TVHeadend & Windows-compatible filenames

Quote from pjm.47

Same problem here, but worse, the remove unsafe chars and windows compatible filename options only seems to work with the filename not the folder name (actually it might work intermittently which is even odder). But the problem is I am using exFat formatted external drive so any recording with for example a : in like New: xxx fails when trying to create this directory. I moved away from formatting the external drive with a linux format as every time I had a power cut the drive would get corrupted. exfat doesn't do this, but now there is the problem with filenames. I am really struggling to find a solution. Ay thoughts appreciated

Your issue is the way you are setting up your recordings...

If you are just recording from epg your recordings directory is going to be exactly as it s showing in the epg..

Your solution is that when you set a recordings go to your auto recordings menu from tvheadend pvr and edit the directory otherwise do it from the tvheadend UI ...menu digital video recorder-autorecs and edit/fix your directory from there..

Hi thanks for the replies. I'm running on an intel nuc with and external USB drive.

Setting the folder name manually to avoid anything windows unsafe does seem to work however not a very user friendly solution, the Mrs would would have no idea what that means so that isn't going to work.

So NTFS formatted drive - works ok for the filenames but a seems a recent driver update is causing massive corruption problems (I've experience this several times on power cuts, many posts on this but couldn't see an answer except to put the disk into a windows pc and run checkdisk, which of course then deletes anything windows doesn't like!)

exFat seems stable but doesn't support linux filenames at all, and tvheadend windows compatible filenames doesn't work with the folders as we have discovered.

Maybe I could try Ext4 next and lose windows compatibility altogether, is this an option for usb drives? how would I format the drive? And I really don't want to loose all my recordings yet again if that's at all possible.

For two and a half years I have a self-powered usb 3.0 hub running that powers a 5TB hard drive and six months ago I added a second 5TB hard drive, it also powers some tuners. Well, I have no problem. What is the secret?:

(1) The hub is connected to an i5 mini PC with LibreELEC 9.2.6 that works as a server 24/7 and is never turned off even though it automatically restarts every day at seven in the morning. The hard drives automatically power off when not in use for three minutes, and the only hard drive left permanently working is the internal 256GB SSD.

(2) The external disks are formatted in EXT4 because it works very well with Linux in general and with LE in particular.

(3) I never disconnect hard drives and access is done via the network, usually with SFTP protocol for reading/writing, and WebDAV for reading, FOR ALL DEVICES, including smartphones, TV boxes, smart TVs, and PCs with Windows or Linux . All the management of users, quotas and permissions is carried out by the drakkan/sftpgo docker service running within LE for network access, or directly by LE for internal access (backup services, remote synchronization, etc.).

(4) Once or twice a year I check and repair the hard drives on a Linux PC but have never encountered any problems.

I do not have enough knowledge to comment on the virtues of the NTFS format but what I do know is that Windows plays havoc with hard drives and I am not surprised that you suffer massive corruptions; Solomon's solution is to disallow direct hard drive access to Windows, and allow this only via network sharing.

Regarding exFAT I know enough to tell you not to use this, it is very very very bad.

Good luck!