Series recording scheduled on unspecified channel

[Space]

Yeah, that is a mystery. It appears that the reason it is being recorded is the Series (and not some phantom one-off recording request). However I believe you said this Series is set to record from a specific channel and that the episode that is scheduled to record is on a different channel.

So this shouldn't be happening as far as I know. One thing you can look at is the backup of the scheduled recordings (it is in a text file, XML formatted). In there you can find all the parameters for the Series. Perhaps it will provide a clue as to why this may be happening.

Look at the file with the most recent timestamp in this folder (the file will be named after the date and time it was created, ie: yyyymmdd_hhmmss):

%ProgramData%\Microsoft\eHome\mcepg#-#\backup\recordings

Note that the mcepg#-# represents a folder where the two "#"'s are numbers. There may be multiple folders like that, look for the folder with the most recent timestamp, as that is the current database.

[StinkyImp]

The recording history is a subset of the "Applications and Services Logs" -> "Media Center" section in the Windows Event Viewer. When you display this history in WMC it gets it directly from the Event Viewer.

When you select the option to "Clear History" in WMC, you don't actually clear anything, it just sets the "clear date" to the current date and time. When you go to History in WMC it will only show events from the "Event Viewer" that were logged after that date. So the log in WMC will appear empty but it is just not displaying anything because the query to the Event Viewer excludes any entry before that "clear date".

I found something interesting when I was fiddling around. For some unknown reason Event Viewer was adding quotation marks to random recording events and therefore truncating the description. I dealt with that and then reran the "Young Sheldon" query. I came up with the following:

Code: Select all

Recording List for Young Sheldon
Created 2020:01:11:07:29:17
================================================================
   5/10/2018 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: Vanilla Ice Cream, Gentleman Callers, and a Dinette Set started recording on 5/10/2018 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 5/10/2018 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
   9/24/2018 8:00:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A High-Pitched Buzz and Training Wheels started recording on 9/24/2018 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 9/24/2018 8:00:00 PM as scheduled.
   9/27/2018 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Rival Prodigy and Sir Isaac Neutron started recording on 9/27/2018 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 9/27/2018 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
   10/4/2018 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Crisis of Faith and Octopus Aliens started recording on 10/4/2018 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 10/4/2018 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
  10/11/2018 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Financial Secret and Fish Sauce started recording on 10/11/2018 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 10/11/2018 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
  10/18/2018 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Research Study and Czechoslovakian Wedding Pastries started recording on 10/18/2018 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 10/18/2018 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
  10/25/2018 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: Seven Deadly Sins and a Small Carl Sagan started recording on 10/25/2018 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 10/25/2018 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
   11/1/2018 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: Carbon Dating and a Stuffed Raccoon started recording on 11/1/2018 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 11/1/2018 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
   11/8/2018 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: An 8-Bit Princess and a Flat Tire Genius started recording on 11/8/2018 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 11/8/2018 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
  11/15/2018 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: Family Dynamics and a Red Fiero started recording on 11/15/2018 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 11/15/2018 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
   12/6/2018 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Stunted Childhood and a Can of Fancy Mixed Nuts started recording on 12/6/2018 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 12/6/2018 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
    1/3/2019 8:04:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Race of Superhumans and a Letter to Alf started recording on 1/3/2019 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 1/3/2019 8:04:00 PM as scheduled.
   1/10/2019 7:49:44 PM - Warning     - Young Sheldon: A Tummy Ache and a Whale of a Metaphor was not recorded due to an unexpected failure.
   1/17/2019 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Nuclear Reactor and a Boy Called Lovey started recording on 1/17/2019 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 1/17/2019 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
   1/26/2019 8:25:58 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Race of Superhumans and a Letter to Alf was manually deleted on 1/26/2019 8:25:58 PM by HTPC.
   1/31/2019 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: David, Goliath and a Yoo-Hoo From the Back started recording on 1/31/2019 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 1/31/2019 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
    2/7/2019 8:03:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Math Emergency and Perky Palms started recording on 2/7/2019 7:31:03 PM and stopped on 2/7/2019 8:03:00 PM as scheduled.
   2/21/2019 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Loaf of Bread and a Grand Old Flag started recording on 2/21/2019 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 2/21/2019 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
    3/7/2019 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: Albert Einstein and the Story of Another Mary started recording on 3/7/2019 7:31:03 PM and stopped on 3/7/2019 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
    4/4/2019 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Perfect Score and a Bunsen Burner Marshmallow started recording on 4/4/2019 7:31:03 PM and stopped on 4/4/2019 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
   4/25/2019 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Political Campaign and a Candy Land Cheater started recording on 4/25/2019 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 4/25/2019 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
    5/2/2019 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Proposal and a Popsicle Stick Cross started recording on 5/2/2019 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 5/2/2019 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
    5/9/2019 8:01:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Broken Heart and a Crock Monster started recording on 5/9/2019 7:31:02 PM and stopped on 5/9/2019 8:01:00 PM as scheduled.
   5/16/2019 8:41:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Swedish Science Thing and the Equation for Toast started recording on 5/16/2019 8:01:02 PM and stopped on 5/16/2019 8:41:00 PM as scheduled.
   9/26/2019 7:31:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: Quirky Eggheads and Texas Snow Globes started recording on 9/26/2019 6:57:02 PM and stopped on 9/26/2019 7:31:00 PM as scheduled.
   10/3/2019 7:31:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Broom Closet and Satan's Monopoly Board started recording on 10/3/2019 6:57:02 PM and stopped on 10/3/2019 7:31:00 PM as scheduled.
  10/10/2019 7:31:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: An Entrepreneurialist and a Swat on the Bottom started recording on 10/10/2019 6:57:02 PM and stopped on 10/10/2019 7:31:00 PM as scheduled.
  10/17/2019 7:31:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: Hobbitses, Physicses and a Ball With Zip started recording on 10/17/2019 6:57:02 PM and stopped on 10/17/2019 7:31:00 PM as scheduled.
  10/24/2019 7:31:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Pineapple and the Bosom of Male Friendship started recording on 10/24/2019 6:57:02 PM and stopped on 10/24/2019 7:31:00 PM as scheduled.
   11/7/2019 7:31:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Parasol and a Hell of an Arm started recording on 11/7/2019 6:57:02 PM and stopped on 11/7/2019 7:31:00 PM as scheduled.
  11/14/2019 7:31:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: Pongo Pygmaeus and a Culture That Encourages Spitting started recording on 11/14/2019 6:57:02 PM and stopped on 11/14/2019 7:31:00 PM as scheduled.
  11/21/2019 7:31:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: The Sin of Greed and a Chimichanga From Chi-Chi's started recording on 11/21/2019 6:57:02 PM and stopped on 11/21/2019 7:31:00 PM as scheduled.
   12/5/2019 7:31:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Party Invitation, Football Grapes and an Earth Chicken started recording on 12/5/2019 6:57:02 PM and stopped on 12/5/2019 7:31:00 PM as scheduled.
  12/12/2019 7:31:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: Teenager Soup and a Little Ball of Fib started recording on 12/12/2019 6:57:02 PM and stopped on 12/12/2019 7:31:00 PM as scheduled.
    1/9/2020 7:31:00 PM - Information - Young Sheldon: A Live Chicken, a Fried Chicken and Holy Matrimony started recording on 1/9/2020 6:57:02 PM and stopped on 1/9/2020 7:31:00 PM as scheduled.

