EPG123 Setup Help

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garyan2

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#21

Post by garyan2 » Fri Nov 08, 2019 10:20 pm

gzarzycki wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 10:09 pm System: Windows 7 Professional x64 and Windows 7 Ultimate x32 8 gigs RAM
Windows Media Center
HDhomerun Prime 3 tuners current firmware

On the first PC, Win 7 Ultimate x32 I installed the Server and Client software, all went fairly well.

The 2nd PC the Windows 7 Professional x64 I tried to install the client software and could not get it installed. After 6 hours of trial and error I gave up. There is an issue with the epg123 client software. When it went to Windows to configure the tuners, after aborting the guide as instructed, the system would hang half way through. I would abort thus the epg123 client would fail the install. I restored the backup. Went into windows and ran the tuner configure all went fine. I then tried at least 10 times to run the epg123 client software, hung every time. The client software appears to leave a hook someplace that stops the WMC tuner setup configuration to complete. This is obvious to be an issue with epg123 client install as windows WMC has no issues with the HDhomerun with the WMC Tuner setup when not configuring the epg123 client.

It appears I will have to install it as a server to get it to work and abandon the use of the epg123 client software as nothing I tried would work. I read someplace to try to install in safe mode, it will not install while Windows is in safe mode with networking. I have verified that I have ownership in all the folders needs so it is not a permission issue.

Does anyone have an idea why the client software doesn't install or a trick to get it wto work?

Thanks,
Gary
retired system analyst & CEO Network Automation Ltd.
Tucson, AZ.
Where exactly would it hang? During TV Setup "Downloading TV Setup Data", or "Examining TV Signals", or "TV Channel Scan"?
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#22

Post by garyan2 » Fri Nov 08, 2019 10:33 pm

If it is during the "Downloading TV Setup Data", this isn't a EPG123 thing, but a MS thing. As soon as WMC enters that part of the TV Setup, it will run an instance of mcupdate.exe to, I believe, download lineup headends for your zip code... sometimes it doesn't work. If you find yourself in that situation, I have found that if you disconnect the network right before clicking 'OK' when denying the Program Guide Terms of Service, it will then give you a different prompt about not being able to download guide data. That is fine since we are not going to do that through MS/Rovi anyway. Before you click the 'OK' button from that prompt, reconnect your network so you can complete TV Setup.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#23

Post by gzarzycki » Fri Nov 08, 2019 10:37 pm

It hangs in Window Media Center half way through the turner setup. As mentioned, I gave my ZIP code 85746 and successfully received the current configuration for my area, then responded no to the WMC EPG setup then went into the turner setup. that is where it hangs. If I abort and go back to the epg123 client setup, I get an error that the tuners was not setup successfully. I then tried to setup the tuners prior in WMC which I successfully did the manual setup of my tuners prior, that did not solve the epg123 client setup issue.

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#24

Post by gzarzycki » Fri Nov 08, 2019 10:43 pm

garyan2 wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 10:33 pm If it is during the "Downloading TV Setup Data", this isn't a EPG123 thing, but a MS thing. As soon as WMC enters that part of the TV Setup, it will run an instance of mcupdate.exe to, I believe, download lineup headends for your zip code... sometimes it doesn't work. If you find yourself in that situation, I have found that if you disconnect the network right before clicking 'OK' when denying the Program Guide Terms of Service, it will then give you a different prompt about not being able to download guide data. That is fine since we are not going to do that through MS/Rovi anyway. Before you click the 'OK' button from that prompt, reconnect your network so you can complete TV Setup.
I disagree. Windows does the tuner configuration fine setting up WMC by itself with the HDhomerun tuners. It only hangs when epg123 client shells out and loads WMC to do the setup. This indicates the possibility with epg123 leaving a hook that causes WMC to hang and not setup the tuners. I am not the only person that has had this issue, I have read many people have had this issue without a resolve on it. So please give me and others that have this issue a way to get around this issue.

Thanks,
Gary

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#25

Post by gzarzycki » Fri Nov 08, 2019 10:57 pm

gzarzycki wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 10:43 pm
garyan2 wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 10:33 pm If it is during the "Downloading TV Setup Data", this isn't a EPG123 thing, but a MS thing. As soon as WMC enters that part of the TV Setup, it will run an instance of mcupdate.exe to, I believe, download lineup headends for your zip code... sometimes it doesn't work. If you find yourself in that situation, I have found that if you disconnect the network right before clicking 'OK' when denying the Program Guide Terms of Service, it will then give you a different prompt about not being able to download guide data. That is fine since we are not going to do that through MS/Rovi anyway. Before you click the 'OK' button from that prompt, reconnect your network so you can complete TV Setup.
I disagree. Windows does the tuner configuration fine setting up WMC by itself with the HDhomerun tuners. It only hangs when epg123 client shells out and loads WMC to do the setup. This indicates the possibility with epg123 leaving a hook that causes WMC to hang and not setup the tuners. I am not the only person that has had this issue, I have read many people have had this issue without a resolve on it. So please give me and others that have this issue a way to get around this issue.

