[mcelliott]

I turn it off to placate the partner who worries about radiatio, but leaving it on doesn't fix it. It still craches from time to time - maybe twice or more a day.
Nothing ever useful in the logs. Do the developers come here? Can one get a dialogue iwth them on why "it usually takes a few reboots to get everything running"?

Personally, I am using a RPi4 with three tuners, leaving it on 24/7, and it's never missed a recording and I can't recall it crashing. I have it running on WIFI, but I have allocated IP addresses in my router which are static. I spent a lot of time and money on good whole-home WIFI (TP-Link Deco). Network clients can connect remotely.

So, there is no fundamental problem with TVHeadEnd.

That isn't to say that yours isn't crashing. But I'd check signal strength, WIFI (by using a wired network first). I was previously recording to my NAS, but I've started using the internal MicroSD card. I expect it to wear out at some point, but I back it up daily.

What TV tuner(s) are you using? How are they connected?

USB on a Pi3B is not that fast. The Pi4 has a definite advantage.