U-Verse DVR series scheduled recordings are not functioning

@denirose I forget which post it was on, there was a user @_xyzzy_ who did a lot of leg work... but I don't think they post on these forums any longer who posted about the workaround and then later posted it was temporary.

The eventually permanent fix buried in the 28 page thread ended up being some sort of update/fix/change at&t made on the server and once they did that it seemed to resolve within 24 hours.  When a user asked what the fix was, the @davidcs customer service rep who had been posting wouldn't tell anyone and claimed it was "proprietary" .  Which is either code for 1)I don't know they don't tell me anything 2) we never share any info no matter how general with customers 3)  they have no idea how they fixed it or it was super obvious that someone messed up and they don't want to appear incompetent.

It's pretty easy to rule out any fixes a customer or field tech  could do to fix it, since many of the people had their dvr's replaced and it obviously did nothing to fix it.  which isn't surprising since the scheduling is done in the cloud on a server and not on the dvr itself.  And since our dvrs are getting the full 12ish days of guide listings they normally get that means the dvrs are properly connected to the server.  so obviously the problem is in the server or the way the software handles the connection between dvr and server.  Since it hits a relatively small specific region at a time it seems it must be an issue or setting on a single system, because anything involving the main software would affect all uverse customers or at least a lot of customers spread out around the country.

Honestly with my experiences with at&t this is just par for the course and how they operate.  

I don't know if this will help at all, but I did just discover another symptom. When you use the workaround and then look at the guide listings sometimes the triple red dot indicating the show is going to record will appear, and sometimes it won't appear and is missing, even though it's now on the list of scheduled recordings. So clearly this is another indication that the guide listings part of the software and the series scheduled recordings part of the software are not communicating properly to each other. The show even missing the triple red dot does end up recording. (it's also weird because if you try to then set the show manually and you have other things recording you can get a recording conflict with itself. for example: all hour long shows 1) 8pm show recording on channel 1004, 2) 8pm show recording on channel 1006 3) 8pm show recording on channel 1010 with no red dots showing 4) attempt to manually record 8pm show recording on channel 1010 will result in conflict since 3 shows are already recording. (but if you eliminate #1 or #2 the system will happily record both #3+#4 even though they are identical channel and time slot, just a like a normal conflict resolution)

@madmax988 

I think “proprietary” is probably number 3 - they have no idea.

Your system sounds pretty glitchy. I checked, and I don’t seem to have any of those issues. It would probably help if more people commented. Maybe they’d take an interest in fixing it and stop their useless “troubleshooting”.  Too bad they don’t have you to help them. At least you’re looking at possibilities that might pinpoint the issue. They show no curiosity whatsoever. I hope our workarounds hold. I’m not counting on them. 

@madmax988 

@ethanedwards 

@ATTHelp 

After manually resetting recordings for all my series and verifying they all extended out two weeks, I just checked and, as I feared and dreaded, they stopped at that point and did not continue beyond that original two week period. So now I have about ten days worth, soon it will be five. Then I’ll have to do it all over again. Unacceptable, @ATTHelp . Do something about it. 

@denirose

@atthelp

That's what I was afraid of.  So it seems what's most likely happening is the system isn't actively updating /checking for shows that should be scheduled.  When we make a settings change with the workaround that obviously forces it to manually check to see if there are any shows it should schedule/not schedule. same with setting a new series or show manually. 

What's really annoying is with a bug like this i'm guessing the problem and fix could be something incredibly minor.  Like a single setting of how often to check for scheduling updates, or a mismatched server clock.  (often computer software might be written like check every 5 minutes, but if the clocks on the server don't match the clock in dvr or another piece of equipment 5 minutes might never arrive).  I thought maybe day light savings could be the issue but the past reports and this incident don't match up so that's probably not it.  But a shocking amount of software you wouldn't expect it to matter for requires clocks to match perfectly even being off by 1 second can cause issues.  

(for instance I once had a problem with my verizon cellphone, where 1 cell tower I drove by had been set to the wrong time zone, every time you drove by the tower the phone would update to incorrect time, and every app requiring time would break, calendar, alarms, reminders all make sense, but GPS(the standard is based on precise timing), and even games, etc were less expected but still effected). And then when you drove by next tower it would revert back to correct time, and be super confused why it just time traveled.  Verizon eventually was able to send out a tech to manually fix it by resetting the time zone on the clock and the problems went away.  (it did take them 2 months though just like att's bad service).  

