There must be a way to fix this, surely! ::) Someone suggested a fix of one I had last week. Delete the timer completely from IceTV, wait until it disappears from the Wiz, then re-install the timer. That fixed that one, and may fix these as well (two different programs, this time) but there must be a fix that sticks? And I shouldn't have to be forever checking things to see if they are OKv >:(
It's not clear why some users get this frequently and others not at all.
Do the programs with missing titles appear in your epg or is there a gap at that time? If the epg is populated at the time, then you should be able to restart the BW (GUI Restart from power menu) and the blank titles should get automatically filled in. That should work (I did it today for a blank title I had next Thursday), but I know it doesn't work for some people, which is hard to understand.
And it doesn't explain why it happens in the first place. Do you know if those shows have had blank titles all the time?
Hi csutak40 I have no idea of why this is happening but looking at the blanks it would appear that there is nothing on SBS at the times these timers are set for, it also appears that the second timer starts in the middle of the first timer. What were you trying to record on SBS with these?
Quote from: John on January 16, 2016, 10:00:34 AM
Hi csutak40 I have no idea of why this is happening but looking at the blanks it would appear that there is nothing on SBS at the times these timers are set for, it also appears that the second timer starts in the middle of the first timer. What were you trying to record on SBS with these?
You need to take into account padding. The default set by the icetv plugin is 2 mins before and 20 mins after.
Checking the guide out, that is two eps of "Hard", and the times match given the 2/20min padding.
2:05-2:40-3:15
Quote from: tonymy01 on January 16, 2016, 12:02:23 PM
Checking the guide out, that is two eps of "Hard", and the times match given the 2/20min padding.
2:05-2:40-3:15
^That ;D
Hi csutak40 there are three showings of shameless on the 23rd on SBS with no episode details as yet (blank) can you set them to record to see if you end up with blank timers?
Quote from: John on January 17, 2016, 07:29:22 AM
Hi csutak40 there are three showings of shameless on the 23rd on SBS with no episode details as yet (blank) can you set them to record to see if you end up with blank timers?
Well, I am too late, seems they now do have details. However, I am not sure what that would have proven, as all the shows showing blank for me (since acquired some more) in Beyonwiz, are
not blank in IceTV
Quote from: csutak40 on January 17, 2016, 06:40:45 PM
...
Well, I am too late, seems they now do have details. ...
If an IceTV timer is missing its title, I only know of two ways it can get a title: either the IceTV server sends an update for the timer (e.g. it changed its start or end times) and the update has a title in it, or the Beyonwiz T series GUI is restarted (explicitly or because of a system restart) and a show that was previously outside the scope of the EPG is now in the EPG, and the title can be fetched from the EPG. For short shows, that second process can also assign the wrong title to the timer.
Quote from: prl on January 18, 2016, 12:54:15 PM
Quote from: csutak40 on January 17, 2016, 06:40:45 PM
...
Well, I am too late, seems they now do have details. ...
If an IceTV timer is missing its title, I only know of two ways it can get a title: either the IceTV server sends an update for the timer (e.g. it changed its start or end times) and the update has a title in it, or the Beyonwiz T series GUI is restarted (explicitly or because of a system restart) and a show that was previously outside the scope of the EPG is now in the EPG, and the title can be fetched from the EPG. For short shows, that second process can also assign the wrong title to the timer.
prl, can you envisage a way that the T doesn't set the title when it has restarted. I'm not sure about csutak40's specific case here but most of the other cases where a blank title has recorded, they have tried the restart and it has been unsuccessful. Obviously if the epg had a blank at that stage it would fail, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Obviously the initial problem is that the timer has a blank title in the first place, but why would the restart not fix that for some users? The only thing I can think is that the timer is being created on a different channel and that is blank in the epg. Otherwise I can't see why a blank timer title results in blank recordings for some but not others.
In csutak40's case above, I also have Hard set for record on Tuesday morning and I don't have a blank title. Both csutak40 and I are in Melbourne so it isn't a region issue.
The reason I ask is that maybe whatever is stopping the T from updating the title is the same as whatever is stopping ice TV creating or updating the title.