Thanks,
Gary
By the way, I tried the internet disconnect hack to get around the issue and it did not work. I have tried everything I have read to get around it, so I am not sure what is causing it and what might work to get around the hang.

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#26

Post by garyan2 » Fri Nov 08, 2019 11:11 pm

I did provide a method above if you are hanging during the "Downloading TV Setup Data". That has nothing to do with EPG123 other than having to run TV Setup in the first place. If it is hanging elsewhere, then that is a new scenario that EPG123 cannot influence, but I can certainly try and help with. The only thing EPG123 is doing during Step 2 is it opens WMC for the user to perform TV Setup, and then waits for WMC to exit. It is only after WMC closes that EPG123 will check the database to see if the tuner limits were successfully increased and change some registry entries.

It is possible that an instance of mcupdate is still running from Step 1 and your machine is just not handling that very well trying to run another instance.

To make a note before giving other options to setup your machine, there is no difference in a client install and a server/client install other than the server part (epg123.exe and Newtonsoft.Json.dll files) id not present. The client could care less whether the server part is installed or not.

If you can setup your TV tuners without issue outside the client's "Client Setup", then go ahead and do so. Once that is done, open the client and do a [Manual Import] of the MXF file on your server. You will then want to do a Match by: [# Number] channel mapping to get the listings assigned to your tuner channels.

We are in a unique situation here where I can physically witness the problem, if you are game. I'm only about a 30 minute drive from where you live if you would like a house call. I can guarantee you I will be able to get it setup for you, or at least identify the problem. You win with a working whole home setup, and I will find something to improve or adjust to if needed.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#27

Post by gzarzycki » Fri Nov 08, 2019 11:31 pm

Okay, as a programmer of 35 years that if there is an issue with a piece of software that was written, conflict, or or whatever causes the issue, then you need to acknowledge and work the issue, sor state that it is not compatible with certain configurations. I explained the issue and did every option you suggested, and others that have tried, it did not work. Now, you can work with me and see if we can find and fix the issue, or put a disclaimer in your instructions that the epg123, with windows 7, x64 with HDhomerun Prime is not compatible. As i stated, it worked with with installation on a different operating system, x32 with a severer setup. You can work with me and see if we can resolve the issue, you soon will have the monopoly when Microsoft stops support of an EPG, so it would be great to be fully compatible. I have setup a special email address on my server for you to contact me if you wish to work on this together. Please feel free to email me at: epg123@be35.org if so.

Thanks,
Gary

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#28

Post by garyan2 » Fri Nov 08, 2019 11:46 pm

Interest take on what is going on, and you seem pretty sure, but correlation does not equal causation. There is absolutely no reason for me to put such a disclaimer since it would be patently false... there are a couple thousand users of epg123 with your same stated configuration. There is no incompatibility. Your claims that others are having the same problem and EPG123 is somehow the cause is disingenuous at best, but I'm chalking this talk up to any anxiety or frustration you may be having right now. So I'm going to flip the coin on you and say I would really like your cooperation and we go into this without any preconceived ideas about what the root cause of the issue is.

I offered to visit your home, but if you want to try a Team Viewer session, I can do that too.
- Gary
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#29

Post by RyC » Sat Nov 09, 2019 12:18 am

Another poster repeatedly claiming X years of "experience", yet here you are asking for help (necro'ing someone else's thread too). But when help is provided, you ignore the advice offered and claim the problem is all on the developer's end.

By the way, I run "epg123, with windows 7, x64 with HDhomerun Prime" exactly and I've never had an issue with epg123 in 2.5 years.

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#30

Post by gzarzycki » Sat Nov 09, 2019 12:37 am

garyan2 wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 11:46 pmstated
Okay, I suppose I need to figure out this myself, and maybe write some software that works. Your loss.

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#31

Post by garyan2 » Sat Nov 09, 2019 12:47 am

Wow. I wish you luck. Quite frankly it is your loss for refusing the help I've offered.

