Damon;
Excellent response. It certainly appears from your observations that the problem is internal to Plex.
Three thoughts occurred to me as I read your reply.
1.) Coax, I’ve read, looses 50% of its signal strength with each connector the signal goes thru. Your cabling description is simple and works. But one suggestion to make it even better is use a single splitter for all end devices instead of two, which will reduce the number of connections for aerial signal to traverse on its way to your tuner . Also, empty connectors on the splitter can interfere with the signal on other connectors on that splitter, although a proper ohm (75) terminator on the unused connector virtually eliminates that problem. You say you see good signal strength on the coax. Insure the signal strength is good at each coax connector that connects to an end device.
2.) A simple change to test the quality of your connection to Plex is to swap the connectors between the freeview STB and the tuner. If the problem follows the cable over to the freeview stb, then there’s a cable issue, otherwise, no harm, no foul, so don’t swap back. Insure you leave it swapped long enough to have seen the problem follow the cable, if you do swap back.
Sorry to belabor the cabling. Cabling can cause “seemingly” random symptoms, so best to eliminate cabling as a root cause early in the troubleshooting, if one is not sure of the cable plant and the symptoms appear seemingly randomly over time.
Gut feel wise, given the logic in your response and your observations, I now have to agree the “EPG randomly disappears” problem “seems” internal to Plex. So, I’m going there now.
3.) I’m out of ideas, but see below. I need to learn more about how Plex handles the EPG, recordings, and the tuners. I need to do this because my wife is a TV nut and I will be out sleeping in the boat in the backyard if I get her to shut down the Media Center parallel (yep, she still has the Gen 1 system running out of fear of the new and unknown/unproven) AND Plex goes south on me like it is doing with you. I felt your pain two replies ago!
Thus, my third thought is I should study the configuration screens related to EPG/recordings/tuners AND research the Plex support guides and forums for information on these topics. I’m thinking some configuration setting may be setting up the scenario for random EPG/recordings loss, a setting I don’t use. OR, there is some issue between Plex and the Hauppauge tuner. OR, I don’t know enough to come up with more ideas.
I tried a single Hauppauge tuner about 5 to 7 years ago and liked it. Still have it but don’t use it. I currently love the Silicon Dust tuners that I’m using with Plex (sorry, not pertinent).
So, the short of it…
If it isn’t’ your cable plant, then I’ll try to reply later after I’ve educated myself a bit more on the Plex product(s). Given my wife, and my desire to get rid of the infrastructure supporting Media Center, I hope this effort helping you will better enable me to keep my wife happy. When she is not happy, inevitably, I am not happy!
Good luck! and I hope to have some ideas for you to try soon.
I’ve had to keep my old freeview STB in play for now because Plex just isn’t up to the mark yet. There is an audible groan from the wife and kids when I say “oh bugger - that didn’t record because Plex lost all the program schedules!”.