3 days in a row - The dreaded red "X" symbol

[sgbroimp]

EPG 123 has been terrific and trouble/ maintenance free but now I am getting the red error block again and again. I have made no changes to hardware or software. Should I just wait for it to come around to green again or do I need to take action. I can't see much wrong with the guide screen, but I may be missing a detail of course. Warning: I am not very knowledgeable about EPG 123 as I pretty much installed it and that was it. Any advice would be appreciated.

[Space]

When is your scheduled task set to run? If it's between midnight and 3am and particularly if it is on the hour or half-hour you are probably running in to server contention. You should go in to the EPG123 GUI and remove the scheduled task, then change it to another time (use a random "minute" that is not 0-5 or 30-35, as most people pick an on-the-hour or on-the-half-hour time) and then create the task with the new time.

viewtopic.php?f=99&t=13605&p=145157

[sgbroimp]

OK I will try that. Funny I got away with this for years without an issue, maybe an amber 1 x month and a red 1 x a month but that was it. So you are saying set it for, say 0203 hours, 0237 hours etc.?

[dmagerl]

I find that when I get the red X thats its always something Gracenote did to the listings. In the log there is always a notice that the number of listings changed. With the repack, it was happening a lot.

To get rid of it, I open EPG123, press the clear cache button, then save and execute. Then open EPG123 Client and do a manual import.

[IT Troll]

I find that when I get the red X thats its always something Gracenote did to the listings.

The current spate of problems is down to the Schedules Direct server. Either failed to get token or gateway timeouts. Clearing the cache will not help in this case.

[Space]

OK I will try that. Funny I got away with this for years without an issue, maybe an amber 1 x month and a red 1 x a month but that was it. So you are saying set it for, say 0203 hours, 0237 hours etc.?

Yes, but I would choose a time at least 5 minutes away from the hour or half-hour, just so you are well clear of all the other people starting their update on the hour or half-hour. I'm not sure how long the average update takes, but mine is anywhere from 1-5 minutes, so you want to stay clear of the people who update (for example) starting at midnight and finish at 12:05am, etc.

As for why this is happening now, it's not clear. Most likely there are issues on the Schedules Direct (SD) end which is causing the server to be busier than normal (or have less capacity). In any case, the above best practices should be followed to alleviate any extra load on the SD server(s).

[sgbroimp]

Well, here is my experience for what it is worth: Last night around 6:30 EDT I went in and looked to change my update time. Maybe I goofed when I set it up as it was set for 0:00 (or maybe I thought that was a decent download time). Anyway as per Space's suggestion and above all Gary's request (which we all need to respect and honor in my view), I set the new time to 7 minutes after noon. The I got this message that there were a whole pile of channels not in and did i want them or words to that effect. I clicked "yes" and off it went for about 15 minutes, showing an update progress screen, a Task Bar and a progress bar. During that time I could not start WMC I noticed. The it finished and I noted there was still the nasty Red X showing so I figured maybe I had to wait until 12:07 today for it to turn green. Then a while later after watching the recorded news I came back to the home screen and "presto" green icon! I am not knowledgeable enough to know all that went on but I guess it ended well and that is what mattered. My custom channel number rearrangements were also not disturbed which made me happy. This is a great system, especially for us "know nothings".

[KDJones2000]

Is this error part of the Schedules Direct issue?

[ERROR] Unhandled exception caught from epg123.exe. message: The given key was not present in the dictionary.

[garyan2]

Probably not. That error is typically from the cache file. Open the configuration GUI, click the [Clear Cache] button and then [Save & Execute]. That error has also occurred on older versions of epg123, so if you are not on the latest, now is a good time.

[KDJones2000]

Probably not. That error is typically from the cache file. Open the configuration GUI, click the [Clear Cache] button and then [Save & Execute]. That error has also occurred on older versions of epg123, so if you are not on the latest, now is a good time.

Thanks Gary.

Did the fast update and cache refresh, and the error seems to be gone. I was thinking it might be a SD thing since EPG would run successfully maybe once a week, but otherwise give errors.