Plugin: Schedules Direct EPG (not for v9)

[rdefino]

Thanks

[rdefino]

Just curious, when I force an update from the SDepg plugin I see this message below in the log, and I removed the analog from my lineup and now just have the digital one. But it only shows the analog and not the digital.

2013-08-19 18:36:16,121 INFO [AiringGenerator]: Processed airing generators in 15ms
2013-08-19 18:41:02,440 INFO [Plugin]: EPG refresh forced by user!
2013-08-19 18:41:02,827 INFO [Plugin]: Refreshed lineup 'Comcast Georgetown Haverhill (Analog)'


But if I force from the web ui I get an entirely different entries in the log. The entry referring to the jdson server being offline.

[Slugger]

The plugin refresh is broken (that was noted just after the last release). No ETA on fixing that button, but safe to assume it'll be sometime after I move (so Oct). The web ui actually triggers a refresh, but the SD server is still offline.

[rkulagow]

There was a lot to catch up on, and the server is just about done. It's 6:30P here in Chicago and I expect that it will be complete within the next 30m.

[rkulagow]

Everything should be done now.

[BobbyDing]

I finally had time to reconstruct my sage server that uses the SD guide and ran into what may be a known issue. I searched this thread but did not see it referenced. Apologies if it was already discussed. In the SD web setup (jetty) I selected two different OTA areas (zip codes). Then installed the first one which worked great. Guide data filled right up. Upon selecting the second source and entering in the second zip code, sage insists either using or copying the first lineup to the new source. But that won't work since that antenna points a different direction. Near as I can tell (just a guess), the two OTA lineups are coming into sage with the same exact name, which is "Antenna Over-The-Air (Antenna)". When I get to the screen to select a lineup, "Antenna Over-The-Air (Antenna)" is listed twice and and so no matter which one I choose, sage seems to consider them the sage lineup.

Any ideas on getting around this?

Thanks!

Bobby

[Slugger]

It sounds like Sage may be keying the lineups somewhere by name, though I would be surprised. But if it is then that's a Sage bug that obviously can't be addressed.

As a test, you can change the lineup names inside the sdjson.epg file. Edit and replace the headends.txt file and those in the lineups\ folder inside that zip. The values you need to change should be obvious. Just make the lineup names unique. If doing that allows things to work then I can massage the data to provide unique names as needed in a future update.

Future update means late Sep/early Oct at the earliest as it's Labour Day weekend this weekend, vacation the next, finishing packing the following week, moving the next week so my next month or so is pretty much booked solid.

[BobbyDing]

Thanks Slugger, I'll try that tomorrow evening. Should I remove all sources first from Sage before doing that editing?

[Slugger]

No, shouldn't be necessary, but what you must do is avoid an epg update because it'll overwrite any changes you make to the zip file. So make a copy of the epg file asap so you can replace it in case an epg update happens. Once you make the changes to the file, go attempt to reassign the lineup - the names should be unique and see if that makes things work as expected.

[rkulagow]

Originally Posted by BobbyDing

I selected two different OTA areas (zip codes).

If you haven't already, please open a ticket at Schedules Direct; unless you have an unusual case, your "home" postal code should have all the channels that you should be able to receive, so if you need to add a second one that's probably an error.

In the ticket please indicate your home postal code and which channels are missing. We'll get a line-of-sight analysis performed and that helps determine what's in your area.

[BobbyDing]

So this succeeded in creating the separate lineup names in Sage, but not the lineups. However I'm not sure that I did things properly.

I changed the names in the headends.txt from "Antenna" to "First" & "Second". Then in the lineups folder I changed (only) the line "name": "Antenna" to ""name": "First"" or ""name": "Second"" depending on the lineup file, being careful to match the names with the proper zip code. There was only one instance of the name in each file, about 1/3 way down.

I then setup a source and it came up showing the two lineups with their unique names (First Over-The-Air and Second Over-The-Air). I selected First and it went to pull the data and came back very quickly with an empty lineup. It only contained the defaults (Done, Scan, Edit). I accepted it and went on to the next source, selected Second, which went out for the usual several minutes and came back with channel numbers but no channel data.

Bobby

[Slugger]

Right, I forgot Sage calls an epg update when you assign a lineup to a source so it probably overwrote (or at least tried) the changes you made. Yeah, so that's probably not going to work. I'd probably need to make the code change for it to stick and work, if that's the problem. As I said, I just don't have the time right now to investigate and even if I did, these kinds of changes require my development env as it's too sensitive/volatile for me to experiment on my production box with these kinds of changes and all my non-essential hardware in the office has been packed up so I don't have any env to experiment until after my move in late Sep, at the earliest.

In the meantime, your best bet is to probably follow Robert's advice above and open a ticket at SD and get the missing channels added to your zip code such that you will only need one lineup in Sage. That would solve your problem for now. I also encourage you to open a ticket at my project for me to investigate the, let's call it, "multiple OTA lineup issue" (please describe in detail or at least link back to this conversation because by the time late Sep rolls around I'll likely have forgotten the details).

[BobbyDing]

Slugger, No problem. It can certainly wait till Sept/Oct..Or even Nov/Dec. Whenever you are able to look into it would be great. I will post the issue to your dev site during the next week or so.

