Phillie14586

TV Guide not updating

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5 minutes ago, jpmist27 said:

including an EYTV U6.

One reason I like my venerable HD Homerun is its use of ethernet, making it possible to minimize the antenna downlead length as much as possible by locating the tuner close to the end of the antenna coax cable, and using ethernet cable to bring the signal to the computer. USB has a more limited practical cable length, at least that's my assumption.

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the)

3 hours ago, jpmist27 said:

If that's my "useless" comment, let me expand. If you were to try to install EyeTV on a different computer that has never run EyeTV you won't be able to set up the cable channels - at least that was my issue when I tried it. Without the channel data the program gets from TV Guide during set-up,  the program can't change from one station to another.  So -  pretty "useless" for me.  Someone pointed out that you'd be able to generate over the air channel data which I didn't test cause I run my EyeTV HD box from my cable box so that's not much help for me.

. . . . . . (snip)

What I was able to discover is that Geniatech is working on an EPG without TV Guide, similar to what they do for Euro accounts. If anyone braves this who has a still active EPG account, would be interested in hearing how it works. 

 

Ah, I see your point about setup. You still should be able to do it if you are connected to antenna/cable hardware; see below. Ok, I have a report for people. I actually do have a spare Mac Mini (the 2009 one I took out of service when I bought a new one 2 months ago), which was not my media center, so has no EyeTV on it and is not connected to a TV or antenna. So I fired it up, and downloaded the new version of EyeTV (build 7527, I think the most recent in-service build is 7524, which is running on my media center Mini). Thanks for the link, jpmist27. There's good news and bad news.

You are right, nothing can happen until you run Setup Assistant, and for that you need your Activation Key. Fortunately, you CAN get it from your Geniatech (MyEyeTV) account without running EyeTV, which is lucky because I'd somehow lost the record of it (it turns out it is NOT your most recent TVGuide subscription code). If you have forgotten your MyEyeTV account password, you can get that too as long as it is linked with your e-mail address (yes I had forgotten that also, but the password reset e-mail from Geniatech arrived immediately). The next obstacle was that my spare Mini isn't connected to any hardware, but somehow I got EyeTV to open without satisfying that requirement (it took a variety of clicks). What I found: discouragingly, the software is still 32-bit. On the EPG side, instead of TV Guide you are now prompted to select EyeTVPremiumEPG if you are in North America. Since I wasn't connected to any hardware (I didn't want to try this on my media center setup or disconnect it), I couldn't actually scan for channels or generate an EPG, so I couldn't tell whether their new EPG service actually works (it does in Germany, for a while a year or two ago when they implemented it you could access it from within EyeTV in the US, but of course the listings were for Germany and in German; it still does daily updates - the number of programs listed, around 60,000, changes daily). Without channels, it would not take a downloaded 7-day EPG from xmltvlistings (I did try that), so I couldn't select xmltv as my EPG source. EyeTV has this setup order backwards, but Elgato's original design is probably to blame for that. I did look at the list of supported devices (luckily I still have an EyeTV Hybrid on my working system); I regret to report that HD Homerun is not on the list. And that's as far as I could get without starting to unplug things on my working system, which I don't want to do.

I have to think that since it appears that Geniatech is actually still functioning and put in all this work for a working built-in EPG in North America, they would have to be planning a 64-bit release; why do all this work for software that won't even run on the next Mac OS release this fall?!! I also wonder: if many of us on this forum got a replacement EPG running in a few days, why is it taking Geniatech months? I'd rather they ushered existing users through what we did (the coding should have been simple for them if we can do it), and put their priorities on the 64-bit version, then took care of the EPG problem once it was running. Final notes (make of them what you will): the EyeTV copyright runs through 2025, and Geniatech is still listed as an authorized Apple developer.

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44 minutes ago, WisconsinEric said:

And that's as far as I could get without starting to unplug things on my working system, which I don't want to do.

Is your tuner on your ethernet network? You could connect your second computer to the ethernet router (or connect a bootable clone on an external drive with the beta installed). I find that copies of EyeTV I have on bootable clone partitions on external drives can use the archive on my internal drive (It's always mounted and available), but they do not share EPG data. These copies on bootable clones do share the tuner, however, so they can view live TV, play recorded stuff in the main archive, scan the airwaves, and record if I give them downloaded xml data.

Edited by Earl Noe

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7 hours ago, Earl Noe said:

One reason I like my venerable HD Homerun is its use of ethernet, making it possible to minimize the antenna downlead length as much as possible by locating the tuner close to the end of the antenna coax cable, and using ethernet cable to bring the signal to the computer. USB has a more limited practical cable length, at least that's my assumption.

