SageTV v7 - Auto-delete's newest recordings

[bradvido]

My recording directories are full, so I am relying on Sage's auto-delete to make space when a new recording happens. However, it is deleting the newest episodes instead of the oldest.

For instance, last night my wife watched the latest Glee, but she fell asleep. It continued to play and SageTV marked it as 'Watched'. Now today, that episode has been auto-deleted, even though there are Glee episodes from last year, also marked as 'Watched', which were not deleted.
All of these episodes were recorded under a Favorite with auto-delete=true, which has a higher-priority that most of the other recorded shows. Nothing was manually recorded. In fact, all of my shows are recorded as favorites, and all are set as auto-delete true.
The SageTV web interface tells me that my auto-delete recordings are: ◦[Auto-Delete Recordings]: 303 recordings using 1253.66 GB.
So, if there is over a terabyte of recordings that can be auto-deleted, why is SageTV deleting a recording that was just created yesterday!?!

I have the SageTV's recording preference as 'optimize for space', so nothing unusual there.

1. Is there any way to determine which shows SageTV will delete next with it's auto-delete. (I come from BeyondTV, and it had this handy feature).
2. Is there any log file that can show me what shows are being auto-deleted?
3. Is there any way to do an advanced configuration of what shows get auto-deleted? I would like for it to always delete the oldest recording, regardless of priority, watched status, etc.

Thank you in advance for any insight some SageTV experts might be able to provide!

[jorton]

Hopefully this is on topic...

I have noticed the same thing as the OP and I am interested in an explanation of the automatic deletion order. I have been manually deleting my old watched shows to make sure that I don't inadvertently lose something with the automatic method.

I also would like to know the delete order when you select a group of recordings for deletion, most of the time I would prefer that it delete from oldest to newest recorded date so that I can stop the deletion process and keep a couple of the more recent recordings not the two oldest ones, this is mostly when I am clearing up kids shows that seem to suck up my recording space rather quickly.

Thanks Jeremy

[ptzink]

I experienced some similar weirdness with auto delete a few weeks ago, although in my case it actually deleted a recording that hadn't even been watched yet. You can read more here. Like you, I had several other favorites that were old and had been watched that were kept. I decided to manually clear up some space on my recording drive, but since then it has filled up again and the auto delete seems to be working normally again. I too agree it would be nice to see exactly what was next in line to be deleted and I can't see why that would be difficult information to provide.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by jorton

Hopefully this is on topic...

I have noticed the same thing as the OP and I am interested in an explanation of the automatic deletion order.

See Appendix C of the manual.

Originally Posted by jorton

I also would like to know the delete order when you select a group of recordings for deletion...

It's probably the same as the sort order you have selected in the current view. That said, it seems a bit chancy to do a group delete on a group that includes recordings you don't want deleted. What I'd suggest in that situation is to use filtered views based on (say) Watched or Archived status to exclude the ones you want to keep. Then you don't have to worry about what order they get deleted in so you can stop it in time.

[jorton]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

See Appendix C of the manual.



It's probably the same as the sort order you have selected in the current view. That said, it seems a bit chancy to do a group delete on a group that includes recordings you don't want deleted. What I'd suggest in that situation is to use filtered views based on (say) Watched or Archived status to exclude the ones you want to keep. Then you don't have to worry about what order they get deleted in so you can stop it in time.

Thanks, but Appendix C doesn't specifiy the order that the files will be deleted just that "Existing recordings will remain until space is needed or until you delete the recording." or something similar and does not say that it will delete the oldest recordings first etc and it it is in fact based on some sort order set somewhere... and that's what we are asking about.

I may be "chancy" but it works and when you have your system recording hundreds of kids shows that will never be ever be watched, I just want to keep the last few recent recordings by group deleting and stopping the process with a couple left. If the process was to delete from the newest to the oldest every time I cleared up some space I'd end up with the same two old recordings not the latest two...

I don't have time to go through kids shows and archive/set watched just want to delete the oldest bunch every once and awhile. I do also use the group delete option on "watched" shows but the recordings build up faster than they are watched...

Also I'm curious about why there isn't an option to keep at most X recordings and to always add new and drop/delete the oldest so that you always have recent recordings rather than build up to x recordings and then stop recording the show... Might be a nice option to have.

Thanks,

J

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by jorton

I don't have time to go through kids shows and archive/set watched just want to delete the oldest bunch every once and awhile.

Set watched on the group, unset watch on the last couple recorded shows individually, delete watched shows... Thats what i do when i have a bunch of shows to delete but want to keep the last couple that were recorded.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by jorton

Also I'm curious about why there isn't an option to keep at most X recordings and to always add new and drop/delete the oldest so that you always have recent recordings rather than build up to x recordings and then stop recording the show... Might be a nice option to have.

There is such an option. If you have Keep at Most set with Autodelete enabled, it will delete the oldest to make room for newer ones. If you disable Autodelete, then obviously it won't delete any and will stop recording when it reaches the Keep at Most amount.

[bradvido]

Here's what Appendix C says:
http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/1...autodelete.png
So, it deletes them based on the priorities of

• Manual recordings/favorites
• Favorites w/ auto-delete on
• Intelligent recordings
• Watched shows (i'm guessing if a favorite is watched, it falls into this category, not the previous favorites category)
• Live tv
• Recordings marked as Don't like

Items at the top of the list are least likely to get deleted, and items at the bottom are more likely to get deleted.

