Suddenly getting duplicate scheduled records

[webminster]

EPG123 1.0.0. I noticed today looking through the upcoming record schedule, that I've started seeing both 7pm and 10pm scheduled records of Kelly File on FOXNEWS. Both each days are labelled as the same episode number in the description. It didn't do this before, it's like it suddenly decided it has to record both. I don't have the two time slots scheduled, only the 7pm one. I deleted the series record and added a new one back, 7pm new-only, but still both time slots are scheduled again. Also reran EPG123 update, no change.

It's not the only one... also see that "Devious Maids" is recording duplicate on Monday, 7pm and 11pm.

Is this a guide data (Schedules Direct) issue, or something else? No changes to the WMC machine, no crashes, otherwise things look OK.
-Alan

[garyan2]

EPG123 1.0.0. I noticed today looking through the upcoming record schedule, that I've started seeing both 7pm and 10pm scheduled records of Kelly File on FOXNEWS. Both each days are labelled as the same episode number in the description. It didn't do this before, it's like it suddenly decided it has to record both. I don't have the two time slots scheduled, only the 7pm one. I deleted the series record and added a new one back, 7pm new-only, but still both time slots are scheduled again. Also reran EPG123 update, no change.

It's not the only one... also see that "Devious Maids" is recording duplicate on Monday, 7pm and 11pm.

Is this a guide data (Schedules Direct) issue, or something else? No changes to the WMC machine, no crashes, otherwise things look OK.
-Alan

Not a Schedules Direct issue. Is your reindex task completing successfully? This happened to someone else quite a while ago and I couldn't recreate it. I just checked my server WMC which has been live for quite a bit and it properly scheduled the Devious Maids shows with epg123 v1.0.0. My test bench for FOXNEWS also properly scheduled recordings of The Kelly File though this is with the up-and-coming v1.0.1.

When the guide is updated, WMC is supposed to re-evaluate/validate all the scheduled recordings. You'd think this would be an easy catch for it, but evidently not for you. If you want to try v1.0.1 before you do something drastic, let me know... I'll send it to you to try. There is a possibility it will help/fix it.

[webminster]

How can I tell if the reindex task completed successfully? No error in the EP123 log, and the Task Scheduler MC reindexsearch task says last run successful...What's the difference with 1.0.1? Haven't made any changes to any configs, and been fine up to now so not sure what would have gone sideways, and not sure I want to do anything overly dramatic on my production box unless necessary. I can try 1.0.1 if you think there's some reason it would change things.

[webminster]

What's also strange to me is that (as far as I see right now), it's limited to a couple of shows... For instance, "Mr. Robot" isn't duped on the schedule, the second airing later that night is correctly marked skipped. It was maybe a month ago or so I did the switchover to EPG123, is this some indication of a corrupted index?

[webminster]

An oddity... Kelly File is on the recording schedule twice each weeknight... except for some reason, on Tuesday, 8/9. The 10pm airing is skipped and marked as "another air will be recorded on 8/9." So it does recognize that one airing as a repeat...

[garyan2]

v1.0.1 includes some flags in the mxf file to force an overwrite/replacement of a schedule entry in the database with the differing schedule entry in the file. If the reason your schedule is being duped is due to some difference between the program entries that we can't see, then this may fix it. I actually expect it to solve the scenario like we had with the BrainDead series as well as the "missing" programs in the guide due to overlapping programs.

If there are no errors in the trace.log file for the reindex, then it looks like that is working correctly ... no help there.

One thing you might want to try as well is to run mcupdate.exe -PvrRecoveryTask. I just tested it out on my test machine and the scheduled recordings and history were still there. I did see the ehsched.exe run in the task manager, so it did something.

[webminster]

Do you have info on what the proposed "mcupdate.exe -PvrRecoveryTask" does? Just wanting to be careful with the main box and not turn an annoying issue into a much bigger issue...

Tried a couple of other things, turning off the "new flag overrides OAD" option, nothing gets rid of the duplicates. I noticed that "Devious Maids" duplicates this Monday, but for some reason the finale episode the week after does not. Seems almost random what it's doing.

[spanner]

I am having a similar issue i am just now looking into. My wife loves gameshows and records many on the game show network ch 807 comcast portland OR. an example is winsanity, all season it records multiple examples of the same season and episode often with up to 5 or more duplicate recordings. I also tried turning off the new flag in epg123 without effect. This is not so much a problem as an annoyance for me. I mention it because it could be another example of the OP's issue.

