WisconsinEric

EPG from XMLTVListings

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1 hour ago, Darko said:

Attached is a zip archive with the 2 files and also each file separately uncompressed.

Thank you very much for that. I made use of the .plist file. I almost stupidly changed UserName to my username, but caught myself in time. I changed the case of my username and the getepg file to lower case to match existing file names on my computer. I hope that was correct. I guess we'll see tomorrow morning how it worked. 

Thanks again.

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11 hours ago, Earl Noe said:

I guess we'll see tomorrow morning how it worked. 

I am cautiously celebrating. It appears that during the night, my computer fetched a new TV schedule, loaded it into EyeTV, and went back to sleep. That renders anything about a new guide system being developed moot as far as I'm concerned. As far as the 64 bit issue, it could be some time before I feel it imperative to go to that OS, and assuming the Usual Suspects haven't managed to screw up broadcast TV in the meantime and EyeTV continues to work as well as it does now, I'll probably just give it its own CPU. Again, a big thanks to  the people who have helped error-prone me with this process. Others should feel encouraged.

A question for Unix Guy: Have you tried MythTV? I once tried to install Linux for the purpose of running it. You can imagine how that went for me.

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11 hours ago, Earl Noe said:

A question for Unix Guy: Have you tried MythTV?

Ah, no.  I use the Linux OS at work, but would never try to install it on my Mac Mini.

EyeTV works fine for me.  Actually, I bought a ChannelMaster standalone DVR but haven't bothered to set it up as yet; I will probably use it for a second TV.   I think that has a free TV Guide (from Google) with a grid interface for recording but I haven't checked it out.

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New wrinkle here...Just as I got my cable provider's .xmltv download file created, matched the EyeTV channels check boxes to it and changed my desired still-checked channels EPG sources to "xmltv" I was able to successfully downloaded two weeks worth of schedules for the channels i had chosen at .xmltv.com.

Then something I did cleared out all channels in EyeTV which were originally populated by the software's interaction with the TV Guide server back when it was working and just modified as part of the xmlv conversion. Now I have nothing to work with and no ability to reconnect to the EyeTV TV Guide server.. Dragging my newly created and downloaded .xmltv file on top of the EyeTV app doesn't bring back my newly chosen channels. With no channels now in the EyeTV window i can't configure my cable box to change EyeTV channels and set any recordings.

Any ideas on how to repopulate EyeTV with any channels from any provider?

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2 minutes ago, Holden said:

Any ideas on how to repopulate EyeTV with any channels from any provider?

Did you try rescanning? (Auto-tune). I only have OTA TV, but rescanning restores the list of channels.

Something OTA users might note: In my area, the FCC sold certain frequencies to commercial interests, taking some subchannels off the air for a time, and causing some to move to newly assigned frequencies. The stations should have notified viewers of the date to rescan, but it's possible to miss these reminders. Those who are getting No Signal results when they try to tune to certain channels might try rescanning.

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33 minutes ago, Holden said:

Then something I did cleared out all channels in EyeTV which were originally populated by the software's interaction with the TV Guide server back when it was working and just modified as part of the xmlv conversion. Now I have nothing to work with and no ability to reconnect to the EyeTV TV Guide server

Dragging my newly created and downloaded .xmltv file on top of the EyeTV app doesn't bring back my newly chosen channels. With no channels now in the EyeTV window i can't configure my cable box to change EyeTV channels and set any recordings.

Any ideas on how to repopulate EyeTV with any channels from any provider?

* To clarify: when you go to the Channels window, is it empty? Or are there channels shown in the Channels window but the Program Guide window is empty? Or are both empty?  If the Channels window is empty, simply start from the beginning again: at the bottom select "Service" (I assume Cable) and to the right of that, as Earl Noe said, select "Auto-Tune" (which does a rescan, if a lot of channels it may take a while). This will generate a new channel listing of everything you get on your cable service. After that, go through the list in the Channels window and try to minimize the number of checked boxes next to the channel name; this will reduce the time it takes to load your EPG. Active channel #s are in black, inactive ones will be in blue. And be sure to give the final list a name and save it so it will appear in the "Service" list (so you can reselect it at a future date if needed); this is the "Save Channels . . ." command from the dropdown Service menu (bottom left of the Channels window). After this, redo what you previously did to match the EPG channels you downloaded from xmltvlistings.com to the ones in the EyeTV Channels window.

* You have no need "to reconnect to the EyeTV TV Guide server"; for all practical purposes it no longer exists. To make sure you are not trying to connect to a functionless server, go to EyeTV Preferences, click on Guide, and change the Service from TV Guide to "None."

* If the Program Guide window is empty but there are entries in the Channels window, you may have accidentally selected the command "Clear EPG database" from the dropdown menu in the tasks wheel icon in the Program Guide window. Or cleared the database by dragging the .xmltv file onto the EyeTV icon, but not completed the final step of setting the EPG source (see next paragraph).