I'm curious to know what the terminal command  

> defaults read com.elgato.eyetv "poll for HDHomeRun"

would yield on a build beyond 7521?  (This reads the EyeTV "poll for HDHomeRun" hidden preference.)  On my pre-7520 build, it has the value 2.  Maybe being able to see HDHomeRun is a settable hidden preference that is just turned off in the later builds?  If so, it might be possible to turn it on again with the mac "defaults write" command.  A guy can hope...

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9 hours ago, jpmist27 said:

If that's my "useless" comment, let me expand. If you were to try to install EyeTV on a different computer that has never run EyeTV you won't be able to set up the cable channels - at least that was my issue when I tried it. Without the channel data the program gets from TV Guide during set-up,  the program can't change from one station to another.  So -  pretty "useless" for me.  Someone pointed out that you'd be able to generate over the air channel data which I didn't test cause I run my EyeTV HD box from my cable box so that's not much help for me.

Since offering the beta, Angela has ghosted me once again after I reported I couldn't set it up without an active EPG guide account. (Geniatech promptly refunded 10  months of my subscription) I've made no agreement with Geniatech not to share it so here is the download link she sent me. It's active as of now, but there's no knowing for how long. 

https://mega.nz/#!yqYliazS!fSoLZGzaE3HZHdP9azpYauSQDV8vqU660zOkifDtDPw

Some total stranger offers a program over the internet so please be as paranoid and careful as your circumstances dictate. I'd strongly suggest opening this on a spare Mini and NOT YOUR MAIN MEDIA RIG. I have the Little Snitch utility which records when a program attempts to send out info and found a few attempts to check with Geniatech but little else. All I can offer are pics from the email to validate it's authenticity and a screengrab from the download web site.

What I was able to discover is that Geniatech is working on an EPG without TV Guide, similar to what they do for Euro accounts. If anyone braves this who has a still active EPG account, would be interested in hearing how it works. 

 

I tried installing it on a scratch o/s drive.  Got far enough to see that it doesn't have HDHomeRun support so it won't help me.

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6 hours ago, Earl Noe said:

Is your tuner on your ethernet network?

No, unfortunately.

I'd be happy to look at results for > defaults read com.elgato.eyetv "poll for HDHomeRun" but something must be left out here, and not being a savvy Terminal user I don't know what it is (the command as written returns no results from Terminal when I enter it). Enlighten me and I'll compare it on builds 7513 and 7524 (the latter is the most recent public use build from about 14 months ago), which I have on 2 different machines.

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By the ">" I just meant the terminal prompt, so don't type that.  If typing

defaults read com.elgato.eyetv "poll for HDHomeRun"

returns no result, then I would guess that preference is missing entirely.  Try typing

defaults read com.elgato.eyetv > defaults.txt

which should save ALL of your EyeTV preferences into a file named defaults.txt, which you can open with a text editor and look for HDHomeRun.

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11 hours ago, UnixGuy said:

By the ">" I just meant the terminal prompt, so don't type that.  If typing

defaults read com.elgato.eyetv "poll for HDHomeRun"

returns no result, then I would guess that preference is missing entirely.  Try typing

defaults read com.elgato.eyetv > defaults.txt

which should save ALL of your EyeTV preferences into a file named defaults.txt, which you can open with a text editor and look for HDHomeRun.

Result: 

iMac:~ tonio$ defaults read com.elgato.eyetv "poll for HDHomeRun"

2019-03-24 16:50:53.912 defaults[34663:12354907]

The domain/default pair of (com.elgato.eyetv, poll for HDHomeRun) does not exist

 

 

defaults.txt

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15 hours ago, UnixGuy said:

A guy can hope...

Does anything happen if you try to set it up with an HD Homerun using another device profile? These tuners must generate pretty similar output. My ignorance here is profound. I've sometimes had better results with a printer driver other than the nominal one.

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2 hours ago, Ton said:

Result: 

iMac:~ tonio$ defaults read com.elgato.eyetv "poll for HDHomeRun"

2019-03-24 16:50:53.912 defaults[34663:12354907]

The domain/default pair of (com.elgato.eyetv, poll for HDHomeRun) does not exist

 

 

defaults.txt 11.63 kB · 1 download

If it were my system, I would try adding the preference by doing

defaults write com.elgato.eyetv "poll for HDHomeRun" 2

but I can't guarantee what the result might be.  One can also delete a preference by doing

defaults delete com.elgato.eyetv "poll for HDHomeRun"

Also doing

man defaults

will give the manual information for the mac defaults command.

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On 3/23/2019 at 4:27 PM, WisconsinEric said:

And that's as far as I could get without starting to unplug things on my working system, which I don't want to do.

