# Tivo just deleted almost half of all my shows. Upset



## leiff (Aug 24, 2005)

I was trying to move a 2 hr tivo show back from my PC back to tivo using tivo desktop software. At this point my hardrive capacity on Tivo was at %90 full. I tried to play the vido from my tivo while it was being transfered and I would only get audio. I know tivo roamio on my gig network should be able to transfer fast enough for me to watch real time so I knew something was wrong. I stopped the transfer. went back to my shows list and now my capacity reads %70 and a ton of my shows have been deleted and in the recently deleted folder there is nada! WTF! Anyway to get my shows back?


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## leiff (Aug 24, 2005)

I went to my PC and I see the Tivo show I was trying to send back to the Tivo also wont playback correctly on PC. This is not so unusual for me. For whatever reason occasionally my tivo shows wont transfer correctly to my PC, I dont know if this is the reason for tivo to delete all my shows though! And there not even in my recently deleted folder! pissed! Guess Ill call Tivo tomorrow to complain. Dont suppose anyone's heard of this before.


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## leiff (Aug 24, 2005)

At least I can find a list of the shows Tivo deleted by going to history and press red button to show deleted but as I feared there is no option to recover any of them. Tivo permanently deleted about 30 shows 30 hrs of content all within 60 seconds! I was hoping thre was a way to retrieve them since my DVR capacity only shows %70 now unless tivo re-wrote over them with empty space? Maybe take drive out and plug in into PC to retrieve the erased shows?


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

One time months ago, I found a significant amount of shows deleted. However, they were all in the recently deleted folder so I could restore them.


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## leiff (Aug 24, 2005)

no such luck for me unfortunately. Can you tell me did your shows also get deleted when trying to transfer a show from your PC to your tivo?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

My guess... The header on the TiVo file is corrupt and misrepresented the size of the file when you started transferring it. This caused the TiVo to think it needed to make space to hold this new show so it deleted a bunch of your oldest recordings to make room.


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## leiff (Aug 24, 2005)

In that case I better make sure any tivo shows I transfer to my PC are able to play correctly on PC before transferring back to Tivo. Anyone else get sporadic failed transfers with tivo desktop? I find when a show fails it never helps to re-try the same show. It will always fail. And when I say fail I dont mean it doesnt report transfer fail, I mean when I try to play on PC it fails to play. Sometimes plays with audio only. I also find some cable channels are more prone to these transfer fails than others.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Try going into the settings and unchecking the "uses fastest method...." setting. That will force TiVo Desktop to download in the older PS for at rather then the newer TS format. Sometimes using the other format will help for problem files.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

leiff said:


> In that case I better make sure any tivo shows I transfer to my PC are able to play correctly on PC before transferring back to Tivo. Anyone else get sporadic failed transfers with tivo desktop? I find when a show fails it never helps to re-try the same show. It will always fail.


I transfer shows frequently and used to have a failure or timeout a lot. I transfer between a basic Premiere and basic Roamio. Also I use an older laptop that runs Desktop and I use it to archive movies for "dry spells" and it has a USB external drive. It is rather slow and doesn't have the horsepower to play a stored HD TV show. And then I decided to upgrade a few things. I added a 802.11ac USB adapter to the laptop and bought a really good router. The Premiere is wired but the laptop and Roamio are on a different floor and wireless. With everything now running on the 5G band and 30% to 50% faster, I have no problems moving things around. There are tools, like inSSIDer, that can show you if there is interference on your wifi channel and I was able to move the channel used. I guess for 802.11n the world defaults to channel 6. Moving to channel 1 helped some, but the big change was moving to 5G. Just changing the router gave me a 30% increase with Desktop transfers. Sorry you lost stored shows, but TiVo doesn't delete things unless it has to. It doesn't even put a yellow dot warning on My Shows unless it has to. Good luck. Perhaps Desktop could use an upgrade. It's been a while.


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## leiff (Aug 24, 2005)

Has to right! Im sure it had to erase %30 of my hardrive in order to transfer over a 9 GB 2 hr show. I wonder had I not cancelled transfer of the problematic show if my entire drive would have been wiped. Thanks for suggestions but My desktop PC and network are all gigabit hardwired


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Do you have a lot of "keep until I delete" (green circle) recordings? Perversely, I've found that this is a good way to get unintentional deletion when the TiVo is trying to make space.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

Dan203 said:


> My guess... The header on the TiVo file is corrupt and misrepresented the size of the file when you started transferring it. This caused the TiVo to think it needed to make space to hold this new show so it deleted a bunch of your oldest recordings to make room.


