EPG Zap2it

[HollyCairns]

Reduced the channels to 24 still probs. My batch file deletes the cache so I stopped that that gave me more days of programming. Finally used your -N 3 and it gave me 14 days of data I usually get 16. 14 is fine. Thanks for your help.

[SamM]

how many channels do you have?
i only have 11 channels and only have 3 not cached days -N 3
have not had any problems

i had also updated the user agent to:
$ua->agent('Mozilla/5.0 Gecko/20100101 Firefox/140.0');

For the -N # days not cached, I did a search and couldn't find what's behind this option. What is it supposed to accomplish?

[j2gbpvr]

-d <#> number of tv schedule days (default = 7)
-n <#> # of no-cache days (from end) (default = 0)
-N <#> # of no-cache-days (from start) (default = 0)

from
http://zap2xml.awardspace.info/

i use -d 14 -N 3
to give me 14 days cache and 3 days most recent not cached
because the cache is not updated even if there are changes in those days

[SamM]

-d <#> number of tv schedule days (default = 7)
-n <#> # of no-cache days (from end) (default = 0)
-N <#> # of no-cache-days (from start) (default = 0)

from
http://zap2xml.awardspace.info/

i use -d 14 -N 3
to give me 14 days cache and 3 days most recent not cached
because the cache is not updated even if there are changes in those days

I schedule 14 days because I update the xml file weekly, and look at the guide weekly for the upcoming week. Can you tell me how -N may help? That is, what's the difference between using it and not using it in this situation?
At this point, I just don't see how it makes a difference with downloading 14 days and the potential of it getting "too much data" error. Currently, if it errors out and doesn't give me enough days, then when I examine it weekly I would have to run it manually before scanning the next week's schedule.

[j2gbpvr]

if you have 14 days in cache, it does not get updated with details like late night guests
those maybe get updated at 7 days before it airs
your schedule will be 14 days old and will never get updated in cache
a lot of schedule updates are done everyday and using a 14 day old schedule will miss those changes
to get current schedule updates within the last 3 days, you have to use -N 3
maybe for weekly schedules you would use -N 7

do you have a lot of channels?
if it only gives you 3 days, then don't use -N 3
just use -d 3 then change it to -d 6 then -d 9

[SamM]

if you have 14 days in cache, it does not get updated with details like late night guests
those maybe get updated at 7 days before it airs
your schedule will be 14 days old and will never get updated in cache
a lot of schedule updates are done everyday and using a 14 day old schedule will miss those changes
to get current schedule updates within the last 3 days, you have to use -N 3
maybe for weekly schedules you would use -N 7

do you have a lot of channels?
if it only gives you 3 days, then don't use -N 3
just use -d 3 then change it to -d 6 then -d 9

Ok, I think I understand -N better now. But if I am updating the epg only once per week, I don't see how the -N is going to help. NPVR updates the epg daily, but it gets the info from the xml file that is updated only weekly. Do you see what I'm saying? I have run across an occasional program that says "movie" or "to be announced" that I have recorded because the web guide had a movie I wanted to record at that time. I see that as a minor annoyance.

What I don't get is that the other poster said that adding -N 3 fixed his problem of his epg update not getting all the days. I don't understand how that could fix his issue, unless it was mere coincidence.

I've got 42 channels. I request 11 days. On my Win 11 unit, I get all the data; but on my Win 10 unit, it only gets 3 days of data before aborting. This happens both when done manually and auto by task manager. I suppose I could add the -N 3 and see what happens.

[j2gbpvr]

in the other user's case the cache was not being used at all so it reduced the data from 14 days to 3 days
it pauses to skip over the cache days so data request pauses to reduce data
if you use all the days in cache then if you update everyday it will only need 1 day to update the 14 days

[drlava]

All, thanks to this thread and this thread, the replacement for zap2xml is now working with no guide remapping needed.

Notes:
-Install strawberry perl from here.
-Fix the missing utime function on windows error by:
Browse to C:\Strawberry\perl\lib\File and edit Copy.pm with notepad, find the line "BEGIN { eval q{ use Time::HiRes qw( stat utime ) } };" and add a # at the beginning to comment it out. Save Copy.pm
-At a new admin command line run

Code:

cpan install LWP::Protocol::https

to install perl component needed.

-Use perl code attached, (huge thanks to antidot!):

If you don't want to remap your guide channels, use a search and replace function to replace all of the instances of gracenote.com with zap2it.com in the xml output.

I used a powershell script (psreplace.ps1):

Code:

(gc xmltv.xml) `
-replace 'gracenote.com', 'zap2it.com' `
| Out-File -encoding ASCII xmltv2.xml

Then call it all from a batch file using your existing zap2xml command flags (here are mine), ensuring that you are enabled to run powershell scripts locally:

Code:

perl grace2xml.pl -F -M -u username -p password -Z zipcode
PowerShell -File psreplace.ps1

Note: maybe someone will clean up the perl script with a new option to substitute zap2it.com for gracenote.com in the xml output, avoiding the need for search and replace.  Cheers.

[mvallevand]

There are two logic streams for sure since some users scripts created XMLTV files that needed remapping and some did not, but it is impossible to tell which are which so not everyone should run that new script. Generally it would be better to update the script if you don't want to remap and not the XMLTV file each EPG update.

I do expect the forum loop will continue because aid=gapzap is no longer the correct parameter so listings will start failing again and a third patch will be required. Hint see post #1

Plus Gracenote are using tokens on their web site right now so we shall see how long these simple changes are going to work. TANSTAAFL. Just move to Schedules Direct.

Martin

[NextPVR_User_2025]

All, thanks to this thread and this thread, the replacement for zap2xml is now working with no guide remapping needed.

Notes:
-Install strawberry perl from here.
-Fix the missing utime function on windows error by:
Browse to C:\Strawberry\perl\lib\File and edit Copy.pm with notepad, find the line "BEGIN { eval q{ use Time::HiRes qw( stat utime ) } };" and add a # at the beginning to comment it out. Save Copy.pm
-At a new admin command line run

Code:

cpan install LWP::Protocol::https

to install perl component needed.

-Use perl code attached, (huge thanks to antidot!):

If you don't want to remap your guide channels, use a search and replace function to replace all of the instances of gracenote.com with zap2it.com in the xml output.

I used a powershell script (psreplace.ps1):

Code:

(gc xmltv.xml) `
-replace 'gracenote.com', 'zap2it.com' `
| Out-File -encoding ASCII xmltv2.xml

Then call it all from a batch file using your existing zap2xml command flags (here are mine), ensuring that you are enabled to run powershell scripts locally:

Code:

perl grace2xml.pl -F -M -u username -p password -Z zipcode
PowerShell -File psreplace.ps1

Note: maybe someone will clean up the perl script with a new option to substitute zap2it.com for gracenote.com in the xml output, avoiding the need for search and replace.  Cheers.

Thank you for the detailed instructions.
I get the error:

Code:

[Attempt 1] 112:400 Bad Request
{"message":"No lineups are available for this ZIP or postal code. Please enter a different ZIP or postal code."}

Any idea how to correct this?
It seems my login from zap2it is working correctly. I was able to log in to the gracenote site. It shows my zip code and looks normal.
Thanks