New Feature - Failed timer notifications

[mikeathome]

Thanks for that. AFAIK the guide has not been blank, certainly not while the PVR has been on and in use. And the guide has in it what ICE has put there, there's no other way to change it that I know of. 

For those of us who put out PVRs into standby, and where ICE change the program info, it will be normal for the ICE server to contain different EPG information to that on the PVR, as the latter has to be turned on for a while to update.  Wouldn't it be preferable for the revised EPG to be sent by the server to the PVR first, and only after that has been successful to send the reservations?

[grampus]

This sequence of events is controlled by the PVR.  Not the server.

It requests the information as opposed to the server pushing the info.

When it comes out of standby, the BeyonWiz requests for the EPG first, then the timers.

[Dave at IceTV]

Thanks for that. AFAIK the guide has not been blank, certainly not while the PVR has been on and in use. And the guide has in it what ICE has put there, there's no other way to change it that I know of. 

Some recorders can insert parts of the free to air EPG data into the guide under various circumstances.

But what I was suggesting was that maybe the start time or duration for the affected show was different on the PVR to what is on the website. It is probably correct now. You would really need to check it within 15 minutes of the timer failing to be set.

For those of us who put out PVRs into standby, and where ICE change the program info, it will be normal for the ICE server to contain different EPG information to that on the PVR, as the latter has to be turned on for a while to update.  Wouldn't it be preferable for the revised EPG to be sent by the server to the PVR first, and only after that has been successful to send the reservations?

Some PVR models, or firmware versions, can sometimes incorrectly try to set schedules before updating the EPG. This would only be a problem if the EPG for the show being scheduled had changed since the PVR last fetched the guide.

[mikeathome]

The error message that I referred to in my post above can only apparently occur when a timer is sent and the EPG on the PVR is blank, or a timer refers to an event where the EPG on the PVR and the EPG on the ICE website are different.

These situations can never occur if the EPG data on the PVR is always updated before the timers are processed.

One way to help facilitate this is for ICE to send the EPG data to the PVR before it sends the timer transactions when any communication between the two systems happens. It has to be at the ICE end, the PVR does not know whether there are EPG changes due to be made and therefore due to arrive in the next transaction stream, nor does it know whether there are any timers coming.

Grampus suggests that the PVR requests the EPG data and, after that, the Timer data when it comes out of standby. But EPG changes and Timers are sent at other times according to an ICE determined schedule as I recall, not requested by the PVR.  If so, we are left with the case where the EPG is changed by ICE and not promulgated to the PVR before the timers are sent.

This suggests that EPG change promulgation and Timer promulgation are separated in time, and if a scheduled timer "send" happens after an Ice EPG change but before that EPG change is promulgated to the PVR, the error situation described above can occur.

Why not just make the two events always coincide?

[prl]

... But EPG changes and Timers are sent at other times according to an ICE determined schedule as I recall, not requested by the PVR. ...

IceTV data is only sent at the request of the PVR. There's no way that IceTV can send data to the PVR of its own accord. IceTV does limit how frequently fetches can be made, and it assists the PVR to keep to that by telling the PVR when it should next connect. That is done each time the PVR requests data. The protocol allows for different update frequencies for EPG and timers.

[mikeathome]

Well I'm happy to be corrected about that. But the issues that I raised remain. I'm getting lots of emails which can only apparently be caused by the EPG and the timers getting out of kilter. Surely I am not the only ICE user in this situation. Given that my PVR firmware has not been altered, something at the ICE end must have been changed to cause this message and the failure of timers that never used to be a problem.

Why can't that be fixed?

[cvee72]

Hi Michael,

I'm in the same boat.
Posted this issue in Topfield forum and was suggested to reset topfield.
This worked for about a week, then the problem started up again.

I'm back to 1, sometimes 2 failed notifications every day.
I cannot trust recording on the Toppy via IceTV.

Even shows that successfully schedule all of a sudden disappear after i get the failure.
I have been away from home and missed some shows, because i get the email notification but cannot go home to manually set the recording.

Doing a reschedule via IceTV iphone app only sometimes works.

If this is not resolved i doubt i'll be signing up for further service.
I've got my Tivo doing double duty now.

Very disappointing, and it seems each side is pointing the finger to the other.

[mikeathome]

The ICE guys are pretty good about fixing problems once they find out about it and then have accepted it as something down to them. There's been little discussion about it here so perhaps they believe it's not a real issue worth bothering about.

[Dave at IceTV]

The ICE guys are pretty good about fixing problems once they find out about it and then have accepted it as something down to them. There's been little discussion about it here so perhaps they believe it's not a real issue worth bothering about.

Hi Mike,

Please don't mistake silence for apathy. We are looking into the cause of the issue.

[mikeathome]

Ok, given that a remedy seems to be taking a while, and I am still getting emails saying that timers have failed when they shouldn't have, if I revert to the previous position where I did not select email notifications, will the failed timer problem go away?

[cvee72]

The ICE guys are pretty good about fixing problems once they find out about it and then have accepted it as something down to them. There's been little discussion about it here so perhaps they believe it's not a real issue worth bothering about.

Hi Mike,

Please don't mistake silence for apathy. We are looking into the cause of the issue.

Its now 6th of May.....  seems like apathy to me.

[Dave at IceTV]

Don't you think if everyone was still having a problem that there'd be lots of posts here.

[rippernz]

Over the last couple of days i have been getting the failed timer notification.

Everything has been good and all of a sudden start getting these.



Show Name:   Hamish And Andy's Asia Gap Year
Channel:   Nine Digital
Time:   2013-07-22 20:05:00
Duration:   60
Device Label:   Topfield TRF-2400
Device Type:   Topfield TRF-2400
Message from recorder:   TASK_MSG_INVALID_SERVICE
Last Updated:   2013-07-17 20:43:58

[rippernz]

and not they have all shown up.

No change

[Dave at IceTV]

The TASK_MSG_INVALID_SERVICE message from a Topfield can mean that the show being scheduled did not exactly match any show in the guide.

This can happen when the start time or duration is changed for a show that already has a reservation set on the Topfield. Then the Topfield seems to try to set the updated reservation before it has updated the guide.