It isn't a Channels issue that causes this, it's lan networking issues, bad .m3u streaming, or in the case of a real tuner device (such as an HDHR), antenna signal loss. Channels will restart the stream as many times as is needed in those cases, until the time set for the recording is over. THAT'S what I meant by "robust"
Yes in every case when the recording gets interrupted it then starts recording again. The shows I have watched that showed the recording interrupted must just be happening for seconds because I never notice anything missing when I watch it. Last night I shutdown Pluto for Channels and recorded 4 hours from the Discovery channel and there were no interruptions. Then after going back and looking at previous recordings it seems I only have recordings interrupted on my CBS local station on this DVR but not on the Channels DVR on my Synology NAS. So today I am going to try recording from that channel with Pluto for Channels off and see if I have any interruptions.
Sure Harsh, you know it all as usual. Do you even HAVE a Channels DVR server running?
The issue I have had is not with my NAS which is actually hardwired with two 1gb ethernet connections. The issue I am having was on a Windows 11 PC that is also hardwired with Ethernet. That issue also occurred this morning when I recorded 3 shows from my local CBS so the issue is only happening via the CBS local. And this morning I had my Pluto TV software off so it isn't that software causing the issue.
Does any of this suggest to you that your hardware or network is necessarily at fault?
I tried Channels a long time ago when it was more like TV Everywhere with DVR features, but it was officially threatening to become a cloud-based service rather than a local PVR setup. Much has changed since then, and apparently not all for the better.
I'm pretty sure it lies in the Windows 11 PC somewhere or the network. There is one network switch that the WIN 11 PC goes through that the Synology NAS doesn't so I need to look into that too. Here are screenshots of my recordings from this week from the Synology NAS and the same recordings plus some extra stuff while testing from the WIN 11 pc. Today my next test will be to try a different Ethernet cable on the WIN 11 pc. I had thought it only happened from the CBS local but it happened on one show from Discovery also. Most of the stuff I record is from the CBS local and I hadn't noticed the interruption on Discovery. But on the Synology NAS...no interruptions at all. If it was the fault of the Channels DVR software it would be happening everywhere.
I assure you there are many people using Channels DVR successfully with an HD HomeRun via OTA which is not a possibility for me. If it were possible I would be doing it. I also have a lifetime PLEX subscription and very rarely use it for anything since OTA is not a possibility for me. The auto skip ads on the Channels DVR is worth the price of it. I also have my own video library going through Channels DVR instead of Plex because frankly Channels is far superior to Plex.
Plex also offers auto-skip. What it doesn't offer is TV Everywhere, which is key to your local broadcast experience.
Remember that Synology's DSM is a Linux distro. This is typically a huge advantage where networking is involved.
So my test of changing the Ethernet cable and bypassing the switch that the Synology NAS doesn't go through didn't help so I am still getting random interruptions on recordings using the Windows 11 pc. So right now it is either a hardware issue or a windows 11 issue. This same pc worked without these interruptions for about 2 years. The interruptions started within the last month or two and it isn't all recordings. I may try it on my Bazzite PC but it is recommended to install it via Docker on Linux pc's and I have never done that before so I will have to do some learning before I attempt it.
Post this on the Channels forum. Might get better answers. I'd suspect a Windows 11 update somehow is doing this, but who really knows.
Docker is easy (much more so than VMs), but it adds some overhead (especially if you're using hardware transcoding).
Yes, but it requires a paid subscription, monthly or yearly. There's no lifetime option available. But it is constantly being actively updated, and worth the money IMO. It has a free 30 day test to see if you'd like it. It's very easy to install and run. Channels — Watch TV Your Way
Well I think I got if fixed. That win11 pc is rarely powered off. The only reboots on it is after updates. Saturday morning I powered it off for a few minutes and then powered it back up. I have done about 30 recordings testing on it and since that time I have not had any recordings interrupted. So some Windows 11 Vodoo was cleared out by powering it off.
That's what happened to mine this past Tuesday update day. It rebooted maybe 6+ times with all the pushed updates. I couldn't connect to it remotely, and it reset it's network to Public. I couldn't change it, very frustrating. I then rebooted it one more time manually, and it fixed it! Go figure.
