Not happy Jan!

[csutak40]

I have written about this here before, plus, I phoned IceTV three times, emailed them three times.  I spoke to someone the first time, when they made a suggestion and told me to phone back if that didn't fix the problem.  It didn't so I phoned back.  The person I spoke to the second time found something weird in the database (NCIS LA was shown as a repeat in one spot, but not in another) told me he will speak to the technician about it in the morning and get back to me.  As he didn't, I reported the problem with an email. No reply (except for the usual automated one).  About a week later (as the problem kept reappearing) I sent another email (with the same job number) still no reply.  I then phoned up again - got voice-mail. (which is also something that seems to happen more and more often)  On the 21st, I got an apologetic  email back from the person I spoke to the second time, acknowledging both the emails and the last phone-call, assuring me that "I will personally ask one of the senior tech to give you a call tomorrow to assist you."  Still holding my breath.

In the meantime things have gotten worse.  My initial problem was that, even though I set the show to record first run shows only, Media Centre kept recording repeats.

I don't know if, while not talking to me, someone had been fiddling with my account to find a resolution, because next week's NCIS LA is NOT set to record for a change, but then again, neither is anything else after Sunday afternoon ???

I only noticed this, because yesterday, I did something I rarely do, I set a recording through the widget, simply because I happened to see an ad for a movie on Sunday night, and it was handy to set it that way.  This afternoon, I noticed that it hadn't set itself to record.  I thought I must not have done it properly, so did it again.  Still nothing.  I then opened Media Centre to check to make sure that it isn't set. I then discovered that there is nothing set to record after Sunday afternoon.  So, I opened the interactive, and set the movie to record again.  It finally acknowledged the fact that I tried to set a recording, but it is only queued, not actually set. I then looked at all the shows that are meant to record next week, all of them are queued only.

What is going on?   >:(  I always thought that customer service was great at IceTV, but lately it seems to have slipped lots of ways.  There are quite a few small, but annoying problems that never seem to get attended to (how long ago did HD 7 & 9 change their names, yet the widget still hasn't been changed, for instance) How long did we wait for Channel 31?

[dippy]

Hi,

I'm one of the Ice support team.

First off, my apologies for the delays in replying to your email and not getting back to you on the phone. The support tech who said he would 'make sure someone called you back' is currently away on holidays but we will speak to him about it when he gets back to find out why the message didn't get passed up the chain.

Regarding the delays with email unfortunately we've been snowed under with the buggy release of our new iPhone app and have been slower than we would like in recent weeks in replying to email. As you probably know, we're only a small team and are all working as hard as we can to make sure you once again receive the great support you know us for.

I was the person you spoke to early in December about your issue with with NCIS. What I said at the time was the timer event was coming FROM your Windows box. The NCIS program wasn't being scheduled by us, but was being scheduled by your Windows Media center. So the only way to clear it would be to clear the schedule on Windows directly.

I've just checked your account again and it seems the same thing is still happening. I see NCIS is scheduled (from your box) next Tuesday.

The way to fix this is to remove the series recording on Media Center itself. I don't know exactly how to do it on XP (I only have Vista Media Center), but on Vista, you:

- Go to TV+Movies
- Go to Recorded TV
- Click on "View Scheduled". This will show a list of scheduled recordings on the box
- Locate NCIS for Tuesday night. Click on it
- Click on "Series Info" menu, then click "Cancel Series".

That will cancel the series on your Windows box and it won't record anymore.

If your options are vastly different from what I have explained above, look for a page that shows you the upcoming recordings on Media Center, locate NCIS on Tue Night and delete the schedule. Make sure you delete the series and not just the one episode. Let me know if you still can't find it, and I'll get one of our other team with XP to give you exact instructions.

Also, looking at your account, I can see that your scheduled recordings are all set to record. Can you confirm that the upcoming recordings are still there? If not, please call our support line on 1300 564 803 and we'll work out what's happening.

In closing, yes it unfortunately took a lot longer than we would have wished to release guide data for the community channels like Ch31. We were trying to work with the channels to get a common guide data format that we could both use to allow the guide to be automatically downloaded to our servers. It was taking way too long so in the end we hired someone to manually enter the data into our system.

We are aware of 7HD and 9HD not being renamed on the widget. That requires an update to our widget software which was delayed because of the iPhone app and other issues. It's on our list and we should get to it in January.

David.

[csutak40]

Firstly, thank you for the reply.  I really appreciate it.

I've just checked your account again and it seems the same thing is still happening. I see NCIS is scheduled (from your box) next Tuesday.

What is weird about this, is that NCIS LA is also on tonight, but it isn't set to record tonight, only next Tuesday.  It was on last night as well, it didn't record then either.

The way to fix this is to remove the series recording on Media Center itself.

That will cancel the series on your Windows box and it won't record anymore.

