Inaccurate Tv Guide and recordings

[bushwalker]

I've noticed the following issues with the IceTV on Win 7:

1. A few weeks ago when I scheduled recording of John Adams on SBS HD it actually recorded from SD channels not from prefered HD although it did show in interactive that the recordings were scheduled on HD. The first 2 episodes were recorded from SD channel only the follow bu 3rd recorded on HD.

2. I've set up scheduled recordings of SGU on Ten every Monday but for some reason the guide on 21st was showing it was Supernatural on starting at 8:30 p.m. not SGU. By my surprise the show, which I scheduled as SGU was still recorded on time, but as Supernatural.

3. For some reason IceTV on my second HTPC doesn't startup with the Windows even though the Startup with Win 7 is enabled.

Are there more surprises in store from IceTV like those above? Have you guys really nailed the behaviour of Win 7?

Here's are some details of my system and location: Both systems are running Win 7 and I'm located in Sydney.

Edit: I've solved the item No 3 above by running the application as administrator and selecting Run when Windows starts again.

[A_G]

I'd like to add to this and resurrect it if possible. I have just noticed something peculiar between Ice and MC in Win7.

I have House set as a series record and all is showing nicely in Interactive. In MC though the first episode is recording correctly for this Sunday night but the second one is being recorded as the Star Wars movie. Thinking the guide may have been out of date I updated this but no change to the recording. The second House is now in the guide (but showing as no data!) however the movie is still being recorded instead of House.

I have also noticed another instance of the MC guide not matching what is on Interactive - the WIN news at 6pm.

Help and ideas anyone?

[thesmith]

I'm also having the same issue. I have ABC's "Good Game" setup as a series recording, however for the past 3 weeks Ice TV has scheduled "The Goodies" which is the show before Good Game. This morning I have gone to watch the F1 qualifying only to discover Ice TV had scheduled the AFL (which, once again was on before). This is all very frustrating, I have been an Ice TV subscriber for many years, and have continually experienced these type of glitches. This stuff should be bullet prove by now.

One other issue. The TV guide on the site does not work correctly with Google Chrome... clicking "Next 6 hour" does nothing (although the page refreshes).

[A_G]

I have been having this problem for quite a while. I have also noticed that times will be out by 1 minute in WMC which causes a scheduling error with Ice. The only way I have found to overcome this is to set series recordings in WMC.

[A_G]

Okay,  can anyone explain this? Ice has Secret Millionaire and Cold Case listed for Gem on Tuesday night and Top Gear on Win. Media Centre has Top Gear listed for both.

I originally set Top Gear to record on Gem as it is in HD. Media Center is still showing this as recording yet Ice has individual recordings for Secret Millionaire and Cold Case.

I looked at Thursday night and the Media Centre guide appears to reflect the differences between the channels. the two guides are frequently different but this one i really cant understand...

[markb]

One other issue. The TV guide on the site does not work correctly with Google Chrome... clicking "Next 6 hour" does nothing (although the page refreshes).

Just confirming this bug also. I'm on Ubuntu 10.04 Linux with Chrome 7.0.517.13 dev.

[OzRob]

I have also noticed another instance of the MC guide not matching what is on Interactive - the WIN news at 6pm.

I believe that many of the guide inaccuracies are caused by a bug in Win 7 Media Center, rather than IceTV. The problem is that guide data loaded using loadxmf.exe is "sticky" in that if an entry exists for a particular time slot in the data base, it doesn't get overwritten with the next load, even if it's different data. The result is that once an entry has been made, Win 7 isn't changing it when the IceTV data is updated with new info.

I've noticed this with Four Corners on the ABC, where IceTV initially has a generic description that is replaced later in the week with specific info on the episode about to go to air. On my Media Center I only ever see the generic info, even though the guide gets updated with new info. If I look at the raw information that is downloaded from IceTV for today for instance, the description for Four Corners shows the specific info about tonights episode (about prescription drug abuse), but my Media Center guide just show a generic description of Four Corners. So Win 7 is not updating any information that is currently in the guide.

The upshot of this is that if IceTV put an entry in the guide for a particular timeslot and then change it because it's an error or they find out the schedule is different than originally published, Windows 7 Media Center guide still shows the original erroneous data, not the updated entry.

I've corresponded with IceTV support staff about the issue and they are looking into the issue, but I suspect that this is something that is going to have to be fixed by Microsoft (don't hold your breath).

[Daniel Drysdale at IceTV]

OzRob has hit the nail on the head, from what we can tell there is a definite issue with Win7's handling of guide loaded via loadmxf, we are trying to find a way to work around the issue in the IceTV Interactive app but for the moment the only solution is to perform a "media center recover task" via Control Panel > Administrative tools > Task Scheduler

We don't recommend this lightly as you will lose locally scheduled recordings but in the case of 7mate and GEM starting over the weekend it is likely worth doing.

[dJOS]

Daniel, is there a way to backup the scheduled recordings before doing this? (isn't it a separate file somewhere?)

[Daniel Drysdale at IceTV]

We're not aware of a method to do this, it may well be possible. This is the reason we don't generally recommend the reset option. If it were me I would probably just leave it as it is my understanding that the EPG will correct it self as the week progresses.