Quote from: simoncasey on January 18, 2016, 07:08:02 PM
Quote from: prl on January 18, 2016, 12:54:15 PM
Quote from: csutak40 on January 17, 2016, 06:40:45 PM
...
Well, I am too late, seems they now do have details. ...
If an IceTV timer is missing its title, I only know of two ways it can get a title: either the IceTV server sends an update for the timer (e.g. it changed its start or end times) and the update has a title in it, or the Beyonwiz T series GUI is restarted (explicitly or because of a system restart) and a show that was previously outside the scope of the EPG is now in the EPG, and the title can be fetched from the EPG. For short shows, that second process can also assign the wrong title to the timer.
prl, can you envisage a way that the T doesn't set the title when it has restarted. I'm not sure about csutak40's specific case here but most of the other cases where a blank title has recorded, they have tried the restart and it has been unsuccessful. Obviously if the epg had a blank at that stage it would fail, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Obviously the initial problem is that the timer has a blank title in the first place, but why would the restart not fix that for some users? The only thing I can think is that the timer is being created on a different channel and that is blank in the epg. Otherwise I can't see why a blank timer title results in blank recordings for some but not others.
In csutak40's case above, I also have Hard set for record on Tuesday morning and I don't have a blank title. Both csutak40 and I are in Melbourne so it isn't a region issue.
The reason I ask is that maybe whatever is stopping the T from updating the title is the same as whatever is stopping ice TV creating or updating the title.
This is why I am confused. I am sure that (in most cases) the IceTV listing was
not blank in the first place, so I don't understand why this is happening. The only "fix" that seems to work (which is a pain, if you have to keep doing it) is to completely remove the timer from IceTV, wait until it gets updated, so that the blank timer gets removed, then set the timer again.
The problem obviously stems from IceTV somehow, so I do wish someone would investigate it
OK. Just in case this means anything to anyone :-) I just removed the timer from IceTV (the series) It asked if I am sure that I want to remove the timer and all shows connected to it. I clicked yes. When the page refreshed the double red dot had disappeared, but got replaced with a single dot, so I had to remove the current recording separately. This happened with both the shows I've deleted. I am sure that is not the way it should happen. Could this (what ever
this is) have anything to do with my problem?
I waited to send this, until the Wiz has repopulated the timers, and both the ones I deleted are now fixed (leaving one more that i hadn't deleted yet), but I really am over having to keep watching the timers to make sure that there are no blank ones and/or all shows record etc.
Quote from: simoncasey on January 18, 2016, 07:08:02 PM
...
prl, can you envisage a way that the T doesn't set the title when it has restarted. ...
Yes.
Quote from: prl on January 19, 2016, 08:39:33 AM
Quote from: simoncasey on January 18, 2016, 07:08:02 PM
...
prl, can you envisage a way that the T doesn't set the title when it has restarted. ...
Yes.
OK, that was unkind. ;)
The key is here:
Quote from: prl on January 18, 2016, 12:54:15 PM
... the Beyonwiz T series GUI is restarted (explicitly or because of a system restart) and a show that was previously outside the scope of the EPG is now in the EPG, and the title can be fetched from the EPG. ... [emphasis added]
When the UI starts up it reads the EPG cache first, then the saved timers file and then asks for updates for the EPG, then timers, from the IceTV server. When the saved timers are read, all the timers are created anew, and when that happens, the EPG is checked to see whether missing timer names, descriptions or event id values in saved timers being read timers can be filled in from the EPG. That will happen for any new information that's in the EPG cache, but the EPG cache doesn't yet have the most up-to-date information.
If the IceTV EPG update contained information that could have been use to fill in missing timer data, it would not have been available when the timers were created. If the UI is restarted, then that data is now available to be used to fill in missing timer names (and descriptions and event ids).
This two-step updating can explain (at least some instances of) two things that have been reported about this process:
- Observations that a reboot fixed what a GUI restart didn't fix. The key here may simply be that the reboot was also simply a second GUI restart that was done when the first one didn't do what was wanted. I think that a second GUI restart would have done the same as the reboot. It's only the GUI that performs the actions in this process. The I think the observed effect of "I did a GUI restart and that didn't work, so I rebooted and that did" is leading some people to attribute the result to it being a reboot when the actual effect was due to the second GUI restart.
