# Wowza ndvr overwriting valid files

**URL:** <https://community.wowza.com/t/wowza-ndvr-overwriting-valid-files/44231>\
**Category:** Wowza Streaming Engine\
**Created:** [November 10, 2014, 12:11pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/wowza-ndvr-overwriting-valid-files/44231 "2014-11-10T12:11:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![David\_Cavar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ccd318/32.png) [@David\_Cavar](https://community.wowza.com/u/David_Cavar)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 12:11pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/wowza-ndvr-overwriting-valid-files/44231/1 "2014-11-10T12:11:41Z")

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Hello,

We’ve been trying to setup Wowza DVR for recording longer periods of time, for example 7 days. Of course, we are using Wowza nDVR playlist request API to select only a portion of recorded content, and it works fine. Until Wowza restarts all of the streams simultaneously. We don’t know what’s the trigger, but that aside, archive strategy is set to append. What happens is that DVR starts overwriting old valid files and makes them unavailable for query instead of just continuing where it left of.

So the question is: What could be the reason for nDVR to start overwriting old recorded content after server restart?

Wowza runs under unprivileged user and it has access to it’s own recorded files. Another thing maybe worth mentioning is that DVR storage directory resides on separate paritition. We checked modification dates of those files and cannot really see any problem. Access, Modify, and Change dates of the files are all the same.

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**Author:** ![Paul\_Shields](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.wowza.com/paul_shields/32/390_2.png) [@Paul\_Shields](https://community.wowza.com/u/Paul_Shields)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 4:15pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/wowza-ndvr-overwriting-valid-files/44231/2 "2014-11-10T16:15:56Z")

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Hi,

Please note that Wowza nDVR has a maximum recording window of [30 hours](https://www.wowza.com/docs/wowza-ndvr-quick-start-guide#recordingLength). Are you seeing these issues happening at around that recording period?

Paul

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**Author:** ![David\_Cavar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ccd318/32.png) [@David\_Cavar](https://community.wowza.com/u/David_Cavar)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2014, 8:14am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/wowza-ndvr-overwriting-valid-files/44231/3 "2014-11-11T08:14:52Z")

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No, the problem occurs even earlier, specifically, every time we restart streams. We’ve actually reduced recording window to 24 hours now, and observed. Same thing happens.

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**Author:** ![David\_Cavar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ccd318/32.png) [@David\_Cavar](https://community.wowza.com/u/David_Cavar)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/wowza-ndvr-overwriting-valid-files/44231/4 "2015-01-27T16:31:26Z")

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Seems like the problem occurs if we put stream files inside subfolder, for example channel\_name/example.stream. Wowza then doesn’t detect correct path for dvr files.