We need a way to undo accidental deletions of DVR recordings

Hello thetrellan,

We truly appreciate you reaching out to AT&T’s Community and Forums. It is disheartening to hear of the 50 hours of HD recordings being lost. DIRECTV strives to provide the best programming and is constantly working to improve the viewing experience.

Your comments are welcomed and will be forwarded to our Engineering Team who do take into account of how changes are perceived. In the meantime, here is a link to better explain the changes to the guide: http://soc.att.com/2odk7gb.

Thank you for choosing AT&T for your entertainment needs. Have a great day!

Jason, AT&T Community and Forums Team

I do have another problem that irks me whenever I go to program from my favorites list. 

I have a long list of shows, perhaps 20 some odd screens worth of channels.  The last change made to the menus returns me to the top if I check out program details.  Before the system returned me to where I was at, and now it doesn't.  That forces me to use the record button instead, basically programming blind.  If I forget to do that, I lose place of my progress because keeping track means actually counting how many times I've moved down an entire screen.  It's an infuriating inconvenience, especially considering it worked fine before.  Somehow they made a change that screwed up the simple function of returning you to where you were at before looking at program details.  They should fix that.

The limited file system supported in the dvr's is not capable of an undelete function.  There is no concept of a "trash can" that you have to explicitly empty.  On your computer, if you delete something and empty the trash do you have a way of getting the deleted file back?  I think not.  Well maybe with some specialized software that may access the stuff if the blocks are not yet overridden but a dvr is not a true computer.  

Adding an undelete is probably IMO way beyond the scope of the programmers maintaining the old windwosce software.  As you already discovered they can't even get the favorites Info bug fixed (I call it the "Favorites lost-of-position bug").  You are not the first to be aggravated by this.  It's started around November-December 2016 when the last UI update came out.  Many, including me, have complained both publicly and PM to @ATTCares.   More than a year and nothing has changed and we're way overdue for a UI update.  They used to be done every year.

"On your computer, if you delete something and empty the trash do you have a way of getting the deleted file back?"  I could if I kept a backup on the cloud.  Which is what I was suggesting.  Seriously.  The internet and DVR are already interconnected.  Why not keep a backup online?  Or better yet, on an external drive that can only be accessed for restoring the last deletion.  That's two ways of addressing the problem right off the top of my head.

I could if I kept a backup on the cloud.

That's changing the "rules".   I asked whether you had that capability using just your file system.  I never said anything about restoring from backups.

Why not keep a backup online?

You mean for the millions of att dvr users?   I don't think so.  Att is going to milk as much $'s as they can using what they got.

Or better yet, on an external drive that can only be accessed for restoring the last deletion.

Again file system and UI changes that aren't going to happen.  And the second you can get that stuff out on to an external disk the disk becomes fully accessible to computer disk access programs.  It would only be a matter of time before someone figured out the disk layout and encryption to allow access to the videos on the disk.  I'm perfectly fine with that.  But att "works" for the entertainment industry, i.e., they do their bidding, and heaven forbid someone copy one of their precious HD videos.   It's the same crap that brought HDMI HDCP into existence.

Editorial/Opinion:

We're beating a dead horse there.  Theoretically someday all of this stuff might change if att combines in some way uverse and directv with common hardware (there were rumors about that some time ago).  Maybe someday we won't have dvr's anymore and the stuff will really be "in the cloud" for those millions of users if att deems it cost effective (assuming att still has millions of users by then).  Then perhaps software, designed from the ground up, will be more sophisticated to support more of what we expect from a file system.  But don't expect anything other than small tweaks to the old windowsce software att is currently using.

Uhhh, what the (expletive deleted) do you mean 'that's changing the rules'?  I'm the one asking here, not you, and I am saying the rules need to change.

Yes, for every customer.  Many online services provide online storage.  On Demand already provides a limited way to see shows you might have missed.  It's a ploy to force you to view commercials at this point, but it's way in excess of the fifty hours I lost.  If they made it an online service, that could be extended to include everything on your recording list.  You don't need redundant storage, just one database for everyone.  And in case you didn't notice, all of this stuff is already online, made available by online services like Hulu and Netflix.  In light of that, it seems like maybe you're not trying to help, but to offer excuses.

The fact is, it's going to happen sooner or later, or else DVR services will go the way that Kodak did.  Many movies that used to be just a search away have vanished from broadcast TV, only to show up on demand for a fee.  That means that what little advantage there was to cable or satellite is vanishing.  For viewers, I mean, not sponsors or other trough feeders.

I know these kinds of changes are not in the near future, but the time to be noting ways to compete is now, and a place to start is by expanding service functionality.

As for the external solution, why do you think I said the backup could only be used for that?  Encryption and hardware protection combined with proprietary hardware and software.  The drives would be designed to be used only on your system, using ports/connectors only found on ATT & T  equipment. 

Although I think that's going overboard, really.  Considering the DVR is already a storage device, and any internal drive can be used externally.  So thinking of the DVR's own drive as being substantially different or safer than external storage is incorrect.  External storage is more convenient.  That's all.  And that only lasts as long as it takes to remove the internal drive and put it in an enclosure. 

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@thetrellan wrote:

Uhhh, what the (expletive deleted) do you mean 'that's changing the rules'?  I'm the one asking here, not you, and I am saying the rules need to change.