This is Brutal... Channel Guide has crapped out

[FreeBSD4me]

Hi all,

SageTV essentially useless to me at this point. For the past few days, the Zapit/ epg channel data is none existent, or in bits and pieces at best. I have ‘no data’ appearing in 60% of the channels. Trying to initiate in a guide update continues to result in some error about “the Sage Server being unreachable –make sure your you internet connection is working.” It was all working fine, and I have done nothing to the system here.

I’m trying to access the Canadian Starchoice Satellite guide. Does anyone know what’s happened here, or how much longer this will go on for? I mean… How am I supposed to use this thing with no channel information, and error messages, which tell you absolutely nothing.

Thanks all,

Dave

[pcuoco]

I don't believe SageTV supports Canadian listings (Website says US only). You may want to check out this thread.

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...adian+listings

[FreeBSD4me]

Yep, I saw that thread awhile back. I’m not sure if Sage officially supports any of the external channel guides, but just the same, it’s stating that it “cannot connect to the Sage Server”, which would indicate some problem on their end. I would assume the host is timing out, but without a standard TCP/IP error message, I don’t even know where to start testing.

In any event, it looks like the server completely down, and probably the DNS as well, since there’s no delay before I get that message –it’s just ceases to exist. Does anyone know the IP number? If so, I could ping or trace route it.

Any suggestions would be appreciated,

Dave

[stanger89]

AFAIK, if you are using an EPG import plugin, Sage no longer tries to connect to the Frey servers. It's most likely a problem with the plugin setup, or the source the plugin gets the data from.

[FreeBSD4me]

Sorry man, I have absolutely no idea of what it is you’re saying here. Everything was working up until a couple of days ago. Are you trying to say that sometime in that past few days, the server, which houses the EPG data has been changed? Are you saying that the EPG data I’m looking for is no longer available? I’m really trying to understand what is I’m supposed to do next.

Again, it would appear as if a connection with the server that provides this data cannot be established. If I need to change an IP number, I can do that. I’m pretty good at following instructions, and or providing information if you need it, but I need some idea of what it is I’m supposed to fix

Many thanks,

Dave

[stanger89]

All I was saying is that if you're using an EPG Import plugin, that you aren't connecting to the Frey servers, and therefore your problem is elsewhere.

One thing that comes to mind is that maybe Zap2It canned their Data Direct service (what I presume you are using).

[FreeBSD4me]

Alright. But, I’m not sure of what you’re referring to exactly. I’m using the Zapit EPG or whatever it’s called, and it’s always worked just fine. I wasn’t aware of any other programming guide that offered Canadian listings, and as far as I know, this is what everyone else is using. I don’t know why it would suddenly begin to malfunction for.

Anyway, according to my router logs, it looks like the guide is trying to access: warlock.freytechnologies.com on port 7760. Without doing a TCP dump, I have no idea of what it’s communicating if anything. It resolves to: 216.98.153.178. I did a trace route:


# IP address Host name Round trip time
1 134.22.133.1 dsl3-tor.dsl.tht.net 14 ms
2 216.126.88.1 vlan57.core1-tor.tht.net 13 ms
3 216.126.66.164 bb3.tor.151.net 13 ms
4 38.112.12.89 g2.ba21.b011027-0.yyz01.atlas.cogentco. 13 ms
5 66.28.5.61 g11-2-0.core01.yyz01.atlas.cogentco.com 13 ms
6 66.28.4.213 p13-0.core02.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com 28 ms
7 66.28.4.33 p12-0.core01.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com 38 ms
8 66.28.4.37 p5-0.core02.dfw01.atlas.cogentco.com 47 ms
9 66.28.4.25 p15-0.core01.dfw01.atlas.cogentco.com 48 ms
10 66.28.4.98 p13-0.core01.iah01.atlas.cogentco.com 52 ms
11 66.28.4.6 p14-0.core01.san01.atlas.cogentco.com 83 ms
12 66.28.66.110 g0-2.na21.b006588-1.san01.atlas.cogentc 83 ms
13 66.28.28.126 ge1-2.gw65-02.kmc01.sdcix.net 83 ms
14 209.126.155.111 gw65-01.kmc01.sdcix.net 84 ms
15 216.98.153.178 warlock.freytechnologies.com 96 ms

All seems to be fine here. So, the server is up, but it's not responding --at least that's what it looks like.

There's also the possibility that this is the server that check for a vaild licence. Anyway, I'm at a dead end again. Is there anything else I should check?

Thanks,

Dave

[ROBinTO]

I had this same problem when setting up the tuners (for the 100th time, due to other unresolved problems) I just waited a bit, tried again and it worked. I also use the zap2it plugin.

[mls]

I've had that happen once a while ago. I think the server was either down or overloaded because it eventually straightened out by itself.

[FreeBSD4me]

Originally Posted by ROBinTO

I had this same problem when setting up the tuners (for the 100th time, due to other unresolved problems) I just waited a bit, tried again and it worked. I also use the zap2it plugin.

Yeah, I’ve seen this before, but generally it’s lasted a few hours, and then all is well again, however I’ve never seen this go on for several days. I do seem to have about 50 to 60% of the listings with “no data’ errors appearing everywhere else on the guide. I truly wish there was some way of getting information on whether or not it’s a problem at their end, or if it’s something to do with that notice posted here about using Zap2it for commercial uses, or whatever.

This is an ambiguous warning, which still has a number of people really wondering. Between that, and the problems I’m having right now, it’s extremely difficult to know what, where, when, or whom to even contact. For all I know, I may be losing my channel guide. Great!

Dave

[FreeBSD4me]

Originally Posted by mls

I've had that happen once a while ago. I think the server was either down or overloaded because it eventually straightened out by itself.

