[pgoelz]

Tivo Bolt, Comcast (metro Detroit), TE3

This afternoon (5-19-20) I noticed suddenly that many channels (I'm estimating maybe 30%) are missing program information in the left pane of the guide. I'm pretty sure everything was fine this morning. Some show the network icon with no program information, some show the "New" icon with no program information and some show "To Be Announced". After some experimentation, I discovered that on any channel that is missing program data on the left pane, the right pane shows program start times that are ahead by between 3 and 6 hours. Start times are correct for any channel that shows program information in the left pane.

I forced a connection and then re-started with no change. Interestingly, before I forced the connection I saw that the last connection was listed as yesterday morning and I am 100% certain the guide was OK yesterday, if not this morning. Not sure how that can happen.....

Our backup Roamio (OTA) is fine, even after a forced connection and a restart.

I just went through two months of trying to get Tivo to fix a simple guide issue on our OTA Roamio (it still isn't 100% fixed) and I'm dreading going down that rat hole again. But while the Roamio is OTA and not our main DVR, the Bolt is on Comcast and IS our main DVR so this is important.

Anyone else?

Paul

 

[pgoelz]

Well, I called Tivo and reported the issue but I am not optimistic that the person I spoke to actually understood the full extent of the issue. She asked me for three examples of channels with missing data and I'll bet money those are the only ones they look at.

Through all of this, the Tivo Online guide data looks to be 100% correct so it would not appear to be their master database that is corrupted. But what they send to my Tivo is, even after two forced connections and two guided setups.

In the mean time, after a lot of poking around in the guide, what seems to have happened is that there was a block of bad or missing data in the guide variously between about 10AM Tuesday the 19th and 9:30PM that same evening. During those hours, channels that had bad data were as described in the OP. Now that it is a little past 9PM, many of the channels where normal program data resumed at 8PM have cleared and are again showing what looks like correct programming. There are still some channels where the corrupted area looks like it ends around 9:30PM and those are still blank. I expect them all to have cleared by tomorrow and this will just be a bad memory and Tivo will probably Email me to say everything is fine.

Still don't know what really happened. When I called, they told me to repeat guided setup. When I said I already had, they said they did not show that it completed (it did). So I did one again, which changed nothing.

Paul

 

[pgoelz]

Well, it is now the next morning and while many of the affected channels have gone back to normal, not all of them have. For example, the left pane of TCM is blank right now. The listings in the right pane look normal until you examine them closely and find that there is a gap in the listings between 4:30AM and 8:15AM. The last listing is a movie that starts at 4:30AM and runs until 6:00 AM according to the listing itself. However, there is no listing for the time period between 6:00AM and 8:15AM. Since the current time is 7:45AM, the left pane is blank and the right pane shows a listing beginning in 30 minutes, at 8:15AM.

So...... what this seems to boil down to is that the database would appear to have gaps where there is no program information for a given time period. My guess would be an entire program or programs are missing. If this gap coincides with the current time, the left pane is blank. Yesterday I thought the gaps were just for that one day but they are not.

This would appear to be coming from Tivo since re-running guided setup does not fix it.... the gaps appear to be identical before and after running guided setup.

No one else?

Paul

 

[pgoelz]

OK, I can report possible success. Based on my further investigation below and the fact that no one else seems to be reporting it, this now looks like a one off issue that only affected our Bolt.

This issue affected our Bolt on Comcast. We also have a Roamio which is set up for OTA. Out of curiosity, I ran guided setup on the OTA Roamio and reset it to Comcast. When guided setup was done, ALL channels were correct, including those that had missing data on the Bolt. That seemed to point to a botched incremental update to the Bolt guide data since a simple "repeat guided setup" did not fix it. Changing from OTA to cable or vice versa seems to completely wipe the database (there is no data prior to the time when guided setup finished) so I decided to use guided setup to change the Bolt with the missing data from cable to OTA and then back.

When guided setup on the Bolt from OTA back to cable finished, it looks like ALL channels are now correct. Note that simply running guided setup without changing from cable to OTA and back apparently does not wipe the database and did not fix the issue.

So the remaining question is.... what happened and will it happen again. I hope not, but only time will tell since this is FAR too complicated an issue for the script readers at Tivo to comprehend. Just documenting it here in case it happens to anyone else.

Paul

 

[dianebrat]

It's not truly a 1-off, I've had the issue pop up on and off for a few weeks, but it randomly comes and goes, it's not repeatable in my case, but the symptom is the same, a blank entry in the left side of the liveguide and sometimes a missing entry on the right, sometimes accurate info in the right panel.

 

[pgoelz]

It's not truly a 1-off, I've had the issue pop up on and off for a few weeks, but it randomly comes and goes, it's not repeatable in my case, but the symptom is the same, a blank entry in the left side of the liveguide and sometimes a missing entry on the right, sometimes accurate info in the right panel.

Oh crap. That means it needs to be fixed and I have no idea how to alert Tivo about something as esoteric as this. Even the supervisors are basically script readers and anything that has more than one level of logic escapes them. They are mostly OK with "it says THIS but it should say THIS" but give them "it says THIS when THIS is TRU but then should say THIS" and they lose the thread. Tivo is seriously missing the boat by ignoring this forum full of intelligent articulate people who can point out software issues with sufficient detail to actually fix them. When I try going through customer support, I nearly always find they have totally missed the point after I carefully explain it.

BTW, if you see a blank on the left, I think you will ALWAYS find that the last show prior to the current time has ended and there was no program listing for whatever came between the end of the last show and the current time.

Paul