TheGreenButton - Windows Media Center Forums

First option was a failure, still crashes when attempting to schedule a recording. Nuclear Option is all that remains unless my previous couple posts give anyone any ideas.

Try this one before you blow away windows.

Download StartRecording.zip
Open with your UnZipper and extract to the download folder.
Type Task Scheduler into the Run box
Import StartRecording.xml

One last suggestion for ya....

Open up the Ceton Driver Diagnostic and figure out how to turn on Advanced Logging

Boot and try to duplicate the problem by doing what you do to make it blow up.

Save the diagnostic and turn OFF advanced logging. I think you have to re-boot again.

The event will be captured inside the saved diagnostic.

Extract the diagnostic with your UnZipper

Open up the folder named ehRecvr_Logs

Copy and paste the contents of the file in your next post.

This might tell us exactly what is going on.

Crash2009 wrote:Try this one before you blow away windows.

Download StartRecording.zip
Open with your UnZipper and extract to the download folder.
Type Task Scheduler into the Run box
Import StartRecording.xml

Hey crash,
The task scheduler throws an error: The format of the task is not valid. The following error was reported: (2,8):version1.5

So, it took 4 days and required the assistance of the Tuner Manufacturer, to pair a CableCard.

This is where you should have stopped to figure out the problem prior to proceeding.

Try the repair documented below..

https://github.com/Dijji/RepairTasks

Read the ReadMe at the bottom of the page. Including all the links within the ReadMe

At the top of the page, click on Clone or Download

Then repair your Task Scheduler Corruption

I was able to run a full SFC /SCANNOW this morning. It reported corrupt files were found and repaired. Early testing is promising. I am able to schedule recordings from the guide and from search with no issues. I scheduled a recording which started normally. All appears well. I will report back tomorrow if everything goes well with tonights recordings and epg update.

Crash2009 wrote:So, it took 4 days and required the assistance of the Tuner Manufacturer, to pair a CableCard.

This is where you should have stopped to figure out the problem prior to proceeding.

Try the repair documented below..

That was back in 2015 when I upgraded to 6 tuners from 4. The fault was Comcast. After dozens of calls to the bottom tier who just kept doing the same thing over and over again, Ceton intervened and a real engineer called me took the numbers from the cards and hand me running a few minutes later. No hardware or software faults at all. Just wetware.

Once again, Crash2009 You've been a great help and I think your idea fixed it this time.

SpamHammer wrote:I was able to run a full SFC /SCANNOW this morning. It reported corrupt files were found and repaired. Early testing is promising. I am able to schedule recordings from the guide and from search with no issues. I scheduled a recording which started normally. All appears well. I will report back tomorrow if everything goes well with tonights recordings and epg update.

Awesome. Did the scan display what files were corrupted?

SpamHammer wrote:

stuartm wrote:Note that rebuilding the database and/or reinstalling WMC does not mean you need to re-pair your cable card with your tuner. That won't be affected by any software changes on your PC. That is strictly between your tuner and the cable card. I believe it would even keep the pairing if you were to move the Tuner/cablecard into a different machine. Re-setting up WMC will bring up a screen telling you to call your cable Co. but you can ignore it and continue on if already done in the past.

That's good to know that its only between the tuner and CableCARD. In 2015 I upgraded from a ceton infinitv4 to an infinitv6 in this system and tried to use the same cablecard. Nightmares with comcast ensued. 3 years later I am still gun-shy of changing anything on the system other than replacing hard drives as they fail. I feel fortunate that the system is still rock solid after 8 years... well except for the current difficulties. But I do feel better about future upgrades now that you told me this, so thanks.

I can only comment from the perspective of a Verizon FIOS customer. I have rebuilt my HTPC twice since the original setup with new Win7 installs BUT using the same tuner and cable card. There were no issues either time following WMC installation and I did NOT have to contact Verizon at all. All the cable channels including the premium ones I watch came up fine on both occasions.

garyan2 wrote:

SpamHammer wrote:I was able to run a full SFC /SCANNOW this morning. It reported corrupt files were found and repaired. Early testing is promising. I am able to schedule recordings from the guide and from search with no issues. I scheduled a recording which started normally. All appears well. I will report back tomorrow if everything goes well with tonights recordings and epg update.

Awesome. Did the scan display what files were corrupted?

the CBS.log should still be there since I have not run it again. I can upload you a copy if you wish.

SpamHammer wrote:

garyan2 wrote:

SpamHammer wrote:I was able to run a full SFC /SCANNOW this morning. It reported corrupt files were found and repaired. Early testing is promising. I am able to schedule recordings from the guide and from search with no issues. I scheduled a recording which started normally. All appears well. I will report back tomorrow if everything goes well with tonights recordings and epg update.

Awesome. Did the scan display what files were corrupted?

the CBS.log should still be there since I have not run it again. I can upload you a copy if you wish.

Really only interested if the file Microsoft.MediaCenter.Shell.dll was one of the files. EPG123 modifies the resources of that file for guide customizations. Hoping that is not the cause.

SpamHammer wrote:

garyan2 wrote:

SpamHammer wrote:I was able to run a full SFC /SCANNOW this morning. It reported corrupt files were found and repaired. Early testing is promising. I am able to schedule recordings from the guide and from search with no issues. I scheduled a recording which started normally. All appears well. I will report back tomorrow if everything goes well with tonights recordings and epg update.

Awesome. Did the scan display what files were corrupted?

the CBS.log should still be there since I have not run it again. I can upload you a copy if you wish.

