[mythtv-users] Undelete a show marked for deletion by mistake?

[Stephen Worthington]

On Fri, 16 Dec 2022 23:22:29 -0500, you wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I've deleted a show by mistake.  I know mythtv doesn't delete tha actual
>file immediately, so I went to the directory and copied it right away,
>but now I have a file that I can only play outside of mythtv, with
>smplayer for instance.
>
>I've gone to the previously recorded section and found it but there is
>no option in the menu to undelete it. Somehow I found an option
>somewhere to allow re-recording it, but that won't help if it's never
>re-broadcast.
>
>Is there a way to tell mythtv (v31 from deb-multimedia on debiqn
>stable) to undelete a show.  I probably won't get a reply before mythtv
>deletes this partucular show, so is there some way to re-input the file
>into mythtv later?
>
>Thanks.
>
>Augustine

To undelete go to Watch Recordings, then M(enu) > Change Group Filter
> Deleted

From the list of deleted recordings, select one and M(enu) > Undelete.

When finished undeleting, go to the left column and from there M(enu)
> Change Group Filter > All Programmes.

If you are running with the default settings, it normally takes about
15 minutes for things to be actually deleted.

There is no way to recover the database for a recording file that has
been orphaned, unless you have a backup of the database and can
recover it from there, or you have previously run mythexport on it to
save its database entries to a .sql file.  So you just have to put the
orphaned recording file into your Videos library and play it from
there.

If you do want to recover the database entries for a recording from a
database backup, I would recommend installing the same version of
MythTV on a virtual machine and restoring the database there.  Then
you can manually export the data using the mysql command line, or
install mythexport and use that to select that recording and export
its data.  Then put a copy of mythimport on your main MythTV box and
get it to import the orphan recording and its data.

There is a lot of work involved in all that, so you probably will not
want to do it - just having an orphaned recordings directory under
Videos is fine.  When I have an orphaned recording like that where it
is part of a series, I usually edit the Description for the next
episode after that one to say to watch the orphaned file first: Watch
Recordings > select the next recording in the series > M(enu) >
Recording Options > Change Recording Metadata.