[TequilaMockingbird]

HR20-700 on Whole home system, attached to 1TB external HD ( Western Digital My Book AV DVR Expander 1 TB USB 2.0/eSATA External Hard Drive).

On Saturday, for the second time since the software upgrade with the HD menu, great chunks - a month's worth - of recorded programs simply vanished from the playlist! They were there, and then they were gone. They disappeared from the history, as well. It's as if a whole segment of time was erased from the memory.

Last time it happened TS had me do a reset, and they also did a reset from the office, but the shows never came back.

We did a couple of resets after discovering the missing programs on Saturday, with no apparent success. However, some time later we checked the playlist and all the "missing" programs had reappeared!

Although it has happened most dramatically on this receiver, it also happened a couple of times on other receivers in the whole house system, but on those receivers, the programs re-appeared on the playlist. DH says it happened prior to the software upgrade, but I've personally only noticed it since.

Any ideas?

 

[veryoldschool]

It's unclear as to what exactly is happening.
Is this a problem with the playlist for MRV, where a DVR isn't sharing?
Is this a problem with an eSATA drive, where a DVR is changing from the external to its internal?

 

[TequilaMockingbird]

I don't think it's either of the above.

In the first instance, I checked the playlist from both receivers, and the programs in question did not appear on either of them. And the playlist is set to be shared on both receivers.

As for the DVR changing from internal to external drive, I don't think that's it either, because while all the programs that disappeared were from the same DVR, not ALL of the programs disappeared - only a chunk of them representing about a month's worth of recordings. Other recordings made to the external drive still appeared. And when the "missing" programs reappeared, the ones that were showing up while they were missing didn't disappear, as they would have if the DVR had been swapping back and forth.

Another odd thing is that before the programs disappeared, the % available bar was reading 55% free. That never changed, even though a good percentage of the programs that had been recorded were not on the playlist. And when they reappeared, the % stayed the same. It's as if they were there all along, but just not showing up on the playlist.

I'm thinking of retiring this receiver/external setup in favor of an HR23 with a 1TB internal upgrade. I have no confidence that if programs disappear again, they won't disappear permanently, as they did the first time this happened.

 

[veryoldschool]

This is a very strange problem.
I would tend to think it's related to the eSATA drive itself, but the HR20 is getting long in the tooth.

The HR23 is going to be a bit slower than the HR20 because of the chips used, so I'd would hold on to the HR20, if I could.