Synology xmltv module and zap2xml help

Nick Craig

I have a synology nas with tvheadend from synocommunity setup and working with my hdhomerun tuner. I cannot wrap my head around how to setup the internal grabber (currently it says disabled) with zap2it epg data (I have username and account with them) . I have downloaded the tv_grab_file and the zap2xml file but really have no clue what to do with them. Where do I put them etc. I do have ssh setup. If someone would be kind enough to do some heavy typing to give me a step by step that would be awesome.

K Shea

I believe this article will tell you everything you need to know:

https://freetoairamerica.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/some-hints-for-getting-free-to-air-satellite-channels-into-the-electronic-program-guide-in-kodi-or-xbmc-or-another-frontend/

Greg H

The tutorial linked above is what I used to get going on my synology box. You will have to use the other script.

"For example, in my Review of the TBS MOI+, I showed a variation of that script that runs under ash (as provided in BusyBox), since the original bash script won’t work in that environment."

To be able to run the script you will need to install perl from the synology package manager. I am also pretty sure you will need to modify the zap2xml.pl file for the version of perl that is used by synology I would need to dig up my notes.

Nick Craig

If you are able to dig them up I would be grateful. I will check out the tutorial and the review of TBD.

Nick Craig

So ...... I'm not sure I'm cut out for this. I have the tv_grab_file and the zap2xml.pl file at /volume1/Tvheadend/xmltv/ and have set both as executable and correct permissions. I edited the tv_grab_file cat to point the /volume1/TVheadend/xmltv/tv_grab_file and it doesn't show up under internal grabbers in the epg tab. Still says disabled. I also installe perl to synology. I know I have to still edit the zap2xml file perl stuff but I assume that stuff would still show up under internal grabbers.

Greg H

tv_grab_file needs to be in /usr/bin the zap2xml.pl can be left in /volume1/Tvheadend/xmltv/ tv_grab_file cat should point to the location of the xml file (I call mine xmltv.xml) created by zap2xml.pl which should default to the same location /volume1/Tvheadend/xmltv. I created a script file zap2xml.sh that executes zap2xml.pl with some options and the zap2xml.sh file is then scheduled to run using the synology DSM scheduler.

I can get a more detailed description and attache my files as examples later today.

K Shea

Nick Craig wrote:

> So ...... I'm not sure I'm cut out for this. I have the tv_grab_file and the zap2xml.pl file at /volume1/Tvheadend/xmltv/ and have set both as executable and correct permissions. I edited the tv_grab_file cat to point the /volume1/TVheadend/xmltv/tv_grab_file and it doesn't show up under internal grabbers in the epg tab. Still says disabled. I also installe perl to synology. I know I have to still edit the zap2xml file perl stuff but I assume that stuff would still show up under internal grabbers.

As Greg H said the script tv_grab_file needs to be in /usr/bin but also it must be made world executable and the owner and group should be root. If you just copy it over and don't make it accessible to TVHeadend then I don't think it will appear in the list of grabbers. Remember, when things don't work as you think they should in Linux, it's often either a permissions or ownership issue, or both.

Nick Craig

Bam!! Worked like a champ. Thank you for the great writeup.

Greg H

This is how mine is set up on a Synology DS415+ DSM 6.0; Perl 5.24.0-0066; Tvheadend 4.1.2389-1

I placed tv_grab_file in /usr/bin and chmod 755 to make it readable and executable. It is owned by root and group is root.

