Guide - ITV Channels - 'No Data Available'

[Neil Hicks]

I can see from other posts that there are general issues with missing
programme listings within the TV Guide. I've tried some of the suggestions
like changing ITV1 to ITV 1 and refreshing the data, but to no avail. All
the BBC stuff is there, as are most of channels, but ITV1 and ITV2 will just
not play ball! It's most annoying as it's rendering the whole thing pretty
much useless.

If anyone has a miracle fix, please let me know.

More generally, is this a Microsoft bug or an issue with the UK's
'Broadcasting Dataservices'? I need to know who to shout at!

I'm using the MediaCentre version that came with Vista Ultimate (64bit) and
a Hauppauge WinTV -500- TD (a dual tuner USB jobbie, albeit the current
drivers only currently support it in single tuner mode).

Thanks. Neil.

[Nigel Barker]

Post by Neil Hicks
I can see from other posts that there are general issues with missing
programme listings within the TV Guide. I've tried some of the suggestions
like changing ITV1 to ITV 1 and refreshing the data, but to no avail. All
the BBC stuff is there, as are most of channels, but ITV1 and ITV2 will just
not play ball! It's most annoying as it's rendering the whole thing pretty
much useless.

Is the data really missing or can you got into Settings->TV->Edit->Add listings to channel ?
Normally the problem is that the channel names in the transport stream don't match up with what the
guide has them as e.g. BBC1 vs. BBC 1 or BBC One or BBC 1 Anglia etc

Post by Neil Hicks
More generally, is this a Microsoft bug or an issue with the UK's
'Broadcasting Dataservices'? I need to know who to shout at!

It's a Microsoft problem as they architected the Electronic Program Guide & channel scanning in such
a complicated way.

Post by Neil Hicks
I'm using the MediaCentre version that came with Vista Ultimate (64bit) and
a Hauppauge WinTV -500- TD (a dual tuner USB jobbie, albeit the current
drivers only currently support it in single tuner mode).

That's a pity as I understand that the EPG for DVB-T (Freeview) is much better & more stable in
Vista compared to MCE 2005. So my immediate thought of suggesting that you upgrade won't help
much:-)
--

Cheers

Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur
MCE MVP

[Neil Hicks]

Nigel,

Many thanks for taking the time to respond.

After trying just about every possible work-a-round, I discovered that,
within the 'Add listings to channel' option, if I allocated the
'listingless' channel number to a channel with a valid listing and saved it,
then set it back to the original channel and saved it, everything was as it
should be. This action clearly forces some sort of database update.

This routine had to be performed for every channel that indicated 'no data
available' but, once fixed, seems to be stable even after an update.
Clearly, it's a Microsoft issue and not a broadcast issue, as you've
suggested.

Thanks again.

Neil

On Wed, 28 Mar 2007 16:38:18 +0100, "Neil Hicks"

Post by Neil Hicks
I can see from other posts that there are general issues with missing
programme listings within the TV Guide. I've tried some of the suggestions
like changing ITV1 to ITV 1 and refreshing the data, but to no avail. All
the BBC stuff is there, as are most of channels, but ITV1 and ITV2 will just
not play ball! It's most annoying as it's rendering the whole thing pretty
much useless.

Is the data really missing or can you got into Settings->TV->Edit->Add
listings to channel ?
Normally the problem is that the channel names in the transport stream
don't match up with what the
guide has them as e.g. BBC1 vs. BBC 1 or BBC One or BBC 1 Anglia etc

Post by Neil Hicks
More generally, is this a Microsoft bug or an issue with the UK's
'Broadcasting Dataservices'? I need to know who to shout at!

It's a Microsoft problem as they architected the Electronic Program Guide
& channel scanning in such
a complicated way.

Post by Neil Hicks
I'm using the MediaCentre version that came with Vista Ultimate (64bit) and
a Hauppauge WinTV -500- TD (a dual tuner USB jobbie, albeit the current
drivers only currently support it in single tuner mode).

That's a pity as I understand that the EPG for DVB-T (Freeview) is much
better & more stable in
Vista compared to MCE 2005. So my immediate thought of suggesting that you
upgrade won't help
much:-)
--
Cheers
Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur
MCE MVP

[Chris W]

Post by Neil Hicks
After trying just about every possible work-a-round, I discovered that,
within the 'Add listings to channel' option, if I allocated the
'listingless' channel number to a channel with a valid listing and saved it,
then set it back to the original channel and saved it, everything was as it
should be. This action clearly forces some sort of database update.
This routine had to be performed for every channel that indicated 'no data
available' but, once fixed, seems to be stable even after an update.
Clearly, it's a Microsoft issue and not a broadcast issue, as you've
suggested.

Thanks for posting this Neil, I had exactly this issue with the ITV channels
in my region. I think it might be because the channel is listed as "ITV 1",
but the epg lists it as "ITV Carlton Central" etc.

I used your suggestion: changed the assigned channel in the epg from "ITV 1"
to "Inactive Channel" and saved; then changed back to "ITV 1" and all was
well.

Thanks!

