My Films 5 - Testing (2 Viewers)

[Dadeo]

I can confirm the bug with your catalog XML DB but not using my own catalog (even with some of the same Movie titles!) Furthermore, it applies not only to the single quote (') but to many punctuation marks like dashes, colons, etc.

Here's what I did:

1. Opened your movies.amc catalog you posted previously in catalogs.zip (because punctuation was correct there)
2. Saved it as XML in AMC - so far so good
3. Opened in MF GUI - still good
4. Update online availability - punctuation marks change to ? and XML catalog is saved that way

As I said above, if I Update Online Availability in any of my other catalogs, this does not happen, the punctuation is maintained. This makes me suspicious

I am stabbing in the dark here, but since I know you created the original xml file by converting a list of data in a .doc file, I wonder if it used non ASCII (i.e. extended) characters for punctuation. I know Word will do that for quotes and dashes if enabled in Word Setup. It only seems to have trouble with punctuation in the Titles, not in data you grabbed.

To support my hypothesis, when I open your XML in Notepad++ none of the single quotes display. So it is obviously an unknown character. So I opened your 'good' XML, that displays the punctuation, in Notepad and used Find/Replace to change all the single quotes to ASCII ones and all the emdashes to normal dashes. Then I opened it in MF and Updated Online Availability and the titles remained correct. There may be a few more you need to change, unless you know a good way to save the XML file converting all those odd characters to standard ASCII. I would have thought saving it as a text file in Open Office would have done that!

Nevertheless, My Films should support extended characters so I am still not sure why it is not recognizing them and converting them to a question mark. It seems AMCU does but MP GUI does not. I don't see anything in the log files but that means little perhaps Guzzi can spot something.

In the meantime I hope that helps with workaround for now.

 

[doveman]

Well done for working out what the problem is Dadeo. That's really helpful thanks.

It is peculiar. As you say, I'd have thought saving as a text file/.csv would have converted the characters to standard but clearly it hasn't. I'll have to check at each stage of the process I went through to see if they change at any point.

Hopefully I'll find a 'convert' option along the way to save having to hunt for all the strange characters

By the way, for me it seems AMCU doesn't support these characters either and it just doesn't show them (e.g. A Dog's Breakfast shows as A Dogs Breakfast).

EDIT: OK, so the doc I created in OpenOffice near the start of the conversion process shows ’ whereas my keyboard produces ' I don't know how my brother's keyboard/PC has created these characters as his keyboard should surely only produce the same characters as mine.

If I save it as a text file and open it in Notepad++ it does show ' and so does my csv file (created with OpenOffice Calc)in Notepad++

I did a find and replace in OpenOffice Calc and saved it as a .csv and imported it into AMC, then exported as an .xml and the titles show correctly in MyFilms now

However, now it's not showing the Covers. They're all in the Covers\ subfolder (so in MyFilms setup the Cover Images Path is D:\Data\MediaPortal\thumbs\MyFilms and the Picture Prefix is Covers\) and if I do a Update Record with Picture NOT EXISTS in AMCU it only finds one record! The Covers don't show on the View Movies tab in AMCU either.

EDIT: If I put the images in D:\Data\MediaPortal\thumbs\MyFilms it finds them, so it seems the Picture Prefix isn't working.

By the way, the message when I click on Launch AMC Updater before saving is "You have to first create a config for AMCUpdater (create Default Config on AMCUpdater Tab)", so it's telling me to click that, which changes my Title Search Handling setting, not Save.

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: AW: Re: AW: Re: My Films 5 - Testing

I tried to reproduce here and couldn't. Can you reproduce the issue with attached Debug files - that should give the code lines when the exception occurs. Files should go into MP app dir (don't forget to backup existing to revert after test).

Sure, will do. EDIT: There's no grabber.dll or XionControls.dll in my MP app folder. I just reinstalled v5.2.0.1771 again in case, but they're still not there. Anyway, I'll test with the Debug files.

Those files are normally merged into MyFilms.dll for release versions - you only need them for running the debug files and can delete them afterwards.

