[mythtv-users] EIT fails in some channels

[A. F. Cano]

On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 11:44:56AM -0000, Roger Siddons wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 21:14:36 -0000, A. F. Cano
> <afc at shibaya.lonestar.org> wrote:
> 
> >I did set the verbosity level and watched the logs for a few days.
> >
> >For a long time I saw only messages pertaining to the channels that
> >are in fact being populated with EIT data. For those that remained
> >empty, there was nothing in the logs, no error messages, not even
> >messages of the sort of "starting to deal with channel x.x", which
> >leads me to believe that the part of the system that deals with eit
> >is not even looking for/at those channels.
> >
> 
> 1. Are you sure those channels have their individual "useonairguide"
> boxes checked (mythtv-setup/Channel Editor/<edit channel> or MythWeb
> channel editor) ? I believe it's on by default but ....

Yes, checked many of the channels, and all the ones that rarely get
EIT data.  All had the boxes checked.

> 2. Are you sure EPG data is broadcast ? Apparently some US channels
> don't broadcast their schedules, only the Now/Next Showing.

Of course, that's always possible.  I think there's 1 channel where
I've never seen EIT data.  All others have it, some more frequenly
than others.

> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/EIT also mentions 'hidden guides'.

Mmm...  I was already running with --setverbose eit.  Is
--setverbose important.general.eit (as recommented) a sub-set
of eit or does it provide something different?  In any case,
I'm now running the backend this way.  We'll see what shows up.

> Circumventing the 'active scan' issue, if you watch a problem
> channel (Live TV) for 5 mins a passive scan should populate the

Unfortunately I can't watch live tv due to the too slow cpu.  In any
case, probably because of this I haven't figured out how to change
channels within the "live tv" section.  I don't use a remote, just the
keyboard.

> guide unless there's no data or you've told it not too. If you name
> your region/channels other local users may be able to confirm EPG
> availability or absence.

I'm receiving the channels from the New York City area.  Some from
New Jersey (Secaucus is one I remember).

> >It appears that 11520 is related to what I am experiencing. I
> >...
> 
> I'm not even sure if this affects me yet because my system restarts
> frequently. The ticket suggests that once it fails it never
> restarts. I'm assuming you have restarted the backend and it does

That seems to be the case.  I see few channels with EIT data, then more,
and sometimes fewer and fewer, until I restart.

> run for long enough to scan everything before failing. Presumably
> the scanner uses a particular channel order. If it always dying on
> one particular channel then it may never reach the others...

I haven't noticed any particular channel being the culprit, but channel
7.1 (ABC) rarely has EIT data.  And a few minutes after I wrote that,
I check and there it is:

I  Adding Source #1 ATSC chan 7-1
I  Adding Source #2 ATSC chan 7-2
I  Adding Source #3 ATSC chan 7-3
I  EITScanner (1): Started passive scan.
I  EITHelper: Added 20 events -- complete(25)
I  EITHelper: Added 20 events -- complete(22)
I  EITHelper: Added 20 events -- complete(37)
I  EITHelper: Added 20 events -- complete(62)
I  EITHelper: Added 20 events -- complete(75)
I  EITHelper: Added 20 events -- complete(66)
I  EITHelper: Added 20 events -- complete(56)
I  EITHelper: Added 20 events -- complete(45)
I  EITHelper: Added 20 events -- complete(33)
I  EITHelper: Added 20 events -- complete(19)
I  EITHelper: Added 20 events -- complete(7)
I  EITHelper: Added 20 events -- complete(13)
I  EITHelper: Added 20 events -- complete(9)
I  EITHelper: Added 9 events -- complete(0)
I  EITHelper: Added 1 events -- complete(0)
I  EITHelper: Added 1 events -- complete(0)
I  EITScanner (1): Added 271 EIT Events

Maybe it's due to the upgrade I just did (see below).


