STV Import: NetFlix

[DwarF]

Wow, sorry it didn't come off too well for you guys.

Regarding Logging, and where it shows up. Use these settings in your sage.(client).properties:
plugins/netflix/NetFlixLogFile=C\:\\temp\\netflix\\sage.netflix.log
plugins/netflix/NetFlixLoggerDebug=4
plugins/netflix/NetFlixLoggerStream=file

Regarding performance and image caching. I have struggled with this. If I do not cache the images, but rather pull them, then the overall performance will suffer. Each time you go to a channel, it will begin pulling the images from NetFlix itself.

I elected to pull them down once and have a background thread go make sure everyting was up to date every 3 hours. So, you only took the hit on the first pull. I also synchronized (one thread at a time) this block because I didn't want requests to stack up and refresh the channel multiple times.

What I think I will do is leave it caching the images to disk, but unsynchronize the block. This will give you a quick response, and leave mostly just images outstanding. You may get channels that have no images yet, especially on the first view or first view in a week or so.

I couldn't pick any channel to make "the most important" as everyone might do it differently. Perhaps I will simply create an option for use cached images, which would allow you to always retrieve them repeatedly from NetFlix, but would forego the cahce building?

Regarding JVM, this should really run on 1.4. I didn't make any direct uses of 1.5 classes, so I will go through and find what the dependencies are that is causing this problem and back them out. I am leaving town this week, but I hope to get to this, along with the other changes very soon.

Regarding UNC, I really hadn't thought of using it that way and haven't tested it in that environment. I think if you set your cache dir to be UNC mapped, everything should be fine.

As to individual page navigation, it should be snappy. I am on a slow old AMD, I am not even sure what it is, but it's over 4 years old, and it works with no noticable delay for me. Seems to have the same speed as my new 3200

Regarding Navigation, on any Channel or Search List, you should see a small "*" button on the far left, and there is an options menu for each page. This options menu allows you to return to search, or return to the main channel list. If this isn't working this way for you, there may have been an issue with the export (it drops menu links frequenly). I can get around this by jumping to named menus, but I need to go throughout and change all menu links to abstract named links. If you find a button that doesn't take you where it says it should, then let me know so I can track em all down and switch em.

Regarding Image repetition, I have no idea. I will look and see if something changed on export that is causing this. I have never seen this and hope it is not some complicated hardware and/or sage setting dependency.

[src666]

Thanks for the response. Regarding the log, is it stored local to the client running the Netflix plugin, or local to the server? The cache seems to be local to the server (unless you explicitly give it a network path).

As for image caching, I have no prolem with it caching the images, and queueing them for background downloading. I just wish that missing images wouldn't delay the UI. If all you have is the data, just use the data. If you have an image, show the image. If the image is missing, queue it up and it will be there next time (hopefully). An option to turn off the images would be nice too.

But I do believe that the priority should be on the data, not the images. If the program could quickly pull down the queue, recommendations, etc., and present them in a usable interface, the images would just be gravy.

I don't know what to think about the performance issue. I'll check again after work, but when I went to bed last night I still couldn't view my queue, and the performance was very sluggish when moving through the lists that were available. I'm really starting to wonder if this is caused by my running it on the client and not the server. Are you running it on your server, or on a client?

The search results do have the "*" button, but it just takes you back to the search screen. From the search screen, there is no path to the main Netflix menu, unless I am missing something. Perhaps adding the "<" button that other screens have would be good, with it linked back to the main Netflix menu.

Thanks again!

[src666]

Oh, and one more thing. I am assuming that the user name is the login (name@mail.org), and not the name used to manage multiple users/queues in Netflix, right?

[DwarF]

I run mine on the server.

If I de-synchronize the caching block, it will behave as you describe (data first and fast, images as they become available)

The performance may be a bad test, because if something was having a cache issue, it could have gone down for quite a while. EX: in developing one night, NetFlix itself went down for maintenance. Nothing will work after that point.

I will upload a new version that should be higher performance, but less likely to have images on first pass.

On the "*" button for search results, there should be 3 buttons:
1) return to search
2) all channels
3) cancel

The all channels should take you back to your NetFlix - Main. If it does not, then the export hosed it.

[src666]

Thanks, I didn't try the All Channels. My bad. Looking forward to seeing the decoupled version!

[src666]

OK, I just confirmed that the "All Channels" button works as you said it would - sorry for the misinformation regarding search results.

Regarding my queue and recent activity, they are still missing. I'm beginning to think that having multiple profiles in Netflix is pooching the system. Have you tried setting up another profile and seeing what happens? I'm betting that your code isn't coping with some quirk in the system due to the profiles.

