# OnePass bug



## Rowsdower (Dec 11, 2002)

The OnePass feature's introduction seemed helpful, as it meant that my mother could access Amazon Prime videos directly from the familiar "My Shows" list. I now regret encouraging this, given what I just learned.

She'd been looking forward to seeing _Downton Abbey_, which became the first series that she's binge-watched. Unfortunately, she did so without realizing that she'd skipped the ninth episode of both season 2 and season 3. She felt as though pieces of the story were missing, but she couldn't figure out why.

Apparently, because those installments (as well as the ninth episode of season 4) aired as Christmas specials, they're listed _not_ under their respective seasons (as they appear in Amazon's app, and probably Vudu's too), but under "Extra" (which isn't even displayed unless the red "C" button is pressed).

I assume that this is a glitch stemming from some peculiarity in the data that the DVR has been provided. I hope the issue can be addressed. I wish that I'd spotted the problem sooner, as I feel terribly guilty about my mother's _Downton Abbey_ viewing being spoiled (which seems to bother me more than it does her, to be honest).


----------



## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

Doctor Who is ruined in the same way. The Christmas specials (which bridge seasons together and are really important to the story) are listed as extras. This would pretty much ruin the show for a new viewer if they skipped these episodes.


----------



## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

Not a glitch - PBS designed those episodes as specials that exist outside of their respective seasons. Tivo simply represents the seasons as the data presents them. 

Nothing to fix.


----------



## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

bradleys said:


> Not a glitch


If I get a Season Pass or a OnePass to Downton Abbey or Doctor Who on a TV channel, those specials will record in the correct order within the rest of the show recordings, as they should. (As long as I don't order them by season/episode.)

If I go in Netflix or Amazon or VUDU and look at the shows, those episodes are listed in the correct order, as they should.

If I make a OnePass for a streaming show, it takes the shows that should be there and dumps them into an extras section. WRONG.

That's a glitch. Don't care what the data says. It causes you to watch in the wrong order (or just miss important episodes.) That needs to be fixed. Many British shows have Christmas specials that go between the seasons and link them. They are considered part of the running order. When you buy them on DVD, they include that episode in the correct order, with the season's episodes.

Don't tell me it is not a glitch. It sucks, it's broken, and it needs to be fixed.


----------



## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

It isn't either a bug or a glitch - that was my point and I stand by it. It is being presented as designed.

Suggesting that TiVo change the way it presents the data it receives is resonable and I don't necessarily disagree - but it is not a "bug" and it is not "broken"


----------



## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

bradleys said:


> It isn't either a bug or a glitch - that was my point and I stand by it. It is being presented as designed.
> 
> Suggesting that TiVo change the way it presents the data it receives is resonable and I don't necessarily disagree - but it is not a "bug" and it is not "broken"


It is being being presented differently than it is in the source apps that the episodes come from. It is being shown in a way that makes it so that people will miss episodes. That's broken.


----------



## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

Well, if you are waiting for this to be included in some "bug fix" list, you will be might end up being disappointed. If you are requesting a feature change - I might join you.


----------



## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

I already sent a report to TiVo when I first noticed this last month.

I thought being able to order a folder by season/episode would be great, until it ruined the Doctor Who folder. Then I found a few folders with episodes that were missing season/episode information for some reason, so they can't be sorted correctly either. These are shows that recorded after the update. You get a list that looks like this:

S6 E10
S6 E11
S6 E13
S6 E14
2/26

The episode recorded on 2/26 was S6 E12, but that info is missing and the TiVo is too dumb to put it in the right order.


----------



## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

And I agree, if tivo is going to break these "special" episodes out, there should be a sort feature that places then in date order within (or between) the seasons. 

Not simply captured at the end under this consolidated "+" extras section.


----------



## Rowsdower (Dec 11, 2002)

bradleys said:


> It isn't either a bug or a glitch - that was my point and I stand by it. It is being presented as designed.


I have far too much respect for TiVo's software developers to believe that they _intended_ to implement this behavior. Surely, it's the result of an oversight.

