WMC7 fails to re-establish my tuners in Live TV Setup

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bbragg

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WMC7 fails to re-establish my tuners in Live TV Setup

#1

Post by bbragg » Mon Oct 03, 2016 2:32 pm

Ok, I've been running my InfiniTV4 for many years and I typically only have problems with 1) the tuning adapter or 2) the guide data.

So there was a giant guide cluster the other day and BrightHouse was particularly affected here in Central Florida. I did all of the usual stuff like running MCUPDATE manually and also deleting the guide data from the \ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome directory, etc.

So I decided to re-run Live TV Setup after having disabled Media Center in Control Panel and then turned it back on fighting the above situation.

However, when I re-run setup there is a failure near the end with no detailed message other than reboot your system. The tuners are detected but fail to re-install. I've checked Ceton Diag and done the Clear Config and Discover Tuners. I've also done the Digital Cable Advisor thing ... and I still have my prior recordings that I CAN play.

But for the life of me, I can't get the final step of tuner installation to occur without an error. I've tried all sorts of stuff but I can't make it happen. The Ceton Diag shows everything running fine including my configured Cable Card. The tuners show up in Live TV Setup and I can select them but the final step in getting them configured never happens without this catastrophic error and it all just goes back to non-tuner position when I Finish out. I've uninstalled and re-installed the Ceton drivers, etc. No dice. Perhaps there's a more thorough cleaning that needs to be done?

I'm not sure what protocol is since I haven't had to come here in quite some time. I'm including a link to my last log file instead of posting it into the thread. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/462 ... ogging.log If that's not proper, please let me know.

Any suggestions? I've tried to move to the new EPG123 program as well and that seems to go fine but then ... no tuners after Finish, same as the normal way. These tuners have worked for years. Panic is setting in.

cwinfield

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#2

Post by cwinfield » Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:49 pm

I would say check event viewer in admin options, I see now that you tried rerunning digital cable advisor try reinstalling your ceton drivers and playready. Is the guide failing if so you could try a nearby local zip code.
Last edited by cwinfield on Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.

bbragg

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#3

Post by bbragg » Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:54 pm

Yup, checked Event Viewer and just had some MCUPDATE event issues around "nettv" and a bad PackageName. Seems like that's been going on for some time. Nothing else stood out. There was one about PeerToPeer networking but I think I've got that fixed.

I'll make another run at it later tonight when I get home. I think I'm approaching 40 runs of Live TV Setup. Sucked up my whole Sunday.

The guide setup isn't failing currently ... I think Microsoft got over whatever problem they had with the Rovi imports. I couldn't even get it to work with nearby zipcodes or alternate providers.

I'm also looking for threads with similar issues and seeing what people are doing to get the install to proceed. There's some kind of "value Not Found" error in the log and the tuners are released and the setup is moved to a cancelled state.

cwinfield

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#4

Post by cwinfield » Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:58 pm

I would definitely try reinstalling your ceton drivers, I've had some instances where thing just didn't go right the first time with them, especially since you reset or cleared them in the diagnostic utility.

bbragg

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#5

Post by bbragg » Tue Oct 04, 2016 2:24 pm

I will make a run at removing them and installing again. The thing is ... the tuners are seen just fine in WMC. WMC just won't go that last step to finalize the install.

I have to tear down my setup tonight for a new carpet installation but will try this again on Thursday.

bbragg

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#6

Post by bbragg » Sat Oct 08, 2016 4:59 pm

Well, after slugging it out with this thing now for more than a week ... I have finally figured it out. I went after it pretty hard, I'm a C/C++ developer for the past 30+ years and this seemed ridiculous to me.

I thought "mcupdate -MediaCenterRecoveryOption" would do it but that still didn't fix the problem. And my Ceton Diags were reporting that everything was just fine. That's when I realized that it was probably something outside of WMC that was mucking things up.

The answer is that something in .NET 4.6+ seems to have modified or deprecated a COM interface required for WMC7 to finalize tuner setup ... maybe any tuner but certainly the Ceton InfiniTV 4. I'm sure you can imagine what I had to go through to figure that out. It's not particularly obvious. And nothing in the new .NET stuff prevents WMC from "using" a tuner already configured. It's just when you have to go and re-setup a tuner ... at least on my system.

A lot of programs use the newer .NET stuff and so require the installation of the newer run-times, for example EMBY Server and EPG123. You have to stop these and uninstall the .NET run-time library from Control Panel / Programs. At that point you can get Live TV Setup past that ridiculously lame "TV Setup has encountered a serious problem" message. Once you get your tuners re-established, you can then re-install the .NET run-time (4.6.2 for me) without it breaking anything that a running WMC instance uses. Then you can re-enable your .NET dependent services like EPG123 or EMBY, etc.

Of course I tore all kind of stuff out of WMC trying to figure out what the problem was so now I also have to go put all of that back since I executed the "MediaCenterRecoveryOption". Still, it's nice to have my tuners back and I also didn't have to re-setup PlayReady ... thank God.

Our office shut down as hurricane Mathew passed by Central Florida so I had some a lot of extra time on my hands ... and a backup generator since it took my power out for the first half of Friday. Thank you Onan.

Just in time for college football today ... yeah baby.

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