Very interesting post.  I had run out of ideas after switching off real time protection on windows defender and uninstalling all the updates (ie restoring to prior to May 15) and not making any progress. 

Very keen to know if this has any affect.  A

F1nkster:

Turning off Automatic Updates did not fix the issue for me either.  So I turned them back on.

I have another clue however, a clue which explains why Dell customers are the primary complainers.  I went into Options in the Defender configuration.  In there, you will see 2 checkboxes under "Choose if Windows Defender should notify you about:"

I checked both those boxes.  I then scheduled a recording from 3:00-3:30am, a time when recordings always fail.  This morning, I found that the recording indeed failed at 3:07am.  I also had a Defender icon in my system tray.  I looked at it.  At precisely 3:07am, Defender alerted me that this process ran:

C:\Program Files\Dell Support Center\HWDiag\bin\PCD5SRVC.pkms

Defender gave me the option of permitting or denying this task in the future.

The above process appears to trigger Windows Update, hence why we were seeing Windows Update messages in the event log, but I think that is coincidental.

For now, I told Defender to deny the above process.  I will schedule another 3am recording for tonight. 

I would prefer not to uninstall Dell Support Center, but if it has to be, then so be it.

 

 

VERY VERY Interesting!   I had not had this problem at all; that is until I read this post.  Stupid me.....after reading the post, I went in to check my Dell Support Center settings to see what they were set at.  In doing so, it wanted me to acknowledge a few things (license, etc.) at which point it really didn't do much of anything.  Then I heard my wife yelling downstairs "The TV is giving the error you were talking about" (I had warned her).  I ran upstairs, and confirmed the error and restarted the computer...but just got a black screen; I restarted the Receiver service to get it back.  I pray that I just didn't give our system the kiss of death.

Either this is a very interesting development; or a very strange coincidence.

 

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Irish Jersey 77:

With auto updates turned off over night, the same problem happened.....receiver service failure sometime between 2-5 AM.  No TV signal from the extender box this morning and an overnight recording failure.

My TV went into RC mode sometime between 11PM CDT and 2AM CDT.  Restarted WMC Receiver service and it came right back.

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Jon
Carrollton, TX

Dell XPS420, 2.4GHz Quad Core
3GB 800MHz RAM, 320GB 7200rpm HD
NVidia 9600GT 1GB w/Display Port
BD Drive + DVD-RW, ATI DCT
Dell 3008 WFP 30" 2560x1600 Monitor/TV

JesseHerrold:

Almost every post is from a Dell user.  Only one post from Sony.  No posts from HP, Velocity Media, or others.

 

That's incorrect. I have had the issue with A VM, and posted it.

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Eagles may fly, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines (see bio for exception)

Shiba3420:

That's incorrect. I have had the issue with A VM, and posted it.

 

Is there a similar product to Dell Support Center on the VM machine that would call up windows update at a specified time?

On a side note, I would happily uninstall Dell Support center, i dont see a tremendous need for it.

Joe,

It seems the trouble started about 2 weeks ago, in many different locations, and I think you're right in assuming that it originated with a s/w update, probably received automatically. 

After virtually flawless performance since I got my new system in 2005,  I suddenly received the message "Tuner unavailable" and haven't been able to watch or record anything since.  In my case, though, I have an analog cable tuner (at least, I think it is - I don't have digital service from my provider), so this problem may not be restricted only to the subject matter of your investigation. 

I read an article in the Toronto Star yesterday which sent a chill up my spine.  In effect, it said that digital cable providers, under the guise of copyright protection law, are contemplating restricting access to digital signals to prevent the recording of HDTV programs for time-shifting or other purposes. Being naturally parnoid about such things, I wondered if this was happening to me.  I called my provider, Rogers Cable, and they said they knew nothing about it.

The companies couldn't do this readily with analog signals, and apparently they've been stewing for years over the use of the VCR for recording TV progams.  Now they have the means to regain their long-lost control over the situation.

F1nkster:

I have another clue however, a clue which explains why Dell customers are the primary complainers.  I went into Options in the Defender configuration.  In there, you will see 2 checkboxes under "Choose if Windows Defender should notify you about:"

I checked both those boxes.  I then scheduled a recording from 3:00-3:30am, a time when recordings always fail.  This morning, I found that the recording indeed failed at 3:07am.  I also had a Defender icon in my system tray.  I looked at it.  At precisely 3:07am, Defender alerted me that this process ran:

C:\Program Files\Dell Support Center\HWDiag\bin\PCD5SRVC.pkms

Hmmm, is everyone else looking at this?  I went into Windows Defender history and saw that the first time I got an entry similar to this was 5/15 at 11:32 AM.  I'm going to be poking around both in Defender and the support center, though I suspect Defender is more the offender here.

Description:

This program has potentially unwanted behavior.

Advice:

Permit this detected item only if you trust the program or the software publisher.

