[mythtv-users] MythTV recording extra time *randomly*

[Michael T. Dean]

On 02/23/2009 11:29 AM, Misty P wrote:
> I'm having a bit of a strange occurance with mythtv, and was wondering 
> if anyone had seen this before.
>
> Occasionally MythTV will decide to add extra time onto my recordings, 
> seemingly at random.
>
> For example, I recorded My Name is Earl (I know, I know...  the wife 
> likes it) last week.  It was scheduled to be on from 7:00 - 7:30 PM 
> CST.  The guide showed it at 7:00 - 7:30 PM, and the info that myth tv 
> shows when you select the recording said 7:00 - 7:30 PM as well.  But 
> for some unknown reason, MythTV *actually* recorded from 6:59 - 7:56 
> PM!  (Yes, twenty-six minutes after the end time, and captured twenty 
> minutes of the drek that follows Earl.)
>
> I have a soft start early at one minute, and soft end late at one 
> minute. The recording rule has no hard start/end early.  There weren't 
> any conflicts (heck I had a tuner idle during that time even).
>
> Anyone have any ideas?  I don't even know where to begin trying to 
> sort this problem out, so any and all suggestions are welcome!

If you're certain there are no start early/end late minutes on the Earl 
recording rule, that means that you have a different rule that's 
matching instead of the one you think is matching.

Delete the Earl rule ("Do not record"), then see if it's still scheduled 
to record.  If so, find the rule that's matching it and fix it.  If not, 
then re-add the rule.  It will likely record properly (meaning that the 
other rule had some start early/end late settings).

If with the new rule, it still records wrongly, it's probably either a) 
EIT data that's messing with the listings at the last minute or whatever 
or b) broken clock/timing on your system--use NTP and make sure you 
don't get strange things like, "Clocksource: tsc unstable," or some 
other telltale sign of broken timing on your system.

> (I've also seen mythTV record *less* than the show length, but never 
> seems to miss any of the actual *show*.  I've been a bit perplexed as 
> to how that's possible too, but it wasn't so bad so I ignored it.  But 
> 26 minutes over is a bit excessive!) 

I'm guessing you're thinking it's recording less because when you play 
back the 1-hr show, the OSD says "01:20 of 50:14" or something.  If so, 
that's just a display-related bug that affects the calculation of the 
duration of the show--it actually recorded for the whole time.  It's 
also /extremely/ low priority to fix because it's a huge fix with a 
small benefit.

Mike