Error: “Program” cannot be recorded. Restrictions set by broadcaster…

[Camaroon]

Hi everyone.  I’ve been using WMC for about a month now as my DVR and haven’t had any issues.  But last week this error message popped up when a show on a series schedule was about to record:

RECORDING CANCELED.  “<insert program>” cannot be recorded.  Restrictions set by the broadcaster and/or originator of the content prohibit recording of this program.

I know from doing some research that this seems to be an issue that pops up from time to time.  I even found the post on this site about it from a couple of years ago.  But when I’m trying to create this set up that my wife already is skeptical about and her Dr. Phil isn’t recording this can turn into a big issue.  Like I said, it hadn’t been happening at all then it suddenly started I believe last Thursday.  It happened with just about every show that was set to record on a bunch of different channels.  Some ended up recording, some didn’t.  I have all series set to start 2 minutes before and sometimes it would record for those 2 minutes then stop.  I have the SD HD Homerun tuner.  The only two changes that I’ve made recently is I found the article on here about getting WMC to auto start in Live TV using Valve, and I updated the setup software for my tuner.  I don’t remember specifically which night I updated the software for my tuner, but I do remember that this started the night after I installed Valve.  Now I’m not saying it was that, but I ended up uninstalling it anyway just to make sure and we still got the message today.  I also noticed that people on SD’s forums are talking about this happening to them as well. 

Has anyone had this happen in the last week?  Anyone know a fix?  I found a post on another forum from a couple of years ago that said he fixed it by re-setting up his tuners in WMC.  I haven’t tried that yet, though.  Thanks!

[johnw248]

There are a couple of ways you can get this message:

1. The program is sent with a copy never CCI code of 0x3. This happens with video on demand such as HBO on demand and pay per view sporting events. You are unlikely to get this with a cableCARD tuner but the codes exist for this reason. There are times when this code can be send in error. This is a digital code and most likely would occur on premium channels.

2. You can also get this error if for some reason a CGMS-A code (from the analog days, remember?) that is copy never gets included in a digital stream. This is different than the CCI code and is in the MPEG stream. CableCARD tuners are required to honor this flag if it appears as part of the cableCARD spec. This happend about two weeks ago on ABC at the very end of Subugatroy and the begining of Modern Family. This code originated at ABC and wound up killing recordings on cableCARD tuners on many cable systems but not all. Some cable systems re-compress content and strip the codes out, clear QAM tuners don’t even see this stuff and so don’t pass it on to WMC.

What can you do? Complain. If it’s a cable system error, complain to them (in writing), make a complaint on the FCC website with date and time of the error and the cable system, channel, program, etc.

If it happens on a broadcast channel on a network show, it’s just wrong. It isn’t allowed and you should make a complaint to your local station, Network (I’d suggest the Vice President of Engineering–get the name off the internet) and for good measure file a complaint with the FCC.

I think in the case of ABC on Modern Family it was a mistake–heaven only knows what caused it, someone could have thrown a switch, a bad edit, something riding on the overlay video at the begining of the show, etc.

But in short, if it is either a CCI 0x3 or CGMS-A, don’t waste your time with your tuners, the fault isn’t on your machine or tuners, its inbound.

John

[Aaron Ledger]

There was an incident last week with Modern Family setting CGMS-A flag. Normally, this is never supposed to happen and was some sort of fluke caused by ABC. I happened to be recording this program and noticed that WMC was a bit buggy after the recording happened. Specifically, I noted that the first 9 minutes of Modern Family was flagged with CGMS-A flag (0x01) and WMC treated it as Copy Never.

Fortunately, part of the WMC bug appears to be that it doesn’t delete or restrict this content even though it is flagged and “expired” after 90 minutes from recording. Several recordings after Modern Family were also noted as you describe in their first minute of recording on other channels. This seems to be some strange artifact resulting from WMC seeing the CGMS-A flagged content. I recommend that you reboot and see if this behavior goes away as it did in my case.

[Camaroon]

Thanks for the repsonses guys, much appreciated.  This is the general gist I’ve gathered from researching this problem, that it was a mistake and shouldn’t happen.  In the last two nights we’ve had other shows set to record and some have worked, others have been flagged.  For example, last night My Strange Addiction and Khloe and Lamar recorded fine.  But today, Dr. Phil got flagged again today and didn’t record.  Then tonight, Alcatraz got flagged but recorded anyway, but The Bachelor didn’t get flagged.  So hopefully it’s getting itself worked out.  I’ve restarted a couple of times since this first happened but obviously that didn’t completely clear it up. 

So the last 3 or 4 episodes of Dr. Phil have had this.  Should I make a complaint at this point?  Sorry for being a noob with these error codes, but if I’m sitting here and see this happen how do I find out what kind of flag it was?  Or is there a log I can check some where?  Is it possible that I might see an error code besides those two?