Let us hope my friend

Dave

[ROBinTO]

I got that email from zap2it as well...I'm not really sure what they're getting at.
In order to use the listings in Sage, they require you to sign up with a valid email address, and then fill out their poll every 3 months...it's not like we're being sneaky about it and 'skimming' the listings.

[FreeBSD4me]

Just to clear up some confusion, why is the error message, “Cannot connect to Sage Server, check Internet your Internet connection” appearing for? Does, or did Sage provide this data at some time? I’ll assume it’s a Sage default error message, and not the actual network error message, which you’d see from a failed attempt. Is this correct? I’m asking, as Stanger mentioned that Sage no longer provides channel data? Grin… I’m just trying to figure out the chain of events here.

Thanks,

Dave

[FreeBSD4me]

Originally Posted by ROBinTO

I got that email from zap2it as well...I'm not really sure what they're getting at.
In order to use the listings in Sage, they require you to sign up with a valid email address, and then fill out their poll every 3 months...it's not like we're being sneaky about it and 'skimming' the listings.

True enough. I just checked my yahoo account to see if they sent me anything. Every 3 months? Thanks for clearing that up for me. I was aware of this poll, but not sure when, or how often it would show up.

Dave

[mls]

I believe it means just what it says... something is not making the connection thru from your computer to their server and it's puking out trying. Could be anything along the way.

Hey, Internet connections are not 100% reliable all the time ya know.

[Opus4]

I don't know why it is failing, but... If you never installed an EPG plugin and are using the built-in EPG for your listings somehow (do they match a US zip code?), then you are still going through the SageTV EPG server. Otherwise, you are going through the plugin's connection.

It might give that error if it can't connect to the plugin's data, in which case, it is just a generic error message indicating a failure getting the data & the message never got changed after plugin support was added.

Another recent EPG problem I've heard about recently is if the provider's name has changed & you are using SageTV's built-in EPG connection. In this case, the old provider name isn't available any more, so no listings get downloaded. The solution for that was to reconfigure the source & use the new provider name. BUT, I don't believe that problem showed any connection error message.

- Andy

[ToxMox]

Sounds to me like you are using Lester Jacob's Zap2It EPG Import Plugin for Canadian listings. You do need to renew the data direct account every three months by logging into the zap2it area where you originally signed up. Lester has set up a forum just for his plug in at http://www.digicasa.com/forum/viewfo...33832e2920b6cb
perhaps there will be some good reading for you. If you are not using this plugin then simply disregard this.

[FreeBSD4me]

Thanks for all the replies.

And yes, I’m using Jacob's Zap2It EPG Import Plugin. ToxMox, his forum has a trouble shooting guide and some alternate plugins to try. I’m going to continue to read through it. I guess I’m a little baffled, as I don’t know why it would flake all of a sudden. I would think something has changed at the server end, but I don’t see anyone else having problems here, so I’m just trying to make sense of this.

I’ll reinstall the plugin and try all the suggestions on that site. Unfortunately, without knowing if it’s in fact a server problem, I may waste some time messing with my configuration, but what are ya going to do, huh? I’ll let you know what happens.

Many thanks,

Dave

[FreeBSD4me]

Before I begin wiping out my EPG config, I did a little more network troubleshooting. Here’s what I’ve found. In the zap2itdata.log file:

2004-11-02T19:51:03Z Opening connection to http://datadirect.webservices.zap2it...gs/xtvdService
2004-11-02T19:51:03Z Sending first request for digest nonce
2004-11-02T19:51:04Z Setting username to bahbahbooey
2004-11-02T19:51:04Z Setting password.
2004-11-02T19:51:04Z Sending authorisation response
2004-11-02T19:51:04Z startTime 2004-11-01T19:51:03Z
2004-11-02T19:51:04Z endTime 2004-11-15T19:51:03Z
2004-11-02T19:51:04Z SOAP Request
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/' xmlns:SOAP-ENV='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/' xmlns:xsd='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema' xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance' xmlns:SOAP-ENC='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/'>
<SOAP-ENV:Body>
<ns1:download xmlns:ns1='urn:TMSWebServices'>
<startTime xsi:type='xsd:dateTime'>2004-11-01T19:51:03Z</startTime>
<endTime xsi:type='xsd:dateTime'>2004-11-15T19:51:03Z</endTime>
</ns1:download>
</SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
2004-11-02T19:51:04Z Reading response from server
<messages xsi:type='ns1:messages'>
<message>The endTime you specified was invalid and has been corrected to 2004-11-14T19:51:03Z.</message>
<message>Your subscription will expire: 2004-12-19T21:01:01Z</message>
</messages>
2004-11-02T19:52:15Z Finished reading response from server

Strange… That last successful access was on 2004-11-02. Nothing since then.

I tried accessing (via my browser), http://datadirect.webservices.zap2it...gs/xtvdService and manually entered my Username and Password. All I get is a "405 Method Not Allowed error" This means gets are not supported via http. Doesn’t make sense, since Sage would be accessing this data via http –at least I would think.

Has anyone tried accessing the above url through a browser and successfully authenticating? If it was denying access completely, I’d be receiving a 401 error message, and not 405.

Dave

[ToxMox]

I believe it accesses it via port 80 but not with http. I read something about other people trying to use their browsers and not being able to connect.
I think it is worth posting your log above on Lester's forum and hopefully somebody will know more about your problem. Otherwise how much can it really hurt to wipe your EPG config and start over? Worth a shot and if that doesn't work then try that other version of the plugin Lester posted for people having problems. Like I said I bet they know more over there about this stuff than me. I'm just making guesses.