Guide Data Outage - 2017 Edition

Global guide related discussion. All Windows versions.
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SugarFree

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#1361

Post by SugarFree » Tue Aug 08, 2017 3:13 pm

The Guide appears to be (finally!) back. I did a manual update about 2 hours ago from within WMC - but that did nothing. When I read the latest comments here I closed the program and did a mcupdate.exe -uf as Administator. Opened WMC 15 minutes later. Actual guide (the About Guide Date is always 1 day off) ends at 6pm on August 20.

I don't expect the Guide to update daily anymore, but I will keep an eye out every few days to see if MS has finally fixed The Loop problem, or if this update is just a one off.

BTW - anyone reporting Guide problems or fixes in future, please put your Provider in the post. It will help in passing info onto Rovi.

SugarFree
Verizon Fios

jtbnet

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#1362

Post by jtbnet » Tue Aug 08, 2017 3:46 pm

FIOS East (MA) Same here! Update Data Now returned almost instantly with no new file... I ran mcupdate -uf which took a little over 90min. which in unusually long but got good quide data saying to 8/21 but really ends late 8/20.

foose

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#1363

Post by foose » Tue Aug 08, 2017 3:59 pm

Guide data finally updated.
New End Date: 8/21/2017 5:00:00 AM
Boston (Manchester) OTA Antenna

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Bee_Dee_3_Dee

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#1364

Post by Bee_Dee_3_Dee » Tue Aug 08, 2017 4:29 pm

SugarFree wrote:The Guide appears to be (finally!) back. I did a manual update about 2 hours ago from within WMC - but that did nothing. When I read the latest comments here I closed the program and did a mcupdate.exe -uf as Administator. Opened WMC 15 minutes later. Actual guide (the About Guide Date is always 1 day off) ends at 6pm on August 20.

I don't expect the Guide to update daily anymore, but I will keep an eye out every few days to see if MS has finally fixed The Loop problem, or if this update is just a one off.

BTW - anyone reporting Guide problems or fixes in future, please put your Provider in the post. It will help in passing info onto Rovi.

SugarFree
Verizon Fios
i'm still having trouble with incorrect guide thumbnails. So i'm going to try running "mcupdate.exe -uf -dbgc", rather than just "mcupdate.exe -uf".

any suggestions SugarFree?

are ur guide thumbnails aok?

ty :)


Edit: i completed a Full Backup Restore a few minuets ago and noticed that Updating Guide by right clocking on the Guide works now; meaning, u don't have to force the update anymore. :)

michaeldog

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#1365

Post by michaeldog » Tue Aug 08, 2017 5:00 pm

Hi all who care to participate and this is not to those who only care to negate this forum;

I manually updated my guide and it is now active through August 20th at 8:00 p.m. While I realize that a lot of you jump through some amazing hoops to get it restored, I believe in a more traditional approach, if it ain't broken, don't fix it. I realize that WMC is not on Microsoft's priority list but sooner or later they pull through. I also believe that they are not evil and if they were going to cease distributing the Guide, I believe that they would notify users prior to doing so. Just IMHO.

Thanks to all who contribute. It makes me feel less alone.

Theresa

jimnms

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#1366

Post by jimnms » Tue Aug 08, 2017 5:04 pm

Bee_Dee_3_Dee wrote:i'm still having trouble with incorrect guide thumbnails. So i'm going to try running "mcupdate.exe -uf -dbgc", rather than just "mcupdate.exe -uf".

any suggestions SugarFree?

are ur guide thumbnails aok?

ty :)


Edit: i completed a Full Backup Restore a few minuets ago and noticed that Updating Guide by right clocking on the Guide works now; meaning, u don't have to force the update anymore. :)
I occasionally get incorrect thumbnails. It doesn't bother me and it usually sorts itself out on its own the next update.

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Bee_Dee_3_Dee

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#1367

Post by Bee_Dee_3_Dee » Tue Aug 08, 2017 5:08 pm

jimnms wrote:
Bee_Dee_3_Dee wrote:i'm still having trouble with incorrect guide thumbnails. So i'm going to try running "mcupdate.exe -uf -dbgc", rather than just "mcupdate.exe -uf".

any suggestions SugarFree?

are ur guide thumbnails aok?

ty :)


Edit: i completed a Full Backup Restore a few minuets ago and noticed that Updating Guide by right clocking on the Guide works now; meaning, u don't have to force the update anymore. :)
I occasionally get incorrect thumbnails. It doesn't bother me and it usually sorts itself out on its own the next update.
cool. ty :)

i noticed that the forced update resulted in incorrect thumbnails; but now that simply right clicking on the guide and selecting update works; the result was no incorrect thumbnails. :)