Performance seems to have improved some. It's now taking just 3-6 seconds to move to a new page of results in the channels when the images are already in the cache. Getting new images slows this down drastically, so your decoupled version will still be nice to have.

I still haven't been able to get the logging to work, even with the log level set to 5. I've tried your path verbatim, my UNC path, and a couple of other locations. I've checked on the client and on the server, but can't find any evidence of the log file.

Thanks again!

[src666]

On a positive note, I have just confirmed that adding discs to my queue does actually work, and adds them to the primary queue. Just thought I'd report something good for a change.

[DwarF]

Allrighty, I have just uploaded a new version. It was not as simple as decoupling, but it should be there now. Basically, I queue up the requests for boxshots. If you ask for a boxshot before it is downloaded, I just hand off the URL, and let sage do the heavy lifting. You should get a much quicker response with this release.

I have fixed the logging file. It will put it in your SageTV/SageTV folder unless you configure it to be placed elsewhere.

I also changed this property from
plugins/netflix/NetFlixLoggerDebug=4
to
plugins/netflix/NetFlixLoggerLevel=4 (or 3, 5, etc)
Do not use level 5 unless you really want it to crawl. It logs every big of network traffic for debugging the integration with NetFlix.

Humanzee, I did notice that if the CPU was under heavy load, it would not refresh the screen rapidly when I was scrolling down a list. If I moved the mouse over a move in the list, it would update with the correct information. I could only get this under screwy situations where I had topped the CPU with crapy code. Hopefully you will not see this behavior anymore.

I have also downloaded, built and run it with Java version 1.4 now. I suppose the forced verion 1.4 compatability of Eclipse is caca Sorry about that one. I was using a StringBuilder instead of StringBuffer, it's compatable now.

New version puts numbers in the titles of the movies in the list now! woohoo, that'll make it all worth it.

[kpsmith]

This seems to be working for me now!!!

Only strange thing I'm seeing is that i have 2 copies of every movie. Think I might try deleting the Movie info file and see if it corrects it

THANK YOU DWARF

[DwarF]

I fixed some additional bugs, such as generic search terms taking forever, as well as a bug where shows with no actors or directors crashed the rest of that channel's show list. (if something should have had 25 shows, it would show up with however many it had before it ran into the empty director/actor)

[Humanzee]

The date on the downloads page says March 5th. Is it the current version with the updates you mentioned on the 16th. I have a problem where I get no results after doing a search when I want to add items to my queue.

[DwarF]

Yeah. It keeps the original upload date on there from the first upload. I wish it would track both the original upload and the most recent. The "no results on search" is fixed now. It is slow on search though. I will fix that soon too. I have had a few big projects due at school, so my time is become more scarce of late.

[jbuszkie]

Hey Dwarf,

I can't seem to get this working.. I had some older version somewhat working on a different machine and now I tried to get it working on my main client.

in the log file it looks like it's getting all the info because I can see stuff like the last movie I received and such.. but the screen in blank when I try to view anything. I just see the buttons...

Where do I start?

Edit: My cache directory is empty. I just have a show.properties file... and that is just a blank file.
Edit2: I've attached my log file and at the top is my properties...

[Humanzee]

OK, I closed sagetv and updated from the latest download. The search results coming up null problem is gone. However, I still only get the first three cover art images and then they repeat as I scroll down the results.

[gplasky]

Same issue here. The first three covers just repeat themselves in the scrolling list.

Gerry

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by jbuszkie

Hey Dwarf,

I can't seem to get this working.. I had some older version somewhat working on a different machine and now I tried to get it working on my main client.

in the log file it looks like it's getting all the info because I can see stuff like the last movie I received and such.. but the screen in blank when I try to view anything. I just see the buttons...

Where do I start?

Edit: My cache directory is empty. I just have a show.properties file... and that is just a blank file.
Edit2: I've attached my log file and at the top is my properties...

I had the exact same issue. I was using the wrong user name. Once I corrected it everything worked. It might also be a wrong password. No error showed when I used the wrong user name. (Forgot it was my full email address and just used my name.)

Gerry

[jbuszkie]

Originally Posted by gplasky

I had the exact same issue. I was using the wrong user name. Once I corrected it everything worked. It might also be a wrong password. No error showed when I used the wrong user name. (Forgot it was my full email address and just used my name.)

Gerry

I can see info in the log file that can only be there if my username/password is correct.. Like the last movies sent to me.. I can't imagine that that would be there if my info was wrong... It really feels like a client vs server issue maybe??

[DwarF]

It uses your UserID to get your RSS feed. I can know your queue, recent activeity etc, with a bad username/password.

Your username/password are only used to manipulate your queue.

I haven't checked out your log yet. I will soon.

[Humanzee]

Any update on the cover art repeating issue?

[Humanzee]

bump