Messages

Try plugging in the HDMI cable to the other port on the IceBox; during beta testing hardware assistance was only working on one of the two ports.

Is there a way to confirm which of the ports (In relation to the power lead) has the hardware assistance?

Yes, I have lost a few of my timers again, and there are lots of blank areas in the EPG.

As for the missing timers, I have a vague recollection that IceBox timers set from the EPG only work locally, i.e. do not get captured by the IceTV servers.  It could be that the Soft reset loses the local timers.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong with this one.

My new IceBox is connected to a Panasonic 65inch TV and nothing i seem to do in the TV menu seems to fix my overscan problem, is there any adjustment i can make in KODI?

Yes there is.

1. From the main Menu, select the Settings "Cog" for the Settings page.
2. On the Settings page select Interface Box to show the Settings/Interface page.
3. On the Settings/Interface page menu, select Skin and then -Zoom.

This allows you to adjust the overall size of the picture.  I find the for my LG, about -6% does the job.
 

There are a few shows where it never works (eg Seven News) but when it does work, watching is a dream.

I don't know why 7 News wouldn't work, but there are a few things that may cause Add Skip to fail. A small reception glitch at the wrong time.  It is also worth being aware of the fact that there is a bit of serial post processing done (one program at a time) on the recorded material. At a rough estimate 1 hour of recording requires 1 Hour of Post Processing.  I have no idea of timeframes really, but it is not seconds or a few minutes.
If for example, you recorded 9 and 7 news at the same time and tried to watch them both an hour later, there is a chance that 9 news had finished post processing, but 7 news hadn't (or vice versa).


 

Do I need to do a hard reset and start from fresh?

If you don't have any recordings, a hard reset might be worth a try.
A hard reset will wipe them. If you don't care the go ahead.

If you do have recordings you want to keep, you could try copying them off onto another computer (provided you have space.
I find that a computer on the same network will show ICEBOX in the Network folder. 
Open it and navigate to the recordings folder and copy the contents to somewhere that has enough space (if you have space).

When the Icebox gets to the Login point, copy them back and log back in.   

Note: I haven't tried this, so there may be issues.  It may be that you may need to follow with a soft reset the recapture the recordings.

Good Luck.

Thats the trouble with all this daylight saving nonsense. 

• The cows don't turn up at the right time,
• the curtains fade
• PVR timing gets all stuffed up.

Maybe if we pray hard enough, we can get Joh Bjelki to rise up and fix all this stuff up.

It seems the image I embedded in the above post disappeared, https://ibb.co/j84hm12

I see your problem and I suspect there may be a bug behind it, which I can't help with.
It looks like when you set up a timer in the way you have, the Icebox sets the end time 40 hours ahead, resulting in impossibly long recordings.
I also found that if you try to stop or delete the timer, nothing seems to happen. I think it does in the background, but a restart is required to make it apparent.

Before the update, the timers worked as expected. Since the update (and before I reset the config), they have been kaput.

You will need help from the IceTV guys. It may be that the last update introduced a bug. You are using your IceBox in a way that most IceTV enthusiasts wouldn't think to use and as a result the bug may have slipped through the beta testing.

I am not interested in recording a particular program. I am interested in recording blocks of time.

You have an unusual approach, which is basically to record everything on every primary channel (Except ABC) for a block of time and skip to the programs you are interested in later. And an IceBox is one of the few PVRs that can give you the four tuners that will allow you to do that. Do you realise you can probably record secondary channels at the same time as well, i.e. 10 Peach, 7 Flix, etc.?

However, your approach presents a few problems.
1. Your recording approach circumvents most of the advantages of having access to IceTV. IceTV offers a fairly sophisticated way to manage the recording of programs of your choice. I happily pay the $8.99 a month, as I get great value from it. Your recording approach nullifies the all the advantages, but I am not sure whether the IceBox will work without an IceTV subscription though.
2. Unless you are pretty rigorous in deleting the recordings, you will start to run short of drive space fairly quickly. 1TB is a lot of space, but 20 hours of recording a day is also a lot.
3. Add Skipping requires some post processing of the recorded file, and it takes an hour or so per hour of recording to set all the add markers. For the long sessions of time you are recording, you may find that the post-processing struggle to keep up with your recordings. That doesn't stop you from watching the programs though.

However, you are perfectly entitled to use your IceBox in any way you want.

I double checked my regional settings. It defaulted to Sydney and changed it to Hobart. Times are the same.

The change to Hobart time won't have much impact, except you will now get the Hobart program guide rather than Sydney's. There probably isn't a lot of difference though.

As for using the phone app, when I go to the Google Play Store, it says my Samsung Galaxy S23 FE is not compatible. It has Android 14.

I use an Iphone, but I gather Android 14 may be a superseded operating system. Can it be updated to a later version?
In any case, I don't think the app will help a lot for the way you are doing your recording, apart from showing the current TV guide. However, you should still be able to use the IceTV website.   