================================================================
Search String:		Young Sheldon
Total results found:	35

This query returned 35 results (the same as the previous) even though there was an additional recording on January 9th. Upon further review I found that Event Viewer had automatically been pruning the Media Center.evtx file by default.



Questions:

If the default setting for the event log is to overwrite older events, how does it know if a particular episode has already been recorded if it removed that entry?

Is there a more comprehensive list located elsewhere?

Thanks in advance for your input.

NOTE: If anyone's interested in trying this out, it can be obtained from here.

Download the "Recordings.exe" file from the "WMC Recordings - ALPHA" folder into an empty folder on your machine and then start it. To remove it, delete the folder you placed it in.

[IT Troll]

If the default setting for the event log is to overwrite older events, how does it know if a particular episode has already been recorded if it removed that entry?

Is there a more comprehensive list located elsewhere?

Yes, as I mentioned previously, this is just an event log for user information. This is not used by Media Center to track recordings, it stores this information in it's database. If you perform a database rebuild then you lose your true recording history. It would be nice to be able to query and selectively cancel/delete recording entries from this. I suspect this is hard to do and risks database corruption and so is why we haven't seen a utility which can do it.

[IT Troll]

One thing you can look at is the backup of the scheduled recordings (it is in a text file, XML formatted). In there you can find all the parameters for the Series. Perhaps it will provide a clue as to why this may be happening.

I grabbed the file and it contains one request entry for this series; anyChannel is false and prototypicalChannelNumber is correct (101). However, it still schedules the recording on 19. Perhaps you can spot something amiss.

