Dormant, meaning is in background/suspended. I am not sure what Apple call it.
U can see the app in the App switcher. But am using other apps. It is not fully closed unless use close the app (force quite or app switcher the litte X on Andorid TV)
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One thing I failed to mention earlier - when a blank line on the guide is present, it's impossible to scroll vertically either up or down. In this event, the only way to navigate is to scroll horizontally left or right beyond the blank line area and then scroll either up or down. This is happening daily.
Obviously this is extremely frustrating. My wife is very unhappy and wants to return to using Tablo instead of Channels.
Since reporting this problem over a month ago, we've not seen a solution come forth nor any workaround.
Meantime, we've submitted numerous diagnosis reports with no response.
We're running low on patience and need a solution soon.
I have now determined how to induce the blank guide failure consistently.
- Restart/reboot FireTV
- Run Channels DVR released or current beta version.
- Select and play any channel for at least few seconds.
- Stop playing and exit the app.
- Run the same Channels DVR app again.
- View the guide.
- You will see a blanked section of guide on only the channel that was played starting at about 4 or 8 hours from the current time.
- If you run another lower number channel and then rerun Channels DVR the blank section will change. But it will never go to another higher number until you completely do a FireTV restart.
I have been able to consistently reproduce the failure on my Firestick TV 4K Max and on my Chromecast Google TV. I was not able to force the failure on my Sony Google TV. I believe it has a powerful processor than my other devices.
The best work around for now is to run Setup/Applications and choose your Channels DVR app and Force Close. Then I believe you can run it without the failure occurring until you stop the app. Or if you play the first channel in your guide the blank will move to that channel and at least it will not inferfere with guide movement. My first channel number is something that I will never watch so I will just run it first for a few seconds.
Hopefully the developers will have some time fix this, if they can.
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Much thanks Michael!
Very informative and glad to know it's reproduceable and not just me doing something weird. And thanks for your efforts. Surely there are other users who've encountered the "blank line". (?)
I'll try the "Force Stop" work-around and see what happens.
I'm using a Fire TV Stick 4K running Fire OS 6.2.9.8 and Channels 4.6.5 and I went through the steps and was unable to replicate the issue.
For step 4, do you mean stopping playing by hitting the back button and then hitting the home button, or just hitting the home button? I've tried both approaches and it did not cause a blanked section.
Not sure if this is applicable or helpful, but FWIW I've only seen this sort of thing happen when a channel I've added to CDVR is mapped to an east coast channel. Usually after a reboot or a force-quit / re-launch, I see those blank segments in the guide. In those cases I use a +3 offset, so the guide data is correct, since I'm on the west coast.
Example with a channel added via Chrome Capture:
#EXTINF:-1 channel-id="MTV Classic" tvg-shift="+3",MTV Classic
chrome://localhost:5589/stream?url=https://tv.youtube.com/watch/isxl2N52bUQ
And sure enough, within 3 hours the current guide for those channels get filled in.
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I just use the back button to exit and then restart the app. The guide for the channel that was played would be missing when I moved to future several hours. I do have about 130 OTA channels. Maybe I will try deleting some of the channels to see if it still happens. I don't do anything fancy like Fofer refers.
My FireTV OS for my Max is 7.6.5.2. I don't think it has anything to do with the OS, since I was able to duplicate the failure with my Chromecast Google TV. I think they are very different OS versions. The failure even shows up on my TVE channels. I will connect my Firestick 4k not Max tomorrow and see if it fails for me.
I've tried 5 more times to replicate this issue and I really can't get it to happen. I'll try it on my Chromecast Google TV.
I have duplicated the failure on my Fire TV Stick 4K running Fire OS 6.2.9.8. Today I retested my Sony Google TV and the problem duplicated, not sure why I was unable to duplicate it previously, probably operator error. I have also duplicated the failure on my Shield. So it has duplicated on every Android/FireTV device that I own. Today, it has duplicated every time, never seen it not fail. Fails on the released Channels DVR app and the current beta.
I do use the Windows server. Not sure if that could have some cause. I have tried lots of different settings on the apps, can't think of anything that would be specific to my setup.