[glorp]

Oddly I see exactly the opposite weirdness. I have long running daily weekday shows (mainly late-night talk and a couple of daytime syndicated) that have started to fail to schedule episodes. I have the series set up as New+Rerun in all cases. But for the last week or so I will be "missing" an episode or two. No pattern, just like the Monday and Tuesday shows are scheduled then not on Wed, Thurs, and then scheduled again on Friday.

However I don't think it's at all EPG123 or even S-D data. I've seen that occur regularly for years (one reason Gary, I continue to check logs no matter what). The fix always seems to be to delete then re-add the series for my cases. After learning more about the scheduling stuff as a result of using EPG123 I kind of wonder if this isn't related to broadcasters changing their series scheduleIDs and then showing maybe old episodes as "Reruns" or fillers at dead TV periods like in the summer or holidays, but that originally had an old scheduleID? Not sure any of it is at all related but it's also curious mine started up at the same time as the "extra" episodes for others.

[webminster]

I tried the delete/re-add on the worst one already, came right back with the double scheduling. Don't know if this means the database has corrupted and if so, why... is almost like there's some "new" flag on the 10pm airings that fool it into having to record. And why there's isolated instances where it recognizes and doesn't record the second airing.

Had to deal with all those cases glorp mentions myself as well over years, but this is new and unusual for me, especially why it's been fine and now suddenly went sideways.

[garyan2]

PvrRecoveryTask ... looks like it will just restore/import the last recordings file in the backup folder. I was hoping it would kick off a schedule verification and correct your recording schedule. The test I did on my small sample showed no harm.

I'm going to attach epg123 v1.0.1beta1 which adds the isOnlyWmis flag to all schedule entries and the isMergedService flag to all services (stations). This may force an overwrite on the offending programs and straighten things out. Anyone willing to try it out, you're more than welcome. I've been running it on my test bench and haven't noticed anything wrong, but such things are hard to notice.

epg123_v1.0.1beta1.7z

[webminster]

Tried running 1.0.1b1 on the machine for the updates this morning. Doesn't appear to have caused any issue, run was clean, logs shows the MXF load and reindexer calls completed exit status 0. No change on the schedule, unfortunately, still have the duplicate record of "Devious Maids" and the daily double-record of Kelly File...

[garyan2]

Tried running 1.0.1b1 on the machine for the updates this morning. Doesn't appear to have caused any issue, run was clean, logs shows the MXF load and reindexer calls completed exit status 0. No change on the schedule, unfortunately, still have the duplicate record of "Devious Maids" and the daily double-record of Kelly File...

Well that's disappointing ... not unexpected, but disappointing nonetheless. I don't have an answer for this one. I was hoping to find a way to force this back into compliance without resorting to drastic measures.

I don't believe this is a epg123 or Schedules Direct problem. This issue has existed prior to epg123 and there is no rhyme or reason on the outside. Maybe I'll dive into the WMC dlls to see if I can find the strange logic they use to determine if a program should be recorded as part of a series or not.

[webminster]

The fact that it's hitting mostly this one program, now, is the strange part. A program that hasn't exhibited that behavior up to this week, starts without notice. Why I was looking for some explanation like an erroneous "new" flag or something that would make sense.

I suppose I can try an objectStoreRecoveryTask and start over, or maybe Live TV Setup with hopes that it'd regenerate a new database. Or work around for the moment and just set the record for around 7pm, and save the more drastic actions if the problem gets worse...

[Space]

I'm pretty sure this is some sort of DB corruption that happens under certain circumstances. It is not specific to epg123, as it happens with Microsoft/Rovi data as well.

I usually see it when a show with multiple airings of the same episode appears in the guide initially with generic data (so WMC is set to record them), but then they are later updated to have episode specific info. WMC continues to keep all the episodes that were originally with generic data set to record.

Also, if you manually tell WMC to not record one of the episodes, it will continue to leave the other airings of that same episode set to record, which you would not expect to happen if WMC thought they were all the same episode.

Running ObjectStoreRecoveryTask DOES fix this problem, which is an indicator to me that the problem is with the incremental updating of the DB and not a problem with the data in the feed itself.

