Clear QAM Channels Stopped Working?

[T5740]

A few weeks ago my clear QAM channels on my basic cable stopped tuning. When I tune to them all I get is a black screen and nothing else. All of my analog channels have continued to work just fine. I thought maybe my cable company encrypted them but I went to two separate tv's and did a channel scan on them and they all still pick up the clear qam HD channels just fine? I tried changing decoders to just about everything available to no avail. Any insight you guys can give me would be greatly appreciated.

[sub]

Two possibilities:

1) they've moved the channels. ie, they're on different frequencies, or have different service IDs than they had previously
2) they've switched them to MPEG2.

If it's #1 then easiest fix is deleting the channels and resscanning.

If it's #2, then recordings should still work, and you should be able to play those recordings back, but live tv will just be black. If that is confirmed then you need to go into the Settings->Devices screen, double click your device, then double click you channels and set the service type to H.264.

[sub]

Two possibilities:

1) they've moved the channels. ie, they're on different frequencies, or have different service IDs than they had previously
2) they've switched them to MPEG2.

If it's #1 then easiest fix is deleting the channels and rescanning.

If it's #2, then recordings should still work, and you should be able to play those recordings back, but live tv will just be black. If that is confirmed then you need to go into the Settings->Devices screen, double click your device, then double click you channels and set the service type to H.264.

[T5740]

Two possibilities:

1) they've moved the channels. ie, they're on different frequencies, or have different service IDs than they had previously
2) they've switched them to MPEG2.

If it's #1 then easiest fix is deleting the channels and resscanning.

If it's #2, then recordings should still work, and you should be able to play those recordings back, but live tv will just be black. If that is confirmed then you need to go into the Settings->Devices screen, double click your device, then double click you channels and set the service type to H.264.

Thanks the complete rescan did it. I just hate I am going to have to go back and manually rename all of my channels again but this will only be the 2nd time in like three years so no big deal. Thanks so much for your help.

[BrettB]

2) they've switched them to MPEG2.

FYI: I believe that sub meant "from MPEG2 to H.264." :-)

[BrettB]

Thanks the complete rescan did it. I just hate I am going to have to go back and manually rename all of my channels again but this will only be the 2nd time in like three years so no big deal. Thanks so much for your help.

You did make a backup of your npvr.db3 file before testing this, right? Always remember to make a backup of your npvr.db3 file (or better yet all of the files in that directory including the config*.xml* and *backup.xml* files) that you can revert to when testing things like this.

You didn't tells what tuner(s) you have or how many channels you have. We might be able to give you some suggestions about ways to do help simplify or reduce the manual processes using channel exports/imports and/or channel merging if you give us the details. Especially if only a few of the channels changed or if you have lots of channels.

Also, be aware that if you have any channel specific recurring recordings they will still be referencing the old channel OIDs, so will need to be recreated as well. You could probably simplify that process by using the recurring-backup.xml. (I seem to recall that when NextPVR does the import, if it doesn't find a match for the ChannelOID, it will automatically try to match based on the ChannelName, but I'm not positive about that.)

[T5740]

You did make a backup of your npvr.db3 file before testing this, right? Always remember to make a backup of your npvr.db3 file (or better yet all of the files in that directory including the config*.xml* and *backup.xml* files) that you can revert to when testing things like this.

You didn't tells what tuner(s) you have or how many channels you have. We might be able to give you some suggestions about ways to do help simplify or reduce the manual processes using channel exports/imports and/or channel merging if you give us the details. Especially if only a few of the channels changed or if you have lots of channels.

Also, be aware that if you have any channel specific recurring recordings they will still be referencing the old channel OIDs, so will need to be recreated as well. You could probably simplify that process by using the recurring-backup.xml. (I seem to recall that when NextPVR does the import, if it doesn't find a match for the ChannelOID, it will automatically try to match based on the ChannelName, but I'm not positive about that.)

Yea I knew you could do that but it has been several years since I set this all up and it has worked fine since then so I really did not mind just blowing it all away and starting over as my local TWC/Spectrum has added several QAM channels since then. I get a total of 80 channels with 67 of them being analog and the rest clear QAM HD. I used to use the zap2it metadata a few years ago and had that all setup and then I remember it not being free anymore for a time but now I see their is a way to use it free again so I might look into that. Even when I had it working it never found the guide data for my clear QAM HD channels anyway. I have a single HVR 1600 tuner inside a HPT5740 ATOM thin client with a expansion module and 8gb of ram and a 1tb mechanical HD. It runs NEXPVR like a champ and it dead quite and is only about the size of a book so I can hide it away and forget about it until something like this happens.

[sub]

Thanks the complete rescan did it.

Great.

I just hate I am going to have to go back and manually rename all of my channels again but this will only be the 2nd time in like three years so no big deal. Thanks so much for your help.

Yep, definitely a pain having to do that. Blame you cable operator.

[T5740]

Great.

Yep, definitely a pain having to do that. Blame you cable operator.

I am not sure why but maybe it is federal law or something but all of my PBS channels always send out their metadata and channel labels. I can click on the info button on PBS channels and it will tell me what program is playing etc. Like you said it would be if TWC now Spectrum would do that for every channel but I guess the fraction of a cent they save by not doing it adds up. Thanks again for all of the help.

[sub]

It's probably that they're directly rebroadcasting the over-the-air ATSC version of PBS on cable, which channels are required to carry channel names and metadata. It's pity it's not required for all cable channels.