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: My Films 5 - Testing

Hey doveman - yes when you "(re)Create AMC Updater Default Settings" it reverts to 'Folder+Internet Lookup' because that is the Default setting. You only want to use that button when you wish to revert to the default settings in AMC Updater. AMC Updater will automatically sync to the settings you set in Setup, but you have to save those settings for the config first. So:

1. Go to Internet Grabbing Tab in Setup
2. Change Title Search Handling to File+Internet Lookkup
3. Save the Config
4. Open AMCUpdater and Title Search Handling should now be File+Internet Lookup

The tool tip does say that, but it is not easy to grasp if you don't already understand it

Saving the config in AMC Updater is a bit confusing because as soon as you save the config again in Setup, it will resync the settings you have done there. So you want to make sure your settings for AMCU on Internet Grabbing tab are what you want. Of course you can temporarily use different settings in AMCU, but they won't persist once you resave your config. Clear as mud eh?

ok, seems I'll revert 1933 - next time I'll first ask Dadeo how it is supposed to work ;-) - was too long ago and it seems I myself are not able to read what's on the button and tooltip .... ;-)

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: My Films 5 - Testing

EDIT: If I click the Add Missing Persons button on the View Persons tab in AMCUpdater it completely locks up. Actually, I can't select a Grabber script or do anything with the Grabber options on that tab. There's nothing in the log reflecting any of this unfortunately.

How do you get a View Persons tab in AMCU? I can't find it and there is nothing in the Wiki about it

You can ignore problems with persons tab for now - it's experimental and I'll disable it for 5.2 release.

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: My Films 5 - Testing

Perhaps it would be useful to make the Launch AMCU button save the config first...

IIRC there was a good reason Guzzi did not do that, which I can't remember now, so I'll let him comment about it

actually, the button "(re)create AMCupdater Default Config does the following:
- try reading a matching AMCU config, if it is existing (it might be missing or whatever)
- reading default config ("MyFilmsAMCSettings.xml"), if no config specific found
- apply MF defaults to the existing (or new) config - that'll overwrite certain values, as Dadeo explained
- save the config
- (re)read the config and apply it to MF GUI, where necessary
Actually, it is sometimes difficult to find a good way how to do it - AMCupdater is a standalone windows app - and can be used as that. I have it running on my fileserver, where there is not even MP nor MyFilms installed - it just takes care about importing and updating my centralized data - nothing more.
For singleseats and/or integrated usage, a tighter integration makes more sense - I was even thinking about merging the config files of MyFilms and AMCU - but that would bring dependencies and will make it much harder to use AMCU as standalone app.
However, I am open to any suggestions and/or improvements - taking MF GUI settings into a recreated config is imho not a bad idea - so if there is majority asking for it, we can go for it (code is done, I just reverted it, as it doesn't match docs and descriptions).

You've misunderstood me. What I tried was the other way round (changing the settings in AMCU, saving, then checking in MyFilms setup). So if I change Limit # Persons in AMCU from 10 to 5 and save, in MyFilms it will still be on 10 (even after switching/reloading config), but if I change it in MyFilms setup (and Save) when I launch AMCU it shows the change there. This bug doesn't affect all settings though, as if I change the Title Search Handling in AMCU and save, it will reflect this in MyFilms (after switching/reloading config).

I can confirm that AMCU does not sync the grabber override options back to MF Setttings. I am not sure I would call it a bug though . I think that was intended, but Guzzi would know better and why. I can understand that it would be more consistent and intuitive if it synced all the settings back to MF Settings.

The mentioned MF settings (upper right corner) are for internal MF grabbing in GUI (interactive mode) - not for AMCU.

It was never planned to sync anything back to MF settings, as MF setup is for MF and AMCupdater has it's own setup.
See above - initial intension was just to help users to create an initial (!) AMCupdater config, as AMCU needs a lot of information that MyFIlms already has anyway - and it was a pita in the past to get all that stuff up and running.
So MFsetup takes config it already has to create AMCU config - like grabber settings, pathes, title settings, etc.

As Dadeo said, we added some settings from AMCU into MFGUI (which is a bit inconsistant, yes - and those reflect AMCU settings).
If you have a look at the tab, you find the upper area "MyFilms internal Internet Grabbing" - those are MF settings (and some are used as base for creating initial AMCU config too - but won't "sync back") - and
AMCupdater Options ... - those are settings for AMCupdater itself.
Duh - difficult to understand - maybe it wasn't a good idea to do that tight integration of AMCU into MF ...

