Plugin: Sage Recording Extender (SREv3)

[Slugger]

Can you zip up your complete log file and email it to me? PM me if you don't have my email address. Also include the game and start time you were monitoring (so I don't have to come back here looking for it when I get a chance to debug this). I think it's just that I'm not flipping that symbol at the start of a game, but I'll take a look at it some evening next week.

Bottom line (especially while SREv3 is still in beta): when it doubt, the logs are the definitive answer. If the logs say a game is being monitored, rest assured it is. Then if something on the GUI isn't matching what the logs are telling you then (preferably), open an issue ticket or else post a message here.

[cat6man]

same here slugger............it has been working great all week, but even today's game against the orioles in a couple of hours still shows the yellow warning triangle (which i expect for games on future days)

sounds like a flag isn't being flipped somewhere, but it works great

fyi: for sports fans, i just discovered the 'anti-favorite' or 'favorite-delete' plugin which is great for creating Boolean NOT functions to be ANDed with favorites.

since red sox games on mlb-ei are blacked out when playing the yankees since i live in yankee broadcast territory, i set an anti-favorite for 'yankees' associated with the favorite 'boston red sox'.............

3 cheers for user accessible boolean logic

[sic0048]

I've just started using this plugin. In fact, the first two truely monitored sporting event will happen tonight (NHL hockey & NBA basketball). Both have the yellow triangle in the web server. After reading the threads, I would expect this on days before the event, but not on the event day itself.

I've attached the sre log file in case someone wants to look over it. Keep in mind that there are a couple of errors in the beginning of the file where I had my google ID incorrect (I added @google.com to the ID originally). However, there have been a couple more errors after that point, but nothing that I take as too serious.

Still, I guess I'd like some assurance that everything is going to work as expected! After all, I'm a little nervous before getting my SRE cherry popped tonight

Thanks!

[cat6man]

sic
you should be fine..........relax...........yellow triangles work fine in sre3.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by cat6man

sic
you should be fine..........relax...........yellow triangles work fine in sre3.

Good to know. I appreciate the vote of confidence.

EDIT - Just an FYI - my NBA game now shows a green check mark as well. I guess I was just too impatient.

[Slugger]

Yeah, it all looks good. Here's what I can say:

Barring any unforseen bugs, at the very least SRE will always apply the default padding to a monitored event if it can't somehow monitor it. The default value of the padding is 1 hour (60 mins).

If you're worried, then check the sre.log file shortly after a recording starts. A monitored recording is always checked against the data source at the start of a recording then sleeps until 30 mins before its scheduled end. For example, a hockey game listed in the EPG from 8pm - 11pm will check the data source and log at 8pm then, assuming it was successful, will sleep until 10:30pm and then monitor the event every 2 mins until it's over.

As for the warning triangles, there's some logic errors in the GUI only as far as I can tell. The sre.log file trumps whatever the GUI is telling you. When in doubt, refer to the log files for the definitive answer as to what SRE is thinking and doing.

With that said, when the GUI and the logs don't agree then I'd like to know about it - preferrably with an issue ticket. I'm aware of warning for current day events on the GUI and will dig into it asap. However, this week is looking rather busy so asap may not be until later in the week.

[cat6man]

hey man, SRE3 *works* so there is no rush to dig into yellow triangles...........they can stay there forever as long as SRE3 works
like it does today.

life is too short to sweat the little stuff...........

hope next week isn't too rough that you don't get to enjoy the jays!

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by Slugger

Yeah, it all looks good. Here's what I can say:

Barring any unforseen bugs, at the very least SRE will always apply the default padding to a monitored event if it can't somehow monitor it. The default value of the padding is 1 hour (60 mins).

If you're worried, then check the sre.log file shortly after a recording starts. A monitored recording is always checked against the data source at the start of a recording then sleeps until 30 mins before its scheduled end. For example, a hockey game listed in the EPG from 8pm - 11pm will check the data source and log at 8pm then, assuming it was successful, will sleep until 10:30pm and then monitor the event every 2 mins until it's over.

As for the warning triangles, there's some logic errors in the GUI only as far as I can tell. The sre.log file trumps whatever the GUI is telling you. When in doubt, refer to the log files for the definitive answer as to what SRE is thinking and doing.

With that said, when the GUI and the logs don't agree then I'd like to know about it - preferrably with an issue ticket. I'm aware of warning for current day events on the GUI and will dig into it asap. However, this week is looking rather busy so asap may not be until later in the week.

