STV Import: MovieTimes Movie Listings Import v0.57 Beta

[key master]

I read over some of the mtsa-specific problems you guys are reporting back with the beta and I compiled a short FAQ to help clear up some confusion some people may have about .NET and other issues here:

http://movietimes.home.comcast.net/mtsa/faq.html

If you have any ideas about any other issues specifically with mtsa that you want there, please let me know.

In the next version of mtsa, I plan to have more error-checking code like if you have no theaters active, the log file will make it more obvious.

GREAT job on the plugin aperry!

-Jim

Originally Posted by kricker

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/2bc0cxhc.aspx and http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archi...23/516671.aspx...am I reading this wrong? If so I sure don't have that control panel with my .NET 2 install.

[mike1961]

Originally Posted by jlabrue

Yes, that is how I added it initially to the menu. I also tried using studio through a modified default STV and I just now tried with the stock STV and only this import and I get the same results with them all. I can configure and change the settings and run MTSA to download and it all works 100% of the time including trailer downloads. But when I go to my menu item in SageTV via Dynamic Menus or the Studio edit and select the List Theaters or List Movies items it always comes back with No Theaters were found or No Movies were found. Not sure what other things to try just yet. I'll let aperry take a look and see what he thinks also since I uploaded my files.

EDITED: I tried setting aperry/MtsaMovieListView=true but still no luck (it was set to false)
This is what is happening to me also. I'm only trying to get it to work on my file server for now. So, my Sage Clients right now are "out of the picture." I get successful downloads of all the information but I can't seem to List Theatres or Movies on Sage on my file server.

(aperry - as a side note regarding the issue of downloading information and initial setup on the clients, I'll concede that it might be possible but only if the drive mappings are to the root on the server and no UNC's are used...then maybe. The reason from my experience that you can't use UNC's for certain things is that I noticed that when I try and go to Configure, it doesn't show them or like them. I get errors when trying to download. But again...for now, I'm just trying to get everything to work on my file server and that way it bypasses all necessary downloading on the clients since downloading from the client's is not mandatory).

Here's my code and again - I just want to get the List Movies and Theatres working on my file server and I am using Nielms Dynamic Menus. All the infomation has been successfully downloaded to my MovieData files in the Z:\MovieTimes\Media folder (thanks again for the continued support):

CONFIG.XML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ConfigurationSettings>
	<LocationFile>\\Server1\sharedz\MovieTimes\locations.xml</LocationFile>
	<!-- Enter the file location where you want to store the location information. -->
	<LogFile>\\Server1\sharedz\MovieTimes\Media\log.txt</LogFile>
	<!-- Enter the file location where you want to store the log file. -->
	<TempFolder>\\Server1\sharedz\MovieTimes\Media\Temp\</TempFolder>
	<!-- Enter the folder location where you want to store temporary files. -->
	<NumberOfDays>7</NumberOfDays>
	<!-- Enter how many days into the future you would like movie listings for. Note that some countries do not support this setting. -->
	<DownloadExtraDetails>True</DownloadExtraDetails>
	<!-- Choose whether or not you would like to download extra movie information from IMDB.com. -->
	<!-- Values: True False -->
	<PosterFolder>\\Server1\sharedz\MovieTimes\Media\Temp</PosterFolder>
	<!-- Enter the folder location where you want to store movie posters. -->
	<PosterQuality>High</PosterQuality>
	<!-- Choose whether or not to download higher quality (but larger in size) movie posters, lower quality posters, or none at all. -->
	<!-- Values: High Low None -->
	<TrailerFolder>\\Server1\sharedz\MovieTimes\Media\Trailers\</TrailerFolder>
	<!-- Enter the folder location where you want to store movie trailers. -->
	<TrailerQuality>None</TrailerQuality>
	<!-- Choose whether or not to download higher quality (but larger in size) movie trailers, lower quality trailers, streaming (links only), or none at all. -->
	<!-- Values: High StreamHigh Low StreamLow None -->
	<RemoveOldMedia>True</RemoveOldMedia>
	<!-- Choose whether or not you want to automatically delete old (non-referenced) posters and trailers. -->
	<!-- Values: True False -->
	<XmlDataFile>\\Server1\sharedz\MovieTimes\Media\moviedata.xml</XmlDataFile>
	<XmlSchemaDataFile>\\Server1\sharedz\MovieTimes\Media\moviedata.xsd</XmlSchemaDataFile>
	<!-- Enter the file locations where you want to store the XML movie data and the associated XML Schema file. -->
</ConfigurationSettings>

