One TV Channel "Service is unavailable" - others OK?

[ntward]

I think I have a solution.

Go to your guide. Right-click on 2.1 (WESH NBC). Click edit channel. Then edit sources. I had eight sources for my four tuners. Four of them are 11.1, The other 4 are 24.1

I removed all 24.1 sources, Then clicked save.

This has resolved my issue so far.

Let me know if it helps you too!

[Aussie]

Thank you for detailing your problem and presenting your solution.

barnabas1969, dmagerl … had already suggested this solution … and I documented (from their input) the solution for Windows 7 and Windows Vista back in Post #27. I and others concur that this solution fixes the problem … although potentially not the root cause of the problem (which we think is one of Microsoft’s Guide data providers.)

Manually editing the channels seems to have “stuck” and so we can say that my problem is resolved.

[tomlando]

hmm, I live in Orlando and I have had the same problem. I would like to thank all the posters that assisted in the solution, even though it won't help me as I am using windows XP with Beyondtv. I had tried all kinds of things and could not figure out why I couldn't record or watch WESH through my Hauppauge 2250 tuners. If it is as you say an EPG issue, I am out of luck as there is no service at snapstream. But at least I now know what the problem is. I am in the process of building a new HTPC and it has Windows 8 PRO and WMC. So, I guess I will go that route and be using this forum.

[dmagerl]

Tomlanod, if you're using XP, you should be able to edit your atscchannels.xml file.

Search for atscchannels.xml, its hidden, and delete it. (MCE may have to be closed, I forget). Then using the Add DTV channel menu in MCE, add WESH back in using the correct frequencies. Then redownload the guide.

The atscchannels.xml file gets regenerated when the guide is redownloaded only this time the channel you manually added will override the downloaded data.

[Aussie]

dmagerl ... tomlando is using Beyondtv ... I don't know if BeyondTV uses atschannels.xml or not ...

tomlando,
if you do use atcschannels.xml then see my post #27 for the steps I took to correct the problem (in Vista ... hoperfully your problem is similar). But if you don't use atschannels.xml, then you need to work out how to ensure that WESH DTV 2.1, is assigned to channel 11 ... and not channel 24. I would hope that the software has this option somewhere. Perhaps contacting technical support for BeyondTV will help.

[tomlando]

Thanks, I will take a look to see if I have a atscchannel.xml and I will go the the snapstream forum and see if anyone from orlando has posted this problem, but I kind of doubt it because hardly anyone uses BTV anymore. My new HTPC is almost ready. There is a SSD in shipping now and I have a lot of reading to do to go with WMC and, from what I understand another software like media portal, etc. and they work in tandem. It may take a while to get it right, so I will be using the old HTPC until it is. I am glad I found the forum, so something good did come out of this. I will read and post in the appropiate threads for help. I will let you know if I find solution in case there is someone else looking for the same thing. Thanks again.

[tomlando]

I now am using, or learning to use, heh, heh, WMC. The problem was not fixed and I made the changes as suggested earlier in this thread. After making the changes to the channel, I still couldn't get any data for WESH in my guide. So, I went back, to edit channel then to edit listing and searched for the correct listing and all is well now.

[Aussie]

WESH 2.1 Orlando went down on me (again) on April 6, 2015. The usual fixes of editing sources didn't work ... so I am still down today. I have a Windows 7 and a Windows Vista machine and both went down with respect to WESH 2.1. It transmission channel is 11 but the guide listing pushes out 24 ... any solutions would be appreciated.

[tomlando]

I just checked mine and the sources I had edited to 11.1 only. The 24.1 I had left unchecked. The signal strength is 100%. I am located on the northwest side of town in Lockhart. Are you receiving Wesh with the antenna hooked up directly to the TV? If not, you may have a hardware reception issue. I hope this helps.

[Aussie]

tomlando ... thanks for the response ... I was out of town so I couldn't reply.

My antenna is a large Yagi array, 7 miles from Bithlo ... and I was picking up WESH just fine before April 6. The antenna is connected, thru a high-quality amplifier to two WMCs (Vista and Windows 7 Pro). Another "normal" TV receiver is also connected to the same line amplifier and it is receiving WESH 2 just fine ... So I think that it is a WMC problem. I did manually reset the physical channel to 11 on my Win 7 Pro WMC ... but I have no signal strength for WESH 2 at the WMCs. Note that other channels from 6 thru 65 are fine on both WMCs.

Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

[dmagerl]

Try adding it manually using logical channel 2.1 and physical channel 11.

http://www.rabbitears.info shows it has two translator channels ch 18 in Orange City and ch 24 in Ocala. Are these any closer to you?

Is it the only VHF station in the area? Do yo have any preamps in your system? Could you have lost the VHF side of an amp?

[Aussie]

dmagerl ... thanks for the suggestions ... I am 7 miles from the transmission antennas in Bithlo and far away from Orange City and Ocala ... but maybe it is time to check if the VHF amp has gone down ... or the antenna has fallen over ...

I do have another "normal" TV receiver connected to the same line amplifier and it is receiving WESH 2 just fine ... maybe it is just more sensitive.

I'll see what I can find.

[Aussie]

OK ... found the problems ...

Short story …

I do think that Microsoft downloaded a new Guide moving Channel 2.1 to physical channel 24 (instead of 11). But ... after I corrected that (manually) ... the signal strength was still low on WESH 2.1. Even though a "TV" was able to receive WESH 2.1 well, off the same antenna.

The other problem was that my antenna was not pointed correctly at WESH 2 transmitter.

Longer story …

After correcting the Guide problem … I rewired the system to take the VHF/UHF line amplifier out of the system. No joy.

So I “hiked” into the attic to check the antenna. The reason I resisted checking earlier is that the antenna is literally boxed in by a lot of cardboard boxes (in storage) so it is "protected." It hasn’t moved for 17 years. When I got up into the attic … it looked like a tornado had hit. Normally I would see orderly stacks of boxes … what I saw was stacks of boxes in total disarray. Sure enough, I dug through the boxes to the antenna and found the VHF Yagi was almost pointed at the ground ... much to my dismay. Correcting its orientation brought WESH 2.1 back online.

After further “forensic” debugging, I determined that my wife had let an overly enthusiastic termite inspection guy into the attic. He moved boxes to check for termites … but didn’t restack them well … so they avalanched onto the antenna.

Great! … A 15-minute inspection causes me hours of debug …

Thanks for everyone’s help.