EPG not updating

[jeam]

Hi,

We are using Windows 7 Media Center with an InfiniTV 4 PCIe tuner. For almost two weeks now, the electronic program guide has failed to update properly, and I’m hoping that somebody here can help.

The only channels that have current EPG data are the high-definition local channels: we have nothing for regular cable channels (AMC, History, etc.) or for the standard-def local channels.

I’ve tried manually updating the guide from within WMC; from the Notification Area icon; by clicking directly on MCUPDATE.EXE in Windows Explorer; by creating a desktop icon and then clicking on it (with and without administrator rights); and even by going into the Task Scheduler and running it from there.

Most of the time, the result is literally nothing: there is no feedback, no indication that it’s done anything. It’s as if I had not performed any action at all on the computer.

Sometimes, though, I can follow the process in the Notification Area icon by hovering over it, or by opening Task Manager. With the latter, the size grows to almost 200K and then disappears. With the former (but only when there is some indication that anything’s happening), after it processes various things it gives me a brief notice that says,

“Failed to retrieve updates (Error: HeadendID xxxxxxxx is invalid.)”,

where the x’s are an eight-digit number.

I have also tried some of the usual things when WMC acts up — unplugging and re-plugging the CableCARD; closing down WMC and relaunching it; shutting down the computer and rebooting — all to no avail. I am out of ideas and my wife is out of patience: we can’t record series on cable anymore, and on Sunday she had to do a manual recording of “Mad Men” and babysit the TV to make sure that it worked. Last night she proposed banishing the PC to the basement and bringing back a cr*ppy Comcast DVR. That would be the pits, but as of now, I have nothing to offer as an alternative.

Please help!!

 

[mikinho]

Have you tried re-running Media Center Live TV setup?

[jeam]

Hi,

Do you mean re-running it for the same Zip code? During my research I’ve seen where some people suggested re-running the TV setup using a different Zip code but where the provider has the same channel lineup. However, in our area there aren’t any alternative Zip codes that offer the same lineup.

Given the problems we’ve been having — if we run the Live TV setup for our same area, is there a chance that we’ll end up with NO program data at all? Then we’d be even worse off.

 

[jeam]

UPDATE (so to speak): Desperation drove me to try the Live TV update, despite concerns that we might end up with even less program data than before. It worked. For future reference by others who might be facing a similar issue, here’s what we did:

First I re-ran TV Setup, went through the entire selection reconfirming our previous settings. I ignored the CableCARD steps, figuring (hoping, really — a second concern was that we might have to start jumping through the CableCARD pairing hoops all over again) that it had already been paired long ago and didn’t need re-pairing. After getting the channel lineup information, I let WMC download the guide data, fingers crossed.

This time it worked! Despite a worrisome message that the guide could not be downloaded, upon clicking on Finish I went to the guide and we had 13 days of programming for all channels. This is actually about three more days’ worth of data than we’ve had in the last several months.

Then things got “interesting” again. I honed in on a particular current program and selected it to watch. Instead of getting a show, we got a “tuner conflict” error message claiming that all four tuners were in use.  Huh? This was impossible — we were neither watching anything at all, nor recording anything. What’s more, the Ceton Diagnostic tool informed us that only two of the four tuners were actually tuned to any channel. It was also having problems with the CableCARD “entitlement,” the last step in that part of the diagnostics.

After pondering our next move, we decided to shut down the PC completely (not “restart”) and reboot. Launched WMC and got the usual “no tuner” message which we have learned to deal with by unplugging the CableCARD, waiting 20 seconds, plugging back in, and switching to another channel.

And now we have all our cable and local channels back, plus almost two weeks of program data.

WAF has shot way back up… for the time being.

Michael, thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Aaron Ledger]

Once paired, there is no reason to fear that the CableCARD will lose the pairing with your tuner. Also, you should be able to run the TV setup in WMC anytime the urge strikes without worry. I have done it hundreds of times. You should never have to unplug your CableCARD or get a “usual” no tuner message.

[mikinho]

[quote=jeam]

Then things got “interesting” again. I honed in on a particular current program and selected it to watch. Instead of getting a show, we got a “tuner conflict” error message claiming that all four tuners were in use.  Huh? This was impossible — we were neither watching anything at all, nor recording anything. What’s more, the Ceton Diagnostic tool informed us that only two of the four tuners were actually tuned to any channel. It was also having problems with the CableCARD “entitlement,” the last step in that part of the diagnostics.

[/quote]

This is fairly common when running Live TV setup on an already configured CableCARD tuner.  As you found a reboot fixes.

[quote=jeam]

After pondering our next move, we decided to shut down the PC completely (not “restart”) and reboot. Launched WMC and got the usual “no tuner” message which we have learned to deal with by unplugging the CableCARD, waiting 20 seconds, plugging back in, and switching to another channel.

[/quote]

Next time, don’t pull the CableCARD, this shouldn’t be needed–ever.  When starting up the tuner may not be available for ~30 seconds – 2 minutes.

[jeam]

[quote=Aaron Ledger]Once paired, there is no reason to fear that the CableCARD will lose the pairing with your tuner. Also, you should be able to run the TV setup in WMC anytime the urge strikes without worry. I have done it hundreds of times. You should never have to unplug your CableCARD or get a “usual” no tuner message.[/quote]

Great to hear about being able to run TV setup as often as needed. Obviously I don’t do it very often, or I would have known not to worry!