Robert, I did not see your post as I was writing my previous post when you posted, and then ran to work. I think my setup falls under "Unusual Case". I point my antennas towards two cities. Basically east and west of me. The west towers are about 30 miles away, and they are what comes up for my zip code. The east towers are about 65+ miles away and because of my location/terrain, I get them very well (unusual for my area). But I doubt that others in my area would even bother to try.

There is a zip code that is smack in the middle between the two cities that does contain all the stations I require, east and west (via SD). However I cannot use that single lineup for both my tuners. We ran into this issue during the dev process for the SD plugin. I can use that "Full" lineup for the first tuner (disabling the stations that aren't relevant for that antenna) and the guide fills up fine. When I then select to COPY the lineup to a separately configurable lineup, it seems to work, as I am able to only select stations relevant to the other tuner. But when I go to the guide, there is no data for any of the second tuners stations. If I setup the tuners the other way around, then the second tuners lineup will fill the guide with data, but the first tuner will have all "No Data". I just tried this again tonight again and that problem still remains. I think Slugger said back during the private beta that it's an issue between Sage and the SD plugin that he was unable to correct.

I've considered trying to combine the antenna signals at the coax so ALL the tuners can access both east and west stations (then I can use the single lineup above). But that brings about other issues, since the west stations come in stronger than the east stations. Which means juggling preamps and attenuators to better match the signals before they reach the tuners. It's something I may experiment with in the fall if time allows.

I suppose I could also bring the second lineup in as a cable provider and manually remap within sage, but that seems like a headache too.

I do appreciate what you guys have done with the SD/Plugin. It's really great work. Thanks for all that.

Sorry this is so long.

Bobby
.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by BobbyDing

There is a zip code that is smack in the middle between the two cities that does contain all the stations I require, east and west (via SD). However I cannot use that single lineup for both my tuners. We ran into this issue during the dev process for the SD plugin. I can use that "Full" lineup for the first tuner (disabling the stations that aren't relevant for that antenna) and the guide fills up fine. When I then select to COPY the lineup to a separately configurable lineup, it seems to work, as I am able to only select stations relevant to the other tuner. But when I go to the guide, there is no data for any of the second tuners stations. If I setup the tuners the other way around, then the second tuners lineup will fill the guide with data, but the first tuner will have all "No Data". I just tried this again tonight again and that problem still remains. I think Slugger said back during the private beta that it's an issue between Sage and the SD plugin that he was unable to correct.

This should work, but you have to follow a very specific set of steps to get the guide to fill in (the first time, after that it should be fine).

Set tuner 1's lineup to the zip that has all the channels; do not disable any channels on this tuner yet.

Set tuner 2's lineup, creating a copy of the first lineup; ensure all the guide data is still available.

Now go disable channels on each lineup as needed; all should be good. If it's not, go delete your sdjson.epg file and force an epg update in Sage. The file should be rebuilt and again all should be good. If not, log this as a bug for me as well because this should work fine you just need the extra step at initial setup.

[BobbyDing]

Slugger, That did the trick. Thank You, Thank You.

I will post the previous issue to your dev site later this week.



Bobby
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[rdefino]

I'm not seeing any guide update past 8pm on 9-25. I forced an update using the web interface and have this in my log file. Is there a problem going on?

2013-09-16 15:05:34,562 INFO [ProgramGenerator]: Processed show generators in 32ms
2013-09-16 15:05:34,624 INFO [EpgDownloader]: [C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin\java, -Xmx512m, -jar, C:\Program Files (x86)\SageTV\SageTV\plugins\sdepg\tools\sdjson.jar, -c, grab, -u, rdefino, -p, *****, -o, C:\Program Files (x86)\SageTV\SageTV\plugins\sdepg\sdjson.epg, -a, sagetv-sdepg/0.0.4.2 (Windows 7 x86 6.1), -t, 200, -b, https://data2.schedulesdirect.org, -pc, 50000, -sc, 1000, -l, INFO, -g, C:\Program Files (x86)\SageTV\SageTV\plugins\sdepg\ignore.txt]
2013-09-16 15:05:39,195 INFO [EPGImportPluginSchedulesDirect]: Performed EPG download in 4618ms
2013-09-16 15:05:39,944 INFO [ChannelGenerator]: Processed channel generators in 0ms
2013-09-16 15:05:39,944 INFO [EPGImportPluginSchedulesDirect]: Performed channel processing in 749ms
2013-09-16 15:05:40,365 INFO [EPGImportPluginSchedulesDirect]: Performed lineup map configuration in 421ms
2013-09-16 15:07:08,193 INFO [EPGImportPluginSchedulesDirect]: Performed EPG data load in 87828ms
2013-09-16 15:07:08,208 INFO [AiringGenerator]: Processed airing generators in 15ms

[Slugger]

Nothing unexpected going on. The SD server was last updated on Sep 12 (these details are available via the web ui SD status pages) so I wouldn't expect data much past the 24 or 25th, which is what you're seeing. Some behind the scenes maintenance going on (as there usually is). Rarely a need to worry until you have less than, say, 48 hours of guide data remaining. There should usually be an update long before then, but when it starts to get to that level then it's worth a message.

Robert may reply here letting you know when he expects the production server to be updated again (my guess is sometime in the next few days, depending on when the current work being done is completed).

[rkulagow]

There shouldn't be anything unusual going on, other than working on the beta and metadata. It looks like the daily process which runs the updates has hung, so I've restarted it.

[rdefino]

Thanks

[panteragstk]

Has the Sunday Ticket issue been worked out yet? I still have generic guide data on all my SD channels.