Clearly this is still an issue with Vista Ultimate Edition as of today
(11April07)

Oh, BTW, I tried using the recommended epg issue reporting form at
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/windowsxp/mediacenter/epg.aspx but it didn't work
at all! Ho hum....

Thanks again,
Chris Warwick

[Nigel Barker]

Post by Chris W

Post by Neil Hicks
After trying just about every possible work-a-round, I discovered that,
within the 'Add listings to channel' option, if I allocated the
'listingless' channel number to a channel with a valid listing and saved it,
then set it back to the original channel and saved it, everything was as it
should be. This action clearly forces some sort of database update.
This routine had to be performed for every channel that indicated 'no data
available' but, once fixed, seems to be stable even after an update.
Clearly, it's a Microsoft issue and not a broadcast issue, as you've
suggested.

Thanks for posting this Neil, I had exactly this issue with the ITV channels
in my region. I think it might be because the channel is listed as "ITV 1",
but the epg lists it as "ITV Carlton Central" etc.
I used your suggestion: changed the assigned channel in the epg from "ITV 1"
to "Inactive Channel" and saved; then changed back to "ITV 1" and all was
well.
Thanks!
Clearly this is still an issue with Vista Ultimate Edition as of today
(11April07)
Oh, BTW, I tried using the recommended epg issue reporting form at
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/windowsxp/mediacenter/epg.aspx but it didn't work
at all! Ho hum....

In what way didn't the EPG Error Report page not work? It looks OK to me from following your link.

There is a generic problem with DVB-T (Freeview) channel listings in MCE. MCE takes the name of the
channel from what is in the broadcast data. If the names do not match _exactly_ then 'No data
available' appears in the guide for there is indeed no data for the channel of that name. Examples
would be where the broadcast name is BBC1 whereas the guide has. BBC 1 or BBC One or BBC 1 Anglia
etc

The one-off fix is to go into Settings->TV->Edit->Add listings to channel & map the listings for the
channels (which will be there) to the channels without data.
--

Cheers

Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur
MCE MVP

[unknown]

That was fantastic advice. I done exactly as you said. I'm in Scotland so my version of ITV is called stv. So, I went into "Settings -> TV -> Guide -> Add Listings to Channel". I then selected stv and told it to use the channel listings for BBC Xtra 1 (or some other BBC channel). I clicked "Save". Then I went back into the channel 3 entry (which now says BBC Xtra 1) and I changed it back to STV. This time, however, the STV was in uppercase when before it was in lowercase. I think this is what was causing the issue. When I clicked 'save' the channel listings reappeared. Wonderful. Thank you!

[John Lockwood]

Post by Neil Hicks
I can see from other posts that there are general issues with missing
programme listings within the TV Guide. I've tried some of the suggestions
like changing ITV1 to ITV 1 and refreshing the data, but to no avail. All
the BBC stuff is there, as are most of channels, but ITV1 and ITV2 will just
not play ball! It's most annoying as it's rendering the whole thing pretty
much useless.
If anyone has a miracle fix, please let me know.
More generally, is this a Microsoft bug or an issue with the UK's
'Broadcasting Dataservices'? I need to know who to shout at!
I'm using the MediaCentre version that came with Vista Ultimate (64bit) and
a Hauppauge WinTV -500- TD (a dual tuner USB jobbie, albeit the current
drivers only currently support it in single tuner mode).
Thanks. Neil.

There are (at least in my experience) various EPG problems, yours sounds
like one of the one I have experienced.

1. Periodically, the EPG files in Media Center seem to get damaged,
sometimes quitting and relaunching is all that is needed, and sometimes like
you found, you have to go back to the settings and re-associate some
channels with matching epg channels. However I have found that every so
often it seems to get so completely corrupted that you need to wipe all the
channel/epg info and set it up from scratch.

The above sounds like your problem and is one I have myself every so often.

2. With MCE 2005, it would sometimes 'forget' channels which are not on air
24 hours a day or which share a frequency (e.g. BBC3 shares with CBBC so
that during the day it is CBBC and in the evening it is BBC3). This would
cause it to then loose which EPG data to show. This issue is supposed to
have been improved/fixed in Vista.

Even though I am running MCE 2005 I have not had this happen to me.

3. A similar result to 2 above, might occur if your signal strength is
borderline such that some channels cannot be picked up all the time. If MCE
does not see the channel then it is going to forget it.

4. The provider of the UK EPG data (to Microsoft) does not seem to be
brilliant, they took for example FOUR MONTHS to add Film4+1 to the list.

[Nigel Barker]

Post by John Lockwood
3. A similar result to 2 above, might occur if your signal strength is
borderline such that some channels cannot be picked up all the time. If MCE
does not see the channel then it is going to forget it.

You can also get problems when MCE tunes in to a weaker signal from a more
distant transmitter rather than stronger signal from your local transmitter.
By judicious editing of the registry you can force MCE to only scan the six
MUXes from the nearest transmitter. It also greatly decreases the amount of time
to perform a scan. There is a detailed description of how to do it in this
posting http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/133114.aspx
--

Cheers

Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur
MCE MVP