Plugin: Sage Recording Extender (SREv3)

[Slugger]

NCAA football monitoring is broken. The underlying problem is a limitation of the Google App Engine, which is what livepvrdata runs on.

Unfortunately, the livepvrdata project is all but dead. The former owners of the project have shut it down. Fortunately, I was able to inherit most of the source code (some was not released to me) and the domain name. However, this particular break requires changes to the code that I can't make because I don't have the code.

So... I'm rewriting the service, open source, and unfortunately this NCAA football break is forcing my hand a little.

The good news is I have something working, but I'm not quite convinced it's ready for prime time. I think the Sage community is about to become the official alpha testers of my work because without something this NCAA issue is likely to creep into the rest of the ESPN monitors.

The next SRE update will be a subset of current features. Namely, the global override editor will not work. Instead, if you find the need for global override edits post them here and I'll make the changes manually myself until I can attack that area of the app (no ETA). Overrides you create will still work, but they won't be written to the online datastore and would need to be recreated as needed.

I'll post more details after I upload the next release to the repository.

NOTE: All other monitors (MLB, CFL, NFL, etc.) continue to work.

[Slugger]

Build 1581 has been added to the repository. It is an initial version of SRE compatible with my first release of the new livepvrdata web service.

There are some minor issues, but all monitoring is working, including NCAA football.

Known Issues

• The global override editor ignores all attempts to edit the online overrides datastore; SRE will report success, but the edits are ignored on the server and no emails will be sent out; your overrides are saved locally and will be honoured by SRE on a per recording basis
• The events.jsp link in SRE is no good, it points to the old version; for now, use this URL instead: http://4.livepvrdata.appspot.com/events.jsp

Highlights

• Fixes NCAA football monitoring
• Removes need for Google Account authentication
• Code cleanup/prep for future enhancements (i.e. SRE 3.1, no ETA)

This is a bit of a rush release, but I tried my best to test the monitoring capabilities and all my tests were successful. Please report ANY/ALL issues you find immediately.

[Slugger]

1584 is in the repository. It adds the fixes required to reenable the global override editor.

Notes:

After upgrading, you need to enter an email address in your SRE settings (either from web or from plugin settings in STV). This email address is used when submitting global overrides. The livepvrdata service now sends confirmation links to an email address before committing edits to the datastore. If you don't enter a valid email then you won't receive the confirmation link and your global overrides will never become visible in the online datastore.

EDIT: You can't set the email address via the plugin settings in the STV, due to a bug that will be fixed in the next build. For now, you have to set the email address from the web UI.

[voorhees]

ORGINAL POST

Slugger,

I have updated to 1584, but I now notice that my scheduled recording of the Utah St. at Auburn game for NCAA football is marked as "Monitor status is invalid." I have never seen this status before. At http://4.livepvrdata.appspot.com/events.jsp I see the game listed under "College Football: 20110830" as "Utah St vs. Auburn" even though the game is on 20110903. Is their something I need to update or change (or reinstall) to get NCAA football working?

Thanks.

----------------

EDIT

Well, I may have answered my own question. After hitting submit on the previous post and looking at SageTV again I noticed that at http://4.livepvrdata.appspot.com/events.jsp the subtitle of the event is "Utah St vs. Auburn" which was actually different than the subtitle of the event in SageTV which was "Utah State at Auburn." I created an override changing State to St and I now get as my status "Recording will be monitored." It had been a very long time since I had to create an override for a game, so that did not jump to mind at first. So, it looks like I am good to go.

Thanks.

[Slugger]

Yeah, you've got it. You're going to find that a lot of NCAA events will need overrides and will also need additions to the global override list. Hopefully users start to contribute to that list as the NCAA seasons progress. Once a global override is added, all SRE users immediately gain access to it so it's a one time only thing then it doesn't have to be added again (unless the EPG or feed names change).

[ptzink]

Slugger, thanks for the ongoing support of this plugin! I am the envy of my friends this time of year. I just wanted to let you know that I am running build 1584 and my "Today's Events" button takes me to http://www.livepvrdata.com/events.jsp where I get the error message:

Error: Server Error
The server encountered an error and could not complete your request.

If the problem persists, please report your problem and mention this error message and the query that caused it.

Any idea what's going on here? Also, how far into the future is data available? Does it only have this week's games? I noticed some of next week's games have a "monitor status unknown". Thanks again.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by ptzink

Slugger, thanks for the ongoing support of this plugin! I am the envy of my friends this time of year. I just wanted to let you know that I am running build 1584 and my "Today's Events" button takes me to http://www.livepvrdata.com/events.jsp where I get the error message:

Any idea what's going on here? Also, how far into the future is data available? Does it only have this week's games? I noticed some of next week's games have a "monitor status unknown". Thanks again.

The link to today's events in the web UI points to the old version, which is broken due to the NCAA football monitor being broken in that version of the web service. For the time being, go to http://4.livepvrdata.appspot.com/events.jsp

I'll be making v4 of the web service the default version of the app within the next week or two. When I do that, www.livepvrdata.com/events.jsp will again work.

How far into the future you can go depends on the source being used for game content. For the pro sports, you should be able to go to the end of the regular season, once the schedule becomes available. So for MLB, NFL, CFL (i.e. anything in season or very close to starting), you should be able to look ahead as far as you like. For the others, you probably need to wait until the season is close to starting. NCAA football should be complete now, but you'll have to experiment with the date=yyyymmdd at the end of the above URL to find out just how far you can go.

New events in your recording schedule will show up as "unknown" status for up to 30 mins after they are added to the recording schedule. SRE only updates monitor status info twice an hour so new recordings may take up to 30 mins before their status is validated.

