Plex Scanner and BMT Agent for SageTV

[ex-tivoman]

I was hoping to get plex working to allow greater usage of my recordings on plex clients. but am at a standstill. I thought I followed the github install correctly but am getting an error. My most likely thoughts on the cause are either permissions or the JSON location.

I say permissions could be a culprit because I remember a previuous install of Plex creating a plex user which I then had to add to my mediauser group and grant read/write/execute permissions. But i checked and there are no "plex" users. only my standard user.

I say JSON because when I look at the sageplex_scanner.log I see an error
"call: json decode failed: No JSON object could be decoded".
I followed the "easy install method IE: "sudo -u plex python install/sageplex_install.py -i" and then double checked by doing the manual install steps.

when I run plex I used the advanced library scanner --> SageTV scanner, and agebt --> SageTV BMT Agent. But nothing gets added to the library. A possible issue in the com.plexapp.agents.bmtagenttvshows.log is:
2017-11-19 20:11:05,522 (7f4bb2d24700) : INFO (sandbox:19) - ***** Initializing "SageTV BMT Agent (TV Shows)" *****
2017-11-19 20:11:05,522 (7f4bb2d24700) : INFO (sandbox:19) - Config: no env var SAGEPLEX_CFG"

my setup is a linux headless sagetv server which I installed plex onto and I access via putty. I access the plex server via x.x.x.x:32400. I access sagetv via either placeshifter or client depending on what the need is. any help is appreciated.

[wildgoose]

Hi ex-tivoman,

It's been a while since I looked at the Linux side of PLEX. When I wrote the installer, PLEX runs under its own user 'plex'. Hence the install command uses "sudo -u plex", which runs the install script as plex user.

If this is no longer the case, PLEX runs as the standard user, then it probably won't work. You could try the installer without the sudo command, like on macos:

python install/sageplex_install.py -i

or depending on where plex files are,

sudo python install/sageplex_install.py -i

If it still doesn't work for some reason, you can set an explicit environment variable SAGEPLEX_CFG that points to the full path of sageplex_cfg.json (be sure to set it so that the plex process can see it, ie, current user or plex user depending on how plex is installed).

FYI currently the installer will try to detect PLEX in the following 2 locations on Linux:

~plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server
/config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server

If PLEX is installed somewhere else, you can try the '--plexdir' parameter with the installer to set it explicitly.

[ex-tivoman]

thanks for the quick reply. i will try this over the next few days.

[ex-tivoman]

OK. I added use plex and made a group for local user and plex so permissions do not seem to be the problem.

Here is what I am getting in my sageplex_scanner.log for each of my sage recordings. [userassword] have been changed, but are correct in the log.
2017-11-22 06:33:04,037| DEBUG | Getting media info from SageTV ...
2017-11-22 06:33:04,037| DEBUG | openUrl: http://[localuser]:[localuser'spassword]@localhost:8080/sagex/api?c=plex:GetMediaFileForName&1=SaturdayNightLive-CameronDiazMarkRonsonBrunoMars-248050-0.mpg&encoder=json
2017-11-22 06:33:04,038| ERROR | call: json decode failed: No JSON object could be decoded
2017-11-22 06:33:04,039| ERROR | No media info from SageTV: SaturdayNightLive-CameronDiazMarkRonsonBrunoMars-248050-0.mpg

[dstanley]

Did you edit your sageplex_cfg.json file to represent YOUR system?

Mine is in my Plex Media Server folder and the contents are like this:

{
    "sagex": {
        "host"     : "192.168.1.5",
        "port"     : 8080,
        "user"     : "MySageWebUIUsername",
        "password" : "MySageWebUIPassword"
    },
    "plex": {
        "host"     : "192.168.1.5",
        "port"     : 32400,
        "token"    : "MyPlexToken"
    },
    "scanner": {
        "ext"      : [".mpg", ".avi", ".mkv", ".mp4", ".ts", ".m4v"],
        "log"      : "config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Support/Logs/sageplex_scanner.log",
        "debug"    : true
    },
    "agent": {
        "locking"  : true
    },

    "ignored":  {
        "log_win"  : "%LOCALAPPDATA%\\Plex Media Server\\Logs\\sageplex_scanner.log",
        "log_xp"   : "%USERPROFILE%\\Local Settings\\Application Data\\Plex Media Server\\Logs\\sageplex_scanner.log",
        "log_mac"  : "~/Library/Logs/sageplex_scanner.log",
        "log_lin"  : "config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Support/Logs/sageplex_scanner.log",
        "dummy"    : "last"
    }
}

Obviously you need to change this to your SageWebUI username/password and ipaddress/port as well as your Plex Token.

