tvparty2nite

Sounds like the USA program guide service is still down, right? That is question #1. Question #2 is, my subscription expired, and I sure don’t want to send them any more money until the guide is working again. But now I can’t even find how to renew if I wanted to. The EyeTV North America guide links seem to redirect to the EyeTV app software. Are they even selling a North America TV guide service any more?

Glad to hear someone has filed a support ticket. Let’s see if they are still providing any kind of support. Since discovering the service outage, I have had to fall back on my backup OTA DVR, which is a Plex Lifetime Pass (pay just once) I bought a few years ago. The family prefers the EyeTV interface, but I may have to use this as evidence that Geniatech cannot be trusted to keep EyeTV running properly and the family has to get comfortable with recording shows using the Plex DVR. (I have been keeping the Mac mini on Mojave just to keep running EyeTV 3.) The Plex DVR has come a long way since the last EyeTV TV Guide outage, now during this outage I’m going to find out if Plex works well enough to dump EyeTV…

Found out from the other thread that build 7530 is now available through Check for Updates in the app. At first it looked like it wasn't working, it gave me the usual "server error." I fixed that by resetting the EPG data, starting over with my postal code and selecting my provider (Local Over the Air Broadcast). Then it loaded.

Thank you geedee, sounds like I'll give it a try! Is there a public link yet for 7530, or is it still only available on request from Geniatech support ? I do not see build 7530 on the EyeTV 3 support page, the Downloads list ends at EyeTV 3.6.9 (7528).

Ok, that is encouraging. I have a situation I would like to verify before I renew my expiring subscription. We are still on version 3.6.9. build 7528 because we have an HDHomeRun, and if I remember right, later builds dropped support for the HDHomeRun, until version 4 that restored it. What I want to verify is: Is version 3.6.9 (7530) required to restore program guide access, or will it work with 7528? (The Geniatech store currently says 7528 or later is needed for the program guide) Does version 3.6.9 (7530) support HDHomeRun? Is the new program guide info in fact TVGuide as mentioned earlier, and not the EyeTV EPG Program Guide? Because what is being sold on the Geniatech site is the EyeTV Premium EPG Service. For USA users like me, If you renew the one EPG product sold on the Geniatech web site (EyeTV Premium EPG Service), do you get the new TV Guide service without having to change anything? In other words, it is not a problem that the old service is EyeTV Premium EPG and the new one is TV Guide? Thanks to anyone who has the specific combination and can pass along info of success or failure!

Someone in our family asked me that and usually I think that’s reaching, but in this particular case, the timing seems to line up so I would believe it…but if so, chances are Geniatech would be waiting on some third party cloud provider to restore the server.

Yes, it looks like when the program guide service was broken a couple years ago. I agree that it looks like a server side issue and not anything we can fix ourselves. I will also submit a support request, but I am not optimistic since other threads have noted a lack of response from support on other issues. I hope we get what we paid for, since as I noted earlier, North American guide updates are still being sold on their site and so they must be supported.

More info: I tried to let it go ahead and list the first choice, AFN Satellite. But it just kicks me back into the All Channels view with all channels still set to ATSC/Open Cable, not the EyeTV Premium EPG NA I need. I also look in the EyeTV Store wondering if they had discontinued it, but EyeTV Premium EPG NA is still for sale. From that I conclude that it is still expected to work. But it is not working, and I suspect a server-side issue.

Also, yes, my EyeTV Premium program guide subscription is still current, not yet expired.

As of a day or so ago, EyeTV 3 stopped loading Program Guide information for my postal code. First, all channels went blank. I tried to refresh it, but then it never stops "Downloading", but no listings appear, all channel program listings remain blank. (Live channel tuning through my HDHomeRun works fine.) Eventually macOS reports Application Not Responding and I have to Force Quit. I tried resetting the EPG database, so EyeTV 3 then asked me to set it up from scratch, but then it hangs when it tries to retrieve available listings for my postal code (ZIP code). Before this started happening the other day, this setup worked great for many years. So on a different Mac I tried EyeTV 4, which I have but don’t yet using daily because of its shortcomings. It can show the listings from my postal code, but OTA Broadcast is no longer an option, it lists paid services like dish/satellite and YouTube TV. And some of those are listed twice. So OTA listings are inaccessible there too. Is anyone else seeing this failure of OTA program guide info, and odd duplicates in the choices for listings services?

