Show is marked as repeat in WMC but not zap2it

[Space]

This has happened to me once before and I just wanted to confirm that others are having the same issue.

Next weeks (5/12/2014) episode of "24: Live Another Day", with an episode title of "Day 9: 1:00 P.M. - 2:00 P.M." (the third episode of the season) is a new episode and is shown as such in zap2it, however WMC shows that it is a Repeat and has an OAD of 5/5/2014 (which is actually the OAD of the first two episodes of the season).

I can only assume that zap2it originally had this incorrect information, then Microsoft got it and sent it to my WMC. I would expect this to be updated eventually, however, when I first discovered this on Sunday (5/4/2014) the data was already correct in zap2it. So it has been two days where the data has been correct in zap2it, but WMC still has the incorrect information.

If things go as they did the last time I saw this problem, the episode will never be updated to reflect the "new" status.

So I wanted to know if anyone else has this same problem, and also if there is any way to fix it?

I plan on changing my Season recording from "New" to "New & rerun", which should work, but I was hoping there is something I could to for "force" WMC to update the guide so that it is correct (assuming that Microsoft has the correct data and it is just WMC that is not properly updating the record) for this one time and on an ongoing basis. If the problem is on the Microsoft server side, then I guess there is nothing that can be done on the WMC side.

Thanks for any info!

[Mike88]

I noticed the same exact problem last Saturday & it was still marked as Repeat when I looked last night.

I thought I'd wait till this weekend to see if the guide gets corrected, if not I'll set it as a one time record. I thought about setting it to "New & rerun" but didn't want to record the pilot episode repeats.

FWIW the EPG from my Dish DVR does list the 5/12/2014 episode as New. So apparently it's just a WMC error.

[Space]

A Series recording in WMC will not record repeats. "New & rerun" is the same as "New" except that it will record all episodes that have not already been recorded in the past. This means that for new series that have no prior seasons it will only record the new episodes once (even if they are not correctly marked as NEW in the guide).

I set my "24: Live Another Day" Series as "New & rerun" and it is now properly set to record the episode on 5/12, but not the repeat of that episode on 5/16 nor the repeat of the pilot episodes on 5/9 (since the Series already recorded that episode).

I think I am going to set most of my Series records this way (except perhaps for those that have a lot of repeats of prior seasons still airing), this should keep me from getting burned with this particular bug.

[Jimmersd]

Common problem. Happens a lot. The problem with setting to "new & rerun" is it catches every single showing of the series. Bad idea if you are recording "Law and Order". It's okay on a brand new series.

I always assumed that it was Zap2it sending bogus info.

[Space]

Well, I've only seen it two times now in about a year, so "a lot" is relative I guess. I assume it would happen any time that an episode is set to "Repeat" the first time it is downloaded and then later changed to "New". It doesn't appear (at least in my experience) that this happens very often.

If you limit the Series to a specific channel, and old repeats of that show are not broadcast that often on that particular channel, then "New & rerun" should not be that big a deal. You may have to look at the list of shows that are recording every week and select "Do not record" on those that you may have already seen, but I would not think the list would be too long unless that channel has regular repeats of previous season episodes (that you have not already recorded). Selecting "Do not record" will add that episode to the list of "already recorded" episodes and that episode should not be scheduled to record at any time in the future.

Of course, you will not want to use the "New & rerun" option on shows like "The Simpsons" if you local Fox affiliate also broadcasts repeats of earlier seasons on a daily basis. However in my case, the Fox affiliate only broadcasts current season episodes (and an occasional repeat in the prime-time slot on certain weeks). Syndicated episodes of "The Simpsons" are aired daily, but on another channel so should not be caught by a Series set to record only from the Fox affiliate.

[dmagerl]

I agree that is the only way to handle it, new & rerun on a specific channel.

But there's another bug in WMC that probably annoys me even worse than "new & rerun". Every so often WMC decides to get it in its head that the specified channel is no longer the specified channel and it tries to record from some other one, and it sticks on that bogus channel. You cant go back to the channel you want.

The only way to fix it is to delete the series and re-add it back on the specified channel.

So you're damned if you do and damned if you dont. The only issue is which bug do you find more annoying.

[Space]

...

But there's another bug in WMC that probably annoys me even worse than "new & rerun". Every so often WMC decides to get it in its head that the specified channel is no longer the specified channel and it tries to record from some other one, and it sticks on that bogus channel. You cant go back to the channel you want.

The only way to fix it is to delete the series and re-add it back on the specified channel.

...

Hmmm, I haven't experienced this bug, do you have pointers to any further information on it?

I have pretty much all my Series records limited to a specific channel and I have never seen any of them try to record from a different channel. But then again, I also currently have most of them set to "New" only, so that may be the reason.

[dmagerl]

I think it only happens when it tries to do a recording and the recording fails for some reason, bad signal, tuner not ready, etc.. It then thinks it's being smart and goes off and sees if it can record from another channel even though the series says "this channel only". Unfortunately it sticks to that new channel.

In my example, I get stations OTA from Rockford, Il, Chicago, Il, and Milwaukee, Wi in my guide. Chicago is where the antenna is normally aimed. So when something happens to kill the Chicago station it goes and tries to get it from Milwaukee or Rockford, both of which are bad because the antenna isnt aimed there. But it never reverts back to Chicago. From here on out it sticks with the bad station.

It happens often enough to me that I just learned to immediately delete the series and re-add it to fix the problem.

[Space]

Ahh, I see. I have Cable and it is rarely down, so I don't think I would see this problem. Plus most of the stuff I record is only on one channel anyway, so it would not be able to find it elsewhere.

Deleting the Series would be bad for me because it also deletes the list of "episodes already recorded" for that Series and would cause the new Series to re-record stuff that I had already recorded in the past (if I was using "New & rerun").

Thanks for the information!

[Space]

Does anyone know if running ObjectStoreRecoveryTask from the task manager will fix this problem?

What exactly does this task do? It appears to clear the Guide data and allows you to re-download the complete guide again.

Are there any side effects? Series recordings will still work, existing copy protected recordings will still play, etc.

If this problem is caused by an incremental update bug, then I would guess that doing this would fix it. If the problem is on the Microsoft server side, then it would probably not fix it.

Thanks

[Space]

Wow, some weird stuff going on with 24. Not only is the upcoming episode marked as a Repeat in WMC, so is the one following that (airing 5/19)! It has an OAD of 5/10/2014, which doesn't make much sense since no episode is airing on that day (it's Saturday). This episode is correctly showing as NEW in zap2it.

Anyway, setting the Series to "New & rerun" was a good choice, because it has scheduled this episode to record (even though it is marked as a Repeat). I recommend this setting for everyone (at least for 24) because at this point, it is unknown when, if ever, this problem will be resolved.

[Mike88]

Thanks for the info. I set the 24 series to "New & rerun".

[Roginator]

Wow... I'm sure glad I happened to check this forum when I did. Thanks for the heads up! I had just ordered the original series of "24" on the special Amazon deal and was planning to record all the new episodes.

[Space]

So, I see that the 5/26/2014 episode of "24: Live Another Day" is now on zap2it, and it is correctly marked as "NEW".

Since it is still another couple days before this days data will be loaded in to WMC, it should hopefully not be marked as a repeat. If it is, then something is really wrong.

[Space]

5/26 episode has shown up in the WMC guide and it is correctly marked as new (not Repeat), so looks like it has been resolved. No hard in keeping it "New & rerun" though, in fact this will be the new default for all my Series records.