[Camaroon]

This is a test post.  I’ve had about 5 or 6 posts in the last two days get kicked back as being “innapropriate for this website” and I’m trying to see if it’s me or what I’m writing.  I keep getting the error “CAPTCHA reuse attack session detected” when I preview a post.  I’ve closed the browser, logged out and logged back in.  I keep getting it with the original content I was trying to post as a reply to this.

 

[Camaroon]

Thanks for the responses guys, much appreciated. This is basically the general gist of what I’ve gotten from the research that I’ve done, that this is a mistake and really shouldn’t be happening. The last two days I’ve had some series record fine, and others have been flagged. For example, yesterday My Strange Addiction and Khloe and Lamar recorded fine. Then today, Dr. Phil got flagged and didn’t record. And tonight, The Bachelor recorded fine but Alcatraz got flagged (but recorded fine anyway). I’ve restarted a couple of times since this started happening and it’s obviously not gone away, but it seems to be a bit less. So at this point with the last 3 or 4 eps of Dr. Phil having this problem should I be making a complaint?

Also, can you guys let me know how to check which flag code I’ve gotten? Is there a log that I might be able to go back and check? Also, is it possible I might see any other type of error code, or that it could be an issue with my setup?

[Aaron Ledger]

I recommend that you contact SiliconDust for support to try and determine why the errors are still occurring for you.

With the InfiniTV 4, there is a debug log that shows if the flag is set in the program. There may be something similar with the SiliconDust product, but I have no experience with it. Something you could try, though I suspect it will not help is to power cycle your SiliconDust tuner.

[Camaroon]

Sorry for the multiple duplicate responses.  I was really having a hard time posting last night and got it cleared up today. 

But it looks like things may be getting back to normal.  Dr. Phil recorded today and my wife said she doesn’t remember seeing the error.  And Top Gear is recording right now and no error popped up.  I’ll keep an eye on it and post back if I keep getting it.  Again, thanks for the help!

[Aaron Ledger]

No problem. You can check your recording history in WMC and it will tell you if the error occurred. If you see any recordings marked as “Partial” that should reveal the error (if that was the cause).  

[johnw248]

On the Silicon Dust tuner, if you go to the Web Gui (double click on the tuner in Media Devices) and then click on the summary menu, you’ll see the cableCARD, Tuner0, Tuner1, Tuner2.

If you clilck on the tuner you’ll get the following information(this tuner in not in use at this time)

Tuner 2 Status

Virtual Channel	none
Frequency	none
Program Number	none
Authorization	none
CCI Protection	none—–CCI copy freely, copy once
CGMS Protection	none—-CGMS flags like on Modern Family week before last
Modulation Lock	none
PCR Lock	none
Signal Strength	none
Signal Quality	none
Symbol Quality	none
Streaming Rate	none
Resource Lock	none

[johnw248]

For some reason the table doesn’t work when I post. It’s there when I edit and preview and goes to run on text when I save–sorry about that. It makes it hard to read but both the CCI and CGMS will be shown in the detail for that channel. The information is only available while that tuner is live and streaming.

Another try with data from a tuner in use:

Virtual Channel	422 MGMHD
Frequency	795.000 MHz
Program Number	1422
Authorization	subscribed
CCI Protection	protected-copyonce
CGMS Protection	n/a
Modulation Lock	qam256
PCR Lock	locked
Signal Strength	100% (6.9 dBmV)
Signal Quality	100% (37.4 dB)
Symbol Quality	100%
Streaming Rate	15.108 Mbps
Resource Lock	192.168.0.7

John

[Camaroon]

I’m still getting this message, but I’m never around to check the tuners when it does.  It seemed to be going away the last couple of days but it came on strong today.  Dr. Phil again, Jeopardy, and The Office all got flagged tonight.  But even though The Office stopped recording about 11 minutes in, Up All Night, which comes on right after The Office, was recording fine until I had to reboot my system because it started to act weird. 

I’ve checked the recording logs and seen the “Partial” recordings, but it doesn’t give a specific error, just that it stopped.  This is unbelievably frustrating.

[Aaron Ledger]

Have you filed a support ticket with SiliconDust?

[Camaroon]

Aaron, I just did last night.  But I’ve got other issues to worry about now.  For no apparent reason, my computer has decided to crash into the BSOD about 4 times over the last 2-3 days.  I don’t know where this came from cause everything had been working fine.  But a couple of days ago I started to get a message about DMRengine.exe has encountered an error and must close.  When this came up, the computer would get weird a freeze a little, but then it would work fine after a minute.  But I’d have to think that whatever is causing DMRengine to quite must be crashing the computer too.  What a mess!

[Aaron Ledger]

That is strange. A quick search for DMRengine.exe reveals that this is part of a CyberLink product. Perhaps you should try uninstalling that (at least temporarily) as part of the troubleshooting process.

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