Windows 7 Update reset MCE back to live tv setup

[TomoA6]

A note about backups. When I initially checked the epg123 backup folder that you had mentioned earlier, there was one backup from Nov 2020 that was based on the 1.6 epg123 install. The zip is only 439Kb in size. I installed the newer epg123 1.7.0.8 client as requested.

UPDATE: Windows Media Center Store Update Manager has stopped working
After mcupdate.exe had crashed again, I had allowed the let "Windows can check for an online solution" option to do it's thing. This might have fixed the popup to restart problem.

Later on I had another issue after openning up "View Schedule" it only had one show setup to record.

If I then clicked sort "By Series", Media Center would totally lock up and the screen would go black. I let it run for several hours with CPU usage way up with no luck of itself resolving the hang up.

To fix I checked the size of the active database file, it was over 700MB. I ran the garbage collector from the command line as you suggested, it reduced the file size to 325MB. The "View Schedule" now has 31 shows to record instead of 1. And the Sort By Series listing returns 230 entries without hanging. Many of these are broken duplicates. I suspect 80 of them are unique with only 31 of those working.

When I open up epg123's Transfer Tool it shows many thousands of entries in the database many of which are listed as old One Time recordings. I deleted a bunch using the tool.

Anyway it seems the Guide will endure and is more responsive. I think I will keep an eye on it's growth and maintenance going forward. Thanks Gary for all your help! Thanks everyone for your feedback too!

I guess the only thing left to ask is when should I schedule to run my own database clean up and reindex tasks within taskmanager? I suppose EPG123 may already handle this but I would like to have greater control.

[TomoA6]

Hi I had another odd crash where Media Center reset back to Setup Live TV again.

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome
in the above I noticed the database had split on the day of the crash a couple times into small increments. I chose an earlier one using the registry hack and got back my guide and my channels. I also had used mcupdate to clean up the database size. It shrunk down to 200MB with reindexing enabled.

My only remaining problem is now I cannot record shows. When I select a program in the guide to immediately record, it just spins endlessly without timing out. EhShell.exe eats up between 20 to 50% CPU. There is no Red dot in the taskbar to show it's recording. The History doesn't show any new shows being recorded but my mothers Scheduled Recordings are being listed for new upcoming shows though. I went to check on the Edit Channels in my guide settings and several channel Sources show the 3 turners have proper check boxes on them. So I am at a loss what is going wrong here. The services are showing all the Media Center processes as running as well.

If you guys have any ideas on what to try next please help.

Update:
Live TV works so my mother can change channels and even pause Live TV. She cannot delete shows or Record shows.

Event Viewer shows:
Error | MCUpdate - Failed to retrieve Directory (Error: Unable to connect to the remote server)
Info | Recording - PIX11 News at Ten

The first is common and it pops up a couple times every day, probably unrelated as it's been there for a while
The 2nd is about all I can find, before the failures, there are no new Recording events yet, just manual delete events but there are many Recording Info events prior to that.

Looking back I also found two back to back events for mcstore
5:08:10 Warning | mcstore | Recovery of guide listings and recording schedule is complete.
5:08:10 Warning | mcstore | Recovery of guide listings and recording schedule could not be completed. (mcupdate.5628) Error message: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

[TomoA6]

nevermind it's quicker to run live setup from scratch