Scheduled recording not starting on time, then duplicate recordings created

[dpr59 2]

Hi,

This is my first posting, so apologies if I am not doing something I should.  I have Emby Server on a Windows 11 PC, using Emby's TV guide and the NextPVR plug in to record live TV with a quad channel Hauppauge TV tuner card.  Generally, this works fine.

I am having some issues with a recent scheduled recordings, which didn't start at the correct time, and then created two identical recordings (i.e. of the same channel at the same time).

Any help would be appreciated to sort this out.  I have attached a copy of the Emby logs for the day this happened, and a screen shot of the folder where the recording ended up.

The recording was of The Great Pottery Throwdown 16/2/25, 19:45-21:00.  So with my pre and post recording "padding" this should have recorded from 19:43 to 21:10.  The two identical recordings I have appear to have started at 20:54 and run to 21:10.

I am not an expert in Emby logs, but can see repeated events where Emby set the recording timers for this programme.  When you add the timer delay to the time of the event, I think these were setting the start time correctly as 19:43.  I have also found three "recording timer fired" events, the first two at 20:53, which is when the I think the two recordings I have started, and a third at 20:54, which didn't appear to start a third recording. 

The PC is set to sleep when not in use, and Emby does seem able to schedule tasks to wake it up to enable recordings.  However, I can see there isn't any log activity around the time that the recording should have started.  There are two consecutive log entries which suggest the PC may have been sleeping when the recording was scheduled to start:

2025-02-16 19:39:46.335 Info SystemEvents: SystemEvents_PowerModeChanged Suspend
2025-02-16 20:53:08.730 Info SystemEvents: SystemEvents_TimeChange

Whilst this may explain the delayed start of the recording, it doesn't explain why I have two identical recordings of the same show.  I would appreciate help to sort out the duplicate recording issue, as this will cause issues with tuner availability if there are other overlapping recordings.

Thanks in anticipation!

 

embyserver-63875357826.txt

[Luke 42077]

Hi @dpr59it looks like there were actually two recordings scheduled at the same time. How did you setup the recording in Emby?

[dpr59 2]

Hi, thanks for engaging with this topic.  Much appreciated.

The recording was set up via Emby's Live TV Guide screen, set to series record.   I am sure it only appeared once in the list of scheduled recordings and the series only appeared once in the list of programmes set to series record.  I haven't changed the recording settings for this show since the recording failed to happen, so have taken some screen shots of how it appears in the various Live TV screens for the recording scheduled for this Friday, as well of the TV Settings screens - all attached below.

If I can provide any other information that would help to resolve this problem please let me know.  

Now some more background from me that may help.

I have had several issues with duplicate recordings, by which I mean of the same programme shown on the same channel at the same time, which I posted about before, see link below.

Since discovering the issue of multiple simultaneous recordings, I have been investigating myself.  This are my main conclusions:

1. Of the multiple duplicate recordings of different series (i.e. same programme recorded simultaneously), some were named differently, for example "Death in Paradise" and "Death in Paradise (2011)" and appeared in different folders, others appeared in the same folder with different numbering, for example "The Great Pottery Throw Down S08E07.ts" and "The Great Pottery Throw Down S08E07 - 1.ts".

2.  I did find several series appeared twice in Emby's list of series set to series record.  I can't explain how this has happened, but deleted the second entry.  Since discovering this, I have been regularly checking the list of scheduled recordings and series set to series record and it hasn't reoccurred. 

3.  A few hours before this latest recording failure reported in the original post, I did spend time reviewing the logs explicitly looking for evidence of duplicate recordings.  .  

4.  Emby does appear to set timers for the same programme several times a day, and often repeats this process with little time gap of less than a second.  The recording that failed appears to be have been given the unique identifier 716733d9af86a75772cff236d18225f8 in Emby's logs.  If you search for this text in the log I provided with my original post, you will find Emby set a timer to record this programme 10 times.  However, I can find only one trigger event in the logs at 2025-02-21 22:38:00.018.

5.  I can only speculate why Emby repeats the process of setting timers,  but have also noticed they appear to be triggered by power state changes in the host PC (my server is set to sleep if its not being used).  For example, Emby last set a timer to record the programme with the unique identifier 716733d9af86a75772cff236d18225f8, at 16:29:27.780.  However, it also set at timer at 16:29:27.733 for this programme.  Between these events there is an entry "16:29:27.778 Info SystemEvents: SystemEvents_PowerModeChanged Resume". 

6.  I understand Emby uses Windows Task Scheduler to wake the PC and initiate a scheduled recording.  I have been told that Windows Task Scheduler ignores repeat requests if they are identical, i.e. for the same action at the same time.  If this is correct, then Emby's repeated requests to schedule identical tasks will be of no consequence. 

7.  I checked the list of scheduled tasks in the Task Scheduler a few hours before the reported failed recording.  The entries include the time and programme name to be recorded, and I was unable to identify any duplicate entries.

