Plugin: Schedules Direct EPG (not for v9)

[AzJazz]

Originally Posted by Slugger

Plugins always say failed after they're installed until Sage is restarted. That's normal. Check your account settings via the web ui to make sure all the lineups you need data for are registered. Then confirm each source is assigned the appropriate lineup.

Well, I restarted SageTV (including rebooting the PC) multiple times, and it still said "Failed" each time. I'm not sure what changed this time.

I'm facing a new problem now: I was having problems with my channels getting recognized from my HDHomeRun correctly, so I decided to clear out all my previous channels.

Now, when I'm setting up a new source, I'm on the "Select your Cable or Satellite Provider" page, and it's blank. It used to show all the providers in my ZIP code.

I'm kind of lost now - I can't get any channels now.

Sigh.

[Slugger]

You probably have no lineups registered with your JSON account at Schedules Direct. Use the SD settings page on the web ui in Sage to verify/fix those settings.

[AzJazz]

Originally Posted by Slugger

You probably have no lineups registered with your JSON account at Schedules Direct. Use the SD settings page on the web ui in Sage to verify/fix those settings.

Thanks, Slugger! That was the problem. I didn't remember doing that before.

[Phydeaux]

Hey Slugger, I have a weird problem that I bet you've seen before and will be trivial to solve.. for you...

I recently had to rebuild my Sage server. New OS install etc. I made a copy of the entire Sage directory before I blew everything away. After installing the OS (Windows 7, as before) and installing SageTV to get it registered properly, I copied the backed up Sage directory over top of the newly installed one. All seemed to work fine but I noted several errors after a few days that the EPG lineup was lost several times. Recording continued and there seemed to be a lineup, but this troubled me. So I looked closer and saw that the Schedules Direct and JSON plugins were marked as "failed" and "not compatible". After a bit if fussing around I ended up deleting them and my video source etc. Now I can't install them because they are still marked as not compatible.

What next?

Cheers,
RLW

[Slugger]

Plugin requires Java 7, you probably have Java 6 (or older) installed.

[Phydeaux]

You're right, I only had the version 6 update 10 that is installed with Sage. I've now added JRE7U2. Made no difference, the SD EPG and sdjson-api are still marked as Not Compatible. Is there something I need to do to tell the plugins to re-check the Java availability?

RLW

[Phydeaux]

My fault. Running 64-bit version of Windows 7 and installed 64-bit version of Java 7. Seemed logical until I actually applied some logic to the issue... Installed 32-bit JRE7.2U and all is well.

Thanks, as always, Slugger!

RLW

[Slugger]

Java 7 Update 2 is old and very, very buggy. I highly recommend upgrading to at least Java 7 update 65. You will hit issues with the sdepg plugin and a JRE7 version as old as update 2.

[Phydeaux]

Huh? Frick, I surfed down Java 7 and Sun lead me right to the download page for update 2.... OK, thanks for the heads up, I'll beat Sun into telling me the latest V7 version and grab it.




*** Uh, yeah. I wuz rong. I had update 72, not update 2... Duh.

Thanks again,
RLW

[bryanzim]

I am running the latest 0.0.7.3 version of the schedules direct plugin, but my program guide information has a lot of No Data into it especially in prime time. However, it is not all "No Data"

This has not been a problem until recently. I've tried all the usual methods to fix this, such as uninstalling the plug-in, deleting all the necessary files, and re-installing but the same situation occurs.

Has anyone else experienced the problem or any suggestions.

Thanks

[Slugger]

You'll need to inspect the schedule files inside the sdjson.epg file to determine if the gaps in the schedule are because of gaps in the upstream data or because the plugin isn't processing the schedules properly.

Open the sdjson.epg file with your favourite zip file viewer, go into the schedules folder and open the schedule file for a channel with no data displaying. Check the schedule to see if the gaps also exist in that schedule (the scheduled shows are listed chronologically within the schedule files). If the gaps exist in the schedule file then the problem lies with Schedules Direct, open a support ticket with them. If the gaps don't exist in the schedule file then I'll need more details to try to determine why the schedule isn't being processed properly by the plugin.

[bryanzim]

Slugger,

Thank you for the quick reply.

After unzipping and going to maps to locate the correct station Id. I went under schedules and they seem fully populated with the correct times and attributes.

However under programs all the files are basically empty md5 JSON objects, i.e. {"md5":""}. I am assuming this is where the program name and other information is supposed to be. So this looks like a Schedules Direct problem?

I will file a ticket with them

I added the sdjson pull info if it will help. Just remove the .zip extension from the z0x parts.

[rkulagow]

I haven't received any tickets or notification from other users that they're not retrieving data; is anyone else on the Sage plugin experiencing the same thing? Schedules are correct but programs are empty?

I pulled data with my PHP grabber and the data looks OK.

[AzJazz]

I have a few independant channels that show up with "No Data" in the Program Guide.

However, when I scanned the XML data in the SchedulesDirect "Check the raw data" diagnostic webpage for my subscription, I saw what looked like valid program data for the channels.

How do I fix it so that I get the program data for these channels? I put in a Lineup Problem Report to SD after I had subscribed, and the program data for these channels may have been added after I installed the SD EPG plugin.

Do I need to fully uninstall/reinstall the SD EPG plugin to get the data? Or, something I can refresh or modify?

Thanks,

AzJazz

[Slugger]

You need to check if the data is in the sdjson.epg file. If it's in there, but not showing up in the Sage epg then that's a problem I need to investigate. If the data isn't in that file then you need to open a ticket with Schedules Direct. The sdjson.epg file is just a zip file so open it with your favourite zip file viewer.

