Library recordings won’t play

Is this specific to some content? like sports or leagues or movies? this is not for sure a widespread issue, otherwise people would be complaining left and right. 

Problem is with all recorded programs of all types. The bizarre aspect of this is that there is no problem at all playing back these same recorded shows on our third TV.  But we’ve taken every plausible action — rebooting the devices, resetting them totally, rebooting the modem/router, all to no avail. 

You need @DIRECTVhelp to take a look at two devices and see what might be going on - it is very weird, indeed.

Hi, @Qmansdad. We're sorry for the trouble you're experiencing with playing your recordings. We've sent you a DM to further investigate. Mark, DIRECTV Community Specialist

What is a DM?

Direct Message

@Qmansdad, have you tried doing basic troubleshooting inside the home network? Restart your modem and router (WiFi extender and Residential Gateway if applicable), then restart the boxes with issues. It's very strange that you can watch Live TV but not Recordings. The error you mention usually indicates that the box cannot communicate properly to the internet to playback recordings. Also, I assume you do not have any firewall rules or switches, etc.

Done all that. All three units have worked perfectly for over three years until a few days ago, when suddenly two of the units exhibited the same exact problem.  Very strange and extremely frustrating, especially after spending two hours on the phone this morning with tech support people who ultimately threw up their hands and gave up. 

Then it's a problem with the app version - do me a favor and check the version in all three - if there are two with the same version, I bet those are the ones giving you a hard time. The one working fine should be the previous one (Election HQ App-related). This will give more clues on what's going on.

As GTyz has suggested, the “good” unit’s version number is 30.6.34.28 while the two problem units are version 30.6.36.32.

Having discovered this, I don’t know what this means or what to do about it. 

@Qmansdad  DIRECTV will have to investigate this, as it seems related to the app version you're running on two boxes. There's nothing you can do. If you shared account details, they should already have that and should be working on a fix. I doubt this affects many customers; otherwise, there would be a major outage.

Given my experience with DTS’ technical support people over two hours on the phone yesterday I have no reason to believe a fix is imminent. If no one from DTS contacts me today, I will be contacting DTS tomorrow to cancel my service.

The spooks at DTS have remotely fixed one of the two problem devices but apparently cannot fixed the second. Just ordered Roku devices so that I can switch to a better streaming service. 

@Qmansdad Glad to hear that one of the devices is now working. We're still working on a fix for the other device. You can stream through the app if you have a smart TV that's compatible with our app. Roland, DIRECTV Community Specialist

Inconceivable that something like this could even happen and even more ridiculous is DTS’ inability to fix it expeditiously. Goodbye DTS, hello Roku and Hulu.