Imported Videos Back to SageTV Menu?

[joe123]

I had 1 of my 6 drives fail recently, drive E:. So I took out Drive E: and was able to extract all of the videos to another drive.

I place the new drive as Drive E:, restarted SagetTV and SageTV placed about around 30 of my 100 movies in the Imported section and the other 70 in the normal SageTV menu.

Before the drive failure, I had zero files in my imported section.

So, what is the *easiest* way to fix this?

[GKusnick]

The easiest fix would be if you happen to have a backup of your wiz.bin from just before the crash, and haven't recorded anything new since then (or at least nothing you want to keep long-term). Just shut down Sage (including the service, if you use it), set aside your current wiz.bin, put the backup in its place, and restart. Sage should then see all the old files right where it expects them to be.

The downside is that any recordings made since the backup won't be in the restored database and will show up as imports. But if that's all stuff you plan to delete after watching anyway, maybe it doesn't matter.

[joe123]

Yeah, I don't have a back up of my wiz.bin file, PLUS, I am not sure about you folks, but by the time one notices a failed drive, go out and buy a new one and spend days recovering / copying movies to the new drive, several days have gone by.

Not very realistic to STOP everything once a drive fails.

Now, why would SageTV recognize most but not all of the ogirinal movie even though the movie file names are correct (not currupt)?

[BobPhoenix]

I'm planing for the next version (0.3 not the next maintence release of 0.2) of my Video Edit plugin to allow marrying up of airing info and recorded files that would fix this. However it will not be released for a while (maybe a month) so you probably don't/can't wait that long. But in the future by using this plugin you should be able to fix this problem as long as the airing is still in the database and you can find it.

BobP.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

But in the future by using this plugin you should be able to fix this problem as long as the airing is still in the database and you can find it.

Can it be used to connect to another airing of the same show, instead?

If the airing info was still in the database, it should have been automatically matched up with the ID that is part of the filename. What usually happens is that the drive is seen w/o those files being there at some point & SageTV notes that those recordings no longer exist. Then, when old EPG data is cleared out, as it is periodically, it sees that the old EPG data for some recording isn't needed any more because the recording isn't there any more. Later, if the recording's file is restored, there is no airing info to match up with that file. Newer recordings will still match up with their airing info because the more recent EPG data hasn't been cleared of info that is no longer needed. Older files can still get matched with their data if the info is retained in the database because it has been watched, marked Don't Like, etc.

Another way that a recording file can get disassociated with its airing info is when a file is moved to a different dir while SageTV is running. If a scan finds the new file before the old one is noticed missing, it will import the new file because the airing still has a file associated with it... or at least it does until it later notices the original file is missing. In this case, the airing info would still exist for a while & the file can be associated with it again by clsoing SageTV, moving the file to yet another dir (or back to the original location), and restarting SageTV again. It then gets found as a 'new' file & its ID number connects it to its info again.

- Andy

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Can it be used to connect to another airing of the same show, instead?

Actually yes that is the intent to connect a media file to an airing in the database. Whether the user matches the correct airing to the file I will not be able to tell. But my intent is to display a list of airings that do not currently have a media file associated with them and then establish the link with whatever mediafile is loaded. I should have phrased my comment better. "As long as the SHOW is still in the database" - rather than saying AIRING.

BobP.

[joe123]

That's great Bob, a lot of SageTV users will benefit. This is one of those tools which SageTV should have as part of their normal features in SageTV.

In the meantime while you work on the script, can you (or someone) explain how can I reconnect the movies in my Inported videos back to my SageTV menu?

I have neilms webserver and I am able to see all kinds of ID's for each movie and the ID's do not match the SageTV recordings, if I match them, will this fix it? If yes, what do I match with what and does SageTV need to be down?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by joe123

I have neilms webserver and I am able to see all kinds of ID's for each movie and the ID's do not match the SageTV recordings, if I match them, will this fix it? If yes, what do I match with what and does SageTV need to be down?

I think you better ask this question in the Web Server thread because I have not used it for that purpose but I believe it can be done - just don't know how/if for sure.

[geogecko]

Possibly a bit of a strange location to ask the question...but you did work webserver in there...

