zap2xml not working

[gearsofwoe]

I just wish to confirm with other users that the zap2xml perl script has stopped working with the Zap2it website.  I presume that the similar zap2epg addon for Kodi has also stopped working.

[Graham]

I just wish to confirm with other users that the zap2xml perl script has stopped working with the Zap2it website.  I presume that the similar zap2epg addon for Kodi has also stopped working.

For those who may be using Zap2xml to pull OTA channels, as of December 17th, Zap2it appears to be applying a default zip code instead of the zip code associated with the user's profile.  Explicitly providing the zip code with the -Z option to Zap2xml appears to workaround the issue.  Note: You will need delete the cache folder to recover from the corruption.

[gearsofwoe]

Thank you very much. I added the -Z [postalcode] option to the command line and it downloaded the EPG perfectly.

The original website for Zap2xml is archived at The Way Back Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/202004260040...pace.info/

[phil0909]

Thanks. This did not work for me - I added the Zip Code after the -Z switch, and I switched my source to zap2it from tvguide, which I had been using for years. Zap2xml seems to work, the epg.xml file is created and looks fine in the NPVR Scripts directory. But NPVR does not appear to read the epg.xml file - the TV Listings page inside NPVR remains empty.

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong would be greatly appreciated. I am using an old version of NPVR, and it's been several years since I had to fix the epg process, so I am probably forgetting something basic. Thanks

[gearsofwoe]

Hi Phil,
When this happened to me, I think everything looked good but the TV guide was empty. So I opened a command prompt from the Windows taskbar (CMD).  I ran zap2xml and I think it parsed a few lines and may have stopped with an error. I don't remember. However, it took a lot less time than it usually did. A few second instead of minutes. The cache directory had several json files that looked good. But there were too few. You should see ~30 .js.gz files for 12 channels and 1 week of guide data. (I used 7zip to open the archive and Notepad to view the file contents.)

I'm running the older NextPVR v4.  My zap2xml command line is:
zap2xml -u [username] -p [password] -Z [postalcode] -S 1 -E "amp apos quot lt gt" -F

I hope this helps you to narrow the problem down to either zap2xml or NPVR

[phil0909]

Thanks gearsofwoe. I deleted the cache directory (as Graham advised above), and got the same result you did - instead of taking 6 seconds, the epg update now took several minutes. I get 811 .js files, most of them tiny, 48 of them 54-64KB, for a week's listings on 7 channels. I'm using an even older NPBR - v3.6.6.

The epg.xml file still looks ok, output.txt looks ok as far as I can tell. But NPVR still has no listings loaded. My command looks like yours, with a few more options. Don't see why this isn't working, when it worked fine until last week using tvguide.com.

[gearsofwoe]

My .js files are ~13kb. Sounds like you are using the -D option to grab extra program info. I don't. Try removing it and see if the smaller XMLTV file loads correctly. Also, remove any options that are specific to the TV Guide
-D include extra program details = 1 http request per program!
-W tvg: -D only for movies = 1 http request per movie!
-I tvg: include program image URLs - 1 http request per program!

In Settings > Channels
Is the epg set to XMLTV and is it pointing to the correct file?

[Graham]

The epg.xml file still looks ok, output.txt looks ok as far as I can tell.  But NPVR still has no listings loaded.  My command looks like yours, with a few more options.  Don't see why this isn't working, when it worked fine until last week using tvguide.com.

Do you need to re-map the broadcast channels to the EPG names?

[phil0909]

Yes, remapping fixed the problem. Thank you!