Recording same episode more than once

[Space]

Gary,

This is not necessarily related to the guide data and EPG123, but there may be a way to workaround the problem, so I figured I post this, since it is currently happening in my guide.

This has always been a bug in WMC, but it's not clear why it happens.

The problem is that episodes of a program for which I have a Series are in the guide as generic, so they are scheduled to record (8pm and 12am the next day). However, sometime later, the guide is updated and episode specific information is added to those two generic episodes. Both of the episodes are the same episode, however WMC still has both scheduled to record, even though it should only record one of them. If you tell WMC to "do not record" one of them, the other episode remains scheduled to record.

This is strange in that if you tell WMC to "do not record" an episode, it apparently adds that episode to the list of episodes to not record for the Series, and if you do that, it should not record that episode in the future. However, it still keeps the other airing of that episode as scheduled to record.

I've noticed this has happened this week, and next week, and might also happen the week after that, based on the current guide status, for this show on TLC: "7 Little Johnstons".

If I look in my current guide, the episode airing now (8pm) and the episode airing at 12am are both scheduled to record. If I look on next Tuesday (2/9), I see the same thing (episodes have episode specific data). If I then look at the third week out (2/16), I see the same thing again, however the episodes here are currently with generic data (so should currently be scheduled to record).

I suspect that when the 2/16 episode gets episode specific data, both will remain as scheduled to record (although I can't be certain).

Perhaps this can be monitored and the database can be checked after this occurs to see why it might be happening. It is doubtful that it is due to bad guide data, but perhaps something else can be done to modify the WMC DB to keep this from happening (similar to the VerifyLoad routine).

I understand that this may be outside the purview of EPG123, so I completely understand if you don't want to spend time on it, I just wanted to bring it up, since it seems to be a perfect storm with this show right now, and it seems to be hard to catch this before/while it happens.

[Space]

FYI:
The 2/16 episode was updated with specific information (I believe yesterday) and as expected, both episodes (8pm & midnight EST) are scheduled to record even though they are the same episode.

[garyan2]

Have you ever let it go without telling it 'do not record' and see if it actually goes through with the second recording? I suspect it will, but I don't know.

[Space]

Yes, it records both of them.

It's as if WMC doesn't consider them the same episode for some reason. There can also be more than two copies of the episode that will record, but there can also be episodes that are not set to record (I assume they are added to the guide after episode specific data is added, but I'm not sure about this).

[unclebun]

This behavior has little to nothing to do with WMC and EPG123. We see it every week with shows on FoodTV. For example, The Kitchen airs first on Saturday morning, and then repeats on Sunday. The Sunday airing is never listed as a repeat show in the guide, and in fact has a completely different beginning to the description. Therefore it always gets recorded twice. I have found no way to change the recording behavior, and I doubt there is, since the guide information indicates to WMC that it's not a repeat airing and it has a different episode description. We just delete the second recording after the fact.

[garyan2]

I don't think Space is implying that this is an EPG123 issue, but asking if EPG123 could possibly help address this quirk with WMC and the PVR logic, like I am for the schedule entry updates during the VerifyLoad process.

I've given it some thought, but right now the only thing I am willing to do is add something to the Transfer Tool (I should probably rename this since it has grown a bit in functionality) to show the currently scheduled recordings. I have to do quite a bit of research to see if I can determine why it would not remove the second showing from a scheduled recording back to a potential. I am wary of actually having EPG123 do anything to the recordings already scheduled automatically... too much risk without a complete understanding of the PVR logic as it pertains to the request settings. So really, what this would provide would be exactly what WMC will provide if you look at the list of scheduled recordings, but I may be able to allow the user to selectively change a scheduled recording to a potential recording.

[Space]

...
We see it every week with shows on FoodTV. For example, The Kitchen airs first on Saturday morning, and then repeats on Sunday. The Sunday airing is never listed as a repeat show in the guide, and in fact has a completely different beginning to the description.
...

Also, this does not seem to be the same problem. If the two airings have a different description, then they are most likely not considered the same episode. It may be an "enhanced" version of the episode, for instance.

Many shows actually re-air episodes with "bonus content" later in the week (this is often done with "reality" type shows), this is usually replacing content that was shown in the initial airing with different content. In most cases this does not result in different guide data, and the episodes are considered the same, but in other cases, they make a whole new program ID for the "bonus content" episode, or in some cases create a whole new series ID for it.

My specific issue is where the exact same episode (same program ID in the guide) is scheduled to record twice.

EDIT: I looked up "The Kitchen" and from what I can see in the guide, a new episode airs on Saturday morning, and then does not re-air at all. All other airings during the week are repeats of different episodes from different seasons. You should be able to not record all those repeats by setting your Series to record "New" only instead of "New & Rerun".

https://tvlistings.zap2it.com/overview. ... aid=gapzap

[unclebun]

...
We see it every week with shows on FoodTV. For example, The Kitchen airs first on Saturday morning, and then repeats on Sunday. The Sunday airing is never listed as a repeat show in the guide, and in fact has a completely different beginning to the description.
...

EDIT: I looked up "The Kitchen" and from what I can see in the guide, a new episode airs on Saturday morning, and then does not re-air at all. All other airings during the week are repeats of different episodes from different seasons. You should be able to not record all those repeats by setting your Series to record "New" only instead of "New & Rerun".

https://tvlistings.zap2it.com/overview. ... aid=gapzap

Now that FoodTV has more shows filming, they don't re-air The Kitchen on Sunday morning. The behavior I described was during the height of the COVID time. It was the exact same program re-airing on Sunday, but the way they started the episode description was different. No changes to the program, no enhancements.

We have our recording set to New programs only and always have. The program would record both episodes because there was a variation in the episode name, but it was the exact same program. I don't think you can stop that.

[garyan2]

If there was a variation in the title, then the 2 programs definitely had different program IDs and therefore considered 2 different programs by WMC. If they were the same program ID, then everything would necessarily be the same as well.

[unclebun]

This week's Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives recorded twice on the same night, about 2 hours apart. Both have the same episode description, and the second one is not marked as a repeat show. I haven't watched it yet to see if maybe the first recording cut off early or something, but both are listed as being 40 minutes.