This is a matter of goals and perspective. My Mac does much more today than it ever did before, thanks to Apple's changes. I suppose a Mac might do less than ever if it is asked to do the typical tasks of 10-15 years ago. Many, many of the problems you list are not Apple problems or user problems, but developer problems. Yes, I lost some tools. But I switched to applications maintained by their developers to stay current, and those are now some very powerful and flexible tools thanks to all of the advances in hardware and macOS. Apple is eliminating kernel extensions, a frequent source of both instability and security vulnerabilities. Many Mac users are freaking out about this, but I have already received notices from some developers that they have retooled their applications and drivers to use the new APIs available so that the old, flawed kernel extensions are no longer needed; they reassure me that they are going to be fine in Big Sur. I will support those developers who are forward-thinking and not stuck in the 1990s and whining about it. Steve Jobs would have laughed at that. He said you do not give customers what they ask for, you give them what they need. What customers need is a high performing OS that is matched to current needs. Current needs include high security, and compatibility with a cross-platform system of desktop/mobile devices. I also have iOS devices and to me, it's all one big computer because of how Apple has integrated them to move data from one to the other like the shared Clipboard. The serious need for enhanced security led to SIP, sealing the system volume, and other necessary changes. Oh, there is one thing customers actually want, and that is PERFORMANCE. While enforcing 64-bit code may not be completely necessary for this, it helps keep the platform from being bogged down by legacy code. I clean-installed Catalina and am finding I don't miss the 32-bit apps that were left behind. Apple Silicon is also a matter of the performance customers need. The A-series SOC in the iPad Pro already meets or beats many laptops, even though in an iPad it has no space, no cooling, and limited power! Everyone is looking forward to what performance can be turned loose when you give that chip room, cooling, and power. Combined with Intel's widely known failure to provide the CPUs they promised, resulting in today's Mac and PC laptops running hotter and less efficiently than they could. Apple had to liberate itself from Intel's failings, but unlike most computer companies, they had their own custom-made powerful, efficient CPU under development and now available. Customers did not ask for Apple Silicon, but once Apple rolled it out, customers said "Give that to me right now!" We want the additional power, we want the cooler operation, we want the longer battery life. Personally, I can't wait.

I installed 7528 over the weekend, and made the following observations to pass on. Up to this point I have kept our version at 7520, because later versions did not recognize our HDHomeRun. Some of these may not be news to you if you have installed versions after 7520: 7528 installed and worked fine, picking up all existing recordings and schedules. (After TV Guide stopped working, we have been scheduling using TitanTV because it was not that much of a hassle, and could be done from any of our devices with a web browser.) 7528 recognizes our HDHomeRun again. While others in this thread have also noticed this, it doesn't seem to be mentioned in any release notes, so I'm wary that it might not be officially/permanently supported. But at least there is now a build that we can use as long as we don't need the Mac to go beyond macOS 10.14 (since 10.15 won't run 32-bit applications). That means we can keep using this version of EyeTV at least until 10.14 stops getting security updates, which might be in 2022. So, another 3 years of service at least. Of course, this is a moot point if Geniatech issues a 64-bit update of EyeTV. We are in the USA. Now that the TV Guide subscription is available again, I paid to subscribe for another year. Price went up from $20 to $30 a year, not happy about a 33% price increase. But it works again. I ran a channel rescan. At the end it puts up the dialog box where you enter your zip code and choose how you get your TV (I choose OTA broadcast). At this point 7528 would either crash, or hang with the rainbow pinwheel of death. I had two zip codes entered; testing revealed that it crashed if I left it that way, but no longer crashed if I deleted the second zip code so that there was only one ZIP code in there. I had to go into Channels view and make sure all channels were set to EyeTVEPGPremium-USA, because they had lost their program guide setting after TV Guide went down. The easiest way to do this is Select All first, then change one and all selected channels update. The left column of 7528 includes the EyeTV Plus service. This is not available in the USA, so it was just taking up space. It turns out you can disable EyeTV Plus in Preferences, so that disappears from the left column. All in all I'm relieved that we no longer have to consider an alternative OTA recorder for our old faithful Mac mini. (I do have Plex but it has its own issues.) We'll just keep cranking along with EyeTV. While I thank Geniatech for this update, I am not happy about how it happened because after TV Guide became unavailable and HDHomeRun support was dropped, communication with customers was handled very badly. They need to work on this.