Hello

I have installed the TV Pack on a Dell machine running Vista Ultimate 32 with a factory-installed ATI 650 PCIe TV card in order to view Clear QAM channels provided by Comcast.

It is working quite well but I still have the problem I had prior to installing the TV Pack: out of the box Vista Media Center keeps waking up the computer in the middle of the night to update itself (get the latest guide?)

Obviously some changes have been made in the TV Pack regarding task scheduling: ehsched is gone, and mcupdate_scheduled appeared.

I also get a green button icon in in the taskbar next to the clock. But I don't understand how it is supposed to work: Clicking "Enable/Disable Guide Listing Downloads" does not seem to disable mcupdate_schedule. However it changes the trigger time!

Does anybody fully understand how mcupdate and mcupdate_scheduled tasks relate to each other, and why "disabling" getting latest guide through the UI does not actually disable mcupdate_schedule? I guess somebody that understood how ehsched was working might be able to extrapolate?

Thank you for your input!

-G

 

 

 

I really don't understand why Vista keeps waking up from standby (twice?) in the middle of the night (around 11pm and again around 3am last night I believe) since I installed the TV Pack...

powercfg blames the RTC clock. I somehow suppose that Vista Media Center is trying to update its guide because that is the only task that would wake up the PC prior to installing the TV pack. Strange thing is that you can now set a time range in the UI and I set the download time as 9am to 3pm but that does seem to make any difference... And as I posted before even disabling the guide update in the UI does not disable the task...

Anybody from MS could give me a crash course on the logic behind the guide update on Vista with TV Pack? Thanks!

 

 

 

Me too.  At 05:51 every morning since installing TVP 2008. 

The trouble is that it's not easy to prove that mcupdate is the culprit.  The event log only reports RTC as the source, and Task Scheduler claims mcupdate is not triggered outside of the 6 hour window I set for it between 6pm and midnight.  I think I even had an early morning wake-up with the mcupdate task disabled.  None of the other usual suspects are incriminated (Windows Update, AV updates, Scheduled Recordings etc), and I know it's RTC rather than a LAN or USB interrupt from the event log and by the exact time each day).

I've checked the SDK and tools like sysinternals, but I can't find anything that lists the outstanding timer events which can wake from S3 sleep, together with the processes responsible for setting them.  I'm just thankful this is not a bedroom htpc or my wife would have trashed it by now).

Hi Pixelz

My problem is that it is our bedroom htpc! I really need to find a solution...

As you say it is hard to prove that mcupdate is the culprit but the problem started after I installed the TV pack. Somehow on my computer the task scheduler shows that the mcupate_scheduled task is not scheduled within the window I set in the UI unless I *disable* the guide download in the UI in which case the task scheduler shows a random time within the window. Very strange.

In any event the mcupdate_scheduled starting time seems to fluctuate over time. It is possible that somehow a process changes the starting time in the background. This behavior somewhat reminds me the of the Vista Media Center prior to installing the TV Pack when the next update time is somehow obtained by the guide server.

Anybody else with the same issue?

Is there any documentation available on the internals of Vista Media Center?

Thanks!

 

Have you tried unchecking the "retrieve album art and dvd covers and internet services" check box?

MCE downloads a ton more stuff than just the guide: Everything that shows up under internet TV, sports, or online media.  Vista MCE is virtually unuseable on a dial-up internet connection because of this.

So maybe that GUI only controls when the guide updates and not when all the other stuff happens.

-dickm

@dmagerl

Thanks for the suggestion, but I already disallowed Vista album art downloads (as IMO they're often inaccurate)

@gartaud

Someone told me Media Centre deliberately randomizes guide download times to spread the load on the EPG provider's servers.  I've noticed the tools that let you fix a time no longer work in TVP 2008.  I plan on reconfiguring my pc to use manual guide updates.  At least that should help identify if mcupdate or it's spawn is responsible for this nonsense.

