It appears that the EPG feed is supplied to Microsoft by  Broadcasting Dataservices Ltd, who are also Red Bee Media. Doesn't anybody at Microsoft realize that the data stream contract seems to have ended on 1/1/2103 at 11am (according to my WMC) as the start date was 1/1/0001, perhaps the guy in who set it up is no longer with us. Wake up Microsoft and get it sorted!

Apart from live TV, the media center is now useless for planning and recording. I have the PC installed as my main TV, so am very annoyed.

Does anyone know how to get them to pay attention to this or am I being naive, thinking that it will be addressed?

I don't think you're being naive, I think you're being optimistic. I'm being pessimistic and thinking this is the end of MS providing data in the UK & Ireland.

If you look over on TGB, then depending on your Media Centre version and TV source, there are a couple of workarounds:

www.thegreenbutton.tv/.../viewtopic.php

So are m$ planning on fixing this? Maybe someone should write a tool that imports xmltv data while flood-pinging the m$ servers relentlessly at the same time :) THEN they might do something about it. TRULY pathetic!

Well m$ will be dead in the water in 10 years anyway, EVERYONE hates them but suffered their bs for decades as there USED to be no alternatives, but not anymore, it's all tablets running ios/android, (look at sales figures of laptops vs tablets) only a total fool would bother with windows8. 90% of home users don't need anymore functionality.

Most MCE users will be fairly technical and fairly vocal so hitting them is the first death-throws of the m$ beast. If I had shares in m$ I'd have sold them yesterday, the wiriting is on the wall. The fact they must have known about this for 6 weeks (Ireland) and have not BOTHERED to do anything or even make any announcement is so laughable and WHO in their right minds would trust their business platform to something that may just stop working with no announcement, no response. I wonder how Ceton with their new echo, only a month old, which is now useless feel about this? ROTFLMAO m$ u are a joke, but that joke isn't funny anymore.

I paid $$$ for 3 new xbox's, 2 purely to use as extenders, one less then a month ago. I'll be wanting my money back for 2 of them and will sue if I have to.

Will the last m$ employee to leave please turn the lights out

I feel for you guys. As you're finding out, Microsoft doesn't care about their customers. Unfortunately, this is nothing new but it is becoming much worse.

A company with integrity cares about their customer. The byproduct of this relationship is that people like them and spend money with them. They 'vote' with their pocketbooks.

Micrsosoft has always had it backwards. They chase the money and concern about the customer does not even appear on their radar screen. You are nothing but a means to an end, so in effect, you are there to serve them.

This is why I always balk when people talk about what a great humanitarian Bill Gates is. I don't see it at all. Instead, what I see is very much someone who came along, beat and robbed you, left you lying in the ditch for dead, and then chose to give the money he stole from you away to whatever he chooses as a worthy cause.

What makes this so sad is that people never catch on. In the 'normal' business world you couldn't get away with this kind of behavior for long. People would march, protest, the news would get involved and, ultimately, people would refuse to buy. That's normally how you send a message.

When Microsoft implemented their live product 'validation' scheme I was just about the only person in the world who saw this for what it was -  a scheme giving Microsoft the ability to turn software on or off, at their will. They are not a company that can be trusted with that kind of power.

When I mentioned this (over and over) people actually came in and posted their support for Microsoft. If Microsoft is willing to kill off your EPG service and make those X-Box extender purchases worthless, without a thought to you, then who is to say that tomorrow they will invalidate all those software licenses and force you to buy new software too?

This is only the beginning. When people behave this way it's a sign of their true character. When will people wake up to this? Probably never. I've dealt with Microsoft for the last 20 years, seen this type of behaviour over and over, and I know the only thing that will fix it is mass boycotting of their products. The problem is, not one of you will actually do it.

I've pointed this out over the years to the general public, but the public marches blindly forward empowering them with every dollar spent with Microsoft. In effect, buying a Microsoft product is your endorsement ot their behavior. It's your money that allows them to continue operating this way.

Listings appear to have returned - have up to Jan 18th now - at last! I assume the person responsible has returned from holiday!

