metadata errors on new recordings

[raklar]

I've been trying to get bmt 3.X properly setup off and on for the last few months and always seem to keep running into the same error. Finally had some time to dig into it today so I set it up with the latest installs of everything and let it run.

Basically what happens is it pulls down fanart and metadata fine on it's first run, then afterwards each new recording on my system ends up getting the fanart of the last recording parsed.

I finally think I tracked down the part of the problem, as I was looking through the metadata for the new recordings and noticed that all their show titles in the web interface were set to the same title of the last item parsed, if I went and changed one to the proper title it would then start using the proper fanart, but then each recording after that would start using that title as it's default. Once it gets into this state I'm screwed until I restart sage and let it reindex the content again, and then after that initial run the same problems happens again.

Any idea why this would be happening and what I can do to fix it? Is 4 stable enough to try and would it do anything to help this problem?

[ThePaladinTech]

its a known problem with both 3 and 4

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...37&postcount=2

So IMHO why not use 4?

[ThePaladinTech]

I am VERY curious what show it messes up on for others. why? because it always messes up on the same show for me, and i just now noticed it. perhaps it can help stuckless find a cure... if we can find some consistancy.

OK for me it is always Star Trek: Voyager OR Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I have two thoughts on this, and perhaps another key observation.

observation: I believe it records a next gen episode right before a voyager episode (or vice versa)

is it the fact the both shows start out 'star trek'?
is it the :?

if it is either and someone where to record CSI: Miami and CSI: New York I would think it would cause the problem?

here's the thing, I was MANUALLY doing my metadata and did a StarTrek: TNG episode ... no problem. when i clicked on the Star Trek Voyager episode it had the wrong show details!

first show in the "shows missing metadata" view was showing "Star Trek: The Next Generation - Thine own Self" the second show was showing "Star Trek: Voyager - Caretaker" - yet when I clicked on the voyager episode, after fetching the TNG episode info.... all show info was replaced with the prior metadata!

I hope this makes sense and that it helps - can anyone else confirm there problem has similar traits? (either the : or that you record two similarly named series?)

[raklar]

I can't say I've noticed it with any specific show, basically it seems to just use the metadata from whichever show was scanned last on a manual scan.

After the manual scan finished every show is assigned the title from that show when the sage plugin tries to pull down the metadata, where you notice it the most is with TVExpoler as you quickly see all the fanart for new recording at the top of the list set to the last show that was scanned.

I've actually just turned off the metadata plugin and I am only using bmt for downloading fanart for my recording now, mostly because of this bug, but also because I find that zap2it's program data, even though it's missing some details (like episode number etc...) is far more accurate than where bmt is pulling from. Far to many of my series recording have their descriptive episode summary / title replaced with a generic one that is the same for all episodes for the season when I use bmt to update the metada.

Also I updated to use bmt 4 and I must say I absolutely love the new web interface! great job stuckless!

[Tiki]

My experience has been that doing a manual scan on an episode of a show that has not been recorded yet (something in the program guide, or "future airings" screens in Sage), will never cause a problem. However, a manual scan on something that has already been recorded will almost always cause the "cross-linking" problem.

The difference is that when doing a manual scan on a Sage Recording, BMT sets a couple of "custom" MetaData fields. The custom fields will not be shown inside the default Sage screens (but could possibly be shown with certain STVi's installed). These custom fields include one that labels a recording as a "TV Show" or "Movie" and one that contains the Episode Title. These custom metadata fields get stored inside Wiz.bin.

These custom metadata fields do not get set when you do a manual scan on something that Sage has not recorded yet. When the "Cross-linking" happens, it is these custom fields that are wrong.

I don't know if the bug is in the BMT code or in the Sage API, but I am sure that the cross-linking problem would go away if these custom metadata fields were not set. Unfortunately, this would also break some other functionality - including the ability for BMT to recognize that a Movie recorded from TV was in fact a movie and not a TV Show (which would mean that it would try to find fanart on theTVDB.com instead of IMDB.com and would then not find anything).

Long story short:
(1) as a work around, try doing your manual scans on Sage Recordings by first clicking on the "Future airings" button, and selecting some future episode to scan rather than directly scanning an episode that Sage has already recorded.
(2) perhaps in a future Beta, Stuckless could consider not writing any metadata including the custom fields for Sage Recordings. He already tried not updating the standard metadata...

[stuckless]

First my apologies for not being active lately, it's been a busy time for me in other non sage areas.

I can certainly try to not update any metadata fields but canary will no longer work.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I can certainly try to not update any metadata fields but canary will no longer work.

I'm sorry, but what is "canary"?

I am sure that not updating any metadata would cause us to lose some important functionality, but I don't see how else you can isolate the cross-linking problem. Ideally it would not be removed permanently, but just long enough to (a) prove that this is where the problem lies, and (b) hopefully find a real fix.

[raklar]

Or until this bug is found, have it as an option in the settings to only pull down fanart from the plugin. As I was mentioning in another post, the metadata pulled isn't always as accurate as what was originally stored in the guide to begin with. It would be nice to have that option.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I'm sorry, but what is "canary"?

I am sure that not updating any metadata would cause us to lose some important functionality, but I don't see how else you can isolate the cross-linking problem. Ideally it would not be removed permanently, but just long enough to (a) prove that this is where the problem lies, and (b) hopefully find a real fix.

Canary was supposed to be fanart. Obviously I typed some wrong keys and my phone autocorrected.

[OneOfMany]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Canary was supposed to be fanart. Obviously I typed some wrong keys and my phone autocorrected.

ROFL..

RANTg

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by raklar

Or until this bug is found, have it as an option in the settings to only pull down fanart from the plugin. As I was mentioning in another post, the metadata pulled isn't always as accurate as what was originally stored in the guide to begin with. It would be nice to have that option.

Are you using 3.x or 4.x. I don't think that 4.x will actually update the metadata of recording other than the fanart.

[raklar]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Are you using 3.x or 4.x. I don't think that 4.x will actually update the metadata of recording other than the fanart.

I was using 3.x, but I did just upgrade to 4.x after starting this thread but I also turned off the plugin at the same time.