Corruption and recovery of DVR events

[kmcnamara]

Last week I went on Dish's "pause" so that I'm not paying for service currently (although I'm technically still a customer). I went through and deleted all my existing timers and created manual ones for OTA. The recordings seem to start and stop at the right time and they initially show up named as "Digital Service" or something in the DVR list. However, when the unit reboots in the middle of the night, all DVR events show up in the DVR list named "Recovered" and the descriptions say that there was corruption and the event was recovered. They all show up in the DVR list with a length of exactly 1 hour regardless of the actual recorded time - in other words, in the DVR list it shows 1:00 long but the recording was actually for 33 minutes including padding and when I play it, it plays the correct 33 minutes. Has anyone observed this behavior before? Before last week I had no problems at all recording OTA so I'm guessing it has something to do with my sat service being turned off. One of the bad things about it is that when the event gets into this "Recovered" state, I can no longer rename the event.

[921tiger]

Last week I went on Dish's "pause" so that I'm not paying for service currently (although I'm technically still a customer). I went through and deleted all my existing timers and created manual ones for OTA. The recordings seem to start and stop at the right time and they initially show up named as "Digital Service" or something in the DVR list. However, when the unit reboots in the middle of the night, all DVR events show up in the DVR list named "Recovered" and the descriptions say that there was corruption and the event was recovered. They all show up in the DVR list with a length of exactly 1 hour regardless of the actual recorded time - in other words, in the DVR list it shows 1:00 long but the recording was actually for 33 minutes including padding and when I play it, it plays the correct 33 minutes. Has anyone observed this behavior before? Before last week I had no problems at all recording OTA so I'm guessing it has something to do with my sat service being turned off. One of the bad things about it is that when the event gets into this "Recovered" state, I can no longer rename the event.

:mad: I've also noticed that some of my DVR recordings switch over to being "Recovered" state overnight for no apparent reason. This is the first time I've seen this happen on my 924 so I strongly suspect it's a bug in the latest software release. :nono:

I've also noticed that the recording's length defaults to 1:00 as well. I have a 2:05 irreplaceable recording of a parade that flipped to this "recovered" state overnight. Luckily the program seemed to be intact--and I immediately captured the program to my computer for editing.

One difference from the description given is that not all my recordings get switched to "recovered"--only some, and I haven't figured out if there's a pattern to which programs are affected.

[kmcnamara]

You may be right about the latest software being the culprit. It just happened that the last software update happened a day or so before I went on Dish-pause. It's good to know that it's happening even when satellite programming is still available. I guess I'll call Dish and report the problem.

Anyone else have this problem with their 942?

[gianfri]

I also have experienced the RECOVERED issue described here in the past few days. I can't say for sure when it started, but it has not been very long. It seems to affect only OTA programs. The programs labeled RECOVERED play back normally. It sure sounds like a software-related issue to me....

[sdire]

Me too. It happens on all OTA recordings and the title cannot be edited.
Tried to explain to a CSR with very little luck. I hope Dish knows about this glitch in the current firmware.

[lakebum431]

I still haven't seen any of these "Recovered" shows. Has anyone else noticed any way to "make this happen". If we can figure that out maybe Dish can fix it for your guys.

[Jon Spackman]

I have never seen this on either of my 942's and I watch mostly OTA recordings. I wonder if it has to do with OTA signal strength? Those who are seeing this message, do you have varying OTA strength?

[kmcnamara]

No, my signal strengths are very strong at all times. None of the channels I watch or record go below 75% signal strength (unless of course the station is having some broadcast problem which rarely happens around here).

[921tiger]

I'm line-of-sight with the transmitter towers about 15 miles away, so I get rock-solid 90 - 100% signals. The recordings are listed normally the day of the recording, but overnight their listing in the DVR index gets changed to "RECOVERED" and the length of the program changes to "1:00". Only my OTA recordings are afflicted, and ALL of my OTA recordings are afflicted; non-OTA recordings are listed normally.

As I mentioned before, this behavior coincided with the latest software release, so I believe it's a newly-introduced bug with the latest version of software.

BTW as a piece of the puzzle, I do not subscribe to local channels--as mentioned before, I'm fortunate enough to have excellent reception.

[Jon Spackman]

Why dont you suscribe to locals as a test and see if it works fine with locals turned on.

[gianfri]

I'm line-of-sight with the transmitter towers about 15 miles away, so I get rock-solid 90 - 100% signals. The recordings are listed normally the day of the recording, but overnight their listing in the DVR index gets changed to "RECOVERED" and the length of the program changes to "1:00". Only my OTA recordings are afflicted, and ALL of my OTA recordings are afflicted; non-OTA recordings are listed normally.

As I mentioned before, this behavior coincided with the latest software release, so I believe it's a newly-introduced bug with the latest version of software.

BTW as a piece of the puzzle, I do not subscribe to local channels--as mentioned before, I'm fortunate enough to have excellent reception.

My experience matches EXACTLY what described above.

[kmcnamara]

So do we have a consensus that the problem seems to be tied to A) the latest software release, and B) not subscribing to local channel package?

Anyone experience the problem without those 2 things being true?

[kmcnamara]

OK folks. I've signed up for the locals package so I'll find out soon enough if the "Recovered" thing is a function of not subscribing to locals. I'll report my results here.

[Jon Spackman]

Thanks, let us know for sure.

