YApi2XML - schedule file corrupted or not found.

[pvrproblems]

I came home from work today and noticed I didn't have a program guide anymore. The log shows, for the past five days, that it has failed to update the program guide.

What causes this, and more importantly, how do I fix this??

Thanks in advance

Richard



Version: 1.1.9 Starting: 17 Sep 07 07:02:18
07:02:18 - Current Provider Code: TX42822-
07:02:18 - Running from command line
07:02:19 - 80 channels - downloading schedule
07:02:19 - Error: Schedule file corrupted or not found. Will retry in 5 seconds. Try 1/5
07:02:25 - Attempting to redownload schedule file, try 1/5
07:02:25 - Error: Schedule file corrupted or not found. Will retry in 5 seconds. Try 2/5
07:02:30 - Attempting to redownload schedule file, try 2/5
07:02:30 - Error: Schedule file corrupted or not found. Will retry in 5 seconds. Try 3/5
07:02:36 - Attempting to redownload schedule file, try 3/5
07:02:36 - Error: Schedule file corrupted or not found. Will retry in 5 seconds. Try 4/5
07:02:42 - Attempting to redownload schedule file, try 4/5
07:02:42 - Error: Schedule file corrupted or not found. Will retry in 5 seconds. Try 5/5
07:02:48 - Attempting to redownload schedule file, try 5/5
07:02:48 - Error: Schedule file corrupted or not found. Will retry in 5 seconds. Try 6/5
07:02:48 - Error: Schedule file corrupted or not found; all retries failed.

[taz]

All of the utilities that got info from Yahoo are no longer working. Yahoo either cut it off or changed something on their end so that it no longer works. There are a couple scrapers that appear to work with an xml file or you can switch to shedules direct (it is now $20/year ).

[whurlston]

No Yahoo grabber works anymore.

[ToPPgun]

Then what is everyone who used to use Yahoo switching to?

[possum]

Well I have been using Zap2Xml as my scraper. Although today it doesn't seem to be working either. Yahoo was the best scraper because it came with such detailed information. The Zap 2 It scraper gives you times titles, usually an episode name, and if you're real lucky maybe a sentence for a description. This scraper reads the Zap2It.com that we all know doesn't provide listings like it used to, but now I think you can still view the listings for free, and thats where the scraper kicks in. I don't know if I'm going to be having a day long issue with it or if it is going the way of Yahoo and as much as I really really hate it, I might have to start paying for EPG.

[jgravitas]

I'm trying not to be paranoid about this, but I'm having a hard time believing that Yahoo's sudden incompatibility is not related to the labs.zap2it.com discontinuation. I believe this may actually be a concerted effort on the part of these companies to NOT allow PVR builders to use their systems for EPG gathering. I completely reject the idea of paying for EPG data, and it's the main reason I once used and then abandoned MythTV.

I was using Yapi2xml for about two months before this latest debacle. Here's my main confusion: as long as a firm (be it Yahoo, TitanTV, Zap2it, whoever) is providing web-accessible free EPG information for web users, isn't scraping a viable way to get that data into a PVR system? How do thse guys hope to thwart us and provide visual data for users at the same time?

I'm really hoping that someone better at coding than I am (hopefully the original developer) comes up with an updated yapi2xml that handles whatever the hell Yahoo changed. Any thoughts on why this wouldn't be readily possible?

J. Gravitas

[sub]

I'm trying not to be paranoid about this, but I'm having a hard time believing that Yahoo's sudden incompatibility is not related to the labs.zap2it.com discontinuation. I believe this may actually be a concerted effort on the part of these companies to NOT allow PVR builders to use their systems for EPG gathering. I completely reject the idea of paying for EPG data, and it's the main reason I once used and then abandoned MythTV.

I'm sure a large influx of new users trying to extract listing from the Yahoo TV app has quickened its demise. They most likely were paying TMS per-seat for listings, and it probably got very expensive, and they knew why - not because of the popularity of their app, but rather so that others could extract the listings for use in other apps. They probably chose to flick the switch on their already dead app, rather than pay for your listings.

I was using Yapi2xml for about two months before this latest debacle. Here's my main confusion: as long as a firm (be it Yahoo, TitanTV, Zap2it, whoever) is providing web-accessible free EPG information for web users, isn't scraping a viable way to get that data into a PVR system? How do thse guys hope to thwart us and provide visual data for users at the same time?

Its really easy for companies to break web scraping applications. Because web scraping apps need to look for certain hard-coded markers in the web page data so that they can identify each of programmes, and its attributes, the company can simply make subtle changes to those websites which still generally look the same for users viewing the website, but break the web scrapers. Some time its not intentional, and instead they're just make minor changes to the fonts etc on their web page, but its still enough to break scrapers.

Back in the days prior to zap2it, they were changing their website often to break the web scrapers. The scrapers were fixed often, but it certainly meant users were having to update the software regularly to fix it.

They way I see it, no matter what dollar value you put on your time, you're going to spend a lot more that $20 of your time per year trying to keep these half arsed solutions working.

[djphatjive]

Well I have been using Zap2Xml as my scraper. Although today it doesn't seem to be working either. Yahoo was the best scraper because it came with such detailed information. The Zap 2 It scraper gives you times titles, usually an episode name, and if you're real lucky maybe a sentence for a description. This scraper reads the Zap2It.com that we all know doesn't provide listings like it used to, but now I think you can still view the listings for free, and thats where the scraper kicks in. I don't know if I'm going to be having a day long issue with it or if it is going the way of Yahoo and as much as I really really hate it, I might have to start paying for EPG.

I used it today and it worked fine. First time I have used it.

[andydrew]

... I completely reject the idea of paying for EPG data, and it's the main reason I once used and then abandoned MythTV.
J. Gravitas

It's 5 cents per day to pay for 1 year of Guide Data via Schedules Direct... really it's not that expensive.

Cheaper than a daily newspaper for TV listings, a subscription to TV Guide magazine...

These guys have to assemble the data, provide servers and infrastructure to provide the data, someone has to maintain the data, etc.

You may be spending more time and effort trying to avoid paying for the EPG guide data...

[djphatjive]

It's 5 cents per day to pay for 1 year of Guide Data via Schedules Direct... really it's not that expensive.

Cheaper than a daily newspaper for TV listings, a subscription to TV Guide magazine...

These guys have to assemble the data, provide servers and infrastructure to provide the data, someone has to maintain the data, etc.

You may be spending more time and effort trying to avoid paying for the EPG guide data...

Some people will just buy windows to have everything work of the box, and some like linux, where you have to slave for days to get things to work. But its free. I more of a linux type person. I think this guy is too.