Viewing on this TV is being measured + no fwd/rev cursor controls

[Leeve]

In the UK about six months ago, one of the lesser known channels started displaying an on-screen box at the start of every show (so it appeared in the recording) that the viewing of the show was being tracked, and you could press the yellow button on the remote to opt out.

Obviously the yellow button didn't do anything, and the box disappears after 30 seconds. However, after the message disappears, the fast forward, rewind, skip and jump buttons on the remote all stop working. The only thing you can do is press the back button, then start the show again, and the skip until the message disappears again. Very annoying, but it worked as I only watched a show a week on that channel.

However, now Channel 4, one of the main broadcasters has started this nonsense. I've had a google but there doesn't seem to be any way to prevent this behaviour. Any ideas anyone?

The tracking appears to be legitimate, and only viewers with modified TV's are actually tracked, so apart from the MythTV issues, it doesn't affect anyone.
Aside from this issue, my Myth box running on a Lenovo SFF box runs solidly with no issues, the remote control is an old Windows MC one works 100% otherwise. And the repeatability of the keys stopping is 100% after this message box disappears.

[pgbennett]

MythTV has no code to prevent ff rew and skip from working, regardless of the broadcast source. Once recorded, you can go forward and back as much as you want. We have shows like that in the USA but the preventing of fast forward only applies if you have used the cable company's DVR, not if you recorded with MythTV.

Try using the keyboard to skip. Does that work? Perhaps the windows remote is the problem.

[Steve Goodey]

I had this happen to me on a Channel 4 recording I watched yesterday, in my case the yellow button did remove the message as I have MHEG Interactive TV enabled.

On that recording I couldn't use skip backwards/forwards as I usually do as nothing happened, but fast forwards/backwards did.

[pgbennett]

So does MythTV actually have code to honour the station's suppressing of skipping and jumping? Can you avoid that by disabling MHEG?

[Steve Goodey]

I suspect that disabling MHEG wouldn't help as Leeve said

Obviously the yellow button didn't do anything

so I don't think they have it enabled.

[Leeve]

OK, I've found one small issue, the yellow button is a red herring, my remote button map seems incorrect, I'll sort that out later.

As @SteveGoodey says, the tracking message appears, I can press F4 (yellow) on the keyboard and the message disappears and another saying I've opted out appears, but the skip buttons (cursor left/right up/down) and Enter key (bookmark) still stop working on the keyboard, so it's not the remote.
The FF / Rew buttons still work, which is all a little odd.

Waiting for the tracking message to disappear results in the same behaviour, keyboard keys for skip etc stop working.

This is with the MHEG options turned on. Turning them off, obviously, results in the message not appearing and no issues with the skip buttons.

[dnalorernst]

There is a similar issue on https://github.com/MythTV/mythtv/issues/874 .
This issue suggests to turn off the "colored button" services when watching live-tv or recordings.
Since you had mis-configured your remote button map, I assume that you do not use these kind of services within MythTV.
In that case, you can simply skip these kind of services when recording or watching live-tv with MythTV:
Under "Setup" -> "Recording Profiles" there is a question for the "Recording Profile" for the "Default" profiles which asks you to filter out unwanted streams:
Options for the "Recording Profile: Default" are "Normal", "TV Only" Audio Only".
Try selecting "TV Only". This may significantly reduce the size of a recording.

HTH,
Roland