- Observations that after a (single) GUI restart (or reboot), the EPG contains an entry for the nameless timer, but the timer remains nameless.
I'm not certain that this covers all of what people have observed, but it's what my reading of the code tells me. As far as I can tell, the initial problem of missing timer names is due to unnamed timers being sent from the IceTV server.
A similar two-step process is involved in IceTV timers getting their descriptions added. The descriptions always come from an EPG lookup.
Quote from: csutak40 on January 19, 2016, 01:49:20 AM
...
This is why I am confused. I am sure that (in most cases) the IceTV listing was not blank in the first place, so I don't understand why this is happening.
I don't know if it does happen but it is certainly possible that if during the time the timer is outside the time range of the EPG (or is in a "hole" in the EPG), a timer with a name is sent, and then in a later update, the timer is sent without a name. I don't know whether this is what's happening, but it would cause what you've described.
Quote from: csutak40 on January 19, 2016, 01:49:20 AMThe only "fix" that seems to work (which is a pain, if you have to keep doing it) is to completely remove the timer from IceTV, wait until it gets updated, so that the blank timer gets removed, then set the timer again.
...
Try two GUI restarts in a row (long-POWER, Restart GUI). Between them, wait for IceTV to complete its update (look in MENU>Plugins>IceTV>Show log, and make sure you see "Start update, EPG download OK, Timers updated OK, END update").
This last bit is the tl;dr version of my previous post :)
Hi Guys,
Sorry it has taken so long to update on this, but this would almost certainly be a symptom of the gaps in the guide issues that is happening on T series Beyonwiz's. I am looking at this with the highest priority, it just has been quite hard to determine the exact root cause because of the amount of interdependent systems in play. It is definitely an issue on the IceTV server end and I am implementing another potential fix this afternoon but it will take a couple of days to confirm whether it has fixed the issue.
Thanks for the update, Daniel. I'd suspected that the two problems might have been related. I hope the fix does the job :)
Quote from: prl on January 19, 2016, 09:30:13 AM
Try two GUI restarts in a row (long-POWER, Restart GUI). Between them, wait for IceTV to complete its update (look in MENU>Plugins>IceTV>Show log, and make sure you see "Start update, EPG download OK, Timers updated OK, END update").
This last bit is the tl;dr version of my previous post :)
I did something silly last night. I tried the GUI restarts,
without first checking to see if the blank timer was still there. The timer is no longer blank (only had one left, I "fixed" the others by the deleting of the timer from IceTV method) so, now I don't know if Daniel has fixed it, or my GUI restart did. :-\
OK. I thought this problem was fixed, I stopped checking them daily. Then tonight (too late) I discovered that Heroes was recording without a name. So, I went through the rest of the week and found two more.
I then checked the EPG to see if they were blank there. One of them was, but the other two (including Heroes, which may have been blank when it started to record, no way to find out)
So, it, again makes no sense. No doubt, I can "fix" it by the fiddle suggested by Peter, but I would really prefer for the cause to be found out, so that I don't have to be checking all the time :(
OK, I restarted the GUI twice, which fixed the problem (the first one fixed one of them, but not both) but I would love to hear from Daniel how the fix is going?
Hi Judy,
I pushed a new fix to the server late yesterday to fix an edge case when updating the cache on the server, we are still monitoring the issue though to ensure there are no more edge cases that haven't been caught as yet.
Now that your local cache is up to date as well (and of course barring anymore issues) it should be all good from now on.
Quote from: Daniel Hall at IceTV on February 16, 2016, 11:30:53 AM
Hi Judy,
I pushed a new fix to the server late yesterday to fix an edge case when updating the cache on the server, we are still monitoring the issue though to ensure there are no more edge cases that haven't been caught as yet.
Now that your local cache is up to date as well (and of course barring anymore issues) it should be all good from now on.
Thanks, Daniel. Fingers and toes crossed :P