===================================================

LOCATIONS.XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<LocationList>
<!-- **************************************************************************************************************** -->
<!--  Country: Select the country to retrieve movie listings for. -->
<!--  Values: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, United Kingdom, United States -->
<!-- **************************************************************************************************************** -->
<!--  Locations: Select the postal code and/or city name to retrieve movie listings for. -->
<!--  Note: Separate each value with a "|" character. -->
<!-- **************************************************************************************************************** -->
<!--  Active, Inactive: Select one or more theaters to retrieve movie listings for. -->
<!--  Note: Separate each value with a "|" character. -->
<!-- **************************************************************************************************************** -->
	<LocationDetails>
		<Country>United States</Country>
		<Locations>91301|91320|91377|91360|91361|91362|93010|93012|93063|93064|93065</Locations>
		<Active>AMC Promenade 16|Century 10 Ventura Downtown|Century Ventura 16|Edwards Calabasas Stadium 6|Edwards Camarillo 12|Edwards Canyon Country Stadium 10|Edwards Simi Valley Plaza 10|Edwards Valencia Grand Palace Stadium&amp; Imax|Laemmle's Fallbrook|Laemmle's Town Center 5|Mann Agoura Hills 8|Mann Granada Hills|Mann Janss Marketplace 9|Mann Oaks Mall|Mann Plant 16|Mann Westlake Village 8|Maverick Cinema 3|Pacific Northridge Fashion Center All Stadium 10|Pacific Winnetka All Stadium 21|Plaza Stadium Cinemas 14|Regal Civic Center Plaza 16|Regency BuenaVentura|Regency Paseo Camarillo Cinemas|Regency Westlake Village Twin|Roxy Stadium 11|Wallace - Santa Paula 7 Theatres</Active>
		<Inactive></Inactive>		
	</LocationDetails>
</LocationList>

Mike

[grooves12]

It working fine for me... but I have found a couple of minor annoyances.

If you select List Movies... and then select a movie...

A) It makes you select a theater it is playing at before it can continue... it would be nicer if you weren't forced to make this selection until you select showtimes... or even better if it would just list the showtimes seperated by the theaters it is playing at.
B) Once you select a theater... then decide you want to go back it takes you back to the listings ONLY for that theater you selected in the previous step, rather than ALL movies for your active theaters which is how you selected you wanted to browse the movies.

... and the opposite is true for if you select to browse by theater, once you select a movie and then go back to where your theater list should be you see a list only of where the last movie you selected is playing.

[mike1961]

Still waiting for some advice on how to list my theatres and movies.

Thanks,
Mike

[grooves12]

Did you follow the instructions step by step?? At what point are things not working?

[aperry]

Originally Posted by grooves12

It working fine for me... but I have found a couple of minor annoyances.

If you select List Movies... and then select a movie...

A) It makes you select a theater it is playing at before it can continue... it would be nicer if you weren't forced to make this selection until you select showtimes... or even better if it would just list the showtimes seperated by the theaters it is playing at.

This was a conscious choice on my part. In setting things up, currently, the details requires that you have a movie AND theater selected. I can look at changing that, and perhaps offering more options for navigating. First though, I want to get folks running, and get any current bugs worked out.

B) Once you select a theater... then decide you want to go back it takes you back to the listings ONLY for that theater you selected in the previous step, rather than ALL movies for your active theaters which is how you selected you wanted to browse the movies.

... and the opposite is true for if you select to browse by theater, once you select a movie and then go back to where your theater list should be you see a list only of where the last movie you selected is playing.

Bummer, I know I had that fixed at one point... I'll take a look this weekend to get it fixed.

