Season Pass Oddity

I have a season pass set up for SNL on my local NBC affiliate, and IIRC it
is set up for First Run Only.

Tonight, my TiVo did not record the rerun that was on, as I would expect.
However, the reason that it gave me for not recording tonight, on the
"Recording History" page, was that I did not have enough room on my disk.
This is really weird, for a number of reasons:

1. It wasn't supposed to record the rerun anyway.
2. I have 3 hours of suggestions on my HDD right now, so I'm not out of
space.
3. This was the first time it mentioned anything about this to me.

I'm not sure that #3 is a valid reason for it to be strange, but I'm going
to have to assume that if it was _really_ out of space, that it would tell
me more proactively then relying on me to go to the "Recording History"
page and notice it myself...

Anyway, I looked ahead in the Recording History (it's kind of an oxymoron
that I can even do that...), and I see that there are a number of Comedy
Central and E! reruns of SNL that are marked the same way: "Won't record
because of insufficient disk space". There are also a lot of SNL reruns
marked, correctly, "Won't record because you deleted the ARWL" (obviously,
I'm paraphrasing).

I did, at one time, have an ARWL for SNL, Keep at Most 2, for a few
misguided reasons, then I realized that I'd be better off without it.

Anyone else ever seen anything like this, where the TiVo gives the wrong
reason for not recording?

--
Lenroc

"Lenroc" wrote in message
news:[email protected]
I have a season pass set up for SNL on my local NBC affiliate, and IIRC it
is set up for First Run Only.

Tonight, my TiVo did not record the rerun that was on, as I would expect.
However, the reason that it gave me for not recording tonight, on the
"Recording History" page, was that I did not have enough room on my disk.
This is really weird, for a number of reasons:

1. It wasn't supposed to record the rerun anyway.
2. I have 3 hours of suggestions on my HDD right now, so I'm not out of
space.
3. This was the first time it mentioned anything about this to me.

I'm not sure that #3 is a valid reason for it to be strange, but I'm going
to have to assume that if it was _really_ out of space, that it would tell
me more proactively then relying on me to go to the "Recording History"
page and notice it myself...

Anyway, I looked ahead in the Recording History (it's kind of an oxymoron
that I can even do that...), and I see that there are a number of Comedy
Central and E! reruns of SNL that are marked the same way: "Won't record
because of insufficient disk space". There are also a lot of SNL reruns
marked, correctly, "Won't record because you deleted the ARWL" (obviously,
I'm paraphrasing).

I did, at one time, have an ARWL for SNL, Keep at Most 2, for a few
misguided reasons, then I realized that I'd be better off without it.

Anyone else ever seen anything like this, where the TiVo gives the wrong
reason for not recording?

--
Lenroc
TIVO is using the Bill Gates method of error messages. Why create a new,
accurate message, when an existing, inaccurate one will do. Only 1% or less
of users will ever look at it anyway.

On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 07:51:54 +0000, John wrote:

TIVO is using the Bill Gates method of error messages. Why create a new,
accurate message, when an existing, inaccurate one will do. Only 1% or less
of users will ever look at it anyway.

Uh, except, the "accurate" message already exists, and appears for other
recordings...

Next!?

--
Lenroc

"Lenroc" wrote in message
news:[email protected]
I have a season pass set up for SNL on my local NBC affiliate, and IIRC it
is set up for First Run Only.

Tonight, my TiVo did not record the rerun that was on, as I would expect.
However, the reason that it gave me for not recording tonight, on the
"Recording History" page, was that I did not have enough room on my disk.
This is really weird, for a number of reasons:

1. It wasn't supposed to record the rerun anyway.
2. I have 3 hours of suggestions on my HDD right now, so I'm not out of
space.
3. This was the first time it mentioned anything about this to me.

Plausible explanations for (1) might be

(a) a first-run episode may have been replaced with a rerun
(b) your season pass may have included reruns at some recent time in the past
(c) TiVo may, perhaps erroneously, make its out-of-disk-space check before its
rerun test
(d) you may not be recalling the situation correctly :-)

With respect to (2) your *current* availability of disk space is immaterial.
At the time the SNL error message was generated, the SNL episode was
contending for disk space with other scheduled *future* recordings. And new
recording candidates can arise from program guide updates, schedule changes,
changes to your season passes and ARWLs, recordings that you manually request,
etc. Who knows what TiVo's priorities are in these situations? Also, I suspect
that once TiVo decides that it can't record a program it does normally not
reconsider that decision even if sufficient disk space becomes available by
the time the program airs.

