Stability of EPG in VMC vs MCE?

vbap · **23rd July 2007, 10:36 AM**

Hi Everyone,

Now that MS Vista EPG hotfixes have been out for a little while, how have people found the stability of the EPG in Vista versus MCE?
Specifically, I checked my event log in MCE recently (I have not used Vista yet) to find out why a scheduled recording was completely by-passed (and yet remained in the "To be recorded list"). I found hundreds of errors, mainly caused by Guide updates but also the odd Scheduling service error. Majority had error code 0, but the odd error code 4 and 82 come up.

I use ICE TV and generally have found EPG fine. But in the last few weeks, there have been a higher number of issues (could just be system age, which is due for an upgrade, or at least a clean install).

For those using Vista, are your event logs littered with guide update and/or scheduler errors?

I'm trying to decide whether an Upgrade to Vista is in order, but that will likely require hardware upgrades also, and an inevitable dip in WAF if it all goes pear-shaped...!

Thanks,

Neilwa · **16th August 2007, 09:53 PM**

Hi vbap,

I think you will find the EPG in VMC to be most stable now and much better than MCE2005. Follow the install procedure I've posted under NEW instructions for a Free EPG setup and you'll be up and away. The recent MS updates have seemed to work well (I've had them working fine for over 4 weeks without a single hitch) and if you choose to use FREE_EPG with Oztivo, everything updates automatically like a dream. Gone are the old days when you'd have to sometimes run a manual EPG grab.

Cheers,

Neil

GlenR · **16th August 2007, 10:06 PM**

MCE2005 would regularly crash the guide database after the guide downloads. All those nasty errors in the event log will occur not long after the download was scheduled. When I was running MCE2005 I had a scheduled task to stop/start the media centre services 15 minutes after download to make sure the guide was OK.

With Vista the guide has never played up since the hotfixes have been installed. Rock solid. And I also use IceTV.

UPDATE - you got me thinking, so i just did a quick check of my event log. Error free! Never saw THAT with MCE2005.

vbap · **16th August 2007, 11:30 PM**

Another question then lads - are Series recordings more "consistent" (esp. with IceTV, since that's what I use).
We've noticed lately with some series recordings that if the show changes timeslot, the recording needs to be re-scheduled. Sometimes, it picks it up. I have double-checked and we always choose Only this channel, but at any time.

GlenR · **16th August 2007, 11:56 PM**

I've had no problems with series recordings.

I set the guide to download at about 6PM each night so it grabs ny late time changes the stations might throw in. IceTV updates it's guide about 1PM each day. If you download in teh morning you won't get any changes that might be made that afternoon.

seemac · **17th August 2007, 10:27 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlenR

I've had no problems with series recordings.

I set the guide to download at about 6PM each night so it grabs ny late time changes the stations might throw in. IceTV updates it's guide about 1PM each day. If you download in teh morning you won't get any changes that might be made that afternoon.

Where do you set the guide download time in Vista? From previous threads I assumed this wasn't possible unless you disable mcupdate, which I don't want to do.

GlenR · **17th August 2007, 11:36 AM**

I use IceTV's PIMP client. Everything is disabled except the guide download time where I have set the downl;oad to 6PM each day.

logifuse · **17th August 2007, 12:11 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by vbap

I checked my event log in MCE recently (I have not used Vista yet) to find out why a scheduled recording was completely by-passed (and yet remained in the "To be recorded list"). I found hundreds of errors, mainly caused by Guide updates but also the odd Scheduling service error. Majority had error code 0, but the odd error code 4 and 82 come up.

I use ICE TV and generally have found EPG fine. But in the last few weeks, there have been a higher number of issues (could just be system age, which is due for an upgrade, or at least a clean install).

Had the same issues in MCE2005 with IceTV lately. I had my first crash back to "sample data only" for the first time in ages last week. The post EPG download database update freaked on Sunday arvo & I missed most of CSI (had it on the iQ, so no drama) - reboot fixed it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vbap

Another question then lads - are Series recordings more "consistent" (esp. with IceTV, since that's what I use).
We've noticed lately with some series recordings that if the show changes timeslot, the recording needs to be re-scheduled. Sometimes, it picks it up. I have double-checked and we always choose Only this channel, but at any time.

Yeah, something is going on. I had this rock solid for ages, then in the last couple of weeks, something must have happened to the channel IDs, because unless I set it to any channel, the non ABC series recordings weren't picked up - this is an issue if you display both he HD & SD channels.

This used to happen when MS updates would kill the IceTV ID & you had to re-run the IceTV setup prog to get your user ID & password back. I had "fixed" this by using the PIMP/Interactive client (without the PIMP updates) to maintain the ID, but then the other day, the PIMP client couldn't contact the IceTV server......

Now, all of this is on a very clean/fresh install - that's what I had been putting the issues down to, but clearly it's an IceTV issue. This is like whenever I do a PC fix job at a house with Bigpong cable - you get everything back together & can't get on the net only to find BP are having an outage.

Justin