Hey guys!
I wanted to check in here and help address some of the issues people are having specifically with mtsa by itself. Please know that I did not program all of the country "modules" - got lots of help from generous programmers (everyone credited in my website). I programmed the "core" program in a way for people to "easily" (if you are a programmer) supply me with country "modules" so countries could easily be added.
My first question is - which countries do not currently work? I programmed most of them so I could more easily fix ones that I originally made. I'm coming out with a new version soon and have fixed the IMDB problem - meaning movies will have a plot summary again. Depending on how much work is involved will determine if it gets into the new version coming out in the next few days.
p.s. I just switched the project over to Visual Basic .NET 2005 express which is a FREE download from Microsoft here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/downloads/default.aspx
So anyone considering making changes to mtsa, it's FREE!!! The express version does everything mtsa needs.
-Jim
Hello again to everybody!
The fist issue is for Falkyre, the second one for Key Master and the general information for everybody!
I had time to test this plugin with the Blue Skin 2 and now I am sure of the following:
WHEN MP CRASHES?
MP crashes ONLY when I am on the page with the list of theatres (on the right side) / “view icons” and “show all movies” (on the left side)
It happens that quite always (but not always) the 2 buttons “show all movies” (on the left side) and the first of the list of theatres (on the right side) are both highlighted in green. In this case, if I click the “down” or the “up” arrow key to choose another theatre, MP crashes.
If I first use the “right” arrow key, then the green highlighted “show all movies” disappears and I can normally navigate from one theatre to another and MP doesn’t crash anymore.
Part of the log:
ExceptionType: System.NullReferenceException
Message: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Source: ShowTimesGUI
Stack trace:
at ShowTimesGUI.ShowTimesGUI.OnPropertyChanged(String tag, String tagValue)
at MediaPortal.GUI.Library.GUIPropertyManager.OnPropertyChangedHandler.Invoke(String tag, String tagValue)
at MediaPortal.GUI.Library.GUIPropertyManager.SetProperty(String tag, String tagvalue)
at ProcessPlugins.ShowTimesGrabber.ShowTimes.runGrabber(String commandline)
at ProcessPlugins.ShowTimesGrabber.ShowTimes.RefreshShowtimes(Object state)
at System.Threading._TimerCallback.TimerCallback_Context(Object state)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
at System.Threading._TimerCallback.PerformTimerCallback(Object state)
THE PLUGIN DOESN’T RECOGNIZE SHOW TIMES:
First, I was thinking that the problem was due to a lack of information of the grabbed site MsnFR but it’s not. If I go to this site, all show times for all theatres and movies are perfectly well given for the city I want (Montelimar).
If I open the file moviedata.xml, I can find all theatres with all the movies for each one, but also “unrecognized time string”. See part of the file below (just 2 theatres to avoid a too long post):
[MsnFR] Creating theater list for "Mont%E9limar" (5 days)...
[MsnFR] # theaters = 3
[MsnFR] Downloading movie list for "Les Templiers"...
"Norway of Life"...
"Entre adultes"...
"La Planète bleue"...
[MsnFR] Downloading movie list for "Le Palace"...
"Le Secret de Terabithia"...
"La Tête de Maman"...
"Ensemble, c'est tout"...
"300"...
"La Môme"...
"Golden door"...
WARNING: unrecognized time string: Mer $ 14:30 20:30
The best result I ever obtained with “myshowtimes” in MP was:
- show time for 1 movie and 4 days for the first theatre
- show time for 1 movie and 1 day for theatre #2
- nothing at all for theatre #3
It is never possible to see the complete list of all movies for each theatre, even when this list is present into the file “moviedata.xml”
If I open a theatre with no information available, or, when I click on a specific movie and then on “see show time” when there is not, the system freezes. I think because it is searching information it has not.
I repeat: MsnFR gives all show times for all theatres and all movies for the 7 days of the week. So why MTSA is only able to grab the information for 1 theatre, 1 movie and 4 days (the best it ever did!!) ??
IF A TRAILER IS NOT COMPLETELY DOWNLOADED MP CRASHES:
As I am testing MP, I use it on my main computer; sometimes I open MP and then close it to do another thing. So, sometimes a trailer is downloading when I am closing MP.
“Myshowtimes” doesn’t recognize a “partially” downloaded trailer, (for it, when a movie.mov is inside the file it is completed.
If I click on “see trailer” I can see the part of it, and then Quick time makes an exception and I must close MP.
This is not an important issue as I plan to use, in the future, a dedicated computer for MP. Just for your knowledge.
Well excuse me for this long post, if everything could be fixed…nice!!! We will come back later on the translation of this wonderful plugin!
Hi Jim,
Thanks for popping in and responding. The way it looks now there's two sides to the problems people are having with MTSA.
One is the data that comes from IMDB and how it gets parsed sometimes such that the movie name to search on in IMDB doesn't match (The Curse of the Golden Flower issue I mentioned to you previously).
The second problem appears to be related to changes in web sites that are being parsed for ShowTimes. I know the the site for Netherlands has changed its format and I was looking into fixing it. In fact I got a little ways into it but time ran out. I'll start looking into it again once I fix up some of the bugs in my plugin.
It also looks like Jean-Marc is experiencing problems with the module that parses the Brazil site.
Sean