Within the past few weeks, listings for multiple over-the-air digital channels in have in Bellingham,WA / Vancouver, BC area, e.g. zip code 98231.  I notice that the disappearance of listings coincided with Zap2it finally deleting entries for multiple analog channels that converted from analog to digital over a year ago.

Channels that with listings disappeared include the following:

17.1 CIVTDT2

24.2 KBCBDT2

24.3 KBCBDT3

26.1 CBUFTDT

28.1 K24ICD

28.2 K24ICD2

28.3 K24ICD3

This represents about a little over a third of the channels in this area.

Interestingly, Zap2it has full listings for these digital over-the-air  channels on its website.

Same here, missing the following:

43.1 W43CO-D

43.2 W43CO-D2

43.3 W43CO-D3

48.3 WRNNDT3

48.4 WRNNDT4

56.3 WOLFDT3

60.1 WBPHDT

63.1 WMBCDT

63.2 WMBCDT2

63.3 WMBCDT3

63.4 WMBCDT4

63.7 WMBCDT7

Having trouble with the following SF Bay Area OTA channel's EPG, all showing as "Low Power" and "No data available"

Ch 1   KAXT, all sub-channels, there is no KAXT-DT EPG to replace manually

Ch 2.2 KTVULD2

Ch 7.1, 7.2, KGODT shown as KGOLD

Ch28, KFTL, all sub-channels

It seems that Zap2it is not providing the guide data for low power stations lately or at all. KGODT is broadcast on real channel 7 and it's on real channel 35 through a low power translator in the south bay. the same thing happened to me. if you go to the TV Signal section and edit sources you can see what the real channel frequencies are and either un-check the tuners on channel 35 or move up to the first priority the ones on 7. You should be able to do the same thing with channel 2.2 and maybe 28. I think all of channel 1 is low power with no corresponding high power channel. The FCC is trying to get broadcasters to give up spectrum so they can transfer it to the wireless guys so they can sell it back to us. The low power broadcasters may be the first to go. I hope I'm not reading to much into that but my paranoid side says MS and Zap2it may be going along to get along or MS may just be slowly carving away at the guide since they pay license fees to Zap2it for it... Zap2it does show the low power guide data on their website so it's not like they don't have the data. Who knows where the disconnect is.

No guide data for any cable channel on zip: 48167, provider: Canton, Comcast Plymouth (Digital )except for local channels (abc, nbc, cbs, ...).

Errors in media center log:

8:00:17 AM - Failed to retrieve EpgListings (Error: HeadendId 28505887 is invalid.)

8:00:17 AM - Retrieving EpgListings.

8:00:17 AM - Processing EpgListings.

8:00:17 AM - Retrieving EpgListing.enc.

8:00:19 AM - Extracting 189836315_ListingData.mxf.

8:00:19 AM - Processing 189836315_ListingData.mxf.

8:00:48 AM - Processing of EpgListings is complete.

8:01:10 AM - Errors during the last update.

8:01:10 AM - Will retry at 1/10/2013 8:40:20 PM.

Any thoughts?

I submitted a bug report to connect...

Feedback to connect seems to be largely ignored. May submissions there that have no indication of progress.

Don't forget that Media Centre is now a premium product and Microsoft values your custom.

The best way to kill the use of Media Center is to kill the EPG.

t-c

No guide data for any cable channel on zip: 48167, provider: Canton, Comcast Plymouth (Digital )except for local channels (abc, nbc, cbs, ...).

Errors in media center log:

8:00:17 AM - Failed to retrieve EpgListings (Error: HeadendId 28505887 is invalid.)

8:00:17 AM - Retrieving EpgListings.

8:00:17 AM - Processing EpgListings.

8:00:17 AM - Retrieving EpgListing.enc.

8:00:19 AM - Extracting 189836315_ListingData.mxf.

8:00:19 AM - Processing 189836315_ListingData.mxf.

8:00:48 AM - Processing of EpgListings is complete.

8:01:10 AM - Errors during the last update.

8:01:10 AM - Will retry at 1/10/2013 8:40:20 PM.

Any thoughts?

I submitted a bug report to connect...

As it happens, Comcast actually did change the Headend ID for my service area.

Required a redo of TV Signal Setup and channel list edits. Painful.