Guide download time?

[robk]

It seems by default that my installation of SageTV downloads guide info from Zap2It at 5:55PM every day. It's annoying, because it causes the cpu load to go to 100% (soon to be upgraded), and I get freezes and once a lock-up. Can I set the download to occur early morning (3 AM?) while SageTV sleeps and I'm not watching anything?
Thanks,
Rob

[Alex0230]

I don't know if you can change the time directly, but there is a way to do this indirectly. You can manually force a guide update by going to SETUP, then to Channel setup. Enable a channel then disable it and exit out of Channel Setup, this will immediately cause the guide data to update.

Give it a few seconds and you will be able to see in System Information that the last update was at the time you enable/disabled the channel and that the next update will be 24 hours from that time.

So my suggestion is that if that if no one else can provide another solution, is to do this. It's simple, you just have to manually invoke the update at the time you'd like updates to occur daily. : )

[robk]

It's as easy as that? If I force a download at 3 AM, the future downloads will be at the same time? Looks like I stay up late tonite!
Thanks,
Rob

[Alex0230]

Yeah, it's easy as that to force an update....kinda trixy. Since you forced the update, Sage won't do the next automatic update for another 24hour from that point.

I hope there will be a way in Studio to quickly refresh the guide. I often times like to refresh the guide data when my scheduled recordings don't look right....I just like to verify the epg data is correct.

[Opus4]

There is some good info in the FAQ, such as: an answer to this very question.

However, this helps bring up an interesting point: my server properties file contains the following line:

epg_data_sources/80388/last_run=1086317254204

I haven't looked into it, but maybe someone knows how to decode that time value. Then, _perhaps_ you could set the last guide update to any time you want after exiting SageTV, so you won't _have_ to stay up until 3 AM!

- Andy

[Alex0230]

This looks like epoch time (the number of seconds from Jan 1 1970)....but in milliseconds. Good suggestion Andy...here's what you could do. Take your current "expanded" time....and add to it.

My "expanded" update time right now is roughly 8:24PM, so if I want to take past 3am, I would add 7 hours.

That's 420 minutes....which is 25200 seconds...which is 25200000 milliseconds. So if I add 25200000 to expanded_until...this will set it to go for 3:24am instead of 8:24PM.

Current Sage.Properties:
epg_data_sources/12805/expanded_until=1086405826978
epg_data_sources/12805/last_run=1086319426978

Adjusted Sage.Properties:
epg_data_sources/12805/expanded_until=1086431026978
epg_data_sources/12805/last_run=1086319426978 [stayed the same]

Sure enough, this is what I did and verified that my next EPG update was for 1 day and 7 hours. : )

Reminder: You have to do this when sage is closed because you can't adjust your properties file when sage it open. : )

EDIT
I changed my wording above...where I had, "extended", I meant to say "expanded"....I apologize if this confused anyone.

[Opus4]

Originally posted by Alex0230
This looks like epoch time (the number of seconds from Jan 1 1970)....but in milliseconds. Good suggestion Andy...here's what you could do. Take your current "extended" time....and add to it.

My reaction: both (duh) and (lol). I knew it was in milliseconds, but I can't figure out _why_ it didn't dawn on me to simply add to the value!! Oh well... thanks for the reminder.

Off to play with some values before I make further comments...

- Andy

[robk]

I did the properties edit, I must have added wrong, next update is around 7:30AM Saturday, which is fine with me as I don't get up that early!
Thanks for the tip.
Rob

[Alex0230]

Well you can always subtract (4 * 60 * 60 * 1000). I added wrong my first go around with it too...I ended up 3 hours short. : ) An interface to play with this looks like something that will definitely be Studio-able since it is Sage.Properties.

[robk]

I can live with 7:30AM download, I realized my error - I did a disable/enable on a channel at about 11:00, guide updated. Then I changed the epoch time by 8 1/2 hours. So I added 8 1/2 hours to the NEW update time, instead of the old time of 5:55PM. Now that I know how to change it, I'll do it if the updates interfere with watching TV.
Thanks to all for the info!
Rob

[Opus4]

After playing around with it for a little while, I got some strange results... and I'm glad Alex0230 pointed out that he changed expanded_until instead of last_run, since I was originally thinking that it would update 24 hours after last_run. Messing with last_run (and sometimes changing expanded_until during the same edit) often seemed to result in an immediate EPG update when SageTV restarted.

I'm still not sure that setting expanded_until beyond 24 hours from last_run won't result in an EPG update when SageTV notices the greater than 24 hour difference.

Subtracting from expanded_until seemed pretty safe. So far, this seems like a good way to set the EPG update to occur at some time when you won't be awake. Of course, there is the downside of having to exit & restart SageTV for the property file edit... I guess this & the Channel Setup method both have their good & bad points, but it is nice to know this option.

- Andy

[robk]

Well, I'll know tomorrow if it updates or not! It's not a big deal, it was just bugging me at 5:55PM with my current setup. SageTV has convinced me to upgrade to a faster CPU with DDR ram and a better video card. I was happy with a Pinnacle PCTV-PRO and ChrisTV, but now I'm spoiled. So many options!!
Rob

[kny3twalker]

hey guys nice find
I think this is why I always have a hard skip in the file of the screensavers when they used to be on at 11:00 pm
I am going to set mine at some funny time as well probably in the afternoons though when nothing is getting recorded or in the morning

[nielm]

You may find this helpful -- converts seconds since 1970 epoch to a real time...
http://dan.drydog.com/unixdatetime.html
1086319426978 = 1086319426.978 seconds
1086319426 = 04/06/04 03:23:46 GMT

[Opus4]

Originally posted by nielm
You may find this helpful -- converts seconds since 1970 epoch to a real time...

Thanks! That's almost exactly what I was hoping for... back when I completely skipped the thought of simply adjusting the current time value.

Is there one where you give a date/time & it gives you the seconds? Sure, you can adjust the seconds to get where you want, but...

- Andy

[Alex0230]

http://esqsoft.com/javascript_exampl...e-to-epoch.htm

It goes off MST and allows you to go from seconds to date and date to seconds.

[Opus4]

Perfect! Thanks.

- Andy

[justme]

Alex0230,
Very cool.

I just have to remember that it's uses seconds. When I first tried it I was like that number is too small. Duh. Add the three digits to make it milliseconds.