IceTV Problems - A Pattern of Behaviour around Thursday

[Neilwa]

About 13 days ago, I decided to see how IceTV works. I plan on using it for 30 days as it came with my new rig, possibly longer if it proves itself.

I encountered many problems with the IceTV / PIMP set up. The first 5 days were problem free. IceTV installed OK and its PIMP service addon did too (the PIMP service -Personal Interactive Media Planner - allows a user to set or modify their recording schedule a mobile phone when you are not home).

On about the sixth day (Thursday a week ago), My guide order was rearranged and Channel 7 went missing completely! So from within VMC I went over the Guide install, rescanned for serices, downloaded the guide and reassigned the guide to the channels. My scheduled recordings were preserved and the red dots appeared automatically. At this time, a PIMP update came along and asked to be installed - which I did.

About a week later, yesterday - Thursday - SBS went missing from the guide (couldn't even bring SBS channel up at all - acted as if there was no signal although no blue screen to say such - just a black screen) and the channel ordering was rearranged. Instead of my default scan order of 1-TenDigital, 2-Channel2Digital, 3-SBS, 4-Channel7, 5-Channel9, the guide was showing 1-Channel10, 2-ABC, 3-SBSHD, 4-SBSDigital1, 5-SBSDigital2, 6-SBSDigitalRadio, 7-Channel7, 8-CanRemember, 9-Channel9, 10-Channel10..... The regular SBS missing and unable to come up as a channel. A PIMP update notification came up and I installed the update. When I started VMC, no guide was showing. So then I had to rescan for services, download the guide and reassign guide channels.

There seems to be a pattern of behaviour. Something is happening around Thursday of each week. Maybe it's Microsoft, maybe it's Ice, maybe it's one or more of the stations changing their digital IDs, maybe it's buggy Vista, maybe it's a combination of all four! As usual, I'll keep you posted.

[lunchbox99]

I have had a similar problem. I have Vista Ultimate MCE with icetv pimp serving the guide. I have not installed any other mce addons - basically a clean install.

For some strange reason, at close to midnight (not sure the exact time) on Thursday mce loses the guide data on all channels - "no data available" showing on every channel. The channels seem to be all messed up and reassigning listings to the channels does not fix the problem. I have to run through the whole channel scan/guide setup procedure after restoring guide defaults.

At the time this happens we were just watching tv, not messing with setup in any way (not even changing channels).

[scritch]

This is a known issue for many and doesn't seem to be an Ice specific issue - please take a look at (and possibly move responses to) this thread here:

7 SD Digital again!!!! VISTA

Regards,
Shane.

[lunchbox99]

wow!! thanks shane (aka scritch) - that thread EXACTLY describes my issue. My problem also seems to centre around channel 7 moving.

[impact]

Ad Nauseum... to save people trying a feature like search... here are a few threads of discussion of the problem...

The first major thread, and where I like to update what is going on... Loosing Channels / Guide disappearing – IceTV and Vista (Possibly also MCE2005)

and Channels keep appearing - I don't want them to! and http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/comm...ven-doing.html and then there are all the threads on discovery services and simuant and keepkey and mcupdate like http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/comm...scsvc-key.html which are somewhat related.

Oh the problems of forums....

I get annoyed with posts saying its an icetv problem and they need to fix it, and the likes of that. Its a bug / feature set of MCE. It may be related to other things, and until we can get MS to acknowledge the problem and potential fix or workaround we are all vulnerable to the guide going screwy for dvb-t users...

Ch7 and SBS... hmmm why majority of the problems on these two ? Who knows... but I have also now seen the ch 9 HD channels disapear too !!!

[lunchbox99]

thanks impact, the threads make for a very interesting read. It's obviously been quite difficult to identify exactly what is going wrong.

Just to clarify my position, I am not suggesting icetv is at fault here - I have had nothing but praise for icetv since I moved over from the free scrapers during the half price icetv subscription offer about a year ago. I particularly like the program descriptions for TT and ACA... pure gold. Dr Phil used to have a good one too but they toned it down a bit.

[timble]

Hi Impact,

You may get annoyed when people say this is an IceTV problem. But I get annoyed when a business promtes a product as being Vista compatible (See the big banner on homepage), when it clearly isn't.

[AJBCS]

The reason they have done that is because i read somewhere that an icetv consultant said the problem didnt appear on their systems...

