[mythtv-users] of crontab, tv_grab, and mythfilldatabase

Paul Graydon graydpau at hhc.ac.uk
Tue Nov 22 09:24:22 EST 2005


I originally setup mythtv under the root user, then copied the .mythtv folder contents across to 
the day to day user account (box is a dedicated PVR, so it auto logs in, kicks in EvilWM and 
mythfrontend)

I've tried putting the entire "/etc/profile.env" into env.sh so that as I understand it the 
environment variables are all setup the same, but still it fails same as before.

This could make life a little annoying if I can't resolve it.  If I have no joy down this route I 
suppose I could give tv_grab_dvb or something to nab the EPG data.


On 22 Nov 2005 at 21:15, William Kenworthy wrote:

> Some perls:
> 
> Most tv_grab_* scripts (all?) must be run as the user under which you
> originally setup the config file (thats because it lives in, in my case
> for the user mythtv, in the users home directory
> (/home/mythtv/.mythtv/somename.xml) - did you set it up as root, if
> using roots cron?
> 
> cron uses a truncated environment: you may be trying to use some
> enviromental function thats there on a normal login, but isnt in the
> cron env.
> 
> BillK
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, 2005-11-22 at 09:53 +0000, Paul Graydon wrote:
> > I'm getting frustrated and irritated by what should, to all intents and purposes, be a simple task.
> > I'm running a Gentoo box with dual DVB-T cards, and Mythtv.  The aim is to provide a simple, 
> > reliable method for the resources staff at this college to record programs for use in classroom and 
> > export onto DVD.
> > Everything is working fine under Gentoo, I had issues with other distros for various reasons that 
> > seemed to me rather distro specific (e.g. circular rpm dependancies under RHES).
> > Gentoo might have taken longer to initially setup, but I've had so little hassle actually getting 
> > it to work in comparison to the others!
> > The guide here: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Setup_MythTV was extremely useful.
> > 
> > There is just one task that I'm struggling with.  The automatic downloading and importing of XML tv 
> > data from the Radio Times website, using tv_grab_uk_rt.  I can get neither "mythfilldatabase --
> > quiet" nor the same variant of tv_grab_uk_rt to successfully download the file.  Following a script 
> > I dug up from the mythtv-user archives I put the following in place in a file called tv.sh:
> > 
> > ####################
> > {
> > rm -f /media/dvb.xml
> > date
> > /root/env.sh
> > perl /usr/bin/tv_grab_uk_rt --config-file /root/.mythtv/RadioTimes.xmltv --quiet > /media/dvb.xml
> > /usr/bin/mythfilldatabase --file 2 -1 /media/dvb.xml
> > 
> > } >> /root/log.log 2>&1
> > 
> > ####################
> > 
> > /media is the location of a separate partition for recording.
> > 
> > If I run this manually, i.e. ./tv.sh, it all works fine.  Off it goes to the internet, fetches the 
> > data and imports it into the database.  Same occurs with mythfilldatabase --quiet, if I run it 
> > manually it works.
> > If I run that as a crontab process, on the root users crontab, it fails to fetch the information 
> > from the internet and its baffling me as to why.
> > My initial thought was that maybe it hadn't picked up the proxy environment variables, hence the 
> > calling of the "env.sh" script which just exports the proxy variables.  That hasn't solved the 
> > issue, and I'm beginning to pull my hair out.
> > Given the length of time it takes to run the tv_grab command when its called by cron, it looks to 
> > me like the program is timing out on its fetching of info.
> > The following is an output from my log.log file (imaginative name, huh!).
> > 
> > ##########################
> > 
> > Tue Nov 22 09:36:01 GMT 2005
> > All data is the copyright of the Radio Times website
> > <http://www.radiotimes.com> and the use of this data is restricted to
> > personal use only.
> > 
> > could not fetch http://xmltv.radiotimes.com/xmltv/channels.dat, aborting
> > ### bypassing grabbers, reading directly from file
> > 2005-11-22 09:39:02.734 New DB connection, total: 1
> > 2005-11-22 09:39:02.755 New DB connection, total: 2
> > Error in 1:1: unexpected end of file
> > Updating icons for sourceid: 2
> > Updated programs: 0  Unchanged programs: 0
> > Adjusting program database end times...
> > 0 replacements made.
> > Marking repeats...found 0
> > Unmarking repeats from grabber that fall within our new episode window...found 0
> > 2005-11-22 09:39:04.454 Connecting to backend server: localhost:6543 (try 1 of 5)
> > 2005-11-22 09:39:04.473 Using protocol version 15
> > 
> > ##########################
> > 
> > 
> > Can anyone help me at all? Offer any perls of wisdom?
> > -----
> > Paul Graydon
> > Network Technician
> > Haywards Heath College
> > http://www.hhc.ac.uk (01444) 456281
> > "Joy is not in things; it is in us."   Richard Wagner
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > mythtv-users mailing list
> > mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> -- 
> William Kenworthy <billk at iinet.net.au>
> Home!
> 


-----
Paul Graydon
Network Technician
Haywards Heath College
http://www.hhc.ac.uk (01444) 456281
"Joy is not in things; it is in us."   Richard Wagner




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