# Big Bang Theory Season Pass quit functioning



## rgreenpc (Mar 10, 2004)

I just got my Roamio and setup a pass for The Big Bang Theory and noticed that the episode this week didn't record. 

I looked at the season pass, and it was set to the correct channel and new only... I deleted the pass and set it up again and now the episodes upcoming are listed.

Any ideas why that could have happened?


Luckily we have Comcast VOD so we were able to watch, but a very unhappy wife.


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## Grakthis (Oct 4, 2006)

It did that to try and save you from having to watch the Big Bang Theory.


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## rgreenpc (Mar 10, 2004)

Grakthis said:


> It did that to try and save you from having to watch the Big Bang Theory.


Yeah... you explain that to my wife. I will get the icepack ready.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Do you have TWC? Did you recently get the huge lineup change? If so, none of the season passes for the "HD" channels will work anymore.

Other than that, there is nothing wrong with the season pass as mine recorded just fine.


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## 59er (Mar 27, 2008)

Did you check your History list to see why it didn't record (or if the episode wasn't listed there) before you canceled the old SP?


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Do you still have guide data for Monday Night? If so, check the accuracy of that also.


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## rgreenpc (Mar 10, 2004)

Thanks all I haven't had a Tivo since the DIrecTIVO many moons ago.... 

Checked the guide data and it was there, and the History shows nothing... very odd.

I am on Comcast and the channel lineup hasn't changed that I have seen


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## JandS (Oct 1, 2010)

We're on Comcast as well. We also had a Season Pass-ed show not record on Tuesday. This SP has worked flawlessly for the past 4-5 years, across multiple Tivo models.

We found that the Guide Data did not have the "new" flag on the show, which is one of our SP criteria (record new only) so that the other 2 airings of this show the same night are not recorded. The History showed that it was not recorded "because it was not new". Another SP on the same network immediately after the problem one did have the new flag and it recorded perfectly.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

What does the new flag look like?


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## JZC (Jul 24, 2007)

I didn't have any problems with my Big Bang Theory season pass on Monday but I did have two other season pass shows that didn't record that same day. I checked the season pass history and it indicated those episodes as "duplicate" even though they are daily news shows. I think it was simply bad guide data. Those season passes have been working fine since then.


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## JandS (Oct 1, 2010)

In the show title bar in the top section of the HD guide, there's a blue "NEW" square icon underneath the title, at the very left, to the left of the HD square icon.

In the HD guide, on the left-hand section, there's a blue "NEW" square to the right of the title. On the right-hand section the same "NEW" square is similarly after the title. 

In this specific case there's a block of 3 shows that we record. Most of the shows repeat twice or more nightly, for example 6pm and 9pm, and then again at 1am.

The 6pm and 9pm listings always have the new flag, the 1am does not.

Scrolling "backward" (up) in the guide shows that the Monday night shows have their correct "new" flags, but none of Tuesday's shows have the new flags. Wednesday (today) is back to correctly displaying the flags.

Oddly, though, I just realized that the second show on Tues did record correctly, even though it didn't have a new flag.

gong down the rabbit hole right now.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Ah, thanks. The new flag was there for me for BBT. (On FiOS) but I wouldn't think it would matter what cable system you're on. I would think CBS would send the data to Tribune Media.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

It doesn't use the "new" flag to decide whether something is new or not; the original air date is what determines when to record for a "New Only" season pass. That way if the first episode is missed because there is a conflict or the TiVo is offline, a subsequent episode broadcast within a short period of time will be recorded. (For this reason season passes for cable and premium shows that will be broadcast multiple times should be placed at a lower priority than network season passes.)

There is some controversy over exactly how long that "short period" actually is. tivo.com says it's the same day, but it is well known that is false (and easily tested). I've had people say 7 days, 14 days and 28 days; I've experimented and determined that it's at least longer than 7 days. It's harder to come up with a test case in the range 15-28 days but I've seen some indication that those recordings are not considered "new" for the purposes of a season pass.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

ej42137 said:


> It doesn't use the "new" flag to decide whether something is new or not; the original air date is what determines when to record for a "New Only" season pass. That way if the first episode is missed because there is a conflict or the TiVo is offline, a subsequent episode broadcast within a short period of time will be recorded. (For this reason season passes for cable and premium shows that will be broadcast multiple times should be placed at a lower priority than network season passes.)
> 
> There is some controversy over exactly how long that "short period" actually is. tivo.com says it's the same day, but it is well known that is false (and easily tested). I've people say 7 days, 14 days and 28 days; I've experimented and determined that it's at least longer than 7 days. It's harder to come up with a test case in the range 15-28 days but I've seen some indication that those recordings are not considered "new" for the purposes of a season pass.


