EPG123 - Disappearing Channels Issue

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Sammy2

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#21

Post by Sammy2 » Fri Sep 30, 2016 11:52 am

Maybe admins should move this discussion to a new thread? Just a thought..

Anyways, here are logs of my last three runs. I fortunately never experienced this issue. I'm sure I would have heard about it though!

I know there's extra stuff in there but I thought I'd post the entire log so as to not delete something helpful. I did notice that on the scheduled 9/29 run I actually had some channels added to my line up and didn't lose anything at all..

fzy8gc

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#22

Post by fzy8gc » Fri Sep 30, 2016 12:06 pm

fzy8gc wrote:FYI... this morning I lost a bunch of channels in the Dish Network Tampa lineup. I will be contacting SD as well.
SD fixed the problem in within an hour of reporting it. As of this morning [24 hours later], all is still well.

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Scallica

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#23

Post by Scallica » Fri Sep 30, 2016 12:24 pm

Sammy2 wrote:Maybe admins should move this discussion to a new thread? Just a thought..
Done.
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rkulagow

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#24

Post by rkulagow » Fri Sep 30, 2016 1:45 pm

There was a server-side glitch that was preventing lineups from being fully populated. That's been fixed. If you still don't have a complete lineup, then please open a ticket at the Schedules Direct website and let me know that:

1) You're aware of the server-side rebuild because you've read this post
2) You're still having an issue.

Thanks.

Sammy2

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#25

Post by Sammy2 » Fri Sep 30, 2016 2:02 pm

rkulagow wrote:There was a server-side glitch that was preventing lineups from being fully populated. That's been fixed. If you still don't have a complete lineup, then please open a ticket at the Schedules Direct website and let me know that:

1) You're aware of the server-side rebuild because you've read this post
2) You're still having an issue.

Thanks.
So refreshing to see the data providers so diligently involved in providing good data and quick resolutions when things go awry, unlike Microsoft and their crappy data from Rovi, er.. TiVo.

Thank you!!

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#26

Post by OwenW » Fri Sep 30, 2016 2:18 pm

RE: I am surprised about the one-off recordings, though. I'll have to research that to find out why they're not in the same file, and then where the heck they are if not there.

Following up ... The WMC [Add Recording] | [Search] functionality did return this morning after a normal EPG123 run. You might want to update the [Rebuild Database] documentation to recommend a normal run of EPG123 after rebuilding the WMC database. In addition - surprise! - the one-off recordings reappeared in the schedule as well. Perhaps (speculating) one-off recordings depend somehow on search?

As noted in my previous message, I have disabled match for now. Despite the scare, I am still an EPG123 loyalist. A quick glance at recent problems with the Microsoft / Rovi guide proves to me I made the right decision to move to EPG123, notwithstanding occasional glitches.

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IT Troll

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#27

Post by IT Troll » Sat Oct 01, 2016 12:08 am

garyan2 wrote:I believe I'm going to have reimagine automatch and maybe lose some capability in epg123 to keep everyone safe from this kind of thing.
How about an add only mode? So it automatches any newly added channels but never deletes any existing ones.
Are you a Recorded TV HD user or want to give it a try? Check out the new community-made update; Recorded TV HD v2.1.1

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#28

Post by Sammy2 » Sat Oct 01, 2016 1:11 am

IT Troll wrote:
garyan2 wrote:I believe I'm going to have reimagine automatch and maybe lose some capability in epg123 to keep everyone safe from this kind of thing.
How about an add only mode? So it automatches any newly added channels but never deletes any existing ones.
That sounds like a great idea.

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#29

Post by spf » Sun Oct 02, 2016 11:27 pm

garyan2 wrote:I believe I'm going to have reimagine automatch and maybe lose some capability in epg123 to keep everyone safe from this kind of thing.
How about if channel add/remove/automatch operations only occurred when running the program manually in an interactive mode where the user could be shown a preview of the changes that would be made, and prompted to accept them before executing?

