Pending Recording Entry in NextPVR GUI not showing Metadata from related Guide Entry

[latenighter]

I'm currently going through a process of converting from WMC to an Emby/NextPVR set-up and have found the latter much more flexible. I have come across one challenge that I was able to create/follow a work-around for but it seems like something that was addressed for Guide population in NextPVR but not for setting up recording entries. I haven't been able to find any relevant prior entries in the forum for this.

The problem first manifested itself to me as the Emby/NextPVR plug-in not being able to import any Pending Recording (Schedule in Emby terms) data from NextPVR though this seems to be a side-effect of the set-up of the Pending Recording entry itself in NextPVR. Checking the Emby logs it seems NextPVR just returns an error that halts the Schedule import process in Emby and no Schedule entries are imported. The NextPVR web log, as attached, indicates it encounters an invalid hexadecimal value while processing the Pending Recording entry to send to Emby. The Guide import into Emby worked fine. This situation also seems to be reflected in how the NextPVR GUI does, or doesn't, display the information - screenshots also attached.

To work around this I edited the XML column in the SCHEDULED_RECORDING row for the program in the npvr.db3 database to remove the area where the invalid characters seemed to be and everything started working fully again - the Pending Recording entry in the NextPVR GUI now showed a description/etc. and Emby was able to get a full import for its Schedule. Guides in both applications continued to display information as expected. As I have my guide acquisition set to 8 days this started a week before the program was due to show and I had to perform the work-around each time NextPVR refreshed its EPG data (scheduled once a day via OTA). As this Pending Recording entry was being generated by a Keyword-based Recurring Recording entry I tried alternatives such as using a "Record Once" set up and also a "Record All Episodes..." set up but the same symptoms emerged for both the NextPVR GUI and the Emby Schedule import.

I appreciate that any similar problem for Guide import into Emby may have been resolved by an update to the NextPVR plug-in for Emby and, if so, will raise this issue there but thought that as there is also an upstream impact with NextPVR itself that this may be the most appropriate place to start.

Many thanks for any consideration.

[sub]

What was your EPG source?

It looks like you've got an invalid character in the description of that show

<Description>The Sky at Night takes to the air on board the largest airborne observatory in the world  a specially modified jumbo jet, flying out of California. [S]</Description>

EDIT: it doesn't show up here, but it's after the word "world"

[sub]

It looks like maybe you're using the DVB EPG? If so, and the show was occurring in the future, I'd ask you to capture some broadcast data for me, so I can watch the extraction of this show description from the broadcast stream, to see where this character came from. Unfortunately it looks like it was a from a few days ago?

[latenighter]

It looks like maybe you're using the DVB EPG? If so, and the show was occurring in the future, I'd ask you to capture some broadcast data for me, so I can watch the extraction of this show description from the broadcast stream, to see where this character came from. Unfortunately it looks like it was a from a few days ago?

Sub, many thanks for the quick reply.

Yes, I get my EPG data from the DVB OTA stream. Unfortunately I didn't get to log this problem in the forum while the show was still in the future. (Between the fact I was exploring the alternative work-arounds to avoid the database manipulation, and I use FireFox and it wasn't showing me all the registration guidance so reluctantly reverted to Edge and found that worked for registration in the end, I missed that particular boat.) However, if the same symptoms occur again I'll pass on what I can in a more timely manner from the log of the EPG refresh. Would there be anything still in the logs that may help you, bearing in mind the last refresh for this item would have been 5 days ago?

I note the Guide screenshot shows the "block" character in the text where I had to edit the recording entry in the database and that agrees with your own observations regarding its apparent positioning.

[sub]

Would there be anything still in the logs that may help you, bearing in mind the last refresh for this item would have been 5 days ago?

No, the logs wont help with this.

If you see it happen again with a future recording, download tscapture from http://tscapture.com (a utility written by me), and capture 1 minute 'full transport stream' for this station, and put the file somewhere like dropbox or onedrive and let me know the download link. With this I can check the listing in the broadcast, and run it through the debugger here.

[mvallevand]

I suspect it is the same problem for the CR as posted here https://sourceforge.net/p/epgcollector/d...c982/#6028

Martin

[sub]

latenighter, is this guide data from freeview or freesat?

[sub]

If you can supply your npvr.db3, I'll at least try to find what character code it is.

[mvallevand]

From the posted log

Code:

2018-12-02 14:04:52.321    [ERROR][21]    Unexpected error parsing EPGEvent xml: System.Xml.XmlException: '', hexadecimal value 0x13, is an invalid character. Line 5, position 105.
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e)
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(String res, String[] args)
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseText(Int32& startPos, Int32& endPos, Int32& outOrChars)
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseText()
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseElementContent()
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Read()
   at System.Xml.XmlLoader.LoadNode(Boolean skipOverWhitespace)
   at System.Xml.XmlLoader.LoadDocSequence(XmlDocument parentDoc)
   at System.Xml.XmlLoader.Load(XmlDocument doc, XmlReader reader, Boolean preserveWhitespace)
   at System.Xml.XmlDocument.Load(XmlReader reader)
   at System.Xml.XmlDocument.LoadXml(String xml)
   at NUtility.EPGEvent.Parse(String xml)
2018-12-02 14:04:52.321    [ERROR][21]    xml:

Martin

[sub]

Ah - good point, didn't notice that earlier. (latenighter, no need for that npvr.db3 file)