Hi,

I have had a read through previous threads and do not believe this specific issue has been discussed.

In the past week or so I have set up a new Pioneer DVR-530 recorder.

I installed the recorder as recommended in the Pioneer manuals and everything was set up successfully. This included the connections with my sky box, the g-link cable and auto-channel switching. In addition to this, the initial guideplus downloads were also successfull. As this is being used through a sky box, I used the Eurosport 410 channel to download the guideplus listings and a full 7 days were received.

However....since that initial download I have not been able to receive any more automatic updates. I have ensured that overnight the sky box is on and tuned to eurosport 410, and that the 530 is in standby. During downloading times, the 530 does indicate 'EPG' but when I look on guideplus later there has been no update. This has now been for 6 nights running. The guideplus page keeps warning that no listing updates have been received.

Information is available at the guideplus settings area and this even indicates the date/time of the previous download, even though no listings were updated. Strangely it also lists the host channel as 'Tuner / 0004 / ERPST'. Does anyone know exactly what this means ? Is it trying to find eurosport on the 530's internal tuner channel 004 ? If so, this is wrong as I need it to find eurosport on the sky box which is connected through the 530's AV2/L1 channel. But I cannot see any way of manually resetting this host channel.

I have checked that my Thomson sky box is compatible on the guideplus website, although I know everything must be able to work ok as the initial listings download was successful.

I have re-tuned the 530 several times now with no success.

I have also tried plugging my terrestrial aerial in and re-tuning to receive analogue ITV. But this wasn't successful either. However the terrestrial reception is awful and that is why we now use a sky box.

Has anyone come across this before ? Or have you any ideas ?

Since the problems above I have spoken with Pioneer who suggested performing a factory reset. I did this yesterday evening and since then the machine is now regularly entering 'EPG' mode. Although as of this morning nothing has been downloaded, not even the channel titles. This is a bit worrying as I think they were downloaded within about 60 minutes the last time I set it up.

Any previous experience, advice, suggestions etc. are appreciated.
Thanks very much,
Jim.

First thing is that for subsequent updates you don't need to leave the Sky box on 410 - the Pio will change to 410 channel automatically via G-link. As long as the Sky box is not in standby then this will work. However, this doesn't solve your problem...


This is your problem I think. As you say, it should be AV2/L1 Ext 410 (or Tuner 003 ITV1). Yes, it is currently trying to find Eurosport on Tuner channel 004.

From the FAQs on the guide Plus web site, you should be able to change the host channel like this - the particular FAQ was about switching from Digital Eurosport to ITV1 analogue, but the the explanation should get you to the right area:

"Please go to the Setup area in the main menu bar. Once you are in the Setup area, select the field for "External Receiver". Press OK on your current satellite receiver and subsequently change to "None" . Your channel line up will change and the GUIDE Plus+ system will tune to ITV for its updates. Go to Editor to ensure that the source for ITV is set to "Tuner"."

If you can't work out how to do it from this, I think you might need to do a setup procedure from scratch again. The manual should have instructions for doing a factory reset.

You might be able to find more information at the Guide Plus FAQs at http://www.europe.guideplus.com/En/help.html.

In case this helps, I also had problems which suddenly started after the initial first week of succesful updates.

In my case, after Pioneer and Guide Plus both failed to help, I discovered two things:

1) Despite the fact that I managed to get my channel line up and first week's listings through my SCART socket (no RF cable at all), I discovered that you have to have an RF cable from the RF out on the Sky box to the RF in on the Pioneer. Then tune PR1 on the Pioneer to the signal coming out of your digibox and you should get listings. It probably says in the manual that you have to have this RF cable but mine updated fine without it for the first week or so.

2) In the end, it was a simple reboot of the Sky box that solved the problem. I switched it off, unplugged it from the mains for 30 seconds, and turned it back on again and hey presto the next time the Pioneer went into EPG mode it downloaded the listings.

Hope one of these things helps!

James

Can I ask what your Guide+ setup screen has for Host Channel?

Can't tell you exactly what's showing on the screen as I'm not at home but it's Eurosport. I see where you're going though, maybe it's looking for Eurosport on the RF input rather than AV1 and I managed to somehow change that setting.

