Server Version#: 1.13.9.5456
Player Version#:
If I do manual “Refresh Guide” and it gets to 100% (which it usually does now), I have a fully populated guide. However, every 4 hours or so (not sure of the frequency), the server does some sort of update on its own and a few of my channels in guide lose all their programming except for the next 12 hours or so. Everything after that says “Unknown Airing”. If I do a manual guide refresh, I can fix the problem. But then the problems returns again in 4 hours after the next auto refresh.
I have done all the normal time consuming suggestions that I usually see on these issues. I have deleted the DVR devices from plex, re-added them, rescanned for channels, etc (multiple times).
I purchased a PLEX pass about 3 weeks ago specifically for the TV features and it simply has never worked reliably. It just doesn’t work the way it is supposed to. I am not getting what I paid for.
PLEX, please answer two questions:
When can I expect these continuing problems to be fixed.
In the meantime, is there a way to stop the regular automatic guide updates? The manual guide refresh appears to work but then the guide is wrecked again in a few hours. While, I wait for you to fix the software, I would happy to manually do daily guide update if the auto updates could be suppressed.
Please, it appears that it has been well over 3 weeks that these problems have been going on and we really need information. This is really damaging your reputation.
A server update (Version 1.14.0.5470) became available shortly after the above post. I just want it made clear that the problem is STILL HAPPENING. This morning, the guide for some of my channels was back down to only about 12 hours of programming when it was previously fully populated.
PLEX, this is not acceptable. Every time I want to look at the guide, it’s usually more than 4 hours since the last time, which means that I have to wait 5+ minutes for the guide to download again (i.e., a manual refresh) so that the data is there. And then the same stupid thing the next time I want to look at the guide.
Please fix your software. The periodic/automatic incremental guide updates should not discarding existing data.
And I ask again, is there a way to suppress the periodic/automatic guide updates? I would be ok with waiting for a fix if I could just do manual refreshes and suppress the auto updates that screw everything up.
I would make sure that " Enable more frequent program guide refreshes" is unchecked along with looking at your maintenance window settings are minimal with a window in the early AM.
I had this for a bit when my DNS wasn’t resolving quick enough. Pi-Hole, VPN etc?
Thanks for the reply. I remember seeing “Enable more frequent program guide refreshes” in the DVR Settings when I first set up the DVR 3 weeks ago. It appears that PLEX has removed that setting because I no longer see that setting.
I have been having this exact same problem for quite some time. A week or so ago, I was finally able to manually update the guide to 100% and saw two weeks worth… But that same day it continued the periodic update that caused “unknown airing” issues and the guide only went out for less than 12 hours.
I have version 1.14.0.5470 running on Synology. Everything else seems to be running great - I love Plex. But this guide issue may cause me to not renew my Plex Pass.
I did a complete uninstall/reinstall of Plex Media Server. After the uninstall, I completely deleted the PMS folder in the AppData\Folder so that it would be a clean reinstall.
It was painful. I lost all my metadata, lost all the watched/unwatched flags for all my media files, etc. I had to recreate my media libraries, setup up the DVR again, schedule all my recordings again, etc.
The idea was to see if a clean re-install would fix the problem. I thought things would looked good for most of today. But now I’m back to some channels only having EPG data for the next 12 hours or so when they previously had complete data for those channels.
The ball is your court PLEX. A lot of people pay for the plex pass to get the TV/DVR features. Those users should really be getting refunds because the service just hasn’t worked for over a month now. The EPG is either empty or incomplete most of the time and there are many posts about scheduled recordings that get missed. The DVR just doesn’t work.
Thanks for the link. I will read through the info and set up a test period so hopefully Plex will have what they need to fix this frustrating issue. I have found a workaround that is not acceptable as I am still paying Plex for not being able to use what I am paying for. I am only putting up with this for now as Plex is server based and not reliant on a PC always being on to record.
For those that are interested I have NextPVR installed on my PC and periodically running a bat file to create an epg.xml file for my TV listings. I use this xml file for NextPVR and I can also use it to create the guide in Plex when setting up a DVR. I’ve been able to scrape 21 days worth of listings, but that may just be too far out as the schedules may easily change so I cut it back to 14 days. All of this is being done using free software.
This workaround gives me two ways to record OTA stuff with my HDHomerun Quatro. However, it ticks me off that I have to use this process, while Plex gets away with not solving this long standing issue for which I am paying them money.
I am on the verge of letting my Plex Pass expire and just going with NextPVR for my recordings. You can even run MCEBuddy on these NextPVR files to strip the commercials out. You can even run another program on them to extract subtitles. However, syncing of these subtitles is usually problematic.
That’s my rant for now. I will still try to work with Plex for now to get this finally fixed. I love Plex as a media server. However, they need to get their act together to take care of the little things for those of us who pay for those perks.
Running Server version 1.14.1.5488 running on MacOS High Sierra. Having the same problem for some time now, used to work fine. Not sure when it started this behavior. Manual refreshes work just fine. But automatic refreshes overwrite everything beyond 12 hours or so with TBD programming… Just found this thread so will upload logs.Plex Media Server Logs_2018-12-22_14-44-53.zip (3.9 MB)
I see the uploaded log files. Did you ever get an answer from Plex? I have the same problem on my Ubuntu system and can’t get any response from support. I can’t stop my PlexPass…paid for a lifetime version.
Never heard anything from Plex. I did notice recently that a couple of new channels that showed up OTA and I’ve added have guide data for the full two weeks. So removed all the channels and then re-enabled them hoping that would resolve the issue, but have the same behavior. My next step is to more fully disable the HD HomeRun from Plex and add it back in. Obviously would prefer to not start over with a fresh install to avoid the full media scan again.
Actually, I gave up on the Plex TV features. During the first month of my Lifetime Plex pass, the TV features were broken for most of the month due to problems with their guide provider. After that was resolved, this problem continued. Since this was not the only problem with paid features and Plex ignored most of my posts, I posted an extremely angry and negative review and demanded that I get a refund for my plex pass (which I got). I switched to the free NextPVR software and I really like it – the scheduler is far more sophisticated than Plex’s and it so far has been incredibly more reliable than Plex’s DVR ever was for me - I never have problems with shows not recording. I check the Plex forums every once in a while to see what is happening with the TV features and it seems that switching was probably the right choice.
It’s too bad because I love the Plex streaming features and I watch recorded TV (by NextPVR) almost exclusively using the free streaming side of plex. It was a real shock for me when the quality of the paid Plex features that I used (TV and Sync) was so poor.
Note that I did a complete uninstall/reinstall of Plex to try to fix this and other problems. It was very painful since I lost all the watched/unwatched info in the database. In the end, it seemed like the problems were better for about a day – and then all the bad behaviours returned. So I definitely would not suggest a reinstall as a way to solve the TV problems.
I’m looking at Emby to see how well it might work. I run exclusively Ubuntu PCs for my home systems. Windows only for those things I can’t find on linux.
Plex has worked reasonably well for my needs, until now. Still trying to determine how to get the attention of Plex Support since they don’t seem to follow any of these posts and have no way to actually request assistance.
Just checked my one server this morning and everything after midnight is a problem. I switched my second system to use Zap2XML and import the listings nightly and it seems to working correctly.
Update:
I recently started using Zap2XML to update my guide data. I run the script at 1a.m. and then let Plex update the guide at 2a.m. Since the change my data in the EPG is staying current. I set the configuration to get 7 days of data without caching to force update out a week. The only thing that concerns me is what I might be missing by dropping the Gracenote EPG.
