Guide and Schedule Recovery

An evolving, supported alternative to Rovi
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IT Troll

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#41

Post by IT Troll » Fri Apr 06, 2018 5:56 pm

Just a quick couple of updates on this issue.

I'm probably going to jinx it by saying this, but 3 months on and I have not experienced a recovery since disabling Media Center data updates in the GUI and the mcupdate_scheduled task in the Task Scheduler. I'm coming to the conclusion that the Media Center update task was occasionally seeing something it didn't like about EPG123 guide and so was triggering a recovery on next exit. Prior to migrating to EPG123, I ran Media Center for 9 years (XP, Vista, 7 & 8) without experiencing a single recovery, so I think the probability of a link is high. If other EPG123 users are experiencing guide recovery I'd be interested to hear if disabling these tasks helps to improve things.

I have now confirmed that for DVB-T, new/updated channel discovery within Media Center is triggered through DVB channel announcement data within the broadcast. All I have to do is watch live TV within Media Center on a channel I don't commonly watch and this will instantly trigger the addition of any new or updated channels. I have all the in-band/background/opportunistic scanning options disabled and so I don't think this behaviour can be disabled in Media Center. As it stands, I periodically have to edit my guide to hide any unwanted channels. In TV Headend PVR this is called Network Discovery and can be toggled on/off.
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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#42

Post by IT Troll » Mon Apr 09, 2018 10:19 pm

On the second point it would be great if EPG123 had an option to automatically untick any channel which isn’t subscribed to a listing. This “Autodisable” feature would kind of be the opposite to “Automatch”. Instead of matching up and enabling new channels, it would effectively lock the guide from further channel additions unless explicitly subscribed by the user.
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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#43

Post by garyan2 » Tue Apr 10, 2018 3:14 am

IT Troll wrote:On the second point it would be great if EPG123 had an option to automatically untick any channel which isn’t subscribed to a listing. This “Autodisable” feature would kind of be the opposite to “Automatch”. Instead of matching up and enabling new channels, it would effectively lock the guide from further channel additions unless explicitly subscribed by the user.
Interestingly enough, the automatch disables those channels that do not have guide listings. So you can run with automatch enabled, autoadd disabled, and any new channel added that you don't have listings for in the download will be disabled on next update.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#44

Post by IT Troll » Tue Apr 10, 2018 11:17 pm

Thanks, I guess I'm a little nervous of ticking the Automatch box, in the early days it could be a little unpredictable, but I think you have put some safeguard logic in place since then.

One possible issue with Automatch is then when you download a lineup it can be associated with more than one channel. I guess Automatch would then enable all matching instances of that channel when perhaps not all are required/desired.

Just to check, when you say autoadd do you mean the ‘Automatically download new stations in lineups’ option?
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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#45

Post by garyan2 » Tue Apr 10, 2018 11:28 pm

IT Troll wrote:One possible issue with Automatch is then when you download a lineup it can be associated with more than one channel. I guess Automatch would then enable all matching instances of that channel when perhaps not all are required/desired.
It will only enable the channels on the initial match. On consecutive "automatch" runs, it will respect the enable/disable state of the channel as long as it is still associated with the listing. So if it matches to another channel that is not required/desired, just disable it from guide view and it will stay disabled.
IT Troll wrote:Just to check, when you say autoadd do you mean the ‘Automatically download new stations in lineups’ option?
Correct.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#46

Post by IT Troll » Tue Apr 10, 2018 11:53 pm

OK, thanks, I'll take it for a spin.
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#47

Post by IT Troll » Wed Apr 11, 2018 9:28 pm

Well it seems to be working exactly as you described. :D

I viewed a channel that I knew would cause a network discovery and this added and enabled an unwanted channel. I then enabled Automatch and ran the task. EPG123 disabled the unwanted discovered channel (without a line up) but then did match and enable another matching channel instance of the type I described (with a line up). I manually disabled this channel and re-ran the task and this time it remained disabled.

What does EPG123 use to track this state? It looks like epg123.cfg lists the call signs and the disabled ones have a a minus prefix on the the ID number. In the scenario I described, the call sign is the same, it is just available on two different channels. So it only has one entry in my config file based on the call sign.
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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#48

Post by garyan2 » Thu Apr 12, 2018 4:17 am

IT Troll wrote:What does EPG123 use to track this state? It looks like epg123.cfg lists the call signs and the disabled ones have a a minus prefix on the the ID number. In the scenario I described, the call sign is the same, it is just available on two different channels. So it only has one entry in my config file based on the call sign.
It doesn't track it at all. The automatch routine is not as aggressive as it was initially, which wasn't too aggressive to begin with.

Automatch will only enable a channel in the guide if it makes a match ... meaning if the channel has NO listings currently attached and your downloaded lineup has a station on that channel number.
Automatch will disable any channel that does not have a listing attached to it, so if you remove a channel from your downloaded lineup the channel(s) it was assigned to will be disabled in the guide.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#49

Post by IT Troll » Thu Apr 12, 2018 6:03 pm

The odd scenario I am talking about is when a listing matches two channels in a lineup. I have two such cases in my lineup. One of them, for example:

250 BBCRDB1 :thumbdown:
601 BBCRDB1 :thumbup:

When I choose to download 601, 250 is also automatically selected for download because it shares the same call sign. Which with Automatch enabled then resulted in:

[ INFO] Matching BBCRDB1 to channel 250

I then disabled 250. How does it know not to enabled 250 again? Is it because it now has a listing attached but is disabled?
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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#50