[kmcnamara]

Results are in. The 1st night that I had resubscribed to Locals, the events that had been marked as "Digital Service" became changed to "Recovered". The 2nd night, the events recorded on the 2nd day were of course marked with their real program name and they stayed that way after the nightly reboot. So subscribing to locals seems to have hidden the bug. Personally, I think this started with L287 when they implemented the ability to edit the program title in the DVR list. They probably didn't test the feature when the OTA program was recorded without locals being subscribed to. Of course, the possibility exists that it's intentional - I wouldn't necessarily put it past Dish given some of their policies in recent years.

[lakebum431]

I doubt it is intentional. My guess is you are right, they didn't think to test OTA recordings without local subs.

[frossie]

I still haven't seen any of these "Recovered" shows. Has anyone else noticed any way to "make this happen". If we can figure that out maybe Dish can fix it for your guys.

It has happened to me twice, while watching OTA digital HD. Both times I "powered off" during a recording that I was also watching. The first time I "powered off" myself using the red remote button. The second time, the receiver rebooted (I was recording dish HD, dish SD, OTA HD and watching at the same time, and when it got an HD dropout which is not unusual for me it seemed to not be able to handle it).

Both times what other posters described happened - I had an allegedly 1-hour DVR entry called "Recovered" that in fact had the whole 2-hour program intact in it. So no biggie from that point of view.

[921tiger]

This issue (as expected) still occurs with the L288 software version: recorded an OTA digital program, then overnight it gets renamed to "RECOVERED".

As noted before, I do not have a subscription to DISH Local.

[Foxbat]

I agree, I have had this issue with my 942 since the L287 release. At least the date of the recording is preserved. I did try renaming one of the "recovered" events, but as soon as the 942 reboots in the middle of the night, it's back to "recovered".

[Jon Spackman]

I agree, I have had this issue with my 942 since the L287 release. At least the date of the recording is preserved. I did try renaming one of the "recovered" events, but as soon as the 942 reboots in the middle of the night, it's back to "recovered".


Fox-

Do you subscribe to dish locals?

[loves2watch]

I too have the "recovered" problem. I am currently subscribed to the dish locals (and always have). This is becoming very annoying as I do not know which programs are associated with the "recovered" listing. My signal strength on all of the locals is very strong (the lowest signal strength being 85) and stable, that is not wavering or variable. This has only happened since the last firmware upgrade. E* CSR has told me that this is a problem with my antenna, which I know NOT a factor. So what's next?

[kmcnamara]

Interesting that you're the 1st person who is affected by this problem that subscribes to locals. You should try to lean on Dish a little to see if they're working on a fix.

[Bob Ketcham]

Interesting that you're the 1st person who is affected by this problem that subscribes to locals. You should try to lean on Dish a little to see if they're working on a fix.
I too encounter the problem. I also subscribe to locals, but encounter the problem only on timed recordings from the local PBS-HD station (Houston's KUHT-DT, channel 8-1) Of course, all local HD is OTA on the 942.

The PBS-HD channel listings are not provided on the satellite. The Dish Program Guide lists all KUHT-DT programs as endless "Digital Service".

Name based recording is not possible, so I use timed recordings and see "Recovered" as the program name in the DVR listings.

I have not noticed the truncation of the program length. The program I am recording is an hour in length and is recorded between 11:00pm and midnight. I've never looked to see if it is listed as "Digital Service" right after the recording is made.

[kmcnamara]

That's good info. Sounds like it's not whether or not you subscribe to locals. It's if you don't actually have guide data for a channel. Now that I have locals again, I'm going to test that theory tonight and see if it happens on one of my OTA's that I don't get program guide info for (e.g. subchannels).

By the way, no one has reported a truncation of the program length. The issue was that all of the programs listed as "Recovered" show up as 1 hour in the DVR list even if it actually recorded something other than an hour. In other words, playback isn't affected - the whole program is there - you just can't see the accurate program length in the DVR list.

[921tiger]

I've seen the "RECOVERED" bug occur on all of my OTA recordings, which would be both PBS and the local Fox affiliate.

Sounds like the bug is common, but has some interesting variations to it.

[cici]

This bug is 100% reproducible on Dish 942 with 2.88 firmware with an external antenna hooked to receive local digital broadcasts over the air (OTA).

Repro

1. Tune 942 to an OTA station that shows "Digital Service" in the guide. This will
be easy since all OTA stations multicast their signal and the guide only
contains info for the first multicast channel.
2. Select DVR and create a manual timer. Length of recording is unimportant,
you could make it one minute.
3. Allow the recording to finish. It will show as "digital service" with record
length you programmed.
4. As optional step, change the name of the recording.
5. Now, reset the box by pressing the power button on the front of the 942
for about 10 seconds. This is the same reset that occurs automatically once
a day when the guide is downloaded.
6. Once the reset is complete, press the DVR button to view the recorded
program list. The "digital service" recording you made will have a "recovered"
title with a 1 hour length and info will show corrupted recording.

The recording is perfectly fine and will playback with no errors. The name you may have optionally given to the recording is not shown once the receiver is reset.

This is a very annoying bug when trying to record OTA channels even if you subscribe to locals since many of the mulicast channels show up as "digital service". In my case, with locals only 11 of 34 multicast channels show up with guide info. The rest show up as "digital service". I pay $5 per month for what?

[kmcnamara]

Have you called Dish to let them know you have the problem?

[cici]

I plan to although I thought one of the points for posting problems here was the Dish Network technical staff reviews these posts. Hopefully, they are busy at work on a fix in the 2.89 release since they broke it in 2.87 (~6/2/06) and it was still broke in 2.88 (~6/27/06).

[cici]

The issue is fixed in 2.89 software release.

[Jason Kragt]

I noticed and reported this problem to Dish some time ago, perhaps almost a year ago. They sent me a replacement receiver, which of course didn't solve the problem. :)