WMC has corrected a problem with your recording data

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slaingod

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WMC has corrected a problem with your recording data

#1

Post by slaingod » Mon Mar 06, 2017 12:19 am

So this is the second time in a month that I have gotten the "Windows Media Center has corrected a problem with your recording data and will download the Guide again.You should review your recordings to verify they are still scheduled correctly."

When this happen, recordings don't happen and the WAF lose their minds. I've found a couple of mentions of the issue, but nothing definitive, so my apologies if this has been covered before, but my google-fu is coming up short.

* Do we know what can cause this?
* Do we know how to fix it permanently?
* Is 'rebuilding the database' the usual fix? Or just re-import and re-index?
* Is there a way to detect this condition so that I can be notified and take evasive actions? I don't see anything int eh Event Viewer sadly. Perhaps there is some other way to probe the list of upcoming recordings every hour and make sure that it isn't 'nonthing'.

The epg123 stuff works fine for a couple of weeks, then this happens. I have a number of keyword search type recordings to deal with the conversion from Rovi to epg123 for series that are not currently showing.

Thanks in adavnce for any insight!

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garyan2

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#2

Post by garyan2 » Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:03 am

Don't think I have too many answers for you, not familiar with a "recording data" database failure. To address anything that epg123 could be doing to contribute, I can suggest a couple things. I am assuming you had installed epg123 with a clean start and the mcupdate tasks have not been disabled (garbage collector allowed to run normally every 5 days).

1) The loadmxf.exe utility from MS isn't perfect and sometimes introduces errors on the import. This possibility is increased the larger the import is. If possible, try to reduce the size of the file by excluding channels that are not relevant to your lineup (premiums you don't pay for, channels you'll never watch ...), or download less number of days.

2) Kinda related to #1, but change the scheduled update time. If there are other processes running at that time like Windows Update, virus scan, or hard drive maintenance, that could screw up the import or reindex.

One thing to make sure of, I would disable optimization in WMC. Even before epg123, the optimization in WMC caused me problems.

That's all I can think of ... maybe others will chime in.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

slaingod

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#3

Post by slaingod » Tue Mar 07, 2017 6:15 pm

So currently I have 21 days selected for only a couple hundred-ish channels, definitely not the whole shebang. Import is about 70MB. The two mcupdate tasks were left running. Optimization was not checked.

Annoyingly, WMC logs every time you sneeze in Event Viewer but not for this. Are there any other logs or places that might let me proactively check for this kind of problem, or any thoughts on a script that could probe the scheduled recordings list to make sure it wasn't empty?

Thanks

ghostman

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#4

Post by ghostman » Tue Mar 14, 2017 7:51 pm

I've had this problem many times with two different cable carriers and with both Microsoft provided guide data and epg123. For a long time, I thought that it was related to remotely managing recording with Ceton's My MC IOS app because it seemed to happen within a few days of using it. But I shelved that app months ago and I got the same error this morning. I lost all my guide data and my channel customization (I enable all channels in epg123 and then disable the ones I don't watch in WMC). Luckily, I didn't loose my season passes (and I didn't get the error of having 9 copies of each season pass).

My system has 8 tuners (2 Ceton Infinitv 4 cards) and can tune 750+ channels. I disable 500 of those channels in Media Center. I record lots of primetime, but I also collect some older syndicated shows to binge watch.

I'm not a programmer or a database engineer, but my running theory is that the database structure Windows Media Center uses was never designed for the large amount of data I'm throwing at it. I currently have 300 episodes of a show on my media center, I've watched 50 others episodes of that series, and the show airs multiple times a day. It seems like Media Center is tracking the EPG, my watched episodes, my recorded episodes and more in just one or two databases. Having experienced this error before, I know that WMC has lost its brain and will now want to re-recorded all those episodes the next time they air - which will cause it to loose its brain again in the future.

I didn't think about it this morning when I was fixing things, but my next attempt at a long term fix will be to limit channels within epg123. Maybe if I skim down the guide data WMC has to deal with, I won't loose it's brain as often.

SciFiGeek

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#5

Post by SciFiGeek » Wed Mar 15, 2017 4:51 am

I just want to add I too have had this issue.

It would be nice if EPG 123 had an emergency recovery scenario option. Download one day of data and kick off the indexing process. That gets us back to a schedule that may be very soon. After that we can go back to a normal download schedule. Losing the database just before primetime, makes your knuckles go white for sure. FWIW I have 218 series setup right now. Many are duplicates because I record both OTA and Cable versions when I have the chance. I am not sure how many actual recordings I make a week.

Right now either my system is stable or I am due for a corruption. Here's hoping for the former. Best of luck to us all.

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garyan2

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#6

Post by garyan2 » Wed Mar 15, 2017 5:06 am

SciFiGeek wrote:It would be nice if EPG 123 had an emergency recovery scenario option. Download one day of data and kick off the indexing process. That gets us back to a schedule that may be very soon.
No need... or recovery option already available. Depends on how you look at it.