Another annoyance - the first week or so it automatically changed my digibox over to Eurosoprt when it did the updates but now it doesn't. Any ideas why?!

James

Yep - sounds like you've go the same problem as the OP!

Well, confirm what it's got for your host channel. This symptom you're describing sounds like it's got Tuner/ITV1 instead of Ext/Eurosport. If indeed its host channel setting is corfrect then we'll have to think a bit more...

But then again, your downloads are now working anyway? It's just that you have to manually tune to Eurosport?

I've had mine 3 or 4 weeks, I've never had a RF cable plugged in and my downloads are fine. It changes to Eurosport automatically. I can only think something has changed in your setup. Maybe plugging in the RF lead confused it....don't know. But anyway, check that everything in your setup is as it should be.

Thanks to all who took the time to respond. I am happy to report that the problem is solved, courtesy of a response on another forum. This may of use to others that use this forum as well though :-

It seems that some sky boxes randomly lose the text streaming ability (even though all seems ok with the picture etc.) and when this happens guideplus is unable to download the listings. The solution is to simply re-boot the sky box and all should be ok. Fortunately this is the case for me.

The guy who told me about this claims that guideplus are aware of this and are working with sky to try and rectify the problem....? It's a shame that they do not describe this issue on their website.

Obviously, James' 2nd point above would have sorted this out.

In case you are interested, my host channel is still Tuner / ....etc and things seem to be working fine now.

Thanks again,
Jim.

Well I tried again to set up my GuidePlus and it is still set to 'Sky Digibox on AV1' (or words to that effect) and it still doesn't switch over to Eurosport to get the listings. Very odd, it used to do this fine.

I wonder if I should have selected 'Other make' instead of 'Sky Digibox' for the model?

James

Anyone else getting only partial listings for Guideplus ie. full 7 days on some channels and only 2 days on others?

Not sure If it's relivant but the ones that have the full 7 days appear at the beginning of the listing whilst the 2 day channels are at the bottom. I've nobbled about 1/2 the channels (I'm on sky) as I don't get movies, sport and am not into the drama, cooking, soap etc. channels so it should be D/L less info.

Noticed the problem several days ago and have made sure Sky is set to Eurosport incase it is missing the switch over. Not getting error messages about missed update either.

Fully prepared to accept it's a feature If others have the same problem.. just thought I'd ask first before investigating further.

Guideplus only provides 2 days of information on some channels:
http://www.europe.guideplus.com/En/help/clu_uk.html

Bugger. That'll be why then. Cheers Bluap.

Is there a Guideplus newsgroup, forum etc to find out If/when anything changes on Guideplus, specifically # of days published, channels available? Can't help but think (or is that hope) the number of channels is going to be expanded as none of the +1 type Sky channels are covered.

Apparently they can't provide any more channels, something to do with capacity. Or so they say

Correct. But their new DTT service will hopefully expand on that, but obviously this does not help people who do not have Freeview.

Shame they don't allow you to choose which channels you want info on ie. you can only pick 30 out of 40 etc. I've probably got 1/2 the channels turned off as I either don't receive them or have no interest in them. Would be nice to be able to turn these off and others on..

Yep me too. Have dumped the films recently but Sky 2 and 3 would be very handy as I tape stuff on those when they clash on other channels, eg Bones clashes with House and Battlestar with other things as well.

Sounds like your viewing pleasure is similar to mine. Seem to spend hours per week now planning when various programs are replayed and checking they don't conflict with others

Todays fun includes Battlestar Galactica on Sky 2, New House on Ch.5 (not repeated), Cold Case & Bones on Sky 1, Locusts on Sky 2, Due South ITV3 and The District on Hallmark. Also got to keep an eye out for Invassion which I missed earlier this week oh and Force 7 :yawn: .. God knows when I'm gonna get time to watch them all though

Youre telling me.

Was gonna tape the Closer on More 4 but with Battlestar, Threshold, House, Medium, Criminal Intent etc..etc..can't watch everything!!

Don't forget about More4+1 (Ch.286) not that it helps you in this instance LOL.