Can't download guide listings

I've had Media Center running fine for about 5 months - since I installed Windows 7 on my htpc. Recently I've noticed that some channels in the guide show "No data available" where the TV show name would be. I've tried re-downloading the guide by goingto settings -> guide -> download new guide but this gives me an error after about 1-2 minutes saying it couldn't download the new guide. It also says I should right click on the media center icon in the system tray and open up the update log. When I do this, I don't have an option to view any log file. I have these options:

Open Windows Media Center
Update Data Now
Cancel Update
Enable Automatic Updates (this is checked)

So I'm at a loss. I can't find the Update Log to see what went wrong when I tried to manually download the guide. I also can't update any of the guide listings. I've done a bunch of searching and found other people who have had this problem, but I have yet to find a solution. It shouldn't be a firewall issue since I haven't made any changes to those settings.

Also, I should be clear that SOME of the channels show programming info. For instance, channel 7 (CBS) has no data, but 7.1 and 7.2 do.

Thoughts? thanks

Check to see if there are any Windows updates available. Install them, then reboot. That's what I did and my guide started downloading again.

kegobeer, thanks for the suggestion. MY updates are set up to install automatically, but just to be safe, I checked and had some updates it said I needed to install. I did this, rebooted and still can't download the new guide listings. I even checked my firewall and just to be sure, added Windows Media Center to the safe list.

Does anyone else have a suggestion? There *has* to be a reason why this is not working and it drives me nuts that I can't figure it out. Perhaps a corrupt guide database or file or something?

I had a similar issue before. I had to uninstall WMC, reboot, and reinstall WMC and reconfigure it. It cleared up the issue I was having.

There *has* to be a better solution than uninstalling WMC and reinstalling it. Can you *just* uninstall WMC without yanking the entire OS? Probably. I may have to give that a try. thanks

balikian said:

There *has* to be a better solution than uninstalling WMC and reinstalling it. Can you *just* uninstall WMC without yanking the entire OS? Probably. I may have to give that a try. thanks

Click to expand...

Here you go,

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/5023-windows-features-turn-off.html

I'm guessing your channel lineup has changed and MC can no longer figure out what these "new" channels should be called. It would be helpful to know the details of your channel lineup, such as OTA, cable, FIOS or whatever? Do you have Time Warner, ComCast or what? It may be that you just need to use Edit Channels along with ZAP2IT to figure out which listing to assign with Edit Listing. If you have QAM, you may need to manually Add Missing Channel. I have some of those along with all QAM channels having manually assigned lineup listings and channel numbers.

Bye.

derekimo said:

balikian said:

There *has* to be a better solution than uninstalling WMC and reinstalling it. Can you *just* uninstall WMC without yanking the entire OS? Probably. I may have to give that a try. thanks

Click to expand...

Here you go,

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/5023-windows-features-turn-off.html

Click to expand...

Yes this. Just make sure to reboot after unchecking the box. After a reboot, then check it to re install.

I have read several several forums and thousands of people are having this guide problem, this is unacceptable!!!!

I'm asking for a refund, I just paid $200 for 2 upgrades on 2 separate computers to windows 8.1 professional, so I can use WMC, less then 30 days ago, if it's not working properly, they need to refund me my money.
If you bought a dvd player and it played the dvd and pause didn't work or it didn't display the chapters or fast forward or reverse didn't work, what would you do??

According to this thread (see link below), MS changed their EPG provider for WMC effective 07-Jul-2015.

View topic - Media Center EPG Cutover

Between all the problems with getting it to work properly and now finding out Windows 10 doesn't even have a media center and you will lose wmc anyways if you upgrade to Windows 10, sooo, I got the refund approved today and I feel justice has been served...PROBLEM SOLVED!!

Use Silicon Dust's HDHomerun DVR (Beta)

SiliconDust.com has stepped up with a new DVR application (currently in Beta) that will replace the abilities of WMC for Win 10 (& 7/8/8.1).

Cost is $30/yr (basically covers the cost of the EPG)

More info @ Silicondust ? Index page

I just bought the Hauppauge 1229 WinTV-HVR-2255 that comes with sofeware and the ability to record one channel and watch another, I'm really hoping this is the end of my recording tv journey lol, I want to be able to watch snd record tv separately with a working guide, I hope I'm not asking too much, I'm willing to pay for it once, what I refuse is giving cable companies 150 a month for 900 channels I dont watch just to be able to record 3 channels that I do watch and record.

Been there, done that.
I have Scumcast cable, but there is not one piece of their equipment in my home.

Motorola Surfer Docis 3 cable modem
2 x Silicon Dust HDHomerun Prime Cable Card network appliances (6 Tuners total)
I am currently running WMC 7/8.1 on 2 PCs connected to the TV, and I have a dedicated server for recording shows.
Everything is Gigabit Ethernet or 1750 AC wireless.

The server uses both WMC 8.1 and SD HDHomerun DVR software to record onto 6 TB of HD space.

The SD is pre-beta at this point but it should be generally available 4Q of this year. This is the only replacement for recording/watching DRM'd channels like HBO or Showtime.

timob58 said:

SiliconDust.com has stepped up with a new DVR application (currently in Beta) that will replace the abilities of WMC for Win 10 (& 7/8/8.1).

Cost is $30/yr (basically covers the cost of the EPG)

More info @ Silicondust ? Index page

Click to expand...

Will it work with non Silicon Dust tuners? I have one on my HTPC, well really on the lan, but on my personal box I have a Hauppauge 2250. Handy for those rare times I need a 3rd tuner to record and, in the NFL season, I have my own little instant replay box.

I dumped Snap Stream for WMC because they stopped supporting it. Now it looks like Microsoft is doing the same thing. It sure would have been nice if they would have given us a heads up on this change. I spent 2 days trying to get WMC to download program information only to find out that they changed providers and are saying sorry about your luck if it does not work right for you.

Jetmec said:

I dumped Snap Stream for WMC because they stopped supporting it. Now it looks like Microsoft is doing the same thing. It sure would have been nice if they would have given us a heads up on this change. I spent 2 days trying to get WMC to download program information only to find out that they changed providers and are saying sorry about your luck if it does not work right for you.

Click to expand...

See my post on media center for the Americas.
http://www.sevenforums.com/media-ce...-media-center-guide-information-americas.html

To fix it run through the setup of the TV channels in media center starting off with Zip/Postal code then search for channels and accept guide software agreement and you will get new guide listings with updated channel info. It will take about 20 mins.

I did that several times and I get the following:
"Depending on your location, some channels will not have metadata in your guide. This presents as "no information available" in the guide, however you will be able to tune and watch that channel." The stations affected are my local network stations.

Ok so now tonight it is working??????????WTF and I did nothing but go to the bottom of the guide andback to the top.

This didn't require a whole lot to get it working. Upon the getting the download failure several times like everyone when downloading the Guide Data within Media Center, however the message I got did say to check the tray icon. So I did just now minimize windows media center and right clicked on the Windows Media Center Icon in the tray and selected "Update Data Now" this worked almost immediately. By the way I did also redid my TV setup through the settings menu prior to this with no luck, I don't know that the combination of that and the system tray icon fix resolved the issue. But it did go pretty quick after doing it in this manner. I also verified I was up to date on system updates before doing any of this.