Guide Updates - Download Issues

[nikkilocke]

You can upgrade standard Vista Media Centre with the Microsoft "TV Pack" to add the ability to collect guide information from the broadcast signal.

This fooled me, as well, as I had never heard of it - apparently it was distributed only to OEMs, never to the general public, so people like us missed it.

I detailed everything I did to get my guide back on my blog at http://trumphurst.blogspot.co.uk/2013/0 ... ogram.html

[B16mts]

Right,

All sorted for now thanks to epg collector and guidtool. However, how can i get it to auto update? When i update from epg collector, it screws up the guide, so i have to reload the channels from guidetool. How do i get it to do it on its own?

I must say if i can get it to automate, i wont be going back to wmc guide if they ever reinstate it anyway.

None of this would be possible without finding you guys.

Cheers,

Martin

[Heuer]

Auto-update using Task scheduler in Windows to run EPG Collector.exe. Make sure you switch off auto associate EPG to channels in EPG Centre to avoid screwing up your channels.

[Minefield]

I've got a 14 day/ish guide using Radio Times data collected using the XMLTV GUI Grabber.
Then using Big Screen EPG to pass that data in 7MC. It's $20 for a 2 year subscription which I think is reasonable.

I had to do manual channel mapping again but everything seems to be working.

[Balein]

Many thanks to everyone for all the information here. I have Vista Media Center with the 2008 TV pack installed and like everyone else lost all my program guide content on 01/01/03. I am in UK using DVB-T from the CrystaI Palace transmitter. I have installed EPG Collector and tried to run as described earlier in the post, on 506MHZ using EIT. I am succesfully scanning the channels and finding 105, but then get two error messages that "WMCUtility has stopped working" before the program reports that "the collection process ends with exit code 0", however I do not have any new listings to select in the "Add Listings to Channel". The full log file is here

http://www.dwale.dsl.pipex.com/EPG_Collector.log

The log file entries with the errors are below

19:49:39:781 ============================ End Of Language Codes ==============================
19:49:39:782
19:49:39:786 Sample stats: Sync byte searches: 0 Samples dropped: 0 Max sample size: 15792
19:49:39:786 Background worker thread finished
19:49:39:787 Stop request processed
19:49:39:837 Checking Windows Media Center installed using C:\Windows\ehome\mcstore.dll
19:49:39:845 Running Windows Media Centre Utility to export data
19:49:40:185 Windows Media Center Utility build: 4.0.4543.23000
19:50:03:877
19:50:03:920 Unhandled Exception: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'mcepg, Version=6.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
19:50:03:920 File name: 'mcepg, Version=6.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35'
19:50:03:921 at WMCUtility.Program.exportData()
19:50:03:921 at WMCUtility.Program.Main(String[] args)
19:50:03:921
19:50:03:922 WRN: Assembly binding logging is turned OFF.
19:50:03:922 To enable assembly bind failure logging, set the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog] (DWORD) to 1.
19:50:03:922 Note: There is some performance penalty associated with assembly bind failure logging.
19:50:03:923 To turn this feature off, remove the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog].
19:50:03:923
19:50:03:937 Windows Media Centre Utility has completed: exit code -532459699
19:50:03:937 <e> Windows Media Centre failed: reply code -532459699
19:50:03:938
19:50:03:939 ============================ Start Of Windows Media Center Import Specific Processes ==============================
19:50:03:939
19:50:03:942 Setting the unique ID's and match names for channels
19:50:03:942 No merged channels loaded from database
19:50:03:942
19:50:03:943 ============================ End Of Windows Media Center Import Specific Processes ==============================
19:50:03:943


19:50:06:939 Station: BBC One HD (9018,16516,17540) Gap 03/01/2013 09:15:00 to 03/01/2013 12:15:00 Huffman text: 0x1f015c79ff9acefec0
19:50:06:939 Station: BBC One HD (9018,16516,17540) Start: 03/01/2013 00:10:00 End: 11/01/2013 00:20:00 Records: 228 Overlaps: 0 Gaps: 1
19:50:06:940 Station: 303 (9018,16516,19648) Gap 03/01/2013 06:00:00 to 03/01/2013 12:00:00 303
19:50:06:940 Station: 303 (9018,16516,19648) Start: 03/01/2013 00:00:00 End: 11/01/2013 00:00:00 Records: 31 Overlaps: 0 Gaps: 1
19:50:06:952 <S> Summary: Total Stations = 105 Total Gaps = 51 Total Overlaps = 0 Total Time = 00:05:31.2040000
19:50:06:978 Running Windows Media Centre Utility to clear programme flags
19:50:07:083 Windows Media Center Utility build: 4.0.4543.23000
19:50:09:622
19:50:09:630 Unhandled Exception: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'mcepg, Version=6.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
19:50:09:630 File name: 'mcepg, Version=6.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35'
19:50:09:631 at WMCUtility.Program.clearFlags()
19:50:09:631 at WMCUtility.Program.Main(String[] args)
19:50:09:631
19:50:09:631 WRN: Assembly binding logging is turned OFF.
19:50:09:632 To enable assembly bind failure logging, set the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog] (DWORD) to 1.
19:50:09:632 Note: There is some performance penalty associated with assembly bind failure logging.
19:50:09:633 To turn this feature off, remove the registry value [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Fusion!EnableLog].
19:50:09:633
19:50:10:014 Windows Media Centre Utility has completed: exit code -532459699
19:50:10:014 <e> Windows Media Centre failed: reply code -532459699
19:50:10:014 Deleting any existing version of output file
19:50:10:058 Import name set to 'EPG Collector'
19:50:10:058 Creating output file: C:\ProgramData\Geekzone\EPG Collector\TVGuide.mxf
19:50:10:543 Running Windows Media Centre import utility LoadMXF from C:\Windows\ehome
19:51:13:654 Windows Media Centre import utility LoadMXF has completed: exit code 0
19:51:13:655 <C> Finished - created 15764 EPG entries
19:51:13:655 <C> Exiting with code = 0
19:51:13:862 Changing menu availability to True
19:51:13:863 Save availability changed to False:False

Can anyone explain what could be causing this and how to fix it?

