# TV Shows "expiring" and deleting automatically



## lcualoping (Nov 22, 2011)

I wonder if anyone has noticed this on a TiVo Premiere lately. I recently went on a 2 week vacation and made sure that all the shows on the Now Playing list were watched and deleted. I did not delete them from the Recently Deleted folder. When I got back from my vacation, the TiVo was about 55% full and had about 29 or so shows saved in the Now Playing list. I did notice that some shows had episodes missing, and I checked the Recording History and found out the following shows were all deleted automatically on the night of November 21st:

Fringe episode from 11/18
The Walking Dead episode from 11/20
Hawaii Five-0 episode from 11/21

The Season Passes of these shows were set to "Keep Until I Delete" and there are earlier recorded shows that are still in the Now Playing list. The Recording History page says that the shows were indeed deleted because they had "expired". The space used to record them was used to record other programs and so they cannot be recovered from the Recently Deleted folder. This is really disconcerting because the TiVo's System Information page reports it still had 20+ hours of HD content capacity remaining. The Hawaii Five-0 episode was literally only on the TiVo for less than 2 hours before it was automatically deleted. Any ideas?


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## WhiskeyTango (Sep 20, 2006)

Is it possible you had some sort of problem with the cable over the last few days? If there is no signal, when the attempted recording is finished, it just disappears. That would explain why 3 recent shows are all missing and yet don't show up in the RD folder.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

lcualoping said:


> I wonder if anyone has noticed this on a TiVo Premiere lately. I recently went on a 2 week vacation and made sure that all the shows on the Now Playing list were watched and deleted. I did not delete them from the Recently Deleted folder. When I got back from my vacation, the TiVo was about 55% full and had about 29 or so shows saved in the Now Playing list. I did notice that some shows had episodes missing, and I checked the Recording History and found out the following shows were all deleted automatically on the night of November 21st:
> 
> Fringe episode from 11/18
> The Walking Dead episode from 11/20
> ...


Were you within your Keep At Most limits on the Season Passes? That might not explain anything anyway, because if you hit the Keep At Most limit on a Keep Until I Delete SP I think it just stops recording new episodes. I can't imagine how anything (erroneous) in the guide data could cause such a problem. Maybe you've found a new bug.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

WhiskeyTango said:


> Is it possible you had some sort of problem with the cable over the last few days? If there is no signal, when the attempted recording is finished, it just disappears. That would explain why 3 recent shows are all missing and yet don't show up in the RD folder.


That could explain why the episodes were missing, but it wouldn't explain why the TiVo said they were deleted, especially the Hawaii Five-0 episode after two hours. If there was no signal there would be a message to that effect in the recording history, not a message saying that the episodes had been deleted.


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## lcualoping (Nov 22, 2011)

I seriously doubt there was a cable outage, but I haven't watched anything yet so I can't be sure. Luckily the episode of Fringe auto-transferred to my PC when I powered it up on Sunday, the 20th. I had similar issues before with episodes being deleted automatically so I set all the Season Passes to Keep Until I Delete, and they're all set to record 5 first-run episodes.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

lcualoping said:


> I seriously doubt there was a cable outage, but I haven't watched anything yet so I can't be sure. Luckily the episode of Fringe auto-transferred to my PC when I powered it up on Sunday, the 20th. I had similar issues before with episodes being deleted automatically so I set all the Season Passes to Keep Until I Delete, and they're all set to record 5 first-run episodes.


So if you reach 5 episodes on any particular season pass you want it to stop recording that season pass? I tend to have weekly shows set to keep at least 10 episodes and daily shows set to keep 25 episodes. And I don't use Keep Until I Delete, since in the (I hope unlikely) event that it hits the Keep At Least limit I would prefer to lose the oldest episode rather than skip the newest.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I believe that the capacity measure is only indicating shows on the disk. The TiVo may delete shows as it schedules new ones to make sure there is adequate space. I believe that can give the appearance of an empty drive while it has, in fact, allocated space already for shows ready to record.

KUID has given me headaches in how it will not record new content, plus I often prefer to let shows stack up to keep storylines straight and 5 shows may not cut it for this behavior.

To avoid all this, I would upgrade to a bigger drive. While drives are more than they used to be, it is an otherwise free upgrade with just a little effort. I never use KUID, let all shows record up to 25, and leave suggestions on.


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## lcualoping (Nov 22, 2011)

We never intend on being out of town longer than 3 weeks so we figured 5 episodes per show would be fine as we would eventually get to watch them when we get back. Shouldn't KUID prevent the shows from being deleted in the first place? For shows like Fringe or The Walking Dead, it wouldn't make sense to watch a more recent episode since there will be gaps in the story. The Recording History of the episodes that were deleted stated that they were "expired", which also didn't make sense. What really bugs me was that Hawaii Five-0 was the most recent show to be recorded, yet it "expired" less than 2 hours after it was recorded and was permanently erased from the hard drive between last night and early this morning.


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## WhiskeyTango (Sep 20, 2006)

Maybe the cable company applied the wrong copy protection flag? There is a 90 minute flag they put on PPV that automatically deletes the recording.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

This is why I never set keep until I delete. It will eventually cause SPs to stop recording. Setting it to keep the 5 most recent on all shows will ensure that it keeps the last 5 episodes and only delete more if there is no room. KUID is a nightmare and should never be used on a SP.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

L David Matheny said:


> So if you reach 5 episodes on any particular season pass you want it to stop recording that season pass? I tend to have weekly shows set to keep at least 10 episodes and daily shows set to keep 25 episodes. And I don't use Keep Until I Delete, since in the (I hope unlikely) event that it hits the Keep At Least limit I would prefer to lose the oldest episode rather than skip the newest.


It will still go past the limit as long as there is room. Most of my SPs are set for 5 episosdes, but many of them have 10 or 20 shows listed because I still have plenty of storage space left. I would never use KUID for any season pass. I would only apply that to a specific show after it was recorded and that is a rare thing for me.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

WhiskeyTango said:


> Maybe the cable company applied the wrong copy protection flag? There is a 90 minute flag they put on PPV that automatically deletes the recording.


