[mythtv-users] Howto: Error, couldn't find any available channels

[Peter Valdemar Mørch]

Hi,

Here in PAL Europe, I've been struggling with this "can't change 
channels" business for a while, and I finally figured it out. Simple, 
once you get it :-D

Running on myth-0.13 on RH9 with a PVR350 and latest ivtv tarball and
xmltv-0.5.25

First - I think this was a problem for me: I ran setup/setup as one
user, and mythfilldatabase as another. setup/setup created ~/.mythtv and
that directory differs for different users. I don't do that anymore -
that perhaps is a stumbling block for you too....

Second - in mythtv-HOWTO it says: "mythfilldatabase --manual .... If you
are not using the tv_grab_na grabber, you must use the --manual option".
That gave me an important clue but I I never got "mythfilldatabse
--manual" working. (See prob at the end of post). So I ran without
--manual and modified the mysql database myself.

Basically, it comes down to that the "channel" table needs the "freqid"
field filled properly, essentially so it knows what frequency to change
when going to a particular channel.

I chose Channel frequency table = "europe-west" in the setup/setup.

In myth-src/libs/libmythtv/frequencies.c you can see what the possible
values for freqid are. E.g. in the europe_west[]  struct you'll find
.....
{ "SE14",    252250 }
.....
(via a #define) that means that "SE14"  is a valid freqid and
corresponds to a frequency of 252.25  (MHz?).

I have a channel configuration like the following:
http://tdckabeltv.dk/print_kanal_guide.php?KN=46
(How's your danish? :-D)

Therefore the freqid for the "Sverige 1" channel should be "SE14" from
frequency.c (without quotes) because the frequency for "Sverige 1" is
252.25.

Setting up freqid like that for all my channels works for me, and now I
can change channels.

Setting up channum and callsign also makes the channels appear nicely in
the GUI too...

I just thought I'd post this for whoever is searching for the
explanation/solution.

Could the mythbackend check for that and report ("unknown channel
frequency %s, %s", chan, freqid) forall channels where there is no
corresponding entry in frequencies.c?

I never tried xawtv. Maybe I should have, but I didn't... You may get
way better milage from that. Especially if you don't have a channel
configuration page like I did, or if you don't know mysql that well.

Peter

************************************************
mythfilldatabase --manual problem:
************************************************
after completing setup/setup (where I chose tv_grab_dk), it asks me to
run mythtilldatabase. When I do that, it sits around in the "fetching
data" section for a while (to be expected) and then it prints up to my
<enteredThis> tag. At that point I entered PAL<enter> and nothing
happened for the longest time. So I hit enter again. And again. All
until </enteredThis>. At that point it spit out the rest of the output
and finally gave me the prompt. But I  never got to the point where I
had to enter the freqids. I myself don't care anymore, because I know
how to touch it up with mysql (I think I did it right :-D)... I suspect
a terminal issue, but I've tried with both a text-mode terminal directly
on the box running the backend and via an ssh session, so I'm
mystified.... Any pointers?

[root at myth setup]# mythfilldatabase --manual
###
### Running in manual channel configuration mode.
### This will ask you questions about every channel.
###
----------------- Start of XMLTV output -----------------
parameterless "use IO" deprecated at
/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/XML/Writer.pm line 16
fetching data: discarding information about the parts played by each actor
##################################################
------------------ End of XMLTV output ------------------
###
### New channel found
###
### name     = TV 2
### callsign =
### channum  =
### finetune =
### tvformat = <enteredThis>PAL


</enteredThis>
Unknown xmltv channel identifier: 001.tv.tv2.dk
Skipping channel.
Unknown xmltv channel identifier: 002.tv.tv2.dk
Skipping channel.
Unknown xmltv channel identifier: 003.tv.tv2.dk
Skipping channel.
Unknown xmltv channel identifier: 004.tv.tv2.dk
Skipping channel.