[mythtv-users] Problems setting up a grabber (was Re: Warning it looks like uk_rt grabber is going to stop working over XMAS again?)

[Nick Morrott]

On 29/12/2008, UB40D <ub40dd at googlemail.com> wrote:

> So, other approach. I take your command up there and break it up into
> parts; so from the command line I run the first part and save the
>  output to a file:
>
> tv_grab_uk_rt --quiet --config-file
> /home/tv/.mythtv/RadioTimes.xmltv > dump.txt
>
> This also takes ages to run (predictably) but eventually I get a 6.7
> MB file in xml that looks about right. So at least the grabbing works.

Good.

> Then I run the second part of your command:
>
> -mythfilldatabase --update --file 1 dump.txt
>
> and what do I get? A big bunch of
>
> Unknown xmltv channel identifier: anglia.itv1.itv.co.uk - Skipping channel.
>  Unknown xmltv channel identifier: bbcfour.bbc.co.uk - Skipping channel.
> Unknown xmltv channel identifier: bbcthree.bbc.co.uk - Skipping channel.
>   ...
> Unknown xmltv channel identifier: us.channel5.co.uk - Skipping channel.
>
> So that also doesn't work properly.

That means the channel entries in the database do not have the correct
XMLTVIDs associated with them for your current XMLTV configuration.

> I go into the database to check things out and I figure that the
>  closest to that "xmltv channel identifier" is probably the
> channel.default_authority field:

channel.xmltvid is the correct field.

> mysql> select channum, name, default_authority from channel;
> +---------+------------------+----------------------+
>  | channum | name             | default_authority    |
> +---------+------------------+----------------------+
> | 1       | BBC ONE          | fp.bbc.co.uk         |
> | 2       | BBC TWO          | fp.bbc.co.uk         |
>  | 3       | ITV1             | www.itv.com          |
> | 4       | Channel 4        | www.channel4.com     |
> | 5       | Five             | www.five.tv          |
>  | 6       | ITV2             | www.itv.com          |
> | 7       | BBC THREE        | fp.bbc.co.uk         |
>
> ...and if my guess is right then that explains why I have a problem
>  with ITV, for example, which is listed as www.itv.com in the database
> and anglia.itv1.itv.co.uk in the grabbed xml. (Never mind that there must be
> another problem with ITV1 too, because it had no data FROM THE EIT, before I
> even tried using the grabber; hey, it was the reason for wanting to use it
> in the first place.)

The default_auth field was populated when you initially scanned for
channels. It is used for EIT listings retrieval, but not for XMLTV.

> Anyway, what do I do at this stage? For sure I'm not going to enter
> all that stuff by hand, and I don't think that's what most of the
> people for whom it works are doing. How else can I resync stuff? Get a
>  database dump of the channel table from someone who sees the same
> channels and has a working radio-times-grabbing setup?

At the moment, most people configure things manually once. This may
involve creating all channels from scratch (which can take a long
time) or adding XMLTVIDs to existing channels (which is much quicker).

> Why does it claim that the radio times grabber does not provide
> channel numbers? How else does it work for other people? Any way to
>  use EIT to give it the channel numbers, and the grabber for the
> schedule info, for example? (I'm assuming that at least the channel
> names match, though I've seen inconsistencies there too when checking
> what was in those tables.)

The Radio Times grabber currently does not include channel numbering
information, although I will start working on this soon.

It most certainly _is_ possible to take a working DVB-T setup (i.e.
having previously scanned for channels) and configure each of them
with a valid XMLTVID. You will need to match up the correct channel
with the correct XMLTVID which can take some time (but it should be
clear from the XMLTV file 'channel_ids' which channel is which), and
will need to update the XMLTV configuration channel at the same time
to keep everything in sync.

> And anyway, assuming that everything else worked, which it clearly
> doesn't for me at the moment, where would you enter that command you
> had above? Just when you're asked to do a manual rescan, or is it a
>  setting you must enter somewhere in the backend setup?
>
> If anyone has got a step by step tutorial on getting this grabber to
> work, I'd appreciate it.
>
> Meanwhile, I go back to just EIT, do a rescan and... sigh... now the
>  channel numers are all messed up, with BBC ONE having gone from 1 to
> 4173 (sic!), BBC TWO to 4237 and so on, without rhyme or reason.
>
> So what's the result, after closing the backend setup and letting it
> run mythfilldatabase? That not only all the channel numbers are f'd
>  up, but also there's now NO data whatsoever in the program
> guide. Groan. Guess I'll have to redo the setup of the EIT from
> scratch yet once more, hoping to hit the right phase of the moon while
> I'm doing it...

Start with a clean slate. Choose the 'Delete all video sources' option
in mythtv-setup (which should remove all existing channels), create a
new one, and rescan for your DVB-T channels.

- if you want to use EIT listigs, you need the option enabled on both
the video source and those channels you want EIT listings for.
- if you want to use XMLTV listings, you need both a valid XMLTVID
associated with each channel, and an entry in the video source's
associated XMLTV configuration file for each channel you want listings
for. You'll also want EIT disabled for these channels.

Nick

-- 
Nick Morrott

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