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

[benneh]

So far so good for me. It used to be a weekly occurance on average, it hasn't happened since 26th Feb, so nearly two weeks.

[Gunner22]

Originally Posted by 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.

I have been losing 7 digital and 7HD whenever they have a sports type broadcast ie. Clipsal 500, Footy, Tennis etc. If you rescan during this broadcast you get 7SD not 7HD.

If my guide loses 7 I go to "Settings", TV, Guide and then I Scan for more services, but this is only after the sports event has finished.
Regards,
Gunner22

[benneh]

Originally Posted by benneh

So far so good for me. It used to be a weekly occurance on average, it hasn't happened since 26th Feb, so nearly two weeks.

Well, I knew it was too good to be true. Win just dissappeared from my guide, and Win HD just added itself in. My prefs.xml file is still untouched, and mcupdate can't have run.

All the sqf file in the EPG folder were created/modified at exactly 11:00am this morning, and I am willing to guess that's when the error occured.

It would be good if everyone who has noticed their guide stuff up, see if it correlates to when the sdf files have been modified, i think were onto something here, we just need to figure out

I am going to enable file auditing on my box, to try identify what process and account is used to modify the sqf files at the time of the next innevitable stuff up.

[impact]

Yep Ive seen the sdf files be modified.... how do you turn auditing on - what to do... because my next scheduled stuff up is 2 hrs away!

[Glynn]

Hi All,

Yep C7 disappearred for me about 3PM today.
Strangest thing is, once I rescan for TV and re-apply the guide it will remain OK for one week.

[otech]

ok, sorry for not posting back yet, I have tried some things and did not want to stir the pot till I got to test it a while..

REMEMBER: I am not saying I have fixed anything and dont recommend doing anything unless you want to help test it and know how to do this.

I have concluded the following to be the case (in my scenario of course) after extensivly going through the prefs.xml file + mce update log (some xml file I can remember its name) and the SDF EPG database files.

Firstly, as my last post mentioned, the problem can STILL occur regardless of read only on your prefs file. The prefs file is not actually where MCE stores its channel/EPG - thats all in the SDF files.

The prefs.xml file is merely an extenal xml representation of whats in the SDF files - so write protecting it wont really do anything...

What I have found though was that if you have a guide download with matching channel names ie: 'ABC TV Adelaide' rather than 'ABC' and correct VirtualChannelNumbers (ie 2 for ABC) it acts differently inside the SDF than if you 'Add Listings to Channels'... I noticed this because there were two entries for all channels with guide listings in that table except ABC2.

Heres an example of my new guide files: XMLTV.XML and CHANNELINFO.XML


If with NO CHANNELS the guide is downloaded first, then you scan for channels and MCE matches the guide up itself, then there is actually less entries in the LineUps table of the SDF.

Media center stores your guide channels in the SDF with the scanned broadcasted channels as records in the LineUps table (and when you add listings to channels there are still two records but the VirtualChannelNumber actually changes around a bit) - but if they match up by name/number there is only one entry and NO DOUBLE UPS.

The reason this is important is because when the guide stuffs up and you find Seven gone, but other odd ones on other channels like 4,5 etc, its because its zero'd out the old ones channel numbers and found them again, but assigned them new numbers - but the GUIDE channel is still actually working and knows how to tune to that channel - thats why the recordings keep working...

I hope that makes some sense, its late and I have been playings Gears of War all night ;-)

So, what I did (much to the annoyance of other people using my guide service) was rename all the channel names in the XMLTV.XML file and Channels.XML so that they match up properly and.....

SO FAR SO GOOD... I havent lasted a week in the last month yet without it stuffing up (on one of the seven media centers I look after), particularly on weekends, but so far all is well...

I also figured it would be better this way also as if 7 Digital appears again on a new channel number, the guide will be automatically associated thus saving time in the event of a stuff up...

I really dont think problem is in the prefs file being changed, but that it is a concequence of the problem, in my opinion of course ;-)

You will also notice there are 2 SDF files in the EPG directory, one appears to be a backup which contains the guide data prior to an EPG update - i guess - to open these files you need VS 2005 Pro, SqlServer CE and SqLite installed, and you can then just drag the file onto the server explorer and run queries on it..

I will keep an eye on the forum and post back if my guide plays up...

[impact]

otech - some good analysis there....