That would be my guess. I'm pretty sure programs deleted to make room for other recordings don't list the deleted reason as "expired". My guess is that the cable company wrongly flagged the "expired" recordings with a CCI 0x03 bit which they are not supposed to do (by law).


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## lcualoping (Nov 22, 2011)

You may be right on the copy protection flag. It would have been better if the TiVo would have been more clear about that rather than just saying that the program "expired". These aren't PPV events like a boxing match, just regular TV shows. Still having a show delete after only 2 hours is really bad.


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> It will still go past the limit as long as there is room. Most of my SPs are set for 5 episosdes, but many of them have 10 or 20 shows listed because I still have plenty of storage space left.


Which Tivo model?
This is the first I've ever heard of this happening and I'm not really believing it. Recording more episodes just because there is plenty of room is a complete disregard for the KAM setting which would make the KAM setting useless. It's more likely that your SP settings are not what you think they are.
No Tivo I've ever owned has ignored the KAM setting and currently:
My S2 (540) doesn't ignore the KAM setting.
My TiVo HD doesn't ignore the KAM setting.
My TiVo Premiere doesn't ignore the KAM setting.


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## djwilso (Dec 23, 2006)

rainwater said:


> KUID is a nightmare and should never be used on a SP.


That's an odd thing to suggest. I've been using Keep Until I Delete on my SPs for 10 years now.

Never ran into an issue.


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## Sk8Leigh (Sep 27, 2011)

I've just had this happen with my TiVo premiere twice recently, including today with X Factor from yesterday, which I was planning to keep permanently.  

On 11/16 it taped CSI. I know it was taping it. Then the next morning I noticed it wasn't there. In the recording history it said, " This recording was deleted because it had expired. The space was used for other recordings on Thu 11/17 at 12:09am." But I wasn't taping anything then, and I only had about 70% full on my drive.

Now X Factor from last night, which is a big deal to me. I just noticed that my memory should have been in the 80% range, but it's below 80%, and I realized it deleted last night's episode. In the recording history, it says, "This recording was deleted because it had expired. The space was used for other recordings on Wed 11/23 at 4:30pm." I didn't tape anything at 4:30pm, either. I had taped something from 4-4:31, but that should be what it was talking about. It seems like a bug to me.

Both of them were set up to keep until I delete, so this goes completely against that. And I still have plenty of room to tape everything on my schedule through next week.

Luckily I did finally figure out what I'm going to do to move some of this stuff onto a hard drive and keep it that way, but it was too late to save that episode. 

It's not in recently deleted, so I guess there's nothing I can do to get it back?


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

rainwater said:


> This is why I never set keep until I delete. It will eventually cause SPs to stop recording. Setting it to keep the 5 most recent on all shows will ensure that it keeps the last 5 episodes and only delete more if there is no room. KUID is a nightmare and should never be used on a SP.


I completely disagree.. KUID and keep ALL episodes is the best solution.. But I admit I hypocritically don't have KUID set for all of my SPs.. only because then I get _nag_ screens, even with a big hard drive. (i.e. it THINKS it will be full, even though in reality I will have watched and deleted shows by then.)

But in *THEORY*, KUID & all episodes would be the best.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

mattack said:


> I completely disagree.. KUID and keep ALL episodes is the best solution.. But I admit I hypocritically don't have KUID set for all of my SPs.. only because then I get _nag_ screens, even with a big hard drive. (i.e. it THINKS it will be full, even though in reality I will have watched and deleted shows by then.)
> 
> But in *THEORY*, KUID & all episodes would be the best.


Even with that set up, it will stop recording anything when it runs out of room.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

scandia101 said:


> Which Tivo model?
> This is the first I've ever heard of this happening and I'm not really believing it. Recording more episodes just because there is plenty of room is a complete disregard for the KAM setting which would make the KAM setting useless. It's more likely that your SP settings are not what you think they are.
> No Tivo I've ever owned has ignored the KAM setting and currently:
> My S2 (540) doesn't ignore the KAM setting.
> ...


All my Premieres behave this way. For example I'll have first run only for NCIS and to keep five episodes. I have all the episodes of the season in "my Shows" list. My S3/TiVoHD boxes behaved this way too. My girlfriend has two of my old S3 boxes and they still do the same thing. The only time they will only keep the episode number I've selected is if there is not enough space including future recordings. 
This seems fine to me. Having more episodes kept has never been an issue.

EDIT: I did try something out on one of my Premieres. I have an SP for Rescue Me, first run and keep ten episodes. There were over twenty listed in the "My Shows" list. I went to the season pass and changed it to Keep five episodes. When I went back to the "My Shows" list there were now only five episodes listed. Once I create a Season Pass, I rarely ever touch it again, and if I do it is to increase the keep until episodes.

I was able to repeat this with another Premiere. I have a Covert Affairs SP to keep ten episodes and it had over fifteen. I changed it to five and the episodes dropped down to only five in the "My Shows" list.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lcualoping said:


> I wonder if anyone has noticed this on a TiVo Premiere lately. I recently went on a 2 week vacation and made sure that all the shows on the Now Playing list were watched and deleted. I did not delete them from the Recently Deleted folder. When I got back from my vacation, the TiVo was about 55% full and had about 29 or so shows saved in the Now Playing list. I did notice that some shows had episodes missing, and I checked the Recording History and found out the following shows were all deleted automatically on the night of November 21st:
> 
> Fringe episode from 11/18
> The Walking Dead episode from 11/20
> ...


Call up your cable company and tell them they owe you recordings of those Fringe and 5-0 episodes.

But first contact TiVo CS and confirm that expired means that it encountered a CCI bit setting that shouldn't have been there.

But first read this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_Control_Information

then confirm with TiVo CS that the cable company is to blame.

Then call the cable company and burn them a new one.


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## Sk8Leigh (Sep 27, 2011)

But if something had the wrong copy flag, why would that delete it? And why would it say that it recorded something in its place when nothing was recorded?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Sk8Leigh said:


> But if something had the wrong copy flag, why would that delete it? And why would it say that it recorded something in its place when nothing was recorded?


