Loosing Channels / Guide disappearing – IceTV and Vista (Possibly also MCE2005)

[timble]

Hi Benneh,

I like the idea of read-only on the pref file. Will test over the next week, but have a gut feeling it will do the trick. I previously tried renaming the mcupdate file but the problem persisted.

Let's see what happens.

Cheers for the good info,

Tim

[otech]

I had been having the same problem, using KeepKey and EPG kept loosing my SBS/Gaining SBS radio and others in strange spots...

I can confirm that since making prefs.xml file read only several days ago I have had NO problems since (knock on wood).

It might be too soon to tell, as my system would sometimes last a couple of weeks before playing up, but I am really confident this has solved the problem so I thought I might just comment on you guys trying the same thing.

Here is how I did it for anyone thats interested (and of course this may make things better, or intolerably worse - dont do it if you dont know what you are doing)

This will LOCK your channels down and they will no longer be able to be edited from within media center, of course making the file writeable again is not hard.

Initially I denied the 'Write' priv's in ACL for prefs.xml to all users as I wasnt sure whether media center would respect a Read Only flag, but it seems it does and since reverted back to normal ACL privs but admins have full ownership (so i could modify the flag). The read only flag is much more convenient that modifying all the accounts write privs on the file everytime you want to gain access again...

-NOTE THIS ASSUMES VISTA IS INSTALLED ON C:
First I entered 'Scan for New Channels' and Deleted all current channels, then rescaned, then downloaded latest guide, then edited out the dup channels, then sorted channel order and got everything the way I liked it.

I assumed the file was protected so gave myself full ownership/access, like so:

takeown /a /f C:\programdata\Microsoft\eHome\EPG\prefs\prefs.xml
icacls C:\programdata\Microsoft\eHome\EPG\prefs\prefs.xml /Grant Administrators:F

Then just added the Read Only attribute:
attrib +r C:\programdata\Microsoft\eHome\EPG\prefs\prefs.xml

From there, a simple way to test (though not the best) was to go into the guide, select a channel and click the Info button, then select 'Hide Channel'. - If done properly I find this will crash eShell or restart your extender.... (hardly a glamourous test but effective..)

Hope this helps anyone else with the dissapearing SBS proplem ;-)

[otech]

well, i shouldnt have spoken too soon...

it appears my channel Seven played the SBS game on me this morning - yet the prefs.xml file remained untouched (i have even compared its contents to a back I took and nothing changed!).

This problem is a little harder to play with...

I am currently trying to get into the SQF files (i am hoping to get into them with SQL CE/VS 2005) to see what I can find in there...

HEY MICROSOFT - HERES A FEATURE REQUEST: OPTION TO LOCK DOWN CHANNEL SETTINGS

[Glynn]

OK here is my update:

Rebuilt my Ultimate VMC as I repeatedly lost C7 from the guide (ICETV). Disabled MCUpdate, installed KeepKey and all was good for one week. Tonight at 9PM I looked at the guide and flicked over to C7, didn't like what I saw so I opened the guide and VOILA C7 was missing.
Another scan, I'm getting a little annoyed at this.

My system has a TwinHan TV Tuner, could this be part of the problem?

Lets hope MS get to fix this for us or I'm sure the dedicated MC pro's won't be recommending any upgrades to fast.

[otech]

Well, I got to take a look inside those SQF files in the EPG folder, and all I can say is that there is so much stuff in there that it really makes the prefs.xml file look irrelevent.

Everything from Guide to Channels to tuners to recordings is all in there, and I think (considering my prefs.xml file was untouched) that this is where the incorrect data is being inserted/corrupted.

The question is: WHY!

For anyone wanting to take a look in there that has VS 2005 (express editions wont work) you need to install SQL Compact Edition, create a new project and add the file as a CE data source, dont add any tables etc otherwise it errors out, then go into datasource explorer and drag the tables in - you can then preview the data and I am sure do more..

I wonder if there is anyway to make a 'KeepKey' style service that stores a good copy of the revelant tables in the database and updates them hourly if they dont match - that way if the data changes early in the morning it will be fixed up before anyone notices?!

