Tools and other software EPG-Buddy a new EPG Tool with easy usage. (7 Viewers)

[breese]

Did you remember to setup the Scheduler in the last Tab?
Set the time you want it to do the Auto-Grab, and click the Set Button

 

[piscdi]

Yes, the scheduler is (always has been) set as you can see by the following screen shots; the grabber performs at or about 4 am every day while the buddy piece only shows up when I do a manual. The odd thing is there is a buddy file from yesterday that was not from a manual, but it did not complete (as compared to a successful download). Almost like quantum physics where the mere observation changes a state of existence . These are before and after shots of scheduled v. manual downloads done this morning. As you can see by the time/date stamps, the grabber works every day but the buddy side does not (yesterday's odd anomaly notwithstanding). Here is what I have:

 

[piscdi]

Sorry, forgot the before shot of the log file folder (before the manual pull, that is).

 

[Lehmden]

Hi.

the grabber performs at or about 4 am every day

That's ok and the only part that needs to run. The "Buddy piece" only is the GUI for configuration. So this did not run on daily use at all. The grabbing itself runs completely invisible. In your screenshots you can see the grabber working. The first screenshot was taken while the grabber still was working. The "raw" EPG-Grabber.TVGuide.TVGUIDE_1.xml file has a file date from 7/12/2017 4:07 AM. This means that at this time the data download from tvguide.com is finished. But this is not the "final" file to import. The "final" file is enriched with data from TVDB to get season and episodes numbers and missing descriptions for series. This also is done invisible in background and takes some time. In this case it lasts from 4:07 to 5:33 AM. Most likely due to not very fast internet and/or many channels to enrich.
Only this "final" file with name "EPG-Grabber.TVGuide_done_1.xml" is to be imported in the TV Engine (Server). If you are using more than one account at tvguide.com then you will see also "EPG-Grabber.TVGuide_done_2.xml", "EPG-Grabber.TVGuide_done_3.xml",... depending on how much accounts you have set up.

On the first screenshot this has a file date from 7/09/2017 (three days ago). On the second screenshot the grabber finally was finished generating nice EPG data for you. As now the "final" file has a file date from 7/12/2017 5:33 AM. Once this file is created (renewed) the TV Engine (TV Server) should import this data into the TV Database...
So you need to look at the server log-files if there is an import logged at around 5:33 AM (or a bit later). As @breese reported the last part (importing into TV database) seems not to work in all circumstances, also I can not confirm this. Even with most recent test version of MP2 it is working. The EPG-Buddy part is working for you as expected and as planed... If the EPG data are not valid in MP then you have an issue with the XMLTV plugin there, not with EPG-Buddy.

 

[breese]

As @breese reported the last part (importing into TV database) seems not to work in all circumstances, also I can not confirm this.

Well it seems I am seeing the same results @piscdi is having.

I did a Manual update of EPG-Grabber on the 7th.
After seeing the updates to this thread I checked my server.

There are no errors in the Events logs....
Here you can see the first stage completed today but the Done one was not written


Here you can see the first stage has completed every day

 

[piscdi]

Good morning to all,

Based on Lehmden's explanation as to what I should be looking for, I ran a couple of tests this morning. With the greatest respect, I believe Lehmden was confusing the manual download data with the scheduled data in my last post. Regardless, I discovered this morning that the grabber first generates a 3 kb file (the channel list) before the guide data; you can see the sequence when you do a manual pull. It never occurred to me to check to see if it generates it's own file; it certainly does. Given that, I ran two manual downloads and the same 3 kb channel list file records in the log folder. BUT if you look at the historical data in the log folder, you'll observe that when the "scheduled" runs record, there are no such files.

Could there be some missing code (instructions for the scheduled download, not the manual) that should be telling the program to run the channel list and that failing that, the enhancement (enrichment) fails to initiate? That might explain why on the scheduled downloads, the "EPG-Grabber.TVGuide_done_1.xml" never updates (at least in my experience). If that's plausible, then if that file doesn't update, the TV Server doesn't "see" a new file to import and so does nothing.

You'll see that the scheduled download occurred at 04:07 and did not produce that 3 kb channel list file but the two subsequent manual downloads (06:28 and 07:19) did. Those files seem to have triggered the creation of the 'buddy' files for the manual download around the same time but their absence apparently did no such thing for the scheduled download.

