Author Topic: TV "Empty List"  (Read 19565 times)

pbalfanz

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TV "Empty List"
« on: December 22, 2010, 03:45:11 »
I just installed MCC on my HTPC and Samsung Galaxy S. Everything went well. As I was checking out all the features I click on TV > Channels the program spins for 20 minutes until I back out. When I click on TV > Now I get the message back "Empty list".

My setup is an Asus 1501EB HTPC with a HDHomerun Dual Tuner for the TV tuner. I am thinking this may be the problem but not sure how it gets the TV listings.

Thanks in advanced for any help. I love the app and it is exactly what I am looking for.

Phil

lopez1_de

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Re: TV "Empty List"
« Reply #1 on: December 22, 2010, 11:40:27 »
As I can see, your HD Homerun is streaming the content over network to your HTPC. If it's using extender technology then there is no way to get MCC running. But from what I can see, it fully integrates into 7MC like a native PCI tv card does.

Please check  the following file with a text editor:
"C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\MCC Addin\mcc_addin_debug.txt"

Look for something like:
Code: [Select]
21.12.2010 15:50:00: lineup error: no lineups
21.12.2010 15:50:00: getChannels error: no store or lineup
21.12.2010 15:50:06: getChannels error: no store or lineup

Best is that you send me an email andappend the file as attachment and I will have a look. contact@mediacentercontrol.com
Or you can just attach the file to this thread.

Thanks

nightshadev65

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Re: TV "Empty List"
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2010, 14:11:18 »
 I am haveing same problem i have an htc incredible not sure what video card is in pc came with it any advice how to fix.

lopez1_de

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Re: TV "Empty List"
« Reply #3 on: December 25, 2010, 10:19:03 »
Hi, thanks for reporting that problem. Please follow the instructions above. Which TV technic you are using? DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-C or any other?

pbalfanz

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Re: TV "Empty List"
« Reply #4 on: January 01, 2011, 00:52:18 »
Here is what the file has in it.

12/26/2010 7:09:58 PM: searchTVnow error: System.FormatException: Input string was not in a correct format.
   at System.Number.StringToNumber(String str, NumberStyles options, NumberBuffer& number, NumberFormatInfo info, Boolean parseDecimal)
   at System.Number.ParseInt32(String s, NumberStyles style, NumberFormatInfo info)
   at System.Convert.ToInt32(String value)
   at MCC_MC_AddIn.Application.”‹—‘šŽ‹—(String )


I will email you the entire file but it is just this error repeated for every time I tried to access the listing.

Thanks,
Phil

lopez1_de

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Re: TV "Empty List"
« Reply #5 on: January 03, 2011, 09:32:12 »
Hi pbalfanz,

it seems that your channel numbers in WMC are in a format like 99.12003 or something. Another user reported this problem in the german forum. He ended in manually changing the channel numbers to "normal" ones like 1 or 2 or 3 and so on.

Maybe your WMC got the same problem here?

websherpa

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Re: TV "Empty List"
« Reply #6 on: February 14, 2011, 01:24:53 »
I have the same problem (same errors)   :(

Here in North America (possibly elsewhere) certain channels, particularly digital OTA ones, have sub-channels.  So ther emight be a Channel 2 (Analogue), Channel 2.1 (SD Digital), Channel 2.2 (HD Digital), Channel 2.3 (Alt Digital).... etc.  It's very common.  In fact sometimes (although rarely) dissimilar broadcasters appear on the same major channel and different sub-channels (even though the "true" frequency is different).  But I'm no expert in this.

However it would be a major impediment to the success of this wonderful program if it's can't accommodate retrieving the EPG from WMC just because of the channel number configuration.

I have bought and supported this program because other than this (and the unusual implementation of "Radio" <- since WMC DOES have an Internet Radio add-in), the program works incredibly well on both of my android devices (Samsung Galaxy S Phone and a cheapo Chinese tablet).

Thanks in advance for anything you can do to address this!

Wayne

lopez1_de

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Re: TV "Empty List"
« Reply #7 on: February 14, 2011, 09:40:42 »
Wayne,

until today I didn't recognized that this is a problem in general. The problem is that I don't have a test environment for other countries than germany. It would be very nice if you can help me to figure this out.
  • I need a list of your channels to get an overview of whats happening. Please enable debugging as it's described in this post: http://forum.mediacentercontrol.com/index.php/topic,157.0.html
    Please enable debugging and restart MCC Server, wait a little, exit WMC and get the debug file.
  • Microsoft API for TV is not supported in any way. The API way to switch channels which is supported is very slow and has issues. As a result, MCC switchs channels in an unusual way. MCC just "types" the channel numbers on the keyboard. This is a good workaround.
    What I need to know from you now is: Are you able to switch this channels (like 2.1) with typing it on the keyboard?