Did your new driver letter change from what the old one was? For some reason, the way that is described to move files between drives (with different letters) is to close down Sage all the way, then move the files. Restart Sage. Sage has to be able to see the OLD drive letter (doesn't matter if anything is on it), and then it will see the files on the NEW drive letter, and should bring them into your Sage Recordings.

However, I'm not sure how Sage would behave if you had lost the recordings (at least, Sage couldn't see them on the bad drive), while it was running, because it may have deleted them from it's database (wiz.bin). In the previous way I described the process, the files, according to SageTV, never disappeared, they just moved. (Which is why you have to do it when SageTV is closed down.)

If you have a backup of your wiz.bin before the drive crashed, you could use that to probably repopulate the files in the recordings section. I am unsure as to what would happen to recordings that took place after the backup though, then they may import as imported videos!?

moved here from the webserver thread, since this info doesn't pertain to webserver usage

[joe123]

Hi.

Sorry, I was not very clear about the details, so here is what I did.

One of my 6 drives died. Recordings were in "E:\TV Movies". I shut down my PC, took out the bad drive and brought the PVR (PC) back up while I worked on getting as much as possible out of my bad drive on another computer.

About a week later, I got most of my recordings OUT of the bad drive and copied them to the new drive. I took the PVR PC down, installed the new drive and started the PVR up again. Everything was in the same location and drive letter: "E:\TV Movies" as before. I do realize that a week went by where SageTV had no "E:\TV Movies" drive/location.

After SageTV came back up, out of my 100 recordings in "E:\TV Movies", around 70 or so are back in my SageTV menu but about 30 of them ended up as Imported. The files names are good (ie not currupted).

The WebServer shows the ID's for the 30 Imported recordings different. The names are the same, but the ID's have different numbers.

I did not want to put back an old copy of my wiz.bin file because all of my new recordings would then go away since the day of the win.bin file restore.

I am not sure about you guys, but it takes me days to discover a dead drive, to pull 500GB out of it and go out and purchase and install a new drive (and format the darn thing at 64k blocks). You guys must be quick.

[pagelmcb]

So, I reinstalled windows and then sagetv. I wiped out my C drive but all my recordings were saved on other drives.

Since I didn't save the wiz.bin file there is no way to add these previous recordings to my 'Recordings' menu in SageTV?

I can only access them as imports now??

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by pagelmcb

So, I reinstalled windows and then sagetv. I wiped out my C drive but all my recordings were saved on other drives.

Since I didn't save the wiz.bin file there is no way to add these previous recordings to my 'Recordings' menu in SageTV?

I can only access them as imports now??

Basically Correct. Your wiz.bin held all of that info. There's nothing in the wiz.bin to connect those files to.

Gerry

[pagelmcb]

Well I think it would be wise of SageTV to place a small hidden file in each recording directory with that additional info for importing shows back into a newly installed sagetv program. Or even embed a little more data into each video file. ANYTHING that would allow for re-imports of sagetv recordings back into the Recordings menu. As long as it recognizes them as sagetv files.

This might make things easier for some people. I like how the Recordings menu places the same shows in folders rather than in one big list (like the imports/music).

[owilsky]

There are two imports/plugins. One creates .xml files, the other .my files for each recording. Just look in the customization section.

Unfortunately until now no plugin exists that is able to reimport these imformation to the wiz.bin file ...

[joe123]

Originally Posted by owilsky

Unfortunately until now no plugin exists that is able to reimport these imformation to the wiz.bin file ...

I just love that irony

[nielm]

Well, we all have priorities It took a year for the XML export to go from RFC to reality!

When my wiz.bin gets corrupt, you will be sure that there will be an XML importer released within a few days!

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by owilsky

Unfortunately until now no plugin exists that is able to reimport these imformation to the wiz.bin file ...

But the capability to create such a plugin on short notice does exist and has existed for quite some time. You don't have to wait for Niel to do it. Any reasonably competent programmer can do it in a weekend. So maybe the fact that no such person has actually been motivated to do it yet says something about how dire this situation really is.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by nielm

then my wiz.bin gets corrupt, you will be sure that there will be an XML importer released within a few days!

It is a sad day when we don't see SageTV jump in do this themselfs. Users should not be the ones.

[owilsky]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Any reasonably competent programmer can do it in a weekend. So maybe the fact that no such person has actually been motivated to do it yet says something about how dire this situation really is.

Yeah... well I consider myself as a programmer, but not a Java one