Go read the wikipedia article.

Pay special attention to the part that says

"0x07 - Content is Copy Never for digital content (deleted after 90 minutes)..."

In other words, because somebody put in a 7 instead of a 0, the show was recorded and 90 minutes later it was deleted.

As for the "...The space was used for other recordings on Wed 11/23 at 4:30pm.", you were recording from 4:00pm to 4:31pm, and I'm guessing it was a show that was scheduled to run from 4:00pm to 4:30pm and you padded the end by one minute when you set it up. It could be that it used the begining of the space for that extra minute, and, according to the guide data, that final minute wasn't the final minute of a 30 minute + 1 minute of padding 4:00pm show, that was the first minute of the 4:30pm show.


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## Sk8Leigh (Sep 27, 2011)

But it also said it recorded the stuff after CSI in the middle of the night and I wasn't recording anything.

And also, I noticed that I had that happen with another show, and it aired Sunday and looks like it was deleted Tuesday. All of them were longer than 90 minutes.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Sk8Leigh said:


> But it also said it recorded the stuff after CSI in the middle of the night and I wasn't recording anything.
> 
> And also, I noticed that I had that happen with another show, and it aired Sunday and looks like it was deleted Tuesday. All of them were longer than 90 minutes.


90 minutes is how long it keeps the show on the hard drive after it records the show if the CCI bit is set to 0x03 (copy never, regardless of whether digital or analog), or 0x07 (same thing on digital sources, something complicated on analog), instead of 0x00 (copy freely).

So if that bit has been wrongly set by the idiots running your cable provider, you've got 90 minutes after either the starting or ending original air time of the show to watch it before it disappears from your TiVo forever.

For instance, if 60 Minutes actually starts on time at 7pm on Sunday night and ends at 8pm, then, best case scenario, you have until 10:30pm that same night to get all of it watched, and then it's gone, whether you got to see it or not.


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## Sk8Leigh (Sep 27, 2011)

So, is there any way to find out what the bit is set for, or do I have to assume that it's set incorrectly for the 90 min. delete and move it to my laptop right away to be sure?

What happens if you're in the process of copying it to your laptop and it deletes? 

I wouldn't even know how to complain to local cable people. It's all just the big Comcast machine, and I wouldn't know how to find the right person. :down:


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Sk8Leigh said:


> So, is there any way to find out what the bit is set for, or do I have to assume that it's set incorrectly for the 90 min. delete and move it to my laptop right away to be sure?
> 
> What happens if you're in the process of copying it to your laptop and it deletes?
> 
> I wouldn't even know how to complain to local cable people. It's all just the big Comcast machine, and I wouldn't know how to find the right person. :down:


If the bit was set you wouldn't be able to copy the show to your laptop.


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## lcualoping (Nov 22, 2011)

Here's another interesting thing to throw in here. That episode of Fringe that got deleted automatically got transferred to my desktop PC by the TiVo Desktop software. If that flag prevents transfers to PC, it may not have been the one set. I guess I'll just chalk this up to just random Verizon/TiVo stupidity...


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

lcualoping said:


> Here's another interesting thing to throw in here. That episode of Fringe that got deleted automatically got transferred to my desktop PC by the TiVo Desktop software. If that flag prevents transfers to PC, it may not have been the one set. I guess I'll just chalk this up to just random Verizon/TiVo stupidity...


That would indicate the copy protection flags were not set, which then makes the deletion very strange.


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## lillevig (Dec 7, 2010)

unitron said:


> 90 minutes is how long it keeps the show on the hard drive after it records the show if the CCI bit is set to 0x03 (copy never, regardless of whether digital or analog), or 0x07 (same thing on digital sources, something complicated on analog), instead of 0x00 (copy freely).


Silly question: How do you check that bit on recorded shows? I'm thinking that my cable provider doesn't set that bit on any non-premium content. I don't have any channels like HBO or Showtime to verify it but I've only seen the dreaded "no transfer" red circle on movies I've downloaded from Amazon VOD.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

lillevig said:


> Silly question: How do you check that bit on recorded shows? I'm thinking that my cable provider doesn't set that bit on any non-premium content. I don't have any channels like HBO or Showtime to verify it but I've only seen the dreaded "no transfer" red circle on movies I've downloaded from Amazon VOD.


You can only check while a recording is being made. It shows up under the DVR Diagnostics screen as the CCI value (one per tuner).


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## Mike Pfeifer (Mar 17, 2011)

So I was just browsing around the forums and was reading this thread- was interesting enough, but then I read that one of the shows in question here was the x factor. It then dawned on me that my wife has been complaining that the TiVo has not been recording the x factor, but only the performance show. It was only recording the results shows. She says the to do list always shows it will be recorded, but when she goes to watch it, it's not there and not in recently deleted folder (that's why she thought it had not recorded it)

Well, I checked tonight and, yep, the x factor has been deleted because it expired and the space was used for another recording. 

She also was saying that using the on demand in the other room the x factor is only available for a short while after the show airs. 

So maybe the x factor specifically requests the 90 minute delete flag? Is that a possibility here? Sounds like something the record industry would do ( or the riaa)


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Mike Pfeifer said:


> So I was just browsing around the forums and was reading this thread- was interesting enough, but then I read that one of the shows in question here was the x factor. It then dawned on me that my wife has been complaining that the TiVo has not been recording the x factor, but only the performance show. It was only recording the results shows. She says the to do list always shows it will be recorded, but when she goes to watch it, it's not there and not in recently deleted folder (that's why she thought it had not recorded it)
> 
> Well, I checked tonight and, yep, the x factor has been deleted because it expired and the space was used for another recording.
> 
> ...


Is the season pass for X-factor set to keep until I delete?


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## Mike Pfeifer (Mar 17, 2011)

I don't believe so, but it is the only show that has behaved in this way. I was just doing some google research, and came across a thread on dbstalk where some people are blaming their directv dvr for not recording, canceling recording, and deleting the x factor. Also some small chatter here and there on Facebook and twitter about " I guess my dvr didn't record x factor last night." 

