Rescan after channel repack did not work

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Mike88

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Rescan after channel repack did not work

#1

Post by Mike88 » Fri Oct 18, 2019 4:07 pm

Chicagoland did an OTA channel repack last night. I went to do a rescan, but before I did everything already appeared to be OK, except ABC7. IOW all the major channels were already accessible using the EPG, except ABC7. So I did a rescan and ABC7 still doesn't work. The EPG lists the proper programming but selecting it states "No TV Signal".

I went to Guide settings & Edit Sources & it indicates channel 44.1, Quality 100%.

From what I can find, ABC7 should be on 22.1. How do I get WMC7 to tune into the correct frequency? I did search & found some postings where people did change the frequency, however they didn't say how they did it.

FWIW my Dish DVR has an OTA tuner & I had to do a rescan & it is OK and ABC7 has 100% signal strength.

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#2

Post by Mike88 » Fri Oct 18, 2019 4:58 pm

Update -
I scanned for additional channels & found 57 of them. Of course I don't have 57 in addition to all the channels from the rescan. I tried to select just ABC7 from the list but it appeared I had no choice but to either add them all or delete them.

ABC7 now works, however the Edit sources now shows 8 tuners instead of my 4 actual tuners. Tuners 1-4 are channel 44.1 and tuners 5-8 are channel 22.1.

Doing the scan for additional channels it added 4 extra tuners to at least all the major channels so they all now show 8 tuners. I tried to delete tuners 5-8 but can only "uncheck" them. But I'd like to get rid of anything that is not useful. Is there a way to get rid of the extra tuners from even appearing in the Edit sources screen?

I could start from scratch & do a new rescan. but how would I add just 22.1 to ABC7 ?

hooverk

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#3

Post by hooverk » Fri Oct 18, 2019 8:57 pm

I performed the rescan in media center this morning and it worked!

The rescan was the menu Settings>TV>TV Signal>Scan for More Channels.

It did re-add the channels I had previously disabled (like foreign language channels) but it came up with all the Chicago new channels.

Editing channel sources for me only shows the new tune channels and not a trace of the older tune channels.

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#4

Post by Mike88 » Sat Oct 19, 2019 2:56 am

hooverk wrote: Fri Oct 18, 2019 8:57 pm I performed the rescan in media center this morning and it worked!

The rescan was the menu Settings>TV>TV Signal>Scan for More Channels.

It did re-add the channels I had previously disabled (like foreign language channels) but it came up with all the Chicago new channels.

Editing channel sources for me only shows the new tune channels and not a trace of the older tune channels.
If I do the "Scan for More Channels" it will add ABC7 on channel 22. However that added a second set of tuners to all the stations.

If I go to Edit Sources it shows 4 tuners for ABC7 on channel 44 and 4 tuners on channel 22. That's 8 tuners, but I only have 4.

Do you show a double set of tuners when you go the Edit Sources for ABC7 or for any of the stations?

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#5

Post by hooverk » Sat Oct 19, 2019 1:16 pm

I looked further at my WMC systems - I have 2. One (primary) still uses Rovi for guide information. That system does show double the tuners for each channel. The tune channel is correct, but the tuners are doubled. And yes I now note that channel 7 has both sets as you have.

My 2nd WMC system (backup/test) is using EPG123 and Schedules direct for guide information (I’m testing before switching out on both). That system after rescan did not double the tuners but did update the tune channels.

Both systems use the same “pool” of hdhomerun tuners. Not sure if the Rovi vs EPG123 is involved in the differences but that is the primary difference between the systems.

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garyan2

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#6

Post by garyan2 » Sat Oct 19, 2019 4:03 pm

The cleanest way to setup OTA channels when they move/change is to delete all current channels and scan again.
  • In WMC, goto Settings->TV->TV Signal->Scan for More Channels
  • (Optional) Click the [Delete All] button and acknowledge
  • Click the [Scan again] button and wait for completion
You won't have any doubling up of tuners or tuner channels that no longer exist.