> >E ProcessPAT: Program not found in PAT. Rescan your transports.
> >E Desired program #0 not found in PAT.
> >Cannot create single program PAT.
> >I EITScanner (1): Started passive scan.
> >I Running housekeeping thread
> >I Running housekeeping thread
> >N AutoExpire: CalcParams(): Max required Free Space: 1.0 GB w/freq: 15min
> 
> This is not an unusual message and IMHO not very
> helpful/informative. Essentially the scanner can't find the EIT data
> it was expecting and so assumes the channels have been
> re-configured. However I believe it can also indicate;
> 
> 1. There is no EIT data for this channel
> 2. A poor/intermittent signal resulted in momentary corrupt data.

That is possible.  I get garbled shows sometimes.  Not sure on what
channels since some shows get broadcast on VHF (like 13.1) and also on
UHF (25.x and 4x.x - 5x.x).  I only have an amplified rabbit ears
antenna so far.  I'm building this one:

http://crafting.squidoo.com/make-this-powerful-hdtv-antenna-out-of-cardboard

but it's dropped down in priority since I can get much of what I'm
interested in that's available over the air.  The overall quality of
programming is pretty dismal.  A lot of 20 and 30 year old re-runs, old
movies, and when they have the occasional good movie (like Quest for
fire) it's cut and censored beyond recognition.  Every third scene or so
in that movie had fuzzied out body parts.  The trend is clear, OTA will
have worse and worse programming, with few exceptions and all the good
programming is going to go to progressively more and more expensive
tiers, as the low quality programming progressively migrates there
too.  At least I'm not paying for the crappy programming.  But I digress,
I'll get off the soap box now.

> It'll grab it the next time...
> 3. The tuner is being too slow in changing channels. I get a lot of
> these messages if I put the scanner on one particular (older) tuner
> because it takes 2-3 secs to retune. The scanner does seem a touch
> impatient...

This is also possible.

> >It says: "Rescan your transports." The only scan I was aware of is the
> >...
> 
> The terminology varies for historical reasons. But yes, it's
> suggesting you rescan your channels.
> 
> Transports = Multiplexes = the physical signal received by your
> tuner on a specific frequency
> Channels = a stream of related data within a transport = a branded
> TV station/channel that you watch
> 
> In theory it should only take 10 mins to delete your
> channels/transports & rescan them. Nothing else should require
> re-configuration.
> *However YMMV*.  If you have poor or conflicting signals, like to

Thanks for the details.  I'm learing... I just did an aptitude update
and a bunch of mythtv packages got upgraded, so hopefully some of
the problems will disappear.

> edit channel numbers, locate icons, hide/delete all the dross, then
> it may well be an ordeal (although one lessened by practice).
> 
> IMHO re-scanning is always a good idea, if only to eliminate any
> doubt. It's possible that garbage left in your database is affecting

In the spirit of changing one thing at a time, I'll install the antenna
I'm building, possibly in parallel with the rabbit ears and see what
difference that makes.  Right now, I'm essentially without a UHF
antenna.  The amplifier is a Winegard AP-8275 "82 channel antenna
pre-amplifier".

The funny thing is that many of the channels in the 6x.x get consistent
EIT data.

> some channels. After all, you haven't stated whether you can watch
> those problem channels yet!

Like I said, the slow cpu prevents live tv watching, and I haven't
figured out how to change channels in that mode with just the keyboard.
When I go to live tv, I get about 2 frames per second and spurts.  I'm
looking into componets for a new computer as discussed in other threads
that are being very useful.

> I would also suggest you start from scratch & re-create your inputs
> following Mike Dean's advice in
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/264034#264034

Thanks.  Will do at some point.  Saved for future reference.

> >Another thing that I've noticed is that the entries that describe the
> >content of the programs are often garbled. Not the titles, the
> >descriptions of what an episode/movie is about. Very often they
> >obviously belong to another show. This is probably the cause of
> >duplicate recordings.
> 
> I'm assuming mythfilldatabase isn't running and you do not use
> SchedulesDirect/XMLTV.

Correct.  That was one of the first things I made sure of.

> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/559616?page=last
> 
> http://code.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/10067

This could be the problem.  Hopefully if/when it gets fixed, old corrupt
data will be replaced by good new data.

Thanks for taking the time to reply and explain.

Augustine