[mythtv-users] WAF through the floor, with lost database!

[Paul Gardiner]

On 31/12/2013 03:33, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> On 12/30/2013 06:00 PM, Paul Gardiner wrote:
>> So the dreaded disaster has happened, so now how can I populate
>> mythtv's recordings from all the orphaned files I have. I realise
>> the best I can probably do is make names from channel, date and
>> time, but what tables would I need to update to do so? I'm guessing
>> there are some risks involved if you don't ensure consistency
>> between the various tables.
>
> Ideally you'd identify the shows/episodes and name the files
> appropriately and put them in Video Library so that it could look up the
> metadata for the episodes and populate all the metadata for you.  See
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/510542#510542 and
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/519758#519758 and
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/519996#519996 .
>
> FWIW, it's good to have a "safe" view of the recording files that you
> can use as a "just in case" in the event of a catastrophic database
> loss.  You can set up a cron job to run mythlink.pl to create a view of
> your recordings say, once per day--but, unlike the mythlink.pl job(s)
> that create links that you actually, harden the script to ensure you'll
> still have the links when you lose the database.  So, for example, wrap
> the mythlink.pl call in a script that ensures mythbackend is up and
> valid (has approximately the right number of recordings) or--my personal
> favorite--create separate directories for the views, each named with the
> current date, and rotate appropriately (keeping a few days or a couple
> weeks worth of view directories).
>
> If you had one of these, it would be a simple matter of using the link
> names to rename the files before dropping them into Video Library.
>
> Without, you may have to just start playing each file to identify the
> series, and keep the date/time information to keep relative order, and
> use ttvdb.com or tmdb.com or tv.com to try to identify the episodes.  In
> other words, you likely have a large job in front of you.  (That said, a
> new MythTV system will do its best to help out--recording any episodes
> of shows you want (including repeats) since there's no recording history
> for duplicate detection.)

Useful advice. I'll look into mythlink for the future. Also the idea of
using mythvideo so as to regenerate the metadata is interestingm but I
doubt if I can realistically regenerate the title and subtitle or
episode numbers to give something for mythvideo to go on. Given that,
whare I'd like to do is put them back in recorded, so is there any
harm to generating a load of new entries in recorded, and running a
load of mythcommflag --rebuild jobs to restore the seek tables?

My plan is to give each a title made of channel and time and use
date for the subtitle. That would roughly group series. Then Linda
can identify what they are and we can chuck out the rubbish and
rename the stuff she wants to keep.

Cheers,
	Paul.

P.S. Thanks to everybody for all the helpful replies.