[mythtv] Strange scheduler bug

[J. Donavan Stanley]

Bruce Markey wrote:

> First, in all of your previous postings, you've referred to
> a "flag" to mark of something as been "watched". You never
> once suggested an option checkbox to indicate if this "watched"
> flagging should or should not be applies. In this message, there
> are several references to it as being optional. I'm not impressed
> by your revisionist responses.
>

I'm sooooo sorry I didn't produce a detailed design document for you to 
review before making any sort of suggestion. I wasn't aware that you 
were incapable of reading between the lines or asking for clarification.

> J. Donavan Stanley wrote:
>
>> Bruce Markey wrote:
>>
>>> J. Donavan Stanley wrote:
>>
>>
>
> As a matter of fact, I don't. I said so before. When I finish
> watching something, I delete it. I periodically look at old
> recordings and delete the things that I realize that I will
> never watch. These are things that I did intend to record at
> the time but now have enough other things that I know I will
> never get around to watching everything. This is by design.

So then don't use the setting.

>
> You, on the other hand, claim that you don't delete things
> even after you've watched then but want auto-expire to eventually
> remove them for you. This makes no sense to me and I can't
> believe that any sizable percentage of myth (or any DVR) users
> would do this. I frankly believe you said this for the sake
> of argument to justify you suggestion.

I have a large number of things that I've got sitting around that I 
*might* want to watch again.  I have large number of things that I've 
not yet gotten around to watching but will when I have time.  Now then, 
if auto expire ever kicks in on my machine (I'm 40G away from that being 
a possibility) I'd rather it delete the things I have watched but left 
there in case I wanted to see it again before it deleted the thing I 
hadn't yet watched.  And if it's going to be recording something because 
it's auto expired I'd rather not deal with recording stuff I've 
watched.  HOWEVER it might be useful for it to rerecord something I 
didn't get a chance to see.

I don't *need* to make things up in order to make my case.  If/when I 
sit down to write the code for the watched flag I could care less if it 
gets included in Myth or not.  If Isaac feels it warrant inclusion he'll 
include it, if not others that *do* think it's useful can apply the 
patch to their own trees. 


>   If you do then the watched logic for expiration wouldn't be for you
>
> Say what? That's backwards. For anyone who deletes things as
> they go they would not have things auto-expired. It would only
> apply to those who do leave things lying around.

How is this backwards, if you delete as you go then you're not going to 
auto expire and thus would have no need for the watched flag and thus 
it's not for you.

> You've said before that you don't delete things after you've
> watched them.Now you're suggesting that things that you're not
> EVER ;-) going to watch should be deleted? 

I've been suggesting the exact opposite the whole time for crying out 
loud.  This is a SIMPLE thing:  Delete things I've watched before 
deleting things I haven't.  I don't have anything recorded that I'm not 
going to watch EVER.

> Am I to infer that you have a recorded list full of things that you've 
> finished
> watching (and waiting for the system to delete them) and you
> carefully look through this list to find that that you haven't
> watched and delete those if you decide you will never get to
> them? 

Yes I have huge recordings list, rather neatly organized into 
categories.  And I do carefully go through this list looking for things 
I haven't watched (which would be a lot easier do do if the system knew 
which ones I'd watched and highlited the ones I hadn't).  If I watch 
something and I feel like I might want to watch it again later or plan 
to archive it to DVD I leave it there, if I know I'm never going to 
watch it again I delete it.  Right now I have something like 135G of 
recordings of my drive.

> Thus clearing more space to store more that you've finished
> with? This is madness! 

The madness is that you fail to understand the simple fact that the 
entire point is to clear out things I HAVE watched so that there is more 
room to store things.

> I can't believe that you, or anyone else
> behaves this way and I sure as heck don't believe a feature
> needs to be added to "help" someone who does. This just seems
> contrived to try to justify your suggestion.

Contrived?  The only thing contrived have been your examples of why a 
watched flag couldn't ever work.  But once it became obvious that you 
hadn't actually thought about how it *could* work before spouting off 
you then continue to attempt to find fault wherever you can.  You might 
try asking for clarification on things you don't understand before 
making groundless assertions.


> and you could choose not to use it.
>
> You've never said that before.

No I implied it.  I guess using word like "could" which implies a choice 
weren't good enough.  But then again, instead of suggesting that it 
should be an option you instead launched into a crusade against the 
idea.  I though it would go without saying that it would be optional.  
It CERTAINLY should have went without saying that it COULD be optional.

>
>>  On the same note, you probably don't want it re-recorded either so that
>
>
> How do you know that? There are valid reasons either way.



> Only based on the insanity above. 

Let me put this another way:  I currently have 170ish GB of drive space, 
therefore if I watch something and think I might want to see it again I 
don't delete it after all there's plenty of disk there.  If I watch 
something and I KNOW I want to keep it I protect it from auto delete.  
Now there's a lot of things that I've not gotten a chance to watch, that 
are quite a bit older than things I have watched.  When my disk DOES get 
full I'll either have to a) intervene to make things not to be auto 
deleted or b) intervene and delete a bunch of stuff by hand.  And I'll 
have to do this every time the disk gets close to full.  BUT if the 
system were to clean out things I had watched, but not marked as 
something I wanted to keep before deleting things I hadn't yet watched I 
wouldn't have to intervene at all.

Thats issue #2.

Issue #1 is:  If the system auto deletes something, and as a consequence 
of that allows it to be re-recorded later that presents scheduling 
problems, and possibly requires me to intervene to delete the recording 
by hand.  BUT if the system were smart enough to say "Hmmm he already 
watched that, I'm not going to let it get rescheduled" or conversely 
"hey, he ran out of disk space before he got a chance to watch this I'll 
go ahead an allow it to be rerecorded" it would make said feature much 
more usefully in my opinion. And how this all got started.

These two things are the sum entirety of what I've been suggesting.  And 
I fail to see how they're "insane".

As far as I'm concerned this conversation is over.  It's pretty clear 
that no matter how I explain things you're going to disagree and/or fail 
to get it once again.