Freesat UK EPG issues in v7

[zer]

I'm in the UK and have a DVB-T (Freeview) tuner and a twin DVB-S (Freesat) tuner with common channels between the two merged.

After upgrading to v7 a bunch of channels lost EPG.  I've been messing about with the channel configuration trying to narrow it down and it seems to specifically relate to the Freesat (UK) channels.

Having unmerged all the channels without listings and re-configuring them to use the right EPG source, after doing an EPG update I could see that (for each merged channel) the split DVB-T channels all had EPG but only one of the two DVB-S channels had EPG (even though both the DVB-S tuners work when I select their copy of the channel).

Despite this, I proceeded by merging the channels back together - by first lowering the channel number of the version of the channel with working EPG, when I merge it the EPG is retained.

24 hours later and some channels have lost their EPG again, all ones configured to use the Freesat EPG, presumably during the scheduled EPG update which is in the early hours for me.

I can workaround the issue for channels available on Freeview DVB-T as I can merge them in a way that the DVB-T channel provides the EPG using DVB/ATSC, but there are a number of channels that are only available on Freesat.  Just now I've unmerged all these again and re-ran the EPG update with the DVB-T tuner disabled.  This again restored EPG only to one of the unmerged channel versions per actual channel as you can see in these examples:



The missing EPG is always on the first of the twin tuners, i.e. "TBS 6981 BDA DVBS/S2 A Tuner", whereas "TBS 6981 BDA DVBS/S2 B Tuner" is always the one that sucessfully retrieves the EPG.

I have attached the logs. I'm not going to merge these channels for now and I'll see if the EPG is still intact on one of each channel after the overnight EPG update (does the time of the EPG update affect the available listings, for example when channels go off air in the early hours?)

Anyway, would appreciate if anyone can figure out from the logs what's wrong with the Freesat EPG update process specifically on the tuner "TBS 6981 BDA DVBS/S2 A Tuner".

Also, is there any way to do an EPG update for specific channels on, otherwise its quite a long process to wait for when you are trying to "debug" an issue like this?

Thanks in advance for your support.

[Bobins]

I can advise why your EPG scan takes a long time. It's because you are scanning every terrestrial frequency used by your terrestrial channels.
From the EPG settings page in the Web Browser select the cog then deselect all but one terrestrial frequency.
The full EPG for UK terrestrial channels is broadcast on every frequency so you only need to scan one.

I have a similar system setup to you (mixed terrestrial and Freesat) but I'm not seeing an issue with Freesat EPG.
Your logs do seem to indicate the Freesat EPG is only returning a limited amount of data. Sub may need to advise.

Ray

[zer]

I can advise why your EPG scan takes a long time. It's because you are scanning every terrestrial frequency used by your terrestrial channels.
From the EPG settings page in the Web Browser select the cog then deselect all but one terrestrial frequency.
The full EPG for UK terrestrial channels is broadcast on every frequency so you only need to scan one.

Ha... well I never knew this and I've been using NextPVR on an off for a few years with this tuner setup so thanks for that one.

So on the Freesat channels, when using the Freesat (UK) option, it does need to scan every single channel/frequency for the EPG data right?  Does it need to do it on both of the tuners though? I mean can't it just use the listings that it does get for both tuners' versions of that channel?

[Bobins]

When an EPG Update is triggered, it will scan the ticked Terrestrial frequencies first.
If there are satellite channels defined and they are set to Freesat EPG, it will then scan the SKY EPG frequency followed by the Freesat EPG frequency. In this context, setting the EPG source as Freesat in the EPG settings is interpreted as meaning collect EPG data for any selected satellite channels on the Astra 28.2 satellites. i.e. doesn't matter if the channels are on the SKY or Freesat transponders, the EPG data will be collected.

In your case, I see the logs saying it's getting EPG data for the terrestrial channels and also data from the SKY EPG frequency however when it tunes the Freesat EPG frequency, only a small amount of EPG data seems to be collected.
Normally (as in my system) the same tuner is used for both the SKY and Freesat EPG collection. Usually the 1st of my 2 TBS satellite tuners.

Ray.

[zer]

Thanks for the explanation.  Well this TBS tuner card has never been amazingly reliable for me so I don't know if that's related.  The machine is scheduled to reboot every night as once the tuner starts playing up, that's the only fix.  There's also some issue with a Windows update that makes that tuner completely unusable (signal breaks up and is unwatchable until I rollback the update), but I've ended up living with that by disabling automatic updates   .  My freesat signal is stronger than freeview so it is still my preferred device and works reliably enough with all these workarounds...

Anyway, hope sub can take a look at the logs and I'm happy to gather anything else that's needed...

[mvallevand]

Scanning Freesat and Open TV twice is an unusual use case, why don't you merge them?

[zer]

Scanning Freesat and Open TV twice is an unusual use case, why don't you merge them?

I'm not sure I follow entirely.  I had all my channels merged before upgrading to v7 and then experienced EPG issues.  I unmerged the channels to try and figure out what the problem was.

As it stands all channels that are common to Freesat and Freeview tuners I have merged again and they are working.

Channels that are only available on Freesat I happened to notice that only one of the dual Freesat tuners was getting the EPG data and I was curious about that, especially after EPG started disappearing on some of these channels after merging them back.

After a lot of iterations of this process with the freesat channels, its been stable for a few days, with all EPG data still intact.  All the common channels are merged so I don't think I'm scanning anything twice now...