[mythtv-users] mythfilldatabase confusion

[Paul Gardiner]

On 09/06/2024 15:13, Hika van den Hoven wrote:
> Hoi Paul,
> 
> Sunday, June 9, 2024, 1:20:53 PM, you wrote:
> 
>> For many years, I've been running mythfilldatabase from a cronjob,
>> rather than configuring mythbackend to run it. Also I've been using a
>> bespoke script to set xmltvid and icon fields in the channel table. It
>> works okay, but it's a pain. It used to be necessary, I think, because I
>> was piping the data from one lineup into two video sources and messing
>> with the call sign to have channels duplicated across the two video
>> sources appear as one.
> 
>> My system is simpler now: I have just one video source. I'm
>> experimenting to see if mythtfilldatabase can set icon and xmltvid.
> 
>> First question - is this a lost cause? Should I stick with my bespoke
>> script? (This Freeview in the UK. I have reliable logical channel
>> numbers in both scan data and the listing, which made me think it would
>> work).
> 
>> What I've done so far towards this change is:
> 
>> * Performed a new channel scan
>> * Manually (mysql) set icon and xmltvid to "" for all channels.
>> * From the new web app, set up the tv_grab_zz_json to be called
>> automatically (same grabber I was using before from a cron job)
>> * Newly configured the grabber according to the web app's instructions
> 
> 
>> Now, I assume, sometime during the next 24 hours, mythbackend will run
>> mythfilldatabase and I will find out if my experiment has worked, but
>> I'd like to find out now.
> 
>> So second question: is there a way to trigger mythbackend to run it now?
>> I can run mythfilldatabase directly from the command line, but I don't
>> know what arguments mythbackend might supply. Also I can't find a way to
>> set at what time a day the automatic run is performed.
> 
>> Cheers,
>>          Paul.
> 
> xmltvid's are the proprietary ids for the channels in the import data.
> If you do not before the first run add them to your mythtv lineup,
> they can not match and new channels without link to your physical
> mythtv lineup can get created.
> So you have to set them once before the first run. Icons should be
> added automatically.
> It could be that schedules direct knows about the physical lineup and
> that your idea works, but I do not know.

Yep. It didn't work. In the end, I decided that an altered version of 
the grabber/mythfilldatabase pipeline that I'd been running as a cron 
job would be the thing to try - alterations being explicitly set the 
config file for the grabber and remove --only-update-guide. That added a 
load of channels but with strange call signs. It certainly didn't merge 
the data in the way I hoped it might. So I'm back with my old solution 
which is a set of ruby scripts that performs heuristic matching, creates 
a .htm file so that I can view the results, and some sql to set icon and 
xmtvid in the database. It's the one messy area of my set up.

Paul