But that said, this problem isnt anything to do with ICETV, it has problems with free EPG's as well...

[scritch]

Originally Posted by timble

Hi Impact,

You may get annoyed when people say this is an IceTV problem. But I get annoyed when a business promtes a product as being Vista compatible (See the big banner on homepage), when it clearly isn't.

Timble,

Keep in mind - IceTV is compatible with Vista Media Center - when Vista holds the channels correctly the guide data works perfectly. When Vista's channels get corrupted then the guide is effected.

This is a Vista problem, plain and simple.

ie: If Firefox intermittently crashed because it relied on a Microsoft Vista component that is faulty - does that make Firefox not Vista compatible? No - it just means the operating system has a bug. That's the same case here.

Regards,
Shane.

[timble]

Hi Shane,

Yes, point taken. But the difference is Firefox is a free application, while Ice is a pay per year product.

When you buy an OS that's capable of doing a zillion different things, you can expect some problem areas. That's fine, we all accept that. But it's a totally different story, when you purchase a product that's designed do a single job (provide reliable TV guide data ), and it can't do it. Sat. Night 10:30pm SBS gone haywire again. During daylight saving time is was always around 11:30. Might be a clue for Impact?

But this problem has been around since RC2.

Anyway, I'll call Ice next week and see what's happening. Just disappointed they can't respond to the message in the support forum. Say something like "We've got no idea but are getting MS to look into it." (HOORAY!) or "We've seen all the problems over at xpmediacenter forum and are looking into it." (hooray!)

But, the silence is deafening.

Cheers,

Tim

[scritch]

Tim,

In response; this is a Windows bug, pure and simple. Maybe Firefox (being free) wasn't the best example - lets use Adobe Photoshop instead.

I personally pay Ice for a service providing accurate guide data for Windows Media Center. I don't pay Ice to make Windows Media Center remember which frequency it had a channel tuned to - that's Microsoft's duty, and Microsoft's fault.

If you bought a retail copy (not OEM) of Windows Vista - I suggest you call Microsoft (like I have) and see what they can do to support their product. At least with retail Vista they now have to support us... previously with MCE2005 being only OEM we were on our own.

Regards,
Shane.

[timble]

"this is a Windows bug, pure and simple." Maybe. But I find it somewhat strange that you're an expert on the problem when you've experienced it, how many times? Once?

[scritch]

Originally Posted by timble

"this is a Windows bug, pure and simple." Maybe. But I find it somewhat strange that you're an expert on the problem when you've experienced it, how many times? Once?

Not sure how the amount of times I've personally experienced it is relevant. Someone doesn't have to suffer a disease to be able to diagnose it.

The symptoms of this issue are almost identical to the issue that occurred when Microsoft released the original Emerald Update for MCE 2005, and for all our sakes I hope Microsoft fix it soon.

MCE forgetting channels
Emerald update is no longer under NDA

Regards,
Shane.

[Neilwa]

I didn't think my post would create such fervor. Glad to see I'm not the only one to experience such ongoing problems. It seems as though people have been living with constant guide trouble.

I am astonished that IceTV can say it is Vista compliant when Microsoft Vista itself can't provide a compliant guide for Australian users. But.... I was interested to see what IceTV did because they said they were Vista compliant and their core business is offering an Australian EPG.

Like Impact has said previously, maybe I was lucky to have a reasonably good run with my Free-EPG set up prior to trying IceTV. The bottom line is, if you are paying for a product, you expect it to work. I can understand having to go over my guide on a weekly basis if I'm using a free service (which I have not had to do), but if I'm paying for a guide, then I would expect it to work.

A whole lot of information needs to surface about what exactly is going on and an estimated time line for when it will be fixed. Then people will have some idea about what to expect. Until that happens, Vista users of IceTV will continue to believe the product is failing them.

Further update - Sunday 8th April - turned on VMC and after first noticing the guide was OK, about 30mins later the guide was missing Channel 7 in a similar way to how SBS went missing last Thursday. 7 was replaced by 7 Digital 1, 7 Digital 2 etc... When VMC scans for services, it picks up 1-Ten Digital, 2-ABCTV, 3-SBS, Digital 7-Seven, 9-Nine, 10 etc.. From what I can see, when ever the guide goes haywire, the order becomes 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 etc and not the same as when VMC scans 1,2,3,7,9 by default. maybe this has something to do with the problem.

[Neilwa]

Today, Monday 9 April, t