Tired of seeing “To record this episode, press {R}” on your DIRECTV Genie?

Genie users don’t have a lot to complain about with five tuners and a 1TB hard drive on their sides. Still, a few folks have mentioned that they see a persistent message that says “To record this episode, press {R}” on their DIRECTV equipment. Others say they’ve never seen the problem.

After some discussions with DIRECTV folks, the answer is simple. The Genie wants to be used to record things. The plan was never to have a Genie that didn’t record. So, it’s going to give you this “helpful” tip until you set up roughly 5 recurring recordings. So, set up 5 series links by going to the guide and hitting {R} twice on five different shows. Leave your DVR alone for a day, then if you want you can delete the series links by going to the menu and choosing “Recordings.” The annoying messages should not come back.

Our sources at DIRECTV suggest that this little annoyance may be addressed at some point in the future, but for now this workaround is easy and it will get that message to go away for you, permanently.

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.