Timer, sent, but still a donut icon

Started by prl, September 30, 2010, 11:08:44 PM

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prl

Have a donut, but the timer sent for Laid ABC1 1930 tomorrow Wed 23 Feb, and RPA WIN NSW, same date/time. ACT EPG, Beyonwiz DP-Lite 01.07.350 firmware.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

futzle

Oh, funny.

While doing some packet sniffing of the IceTV HTTP protocol, I think I found out why the doughnuts stick around.

When a recorder wants to change the state of a schedule, it posts a message to the IceTV server.  Presumably one of these messages confirms back to IceTV that a schedule has been set on the recorder, whereupon IceTV turns the red doughnut into a solid disc.

But IceTV's web server also has a rate limiter. Make too many requests in the space of an hour and the server responds with an error message. My guess is that the rate limiter is there to stop the server being overloaded, also to discourage users sharing their IceTV logins with friends.

It turns out that the rate limiter responds even to those status update postings from the recorder. The status update gets rejected, the recorder never retries the post, and the schedule remains doughnutty forever.

I bet if IceTV stopped the rate limiter on HTTP POST requests from the recorder, the prevalence of doughnuts would drop greatly.

prl

That doesn't really gel with how I think IceTV works. If it really is running foul of the rate limiter, why does it happen so infrequently?
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing

futzle

Quote from: prl on October 21, 2011, 03:40:21 PM
why does it happen so infrequently?

It does?  Lucky you!  Just now I looked at my EyeTV recordings for the next five days, and about 50% of them are open doughnuts.  Maybe other PVRs are better about retrying when they hit the rate limiter, and EyeTV doesn't.  My Beyonwiz has filled doughnuts all the way out till five days.

It's beyond doubt that the rate limiter is responding to some HTTP POST requests; anyone proficient with a packet sniffer can verify that for themselves.

prl

Quote from: futzle on October 23, 2011, 07:16:42 PM
...

It's beyond doubt that the rate limiter is responding to some HTTP POST requests; anyone proficient with a packet sniffer can verify that for themselves.
Maybe there is such a problem with EyeTV. What you describe doesn't fit with the behaviour of the superficially similar problem on Beyonwiz.
Peter
Beyonwiz T4 in-use
Beyonwiz T2, T3, T4, U4 & V2 for testing