UK - BBC2 EPG suddenly has several programs daily with 'No information' (3 Viewers)

[Anthony Vaughan]

Hi CyberSimian

I forgot to ask you about the following:

Does IMDB_MP1.17x supersede IMDB_MP1.3x because I am not sure?

Tony

 

[CyberSimian]

Does IMDB_MP1.17x supersede IMDB_MP1.3x because I am not sure?

That I don't know.

My HTPC is connected to the internet only when I am installing a new release of MP. I don't use any of the internet databases to download extra information (cast lists, lyrics, artwork, etc.). This is one reason why MP2 holds no particular appeal for me.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

Hi CyberSimian

I only use this feature to get film info.

You'd have thought that, if one was replacing the other, that only one would be available; hence the question.

Tony

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

Hi CyberSimian

While we are on about the EPG, I do not seem to be able to tune into True Entertainment even though I can see it via my TV. I have performed a new scan and True Entertainment is picked up. But when I preview on True Entertainment I get this:

I had noticed that the EPG was not being populated for this channel; either by broadcast EPG or using WebEPG.

Is there as configuration change I need to make?

Tony

 

[CyberSimian]

I do not seem to be able to tune into True Entertainment even though I can see it via my TV.

There was a "retune event" in the UK within the last few months, as a result of which I can no longer receive "Classic FM" (it moved from a DVB-T MUX that I can receive to one of the two temporary DVB-T2 MUXes that I cannot receive).

Another channel that moved from one MUX to another was "True Entertainment"; at my location:
Was: LCN 61, broadcast on UHF channel 25, at 506MHz.
Now: LCN 61, broadcast on UHF channel 22, at 482MHz.

I retuned after the "event", and both my MP system and my Sony TV show this channel. But because the channel moved MUX, I think that it is the case that "TV Server" cannot handle it optimally when you retune, even when "Enable channel movement detection" is selected. So I would guess that if you look at your list of channels in "TV Server Config", you will find that there are two entries for LCN 61, but not necessarily adjacent in the list.

After each retune, I always click the column heading in the channel list to sort the list into LCN order. I then look through the list for adjacent entries with identical LCNs. One will work, the other will not. So I select "Preview" on each in turn to determine which is the one that is working. I then delete the non-working one, and make sure that the working one is selected to appear in the EPG (tick box).

Note: the default window size in "TV Server" means that the LCNs are outside the window on the right. So expand the window horizontally to make the LCN column appear. Also, you want the first tab on the "TV Channels" panel. The first tab is simply a list of the channels found; it is not the order in which the channels will appear in the EPG (so sorting them on the first tab should not affect their order in the EPG). The order in the EPG is determined by the "All Channels" tab.

If the above is not the explanation for the non-working channel, I am mystified.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

Hi CyberSimian

Thank you for that detailed explanation. May I add yet another cause: corruption in the Channel table. Now, this is not the sort of thing that non-programmers can deal with, I'm afraid.

Like you, I was mystified by True Entertainment not being available and I remembered an earlier problem where the channel table had an invalid value causing the processing to get 'muxed ip'. So I had a look at my channel table in the MpTvDb database and found loads of duplicate columns. Because the channel table is an inherent part of the refere3ntial integrity of the database, I had no alternative but to delete the database, reinstall MP (causing a default database to be installed), and re-enter all of my tuner data, channel data and schedules. It took me all morning. However, now (12:22), I am back to where I was with True Entertainment now working.

While I was doing this another nasty thing happened. When I scanned for channels all of the BBC channels where assigned a channel number of 1000; TV and Radio. So, I had to go through all of those channels manually entering the correct channel numbers.

All a bit strange.

Tony

 

[Owlsroost]

While I was doing this another nasty thing happened. When I scanned for channels all of the BBC channels where assigned a channel number of 1000; TV and Radio.

Try increasing the value of the timeouts on the TV Server Config -> General -> Scan tab (except for 'Tune' and 'Analog') - see General Configuration

Basically, if the scanning code can't get a real LCN (logical channel number) from the transport stream data it substitutes 10000 instead.

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

Hi Owlsroost

Thanks for that. I'll make that change.

Tony

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

That seems sensible.

I am not aware of any problems that might arise from performing these edits, but my knowledge of the behaviour of the EPG and "TV Server" is based only on observation and trial-and-error; I have never looked at the source code.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

I have been looking again at the issue of needing to change the EPG when 'last minute' EPG changes occur. The showing of the 'Oprah meets Meghan and Harry' was not announced until fairly late the day before it was shown and I was under sentence of death if I didn't manage to record that for my better half.

