Recording name issue

[KennethG]

Hi I'm at a bit of a loss as to what is going wrong with recordings. For example I have a recording set up to record
Below Deck Mediterranean on 7 Bravo. when I check the EPG I see the three red dots on the program and selecting
option 5 (timers) it shows the reservation Below Deck Mediterranean on the correct day and time. The issue I'm having
is after SmartEPG does the scan in the morning all the timers have been renamed to - examples below. I have changed
the scan period to 7 days to make sure the recordings are correct for the week. any advise on what I'm doing wrong
would be appreciated.

Regards Ken

[FireBird]

Hi Ken, could you please upload the "SmartEPG_TMS.log" log?

Cheers,
Alex

[KennethG]

Hi Alex
log attached

Cheers
Ken

[FireBird]

Hi Ken,

thanks for the log file. First of all, we’ve stopped programming SmartEPG for the Topfield receivers about 4 years ago, which means that my knowledge will already be a bit rusty.

I can’t see anything suspicious in your log, there’s no mention of a dash-only timer name. 2 questions:

If you can see a timer without a name in WebControl, what does the Topfield native timer list show?

Did you ever let such a timer record and what was the file name of that recording?

Cheers,
Alex

[Anthea]

2025-05-31 20:28:40 Modify Timer 0 to Tuner 4
2025-05-31 20:28:40 Name: - .mpg
2025-05-31 20:28:40 Channel: 7Bravo Melbourne
2025-05-31 20:28:40 StartTime: 20:29
2025-05-31 20:28:40 EndTime: 21:37
2025-05-31 20:28:40 Timer 0 is scheduled within 1 minute
2025-05-31 20:28:40 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2025-05-31 20:28:40 Processing timer 0
2025-05-31 20:28:40 Channel: 7Bravo Melbourne (30)
2025-05-31 20:28:40 Name: - .mpg
2025-05-31 20:28:40 Type: TV
2025-05-31 20:28:40 Reservation Type: Recording (R)
2025-05-31 20:28:40 Frequency: 46428MHz
....
2025-05-31 20:29:02 InfoboxMode: IBDM_PVR - IBM_TV - IBPM_Rec
2025-05-31 20:29:03 Recording of " - .mpg" started
2025-05-31 20:29:06 InfoboxMode: IBDM_Hidden - IBM_TV - IBPM_Rec
2025-05-31 21:37:05 InfoboxMode: IBDM_PVR - IBM_TV - IBPM_Rec
2025-05-31 21:37:05 Recording of " - .mpg" stopped
2025-05-31 21:37:05 Check if recording - .mpg is descrambled
2025-05-31 21:37:05 TimerDB: removed old timer '00 'Below Deck Down Under' (2025-05-31 20:34/58') (R=7cf7, V=0000)'

Wasn't there something that sometimes the channel changed some parameters immediately before the beginning, which lead to things like that? In Germany, the KIKA was very prone to such incidents. But I think that was mostly caught with the "lost events" setting. It's too long ago...

[FireBird]

It seems I've missed these.

[KennethG]

Hi Alex

the native timer shows the correct name but when it records at the end the filename is just the dash
the only workaround I found is set SmartEPG to scan once a week and all the recordings are fine but
as soon as it scans and updates the epg all timers are changed to the dash I then go to option 6 edit
and save the timer and all is well.

[FireBird]

Ken, could you please try the following steps?

* Stop SmartEPG
* Delete all files inside of „/ProgramFiles/Settings/SmartEPG_TMS/EPGDB”
* Restart SE. It will ask you if it may perform an EPG scan. Klick on yes and let it finish.

Did that fix anything?

[KennethG]

Hi Alex
* Stopped SmartEPG
* Deleted all files
*Restart SE and EPG scan done.

Native Topfield Timer shows all timers with correct name and date etc
and surprise surprise WebControl shows all the Reservations with the correct name and date.
there are two recordings set for tonight so will see what the file name is after they finish recording.
Fingers crossed will let you know the results.

Cheers Ken

[KennethG]

Hi Alex
The two recordings from last night saved one of them was the correct name "Below Deck Mediterranean" but the second one "Below Deck" was saved as a Dash
I had changed SE to do the normal scan EPG this morning and the native timer had the weeks reservation with the correct name and date but WebControl
showed all Reservations as Dash. After selecting option 6 and re-saving the programs all data in the native timer and WebControl was correct. So I have changed
the scan interval back to 7 days which keeps the file names correct until the next SE scan EPG update.

Cheers Ken

[FireBird]

Hi Ken,

then I have to dive a bit deeper. Could you please pack the complete /ProgramFiles/Settings/SmartEPG_TMS including all subdirectories into a zip or whatever. Please do so while you can see a dashed timer in your reservation list.

Because I think that the maximum allowed attachment size is 2MB, you may need some file sharing site to upload the file.

Thanks,
Alex

[KennethG]

Hi Alex
Yes I will zip the directory and upload to a file share site.
In the meantime I don't know if this will help but I noticed when I selected option 6 to list all the recording if I edit one and press the yellow button to search for events the progress bar goes very quick and there are no timers found. Pressing the red button lists all events plus repeats. When I press the green button to save the progress bar goes to half way stops and then complete and the correct timers are saved. It's as if when SE does an EPG update its not searching the new EPG for reservation timers.
Anyway will upload the file as soon as I can.
Thanks for all your help
Cheers Ken

[KennethG]

HI Alex

Set it to scanEPG this morning and native timers are OK but WebControl show all as dashes, I have zip'd the directory
and download link is below

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H1L-XB ... sp=sharing

Cheers Ken

[DeltaMikeCharlie]

native timers

What do you mean by 'native timers'? Are you referring to the timers in SmartEPG, or are you referring to the timers in the PVR firmware (Menu->Recording->Reservation)?

