DVR is randomly deleted recorded content. What is going on?

HI,

We are sorry about the issues you are having with your DVR recordings, but we will be glad to help. It may be an issue with the online profile. You can manage your recordings online as well. Try changing your password to make sure that someone else is not managing your recordings. If still having problems, let us know, and we may need to setup a new profile.

-ATTU-verseCare

Uverse Customer Care:

My profile looks fine. I changed my password, though I'd be surprised if someone was hacking my DVR recordings to randomly delete recorded content.

The online view of my recordings is accurate; as well as my IOS app on my iPhone.

Because the box is new, doesn't it seem to point to a software issue? My system is 2.4.2971480.

As I search to eliminate causes, one thing might be pertinent: I use a Harmony universal remote to control all my devices, including the DVR and associated navigation. I hate you give you guys an external "bad guy" as the cause, but for full disclosure I mention it. Do you have any instances in your problem solving database that might point to this as a cause?

Hi @Green Fleurdelis,

Our goal is to look at all possibility's. By chance, is the DVR plugged into a surge protector or power strip? Those have been known to cause issues.

-ATTU-verseCare

Understood. Though I have to admit I chuckled at the idea of someone hacking my account just to drive me crazy by randomly deleting recorded programs.

Yes, my DVR is plugged into a surge protector. A fairly expensive one if I remember correctly. 

While I don't pretend to understand how a surge protector that is supposed to increase device stability actually reduces stability, I am open to ideas.

Is it generally recommended to plug the DVR directly into a wall outlet?

Sigh. It happened again. Overnight, my DVR deleted 6 recorded programs.

I have only been using the AT&T remote (not my Harmony).

I haven't yet had a chance to bypass the surge protector. I will do that tonight after the current recording stops.

Any other ideas?????

With the recordings that are disappearing, is it removing older ones or just random ones? Also, are they ones where you have a lot of series recordings or just individual recordings? If it is a series recording, check your recording settings and see if you have it set to keep more episodes.

-ATTU-verseCare

Thanks for the follow-up.

It randomly deletes recordings. Both those that have been viewed as well as those already viewed but not manually deleted. (For fear that somehow the software was deleting recordings other than the ones I have viewed and wanted deleted, I have not been manually erasing episodes that I have watched. But after experiencing more random deletes without me doing any erasing, I have concluded that that is not the cause.)

Regarding series, it will delete recordings regardless of how many episodes are recorded. If it deletes a recording however, I believe it always deletes all those of the same series. I could be mistaken on this though. All my recordings are of series, rather than individual programs. All series settings are to keep until space is needed. And even when I wasn't losing content, I never rose above about 40% of available hard drive space. With this problem, I hardly have any disk space used at all.

Please keep the ideas coming. (My wife is pretty very upset that all the episodes of the final season of Downton Abbey have been lost. She wanted to binge watch after the final episode.)

We may need to replace the DVR. That would be a last option, because we do not want you to lose more recordings than you already have. One last thing to try maybe to setup your series recordings again. You can start with a few, but delete the old one you have setup and then schedule them again with the option until you delete them or increase the amount of series recordings to be held.

Also, you can try doing a non-destructive recovery by doing the following:

Unplug the receiver or DVR power cord from the wall or back of the box.
Wait 10 seconds.
Plug in the receiver and DVR.
When three white dots appear on the screen, unplug the receiver/DVR again.
Repeat this process two more times.
Plug the receiver/DVR back in on the third time and leave in. Three white dots appear followed by a gear with a status bar at the bottom of the screen.
If the Disaster Recovery screen does not appear, repeat the steps above.

-ATTU-verseCare

Please forgive my skepticism, but:

a) I just got the new DVR box because the old one was randomly deleting programs. Now the new one is doing the same thing.

b) I did the non-destructive recovery on the old DVR and it didn't fix the issue. I'll try this on the new box though anyway.

While tedious, I will try deleting series recordings and re-entering the current ones. Where this process hurts is for series that are currently not airing. One feature I love is that it'll pick up the next season even when I forget that new episodes are beginning. I will have to pay closer attention to the series I'm interested in recording when they restart.

At least it is something to try. Would it be best to do this on the DVR directly? Or online?

I would do this on the DVR directly. Also, it may just be best to do a few of them that are currently airing, and if the problems disappear, then you can go through a few at a time, until you have it all done.

-ATTU-verseCare