I last left twitter agent when he signed off last night and he said he was reaching out to escalation teams and they were still looking for a solution/debating if it's actually a regional problem, (they require way more reports before they'll bother to do anthing).  I'm hoping after today 4/20 when  most shows stop recording for many users that they'll start getting calls reporting a problem.  Although that will only be mildly helpful since the majority of those calls will probably not get flagged for review in any meaningful way, and I suspect att tier 1 techs will just tell them erase all their recordings and send them a replacement dvr in hopes it fixes it.  now a week or 2 later when those replacement dvrs fix nothing then maybe someone at tier 2 will actually start trying to diagnose problem....if we are lucky

Since most users don't check scheduled recordings regularly i'm betting a lot of people are going to be suddenly surprised tomorrow

@gr8sho  Is there any way you or one of the other ACES can help us get this issue moved up the chain of command or over to the correct department?  It's obviously a known issue, but I'm guessing only an engineer far outside where customers can contact would be able to determine and solve that?

@denirose I informed the twitter customer service agent AaronC that the workaround is only working a single time and is a temporary fix as we expected.  I also confirmed that it was the same for me with workaround shows not scheduled on monday 5/2 when guide now goes to 5/3.

I thought maybe I was making some progress, but then the agent started asking me about deleting old recordings again, which is ridiculous and doesn't interact with any of the affected systems.  So once again I think we probably need to get much higher up before anyone will even understand the problem yet alone actually bother to solve it. 

Don't let them bully you into deleting all your recordings, it's just an item on their ridiculous checklists they force you to go through.  Over the last decade I've deleted dvrs numerous times and even when the issue was the phyiscal dvr hardware it NEVER solves the problem.  
but in this case it's super ridiculous because even if you swap for a different dvr the series set to record and scheduling is identical, because it's stored on the cloud/server unlike the actual recordings which are stored on the local hard drive.  so they are completely separate systems.  

And the agent AaronC works sat-weds so i'm guessing i'll be stuck with another new agent or no response after today.  

@denirose ugh I just wrote a long response and the system didn't post it.

long story short,

for the future for other issues

always ask for a domestic representative and be prepared to wait anywhere from 10minutes -3 hours on hold. but it's better than talking to useless untrained overseas representatives, who literally aren't allowed to do anything but the absolute basics anyways.  They will act like you are being a racist (Edited per community guidelines) for not letting them help you, but the thing is the physically do not have access to many of at&t's systems because at&t does not trust them and spends approximately 7 minutes training them.  Just keep refusing until they attempt to connect you to domestic representative, note half of them will fail to properly make the transfer.  Do not ask for a manager as they just hand you to another random rep sitting next to them and you have to start all over.  For basic issues the time different between domestic and overseas is astounding domestic rep time to order a swap of a piece of equipment? 10-20 minutes.  Overseas? minimum 1 hour-3hours.  Time to solve a complex issue?  domestic rep 1-6 hours if it's solvable  overseas infinity hours because they will never solve it.  

For some wiring and hardware issues there are some advanced teams as well above domestic tier 1 and half support.  one is called the "last chance repair department" another is "advanced repair" but I don't know what the name of any of the software departments to ask for them. and only some of the customer retention agents even know the extensions to connect you to the advanced teams.  If they don't know the # or claim it doesn't exist hang up and call back until you get an agent who does. 

for anything not tech related call and speak to customer retention department.  Most Customer retention agents can't do much if anything about tech issues.  They also answer immediately usually with less than 3 minutes hold time max. 

@madmax988 Sooooo enlightening. Everything I wish I knew for the past 20 years in dealing with tech help desks. Last week I went through one of those calls with ATT (not tech but wireless billing). A (so I thought) fairly simple issue. Went through 5 transfers and disconnects, as well as a “manager” (haha) who was way more ignorant than his predecessors, to eventually land over an hour later with a person who knew the answer. I was by then grateful he even understood the question. I’ll hang onto your advice and no doubt will have a chance to use it soon. I don’t know if I even have the patience to go through all that with this issue. Maybe tomorrow. I might also post something on my neighborhood Nextdoor site and maybe Facebook to see if anyone local has noticed the problem or is having any success. I’ll post if I find out anything useful. Thanks!!

@denirose I don't have att for wireless so i'm not sure how there customer retention department works.

The problem is there are relatively few people who still su(Edited per community guidelines)cribe to U-verse tv so unless it's affecting all customers in the region the odds of finding other people having the same problem are pretty small.  

