media centre failing to record scheduled shows

[ozgeek]

I have Win7 Home Premium that had been working great for the pas year and I am still on the same install from last September. The computer has been a media center, a gaming, and general day to day computer. I have it set to record TV shows I want to watch through Windows media centre program. It had been working flawlessly...until around last week:

When it's time to record shows, it doesn't record at all. It just basically "forgets" when to record BUT once I start WMC manually the computer realise it needs to record and starts the record which works. Live TV works fine. I had been running around working out why it won't automatically record and discovered that the StartRecording task in Scheduled Tasks doesn't exist and I get an error when trying to view Media Center Tasks:

Task StartRecording: The task image is corrupt or has been tampered with.

I have my HP laptop running same version of windows, it's fine on there, no errors. So how do I repair that "damaged" task?

EDIT: I tried exporting the laptop version of that task and importing it into the PC but PC says the task still exsits but won't show up in the tasks list (in Task Scheduler)

[ozgeek]

Okay, I think I fixed it. I think.

What I did was went to: C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\Media Center

and deleted the StartRecording file there. Started WMC and it recreated the file, no longer corrupt. I did a test record this morning with 2 shows, it seems to do what it was ordered to do. I have a few more shows scheduled in a few hours so I will leave WMC closed and "forget" it to see if the PC automatically records it and report back here.

[ozgeek]

Okay yep it's definitely fixed. It just started recording while I was just browsing the Steam forums. Just posting incase any one else have this problem in future:

Delete the corrupted task in:

C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\Media Center

And then start Windows Media Center. That corrupt task will be recreated and will now work.

[Steven P. Administrators]

Glad you got it fixed! (Y)

[alancolette]

I had the same problem, and your suggestion fixed it when no one else?s did.

It appears if the TimeTrigger > StartBoundary value in this file gets out of sync with the next scheduled recording and the date is past, a) the service will not perform the record session and b) WMC will not update the value to the next logically accurate value.

I also had a problem with the guide no longer updating itself automatically.

Your post lead me to discover the same issue exists for its control file: mcupdate_scheduled

If its CalendarTrigger>StartBoundary date is in the past by more than the value of ScheduleByDay>DaysInterval, the service will not automatically update and WMC will not update the file.

Thanx for the tips. M$ was of no help at all.

[ozgeek]

Thanks :) Mine is still working fine after the fix. I'm on the same install of Windows as before (I haven't reinstalled in over a year). And WMC is still working fine. even I got a new tuner ( as the old one went bust ).

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

THIS is what neowin is about! A problem logged, and although fixed by the original poster - he took the time to follow through and post his solution! :)

[WilliamWest]

Thanks so much.  Your fix works great. 

 

Now I can finally set to record shows 1 minute in advance.  Media Center Recordings never worked right and only partial shows recorded.

 

Deleting this file / task did the trick.

 

Thanks again so much.

Will