Clear down Scheduled recordings during EPG loading.

[systemshark]

Hi Folks, I have a interesting problem, with Schedule recordings.

My listing sources are a little unperdicitiable at the moment and they are often moving shows around in the EPG data. Although I completely reload the EPG each day, I've spotted a error when a schedule recording show shifts around by a short amount normally 30-40 minutes. This causes the show to appear in the TV Listing plugin twice ofset by the orginial time and the update time.

Now with the Schedules routines executing after the EPG guide is execute, I'm getting lots of conflicts with the same show. Eg Scrapeyard challange is in conflict with Scrapeyard challange, the first starting at 9:00 and the second starting at 9:30 (the 9:30 time was the revisied and correct timeing) Of course what GBPVR does is start recording at 9:00 for 1 hour and I only get 30 minutes of the show.

My question. Is there a CLI command or something I can call which will delete all the schedule listings prior to loading the EPG ?? Normally you wouldn't want to do this but........

[gEd]

I and a few others have had this problem for some time. This seems to work for me but I *think* it only applies to one off recordings. season recordings should adjust themselves correctly

"C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\GBPVR.exe" -OnlyEmptyEPG
"C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\GBPVR.exe" -OnlyUpdateEPG


(taken from this old thread)
http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...yupdateepg

[systemshark]

gEd,

Thanks for you prompt answers, I'm afraid I've tried both of these options, and it's the season recordings and one off records I have a problem. I see you are also using radio times and XMLTV grabber. I've been talking with the XML grabber author and the issue seams to be at Radio times end, I've even looked at the XML source.

I've tried swapping certain channels over to Bleb.org but they have a lower number of channels so I'm trying to stay with Radio times...

Hence why I wanted a 'brutal' approach... If no one has anything, I'll write something.... but was trying to avoid re-inventing the wheel...

[martint123]

I cut my EPG grab down to 6 days and now very rarely suffer from the overlapping program from small shifts..

I'm trying to think of a reason NOT to delete the pending season recordings at 'emptyepg' time and let them be recreated by scanning the new EPG but can't think offhand of any reason to keep them in the database.

[sub]

If you have the 'complete epg reload' option ticked, then during the automated EPG update process it deletes all the scheduled pending episodes of a season recording (except the first one, aka the master season recording), then deletes all the unreferenced listings from the database, then imports the new listings and looks for any matching season recordings to schedule.

...so in theory, the only old listings that should be left in the database are those referenced by one-off scheduled recordings you've created, or those referenced by season recordings master records.

This only applies to the automated EPG update though, not if you're manually forcing EPG updates.

[Nomad101]

I had a similar problem for a long time with CSI on Saturday nights. I now use a scheduled task to update my EPG rather than the internal update and run the following after running an XMLTV update:

PVRX2.exe -emptyepgonly (empties the EPG without running the GUI)
PVRX2.EXE -deletependingrecurring (deletes any remaining recurring entries)
PVRX2.exe -onlyupdateepg (updates the EPG without running the GUI)

I think the middle step is what you're looking for. Been working perfectly for me for the past month or so.

Cheers
Tony

[sub]

The automated EPG update runs those exact steps, but has the added advantage of not doing the 'delete pending' or 'empty epg' steps until it knows for sure that listings are available. This has the benefit of leaving you with listings even if your EPG source is temporarily unavailable. (empty xmltv file, no listings from schedules direct etc)

[Nomad101]

The automated EPG update runs those exact steps, but has the added advantage of not doing the 'delete pending' or 'empty epg' steps until it knows for sure that listings are available. This has the benefit of leaving you with listings even if your EPG source is temporarily unavailable. (empty xmltv file, no listings from schedules direct etc)

Has that behaviour changed recently (the removal of season recordings before updating)? I often had problems with season recordings being duplicated a few minutes apart (one channel in particular) even with version 1.0.16 but from what you've said that should only happen if the schedule changes before the first episode in a season is recorded. Perhaps that's what was happening to me. I know when I had the problem I did delete the season recordings and recreate them when I was trying to fix it so whenever I did that it would become the first (master) recording again and thus not be deleted.

As part of my update script I do check the size of the xml file from XMLTV and if it's less than 2MB then I don't do anything (except restore data.xml from the most recent of the 7 days that are backed up! ).

On a side note, there seems to be some confusion with the command line switches as to whether the "only" goes at the beginning or end of the command. Not sure if you're aware of it (I know there was mention of it in a post some time ago). I've just run a few tests and found the following:

GBPVR.exe -OnlyEmptyEPG WORKS
PVRX2.exe -OnlyEmptyEPG DOES NOT WORK

GBPVR.exe -EmptyEPGOnly DOES NOT WORK
PVRX2.exe -EmptyEPGOnly WORKS

GBPVR.exe -OnlyUpdateEPG WORKS (Shows notification box)
PVRX2.exe -OnlyUpdateEPG WORKS (Doesn't show notification box)

GBPVR.exe -UpdateEPGOnly DOES NOT WORK
PVRX2.exe -UpdateEPGOnly WORKS (Doesn't show notification box)

So the update seems to work either way with PVRX2 but empty has to have only at the end which is opposite to GBPVR. It's a minor point (to be added to the bottom of your long priority list!) but it may avoid confusion later by accepting all permutations.

BTW, thanks for a great piece of software and superb support!

Cheers
Tony

[systemshark]

If you have the 'complete epg reload' option ticked, then during the automated EPG update process it deletes all the scheduled pending episodes of a season recording (except the first one, aka the master season recording), then deletes all the unreferenced listings from the database, then imports the new listings and looks for any matching season recordings to schedule.

I'm been running GBPVR in this mode for a number of months, and I'm still seeing this problem. Hence my question ???

I'll try Norman101's suggestion.... and report back.