PIMP series recording guinea pigs wanted!

Started by Marc, December 14, 2006, 02:06:34 PM

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Russell at IceTV

Yep, definitely something not right there...

We're looking into it.  Thanks for reporting the problem.

Russell

Daters

To add something to this...

I had the same problem a few days ago, thought the server needed to update, it updated several times but made no difference. I deleted my MCE device from the PIMP page (and disabled updates locally) then started from scratch setting it up again and it worked so I would suggest the problem is not at our end. The PIMP page seems to get mixed up a bit when setting up series options and deleting them while switching between the TV Guide, Favourites, Scheduled and Series prior to updating the server.

hope this helps and thanks for a great addition to ICETV.

Russell at IceTV

Thanks for the additional info.

I've duplicated it here also -- the problem (or at least one of them) is related to when you schedule a one-off recording (i.e. not a series recording) and then cancel it.  If it takes a while before the PIMP client checks in with the server to update the database, the Scheduled tab still shows the canceled show, but without Record and Cancel buttons.  It's sort of in an in-between state, it's Scheduled, but pending cancellation, and the buttons aren't shown correctly.  There may be an issue related to series recordings as well, I'm not positive yet.  Anyway, we'll get to the bottom of it asap.

Thanks,
Russell

Russell at IceTV

#18
Ok guys, we've updated the PIMP web pages to address some of the issues we've been seeing lately with series recordings.  Please take a look and see if you're still having problems.  One thing we're aware of as a "known bug" is that sometimes when you create a new series recording, it fails to schedule shows that are 6 days ahead -- so it'll schedule everything up through 5 days in the future, but not the shows on the 6th day.  We're working on that problem now.

If you see more problems, please let us know specifically what you're seeing (screenshots are great, but not required) and also please include your User ID, and the dates and times of the shows if appropriate.

We're still working on several things to try to make the series feature more powerful.

Thanks!
Russell

parse2

#19
OK, before testing this, I have shows set up on MCE series recording, should they show as PIMP series recordings, or do I stop all MCE settup recordings, and redo from PIMP??

Since you fixed the PIMP website, all my MCE series recordings now show up in PIMP under scheduled  :D, except for tonights shows, you may wish to investigate  (user jkmartin)

Also an old favourite show just popped into my favourites (Topgear) was not there yesterday, I had added it last year when it was last on... shouldn't "favourites" show all shows, even when they are not one.... or is it only favourites that are currently showing??

also PIMP is showing several recurring log entries for different channels
=======================
The matching channel was found, but there was no program in the MCE guide at that time.
- - - - - - SchedulerTimerTaskData
- - - - - - - Pimp Channel ID: 4
- - - - - - - Pimp Channel Name: Nine
- - - - - - - Pimp Network Name:
- - - - - - - Start: 6/01/2007 7:00:00 PM (7/01/2007 6:00:00 AM local)
- - - - - - - Duration: 00:20:00
- - - - - - - Recurrence: 0
- - - - - - - Last Error:
- - - - - - - MCE Channel Number: 9
- - - - - - - MCE Channel Name: Nine
- - - - - - - MCE Channel CallSign: Nine
- - - - - - - SE: <SEID SrvID="4" SourceId="0" PrID="0" Start="0001-01-01T00:00:00" Duration="P732682DT13H50M" ChID="9" />
=========================

Russell at IceTV

Quote from: parse2 on January 09, 2007, 09:24:27 AM
OK, before testing this, I have shows set up on MCE series recording, should they show as PIMP series recordings, or do I stop all MCE settup recordings, and redo from PIMP??

Well, the web PIMP system is primarily intended for PVRs that don't have their own series recording feature, but it can of course be used on PVRs like MCE that do have the feature, too.  The thing is tho, it doesn't actually communicate any of the series recording settings to/from MCE, so when the web PIMP system tells MCE to record something, it's essentially setting up a solo recording.  But all the stuff on the PIMP server takes care of making sure all the right shows get scheduled, so it should all work out either way.  If you like the convenience of the web PIMP system, you could delete all the series recordings in MCE and just use them in PIMP.  But I'd probably hold off on a move like that until we get all the bugs worked out, to make sure you don't miss something. :)

QuoteSince you fixed the PIMP website, all my MCE series recordings now show up in PIMP under scheduled  :D, except for tonights shows, you may wish to investigate  (user jkmartin)

Yeah, I looked into it, and found that you had two shows scheduled for tonight, but in reality, it looks like you had cancelled them and they were still hanging around waiting for the PIMP client to deal with them.  You'll find that those are now removed, and you can reschedule them properly again if you really do want to record them.  I think the rest of your settings look ok.

QuoteAlso an old favourite show just popped into my favourites (Topgear) was not there yesterday, I had added it last year when it was last on... shouldn't "favourites" show all shows, even when they are not one.... or is it only favourites that are currently showing??

