Live TV Buffer: Recording Storage is(H:) but TempSBE is(C:)

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strawberryshortcake

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Live TV Buffer: Recording Storage is(H:) but TempSBE is(C:)

#1

Post by strawberryshortcake » Mon Jan 09, 2017 1:34 am

Live TV Buffer: Recording Storage is(H:) but TempSBE is(C:)

Kind of a major problem is happening just recently. I already designated my external western digital drive (H:) as the recording location, but my TempSBE files is getting written to my SSD (C:) drive. How do I get the temp files written to my (H:) TempSBE location? And can these files within the TempSEB be deleted because it's eating my SSD harddrive space.

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Space

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#2

Post by Space » Mon Jan 09, 2017 2:44 am

If you move the Recorded TV folder within Media Center, the TempRec (buffer) folder should also follow it.
Open MC, and go to Tasks\Settings\TV\Recorder\Recorder Storage. What's the recording target set to there?

If, for whatever reason, MC didn't move the TempRec folder when you moved the recordings folder: move it back to its original location. Close MC and reboot. Open MC and change it again.

I found the above answer here: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Fo ... itpromedia

strawberryshortcake

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#3

Post by strawberryshortcake » Mon Jan 09, 2017 3:12 am

Space wrote:If you move the Recorded TV folder within Media Center, the TempRec (buffer) folder should also follow it.
Open MC, and go to Tasks\Settings\TV\Recorder\Recorder Storage. What's the recording target set to there?

If, for whatever reason, MC didn't move the TempRec folder when you moved the recordings folder: move it back to its original location. Close MC and reboot. Open MC and change it again.

I found the above answer here: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Fo ... itpromedia

The question is how do I physically move the TempRec folder to drive (H:)? Am I suppose to just drag the folder from drive (C:) to drive (H:)? I think I have my recording target set to drive (H:) as illustrated in this below jpg screenshot. Record on drive: H: 4657GB

Note: The only way that I know of to move the "recording target storage" folder is simply going opening Windows Media Setting>Task>Settings, etc. etc. and then selecting drive (H:). But there's no way to select eh Live TV buffer folder or drive within Windows Media Center Setting.


EDIT: Dragging folder TempRec (C:) to somewhere in drive (H:) didn't work. It just started copying TempRec (C:) to drive (H:)..
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Space

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#4

Post by Space » Mon Jan 09, 2017 6:38 am

Why do you want to copy it? It is just the temporary buffer for live TV, there should be no reason to copy it.

If it is still there on the C: drive after you have successfully got it to use the H: drive instead for the live buffer, then you can just delete it.

Also, if you read the linked thread I posted, you will see that there can be issues with using an external (USB) drive as your recording drive. If the drive is not "ready" when WMC looks for it, it will put the buffer back on the C: drive. This means you have to make sure the external drive never goes to sleep, is spun up and ready when WMC needs it, etc. It may be a bit of a headache to have an external drive as your recording drive.

Perhaps someone who has gotten an external USB drive working as the recording drive can chime in here.

Some info here: http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... f=5&t=7528

There is probably more info out there, just Google it.

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#5

Post by strawberryshortcake » Mon Jan 09, 2017 7:52 am

Space wrote:Why do you want to copy it? It is just the temporary buffer for live TV, there should be no reason to copy it.

If it is still there on the C: drive after you have successfully got it to use the H: drive instead for the live buffer, then you can just delete it.

Also, if you read the linked thread I posted, you will see that there can be issues with using an external (USB) drive as your recording drive. If the drive is not "ready" when WMC looks for it, it will put the buffer back on the C: drive. This means you have to make sure the external drive never goes to sleep, is spun up and ready when WMC needs it, etc. It may be a bit of a headache to have an external drive as your recording drive.

Perhaps someone who has gotten an external USB drive working as the recording drive can chime in here.

Some info here: http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... f=5&t=7528

There is probably more info out there, just Google it.

I actually don't want to copy it, but your above post stated to "move" the recordings folder back to its original location. I thought maybe dragging the folder from drive (C) to drive (H) would help, but that only started the copying process, so I immediately cancelled that. The thing is I have been using the external drive (H) to do my Windows Media Center recordings for about 2 years perfectly.


" If, for whatever reason, MC didn't move the TempRec folder when you moved the recordings folder: move it back to its original location. Close MC and reboot. Open MC and change it again."

"move it back to its original location" is pretty what I'm trying to do..


Then today (actually yesterday), channel 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 stopped getting a signal. I had scheduled the Raiders vs Titans playoff game to be recorded on 7.1, but no signal meant no recording. All three of those channels are completely missing right now even though the "guide" shows the available tv programs and time for those specific channel. Today, I somehow (completely forgot how) I got channel 7 (yes, just the channel number 7) to pickup channel 7.1's broadcast, however there is "no data available". Something happened between yesterday and today where the TempSBE / TempRec started to record on drive (C). I believe normally for the past 2 years TempSBE / TempRec was recording on my external western digital drive (H).

I did a Windows Media Center rescan and now I don't even have any channel 7 or channel 7.1, 7.2, 7.3. I was going to create another thread about the channel 7.1 missing issue. But right now, I just want to fix the TempRec folder location.



Also, I've tried googling all of yesterday and this morning regarding this matter and even though I found some, and following their directions, I still can't get it to work.

Here's one: https://www.eightforums.com/software-ap ... post461144

I followed MetalMan's post #6 instruction as specified and it still doesn't work.

