Win7 Sticky EPG Issue - GEM & 7mate

[Daniel Drysdale at IceTV]

Since the release of the official Win7 IceTV Interactive client, it has come to our attention that there is an issue with the guide processing in Win7.

Guide loaded via loadmxf seems to be "sticky" in that subsequent guide loads containing updates do not always overwrite the existing entries resulting in old data appearing in the EPG. This issue is obvious for some of the current affair style programs where the topic of the program may not be know until shortly before the show goes to air, typically users will see that the generic description is still visible even though the website and other compatible devices show the latest data.

We are actively trying to find a solution to this issue and will release an updated Interactive client once we have a solution.

Now that 7mate & GEM have launched users may be experiencing issues with the old Nine HD and Seven HD (and regional variants) guide still being visible instead of the current guide of 7mate and GEM.

If you are experiencing issues then the only solution we have at this point is to perform a "media center recover task" which can be done via Control Panel > Administrative tools > Task Scheduler in the task library under Microsoft > Windows > Media Center.

Unfortunately this process will remove any locally scheduled recordings so bear that in mind if you intend to try the recovery task.

We believe that if you do not perform the recovery task as the new guide is loaded over the next 7 days the old guide will be flushed from the system.

Please contact IceTV support if you require any assistance.

[Doohana]

Are there any updates yet on this issue? Since 7mate and GEM have been launched I have no Ice TV EPG data on those channels on my Win 7 Media Centre. I'm a little reluctant to do a full recover on Media Centre given the amount of scheduled data I would loose. Is there a better fix?

Doohana

[OzRob]

Are there any updates yet on this issue? Since 7mate and GEM have been launched I have no Ice TV EPG data on those channels on my Win 7 Media Centre. I'm a little reluctant to do a full recover on Media Centre given the amount of scheduled data I would loose. Is there a better fix?

Have you enabled these channels in your IceTV profile? And have you scanned for additional channels in the Media Center and assigned the correct listings to those channels?

[csutak40]

Since the release of the official Win7 IceTV Interactive client, it has come to our attention that there is an issue with the guide processing in Win7.

Guide loaded via loadmxf seems to be "sticky" in that subsequent guide loads containing updates do not always overwrite the existing entries resulting in old data appearing in the EPG. This issue is obvious for some of the current affair style programs where the topic of the program may not be know until shortly before the show goes to air, typically users will see that the generic description is still visible even though the website and other compatible devices show the latest data.

I had something similar happen today, but it was not a current affair show and not on 7Mate.  It happened with Toppy/TED and I just presumed it was some weird anomaly, but now I wonder...

I noticed that there was only one timer set for 7.30-9.30 and couldn't understand why.  I then discovered that there was a timer set for Packed to the Rafters and another for Packed to the Rafters-Between the covers in TED, so there was no timer available for any other programs.  Only one of these actually uploaded to the Toppy (the first) so the only solution I could think of was to manually delete the timer from the Toppy and upload TED again.

[OzRob]

We are actively trying to find a solution to this issue and will release an updated Interactive client once we have a solution.

Are we there yet???

[OzRob]

We are actively trying to find a solution to this issue and will release an updated Interactive client once we have a solution.

Are we there yet?

[OzRob]

(once more for effect)...ARE WE THERE YET?

[OzRob]

Is anyone able to give an update on this issue? Even a small one?

This is the single most annoying issue with the scheduling at this point in time. For me it renders IceTV as an unusable source for guide data. At the moment I have ABC set to use the inband broadcast data 'cause the episode descriptions for some shows (Four Corners for eg.) wouldn't update. The other week I missed an episode of The Event 'cause IceTV originally published the wrong time and the subsequent update was not picked up by the Media Center.

Not sure when my subscription is up for renewal, but there's no more money going IceTV's way until there's some movement on this.

[Doohana]

Guys, is there any likelyhood of an update on this issue or do I need to go shopping for a new EPG?

[OzRob]

Guide loaded via loadmxf seems to be "sticky" in that subsequent guide loads containing updates do not always overwrite the existing entries resulting in old data appearing in the EPG. This issue is obvious for some of the current affair style programs where the topic of the program may not be know until shortly before the show goes to air, typically users will see that the generic description is still visible even though the website and other compatible devices show the latest data.

Nearly got bitten by this with the series "Kidnap and Ransom". Part 2 of this series that aired last Friday night on ABC1 was initially incorrectly listed in the IceTV guide as being "Part 3", which it later corrected. This got picked up by my series recording and stuck. Hence when it came to scheduling this coming Friday's episode, the real Part 3, my Media Center thought it had already recorded it and didn't schedule it. Luckily I noticed it and manually set the final episode to record.

Until IceTV have a solution for this 'sticky' guide data that can't be overwritten, I suggest they introduce some sort of alert system that people can subscribe to that informs people of changes made to the guide when mistakes are corrected or data is updated. Otherwise IceTV is effectively useless for Window 7 Media Center users who want reliable recording of series.

[jgriffin]

I'm suprised nobody has posted the fix for this, it's a known problem that has been around for ages.

Simply schedule a task to do a re-index of the EPG data after your scheduled import. ICE could add this to their software quite easily.

You can either run the following command

%SystemRoot%\ehome\ehPrivJob.exe /DoReindexSearchRoot

There's also a task in the Task Scheduler Libary on Win7 that's ready to go. It's under
Task Scheduler\Task Scheduler Libary\Microsoft\Windows\Media Center\ called "ReindexSearchRoot". Just change the schedule to run daily or just after your ICE Import.

[Jaans]

@jgriffin

Just confirming - are you saying that running that commandline / task after the scheduled import fixes the issue?

[lukem]

I'm suprised nobody has posted the fix for this, it's a known problem that has been around for ages.

Simply schedule a task to do a re-index of the EPG data after your scheduled import. ICE could add this to their software quite easily.

You can either run the following command

%SystemRoot%\ehome\ehPrivJob.exe /DoReindexSearchRoot

There's also a task in the Task Scheduler Libary on Win7 that's ready to go. It's under
Task Scheduler\Task Scheduler Libary\Microsoft\Windows\Media Center\ called "ReindexSearchRoot". Just change the schedule to run daily or just after your ICE Import.

To the contrary, the software has always executed this task after an EPG load. In fact, a previous beta would also wait for it to finish before scheduling new shows. The success of this task seems to depend on whether Windows Desktop Search is installed, and whether Media Center has registered with WDS.

Sometimes, this task fails, no matter what, and the way around that is to remove WDS from Programs & Features > Add/Remove Windows Components then add it again, followed by running the "RegisterSearch" task.