My thought here is that maybe it did record it, but by the time these people went to look for it, it had already been deleted, as though it was never there to begin with. I bet it's a problem with x factor on purpose.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Mike Pfeifer said:


> I don't believe so, but it is the only show that has behaved in this way. I was just doing some google research, and came across a thread on dbstalk where some people are blaming their directv dvr for not recording, canceling recording, and deleting the x factor. Also some small chatter here and there on Facebook and twitter about " I guess my dvr didn't record x factor last night."
> 
> My thought here is that maybe it did record it, but by the time these people went to look for it, it had already been deleted, as though it was never there to begin with. I bet it's a problem with x factor on purpose.


As X Factor is on Fox, it would be illegal for it to be copy protected, let alone set to delete after 90 minutes.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

morac said:


> As X Factor is on Fox, it would be illegal for it to be copy protected, let alone set to delete after 90 minutes.


Which wouldn't necessarily prevent a cable company from doing it anyway.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

unitron said:


> Which wouldn't necessarily prevent a cable company from doing it anyway.


If they purposely did it, they can be fined by the FCC.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

morac said:


> If they purposely did it, they can be fined by the FCC.


The FCC doesn't have the budget to travel the nation enforcing this stuff, consumers have to bring it to their attention.

Which means consumers have to be educated enough to understand what the cable company is doing and what FCC regs it violates.


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## Sk8Leigh (Sep 27, 2011)

I've been taping X Factor on my TiVo since I got the TiVo, which was the 5th episode in. The only one that's been deleted like that is the most recent performance show. Everything else is still there, and I've been able to transfer it to my laptop/external hard drive to keep. So it definitely hasn't been ongoing for me so far. Hopefully it won't continue this week. I'm going to watch it very carefully tomorrow night.

But the same thing has happened to me with a random episode each of CSI and Around the World in 80 Ways, so it wasn't just X Factor.

To the one who never has the performance show tape, what cable company do you have? I have Comcast.


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## Mike Pfeifer (Mar 17, 2011)

Sk8Leigh said:


> To the one who never has the performance show tape, what cable company do you have? I have Comcast.


I also have Comcast in the Chicago area.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

scandia101 said:


> Which Tivo model?
> This is the first I've ever heard of this happening and I'm not really believing it. Recording more episodes just because there is plenty of room is a complete disregard for the KAM setting which would make the KAM setting useless. It's more likely that your SP settings are not what you think they are.
> No Tivo I've ever owned has ignored the KAM setting and currently:
> My S2 (540) doesn't ignore the KAM setting.
> ...


I've never seen a TiVo ignore the KAM limit but there are a couple ways a TiVo can _appear_ to be ignoring it.

The first is suggestions, they've got a distinctive icon so you _shouldn't_ get confused but they do get sorted into the same folder/group as the episodes recorded by the season pass.

The other, and more potentially confusing, one is if you manually record episodes of the series OR adjust their recording options (from either the ToDo list or Now Playing). Doing that "divorces" that recording from the season pass and it no longer counts towards the KAM limit. (So force a later recording because you manually intervene in a conflict, or add a minute of padding to a specific episode, or adjust the keep until date and you've got a "divorced" recording)*

*You can see the effect of this in the ToDo list. Take a recording that's scheduled by a season pass and notice it has the season pass double check-mark icon next to it. Adjust the padding and save, and now you can see it's got the manual recording single check-mark icon. No longer considered part of that season pass.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

morac said:


> Even with that set up, it will stop recording anything when it runs out of room.


Yeah, duhh, that's kind of the point.


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## bleeman (Sep 5, 2004)

I have just noticed this past week that I have had several issues with shows I've had on my Tivo Premiere (With 60% free) are going to be deleted. Two of the series are Video Podcast downloads, specifically "Windows Weekly" and "This Week in Tech". I've also been recording "The Closer" repeats from our local "My TV" station. I have had all 3 set to KUID along with other series and as someone else mentioned earlier this has always worked without a problem. Suddenly, the day before yesterday I went in to the group to watch my Windows Weekly and catch up on my backlog and out 20 episodes 12 of them now had the "Yellow Ball" instead of the "Blue Ball" and said they will be deleted within 3 days. Last night when I went to catch up again 9 of the 12 now had a "Yellow Ball" with an exclamation point in them stating the will be deleted within 24 hours. With "The Closer" out of 22 episodes total 2 of them were changed to deleted within 3 days and now they are showing as will be deleted within 24 hours.

I'm not sure what is going on, but I am not pleased to see this happening. There were no announcements that anything had changed. I'm not on the newest release of the software and when I checked "Windows Weekly" specifically in the "Browse Web Videos" section all of the episodes marked for deletion plus at least a half dozen or more older ones are still available for download from there so I don't know what's going on.

As I said, this just started happening within the last 3 days or so, so I would suggest that if you have any groups you haven't been in for awhile that you check and see if they are being flagged as well so you don't find a nasty surprise.


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## bbrown9 (Mar 12, 2011)

I've always ignored the yellow ball with the bang because historically they didn't get deleted when they said they would because there was plenty of disk space left. (I ddisabled recording suggestions - I know what I want to record and don't want my disk and NPL list cluttered with stuff TiVo THINKS I want) Are you saying that it actually does delete them now? I'm going to have to be more attentive to it, I guess.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bbrown9 said:


> I've always ignored the yellow ball with the bang because historically they didn't get deleted when they said they would because there was plenty of disk space left. (I ddisabled recording suggestions - I know what I want to record and don't want my disk and NPL list cluttered with stuff TiVo THINKS I want) Are you saying that it actually does delete them now? I'm going to have to be more attentive to it, I guess.


I've seen an S2 DT leave the recently deleted folder full of shows and permanently delete a show recorded only a few days earlier.

So, as was once said in a much different context, "Trust, but verify".