At it's peak uverse tv- had like 16 million customers nationwide, but they've lost millions to people just streaming and many millions got converted to directv and directv stream customers.  And the remaining few million are spread out across the country.  The good news is the remaining uverse customers are usually either very enthusiastic tv watchers like myself, or older people who don't like the hassle of changing providers, or trapped with uverse as only reasonable option.  

UGH my conversation with twitter is not going well... things have devolved... the agent became less useful and seems to just be running through standard basic troubleshooting.  Now in addition to wanting me to swap dvr and lose recordings he also wants me to waste the time of both me and a tech, having a technician come out to my house.  I guarantee you when the tech gets here he's going to laugh and be like "da fuq do they expect me to do?"  Literally all a tech can do is swap the dvr.  

he says its a "similar situation, but also a new situation" it all is starting to just sound like (Edited per community guidelines) and that he still doesn't even understand the problem.  

And he won't tell me anything more about the "escalation team" which I'm starting to think means he leaned over to the guy next to him and said got any ideas?  

And I only got a response because I tweeted publicly again...and he did not like that....Mostly he's just ignoring me and i'm guessing stalling until he clocks out for his weekend.   

Until I can actually speak with someone with any actual authority this is never getting solved, I better get good at the workaround.  Time to start considering the other devil that is comcast.  The devil you know? or the more expensive devil that makes big promises they probably won't keep?  

@denirose 

An agent "Matthew" got back to me on the forums DM: "Thank you so much. Now in looking at the old thread that you gave it looks like there was, at that time something put in for the SEP team. I am not sure that team even still exists. That is why I am escalating to management. Now you said that you identified the problem. Can further explain?"

This is promising! Finally someone who read the forum post about the bug.  It's too bad the SEP team(whatever that is) doesn't exist anymore, but hopefully they left notes somewhere.  

@madmax988 That’s got a very encouraging sound to it. The best sign of a breakthrough so far. You know the ropes and you’re persistent. Thanks for the work you’re doing and for keeping us (or me, since there doesn’t seem to be much other activity) informed. Very interesting comments earlier about the U-verse shrinking customer base. I sensed it but didn’t really know. Helps explain why I got no responses from Nextdoor when I solicited comments. I know if I this doesn’t eventually get fixed I won’t want to keep putting up with it. On the other hand the options are meager. I will not get satellite. I only stick with U-verse because they have all the regional sports networks. But this could be a dealbreaker if they don’t fix it. 

@madmax988 I just posted an update that was confirmed posted but then gone. Maybe it didn’t like that I cut and pasted in a comment. Anyway, a S. Florida neighbor responded to my post on Nextdoor saying she definitely had the same problem. She called and got a supervisor who assured her they are working on it. She has a follow up scheduled tomorrow for an update. In the unlikely event they give her anything useful I’ll post an update. 

@denirose That's good to know, that definitely means it's pretty widespread, since nextdoor posts are usually only seen by your specific neighborhood and a few surrounding neighborhoods.  It might even be all uverse tv customers in the region.  And the region could be anywhere from a small part of Miami to the entire state of Florida.   If you are able to ask them, see if you can find out what department the supervisor is in?  if it's just normal tier 1 or tier 1.5(domestic) tech support she will 99% never hear from them.  If it's a dispatch to a local technician she'll hear from them but they won't be able to do anything about it.  If it's a tech from a special higher up department tier 2 or 3 tech support, advanced team, last chance repair, she'll actually get a call back, but it won't necessarily be tomorrow it'll be whenever they feel like and often from a random phone number or even blocked phone number.  It's so annoying because there is no way to return the call if you miss it since they hate giving out direct line phone #.  and who answers random phone numbers/blocked numbers these days with the # of scam calls att gets paid to let through.  Although last chance repair did once give me a call back # with a passcode to use it, but it expired a few weeks later, usually at the end of the month...which was sooner than they had solved my issue.  

Yea I saw 2 notifications you posted and only 1 actually  posted, I could only read the 1st half sentence of the 1st post.  Posts get auto-deleted if they certain phrases or words at&t doesn't like that make them look bad.  like certain legal words/terms such as "saying we should (rhymes with pew)them"  or "i hate the (a-word we can't say-tion) clause that their contract forces us to sign.   
They claim it's just to filter swear words but once your censoring people.... why not protect your corporate image and do whatever you want? lol

Keep us posted.