Apologies: I have spent ages looking through the posts on here, as I'm sure it'll have been dealt with ad infinitum, but can't find anything relevant.

My new Humax HDR sometimes doesn't record things that it's scheduled to! Yesterday, I set up 3 films to be recorded, and the first two in the afternoon (ITV1 and then BBC HD) worked fine. As there was a lull in the (boring) conversation at 7.00pm, I checked to ensure that the third film I'd set up to record was indeed recording. This was 'Citizen Kane' on BBC4, and the Humax had come on in good time, but after 3 minutes there was still no REC symbol coming up on the front panel, so I turned on the HDR, retuned to BBC4 and recorded it manually (thereby missing the first few minutes). When I checked the recording later, the final shot of the recording was indeed 'The End' (phew!), but sadly the closing credits were cut off.

Everything on the HDR is still set to Auto (I'm still learning!), so it must be to do with the 'pings' that the broadcaster transmits to start/stop recordings, are these 100% reliable or do I have a dodgy box (which I doubt: most of the issues I've read about here on DS come down to user error or other problems not connected with the HDR itself)?

This sounds as if the broadcaster failed to transmit the change in runng status flag that initatiates AR start and stop. The hdr was likely waiting for the AR start code.

I have a suspicon that the HDR is not clever enough to switch back to Freesat mode from Non Freesat mode when a recording is due to start. And I 'think' that a scheduled recording will not start if you are in non freesat mode when the time comes.

I may be wrong on this, but I have had some issues like this myself and usually it is when I have been fiddling around in non freesat mode then they arise.

I am not sure if this is only a problem when you let the box go into standby when in non freesat, or if it suffers the same problem when conscious. To be honest I can't be bothered testing the different scenarios so I just make sure I am in Freesat mode when a scheduled recording is due.

Note this is probably more relevant to users like me who only have one satellite connection and are looping to the second so have limited second channel options when recording.

Anyway, it would be interesting to see if any of this is relevant to the issues you had and to see if you suffer similar issues with non freesat mode.

Provided the stb is not within 15mins of a freesat recording when entering mon-freesat mode the box if on gives a warning and switches back to freesat mode 15 mins before a recording is due to start. In in full sby the same thing happens in the background.

By default unless you are quick enough to respond to the message any non-freesat recording is terminated before the mode is switched.

Graham, I must be getting thick in my old age but I didn;t understand a word of that.

OK I think I've got it. You are saying that the box will switch over to the correct channel so long as you are not in the last 15 minutes before the program starts when you change modes.

OK...but what happens if I switch to non freesat 5 minutes before my scheduled recording starts ?...is that when we get the recording errors ?

Right

suppose you have a freesat recording due to start in 30 min. You go into freesat mode and either start watching a programme or recording one. After 15min when the hdr starts it's prerecording checks you will get a warning message on the screen, and if you do nothing the box will switch back to freesat mode and make the recording in the usual way. If a non-freesat recording is only say 10 min away when you go into non-freesat, you won't get a warning and freesat recording won't start until you manually go back to freesat mode.

Typed my response at the same time as yours

Got it thanks. I think this is the issue I've been experiencing, lets see if it resolves Jonnyblues original problem.

If you are right then as I suggest, the solution can only be to always chekc your scheduled recordings before using non freesat mode to avoid conflicts

I was VERY impressed to see no less than six replies to my question that have come up whilst walking the dogs! Many thanks!

Unfortunately, most of the replies are to do with non-Freesat mode, which I have NOT even ventured anywhere near yet, so my OP remains unanswered, unless it is that my beloved Auntie doesn't always 'ping' when she should!

I have been quite pleased with the box lately as it has recorded faultlessly over the last weeks since the firmware upgrade. Good stuff.

However, yesterday I lost about 4 programs which failed to record. It seemed to correct itself in the evening and seems ok now... fingers crossed - I can't imagine what I did wrong. Like the OP I too was nowhere near the Freesat mode.

I wonder what it could be? They seemed to set up for recording ok, probably the same as the OP?

Maybe I had too many mince pies laced with alcohol yesterday..