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## bleeman (Sep 5, 2004)

I haven't had anything actually deleted yet, but I should no later tonight as the "Within 24hrs" warnings will have been up for 24hrs. I'm just concerned as I've never had this happen before. I too am not using suggestions, I'm not on the latest version of the software (Our XL in the Living Room got the update last night, but the Premier in my office is still waiting) and we're strictly OTA so no cable or satellite companies involved. Once I've passed the 24hr mark I'll post back with the results.


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## bleeman (Sep 5, 2004)

Well as promised here is where things stand with my system. As of last night my "Will be deleted in 24hrs" shows were still in that state and nothing had been actually deleted even though they have been in that state since the weekend.

When I got home tonight I found that my Tivo got the new update and now all my shows have been "reset" and they are showing once again as "Keep until I delete".

So at least in my case it looks like the status change had no impact on my actual episodes and the update has put everything back the way it was prior to last week.


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## immoody (Dec 26, 2008)

this is 100% happening. i'm calling tivo tomorrow (they're closed right now). 5-8 shows of mine have "expired" this week. all different shows, all different channels, all set to KUID, all set to Keep All Episodes, tivo at 80%. one example: i've been SPing Ellen on this HD Premiere box for months, KUID, keep all eps, ch nbc, had checked the episodes for tues/wed/thurs were indeed going to record while i was out of town, yet on thurs when i checked, all had been deleted due to expiring. (yet Martha had recorded all 3 days no problem on the same exact settings.) meanwhile, in my Now Playing Ellen folder i have an ep from mon no problem, and an ep from last year. not to mention it records this show 5 days a week, every week, saves them all until i manually delete--usually i'm behind & rack up 20 or so, so i know it works. i know all these expired shows work. i know every SP, and i check my tivo every night to ensure the next day's shows are good to go. this is legit. hopefully tivo can quick fix it!


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## BrooklynBlueEyes (Mar 9, 2012)

I just finished up a chat session with TiVo (attached). As you can see, they have no idea about this issue, even though this issue is 5 months old. They also have no record of anyone else reporting it.

And just to complicate the previous comments in this thread, I'm recording over the air with an antenna, so there is no nefarious cable company involved in my situation. I recorded Fringe on Feb 24 (the season finale, of course), which was "deleted because it was expired" on Feb 25. I've never seen this happen on my TiVo Premiere before.

Very weird problem, but maybe the more of us who report it, the more likely it will be fixed? What other choice do we have? Glad to know I'm not alone in experiencing this issue.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I still have episodes of Fringe from last year on my OTA only Premiere.

Actually this will be a good time to delete them since I also have an SP on my Elite for Fringe.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

unitron said:


> 90 minutes is how long it keeps the show on the hard drive after it records the show if the CCI bit is set to 0x03 (copy never, regardless of whether digital or analog), or 0x07 (same thing on digital sources, something complicated on analog), instead of 0x00 (copy freely).
> 
> So if that bit has been wrongly set by the idiots running your cable provider, you've got 90 minutes after either the starting or ending original air time of the show to watch it before it disappears from your TiVo forever.
> 
> For instance, if 60 Minutes actually starts on time at 7pm on Sunday night and ends at 8pm, then, best case scenario, you have until 10:30pm that same night to get all of it watched, and then it's gone, whether you got to see it or not.


just to clarify the CCI bits-

the CCI codes are actually multiple bits in a byte (or some larger thing) used to come up with a hexidecimal(or decimal I forget) number. the first 2(or would it be 3?) bits make the numbers 0 to 3 so they are responible for the flag 0x01, 0x02, and 0x03. Tut those bits being "set" would also occur in other numbers like 7, 15, etc. (the later bits tell the box what macrovision flags to set on analog outputs from the tivo or other box, and also control other things like downrezzing - if that was ever approved by the FCC...)

if the first 2 bits make 3 (so 3,7,15...) then the 90 minute rule kicks in and is applied 'minute by minute' )or I think also optionally 'byte by byte' if it's easier for the vendor to program). So recorded minute 1 is deleted at minute 91, recorded minute 2 at 92, etc. If you were to be watching a 2 hour movie, for example, and it just finished recording you could rewind 90 minutes (to recorded minute 30) but go back no farther to watch. The Tivo will just show you a blank screen for the first 29 minutes as you navigate around in there.

Sorry but i can't recall what exactly the tivo message is for those shows that get deleted. "expired" sure sounds like the 90 minute rule kicked in but not sure why it would give that other information about when the space was used by other stuff.

OH- WAIT- if i recall in the hypothetical 2hr recording above the tivo wouldn't actually delete the first 30 minutes. I think it still has it on the drive just doesn't display it. It probably doesn't "delete" it until the entire recording has hit the 90 minute mark. Maybe that part of the message telling the time the space was freed up is letting the owner know exactly when the entire recording had maxed out it's time?


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

Hmmm... anyone recall what the "broadcast flag" does to content on a TiVo? I very vaguely remember stations in Texas (as an example) occasionally adding that years back.

(for those unaware- a bunch of years back there was an FCC regulation that broadcasters could "flag" content to protect it from pirates (that bit might actually be specified in the ATSC standards?) and all equipment sold must respect that flag. The regulation requireing hardware to obey the flag was overturned (I believe in the courts?) so now no one HAS to respect the flag but technically there's nothing keeping broadcasters from inserting it. Also nothing keeping TiVo from "respecting" the flag. Wikipediia says that microsoft for one does respect the flag, wouldn't surprise me if TiVo did too...)


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

BrooklynBlueEyes said:


> I just finished up a chat session with TiVo (attached). As you can see, they have no idea about this issue, even though this issue is 5 months old. They also have no record of anyone else reporting it.
> 
> And just to complicate the previous comments in this thread, I'm recording over the air with an antenna, so there is no nefarious cable company involved in my situation. I recorded Fringe on Feb 24 (the season finale, of course), which was "deleted because it was expired" on Feb 25. I've never seen this happen on my TiVo Premiere before.
> 
> Very weird problem, but maybe the more of us who report it, the more likely it will be fixed? What other choice do we have? Glad to know I'm not alone in experiencing this issue.


she explained to you what they think it is (or at least what their scripts think it is):



> Janee: The other possibility is that the show had a restriction on it
> - some shows carry a copy restriction, which only allows them to be
> saved for a certain number of days. Though unfortunately as the show
> isn't in the Recently Deleted, it is hard to say why the show was
> removed


see broadcast flag comment i just posted...