Edit: and the Update only took 11 minuets. :)

adam1991

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#1368

Post by adam1991 » Tue Aug 08, 2017 5:16 pm

michaeldog wrote:While I realize that a lot of you jump through some amazing hoops to get it restored, I believe in a more traditional approach, if it ain't broken, don't fix it. I realize that WMC is not on Microsoft's priority list but sooner or later they pull through. I also believe that they are not evil and if they were going to cease distributing the Guide, I believe that they would notify users prior to doing so. Just IMHO.
I agree 100%.

(I made it through the Rovi conversion just fine, too.)

michaeldog

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#1369

Post by michaeldog » Tue Aug 08, 2017 6:19 pm

BTW - anyone reporting Guide problems or fixes in future, please put your Provider in the post. It will help in passing info onto Rovi.

SugarFree
Verizon Fios[/quote]


Hello SugarFree, In response to your request, my provider is my antennae. For WMC it is called Over The Air Boston/Manchester. Hope that helps.

Theresa

not sure why what you wrote is not in a box :oops:

Roginator

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#1370

Post by Roginator » Tue Aug 08, 2017 7:13 pm

Got an email from Rovi saying they had fixed the guide issue and that it would be correct in 24-48 hours. I'm assuming he meant the problem with "Off-Air" being sprinkled thoughout my cable providers schedule. Anyway, THAT problem seems to have been fixed.

(he could have been referring to the Media Center problem as well.)

Insectoid

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#1371

Post by Insectoid » Tue Aug 08, 2017 10:07 pm

Scheduled update at startup got the good update, it seems. Guide data to 8/21 at 6:00AM.

superdave6653

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#1372

Post by superdave6653 » Tue Aug 08, 2017 11:41 pm

Thanks Bee_Dee_3_Dee

Your suggestion worked for me I now have EPG data through 6pm 8/20. I did need to run update data now to populate the guide. Although for some reason I immediately had recordings programmed through 8/20.

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Would there be an advantage to editing the scheduled mcupdate task to add the -uf and to run the HTPC in administrator mode? I don't like the idea but if it resolves the loop problem ... maybe it's not a horrible idea?

AnneM

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#1373

Post by AnneM » Wed Aug 09, 2017 12:08 am

michaeldog wrote:While I realize that a lot of you jump through some amazing hoops to get it restored, I believe in a more traditional approach, if it ain't broken, don't fix it.
Me too- have never done anything but install the software, use it and occasionally right-click on the system tray green button to manually update the guide data. Just did that and like all y'all, my guide data updated and went out to the 21st. Phew.

I probably wouldn't have even noticed this data shortage had I not looked to see if my scheduled recordings were picking up some season premiers coming in a week or so.

I really hope they can get this to stay populated for two weeks at all times. This is not too much too ask, really. When I see a commercial for a new show premiering soon at X date and time, I want to be able to go and find it in the guide and hit record series. (I find that setting up keyword search recordings on titles never works anymore.... :roll:)

Well, can relax again...but for how long? That is the question.

Space

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#1374

Post by Space » Wed Aug 09, 2017 12:34 am

I believe that the -dbgc option simply causes garbage collection on the database to be performed (removing any data that is no longer needed such as old guide listings). Normally garbage collection is done every 5 days, but this option causes it to run immediately.

On my system it takes about an hour to run a garbage collection cycle (cleaning up 5 days worth of garbage). I suppose you can run it every day and it might take less time to run due to it only having to clean up one day of garbage. But I am not sure that this actually fixes anything (such as incorrect thumbnails) since I've never done any testing regarding this.

Paul Anderegg

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#1375

Post by Paul Anderegg » Wed Aug 09, 2017 1:48 am

I think they are doing this intentionally, hoping we get scared and go to alternatives, so they won't have to deal with us any more.

I also think streaming TV shows from the content providers, that freeze after several commercials each break, causing the viewer to reload the page and rewatch the commercials all over again to get back where they left off, is a conspiracy by them to get more "ad views" to charge the advertisers.

Maybe I am just paranoid :-P

Paul

technodevotee

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#1376

Post by technodevotee » Wed Aug 09, 2017 5:20 am

Paul Anderegg wrote:I think they are doing this intentionally, hoping we get scared and go to alternatives, so they won't have to deal with us any more.