[ptzink]

Slugger thanks! Awesome!
I had just scheduled a manual recording of the NFL opener for next Thursday, but didn't wait long enough for SRE to update the status. The event is monitored now and all is well. Thanks. Go Colts!

[Slugger]

There is a nasty NPE bug in 1588 that, when hit, will cause the database to lock and become inaccessible.

You hit the bug by creating an invalid override for a scheduled recording.

Build 1590 fixes the bug and is the recommended version for all users. Builds older than 1588 do not have this bug, but you should still move to 1590 because builds older than 1588 will stop working when I upgrade the default version of the livepvrdata app later this week.

[Slugger]

I've upgraded the web service to the latest available - my first build of the service since inheriting the project - and this update means that SRE 3.0.0.1590 is now required to properly monitor events. I was going to wait for a week or so, but another bug was discovered on the web service side, which was already fixed in my build and I'd also like to get a few extra days of wider testing in before the NFL starts next weekend so it seemed like the best time to make the switch is now. For those running a build older than 1590, simply upgrade from the SageTV plugin repository.

[cat6man]

hi slugger,
just curious.....does sre work for the us open tennis finals?

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by cat6man

hi slugger,
just curious.....does sre work for the us open tennis finals?

Nope. Usually I say find me a source and I'll write the monitor, but honestly there's no way I'd have time to write and test such a monitor before the tournament ends.

[KarylFStein]

What's tennis?

Edit: Now both my grandfathers just told me to go and cut my own switch.

Edit 2: Ouch, turns out they weren't talking about 1000BT Ethernet...

Edit 3: Um, hello? Tennis? What's going on besides football right now?

Edit 4: Ouch, please rename this plugin FHBRE--football, hockey, basketball recording extender...forget all that other cra...uh, stuff!

[darcilicious]

Originally Posted by Slugger

I've upgraded the web service to the latest available - my first build of the service since inheriting the project - and this update means that SRE 3.0.0.1590 is now required to properly monitor events.

Well that explains all the "interesting" system messages for my regular recordings today I suppose

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by Slugger

Nope. Usually I say find me a source and I'll write the monitor, but honestly there's no way I'd have time to write and test such a monitor before the tournament ends.

no problem.........just an idle question

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

What's tennis?

Edit: Now both my grandfathers just told me to go and cut my own switch.

Edit 2: Ouch, turns out they weren't talking about 1000BT Ethernet...

Edit 3: Um, hello? Tennis? What's going on besides football right now?

Edit 4: Ouch, please rename this plugin FHBRE--football, hockey, basketball recording extender...forget all that other cra...uh, stuff!

football? isn't that the game where people run around kicking a round ball and the announcers scream 'goooooooooaaaaaaaalllllllll' once or twice a match?

hello..................it's baseball season dude

[cyberlewis]

Hi Slugger,

Yesterday I installed the versions of SRE and SRE UI that are currently in the plugin repository on a clean system and immediately get the nag screen telling me to enter my Google account info into the web page. I believe that in a previous post you stated that this is no longer needed. When I go to the sre page in jetty and select 'Options', there is no longer a means to enter this information, nor in the 'Configure Plugin' section for SRE within SageTV itself. I have rebooted the SageTV server machine, restarted the SageTV service, as well as restarted Jetty to no avail, the nag pops right back up. The plugin seems to be working fine as I am getting successful monitoring, but something is clearly wrong. What do you think? Is this in SRE itself or the UI plugin? I appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks,
Brian

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by cyberlewis

Hi Slugger,

Yesterday I installed the versions of SRE and SRE UI that are currently in the plugin repository on a clean system and immediately get the nag screen telling me to enter my Google account info into the web page. I believe that in a previous post you stated that this is no longer needed. When I go to the sre page in jetty and select 'Options', there is no longer a means to enter this information, nor in the 'Configure Plugin' section for SRE within SageTV itself. I have rebooted the SageTV server machine, restarted the SageTV service, as well as restarted Jetty to no avail, the nag pops right back up. The plugin seems to be working fine as I am getting successful monitoring, but something is clearly wrong. What do you think? Is this in SRE itself or the UI plugin? I appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks,
Brian

A UI update is required, however, I think I'll just feed dummy values into the props to trick the UI into thinking they're already set - Google Auth isn't required anymore. Just getting back into a short work week so may not be until the weekend. As you've seen, the plugin works for monitoring, but the UI won't let you do much if it thinks that Google Auth isn't configured. If I can find a free hour before the weekend I'll try to get a new build done up.

If you want to clean this up manually before the next build, do the following:

• Stop SageTV server/service
• Edit Sage.properties
• Look for a line that starts with sre/oauthSecret= and make sure there's some text after the = if there's not add some (anything will do). If no such line exists, create one.
• Same with a line starting with sre/oauthTok=
• Restart Sage; SRE UI should be happy now.

[cyberlewis]

Thanks Slugger, I appreciate the response. More than likely I will just wait for the next build of SRE (understanding that the issue is actually in the UI). However, with the NFL season kicking off, I may get antsy and go ahead and modify the keys in the Sage.properties file.

Thanks so much!
Brian

[bond00]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong but this is killing me. I installed the plugin and went to http://127.0.0.1:8080/sre/. I see the Options at the bottom just like the annoying popup tells me. I click it and see a few options, including Global Override Email. I enter my gmail account there, but am still getting this annoying popup which obviously means its not working.

Is there another Options menu? I noticed people talking about a server on port 8500, but nothing is running on that port for me. What's going on?!