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## bugsbugsgrrr (Jan 30, 2013)

Long time tivo (series 1) user here. I currently have a Premier experiencing this exact issue. Randomly last week, it began deleting EVERY NEW SHOW IT HAD JUST RECORDED after an hour or so (maybe the exact 90 minutes reported, but I haven't timed it to be sure). 

When I say everything I mean:

1. All my news shows on MSNBC (Rachel Maddow, Chris Mathews)
2. My girl's shows on Bravo and TLC (housewives of Atlanta, Honey Boo Boo)
3. Jon Stewart
4. Stephen Colbert
5. Southpark 
6. All movies, etc.

When I go into the history I do see the message "This recording was deleted because it had expired. The space was used for other recordings..."

My HD is only at 30% capacity with over 40 remaining hours of HD availability. I am a TWC customer, BTW.

Setting every single show to KUID every single day is a royal PAIN in the arse. Does anyone have any further information on this bug. Reboots do not help.


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## philipf13 (Aug 26, 2010)

I have only 3% of my drive being used, and ALL of my recordings disappear. I go to my history and they all say they were deleted to make room. any ideas?


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

philipf13 said:


> I have only 3% of my drive being used, and ALL of my recordings disappear. I go to my history and they all say they were deleted to make room. any ideas?


Make sure your season passes aren't set to "keep until I delete" or if they are, that the number of episodes to record is set to a low number and not all.


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## philipf13 (Aug 26, 2010)

Thanks. 
It deletes EVERYTHING. If it says keep until I delete, then those should delete last. I have no shows saved, and still deletes all saying there is no room.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

morac said:


> Make sure your season passes aren't set to "keep until I delete" or if they are, that the number of episodes to record is set to a low number and not all.


That doesn't make any difference. Almost all of my 33 SPs are KUID, and I'm not having any issue like this with my XL4. I'm currently at about 10% of my HD capacity...


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

philipf13 said:


> Thanks.
> It deletes EVERYTHING. If it says keep until I delete, then those should delete last. I have no shows saved, and still deletes all saying there is no room.


Sounds like TWC is up to their old tricks and setting the copy control infromation byte to the wrong value, probably either 03 or 07.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lpwcomp said:


> Sounds like TWC is up to their old tricks and setting the copy control infromation byte to the wrong value, probably either 03 or 07.


That's what I'm thinking if it says deleted because expired.

KUID'ed shows do not "expire" (or at least they aren't supposed to, or to be able to) unless the CCI bit is set to force that to happen.


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## philipf13 (Aug 26, 2010)

Did a Complete erase of tivo and it worked. Next day and it saved my test recordings.


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## dupreeblue (Mar 10, 2007)

I'm having similar issues to all of you (Comcast, Chicago). Our 1 month old Premiere (upgraded from a Series 2) deletes things within minutes/hours of them being recorded. Tonight was The Simpsons & Bob's Burgers. In addition to the Blackhawks game. Anytime the tivo is over 39% full it just seems to delete whatever it wants. Frustrating, to say the least. We transferred our SPs from our S2 to our Premiere. Kept the same settings & changed the channels to the HD ones. We've never had this problem on our S2. I don't think the CCI stuff is the issue, because The Simpsons (for example) that deleted from our Premiere is still on our S2. And that box has way more recordings on it.

Is the only solution to go through all our SPs & change all of the ones that are KUID to not be? Is that what I'm getting out of all this?

EDITED TO ADD: 
After going through all our SPs, only 2 were set to KUID (The Soup; only keep 1 episode & Louie; keep 5. But that one isn't even airing right now). So I'm hard-pressed to see how that would be the issue here.


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## reneg (Jun 19, 2002)

dupreeblue said:


> I'm having similar issues to all of you (Comcast, Chicago). Our 1 month old Premiere (upgraded from a Series 2) deletes things within minutes/hours of them being recorded. Tonight was The Simpsons & Bob's Burgers. In addition to the Blackhawks game. Anytime the tivo is over 39% full it just seems to delete whatever it wants. Frustrating, to say the least. We transferred our SPs from our S2 to our Premiere. Kept the same settings & changed the channels to the HD ones. We've never had this problem on our S2. I don't think the CCI stuff is the issue, because The Simpsons (for example) that deleted from our Premiere is still on our S2. And that box has way more recordings on it.
> 
> Is the only solution to go through all our SPs & change all of the ones that are KUID to not be? Is that what I'm getting out of all this?
> 
> ...


Almost sounds like an issue I had this week (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=501038). I believe my problem was related to launching the NetFlix app, but not completing the registration process. I wound up doing a clear and delete everything to clear the issue (I backed up my season passes with KMTTG first and then restored them after re-running setup).


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## dupreeblue (Mar 10, 2007)

reneg said:


> (I backed up my season passes with KMTTG first and then restored them after re-running setup).


KMTTG? I don't know what that is.

I called Tivo this morning & they said that I should clear the to do list & program guide via the Help menu setting. Did that & re-downloaded program information. I'm still waiting for the guide/to do list to repopulate.

Last night I deleted all the shows in My Shows. The tivo still showed itself as 24% full. After the above steps it's showing at 2%. Curious to see what happens after the to do list re-populates. I'd (naturally) like to solve this without having to do the clear/delete. I'm going to keep a close eye on things over the next few days & hope that the problem resolved. But I'm not hopeful.

EDITED TO ADD: Forgot to address the Netflix thing. We do have a Netflix account hooked up, but we went through the entire setup & it functions properly. This issue existed before we hooked up Netflix though, so I'm not sure they're related in our case.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

dupreeblue said:


> KMTTG? I don't know what that is.


