[bred_pitt]

Hello there,

I have a couple of problems with newest xbmc frodo. They are so annoying that I post them all at once. I hope to find some general informations about them. It's impossible I'm the only one suffering from them.

1) Setting Universal Artist Scraper in Music-Settings doesn't work. When looking-up interpret-informations I have to set the scraper manually for every interpret every time.

2) "Recently added videos" doesn't work in confluence

3) The database is buggy!
-In videos-file-mode some already scraped movies lost pictures and infos. When re-scraping them I get double-entries in the database.

-The music-library just lost content today. Covers, Artist-Informations and fanarts for most entries are just gone.

-No possibility to manually group movies in database. Only sometimes CD1, CD2, CD3 etc. get grouped together into one "collection". Only well-known movie-collections get grouped.

-No possibility to add movies not available in online-databases. Very annoying since access for them is only possible from file-mode-view (which is loosing infos as mentioned before).

-Library-update for videos is causing wrong entries. About 50 movies not present on HDD occur in the database after an update. They all have numbers in title.


4) XBMC is crashing very often. I'm using xbmc to record TV-shows. When this happens at night, the computer doesn't shut down when finished. Bugs can occur - that's okay. But could someone write a background-daemon to re-start xbmc in such a case? A daemon not intercepting a shutdown of course.

5) DVD-Ripping not possible from within XBMC. This one is actually a real feature-lack. Please don't argument with piracy-concerns. There are tons of torrent- and filehosting-addons for xbmc. But a way to transfer my expensive DVD-collection is just missing. I suggest xbmc's database is not made for p2p-movies. So please add a DVD-RIP-feature.

6) Missing TV-to-DVD-record-function.

7) Missing Webradio-Ripping. Artists get money for this. Please don't disable it.

Used version: XBMC Frodo on Ubuntu 12.04.1 (Precise) as 64-bit-version with TV-Headend for TV.

[nickr]

Hello there,

I have a couple of problems with newest xbmc frodo. They are so annoying that I post them all at once. I hope to find some general informations about them. It's impossible I'm the only one suffering from them.

you assume too much. It really is better to deal with problems one at a time or the thread goes all over the place.

1) Setting Universal Artist Scraper in Music-Settings doesn't work. When looking-up interpret-informations I have to set the scraper manually for every interpret every time.

2) "Recently added videos" doesn't work in confluence

3) The database is buggy!
-In videos-file-mode some already scraped movies lost pictures and infos. When re-scraping them I get double-entries in the database.

-The music-library just lost content today. Covers, Artist-Informations and fanarts for most entries are just gone.

-No possibility to manually group movies in database. Only sometimes CD1, CD2, CD3 etc. get grouped together into one "collection". Only well-known movie-collections get grouped.

-No possibility to add movies not available in online-databases. Very annoying since access for them is only possible from file-mode-view (which is loosing infos as mentioned before).

Add them to the database, what do you think themoviedb.org and thetvdb.com are all about? If they are truly one offs (like your home movies) then use an nfo file per the instructions.

-Library-update for videos is causing wrong entries. About 50 movies not present on HDD occur in the database after an update. They all have numbers in title.

You probably have them named wrong, or ambiguously (eg there are 2 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, so you need the year for that one), or have your scraper settings wrong.

4) XBMC is crashing very often. I'm using xbmc to record TV-shows.

XBMC does not record TV shows. It can command a backend to do so. Please clarify what backend you are using debug log (wiki) might help us diagnose most of your problemsand see if you can work out if your problem is a backend one or an XBMC one. Also

When this happens at night, the computer doesn't shut down when finished. Bugs can occur - that's okay. But could someone write a background-daemon to re-start xbmc in such a case? A daemon not intercepting a shutdown of course.

5) DVD-Ripping not possible from within XBMC. This one is actually a real feature-lack. Please don't argument with piracy-concerns. There are tons of torrent- and filehosting-addons for xbmc. But a way to transfer my expensive DVD-collection is just missing. I suggest xbmc's database is not made for p2p-movies. So please add a DVD-RIP-feature.

code donations gratefully accepted

6) Missing TV-to-DVD-record-function.

see last response

7) Missing Webradio-Ripping. Artists get money for this. Please don't disable it.

Used version: XBMC Frodo on Ubuntu 12.04.1 (Precise) as 64-bit-version with TV-Headend for TV.

