PSA for failed token requests

[NOYB]

Whether the afternoon updates have to do with that night's broadcasts is hard to say. Sometimes the VerifyLoad section of the log will show a last-minute show replacement for that night but it doesn't happen every night.

About how often does it happen and of those how often for a program you'd watch or record?
Seems like it would be very rare to have meaningful benefit to program watching or recording.

[garyan2]

Last I heard, Schedules Direct updates their data twice a day from Gracenote. If your 2 scheduled updates a day are on different sides of SD's updates, then you will always have something new. Typically it will be changing a generic episode of something to a specific episode more than 7 days in the future. Or maybe updating teams/schedule for playoff games within 7 days.

Getting last minute updates to the schedule for the current day is not very likely. Gracenote would have to quickly change their data, Schedules Direct's update would have to be fortuitously scheduled soon after Gracenote is done, and your scheduled update would have to be sometime after that. All those lining up would be very lucky indeed.

[Gripweed]

About how often does it happen and of those how often for a program you'd watch or record?
Seems like it would be very rare to have meaningful benefit to program watching or recording.

I have seen it a few times, maybe twice, and so I have to go along with Gary in saying that it is extremely rare. The one time I do specifically remember was when MTV did a massive schedule re-shuffle for a few days, mainly for the show Ridiculousness. The first entry was for that very night. On the other hand, I remember this last US State of the Union speech (which technically wasn't a State of the Union speech but I digress) where I had something previously scheduled on a Network channel at the very time the speech was to be broadcast. The networks knew for at least a week that they would be broadcasting the speech instead of regularly scheduled shows but the change to the EPG never came. I really thought my afternoon update would finally cancel out my preset recording but it never did.

[Space]

...
Getting last minute updates to the schedule for the current day is not very likely. Gracenote would have to quickly change their data, Schedules Direct's update would have to be fortuitously scheduled soon after Gracenote is done, and your scheduled update would have to be sometime after that. All those lining up would be very lucky indeed.

While getting same-day updates is not likely, that does not mean it is not beneficial to schedule updates as close to scheduled recordings as is practical.

An update may be made available in Schedules Direct in late morning (perhaps from a Gracenote update from the previous day), and if you only update in the early morning, your prime-time recording will miss that update. No matter how long the cycle is from Gracenote -> SD -> WMC it is always going to be beneficial to have the EPG123 update time be as close to the start of the bulk of your recording schedule as possible. Even though in most cases it will have no benefit.

Examples of where it can benefit is in things that happen to disrupt the schedule like a Presidential address or a large news event that caused scheduling to change (perhaps the same day, or several days in the future). For changes that are made the same day, it may not have much of a benefit since the update will not reach SD in time, but for things that change the schedule 1 or 2 days in advance, it can be the difference between missing a program (or recording a program that is not actually the program you think it is) and having it recorded properly.

[garyan2]

I'm not saying you can't get lucky, but keep in mind that both WMC and EPG123's verify process will not update listings for a program that is currently showing or the program following it. So when you say "as close to scheduled recordings as is practical", technically, and typically, you will probably want it to be more than 1 hour before.

[StinkyImp]

- whistling a happy tune -

Patience has triumphed and I choose to believe that whistling was the catalyst?

Code: Select all

[7/4/2021 12:07:04 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct. 
[7/5/2021 12:07:04 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct. 
[7/6/2021 12:07:03 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct. 
[7/7/2021 12:07:02 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct. 
[7/8/2021 12:07:04 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct. 
[7/9/2021 12:07:03 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct. 
[7/10/2021 12:07:04 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct. 
[7/11/2021 12:07:01 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct.
[7/12/2021 12:07:01 AM] [ INFO] Token request successful.

[d00zah]

I was hoping for confirmation. Power was out 2 nights ago during update window & ran successfully last night w/ a minor time tweak, so was unsure. Thx! to SD for sussing it out.

[sgbroimp]

Is it now concluded that the update fails a number of us have reported were at SD's end?

[garyan2]

I didn't know that was in question. I haven't heard anything from SD that they did/fixed anything yet, so would like to see more folks reporting success before saying we're back to normal.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[twegner]

Gary, I did see a SD outage about a week or two ago. I looked at their site and verified it wasn't just me. But it was resolved in an hour or so, and I have had no trouble since. Sorry to be so vague, but after the problem went away my scientific curiosity was greatly diminished! I have one main instance of WMC/epg123 running on an HTPC I use daily, and several others that are not essential. All are are working great. Using 1.6.6.0. Tim

[StinkyImp]

Everyone can believe what they want. All I know is that once I took a deep breath, chilled the F out, and started whistling, it worked.

In my case whistling helped in two ways:

1. My mood improved immensely.
2. I received a token!

So I'm just going to keep whistling if for no other reason than to enjoy a more relaxed mood. If I get a token, then that's awesome!

[stuartm]

I thought things had gotten even worse yesterday as all 3 of my systems failed updates, incluing the supposedly ouside prime hours one that was at 4:13 am that had been mostly succeeding. I was about to try to figure out new update times today but this mornings updates all worked at the existing times. Perhaps SD has fixed something. Will continue to monitor.