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=387725


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## dupreeblue (Mar 10, 2007)

lpwcomp said:


> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=387725


Cool program! I've been running pytivox on my tivos for a while, but other than that have never really played with other programs. I love that there's people out there creating great stuff like that.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Not directly related to this thread, but it seems to me that the free space indicator doesn't update right away.. (this was mentioned a bit above). It seems like it takes a little while.. Possibly exiting and reentering now playing updates it.


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## dupreeblue (Mar 10, 2007)

Well, Monday's interaction with TiVo support didn't end the issue. Now our TiVo is doing the same thing; except instead of deleting things at 39%, now it's happening at 12%. So that's just wonderful. 

When I called on Monday I was told that they weren't aware of this issue *despite multiple forum posts on it. Today (Friday; for those of you that read this at a later point in time) I was told that it's a known issue & the engineers are working on a software patch that (hopefully) should be issued in the next 3-5 business days. 

fingers crossed


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## DaveTheNerd (Oct 13, 2004)

I chatted with TiVo today and they confirmed that they, indeed, know of this problem are are working on it. They said for me to check back in "3 business days" to see of a resolution.

In the meantime they suggested I take 20 of my season passes of KUID. That was after I told them I had 81 season passes, 41 of which were on KUID.

As data -- we changed maybe 5 season passes to KUID just about 2 weeks ago before this problem started, so there may well be a "more than half on KUID" issue here.


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## DaveTheNerd (Oct 13, 2004)

So frustrating. I talked to TiVo support back on 3/18 and after much back and forth with "the engineers" my phone rep told me that the update to fix this would begin rolling out on April 1st of this year. The rollout, according to him, was planning for 4/1 thru 4/20, and we would be prioritized to get it on the 1st because we had reported the issue.

I called today (yes, we're getting impatient!), and was told that no one there has any record of an update that was supposed to get pushed today and they don't know *when* the update should come out. This is getting crazy. Anyone else know anything?


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## infoXczar (Apr 18, 2003)

I was told yesterday by a tech that it will be "this month" but that he hadn't been given anything more specific than that. At least they're admitting it's a known issue and they've put me on the list to be in the first batch of customers to receive the patch when it's done.


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## DaveTheNerd (Oct 13, 2004)

Yeah, a tech had given me a specific date (as above) that then was changed, and so they're being sure to NOT promise a specific date any more on this. Indeed, from what I've heard, "this month" is likely, but they're not going to release this one until they've done a LOT of regression testing, so I wouldn't necessarily hold any guarantees on this until we actually have it.

FWIW, I am 100% certain that these symptoms manifested right after I did some Season Pass editing with my iPhone. THere's definitely something about how TiVo's iOS app manipulates season passes that causes corruption, which then brought this bug to the surface for me. It also brought a different bug to the surface on my Series3.


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## infoXczar (Apr 18, 2003)

That's interesting about the iOS app. I have it, but haven't used it often, and not for anything other than selecting shows from Now Playing or as a remote control. I don't think that's what triggered the bug for me, which I believe I first noticed a couple of months ago when I suddenly had far fewer suggestions than usual, and fewer and fewer each day...

I hope the fix comes soon (and doesn't break anything else). I've already lost episodes from the only two shows I was trying to keep up with, including a series finale.


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## tivosupport_taylor (Jun 19, 2012)

Hello TiVo Community,

It appears that some of you are experiencing an issue where shows that seemingly should not be deleted, are inexplicably deleted. Keep in mind that your TiVo will delete things as necessary to make room for upcoming recordings. Recently however, it appears that TiVo Premiere users are reporting instances where recordings are being deleted for no reason. If you are experiencing an issue on any Premiere Series TiVo where recordings that are set to Keep Until I Delete are being deleted prematurely, please send me a private message with the following information so that we can track instances of this issue and work to resolve it.

-TiVo Service Number (found on the back of the unit or in SYSTEM INFORMATION):

-The reason RECORDING HISTORY reports for deletion:

-The percentage usage reported by the disk space meter at the top of MY SHOWS:

-The recording was deleted as part of a season pass (Y/N):

If the recording that was deleted was part of a season pass please record the following:

-Keep at most:

-Show Type:

-Keep Until:

Thank you for your assistance,

Taylor


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## grouchyladybug (Jun 2, 2006)

I'm experiencing pretty much the same thing as you all. Shows are there one day, and gone the next, and they are not in the Recently Deleted folder. I have three episodes in particular that I know about for sure.

I read through this thread and a few others on this topic. Taking your suggestions, I went through and checked my History to see why these episodes in particular were deleted. This is where it gets interesting - I can't find them in my history as being deleted at all. I carefully looked through the list three times, going back almost a month ago in the list (this problem started occurring in the last month or so). Has anyone else not been able to find their mysteriously deleted episodes in their History list?

I definitely don't have a capacity problem (percentage is always way below 100%, there are things I did delete in the Recently Deleted folder, I don't record suggestions). I'm fairly certain that one of the episodes that was deleted was set as KUID, but not 100% (I know the other two that disappeared were not KUID). The three that were deleted were definitely older (recorded in mid/late March), but TiVo shouldn't have removed them for space issues because there are none.

Just thought I'd share. Hope there is a fix soon!


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## infoXczar (Apr 18, 2003)

Just happened to me right before my eyes. I have only seven season passes left and only perhaps three that are for shows that are even currently airing. (I deleted almost all of my season passes in hopes of alleviating the problem, but no go.)

The show recorded as it was supposed to from 9:30-10:00, until Space Needed. At 10:52 it was in Now Playing, space used on the TiVo was only 55%. By 11:22 after I watched and deleted another show, it was gone, and not in Recently Deleted. History shows it was deleted because "Space needed," specifically "This show was deleted because space was needed to record other shows on 4/14 at 11:38 PM." Meanwhile, the To Do List shows NOTHING scheduled to record until 2:03 AM on 4/18.

Very, very frustrating.


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## Winky65 (May 1, 2013)

I am new here, but am having the same problem. I tried to email Taylor, but I do not have enough posts yet, so I will post my message here, hope that is ok.

