Big Release... 1.8.0.0 is here.

[garyan2]

WMC will use the very conservative fixed rate in prediction. What is uses may have been reasonable 15 years ago, but today it doesn't match reality very well. It will however adjust once a program has recorded at least 5 minutes and then calculate new predictions based on average bitrate, but only for that program. Doesn't do much good since you have to already be recording in order to make a more reasonable prediction.

Right now, I am playing around with 1 day for ERROR and 3 days for WARNING with tuner conflicts. Like you say, things change and "tuner conflicts" will disappear as the guide gets updated and WMC adjusts.

[jamestx10]

I just moved from 1.7 to 1.8.0.8. I am trying to configure the email notifications. After entering everything and hitting test & save I get an error. Failed. Check your SMTP server configurations and try again. In the log, it says File <installFolder>\notifier.json does not exist.

[garyan2]

The file doesn't exist because it hasn't had a successful test. If you are using a gmail account, check out this post (viewtopic.php?f=99&t=14276&start=40#p151147).

[jamestx10]

Found a typo. Thanks

[garyan2]

Just released 1.8.0.9. Fixes a problem with hdhr2mxf. Adds storage and tuner conflict reporting. There is an additional button in the client for [Storage] to tweak if you so desire.

[garyan2]

Found an error in 1.8.0.9 that may not report storage status for you. It currently needs a registry entry to describe how much WMC has allocated to the recorder but that registry only exists if you change from the default size at least once.

For those that can't wait for the next release, go into WMC settings/TV/Recorder/Recorder Storage and change the Maximum TV limit, Save, and then change it back (default is entire drive size). This will create the registry entry and the client will then be able to report your status.

[IT Troll]

I received my first real world email alerts this morning. The update failed because EPG123 couldn't obtain a token. Following this, I have a couple of questions.

I received two emails, one from EPG123 and one from EPG123CLIENT. Whilst this is not the end of the World, is there reason why EPG123CLIENT is still triggered to run if the preceding process fails and aborts with an error?

From server.log I can see that a token was obtained around 6 minutes later. Have you given any thought to pausing and retrying the update in cases when SD is unresponsive? Something like second attempt 5 mins later, third attempt 15 mins later, then abort.

Code: Select all

[09/07/2023 03:21:03] [ERROR] Failed to get a token from Schedules Direct.
{"token":null,"response":"SERVICE_OFFLINE","code":3000,"serverID":"20141201.web","message":"Server offline for maintenance.","datetime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00","uuid":null}
[09/07/2023 03:21:57] [ERROR] Failed to get a token from Schedules Direct.
{"token":null,"response":"SERVICE_OFFLINE","code":3000,"serverID":"20141201.web","message":"Server offline for maintenance.","datetime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00","uuid":null}
[09/07/2023 03:22:57] [ERROR] Failed to get a token from Schedules Direct.
{"token":null,"response":"SERVICE_OFFLINE","code":3000,"serverID":"20141201.web","message":"Server offline for maintenance.","datetime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00","uuid":null}
[09/07/2023 03:23:57] [ERROR] Failed to get a token from Schedules Direct.
{"token":null,"response":"SERVICE_OFFLINE","code":3000,"serverID":"20141201.web","message":"Server offline for maintenance.","datetime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00","uuid":null}
[09/07/2023 03:24:57] [ERROR] Failed to get a token from Schedules Direct.
{"token":null,"response":"SERVICE_OFFLINE","code":3000,"serverID":"20141201.web","message":"Server offline for maintenance.","datetime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00","uuid":null}
[09/07/2023 03:25:57] [ERROR] Failed to get a token from Schedules Direct.
{"token":null,"response":"SERVICE_OFFLINE","code":3000,"serverID":"20141201.web","message":"Server offline for maintenance.","datetime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00","uuid":null}
[09/07/2023 03:26:57] [ INFO] Refreshed Schedules Direct API token.

[Space]

I setup EPG123 1.8.0.10 and configured it to send emails. A few issues and concerns, and some information:

I configured the disk space thresholds for:

WARNING: 120 GB
ERROR: 0 GB

When I ran a test update, it logged:

Code: Select all

[7/9/2023 5:26:19 PM] [WARNG] Recorder storage drive X:\ has 269.299 GB available. (3.157 TB of 3.420 TB used)

Not sure why it logged a warning when the available free space (269.299 GB) is above the warning threshold I set of 120 GB...