[mike1961]

Originally Posted by grooves12

Did you follow the instructions step by step?? At what point are things not working?

Grooves, APerry - please read post #102. I cann't get it to List Theatres or Movies. Everything downloads just fine but it won't list the theatres or movies on my files server. I'm Stuck.

Thanks,
Mike

[aperry]

Okay, well, I have to research it a bit to see exactly what problems it is causing in my program, but apparently, the problem stems from the following movie in the moviedata.xml file.

<Media>
  <MediaID>10</MediaID>
  <Name>Merry Christmas (Joyeux Noel)</Name>
  <Alias>Merry Christmas (Joyeux Noel)</Alias>
  <Rating>PG-13</Rating>
  <Runtime>1 hr 56 min</Runtime>
  <location>C:\MovieTimes\Media\Trailers\Merry Christmas (Joyeux Noel).mov</location>
  <Trailer>Yes</Trailer>
</Media>

Thanks jlabrue for posting the files... This movie is not showing in my area, so I was not seeing the problem. I removed this movie from the moviedata.xml file, restarted Sage, and the movie data loaded correctly. Mike, do you have this item listed in your moviedata file too?

Off the top of my head, I'm thinking that there is something missing from this record that my program considers to be "required". Or something is not formatted the way the program expects.

I'll research it and get an update out as soon as I can track down what's going on.

Since I really only get to work on this at night, it will probably be a day or two before I can get it fixed.

[mike1961]

Yes - I do have that movie in several places (probably playing at several theatres.

Thanks again for the support and I'm really looking forward to utilizing this.

Mike

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by aperry

Okay, well, I have to research it a bit to see exactly what problems it is causing in my program, but apparently, the problem stems from the following movie in the moviedata.xml file.
Thanks jlabrue for posting the files... This movie is not showing in my area, so I was not seeing the problem. I removed this movie from the moviedata.xml file, restarted Sage, and the movie data loaded correctly. Mike, do you have this item listed in your moviedata file too?

Off the top of my head, I'm thinking that there is something missing from this record that my program considers to be "required". Or something is not formatted the way the program expects.

I'll research it and get an update out as soon as I can track down what's going on.

Since I really only get to work on this at night, it will probably be a day or two before I can get it fixed.

I didn't have that particular movie, but I did have a couple of IMAX movies in my moviedata.xml with similar, brief, records. I removed the IMAX theaters from my theaters list, re-ran mtsa.exe, and now everything is showing up correctly. Let me know if you would like me to "break" it again (by loading up the IMAX data into moviedata.xml) and I will send you the XML files so that you have some more debugging data points.

Thanks for your help debugging this so far. The plug-in looks great!

[jlabrue]

Thanks aperry! I went in to see if I could exclude the theater showing that but unfortunately it is at my primary theater

Look forward to the update. Let me know if you need anything else.

[mike1961]

aperry - please see my post 102 because I started realizing that the movie you mentioned Merry Christmas was preventing a List Movies but I also cannot get the List Theatres to show anything either so I was thinking maybe one of the theatres in my Locations.XML file is preventing the List Theatres from showing me any theatres.

Thanks again,
Mike

[aperry]

Originally Posted by mike1961

aperry - please see my post 102 because I started realizing that the movie you mentioned Merry Christmas was preventing a List Movies but I also cannot get the List Theatres to show anything either so I was thinking maybe one of the theatres in my Locations.XML file is preventing the List Theatres from showing me any theatres.

No, for navigating through "List Movies" or "List Theaters", it uses the information from the moviedata.xml file. Since that entry in the moviedata.xml is breaking things, it would break the theaters as well.

The list that is in the locations.xml file is merely there to tell the MTSA program which theaters you care about, the ones for which it should download showtimes, etc.

[aperry]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

Let me know if you would like me to "break" it again (by loading up the IMAX data into moviedata.xml) and I will send you the XML files so that you have some more debugging data points.

Please do provide me a copy of your moviedata.xml file with the IMAX stuff in it. Never hurts to have a couple extra test cases...

Just ZIP it up and attach it to a response.

Thanks!

