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Media Center Guide Keeps Losing Clear QAM channels

Anonymous
2010-12-21T01:11:31+00:00

My Media Center Channel Guide loses Clear QAM channel listings each night. Without going into details, I believe this is because Media Center is conducting an auto scan.  I've noticed that if I do a scan and allow it to go to completion that all of the channels found are deleted.  Is there any auto scan feature and can it be turned off?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Music, photos, and video

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Anonymous
2010-12-21T04:45:27+00:00

It actually does do an automatic background scan of digital channels (Clear-QAM, and ATSC.)  I haven't seen MC actually lose a Guide listing due to it; however, I have seen it frell up (sometimes so seriously, that I had to re-run TV Setup to fix it) my QAM channel mappings (thank you, BHN, for wonky PSIP data!)  As such, I have that function disabled on both of my machines.

To disable the background channel scanner:

Open Regedit.  Go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\BackgroundScanner.  You may or may not see a value there namedPeriodicScanEnabled (if it's not there, create it (as a DWORD value) in that folder), and set the ValueData to0.  (for future reference:  0= disabled; 1= enabled.)

Close Regedit, and reboot.

Standard warning:  incorrect editing of the Registry can have far-reaching (and sometimes catastrophic) consequences, and may require reinstalling Windows to correct.  Proceed at your own risk!

Required warning on the BackgroundChannelScanner:  you cannot run TV Setup (when you're using digital (Clear-QAM and/or ATSC) tuners with this service disabled.  If it is disabled, TV Setup will fail (hard-lock) on the 'scan for additional channels you may receive' portion of setup.  If you need to re-run TV Setup, you must first enable the service.

If this fixes your issue, great.  If it doesn't, you can always re-enable the service (just set it to 1), and we can try something else.

HTH,

Chris

MS-MVP (Media Center) [If this post helps to resolve your issue, please click the "Mark as Answer" or "Helpful" button at the top of this message. By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster.]

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-03-02T03:06:09+00:00

    Thanks Chris!  I have BHN too, and my QAM channels disappear sometimes too.  I always assumed that BHN was changing the actual channels (frequencies).  Now, I realize that it is just updating my modulation from QAM-256  to  QAM-64.   I found a way to fix this by deleting the erroneous channel from the guide with Guide Tool, and adding a new channel manually via the Media Center Settings menu.

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-09-19T14:38:26+00:00

    oops...never mind! I checked my registry key name and apparently I had extra space after the word "PeriodicScanEnabled" due to which it this solution didn't seem to work.

    It works perfectly!! Thank you very much

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-09-19T02:33:53+00:00

    I'm facing the same issue currently and the solution provided here is not resolving it. Are there any other solutions available for this issue. I've spent days scanning again and again, trying every other suggestions out there and trying with other "BackgroundScanner" settings...like i even set the interval period to max HEX value it could take. It would still blank out all those main OTA channels (KABC, KCBS, KNBC-4LA, KTTV, and the likes)

    Your help will be greatly appreciated!

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-12-21T18:10:21+00:00

    Chris-

    That appears to have solved the problem.  Thanks for your help!

    Bill

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