Inconsistent records from SEEK - nothing found, then is

I'm having a recurring problem. When I got my Hopper, I manually entered lots of shows by doing a SEARCH, key the title, using SEEK & RECORD menu, and setting new (or not). Worked.

Then after a while it stops working. Yesterday for example, I noticed on the guide LOST GIRL (ok, I'm a sci-fi fan) had no indication. I looked and I had a timer, it was there. Moreover, it HAD been working, I am absolutely certain it had recorded several shows. Then it just stopped.

When I go into the Timers, and click it to show the schedule - empty. Nothing shown. Show Skipped is on.

But I just saw it in the guide.

So I create a new timer. This time I just hit # on the guide to pull up search with the title pre-filled in, and again use SEEK & RECORD. It creates another timer. I look in that timer's schedule and they are all there -- skipped, new etc. as expected.

I look carefully at each timer, and other than this new one being in upper/lower case (from using # to pre-fill), they are identical. Just one finds absolutely nothing.

I've had this happen now maybe 5 times, and each time recreating the timer causes it to find things.

I just created one by hand, with upper case, for the same timer (LOST GIRL, in upper case), and it also finds it. So it's not a case sensitive issue. Just somehow timers (specifically SEEK timers, I've not had this happen on one labeled DVR) just quit working. But not all of them, and not all at the same time.

Anyone else seen this? Any suggestions?

I could change them all to DVR, which if I understand requires specifying a channel. I dislike doing that, as a lot of shows move around a lot, movies especially but also series.

 

OK, I waited until I found another failure. Just did.

I have NURSE JACKIE set up like it has been for ages. It shows "No Timers Scheduled" under Timer Schedule.

I created a new one, and it correctly shows many episodes being skipped as not new.

I think did a cold boot, and looked at each again, and the newer ones shows episodes, and the older one does not.

Very annoying, I can't trust these to "stick". I am absolutely certain these were working and just stopped working at some point. If I knew which ones don't work (as opposed to show isn't on in these weeks), I would recreate them, BUT I don't have any reason to think the recreated ones will work.

Incidentally these were created on this hopper, it hasn't been changed, backed-up/restored, or anything similar. I rarely use it from the Joey, there's no unusual networking or anything pushing the envelop that I know of.

Any ideas?

 

I keep working with it. I left one of the "Nurse Jackie" timers in there both ways, one still shows lots of events, one shows nothing.

Field F is green. When it completes it says "good".

I've had no unusual behavior, certainly of recent vintage. Shows run smoothly, whether recorded or live from satellite.

To me the significant thing here is not that a scheduled timer failed to record. The timer is NOT showing a schedule, so it's not that something is happening at the time it should record, it is not matching its SEEK criteria to anything in the guide.

I could certainly use suggestions how to make this work. I don't mind so much having to recreate a timer now and then, but other than checking each timer on a regular basis to see if it has a schedule (and then trying to figure out if it SHOULD have a schedule, or is just not on), is a real pain.

To P-Smith, I tried restoring all my timers, with no change.

 

Yes.

I went through most of my timers last night, looking for other problems. I found three out of about 50 or so that were failing (the false positives are a pain, if it says no events you have to go search and see if it's not in the guide). I deleted and re-added them (just as they were) and they found events.

At this point I don't really know what to do other than manually check periodically. It just plain doesn't work correctly.

PS. Speaking of which, I did not get the email from the replies, not sure what's up with that (and no it's not in the spam folder either).

 

Mike H? Anyone?

 

Total timers 55 (plus PTA).

Daily schedule obviously varies, but at this moment there are 17 showing in all days combined (so not many -- I think it's usually higher). That's not showing skipped, hugely more with skipped.