Help updating MySQL db once new media is downloaded/sorted etc with Sick Beard
#1
Hey all,

I have just recently discovered the awesomeness of Sick Beard (and will soon be playing with Couch Potato to handle movies) and have almost got my home theatre setup - complete with multiple XBMC clients sharing a MySQL db and centralised thumbnails - working completely automatically.

One issue I have noticed is that on the ATV2 (w/ XBMC), checking for new episodes/movies at start up slows it down considerably, and the process is very slow compared to on my laptop running XBMC. This means that XBMC is currently failing the Wife-acceptance test, as new media isn't "just there".

One way I can think of to work-around this is to have my main server, where all of my media and home theatre related processes/programs lives, update the MySQL database either:

(a) After Sick Beard (and eventually Couch Potato) has performed some processing, (I currently use uTorrent and Sick Beard scans a folder every 10 minutes to look for new eps) have some form of script/program run that rescans my library and adds entries into the MySQL database, or

(b) Install XBMC on my server PC and have it check for new content periodically via the use of a plugin (not really preferred as I imagine it will chew some resources unnecessary if all it is doing is scanning for content and scraping it every now and then).

Does anyone know how I can achieve (a) above? I believe future versions of Sick Beard are looking at having a feature similar to this implemented, but for now I need a work-around.

Sorry if parts of this all all over the place. Just got up and getting ready for work - quite tired!

Thanks for any assistance anyone can provide.
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#2
Wolferine111 Wrote:Hey all,

I have just recently discovered the awesomeness of Sick Beard (and will soon be playing with Couch Potato to handle movies) and have almost got my home theatre setup - complete with multiple XBMC clients sharing a MySQL db and centralised thumbnails - working completely automatically.

One issue I have noticed is that on the ATV2 (w/ XBMC), checking for new episodes/movies at start up slows it down considerably, and the process is very slow compared to on my laptop running XBMC. This means that XBMC is currently failing the Wife-acceptance test, as new media isn't "just there".

One way I can think of to work-around this is to have my main server, where all of my media and homwe theatre related processes/programs lives, update the MySQL database either:

(a) After Sick Beard (and eventually Couch Potato) has performed some processing, (I currently use uTorrent and Sick Beard scans a folder every 10 minutes to look for new eps) have some form of script/program run that rescans my library and adds entries into the MySQL database, or

(b) Install XBMC on my server PC and have it check for new content periodically via the use of a plugin (not really preferred as I imagine it will chew some resources unnecessary if all it is doing is scanning for content and scraping it every now and then).

Does anyone know how I can achieve (a) above? I believe future versions of Sick Beard are looking at having a feature similar to this implemented, but for now I need a work-around.

Sorry if parts of this all all over the place. Just got up and getting ready for work - quite tired!

Thanks for any assistance anyone can provide.
Check out this thread and maybe you could get some ideas. http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=87472
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#3
Wolferine111 Wrote:Hey all,

I have just recently discovered the awesomeness of Sick Beard (and will soon be playing with Couch Potato to handle movies) and have almost got my home theatre setup - complete with multiple XBMC clients sharing a MySQL db and centralised thumbnails - working completely automatically.

One issue I have noticed is that on the ATV2 (w/ XBMC), checking for new episodes/movies at start up slows it down considerably, and the process is very slow compared to on my laptop running XBMC. This means that XBMC is currently failing the Wife-acceptance test, as new media isn't "just there".

One way I can think of to work-around this is to have my main server, where all of my media and home theatre related processes/programs lives, update the MySQL database either:

(a) After Sick Beard (and eventually Couch Potato) has performed some processing, (I currently use uTorrent and Sick Beard scans a folder every 10 minutes to look for new eps) have some form of script/program run that rescans my library and adds entries into the MySQL database, or

(b) Install XBMC on my server PC and have it check for new content periodically via the use of a plugin (not really preferred as I imagine it will chew some resources unnecessary if all it is doing is scanning for content and scraping it every now and then).