I have to think that since it appears that Geniatech is actually still functioning and put in all this work for a working built-in EPG in North America, they would have to be planning a 64-bit release; why do all this work for software that won't even run on the next Mac OS release this fall?!! I also wonder: if many of us on this forum got a replacement EPG running in a few days, why is it taking Geniatech months?

Thanks to you and "Stuff" for trying the beta. Still hoping someone with a functioning EPG account could give it a go and see how it does, but I know that's asking a lot. I also took encouragement with the new EyeTVPremiunEPG service that's apparently in the works. The beta is dated 3/14/19 so perhaps they're still working on finding bugs before offering it again.

Until I accidentally deleted all my EPG channels I was ok with trying the XMLTV service and am gonna give it another try and take notes this time so hopefully you guys can help where I went wrong. While the guide populated, something happened where I couldn't change channels anymore and in fixing that I deleted the EPG data somehow . . .

One last thing, I was looking thru the EyeTV manual and saw a reference to "EyeTV can also build an EPG from information contained in a digital broadcast . . . it is an alternative for users without an active subscription . . ." It wasn't clear how to actually do that. Anyone know?

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54 minutes ago, jpmist27 said:

One last thing, I was looking thru the EyeTV manual and saw a reference to "EyeTV can also build an EPG from information contained in a digital broadcast . . . it is an alternative for users without an active subscription . . ." It wasn't clear how to actually do that. Anyone know?

I did this for a few days in February. It isn't very useful or convenient, but it is better than nothing. Once you have EyeTV working, clear your EPG listing window (there's a command to do that somewhere. If you had eliminated all your channels, also do a new channel scan as you would when you first installed EyeTV. Then go to the Channels window, uncheck the channels you don't want. In the EPG column, for each channel you are keeping checked separately, select "ATSC/OpenCable" as your EPG source from the dropdown menu (you'll notice that xmltv is the EPG source listed right below this, which is what you select when using one of those two sources). The EPG will populate as soon as you select the source. What you get: a plain vanilla (no colors) program listing with little information for 24 hours at a time. You can use it for one-click recording to save having to manually program them, but that's about it. I noted that my public TV channels gave me 3 or 4 days schedule when I used this. It is a powerful motivator to sign up and implement either xmltvlistings.com or scheduledirect.org as your EPG source.

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1 hour ago, WisconsinEric said:

I did this for a few days in February. It isn't very useful or convenient, but it is better than nothing. Once you have EyeTV working, clear your EPG listing window (there's a command to do that somewhere. If you had eliminated all your channels, also do a new channel scan as you would when you first installed EyeTV. Then go to the Channels window, uncheck the channels you don't want. In the EPG column, for each channel you are keeping checked separately, select "ATSC/OpenCable" as your EPG source from the dropdown menu (you'll notice that xmltv is the EPG source listed right below this, which is what you select when using one of those two sources). The EPG will populate as soon as you select the source. What you get: a plain vanilla (no colors) program listing with little information for 24 hours at a time. You can use it for one-click recording to save having to manually program them, but that's about it. I noted that my public TV channels gave me 3 or 4 days schedule when I used this. It is a powerful motivator to sign up and implement either xmltvlistings.com or scheduledirect.org as your EPG source.

Many thanks for all that, I appreciate the time spent. I'm going to give XMLTV.com another try so this may come in handy if I screw it up again . . .

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59 minutes ago, WisconsinEric said:

The EPG will populate as soon as you select the source.

Sometimes, the EPG info won't populate until you tune to that channel. In the upper left corner of the Guide page, there's a gear symbol with a dropdown. One of the choices is "Update ATSC/Open Cable Program Guide."

You can always manually download xml.tv schedules and load them into EyeTV while you're figuring out the automation process (as I still am). I do it every night. If you're using Chrome, you can drag the downloaded schedule right out of the little download window in the bottom left of the browser window onto an alias for EyeTV on the desktop and Bob's your uncle.

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I sent a reply last night to my original support ticket asking if they'd be providing refunds for those of using HD HomeRun devices that won't be able to use a new build of the software. This was Angela's reply.

"Thank you for contacting us.

For now, the restoration work is at the testing stage. We will take some actions to support Hdhomerun users or compensate in other ways and will let you know that when it is finished testing. 

Kind regards,

Angela 

Geniatech EyeTV Support Team"

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Thanks to everyone posting constructive solutions to the EPG updating problem.

I found that the Schedule Direct JSON API worked for me, but saw a few issues with the available XMLTV converters, so I wrote my own, here.

