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Thanks, Daniel.

Ned

The guide is empty for ABC TV HD (20) from 16/5 onwards.

Ned

There still seems to be some confusion between the two series. Last night's guide said that the episode was a repeat of an Australian episode, whereas I knew from seeing promos that it was a new episode of the UK series so I recorded it manually. If I hadn't, I would have missed out.

Regards,
Ned

So far, so good, though I've only watched one recording since making the change. Fingers crossed :-)

Thanks for that. When I looked at that settings page, for some reason I assumed it was read only. I changed the resolution, and also set the UI resolution limit to 1080. When I rebooted, it came up in HD.

Thanks, but my IceBox is plugged directly into the TV. I don't have another TV I can test it on. In any case, I didn't have any of these issues prior to the firmware upgrade, and the upgrade is the only change to my setup.

Ned

I don't know how the Update might affect video behavior. Note: That comes from lack of knowledge, not certainty.

However, from memory, I recall someone mentioning tweaking their TV to work with their IceBox.
The IceBox video is supposed to work best at 1920x1080 @ 50 Hz.
Is that the setting you are using?

Is there anywhere in your TV's settings where you can specify the screen resolution to 1920x1080 @ 50 Hz?

Much as I hate to say it, as I love the feature, but I suspect the video issues are coming from the ad skipping function.

Isn't the resolution set by the by the input source, i. e. the IceBox? When the box boots, it starts in 1920X1024, but shortly switches to UHD (3840x2160@60). I looked for a setting in the IceBox for the resolution, but couldn't find one.

Thanks, but my IceBox is plugged directly into the TV. I don't have another TV I can test it on. In any case, I didn't have any of these issues prior to the firmware upgrade, and the upgrade is the only change to my setup.

Ned

However, the most significant problem was with the ad skipping whereby after the ad break, the video repeatedly cut off and on, until finally there was just a blank screen.

That looks more like a HDMI issue.  Do you have a HDMI cable connected directly to your TV or is there something else in between, e.g. an AV Amplifier, a HDMI extender, HDMI splitter, HDMI switch, etc.)?

Sometimes with HDMI, something that interrupts the data flow can trigger the receiving device to go through a housekeeping check which results in a bit of flashing while the HDMI reconfigures itself. Sometimes the result can be a blank screen.  The more devices in the chain, the worse the flashing can get.

Usually a directly connected TV doesn't do that, but a bad cable may cause something similar.
 

I don't think HDMI is the issue. I am having the same symptoms on various recordings. Today, I was watching a recording of the PBS Newshour, when it started having intermittent black screens, then just went back to the menu. When I tried to restart it, it said "Failed to Start" on both Resume and Play from Beginning. I tried to reboot from the power menu, but the box crashed (looked like a kernel panic), so I did a long press of the Power button and it rebooted successfully. I then played the same recording, and it played without any black screens or other issues.

I'm also having a number of other anomalous problems. Sometimes when I select a recording to play, I just get a black screen. When I press "Back", it goes back to the menu, but I can see the recording playing in the background. When I select it again, it plays.

Something new today: I tried to watch live TV, but I get a message from TVHeadEnd saying "No Free Adapter Available". I rebooted a few times, but got the same result. I looked at the TVHeadEnd web page, and Configuration->DVB Inputs->TV Adapters is an empty folder. Something must have gone wrong during my efforts to watch the PBS Newshour this morning. I unplugged the tuners and plugged them in again, and they have come back. Unfortunately, I didn't do it in time to get today's recording of the PBS Newshour.

During one of the many reboots I've done this week, the box updated itself, so I'm on 11.6.2 now. It retained my channel settings, which is one good thing.

I have finally succeeded in getting the guide I had before. What I did:

• I went into my IceTV account and disabled all the channels I didn't want, and set all the desired ones to the correct channel number.
• In headend, I selected only the channels I wanted, and only one of the duplicates.
• I went to the Icebox to delete the group I had created in previous attempts. While I was doing that, the Icebox went to the boot screen, and when it came back, the guide had just the channels I wanted, in the correct order with guide data.

A quick test of the channel skipping on a program recorded last night looks good! Great work!

Ned

Thanks, Raymond. I'm doing that, though I'm assuming I can hit save at the end of a bunch of changes, and don't have to do it after each one.

No hints about the "use network name" column anyone?

Ned

I'm kind of getting there, but I'm having trouble with edits that I do to headend not being reflected in the guide. I deduced (and found verification in a forum post) that the LCNs over 10000 corresponded to headend LCN being 0. I changed all of those that were enabled to the correct number, but I'm still seeing the 10000 numbers in the guide. I have rebooted after each change attempt.

I have a couple of other questions. Some of the channels are repeated (for example there are two 10 HD). Should both be enabled or only one? If both are enabled, should they have the same LCN?

What is the significance of the "Use the network provided name" column. Should it be enabled or disabled?

Grateful for any help.

Ned

I finally gave up and did a soft reset. I now have guide data.

I just have to continue to work on getting a usable guide. And also finding out over continuing operation which other settings I've done that have been lost :-(

Yes, both of these things happened.

I'm also having problems getting the guide to look the way I had it. Whether I use backend channel number or not, I don't get anything I want. Some of the channel numbers are over 10000 randomly scattered among transponders.

Well, I rebooted and the update uccured. However, I now have no guide data. The guide is in the headend. How do I make the Icebox load it into the quide? I tried rebooting again (I thought the Icebox reloaded the guide on reboot), but no joy.

Ned

Thanks, Daniel. I'll reboot today.

Regards,

Ned