8.  Although I am a novice, I don't understand why anyone would want Emby to be able to record the same programme simultaneously, and would have thought it would be possible to prevent such occurrences. 

 

I hope this is useful, and tanks again for your interest in this issue.

Regards

Paul

 

 

1. 

 

 

[pwhodges 2012]

6 hours ago, dpr59 said:

8.  Although I am a novice, I don't understand why anyone would want Emby to be able to record the same programme simultaneously, and would have thought it would be possible to prevent such occurrences. 

I can see the possibility that someone might want to record the same program on different channels at the same time, to get both SD and FHD resolution copies directly.

Incidentally, I regularly record both the programs you have used as examples, and have not had the issue you have with either.  

Are you using the Emby guide data?

Paul

[dpr59 2]

Yes i am using Emby guide data and Emby is scheduling the recordings via the NextPVR plugin. 

I agree with you about SD and HD, but my setup has previously been recording the same channel at the same time, i.e. two identical recordings.  I am not saying that happened this time.

Thanks for your interest. 

Paul

 

[pwhodges 2012]

Why are you going through the NextPVR plugin?  I tried it briefly to try and combine a Hauppauge tuner and an HDHomeRun, but wasn't comfortable with it (can't remember why...).  I've no idea whether it might be involved with this issue, but it is a difference between our systems.

Paul H

[dpr59 2]

MESSAGE FOR LUKE

Hi Luke,

big apology from me for my post earlier today.  I currently have two active issues and mistakenly thought I was dealing with my other post.  So the reply above does not respond to your question by my other post which is here: 

Sorry about the

To answer your question, I agree there were two recordings scheduled.  We only scheduled programmes through the main Emby programme guide so I don't understand how this is happened.  However, when investigating this issue myself, I did find that the programme appeared twice in the listing of series set to series record, but only once in the list of scheduled recordings.  There were others that also appeared twice in the list of series to be recorded, and I have now removed these duplicate items.  

I would be very grateful if you could look at my second issue, noting my posting from earlier today provides more information about this, and if you look at the logs with that posting, there are error messages in the Emby logs which I think relate to this failed recording that hopefully mean something to you.

Apologies again form my mistake.

Regards

Paul

 

 

[dpr59 2]

Message for Paul H

Hi Paul H,

thanks for your interest in my issue. 

Just to be clear, I have Emby Server on a Windows 11 PC, using Emby's TV guide and the NextPVR plugin to record live TV with a quad channel Hauppauge TV tuner card.  So that means Emby handles all the scheduling, including setting a task in Windows Task Scheduler to wake the PC and initiate the recording.  NextPVR is then used to manage the tuners and make the recording.

When I set things up in December, from what I could see this was one of two options for managing TV recordings with Emby which didn't natively support the Hauppauge tuners.  The other option was to use Emby with Hauppauge's WinTV software (which I have a licence for).  If there is a better way of doing things I would be keen to know what that is.

Regards

Paul R

PS, just had two more recordings fail this evening, nothing recorded at all, not had a chance to look into this yet.

[pwhodges 2012]

I have used the WinTV connection with my Hauppauge, and it was fine.  But now I use an HDHomeRun instead, as it doesn't require any extra software.   When we get TVnext (in the beta cycle following the release of 4.9) I shall use it to access the Hauppauge (which is still in my machine) directly, and combine the two devices effectively into one with eight tuners.

I suspect your problems are down to something outside Emby.  Do you have any other software that works with the Windows scheduler?

Paul

[dpr59 2]

Hi Paul, 

thanks for your thoughts.  I am reluctant to purchase new hardware given I already have the Hauppauge tuners.

I only use this PC as a DVR and media server, so have tried to strip it back to the minimum.  The only other tasks in Windows Task Schedule are connected to routine maintenance activities.  I agree that the failure of the recording I started this post about  to start on time could be to do with the Windows Task Scheduler, but maybe Emby didn't set the task up correctly, or something to do with duplicate recordings upset things.

I have just posted a new issue following problems with two different recordings set to start at 20:00 last night but both failed.  The timers fired on time and both Emby and NextPVR logs suggest to me that they were talking and trying to start the recordings but it didn't happen.  There are lots of error messages in both sets of logs, that must be pointing to the cause, but I don't know what they mean.  Hopefully, someone with the expertise will be kind enough to look at them and identify the smoking gun for me.

Following the problems last night I have checked the software and drives are up to date and retuned the tuners in NextPVR, selected "always primed" and set things up again in Emby, so fingers crossed.

One thing I have noticed that may be relevant is it takes a long time to start a Live TV stream or switch channels, 10-20 seconds.  This may be contributing perhaps to tripping some timer, so could be worth following up or trying the WinTV option.  I am going away for the next week so hopefully will return to lots of successful recordings!

 

Regards
Paul

[Luke 42077]

Hi, I would give it a try with WinTV and direct Emby support, and let us know how things go.