EPG123 locks/hangs WMC guide

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cordcut2013

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EPG123 locks/hangs WMC guide

#1

Post by cordcut2013 » Thu May 18, 2017 1:14 am

I have been fortunate and have had very few, relatively minor and solvable problems with WMC over the past several years of using it. I converted to Rovi back when MS dropped the service and had been using Rovi for my OTA menu without problems until I found EPG123. EPG123 is slick with much better content and I fell for it, jumping in with both feet.

Well long story short, my WMC installation has been crashing and locking up ever since I installed EPG123 several weeks ago. I did follow the installation instructions to the letter and it appeared to work for a few hours. I have since tried clean start and rebuild options in EPG123. I have deleted the ehome folder and even turning off/on WMC from Windows features. I deleted any/all other programs like Kodi NextPVR which might conflict somehow with WMC. I also updated my tuner and video drivers as well. Nothing works!

Because I thought it could still be something in particular about that system though, I loaded EPG123 on my other Windows 7 machine. This machine is a relatively clean installation with a different tuner and no special software. Guess what? Same *&#*^%@* problem! Each and every time I go to load the WMC guide, it displays with the latest listings and immediately freezes. The only way to fix it is Task Manager, kill eshell.exe and rebuild WMC database back to having no EPG.

I don't know what else to try. It wouldn't be so bad if EPG123 was simply not working but even when I try to clean start and go back to Rovi now, the system locks up on that as well.

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#2

Post by Scallica » Thu May 18, 2017 1:42 am

I had a similar issue. I went to Tasks-->Settings-->General-->Automatic Download Options and unchecked both boxes
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#3

Post by IT Troll » Thu May 18, 2017 7:44 am

We think the root cause is either custom firewall or anti-virus software which is preventing the enhanced guide from retrieving additional Internet content.

Does that ring true with the two machines you installed it on?
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#4

Post by cordcut2013 » Thu May 18, 2017 11:31 am

@Scallica Turning Automatic Download Options off makes sense but I unchecked both boxes just now and ran the EPG123 update and it still locks the guide.

@IT Troll The box has the stock Windows firewall and Microsoft Security Essentials. I've turned both off completely and it does not seem to make any difference.

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cordcut2013

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#5

Post by cordcut2013 » Thu May 18, 2017 11:33 am

Both machines use the built in Windows firewall and MSE.

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#6

Post by garyan2 » Thu May 18, 2017 2:28 pm

Don't know what is going on. When you tried to go back to Rovi, did you use the Clean Start to delete the ehome folder and then not do anything further with epg123? The clean way to go back would be to click Clean Start and once the folder is successfully deleted, close epg123. Setup WMC normally.

There's only a couple registry settings that survive a transition back to Rovi and they deal with the periodic background tuner scanning.

@Scallica ... where was this post hiding last night? I could see it, but couldn't get to it.
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#7

Post by arcturus » Thu May 18, 2017 2:47 pm

Welcome to my world.

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 99&t=10876

Yours sounds a bit different that mine but I spent a considerable amount of time trying to troubleshoot without success. In hindsight it probably would of been quicker doing a fresh Windows install which I'll do shortly, then image if it's performing ok. Sounds a bit drastic but you know how slippery slopes go.

I have 3 Win 7 boxes. The other 2 have no problems.

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#8

Post by cordcut2013 » Thu May 18, 2017 9:08 pm

@garyan

I did a clean start and setup WMC normally to go back to Rovi thinking the system would be okay but it locked again exactly the same way. I upgraded the tuner drivers sometime after that to no avail. I did notice a time after that even though I clean booted then declined the Rovi TOS, and live TV was the only choice in the WMC main menu, WMC still showed EPG123 Lineups with Scheduled Direct as the provider in Settings/TV/Guide/About Guide Listings. So it is possible something is being retained in the registry.

Another possibility is that I am performing "Run as Administrator" on the EPG123 tools because I am logged in as an ordinary reduced rights user. I don't know if this is a cause but EPG123 does seem to run in a couple different windows. I will try logging on as straight up admin.

I am also tempted to just refresh the windows installation entirely and go from there but I have not reached a point where I have no choice but to give up on the current installation. It would after all be better to understand what is going on so that it doesn't have a chance to come back somewhere downstream.

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#9

Post by Scallica » Thu May 18, 2017 9:44 pm

garyan2 wrote:@Scallica ... where was this post hiding last night? I could see it, but couldn't get to it.
The post was sent to purgatory upon submission, pending moderator approval. This happens sometimes, possibly caused by a bug in PHPBB.
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#10