Anyway, take a look at what I found this morning. Keep in mind, the last code I learned (or tried to learn) was cobol and fortran; my skill sets and knowledge base have only degraded since then . The first folder shot is the scheduled download; the second is the last manual.

Thanks again for all you guys do.

 

[Lehmden]

Hi.

manual download data with the scheduled data in my last post.

As opposite to any other EPG data source tvguide.com is NOT offering a separate channel list for download. EPG-Buddy has to grab a single day of data for every available channel to get a clue which channels are on the line up. This is done prior to the "real" data download. And the existence of this pre- grabbed data is a proof that the tool has started as expected. If the "regular" download did not work, then there is an issue with the online data source or the internet connection the time the schedule should run. Did you ever tried to schedule the data download to a different time? (e.g. 2 hours earlier or later) Maybe your ISP is doing some maintenance stuff exactly at the time the scheduled download should run... Aside this nor tvguide.com neither thetvdb.com is known for perfect reliability.

Could there be some missing code (instructions for the scheduled download, not the manual) that should be telling the program to run the channel list and that failing that, the enhancement (enrichment) fails to initiate?

There is absolutely no difference between "manual" and "scheduled" data, absolutely nothing. It's exactly the same tool that is called with exactly the same commend line that is downloading the data. So if the schedule starts but didn't download things then there is an issue with either your internet connection or with the source it needs to load data from.

    ShellExecuteWait(@ScriptDir & "\EPG-Grabber.exe", "--epg_from:tvguide --grab_epg --create_xml  --run_e2t", @ScriptDir, "", @SW_HIDE)

        ShellExecuteWait(@ScriptDir & "\EPG-Grabber.exe", "--epg_from:tvguide --grab_epg --create_xml  --run_e2t", @ScriptDir, "", @SW_SHOW)

Here are the two lines of code used to call the grabber tool. The first line is for the scheduled grabbing and the second line is for the manual grabbing. There only is a single difference at the end of the line. @SW_SHOW vs @SW_HIDE. This is a flag to show the "Dos" box where the grabber tool is running in. If you grab manual the dos window is shown (= @SW_SHOW) , so you can see what's going on under the hood. But on daily automated grabbing this is not wanted, that's why there is the "Hide" flag set (@SW_HIDE). If the grabbing is working manual then it MUST BE WORKING scheduled too, as long as the schedule is executed by windows properly...

As long as the manual data download is working and windows is triggering the scheduled download as expected (both is the case for you) there is no error possible with EPG-Buddy (or your installation). It's then definitely is an issue with your online connection.

You are not the first one having issues to connect to tvguide.com at the scheduled time. Maybe it's better to not use a "full hour" because the tvguide.com server is overloaded by all the tivos, media centers and so on that are grabbing EPG data at exactly this time. Maybe a scheduled time like 03:37 (instead of 04:00) could be a much better choice...

By the way, a screenshot of the log folder is not very useful. If you like to help me finding your issue, then I need the log files themselves. In the logs there should be a note, if the online sources are not reachable. This I only can see if I get my hands on the log files...

 

[breese]

If the grabbing is working manual then it MUST BE WORKING scheduled too, as long as the schedule is executed by windows properly...

I have the same issue and did post all the logs.....
The first grabber file is written
The DONE file is Not written.

I cannot explain why the one gets completed but not the other.....

 

[Lehmden]

The first grabber file is written

Are you sure it's complete? Bet it isn't

The DONE file is Not written.

This only is possible when the download of the "first" file did not complete (most likely due to tvguide.com issues) or if the enrichment did not work (due to the bad reliability of TVDB). If one of those two cases happen the CLI tool (EPG-Grabber.exe) does not exit and for this the further steps can not be done... Changing this behavior is a very bad idea as if EPG-Grabber.exe did not finish the downloaded data most likely is corrupt or at least incomplete. Proceeding with such broken data will automatically lead to broken EPG in MP. Nothing we should do, imho...
To me it looks as if tvguide.com is the root cause of this issue as such things are only reported by US (means tvguide.com) users. All other sources like WebGrab, TVSpielfilm and so on are 100% reliable.

 

[Lehmden]

You definitely should avoid grabbing at "full" hours because all automated downloads are staring at xx:00. So at those times the servers are heavy loaded, much more than 15 minutes later (or earlier).
My automated import is running at 08:20 (Central European time) and no server ever is busy then.