WMC keeps telling me recordings failed... but they didn't

[Woland]

Has anyone run into this problem:

Media Center on my Windows 7 HTPC with an InfniTV 6 ETH displays a message for every recording claiming that the recording failed. I haven't had a single recording fail, though. It will either say that that there was no signal or that a tuner was not available. It will display this message even as it begins recording the show.

This is mostly a nuisance, rather than a real problem, because I just need to cancel out of the displayed message. It is quite the nuisance, though, as I need to hit cancel multiple times per recording--if I record three things, I will have to hit cancel around 9 times before Media Center stops flashing the message box.

[adam1991]

It's telling you that as it went to use a tuner, that tuner was not available.

Of course, it went on to the next tuner in line, but it still gave you the error message on the original tuner.

It sounds to me like the ITV isn't making itself available to WMC until WMC is up to asking for a tuner for the fourth time. You should ask yourself, why is that? Is it a failure of the ITV? Or of the network? Or maybe you have an SDV adapter that's going slowly and isn't presenting any signal to the ITV for some period of time, which means nothing for the ITV to tune to?

[DSperber]

Try a power-off/power-on cold re-boot, of both PC and the external Ceton tuner. If you have a tuning adapter as well, power that off/on as well. Restabilize everything.

As was pointed out, if you look in WMC's Recorded TV -> Scheduled -> History, you'll see that probably Tuner1 was not available, and then you'll see the program was actually recorded by Tuner2. So it looks to you like all programs are recorded and available, though there was this problem getting started to do the recording.

Very often the power-off/power-on recycle will clear things up.

[russds]

I've had this problem too, and I think sometimes the issue is timing, if you have a recording starting 2 minutes early for example, and a show is just ending. WMC isn't smart enough to know the same show on the same channel, so it tries a different tuner. With this overlap happening, and if your watching a another tuner, the tuners quickly get used up, and you get the error message. The recording works fine though, because as the one tuner finishes recording the new one can start fine. So you basically just get that error message, because as that exact time there wasn't a tuner available. Not sure if that's your case, but I see this error a lot too, and I think that's the reason.

[mdavej]

I've had exactly the same issue for years, but never found a solution either. It is an nuisance. I think it will ultimately come down to changing some time delay in the registry, but who knows. I've asked Ceton several times, but they won't ever answer the question. If you do find a solution, please post back.

[woolooloo]

I think it is timing out on the tuner before it actually locks onto the channel. It happened to me all the time when I had an InfiniTV4, probably every day or two. Channel changes with the HD Homerun Prime I switched to are much faster and now I only see it every month or so.

[Woland]

Hi all,

Thanks for the input. My tuning adapter is pretty flaky, so that might be it. Hopefully, I'll have some free time in the next week or so to try to troubleshoot it.

[barnabas1969]

If you see this problem on switched channels (SDV), then you need to look at the signal strength (power) and SNR (S/N or quality) of the Tuning Adapter (TA, or Tuning Resolver). There are pages in your tuner's built-in web pages where you can look at the TA's signals.

The FDC (Forward Data Channel, or receive) signal strength should be as close to zero as possible, but +/- 10dB is OK. The FDC SNR (S/N) should be 35 or higher. The RDC (Return Data Channel, or transmit) power should be 25-50dB, with the sweet spot being 35-40. The RDC is VERY IMPORTANT. If it is 50 or higher, the performance of the TA will be hit or miss.

Of course, your signal strength and SNR on your tuner need to be good too. The strength should be as close to zero as possible, and the SNR should be 35 or higher for best results.

The tuner's signal strength/SNR will vary due to weather conditions, outdoor temperature, and signal frequency. Typically, the higher frequencies will have lower strength/SNR. Keep in mind that it is possible for higher channel numbers to use lower frequencies than lower channels, and vice versa.

[Whiznot]

With an HD Homerun Prime I used to have this problem when I was watching a live program on one tuner with the QuickTV app. Windows 7 would try to record with the tuner that QuickTV used but fail and report an error but the program would move to an available tuner and record correctly. Windows 7 failed to account for the QuickTV program. I now avoid that problem by using WMC for live viewing.