[mythtv-users] how to set xmltvid to unknown and keep it there?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 07/06/2011 09:08 PM, Eric Sharkey wrote:
> I've been having this problem since I've switched to Verizon back in
> November.  When I do the channel scan with my HDHR, there are a lot of
> channels that come up with the wrong call sign and xmltvid.  I can
> manually assign values for these channels when I know what the channel
> is and that seems to work fine, but when I haven't been able to figure
> out what the channel is, and set it to NULL or 0, then at some point
> later mythtv seems to set it back to the erroneously scanned value.
> For example, everything on freqid 127 is coming up as History
> International, and everything on 128 is coming up as History, but all
> of these channels are local community access channels.  They don't all
> broadcast 24/7, so figuring out which is which is a little tricky.
> The problem is that whenever I have something scheduled to record on
> History, it often picks one of these channels to record on.  Is there
> something I can set this to to permanently mark these channels as
> channels for which no listings are available, or should I just set
> visible = 0 and not worry about it?
>

xmltvid should be empty--not NULL--if unset.  Therefore, there's no need 
to do direct DB editing.  Note that using the mythtv-setup GUI we 
provide to edit your channels will prevent you from putting in NULL here 
(or, for other data where NULL is the proper value, it will put in 
NULL)...  This is why you should use the GUI to access MythTV data--it 
knows the data constraints that users shouldn't need to know (and that 
no one person--the devs included--knows completely).

In fact, in this particular case, the database should prevent your 
putting in NULL, so if it's not, your schema is likely corrupt and 
MythTV won't necessarily work properly until it's fixed.  Please make 
sure that xmltvid is listed as "No" for "Null" in:

mysql -umythtv -p mythconverg -e 'DESC channel;'

That said, until I know more about your setup, I don't know what you 
should do.

a) How many Schedules Direct lineups do you have?
b) How many MythTV Video Sources do you have?
c) What all cards are you using for capture (and which input/connection 
on them)?
d) Are you saying that the xmltvid gets "updated" when you run 
mythfilldatabase?
e) Are you saying this happens after each time you try to unset the 
xmltvid  or only after new channel scans?  If it's happening after each 
time you try to unset the xmltvid, you should try again with the proper 
"not set" value--use the mythtv-setup Channel Editor to remove the 
xmltvid from the channel.
f) Are you running mythfilldatabase with any arguments (such as 
--do-channel-updates or --do-not-filter-new-channels or ...)?
g) Do you actually receive History/History International on any inputs 
in MythTV?

It sounds like the problem is that Schedules Direct is sending info 
about the channel such that channel number for History/History 
International is the same as the channel number currently used for your 
community channels, so mythfilldatabase updates it for you, thinking 
it's the same channel and that you didn't configure it.  With more info, 
I can likely provide the best option for making it work properly.

Mike