[saitoh183]

This is the type of post that shows you didnt do much searching of your own on the forum before complaining...

Question 1 to 3 answers are all over the forum and wiki

Question 4 : without a debug log there is no help possible....

Question 5 to 7: As nickr stated...code donations are gratefully accepted

I hope i dont want to be rude, but when i have issues, i search the forum and wiki for hours before posting because as you said, your not the only one that has had theses issues.

[bred_pitt]

This is the type of post that shows you didnt do much searching of your own on the forum before complaining...

Question 1 to 3 answers are all over the forum and wiki

No problem - that's not rude, it's just the thruth. I don't want exactly this: Searching for hours to collect all unsolved bugs. I'm sure they are unsolved because otherwise someone had fixed them already. The whole database-thing obviously needs a carefull creator spending another week or two to remove all the little but very annoying scratches.

Question 5 to 7: As nickr stated...code donations are gratefully accepted

That's a good thing to do. If I had code, I promise I would donate it. But I can't program and I don't wanna learn python just to use xbmc.

Add them to the database, what do you think themoviedb.org and thetvdb.com are all about?

No. That's the scrapers job. I don't wanna do what actually my computer should do for me. The mentioned database-issues are bugs in my eyes. Database-donations won't help.

Quote: -Library-update for videos is causing wrong entries. About 50 movies not present on HDD occur in the database after an update. They all have numbers in title.

You probably have them named wrong, or ambiguously (eg there are 2 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, so you need the year for that one), or have your scraper settings wrong.

You got me wrong: I suddenly get appr. 50 dead movie-entries not related to any movie on my hdd. Propably some part in the code is interpreting wrong data. Maybe it's mistaken some integer-numbers as movie-titles to scrape. Also possible: Sub-folders in my movie-folder carry lots of fanart-jpegs with numbers as filenames. These subfolders were created by the scrapers. All jpegs were downloaded automatically. It's possible the database treats them as movies for some reason.

XBMC does not record TV shows. It can command a backend to do so. Please clarify what backend you are using debug log might help us diagnose most of your problemsand see if you can work out if your problem is a backend one or an XBMC one.

Backend: Please refere to my last line of my last post. The integration of TV-related stuff is a major step in the frodo-release, according to the homepage. A backend is still neccesary though. It's working and it's awesome. I don't think crashing is TV-related. I just say when xbmc crashes at night, the computer doesn't shut-down. It will run for many hours without any purpose. The possible reasons for crashes are numerous and will ever be.

5) DVD-Ripping not possible from within XBMC. (...) So please add a DVD-RIP-feature.

code donations gratefully accepted

If this is true, I have a link for you: SAK is actually well known and adds DVD-ripping to xbmc. I never used it but afaik it's the only addon of it's kind out there. Unfortunately not working in frodo. Development seems to be frozen.

6) Missing TV-to-DVD-record-function.

see last response

Again, TV-capabilities are the big new thing in frodo. There is need for ad-removal and dvd-burning now. Every HDD-recorder can do it. XBMC can't. I don't believe this will last forever...
Linux already has terminal-commands for things like menu-creation and burning. They just need to get assembled in an addon.

An example for such a set of commands you can find here.
There are others too to auto-create DVD-menus. I just forgot their names. Possible problem could be lossless cutting of ts-files (TV-records). The whole thing should work without remuxing to save processing-time. My HDD-recorder really can do this: Converting records to a DVD-structure with chapters but without re-encoding. Difficult thing in linux.

[saitoh183]

I don't want exactly this: Searching for hours to collect all unsolved bugs. I'm sure they are unsolved because otherwise someone had fixed them already.)

You cant be sure because you didnt search in the first place. Once frodo or any pass release goes final, there is a feature freeze and no more updating (unless you start using the unstable version that come after the final stable version)

If you want help on your issues, First give us your your debug log, second, an example of your folder structure and file format...because its if your not following the naming convention things wont work.

4) XBMC is crashing very often. I'm using xbmc to record TV-shows. When this happens at night, the computer doesn't shut down when finished. Bugs can occur - that's okay. But could someone write a background-daemon to re-start xbmc in such a case? A daemon not intercepting a shutdown of course.

If its crashing, there is a good chance , its OS releated but again without a debug log ,we cant help you figure it out.

No. That's the scrapers job. I don't wanna do what actually my computer should do for me. The mentioned database-issues are bugs in my eyes. Database-donations won't help.