Post by garyan2 » Thu May 18, 2017 10:42 pm

cordcut2013 wrote:I did notice a time after that even though I clean booted then declined the Rovi TOS, and live TV was the only choice in the WMC main menu, WMC still showed EPG123 Lineups with Scheduled Direct as the provider in Settings/TV/Guide/About Guide Listings. So it is possible something is being retained in the registry.
That lineup information in the about guide is from the database... being able to see that means the ehome folder and database were not successfully deleted. Might want to try in Safe Mode if you have problems getting rid of it.
cordcut2013 wrote:Another possibility is that I am performing "Run as Administrator" on the EPG123 tools because I am logged in as an ordinary reduced rights user. I don't know if this is a cause but EPG123 does seem to run in a couple different windows. I will try logging on as straight up admin.
Running as administrator is perfectly acceptable, and that is exactly what happens when you press a button with the shield on it ... run as administrator. There are 2 windows right now, 1 for the console and 1 for the GUI. Based on some feedback, I'll be getting rid of the console and moving towards a service and a system tray icon.
cordcut2013 wrote:I am also tempted to just refresh the windows installation entirely and go from there but I have not reached a point where I have no choice but to give up on the current installation. It would after all be better to understand what is going on so that it doesn't have a chance to come back somewhere downstream.
Absolutely, positively agree. I'll do everything I can to figure this out as long as you can stand it. It's unfortunate that I have yet been able to reproduce these behaviors on my systems or in VMs.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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cordcut2013

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#11

Post by cordcut2013 » Fri May 19, 2017 12:46 am

Well I went into safe mode and completely deleted the ehome directory but after running rebooting into normal mode and running through WMC setup, EPG123 manual import and EPG123 save and execute, the menu locked again. So I did a rebuild WMC database and am back to having a working menu with no guide entries..

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#12

Post by garyan2 » Fri May 19, 2017 3:57 am

cordcut2013 wrote:Well I went into safe mode and completely deleted the ehome directory but after running rebooting into normal mode and running through WMC setup, EPG123 manual import and EPG123 save and execute, the menu locked again. So I did a rebuild WMC database and am back to having a working menu with no guide entries..
Let's make sure I understand ... when you say the menu locked up, which menu are you talking about? I was thinking this was when you were looking at the guide, but no so sure now.

When you open WMC, do you see the Sports Strip?

What tuners are you using? on both machines?

Things to possibly try:
Download and import a single station only and import... see if there is still a problem.
Check to see if mcupdate.exe running before import. If so, let it finish just in case.
For the initial import, don't open WMC until the reindex task has completed (ehPrivJob.exe in the task manager).

Note: when the guide option is not available in the TV strip, that means the registry setting for the ToS is not set. Open either epg123.exe or epg123Client.exe to set the registry and restart WMC.

If I can think of anything else, I'll let you know.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#13

Post by cordcut2013 » Fri May 19, 2017 11:06 am

Sorry I'll try to describe the issue better. When I say the menu locks up I mean the Guide menu. As soon as I pick TV/Guide from the main WMC menu, the Guide does come up as it normally would and it even shows all the different timeslots with current guide content. But that's as gar as it goes as WMC becomes totally non-responsive, stuck showing that screen. You can tell right away that it is locked up because usually as soon as the guide is up you can move the mouse around and the guide selector moves around onside the various guide timeslots. But when it locks, you never get the selector. You can't close WMC either. The only way out seems to be Task manager and ending eshell.exe.

I am not seeing a Sports strip on the main menu.

I have two physical Hauppauge USB tuners. One is a 955q and the other 955d dual tuner. WMC reports this:

Hauppauge Cx23100 BDA ATSC Tuner
Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD ATSC Tuner
Hauppauge WinTV-dualHD ATSC Tuner 2

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#14

Post by cordcut2013 » Fri May 19, 2017 11:20 am

I will try letting the ePrivJob.exe finish and let you know.

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#15

Post by cordcut2013 » Fri May 19, 2017 11:42 am

I watched ePrivJob.exe complete (and exit itself out of the task manager process list) and then launched WMC guide but there is no change. I have also noticed in task manager that eshell.exe at this point is consuming a steady 27% CPU. I noticed it before as well let it run overnight but there is no change in the guide and the utilization never falls below around the same 27%.

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#16

Post by cordcut2013 » Fri May 19, 2017 11:55 am

Finally some progress! I logged in as administrator and opened WMC and the guide is working! I can move the mouse around and make selections. So this must be some kind of permissions issue or something specific in the user account's setup.

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#17

Post by garyan2 » Fri May 19, 2017 2:59 pm

^Wow, didn't expect that. Maybe it is something similar to Scallica's problem with the firewall and it's your user account that has problems calling out to the internets.
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#18

Post by IT Troll » Fri May 19, 2017 10:25 pm

cordcut2013 wrote:So this must be some kind of permissions issue or something specific in the user account's setup.
I was beginning to suspect this myself. Perhaps the working directory used for the downloaded guide content is not accessible to your regular account for some reason. One way to confirm this is to use Process Monitor to reveal what Media Center is trying to access when it appears to lock up. You should be able to identify what resource access is being denied to the ehshell.exe process.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sys ... nitor.aspx
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#19

Post by garyan2 » Fri May 19, 2017 10:45 pm

Question would be "Why does using epg123 expose this limitation?" Maybe the restriction is not allowing redirects. Some of the guide images will be to SD which will redirect to AWS.
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#20

Post by cordcut2013 » Sat May 20, 2017 4:41 am

So I created a brand new non privileged regular user and logged in. Same machine that's working. So a new profile was created on it. Expecting all to be well but no, the guide still locks. I logged out and logged back in as administrator and the guide is working fine.

I'd prefer not to have to use administrator to login with all the time. So I will keep messing with it.

...Finally getting to enjoy EPG123 and it is really amazing btw.

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