Amazon labels the installments in question as "episode 9." This is sensible, but my point isn't that TiVo must follow suit. There's no need to quibble over nomenclature, as that's tangential to the issue.

The technicality that you've cited (which, incidentally, I mentioned in my original post) isn't meaningful in this context. Whatever numbering scheme is used, these episodes factually belong in a particular sequence. Calling them "Christmas specials" and not counting them as parts of the preceding seasons isn't the problem. The problem is that they've been omitted from a chronological list, thereby harming the viewing experience of persons attempting to utilize it.

There's no intrinsic reason why the list must include only "seasons" proper. In other words, it could read roughly as follows:



> Season 1
> Episode One .................................... S1 E1
> Episode Two .................................... S1 E2
> Episode Three .................................. S1 E3
> ...


Pointing out that the developers simply didn't account for such a scenario is just another way of stating that the flaw exists.



> Suggesting that TiVo change the way it presents the data it receives is resonable and I don't necessarily disagree - but it is not a "bug" and it is not "broken"


 I understand the distinction that you seek to draw, but it's immaterial. From the end user's perspective, a basic function is fundamentally broken.


----------



## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

Rowsdower said:


> I have far too much respect for TiVo's software developers to believe that they _intended_ to implement this behavior. Surely, it's the result of an oversight.
> 
> I understand the distinction that you seek to draw, but it's immaterial. From the end user's perspective, a basic function is fundamentally broken.


Then you have too much respect for the tivo developers because that is exactly the way it was designed and that is exactly the way it is supposed to work. It isn't broken - it is working fine.

As I said above, the way you present the list is better, and tivo should seriously consider redesigning the process exactly the way you suggest.

We would need to understand all the input parameters they considered during design to know for sure, but what you suggest makes sense.


----------



## Rowsdower (Dec 11, 2002)

bradleys said:


> Then you have too much respect for the tivo developers because that is exactly the way it was designed and that is exactly the way it is supposed to work.


In other words, the developers _intended_ to bury certain chapters of the story in a hidden sublist instead of presenting the full series (to date) in its broadcast sequence.

I refuse to believe that.



> It isn't broken - it is working fine.


The software is operating as it was programmed to...because the programming is flawed. That the developers haven't sought out a better implementation doesn't mean that this one is "fine."

This isn't an absent feature. It's a limitation that renders a _present_ feature actively harmful when utilized as recommended.



> As I said above, the way you present the list is better, and tivo should seriously consider redesigning the process exactly the way you suggest.


Then how is it helpful to quibble over semantics?

Again, I noted in my original post that the behavior presumably stems from the DVR's interpretation of the data provided, which I believe should be modified.


----------



## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

Quibble it may be, but I think it is an important difference. 

Poorly designed vs. not working as designed are two different things. One is a matter of opinion and the other is a verifiable fact. If it were not working as designed we could simply submit a bug report and expect it to be fixed during an upcoming release.

As it is now, we need to convince tivo that it should be redesigned - a much higher bar with significant less probability of change.

I find people calling change requests bugs all the time because it shifts power to them - I get it, it is empowering.

But wrong.


----------



## Rowsdower (Dec 11, 2002)

bradleys said:


> Quibble it may be, but I think it is an important difference.
> 
> Poorly designed vs. not working as designed are two different things.


According to TiVo, OnePass is designed to display "all the episodes of a TV show from the first to the last season." "The default view is by the date the content became available."

In this instance, it isn't functioning as described.



> One is a matter of opinion and the other is a verifiable fact.


It's a verifiable fact that certain installments of certain series have been omitted from lists purported to contain "all the episodes," ordered "by the date the content became available."

Yes, this is because the developers didn't include code to handle the scenario in question. Yes, that's different from a hypothetical situation in which they _did_ include such code, which failed to execute or caused the DVR to crash. No, that doesn't mean that only one is an example of a bug.


----------



## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

TiVo designed this in the simplest possible way... 

Group By: season (permanent grouping when streaming is in the list)
Sort By: episode / date (selectable)

This places all non-season specific extras into an empty category (no season) expressed as a "+". That way they don't have to determine if they belong at the end of season 3 or the beginning of season 4 or nowhere at all - nice, easy and tidy!

