This thread is being started at the request of Chris.

I installed the TV Pack on my system on 8/9. Aside from not getting the clearQAM support I had hoped for, everything else worked fine. I had scheduled several series and programs to record and also installed the TVTonic plug-in to record Olympic events. All worked fine until last week when I noticed that VMC had stopped recording my serials. Upon investigation I noticed that the Guide data had been lost. I tried to do manual downloads, but they failed even though I got popups telling me they had completed. No Guide data was available. By the weekend the Guide situation had resolved itself as I now had program data once again. Unfortunately, on Monday I noticed that my scheduled recordings for Sunday evening had not recorded. After reading some of the threads in here about Guide data not updating I checked and found the dates of my Guide data to be the same as those having problems. It showed the last download of data being 8/17-8/31. Having been told by Chris to wait until last night's automatic Guide update to see if it resolves the problem I went into VMC this morning and checked the About Guide Listings info. Apparently, it did update overnight, but it now showed the dates as being 8/17-9/7. This makes no sense as the listings are supposed to be for only 2 week blocks. If it updated why is the 8/17 date still present? I also still can't record shows whether by schedule or instantly. If I try to schedule or record instantly the Guide will say "This program will record" and show the red button but nothing ever does record. Pressing the record button on the remote does nothing beyond causing the "This program will record" message to appear in the Guide. The proper ehome services are running in the background.

I'm at a loss to understand why recording is no longer possible since every other aspect of VMC seems to be working fine. This loss of functionality happened at or near the same time as the loss of Guide info. Since it worked fine long after the TV Pack installation I don't think it has anything to do with that.

I live in New Zealand and have the TV Pack installed, I get my guide data from the satellite and I have not been able to record since Monday Morning either. I have not had a problem with the guide data showing but my scheduled recordings say that they will record but just don’t do anything when the time comes. I can time slip but can't hit record.  This might be a wider issue?

I will do what I can to investigate this, but I have a machine even in my office which was affected by the guide data but does not have any of these symptoms. The difference there is my machine was installed as required by this release. Not sure if that may be the difference.

Well, I am done reinstalling Vista. What a pain. Apparently, HP has changed their recovery program so you can no longer just reinstall the OS as it was with my previous XP system. The only way to recover the OS in Vista on this HP is to do a complete wipe and reinstall of the hard drive. I did an East Transfer first to save all my documents and SOME of my program settings, but you still have to go in and reinstall every program individually afterwards. I lost all my Olympics downloads from the TVTonic plug-in, but I will get most of that back tonight when it redownloads, hopefully. Media Center is back up and running and I can once again record programs instantly and by schedule. Still no clearQAM, though. I hope Hauppauge comes up with a proper driver to give me this one little thing soon enough.

I still don't have any idea what broke VMC, but I looked at the Guide Info and it still has dates of 8/17-9/7. I am worried that a subsequent Guide download or Windows Update may break it again. If it does, I'll live without it because I am not going through all this headache again. If it happens I'll just live without the PVR. I already have one on my HDTV. I really wish the Windows developers would work on fixing things instead of adding more features that just seem to make the OS less stable with each iteration. There's still too many things that happen in everyday use that shouldn't. Lots of little, annoying things that make life difficult. And after I was asked to start this thread by an M$ mod I got not a single response. Thanks for nothing. Good night...

CycleWriter,

I'm sorry for the trouble you've encountered, but I think some of your comments are a bit harsh considering the circumstances. You made the decision to install the TV Pack onto your system, as well as the decision to wipe it out and reinstall. Neither of these were at the direction of myself or any other MSFT employee.

I have made multiple posts trying to understand your issue, as well as spent a minimum of 2 hours of my working day investigating internally with other teams within eHome. The investigation is still an open item which I'm actively following up on.

For anyone else that may be having this issue, I will do what I can to see it to resolution and post my findings.

Sorry, but this thread annoyed me and I wish to stand up for chrisboedy.

I've seen a few posts from chrisboedy on this topic and I think it clear that he has been investigating and looking into the issue. Looking back at the post time stamps there was only about an hour after the thread was opened before chrisboedy replied. How quick do you want?

I do appreciate the frustration you feel at recordings not working, trust me that would make me angry as well. However if you choose to install unsupported software, in this case TV Pack then you have to be prepared for whatever happens. Indeed the reason I've been watching this thread is that I'm trying to assess how stable TV Pack is before making the upgrade myself.

So, please just take a breath and pause for a moment before venting on here. It's clear that chrisboedy is one of the good guys. Lets not push him away.

First off, I have said I appreciate Chris' help. He's about the only one from M$ I see in these forums regularly responding to anyone. Secondly, please quit laying the blame for this on my installation of TV Pack. My system, like many others, was working fine for more than a week before this problem surfaced. It coincided exactly with when I lost all my Guide data so it appears that a download or Windows update may have been the culprit. Regardless, there are people with and without the TV Pack that have reported the same issues. Whether or not we were supposed to install it or not M$ has to investigate our issues because the likelihood is that these problems will occur on OEM systems once they start hitting the market. If it's a problem with TV Pack it won't matter how a user got it, it will still have to be fixed. And if it's not related, then it is an even bigger issue for M$ as it will affect innocent users on a larger scale.

Finally, I apologize for my obvious frustration and the comments it engendered. That's what spending an entire day and a half reinstalling an OS and all that entails will do for one's demeanor.

All things being equal, I think we need to thank MS on this one.  Many of us are running, shall we say, suspect versions of the pack and they are still supporting us here.  I'm as frustrated as the next person and beginning to get some WAF pressure but I'm sure things will clear up soon.  That said, if we don't get some info soon I'm going to let my girl start posting and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

:)

Phillyjaq

An update on my 'no record' issues.

I have rolled back all updates that installed after the 18th Aug and restored to a point on this date, un-installed KB950126, set up tuners again and rescaned all the channels, remapped the guides from the satellite to the STB channels, left the guide updating all night but this morning still no guide data for the STB channels, Freeview data is there but I can still not record any channels.

Until Monday morning everything had been working fine for over a week with the TV Pack installed and series recording. Could the problem be that it is tring to download the guide and there is no information for NZ? or does the data come from the satellite?

any other suggestions I might try?

Edd,

I will note here that we did experience a longer than expected delay in getting fresh data down the pipe that the TV pack consumes from

That said, it's fair to expect that this data should be completely updated by the end of business day tomorrow barring any unexpected failures.

I will look into the issues reported as much as I can. Please note however that even if you have installed the TV Pack as you explained, it's still not a supported solution due to the hardware not being defined as intended by the OEM. As such, the issues you are experiencing could potentially be due to this and I may not be able to get to the root of your problems.

As I said, I will do all I can to help. I'll see if I can run these errors past some poeple this week and provide any details I come up with.