This is more curiosity, this is now running fine on my Mint box and always used command line. However, I decided to install/add the Web PVR...followed instructions and it worked :) did a refresh cache on this it returns (3247 programmes).
I also installed get_iplayer on W10 box yesterday, run the PVR. refresh cache and it returns (2332 programmes).....and I was wondering why there was a difference? As yesterday W10 returned episodes 3 and 5 of a series (after a refresh) whereas Mint returned 2,3,4,5 both searches done via command line yesterday.

If you check the 2.95 release notes regarding the 30 day cache it should explain things:

https://github.com/get-iplayer/get_iplay...newchanged

In case it's not clear, the longer you've been running get_iplayer, the 'fuller' it's cache becomes, so a new install only looks back 7 days where as a mature install can look back up to 30.

TBH I did read that, but the penny didn't drop based upon installation and therefore cache size.