Schedules Direct EPG (integrated BETA)

[Monedeath]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

Sorry, that's correct. 9.1.0 was imminent for Windows, but there are some issues we hope to resolve soon. I somewhat jumped the gun there.

The new JAR file is available along with the modified STV file, so if someone wants to do the "drag and drop" manual upgrade they can.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Monedeath

The new JAR file is available along with the modified STV file, so if someone wants to do the "drag and drop" manual upgrade they can.

Just remember the caveat for drag-and-drop upgrades, the next time you do a real upgrade with the installer, run it twice and choose repair on the second run, otherwise it won't overwrite the files you've manually replaced.

[tmiranda]

I'm still having a problem with one of my channels (60-SCIENCE) showing "No data" in the guide. I turned on logging and forced a full download of the lineup. After looking through the log it seems the problem is that Schedules Direct thinks channel 60 is CNN when in reality it is SCIENCE.

Is this a SD issue or a Sage issue? More importantly, how do I fix it?

I could not attach the logfile, it's too big even after compressing it.

[EnterNoEscape]

Does it have a station ID?

Edit: I'll have to add some notification when a channel doesn't provide any data. I've seen it at least twice where we had a valid station ID, but no actual dates were returned from SD to pull data.

[rkulagow]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

After looking through the log it seems the problem is that Schedules Direct thinks channel 60 is CNN when in reality it is SCIENCE.

If the lineup is incorrect, please open a lineup support issue at our website so that we can get that fixed.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

Does it have a station ID?

Edit: I'll have to add some notification when a channel doesn't provide any data. I've seen it at least twice where we had a valid station ID, but no actual dates were returned from SD to pull data.

CNN has a station ID. There is no station ID for SCIENCE as far as I can tell.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by rkulagow

If the lineup is incorrect, please open a lineup support issue at our website so that we can get that fixed.

Done.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

CNN has a station ID. There is no station ID for SCIENCE as far as I can tell.

Without a station ID, the channel will never receive any updates at all via Schedules Direct. Are you saying the channel was imported from Schedules Direct without a station ID? Or was this added manually?

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

Without a station ID, the channel will never receive any updates at all via Schedules Direct. Are you saying the channel was imported from Schedules Direct without a station ID? Or was this added manually?

SCIENCE channel does not appear in the SD data at all. I opened a ticket with them and they are updating the lineup. I think the error is with SD and not your code

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

SCIENCE channel does not appear in the SD data at all. I opened a ticket with them and they are updating the lineup. I think the error is with SD and not your code

As you can probably imagine, I'm a always concerned about anything that could be wrong with the SD code because most people are/will be using it and having good data is essential to the TV experience. The last thing I want is to have bugs related to how the data is imported that cause recordings to be missed or incorrectly identified.

I also come from a workplace culture whereby I often find myself needing to prove beyond a doubt that the software I manage is not at fault when people see strange problems with their computers. The reason I ask so many questions is because I'm just trying to be sure that the issue isn't a problem with with code or a configuration issue and is actually a problem with the SD data before telling someone they need to go that way. I don't have fears of being yelled at , but I also don't want to be a developer that keeps sending people to other people because I can't accept that I might have broken something.

[graywolf]

Question: With changing to Schedules Direct, how does that impact the following setting?

Detailed Setup => General => Sync System Clock with SageTV Server
Will it now Sync with time on the SD EPG Server or should set up another method to prevent time drift?

[EnterNoEscape]

It will synchronize with the Schedules Direct server unless you have any lineups still using the old EPG. In that case it will synchronize with the old EPG server time instead. The way this is done should be generally fine for most setups. For better precision, you should be using NTP.

[alfi33]

I changed over to SD for EPG data today. It took all of 10 minutes to complete. Quick, easy, and very painless. Thanks for all your work on this.

[Rob23]

Migrated to SD yesterday, and all went well. I appreciate the documentation that others have contributed that made this an easy process.

[JustFred]

I did a test-run conversion to SD this weekend, using a spare box reserved for testing new Sage releases. Running v9.1.2.662.

Following earlier recommendations, I deleted all video sources, then added them back, this time selecting SD as the Guide source. Did the required channel scan on the tuner (OTA). Verified that all enabled channels were showing useful data in the Program Guide.

Although the Guide appeared to be correctly populated, there was one issue that got my attention. Bringing up Channel Manager (Program Guide -> Options -> Channel Manager), each enabled channel showed "2 of 2 Lineups" associated with it. That was unexpected, since I had only configured a single lineup.

Doing some digging, I found that sage.properties still had references to WarlockRipper (the original Sage EPG) which was associated with what appeared to be the pre-SD list of channels. After manually editing out the 12 lines related to WarlockRipper and restarting Sage, the Channel Manager now correctly reports "1 of 1 Lineups" on all enabled channels.

I'm left doubting the accuracy of some old postings that state a given video source can only be assigned one EPG at a time. Also makes me wonder what would be the effect of leaving WarlockRipper in place. Would Sage actually use both EPG sources for each channel? What if the two EPG sources didn't always agree? I wonder how many other SD-converts have the same situation but are unaware of it?

