Reliability of TV Everywhere?

Channels DVR Server TV Everywhere
#1

This isn't a question of the Channels server but of TV Everywhere in general.
I am a new user of Channels using Locast and TV Everywhere via my Xfinity login. Everything started out great but I had issues on Monday with NBCSN and Tuesday with USA, Discovery, TLC and still NBCSN. I updated the server on Tuesday morning and NBCSN was still not working. I updated the server Tuesday evening and everything worked now except for TLC. Note: it is possible that USA, Discovery, TLC were also an issue on Monday but I never checked them since me or my wife had recordings on them. The TLC not working last night was an issue since my wife had a recording on it and it didn't record. I did rescan all channels and rescan individual channels trying to get them to come back but TLC never did. This morning, without updating the server, I rescanned TLC only and it worked.

Sorry for the long story but I was wondering how often do issues like this come up? I want to use Channels only for my TV viewing and I am not sure now if these types of issues are common.

Thanks for any replies,
Chuck

#2

Certain TVE providers are more prone to issues.
Many Xfinity users have repeat issues of gettng thier account locked, and being sent a forced password reset email by Comcast as part of their Security reviews.

You can read in the other provider dedicated threads on here, as to the common issues users have with said provider.

But, often, most often with sports channels it seems, its the network sites the selves, that change something, or cause the issue that the channels devs have to fix, at least that is what i have seen most often on here.

But TVE has lots of ways variables that can cause issues, provider authentication issues, or the network provider issues,...who knows what can pop up.

I have not had any issues with Philo with Channels, that is my primary TVE source.
But I have had issues with Xfinity, which is my secondary source, and i uses for about a dozen or so chanlles, that Philo does not offer.

#3

Yes, a lot of it depends on your provider. I’m using Spectrum and go months at a time with no issues at all.

#4

Depends on the channels. It recent times nbcsn breaks frequently. Msg has been broken as well as abc and hallmark. At least those are the ones ive noticed on my end with spectrum.

#5

I have had these issues off and on for the last year. More when I had fubo tv. To be honest, I have been thinking about just using the app for the provider (currently youtube tv)... I get all the channels that way...otherwise many are missing as not all from YTTV are available via tve. I am also having issues with channels cutting off the connection to my hdhomerun and the channel freezing...

#6

That sounds like a network issue not a channels issue. I have 3 HDHR units and I don't experience any cutting off. Are you using WiFi?

#7

No issues using the built in live channels or the hdhomerun app on nvidia shield.

#8

Is tuner sharing enabled on the shield?

#9

It is now, it was not prior to about an hour ago. Not watching an OTA channel at the moment, so have not seen the issue..

#10

Thanks to all for the input. So, it seems that it may just be something I have to live with. I don't really want to use Xfinity's app as I would have to get a Roku to do so, I currently have a ShieldTV, which uses Android TV. I like what Channels does and I wish that TV Everywhere was more reliable. Right now I am just testing the waters but since I had issues yesterday and it made me miss a recording, the issues might happen too often to use exclusively.

#11

I have been using TVE for a year with Philo and OTA. I haven’t had any problems. If I had a lot of problems the wife would make me get rid of it and go back to cable tv. I use Channels on a SFF Windows computer and that’s the only thing it’s used for. All recordings are on an external drive. And everything is using a wired network via MoCA using Apple TV’s at the televisions. Daughter in college also has had no problems streaming content from our home to her dorm 180 miles away.

#12

I've not had any issues I've noticed with TVE other than about once everything will stop streaming. I have found that just restarting the Channels DVR server (Mac Mini) gets it all going again. Unfortunately depending on if I notice it or not, I can lose a lot of recordings. My OTA channels are usually fine and so we might not notice it stopped.

#13

I use Philo as my primary and WOW as my secondary. No major issues with any of the channels.

#14

This reminds me of the issues we used to have with cablecard, where you encountered support ranging from indifference to outright hostility. thanks for those posting sources that provide posititive tve experiences

#15

Hotwire is our provider.

TVE works great 95% of the time.

We only have occasional issues, such as a stream saying it's unavailable at the moment, but that's consistently on Discovery. And every once in a while the NFL network has an outright hissy and won't authorize, but is fine the next day.