I thought I would look again at a better way to make such changes. You may remember that I do not want to enable the 'Always try to update existing entries' option because I have other processes that amend the title and description fields as well as extracting episode information and placing them in the episode fields. Incidentally, this is why I was installing MP 1.27 on my development machine, to test what to do, and gave rise to the error log trying to install MP1.

I found that when I removed the programs around the time of the Oprah broadcast, MP automatically filled in the gaps (because I had EPG grabbing while idle set ON and 'Always try to fill holes set ON').

This seems to me to be a good solution because it allows me to amend a program's description (when start and end times don't change) or remove programs in the affected time slots (when there are wholesale changes) and let MP do the rest.

Previously I had been trying to do all sorts of clever things with preceding and following programs - which was really way too complex. Now I can either:

a) delete entries and let MP sort them out;
b) delete/amend surrounding programs to align the start and end times and change the existing program title/times.

Tony

 

[CyberSimian]

My EPG-grabbing setup has changed several times since I started using MP.

For DVB-T/T2 users that are new to MP, my recommendation is to use the idle grabber to grab the EPG once per day. The "PowerScheduler" plugin has settings to grab the EPG at a user-specified time, and to wake the HTPC if it is sleeping or hibernating. So that is relatively simple to setup . However, I don't use that setup myself.

For the past year I have been using the timeshift grabber to grab the EPG once per day:

• I selected a channel that I never watch or listen to, specifically "Radio 1".
• I scheduled a recording for "every day at this time" to record the selected channel at 6:00 am for 40 minutes.

The reasons for this setup are:

• The HTPC will grab the EPG even when the HTPC is busy recording something else (not common, but it does happen occasionally).
• Recording a radio channel places effectively zero additional load on the disk system compared to recording a TV channel.
• For the UK, a channel that is in the "BBC1" MUX or the "BBC1 HD" MUX should be chosen. Although every MUX transmits the EPG for itself plus all other MUXes, they are not equivalent. The non-BBC MUXes prefer the channels in their own MUX, to the detriment of other MUXes. The BBC MUXes treat all channels equally. You can notice this difference if you start with an empty EPG and then grab for a short time (not long enough to grab a full EPG).
• The duration of the recording needs to be long enough to grab the EPG from the datastream, and then to update the database. For the UK, a full EPG grab takes 10-15 minutes (this varies from day to day), and on my system with a slow disk for the OS, database update takes a further 15-20 minutes. Overall the time required is 30-35 minutes, so a recording duration of 40 minutes provides some contingency.
• It is possible at any time during the day to start a manual recording to grab the EPG for (say) 2 minutes to receive last-minute changes to the EPG if events have occurred that make schedule changes likely.
• It is possible to schedule a regular 2-minute EPG grab at (say) 6:00 pm if last-minute schedule changes are a regular occurrence.

The downsides of this setup (and the reasons that I don't suggest this for new users) are:

• Tiny radio recordings accumulate which must be deleted manually.
• Radio programming may not have convenient programmes which start at the time of the desired EPG grab, and may not have a duration equal to the duration of the desired EPG grab. Hence it is necessary to create a manual recording schedule.
• Although it is possible to schedule a TV recording manually, this is not possible for radio recordings (this is a functional omission in MP ).
• To create the desired schedule, it is necessary to create manually an XML file containing the recording details, and then import that in "TV Server Config". The schedule definition is added to the existing ones in TV Server. Creating a schedule via the XML file allows the EPG grab to be tailored exactly with regard to start time and duration. (The "Manual Schedule" panel in MP allows only durations that are multiples of 30 minutes . )

For anyone that wants to try this, here is an XML file that records "every day at this time"; change the "ChannelName", "StartTime", and "EndTime" to suit your needs:

<tvserver version="1.0">
  <schedules>
    <schedule ChannelName="Radio 1" ProgramName="EPG Grabber" StartTime="2019-12-6 6:0:0" EndTime="2019-12-6 6:40:0" KeepDate="2000-1-1 0:0:0" PreRecordInterval="0" PostRecordInterval="0" Priority="0" Quality="73" Directory="" KeepMethod="0" MaxAirings="2147483647" ScheduleType="1" Series="False" />
  </schedules>
</tvserver>

@Anthony Vaughan : For your system, you need to have the EPG grab occur at a predictable time, so that you can then run your "EPG fix-up" tool afterwards. Using the timeshift grabber via manually scheduled recordings gives you this predictability (e.g. grab at 6:00 am for 40 minutes, and again at 6:00 pm for 2 minutes).

-- from CyberSimian in the UK