[fryrpc]

I have experienced an issue when importing 7 days XML EPG from Atlas with the option to prefer this instead of the VBox OTA EPG.

The screen stops the import on one of the HD channels. I have left it like this for quite some time in case it is just doing something but after quite a while it was still the same. When I went into the guide the stalled channel details shown on the import is the one that is missing from the guide.

If I turn off the preference for the XML EPG the issue does not occur.
More importantly if I set the VBox TV Gateway to only gather 1 day OTA EPG the 7 day XML EPG imports OK - so that is how I have been running it for a few days and it is importing OK each time I startup Kodi. Obviously the downside is that other users who are using the VBox OTA EPG are only seeing one day.

In the UK we have to use the Atlas XML EPG as the VBox TV Gateway does not have the Huffman Decoding tables in order to read the EPG for the HD channels.

I don't know whether this is something to do with the volume of data overwriting/merging the 7 days OTA with the 7 days XML.

[negge]

It just looks like it's stalling, it's actually waiting until it has all the guide data before it starts returning anything to Kodi. Are you saying you're missing EPG data completely for the first channel after the addon has started completely (i.e. the progress bar is gone)?

[negge]

One improvement could be to ignore the EPG data from the VBox if the event names are literally "String format not supported". That way you wouldn't have to check "prefer external EPG over OTA" since the external EPG is used anyway for channels that don't have any "internal" EPG data.

[fryrpc]

My experience is that it looks like it stalls on a channel's EPG and when I check the Kodi Guide that channel is missing. I think that when I quit Kodi and started it again it stopped on the next channel in the list and the EPG for the first channel was OK but the next channel was missing. I came to the conclusion either I used the VBox OTA EPG which had data missing or change the VBox OTA EPG to 1 day and use the XML EPG which had the complete data.

Strangely some of the HD OTA EPG programs, only one or two, did have the Program name instead of the "String format not supported" but the program description was "String format not supported". Not sure if this information would affect any improvement.

I did toy with the idea of just downloading the XML for the HD channels so would end up with a hybrid of SD channels using OTA EPG and HD channels using XML EPG. I assumed the "prefer external EPG over OTA" option would just overwrite the EPG for any channels that were included in the XML file. I did wonder what would be the result of importing XML but not selecting the "prefer external EPG over OTA" would be a bit strange as if I was importing the XML then I would want to use that anyway. It sounds like the "prefer external EPG over OTA" is only considered if there is both OTA EPG and XML EPG for the channel and in this case the XML EPG wins?

Ideally I would like to be in a position where the VBox can have 7 days OTA EPG and Kodi has 7 days XML EPG, and only use OTA EPG if the channel is not in the XML file.

VBox said they are looking at adding the ability to import the XML EPG into the VBox itself - fixing the HD EPG issue at source.

[negge]

The option to prefer external EPG data means that the external data will be used (once it's loaded) regardless of whether the channel has any OTA EPG entries or not. If you only want to use it for channels that have their data missing you don't need to check that option (except "String format not supported" still counts as data so for now it doesn't work, I've filed a ticket about it though so I won't forget to change that).

So to reiterate, are you actually having any other issues apart from the startup taking some time?

[fryrpc]

OK. Thank You for the clarification. I just did not expect it to be slow starting up when I had ticked the prefer XML EPG when the VBox OTA EPG was 7 days - as it should just overwrite that anyway. It is quick loading the same 7 days of XML EPG when the VBox OTA EPG is set to 1 day. Which is why I thought something must be going wrong that left the import stalled.

I am having issues with stability but I am not sure whether that would be Kodi or the AddOn - Kodi crashing whilst watching Live TV.

Thank You.

[negge]

You should definitely create a bug reporr on trac.kodi.tv if Kodi crashes completely. Just include the crash log, see the wiki if you can't find it.