TheGreenButton - Windows Media Center Forums

I'm running WMC on Windows 7 Home x86. I have a SiliconDust Prime and OTA tuner boxes. WMC recorded something successfully on Sep 23, but on Sep 24 it was suddenly unable to detect tuners. (The error is something like "No tuners detected" and then it displays "Viewing and listening conflict.") As near as I can tell, I didn't change anything yesterday between those two instances.

I reinstalled the SiliconDust drivers just to be safe, and I can stream channels from the tuners in VLC, so the tuners are fine. It's just WMC.

I used EPG123 to rebuild the WMC database. No improvement.

I was finally desperate enough to use EPG123 to re-do Client Setup. (I had to reboot into Safe Mode to delete eHome.) WMC fails when I click Live TV Setup. (Screenshot below.)

There are three WMC-related services that I can see. The WMC Receiver service won't start (and when it fails, the Scheduler service stops, too), but I'm not sure it's typically running anyway. (Screenshot below.) I restarted the WMC Scheduler and the third one (Network Sharing or something like that).

Do you have any ideas? Is repairing Windows 7 next on my list? Ugh. I may as well just install Windows 8.1 since 7 goes out of support soon. I was hoping to do that in a more planned manner since I'd like to record The Good Place tomorrow night.

Thank you for any advice you have.

If the error occurs as soon as you start TV Setup, then it could be the mcglid service. If it is right after accept/decline the program ToS, then it could be mcupdate. The receiver, recorder, and scheduler services pop in and out whenever.

Have you tried removing WMC, reboot, and adding WMC back? If it is a file problem, this should fix it.

Just out of curiosity... Do you have Windows Update turned on, and if so, has it installed any updates in the past few days or weeks?

It happens as soon as I click "Live TV Setup." (Well, it thinks for a bit but yeah, that's the only button I get a chance to press.) I was thinking of removing WMC and adding it back. Thanks for the confirmation. I'll give that a shot and update here.

WU is on but not automatic. No updates in the past couple days besides the usual Defender signature updates.

Thanks!

Yup, I had to uninstall WMC and reinstall it. Of course, following the EPG123 doc, I got it back up and running pretty quickly. (Certainly much faster than the Bad Old Days when I had to go through channel by channel, enabling and merging. Ugh!) My channel setup, guide options, scheduled recordings, etc. are there. Thanks a million for EPG123, Gary. It's worth every penny I donated.

Interestingly, the most recent EPG123 backups I created failed. (When I clicked Restore and opened that backup, EPG123 crashed.) The penultimate backup succeeded though.

12noon wrote: ↑Wed Sep 25, 2019 7:58 pmInterestingly, the most recent EPG123 backups I created failed. (When I clicked Restore and opened that backup, EPG123 crashed.)

Could you send me a copy of one of those backups? I'd like to understand why they would fail. They're just simple zip files... nothing special.

Absolutely. I'll PM it to you.

Keep in mind, it's probably bad only because my WMC was borked.

I only saw this thread today, but I had the same thing happen last week after a Windows Update. Used System Restore to go back, ran the update again, same thing happened. But it wasn't just tuners that weren't working; there were a lot of Services not running. I disabled the update and everything has been fine since.

unclebun wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 2:31 pmBut it wasn't just tuners that weren't working; there were a lot of Services not running. I disabled the update and everything has been fine since.

Did anyone else happen to see the article I mentioned or one similar? I wish I could remember where it was...

At this point it might be a good idea to turn off updates.

For the last ~2 years, or so, I've only been manually applying the 'security only' updates listed on 'AskWoody'.

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/2 ... 7-and-8-1/

While there is no specific eye to WMC, it helps to avoid 'telemetry' updates, etc. while keeping security current. No negative effects on WMC until...

The only exception has been .NET updates, which have never posed an issue until .NET 4.8 was released. That one rendered my Ceton Eth6 / WMC interaction FUBAR. Backed it out. Problem gone.

I apply all the updates, but I do wait a few weeks to be sure they aren't recalled.

Kudos for keeping your Ceton hardware going so long after the company went belly-up. If you get tired of their hiccups, I strongly recommend SiliconDust's products. They've been rock solid for me for years.

12noon wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 5:39 pm Kudos for keeping your Ceton hardware going so long after the company went belly-up. If you get tired of their hiccups, I strongly recommend SiliconDust's products. They've been rock solid for me for years.

Someday, maybe... IF they ever produce their 6-tuner version & the ETH6 dies. Otherwise, problems are known/understood, but few. IIRC the FCC requirement for cable cos to support cablecards ends in a few years & it's abundantly clear they find them 'inconvenient'. By then, everyone may have moved to IP-based content? Time will tell.

However it goes, I will sorely miss WMC7 when it becomes infeasible, & it WILL... someday.