I also think streaming TV shows from the content providers, that freeze after several commercials each break, causing the viewer to reload the page and rewatch the commercials all over again to get back where they left off, is a conspiracy by them to get more "ad views" to charge the advertisers.

Maybe I am just paranoid :-P

Paul
“You're mind is working at its best when you're being paranoid.
You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation
at high speed with total clarity.”
― Banksy, Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall

adam1991

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#1377

Post by adam1991 » Wed Aug 09, 2017 11:25 am

Paul Anderegg wrote:I think they are doing this intentionally, hoping we get scared and go to alternatives, so they won't have to deal with us any more.

I also think streaming TV shows from the content providers, that freeze after several commercials each break, causing the viewer to reload the page and rewatch the commercials all over again to get back where they left off, is a conspiracy by them to get more "ad views" to charge the advertisers.

Maybe I am just paranoid :-P

Paul
No "maybe" about it.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

superdave6653

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#1378

Post by superdave6653 » Wed Aug 09, 2017 3:18 pm

sugarfree and others may want to note that the Rovi guide end date is not one day off. Rovi shows the date and time of the end of the last program in the guide For me in the latest guide update that is the CMT network which has a program that ends on 8/21 at 4 am MDT But no channel has program data for programs that begin after 8/20 at 6 pm MDT The end date and time reported by Rovi is accurate (but may not be what we really want to know)

The CMT program is listed as Pure Country and runs from 8/20 at 4 am to 8/21 at 4 am CMT is not the only channel that uses absurdly long program listings nor is it the only channel that has programs that extend beyond the new program cutoff time they include movies, sports events, etc

So from my perspective it is useful to note the two separate end dates and times. Including the point at which no new programs are added to the guide and the point at which the last program ends (the latest program ending date and time).

Perhaps if Rovi would report the cutoff date and time for new programming it would make more sense but you would still have a guide that extends beyond that date and time because of programs that don't actually end at the cutoff time

I suspect if the actual program end time is not shown it may result in some program recordings to have an incorrect cutoff time

Also the difference between the Rovi guide end date and time and the new program cutoff date and time is only 10 hours not really a full day for me that is always 4am for Rovi and 6pm the day before for the program cutoff time NOTE the times will vary based on your time zone mine is currently MDT I suspect these times are also consistent regardless of cable system provider OTA folks however may have an earlier Rovi Guide end time (the OTA portion of my guide ends at 3am)

NOTE no new EPG data this morning 8/9/2017 after successful update yesterday

Comcast
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Salt Lake City

anotheruser

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#1379

Post by anotheruser » Wed Aug 09, 2017 7:34 pm

With no new data today it looks like nothing is really fixed.

The only only way we're going to get reliable service back is to make noise with Rovi since we have no Microsoft contacts.

We have to make it easier to fix than deal with the complaints and that includes threatening to try and get a CNET or major bloggers to write an article on "The Least Reliable Cloud Service on the Internet,"

Space

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#1380

Post by Space » Wed Aug 09, 2017 10:14 pm

superdave6653 wrote:sugarfree and others may want to note that the Rovi guide end date is not one day off. Rovi shows the date and time of the end of the last program in the guide For me in the latest guide update that is the CMT network which has a program that ends on 8/21 at 4 am MDT But no channel has program data for programs that begin after 8/20 at 6 pm MDT The end date and time reported by Rovi is accurate (but may not be what we really want to know)
...
Perhaps if Rovi would report the cutoff date and time for new programming it would make more sense but you would still have a guide that extends beyond that date and time because of programs that don't actually end at the cutoff time
...
I believe the date reported on that screen is generated by WMC and Rovi does not control that.

But I believe you are correct, the date/time is generated based on the END date/time of the program (on any channel) that ends the latest in the guide.

New guide listings are generated on a "day" basis depending on the start time of the program (the cutoff for each day of data is midnight GMT). Each program has a "length". So if you have a program that starts at 7pm ET on day 12 in the guide, and the length is 4 hours, and that is the latest end time of any program in the guide, then the page will indicate that the guide ends at 11pm ET, even though all channels only have listings that START at 7pm ET and will generally end 1 or 2 hours later.

So when you have a channel that has a program that is 24 hours long, and therefore the end time extends many hours past the midnight GMT cutoff, you get a guide end date/time that seems to be incorrect (hours off from when most channels guide listings actually end).

This is exacerbated if you happen to have the channel (which has the long length program) disabled, as you can scroll through the entire guide and not see any programming that extends more than a couple hours beyond the midnight GMT cutoff. But if you enable that channel, you would see the programming that extends all the way to the end date/time reported on that page.

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