Does anyone know how I can achieve (a) above? I believe future versions of Sick Beard are looking at having a feature similar to this implemented, but for now I need a work-around.

Sorry if parts of this all all over the place. Just got up and getting ready for work - quite tired!

Thanks for any assistance anyone can provide.

Both Sickbeard and CP have a methid of forcing one of your XBMC clients to update its library. This means that right after downloading and doing it's thing, each program sends the update command to update the library.

On one of your XBMC clients,( ATV2, XBMC Live, etc,) go to Settings Network, allow it to be externally controlled. Note the IP address and port and plug that info in CP and SB. The only caveat is that the XBMC client has to be always turned on... not a bad thing for the ATV2 if it downloads and updates at 2:35 am.... and it only eats 6 watts or so.

Then you can disable automatically scanning library at start up.

This is how I use mine.
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#4
watzen Wrote:Check out this thread and maybe you could get some ideas. http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=87472

Thanks for that. I went through it but didn't really find anything that achieves what I am trying to do. Although 6 months ago the uTorrent run after download stuff would have been SOO handy haha.


hernandito Wrote:Both Sickbeard and CP have a methid of forcing one of your XBMC clients to update its library. This means that right after downloading and doing it's thing, each program sends the update command to update the library.

On one of your XBMC clients,( ATV2, XBMC Live, etc,) go to Settings Network, allow it to be externally controlled. Note the IP address and port and plug that info in CP and SB. The only caveat is that the XBMC client has to be always turned on... not a bad thing for the ATV2 if it downloads and updates at 2:35 am.... and it only eats 6 watts or so.

Then you can disable automatically scanning library at start up.

This is how I use mine.

Great idea. I would normally do this, but my household are in the habit of turning anything/everything off at the point if it is not being used (being into tech stuff like this, its a super great energy saving habit to have!) the only thing that stays on 100% of the time is my server (so it doesn't miss RSS feeds for downloads, client XBMC machines can always access content etc).

From your suggestion, I would be looking to run an instance of XBMC on my server machine as a service, and get Sick Beard to tell it to update when it has processed files from my "NEW TV" folder.

Is anyone aware of a cut-down version of XBMC that deals with scanning for media and scraping only? I wouldn't need the complete program running on my server machine (and really really don't want to either - performance may become an issue).
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#5
What is your server...? I believe I discussed this in another thread a couple weeks ago. Unless your server is any of the platforms XBMC runs on, (Win, Mac, Linux w/ an X-Windows GUI) it is unlikely.
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#6
A similar application that runs on Python like SB, Sab, and CP that manages the XBMC library(independent of XBMC) would be a nice thing. Not sure how doable that is... WAY beyond my level of expertise. It could scrape on its own, you can edit your metadata, configure actor folders, etc. THAT would be cool!

I listed this on a thread and got little response.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=95699
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#7
hernandito Wrote:What is your server...? I believe I discussed this in another thread a couple weeks ago. Unless your server is any of the platforms XBMC runs on, (Win, Mac, Linux w/ an X-Windows GUI) it is unlikely.

My server is a Windows 7 machine. Not secure, or a good choice for a server machine I know, but its for inside my own home network and nothing else, very much protected from the internet.


hernandito Wrote:A similar application that runs on Python like SB, Sab, and CP that manages the XBMC library(independent of XBMC) would be a nice thing. Not sure how doable that is... WAY beyond my level of expertise. It could scrape on its own, you can edit your metadata, configure actor folders, etc. THAT would be cool!

I listed this on a thread and got little response.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=95699


That would be the ideal solution, but like you have mentioned there doesn't appear to be anything like it floating around. I think some form of cut-down version of XBMC with no GUI, and keeping to basic functionality such as perhaps the UPnP service (so it can host media and stream to other XBMC clients - this has been requested in other threads before), the ability to scrape media, and add media to the database would be good.


