[mythtv-users] Problems setting up a grabber (was Re: Warning it looks like uk_rt grabber is going to stop working over XMAS again?)

Mon Dec 29 14:56:50 UTC 2008

On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 11:41 AM, Paul Gardiner <lists at glidos.net> wrote:

> And here, although - on the advice of a friend - I use:
> tv_grab_uk_rt --quiet --config-file /root/.mythtv/Freeview.xmltv |
> mythfilldatabase --update --file 1 -
>

Where exactly do you enter this command?

Triggered by your posting and by the fact that I could see no
data for itv1 beyond 2 Jan 2009 while all the other channels had some, I
tried once
more to activate the feature of grabbing listings from the internet as
opposed to getting them from the EIT tv broadcast itself, but I've had
no end of trouble.

First I go into the backend setup > video sources.
Delete all video sources.
New video source.

Video source name: RadioTimes
Listings grabber: UK/Republic of Ireland
tv_grab_uk_rt: config will run in the terminal window
X Perform EIT scan
Channel frequency table: default
Finish

Now in the terminal I answer all the setup questions:
Encoding: default
Directory: default
Title processing: default
Postcode: my postcode
Which tv platform: freeview
Select the channels you want to receive data for: all

and here it says two things:

You MUST run mythfilldatabase --manual the first time instead of
mythfilldatabase.

Your grabber does not provide channel numbers, so you have to set them
manually.

Then I switch back to the gui and it repeats those two things in a
dialog box.

Now, when it says "your grabber does not provide channel numbers", I
assume it means tv_grab_uk_rt, because I know that from EIT I did get
channel numbers! And hey, I even checked the checkbox to use EIT as
well, so why does it not make use of that? Mysteries. Anyway I click
OK.

Now, when am I supposed to run mythfilldatabase --manual ? right now?
I know it will offer to run mythfilldatabase (without other options)
when I close the backend setup. Should I instead do it AFTER that? I
suppose it won't matter if I refuse that automatic run.

Anyway, let's say I run it now. If I run mythfilldatabase --manual as
directed,

 (...this took 29 minutes just for grabbing, as the log's timestamps
show...)

then I get asked half a dozen questions for EACH of the 80+ channels,
and if I just press enter to let it take the defaults (assuming eg
that I'll fix the channel numbers later at the sql prompt) then it
just SKIPS those channels!

###
### New channel found
###
### name     = BBC Four
### callsign =
### channum  =
### finetune =
### tvformat = Default
### icon     = /home/tv/.mythtv/channels/bbc4.jpg
###
Choose a channel ID (positive integer)  [0]
###
### Channel skipped
###
###
### New channel found
###
### name     = BBC News Channel
### callsign =
### channum  =
### finetune =
### tvformat = Default
### icon     = /home/tv/.mythtv/channels/bbc_news.jpg
###
Choose a channel ID (positive integer)  [0]  1
Choose a channel name (any string, long version)  [BBC News Channel]
Choose a channel callsign (any string, short version)
Choose a channel number (just like xawtv)
Choose a channel fine tune offset (just like xawtv)
Choose a TV format (PAL/SECAM/NTSC/ATSC/Default)  [Default]
Choose a channel icon image (any path name)  [
http://www.lyngsat-logo.com/logo/tv/bb/bbc_news.jpg]
2008-12-29 14:05:08.741 New DB connection, total: 5
2008-12-29 14:05:08.780 Connected to database 'mythconverg' at host:
127.0.0.1
###
### Channel inserted
#
   ...and so on...

So that's pretty much unusable, especially if I have to redo it
several times by trial and error until the configuration works. Let's
break out of that.

So, other approach. I take your command up there and break it up into
parts; so from the command line I run the first part and save the
output to a file:

tv_grab_uk_rt --quiet --config-file /home/tv/.mythtv/RadioTimes.xmltv >
dump.txt

This also takes ages to run (predictably) but eventually I get a 6.7
MB file in xml that looks about right. So at least the grabbing works.

Then I run the second part of your command:

-mythfilldatabase --update --file 1 dump.txt

and what do I get? A big bunch of

Unknown xmltv channel identifier: anglia.itv1.itv.co.uk - Skipping channel.
Unknown xmltv channel identifier: bbcfour.bbc.co.uk - Skipping channel.
Unknown xmltv channel identifier: bbcthree.bbc.co.uk - Skipping channel.
 ...
Unknown xmltv channel identifier: us.channel5.co.uk - Skipping channel.

So that also doesn't work properly.

I go into the database to check things out and I figure that the
closest to that "xmltv channel identifier" is probably the
channel.default_authority field:

mysql> select channum, name, default_authority from channel;
+---------+------------------+----------------------+
| channum | name             | default_authority    |
+---------+------------------+----------------------+
| 1       | BBC ONE          | fp.bbc.co.uk         |
| 2       | BBC TWO          | fp.bbc.co.uk         |
| 3       | ITV1             | www.itv.com          |
| 4       | Channel 4        | www.channel4.com     |
| 5       | Five             | www.five.tv          |
| 6       | ITV2             | www.itv.com          |
| 7       | BBC THREE        | fp.bbc.co.uk         |

...and if my guess is right then that explains why I have a problem
with ITV, for example, which is listed as www.itv.com in the database
and anglia.itv1.itv.co.uk in the grabbed xml. (Never mind that there must be
another problem with ITV1 too, because it had no data FROM THE EIT, before I
even tried using the grabber; hey, it was the reason for wanting to use it
in the first place.)

Anyway, what do I do at this stage? For sure I'm not going to enter
all that stuff by hand, and I don't think that's what most of the
people for whom it works are doing. How else can I resync stuff? Get a
database dump of the channel table from someone who sees the same
channels and has a working radio-times-grabbing setup?

Why does it claim that the radio times grabber does not provide
channel numbers? How else does it work for other people? Any way to
use EIT to give it the channel numbers, and the grabber for the
schedule info, for example? (I'm assuming that at least the channel
names match, though I've seen inconsistencies there too when checking
what was in those tables.)

And anyway, assuming that everything else worked, which it clearly
doesn't for me at the moment, where would you enter that command you
had above? Just when you're asked to do a manual rescan, or is it a
setting you must enter somewhere in the backend setup?

If anyone has got a step by step tutorial on getting this grabber to
work, I'd appreciate it.

Meanwhile, I go back to just EIT, do a rescan and... sigh... now the
channel numers are all messed up, with BBC ONE having gone from 1 to
4173 (sic!), BBC TWO to 4237 and so on, without rhyme or reason.

So what's the result, after closing the backend setup and letting it
run mythfilldatabase? That not only all the channel numbers are f'd
up, but also there's now NO data whatsoever in the program
guide. Groan. Guess I'll have to redo the setup of the EIT from
scratch yet once more, hoping to hit the right phase of the moon while
I'm doing it...
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