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by JustFred

I did a test-run conversion to SD this weekend, using a spare box reserved for testing new Sage releases. Running v9.1.2.662.

Following earlier recommendations, I deleted all video sources, then added them back, this time selecting SD as the Guide source. Did the required channel scan on the tuner (OTA). Verified that all enabled channels were showing useful data in the Program Guide.

Although the Guide appeared to be correctly populated, there was one issue that got my attention. Bringing up Channel Manager (Program Guide -> Options -> Channel Manager), each enabled channel showed "2 of 2 Lineups" associated with it. That was unexpected, since I had only configured a single lineup.

Doing some digging, I found that sage.properties still had references to WarlockRipper (the original Sage EPG) which was associated with what appeared to be the pre-SD list of channels. After manually editing out the 12 lines related to WarlockRipper and restarting Sage, the Channel Manager now correctly reports "1 of 1 Lineups" on all enabled channels.

I'm left doubting the accuracy of some old postings that state a given video source can only be assigned one EPG at a time. Also makes me wonder what would be the effect of leaving WarlockRipper in place. Would Sage actually use both EPG sources for each channel? What if the two EPG sources didn't always agree? I wonder how many other SD-converts have the same situation but are unaware of it?

It's not clear what actually happened here partly because I don't think I have ever seen what you're describing. Only one EPG source can actually be assigned to a capture device input (the way the properties are assigned makes it impossible to do otherwise). A capture device can have multiple inputs, so one capture device could have more than one EPG source.

What it looks like you are saying is that at the channel level you're seeing multiple EPG assignments which I'm not sure I have ever seen. My closest guess about what you're describing is that the WarlockRipper source still exists and provides the same station ID as provided by Schedules Direct. I also get the feeling that some remapping is being seen here too. The WarlockRipper source should go away on it's own if no capture devices are using it. There might be some exception happening here that results in the old source not being cleaned up.

I answered your 2nd to last 2 questions in the first post of this thread:
Because this is a core feature, you can actually use the original EPG solution (WarlockRipper) alongside Schedules Direct if desired. Just know that if there is any overlap, the Schedules Direct solution will yield to WarlockRipper in all foreseen cases. That means that if you use the exact same lineup from both sources and they download the exact same stations, all of your guide data will come from WarlockRipper.

After the old EPG service is discontinued, we should probably change this behavior since it would guarantee you will not get any guide data for the conflicting stations.

[JustFred]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

The WarlockRipper source should go away on it's own if no capture devices are using it. There might be some exception happening here that results in the old source not being cleaned up.

I answered your 2nd to last 2 questions in the first post of this thread:
Because this is a core feature, you can actually use the original EPG solution (WarlockRipper) alongside Schedules Direct if desired. Just know that if there is any overlap, the Schedules Direct solution will yield to WarlockRipper in all foreseen cases. That means that if you use the exact same lineup from both sources and they download the exact same stations, all of your guide data will come from WarlockRipper.

My test configuration is a single HVR-2250 tuner and a single SD lineup (for OTA). Prior to the upgrade, that tuner had been configured to use WarlockRipper. As part of the SD upgrade process, the tuner had been deleted and then added back, referencing SD.

Expectation was a system using **only** SD. But info in Channel Manger seemed to indicate that the tuner was somehow linked to both WarlockRipper **and** SD.

Since WarlockRipper will override SD, that won't be a particularly useful scenario for purposes of my testing. The decision to manually delete references to WarlockRipper from sage.properties is to insure that SD is actually being used during the next week while I compare the behavior of this test system to the primary Sage box.

[alfi33]

Originally Posted by JustFred

My test configuration is a single HVR-2250 tuner and a single SD lineup (for OTA). Prior to the upgrade, that tuner had been configured to use WarlockRipper. As part of the SD upgrade process, the tuner had been deleted and then added back, referencing SD.

Expectation was a system using **only** SD. But info in Channel Manger seemed to indicate that the tuner was somehow linked to both WarlockRipper **and** SD.

Since WarlockRipper will override SD, that won't be a particularly useful scenario for purposes of my testing. The decision to manually delete references to WarlockRipper from sage.properties is to insure that SD is actually being used during the next week while I compare the behavior of this test system to the primary Sage box.

After I read your post I went and checked Channel Manager on a couple of my clients. Sure enough, each enabled channel showed "2 of 2 Lineups" associated with it just like you said.

However, I noticed in Placeshifter each enabled channel only has "1 of 1 Lineup" associated.

I rebooted the Windows clients and now they also report "1 of 1 Lineup" associated to each enabled channel.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by alfi33

After I read your post I went and checked Channel Manager on a couple of my clients. Sure enough, each enabled channel showed "2 of 2 Lineups" associated with it just like you said.

However, I noticed in Placeshifter each enabled channel only has "1 of 1 Lineup" associated.

I rebooted the Windows clients and now they also report "1 of 1 Lineup" associated to each enabled channel.

That might be evidence that something didn't clean up quite right. I didn't say it, but I suspected that restarting SageTV would probably fix it because that has it's own cleanup mechanisms.

[Narflex]

I finally switched my home setup to SD this weekend...so far so good.