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: My Films 5 - Testing

Well done for working out what the problem is Dadeo. That's really helpful thanks.

It is peculiar. As you say, I'd have thought saving as a text file/.csv would have converted the characters to standard but clearly it hasn't. I'll have to check at each stage of the process I went through to see if they change at any point.

Hopefully I'll find a 'convert' option along the way to save having to hunt for all the strange characters

By the way, for me it seems AMCU doesn't support these characters either and it just doesn't show them (e.g. A Dog's Breakfast shows as A Dogs Breakfast).

Best would be to search the net to find a converter that makes sure, the content complies with XML standards - there are characters that are not allowed and that need to be escaped, replaced or removed to be able to store the data in an valid XML format.
Not all characters, that are valid in e.g. utf8 are also valid for wellformed XML - so creators of such files have to take care about it imho ... - like AMC, other external Catalogs, AMCupdater and manual creators.

Edit: I would be interested to get (debug) logs from situations where you had the crashes - to check, what was wrong there ... unfortunately it wasn't included in the logs you posted...

 

[doveman]

Re: AW: Re: My Films 5 - Testing

However, I am open to any suggestions and/or improvements - taking MF GUI settings into a recreated config is imho not a bad idea - so if there is majority asking for it, we can go for it (code is done, I just reverted it, as it doesn't match docs and descriptions).

I think that's the main thing to consider doing, and/or changing the message when clicking Launch AMCU before saving, which advises to click the (re)Create button rather than Save. Then the (re)Create button could be renamed something like "Copy settings to AMCU config" and the tooltip could say something like "This will apply the current settings to AMCU". As multiple configs can be saved from AMCU for specific purposes, I don't see a problem with MF overwriting the main AMCU config for a specific database with the settings in MF and I think it would help keep things simpler for many users if the common MF and AMCU settings were synced like this. Perhaps the Launch AMCU button could even auto-overwrite the AMCU config with the current MF settings before launching AMCU, which would help to keep the settings in sync and then the (re)Create/Copy button could perhaps be dispensed with.

It was never planned to sync anything back to MF settings, as MF setup is for MF and AMCupdater has it's own setup.
See above - initial intension was just to help users to create an initial (!) AMCupdater config, as AMCU needs a lot of information that MyFIlms already has anyway - and it was a pita in the past to get all that stuff up and running.
So MFsetup takes config it already has to create AMCU config - like grabber settings, pathes, title settings, etc.

As Dadeo said, we added some settings from AMCU into MFGUI (which is a bit inconsistant, yes - and those reflect AMCU settings).
If you have a look at the tab, you find the upper area "MyFilms internal Internet Grabbing" - those are MF settings (and some are used as base for creating initial AMCU config too - but won't "sync back") - and
AMCupdater Options ... - those are settings for AMCupdater itself.
Duh - difficult to understand - maybe it wasn't a good idea to do that tight integration of AMCU into MF ...

Maybe, but it does make sense to save time by using the MF settings for the AMCU config. I'll have another look at the interface later to see if there's anything that could be done to make it clearer though

I think what confused me was that I didn't appreciate that MyFilms and AMCU are separate stand-alone apps and thought that AMCU was a fundamental and essential part of MyFilms (if the user wanted to update the database anyway) and therefore they would share settings.

Best would be to search the net to find a converter that makes sure, the content complies with XML standards - there are characters that are not allowed and that need to be escaped, replaced or removed to be able to store the data in an valid XML format.
Not all characters, that are valid in e.g. utf8 are also valid for wellformed XML - so creators of such files have to take care about it imho ... - like AMC, other external Catalogs, AMCupdater and manual creators.

Thanks for the tip, I'll find something to check it with so I don't have any nasty surprises later on!

Edit: I would be interested to get (debug) logs from situations where you had the crashes - to check, what was wrong there ... unfortunately it wasn't included in the logs you posted...

OK, I'll upload the full MP logs next time it happens.

 

[Guzzi]

AW: My Films 5 - Testing

I think we'll revisit the integration when we rework the AMCU GUI. I will check some other options and see, if it helps - thanks for the input!

 

[z3us]

I get this when trying to perform a random search from inside gui (520 1827)