running the latest Vix 5.0.014 on a Vu+ Duo2

about a week ago, I noticed some missing EPG channel data, tried downloading several times but it always gets stuck
on "Reading Titles 293kb" and freezes the box up.

Tried init 4, delete epg.dat, init 6 and even uninstalled/installed cross epg plugin but it still won't get any further - no errors in crossepg.log -

28/05/2017 08:09:44 SIFTeam CrossEPG Downloader 0.8.2+gitrAUTOINC+b8b6da2741 (c) 2009-2014 Sandro Cavazzoni (https://github.com/oe-alliance/e2openplugin-CrossEPG)
28/05/2017 08:09:44 This software is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1
28/05/2017 08:09:44 Interactive: OPEN cmd received
28/05/2017 08:09:44 EPGDB opened (root=/media/hdd/crossepg)
28/05/2017 08:09:44 Clearing old aliases...
28/05/2017 08:09:44 Loading 'aliases.conf'...
28/05/2017 08:09:44 Loaded 1 aliases
28/05/2017 08:09:44 Adding new aliases...
28/05/2017 08:09:44 Completed
28/05/2017 08:09:44 Interactive: OK action sent
28/05/2017 08:09:44 Interactive: DEMUXER cmd received
28/05/2017 08:09:44 Interactive: OK action sent
28/05/2017 08:09:44 Interactive: FRONTEND cmd received
28/05/2017 08:09:44 Interactive: OK action sent
28/05/2017 08:09:45 Interactive: DOWNLOAD cmd received
28/05/2017 08:09:45 Started OpenTV events download
28/05/2017 08:09:45 Reading dictionary '/usr/crossepg/providers/skyuk_astra2_28.2.dict' ...
28/05/2017 08:09:45 Completed. Read 512 values
28/05/2017 08:09:45 Reading channels...
28/05/2017 08:10:01 Read 915 channels
28/05/2017 08:10:01 Reading titles...

any ideas?

thanks in advance