As far as (3) goes, it probably relates to how and when TiVo detected that it
had no space for the SNL episode. If you have limited available disk space and
lots of scheduled recordings, your TiVo could be absolutely flooded with
out-of-disk-space warnings if they told you immediately about every future
program that can't be recorded. In most circumstances I think View Recording
History is probably the best place for these messages.

Does this help? If not, NEXT!! :-)

On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 15:30:28 +0000, Jerry Boyle wrote:

Plausible explanations for (1) might be

(a) a first-run episode may have been replaced with a rerun
(b) your season pass may have included reruns at some recent time in the past
(c) TiVo may, perhaps erroneously, make its out-of-disk-space check before its
rerun test
(d) you may not be recalling the situation correctly :-)

All good points, my original point 1 is now gone Personally I'd guess
c, though I think the other way around would make more sense.

With respect to (2) your *current* availability of disk space is immaterial.
At the time the SNL error message was generated, the SNL episode was
contending for disk space with other scheduled *future* recordings. And new
recording candidates can arise from program guide updates, schedule changes,
changes to your season passes and ARWLs, recordings that you manually request,
etc. Who knows what TiVo's priorities are in these situations?

True, and I recognize that it's more than a simple 'how much hard drive
space is there right _now_'. The fact that TiVo keeps recording new
suggestions, though, makes me think it's not in an 'out of space' mode, so
I don't really even think it's low.

Also, I suspect that once TiVo decides that it can't record a program it
does normally not reconsider that decision even if sufficient disk space
becomes available by the time the program airs.

This is logical, and probably correct, though again I would hope not.

As far as (3) goes, it probably relates to how and when TiVo detected that it
had no space for the SNL episode. If you have limited available disk space and
lots of scheduled recordings, your TiVo could be absolutely flooded with
out-of-disk-space warnings if they told you immediately about every future
program that can't be recorded. In most circumstances I think View Recording
History is probably the best place for these messages.

Good thoughts again. I can't help but think, though, that I've made new
Season Passes and scheduled new things from the guide just within the past
few days. Any of them, of course, could have put me in danger, disk-space
wise, but I would sure like to think that TiVo would warn me as I made the
new recording.

Does this help?

Well, it helps, but of course it's not resolved... I guess the only way
to resolve it will be to see if it records SNL next week, assuming it's
new. The next episode is not marked in my Recording History, which
currently goes to 12/5, but it's also not marked in my To Do list, which
doesn't go nearly as far into the future...

If not, NEXT!! :-)

Yes, I suppose that was a bit rude, wasn't it? Hrm... well, shame on me, I
guess.

--
Lenroc

On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 19:10:21 +0000, SINNER wrote:

All of the above is of course a guess and likely wrong based on the fact
that you have multiple suggestions recorded indicating plenty of space,

Yes, yes. It's all confusing though. I know I'm low on disk space, because
I'm always low on disk space (I only have 40 hours to work with), but on
top of the suggestions there are several 2-hour long movies that are
marked as Expired but that haven't actually been deleted yet. I know that
space isn't critical yet. The only thing I can think is that TiVo somehow
got confused by the fact that the First Run SNL was at one time covered by
two recording choices (an ARWL for SNL, and a SP for First Run SNLs), but
now that I've deleted the ARWL, and since this episode was a rerun, that
episode was covered by neither? I don't know... it's all weird.

but a guess is better then non response at all I'd venture

True! And anything is better than nonsensically relating TiVo to
Bill Gates, when everyone knows that the aliens wrote Windows anyways

Anyway, should I post this to the TiVo community BB? I'd be interested to
see if TiVoPony (or anyone else) would have anything to add...

--
Lenroc

* Lenroc Wrote in alt.video.ptv.tivo, on Sun, 23 Nov 2003 12:18:25 -0700:
On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 19:10:21 +0000, SINNER wrote:

[...]

Anyway, should I post this to the TiVo community BB? I'd be interested to
see if TiVoPony (or anyone else) would have anything to add...

That cant ever hurt.
--
David | AGM Favorite Games - http://tinyurl.com/loec
Der Horizont vieler Menschen ist ein Kreis mit Radius Null --
und das nennen sie ihren Standpunkt.

Lenroc wrote:

However, the reason that it gave me for not recording tonight, on the
"Recording History" page, was that I did not have enough room on my disk.