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#6

Post by Space » Mon Jan 09, 2017 8:06 am

Go back to my post and read it again, it says "from within WMC". You go to that location in the menu system of WMC to change where the recording folder is.
Go to Tasks\Settings\TV\Recorder\Recorder Storage and change the drive to C:, then save it and then close WMC and reboot the PC. Open WMC and go back to that location again and change it back to H:. This should make WMC use drive H: for the live buffer again.

However, if you do not fix the problem with the external hard drive sleeping, then WMC will eventually change it back to C: again on it's own. You need to make sure that drive H: is always available immediately whenever WMC needs to access it. If WMC has to wait several seconds for the drive to spin-up then it will time out and think the drive is no longer there and will change the live buffer location back to C: (which is probably how it was changed to C: in the first place).

kd6icz

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#7

Post by kd6icz » Mon Jan 09, 2017 4:17 pm

I've been having the same identical issue with one of my HTPC's.... I've tried everything mentioned above and no matter what it uses drive C.

So you're not alone @strawberryshortcake!

Just watching live TV I get the "Disk Full" error after about 10 minutes. I've remapped... Rebooted... Nothing works. Since this PC is just for one of my secondary TV's I use for baseball season I'm going to just wipe the machine, un-partition the drive, and let it use the C drive.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

strawberryshortcake

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#8

Post by strawberryshortcake » Mon Jan 09, 2017 10:23 pm

kd6icz wrote:I've been having the same identical issue with one of my HTPC's.... I've tried everything mentioned above and no matter what it uses drive C.

So you're not alone @strawberryshortcake!

Just watching live TV I get the "Disk Full" error after about 10 minutes. I've remapped... Rebooted... Nothing works. Since this PC is just for one of my secondary TV's I use for baseball season I'm going to just wipe the machine, un-partition the drive, and let it use the C drive.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
How much harddrive space do you have on your "storage drive" specifically for Windows Media Center? Is it an external harddrive or drive (C)? Try doing the following below to see if it remotely helps at all. Please report back. I want to know if the below steps actually works for someone else as well because it finally works for me to get Live Buffer TV writes to my external harddrive (i.e. drive H) and not my drive (C)



Space wrote:Go back to my post and read it again, it says "from within WMC". You go to that location in the menu system of WMC to change where the recording folder is.
Go to Tasks\Settings\TV\Recorder\Recorder Storage and change the drive to C:, then save it and then close WMC and reboot the PC. Open WMC and go back to that location again and change it back to H:. This should make WMC use drive H: for the live buffer again.

However, if you do not fix the problem with the external hard drive sleeping, then WMC will eventually change it back to C: again on it's own. You need to make sure that drive H: is always available immediately whenever WMC needs to access it. If WMC has to wait several seconds for the drive to spin-up then it will time out and think the drive is no longer there and will change the live buffer location back to C: (which is probably how it was changed to C: in the first place).

Finally figured it out. Wanted to wait until early morning to test it out. I did exactly what "Space" suggested. Go back into Windows' Tasks\Settings\TV\Recorder\Recorder Storage and change the drive to C:, then saved it, then closed WMC and reboot my PC. Opened WMC and went back to the same location and changed it back to drive H:.

The crucial part in making sure Live TV Buffer gets routed (or written) to my external harddrive (H) was to ensure my external harddrive (H) was in wake mode first BEFORE turning on Windows Media Center.

I also did all of the following below:
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The following two screens are the most important. Within the following screen, I had multiple storage location (harddrives) each with a check mark. The most important (to a certain extent; because this is only one part of the process) was to uncheck drive (C). I also had other external harddrives including (E) (F) (J) (I) (G) which I decided to uncheck as well (this may not even be necessary. But unchecking drive (C) was most important (to a certain extent).

Here, for my specific situation, I decided to only keep drive (H) with a check mark because I want both my recordings and Live TV buffer on drive (H).

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Everything posted above is important, but the absolutely most important part of this whole mess is everything below.... even if you successfully do the above steps, if you don't allow your external harddrive to fully wake, Live TV buffer will default back to writing to drive (C).

The crucial part to making sure drive (H) was in fact the designated location for Live TV buffer (i.e. TempRec / TempSBE ) was in fact to make sure drive (H) is fully awake and active BEFORE turning on Windows Media Center as "space" mentioned above in his/her post. My computer opens an auto play folder box corresponding to each of my external drive whenever I restart or power on my computer. Even if you don't get the autoplay folder pop up box for your external harddrives, simply double click on your designated external harddrive (in my case drive (H)), and wait a few seconds and that should "wake" up your external harddrive. It is ONLY then that you would open Windows Media Center.

As you can see in the third screenshot below, once my external harddrive (H) is in awake mode, as soon as I turned on Windows Media Center, several files gets written to drive (H) TempSBE folder and no longer drive (C)'s TempSBE folder. And as soon as this happens once, and you keep your computer on (e.g. I like to keep my computer on 24 hours a day), even if you close out of Windows Media Center (WMC), come back several hours later or later in the day and turn WMC back on, Live TV buffer file will be written to your external harddrive (in my case drive (H)) even if the external harddrive was in sleep mode.

But of course, if you prefer to completely shutdown your computer, to ensure Live TV buffer gets written to your external harddrive again, make sure your external harrdrive is awake BEFORE turning on Windows Media Center.

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#9

Post by Space » Tue Jan 10, 2017 1:56 am

Good to see you got it working. I would be careful though. From what I read, WMC can change the live buffer back to C: even without WMC running if it "wakes up" for a recording and the external drive is sleeping and needs time to spin up. So I would keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't revert back at any point in the future. Ultimately, you may need to disable "sleep" on your external drive (if possible).

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