After quite a search, I did find the scheduled recordings.   There were three:  Law & Order SVU, 24 and NCIS  (not NCIS LA).  I must have set them years ago, I honestly don't remember ever having done so, but obviously, I did.  Yet, it never recorded L&O that was a repeat, nor NCIS, come to think of it.  I have now deleted all three, I re-checked and NCIS LA is still there, but of course, it may disappear after a while, or after I reboot.  I didn't manually delete it, because I am curious to see if it will delete itself.  As I said, the schedule was set to NCIS, not NCIS LA.  Also, every time I manually deleted it, the options given is to "do not record" it also gives an option to "record series", which I presumed meant that it was not set to record series.  So, I will report back if, having deleted the scheduled NCIS will get rid of next Tuesday's recording of NCIS LA

Also, looking at your account, I can see that your scheduled recordings are all set to record. Can you confirm that the upcoming recordings are still there? If not, please call our support line on 1300 564 803 and we'll work out what's happening.

Yeah, they all reappeared a day or so later, so maybe the scheduler was having a rest for Christmas?  ;D

[csutak40]

OK.  This is crazy!  I have just double checked, there is definitely no series recordings set in Media Centre for anything.  Yet, for next week, both NCIS LA (twice) and Law & Order SVU (once) is scheduled to record.   AFIK all of them are repeats.  There are no ep names mentioned for NCIS LA, so I will have to do some research to see just what eps will be showing, but L&O are definitely repeats.  There MUST be a way to fix this.  If I have to check every recording to see if it is correctly set or not, then what is the point of IceTV?  >:(

[prl]

... what is the point of IceTV?  >:(

"you'll never miss your favourite shows again" ;)

[petestraining]

 :'( Hi everyone, I am new to all this "ice tv" thingo..I purchased a new 7100HD Plus nearly two weeks ago, I decided to set up the free 3 month Ice Tv membership, I did exactly what was required in the guide on how to set it up, and since then I have been left wondering what kind of sick joke is this "ice tv", I am wondering why anyone would ever want to put themselves through all this garbage just to record shows. You see I am a Computer Tech with 17 years experience in all things PC etv, and try as I may I simply can't get this rubbish thing to work. I note in this forum the sheer number of dissatisifed users, with a littany of similar problems to myself, "ICE TV PEOPLE, WHAT IS GOING ON?????" With my old Optus iQ box a series recording was one step process, here we have various registrations, set up protocols, and a mind bending number of things that seem to go wrong, leaving people without the recordings they set to record, Myself I have it set up on my TRF7100HD Plus, have registered, activated my account, also installed the "ice tv" app on my Samsung Galaxy S running 2.2 froyo....the only thing is when I go to the 'guide" using the 7100 remote it seems to take forever for any channel content to show up, When I log in to the web account and set three shows to record they failed to record, they did not show up in the guide on the box as set to record, then I tried to set a simple one time recording using the smartphone app, and same result.
If this were a Doctor showing this level of competence, he would be struck off...if it were a teacher, he would be sacked...as you can see I am pretty pissed at this sham of a service and I can't imagine why after my FREE period ends, why I would possibly consider paying money for what is without doubt the most frustrating, ridiculous, fraud of a service. My prediction by 2012 this company will fail miserably, I know this because I've read these forums and posts herein, and I am but one of so very many others that are just like me "RIPPED OFF" AND PISSED OFF

[prl]

Hi, petestraining.

It's hard to work out exactly what problem you're having. When you say that when you "go to the 'guide" using the 7100 remote it seems to take forever for any channel content to show up," what exactly do you mean? What do you mean when you say that the content doesn't show up? It takes a long time to open the EPG screen, or it takes a long time for that screen to show any EPG data? Can you quantify "takes forever"? Ten seconds, a minute, ten minutes, an hour, ten hours?

You do know that IceTV works by the PVR contacting the IceTV server to pick up the EPG and recording timers? And that it can take up to 30 minutes from when you set recordings on the IceTV server and when the PVR contacts the server to pick them up? And that the server only allows the EPG to be picked up once an hour? That if the PVR is off, the recordings won't be sent until it's powered on (and the 30 minute wait still applies from when it last got sent timers? And that there are sound reasons why it's done this way?

For more details on this, see How Ice TV Works on the Topfield Forum (it's based on a similar post I made on the Beyonwiz forum, but adapted for Topfields).

There are also reported to be more problems with IceTV on Topfields than other models. It's not clear in those cases where the actual blame lies. I haven't had a Topfield for some time, so I'm not familiar with the details. The level of problems seems to vary wildly between Topfield models and firmware versions. The Topfield forum may supply more information about this, if you can't find anything useful here or on the DTV forum.

IceTV has been operating for more than five years. I can't see them folding too soon. And I've put my money where my mouth is. I have a paid-up subscription well into 2013 :)

Have you tried contacting IceTV Support?

[Shadow]

I purchased a new 7100HD Plus nearly two weeks ago

IceTV is not the problem, the dodgy hit & miss 7100HD firmware is the problem.

I got sick of the 7100 not fetching the guide and returned it to the place of purchase.

Quite a few 7100HD's were being returned because of the guide fetch issue.

I got a 2400 instead and it fetches without any problems.

My Beyonwiz DP-P1 fetches without issues and has done so for 6 years.

The 7100 series is better that the crappy 7000 series in a lot of ways, but fails miserably at fetching the guide.