Code: Select all

  <SeriesRequest prototypicalProgram="!Program!SH01302983_0000" prototypicalService="!Service!EPG123_78995" channel="0000A" creationTime="2016-10-01T13:05:57.8741447Z" sourceName="" complete="false" prototypicalStartTime="2016-10-10T21:45:00Z" prototypicalDuration="PT45M" prototypicalLanguage="English " prototypicalTitle="Have I Got a Bit More News for You" prototypicalIsHdtv="true" prototypicalChannelNumber="101" anyChannel="false" anyLanguage="true" contentQualityPreference="0" scheduleLimit="0" tooManyScheduled="false" sourceTypeFilter="" prePaddingRequired="PT0S" prePaddingRequested="PT2M" postPaddingRequired="PT0S" postPaddingRequested="PT5M" keepLength="-1" quality="0" isRecurring="false" recordingLimit="-1" runType="0" anyTime="true" dayOfWeekMask="127" airtime="PT0S" airtimeValid="false">
    <priorityToken priority="32000" />
    <series uid="!Series!01302983" title="Have I Got a Bit More News for You" shortTitle="" shortDescription="An extended version of the satirical news quiz." studio="" startAirdate="0001-01-01T00:00:00Z" endAirdate="0001-01-01T00:00:00Z" year="0">
      <description>This is an extended version of the satirical panel game show "Have I Got News for You," in which celebrity contestants find themselves in the hot seat as they are quizzed on the latest news. Like the original, the programme consists of several rounds, including the film round, the tabloid headlines round, the Odd One Out round and the missing words round. Originally presented by Angus Deayton, the show has relied on guest hosts since 2002. Ian Hislop and Paul Merton serve as the team captains.</description>
    </series>
  </SeriesRequest>

It is not a big deal, it only happens occasionally. It is just difficult to explain why to my SO who sets and checks the schedule.

[Space]

...
Yes, as I mentioned previously, this is just an event log for user information. This is not used by Media Center to track recordings, it stores this information in it's database. If you perform a database rebuild then you lose your true recording history. It would be nice to be able to query and selectively cancel/delete recording entries from this. I suspect this is hard to do and risks database corruption and so is why we haven't seen a utility which can do it.

The history of recorded episodes is associated with the Series. This means that if you delete the Series and re-create it, your history for that show only (assuming it is a Series for a specific show) will be cleared.

I've never seen anything that can see the list of "recorded episodes" stored in the DB for the Series. It may be because these are just stored as tmsIDs (for Schedules Direct/Gracenote data) and unique IDs supplied by Rovi for the Microsoft data. So you would have to link it to the episode name for it to be understandable (something that may be possible to do if you look up the ID in an online database, especially for the Gracenote data). Perhaps this is something that Gary can look in to if enough people are interested in it, but this only means you can list the episodes that have already been recorded, there is no known way to update the database and add/remove arbitrary episodes.

...
I grabbed the file and it contains one request entry for this series; anyChannel is false and prototypicalChannelNumber is correct (101). However, it still schedules the recording on 19. Perhaps you can spot something amiss.

Code: Select all

  <SeriesRequest prototypicalProgram="!Program!SH01302983_0000" prototypicalService="!Service!EPG123_78995" channel="0000A" creationTime="2016-10-01T13:05:57.8741447Z" sourceName="" complete="false" prototypicalStartTime="2016-10-10T21:45:00Z" prototypicalDuration="PT45M" prototypicalLanguage="English " prototypicalTitle="Have I Got a Bit More News for You" prototypicalIsHdtv="true" prototypicalChannelNumber="101" anyChannel="false" anyLanguage="true" contentQualityPreference="0" scheduleLimit="0" tooManyScheduled="false" sourceTypeFilter="" prePaddingRequired="PT0S" prePaddingRequested="PT2M" postPaddingRequired="PT0S" postPaddingRequested="PT5M" keepLength="-1" quality="0" isRecurring="false" recordingLimit="-1" runType="0" anyTime="true" dayOfWeekMask="127" airtime="PT0S" airtimeValid="false">
    <priorityToken priority="32000" />
    <series uid="!Series!01302983" title="Have I Got a Bit More News for You" shortTitle="" shortDescription="An extended version of the satirical news quiz." studio="" startAirdate="0001-01-01T00:00:00Z" endAirdate="0001-01-01T00:00:00Z" year="0">
      <description>This is an extended version of the satirical panel game show "Have I Got News for You," in which celebrity contestants find themselves in the hot seat as they are quizzed on the latest news. Like the original, the programme consists of several rounds, including the film round, the tabloid headlines round, the Odd One Out round and the missing words round. Originally presented by Angus Deayton, the show has relied on guest hosts since 2002. Ian Hislop and Paul Merton serve as the team captains.</description>
    </series>
  </SeriesRequest>

It is not a big deal, it only happens occasionally. It is just difficult to explain why to my SO who sets and checks the schedule.

