I am using two hdhomerun primes. I have a couple of channels that their channel scan just will not add. The channels work fine as I can tune them with kodi or vlc with no issue. Can I manually add them to the channels guide so I can use them?
They were in their before but a recent channel scan has removed them so there is a listing for the channel in the channels guide but they are not there now.
Thanks!
no. they used to. It's random. I've been working with the sd folks on this but no resolution so far. I had them earlier today but then applied today the new firmware for the devices and did a channel scan on both. now channel 1002 (WKRN-ABC) is missing on both.
This is a known problem with the Prime. There used to be a thread on their forum about it, but it's already been culled. (They are very aggressive about removing older-ish threads.)
If you can get some traction on this with SD, good on you. But many have been asking for improvements to this since they implemented background channel scans, including the ability to disable background scans or increase the timeout.
In all honesty, I wouldn't hold my breath on this front.
I know the channels are there since I can use vlc to tune them. So if they can manually be added to channels we can work around this nonsense. For example, on my old tvheadend/kodi setup this wasn't an issue since I was in control of the muxes/services that were enabled.
Exactly. The problem is because Channels uses the lineup from the tuner, so this is definitely an SD issue. However, Channels can make headway on this front, but it definitely won't be an easy fix by any stretch.
Also, I found the thread on SD's forums: How to stop Automatic Tuner Re-Scans
How are you tuning the channels with VLC?
If you have a prime you can put this into vlc as a network address and it will play the stream
http://[ip of prime]:5004/auto/v[channel #]
so for me it is
http://192.168.1.148:5004/auto/v1002
The CableCARD knows the virtual channel -> frequency/PID mapping, so it works even if the Prime's internal lineup shows the channel as "unsubscribed".
This usually happens with SDV channels that need a tuning adapter; those tend to take longer to tune, and time out before the background scan registers the channel.
Yes. There are several with line through it.
I was wondering if you had any luck or updates on this. I'm having the same exact issue you are, and ironically enough, it's on channels 1002 and 1005. I can pull up the tuning manually using VLC and if I view the lineup with the show=all, it's strikethough too.
I'm trying to use it with Plex, and plex pulls the lineup.json file, which has those two channels missing on it. If I can add these 1002 and 1005 channels to the lineup, all my issues will be fixed.
Known issue with the SD Prime. Been there, done that.
Since Channels uses their (sometimes background) scanned lineup, you'll probably have to bring it up with SD.
My fix after giving up on SD's support was just keep manually scanning until the channels came in.
Some cable co's put the same network/program on more than one virtual channel, so you may be able to access those on other channels. Best way to find out is compare Frequency and ProgramNumber by looking at
http://x.x.x.x/lineup.xml?show=all&tuning (XML)
OR
http://x.x.x.x/lineup.json?show=all&tuning (JSON)
In my case, Xfinity duplicates most of the 7xx, 8xx channels in the 1000's.
P.S. This is Channels Community Forum, not Plex Support Forum (had to say that as a non-using Plex Lifetime Member)
Thanks for the response. I'm not a Channels user, but it seemed like we had a very similar backend issue, so I thought I'd ask.
I'll have to dig around the programming guide today to see what's missing in the 1000's. For me, we have channels in the 2-100(?) range that's still SD mpeg2, then from 100 to about 600 is a mixture of regular and premium, SD and HD. 700 to 750 is music, and 1000 up is the national channel lineup. I was hoping that all the channels were nicely organized in the 1000+ lineup area but maybe not.
One of the reasons I was using MythTV was to do channel renumbering and trying to organize the 100-600 channels. I would love to get an explanation on how they decided this channel order. Did somebody say we'll put CNN on 200, ESPN on 201, then A&E on 202? Is there even a reason we have SD channels in 2020?
OK, sorry...so back to the issue with the SD Prime. I posted on the SD forums too, hoping they will get an idea and answer...because I think it's ultimately their issue. In the meantime, I found a workaround. Not sure if it will work with Channels, but I've had it stick with Plex for the past 12 hours.
I pulled down a bunch of files from the SD Prime and put them in a small web server folder. This would be:
discover.json
lineup.json
lineup_status.json
./dms/device.xml
./dri/device.xml
Edit the lineup.json file around to include your 1002 (and other channels).
On your web server, assign (but don't apply) the same IP as your SD Prime box. Get ready to start the web server up. Personally, I used Python's mini http server.