So the suggestion is not to use 'Add Listings to channel" - which means the supplied data needs to have the correct names set up to match... okay for rolling your own data, but for other users of icetv or epgstream - no chance at present....

Or did you rename the channel names in the xml file to match the guide provider names and then use one of icetv or epgstream ?
And of course some of those default names suck... wonder if the problem still occurs if you use the rename channel function?

I still reckon the prefs file is a left over from prev versions - it all appears outdated.... Anything else you can supply is greatly appreciated !!!

[millhhaus]

Hi,

Im using Vista with Free EPG. It initially worked fine but has now dissapeared and nothing I try has worked. I tried keepkey and it came up with install errors. Try the suggestion in this thread... all I get is "GUIDE LISTINGS NOT AVAILABLE. Tv Program Guide listings are not available for your country or region." Im in Brisbane btw.

I tried emailing Free EPG directly, and while I understand that they do this on their own time, after over a week I have not heard anything.

If ANYBODY has any suggestions, then I am all ears.

HELP!

David.

[benneh]

Originally Posted by impact

the supplied data needs to have the correct names set up to match... okay for rolling your own data, but for other users of icetv or epgstream - no chance at present....

Why do you say no chance? I'm paying for icetv, and if this is a known issue and we've found a working solution, why wouldn't they provide a fix?

Actually, I don't know why they don't already match the channel names being broadcasted?? now obviously they couldn't change the current source names as that would stuff up all their existing users, but I see no reason they couldn't supply an alternate data source for each region which has the correct naming?

[impact]

No No No - Not what was meant.... I meant at the moment the names do not match, but if this is prooved to be a work around, I am sure icetv can change the names for us very quickly...

I just want to make sure we ask for changes that work and are well understood, and prooven to work properly....

And I am just trying to understand what guide solution was used by otech - ie is it a change to xml files in the ehome directory to match the scanned channel names - or is it the channel names in the epg data (later being because he is rolling his own guide data) Having this understanding means that we can all test the solution immediately or need to wait for icetv to make changes to the data before we test.

I just dont like the scanned names - and would like better names... and if it means the channel names have to be the scanned names in order for this problem to go away - so be it, I can live with it! But there is a menu option for renaming channels in the setup screens - so I also wonder if we match names between the epg data and the scanned names - what would be the implication of using this rename function ?

I think its a good workaround, and I know icetv will help us out in whatever we need to resolve or workaround the issue - its just trying to get a fuller understanding of what otech has found...

(I would be pushing for icetv to try and supply a test harness / setup - with whatever changes we need - without upsetting existing owners - until we can categorically proove the workaround works fine.... But before asking this, just want to clarify the issues first)

[benneh]

ah fair call, though it would be nice to see icetv actively working to help resolve this too. community involvement and helping work through these kinds of issues doesn't go unnoticed and can only bolster support for them.

i've sent them an email to that effect, and offered myself as a guinea pig to test. Not only because this *may* fix an reliability issue, but also because if they provided data with channel names which map 1:1 to the names being broadcasted, this can only make setup easier and is therefore a request to enhance fucntionality also.

[otech]

I run my own guide server out to my friends and family, which has bladerunner pro + oztivo grabber - i also have a custom app that mods the XMLTV file before running bladerunner, then I grab out the encryption keys etc and host them up on a website.

This way there is less to go wrong for the end users as they just have the DiscSrv reg key set to my service - its actually kind of like EPGRunner's service and KeepKey has been maintaining that entry perfectly so far.

Anyway, it is easy for me to change channel names in my program that pre-processes the XMLTV file but understandably annoying for your average standalone bladerunner scenario.

However if it does work, we could easily knock out something that downloads the guide and renames the XMLTV channels...

Yes, the default channel names suck, thats why I had a little app renaming them from the OzTivo defaults (i just like ABC,SBS,SEVEN etc rather than ABC Adelaide etc).

But so far my guide has been fine on all computers using it and none needed to use 'add listings to channels'- of course only two were having trouble before doing it the old way (mine, was one dammit) so unless you can wack something together to do it programatically EASILY just wait for a week or so more and see if my test sticks...

If it does, we can prob just make a little app to preprocess the file before bladerunner or get our guide providers to put the correct channel names/numbers in BY DEFAULT.

Or.. impact could toss my theory around with his Microsoft buddies and see what they think?!

anyway... top gears/south park is recorded and waiting for me... for the second week in a row ;-)