[garyan2]

SD let me know they added more servers to support the load. Looks like it may have been enough.

[Space]

I'm not saying you can't get lucky, but keep in mind that both WMC and EPG123's verify process will not update listings for a program that is currently showing or the program following it. So when you say "as close to scheduled recordings as is practical", technically, and typically, you will probably want it to be more than 1 hour before.

In the past (before EPG123) I've had currently recording programs be affected by guide updates. It stopped the recording (and I think restarted it). I can't be sure that it was due to that particular scheduled entry being changed, but I was pretty sure it did change at that time.

I think the ideal situation would be to know when SD updates the data that is made available for download. This way you could schedule the update to take place after that time each day, and before the bulk of your recordings are scheduled. Of course this could create another bottleneck if a lot of people schedule their updates during this time (particularly if it is a short window). But I would guess most people wouldn't change their update time just because they have this information.

One of my goals is to prevent my HTPC from waking up and going to sleep more times than it has to, so I usually schedule the EPG123 update about 20 minutes before prime time, this way it stays awake after the EPG123 update and doesn't go in to a cycle of going to sleep and then waking up soon after to start recording. But this is not an exact science so the timing doesn't always work out if the update is abnormally quick or takes longer than expected.

If the recording has not started yet, and you give enough time for the indexing and reevaluation of what programs should record, I see no good reason not to update the program entry. I would guess that a program starting within, say, 10 minutes of the entry being updated should be fine unless there are other factors that I am unaware. I think waiting an hour is overkill.

[sgbroimp]

Here is my experience (updates) After 3 nights of red x syndrome, I went in and looked to change my update time. Maybe I goofed when I set it up as it was set for 0:00 (or maybe I thought that was a decent download time). Anyway as per Space's suggestion and above all Gary's request (which we all need to respect and honor in my view), I set the new time to just minutes after noon. Then I got this message that there were a whole pile of channels not in and did I want them or words to that effect. I clicked "yes" and off it went for about 15 minutes, showing an update progress screen, a Task Bar and a Progress Bar. During that time I could not start WMC I noticed. Then it finished and I noted there was still the nasty Red X showing so I figured maybe I had to wait until after noon the next day for it to turn green. Then a while later after watching the recorded evening news I came back to the home screen and "presto" green icon! I am not knowledgeable enough to know all that went on but I guess it ended well and that is what mattered. Then, the next evening it was back to the red icon again. I decided to do no more “tinkering” and last night when I went home, I got the green icon, so I guess all good for the moment. Sounds like an issue at the “Head Shed” does it not?

[StinkyImp]

- whistling a peaceful tune -

Eight days and patiently waitin`, waitin`, waitin`...

On the afternoon of July 11th I had a choice. I could try something I had tried previously, which was selecting a random number between 1 and 1440 (the number of minutes in 24 hours), plugging that time into my scheduled task, and then praying that it would work!

Seemed arbitrary enough (and had failed a number of times) so I decided to try a new and independent "arbitrary" approach suggested by Eric Idle. What could it hurt, right?

Lo and behold it worked, is still working, and I didn't even need to change the execution time!

Added bonus = improved mood and general ambiance!

Code: Select all

[7/1/2021 12:07:01 AM] [ INFO] Token request successful.
[7/2/2021 12:07:01 AM] [ INFO] Token request successful.
[7/3/2021 12:07:02 AM] [ INFO] Token request successful.
[7/4/2021 12:07:04 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct.
[7/5/2021 12:07:04 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct. 
[7/6/2021 12:07:03 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct. 
[7/7/2021 12:07:02 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct. 
[7/8/2021 12:07:04 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct. 
[7/9/2021 12:07:03 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct. 
[7/10/2021 12:07:04 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct. 
[7/11/2021 12:07:01 AM] [ERROR] Failed to retrieve token from Schedules Direct. 
[7/12/2021 12:07:01 AM] [ INFO] Token request successful.
[7/13/2021 12:07:02 AM] [ INFO] Token request successful.
[7/14/2021 12:07:02 AM] [ INFO] Token request successful.
[7/15/2021 12:07:01 AM] [ INFO] Token request successful.
[7/16/2021 12:07:01 AM] [ INFO] Token request successful.
[7/17/2021 12:07:01 AM] [ INFO] Token request successful.
[7/18/2021 12:07:02 AM] [ INFO] Token request successful.

NOTE: For anyone that bristles at this post, relax! It's satire.

[stuartm]

While I don't have a Monty Python clip to link to (still the best comedy group ever IMO) I can report that since SD upped the servers I have had no failures even without shuffling my update times.

[StinkyImp]

After my note I should have added "Kudos to SD for increasing their capacity and to GaRyan2 for keeping us updated!"

Sorry for that omission!

@stuartm -> I was taken off guard by Mr. Creosote in the late 80s (laughed so hard I couldn't breath) and was hooked ever since.

[sgbroimp]

While I don't have a Monty Python clip to link to (still the best comedy group ever IMO) I can report that since SD upped the servers I have had no failures even without shuffling my update times.

Yes, I continue to be good also. Wonder if it really was a "too few servers" issue, though, but as long as it works, hey.....

[IT Troll]

They added the machine that goes ‘ping’!