Looking forward to your answer. Many Thanks

Regards
Markus

websherpa

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Re: TV "Empty List"
« Reply #8 on: March 06, 2011, 23:15:41 »
I'm sorry I had the Notify setting off for this forum and didn't get this until now.  I will do as you ask as this is an extremely important program other than this issue.  I forsee simple android devices becoming the defacto standard for media center device  (not just WMC) remote control in the near ure.

websherpa

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Re: TV "Empty List"
« Reply #9 on: March 07, 2011, 00:50:09 »
..... and it looks like youmay have been doing some work on this in the meantime as with the new update most things are working fine.  I am just goigng to test out switching to a channel with a sub-channel (i.e. 2.1) and the "Channels" button (which is the most problematic because many of us have hundreds of channels an dthis takes some time to wait for.  Doing this in debug mode and will send report if anything sems to go wrong.

Thank you for your work on this excellent program!

lopez1_de

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Re: TV "Empty List"
« Reply #10 on: March 07, 2011, 15:52:00 »
Very interesting to hear about hundrest of channels. In germany we usually have to choose from about 30 (german spoken) channels. :)

Do you really need all those channels activated? It's possible to disable channels in WMC in which you are not interested to.

(sorry for my poor english)

websherpa

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Re: TV "Empty List"
« Reply #11 on: March 07, 2011, 16:08:57 »
You do not need to be sorry about your English, it is very good compared to my German!   ;D

Hundreds of channels (like 400 or so) is pretty common now here in Canada (and also the US).  We may eliminate a few due to alternate language, etc. but once you have digital cable, satellite AND an OTA digital antenna, we tend to keep them there "just in case."  (Add to that all the Internet Channels, and Netflix that are available but are not addressed by MCC.....)  North Americans love their TV (and likely watch too much)!

WMC does have the ability to chunk them into TV Categories so that is a possibility for MCC to be able to group channels into smaller consumable numbers.  Or I would ask you to consider a "paged" download, where you can set the number of channels to download at a time and then "page" through them.  The standard on-screen Channel Guide, pages in groups of 10 or so, so that might be a good starting point because it's fast.  If the user had the ability to page up or down in groups, or to directly enter a channel number as a starting point, that also helps get to a channel faster.

Congratulations on the most recent changes, by the way, you conquered the CH.x issue and that works flawlessly as far as I can tell.  So MCC now recognizes and downloads data for channels like 2.1 and 2.2 etc. that are the norm here for Digital.  I'm not certain if my debugging report will still be of any use to you?

I would make two more suggestions, and that would be 1) for a more intuitive way to "preview" Information on a channel (in the Android device) before actually changing the channel on WMC, what happens sometimes is if I'm not thinking I touch a channel thinking I am going to get more info on the program, but it switches to the channel.  I forget now offhand whether you hold down the channel to get info - but a more explicit "I" button in the interface along with the program title to touch would be nice.

The second has to do with the time delay switching channels.  Because you are "typing" the channel numbers, it works fine if you are already watching TV (i.e. it moves from channel to channel very smoothly).  However if you were doing something else, like watching a Movie, OR the WMC is in "sleep" mode, then clicking a TV channel won't always get you to the channel as WMC seems to miss the channel input part (although it may switch to the Live TV mode, it just stays on the previously engaged channel because the tv channel change signal comes too quickly perhaps....).  This is going to be one of those "lesser of two evils" kinds of options.

I hope this helps.

Thank you!

Wayne

lopez1_de

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Re: TV "Empty List"
« Reply #12 on: March 07, 2011, 19:38:06 »
I would make two more suggestions, and that would be 1) for a more intuitive way to "preview" Information on a channel (in the Android device) before actually changing the channel on WMC, what happens sometimes is if I'm not thinking I touch a channel thinking I am going to get more info on the program, but it switches to the channel.  I forget now offhand whether you hold down the channel to get info - but a more explicit "I" button in the interface along with the program title to touch would be nice.

Thanks for this great input!

To prevent accidently switching to a channel you can enable an option in the settings.

lopez1_de

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Re: TV "Empty List"
« Reply #13 on: March 07, 2011, 19:48:57 »
It's possible you will discover another bug for non decimal channel numbers. I have forgotten to change something in the code.
http://forum.mediacentercontrol.com/index.php/topic,171.0.html

The next update comes out soon. Please stay tuned!