Auto Update EPG enabled, schedule blanked every few days

[sub]

Hi Sub,

When I contacted Robert at SD, he had the following question which I couldn't answer:

"There's a time value in the returned XML that gives the application the
next suggested download time; does NPVR use that field?"

Nope. It does the epg download at the time the user has specified in their settings.

[brcarls]

Any ETA on a patch to keep npvr from falling flat on it's face when schedules direct hiccups?

[sub]

I wont be providing a patch.

I've made some changes for the next release which should make the application more tolerant of Schedules Direct returning a truncated results. Next release is about a week away.

[brcarls]

I wont be providing a patch.

I've made some changes for the next release which should make the application more tolerant of Schedules Direct returning a truncated results. Next release is about a week away.

Thanks for the status update, and thanks for your work. I really feel bad whining about free software that is far superior to the commercial alternatives, but I usually go a week without watching TV and then sit down on the weekend to catch up only to discover that nothing has been recorded. It's happened 3 weeks in a row which is almost enough to make a man consider just giving up and getting a DVR from the cable company! :eek:

[kimnach]

just saw this thread and, as an fyi, my sons have been pestering me for the past 6-8 weeks because their raspberry pi had no epg data every couple of weeks. (i then manually updated the epg data on the npvr box.)

i had had the auto update of 10 days of data set for 2am; i now, however, have changed it to 11am dst.

hoping this fixes it.

[sub]

Thanks for the status update, and thanks for your work. I really feel bad whining about free software that is far superior to the commercial alternatives, but I usually go a week without watching TV and then sit down on the weekend to catch up only to discover that nothing has been recorded. It's happened 3 weeks in a row which is almost enough to make a man consider just giving up and getting a DVR from the cable company! :eek:

Just change the time your EPG update occurs. They seem to only have this issue under peak loads.

[Wakalaka]

I switched my update time to 8:30 pm and my EPG was fine until last week. I've now switched my update time to 9:14 am. Can anyone define "peak load times"? I may need to write a script that changes the update time in the XML to a random time every X days.

[MaleXLR]

I am having a similar problem, although it doesn’t involve Schedules Direct.

We have only been using NextPVR for just over a week and with the default EPG Update Hour (which I think was 02:58:00) it kicked UpdateEPG.bat into action, toddled off to EPG Collector and updated TVGuide.com.

I changed the Update Hour (maybe I shouldn’t have fiddled) and a few days after that NextPVR stopped calling UpdateEPG.bat and I have to manually run it and then manually run Update EPG from settings… This is a bit of a hassle – especially as my Wife is blind and this software has given her the ability to schedule recordings for the first time since losing her sight in 1987. Without the EPG update to NEWA, this functionality is lost for her and her voice synthesizer doesn’t allow her access to our server where NextPVR resides.

Today I tried uninstalling and reinstalling NextPVR and although everything is back as it was, I have achieved nothing as the scheduled updates are still not happening.

I even tried a System Restore as a last desperate effort, but it wouldn’t restore from before we installed NextPVR.

A definitive answer would be great please. Yes I could schedule a task to run the batch file, but will that just update the TVGuide? ie: Will NextPVR “Auto Update” the EPG from the new TVGuide or is the Auto Update failing to do anything at the “EPG Update Hour”???

[sub]

I am having a similar problem, although it doesn’t involve Schedules Direct.

We have only been using NextPVR for just over a week and with the default EPG Update Hour (which I think was 02:58:00) it kicked UpdateEPG.bat into action, toddled off to EPG Collector and updated TVGuide.com.

I changed the Update Hour (maybe I shouldn’t have fiddled) and a few days after that NextPVR stopped calling UpdateEPG.bat and I have to manually run it and then manually run Update EPG from settings…

If you can post the nrecord.log, I'll check whether the app is running it. I'm not aware of any issues that could account for UpdateEPG.bat not running.

[MaleXLR]

Thanks. I have attached a ZIP file as requested which also contains the UpdateEPG.bat file - which is happily running right now!

Shortly after posting I set the update time to 06:30:00 pm... and lo and behold... it worked. It seems to have run the batch file, created the TVGuide (time stamped 06:25:00 pm) and fully populated my EPG up to the end of Wednesday 21st. I have taken the liberty of attaching NRecord.log.1 in case that is helpful. At that point I should have left it, but I changed the update time to 06:30:00 am (and restarted the recording service) and that doesn't appear to have worked.