EDIT: I should not you may have to manually add VHF stations by doing the above. Just a nice quirk from MS/WMC and ATSC channels.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

Mike88

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#7

Post by Mike88 » Sun Oct 20, 2019 5:42 am

hooverk wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2019 1:16 pm I looked further at my WMC systems - I have 2. One (primary) still uses Rovi for guide information. That system does show double the tuners for each channel. The tune channel is correct, but the tuners are doubled. And yes I now note that channel 7 has both sets as you have.

My 2nd WMC system (backup/test) is using EPG123 and Schedules direct for guide information (I’m testing before switching out on both). That system after rescan did not double the tuners but did update the tune channels.

Both systems use the same “pool” of hdhomerun tuners. Not sure if the Rovi vs EPG123 is involved in the differences but that is the primary difference between the systems.
Thanks for checking. It's interesting that ABC7 doesn't find channel 22.1 the first time around.

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#8

Post by Mike88 » Sun Oct 20, 2019 5:46 am

garyan2 wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2019 4:03 pm The cleanest way to setup OTA channels when they move/change is to delete all current channels and scan again.
  • In WMC, goto Settings->TV->TV Signal->Scan for More Channels
  • (Optional) Click the [Delete All] button and acknowledge
  • Click the [Scan again] button and wait for completion
You won't have any doubling up of tuners or tuner channels that no longer exist.

EDIT: I should not you may have to manually add VHF stations by doing the above. Just a nice quirk from MS/WMC and ATSC channels.
When I go to go to Settings->TV->TV Signal->Scan for More Channels, there is no option to Delete All. It doesn’t appear until I actually Scan for More Channels. There doesn’t appear to be a way to delete the channels found with the original setup scan.

I go to Settings->TV->TV Signal->Set Up TV Signal. It finds 135 channels. When I check Signal Strength, 57 of these are only 1 or 2 red bars & if I try to watch those channels I get a Service is unavailable, no TV signal detected message.

Then I go to Settings->TV->TV Signal->Scan for More Channels. This finds 65 channels.

At this point the option to “Delete All” shows up, and a list appears that seems to be the 65 additional channels. So I Delete All & proceed, and it again finds 65 additional channels.

I have 4 OTA tuners. If I do not Delete All, it adds another set of 4 tuners to the Sources for some channels. It would go from 4 to 8 to 12 tuners. At no time does the Delete All wipe out the original 135 channels.

I did a spot check and, for the most part, those 65 additional found channels add another set of 4 tuners to the strongest of the original 135 channels. IOW ABC, CBS, etc. end up with 8 tuners. The original channels that had only 1 or 2 red signal strength bars do not get another set of tuners, for the most part. There were a few exceptions.

The “Set Up TV Signal” appears to find even very weak signals, but the “Scan for More Channels” seems to find only stronger ones.

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garyan2

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#9

Post by garyan2 » Sun Oct 20, 2019 6:55 am

Mike88 wrote: Sun Oct 20, 2019 5:46 am
garyan2 wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2019 4:03 pm The cleanest way to setup OTA channels when they move/change is to delete all current channels and scan again.
  • In WMC, goto Settings->TV->TV Signal->Scan for More Channels
  • (Optional) Click the [Delete All] button and acknowledge
  • Click the [Scan again] button and wait for completion
You won't have any doubling up of tuners or tuner channels that no longer exist.

EDIT: I should not you may have to manually add VHF stations by doing the above. Just a nice quirk from MS/WMC and ATSC channels.
When I go to go to Settings->TV->TV Signal->Scan for More Channels, there is no option to Delete All. It doesn’t appear until I actually Scan for More Channels. There doesn’t appear to be a way to delete the channels found with the original setup scan.

I go to Settings->TV->TV Signal->Set Up TV Signal. It finds 135 channels. When I check Signal Strength, 57 of these are only 1 or 2 red bars & if I try to watch those channels I get a Service is unavailable, no TV signal detected message.

Then I go to Settings->TV->TV Signal->Scan for More Channels. This finds 65 channels.

At this point the option to “Delete All” shows up, and a list appears that seems to be the 65 additional channels. So I Delete All & proceed, and it again finds 65 additional channels.

