[vdr] Error handling vs. user friendliness.

[Josef Wolf <jw@raven.inka.de>]

Hello!

Am I the only one who finds VDR's error handling strategies somewhat
inconvenient?  Here are some examples:

- VDR refuses to start up when some programmed recording timer refers to
  an unknown channel.  I stumbled over this when I programmed a short
  test recording and reorganized channels.conf thereafter.

  Is there any reason _not_ to just ignore (or give a warning) on bad
  recording timer entries?

- VDR refuses to start up when there are "duplicated data" in channels.conf.
  What is the reason for this restriction?  Why can't I have a program
  multiple times in channels.conf?  Or why not to just ignore duplicated
  entries?

- VDR does an "emergency exit" when it fails to tune to a channel.  This
  renders VDR to be completely unusable as long as at least one bad
  channel entry exists.  A bad LNB, a broken cable or a bird in front of
  one of the LNBs would make VDR unusable, too.  Why not just ignore (or
  give a warning) on bad entreis?

- VDR restarts continously when there is no signal in one of the available
  frontends.  Therefore you can't put the box to a different location just
  to watch some recordings.  You will need to take the dish along, although
  you don't want to watch live TV.

- Streamdev-server restarts VDR when one of the clients fails to keep up
  with the data rate.  The effect is that all clients and recordings are
  interrupted.  Why not just kick off the offending client and keep
  running?

I have seen some more "emergency exits" (e.g. constantly restarting as long
as a specific recording is active), but I could not figure out the reason.

It seems to me that VDR's error handling is way too restrictive.  In some
situations this error handling strategy even makes VDR look/feel _very_
unstable.  Please compare with a set-top-receiver.  Programming a bad
channel will make this specific channel unusable but will not render the
whole box to be unusable.

Coming back to my question: Is this restrictive error handling by
intention?  Or is it just that nobody noticed those inconveniences
yet?

-- 
No software patents!
-- Josef Wolf -- jw@raven.inka.de --