One of the channels I most frequently record and watch has been replaced by the local broadcaster.
Since they made the change, the Tablo EPG is no longer correct, but continues to show information for the old channel content/channel which is no longer being offered.
Channel 67–3, WBBZ – TV, in the western New York/southern Ontario market, was previously providing “ME – TV.”
A month ago, WBBZ replaced this feed with “Story TV,”
I went to the website for the service who provides Tablo with the EPG, hoping I could notify them to make a change directly.
They do not accept customer input. They refer any issues related to program guide mistakes to the provider (cable company, Satellite provider, OTA clients like TiVo, Tablo, etc.) to instead contact Tablo to request repairs and updates to the EPG.
Is this something which requires a support ticket, a phone call, or watt?.
I am currently unable to see any recent programming guide information for this channel, and hope that there is a way to get this change made.
Thank you very much Nilex for your prompt and very helpful reply!
As you suggested, I submitted a request to Tablo Support, and received acknowledgment that my request was received. I will post the outcome when it is accomplished.
Although it has been more than 10 years since my previous OTA network recording system was installed from a company in Chicago called SageTV, I have a vague recollection that the owner of that company who provided direct support to all of us doing cable cutting 20 years ago had the Internet handle “Nilex” or something very similar to it. Is there any remote possibility that you are the same person …??
be extremely patient! I can take several weeks. Hopefully within a couple if you’re lucky. There was/is one user in particular running into this issue and the challenges resolving it.
I’ve encountered it, first they think you may need to fix some thing no matter how many screen shots and references you sent… boilerplate responses. Once they finally believe you, then who knows what comes into play.
Well, if there is one thing that I have learned with Tablo over the near decade of ownership, it is patience!
I have never owned a product in my nearly 80 years which has been so frustrating, and utterly lacking in getting problems resolved.
To this very day, I have been a continuing critic of the way things are run from Ottawa. Although I remain loyal to the product, and even recommend it to others, I have never felt that the way that issues and problems were handled was truly adequate. I remain hopeful that the most recent problem, the EPG issue, will be resolved quickly, but I still have problems dating back for many many years which have been “swept under the rug” and dismissed, or ignored by Tablo.
There is a reason why I have been forced to post literally hundreds of messages on this forum going back to 2014. I have many products if not most products in my lifetime never requiring even a single complaint or technical issue, wherass Tablo is literally “one thing after the next” for most of my ownership . So, after hundreds of posts, nearly a decade of issues, and a realization that the good folks up in Ottawa will never really “get it”, I rely on whatever patience I still can muster. Having spent nearly half a century doing software development and hardware systems engineering in my engineering career , I can only shake my head and say “this could have been so much better” and try to live patiently with whatever the real situation demands.
Thank you for the warning. Let’s see how this turns out……
FWIW a new sub-channel was added in my area and I put in a ticket for the missing guide data. Tablo was quick to reply and acknowledge they passed on the information to the guide data provider.
It’s been over 1 months and no data yet. I just sent a reply email stating this.
I don’t necessarily fault Tablo for this type of issue, but do wish they would pull in the broadcasted EPG data (even though it’s often unreliable and lacking details).
Depending on how strange the sub-channel is, it can take a while. I’ve been waiting for the “TBD” sub-channel to show up for 6 months. But I don’t think I’m really missing much.
Very sorry that it will potentially take so long, and that nothing I can do from this end will make that waiting time diminish. Truly would be nice if the over the air guide information could be stripped from the broadcast and used directly.
I often request these new sub-channel not so much because I really want them but in case some other user might. If tablo has missing guide data so does hdhomerun and zap2it since they all use the same guide provider.
I have personally witnessed very few if any EPG issues arising from these subchannel changes, which is remarkable considering I have been using OTA recorders for at least 20 years or more. Although I have witnessed mistakes in the guide which caused recordings either to be missed or improperly recorded due to scheduling errors, this type of stuff has been (thankfully) something I have not needed to deal with until this recent matter. I guess I consider it refreshing to post here in a situation where I am not pointing a finger of blame at Ottawa…
It is unfortunate that the process apparently takes quite a while to be completely accomplished. I have the combination of no longer being able to record those programs I routinely scheduled on the former sub channel, combined with no ability to really see the replacement schedule new programming on the current sub channel, kind of a “double whammy”. Thankfully, I have many choices and no lack of entertainment already, so missing one familiar feed is no big deal.
A couple of my TV sets in the house have OTA programming details directly extracted from OTA broadcasts which would allow me to anticipate interesting programs and then set up manual recordings, if I made the effort. Never having used them, I have no idea whether they look ahead 24 hours, 48 hours, a week, two weeks, or whatever.
The current EPG offering provided to Tablo users has been really quite excellent, and has served my needs just about perfectly.
It all just boils down to waiting patiently for the change to be made.
As an old time user like myself, zippy, I am wondering if you continue to use the Roku with the latest outrageous/crappy timeline scrub and (dare I call them) thumbnails?
To offer these new hours, we have expanded our team to include 3rd party support partners
AIs and screen readers without boarders.
As for updating Guide Data, Really all Tablo can do is pass it on the Gracenote and we’re really waiting on them and the local broadcaster and/or the corporate owner to coordinate their communication.
REALLY INTERESTING, and something I was entirely unaware of!
As an engineer and engineering manager living in a world of corporate acquisitions and mergers for most of my entire career, such events are not surprising, but the thought that it would happen here just never occurred to me…
Now if they could just hire a good competent software engineer who can straighten out the mess made in the Tablo Roku player app, in particular, the playback code handling timeline scrubbing and thumbnails, I would be very impressed…
Third-party support and Customer Service is something I am not generally impressed by, especially when it moves to offshore and adds language and other new confusing barriers.
I am really pleased to report that the EPG has been correctly updated to reflect new sub channel data, and notification from Tablo Support to me took place earlier today.
Every aspect of this issue has been handled perfectly as far as I am concerned. I could not be more satisfied.
Thanks to all for the replies and advice offered above.
WBBZ recently moved MeTV 67.3 to a different subchannel, and began broadcasting Story TV on 67.3. The guide needed to be updated to reflect both changes, and was updated properly.
I have several shows recording on MeTV, and understand the popularity. Glad to see that both are now available.