Patrick

foxfieldrover, presuem you mean you have not been into 'non freesat' mode

A little typo there.... I never use non Freesat mode, far too much hassle.. although I have it set it up and can do so if I want.

Patrick

My Foxsat HDR also misses recordings and seems to lose scheduled recordings that have been set (almost as if it doesn't remember them. I don't go into none Freesat mode either.

GG

I was checking another scheduled recording yesterday (during yet another lull in the conversation!) at 4.40pm on ITV1 ("March of the Penguins", if you're interested). At 4.43pm, although again the Humax had turned itself on good time, there was still no 'REC' showing on the front screen.

Once again, I cursed the unreliability of the Humax scheduler, and turned it on, and the TV, so I could do it manually (as I'd done in my OP for 'Citizen Kane'). As the TV came on, I saw that adverts and ITV trailers were still running, and then noticed that, as the film proper started, the 'REC' sign did come on of its own accord (by now it was 4.45pm).

So, in this case, the Humax was working properly, and the ITV1 start 'ping' wasn't transmitted until the film proper started (which is presumably the norm), some 5 minutes after the scheduled time.

Mine too, just tried to find 'Hamlet' (todays HD version) in the media... nothing! and the schedule has cleared all trace of it. Fortunately made a recording on my DVD recorder

Yes. I can't remember when this began and whether or not it was the last update. I set all my Series Link schedules up every week for the next seven/eight days. It has begun losing some of them, so that now I have to be constantly checking up on whether they have been lost or not.
I will have to begin writing all my schedules down somewhere (and single recordings) so that I can just home in on what's going on, but they are definately being lost.

GG

Hamlet recorded OK on my hdr in HD. Recording 185min starting and ending 1 min earlier than scheduled.

I have noticed my Frasier series has been lost and I have had to reinstate it. It had recorded ok up to now, but next week there is/was no trace of it. I had been recording it for about 8 weeks up to then. I wonder if it could be related to the New Year in some way?

Or it could be that is something to do with conflict processing, people are dealing with program conflicts differently which causes the system to behave in an unexpected and erroneous way?


Patrick

I've been studiously avoiding anything complicated, such as a programme conflict, only setting recordings which are either consecutive (on the same channel, yet to see if this has worked or not) or with at least 10 minutes between scheduled end and start times, and all on auto-record.

Could it be someone else in the household cancelling a single recording, and in the process deleting the schedule ?

This has always really annoyed me, the default when a recording is cancelled should be to cancel just that one recording and not the whole series - unfortunately I dont think the HDR can cope with "record the whole series, except the show tonight".

That is something I didn't realise was happening, So just cancelling a single recording cancels the whole series???... If so , then that is poor, especially considering there is no warning about it!!

Patrick

It's the way freesat+ works. Series recording reservations will update to the next episode after recording if one is found within the 8 day epg. If not the existing reservation stays there until it finds a new episode or is auto deleted after 13 weeks. Freesat+ has no end of series flag so there's no way to auto delete the reservation after the last episode is recorded.

If you look at the reservation list it has an icon indicating if it's a series recording, a single event or a repeating manual timer

Aaah - so must be what happened with my Frasier then - the Christmas break meant that there was longer than 8 days between the deleted and next episode.

At least I now know I have to watch out for that happening again.. although it could be solved - worked around - with a simple message informing you of that possibility though!

Patrick

Hi Patrick

I have to admit the hdr manual is pretty dire, that's why we have these forums though

If it's of interest Freeview+ works in the same way.

It's wise to keep an eye on the schedule as sometimes the broadcasters screw up the crid codes so even if the next eoisode is in the epg it's not picked up. The other common cock up is the repeated recordings of the same episode again as a result of incorrect crid codes.

are you still having the same problem?
i ask as only within the last 14days has this same problem started happening to me yet i have changed nothing, everything is set to "auto" and the recordings are not starting at the correct time -they are missing anything from the first 5-25mins. when i press the info button i can see when the programme should have started and ended but can also see the actual start and end times which are, of course, different giving the wrong recording.
does anybody know if is this a problem with the signal/epg information being wrong or is it a problem with the box itself as currently i have no faith in anything i record actually working?