Separate post: 

 

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I did successfully receive a pro-rated refund of my TV Guide subscription fee from Geniatech through PayPal and since I was already in process of trying the .xmltv solution, I decided to push through to the end on that before trying EYEMISSELGATO's (and others) 'schedules.direct' fix. But, alas, I found my way to where 'jpmist27' landed and somehow lost EyeTV's EPG channels previously populated by TV Guide when that was still working leaving nothing to work with...grrrrr.

I tried reinstalling a new copy of EyeTV 3.x after removing all EyeTV related files and folders. But during set-up it wouldn't create the channels again because the Set-Up Assistant uses a successful connection to the TV Guide server to do that which isn't happening....double grrr. I am going to try and wipe the Mini's drive and restoring from a Time Machine back-up from mid-January when all was well, but that is going to take awhile

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1 minute ago, Holden said:

the Set-Up Assistant uses a successful connection to the TV Guide server

Are you sure about that?  My TV Guide sub has long expired, and I have set guide to "none" in Prefs, but I have been able to rescan several times to restore all or part of the Channels list.

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^ Ditto what Earl Noe said. I am pretty sure what Holden said about needing a connection to the TV Guide server is not correct (which in this case is lucky). EyeTV does NOT require a TV Guide subscription and never has; it was always sold as an optional (but highly desirable) extra, and as I mentioned in my post a few hours ago on the XMLTVListings thread, you can set the EPG source to "None" at several places within EyeTV. When you do a setup you have to specify a program source and do a channel scan, and only then do you add an EPG. If you subscribed to TV Guide, it was added for you, but if you go to the Channels window you can even add/remove channels manually (and there are many other options as well). A final note: do not use Set-Up Assistant when you go through the multi-step procedure to configure EyeTV to use xmltvlistings or schedulesdirect.

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Once I lost all channels in the Channels window the option , the bottom of that window didn't show any selectable "service" choices anymore...just None Available and the "auto-tune" box was greyed  out and not selectable. Going back to the Set-Up Assistant to try from scratch all of a sudden gave me no options for my cable supplier from the choices I previously had for my entered Zip Code...just "None Available". Can't see any way to restore a set of channels from any source at this point.

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Can you open a live tv window (using Apple-O)?  If so, can you get to any channels?

What happens if in the Program Guide window, you click on the gear item, and then click on the "Update ATSC/OPEN CABLE Program Guide"?

What kind of hardware tuners are you using?  Can you reset (unplug/power-cycle) them?

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On 2/6/2019 at 5:46 PM, Inigo said:

Good news.... I can verify that Geniatech is working on a fix. I was asked to beta test a new version of EyeTV3 and it has a new program guide that works. Hopefully they will be releasing a public version soon.

 

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Just got this from Angela after requesting a chance to "test" the beta...

Hello Holden,

We are glad to know that you like our EPG service and would like to test for us.
To test the software, you will need to log in the service with a valid account.
However, you have requested refund and your subscription is invalid now.
So the beta version will not work for you. But we will inform you when the
service is back and the inventory is filled.

Kind regards,

Angela

UNIX Guy...

I use EyeTV HD Hardware with software version 3.6.9.(7524). Thanks for your suggestions. I tried them to no avail. The gear pull down for requesting am "Update" to the TV Program Guide" responds with "Since no channels are currently using TV Guide, no update is necessary". And that is  true because I have no channels anymore. I think once you lose your channels you are indeed "bricked" as 'jpmist27' described it. No way to get them back without a new successful run of "Set-Up" Assistant which no longer gives you any cable company choices on the enter Zip Code window. Trying to open a "Live TV Window: gets you a blank window that looks for 1080i/30fps and the just goes blank with AV component at the bottom. And 'Component' is how my EyeTV hardware box is connected to my cable box, so it knows where to look for a channel signal. But the connection from the EyeTV hardware box seems to depend on that initial set-up of communication between EyeTV and your cable box which populates with channels.

There is good news though. I did successfully restore my main Mini from a January backup, so I was able to use 'Wisconsin Eric's' step-by-step and have it now restored using the XMLTV guide. And it did properly record three programs last night on different channels, so the EyeTV hardware using the IR remote channel changer is back to life and talking to my cable box. I'll have to wait a couple of days to see if my two-weeks of program guide updates daily with the .plist file in the Library/Launch Agents folder.

I do have a second Mini that is "no-channels-bricked" like the first, so I will revive it with a back-up restore. On that one I am going to try EYEMISSELGATO's "schedules direct" helper files and see if I can succeed there and then choose xmltv or schedules direct for the successor to TV Guide based on which one meets my needs. But since the "schedules direct" implementation seems much more daunting for non-programmers like me, I'm not convinced I can make that work. If not at least I'll have a workable xmltv solution to set up on all of my Minis. All of this thanks to the many knowledgeable and helpful contributors to this Forum!

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