Windows 7 WMC stopped updating EPG

Well, I for one am staying with EPG Collector now and have switched off the MS EPG updates completely. ....

Does the "MovieGuide" functionality work 100% if you do this ?

(the underlying question is Does the freesat ota epg contain the correct genre for films so that the MovieGuide is happy ... and does not have a mix of films and other drama tv series, for example .. )
 
Hmmm. A bit difficult for me to comment as Movie Guide isn't a feature I use very much. I just had a browse and it certainly shows different movies for different genres. Whether they are the correct genre is another matter but it looks OK at first glance.

Poster download is a bit patchy. Not sure whether this is down to the MS database or the EPG data.

Comedy.JPG

Drama.JPG

Horror.JPG
 
Rather oddly, I just noticed my "New:"s are back after last night's update, despite me not changing anything. Most strange...
 
Thanks for looking at that :) (and I appreciate that there still might be some MS data involved in your MovieGuide screenshots)

I use the MovieGuide a lot, and wondered if it populated at all with just the Freesat epg data/genres.

This particular bit of functionality is tricky to get working using the alternatives (i.e. mediaportal, nextpvr etc etc ) with freely available epg data (ota or radiotimes for example).

Next time the MS feed fails I might have to give it a try ...
 
Rather oddly, I just noticed my "New:"s are back after last night's update, despite me not changing anything. Most strange...

Doh! Fixed this now. Its annoying that EPG collector's default working folder is under the logged in user's local area, which I never use. I'd put my "live" EPG collector .ini files in a different location but was adding the edits to remove "New:" to the versions in my local folder.

Anyway, removing "New:" using EPG collector DOES work :)
 
Slight update: All is still working well with EPG collector. I now have two collections running as scheduled tasks: One which grabs 99% of my channels using the Sky TV preset and another which grabs the ITV channels using the Freesat preset.

One thing I did notice yesterday, however, was that the search function in the EPG was no longer working and hence series links had fallen over. Even though WMC was set to index automatically under Indexing Options, it looks like this was not happening. A quick Google suggests that this is a fairly well known bug.

I added a new scheduled task to force a re index by running...
%SystemRoot%\ehome\ehPrivJob.exe /DoReindexSearchRoot
...one hour after my EPG grab, and now it all seems to be working again.

Note: You have to add this by running Task Scheduler as Administrator (otherwise it won't let you save the new task), and the task itself has to be set to run as a user account with Administrator rights. I also have it set to run "whether user is logged on or not".
 
Me too. Is it really that difficult?

Please up vote and repro here:
Sign in to your Microsoft account

Done.

The more that bleet about this problem the better .... the days of fixing something because it no longer works reliably are seemingly *long* behind us ; we seem to need a clamouring crowd to get anything fixed thesedays :( I never would have believed that MS would leave loyal customers in this swamp of intermittancy, but this is happening way too regularly thesedays to believe otherwise :(
 
I was asked at The Green Button if I could put together a guide to how I set up EPG Collector, which I have done, but I can't see how you attach files there so I'm putting it here instead. Hope that's OK. :)
 

Attachments

  • Installing and setting up EPG Collector for DVB-S 09-Mar-2016.pdf
    648.8 KB · Views: 1,839
***!

edit - having just checked, mine run through to June.
 
Yep mine too (well the 11th now). At least someone or something is picking up on the outages now.
 
I voted too, but it's getting very tiresome.
 
There is an alternative called EPG123 which automates importing EPG data from Schedules Direct into Media Center. The app was born in The Green Button forums and is free. However you do need a Schedules Direct account which carries a yearly charge. I will be making the switch if Microsoft don't come good by the weekend.

epg123 | Take Control of Your Windows Media Center Electronic Program Guide
 
Well the EPG guide listings have now run out despite being reported to the MS brick wall. So as stated above I have now switched to EPG123.

All is setup and working perfectly. In addition to actually having listings, the EPG is further enhanced with:
  • Thumbnail pictures for all shows/movies within the guide.
  • Correct series and episode numbering.
  • Better First Run identifiers.
  • Better Series identifiers.
  • HD flags for shows/channels.
The Schedules Direct subscription does cost $25 a year but it is well worth it for reliable, quality data and active support.

EPG123MCL.PNG
 
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