[mythtv-users] strange order of expiry

[Michael T. Dean]

On 10/19/2017 04:54 PM, Mike Holden wrote:
> On 20 October 2017 at 00:16, Brian J. Murrell <brian at interlinx.bc.ca> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 2017-10-18 at 16:44 -0400, Michael T. Dean wrote:
>>> Right.  That's why the "Weighted time/priority combination" method
>>> exists--so you can have it delete your oldest ones first, but prefer
>>> deleting a "slightly" newer recording if its record priority
>>> (importance/value to you) is lower.  Slightly in quotes because you
>>> can
>>> make slightly pretty huge with the priority weight.
>> Sure.  But if I set "Lowest priority first" *and* unselect Watched
>> before unwatched I'd expect *all* of my -5 priority shows to be deleted
>> before 0 priority, regardless of watched status.
>>
>> But that's not what I get:
>>
>> MythTV AutoExpire List (programs listed in order of expiration)
>> "The National"                           1263 MB 2017-10-13T07:59:00Z
>>   [ -5]
>> "The National"                           1241 MB 2017-10-13T09:00:00Z
>>   [ -5]
>> "The National"                           1260 MB 2017-10-13T06:00:00Z
>>   [ -5]
>> "The National"                           1240 MB 2017-10-14T03:00:00Z
>>   [ -5]
>> "The National"                           1262 MB 2017-10-14T01:59:00Z
>>   [ -5]
>> "Grey's Anatomy":"Break Down the House;  1211 MB 2017-09-29T00:00:00Z
>>   [  0]
>> "Grey's Anatomy":"Go Big or Go Home"      977 MB 2017-10-06T00:00:00Z
>>   [  0]
>> "Madam Secretary":"News Cycle"           1737 MB 2017-10-09T02:00:00Z
>>   [  0]
>> "The National"                           1241 MB 2017-10-14T05:00:00Z
>>   [ -5]
>> "The National"                           1241 MB 2017-10-12T04:00:00Z
>>   [ -5]
>> "The National"                           1239 MB 2017-10-13T04:00:00Z
>>   [ -5]
>> "The National"                           1239 MB 2017-10-14T04:00:00Z
>>   [ -5]
>> "The National"                           1240 MB 2017-10-11T04:00:00Z
>>   [ -5]
>> "The National"                           1241 MB 2017-10-10T04:00:00Z
>>   [ -5]
>> "The National"                           1240 MB 2017-10-06T04:00:00Z
>>   [ -5]
>> "The National"                           1240 MB 2017-10-04T04:00:00Z
>>   [ -5]
>> "The National"                           1240 MB 2017-10-03T04:00:00Z
>>   [ -5]
>>
>> So I must still be misunderstanding something.
> Are all the files in the same Storage Group?

He had previously mentioned that they're all in Deleted group.

>   If you have multiple, one may
> require free space more urgently than the other?

I think, here, you mean multiple file systems (as opposed to Storage 
Groups), but the Autoexpire List doesn't take into account file system 
space (since the files could exist on any of many file systems and may 
be moved at any time)--instead it's the "preferred" order of deletion of 
recording files.  When an actual recording begins and MythTV determines 
that space is required on the file system to which it's recording, it 
goes through the recordings on the Autoexpire list until it finds the 
first (most-preferred) one that exists on the file system in question.

I just got a chance to actually look at the code, and the reason MythTV 
is preferring deletion in an order different from that specified by the 
autoexpire settings is due to the fact that these recordings aren't 
truly "autoexpiring"--in that they're not recordings MythTV is removing 
from the system without user request. Instead, because they're all 
Deleted recordings, they're just recordings that the user has already 
deleted whose space isn't yet needed, so they're being kept until the 
space is required.  In the case of Deleted recordings, they're removed 
in first-in-first-out order (in other words, in the order in which they 
were deleted by the user).

Mike