Here's the story:

I have a daily timer for Great British Christmas Menu; earlier today I marked The New Paul O'Grady Show on C4, manually adjusting it to finish at 18.01, just to be on the safe side.

I found that neither hand recorded, but I was on BBC2 anyway, so rewound the buffer and recorded GBCM. However, when I went back to live TV and tried to rewind, the machine locked up, so I switched off then on again. But here's where the bizarreness starts...

There were FOUR entries for GBCM (but it was labelled as the snooker, because that's what was on when I went back to record). After watching, I deleted it....only for it to be replaced with FOUR entries for TNPO'GS, all marked with a yellow rectangle and green circle (I'm thinking the colour is important). None of them play.

So...does anyone know what happened and whether or not it's safe to delete these four recordings?

It isn't such a big deal if I need to reformat, but it means I'll be spending tomorrow archiving the stuff I want to keep!

(PS - S/W version 1.00.06)

Sound like the chaos/confusion bug: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...d.php?t=483841

Looks like the index table is messed up so I'm afraid sooner or later you will have to 'format'...

P.S. The icon indicates and 'unexpected error'. See this thread.
Last edited by son_t : 13-12-2006 at 21:52

I recall bythecringe having experienced something like this a little while ago also on .06 software. Sounds like at the time of the incident the recordings table also got cought and corrupted. Would reformat when next convenient, say after watching things you like, or archiving. .08 software makes it a it more difficult to for the machine to have errors to do with recordings. I wonder what caused the machine to trip up in the first place though - a temp power blip to the device maybe or slow corruption over time from another incident in the past?

Ah well...I've been meaning to archive most of my stuff before Christmas anyway. Maybe this is my Hummy's way of telling me to get on with it!

Does the bug go away when the HDD is formatted?

GAH!! I knew I should have given .08 another chance.

I blame you for this happening - you sent me the .06 software when I wanted to roll back and couldn't access the Hummy site

You need to find out what event caused it but if its got anything to do with thinks its recording bug or one of the autopadding bugs then .08 will make it stable.

Well, I didnt want to force you out of a decision you seemed convinced about at the time Its just unfortunate that so many peope accross the freeview board - not just yourself - had so many signal related problems at the time you tried version .08. Weather/trospherics or something or other semi technical people on the freeview section were explaining it as. Was pretty bad at the time. If that software did cause signla instability we'd know about it big time on these forums.
Last edited by marcdavis : 13-12-2006 at 22:19

I know...I was only joking

I did intend moving back to .08 after a week of being back on .06, if I didn't notice any difference. As it happens, I didn't notice any difference and in the end it did turn out to be a loose connection in the Belling-Lee connector However, a pile of work got in the way of re-upgrading.

I did actually think about doing it earlier on, because my sister is getting a Hummy for her Christmas and I was asked to make sure it was OK (it's annoying to get non-working Christmas present). I noticed it had .08 pre-loaded, which reminded me that I was still on .06.

Bit of a sickner!

Ah...I've just figured out what probably caused it.

I had forgotten that I'd marked PO'G (I only remembered when those "recordings" appeared) and at the time it was on, I happened to be installing a new amplifier, hence interrupting the signal.

Not sure why GBCM didn't record though...

Yeah I know you are joking Mark Hey its good to know there was something behind that signal problem though I can understand why you might not be bothered to put .08 back on straight away - if it aint broke too and all that...Thanks for letting me know

Yep, this is the Chaos bug.

Yes, it goes away when reformatted.

NO, do not delete the bad recordings until you have watched them and as much as you can from the disk; See this thread:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...d.php?t=497792

Further development here...

Earlier today, I was installing a new feed from the masthead amp to cater for my sister's Xmas Hummy. In order to test it, I moved my Hummy to her room (it's the only box in the house with seperate strength/quality bars), which (naturally) involved switching off at the mains.

Now, whilst going through my list of recordings noting down the "priority backups", the four instances of TNPO'GS have gone. I didn't delete them, so I can only assume they were erased during the power cycle.

I'll take a look at the EPG and mark the next programme to start and see if it records and is labelled OK. It may (hopefully!) turn out not to be the C/C bug, but simply my box handling an interrupted signal in a strange way.

(PS - between those four "phantom" recordings appearing then disappearing, I was able to record four programmes with no problems.)

Mark, now that your machine has seen that much corruption it could be a matter of time before it renews itself with a new blank version of the recordings table. My advice would be not to put the machine into standby until a time where you have taken what you want from the disk as backup. Then do the reformat option.

My machine was in standby during the night and things are still there. But I will continue to take what I want from the disk then format.

I don't want to go updating to .10 before I've done the format, but the playlist feature really would be handy right now!

Oh man yeah thats true. Like you I think it could be risky though i'm not one to err on the side of caution myself but I'm the opposite when it comes to other people!

I want to have have the format done before the weekend (far too much stuff I want to record), so I've just had to wave bye-bye to about two dozen episodes of The Simpsons

Is it always this emotionally draining when a format is needed?

Yeah its a tough decision. You need to be ruthless.

Let us know if this re-format does fix your problems Mark. Might be useful info to others - either now or in the future...

Sure, no problem.

Here's what led to this happening, in case this is useful as well:[list][*] Had three back-to-back recordings marked – Deal Or No Deal (DOND), The New Paul O’Grady Show (POG) (both C4) and Great British Christmas Menu (GBCM) (BBC2).[*] Manually adjusted the end-time of POG to 18.01, to avoid any issues with auto-padding; no manual adjustment to DOND.[*] Stopped DOND prematurely.[*] Interrupted the signal during POG[*] Neither POG nor GBCM were in the list of recorded programmes; DOND was, but deleted it.[*] Rewound the buffer on BBC2 to record GBCM; pressed stop to jump to live TV then tried to rewind to ensure GBCM was still there; got back by ~5 minutes and the screen went blank; pressed stop and I was returned to live TV.[*] Stopped the recording and went to make sure GBCM (but labelled as snooker) was in the list; the machine locked up[*] Powered off via the switch at the back and when I restarted, there was four instances of GBCM (but again labelled as snooker).[*] Watched GBCM with no problems; deleted on and all went, but in their place appeared four instances of POG, with the “unexpected error” icon next to each.[*] Switched off/on via the switch at the back and the mains, and these four instances of POG were gone.[/list]

Um, I think you confused it...