Update EPG failure in RecordingService only

[fla]

I'm getting update EPG failures (logs below). Anyone know what the error "Object reference not set to an instance of an object." can be caused by? I upgraded from 9.6.8 to 9.6.12 in hope of fixing this to no avail. Even removed all my capture sources and recreated new ones.

Since the config.exe EPG update works fine, as a workaround I created a Windows scheduled task that runs "gbpvr.exe -OnlyUpdateEPG" and that seems to work. Is this safe since gbpvr is already running?

Does anybody else feel that when setting the EPG update time in config.exe, the time changes are reversed? Up makes the number smaller and down makes the number bigger! Try scheduling a task in windows, the time setting direction is opposite to config.exe.

Thanks in advance for any info.

GBPVRRecordingService.log

25/03/2006 2:59:49 PM.281 VERBOSE [19] getValue: /settings/CompleteEPGReload : false
25/03/2006 2:59:49 PM.281 INFO [18] LiveTV File Removal Thread Started
25/03/2006 3:07:39 PM.281 VERBOSE [19] RecordingFactory.loadSchedule()
25/03/2006 3:07:39 PM.281 VERBOSE [19] getValue cached value: /settings/AutoRemoveMissingRecordings : false
25/03/2006 3:07:39 PM.312 ERROR [19] Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
25/03/2006 3:07:39 PM.312 ERROR [19] at xd426863f4d052758.x396614b3dae3b1da.x961866b492315542()
at xebfe44fcfa45fcc7.xa9e17cce0eee6a7a.xcba1f05fb5a46d5f()
25/03/2006 3:07:39 PM.312 INFO [19] Running PostUpdateEPG.bat
25/03/2006 3:07:40 PM.187 VERBOSE [284] received request to reload schedule
25/03/2006 3:07:40 PM.265 VERBOSE [23] flushDatabaseConnections()
25/03/2006 3:07:40 PM.390 VERBOSE [23] processing request to reload schedule
25/03/2006 3:07:40 PM.390 VERBOSE [19] RequestDatabaseCompaction()
25/03/2006 3:07:40 PM.890 VERBOSE [23] RecordingFactory.loadSchedule()

Got an GBPVRRecordingService.exe-error.log a few times:

Zap2it incremental EPG update required.
05/03/2006 10:06:41 AM.125 VERBOSE [22] Processing zap2it channels using SAX parser
05/03/2006 10:06:41 AM.125 VERBOSE [22] Requesting listings for the period: 2006-03-07T00:00:00Z to 2006-03-10T00:00:00Z
05/03/2006 10:07:56 AM.171 VERBOSE [22] Error updating EPG Source (WinTV-PVR): System.Net.WebException: The underlying connection was closed: The remote name could not be resolved.
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.CheckFinalStatus()
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.EndGetRequestStream(IAsyncResult asyncResult)
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream()
at System.Net.WebClient.UploadData(String address, String method, Byte[] data)
at GBPVR.Backend.Common.Zap2itEpgReader.x7174d5399cba81ee(IEpgUpdateProgressCallback x421ce789b9741187, DateTime xdc88f59e43b65f7f, DateTime x33db96d2cea26583)
at GBPVR.Backend.Common.Zap2itEpgReader.LoadChannels(IEpgUpdateProgressCallback x421ce789b9741187)
at xebfe44fcfa45fcc7.xa9e17cce0eee6a7a.x52e8ddd0b9bc8c68()

[sub]

It looks like your system isnt able to resolve the "labs.zap2it.com" name when running as the localsystem account. I'm guessing its either firewall or DNS (or both) related.

[fla]

Ya those messages on march 5th do indeed match up with a firewall problem I had at that time and was resolved in one day. Haven't seen these errors since then.

The real error is the object reference error and it happens any hour that I perform an EPG update even when there is no firewall (Red Shield warning from XP confirms this). Could it be some kind of corrupted file/database/registry? I wasn't getting this for a couple weeks then it suddenly started. No network changes were made since then. Some plugins were added though (Volume, Weather, BleepBloop, XRecord, Theatre) and a second capture source was added to capture the composite input on my WinTV PVR-150. Some channels were also manually added that are not in the EPG.

At one point during these changes the epg update in the recording service started failing. Only noticed once the guide became empty after several days of failures. I don't think an attempt is made to access the network yet at the point of the failure. Switching back to the normal Guide,Record,Search didn't help.

Is there a way to enable super verbose logging in the recording service? I love GBPVR so far and I really want to get the EPG update working. I'm willing to help in debugging this. Sign an NDA, compile my own debug version of the recording service...whatever it takes.

Thanks.

26/03/2006 7:09:30 AM.578 VERBOSE [26] getValue cached value: /settings/AutoRemoveMissingRecordings : false
26/03/2006 7:09:30 AM.640 ERROR [26] Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
26/03/2006 7:09:30 AM.640 ERROR [26] at xd426863f4d052758.x396614b3dae3b1da.x961866b492315542()
at xebfe44fcfa45fcc7.xa9e17cce0eee6a7a.xcba1f05fb5a46d5f()
26/03/2006 7:09:30 AM.656 INFO [26] Running PostUpdateEPG.bat

[sub]

Can you post a complete log? I cnat really tell what is happening from that small snippet.

[fla]

Here's a complete log from startup to finalize. BTW I have tried with/without complete EPG reload and the result is the same.

Thanks!

May 23rd 2006 : Removed attachement to save disk space

[sub]

If you click the 'export recordings' button config app, does it work or does it generate an error?

[fla]

Aha it generates an error! One of the recordings is a manual recording from the capture source channel I added for the composite line in. They both play perfectly from the record plugin.

You know your stuff? Is this a bug? I guess if I delete all my recordings it won't fail. I needed that recording though.

[sub]

Yes, it'll be a bug - maybe not with the EPG update though, probably somewhere else in the application that let this problem recording get into this state in the first place. Its probably only one recording. I'm guessing it refers to a show that is no longer in the database?

[fla]

OK I fixed the problem with MS Access. The problematic recording was referring to a bad capture_source_oid and manual_channel_oid in other tables.

I believe that the source of the problem is in adding a new capture source with no EPG source to use the composite input on the PVR-150. The "Add" channel button is greyed out by default. The only way to add the channel was to temporarily choose an EPG source (I chose the same EPG source as the one for the PVR-150 internal tuner capture source) and the "Add" channel button became available after an "Update EPG". I then added the channel "0 VCR" and gave it number zero. I then reset the new capture source to no EPG source and deleted all the channels except for 0. All the channels had also got removed from my main internal tuner capture source during my delete operation in my new capture source so an "Update EPG" was required there to get all my channels back.

Recording on channel 0 then worked fine.

At one point I noticed that I had a channel zero in the "internal tuner" capture source and deleted it as it should only be in the "composite input" capture source and both channel zero's showed up in the guide. Some recordings database fields must have been referring to this duplicated channel 0 and the nightly EPG updates started failing after this moment.

Thanks sub for pointing out the problem!

Hey sub, do you think a "gbpvr-dbic" (database integrity check) utility would be a practical tool? Do the database fields and relationships change too often for this to be maintainable? If someone tried to write one, would you explain to them the relationships and conditions that should be verified? Even if the tool didn't fix any errors, simply reporting them could save you lots of support time.

The FAQ could say something like: "Before contacting support, did you run gbpvr-dbic... ?