One bit of good news, the new beta version is able to tune ATSC 3.0 channels in 5 sec or less on all of my devices. Also the sound on my channel 104.1(Fox station) has also been corrected on all my devices. It is a shame that DRM is a major problem.
I've just tried this again on my Chromecast Google TV and I can't replicate it either running Beta 10.3.2031.
Oh well, I have an easy workaround for me. I just run my first channel in the guide for a few seconds, problem stays out of the way for me. Maybe someday it will be clearer what is causing the problem. Of course if you ever want me to do any special tests, I would gladly do so.
Just reviewed all the posts on this thread. Since this problem remains unresolved after several months, I've concluded that Channels developers have dismissed this problem since they apparently have been unable to recreate.
Very discouraging that this problem is permanent and will remain unresolved indefinitely. Only hope is that it is inadvertently "fixed" in a future version in the not-too-distant future.
Meantime, we will trudge on with the Channels product since we're otherwise very happy and haven't yet found a superior product to replace Channels.
Also hope other users won't hesitate to report this problem so it can be elevated to a higher priority by Channels support staff.
Read recently where Amazon is switching to a different in-house OS for the Fire line of products, I'd be surprised if Channels even bothers to support the new platform and the old android based system you're running will likely not get any priority as far as updates and bugs.
I suspect my Android TV on an Nvidia Shield is next on the chopping block, seems to have become obsolete slowly but surely.
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If that happens that is when I dump Channels DVR. A year or so from now homegrown DVRs might be a thing of the past. I will subscribe for one more year see what happens.
I'm not sure if "dismissed" is the correct term, but it's true that we are at a loss as to what is causing the problem, have found nothing in our diagnostic logs that point to what the problem is, and have been unable to recreate it in our development environments that could help us identify the cause.
We can't even tell if the issue is a bug in our code or if it's an issue in the OS that we have to work around.
This continues to be an ongoing problem for us.
When viewing the grid we see "blank lines/segments" at least 50% of the time. Actually, it's probably more like 80-90%.
Also, when scrolling, the grid will eventually freeze with the only option to press the back or home button.
All devices on our LAN are connected via wired Ethernet (except of course for phones) so speed and bandwidth are not a problem.
Running client v4.6.5 and server v2023.12.28.0146.
Without seeing any details, may I ask what your network topology looks like, and what firewall/routing rules there are both on your server and your router?
From what I can gather, you are using Windows 10 as your server OS, and a current FireOS device as your client. Have you tried other devices, and do they also exhibit this behavior? Does this only occur with a single physical client/device, but others do not have this issue?
I am trying to be helpful, but in the dozen or so posts you've made, all I know is that often your guide doesn't show, you have a Win10 machine as a server, and a current Amazon device as a client. Can you provide some more granular details that might help narrow this down?
I am still able to reproduce your original failure 100% of the time on every device I have (Firestick Max, Shield, Chromecast Google TV, Sony Google TV, Samsung Android phone). Only one channel of the guide is blank after looking ahead a few hours and only after that channel was played then the app backed out and resumed. If the app does a new launch, the problem never shows up until it has been resumed.
I also can always duplicate this failure. If I hold down the right movement key, the guide will eventually freeze up. No selected entry shows on the screen and I press the back key to reset the guide. Pressing the key at slow enough intervals may keep it from freezing up.
I have a Windows 11 Pro server wired to my router, and the Shield is wired to the router. My other clients only use wifi. They all have these same problems.
The developers have not been able to duplicate the failures. I haven't found a setting or condition where it doesn't fail. Not sure how to troubleshoot any further. I don't use the guide much because it is a pain to move several days ahead.
Thanks for your posts Mike!
My Channels server is running on a Windows 10 Pro PC (Intel Core i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz; 32GB RAM) with a dedicated 512GB SSD for the server data (seldom exceeds 50% full) plus 1TB SSD for Windows and all other system data.
My Channels client runs on a Amazon Fire TV Omni Series 4K UHD smart TV (not a Fire Stick!) with 2GB DDR3 RAM and 16GB storage. See full device specifications here. Seems to have just about all features you could want.
Both server PC and client Fire TV are connected via Ethernet.
Also, just noticed this problem was reported as early as July, 2019 here.