Looks like the error you are getting may be because those items are not declared properly!?

Dwight

[ex-tivoman]

It looks like yours in most ways. The order, which I doubt makes a difference, is different. See below.

But,
1. for host I just have "localhost" since I have plex running on the machine where sagetv is.
2. i didnt have a token set for plex. but i figured it out from here. https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/12...or-your-app/p1

3. I have been noodling around trying to figure this out. One other thought/possibility. in the Batch Metadata Tools webui, how do I fix this: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8080/bmt/#status I have an error:
--> Error Failed to get status for: Phoenix

Still getting the same error in the sageplex log.

{
    "agent": {
        "locking": true
    },
    "ignored": {
        "dummy": "last",
        "log_lin": "~plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Logs/sageplex_scanner.log",
        "log_mac": "~/Library/Logs/sageplex_scanner.log",
        "log_win": "%LOCALAPPDATA%\\Plex Media Server\\Logs\\sageplex_scanner.log",
        "log_xp": "%USERPROFILE%\\Local Settings\\Application Data\\Plex Media Server\\Logs\\sageplex_scanner.log"
    },
    "plex": {
        "host": "localhost",
        "port": 32400,
        "token": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
    },
    "sagex": {
        "host": "localhost",
        "password": "sageuserpwordxxxxx",
        "port": 8080,
        "user": "sageuserxxxxxx"
    },
    "scanner": {
        "debug": true,
        "ext": [
            ".mpg",
            ".avi",
            ".mkv",
            ".mp4",
            ".ts",
            ".m4v"
        ],
        "log": "/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Logs/sageplex_scanner.log"
    }
}

[dstanley]

http://192.168.1.5:8080/bmt/#status

This works fine on my system - I would rule out the 'localhost' and make it a fixed address of the Plex/Sage server just in case.

My unraid server is 192.168.1.5 and hosts Plex Media Server and SageTV running in dockers.

If you were to access your server from another machine using 'localhost' I am sure it would fail as the server is NOT your localhost.

Plex doesn't know that Sage is on the same machine - but if both are directed by IP addresses then they 'should' work.

Dwight

[ex-tivoman]

Thank you. I did "hardcode" the IP address of the localhost. it made no difference.

I think there is a problem running Phoenix and that is the root of this problem because, having read a lot of threads, it seems that BMT uses phoenix to populate metadata. And the phoenix-metadata.log file has nothing in it.

I have always in the past used the default sageTV.xml user interface. When I try to switch to the phoenix3.xml user interface the system freezes with a time and weather screen.

I have attached my phoenix.log file
I have attached a screenshot of my BMT / Phoenix error BMT.jpg

also the bmt.log file clearly shows a phoenix error. see:
2017-11-23 13:40:06,382 [EventRouter-902b345df187] INFO bmt.BMT - ========= BEGIN BATCH METADATA TOOLS ENVIRONMENT ==============
2017-11-23 13:40:06,382 [EventRouter-902b345df187] INFO bmt.BMT - BMT Version: 4.9.8
2017-11-23 13:57:15,631 [1559269531@qtp-1678359570-2] ERROR org.jdna.bmt.web.server.StatusServicesImpl - Status Failed: phoenix

[DarkWolf77]

So I have been using this for quite a while, and just recently found that it's being update again so I installed the update. It's working great! Mostly... It still seems to have an issue with creating duplicate shows - for example, Mythbusters is listed twice in the shows listing. I had that problem before but I think I finally figured out what does it: I have two big hard drives with Sage recordings: E:\SageTV and F:\SageTV - and it seems that when a show is present on both hard drives I end up with two copies of the show in the library with some of the episodes listed in one entry and some in the other (corresponding to the location of the recording on the first or second drive). I mean, yeah I can merge them, but it's a pain as it happens a LOT. When I use the normal plex scanners I don't have this issue.