Your kidding...right?!...how do you think a scraper works?Scraper reads from those sites to rename your stuff accordingly...how do you think theses sites get there information so that scrapers can work?....People add information to them...dont forget they are free and maintained for free. If there is missing information, it wont just magically appear for your convenience. So participate like everyone else...

XBMC is not a fully automated solution in every aspect there are tools out there that help it be a better product. There is manual work to be done every once in awhile.

-No possibility to manually group movies in database. Only sometimes CD1, CD2, CD3 etc. get grouped together into one "collection". Only well-known movie-collections get grouped.

This is a perfect example of something that is completely false and if you did a bit more reading on how xbmc gets its information, you could have resolved it in a second. All that needs to be done is add a set tag to the nfo file of the movies you want to group and give them all the same collection name...refresh those movies and they will group.

As for all your PVR releated question, PVR is something brand new, so before complaining about it, give it time to mature a bit. you will see only new stuff for it in the next version of XBMC. As for now, it is what it is.

There is need for ad-removal and dvd-burning now

Why would you need DVD-burning function in XBMC?I have never seen a request for this because if you need to do something like that, it can easily be done outside of XBMC. Ad removal is already possible, like many other PVR software out there, this is achieved with Comskip or Show Analyser and other third party software like MCEbuddy ...again Forum/Google are there to help resolve issues and answer questions not just to post the same questions over and over...

[bred_pitt]

Your kidding...right?!...how do you think a scraper works?Scraper reads from those sites to rename your stuff accordingly

This has nothing to do with the mentioned database-bugs. Hence updating the database-providers won't remove errors in xbmc. Also: When scraping a movie I don't wanna register for an online-database-account. Indeed I also think this is a good idea for a new feature: Auto-upload of non-scrapable movie-infos with a formular to fill out.

Just in case you lost overview this is what was written before:

3) The database is buggy!
-In videos-file-mode some already scraped movies lost pictures and infos. When re-scraping them I get double-entries in the database.

-The music-library just lost content today. Covers, Artist-Informations and fanarts for most entries are just gone.

-No possibility to manually group movies in database. Only sometimes CD1, CD2, CD3 etc. get grouped together into one "collection". Only well-known movie-collections get grouped.

-No possibility to add movies not available in online-databases. Very annoying since access for them is only possible from file-mode-view (which is loosing infos as mentioned before).

You answered "add them to the database". It won't stop xbmc to forget database-entries again.

If its crashing, there is a good chance , its OS releated but again without a debug log ,we cant help you figure it out.

It's nice from you being so interested in fixing it. But I'm not so much looking for a fix. I rather look for a way to auto-restart xbmc with a helper-application recognizing shutdowns. Crashes always happen. Nobody can ever give a guarantee of avoiding crashes forever.

If there is missing information, it wont just magically appear for your convenience. So participate like everyone else...

Man, what do you think xbmc is made for?! I am sitting here in a living room with a remote-control in front of the TV. I don't upload anything with that! I can't even surf websites.

All that needs to be done is add a set tag to the nfo file of the movies you want to group and give them all the same collection name...refresh those movies and they will group.

That's helpfull, thanks. Unfortunately there are no nfo-files in my movie-folder. To create one I need their syntax. Forget it, I'm holding a remote-control and don't lookup wiki-pages to rewrite source-code with the number-keys of my IR. A menu-entry creating such nfo-files automatically is really missing.

Ad removal is already possible, like many other PVR software out there, this is achieved with Comskip or Show Analyser

Sounds good. I'm using TVHeadend as TV-backend. Is this ad-removal available for this too? My backend is not so popular but was the easiest to setup. Unlike others it has a web-frontend but is lacking many functions. Therefore I don't expect such a feature being available for me. Maybe a future xbmc-release will support it, since TV-recording got included.

DVD-burning always is of interest. The question actually is "why not?"

[nickr]

Unbelievable. You use open source software and crowd sourced data and you aren't prepared to get an account and contribute.

Most scraping errors are due to filenaming errors (including folder name errors). The errors will also become apparent from a debug log (wiki)

[bred_pitt]

Movies are in

~/Videos/Movies/

There are four subfolders:

iso (used by me sometimes to extract stuff. It's empty.)
Subs (location of subtitles, created by xbmc or an addon)
extrafanart (filled with lots of jpegs, created by xbmc or some addon)
extrathumbs (filled with 4 jpegs, created by xbmc or some addon)

That's all. There are no more subfolders.

