Forum Discussion

thscott's avatar
thscott
New Contributor
11 days ago

All Contour DVR Recordings Gone

My Cox Contour remote was not working. I had to unpair it and then re-pair it to get it to work again. Afterwards I noticed that none of my Contour DVR recordings were appearing. My future scheduled recordings still appear. And the hard drive memory bar still indicates 42% full. Hopefully my recordings. are still there. 
How can I get my existing recordings to appear again?  I did try a system refresh and a reboot and that did not resolve the issue. During the remote pairing process I did have to select a new device name, as if the Contour box was being setup as if new. 

  • DustinP's avatar
    DustinP
    Moderator
    11 days ago

    Hello thscott, I know how important it is to have access to your DVR recordings. Have there been any recent changes swapping a QAM host set-top box with DVR? If so, recordings are no longer available. If there was no swap, then the steps you performed to press A on the remote, then select System Refresh should have worked. These Contour boxes perform nightly reboots, so there may be a chance of recovery after the nightly reboot. If not, then the box may need to be swapped out/replaced.

     

    Do you have cloud DVR or are you currently utilizing the DVR service that saves recordings to the box's hard drive? It's not clear what could have caused the issue initially resulting the remote to unpair with the box, and lose recordings. If not subscribed to Cloud DVR, the recordings may be lost and the box may need to be replaced.

    We can review the equipment on your behalf if you are able to email us at Cox.Help@cox.com with your name, complete address, and the URL to this forum comment. We'll be able to investigate. 

    • thscott's avatar
      thscott
      New Contributor
      11 days ago

      Thank you Dustin for your prompt reply.  The nightly reboot did not resolve my issue. My recordings are still gone.  In fact, today when I look at my scheduled recordings screen the bar that shows DVR hard drive memory usage now indicates 1%.  Last night it was 42%, even though all my recordings were gone.   I also noticed on my iPhone Contour TV app, in My Library, in Recordings, the listing of all my old recordings are now gone.  They were still listed last night, even after the Contour DVR no longer showed them.  The app must have synced up over night.

      To address your questions to me: there have been no recent changes swapping a QAM host set-top box with DVR.  In fact there is nothing that occurred recently that might have caused this issue. It just happened out of the blue.

      I do not have a cloud DVR.  My recordings are on the Contour box DVR hard drive.  But somehow they are listed (or at least were) on my Contour app.  I don't think I ever could view my recordings from the iPhone app.

      I do not know what caused this issue.  It seems like the Contour DVR box just lost its identity with me and my Cox account, as if it was a brand new box/DVR ready to be configured and set-up.  This started with the remote no longer working and needing to be re-paired.  I then had to go through basic initialization steps such as selecting a language and giving the box a name (e.g. Living Room).  I suspect doing this wiped out the recordings on the hard drive.

      I will do as you suggest and email Cox tech support with my info and a link to this forum thread.  Perhaps they can dig into my hardware records and figure out what went wrong.  Worst case, I will have to get a new Contour box at my local Cox store.