[mythtv-users] Mythfilldatabase - schedule issue

[Michael T. Dean]

On 02/18/2009 11:09 PM, Jason Gauthier wrote:
> Yes, I am.  What more information is there?  I've opened a ticket with
> SD, and they proved to me that their data was correct.
> However, MythfillDB doesn't populate that much data in one go.
>
> So, I am asking here, if I can change the granularity.  I often times
> look 3-5 days ahead for events and shows.
> But often times, they are not correct in Myth.  But they are correct
> with SD (and directv, my provider)

Your channels get some data on +13.  Then, when that day becomes +12,
mfdb sees that it has some data, so it checks it against a "built in
algorithm" to determine if it's sufficient data.  Due to your system
configuration (i.e. the channels you have, the content of those
channels, ...), Myth determines there's sufficient data, so it doesn't
re-request the data.

The proper solution is to request fewer days so you don't get the
partial days, but get data once TMS has all the data for that day.  This
is /extremely/ easy to do and does not increase the bandwidth/resource
usage for SD or TMS or you (it actually saves both).  Just go into
mythfrontend settings in the main General settings and find the setting
"mythfilldatabase Arguments" and change it (it's probably currently
empty) to "--max-days <number>" where "<number>" should be something
like 12.  When you make the change, it won't affect any of the data
currently in there, so you'll need to clear it see the effect (or wait 2
weeks to see the effect).  You can clear listings data either using my
favorite method (the video sources portion of
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/264034#264034 ) or by
doing a backup ( http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore
) and then issuing the command: TRUNCATE TABLE program; (where the SQL
will work, though it will leave a bit of garbage in the DB for a while).

The hack that most use--because they don't realize how much better the
proper solution is or because they think they need that half-day of data
that's 2 weeks from now, even though they never look at it--is to run
mythfilldatabase and force it to re-download the data for days besides
tomorrow and +13--i.e. always download somewhere between 3 and 6 days of
data each day.  (That's what they term a "smart" fill.)

Mike