[KeithLM]

What exactly are you expecting to happen when you structure things this way? Do you think that XBMC is going to examine the video and somehow determine the movie from that? Or do you think it's just magic? You have to put forth some effort for this to work effectively. All the scraper has to go on is the file name, if that's not easy to parse, the scraper is going to make it's best guess, that's all it can do.

Probably the best way to do this is put the each movie in it's own folder, and give the folder the proper name of the movie plus the year it was made. Look it up on IMDB and get it right. That makes life a lot easier for the scraper. Yes it does take some effort on your part, but only initially. Later if you do this as you add each movie it's no big deal. I personally use a third-party app to do my scraping so I have absolute control and can make any changes I like to the scraped data and artwork before it gets added to XBMC. Is it ideal? Not necessarily, but anything short of telepathy isn't going to be ideal.

While I don't contribute to XBMC and I've not looked into the scrapers themselves, I am a software developer and I have spent some time working with natural language processing. It's not easy, and to expect perfection out of an open source software package like this is asinine. You must provide some good information for the scrapers to work.

Likewise if you want help fixing your crashing issues, you must provide logs and more information than just complaints. I don't have routine crashes, I don't think most people do, and unless you have tried it on several systems it's silly to assume that your issues are common to everyone else when it's abundantly clear that a lot of people are using this software without all the problems you seem to have.

[saitoh183]

Movies are in

~/Videos/Movies/

There are four subfolders:

iso (used by me sometimes to extract stuff. It's empty.)
Subs (location of subtitles, created by xbmc or an addon)
extrafanart (filled with lots of jpegs, created by xbmc or some addon)
extrathumbs (filled with 4 jpegs, created by xbmc or some addon)

That's all. There are no more subfolders.

No wonder your stuff dont work, did you do any research what so ever before using XBMC? A scraper is only as good as the structure you give it. if your structure does not meant the proper standards, then how do you expect it to work? if you didnt follow this as a base for your setup and didnt 0 research, then what do you expect?

As for fixing DB issues with movies, you know that you can export your XBMC DB and it will create nfo files in the movies folders (once you clean up your folder structure) and then you can make the changes and rescan and it will use the nfo instead of scraping from the net.

Quote:
If its crashing, there is a good chance , its OS releated but again without a debug log ,we cant help you figure it out.
It's nice from you being so interested in fixing it. But I'm not so much looking for a fix. I rather look for a way to auto-restart xbmc with a helper-application recognizing shutdowns. Crashes always happen. Nobody can ever give a guarantee of avoiding crashes forever.

This is out of scope of the application because there is no need for it...crashes happen because of problems, if your not willing to fix the source of the problem a bandaid is pointless...

Quote:
Ad removal is already possible, like many other PVR software out there, this is achieved with Comskip or Show Analyser
Sounds good. I'm using TVHeadend as TV-backend. Is this ad-removal available for this too? My backend is not so popular but was the easiest to setup. Unlike others it has a web-frontend but is lacking many functions. Therefore I don't expect such a feature being available for me. Maybe a future xbmc-release will support it, since TV-recording got included.

Google it and find out

Man, what do you think xbmc is made for?! I am sitting here in a living room with a remote-control in front of the TV. I don't upload anything with that! I can't even surf websites.

I have multiple XBMCs (all windows base) with a centralized DB + 1 more with its own DB for my wife's ...before sitting in my living room with my remote control, I actually took the time to prepare my Media center environment. When i turn on my XBMC everything is top notch. From the way you write about the "bugs" as you call them, your expecting XBMC to be plug and play and if you throw any files at it no matter how they are, it will make it work....

[nickr]

If you want to restart xbmc every time it stops try the following bash script.

Code:

#!/bin/sh
while :

do
   echo "Press [CTRL+C] to stop.."
   xbmc
done

[bred_pitt]

Thanks man. That's a start...
What happens with the script on shutdown? I need xbmc to write the next wakeup-time into the bios. This is done in the shutdown-phase. If xbmc gets restarted and killed during the shutdown-procedure, I'm afraid the bios-entry won't be set properly (hence the need for a "daemon not intercepting a shutdown").

[bred_pitt]

Your script seems to work and didn't disturb the automatic wakeup up to now. Thanks again.