In MOST cases this works just fine - it is just the popular British based shows that make that design decision wonky.

Amazon gets their information directly from the content owner and most likely has staff responsible for ensuring it is arranged in the most user efficient way. Tivo gets its data as a simple meta datasource from Amazon and has nobody reviewing "special case" sorting.

Be that as it may, it is a design decision and the functionality is working exactly the way it was designed to work. 

Not a bug.

That you don't like that design decision or that you believe you have a better design, doesn't make it a bug.

It makes it a feature request - reasonable, but not necessarily simple.

And I will restate why this is such an important distinction - because if you report it to TiVo as a BUG, some tech may run their test cases, determine it is working as designed, sign off on it and close the report.

If you submit it as a feature request, it will at least stay as an open item while it gets good and dusty - and hopefully, with enough request it will be addressed.


----------



## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

Just thinking how I would design this if it were assigned to me. I would probably do it mostly within the source data - for any null season, I would look at the origional air date and compare that to the prior and following episode and it would inherit the season of the episode with the closest origional air date.

To do it right, you should then create and populate a hidden grouping above the actual season for everything.

What I don't know is all the possible permutations within this specials grouping - and would this cause any unexpected problems.


----------



## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

bradleys said:


> I would look at the origional air date and compare that to the prior and following episode and it would inherit the season of the episode with the closest origional air date.


Which original air date? The one in the UK, or the one in the US? How do you know if a special between season 3 and 4 goes with season 3 or 4?

Why not just use the same order and grouping as the streaming app? If Amazon or Netflix already figured it out, use that. If it is a recording, use the guide data, then fall back on the OAD.

Obviously someone at the streaming companies is manually fixing the data so episodes appear in the correct order. I would expect no less from a DVR company that is supposed to be delivering the ultimate in content unification.


----------



## DeltaOne (Sep 29, 2013)

Rowsdower said:


> She'd been looking forward to seeing _Downton Abbey_, which became the first series that she's binge-watched. Unfortunately, she did so without realizing that she'd skipped the ninth episode of both season 2 and season 3. She felt as though pieces of the story were missing, but she couldn't figure out why.


When I noticed my OnePass wasn't going to record the Downton Abbey Christmas show I deleted it and replaced it with a Wish List. That picked up the show for me.


----------



## Rowsdower (Dec 11, 2002)

bradleys said:


> In MOST cases this works just fine - it is just the popular British based shows that make that design decision wonky.


And I trust that this is an oversight, _not_ a conscious decision.



> Tivo gets its data as a simple meta datasource from Amazon and has nobody reviewing "special case" sorting.


Agreed. Again, I noted this in my original post.



> Be that as it may, it is a design decision and the functionality is working exactly the way it was designed to work.


Again, it contradicts TiVo's description of the OnePass feature.

I advised my mother - as TiVo advised me - that a OnePass would group all available episodes of a program in broadcast order. Neither of us had any idea that certain episodes actually were sorted separately, leading anyone who simply followed the chronological list (the entire reason for its existence) to skip essential chapters of the story.

That's exactly what happened, and the knowledge of this upset me greatly (much more so than if I'd been impacted directly). So I created the thread to report/discuss this problem in a respectful manner.

The product failed to function as advertised.



> Not a bug.


You seem to believe that something can't be a "bug" unless TiVo explicitly addressed a particular use case by coding for a behavior that nonetheless doesn't exist. This is not so.

On a technical level, OnePass is performing as programmed. On a practical level, it isn't always performing as envisioned.



> That you don't like that design decision or that you believe you have a better design, doesn't make it a bug.


Merriam-Webster defines "bug" (in this context) as "an unexpected defect, fault, flaw, or imperfection." Unless TiVo is _lying_ about OnePass in its marketing materials (which I refuse to believe), the problem in question fits that description. No one "designed" OnePass to deliver incomplete episode lists. This is merely a side effect of a flawed implementation.



> It makes it a feature request - reasonable, but not necessarily simple.


I'm not demanding that the DVR brew coffee in the morning. I simply want OnePass to function as advertised (i.e., to display "all the episodes of a TV show from the first to the last season," "by the date the content became available"). If you wish to call this a "feature request," so be it.

