PSA: EPG123 update task

[garyan2]

To lessen the burden on Schedules Direct's servers, please "randomize" you scheduled task times. Spreading everyone's update times over the day will reduce the peak load and allow them to scale better. It will also avoid issues/timeouts when you try to update your schedule.

Everyone appears to like updating at 00:00 every night?

[Space]

There is no real reason to use 00:00. You should change both the hour AND THE MINUTE. Those that do change it will most likely change it to execute on the hour which is not as bad as everyone doing it at the same time, but still not ideal.

So use times like: 1:23, 2:47, 6:13, 17:05, etc. NOT: 00:00, 1:00, 2:00, 17:00, etc.

It would be a good idea to change EPG123 to make the default be a randomized time (and NOT ever choose 00 for the minutes in that default time). Probably also want to avoid prime time, so perhaps have the hour be a random number between 0 and 17 and minute be between 10 and 55. Of course allow the user to change it, but I am sure the majority of people don't bother changing it.

[garyan2]

Yah, I already thought of just randomizing the time if a task doesn't already exist. That may help, along with a tooltip on the time entry, to choose a random time.

Just as an example, I update at 04:22 for my 28 OTA stations and the downloading and file creation takes on average 20 seconds.

[Space]

It will DEFINITELY help to randomize it. Adding a tooltip is a good idea, but it will do very little to resolve the problem (at least in my opinion).

[plplplpl]

Agree, randomized should be the default.

[mwpeterson]

Has Schedules Direct shared any of their statistics on times with the heaviest and lightest loads?

[garyan2]

@rkulagow Comment?

[mwpeterson]

Can you setup the task to use a random delay? I've manually altered mine to do so.

[tonywagner]

Just as an example, I update at 04:22 for my 28 OTA stations and the downloading and file creation takes on average 20 seconds.

So what you're saying is, everybody should schedule it to run at 04:22?

[tonywagner]

Can you setup the task to use a random delay? I've manually altered mine to do so.

That might be a feature for EPG123... maybe the new task could default to a random time for each user? (The user could adjust it manually, of course.)

[mwpeterson]

Can you setup the task to use a random delay? I've manually altered mine to do so.

That might be a feature for EPG123... maybe the new task could default to a random time for each user? (The user could adjust it manually, of course.)

Yep. If you use Task Scheduler to edit the trigger time, there is an option under advanced settings to Delay task for up to (random delay). You can set this to up to 30 seconds, 1 minute, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 8 hours , or 1 day. Maybe Gary could add this in to randomize times.

[garyan2]

The pushback I will get on that is it may mess with some folks Power/Sleep settings and miss an update. I guess I could try it out... see what it does.

[mwpeterson]

Hmm, it'll be interesting to see how WIndows handles the wake time and then a delayed task.

[Space]

I would personally like to have more control over when the process starts (although I could manually edit the task, I suppose)

[mwpeterson]

I set the task to start at 5:00 with a random delay of up to an hour. The computer woke at 5:26 and the task ran at 5:27. So that went well.

[garyan2]

I set the task to start at 5:00 with a random delay of up to an hour. The computer woke at 5:26 and the task ran at 5:27. So that went well.

That's good. Everything I found in my short search could indicate the computer would wake shortly before 5:00 but not kick off the task actions until a random time. This is certainly an option to think about.

Thanks.

[drgawd]

Hi, just a thought/sugestion . .
since the updates retrieve 14 days of guide data, maybe also create the epg123 task on install to execute once per week (on the day of the week that user installed epg123), vs executing & updating daily. Then any users that want or need daily update, can easily edit the task later to trigger & update daily.

Also, Thanks for all your efforts creating & maintaining epg123. I just installed it 2 days ago w/o any isssues & it works great

[Space]

I set the task to start at 5:00 with a random delay of up to an hour. The computer woke at 5:26 and the task ran at 5:27. So that went well.

That's good. Everything I found in my short search could indicate the computer would wake shortly before 5:00 but not kick off the task actions until a random time. This is certainly an option to think about.

Thanks.

In my opinion, this should not be done without a good reason.

The goal is to have different users connect to SD at different times. Randomizing each users default start time will accomplish this without adding the additional complication of having the system connect at unexpected times every day.

You want to avoid the "I set it to connect at 18:40 and it didn't do it until 19:39, now I missed the schedule change for my 7pm show!" complaints. It's not usually a good idea to have something work unlike most would naturally expect it to work.

Hi, just a thought/sugestion . .
since the updates retrieve 14 days of guide data, maybe also create the epg123 task on install to execute once per week (on the day of the week that user installed epg123), vs executing & updating daily. Then any users that want or need daily update, can easily edit the task later to trigger & update daily.

Also, Thanks for all your efforts creating & maintaining epg123. I just installed it 2 days ago w/o any isssues & it works great

Again, I advise against this. Just because you have two weeks of data in the guide, does not mean it is accurate data. Updating at least once per day assures that you will have the most up to date data for the current day.

Now, if you want to set up some sort of update schedule that always updates the current days data every day, but might not update days further out at the same schedule then it could be something to consider, but only if the SD server issue cannot be addressed by distributing the different members connect times.

[garyan2]

Just thinking out loud, and I agree with Space, but the method I would think to incorporate a random delay would be to only give the hour of the day to be an option and describe that the task will be started some point within that hour. Having minutes in the task for a random delayed event doesn't make sense.

[Space]

I don't support taking control away from the user. I don't support randomizing the connection every day so that it is at a different minute in the hour.

I understand that anyone can modify the task in task manager to do whatever they want, and I understand that many users (most?) will not care or have any real understanding of what they are doing here, but that is why I say that simply randomizing the hour and minute to a default value (that is changeable by the user) is the best and simplest solution.

People who know what they are doing can change this value to suit them (tool tip to tell them not to change the minute to a value between 0 and 10) and won't get frustrated by the tool trying to force them in to something they don't want. Others, who are "clueless", will just accept the default and all will be good. No need to complicate things...