Issues with Program Guide?

[The_Hawk]

I got home this evening and tried to watch the news (which is scheduled to record) and it's not there... nor is the next scheduled show.  On closer inspection it seems that the TV Guide is about 80% blank on the device (shiny new Humax 7500T 500GB bought from ICETV).  I can't seem to see any error message or any way to check if it's connected to the web other than to play something through iView (which worked).
Switching the unit off and on again didn't seem to help, even entering the ICETV username/password again didn't seem to make any difference.
My internet connection has been up the whole time and I watched a recording last night (Monday's News) so AFAIK it was all working well then.

Any idea's on what may of caused this.  Has there been an issue with the service?  Does it cache on the device or is it constantly updating live?  (and if I do have an outage of internet does that mean nothing works?)

[swamprat96]

Same problem here. I suspect the service. Best to email or call them as they don't always read here

[gneeman]

I had the same problem throughout the afternoon and into early evening.

It may have been coincidental, but after resetting the EPG parameters the guide came good for me.

[chriscalga]

I too lost my EPG yesterday and still had none this morning. I just reset my EPG type to Humax and then back to Iceguide. That restored the EPG, but not only did it cancel all my reservations on the website (which I half expected), but it has also lost the vast bulk of my "My Programs" list, which I have been building for months.
I must say, ever since I got my Humax, this whole Iceguide app. has been bug-ridden. Almost every day it gives an error message for booking programs when there is no time conflict. I have got to the stage of using the "My Week" list as advisory and booking the shows manually.

[swamprat96]

All ok now with no intervention

[andya]

I had this issue last week as well (second week of March)  - it looks like the EPG was corrupted somehow as there was large chunks missing (some channels had no content at all). I think due to the EPG issue, the PVR would not accept any schedules from ICETV where the EPG was empty (there were '!' against most of the scheduled recordings). The only way I could refresh the EPG was to switch to the normal EPG and back to ICETV. This in turn lost all of my scheduled recording which was very frustrating.

ICETV support, do you know what is causing this issue? Is it a bug in the current Humax firmware (I'm running the latest release), or do you know whether you have been issues on your end?

thanks,

Andy

[toppytools]

Seems to be a combination of both a firmware bug and an IceTV issue.

[Dave at IceTV]

ICETV support, do you know what is causing this issue? Is it a bug in the current Humax firmware (I'm running the latest release), or do you know whether you have been issues on your end?

Hi Andy,

IceTV are working with Humax to find the cause of the blank channels in the guide and hope to have it resolved shortly. We appreciate your patience.

There are 2 separate issues affecting the IceTV guide on the Humax.

A. Issue 1 is where the 'blocks' for all shows are visible but for some shows the title and show info is missing. Sometimes scrolling over the blank timeslot displays the missing title and info. This issue started in 5.01 and is a firmware bug.

To fix this issue:
    - Turn the Humax off with the remote control then turn it off at the rear power switch for 30 seconds.
    - Turn it back on and check the guide

B. Issue 2 is where whole channels are blank in the guide. This issue started a few weeks ago and looks like an IceTV issue.

To fix this issue without losing your series recordings please do the following:
    - Go to "Menu > Settings > Preferences > EPG Type > IceTV > Existing"
    - Press OK on the onscreen Confirm button on the Member ID / Password menu
    - Press OK on the onscreen Confirm button on the Region / Device menu
    - Exit the menu
    - Wait 2 minutes before checking the guide

[The_Hawk]

Looks like it's happened again today and looks like it's issues 2 (although it could be a combo).



What's also causing issues is that when this happens my schedule goes blank:



When this happens shows still record, but are not filed correctly and have no names.  If you know the time and date you can work out what is what (or just try and watch the blanks).  There is an additional problem in that these blank recordings DO NOT include the start and end padding time so (thanks to difference between the clock and the actual station start time) I'm missing some of today's shows.

Using fix #2 saw the guide come back but the schedule remained blank (over 30 minutes later).  Turning the unit off with the remote then back on (no hard power cycle) then turning it immediately back on, then opening the schedule seemed to fix the problem.  IT initially still came up blank but then cascaded the names down the screen until they were all filled in again.


There is another thread I started here about the padding time missing:  http://forum.icetv.com.au/iceforum/index.php?topic=3333.0

Maybe these issues are related?


Bottom line I'm wondering if I can delete my current reservations and simply create a manual timed recording of a channel.  In my case it's really only the news I want to record.  (for everything else I'm happy to use the automated system).  I had a look at that just now (without deleting my current scheduled shows and it looks like it might work, although there appears to be no way for me to manually enter a name for the recording so the system wants to call it by the name of the show BEFORE what I want to record (since I'm starting 5 minutes before that show ends).

When this device is working it's fantastic, just a shame there have been regular issues in the few weeks I have had the device :(

[andya]

That's interesting Hawk - I'll check mine tonight and see whether my EPG is corrupt again .. funny you should mention the padding issue - I had a scheduled recording of MKR last night and started watching it whilst it was still recording (about 30 minutes after the show had started), and noticed that it was cut off at the end, even though I had 10 minutes of padding at the end. I'm sure that it wouldn't have gone 10 minutes overtime.

Andy

[andya]

The EPG appeared to be ok, but there still seems to be a padding issue - I haven't been able to determine yet the conditions that cause the padding to not work .. it happened again last night watching MKR again whilst the show was still recording, and the padding was missing off the end again ..

[swamprat96]

I'm hoping that the new firmware for these two issues will come soon. The EPG bug and the padding bug are reasonably serious flaws that make the unit appear flaky and not fit for purpose. Whilst IceTV have been up front about the issues there has been deafening silence from Humax. I've emailed them and they answer only some emails. They do not answer emails with these issues. It concerns me as I had a TVIX and it had heaps of issues that were never fixed. The company then abandoned support for the unit. IceTV were excellent in their support- but Tvix was not

We should all be emailing Humax support separately - ausupport@humaxdigital.com. And when you do pester them for longer padding options or variable padding times. They need to fix these issues soon - or their Australian launch will be still born.

[IanL-S]

Few, if any, distributors respond to email; this is true of Topfield as well as those mentioned above. To be fair, Topfield do not claim to provide email support; they expect you to contact them on their 1300 number.

Ian

[swamprat96]

As they advertise email support it's not unreasonable to expect a response. And being new to our market with a very small exposure they need to be seen as responsive. Topfield has a much bigger market share and has been around a long time.

Otherwise Humax will go the way of astone dvico etc- bad name and low sales

[andya]

It's probably just as constructive, if not more, working with IceTV support on these issues, as they are a Humax reseller and would have a 'direct line' to the Humax developers anyway .. As IceTV support stated, they are aware of the issues and working with Humax to get them resolved.

Andy