I manually ran the update at around 6:30 PM ET and it created the MXF file but then failed to import...
Code: Select all
[10/5/2020 6:33:47 PM] ===============================================================================
[10/5/2020 6:33:47 PM] Beginning epg123 client execution. version 1.3.9.30
[10/5/2020 6:33:47 PM] ===============================================================================
[10/5/2020 6:33:47 PM] [ INFO] Beginning epg123 client execution. 2020-10-05 22:33:47Z
[10/5/2020 6:33:47 PM] [ INFO] Import: True , Match: True , NoLogo: False , Force: False , ShowProgress: True
[10/5/2020 6:33:48 PM] Entering importMxfFile() for file "c:\programdata\garyan2\epg123\output\epg123.mxf"
[10/5/2020 6:39:24 PM] [ERROR] Error using loadmxf.exe to import new guide information. Exit code: 255
[10/5/2020 6:39:24 PM] Exiting importMxfFile(). FAILURE.
[10/5/2020 6:39:24 PM] [ERROR] Failed to import .mxf file. Exiting.
So this brings up two things...
Why did the import fail? This is the first time I have had the import fail since using EPG123. One thing different then usual is that I ran it manually, and that I had WMC running with the channel guide displayed (although I would hope that this is not what would cause it). I usually leave WMC running, but never with the channel guide displayed.
Why does EPG123 not run ReindexSearchRoot after the import if the import "fails". As demonstrated below, a failure does not necessarily mean that the data was not loaded (at least partially) in to the WMC database. I think that ReindexSearchRoot should run regardless of the status of the loadmxf execution, unless there is some good reason not to do it.
As a result of not running ReindexSearchRoot, I still had "Big Brother" scheduled to record at 8pm tonight, even though the channel guide was updated with an NFL game in that time slot. I can only assume that the reason WMC still had "Big Brother" set to record at 8pm when it was not in the channel guide was due to the re-indexing not occurring.'
Note that after this, I ran EPG123 again (with WMC not running) and it completed successfully (import was good) and the "Big Brother" scheduled recording was removed.
Another issue, not EPG123 related, but Schedules Direct related, is that "Big Brother" was moved from 8pm to 10pm, and that was not reflected in the channel guide yet (it still had "Manhunter: Deadly Game" at 10pm). Also there appears to be a Joe Biden town hall at 8pm on NBC, but Schedules Direct still has "America Ninja Warrior".
Schedules Direct correctly removed the 8pm airing of "Big Brother" and replaced it with the NFL game, but did not yet have the 10pm airing of "Big Bother", which is a change they decided to do sometime after they decided to preempt the 8pm airing with the NFL.
Note that both of these changes are correctly reflected on the zap2it website, so it is not a Gracenote problem, it is a Schedules Direct issue. I think when there are last minute changes like this it would be nice if a special update can be run to capture the changes. If I had not learned of these things through other means, I would have missed both of these programs.
Perhaps Schedules Direct can implement a special update that only affects the time frames (prime time in this case) and specific networks that are manually specified. This should allow a quicker update then if they were to initiate a complete update for all channels. Of course this would require someone at SD to monitor for major "last minute" network schedule changes and then manually kick off an update, which may be asking too much.
EDIT: One other thing I forgot. When I ran EPG123 manually and it was importing the MXF file, then failed, the GUI went away and then a CMD window popped up with loadmxf.exe running in it (with the total percentage incrementing). Why did it do this? Did it kick off another import using the CLI display instead of the GUI? I was confused as to why this happened. Maybe EPG123 exited but the loadmxf was still running so it displayed this CMD window? Very weird...