Windows Media Center Guide Updates Down Nationwide. TV Starts Being Live Again 12/26(UPDATED)

Users of Windows Media Center are in for a nasty surprise come 12/26: in what appears to be a universal problem across all users, guide data for their HTPC DVRs stops at various times on December 26th. Typically WMC loads 10 days of listings in advance, so we can assume that the last update was loaded on Friday December 16. What’s caused this problem, or when it will be fixed, is unknown, only that one person got from a tech that the issue has been “escalated to our data providers.”

What that means, no one knows. Several people have speculated that the issue is related to some kind of private negotiations by Microsoft that have stalled, while others (likely correctly) think that no one is going to think it’s a big deal until Mom’s stories go untaped come Monday, and a deluge of angry users descend on their doorstep.

UPDATE: Guide data is now flowing again. Rumor has it thatthe problem is related to an attack that caused Zap2IT to close down their forums. Since WMC uses their guide data, when they cut off the forums, they apparently cut off a lot more than they intended to

Via: [Microsoft Connect And My Sad HTPC]