This file is protected for some reason, so you may need to adjust the permissions on it in order to read or copy it.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... 5921b27576

Hey Space, I figured out I had to actually look at it by starting notepad from the cmd line in an elevated session. Annoying.

garyan2 wrote:Really only interested if the file Microsoft.MediaCenter.Shell.dll was one of the files. EPG123 modifies the resources of that file for guide customizations. Hoping that is not the cause.

Did a quick search in the file for that filename and came up blank. Epg123 is innocent!

Everything worked well for about 5 hours, then I noticed no new recordings during prime time. So something happened between 3 pm and 6:30 pm that made recordings stop working again. I did another sfc scannow and it completed with no problems found... so another possible cause eliminated. Back to it.

SpamHammer wrote:Everything worked well for about 5 hours, then I noticed no new recordings during prime time. So something happened between 3 pm and 6:30 pm that made recordings stop working again. I did another sfc scannow and it completed with no problems found... so another possible cause eliminated. Back to it.

Check event viewer/MediaCenter. See what's going on between 3 and 6.

I think the guide updates around that time.

Ok, Final Solution!
I finally figured this one out. All roads led back to the task manager which had failed (Trying to start it yielded an error "Remote machine not found" and had most buttons greyed out). The solution is actually very simple and I found two.

First:
Start > Run > Regedit
Navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\RPC\INTERNET
Export this key to back it up first, then delete the whole Internet key (and it's sub-keys).
Reboot your system
Task Scheduler should now work.

If your system has no Internet entry under RPC then the solution is even simpler:

Go to the command prompt (Start > Type in CMD), then type "netsh winsock reset", then hit enter.

Once it's completed, restart your computer.

Crash2009 wrote:https://github.com/Dijji/RepairTasks

Read the ReadMe at the bottom of the page. Including all the links within the ReadMe

At the top of the page, click on Clone or Download

Then repair your Task Scheduler Corruption

See Post #26

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 17#p125617

Repair Tasks

This project is a utility that makes repairs to the Windows 7 (or 8.1) Task schedule.

In particular, it fixes problems where opening the Task Scheduler, or trying to configure Windows Backup, results in the message "The task image is corrupt or has been tampered with" (0x80041321).

Searching the web reveals that this message has been seen from time to time, and the (rather laborious) set of steps that can be taken to correct it are fairly well-documented (see here and script for it here).

However, it turns out that reverting to Windows 7 or 8.1 from Windows 10 generates this problem in spades. It can leave more than 40 scheduled tasks in a corrupt state (see this thread). This is because many task registry keys and the task definitions to which they refer are updated by a Windows 10 upgrade, but only the registry keys are restored on reversion, so Task Scheduler finds that, for these tasks, the task registry keys and task definitions are now inconsistent.

The general recommendation in response to this reversion problem seems to be to restore the system from backups. However, I'm never sure about overwriting chunks of my system from backups, and would rather go forwards. So, since the fix is well-known, and the main problem is just repeated execution, I decided to write a utility to automate the set of steps required.

And now, I'm sharing my work in case it is of use to fellow sufferers, pending Microsoft getting their act together and fixing reversion.

Open source is particularly appropriate for this type of project, as the code necessarily delves into system settings, making complete transparency as to what it does crucial. You are encouraged to download the source, which is actually not huge, and understand what it does. However, I also provide a release of the executable, and a wiki which describes how to use the program.

Thank you to all the kind reviewers of the evolving versions, and the folks that have given me such great feedback and so helped make the program better. But if you have a problem, feel free to raise it as an Issue. I will try and make any needed improvements to the program in response.

I've had this error, where WMC would crash when trying to add a new recording. From what I can figure out it is epg123 causing the problem. Well I think its me causing epg123 to case the problem.

If i reboot after the errors occur the problem is gone. Before the reboot, epg123 will not update, WMC cannot tune to a channel, crashes. Scheduled recordings don't record, it even lost the tuner config once.

What I've noticed is that when epg123 is set to update @ 0600, there is a MANUAL recording happening and will not update. I mention MANUAL because before there was the same recording but it was setup from the epg and not manually entered. So I'm thinking that because of the active recording its causing epg123 to go haywire.

edit: set epg123 to update when there were no recordings, failed.

Any other time, where there is no active recording, manually starting epg123 updates just fine like always. Just a hunch on this. I've attached part of the log where it crashes to this post.

Gonna try and update the epg again during the recording and see what happens..tried it, it failed

Hope this helps, using epg123 v1.11.9

[Mar 15, 18 03:09:58] ===============================================================================
[Mar 15, 18 03:09:58] Beginning epg123 client execution.
[Mar 15, 18 03:09:58] ===============================================================================
[Mar 15, 18 03:09:58] [ INFO] Beginning epg123 client execution. 2018-03-15 08:09:58Z
[Mar 15, 18 03:09:58] [ INFO] Import: True , Match: True , NoLogo: False , Force: False , ShowProgress: False
[Mar 15, 18 03:09:58] [ INFO] epg123 client version: 1.1.19 for Win7
[Mar 15, 18 03:10:05] Entering importMxfFile() for file "C:\___EPG Tools\epg123\epg123.mxf"
[Mar 15, 18 03:12:07] [ INFO] Error: The following error was encountered while processing the file. Aborting.
[Mar 15, 18 03:12:07] [ INFO] RowSet::DeleteRow(Program_keywords Program_keywordsI_ParentChildKey) - DeleteRows() failed for handle 1 - HR = 0x80040e21, minor = 25104, 2049, 0, 0, "", "", ""
[Mar 15, 18 03:12:08] [ERROR] Error using loadmxf.exe to import new guide information. Exit code: -1
[Mar 15, 18 03:12:08] Exiting importMxfFile(). FAILURE.
[Mar 15, 18 03:12:08] [ERROR] Failed to import .mxf file. Exiting.