Impact - i am pretty sure you have VS 2005 handy, have you had a look in those SQF files? What do you think?

Glynn - mine did the exact same thing today with Seven, which is unusual as recently its only been happening on SBS... i dont believe its related to your tuner hardware, as I have Hauppauge units and i am sure others have different too.

[impact]

Curious to know... as it happens to me...

The guide / channels muck up on a Sat or Mon - for me - and remain fine for every other day after I have fixed it ? Anyone got this similar info?

[moodler]

Hello again, bit of a me-too. After a couple of weeks of things working fine with MCEUpdate disabled, my system is back to screwing the guide up again (daily or even more often sometimes).

Usually I gain all the extra SBS channels like Digital 1, Digital 2 etc. And sometimes Channel 7 disappears. But just these two things ... NOTHING ELSE HAS GONE WRONG!

I'm using the DigitalNow dual PCI-e tuner, though it certainly seems not to be a factor (given that others are reporting the same problem with different brands).

I'm happy to test anything, let me know. I'll try and keep a log from now on of exactly when it stuffs up.

[otech]

Ok, I was up till 4am last night looking through a few posts on thegreenbutton from people in other countries (including the US) experiencing the same problem...

There seems to be a common factor with one general stuff up - and that is when you re-order guide channels (which is what I did just prior to my last event)..

ie. I moved channel 90 (9HD) down to 9 and 12 (10HD) down to ten.

This definately seems to bring on problems when using the guide supplied from non-microsoft sources.

I then looked through the SDF databases in the ehome/epg folder and found something a little more interesting especially with virtualchannelid's... alot of channels wind up with the same vci's when you apply guide listings to them as this modifies the vci in the database.

ie 10 (ten SD) has the virtual channel id 10 by default as this is whats broadcasted.

I then block 10 (ten SD) and apply Tens guide listings to Ten HD - this causes 12 TEN HD to be assigned a vci of 10 also.... compounding that, I moved that channel down to position 10, which displaced Ten SD (10) to another position, but it still has the vci of 10 in the db...

this seems to happen to most channels in the guide by the time you get it set up, whether you move them or not, and I really think it could cause some problems - its just a hunch of course...

I just wish they would put all the channel settings into the prefs.xml file or channel.xml file so we can easily mod/lock them - what the heck does prefx.xml do anyway! - its all in the data base and thats where MCE gets its data from...

Impact mentioned when speaking to his microsoft contacts that they pointed the finger at guide data - I just wonder whether perhaps the fact we are messing up the database references to channels by appying guide listings manually that change these references?

I might try modifying my guides vci's etc to numbers starting from 200 - so they are all way out of the range of the other channels, then when I 'Add Listings to Channels' it will assign them numbers well away from being dup's...

Just a thought, anyone else - oh and if someone wants a screen of what I am talking about just let me know and I will post a screen shot of the open database...

[Glynn]

Hi All,

Pulling out my hair at this issue (for those that know me I don't have a lot left)!

Re-scanned last night and found all my channels, assigned guide and all was well.

Tonight VMC tells me that I have no signal on C7, but to add insult to this my guide only showed C7?

I do not remap channels this is a vanilla install and config!

Please Mister Gates fix this before the wife throws my media center out.

[Dion]

just a quick one guys,

the problems with channel 7 might not be related. I could be wrong, but 7 changed there channels around on friday night (I'm sure they have been changed back since) so what was "7 HD Digital" became "7 SD Digital", this caused media center to spit it. The same can happen to set top boxes as I found others complaining about it on the dba forums.

[Astrotoy7]

lolz... whilst someone can come up with a comprehensive fix I find stressing about this pointless... mine has also been playing "musical SBS and 7s". (free EPG vis OzTivo) All I do is go into settings, restore defaults, and get rid of what I dont want.......a little bit of a pain, so is life Still, if Im not mistaken, even though the guide may not be appearing for a channel, any scheduled recording still goes again.

That's somethin at least

astro

[Lester_Burnham]

Hi,

Mine is doing it too. Vista HP using IceTV & PIMP.
I have not re-ordered any channels at all, just de-selected some.

Lester