Since you haven't given a lot of detail, I'll start throwing some things out there for you to look at.
It can take some time for WMC to create 9,999 merged channels during a setup for Digital Cable... I don't know if that gives it the appearance of locking up or not.
If prior to clicking OK to deny the Program Guide ToS, take a look at task manager and kill all instances of mcupdate.exe. See if that changes things.
If it is taking a long time during the "Examining TV Signals" stage, you can cancel that automated process and identify your tuners as Digital Cable manually. You can see an example of that in my video on the website.
- Gary
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#32

Post by garyan2 » Sat Nov 09, 2019 3:28 am

Just an FYI for everyone before they jump on this thread, Gary and I are working together behind the scenes to figure this out. We should have something identified tomorrow at some point and I will post a little "after action report" on what we find.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#33

Post by gzarzycki » Sun Nov 10, 2019 3:22 pm

garyan2 wrote: Sat Nov 09, 2019 3:28 am Just an FYI for everyone before they jump on this thread, Gary and I are working together behind the scenes to figure this out. We should have something identified tomorrow at some point and I will post a little "after action report" on what we find.
Okay Gary, I figured it out. Here is the issue, not actually a Windows issue as I thought. I have a dual system, Windows Media Center running off the 3 Tuner HDhomerun Prime using a Comcast Cablecard for the digital cable.

The 2nd system on the same Windows 7 x64 professional I5 PC using the MediaPortal server/client application with 4 tuners to an outdoor antenna to receive terrestrial reception. This would give all PC's on my LAN the use of cable and terrestrial receptions with WMC and the MediaPortal Clients.

Typically, when I setup Windows Media Center there is no problem, WMC gives to the option of using any tuners or all tuners. I would only use the HDhomerun cablecard 3 tuners and not setup the 4 terrestrial tuners as it would be a channel conflict, so the those 4 tuners are dedicated for the other MediaPortal system. All worked fine.

I do not want to configure the terrestrial tuners for epg123 as it would cause a conflict so I did not even try to use the tweaks, instead I removed the 4 terrestrial tuners off the I5 Media server for time being and ran the epg123 client setup, which went through fine. After the install of epg123 I will then re-install the tuners so both Media systems worked.

Now on my other TV's on my LAN, I will need to shutdown the MediaPortal Server on the Windows 7 x64 professional I5 so the remote LAN PC's won't see the terrestrial tuners via the Ethernet connection and all should install fine, then turn the MediaPortal server back on.

Instead of using the default Event Schedule created by epg123 I created a batch file using the "epg123Client.exe -i Y:\ProgramData\GaRyan2\epg123\output\epg123.mxf -match" command line and execute it via the Event Scheduler. In my batch file I also have an email program I wrote to email me the trace.log file on update of the guide.

All working fine now, thanks Gary

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#34

Post by gzarzycki » Sun Nov 10, 2019 4:21 pm

RyC wrote: Sat Nov 09, 2019 12:18 am Another poster repeatedly claiming X years of "experience", yet here you are asking for help (necro'ing someone else's thread too). But when help is provided, you ignore the advice offered and claim the problem is all on the developer's end.

By the way, I run "epg123, with windows 7, x64 with HDhomerun Prime" exactly and I've never had an issue with epg123 in 2.5 years.
As you may see, I did troubleshooting on the issue and found the resolve. If you read my post, my Media PC is a lot more involved then a simple Win 7 WMC install of epg123. After isolating the cause, epg123 installed fine. Please don't question my experience. Anyone installing unknown software for the first time then has issues with the install, it can be many possible conflicts causing the issue which needs to be isolated. In my case running 2 media systems on the same PC adds to the potential issues.

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#35

Post by gzarzycki » Sun Nov 10, 2019 6:55 pm

I am getting these errors now and appears the guide is not updating, any ideas why?