* If you the Channels window is populated, but nothing shows up in the Program Guide window when you drag the .xmltv file onto the EyeTV icon, it is likely you haven't yet changed your EPG source in the Channels window (or saved a previously-made change). To do that (AFTER you drag the .xmltv file onto the EyeTV icon), in the Channels window go to the dropdown menu for each channel in the Source column and change it to "xmltv" for the channels that you checked and "None" for the ones you don't want. This has to be done manually for each channel, since xmltv is not selected as the EPG source by default. As you do each channel, the Program Guide will populate for that channel. You should only have to do that once, the channels list and source will stick.

I have a lot of 'ifs' here since I wasn't at your computer to see what was on the screen; hopefully one of the contingencies above will fit your situation.

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Eric....Both empty. Did change EyeTV Prefs from TV Guide to None. Before disappearance of all channels, I had successfully changed each channel EPG source to XMLTV and linked to the correct channel description drop down window you get when you first elect xmltv. Changed all undesired channels to None in the EPG drop down. Made sure the channels left xmltv-enabled in EyeTV exactly matched the channel set created in XMLTV.COM. I did get a successful download after the prep work which I dropped on EyeTV program icon and it gave me 2 weeks of my desired channels and programs info displayed. But in the process of trying to "automate" the process for daily download, I somehow cleared all the channels taht had been in the EyeTV channels window leaving it blank and with it blank, the Program Guide window also went blank.

The "service" selector at the bottom of the channels window said "None Available" and with that, the auto-tune box was dark and unselectable. Even going to back to the EyeTV "Set-Up Assistant" wouldn't show me the cable supplier options for my Zip as it used to do, leaving me nothing to choose in order to restore a list of the channels my Cable box was feeding to my TV and the EyeTV box via Component cabling.

Sometime tonight my Time Machine "Restore" will recreate the Mini as it was in mid-January before EyeTV's TV-Guide service crapped and I can begin again. If that restore repopulates all the channels my cable box is providing to the EyeTV hardware, I think I am going to try and fumble my way through the "schedules direct" solution "EYEMISSELGATO" created some help for in the other longer thread. If indeed my Time Machine restore gets my Mini back to its pre-problematic state, I know I can keep doing that until I get this right. Only the next time I'll Ethernet the Time Machine hardware to the Mini and dramatically shorten the restore time that I have been tied to waiting for the restore over Wi-F 🙂

Has anyone gotten and accepted an offer from Angela to "test" whatever software they are working on that was mentioned in the other forum?

I was briefly successful following your (Wisconsin Eric's) "how-to" document which does work with the XMLTV fix! Thanks to all here for taking the time to do all of the consulting for us!

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^ Well that sucks. I wonder if EyeTV somehow got corrupted. Sounds like trashing it (and associated pref files) is called for, then download a new copy and reinstall. I cannot imagine what scenario would have produced this  result while automating it, sorry. You might want to instead get the one-click menu option installed first (Step 3 in the xmltvlistings EyeTV guide I posted a while back here), before trying automation again.

On your other question, another person on this Forum did get a link for a new beta version of EyeTV from Angela. She did not request that it remain confidential, so he posted this link:  https://mega.nz/#!yqYliazS!fSoLZGzaE3HZHdP9azpYauSQDV8vqU660zOkifDtDPw

I did download it, but taking no chances I installed it on an isolated now unused Mac Mini that I replaced several months ago. It is Build 7427 (the current commercial release from about a year ago is 7424). It installed normally, and when opened looks like the real thing, but I didn't want to take the time to fully configure it for my TV channels. Hopefully xmltv is still an option for EPG source. The default EPG source is now EyeTV's own proprietary EPG (like they have had in service in Germany). I suspect that's where the software release holdup is, not in EyeTV itself. Anyway, if you try it, let us know what happens.

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Holden...There is a file 

/Library/Application Support/EyeTV/Shared/ChannelList.xml

on my mac mini.  Ir seems to contain the EyeTV channel information.  Maybe it somehow got deleted?  If so, it might be enough to restore that.

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It looks like some others are having problems with hidden characters. I fought this for days trying to get mine up and running. I would get it working then make another edit for one reason or another and it would get hidden characters again. Here is a terminal code that fixed my files

tr -d '\r' <ProblemFileName> NewFileName

This will generate a new file named with NewFileName. You can then delete the problem file.

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On 2/22/2019 at 2:52 PM, WisconsinEric said:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>com.[yourusername].[yourprogramname]</string>       [note: do not include .plist in this name]
  <key>UserName</key>
  <string>[yourusername]</string>
  <key>Program</key>
  <string>/Users/[yourusername]/Scripts/[yourprogramname]</string>    [note: you put the named program for Steps 1 & 2 in a Scripts folder you created]
  <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
  <dict>
    <key>Hour</key>
    <integer>5</integer>
    <key>Minute</key>
    <integer>2</integer>
  </dict>
</dict>

THANK YOU for putting this detailed guide together! I just wanted to point out there is a slight typo in the LaunchAgent code. You are missing a final </plist> tag at the end.