I think this would be especially useful if it could be coupled with a notification system that sent email if any of the following conditions were met during scheduled daily runs:

1. Errors occurred during the update.

2. Channels were removed from or added to any of the configured lineups.

3. Available guide data for any channels dropped below a minimum threshold (7 days?).

4. Any other conditions I didn't think of that might require manual intervention.

I have developed a habit of checking the log file on a regular basis, but with such a notification system I could just let it run and trust that I'll receive an email notification when there's anything that actually needs attention.

By the way, I just converted one Media Center system to EPG123 a week go, a second system yesterday, and will convert a third sometime in the near future. I only wish I had done it sooner. Thank you so much Gary for all the work you have put into EPG123.

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IT Troll

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#30

Post by IT Troll » Mon Oct 03, 2016 9:16 pm

The notification thing is a nice idea; especially #3.

However sending an email isn't that straightforward. You either need a mail relay, which most people won't have, or a fully configured email client on the PC. Even then most email clients prevent fully automated email sending to mitigate against mass mailing.
Are you a Recorded TV HD user or want to give it a try? Check out the new community-made update; Recorded TV HD v2.1.1

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#31

Post by stuartm » Mon Oct 03, 2016 10:21 pm

For notification, I think event log entries are the way to go. I already have the feature request/enhancement request in to Gary. It's then possible to set up tasks that fire and e.g. e-mail you when certain entries appear in the event log (or do other actions). I in fact have precisely this set up to let me know if WMC detects a recording failure for a program. Also would like to set up to notify me when EPG123 has a failure. It did require me finding a simple mail client and loading it up. To differentiate the different failure modes it helps if the event ID changes for each failure mode (which is the request I have in to Gary).

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#32

Post by spf » Mon Oct 03, 2016 10:28 pm

IT Troll wrote:The notification thing is a nice idea; especially #3.

However sending an email isn't that straightforward. You either need a mail relay, which most people won't have, or a fully configured email client on the PC. Even then most email clients prevent fully automated email sending to mitigate against mass mailing.
I figured that implementing email notifications from Windows might be problematic, so I went ahead and modified the epg123 scheduled task to also copy trace.log over to my Linux workstation, where a shell script examines the new log output to check for various conditions and send email if warranted.

I took care of #1 by just looking for any lines with "[ERROR]". Assuming channel additions and removals are both indicated in the log with "[ALERT]", #2 is covered. I may even have somewhat accounted for #3 by extracting the number of programs from the "Generated .mxf file contains" line and triggering a notification if it is below 1/2 of its typical value.

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#33

Post by DaveInPa » Tue Oct 04, 2016 6:48 pm

I was working on my HTPC and trying to update missing metadata (just installed RecordedTVHD).

At some point when I restarted WMC, I got an error message about something wrong with the database and discovered that all of my channels were reset (10,000 empty cable channels) and no guide data. I don't think I've every looked at "No Data Available" for 10,000 channels before. :shock:

I've been an EPG123 user since the beginning and I just re-ran it with automatching and all channels were restored with guide :clap:

I did have to rebuild my "favorite" guide lists, but everything else was restored, including scheduled recordings and series. It's nice to know how easy it is to get my channels restored and guide data back when WMC freaks out.

Thanks again to Gary for an amazing tool for EPG!

[Moderator note: topic merged]

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#34

Post by DJConan » Thu Oct 06, 2016 9:28 pm

garyan2 wrote:Do you use Schedules Direct anywhere else?
I'm not sure if your question was to me and I believe you already got to the cause of the problem, but just to follow up...I do not use SD anywhere else, I do have FiOS and my zip is 21040. Everything has been good since I added my deleted lineup back on SD when the problem occurred.

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garyan2

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#35

Post by garyan2 » Fri Oct 07, 2016 4:57 am

DJConan wrote:
garyan2 wrote:Do you use Schedules Direct anywhere else?
I'm not sure if your question was to me and I believe you already got to the cause of the problem, but just to follow up...I do not use SD anywhere else, I do have FiOS and my zip is 21040. Everything has been good since I added my deleted lineup back on SD when the problem occurred.
It was ... just never heard of anyone's lineups dropping out of their account. Real curious on how that could have happened.

Thanks.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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