11/10/2019 11:41:40 AM] ===============================================================================
[11/10/2019 11:41:41 AM] Beginning epg123 client execution. version 1.2.22.0
[11/10/2019 11:41:41 AM] ===============================================================================
[11/10/2019 11:41:41 AM] [ INFO] Beginning epg123 client execution. 2019-11-10 18:41:41Z
[11/10/2019 11:41:41 AM] [ INFO] Import: True , Match: True , NoLogo: False , Force: False , ShowProgress: False
[11/10/2019 11:41:41 AM] Entering importMxfFile() for file "\\exodus\c\programdata\garyan2\epg123\output\epg123.mxf"
[11/10/2019 11:43:22 AM] [ INFO] Successfully imported .mxf file into Media Center database. Exit code: 0
[11/10/2019 11:43:22 AM] Exiting importMxfFile(). SUCCESS.
[11/10/2019 11:43:25 AM] [ INFO] Completed the automatch of lineup stations to tuner channels.
[11/10/2019 11:43:25 AM] [ INFO] Completed lineup refresh.
[11/10/2019 11:43:25 AM] Entering runWmcTask(ReindexSearchRoot)
[11/10/2019 11:43:26 AM] [ERROR] ERROR: Access is denied.
[11/10/2019 11:43:26 AM] [WARNG] Error using schtasks.exe to start ReindexSearchRoot task. Exit code: 1
[11/10/2019 11:43:26 AM] [ INFO] Attempting ehPrivJob.exe /DoReindexSearchRoot to index data.
[11/10/2019 11:51:55 AM] [ INFO] Successfully completed the ReindexSearchRoot task. Exit code: 0
[11/10/2019 11:51:55 AM] Exiting runWmcTask(ReindexSearchRoot). SUCCESS
[11/10/2019 11:51:55 AM] Entering runWmcTask(PvrScheduleTask)
[11/10/2019 11:51:55 AM] [ INFO] SUCCESS: Attempted to run the scheduled task "Microsoft\Windows\Media Center\PvrScheduleTask".
[11/10/2019 11:51:55 AM] [ INFO] Successfully started the PvrScheduleTask task. Exit code: 0
[11/10/2019 11:51:55 AM] Exiting runWmcTask(PvrScheduleTask). SUCCESS.
[11/10/2019 11:52:04 AM] [ERROR] Unhandled exception caught from epg123Client.exe. message: Requested registry access is not allowed.

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#36

Post by garyan2 » Sun Nov 10, 2019 7:03 pm

The update is successful, but for some reason you are getting an access problem to the task "ReindexSearchRoot", but not "PvrScheduleTask"??? If you open Task Scheduler and navigate to "Task Scheduler (Local)\Task Scheduler Library\Microsoft\Media Center\" does ReindexSearchRoot not exist?
- Gary
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#37

Post by adam1991 » Sun Nov 10, 2019 7:10 pm

gzarzycki wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 11:31 pmor put a disclaimer in your instructions that the epg123, with windows 7, x64 with HDhomerun Prime is not compatible.
Except that wouldn't be true.

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#38

Post by adam1991 » Sun Nov 10, 2019 7:11 pm

gzarzycki wrote: Sat Nov 09, 2019 12:37 am
garyan2 wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 11:46 pmstated
Okay, I suppose I need to figure out this myself, and maybe write some software that works. Your loss.
Image

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#39

Post by adam1991 » Sun Nov 10, 2019 7:16 pm

gzarzycki wrote: Sun Nov 10, 2019 3:22 pm
garyan2 wrote: Sat Nov 09, 2019 3:28 am Just an FYI for everyone before they jump on this thread, Gary and I are working together behind the scenes to figure this out. We should have something identified tomorrow at some point and I will post a little "after action report" on what we find.
Okay Gary, I figured it out. Here is the issue, not actually a Windows issue as I thought.

blah blah blah
OK, I have to say this:

Call it what it was--pure operator error in a complex environment that no one, NO ONE, could have possibly guessed at, an environment in which YOU KNEW VERY WELL that nothing EPG123 had ever been tested or documented. YOU KNEW you were in a unique, one-off situation. You HAD to know that.

But you came in with both guns blazing, with ZERO information, and started blaming everyone else.

That you tossed out some credentials as if that was going to make the world bow to your feet, was the cherry on top.

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#40

Post by RyC » Sun Nov 10, 2019 7:43 pm

gzarzycki wrote: Sun Nov 10, 2019 4:21 pm
RyC wrote: Sat Nov 09, 2019 12:18 am Another poster repeatedly claiming X years of "experience", yet here you are asking for help (necro'ing someone else's thread too). But when help is provided, you ignore the advice offered and claim the problem is all on the developer's end.

By the way, I run "epg123, with windows 7, x64 with HDhomerun Prime" exactly and I've never had an issue with epg123 in 2.5 years.
As you may see, I did troubleshooting on the issue and found the resolve. If you read my post, my Media PC is a lot more involved then a simple Win 7 WMC install of epg123. After isolating the cause, epg123 installed fine. Please don't question my experience. Anyone installing unknown software for the first time then has issues with the install, it can be many possible conflicts causing the issue which needs to be isolated. In my case running 2 media systems on the same PC adds to the potential issues.
Ok boomer.

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