Resources:

driver:

PCD5SRVC{3F6A8B78-EC003E00-05040000}

file:

C:\Program Files\Dell Support Center\HWDiag\bin\PCD5SRVC.pkms

Category:

Not Yet Classified

 

expletive:

Is there a similar product to Dell Support Center on the VM machine that would call up windows update at a specified time?

No. However I can't rule out one of serveral apps I have installed doing the same, although I usually config for automatic notificaiton, but not automatic download or install.

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Eagles may fly, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines (see bio for exception)

The first incident of this that I noticed was the Barbra Walters special that aired after the Oscars this year.  I happened to be watching live, otherwise I might not have caught it.  I suspect that the flag has been in use for at least that long and perhaps was only brought to light when it impacted a significant number of people watching a mainstream show.

I could not set the offending Dell Support Center process to "Deny" in Defender -- I kept getting an error.  So I just uninstalled Dell Support Center (DSC).

Prior to this, I would receive the RC message every time I rebooted.  Now that I uninstalled DSC, I do not get the RC message anymore when I reboot.  It works perfectly without having to restart the Receiver service.

I am recording several programs this evening and overnight for further testing.  Although I have already recorded a few programs this afternoon and they've recorded in their entirety without any issue.  I haven't experienced this for awhile now, and am very optimistic.

The offending DSC process is actually a part of PC Doctor.  Defender identifies it as PC Doctor -- you can see it is associated with DSC because of the file path.  So it is possible that other vendor PCs (non-Dell) may have some version of PC Doctor that installed with some other package.

I will post again tomorrow with the results of tonight's recordings.

boxerboys:

VERY VERY Interesting!   I had not had this problem at all; that is until I read this post.  Stupid me.....after reading the post, I went in to check my Dell Support Center settings to see what they were set at.  In doing so, it wanted me to acknowledge a few things (license, etc.) at which point it really didn't do much of anything.  Then I heard my wife yelling downstairs "The TV is giving the error you were talking about" (I had warned her).  I ran upstairs, and confirmed the error and restarted the computer...but just got a black screen; I restarted the Receiver service to get it back.  I pray that I just didn't give our system the kiss of death.

Either this is a very interesting development; or a very strange coincidence.

Update on my own post earlier.  Since I had opened Dell Support Center for the first time ever this morning, I got the Restricted Content message twice (once when I first did it and just now at 5:20PM).  I too got the message on reboot both times.  I have since uninstalled Dell Support Center and do not get the error on reboot.

Definitely appears to be Dell Support Center related in some way as I NEVER had the problem prior to opening the application for the first time today.   I do not have Windows Defender; but do have Microsoft ForeFront Security (which from what I know uses the same technology behind the scenes).

Dell and Microsoft need to work together on this; ATI looks to be in the clear.

 

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I posted on another thread that I have not had this problem as of yet and it would make sense to me that the Dell Support Center is causing it seeing as how I've NEVER opened it (and will likely never open it). I'm pretty sure I'm going to go home and uninstall it in fact!

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From what I can tell, Dell Support Center is a shitty piece of software. It's one of the first things I uninstalled when I got my XPS 420. I have no idea what it all does, but it seems to try to reconfigure every single application that's installed on a nightly base. I had the event log full of error messages every morning from Windows Installer trying to reconfigure everything I had installed. I googled those error messages and found that they were caused by Dell Support Center. I uninstalled it and never regretted it. The only downside is that I can't activate my one year free DataSafe subscription. Apparently, the only way to activate it is through the Dell Support Center. Since so far my system is not having the restricted content issue I'm starting to believe it is because of my decision to uninstall pretty much every tool/utility that Dell had preinstalled on the system. One of my biggest beef with OEMs is all the crapware they put on consumer machines.

Wow, I wish I had found this thread before I completely reinstalled Windows last weekend.  Not that it took long, but it would have been nice to try something else before the reinstall.  Oh well...

I had the same issue on my XPS 420, Vista Home Premium (no SP1), dual DCT.  I would guess that it happened around the 20th, but it is possible it was happening as early as the 15th.  I would get Restricted Content every time I tried to use the computer.  I thought I had tried everything, but I guess not. 

For the record, reinstalling using the Dell-supplied DVD fixed the problem.

-Scott

superswiss:

From what I can tell, Dell Support Center is a shitty piece of software. It's one of the first things I uninstalled when I got my XPS 420. I have no idea what it all does, but it seems to try to reconfigure every single application that's installed on a nightly base. I had the event log full of error messages every morning from Windows Installer trying to reconfigure everything I had installed. I googled those error messages and found that they were caused by Dell Support Center. I uninstalled it and never regretted it. The only downside is that I can't activate my one year free DataSafe subscription. Apparently, the only way to activate it is through the Dell Support Center. Since so far my system is not having the restricted content issue I'm starting to believe it is because of my decision to uninstall pretty much every tool/utility that Dell had preinstalled on the system. One of my biggest beef with OEMs is all the crapware they put on consumer machines.

I just looked on my PC and it appears as though I have already uninstalled the support center as well. I couldn't remember if I had or not but it is nowhere to be found and I can now see why I haven't had the problem (if in fact is is the support center causing the issue).

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