****** Problems with Guide Losing Channels - official fix from Microsoft ****

[impact]

 :) Finally, the long awaited probelm where you lose ch7 / sbs nearly every day has been fixed.


Microsoft has been investigating this problem (but unable to reproduce it in the US which makes the investigation a little harder). From what we've been seeing, it appears that opportunistic scanning, combined with inconsistent data in the transmission is causing the problem.

Opportunistic scanning is scanning on the currently tuned transport stream. When MCE tunes to a transport stream for some reason (the user channels up/down in live tv, or recording a scheduled program), the scanner monitors the stream for changes in service or network information. Such changes in information are usually a rare occurrence.

However from what we've seen in logs, some broadcasters are updating this information at certain times in the day. Unfortunately, they send different data each time. The changing of the service information, results in the removal of the old channels and addition of new ones.

Once installed, this hotfix allows you to turn off opportunistic scanning by setting a registry key.


Instructions on how to get the hotfix in Australia

ring 13 16 30
For non-Partners (most likely you), select Option 1 from the first IVR menu, followed by “All Other Support Enquiries” at the next prompt. This will reach a Customer Service agent.
If you are partner customer (Gold, Certified or Registered), you can select the IVR path via Option 2. Once you arrive at the appropriate Partner menu, select the “All Other Support Enquiries” option and a Customer Service agent will attend to the call.
Ask the service agent for hotfix 938927. Tell the service agent that this hotfix is for the Media Center and its a little unusual as the KB article hasn’t been published yet (ie. they won’t be able to find KB938927). However they can still give you a hotfix without the KB.
If there's any problem, ask to speak with their manager, it is so new - only released this morning!!!!

(Note: hotfixes are free - you wont be charged).


Installation instructions
Exit MCE
Install the hotfix
Add in the registry a DWORD key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\ GLID\DisableActualStreamOpportunisticScanning and set its value to 1. To achieve this you can either use regedit to enter the key value directly
Reboot

If you’ve been encountering this problem, I’d recommend that you go through MCE setup again (Tasks->Settings->General->Windows Media Center Setup->Run Setup Again), and then delete all your scheduled recordings and reschedule them.

[Eaglehawk]

Erm, I'm pretty sure there's no point in putting this pinned announcement in the XP Media Center Edition forum when the hotfix is only applicable to Vista.

Unless I'm very, very wrong, in which case I just bought a whole new computer for nothing!

[Daniel Hall at IceTV]

Very true, un-stickied...

[csutak40]

:) Finally, the long awaited probelm where you lose ch7 / sbs nearly every day has been fixed.

I have hijacked this thread, but not sure if I should start a new one.  I have started losing channels, but not ch7 / sbs, but ABC2.  No idea when I first lost it, noticed it yesterday morning.  Under "Edit Channels" 6 is listed and ticked as ABC2, but under Channel Order it says that 6 is "not configured".  Yesterday morning, I found a listing for ABC2 further down the list (can't remember what number it was now) I moved it up to 6, saved it and that seemed to fix the problem.   I checked all the channels, they were all correct.  Last night, it  disappeared again! I can't find another instance of ABC2, so I can't try the same thing again.  The only thing I can think of is to rescan all the channels again, but I would like to avoid it if I could - especially as I'm not sure that it will be a permanent solution.  Do you thing the fix mentioned in this thread would apply to me?