Yup. I had the yellow triangles today as well. However, the Red Sox game extended with no trouble. Shortly before game time, the 1:30 Red Sox game showed a green check mark. Sometime after the start of the game, the green check mark turned into a yellow triangle. Towards the end of the scheduled event, I noticed some errors in the log file AND SRE had applied the default padding to the recording (1 hour). However, the game went into extra innings and ended a full 90 minutes after the end of the scheduled event. It looks like SRE had trouble communicating with the server, extended the recording to the default padding, but on the next check the server was up and all was well.

I'm expecting the Celtics game tonight to be fine as well (also showing a green check mark right now), but I set the default padding to 180 minutes to be safe

No hurry on a fix Slugger, take your time and I'm confident the kinks will be worked out. I'll PM you my latest log file, so you can see the errors.

[Slugger]

The next beta build will be delivered to the plugin repository some time today (hopefully before tonight's ball games start, but no promises; busy day ahead). Here's what's fixed in the build:

• Fix issue 122: Always ensure the event being monitored is completed according to the EPG before unsetting the manual recording flag
• Fix issue 125: Avoid possible early end of monitor in case of transient errors with livepvrdata.com web source
• Fix bug where monitor could end early in the case where multiple slow responses are received from livepvrdata.com causing the poller to sleep beyond the extended recording time
• Fix sync issues with the status column on the GUI
• Post system message (warning) if the "pre-game" status check (happens sometime during the 30 minutes prior to the scheduled start of the recording) does not produce a valid monitor (i.e. an override might be needed).

Some extra info worth mentioning about the GUI status column...

The status of a specific recording monitor is only checked once a day (at the request of livepvrdata.com) until the day of the event, but in SRE the thread that checks status runs every 30 minutes and checks the timestamp of the last check for each scheduled recording and if it's never been checked or the last check was more than 24 hours ago then it will check again. So when you schedule a new recording, it may take up to 30 minutes before the status column properly reflects the status as expected.

On the day of the event, the status is checked as follows:

• The status is checked between 12:15-12:45 EST(GMT-500)/EDT(GMT-400); this is done because most sports (currently) use ESPN Bottom Line feed and it does not switch over until 12:00 ET each day. This check is done to change the warnings to check marks as early as possible each day
• Status is then checked again sometime during the 30 minutes prior to the scheduled start of the recording; if this check does not find a valid monitor then a system message is posted warning you that a monitor may need an override. There are cases where this may produce false positives and those should just be ignored. An example of this is if livepvrdata.com were down at 19:30 and SRE checked status for a recording of The Simpsons starting at 20:00 well SRE will tell you an override might be needed for The Simpsons, obviously that's not true. It's the price you pay for the ability to receive system messages about actual events that might need an override (because the game is listed as "Teams TBA" or something, which definitely will need an override). A future build may provide the ability to disable system messages to avoid false positive messages, though I personally think the false positives are worth it given that they should be few and far between. Combined with SageAlert, one could receive these notices via email/SMS such that they'd know when a game will need an override without the need to constantly monitor the SRE log file.

[cat6man]

here is a tricky one, probably not in sre's scope, but since we sports folks hang on every byte slugger writes, this may be the audience:

on thursday, the red sox play the indians on game13 (mlb-ei)
also, on mlb-hd i see 'regional coverage' which is marlins at phillies or
red sox at indians

any idea if sage can tell which is going to be shown where i am?
does mlb or any other web site explain which games will be shown in which market?

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by cat6man

here is a tricky one, probably not in sre's scope, but since we sports folks hang on every byte slugger writes, this may be the audience:

on thursday, the red sox play the indians on game13 (mlb-ei)
also, on mlb-hd i see 'regional coverage' which is marlins at phillies or
red sox at indians

any idea if sage can tell which is going to be shown where i am?
does mlb or any other web site explain which games will be shown in which market?

No thoughts on how to resolve that one. This happens to me a couple times every football season where ABC and ESPN will show opposing games depending on what part of the country you are in:

For example, ABC shows: A vs. B or C vs. D and ESPN shows C vs. D or A vs. B

In which case, I usually have to go look at the coverage maps on ESPN's site and then manually record the correct game. Oftentimes, Zap2it will update the guide with the specific game as the date gets closer, but not always.

Not sure how you'd check this for the Extra Innings package.