It may be possible to structure the update of these records in such a way to workaround this problem, like maybe doing a delete and add instead of a modify or something like that (I really don't know much about how the data is updated), but I am pretty sure the problem is a bug with WMC and not a problem with the data feed.

[spanner]

I'm pretty sure this is some sort of DB corruption that happens under certain circumstances. It is not specific to epg123, as it happens with Microsoft/Rovi data as well.

I usually see it when a show with multiple airings of the same episode appears in the guide initially with generic data (so WMC is set to record them), but then they are later updated to have episode specific info. WMC continues to keep all the episodes that were originally with generic data set to record.

Also, if you manually tell WMC to not record one of the episodes, it will continue to leave the other airings of that same episode set to record, which you would not expect to happen if WMC thought they were all the same episode.

Running ObjectStoreRecoveryTask DOES fix this problem, which is an indicator to me that the problem is with the incremental updating of the DB and not a problem with the data in the feed itself.

It may be possible to structure the update of these records in such a way to workaround this problem, like maybe doing a delete and add instead of a modify or something like that (I really don't know much about how the data is updated), but I am pretty sure the problem is a bug with WMC and not a problem with the data feed.

looks like this worked for me. I no longer have multiple recordings of the same episode Gameshow network winsanity and a few others. after running ObjectStoreRecoveryTask I had no guide data or scheduled recordings listed. I then ran epg123 and after its indexing all seems to be back.

Click the Start button.

In the Start Search box type in:task .

Locate Schedule Task in the Program menu and launch it.

Expand Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > Media Center and highlight it.

Locate ObjectStoreRecoveryTask,which is present on the middle pane ,right click on it and select Run.

After a break of say 15-20 minutes , rerun epg 123

[webminster]

I tried this on a test machine. Couple of odd things, didn't work for me:
1) Assume this is normal, after running the recovery task, WMC will pop a message about database issue, and tell you it's downloading the guide. No biggie.
2) Notice that the EPG, search, etc icons are gone, replaced with Live TV Setup.

I have a copy of 1.0.1 beta1 of EPG123, it failed on the reindex or the reload running it after the recovery taskL

[8/2/2016 5:06:58 PM] [ INFO] Import=True , Match=True , NoLogo=False
[8/2/2016 5:06:58 PM] [ INFO] import filename = epg123.mxf
[8/2/2016 5:09:21 PM] [ERROR] Error: The following error was encountered while processing the file. Aborting.
[8/2/2016 5:09:21 PM] [ERROR] Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
[8/2/2016 5:09:22 PM] [ERROR] Error using loadmxf.exe to import new guide information. Exit code: -1
[8/2/2016 5:09:22 PM] [ERROR] Failed to import .mxf file. Exiting.

Assumedly, because the import failed, still just a Live TV setup icon, no EPG icon.

[webminster]

OK, switched back to EPG123 1.0.0, it also fails with the same error. Did the objectrecoverytask corrupt things worse? Do I have to rerun LiveTV Setup after the recovery task, /then/ rerun EPG123?

[8/2/2016 5:28:57 PM] [ERROR] Error: The following error was encountered while processing the file. Aborting.
[8/2/2016 5:28:57 PM] [ERROR] Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
[8/2/2016 5:28:58 PM] [ERROR] Error using loadmxf.exe to import new guide information. Exit code: -1
[8/2/2016 5:28:58 PM] [ERROR] Failed to import .mxf file. Exiting.
[8/2/2016 5:28:58 PM] [ INFO] Beginning cache cleanup routine.

EDIT:: FWIW, the objectstorerecoverytask run has the following as last run result:
Class not registered (0x80040154)

[webminster]

Tried rerunning Live TV setup. Got through to the last step, where WMC reported it encountered a "serious problem". I did get the EPG icons back, no channels... Tried running the EPG123 import again after, stil crashes at 100% during loadmxf with the "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" error.

After a reboot and another try at TV setup, still fails. Can't load, no channels.

Is there any way to recover short of a whole WMC reset? Definitely not doing this on my production machine...

[garyan2]

If I am reading everything correctly, where everything went wrong was trying to import the epg123 mxf file prior to running TV setup again. From experience, I can tell you that importing an epg123 mxf file prior to setting up the TV tuners will fail. Not only fail, but corrupt that database so that it won't work now even if you do setup the tuners.

You will have to run the objectrecoverytask, perform the TV setup (denying ToS), run the epg123 GUI, and then run the epg123 update.