Yeah, I was just curious, doesn't look like anything in there would cause it to be recorded from a different channel. I assume that channel="0000A" (which is the channel it should record from) is congruent with other Series you have for shows that are on the same channel. In other words all other Series you have that are supposed to record from this same channel should also have channel="0000A".

[StinkyImp]

Yes, as I mentioned previously, this is just an event log for user information. This is not used by Media Center to track recordings, it stores this information in it's database. If you perform a database rebuild then you lose your true recording history. It would be nice to be able to query and selectively cancel/delete recording entries from this. I suspect this is hard to do and risks database corruption and so is why we haven't seen a utility which can do it.

I've never seen anything that can see the list of "recorded episodes" stored in the DB for the Series. It may be because these are just stored as tmsIDs (for Schedules Direct/Gracenote data) and unique IDs supplied by Rovi for the Microsoft data. So you would have to link it to the episode name for it to be understandable (something that may be possible to do if you look up the ID in an online database, especially for the Gracenote data).

Thank you both for these responses! They're very enlightening!

[StinkyImp]

I will be indisposed for the next week, or so (?), but have a lengthy recording history I'd be glad to test against. If you ever get around to revisiting this, please let me know.

Did you get a chance to try this out? I did a little tweaking on this and also set my "Media Center.evtx" log to 33,536. Given my recording habits, that should give me about 4 years worth of history.

The DC series were doing a crossover event called "Crisis on Infinite Earths" which spanned two months. Instead of "slogging" through WMC's 'View Scheduled' > 'History' I searched for "Crisis on infinite" and returned the following within a few seconds:

Code: Select all

Recording List for Crisis on infinite
Created 2020:01:25:12:25:57
================================================================
   12/8/2019 9:03:00 PM - Information - Supergirl: Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part One started recording on 12/8/2019 7:57:02 PM and stopped on 12/8/2019 9:03:00 PM as scheduled.
   12/9/2019 8:00:00 PM - Information - Batwoman: Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Two started recording on 12/9/2019 6:57:02 PM and stopped on 12/9/2019 8:00:00 PM as scheduled.
  12/10/2019 8:03:00 PM - Information - The Flash: Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Three started recording on 12/10/2019 6:57:02 PM and stopped on 12/10/2019 8:03:00 PM as scheduled.
   1/14/2020 8:00:01 PM - Information - Arrow: Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Four started recording on 1/14/2020 6:57:02 PM and stopped on 1/14/2020 8:00:01 PM as scheduled.
   1/14/2020 9:03:00 PM - Information - DC's Legends of Tomorrow: Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Five started recording on 1/14/2020 8:00:04 PM and stopped on 1/14/2020 9:03:00 PM as scheduled.

================================================================
Search String:		Crisis on infinite
Total results found:	5

The latest version is located in the "WMC Recording History" folder at https://mega.nz/#F!2k0WXI5b!hEvTsif-W8oOfIcDeQNCLA

[Space]

I periodically archive my logs to keep the active log relatively small (usually once a year) so searching in this way would not work for me, although I am guessing your tool may be modifiable to not only search the active log but also a set of archived logs.

[StinkyImp]

I periodically archive my logs to keep the active log relatively small (usually once a year) so searching in this way would not work for me, although I am guessing your tool may be modifiable to not only search the active log but also a set of archived logs.

I honestly never thought about how the recording history works. I just know that I had experienced d00zah's frustrations involved in searching through the "View Scheduled -> History" and how tedious it is. I also wasn't aware that the recording history (by default) was limited to 8MB at which time it would auto-prune the oldest entries.

For my recording habits, 8MB is about 1.75 years of history. By bumping it to 32MB I figure I'll have at least 6 years, or more, of history. For me I feel that's more than sufficient.

Part of the "slogging" that d00zah mentioned included the fact that you have to scroll through the list and then open each individual item to examine the contents. I always considered that very monotonous.

The code to create the Recording History "fidget spinner" is only about 100 lines. I'm sure I could put in the time and effort to modify it into a robust utility with a bunch of bells and whistles, but with WMC dying out it's not worth the effort.

Side note... I was curious about the "Warnings" in my recording history and this utility returned a concise list of dates, show name, and description for 176 items in less that 30 seconds from starting the utility to closing it. That's way faster than slogging.