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by aperry

Please do provide me a copy of your moviedata.xml file with the IMAX stuff in it. Never hurts to have a couple extra test cases...

Just ZIP it up and attach it to a response.

Thanks!

Of course, now I can no longer reproduce the problem as I encountered it this morning. I added the problematic theaters back in, reran mtsa.exe, restarted Sage, and now everything is showing up with no problems. On checking the moviedata.xml, the problematic listing (Deep Sea 3D) now has a whole bunch more detail on it than before - which may explain why it now works.

Anyway, I was able to reproduce it again by finding another theater which contained invalid movie data. Here is what I believe the offending entry is:

  <Media>
    <MediaID>17</MediaID>
    <Name>BOSTON RED SOX VS NEW YORK YANKEES</Name>
    <Alias>BOSTON RED SOX VS NEW YORK YANKEES</Alias>
    <Trailer>No</Trailer>
  </Media>

Attached are the relevant MovieTimes XML files.

[mike1961]

Here's my current MovieTimes with the log file.

Thanks,
Mike

[mike1961]

Any eta on when the update might be read for testing with my movie database?

Thanks,
Mike

[aperry]

Hey guys, sorry for not responding the past couple of days. Had a couple of very long days at work, and had to set up my mother-in-law's new TV (hooking everything up and configuring it so she could use it). So, I have not had any time to work on this.

I will be able to get some time to work on it this weekend, and will have a new release then. Sorry for the delay, but as has happened a couple of times previously too, "real life" demanded some attention.

BTW, thanks Mike for your movietimes file, I'll include it in my testing.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by aperry

Hey guys, sorry for not responding the past couple of days. Had a couple of very long days at work, and had to set up my mother-in-law's new TV (hooking everything up and configuring it so she could use it). So, I have not had any time to work on this.

I will be able to get some time to work on it this weekend, and will have a new release then. Sorry for the delay, but as has happened a couple of times previously too, "real life" demanded some attention.

Please take your time. Everything looks great so far!

Now that I've been able to use it for a couple of days, I've noticed another issue related to "refreshing" the moviedata.xml. As per the install guide, I have mtsa.exe set up to run nightly to refresh the moviedata.xml. This works great. However, the MovieTimes plug-in within Sage does not seem to pick up the updates until I restart the UI.

I noticed this in a couple of cases:

1. I added a new theater to my list of enabled theaters. I manually ran mtsa.exe to pick up the listings for the new enabled theater. After mtsa.exe completes, I have to restart Sage to get the updated listings and that new theater's listing information.

2. I have the nightly job run to update the listing data. However, this does not get picked up until I restart Sage. For example, I checked in this morning to see when "Da Vinci Code" is playing and I noticed that the showtimes included times for yesterday (5/18) and the day before (5/17). I checked the current movietimes.xml and noticed that there is no info in the file for these days. So, I restarted the Sage UI and, sure enough, the showtimes information was refreshed, the 5/17 and 5/18 listings were no longer displayed.

[jlabrue]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

Please take your time. Everything looks great so far!

Now that I've been able to use it for a couple of days, I've noticed another issue related to "refreshing" the moviedata.xml. As per the install guide, I have mtsa.exe set up to run nightly to refresh the moviedata.xml. This works great. However, the MovieTimes plug-in within Sage does not seem to pick up the updates until I restart the UI.

I noticed this in a couple of cases:

1. I added a new theater to my list of enabled theaters. I manually ran mtsa.exe to pick up the listings for the new enabled theater. After mtsa.exe completes, I have to restart Sage to get the updated listings and that new theater's listing information.

2. I have the nightly job run to update the listing data. However, this does not get picked up until I restart Sage. For example, I checked in this morning to see when "Da Vinci Code" is playing and I noticed that the showtimes included times for yesterday (5/18) and the day before (5/17). I checked the current movietimes.xml and noticed that there is no info in the file for these days. So, I restarted the Sage UI and, sure enough, the showtimes information was refreshed, the 5/17 and 5/18 listings were no longer displayed.

I have experienced that as well. Probably a simple fix for aperry considering what he has done so far