Problems with IceTV's service for TRF-2400 owners

[mothy]

Been having an issue since about Sunday arvo (15/4/12) where my EPG fails to load and no [IceTV] recordings are uploaded to my TRF-2400.  After 6 (six) seperate calls to the IceTV support team (David #1 & David #2???) I was informed that support is closed. Please call back after 12pm.

The Ice support guys can see my account hitting their servers, but the servers fail to deliver the EPG and 'schedualled records' data.

The Ice support tech? Dave? [#usr/bin/perl\r\n;$dave="not-this-dave";\r\n print $dave;] keeps telling me me somebody will call back tomorrow, but they dont. 

Generally speaking I have been happy with their [IceTV] service up until now. 

They (one of the Daves') has admitted to IceTV having issues with the TRF-2400, and has been blaming ISP's such as iiNet and Vodafone for using cacheing proxy's which cause you to get another SUBSCRIBERS' EPG data.  [I can understand the proxy caching thing... I get it at work too; But getting someone elses cache? Doesn't appear that much, if any, reverse DNS lookups or even "lame ol'"session tokens are being used]

This is not my problem. NO EPG DATA OR SCHEDUALLED RECORDS - FULL STOP - That's my problem.

The 'Dave' twins have had me re-flash the TRF-2400, reset EPG data, go from wireless via the toppy wifi dongle back to ethernet, they can see my account accessing their server/s? but it's "just weird ... there is definately something weird going on ..." and their service fails to update either EPG or Recording info to the TRF-2400.

The only 'weird' thing is why they (IceTV) are not re-writting THEIR code to handle whatever changes may have been introduced by Topfield in the latest firmware update, desipte it having been released to the public months ago... [Fact: IceTV get the new firmware/s from their manufacturer partners before the public; for testing & integration with THEIR service.]

I rang up no less than 6 (six) times tonight .... All of which were unanswered. Then after 8pm - the phones shut down - please call back after 12pm .... [to get shafted by a bloke called 'Dave'* because 2nd tier support is sick - again] 

Any other TRF'ers getting shafted by Ice at the moment? I was told by a support *tech* from Ice that other TRF owners are having grief with Ice - Let's gang up and try to get THEM to fix THEIR product, instead of pi$$ing on Topfield and various ISP's for THEIR PROBLEMS with THEIR PRODUCT.

I'll be calling at 9am IceTV - See what your *sales* people have to say about all this .... Failing that (well, they couldn't even answer their sales line today), time to involve the Technical Editor of the SMH... Just look at what he did to Vodafone... Yes, Asher Moses.  You looking for some Fair Trade action? That along with IceTV being Ashers scoop for the month, and your brand being totally smashed to bits by the SMH, you would think, that be enough to get some action.

Tomorrows another day ... Maybe the 'David's can save IceTV from a trip to Fair Trade hearings and alot of bad press via the SMH? Dunno

[Paul]

Hi Mothy, sorry I can't be of any help, apart from to say that, touch wood, I've had no problems with my 2400 doing the right things re epg and scheduling via iinet. I feel your pain, hope things get sorted.

Cheers, Paul.

[mothy]

G'day Paul,

Thanks for your reply. I'm not currently (or ever have) used iiNet as an ISP, nor is my ISP downstream on either the Vodapwn or iiNet 'tier 1' networks (AFAIK).

Glad to hear your setup is working OK.

Just don't do the 1.17 firmware update ...

Again, thanks for posting Paul.  Much apreciated.

Regards, M

[mothy]

At this point - even your forum software is bug ridden. [An unpatched default install of PHP Nuke looks classy compared to this; #include($csrf, $lolz);]

Four days of calls, direct phone call from the IceTV Marketing Manager - gauranteeing a call back from *someone* before the phones get shut down at 8pm

Marketing Manager gave me his word.  Nobodys called back though.  Why would they.  Marketing Manager told me when he hung up, he was gonna go talk to "the" developer. That may or may not have happend. 