[cat6man]

i understand also that i need to do an override, but it is very annoying of MLB to
not have a simple way for us to figure out which game we are going to get.

p.s. sre3 will have informational messages when faced with this (when there is no override)
and it can't figure out which game is which............i recorded mlb-hd tonight to catch
stausberg's 1st start for washington but sre3 of course didn't know which game mlb was
broadcasting here.

[Slugger]

Yeah, there's nothing SRE (or anything) can do except hope that the EPG data is updated with the actual game being shown prior to the scheduled start of the recording. With the addition of the system messages, at least you should be notified that an override is required prior to the start of the recording.

[Slugger]

Nasty deadlock bug in 856. Fixed (hopefully) in 858. I'll do more testing when I have time tomorrow, but even if this fix doesn't work it's better than 856, which will deadlock SRE after a successful airing monitor stops a recording. Worst case scenario is that 858 doesn't fix it, but it should. I will confirm the fix once I test it more thoroughly tomorrow or post details on the next build that will fix it.

I apologize in advance for those who chose to monitor more than one recording tonight with 856 - it's a guarantee that the second recording was not monitored nor would it have had the default padding applied, etc. (b/c SRE would have deadlocked after the first monitor finished).

EDIT: After looking at the code closer, there is a couple of scenarios where the deadlock may have been avoided, but most likely not. You definitely want to move off of 856 ASAP.

[Slugger]

If nothing else, 858 is a major improvement over 856. I'm actually quite confident in saying that it completely fixes the deadlock issues in 856, but don't have time to give it the full testing needed tonight. However, my quick, informal testing shows I can't reproduce the deadlocks that were easily reproducible in 856 so I highly recommend everyone on 856 moves to 858 asap.

[sic0048]

Thanks for the bug update. While I hadn't worried about it, I think I experienced this exact scenerio a couple of days ago (when I used SRE for the first time). I recorded both NHL and NBA games that night and while the first game seemed to end correctly, the 2nd was defaulting to the 1 hr padding.

Since it was my first time using SRE, I thought maybe it was normal to do that (ie the server couldn't connect or some other reason it might default to the default padding).

Knowing that it was a bug definitely increases my confidence (and acceptance level) of SRE. Because truth be known, I was a little disappointed.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by sic0048

Thanks for the bug update. While I hadn't worried about it, I think I experienced this exact scenerio a couple of days ago (when I used SRE for the first time). I recorded both NHL and NBA games that night and while the first game seemed to end correctly, the 2nd was defaulting to the 1 hr padding.

Since it was my first time using SRE, I thought maybe it was normal to do that (ie the server couldn't connect or some other reason it might default to the default padding).

Knowing that it was a bug definitely increases my confidence (and acceptance level) of SRE. Because truth be known, I was a little disappointed.

This bug was introduced only in build 856, which was released only yesterday. Older versions did not contain the bug. If you experienced this with something more than a day old then this is not the bug you're seeing. In that case, I'd like to see your sre.log file for further analysis.

I will say that the final kinks are just about worked out... I'm running full tests on 858 today (should be completed by the time I'm done work), but the informal tests I did last night suggest all is good. Assuming that to be the case, I highly recommend upgrading to 858 and then report anything that doesn't seem right. I really would like to see that log file. If you do send it to me, please tell me which games you were monitoring and the date. Even better, would be to prune the logs so they start at the time of the first monitored recording.

[kmp14]

Dumb question time. When looking at the Recording Schedule in the web ui for SRE, why does everything, including non-sports regular programming, have the Monitor? checkbox checked? Seems to me that this indicates that all recordings will be extended, at lest with the default padding, is this true?

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by kmp14

Dumb question time. When looking at the Recording Schedule in the web ui for SRE, why does everything, including non-sports regular programming, have the Monitor? checkbox checked? Seems to me that this indicates that all recordings will be extended, at lest with the default padding, is this true?

All recordings are monitored in SREv3, this is done for future enhancements - enhancements I will not be discussing at this time.

Shows that will not be monitored (i.e. non-sports events) will NOT have the default padding applied. They simply query the web service, the web service replies that it is not a monitored event and then SRE immediately stops monitoring it (with no padding, extension, etc. applied).

[Slugger]

My testing on 858 has proven successful. I'm giving 858 the thumbs up!

Everyone should be moving to 858 asap. This is especially true if you're running 856. 856 is bad, very bad!