You're also welcome to accuse me of using terminology with which you disagree as a means of seeking "power," as you did before evidently replacing your message with the one to which I'm responding now. I'm baffled as to why you think that, though.


----------



## joewom (Dec 10, 2013)

Just a question if its not part of a season why would they list it with a season? If its a Christmas special and not labeled say Season 2 Ep 9 then why would it show in season 2 as ep 9?


----------



## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

A similar example is a show like Firefly that was originally aired out of the intended order. 

Amazon has the episodes in intended order(also DVD order), but a streaming 1P lists them in aired order. 

Example: if you select S1 E3 on TiVo it takes you to S1 E6 on Amazon. 

At least it takes you to the chosen episode title, rather then the chosen episode number.


----------



## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

Arcady said:


> Which original air date? The one in the UK, or the one in the US? How do you know if a special between season 3 and 4 goes with season 3 or 4?
> 
> Why not just use the same order and grouping as the streaming app? If Amazon or Netflix already figured it out, use that. If it is a recording, use the guide data, then fall back on the OAD.
> 
> Obviously someone at the streaming companies is manually fixing the data so episodes appear in the correct order. I would expect no less from a DVR company that is supposed to be delivering the ultimate in content unification.


Assuming Amazon is providing the sort order in the meta data, and I suspect they are not. And tivo isn't going to look at one particular series differently then all other series from all other sources. The sorting process has to work for "everything". Tivo could do some pre-processing of the data, but you know as well as I do, they aren't going to design a different sorting process for Downton Abby!

So in this case, Yes, I would expect less from a DVR company. Tivo has significantly more content from more sources than Amazon does with significantly less resources and revenue to do it with. Amazon "owns" the content it is presenting, a DVR company simply passes that content through.

Once again that doesn't mean tivo doesn't do some preprocessing of the data, but only in a sense that the source data fits the data model, not to modify a specific episode or season of a particular show.

That doesn't make any sense.


----------



## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

bradleys said:


> Be that as it may, it is a design decision and the functionality is working exactly the way it was designed to work.
> 
> Not a bug.
> 
> ...


Technically you have a debating point, but I hope TiVo's design staff is smart enough to recognize an obvious shortcoming that could result in loss of customers, and I hope they're not so lazy that they use semantic reasons as an excuse for ignoring it. In cases where guide data is incomplete, TiVo famously includes the episode because it's better to record an unneeded episode than to miss a needed one. The same principle applies here. Whatever we call it, they need to fix this.


----------



## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

Oh, and my design above fails. It would work when your veriable sorting option was set to date (Christmas special on the bottom) but since the Christmas special episode is also null - if you selected sort order episode (the default) it would pop up to the top!

You would need to create another hidden grouping to take care of that... 

And you would have to apply this rule and processing for all OnePass's independant of source.

That is an interesting difference - tivo offers the user sorting options where Amazon doesn't. The all important origional air date vs. episode number - TiVo allows the user to manage. For this to work, extras HAVE to fit that data model.

What would PBS say if tivo were to simply "derive" and present a season and episode number? I know more than a few users that would be offended by that.

Amazon deals with this by creating a fixed sort order for all content with no sorting variability allowed.


----------



## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

Probably the best and simplest solution would be for tivo to allow the user to turn group by season off in all episodes view.

Group by season off, sort by date - everything shows up in origional air date order.


----------



## Rowsdower (Dec 11, 2002)

bradleys said:


> What would PBS say if tivo were to simply "derive" and present a season and episode number? I know more than a few users that would be offended by that.


Amazon streams the original UK versions, so the numbering already differs from that used by PBS (which consolidated some episodes, resulting in a reduced count).



> Amazon deals with this by creating a fixed sort order for all content with no sorting variability allowed.


Amazon also labels _Downton Abbey_'s Christmas specials as "episode 9" of the preceding season, which doesn't appear to offend many people.

But again, I'm not opining that TiVo must act in kind. I don't advocate that _any_ particular solution be implemented, nor to I assert that this is a trivial task. I'm simply reporting/discussing a problem that I hope will be rectified somehow.


