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Unwanted programmes being added to Planner (merged)
Ambient Sheep
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As reported by several people on the Emmerdale series link thread, people have been having strange unwanted programmes added to their planner recently. Usually this seems to have been the ITV News at 6.30pm instead of Emmerdale as desired, but there also seems to be a seperate problem.
We've now just had another one, and the Emmerdale problem seems to have been fixed, so thought I'd start a new thread.
There's been a few of these over the last couple of weeks, but my two documented instances are:
We've now just had another one, and the Emmerdale problem seems to have been fixed, so thought I'd start a new thread.
There's been a few of these over the last couple of weeks, but my two documented instances are:
- My box shut down at 02:10am on Sunday morning (70 minutes into recording MTV2's "120 Minutes", thanks guys) and when I turned it on this morning it came up on channel 998, along with a free booking for "The Blue Planet" at 15:35 on Sunday on - wait for it - BBC1 Oxford (channel 955). I'm in Swansea and have never tuned into BBC1 Oxford in my life! Never watched "The Blue Planet" either.
(This seems similar to this report on the Emmerdale thread by a guy in Bedford who had something added on BBC NE a couple of weeks back.) - Sometime during Sunday evening the box added "I'm a Shellebrity Keep Me In Here!", a five-minute programme at 21:35 tonight (Monday) on UKG2+1. Now if we had the box set to record ITV's "I'm a Celebrity..." I'd suspect some dirty cross-promotion scam, but we don't.
At the risk of sounding a bit old-school techy, I wonder if there's any significance to the fact that UKG2+1 is channel 256?
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I was wondering if it was something to do with old series links which shared an ID with new ones -- but I don't know the details of how the series links work, so I may be way off (how long are series links kept alive for if the next episode isn't on within the week? And can series links span multiple channels?). I figured that some old show claimed there was another episode to come (I presume that with this system an episode's EPG information indicates whether or not there's something to follow, as the "Series Link" option isn't usually available for the last ep in a series).
I've had quite a few of these in the last couple of weeks and I think it's more worrying than this.
We had a ...searching appear for 4:20pm on BBC on Fridays and have never recorded anything at this time. By Sunday we had realised that Shoebox Zoo hadn't recorded for that week and it transpires that it has changed its scheduled time and disappeared from the planner.
I now believe that these unwanted additions are corrupted series links and each time one appears I think I have lost something from the scheduled list.
Can anyone confirm they have lost something?
Dave
Blackpool, for this Thursday 21:00 on BBC1 West (channel 956, one up from BBC1 Oxford that we had earlier, note). The interesting thing about this is that I'm deliberately recording "Mine All Mine" on ITV1 Wales at the same time, and I have been unable to series-link that - however I haven't tried to do so since I first programmed it in last Friday, and certainly not today.
Both Blackpool and the other two previously mentioned have all come up with series link on, by the way, just to add insult to injury.
I agree with the "corrupted series link" theory, it does seem likely. However apart from all the Emmerdale lost links last week, which seem to be fixed now, I *think* that everything of ours is still there OK. It was while I was checking that just now that I noticed this damn Blackpool thing.
The only series link we HAVE lost was HIGNFY on Friday 9.30pm, but that was because it skipped a week for Children In Need, so is probably not related. Sky+ really *does* need to have a 15-day planner to cope with one-offs like that.
The progs seem to be on local BBC channels and also had the message searching...... on a blank record programme.
It would appear to be a general fault affecting most boxes. Anyone know where to e-mail a copy of this link to Sky so maybe they can investigate??
Well can you give it to me, as my Wednesdays "The Bill" keeps Vanishing from my planner (as reported in another thread)
Regards James
I think someone in the EPG entries department must be drinking something stronger than tea.
Johnboy
The mysterious programmes today were from the Trouble channel - "Clean&Clear" and ""Celebrity Extra" and yesterday there were two films "A Matter of Life and Death at 19:00 on Sky Cinema and "Black Narcissus" on Sky Cinema at 19:30.
I do not know whether anything went missing, although it may have done. I do not record soaps and the most regular one I record is CSI at 21:00, 22:00 and 23:00.
This isn't too much of a problem, as they can be easily deleted - but what if it is symptomatic of a deeper problem. Has anyone reported it to Sky, is there any point in reporting it to Sky and what suggestions do other forum members suggest to stop it?
If Sky try the same thing on with Sky+ I can see me getting a PC Media Centre type thing pronto.
You can disable this function on Tivo - I'm sure some people find it useful to have Coronation St auto recorded because they record Eastenders - I do not - had my Tivo upgraded to 120gb when I set it back up I had forgotten about this feature - came back next day to find a whole load of cr@p recorded and my disc nearly full. Another thing - if you have it on then auto recordings will be removed to create space for your specific recordings if necessary
I was talking - as surely you know if you recognised the reference - of forced recordings of things you never asked for. Yes, I know it never took up any user space, yes, I know it was a one-off after they realised they'd screwed up, but to me it signified a company who could be trusted no more than Sky could. I was also enraged by the arrogant attitude of the TiVo people/moderators - one in particular - on the TiVo forum (although at least they have one!) in response to the complaints, JUST as I was making my decision.
But as I said earlier, it was only one of the reasons. Other reasons were (a) the fact that Sky+ can record natively rather than having to re-encode already de-encoded MPEG video, (b) the overall system integration, and (c) the difficulty of getting hold of a TiVo box - and whether or not it was worth waiting for a V2 or even if the EPG data would still be available in a few years' time - at the time I was making the decision. Having said all that, if they'd been readily available at the same price as a Sky+ in a shop near me I probably would have gone for one. The "Dossa and Joe" fiasco was certainly another reason (call it (d)), but far from the only one.
I'm worried now that this thread is going to digress into a massive Sky+ v. TiVo flame war; I hope it doesn't so we can keep track of these unwanted programmes in the hope that somebody in the know sees it and sorts it out, as they have apparently done on the Emmerdale thread.
To clarify my reply (already done in one of the other threads) is it possible that sky+ are 'testing' the tivo like record similar programmes function without our knowledge?? (and not doing a very good job)
If my own experiences are anything to go by, I'd say this is unlikely. I've never yet had cause to record any news programme, and it's always BBC News I get added.
But what if they were testing this (or remote recording setting) on someone elses sky+ but it somehow got sent to yours in error? :eek:
That's just far too complicated for my brain to cope with at the moment
I suspect it's either duplication of codes used to identify programmes for series links, or a bug in the software that drives series linking.
Yes, as I thought my reply to dfgh showed, I consider it a serious possibility, and it worries me...which is where we came in. :-)
Also I'm sure things have been disappearing from my planner. I've noticed if I have more than two pages of stuff in the planner things go a little awry.
I have just noticed that tonights Champions League match on ITV is not in my planner - cannot be absolutely certain but I thought I added it last night. Coincidentally it is on the 3rd page of my planner now I have re-inserted it.
I do not use series links on sky+ and have not noticed any unwanted recordings in my planner since the very early days