I wonder if this could somehow be related to the problem discussed in this short thread: Strange duration on recorded program


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

leiff said:


> no such luck for me unfortunately. Can you tell me did your shows also get deleted when trying to transfer a show from your PC to your tivo?


I'm pretty sure there was nothing like that going on. It just happened.


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## abovethesink (Aug 26, 2013)

This happened to me once too. Never figured it out.


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## abovethesink (Aug 26, 2013)

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=519690

Thread with others having the problem from a while back.


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## leiff (Aug 24, 2005)

thanks for the link, read it, though I'm not sure its the same that happened to me.
now something else: last night right after this happened I could go into the history and at least be able to see what the deleted shows were (TiVo deleted about 30 shows all at once last night) As of this morning the 30 shows TiVo deleted last night are no longer in the history


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## leiff (Aug 24, 2005)

someone in the other thread suggested that clear program information and to do list might recover missing shows. My question is what exactly does this do as I read it and understand it it only deletes single manual recordings from the to do list and that's all is that correct? if so I might try this but is there first an easy way to deterrmin what in my to do list is not a season pass so I can reschedule these?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yes. It clears out all the guide data and the To Do list, but leaves your SPs so those will repopulate the To Do list once it's all done. So all you'll lose is the one off recordings you had scheduled.


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## NorthAlabama (Apr 19, 2012)

leiff said:


> someone in the other thread suggested that clear program information and to do list might recover missing shows. My question is what exactly does this do...


i've never heard clearing program info & to do list restoring deleted shows, but the step normally wouldn't hurt anything (other than waste your time).

if you are having issues other than deleted recordings, this step might help.


> as I read it and understand it it only deletes single manual recordings from the to do list and that's all is that correct??


no, it clears all the program info and the entire to do list. after completing the process and re-connecting, the data will eventually be restored, along with your one-time scheduled recordings, if all goes well. it should leave your season passes in place.


> if so I might try this but is there first an easy way to deterrmin what in my to do list is not a season pass so I can reschedule these?


tivo auto-scheduled season pass episodes have 2 checks in front of the title in the to do list, one-time recordings or modified episodes have only 1 check.


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## NorthAlabama (Apr 19, 2012)

Dan203 said:


> So all you'll lose is the one off recordings you had scheduled.


i've done this several times in the past few weeks for other issues, and my one-time recordings have always been restored when its done, this might be a new feature.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

NorthAlabama said:


> i've done this several times in the past few weeks for other issues, and my one-time recordings have always been restored when its done, this might be a new feature.


Oh that's cool. I wasn't 100% sure. I don't do many one off recordings, so the few times I've done this clear I don't think there were any to restore. I just assumed based on the description that it would nuke one off recordings.


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

NorthAlabama said:


> i've done this several times in the past few weeks for other issues, and my one-time recordings have always been restored when its done, this might be a new feature.


We had discussed this in the past...

Yes it is something new, that I have no idea which update "fixed" the loss of 1-checkmark one-off recordings in the TDL. They used to be lost, and used to require adding them back in (which could be hard, if you hadn't made a list of them, prior to doing a CPI&TDL). TiVos older than the Premiere still operate in a different manner, which I am pretty certain doesn't included repopulating anything (except the guide data).

One thing all should be aware of, on all platforms, is that all the history/historical data of the TiVo is cleared, and gone forever (only new history will appear, as it becomes history). There will also be a reset of the way a TiVo excludes repeats on "New/FRO" SPs. This will result in repeats being scheduled and recorded for awhile, which could cause conflicts with true New/FRO scheduling entries, with repeats bumping New/FRO out as "conflicts". The impact can be somewhat mitigated by insuring the channels that tend to never/almost-never broadcast repeats, at the top of the SPM list, and the repeat mongers at the bottom.

*Re: RD folder items coming back into the NPL after a CPI&TDL operation:*

Every time I have ever run CPI&TDL on any of my 3 base Roamios, without clearing out my RD folder, the contents of the RD folder have found their way back into the NPL. This has sometimes caused a ~60% full drive to wind up at ~95-98% full, which can come with it's own perils, if not quickly taken care of.

*It has never once recovered anything not listed in RD*, as the subject the OP started the thread off with. But, the part where the OP would lose his history, showing what he had lost, would be a reason not to use it, until after snapping a picture of the list with a camera/phone, or writing a list.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Was it a HD recording?

While I haven't seen "almost half" of my shows go, at least on previous versions of the Tivo software, when I tried to move BIG shows back to my Premiere, it seemed to wAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY overestimate how big it would really be, and it seems to "delete beforehand", rather than deleting just as it needs space.


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