----------



## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

Rowsdower said:


> Amazon also labels _Downton Abbey_'s Christmas specials as "episode 9" of the preceding season, which doesn't appear to offend many people.
> 
> But again, I'm not opining that TiVo must act in kind. I don't advocate that _any_ particular solution be implemented, nor to I assert that this is a trivial task. I'm simply reporting/discussing a problem that I hope will be rectified somehow.


Actually, they don't - at least on the web version. They assign a fixed sort order, independant of episode.









I do find it annoying - for god sake it is the season finale! But should TiVo fix it? And how would TiVo fix it? That is the question I am asking.

Tivo could simply derive a season and episode number during import and populate those fields.

-Is this appropriate?
-How would this effect "all" extras? Downton Abby has a BOATLOAD of extras.

Or as @Arcady suggests a little manual intervention when high value content gets a little askew.

- Downton Abby is one show (add Dr. Who and you have two).

I think the most annoying thing is that PBS doesn't assign a season or episode number to its damn season finale! And I am not a big fan of the broadcast episodes being hidden under Masterpiece Theater either!

I had to create a WishList to record Sherlock properly.


----------



## Rowsdower (Dec 11, 2002)

bradleys said:


> Actually, they don't - at least on the web version. They assign a fixed sort order, independant of season and episode.


You didn't click through to the episode's page, I take it.










Amazon's dedicated apps present the episodes in this format:












> I do find it annoying - for god sake it is the season finale! But should TiVo fix it? That is the question.


Some of us disagree that there's any question.



> I think the most annoying thing is that PBS doesn't assign a season or episode number to its damn season finale!


Again, this has nothing to do with PBS. By their numbering scheme, that season doesn't even contain an episode 8.


----------



## mrizzo80 (Apr 17, 2012)

I'm not going to start a new thread for this issue, but will post it here.

Anybody ever notice an inconsistency when viewing a 1P when it comes to whether or not there are dedicated "season" hyperlinks across the top of the list (as well as a buffer in between each season showing that same season hyperlink list)?

I have a 1P for _How to Get Away with Murder_. It has seasons 2 and 3 available. I do NOT see season links or a break between seasons. Same for _Orphan Black_ and _Southland_.

I have a 1P for _The Goldbergs_. It has seasons 3 and 4 available. I DO see season links and a break between each season. Same for _Cheers_, _The Brady Bunch_, _Justified_, _ST:TNG_, etc.

The 1P knows the season and episode number for each individual episode in all of the above examples; I'm just curious as to why all shows don't behave the same way.


----------



## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

The only shows I have episodes from multiple seasons are Game of Thrones, Veep, and Silicon Valley. 

The links/breaks are there for GoT but not Veep or SV.


----------



## PSU_Sudzi (Jun 4, 2015)

This is not a TiVo issue, its the way British shows are numbered. Happens with Dr. Who and Sherlock also. Take it up with the BBC or iTV.


----------



## mrizzo80 (Apr 17, 2012)

mrizzo80 said:


> Anybody ever notice an inconsistency when viewing a 1P when it comes to whether or not there are dedicated "season" hyperlinks across the top of the list (as well as a buffer in between each season showing that same season hyperlink list)?
> 
> I have a 1P for _How to Get Away with Murder_. It has seasons 2 and 3 available. I do NOT see season links or a break between seasons. Same for _Orphan Black_ and _Southland_.
> 
> ...


I think I figured out the pattern. In order for the season hyperlinks to show up, you need:

more than one season available in the folder
31 or more episodes in the folder (this is what I didn't know in June)


----------



## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

I noticed that a new 1P for The Last Ship allows you to select Season 5. Don't do that, since it doesn't exist. There are a lot of bugs.


----------



## bengalfreak (Oct 20, 2002)

bradleys said:


> Poorly designed vs. not working as designed are two different things. One is a matter of opinion and the other is a verifiable fact. If it were not working as designed we could simply submit a bug report and expect it to be fixed during an upcoming release.


Oh for Pete's sake. Its broken.


----------