As for needing to unplug the CableCARD, see my next reply…

 

[jeam]

[quote=mikinho]

Next time, don’t pull the CableCARD, this shouldn’t be needed–ever.  When starting up the tuner may not be available for ~30 seconds – 2 minutes.

[/quote]

Maybe something’s wrong with our system, but in our experience every time we reboot the PC (say, after Windows updates, or after a long power outage that outlasts the battery backup), no live TV channels will show up in WMC whether we wait 30 seconds or 30 minutes. I can’t remember now what the exact error message is; it may be the “subscription required” notice but I really am not sure at this point: we’ve been using the fix below for long enough that memory escapes.

The only way we’ve found to deal with the problem is to pull the CableCARD out from the InfiniTV, wait 20 seconds, and then slide it back in; then after a few seconds change from whatever channel we were on, and the new channel shows up on the screen. Then we can go back to the channel we wanted.

I can attribute that solution to a Comcast CSR who knew her stuff (and yes, it was a “she”).

 

[Aaron Ledger]

If you can provide the exact message WMC displays when this happens, maybe we can help to see what is happening.

[jeam]

Sounds good, thanks.

Next time I need to reboot the system, I’ll hold off on removing the CableCARD and then write down the error message and refer us back to this thread.

 

[jeam]

OK, I have an update on this issue.

Today I downloaded and installed Patch Tuesday Windows Updates, then rebooted.

After the system was back up, I opened WMC and selected Live TV. This is the message I got:

Viewing or Listening Conflict

No tuner available to satisfy the current request.

I waited two minutes and clicked on the “channel up” button, to see if it could now tune to the next channel. This is the message I got then:

Service is unavailable

There is currently no TV signal detected for this channel. The channel may be temporarily off the air. Try again later.

I went up another channel, and got the same message. So this time I waited 10 minutes and tried the “channel down” button. Same message.

Next I pulled the CableCARD out of the back of the InfiniTV 4 tuner, waited 20 seconds, and pushed it back in. I waited 15 more seconds and clicked on the “channel up” button again.

This time (as usual) we finally got a live TV channel.

What do you think?

 

[Aaron Ledger]

“Viewing or Listening Conflict” overlay is normal to see for between about 30 seconds to 2 minutes after rebooting or resuming from sleep.

“Service is Unavailable” overlay is not normal to see in this case that you describe. You may have a bad CableCARD or CableCARD with old firmware. I suggest you first obtain a replacement CableCARD from Comcast. You should just be able to tell them you are seeing some strange behavior and want to swap out your CableCARD. You will need to go through an activation once you receive the new CableCARD so that it is properly paired with your InfiniTV.

[jeam]

Thanks for the scoop, Aaron — I appreciate it!

 

[rbinck]

I have been working on this issue for a while now and in the process have come across several associated issues.  I am using the Hauppauge DCR-2650 tuner, but most of what I found has to do with Media Center and seems to be true across all tuners.

First, to the “TUNER NOT FOUND,” “Vewing or Listening Conflict,” and “TUNER UNAVAILABLE” messages, I have found this from Hewlett Packard: Resolving TV Tuner Errors in Media Center (Windows 7) This has helped my system considerably in allowing the Media Center boot up without having to wait for the receiver service to load.  This basically forces the Media Center Receiver Service to load immediately on boot up or coming out of sleep rather than waiting until after Media Center is run.

Second, to the Tuner Unavaiable errors I found this from Black Gold: Media Center 7 Issue PC loosing tuners, locking, high memory usage  This is actually a second issue with Media Center that causes much the same errors as the issue addressed by the HP link, but only for cable card tuners.  I have found that just running the registry fix works without needing to reinstall the tuner drivers for my system.

Google searches also will show a similar fix from answers.microsoft: Media Center Guide Keeps Losing Clear QAM channels  which can be used by those of you that prefer to edit the registry rather than run the registry fix from Black Gold.

I am still having an issue with Media Center not updating the guide for any channels other than my local channels.  I have two systems and have fixed the guide update on one of them by reinstalling Windows 7.  I had to do a complete install where it did not save my previous files as the method that saves the files did not work.  Aparently there is some file that gets saved that containg guide update instructions that needs to be deleted and rebuilt.  On my other system I am still trying to identify the file, or files, that need to be rebuilt or updated.  Meanwhile, on the system that does not have the guide working correctly, I just schedule my recordings using the channel and time option because I don’t want to have to save all of my other files and reinstall other programs by starting over by scratch.

So far these two fixes have greatly improved the operation of Media Center and on the system that I reinstalled W7 from scratch, it has been solid.

If anyone else can point to the files or whatever causes (dll, exe, etc) the guide disruption, you could greatly add to this thread by letting us know.

[rbinck]

Update:

I also found this from experts.windows.com:  Recovering a Corrupted Guide Data Store.  Scroll down to the “Recovering a Corrupted Guide Data Store” title. I ran this last night and may have been the fix for the guide, although it was not immediate.

It seems that overnight after doing the above fixes, the guide has returned on the system I did not reinstall W7.  I did go back through the TV signal setup, so that may have caused the guide fix overnight after a sucessful guide update in the night.

[Author]

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