Regards
Tim

The timer issue is, I used the UI to set the timers, along with the web config via http://lan ip:9981/ which is convenient with PC, 2 of the timers appear to start recording but never stop. Attempts to stop the recording says errors. Attempts to play the recording show displays the text "error". The amount of space (after over 12 hours of recording two channels of HD) seems to be very minimal. I need to restart the box to stop the recording. As it doesn't properly stop, so the shows don't show in the list of recordings. It doesn't start at the correct time, either.

When you say that you used the UI to set the timers, do you mean the HTTP}\[IceBoc IP adderss]:9981/ UI?

If so, I can see why you might have problems.  It may be possible, but it would be very easy to stuff up.

The best way to set a timer is to use IceTV App or the IceTV TV guide website at https://www.icetv.com.au/.  You need to log in with the same username and password as the IceBox.

You simply select a program from the guide and "Schedule a new recording".

You can also go to the on-screen Program guide on the IceBox and select a program to record, but from what I understand, timers set in this last way aren't captured by the IceTV servers.  They are only local to the IceBox.
I could be wrong on this last one though. It may have been fixed by now.

If you are setting the timers from the app or the website, then my apologies.

One thing worth being aware of is that a reset will take the Regional settings to their default settings. From recollection I think that was Australia/Melbourne. It doesn't sound like that would be your issue as that should just move the Start/finish times to be an hour out (depending on your time zone), not endlessly recording and the other strange behaviors.
It certainly sounds like there is something very strange going on with your time and date settings.

Mate, do you realise how difficult that would be, both getting it into the software then modifying the UI??!!

To be honest, no idea, but the system must know which files have been processed.
From a user's perspective we don't really have any way to know what is IceTV stuff and what isn't.  One thought, would it be possible to add a text flag to the Local EPG data?
That is under your control.

Is there a log on Icebox which will maybe show what's happening or do I need to enable debug logging for Kodi before anything will show up?

Something to show that the processing on a recording is completed would be nice.
Somewhere you can find which recording is currently being processed would be good as well.

No rush though.

The one hour out could also be a symptom of daylight savings, there could be some weirdness until Sunday for the days after Sunday, but scheduled recordings will happen correctly as the guide data is updated.

I assume you have checked the regional settings?

Is it really important to you have "LCN's" available?

The answer there is that it depends on how you control the IceBox.

If you are using the standard IceBox Remote, it doesn't add a lot of value apart from offering a consistent order of channels when using the backend data.

However, if you use a keyboard or some other type of remote control, it can make a big difference, especially when an alternate remote control has number buttons.

For example, if channel nine is missing the LCN you need to enter the related five-digit LCN that is assigned when the LCN is not captured. Whereas if the LCN is captured, you simply press the "9" button.

 

[Proposed Solution:]

Proposed Solution:  For every mux that has channels without an LCN, tune to a single channel on that mux for a few seconds.

Suddenly it all makes sense.  Well Done DMC.

I recall a similar issue with a TV EPG.  When you turn a TV on and look at the EPG some channels are populated with data and others are not. If you select a channel with missing data it populates. It seems the LCN has a similar issue.

Why (100...)?
Because that is now it presents and I cannot see any more.

If I recall correctly, the "100..." is showing the first three digits of a five-digit number that the system assigns when the channel scan fails to capture the LCN of a channel. As usual the software truncates the least significant digits. If it truncated the Most significant digits, you would have seen "...001", "...002", "...003", etc.

In my circumstance I find that a full capture of all the LCN is an uncommon occurrence. I usually get most of them, but there are usually one or two that get missed.
However, the LCNs can be manually edited using the Web UI at Configuration, Channel / EPG, Channels tab.

I keep feeling that I am missing something with this thread as most of the other members are aware of this and haven't suggested the solution. 

Does it need an active IceTV account to work?

To work as intended, yes.

I am sure it is technically possible to disable the IceTV component and run just the LibreELEC/Kodi software, but if you wanted to do that you would have been better off just buying a NUC and loading the LibreELEC and Kodi software.

You may not understand what IceTV actually does. Here are some of the benefits:

• IceTV provide a processed Extended Program Guide (EPG) that identifies the repeat status of programs on the guide i.e. if it has been shown on that channel previously it is tagged as a Repeat. If not, it is tagged as a New program.
• IceTV interacts with your PVR to set timers remotely
• Allows Series recordings to be set up
• IceTV provides a web page and a phone app that are used to manage your recordings

When you combine 1., 2., 3 and 4. you have the capability to manage your recorder to set recordings remotely.  All you need is access to the internet. I have personally set a timer to record a program while I was on holiday in New Zealand.

You can also set a series timer to record all new episodes of a series. Once set up the timer waits for a new episode to appear and it sets your PVR to record it, even if it's a couple of years later at 4:00 AM in the morning. You can even set it to record on any channel, so if it pops up on another channel you still get it.

Add to that automatically skipping adds and more, you have a service that is well worth paying for.

IceTV really try to do their best to provide a great service. I encourage you to give it a try.  While you are at it do a bit of googling to see if anyone else is offering anything similar.

By the way I have no connection with IceTV other than the fact than I am a happily paying customer and have been for well over ten years. I would be lost without them.

I very much recommend you give it a try.