Also, all of the SageTV recordings are in one library in Plex.

[Taddeusz]

I've noticed recently that when dealing with metadata of special episodes from The TVDB BMT leaves the season field blank even though they specify them as "Season 0". I'm wondering if this is a limitation of BMT or the SageTV API itself?

I'm curious because in episode lists when the Web UI encounters these episodes they display like "nullEpisode 16".

So, in short, does the SageTV impose a non-zero limitation on seasons or is this a BMT limitation? A zero value should not assume null.

Edit: It's also impossible to search for special episodes using a value of zero for the season. I've had to get around that by searching for the episode name instead.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I've noticed recently that when dealing with metadata of special episodes from The TVDB BMT leaves the season field blank even though they specify them as "Season 0". I'm wondering if this is a limitation of BMT or the SageTV API itself?

I'm curious because in episode lists when the Web UI encounters these episodes they display like "nullEpisode 16".

So, in short, does the SageTV impose a non-zero limitation on seasons or is this a BMT limitation? A zero value should not assume null.

Edit: It's also impossible to search for special episodes using a value of zero for the season. I've had to get around that by searching for the episode name instead.

SageTV itself doesn't care, it just stores a value. BMT (more specifically phoenix) does have a limitation in that because data is stored as strings and then converted to numbers, then null becomes 0, and as such, when looking for missing metadata, we can't tell the difference between a missing season and season 0, and if we treated season 0 as valid, then it will never automatically try to update.

This can all be tweaked, but, that's why season 0 doesn't exist, today, for sagetv. I don't really see this changing in the short term... the Season 0 issue has been identified for several years now, and, it would require many changes to the underlying process to solve it.

Maybe if there's ever a next version we can tackle this... along with why tv/movie fanart with the same but different years share the same fanart (the latter being more annoying to me, than missing season 0)

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Maybe if there's ever a next version we can tackle this... along with why tv/movie fanart with the same but different years share the same fanart (the latter being more annoying to me, than missing season 0)

That is really annoying. I recently went through and renamed all my media to include the year it was released. Far too many mismatches due to no year in the filename. I hate to say nearly a deal breaker. In fact, this might be one of the bullet points that eventually pushes me to moving whole hog over to Plex.

There only two primary things preventing me from doing so right now. 1. I can't get audio pass-through to work from Plex on our Fire Stick. 2. No support for comskip and I don't entirely trust the destructive commercial cutting that they have implemented.

Don't get me wrong. SageTV is a good product but as it stands it's just good and too narrowly focused. Stale. Plex is shaping up to be a great product. The next public release is implementing custom collections of mixed media.

As much as I love a thing like SageTV I'm always critical of them as a continued solution.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

That is really annoying. I recently went through and renamed all my media to include the year it was released. Far too many mismatches due to no year in the filename. I hate to say nearly a deal breaker. In fact, this might be one of the bullet points that eventually pushes me to moving whole hog over to Plex.

There only two primary things preventing me from doing so right now. 1. I can't get audio pass-through to work from Plex on our Fire Stick. 2. No support for comskip and I don't entirely trust the destructive commercial cutting that they have implemented.

Don't get me wrong. SageTV is a good product but as it stands it's just good and too narrowly focused. Stale. Plex is shaping up to be a great product. The next public release is implementing custom collections of mixed media.

As much as I love a thing like SageTV I'm always critical of them as a continued solution.

I can't say I'd blame you... SageTV is never going to get to where Plex is today, in terms of media management and device support. To be honest, If plex supported the notion of custom views, I'd probably switch over as well. SageTV is a hobby for any of us, so it can't compete with Plex. And it's not large enough in terms of a development base to compete with Kodi. So those 2 platforms are going to run circles around SageTV, no question. If either of them get decent tv support and custom view support, that really would push me there as well. I already use Plex as my "away" solution where I load up the tablet with tv and movies and sometimes connect back to my server at home for more recent recordings. I considered adding that to sagetv, but, I think, "why?"... Plex does it so well, and I'm never going to get it to work as well as that

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I can't say I'd blame you... SageTV is never going to get to where Plex is today, in terms of media management and device support. To be honest, If plex supported the notion of custom views, I'd probably switch over as well. SageTV is a hobby for any of us, so it can't compete with Plex. And it's not large enough in terms of a development base to compete with Kodi. So those 2 platforms are going to run circles around SageTV, no question. If either of them get decent tv support and custom view support, that really would push me there as well. I already use Plex as my "away" solution where I load up the tablet with tv and movies and sometimes connect back to my server at home for more recent recordings. I considered adding that to sagetv, but, I think, "why?"... Plex does it so well, and I'm never going to get it to work as well as that

Yeah, I've thought about doing an iOS app for SageTV with the same kind of device sync but the user base is so small.