It also sent an email of the log session.

I think I would prefer a separate indicator of disk space issues instead of bundling it in with all the other potential WARNG messages, as I don't care about other WARNG issues, as they are usually transitory and don't need my attention. If I keep getting periodic emails with WARNG for stuff I don't care about, I may tend to pay less attention to them and miss a disk space WARNG which I do care about.

Alternatively (or in addition), perhaps it would be possible to highlight in some way the WARNG or ERROR messages in the log email that is sent, either with a <strong> tag, or if you don't want to use HTML just adding a blank line before and after each of these lines (or indent the line, or some other method of making them easy/quick to find). As it is, I need to scan the whole log looking for them, and it can take long enough to make it a burden to have to do it for every email I might get (and therefore make it more likely that I will neglect to find the ones I am concerned about).

Perhaps another alternative for me would be to use ERROR: 120 GB and set WARNING to -1, but then I may miss WMC thinking it cannot record something within the next 24 hours, even though it has plenty of space, although I don't think that would happen with 120 GB or more space available, unless I'm recording the Olympics (in which case I am always monitoring disk space manually anyway).

Also, I had a conflict on July 20th in the "to do" list, but EPG123 did not indicate any issues with conflicts. The release notes indicate it will report conflicts that are in the "near future", what is this in days/hours?


ASIDE: I didn't think I was going to be able to set up a gmail account with two-factor authentication, as it appeared that I either needed a personal cell phone, or a personal non-Google Voice phone number. Since I have neither, I thought I was out of luck... Fortunately, when they say "Android phone" they actually mean "Android device" (at least for the "Google Prompt" eligible devices) so I was able to use my Android tablet with Google Prompt even though it does not have cell service. It also required me to set up a secondary method of access in case the first failed, and for that it let me print out a series of one-time-use codes that can be used to access the account, which I have saved in an encrypted zip file and backed up to several places.

[d00zah]

Kinda nitpicky. Possibly intentional?

Line "*** Windows Media Center [Version: 6.1.7600.16385] is installed. ***"

missing since v1.8.0.9 from Config UI logs. Still shows up in Client UI logs, along w/ new reporting.

Code: Select all

[7/8/2023 3:48:00 AM] ===============================================================================
[7/8/2023 3:48:00 AM] Beginning EPG123 update execution. version 1.8.0.8
[7/8/2023 3:48:00 AM] ===============================================================================
[7/8/2023 3:48:00 AM] *** Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit [Version: 6.1.7601.24535] ***
[7/8/2023 3:48:00 AM] *** .NET Framework 4.8.03761 is installed. ***
[7/8/2023 3:48:00 AM] *** Windows Media Center [Version: 6.1.7600.16385] is installed. ***
[7/8/2023 3:48:00 AM] [ INFO] DaysToDownload: 21 , TheTVDBNumbers : True , PrefixEpisodeTitle: True , PrefixEpisodeDescription : False , AppendEpisodeDesc: True , OADOverride : True , SeasonEventImages : True , IncludeSDLogos : True , AutoAddNew: True , CreateXmltv: False
...

[7/8/2023 7:39:32 AM] ===============================================================================
[7/8/2023 7:39:32 AM] Beginning EPG123 update execution. version 1.8.0.9
[7/8/2023 7:39:32 AM] ===============================================================================
[7/8/2023 7:39:32 AM] *** Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit [Version: 6.1.7601.24535] ***
[7/8/2023 7:39:32 AM] *** .NET Framework 4.8.03761 is installed. ***
[7/8/2023 7:39:32 AM] [ INFO] DaysToDownload: 21 , TheTVDBNumbers : True , PrefixEpisodeTitle: True , PrefixEpisodeDescription : False , AppendEpisodeDesc: True , OADOverride : True , SeasonEventImages : True , IncludeSDLogos : True , AutoAddNew: True , CreateXmltv: False
...