Good question...  well, at the moment, the way it works is that favourites only appear when at least one showing is in the guide for the program.  And yes, this is a problem because you can't see or cancel a favourite if it's no longer in the guide.  It's similar to the problem a lot of PVRs have where you can't setup a series recording for a program until it appears in the guide.  What we probably need to do is expand on the feature a bit so favourites always show up, even if there's nothing currently in the guide for them.

Quotealso PIMP is showing several recurring log entries for different channels
=======================
The matching channel was found, but there was no program in the MCE guide at that time.
...

This error message can happen when a show is scheduled to be recorded (either by you, or by the PIMP series scheduler) but the show is so new in the guide that the PVR doesn't know about it yet.  For example, at the edge of the 6/7 day boundary, where we're constantly adding new shows to the guide.  If we happen to add one and it gets scheduled before MCE knows about it, then the PIMP client gets confused and doesn't record anything, because it just sees an empty timeslot in the guide there.  I believe this is different in the MCE PIMP client vs. the Mac client -- I think the Mac client creates a dummy entry in the guide to handle it.  We probably need to modify the MCE client to do something similar, or setup a manual recording, or something.

Anyway, we've adjusted some things in the PIMP series scheduler to hopefully make this a rare occurrence, but if it does happen it should appear on the Scheduled tab with a black icon and an exclamation point, and a message saying that something bad happened when it was scheduled for recording.

If you continue to see it, please let us know -- details like you provided are good, and if you happen to know when the log entry was created and when your PIMP client last did a guide fetch, that can be useful also.  But we'll continue working on it from our end also.

Thanks,
Russell

parse2

Hi, a new problem emerged with series recordings. a favorite show setup on PIMP series (Topgear on SBS), recorded first week, then after that, still showes as farourite & series, just not scheduled, and no record icon in subsequent weeks, even though it showes up a in the guide, and in the series tab of PIMP??

stranger still... when I force the individual show to record on MCE, initially it indicates a 1 hour show, however it only records 13 minutes (ofa 60 minute show), before stopping, as if the guide said it naturally finished ??? ???..

PS: have now deleted it from PIMP and gone back to MCE.

John
(user: jkmartin)

Daniel Hall at IceTV

This could have to do with timing more than anything else.

With PIMP series recordings it will only look 6 days ahead in the guide. So next weeks Top Gear for Monday night would only have been scheduled today during the PIMP series scheduling run (it is 6 days starting from and including the current day). It might be worth trying again and giving it the extra day to schedule the new episodes.
Regards,

Daniel.
CTO.

parse2

Another strange problem, like the 6 day issue. I deleted and resinstalled my device on PIMP, and reset up all programs only the recored via PIMP & not MCE. Eerything worked for first week.

PIMP recognises all my favourites, however nothing is scheduled past next monday???

John ???
user: jkmartin

Daniel Hall at IceTV

Quote from: parse2 on February 16, 2007, 08:14:02 AM
Another strange problem, like the 6 day issue. I deleted and resinstalled my device on PIMP, and reset up all programs only the recored via PIMP & not MCE. Eerything worked for first week.

PIMP recognises all my favourites, however nothing is scheduled past next monday???

John ???
user: jkmartin

Hi John,

Yes, we have had to change the amount of days the daemon looks ahead as issues where still arising whereby the guide data was not available to clients when the scheduled update for PIMP occured, the amount of days that the daemon will schedule in the future is now 5, this is a rolling 5 days and should allow plenty of time to shows to scheduled and confirmed as scheduled before the time they need to be recorded.
Regards,

Daniel.
CTO.

parse2

Still having trouble with PIMP still, some times a program was recorded once (to test a new tuner card), and now it keeps recurring everytime, with Black Esclamation mark icon and "Recording of this show failed on the device".. it is not in MCE or PIMP series, adn I cannot delete it???
see HongKong News on SBS; username: jkmartin


parse2

and following on from last post, PIMP choses any program on that channel to record in subsequent weeks ... very strange

BJReplay

Lost all my series recordings.

Worked for a week, but after the first week, they are showing up as series in PIMP, but none are scheduled on MCE.

It seems like every update request from PIMP is getting the following message in PIMP

PIMP Account Name same as Forum Name

Request ignored because it's being made too often.
-Message
- DeviceID: 0
- MessageTypeID: MT_SEND_SCHEDULER_STATE
- IsRequest: False
- IsError: True
- NewFormat: True
- ProtoVersion: 2
- AppVersion: 107
- AppName: ICELINK PIMP SERVER
- MessageWait: 11
- MessageCookie:
- StatusMessage: Request ignored because it's being made too often.
- - - - SendSchedulerStateReply
- - - - - _task_count: 0

Russell at IceTV

Hi BJ,

Thanks for reporting this.  Looks like the PIMP clients are still hitting the server too often under certain conditions.  We're looking into it today, hopefully we'll get it sorted out quickly.

Russell

Russell at IceTV

Update:  we're in the final testing stage for a new MCE PIMP client, which should take care of this problem.  Hope to release very soon...

Russell