maybe it gets a sniff of it, but not enough to latch onto? 😛
    I thought we'd figured from the previous prolonged D3&4 issue, where it was sending out incorrect p/f flags for channels on other muxes, which the box took in preference to the mux it was recording, that it was by mux?
    There's another (potentially) interesting bit of info thinking about what happened on the secondary box last night, and adding a couple more bits of info.
    As I say, the box started the evening with one tuner on BBCA and the other SDN.  These were set by me "watching" Legend (41, SDN) and while doing so making a (brief) recording of whatever was on BBC1.
    The box was set to record Ch4 News on 4 at 7pm and again on C4+1 at 8pm, Newsnight on BBC2 (2, SD) at 10:30pm and Peston on ITV1 (3) at 10:45pm and again on ITV1+1 at 11:45pm.  C4, C4+1, ITV1 and ITV1+1 are all on D3&4.
    Now, the "watching" channel was still on Legend (41, SDN) when I checked at 1am, so that means that all of the activity was on the other tuner, that started off on BBCA.  Then...
    Ch4 News on 4 at 7pm Failed to Record but we don't know what happened with that tuner.
    However, Ch4 News on C4+1 at 8pm succeeded, so that tuner must have changed to D3&4.
    Then it recorded Newsnight on BBC2 (2, SD) at 10:30pm, so the tuner must have then changed to BBCA.
    However -- and this is the potentially interesting point -- it was also set to record Peston on ITV1 (3) at 10:45pm, which is overlapping with Newsnight and so should have brought the other tuner, the one that was "watching" Legend, into play, changing that to 3 (D3&4) to make the recording.
    But it didn't. The other tuner stayed on SDN, which means that the Failed to Record of Peston on ITV1 (3) at 10:45pm happened without it changing to D3&4.
    So, what we know is that:
    a) the recording failures of programmes on D3&4 happen when neither tuner is on D3&4, and
    b) the failures are not the result of the box changing a tuner to D3&4 and then discovering something's wrong, but fail without changing either tuner to D3&4.
    So possibly BBCA and/or SDN are sending out bogus flags for D3&4 channels?!?
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