[mythtv-users] Recovering when zap2it screws the pooch---a warning & some questions

[Michael T. Dean]

On 07/18/2006 10:27 PM, f-myth-users at media.mit.edu wrote:

>Today, I deleted and re-added all my channels via mythtv-setup, which
>-would- have worked fine, apparently, except for one small detail I
>failed to notice at the time---zap2it has -severely- blown it on half
>of the -rest- of my lineup!
>  
>

Ummm.  That might not have been completely DataDirect's fault...

>The OTA channels (2,4,5,7) all got moved into the 30's.  The stuff
>that normally hangs out in the 30's got moved to another place.
>  
>

DataDirect may have changed the way they were reporting information and 
Myth has just made a change for it ( 
http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/1848 -- Daniel is still working on 
getting the digital channel changes fixed).

>Several other channels are either missing or wrong.  But the channels
>I'd -originally- been complaining about were in the right place, so I
>didn't notice until -after- I flushed everything and reran mythfilldatabase.
>
...

>Second, the questions:
>(a) Is there some easier way of recovering?  I think editing the
>    freqids to rearrange my channels might be relatively straightforward,
>    although an enormous hairball because there are about 20 channels
>    misplaced.  (If I hadn't flushed & re-updated, there would have
>    been fewer out of place, but...)
>  
>

It's only 20 channels.  :)  Do it this way.

>(b) Do current Myth versions make it easy to track what's going on wrt
>    lineup changes, e.g., by making deltas available from one update
>    to another?  (I'm running 0.18.1, so I'm not totally up on this,
>    though I've noticed code that seems to, e.g., turn off newly-added
>    (at zap2it) channels automatically when they pop up in listings).
>    [The TiVo is kind enough to warn you about lineup changes, so it's
>    possible to see if they're real or the result of a screwup; I'm
>    not so sure about Myth.]
>  
>

Daniel has the start of a frontend-based lineup editor (which could be 
the start of a frontend-based "Do you want this new channel" 
functionality, ...).  We still have a way to go, though, and it probably 
doesn't make it high on developers' TODO lists because most developers 
have their lineups already configured.

>I'm strongly considering writing a little wget-based script that just
>fetches my various lineups from the labs.zap2it.com site once a day
>and diffs them against the previous day---that way, if they rearrange
>anything, I'll have a chance in hell of noticing it before it leads to
>a week of missed recordings, or whatever.  [And if they fix it---I
>sent them a long bug report, complete with the entire table of channel
>numbers & callsigns my TiVo uses for the same feed, which are
>correct---I'll find out without having to remember to check daily and
>will know to -un-fix my Myth assignments before they cause trouble.]
>  
>

Please don't write the script (and add to the strain on DataDirect's 
servers).  It would be better to get a lineup editor in place as well as 
new channel/changed channel/removed channel notifications, etc.

Mike