In the Plex DVR setup, you click a button to do a discovery for HDHR's. Get it to the discovery phase. Unplug the network from the SD Prime, apply that IP you assigned in the previous paragraph, then start the web server. For me, Plex saw the SD Prime box disappear then reappear once I had my mini http server stood up. At that point, I could step through the rest of the process and have it start downloading EPG data. Once that was completed, I could unassign the IP and replug in my SD Prime.
There may be easier ways to do this by way of using xteve or telley, but I found that those two products are good to get m3u streams into Plex, but I get the feeling you need to use an external EPG with it. I was also looking at mitmproxy to see if I can just proxy all the HDHR traffic and redirect certain web pages, but couldn't get it to recognized in Plex.
Hope that maybe helps a bit. All this work may not even be worth it if a lot of channels are missing in the 1000+ range for me. 
Since channel 189 and 1002 are both WBBM-HD, why not just use 189?
Same with the 1xx and 1005 for WMAQ-HD.
Since the frequency and program are the same, when you tell it to tune to virtual channel 1002 or 189 it tunes to the same frequency and filters the same pid. i.e. the channels are identical, both tune WBBM-HD, it's just that Xfinity in its Xfinite wisdom decided we need the same station broadcast on two different channels.
In my area Xfinity duplicates channels in the 7xx and 8xx range to the 1xxx channels.
I just disable all 1xxx channels and use the 7xx and 8xx since my Prime has the same issue with some of the 1xxx channels saying I'm unsubscribed, but I'm subscribed to the duplicate channel 7xx or 8xx.
Because I have OCD and the channels need to stay in the same general order. 
Honestly though, I've lived in this area for 40 years and Channel 2 was always WBBM, Channel 5 was always WMAQ, Channel 7 was always WLS, etc. To go from Channel 2 to 189, Channel 5 to 194(?), Channel 7 to 203, etc, would be painful. Going from 2 to 1002, 5 to 1005, 7 to 1007...that at least makes some sense to me.
The general feeling that I get is that SD isn't going to fix it. I'm not the first person to have this issue, and it sounds like they (SD) blames the provider more. Trying to talk to a technical person at Xfinity that actually understands and will fix the issue also won't happen. So unfortunately, I'm stuck with it all.
I think what I'll end up doing is my little IP trick that I mentioned above, and hope that one day, the issue gets resolved.
The problem is indeed with SD's firmware. Its background scans do not give enough time for all channels to be tuned. SD has refused to acknowledge this is a valid problem, and offers no way to adjust the timeout for background scans, or disable them completely. They also refuse to offer a way to manually adjust the tuner's lineup to correct the issues caused by their background scans.
Usually what SD says is to enable Send diagnostic information on the Prime and they'll look at it.
Then they get back to you stating they saw interference during the channel scan and that's why it couldn't 'tune' (whatever they mean by that) channels 1002 and 1005.
Hard to believe, Yes. Because if it 'tuned' WMAQDT vchannel 1xx at 309 MHz-Program 5 it should also be able to 'tune' WMAQDT vchannel 1005 at 309 MHz-Program 5.
Possible that interference from a router or other electronic equipment being too close to the Prime. Also possible the Prime's power brick is going bad. Since the channel scans use all three tuners and scan in order by vchannel, maybe when it 'tuned' WMAQDT 1xx there was no interference, but by the time it got to WMAQDT 1005 there was.
If it was an Xfinity issue you wouldn't be able to see both channels using VLC and the Prime's log would show not-subscribed.
Tuner: tuner0 tuning 67 TCM (auto:225MHz-2013)
CableCARD: tuner0 67 TCM (auto:225MHz-2013) access = not-subscribed
Tuner: tuner0 tuning 789 TCMHD (auto:285MHz-4)
CableCARD: tuner0 789 TCMHD (auto:285MHz-4) access = not-subscribed
Tuner: tuner0 tuning 1755 TCMHD (auto:285MHz-4)
CableCARD: tuner0 1755 TCMHD (auto:285MHz-4) access = not-subscribed
What I wish is I could tune from 2 (SD WKRN ABC) to 702, The HD version. HD AutoTune. So the guide would show 2 ABC. But would really tune to 702 instead. It confuses my mother who “just wants to go to 2”. But has to dig down to the 700s for the HD versions. We have Spectrum/Charter.
You can create a m3u and pick only the channels you want and give them the channel number as you described. There would be some effort to accomplish this.