Again if anyone knows of something that can just look at media, and update an SQL database if there are new files, please do share.
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#8
Wolferine111 Wrote:My server is a Windows 7 machine. Not secure, or a good choice for a server machine I know, but its for inside my own home network and nothing else, very much protected from the internet.

That would be the ideal solution, but like you have mentioned there doesn't appear to be anything like it floating around. I think some form of cut-down version of XBMC with no GUI, and keeping to basic functionality such as perhaps the UPnP service (so it can host media and stream to other XBMC clients - this has been requested in other threads before), the ability to scrape media, and add media to the database would be good.


Again if anyone knows of something that can just look at media, and update an SQL database if there are new files, please do share.

Why not then simply install XBMC on your Win 7 server machine and run it in windowed mode. And you still point CP and SB to same local machine. Both should be able to send the "update library" command.

I also have an unsecured server for my home... I am not worried about it.
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#9
hernandito Wrote:Why not then simply install XBMC on your Win 7 server machine and run it in windowed mode. And you still point CP and SB to same local machine. Both should be able to send the "update library" command.

I also have an unsecured server for my home... I am not worried about it.

I think I will end up running XBMC on my server. Im just worried about the amount of resources its going to consume. I haven't given up on finding a proper solution yet though.

Has anyone installed XBMC as a service? Can you comment on cpu/ram usage?
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#10
I'm wanting something exactly the same as this.

I've just built an unraid server that stores all my movies/tv shows etc and also runs CP, SickBeard and sabnzbd. Its also running mysql which stores my xbmc database. I now only leave the server running and so I can't tell CP/SickBeard to update my xbmc library because the machines running XBMC are more than likely powered off.

A program that could update the library the same as xbmc does that has the same web interface so CP/SB can send the update signal would be awesome. Would never have to do updates over the network which is quite a bit slower!
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#11
smiffy1989 Wrote:I'm wanting something exactly the same as this.

I've just built an unraid server that stores all my movies/tv shows etc and also runs CP, SickBeard and sabnzbd. Its also running mysql which stores my xbmc database. I now only leave the server running and so I can't tell CP/SickBeard to update my xbmc library because the machines running XBMC are more than likely powered off.

A program that could update the library the same as xbmc does that has the same web interface so CP/SB can send the update signal would be awesome. Would never have to do updates over the network which is quite a bit slower!

My exact same setup...unRAID rules. But it is not that hard for me to have SB or CP update my library right after downloading on my ATV2... Unless you are watching media 24-7, these updates do not bother me...

However it would be uber-cool to have a way to DIRECTLY manage and edit the XBMC database in a similar fashion as a metadata manager like Media Master Pro.

I cannot comment on the resources XBMC takes, but start up XBMC in windowed mode, bring up Task Manager and go to Resources and see what it says. File serving, along with SAB, CP and SB are not very resource intensive tasks.
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#12
I ended up installing XBMC on my server. Ran into a few issues, but I have somewhat managed to work around them.

I access my server via RDP, and after doing this and trying to run XBMC, it spits the dummy hardcore, doesn't like the fact that RDP can't handle OpenGL.

But I found a way around this!

I had to physically go to my server and connect a monitor up to it etc so I could sit at it and log in directly. Once I did this and ran XBMC, I set XBMC to run in a window all the time. Now whenever I remote in, XBMC opens up fine and I can do maintenance things with it (I haven't tried opening media in it, and I don't plan to, may well cause it to crash?).

Turns out XBMC doesn't use THAT many resources. Obviously it uses more than simpler programs/scripts, but its not a show stopper for a server. I installed the library update add-on within XBMC as well, which makes it check for library updates when it starts, and then every 2 hours after that.

I can't seem to get it to load at startup though, nothing I try seems to work. Any thoughts?
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Help updating MySQL db once new media is downloaded/sorted etc with Sick Beard0