Post by garyan2 » Thu Apr 12, 2018 6:14 pm

IT Troll wrote:Is it because it now has a listing attached but is disabled?
Correct. The automatch routine will only enable a channel in the guide if a match is made and there is no listing currently attached. Otherwise, it leaves the channel alone to include the enable/disable state.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#51

Post by IT Troll » Thu Apr 12, 2018 9:10 pm

Great stuff, thanks for the explanation. This should finally give me the stable guide channel list which is otherwise impossible in Media Center due to channel announcement / network discovery. :D
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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#52

Post by IT Troll » Sat Apr 14, 2018 9:04 am

I noticed last night that a handful of unwanted trash channels had been discovered and added to the guide. This morning (after EPG123 had done it’s thing) they have been removed, restoring my curated lineup. Woohoo! A maintenance-free guide for the first time.
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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#53

Post by garyan2 » Thu Apr 19, 2018 2:35 am

IT Troll wrote:I noticed last night that a handful of unwanted trash channels had been discovered and added to the guide. This morning (after EPG123 had done it’s thing) they have been removed, restoring my curated lineup. Woohoo! A maintenance-free guide for the first time.
Awesome. :thumbup:
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#54

Post by testmonkey » Wed Aug 26, 2020 7:23 pm

I have this problem also.....I know this is from 2018....it just started in the last few months ago.
So as to not loose my upcoming recordings I do a "system restore". I know it is not a solution but it works for now till I run out of good restore points??
Or figure out a solution??
This machine is EXCLUSIVELY used for WMC and only WMC

I have "Automatically match..." ticked.
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#55

Post by garyan2 » Wed Aug 26, 2020 7:44 pm

testmonkey wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2020 7:23 pm I have this problem also.....I know this is from 2018....it just started in the last few months ago.
So as to not loose my upcoming recordings I do a "system restore". I know it is not a solution but it works for now till I run out of good restore points??
Or figure out a solution??
This machine is EXCLUSIVELY used for WMC and only WMC

I have "Automatically match..." ticked.
I am assuming you are talking about the database recovery.

What version of EPG123 are you running? We found out that WMC setups that were done after probably January, put possible March, of this year were no longer running database maintenance. As time goes on, your database will get bloated and eventually corrupted. So first point is update EPG123 which will now handle database maintenance activities.

If you have a database recovery, everything is still there except you guide listings. All you need to do is import the guide listings from the client [Manual Import] button, or perform a [Save & Execute] from the configuration GUI. There is no need to go back to a restore point unless you absolutely need to maintain the history of all your past recordings. You don't actually don't lose the recordings, just the history of them being recorded in the past.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#56

Post by testmonkey » Thu Aug 27, 2020 12:14 pm

I have the current version of EPG123 not at home will check on that.
Will try your solution when I am at home.

Thanks Gary

I have no reason to save history
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#57

Post by testmonkey » Thu Aug 27, 2020 7:44 pm

This is an old WMC build that has been running for YEARS maybe 2010??
This PC does nothing but run WMC and has 9 Terabytes of HDD space..... partially filled with MyMovies and RecordedTV and 100 Gigabyte solid state for the WIN7 operating system that has run steady without interruption from the very beginning. Enough history.

This is what I get from WMC when the issue happens:
Windows Media Center has corrected a problem with your recording data and will download the Guide again.You should review your recordings to verify they are still scheduled correctly. The only option is to click the button "OK"....... I clicked that and ALL future "scheduled recordings" and my RecordedTV that was not watched disappears.....

I have the current version 1.3.10 from August 10
"I have no reason to save history"

A few questions before I do anything.......besides everything is running properly.......sooo I'm not messin' until next time it f___ks up!!

Where is...how do I know....or check if I have a "database recovery"?

Thanks
Tim Rick
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

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#58

Post by garyan2 » Thu Aug 27, 2020 7:59 pm

That prompt you see when you open WMC is the indication you had a database recovery. What is strange is, usually prior to that, EPG123 will start to fail importing the guide data, but not necessarily.

I would actually suggest you open the client and click the [Rebuild WMC Database] button to pre-emptively avoid the recovery from happening in the near future. From the sounds of it, after your use a restore point, you can run for a while and then it happens again so there may be something wrong with your database already it just hasn't shown itself yet. Doing a rebuild will delete your current database and build a fresh one.

A note on the rebuild and the recovery; WMC will have to scan all your recorded movies/shows again and add entries in the new database and this can take some time depending on how many recordings there are. After you import the guide again, the database will be reindexed, to include your scheduled recordings, which can take some time as well depending on the number of stations/programs you download. After all this is complete, everything should be fine though I'm not sure how RecordedTV does its' thing.

Just a quick question to check. In the log file are there any entries stating something like "Successfully complete garbage cleanup"?
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#59

Post by testmonkey » Thu Aug 27, 2020 8:32 pm

[ INFO] Import: True , Match: True , NoLogo: False , Force: False , ShowProgress: False
[Thu 27 Aug 20 9:01:12 am] Entering PerformGarbageCleanup()

[ INFO] Successfully complete garbage cleanup. Exit code: 0
[Thu 27 Aug 20 9:20:44 am] Exiting PerformGarbageCleanup(). SUCCESS.
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#60

Post by testmonkey » Thu Aug 27, 2020 9:39 pm

OK I will start [Rebuild WMC Database] after the wife watches the RNC tonight.
Since it should take some time I will let it run through the night.
After it finishes what is my next step? Click [Restore]?
Or will it rebuild without me messing with it?
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

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