Do you have a lot of KUID shows?

I would not expect a "not enough room" message if there were any shows
marked yellow with exclamation points, or if there were any suggestions
on disk at the time of scheduled recording.

-Joe

On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 21:01:52 +0000, Joe Smith wrote:

Do you have a lot of KUID shows?

2, totaling about 5 hours. (Yeah, ok, they're movies )

I would not expect a "not enough room" message if there were any shows
marked yellow with exclamation points, or if there were any suggestions
on disk at the time of scheduled recording.

Right, I don't think it's actually out of space, either, as mentioned...

I just don't get why it gave the wrong reason.

--
Lenroc

"Lenroc" wrote in message
news:r%[email protected]
On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 15:30:28 +0000, Jerry Boyle wrote:

Plausible explanations for (1) might be

(a) a first-run episode may have been replaced with a rerun
(b) your season pass may have included reruns at some recent time in the
past
(c) TiVo may, perhaps erroneously, make its out-of-disk-space check before
its
rerun test
(d) you may not be recalling the situation correctly :-)

All good points, my original point 1 is now gone Personally I'd guess
c, though I think the other way around would make more sense.

I suspect that it was

(e) a generic episode description (when the station hasn't yet announced what
episode will air) was replaced with a rerun.

I know that TiVo initially schedules these beasts as if they were first-run
and then reevaluates its decision when the actual episode becomes known. I
strongly suspect that TiVo generated its error message when it tried to
schedule a generic SNL episode.

With respect to (2) your *current* availability of disk space is
immaterial.
At the time the SNL error message was generated, the SNL episode was
contending for disk space with other scheduled *future* recordings. And
new
recording candidates can arise from program guide updates, schedule
changes,
changes to your season passes and ARWLs, recordings that you manually
request,
etc. Who knows what TiVo's priorities are in these situations?

True, and I recognize that it's more than a simple 'how much hard drive
space is there right _now_'. The fact that TiVo keeps recording new
suggestions, though, makes me think it's not in an 'out of space' mode, so
I don't really even think it's low.

There's a subtle but important difference between Suggestions and scheduled
recordings. TiVo can record a Suggestion if there is enough disk space *at the
time the Suggestion airs* since it is free to delete the Suggestion *at any
time*, even immediately after it is recorded. A schedules recording, however,
must be kept for 2 days unless TiVo explicitly warns you that that it will be
deleted early. This required retention period, e.g. for your SNL episode, may
cause TiVo to detect that it may no longer be able to record a program that is
already in your ToDo list.

Good thoughts again. I can't help but think, though, that I've made new
Season Passes and scheduled new things from the guide just within the past
few days. Any of them, of course, could have put me in danger, disk-space
wise, but I would sure like to think that TiVo would warn me as I made the
new recording.

TiVo always warns you when you *manually* do anything that affects current or
future recordings, e.g. when you add a new Season Pass if tells you exactly
which episodes will be recorded and which, if any, will not be recorded or
will be retained less than 2 days. It's changes caused behind your back by
things like program guide updates and schedule changes that you may see only
in View Recording History.

Does this help?

Well, it helps, but of course it's not resolved... I guess the only way
to resolve it will be to see if it records SNL next week, assuming it's
new. The next episode is not marked in my Recording History, which
currently goes to 12/5, but it's also not marked in my To Do list, which
doesn't go nearly as far into the future...

Any here's a clear indicator that you're out of disk space for future
recordings. My Program Guide and ToDo list both go all the way to 12/5. TiVo
had to stop generating ToDo items for you because it couldn't guarantee that
space would be available for a future item that it wanted to record.

It's somewhat tricky. Suppose TiVo scheduled some items for you on 12/1 but
then found an item on that date that it couldn't schedule. You'd think that
TiVo wouldn't be able to schedule any items for 12/3 either, but that isn't
true because items recorded on 11/29 and 11/30 will be available for automatic
deletion by 12/3. Of course it doesn't make sense to the user to skip
recordings on 12/1 and 12/2 and resume them on 12/3. So TiVo does the obvious
and stops doing any automatic scheduling when it runs out of space and resumes
its automatic scheduling at that point at some future point in time.

There's nothing mysterious going on here. It's just complicated, even more so
because TiVo has to try to predict the future and then often respond to
changes that invalidate its future predictions.

And speaking of Bill Gates, I wish he'd fix OE so it didn't butcher the lines
to which you respond.