Even after switching to manual guide updates, I still get a wake up call at 05:51  Even worse, a second wake from S3 sleep happens at 03:00 each morning.  I hadn't noticed this one before as I've been staying up to watch the Olympics.

So I still can't prove this htpc insomnia is due to mcupdate, but I'm sure it's related to TVP 2008.  Anyone know how to trace which kernel timers were set by which process?

 

 

Hi dmagerl

Thanks for the hint. They are indeed two checkboxes under "Automatic Download Options" in the settings of Vista Media Center with TV Pack

(R) Retrieve CD album art, media info...

(A) Automatically donwload guide listings... between x and y (where I have entered 9 am to 3 pm; a six hour minmim window is required) 

If I change the settings, task scheduler reports the following triggers times:

R off, A off: 9:01 am

R on, A off: 9:10 am

R off, A on: 9:42 am

R on, A on: 12:40 am !!!

Somehow when both the Retrieve art and Automatically download guide listings chekboxes are selected, Vista Meda Center decides to update itself in the middle of the night!

Hi pixelz

I disabled automatic download of guide listings to see if that would help.

And as you noticed, I also observe that the computer still wakes up during the night, but without the Task Scheduler reporting mcupdate running at unexpected times.

My computer now wakes up around 10:15 am, 10:15 pm and again a 3:00 am.

I am pretty sure that the installation of the TV pack has something to do with this but now agrees that mcupdate is not always the culprit, or at least not directly:

While there is a problem with the scheduling of mcupdate not always taking into account the UI settings, there is also a problem of the RTC waking up the computer for some totally unexplained reason and any suggestion regarding how to trace the source of this mystery would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Why not take the loud pc out of your bed room and put it in your office or living room and let it run all the time like a media center should and put an extender in your bed room? 

I'm very much against letting a machine that's acting as a server in any capacity go to sleep, it just seems wrong to me, but then again I never shut any of my computers off except I do let mine and my wifes laptops go to sleep, the other 6 machines are always on.

Hi mabrown

Mostly a question of space.

While taking the computer out of the room would prevent us from getting wake up calls during the night, it would still not solve the underlying issue: Vista wakes up for no obvious reason and nobody that I know of has been able to explain how to figure out which process sets the alarm on the RTC...

I don't even know if there is any free utility that would enable me to directly check the settings of the RTC. Do you know if such utility exist?

Thanks.

 

 

Does anybody know if "Windows Update" is set by default to wake up the computer on regular basis to check for updates and if so how to change this behavior (so that it only checks for update if the computer is on)? Thanks.

I was having the similiar issue.  Before TV08 update, it would wake up at 5am to update whatever and go back to sleep.  After install of TV08 it was waking up all the time, even right after I put it to sleep manually.  (start menu button)  searched and searched.........  in setup the time was set 6am to 6am for updates and whatever.  After changing it to 5pm to 11pm (6 hour window) it only wakes up at 5pm and then goes back to sleep about 530pm.  No more RTC reports either.  Maybe its something with the way BIOS is communicating with windows.  It was released only to OEM for a reason far greater then tech support reasons.  I think it has a lot to do with hardware issues and BIOS switches.  Just my 2 cents.

gartaud:

Does anybody know if "Windows Update" is set by default to wake up the computer on regular basis to check for updates and if so how to change this behavior (so that it only checks for update if the computer is on)? Thanks.

 

You set that up in your "Check for updates at (default 3am)"

 

coughinglizard:

gartaud:

Does anybody know if "Windows Update" is set by default to wake up the computer on regular basis to check for updates and if so how to change this behavior (so that it only checks for update if the computer is on)? Thanks.

You set that up in your "Check for updates at (default 3am)"

But I don't think the Windows Update Task will run at all if the system is in S3 sleep when it's due.  Most tasks that miss their slot either run when the system is manually restarted, or just try again at the next scheduled slot.  I've only found mcupdate and a task named TMM that are configured to explicitly wake the system if needed.