There is already one guy doing an iOS app but from his description the design seems wrong to me. Adding complexity to an already complex thing and burdening the device with too much.

[DarkWolf77]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I can't say I'd blame you... SageTV is never going to get to where Plex is today, in terms of media management and device support. To be honest, If plex supported the notion of custom views, I'd probably switch over as well. SageTV is a hobby for any of us, so it can't compete with Plex. And it's not large enough in terms of a development base to compete with Kodi. So those 2 platforms are going to run circles around SageTV, no question. If either of them get decent tv support and custom view support, that really would push me there as well. I already use Plex as my "away" solution where I load up the tablet with tv and movies and sometimes connect back to my server at home for more recent recordings. I considered adding that to sagetv, but, I think, "why?"... Plex does it so well, and I'm never going to get it to work as well as that

Ehh.... Sage still kicks Plex's butt for actual playback, particularly since Sage supports comskip, the fact that I can do fast forward by 10 second intervals and with thumbnail previews to boot (this started working with plex for a bit then disappeared again), and Sage has a lot fewer struggles transcoding for whatever reason.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by DarkWolf77

Ehh.... Sage still kicks Plex's butt for actual playback, particularly since Sage supports comskip, the fact that I can do fast forward by 10 second intervals and with thumbnail previews to boot (this started working with plex for a bit then disappeared again), and Sage has a lot fewer struggles transcoding for whatever reason.

I totally agree with you.

SageTV's playback and its ability to skipFwd and SkipFwdx2 is something that nothing else does very well. I use these buttons dozens if not hundreds of times when watching TV as I watch sports almost exclusively. And tmiranda's plugin for customizable skip times based on Show Title really helps as well.

Plex, etc also struggle for shows that don't have entries in TVDB -like sports.

While typing this message I used SkipFwd and SkipFwdx2!

And I will be using them a lot tonight as I watch the Leafs and Raptors play their playoff games.

We the North!
Go Leafs Go!

[michaeldjcox]

Seems a while since anyone touched this plex plugin for sageTV.

Anyone know if it still works?

[fresnoboy]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Seems a while since anyone touched this plex plugin for sageTV.

Anyone know if it still works?

Well, it was working fine until Plex removed support for plugins. You can still install plugins manually, but even though Plex said they weren't removing plugins on existing installs, mine did just that!

I'm going to reinstall the plugin and see if I can get it reconstituted.

thx
mike

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by fresnoboy

Well, it was working fine until Plex removed support for plugins. You can still install plugins manually, but even though Plex said they weren't removing plugins on existing installs, mine did just that!

I'm going to reinstall the plugin and see if I can get it reconstituted.

thx
mike

While I do like how well refined Plex is... I really hate their animosity to the dev community. When I do finally get back to stuff, my goal is going to be to replace my plex setup with Emby. The more I play with Emby, the more it grows on me. A couple years ago it was pretty rough, but, these days, it's getting more and more refined. And it's an open system, so, extending it is likely easier (although I've yet to play with it from a dev point of view)

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by stuckless

While I do like how well refined Plex is... I really hate their animosity to the dev community. When I do finally get back to stuff, my goal is going to be to replace my plex setup with Emby. The more I play with Emby, the more it grows on me. A couple years ago it was pretty rough, but, these days, it's getting more and more refined. And it's an open system, so, extending it is likely easier (although I've yet to play with it from a dev point of view)

Yay! I prefer Emby, but it was too difficult for me to get SageTV files to show up nicely in it (Plex just works) and most people on here seem to use Plex. I currently run both with Plex mainly so the kids can easily find/download shows to their iThings and in place of Placeshifter on home desktops since Placeshifter has playback issues occasionally. It'd be nice to get some Emby love when you get around to it .