It also says if two shows have the same priority, the older of the two will be deleted. I think by priority here, they mean priority in this list, not the numeric priority set within favorites.

So, since i only have Favorites w/ auto-delete on (some of which are marked as watched), then SageTV should delete the OLDEST WATCHED favorite when it needs space. It does NOT do this. In fact, it deleted one of my newest favorites (recorded just 24 hours ago).

Any ideas why?

[jorton]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

There is such an option. If you have Keep at Most set with Autodelete enabled, it will delete the oldest to make room for newer ones. If you disable Autodelete, then obviously it won't delete any and will stop recording when it reaches the Keep at Most amount.

Gotcha, good to know, thanks Greg.

Now back to bradvido's question(s), in case I highjacked te thread in any way.

[bradvido]

As a (possible) workaround, I have set up a script to force all recordings to be marked as 'unwatched'. This is an attempt to force SageTV to delete the oldest recording, regardless of watched status. I'll see if it really does that.

I am OK with this because I rarely use SageTV for playback, so the watched flags don't mean much to me.
I manage everything with XBMC.

It'll be interesting to see what sage does now. I may also set up a script to notify me of when a recording is auto-deleted so I know exactly what sage is doing (unless this if info is already in a log somewhere? Anyone know?)

[Opus4]

Are any of your older watched recordings tagged as Archived? The manual notes they never get deleted.

Do the older recordings have station names associated with them? If your lineup has changed & they were recorded on an old channel that you no longer receive & is no longer in the database, I just found out that they won't get deleted because they will look like conversions that are also not auto-deleted.

See this FAQ for how to get a debug log. You could post the log if you still don't know why something deleted & it happens again.

Oh, and if you set up the recordings view to sort Intelligently w/o grouping, then the list will approximate the deletion order.

- Andy

[bradvido]

No, none are archived. I've never used that feature. Sage is really just a recorder for me, i don't use the GUI much.

I found that info on the debug log, and i have sifted through mine (I had debug logging enabled from a while ago). Nothing useful came of that.

[bradvido]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Oh, and if you set up the recordings view to sort Intelligently w/o grouping, then the list will approximate the deletion order.

I will try this! Thanks for the tip

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by bradvido

I am OK with this because I rarely use SageTV for playback, so the watched flags don't mean much to me.

But they do mean something to Sage. Specifically, if you delete a Favorite recording without marking it Watched, Sage will try to record that episode again, because it won't know that you've already watched it in some other app.

[bradvido]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

But they do mean something to Sage. Specifically, if you delete a Favorite recording without marking it Watched, Sage will try to record that episode again, because it won't know that you've already watched it in some other app.

Hmmm... So maybe a better work-around would be to mark everything as watched instead of unwatched? Do you see any problems with that?

[GKusnick]

Per Appendix C, all Watched shows will be auto-deleted before any Unwatched shows. If you're comfortable with that, then I guess it could work.

That said, I'm somewhat skeptical of the long-term value of using those flags merely as levers to influence the deletion order. The flag is called "Watched", not "Delete me first", and Sage devs and plugin devs are going to write code on the assumption that Watched means you've actually watched it. So in the long run it seems like you'll have fewer surprises if you take that meaning seriously and populate your database with accurate Watched info, rather than flipping flags back and forth at whim to suit your short-term purposes.

[ptzink]

So now that we are all well aware of the logic used to auto delete recordings, can Sage provide an ordered list (under "TV" submenu?) starting with the next recording to be deleted and going to the last? Even if I could just see that in the Web UI it would be helpful. Thanks.

[bradvido]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Per Appendix C, all Watched shows will be auto-deleted before any Unwatched shows. If you're comfortable with that, then I guess it could work.

That said, I'm somewhat skeptical of the long-term value of using those flags merely as levers to influence the deletion order. The flag is called "Watched", not "Delete me first", and Sage devs and plugin devs are going to write code on the assumption that Watched means you've actually watched it. So in the long run it seems like you'll have fewer surprises if you take that meaning seriously and populate your database with accurate Watched info, rather than flipping flags back and forth at whim to suit your short-term purposes.

I agree. I would love to have the watched flag really mean 'watched'.... The problem is we often watch shows before bed and fall asleep. So it gets marked as watched, even though we haven't finished it.
Then (the reason i started this thread), Sage deletes the episode we just watched in it's automatic cleanup, even though there are dozens of watched, older, recorded shows. This is not the behavior I'd expect after reading appendix C, but it happens time and time again.

[bradvido]

Originally Posted by ptzink

So now that we are all well aware of the logic used to auto delete recordings, can Sage provide an ordered list (under "TV" submenu?) starting with the next recording to be deleted and going to the last? Even if I could just see that in the Web UI it would be helpful. Thanks.

This would be very useful for debugging my problem.
In the meantime, if you look at recorded shows, ungrouped, in inverse intelligent order, that apparently mimics the auto-delete order.

[bradvido]

Ok, I've abandoned the idea of setting everything to watched or unwatched in favor of setting up a way to track which shows are getting deleted by sage and why.
I've set up a script that creates an HTML report whenever sage adds or deletes recordings. I'm going to monitor that and see what happens.

Here's a sample of my first attempt of a report:
http://pastehtml.com/view/1ehs88f.html