[jack_kelly]

Yes,

For Windows 7 and Freeview in the UK, with no third-party software, you should expect to see a 7-day EPG populated from the broadcast EIT....
HTH

Brilliant, thanks for confirming

[jack_kelly]

You can upgrade standard Vista Media Centre with the Microsoft "TV Pack" to add the ability to collect guide information from the broadcast signal.

This fooled me, as well, as I had never heard of it - apparently it was distributed only to OEMs, never to the general public, so people like us missed it.

I detailed everything I did to get my guide back on my blog at http://trumphurst.blogspot.co.uk/2013/0 ... ogram.html

This is actually AMAZING. I was very, VERY close to forking out £65 for a Win7 upgrade until I saw this post. Thank you. I will give it a go tomorrow.

[roswellgrey]

The ms epg server would appear to be back

[AlunS]

The ms epg server would appear to be back

Indeed it is ... I wonder if we'll ever get a formal apology and an explanation of what went wrong together with the safeguards they're going to put in place to ensure this doesn't happen again?

[Balein]

Back for me as well - however the end date in the "About" is now showing as 1/18/2013 12:00:00 pm - not sure how long it will last for.

[IT Troll]

Yep, the MS guide monkey is back from his Christmas holiday.

The other half has lost confidence and wants to get a Sky box. However I am sure Microsoft will give us a full analysis of the incident and provide reassurances that systems have been put in place so that this will never happen again. </sarcasm>

[Sergei]

I don't have a direct source for this unfortunately, but on another forum they were just quoted as stating:

"Microsoft is aware of the issue with the Electronic Programming Guide for Windows Media Center in the UK and Ireland. We have identified the cause and have already deployed a fix for the UK. A solution for Ireland is in the works and we will issue an update when the issue is resolved.

We apologize for the inconvenience to Windows Media Center users in these countries."

That would be a huge relief. I'm in Ireland, so this is the second time in a month I've had to jump through all sorts of hoops to fix their nonsense.

[B16mts]

This is ridiculous.

After spending hours on the work around yesterday, i awake to this. Ive run the wmc guide now a few times and all the channels I'd shuffled around yesterday to work with theepg collector are now still showing data for 7 days, (i assume from epg collector), but only a couple show data beyond that (suggesting wmc is not updating all channels).

Dont know what to do now. Epg collector didnt automatically run (not sure if /how i set it up properly to autorun). So should i reshuffle the channels based on wmc theoretically working now?

Microsoft should run for government with such a level of incompetence!

[mark1234]

I was wrong, and am happy to be so. I have guide data back from MS.

I haven't decided yet but am most likely to switch back to using the download data rather than continue with Digiguide, so won't now type up a guide. I wonder if now is a good time to raise Connect tickets on the long standing missing channel data in the MS guide?

[asm495]

I'm mulling over now whether I should switch back or not. At the moment things are working using EPG Collector and in all honesty I rarely need a 14 day guide thanks to remote access. My wife mainly uses the guide to see what is on now or in the current evening. My current feelings are if it is working now to mess with it.

I think I am going to start investigating Media Portal as I've heard the new skin looks great and I can build low power PC Extenders.

[KungFuKid]

After installing and apply EPG collector Its very, very slow to browse the movie guide, is anyone else experiencing this?

I'm considering staying with EPG Collector although I'm in two minds because of the issue above, I changed to thumbnail under the lookup tab but it's still practically unusable!

[holidayboy]

The only thing that we (well the other half really) miss about the ms guide data is the original air date info.

I've been running a mix of download and EPG collector for a while and haven't decided whether to switch a few channels back to ms data or not yet.

Good to see that the data is back though

[RichardS]

That's a relief!

I was playing around with DVBGuide under Vista MC (pre TV Pack) last night and had most of the channels populated when I read here that the MS Guide had returned 15 minutes previously! I'll probably go back to playing around with DVBGuide at the weekend so that I have a backup plan the next time MS pull this stunt!

Richard

[AlunS]

I wonder if now is a good time to raise Connect tickets on the long standing missing channel data in the MS guide?

The problem with that is that, as is always the case, MS, or rather BDS, require precise details regarding what is wrong / missing, in other words, they're expecting US to do THEIR work for them again.

All it requires is for whoever is in charge of channel data and transponder lists at both organisations to take a long hard look at a website such as LyngSat or KingOfSat and they'll know everything they need to know. While they're at it they can tidy up the number of confusing different guide lineups for Astra 28.2E too, one for Freesat and one for Sky is all they need.

[JohnBraham]

I think what I will do, since I have EPG Collector working well except for the auto update is find out how to get auto update working for it as it provides better data for some channels, switch some of the core channels back to the MS data like Film4, BBC etc, that way I get the best of both worlds and if MS fails me again all I need to to is spend 30 mins switching those channels back to the EPG collector listings.

I posted a guide for EPG collector on another forum but it seems a bit pointless now.

My only problem getting the EPG Collector auto update working is I can't get it to run from command line properly, it exits with code 2 saying the ini is invalid or something (I'll have to check the exact error tonight), if anyone feels like giving some simple instructions for command line running of the EPG collector I'd be grateful, I'm using the /INI="myinifile.ini" type command.