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My Freeview box has no EPG, is blank on FIVE, ITV3, ITV4, ITV2+1, has no sound o

My Freeview box has no EPG, is blank on FIVE, ITV3, ITV4, ITV2+1, has no sound or the channel line up is wrong

My Freeview box has no EPG, is blank on FIVE, ITV3, ITV4, ITV2+
published on UK Free TV

To deal with the problem you must clear the channel list completely and then rescan - if your box has it in the menus, please the 'installation menu' to do an initial scan or a reset to factory settings or First Time Installation. You MUST delete the entire existing list of channels. On most boxes this technique can be also be used:

Try this:

1) unplug your Freeview box (or idTV) from the mains;



2) unplug the aerial from the Freeview box by disconnecting the cable from the 'RF in' socket;



3) wait 30 seconds;

4) plug Freeview box (or idTV) mains back in;



5) do a complete scan for channels - it will fail without the aerial. (This may be in the installation or initialization menu, and is distinct from any 'add channels option'). Once this is done your channel line up should be empty;



6) reinsert aerial by reconnecting to the 'RF in' connection;



7) do a complete scan for channels again.



The Freeview channel line-up provided by six "multiplexes" - each of which carry five or more TV channels, radio channels, text services and EPG data. In this diagram each ROW represents a multiplex. If you are still missing a whole multiplex (ie everything on the row) you may need to replace your aerial with a wideband type, purchase a larger aerial or you may have interference from a VCR, games console, Sky Digibox or similar.



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Comments
Tuesday, 10 February 2015
M
Michael Polyglot
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

7:41 PM

It's not the actual channels missing that puzzles and annoys me, but the fact that if I go forward more than 3-4 days on the programme guide (Humax), many channels are blank, mostly other than the old terrestrial channels, tho sometimes BBC1. It means I can't click on programmes I want to record. There seems no way to do anything about it and it's no help that the TV (Panasonic) guide is ok. I also have a Technika TV, largely as a monitor, and its guide is also a pain, as it shows only one channel at a time, with the day's programmes in a single vertical column - the only guide I've seen in that format.

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Michael Polyglot's 41 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:58 PM

Michael Polyglot: Should the Humax PVR you refer to be one of the older models? e.g: 9200 / 9300 or older variety, then these devices are notorious for being sluggish in loading / updating the EPG data into the system, basically caused by the extremely slow processor chip fitted in these early models, something that attracted numerous complaints from owners of these PVR's shortly after they were first released a number of years ago.

My own household still uses both of the aforementioned models purely as secondary boxes to later versions (inc Freesat) likewise with both suffering from exactly the same problems as you have mentioned, with in some cases taking nearly 45 minutes or so to fully populate the guide, and even then with some channels doggedly resisting being updated, needless to say nothing can really be done about improving them in any way.

That said is of course only applicable when its known that the programme providers have sent out the data necessary to update the guide, as verified by checking the guide on a later model.


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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Thursday, 12 February 2015
A
Alan White
4:31 PM

I live in Sutton Coldfield, Have a clear view of transmitter from bedroom window, no obstructions whatever. Philex High Gain aerial in loft, digital coax cable throughout, digital aerial socket outlet used. Sony Bravia TV, Sony Hard Disk Drive Recorder the aerial goes into recorder & out to TV. Have been careful with installation, still get pixilation on every channel. Have fully rescanned TV & recorder. Can you help please?

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Alan White's 1 post GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

5:11 PM

Alan White: Due to your location, the problem could possibly be caused by the tuners in your Sony devices reacting in an adverse way to being overloaded by an excessively high signal level being fed into them.

To get an idea if this is likely to apply or not, remove the aerial connector going into the TV (from hard disc) and temporarily replace it with a short length of wire inserted into the middle of the TV's aerial socket (e.g: about 4 feet of lighting flex) and check what the signal is like.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

5:21 PM

Alan White : Another method of temporarily reducing the signal strength, but in a less drastic fashion, is by turning the aerial by exactly 180 degrees whereby giving a reverse pick up.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
M
MikeB
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

6:34 PM

jb38: I'm not surprised at Alan having pixallation - I've got a Sony PVR and they have very good tuners. Yes, they are far more robust than perhaps Panasonic or Humax, but they do pull in a signal! I live in North Cambridgeshire, but my RDX-895 gets Waltham, Belmont, Talcneston (just enough to annoy) and Sandy Heath (ditto). I've killed

Alan - your going to need some attentuators!

link to this comment
MikeB's 2,579 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:23 PM

MikeB: Yes, quite so, as signal overload is indeed the most likely reason for Alan's problem, although the signal level received from the aerial in the loft mustn't be quite as high as what would normally be expected from Sutton Coldfield's 200Kw transmitters, that is, going by the fact that Alan's reception has not been completely wiped out.

However, an attenuator such as the one seen on the undermentioned link is likely to be the answer, albeit that I have reservations about recommending these sort of low cost variable devices and much prefer fixed types, however, variable types do seem to be popular even although they are somewhat critical to adjust.

Variable Attenuator | eBay




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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Friday, 13 February 2015
M
MikeB
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

12:15 AM

jb38: I must admit that the variable attenuator I bought really didn't seem to do much. I bought some cheap fixed ones from Amazon for less than £2 each, and the 12db works very well. The advantage with a number of different fixed ones is that you can put them in series if need be.

Remember that the Sony's tuners are pretty robust. My PVR was on 95% signal strength with only an occassional blip on BBC channels, which would have wiped out a Panasonic, for example, so it might be just on the tipping point.

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MikeB's 2,579 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 25 February 2015
R
Rob
4:07 PM

Hi I have a DREAMAX Freeview digibox, which has worked relatively fine until the latest update,
which was about three weeks ago.
Now, almost everytime when I go to a high number channel such as 130 or 132 the channel order is thrown out of
out of sequence, so that below and above 132 the channel numbers are random and a message
"new services are being installed" pops up. The only way to reset the channel order seems to be to go
to channel 1 and from there back to 130 or 132 and only then the epg guide shows the channels back in
order. Also if you go to say channel 11 instead of 1 a message pops up "invalid entry".
Any ideas would be much appreciated.
Regards
Rob

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Rob's 1 post GB flag
Saturday, 28 February 2015
C
Caroline Kay
10:49 AM
Norwich

Hello , My daughter has a freeview built in tv in her bedroom and for about the last 6 months she has lost all the BBC channels. They are not even appearing on the EPG. We have plugged her tv into our room and they are still not there but our tv in our bedroom gets all of these channels. Any help would be appreciated. We are in Taverham, Norwich, NR8 6PB.

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Caroline Kay's 1 post GB flag
Caroline's: mapC's Freeview map terrainC's terrain plot wavesC's frequency data C's Freeview Detailed Coverage
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