NONE OF THIS IS MY PROBLEM - IF YOU'RE A IceTV support tech/manager/sales etc. that is....

Must be Topfeilds problem.  Topfeild clearly DID NOT code the IceTV TAP that comes pre-installed with high end PVR's, such as Topfeild TRF-2400

I really am so pi55ed off at the moment, that I will have to post again tomorrow.

I'm truly upset that your technical staff -  after having the gumption to ask an end user to use Wireshark/Ethereal and grab *.pcap dumps to test wether IceTV's "pull" parser can cope with an extra line or two in the http header .... 1 (one (ok, two or three lines maybe)) line of regular expressions (aka regex) would/should have that covered.  Ever considered a http header white-list?

Why has it taken all week and inumerous phone calls just to be back at square one.

Your service and support used to be great. Now it sucks

Marketing Manager .... No - nobody called me back.  Why would they?  You seemed like a nice enough bloke when we spoke, but desipte your personal reassurance that I would be phoned back before 8pm 19/04/12  --> NOBODY CALLED ME, AND IN THE 4 PHONE CALLS I MADE TO IceTV BETWEEN 7:30PM AND 8:00PM [when you CLOSE], ALL CALLS WERE UNANSWERED.

Remind me again why I signed up for another 12 months of your "premium 'free-to-air' EPG/remote record from anywhere with internet access service that you hear all about whilst waiting on hold "for the next available operator" until the IceTV PABX times out (~6 minutes on hold) and forces you to leave a message/hangs up on you. Forcing you to phone back (if you want support*) into the support *que* just to have your call terminated after ~6 minutes.....

Yep - Great service (At least Bronwyn was helpful - Truly Bronwyn - Thankyou)... the techs dont seem to listen to the marketing manager, and nobody from IceTV ever seem to answer their phones)

[prl]

G'day Paul,

Thanks for your reply. I'm not currently (or ever have) used iiNet as an ISP, nor is my ISP downstream on either the Vodapwn or iiNet 'tier 1' networks (AFAIK).
...

I use iiNet as my ISP, and I've never has this kind of problem with IceTV on my Beyonwizes. You'd think that any HTTP caching problems that the ISP has would mess up IceTV no matter what PVR was at the other end, unless the Topfield IceTV server is sending out different (and inappropriate) caching control headers from the Beyonwiz IceTV server.

[Starionx]

While I don't believe I have the same problem as Mothy, I now find that both my 2400's are only showing 1 day (today) of EPG. They were full yesterday. The last fetch was a few minutes ago.

[keitay]

Same EPG problem fo me, 2460  only showing 1 day (today) of EPG. was OK yesterday. Tried several times to update with no success. My ISP is TPG.

[Paul55]

Same here - only today showing. I use JustEPG with XMLTV data.
TRF-2400 switched to standby every night.
My ISP is Bigpond, so that's quite a variety. I reckon that rules out ISPs being at fault.
My Beyonwiz machines are getting the full week od EPG data and my Toppy recordings are still set 5 days ahead.
My IceTV account shows both regular EPG and XML fetches in the last 30 minutes.

[blip]

I'm also only getting today's guide from the XML feed. The data for the rest of the week is not there. You can load the XML into your browser and see there is only one days data.
http://iceguide.icetv.com.au/cgi-bin/epg/iceguide.cgi?op=xmlguide

[Starionx]

Others on the Topfield site (with different toppys) are having the same issue. I hope someone in ICETV land fixes this up soon!

[Paul55]

I can confirm that my problem (3 posts back) is for XMLTV data only. When I pull up the native EPG, there is a full week's worth of IceTV EPG data.
Probably some corruption in the XMLTV data - now we just need to wait till IceTV notices.

[Starionx]

The EPG is back to a full week. Looks like it's fixed. :)

[Dave at IceTV]

Paul, blip and Starionx,

The cause of the xml guide running out today has been found and fixed.

[Paul55]

Thanks Dave,
Are you able to explain the fault - in very basic terms?

[Dave at IceTV]

An update for something unrelated unexpectedly broke the XML feed.