Recovering Deleted Channels

An evolving, supported alternative to Rovi
Forum rules
★ Download the latest EPG123 here: https://garyan2.github.io/ <> Setup guide here: https://garyan2.github.io/install.html
Post Reply
glorp

Posts: 369
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2012 2:54 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

Recovering Deleted Channels

#1

Post by glorp » Fri Feb 17, 2017 5:45 pm

Gary, I need a little advice. The long and short of it is that I need to restore channels above 1000 on one of my media center installations. Is there any easy way to do that or a magic piece of code that might just add them back in rather than having to completely run through set up again?

The long explanation here is that when I originally installed EPG123 on my 3 WMCs, using Lineup Selector and then Guide Tool to handle the matching of channels to guide (remember those days?) on the very first one I did I said, "meh, when will I ever need channels above 1000?", and deleted 1000-9999 with Guide Tool. Of course a year later, Comcrap has added a whole bunch of channels between 1000-2000 and is in the process of moving most of their HD to those new channels. A couple of weeks ago I saw the tuners get the new channels in its map and yesterday SD updated my schedule list to include them. Next ofc will be to delete the old ones but that hasn't happened, yet, so I still have both and have access to the sub-1000 duplicates.

So I checked today after a regular schedule build and client load with auto-match on everywhere. Two of the three MCs have the new channels. As expected the one where the +1000 were deleted with Guide Tool does not. I'm still using EPG123 1.0.2 and was holding off upgrading that until this finally happened just so any problems don't get mixed as to cause.

So any thoughts? I can't find any way to have Guide Tool add them back and nothing allows me to manually add cable channels in WMC. I assume I need to actually add them back to the .edb but AFAIK the only way to do that is to start over and recreate the channel db from scratch.

Thanks.

User avatar
garyan2

Posts: 7438
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#2

Post by garyan2 » Fri Feb 17, 2017 8:20 pm

I don't have anything programmatically to restore deleted channels. I haven't invested too much time in understanding exactly how WMC is handling "deleted" tuner channels, though I have seen some things which give me ideas.

Without starting over, it is possible to clear out the tuner channels and rescan. This will bring you back to 9999 channels. The downside is you will have to rematch all the channels again but that shouldn't be a biggy.

goto [settings]->[TV]->[TV Signal]->[Scan for More Channels], Click [Delete All] and then [Start Scan].

You have to delete them all first, which is really clearing out the scanned lineup, in order to get the deleted ones back in the guide. Without the delete, another scan will produce 0 results since the previously deleted channels are still a part of the scanned lineup and are not "new" to be added.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

glorp

Posts: 369
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2012 2:54 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#3

Post by glorp » Fri Feb 17, 2017 8:58 pm

And then just re-run my client's normal scheduled task to import the last .mxf with it using the "-match" switch? Remember I'm still using 1.0.2 at this point. I'll upgrade that after this gets fixed.

User avatar
garyan2

Posts: 7438
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#4

Post by garyan2 » Fri Feb 17, 2017 9:05 pm

glorp wrote:And then just re-run my client's normal scheduled task to import the last .mxf with it using the "-match" switch? Remember I'm still using 1.0.2 at this point. I'll upgrade that after this gets fixed.
Either that, or if you don't want to go through another mxf creation, you can just "epg123Client.exe -i epg123.mxf -match"

EDIT: my bad, all you need is "epg123client.exe -match" ... the listings have already been imported into the database so there is no need to import them again.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

glorp

Posts: 369
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2012 2:54 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#5

Post by glorp » Fri Feb 17, 2017 9:23 pm

OK. The .mxf is on the server so there's no new .mxf build involved anyway. But I understand your point. I think I'll just disable the client's scheduled task now and then nuke/rescan the channels and manually load for tomorrow's normal update process.

Thanks. I think this will probably work and be less disruptive than starting over. The affected WMC is the single network "DVR". It has the entire recording schedule on it.

glorp

Posts: 369
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2012 2:54 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#6

Post by glorp » Fri Feb 17, 2017 9:33 pm

garyan2 wrote:goto [settings]->[TV]->[TV Signal]->[Scan for More Channels], Click [Delete All] and then [Start Scan].
Ooops. Sadly not an option on CableCARD tuners, which makes sense. What are you scanning for in that case?

Any other idea?
Last edited by glorp on Fri Feb 17, 2017 9:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
garyan2

Posts: 7438
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#7

Post by garyan2 » Fri Feb 17, 2017 9:49 pm

glorp wrote:
garyan2 wrote:goto [settings]->[TV]->[TV Signal]->[Scan for More Channels], Click [Delete All] and then [Start Scan].
Ooops. Sadly not an option on CableCARD tuners, which makes sense. What are you scanning for in that case?

Any other idea?
hmmm... didn't know that wasn't possible with CableCARD. It works for ATSC and I have a VM with the Hauppauge HD PVR (Digital Cable) that it works with. Thought that was proof enough for the rest of the tuners. :problem:
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

glorp

Posts: 369
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2012 2:54 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#8

Post by glorp » Fri Feb 17, 2017 9:51 pm

I guess I can just re-run setup again without deleting ehome and again deny guide T&C. At that point I'll have a freshly written .edb with channels 1-9999 but no guide. Then I can just continue using EPG123's mxf, import it and channel match. I can't get Rovied since I've still never used their guide and the recording schedule will stay intact. That should work, no?

User avatar
garyan2

Posts: 7438
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#9

Post by garyan2 » Fri Feb 17, 2017 9:56 pm

Yah, that'll work. Just slightly more involved than the delete/rescan that I mentioned first. Really the only difference, I think, is that the registry settings for making the guide visible will have to be reapplied. Just need to open epg123.exe to write to the registry after TV setup is complete.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

glorp

Posts: 369
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2012 2:54 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#10

Post by glorp » Fri Feb 17, 2017 10:01 pm

Ah, right. Forgot about the registry thing. Another complication but still not a big deal. So maybe I'll do a complete run through with epg123 as server+client on that machine after the set up. Let it load the schedule. Then switch it back to a client-only.

I wonder if the channel scan issue is something to do with Ceton v. Hauppage drivers? Mine is CableCARD-only. No ATSC at all and that particular machine has never seen an ATSC tuner in it.
Image

glorp

Posts: 369
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2012 2:54 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#11

Post by glorp » Sat Feb 18, 2017 7:22 pm

That worked flawlessly. Just re-ran TV Signal set up normally and declined guide T&C as usual. When it was finished checked that WMC had no guide, which it didn't. Ran epg123 and used Save. Checked again and had a blank guide with all 9999 channels. So didn't even bother building a new .mxf locally, just re-imported the .mxf that the server had built earlier. All the channels have guide data including all the new 1000+ ones. Recording schedule is intact and the new channels tune on live TV. Took about 15 minutes start to finish. I'll have to migrate all the recordings to the new channels eventually but that's a Comcast issue.

Thanks.

Post Reply