[AzJazz]

Originally Posted by Slugger

You need to check if the data is in the sdjson.epg file. If it's in there, but not showing up in the Sage epg then that's a problem I need to investigate. If the data isn't in that file then you need to open a ticket with Schedules Direct. The sdjson.epg file is just a zip file so open it with your favourite zip file viewer.

Thanks, Slugger - I researched the sdjson.epg content like you suggested. While the channels are listed in the ..\maps directory, I did not find anything for the respective stationID.txt in the ..\schedules directory, and none of the channel's shows in the ..\programs directory.

I have sent a lineup issue report to Schedules Direct. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks,

AJ

[Slugger]

A quick heads up that when Schedules Direct stops supporting the current version of their API, the sdepg plugin will no longer work. I have no idea when that will happen (I'd say you have at least a month or two, probably longer). SD might also keep the current version of the API running in parallel to whatever they release next and if they do then the plugin should happily run. Point here is that unless someone volunteers to take over this project, there will be no more releases to the Sage repository.

I'll continue to support users for the time being, but that, too, will end in the coming months. More details in the link above.

[emveepee]

I am not a STV user but I was testing with sdjson interest before NextPVR added JSON support. In playing with it over the last two nights I encountered the same problem as bryanzip and looking at the code I see this

private int maxProgChunk = 50000;

Changing that to the actual API max of 5000 solved my problems. Since this can be lowered with a command line switch no change is necessary, but I will see what I can do to help keep sdjon running if it is also no longer supported.

Martin

[Slugger]

I've been running the newest build of the sdepg plugin on my system for the better part of two weeks now without issue. I'm getting ready to release it to the plugin repo hopefully next weekend or the weekend after. This version supports the newest release of the Schedules Direct JSON server -- API version 20141201.

The most noticeable change for users of this plugin will be the sudden appearance of support for multiple countries. I don't think this is going to affect many as I assume most every user of this plugin is from Canada/USA, but if you are from outside the US & Canada and you decide to give this plugin a shot, I must warn you that I have no idea just how well these other countries will be supported within SageTV. What I mean by this is that the data will be pulled from Schedules Direct without issue, but I can't promise that the data received will equate properly to the data structures of SageTV. I have no idea, but if someone tries and has issues I'm willing to work with them on addressing those issues, just PM me and let me know.

Unfortunately, the only way for me to test this "other country" support is to basically rebuild a test server/vm as I have no interest in experimenting with foreign epg data on my production box. But I also don't have the desire to go building out new test systems for something I don't expect anyone to actually use. So if someone is going to attempt to use something other than Canada/USA then you're the guinea pig, but if you do have issues let me know and I'll see what can be done about it.

P.S. So shortly after post 717, Narflex announced Sage is going open source. This changed my plans, I'm now sticking with Sage as my pvr platform so I'll happily release this new version of the plugin. However, one of two things is going to happen: the open source version of Sage is going to keep its access to the Sage EPG server indefinitely (and this is looking like the case) or the open source version is losing access to epg data meaning something new has to be integrated. Either scenario obsoletes this plugin, in my mind. So if there's ongoing interest in maintaining this plugin for epg data then I still need a volunteer to take over ownership of the plugin. I wouldn't expect much more than maybe a couple of fix releases after this new release and then that'll be it from me.

Pasted below is the list of countries this new API release from Schedules Direct now supports.

<option value=''>------ Select ------</option>
<option value='ABW'>Aruba</option>
<option value='AIA'>Anguila</option>
<option value='ARG'>Argentina</option>
<option value='ATG'>Antigua/Barbuda</option>
<option value='BES'>Bonaire, Saba, St. Eustatius</option>
<option value='BHS'>Bahamas</option>
<option value='BLZ'>Belize</option>
<option value='BMU'>Bermuda</option>
<option value='BRA'>Brazil</option>
<option value='BRB'>Barbados</option>
<option value='CAN'>Canada</option>
<option value='CHL'>Chile</option>
<option value='COL'>Columbia</option>
<option value='CRI'>Costa Rica</option>
<option value='CUW'>Curacao</option>
<option value='CYM'>Cayman Islands</option>
<option value='DEU'>Germany</option>
<option value='DMA'>Dominica</option>
<option value='DNK'>Denmark</option>
<option value='DOM'>Dominican Republic</option>
<option value='DVB'>DVB Satellite</option>
<option value='ECU'>Ecuador</option>
<option value='FIN'>Finland</option>
<option value='FRA'>France</option>
<option value='GBR'>Great Britain</option>
<option value='GRD'>Grenada</option>
<option value='GTM'>Guatemala</option>
<option value='GUY'>Guyana</option>
<option value='HND'>Honduras</option>
<option value='JAM'>Jamaica</option>
<option value='KNA'>St. Kitts and Nevis</option>
<option value='LCA'>St. Lucia</option>
<option value='MAF'>Saint Martin</option>
<option value='MEX'>Mexico</option>
<option value='PAN'>Panama</option>
<option value='PER'>Peru</option>
<option value='PRI'>Puerto Rico</option>
<option value='SWE'>Sweden</option>
<option value='TCA'>Turks and Caicos</option>
<option value='TTO'>Trinidad and Tobago</option>
<option value='URY'>Uruguay</option>
<option value='USA'>United States</option>
<option value='VCT'>Saint Vincent / Grenadines</option>
<option value='VEN'>Venezuela</option>
<option value='VGB'>British Virgin Islands</option>

[tvmaster2]

good to see you're sticking with Sage for a while longer. Tivo's the next best thing, but it's pricey, and no where near as flexible