WebControl will be reading the timer name from the firmware's flash storage.

[FireBird]

Thanks, Ken. I'll take a look tomorrow.

Cheers,
Alex

[DeltaMikeCharlie]

Ken,

From a Web Browser, with your Topfield powered-on and running WebControl, can you please enter the following address:

http://<PVR IP>:8000/api?function=timers&action=get!

You will see a bunch of computer gibberish on the screen. Look for the values of 'filename' and 'filename_hex' and post them here.

Code: Alles auswählen

unused3:	0
filename:	"Letters And Numbers.mpg"
filename_hex:	"4c65747465727320416e64204e756d626572732e6d7067"
starttime:	"2025/06/09 16:25:00"

Alex,

WebControl is using FlashTimerGetInfo() to get the timer data.

'filename' is processed by StrToUTF8() before being returned.

'filename_hex' is the raw file name from flash hex-encoded.

[FireBird]

I’m quite sure that he refers to SmartEPG’s timer list and that the native reservation list will show dashes too. SE creates a permanent name for its timer at the creation of the timer. But whenever a timer has to be set in the flash memory, the timer’s file name is rebuilt according to option 23 and that is what the native list or WebControl is showing.

My guess is that an EPG database gets damaged during the scan and therefore the result for the filename is

<empty name> <space> <dash> <space> <empty description>.mpg

But I have to analyze the data first.

[FireBird]

Hi Ken,

I’m not sure if I‘m on the right path, but your problem seems to have to do with so called “overlapping timers”. An overlapping timer is one that starts to record before the previous one stops. The important part is that both timers have to be on the same channel. This is not supported by the Toppy’s firmware but we’ve found a hack so that such a timer is accepted and triggers a recording.

From your data, there is such an overlapping timer on every Wednesday. The first one records from 7:25 PM to 8:34 (including padding) and the next is running from 8:25 to 9:34.

The timer’s name seems to get destroyed whenever the timers in the flash have to be refreshed, which happens after an EPG scan and after a recording is finished. Of course, it also happens whenever you modify the reservation list. If it really has to do with the overlapping timer, it would be a rather obscure bug in SmartEPG.

To confirm my theory, could you please block (not delete) the second timer at 8:30? According to the EPG data, there’s a repeat on Thursday at 01:30 AM. You can program it manually or extend the start time of the associated search.

Cheers,
Alex

[KennethG]

Hi Yes its the SmartEPG timer list results below

Code: Alles auswählen

"unused3":0,

	"filename":"Below Deck Mediterranean - A potential catastrophe looms when a near-fatal dish is served. Interior challenges.mpg",

	"filename_hex":"42656c6f77204465636b204d65646974657272616e65616e202d204120706f74656e7469616c20636174617374726f706865206c6f6f6d73207768656e2061206e6561722d666174616c2064697368206973207365727665642e20496e746572696f72206368616c6c656e6765732e6d7067",

	"starttime":"2025/06/11 20:25:00",

	"endtime":"2025/06/11 21:34:00",

	"endtime_raw":"2025/06/11 21:34:00",

	"pmtid":0,

and the overlap one is

Code: Alles auswählen

"unused3":0,

	"filename":"Below Deck Mediterranean - As the charter season comes to an end, the Sirocco crew struggles to resolve their .mpg",

	"filename_hex":"42656c6f77204465636b204d65646974657272616e65616e202d20417320746865206368617274657220736561736f6e20636f6d657320746f20616e20656e642c20746865205369726f63636f2063726577207374727567676c657320746f207265736f6c7665207468656972202e6d7067",

	"starttime":"2025/06/12 19:25:00",

	"endtime":"2025/06/12 20:34:00",

	"endtime_raw":"2025/06/12 20:34:00",

	"pmtid":0,

Alex will block the second timer on Wednesday and do a manual Thursday. and will run a EPG scan after I block and see what I get.

Thanks for all the help, this issue has only just appeared as I've never had any problems before.
Cheers Ken

[KennethG]

Hi Alex
I had set SE to do a scan this morning after blocking the second timer unfortunately all the timers have been changed to dash
have included the log and DMC's filename check
Before Scan:

Code: Alles auswählen

"unused3":0,

	"filename":"Below Deck Mediterranean - Adam's wedgie prank goes awry, and Wes does everything he can to avoid Adam..mpg",

	"filename_hex":"42656c6f77204465636b204d65646974657272616e65616e202d204164616d277320776564676965207072616e6b20676f657320617772792c20616e642057657320646f65732065766572797468696e672068652063616e20746f2061766f6964204164616d2e2e6d7067",

	"starttime":"2025/06/10 19:25:00",

	"endtime":"2025/06/10 20:34:00",

	"endtime_raw":"2025/06/10 20:34:00",

	"pmtid":0,

After Scan:

Code: Alles auswählen

"unused3":0,

	"filename":" - .mpg",

	"filename_hex":"202d202e6d7067",

	"starttime":"2025/06/10 19:25:00",

	"endtime":"2025/06/10 20:34:00",

	"endtime_raw":"2025/06/10 20:34:00",

	"pmtid":0,

Cheers Ken