New Only episodes should record if they haven't already and they are within 28 days of their original air date. After that they should not record again.

New & Reruns episodes should record if they haven't recorded within the last 28 days and they aren't in My Shows or Recently Deleted (I think) or certain history categories (deleted, canceled). But if completely missed (conflict, channel off air, TiVo powered off, whatever), such an episode should be rescheduled within a few hours, maybe less. OTOH, I have seen a few strange cases where something inexplicably failed to record, and I'm trying to decide whether there's some way that the scheduling algorithm can see a show on my _other_ TiVo and decide not to record, or if it's just a scheduling bug. OP: Do you have multiple TiVos networked?


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

L David Matheny said:


> New Only episodes should record if they haven't already and they are within 28 days of their original air date. After that they should not record again.
> 
> New & Reruns episodes should record if they haven't recorded within the last 28 days and they aren't in My Shows or Recently Deleted (I think) or certain history categories (deleted, canceled). But if completely missed (conflict, channel off air, TiVo powered off, whatever), such an episode should be rescheduled within a few hours, maybe less. OTOH, I have seen a few strange cases where something inexplicably failed to record, and I'm trying to decide whether there's some way that the scheduling algorithm can see a show on my _other_ TiVo and decide not to record, or if it's just a scheduling bug. OP: Do you have multiple TiVos networked?


If a show was in the now playing list within the last 28 days it won't be re-recorded. So if it was deleted 27 days ago and is on the schedule for today, it won't record regardless of when or if it has been removed from the recently deleted folder. TiVo remembers what has been in the now playing list for 28 days.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

waynomo said:


> If a show was in the now playing list within the last 28 days it won't be re-recorded. So if it was deleted 27 days ago and is on the schedule for today, it won't record regardless of when or if it has been removed from the recently deleted folder. TiVo remembers what has been in the now playing list for 28 days.


Yes, if an episode was deleted 27 days ago, it will be shown in the recording history as having been (recorded and) deleted, so it won't be recorded again. Similarly, if the user canceled any showing of an episode (within the last 28-days), that will be indicated in history, so it also won't be recorded.


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## 59er (Mar 27, 2008)

My SP for The Rachel Maddow Show failed to record one episode this week (Tuesday, I think). The guide data listed the original air date as 10/14/13 instead of 10/14/14.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

Sometimes (especially at the beginning of a new season) shows wind up with their title spelled differently. I remember the guide data for "The Sports Reporters" was just "Sports Reporters" when I made a season pass, then it suddenly stopped recording, and after much confusion, I found the guide data had changed to calling it "The Sports Reporters".


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

The guide data for BBT was correct as it recorded on two separate TiVos (set to New only).


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

ej42137 said:


> It doesn't use the "new" flag to decide whether something is new or not; the original air date is what determines when to record for a "New Only" season pass. That way if the first episode is missed because there is a conflict or the TiVo is offline, a subsequent episode broadcast within a short period of time will be recorded. (For this reason season passes for cable and premium shows that will be broadcast multiple times should be placed at a lower priority than network season passes.)
> 
> There is some controversy over exactly how long that "short period" actually is. tivo.com says it's the same day, but it is well known that is false (and easily tested). I've had people say 7 days, 14 days and 28 days; I've experimented and determined that it's at least longer than 7 days. It's harder to come up with a test case in the range 15-28 days but I've seen some indication that those recordings are not considered "new" for the purposes of a season pass.


Last time I tested it was way back on a series 2 DirecTV TiVo. I found an episode (on Disney channel, as I recall) that had a zillion repeat airing and kept scheduling conflicts day by day until it _finally_ stopped getting rescheduled.

But back then, on that box, it would retry for at least 27 days. (IIRC there wasn't a showing on day 28; my recollection is that it did schedule it to record on day 27 but did not on day 29)

They _might_ have changed it over the years, but I can't be bothered to redo the test. Forcing 20+ 4 or 6 way conflicts to bump it out is even more annoying that having to do 2 way conflicts.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

After I wrote the above message a marathon of "Manhattan" was scheduled; I was able to determine that 28 days is indeed the correct period of time an episode is considered new. (Or at least eliminate 7 days and 14 days as possibilities.)

When I created a "new only" season pass an episode that would have been 28 days old was not scheduled but episodes 21 days old and less were scheduled for recording. This was true both on a TiVo S3 running release 11.0m and on a Premiere running 20.4.4a.


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