[7/9/2023 4:21:40 PM] ===============================================================================
[7/9/2023 4:21:40 PM] Beginning EPG123 update execution. version 1.8.0.10
[7/9/2023 4:21:40 PM] ===============================================================================
[7/9/2023 4:21:40 PM] *** Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit [Version: 6.1.7601.24535] ***
[7/9/2023 4:21:40 PM] *** .NET Framework 4.8.03761 is installed. ***
[7/9/2023 4:21:40 PM] [ INFO] DaysToDownload: 21 , TheTVDBNumbers : True , PrefixEpisodeTitle: True , PrefixEpisodeDescription : False , AppendEpisodeDesc: True , OADOverride : True , SeasonEventImages : True , IncludeSDLogos : True , AutoAddNew: True , CreateXmltv: False

[garyan2]

I setup EPG123 1.8.0.10 and configured it to send emails. A few issues and concerns, and some information:

I configured the disk space thresholds for:

WARNING: 120 GB
ERROR: 0 GB

When I ran a test update, it logged:

Code: Select all

[7/9/2023 5:26:19 PM] [WARNG] Recorder storage drive X:\ has 269.299 GB available. (3.157 TB of 3.420 TB used)

Not sure why it logged a warning when the available free space (269.299 GB) is above the warning threshold I set of 120 GB...


It also sent an email of the log session.

I think I would prefer a separate indicator of disk space issues instead of bundling it in with all the other potential WARNG messages, as I don't care about other WARNG issues, as they are usually transitory and don't need my attention. If I keep getting periodic emails with WARNG for stuff I don't care about, I may tend to pay less attention to them and miss a disk space WARNG which I do care about.

Alternatively (or in addition), perhaps it would be possible to highlight in some way the WARNG or ERROR messages in the log email that is sent, either with a <strong> tag, or if you don't want to use HTML just adding a blank line before and after each of these lines (or indent the line, or some other method of making them easy/quick to find). As it is, I need to scan the whole log looking for them, and it can take long enough to make it a burden to have to do it for every email I might get (and therefore make it more likely that I will neglect to find the ones I am concerned about).

Perhaps another alternative for me would be to use ERROR: 120 GB and set WARNING to -1, but then I may miss WMC thinking it cannot record something within the next 24 hours, even though it has plenty of space, although I don't think that would happen with 120 GB or more space available, unless I'm recording the Olympics (in which case I am always monitoring disk space manually anyway).

Also, I had a conflict on July 20th in the "to do" list, but EPG123 did not indicate any issues with conflicts. The release notes indicate it will report conflicts that are in the "near future", what is this in days/hours?

Good grief... I flipped the sign (greater-than / less-than). The logic is reversed.

The "near future" for tuner conflicts is ERROR within 24 hours, or WARNING within 3 days. The 20th is way out there so I didn't want to over report issues that will probably resolve themselves.

Right now, nothing else is going to change. You will only get the storage warning/error on a client update which is included in the session log.

[garyan2]

Kinda nitpicky. Possibly intentional?

Line "*** Windows Media Center [Version: 6.1.7600.16385] is installed. ***"

missing since v1.8.0.9 from Config UI logs. Still shows up in Client UI logs, along w/ new reporting.

Code: Select all

[7/8/2023 3:48:00 AM] ===============================================================================
[7/8/2023 3:48:00 AM] Beginning EPG123 update execution. version 1.8.0.8
[7/8/2023 3:48:00 AM] ===============================================================================
[7/8/2023 3:48:00 AM] *** Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit [Version: 6.1.7601.24535] ***
[7/8/2023 3:48:00 AM] *** .NET Framework 4.8.03761 is installed. ***
[7/8/2023 3:48:00 AM] *** Windows Media Center [Version: 6.1.7600.16385] is installed. ***
[7/8/2023 3:48:00 AM] [ INFO] DaysToDownload: 21 , TheTVDBNumbers : True , PrefixEpisodeTitle: True , PrefixEpisodeDescription : False , AppendEpisodeDesc: True , OADOverride : True , SeasonEventImages : True , IncludeSDLogos : True , AutoAddNew: True , CreateXmltv: False
...