Other than that, this works beautifully.

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19 minutes ago, cpaulPHL said:

THANK YOU for putting this detailed guide together! I just wanted to point out there is a slight typo in the LaunchAgent code. You are missing a final </plist> tag at the end.

Other than that, this works beautifully.

Thank you SO much for pointing this out. I just checked the file in question, and it is indeed a typo (I omitted the last line when copying and pasting) when I transcribed what I did into a Forum post. Problem: how to inform people who see the February 22nd post. I can find no way of editing or deleting previous posts on this Forum to correct this error. So this is the best I can do . . .

TO EVERYONE USING XMLTVLISTINGS.COM

As cpaulPHL said above, in the code that automates the daily download from xmltvlistings.com, there is a missing final line: after the second instance of </dict>, add the line </plist>. My apologies to the people whom this has affected.

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On 2/22/2019 at 4:15 PM, WisconsinEric said:

Here is a corrected version of this guide I posted 2/22/19; the error being corrected is clearly marked. Unfortunately there is no way of deleting/editing the original post. Thanks to cpaulPHL for pointing out an omission of one line of code (typo).

XMLTVListings EPG with EyeTV-Guide.pdf

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WisconsinEric:

First thank you for all of your hard work and the compiling of everyone else' work'.

 

I am using your pdf (clear and concise technical writing) everything worked great until I got to step 2.4.2 then I got this when I tried to save .

No library folder under my user name.

My computer is a MacPro 5,1 running fully updated Mojave. I am the only user. My programing experience is one Fortran class in the early "70s.

Screen Shot 2019-04-03 at 4.58.06 PM.png

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Hmmm - you had me baffled until something jogged my memory: by default many moons ago Apple in its wisdom hid the Library folder(s). Google "show Library folder Mac Mojave" and you'll get several different methods to reveal it (using either View Options or a simple Terminal command). It should stay visible forever after once you do this. Each time I've updated my OS I've inherited this preference, so I had forgotten it is even there. And rest assured the folder IS there; the Mac can't operate without it.

Edited by WisconsinEric

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21 minutes ago, WisconsinEric said:

^ This source explains how to do it; could Apple have made it any harder or less obvious?

Interesting. Apparently, if you upgrade an existing OS to High Sierra instead of a clean install, a visible Library folder is inherited. It's visible in my High Sierra clones.

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2 hours ago, Earl Noe said:

Interesting. Apparently, if you upgrade an existing OS to High Sierra instead of a clean install, a visible Library folder is inherited. It's visible in my High Sierra clones.

Same for me, I had made the user/Library folder visible so long ago I forgot about the default, which is not visible. And yes, it does persist through multiple OS upgrades.

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Thanks to everyone! MyY system (4 EyeTV Hybrids, a MacPro 5,1 and an OTA antenna) is now running well.

WisconsonEric"s pdf compilation and the appletoolbox link provided  by him was all I needed. should consider adding link to pdf.

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The method provided by the helpful fellow members of this forum, especially Wisconsin Eric, for automating listings from xmltv.com has been working like a charm, with one bug I can't figure out: On one channel, a local PBS station, scheduled programs are being recorded by both tuners of the HDHR, creating two identical recordings. I thought it might have to do with creating Smart Guides, but deleting them has had no effect. Has anyone ever encountered this problem? Any suggestions? Just as I was typing this, I thought a hard reset of the tuner might work.

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55 minutes ago, Earl Noe said:

The method provided by the helpful fellow members of this forum, especially Wisconsin Eric, for automating listings from xmltv.com has been working like a charm, with one bug I can't figure out: On one channel, a local PBS station, scheduled programs are being recorded by both tuners of the HDHR, creating two identical recordings. I thought it might have to do with creating Smart Guides, but deleting them has had no effect. Has anyone ever encountered this problem? Any suggestions? Just as I was typing this, I thought a hard reset of the tuner might work.

I use an EyeTV Hybrid (working ever since 2009, knock on wood) and am totally unfamiliar with HD HomeRun, so I'm afraid I cannot help with this one. Sorry.

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9 hours ago, Earl Noe said:

The method provided by the helpful fellow members of this forum, especially Wisconsin Eric, for automating listings from xmltv.com has been working like a charm, with one bug I can't figure out: On one channel, a local PBS station, scheduled programs are being recorded by both tuners of the HDHR, creating two identical recordings. I thought it might have to do with creating Smart Guides, but deleting them has had no effect. Has anyone ever encountered this problem? Any suggestions? Just as I was typing this, I thought a hard reset of the tuner might work.

If you rearrange the list of schedules in the left hand pane it can cause multiple schedules in the Archive folder. If you quit and restart EyeTV it will read the multiple schedules and you will get multiple recordings.

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