My Humax Forum » Freeview SD » PVR 9150T, 9200T, 9300T

EPG not populated after second day

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    dibblingabout

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    Hello. This is the best Humax forum I have come across so here is my first post, apologies for it being rather long but I was trying to be as explicit as possible.

    I have a PVR9200T and a PVR9300T and both exhibit the same problem with the EPG. Since new they have both taken a long time to populate the programme guide but in recent years, certainly since before digital switchover in 2012, this has become increasingly worse. Armed with my Radio Times it should be a five minute job to reserve my programmes for the week but now it is somewhat protracted.

    So to quantify this, today I tuned to BBC1 on the PVR9200T and examined the programme guide. I am only interested in BBC1, BBC2, BBC3 BBC4, ITV, Ch4 and Ch5, and within a few minutes the first two days' worth of BBC channels are fully populated as well as some of the programmes for the commercial channels. A few minutes later the all the BBC channels are populated for the rest of the week, during which time a few more programmes for the commercial channels appear. Half an hour later both BBC and commercial channels are fully populated for the first two days and more programmes have appeared later in the week on the commercial channels but not all. An hour later, the BBC channels are still ok but all programmes for the commercial channels have suddenly disappeared!

    I have not noticed the commercial channels disappearing before because I never wait that long. Instead I use a work around which has been successful so far. Once I have reserved my BBC programmes for the week I tune to a commercial channel, ITV for this example, put the unit into standby, then fire it back up again. As I have said, I do not usually wait this long and I notice this time that just before switching off, the first two days are still fully populated, the rest of the week the commercial channels are still blank but now the BBC channels have disappeared.

    So now tuned to ITV and within a couple of minutes the first two days are completely populated on all channels again. In the next twenty minutes or so only Ch4 programmes appear for the rest of the week on the commercial channels, together with most BBC1 programmes. Day three is fully populated on all channels at this point. After half an hour most commercial programmes have appeared for the rest of the week plus quite a few BBC ones. I can then reserve my commercial channel programmes for the week.

    I think you can see the logic, when tuned to the multiplex containing my BBC programmes it successfully, (eventually), displays them all but not all the commercial ones. Similarly, tuning to the multiplex containing the commercial programmes it successfully displays those but not the BBC ones. I have used BBC1 and ITV for this example but selecting any channel within the multiplex will do the same and I have been using this method for quite some time with the same results.

    I live in South Essex, my aerial is pointing to Crystal Palace and I get a 75% signal and 100% quality on all channels. However, I did notice that with auto tuning there were nine programmes in the 800 section. These are the D3&4 multiplex programmes on channel 43 which is coming from Bluebell Hill in Kent, just over the river. Your advice about targeting only the multiplexes coming from the preferred transmitter seemed eminently sensible so I followed your manual tuning instructions to the letter with great expectations. There are now no channels in the 800 range but sadly it has made no difference to the EPG problem.

    None of this is helped by the lack of response to the remote control which is steadily getting worse but I will leave that for another, briefer, post.

    So no happy ending I am afraid, I was just hoping someone might at least venture some reason for this happening even if not a cure.

    | Sun 28 Sep 2014 21:53:22 #1 |
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    Martin Liddle

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    dibblingabout - 2 minutes ago  » 
    I have a PVR9200T and a PVR9300T and both exhibit the same problem with the EPG.

    The first thing we need to know is what software versions the two boxes are using?

    | Sun 28 Sep 2014 21:57:21 #2 |
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    dibblingabout

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    Doh! Thought I had included everything but forgot the important bit.