[7/8/2023 7:39:32 AM] ===============================================================================
[7/8/2023 7:39:32 AM] Beginning EPG123 update execution. version 1.8.0.9
[7/8/2023 7:39:32 AM] ===============================================================================
[7/8/2023 7:39:32 AM] *** Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit [Version: 6.1.7601.24535] ***
[7/8/2023 7:39:32 AM] *** .NET Framework 4.8.03761 is installed. ***
[7/8/2023 7:39:32 AM] [ INFO] DaysToDownload: 21 , TheTVDBNumbers : True , PrefixEpisodeTitle: True , PrefixEpisodeDescription : False , AppendEpisodeDesc: True , OADOverride : True , SeasonEventImages : True , IncludeSDLogos : True , AutoAddNew: True , CreateXmltv: False
...

[7/9/2023 4:21:40 PM] ===============================================================================
[7/9/2023 4:21:40 PM] Beginning EPG123 update execution. version 1.8.0.10
[7/9/2023 4:21:40 PM] ===============================================================================
[7/9/2023 4:21:40 PM] *** Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit [Version: 6.1.7601.24535] ***
[7/9/2023 4:21:40 PM] *** .NET Framework 4.8.03761 is installed. ***
[7/9/2023 4:21:40 PM] [ INFO] DaysToDownload: 21 , TheTVDBNumbers : True , PrefixEpisodeTitle: True , PrefixEpisodeDescription : False , AppendEpisodeDesc: True , OADOverride : True , SeasonEventImages : True , IncludeSDLogos : True , AutoAddNew: True , CreateXmltv: False

I removed that from the "server" component since it really doesn't care if WMC is installed or not. It is still reported for the client.

[garyan2]

1.8.0.11 is released with fix for the storage warnings and errors.

[Space]

...
The "near future" for tuner conflicts is ERROR within 24 hours, or WARNING within 3 days. The 20th is way out there so I didn't want to over report issues that will probably resolve themselves.
...

Will it detect new conflicts immediately, or will it only detect them after re-indexing has occurred, which means you will not get conflict warnings until the next execution after the previous day's re-indexing has completed?

[garyan2]

Yah, I haven't been able to test that, and I have the same concern. I may have to run a PVR indexing before evaluating tuner conflicts.

[Space]

If you are able to determine if indexing is in progress, perhaps have an option for EPG123 client to continue to monitor the indexing for 1 or 2 hours so it can give a correct report on conflicts. Once indexing has completed, it can check for conflicts, report them, and exit. If it is still indexing after the 1 or 2 hour period expires, then a WARNING should probably be generated/sent about indexing taking too long to complete and being unable to determine conflict status.

I just used 1 or 2 hours as an example, I'm not sure how long it takes indexing to complete after a guide update on all system, but I did just check mine (it is a fairly slow mechanical hard disk system) and it was done indexing 14 minutes after the client loaded the guide (note that I had already loaded the guide a couple hours earlier to test the new version of EPG123, so this second run actually did not change much in the WMC database since there were no new listings since then, so I'm not sure if that would affect the indexing time).

[garyan2]

PVR indexing only takes a few seconds. Won't be too much of a hit in time.

[Space]

As I mentioned, when EPG123 kicked off indexing on my system, it took 14 minutes before it indicated the indexing was complete. It may have been indexing more than just WMC.

My system has been sluggish lately, it might be partly because of the huge size of the WMC database (where it appears that garbage cleanup is not really cleaning up everything) or just a general issue with my system since even after a reboot it takes a good 20 minutes before the system hard drive settles down. I haven't really had the opportunity to look in to it to any great extent.

[garyan2]

There are 2 indexing tasks. The database reindexing (ehPrivJob.exe /DoReindexSearchRoot) which is for seaches of title, actors, directors, description words, etc. The PVR indexing (mcupdate.exe -PvrSchedule -nogc) is strictly for DVR scheduling. Are you saying the PVR indexing takes 14 minutes?

[Space]

I was just talking about the main Win7 indexing, which I guess I assumed included both of those things. You can see it by selecting "Indexing Options" from the Control Panel. How do you monitor just the DVR scheduling indexing status?

[IT Troll]

I think that is just indexing for file search.

The one that EPG123 initiates is in the EPG123 log. The built-in Microsoft instance of this is in Task Scheduler, you may need to enable the History function. There may well be some Event Log entries too.

On my machine it typically takes less than a second to run.