I have 4 OTA tuners. If I do not Delete All, it adds another set of 4 tuners to the Sources for some channels. It would go from 4 to 8 to 12 tuners. At no time does the Delete All wipe out the original 135 channels.

I did a spot check and, for the most part, those 65 additional found channels add another set of 4 tuners to the strongest of the original 135 channels. IOW ABC, CBS, etc. end up with 8 tuners. The original channels that had only 1 or 2 red signal strength bars do not get another set of tuners, for the most part. There were a few exceptions.

The “Set Up TV Signal” appears to find even very weak signals, but the “Scan for More Channels” seems to find only stronger ones.
Interesting. Technical mumbo-jumbo:

When using MS/Rovi, you download their lineups for the tuner channels (both physical and logical). The channels are entered in the "Scanned (Digital Antenna (ATSC))" lineup with a ChannelType = CalculatedScanned. When doing a [Start Scan] or a [Scan again], the found channels are entered in the lineup with a ChannelType = Scanned. Only those channels with a ChannelType = Scanned are shown on that screen.

Glugglug made a tool call Guide Editor that can change the ChannelType of each channel which will give you the ability to maybe get this straight for you. The link to the tool is here. Run the program, select the 'Scanned/Wmis Lineups' tab, and then select the 'Scanned (Digital Antenna (ATSC))' lineup in the pull-down. For any channel you want to remove, you can do it here. You could also just change the ChannelType to Scanned and then do the [Delete All] and [Scan again] buttons in WMC.

Note: it is possible that the channels from MS/Rovi may come back since it is constantly updating the lineups as needed as well as your guide listings.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#10

Post by Mike88 » Sun Oct 20, 2019 8:50 pm

Gary -
Thanks for the information.

I should mention that I also went to Settings->TV->Guide->Add Missing Channels.

Added 7.1 on 22.1 & gave it a name. Then Edited the Listings & selected the original ABC7 guide to use. Then combined the two 7.1 Guides, giving me just one listing in the Guide.

Also un-checked the 4 tuners that had the 44.1 source and moved them below the 22.1 source listings.

Did all the above also for 7.2. Now only 7.1 and 7.2 show 8 tuners, with 4 of each “de-activated”

Of course I have to un-check all the channels in the guide that I can’t receive or don’t want to watch. That’s probably going to be half the channels.

I'll look into the Guide Editor tool that you mentioned.

Thanks again.

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#11

Post by Mike88 » Mon Feb 12, 2024 11:59 am

garyan2 wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2019 4:03 pm The cleanest way to setup OTA channels when they move/change is to delete all current channels and scan again.
  • In WMC, goto Settings->TV->TV Signal->Scan for More Channels
  • (Optional) Click the [Delete All] button and acknowledge
  • Click the [Scan again] button and wait for completion
You won't have any doubling up of tuners or tuner channels that no longer exist.

EDIT: I should not you may have to manually add VHF stations by doing the above. Just a nice quirk from MS/WMC and ATSC channels.
"Delete All" did not delete all the channels, and this may be what's causing my problem.

Channel 2.1 (CBS) in Chicago was on VHF RF 12 and recently transitioned to ATSC 3.0. The "old" ATSC 1.0 is now mapped to UHF RF 19.
I cannot receive 2.1 and WMC showed no Signal Strength on 2.x so I did a rescan & it still shows no Signal.
If I go to the EPG & click on 2.1 it sometimes will tune in & get a picture. But when I try to record, the picture disappears & I get a No Signal message.

If I do a channel rescan & "Delete All" first, the results show 60 channels. But the Signal Strength page shows 149 channels.
If I "Delete All" but do not rescan it shows no channels, yet the Signal Strength page shows 140 channels. How could that be?
IOW the “Delete All” did not really delete everything, and perhaps this is causing a problem.
Is there a file I can delete that will clear out the 140 channel data?

Thanks.

UPDATE - I Renamed the mcepg2-0 file. Then setup the TV signal & everything is OK.

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