[mythtv-users] Auto-expire only deletes recent recordings

[Michael T. Dean]

  On 10/27/2010 07:31 PM, Chris Dennis wrote:
> My MythTV backend is only auto-expiring recent programs, despite the 
> fact that there are expirable programs going back several months.
>
> Until a few weeks ago, it wasn't expiring anything.  That turned out 
> to be because my recordings directory was correctly defined as 
> /data2/recordings, but I also had a symbolic link from 
> /var/lib/mythtv/recordings to /data2/recordings.  It was following the 
> linked route to the files, and for some reason failing to delete them.
>
> Without the link, it's expiring programs again, but only ones from the 
> last three weeks.
>
> 'mythbackend --printexpire' gives this (edited to avoid wrapping):
>
> MythTV AutoExpire List (programs listed in order of expiration)
> BBC News                        812 MB Wed Oct 27 18:00:00 2010 [  0]
> South Today                     109 MB Wed Oct 27 18:30:00 2010 [  0]
> The One Show                   1025 MB Wed Oct 27 19:00:00 2010 [  0]
> Grand Designs: "series 10"     1583 MB Wed Oct 27 21:00:00 2010 [  0]
> Discovery: "The Vaccine D..."   419 MB Wed Oct 6 10:30:00 2010  [  0]
> Strictly Come Dancing: It ..." 2399 MB Wed Oct 6 18:30:00 2010  [  0]
> Waterloo Road: "series 6"      4180 MB Wed Oct 6 20:00:00 2010  [  0]
> Midsomer Murders: "Master ..." 2521 MB Wed Oct 6 20:00:00 2010  [  0]
> Midsomer Murders: "Master ..."  246 MB Wed Oct 6 20:00:00 2010  [  0]
> Reggie Perrin: "series 1"      2332 MB Wed Oct 6 22:45:00 2010  [  0]
> Hill Street Blues: "Invasi..." 1668 MB Thu Oct 7 04:20:00 2010  [  0]
>
> There are many older candidates for auto-expiry which are being ignored.
>
> "Auto-expire method" is set to "Oldest show first".
> "Watched before unwatched" is "yes"  (same result with "no")
> "Auto-expire instead of deleting" is "no"
>
> I'm running branches/release-0-23-fixes 24158 on Ubuntu 10.04.
>
> Can anyone suggest a fix?

Start with http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/7936#comment:19

Carefully check your storage groups and storage group directories to 
ensure they're valid.

Remember that autoexpire /only/ happens on file systems that are being 
used for in-progress recordings--so if your system is constantly 
recording to the same file system and if all the autoexpirable "old" 
recordings exist on other file systems, only new recordings will be 
expired.  See, also, http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Storage_Groups and 
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Storage_Groups#Storage_Group_Disk_Scheduler 
for information on how the recording directory is chosen.

Mike