Hello,

I do not have a TIVO Premiere, I have a TIVO HD with an upgraded 1 TB HD. I have not checked but it is not close to being full I know. I assume since there are over 100 shows in the recently deleted that I can recover, there is adequate space. I have had a problem only with shows on AMC channel. Mad Men and The Walking Dead over the last few months would be deleted within minutes of finishing recording. Last Season of Mad Men worked fine, and most of the season of Walking Dead worked fine, but it started around the time this season of Mad Men started, late February I believe. I have not noticed it with any other shows. The episodes are not in the recently deleted folder, is there a way on an HD box to check recording history to see why they were deleted? Also, how do I check free HD space on an HD box. 


-TiVo Service Number (found on the back of the unit or in SYSTEM INFORMATION):652-0011-803C-1B44

-The reason RECORDING HISTORY reports for deletion:NA-cannot find in menu on HD box

-The percentage usage reported by the disk space meter at the top of MY SHOWS:Same as above

-The recording was deleted as part of a season pass (Y/N):Yes

If the recording that was deleted was part of a season pass please record the following:

-Keep at most:Walking Dead was at 5, then 10, Mad Men was at 10 then 25

-Show Type:series

-Keep Until: originally set to "space needed" switched to KUID, did not make a difference.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

Winky65 said:


> .. is there a way on an HD box to check recording history to see why they were deleted? Also, how do I check free HD space on an HD box.


"View Recording History" should be at the top of the "To Do List".


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## Winky65 (May 1, 2013)

lpwcomp said:


> "View Recording History" should be at the top of the "To Do List".


Thanks for that. Said not recorded because of no signal, which I found weird.For some reason I am not getting AMC and 2 other channels that I should be getting. Have Verizon FIOS. TIVO says it is searching for signal when I tune to those channels.


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## CMed1 (Apr 22, 2013)

Bumping this topic, I've had this same issue myself constantly over the last month or two. 

I recorded a movie last week and now it's already been deleted due to low space. In the recording history section it says the program was deleted due to low space right at the exact minute that I pressed the info button. 

The free space meter was at 22%, it was inaccurate before I rebooted the TiVo itself.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Did you get the new update? It's only an anecdote, but it definitely seems to have fixed the issue for me! Sign up on the priority page if they haven't put it out widespread yet.


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## CMed1 (Apr 22, 2013)

Thanks for the tip, wasn't aware there was an update. I just signed up for the priority list and hopefully that's it.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

I agree the latest update SW Vers 20.3.1, has fixed this issue which caused the TiVo to incorrectly report a Minimum File Size for all 1/2 hour recordings.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=504477


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## DaveTheNerd (Oct 13, 2004)

The new update definitely solved this for me on the Premier (at least it's behaved since the update and for the last 2 weeks). Glad to finally have it!


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## infoXczar (Apr 18, 2003)

DaveTheNerd said:


> The new update definitely solved this for me on the Premier (at least it's behaved since the update and for the last 2 weeks). Glad to finally have it!


There's a new update? And it's over two weeks old? Because I was told I'd be among the first to get the fix when it was available, and I've got nothing. Haven't been able to record anything (and actually watch it) for over two months now.


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## poppagene (Dec 29, 2001)

I wish I'd seen this thread before I upgraded a 320gb premier with shows expiring and deleting to 2tb. Oh well, I guesss the extra space may come in handy.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

infoXczar said:


> There's a new update? And it's over two weeks old? Because I was told I'd be among the first to get the fix when it was available, and I've got nothing. Haven't been able to record anything (and actually watch it) for over two months now.


You have to sign up for it currently as it's in "pre-release".


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## infoXczar (Apr 18, 2003)

morac said:


> You have to sign up for it currently as it's in "pre-release".


Done, thanks. They told me I was already on the list to get a fix "in April," but it can't hurt to sign up again. (Well, it _probably_ can't hurt, anyway...)


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

CoxInPHX said:


> I agree the latest update SW Vers 20.3.1, has fixed this issue which caused the TiVo to incorrectly report a Minimum File Size for all 1/2 hour recordings.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=504477


But it wasn't just a *reporting* issue... and as I SUSPECT (but have no proof of), it was also related to the issue where it would DELETE recordings way too early. (I SUSPECT much of Tivo's own internal calculations of size was also using the same false minimum file size issue.. most but not all, since if that were true, then the free space meter would ALSO have shown it to be near full at the same time..)

Though also anecdotal, I didn't seem to run into the actual file removal as early as I noticed the 2 GB file size issue itself (e.g. via kmttg).


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Though I thought some other thread claimed they had stopped doing the rollout, since someone guessed there were probs (yes I am passing on N-th hand info).


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## infoXczar (Apr 18, 2003)

Well, two days after I signed up for the update, my TiVo's connection screen reported that a software update was "pending" for this morning at 2:00 AM. I set two shows to record: an hour-long show from 1:00 to 2:00 AM, and a movie from 2:15 AM to maybe 4:00. I just got up now to check and both shows are in Now Playing. That hasn't happened in literally two months, so I'm pretty relieved so far.

Time will tell, but right now I'm cautiously optimistic that I've gotten my TiVo back.


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## DaveTheNerd (Oct 13, 2004)

Sadly, even though I have the software update (20.3.1-01-2-746) my TiVo Premiere started doing this again recently.

I believe it was triggered by me editing Season Passes with the iPad app, but I'm not certain. I've re-opened my support ticket with TiVo. Hopefully that will help.


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## infoXczar (Apr 18, 2003)

That makes me nervous, as just yesterday my daughter tried to record something on our way out the door and when we tried to watch it later, it wasn't there. History said it wasn't recorded due to an "unknown error." Going to have to keep an eye on things again.


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## tyrocker (May 14, 2002)

Interesting that some would say that the latest update has corrected this problem since I got this exact problem once I got the latest update. You would think that a problem that m has gone on for years like this would be rectified by the engineers, apparently they have no idea why this is happening, truly mind boggling.


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