The current .mxf file is still there in the epg123 folder. All you have to do is manually import it, which kicks of the reindex task, and you have your entire guide back in action. easy, peasy.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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garyan2

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#7

Post by garyan2 » Wed Mar 15, 2017 5:29 am

ghostman wrote:I didn't think about it this morning when I was fixing things, but my next attempt at a long term fix will be to limit channels within epg123. Maybe if I skim down the guide data WMC has to deal with, I won't loose it's brain as often.
Definitely the way to go and I think is a big selling point for epg123. You can manage and limit what gets downloaded which will result in a smaller and more stable database. Additional benefits is you will no longer have empty categories in your searches and your searches will be quicker.

Fact:
If you download the "Rugby" channel, and all the events are "Sports, Rugby", there will be a category in your search for Sports->Rugby.
If no other channel shows rugby matches, and you hide the "Rugby" channel, the category will still be there for searches but the results will be empty (hidden).
If you don't download the "Rugby" channel to begin with, there is no Sports->Rugby category.

This is one of the main reason I encourage Step 1 to remove Rovi completely. The garbage categories that comes with Rovi will still be there in the searches... not very asthetic.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

SciFiGeek

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#8

Post by SciFiGeek » Thu Mar 16, 2017 2:39 pm

garyan2 wrote:
SciFiGeek wrote:It would be nice if EPG 123 had an emergency recovery scenario option. Download one day of data and kick off the indexing process. That gets us back to a schedule that may be very soon.
No need... or recovery option already available. Depends on how you look at it.

The current .mxf file is still there in the epg123 folder. All you have to do is manually import it, which kicks of the reindex task, and you have your entire guide back in action. easy, peasy.
The issue I am trying to get around is the fact that when you load a large .mxf file and index it, no recordings will be scheduled until complete, unless it is a separate process. So when a show is going to air in 2 minutes and my database is corrupt (non-existent), I want a narrow set of data to load and subsequently index in the hopes that I get the recording. As it is now the data loads but the indexing does not complete quickly and the schedule is not current. I have had to set things that had series recordings to record to not miss them before they were scheduled

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garyan2

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#9

Post by garyan2 » Thu Mar 16, 2017 9:31 pm

SciFiGeek wrote:
garyan2 wrote:
SciFiGeek wrote:It would be nice if EPG 123 had an emergency recovery scenario option. Download one day of data and kick off the indexing process. That gets us back to a schedule that may be very soon.
No need... or recovery option already available. Depends on how you look at it.

The current .mxf file is still there in the epg123 folder. All you have to do is manually import it, which kicks of the reindex task, and you have your entire guide back in action. easy, peasy.
The issue I am trying to get around is the fact that when you load a large .mxf file and index it, no recordings will be scheduled until complete, unless it is a separate process. So when a show is going to air in 2 minutes and my database is corrupt (non-existent), I want a narrow set of data to load and subsequently index in the hopes that I get the recording. As it is now the data loads but the indexing does not complete quickly and the schedule is not current. I have had to set things that had series recordings to record to not miss them before they were scheduled
EPG123 is certainly not set up to address what you want ... at least not directly. An option for you would be to have 2 epg123 folders, each with their own configuration files. Your main one that imports into WMC can be the 21-day download, while the secondary would be a 2-day download without import. On the occasion that your database is corrupted, you could manually import the 2-day .mxf file which will kick off the reindex directly after import.

You would of course have to have 2 different scheduled tasks that are offset... you will have to manually create one of them.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#10

Post by SciFiGeek » Sat Mar 18, 2017 2:54 pm

That's a thought, keep a short file available for database rebuilds rather than downloading one.

It would still be a nice to have feature. Without knowing how the database is read / sorted, it is hard to guess if adding that second file stream would be easy. :D

My xmf is about 106 MB. So no wonder it takes a bit to index it. I think I request the max out since I am still building up my series recordings from the EPG 123 conversion and I want to be able to pick things up as soon as possible.

Thinking about it, I may setup a second folder instance to download a 1 day file but not schedule it. The SD download should be relatively quick. Probably means I should expect to spend an extra minute but balancing that against the hassle of setup and added load, although minimal, seems like it may be the way to go. I just woe the day that I can't get to the SD server and my database is corrupt. Unlikely but the nightmare scenario for not scheduling a run. I would be stuck indexing my 106 MB file for imminent airings.

Not today, traveling. I also have a list of backups and an EPG 123 upgrade to get to recover access to all content. I'm still hoping for the no equipment failure and no corruption scenario.

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garyan2

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#11

Post by garyan2 » Sat Mar 18, 2017 5:12 pm

Something to keep in mind while deciding how to do what you want ...

The schedule download dates and times are based off GMT, so depending on what time zone you are in, the day could end at 4PM, 5PM , 6PM, 7PM, or 8PM. If you only download 1 day, then the listings will end at that time.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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