    PVR9200T

    Hardware Version PVR9200T Rev 1.0
    Software Version PGXTF 1.00.23
    Loader a4.09
    Sys ID 3020 0000
    Update Date 20 May 2010
    Slot Empty

    PVR9300T

    Hardware Version Rev 1.0
    Software Version UPTTF 1.00.26
    Loader Version a4.37
    System ID 3023.0000
    Update Date July 7 2011
    Slot 1 Empty

    | Mon 29 Sep 2014 9:23:22 #3 |
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    Martin Liddle

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    A number of people have reported similar findings and the only real fix I have seen is to use manual tuning and omit one of the multiplexes. If it was me I would omit either COM5 (ARQ A) or COM6 (ARQ B).

    | Mon 29 Sep 2014 13:12:57 #4 |
  5. Biggles

    Biggles

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    Both machines are as up to date as they can be so the only positive thing you can do is make sure they are only tuned to one transmitter by following my Manual Search instructions. It might be worth while doing a Default Setting first followed by a Manual Search, remember you will need to re-set any menu changes you may have previously made. I've not really looked at the EPG population since the September 3rd re-tune event but on these machines I don't think you can expect much more than a full EPG for the tuned multiplex and three to three and a half days for other multiplexes.

    | Mon 29 Sep 2014 13:17:16 #5 |
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    Luke

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    Martin Liddle - 14 minutes ago  » 
    A number of people have reported similar findings and the only real fix I have seen is to use manual tuning and omit one of the multiplexes. If it was me I would omit either COM5 (ARQ A) or COM6 (ARQ B).

    To add to that it would be prefferable to delay retunes until after the old LCNs for the recently renumbered channels have been removed on the 1st October.

    | Mon 29 Sep 2014 13:32:39 #6 |
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    dibblingabout

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    First of all thank you Martin, Biggles and Luke for your incredibly fast response.

    I liked the idea of deleting a multiplex or two, one thing that has changed over the lifetime of the units is the number of multiplexes and channels, perhaps Humax had not reserved enough memory for this expansion.

    Starting with the PVR9200T I deleted everything and just manually tuned the two multiplexes I am interested in. Success, the whole week was fully populated within a few minutes whilst tuned to BBC1.

    But curiosity set in and I started adding multiplexes hoping that at some stage it would fall over, but it didn't. Baffled I put it into standby and half an hour later I tried again. This time the old problem had returned so once again I manually tuned only two multiplexes. Although better than with all multiplexes included it still had blank spaces after the second day.

    Nearly two hours later everything was populated.

    Clearly this will take some time to establish some sort of pattern and I still have to try the PVR9300T so bear with me until I have something more concrete to report.

    | Mon 29 Sep 2014 23:54:29 #7 |
  8. Biggles

    Biggles

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    I have checked my 9200s EPG population over the last couple of evenings and find it to be more or less as I state in my post #5 above.

    | Tue 30 Sep 2014 20:43:10 #8 |
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    dibblingabout

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    Baffled as to why the addition of all the multiplexes had no initial effect on the EPG I turned the unit off at the mains, pulled out the aerial, and switched on. After the initial boot I took it out of standby to receive the obvious message that there was no signal. I pressed the programme guide button expecting to see everything blanked only to find the EPG populated in the same way as before switch off. So contrary to what I thought, and have read elsewhere, it does not start from scratch, merely updates what is already there. Poking around more of the forums I found one comment that intimates that on the latest software the unit saves the EPG to hard disk on switch off and restores it on switch on.

    Whatever the method, after waiting for some time the programmes on mulitplexes other than the one tuned in started to disappear. Returning later, not sure how long but certainly a couple of hours, all the programmes on other multiplexes had disappeared as in earlier tests.

    I still do not know how many multiplexes need to be included before it falls over but for the moment I have, with your help, two working units.

    I have another post regarding the lack of response to the remote control on the PVR9200T only and I had wondered if there was any connection. Indeed there is, and by limiting the multiplexes it too now seems to be cured. Please see that post for details.

    Thanks again.

    | Sat 4 Oct 2014 10:57:03 #9 |
  10. Biggles

    Biggles

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    dibblingabout - 36 minutes ago  » 
    .....
    Poking around more of the forums I found one comment that intimates that on the latest software the unit saves the EPG to hard disk on switch off and restores it on switch on.
    .....

    That is correct.

    | Sat 4 Oct 2014 11:34:29 #10 |

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