I edited the cat line in tv_grab_file to /usr/local/zap2xml/xmltv.xml - This is where I have the zap2xml files and the created xml file xmltv.xml. This folder is chmod 777 (Prob could change that to 755) In your case you would use /volume1/Tvheadend/xmltv/ instead of /usr/local/zap2xml

In /usr/local/zap2xml is zap2xml.pl, zap2xml.sh, they are chmod 755 and owned by admin, group users. After zap2xml is run it creates the xml file xmltv.xml.

zap2xml.pl has been modified so it would run with the version of the synology perl package. All the instances of JSON have been changed to JSON::PP, I have attached a copy of the file I use.

zap2xml.sh is the script I use to run zap2xml.pl it contains command line parameters. I am currently using tvguide (-z), I was using zap but it required a second read to get the episode info as S00E00, whichever one you use be sure to set up your favorite channels to limit the file size and bandwidth used. The -o option is used to tell it what to name the file and where to put it, the -d is the number of days to get I currently am using 3 days while testing I set it to 1. The second perl line parses the file to remove empty display-name tags which were causing tvheaded to crash on import.

perl /usr/local/zap2xml/zap2xml.pl -z -u USER -p PASS -d 3 -o /usr/local/zap2xml/xmltv.xml -U -T -e perl -ni -e 'print unless /<display-name><\/display-name>/' /usr/local/zap2xml/xmltv.xml

I have the zap2xml.sh file scheduled to run every morning in DSM using Control Panel > Task Scheduler > Create > Scheduled Task > User Defined Script - Run as root, Scheduled daily once a day at 5:30, Run command /usr/local/zap2xml/zap2xml.sh

In tvheadend I have the tv_grab_file enabled Config > Channel/EPG > EPG Modules - Enabled Checkbox and then scheduled to run at 6:30 daily Config > Channel/EPG > EPG Grabber > Cron multi-line: 30 6 * You can modify your schedule time and frequency as you see fit.

Hopefully this helps you get the episode grab working.

Joe Christl

> zap2xml.pl has been modified so it would run with the version of the synology perl package. All the

> instances of JSON have been changed to JSON::PP, I have attached a copy of the file I use.

just wanted to post to say thank you to Greg H. for the tip on getting the JSON to work in Synology.

D R

Do you guys happen to have the latest (2017-01-01) zap2xml.pl file edited for Synology?
I tried changing JSON::PP in new file but its a no go.

It runs ok with the file from Greg H.

Can't locate JSON.pm in @INC (you may need to install the JSON module) (@INC contains: /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl /usr/local/share/perl5/site_perl /usr/local/lib/perl5/vendor_perl /usr/local/share/perl5/vendor_perl /usr/local/lib/perl5/core_perl /usr/local/share/perl5/core_perl .) at /usr/local/zap2xml/zap2xml.pl line 38. See homepage for tips on installing missing modules (example: "perl -MCPAN -e shell")

perl is installed, but apparently something is not right.

Greg H

I am using the version/file I posted. If there is a newer zap2xml.pl I can look at it and see if I can get it to work on my synology box

D R

The newest version fixes problems with za2it server not responding (skipping missing tv IDS)

Gerg H, thank you for taking the time to help.

Joe Christl

i was noticing this too, but haven't got around to updating my zap2 script. Glad I waited. :P

Greg H

I just downloaded the latest file form zap2xml.awardspace.info and modified it. I just ran it on my system and worked without any errors. I have attached the file.

D R

Thank you very much! that file worked well for me!

Beside changing JSON::PP, what else does it need to be changed?

Thank again for your help!

Found the mistake I made.... missing PP line 38. :(

Joe Christl

Hey is it just me, or has zap2xml gone offline

D R

It's not just you. Hopefully is a temporary issue.

K Shea

EDIT: Site at TVHEADENDMIGRATIONSTARTcfd67250fcc94258bee49b2735dd93eaTVHEADENDMIGRATIONEND appears to be back up. I will leave this post up just in case it goes down again.

For now you can view a cached version of the page at the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20170102211055/http://zap2xml.awardspace.info:80/

The download links don't work, but those are for the original perl script, not the version modified to work with the Synology which is posted in earlier messages in this thread. In case anyone needs theoriginal unmodified perl script (the Linux version) I have attached it to this post. This is the last released version to the best of my knowledge.

log jam

I have been trying and trying to get this going for about a year now. I have had TVH running and recording on my Synology, but have been using OTA grabber which would at best give me a day's worth of guide date.

I went step by step (special thanks to Greg!) and have finally done it! I have zap working and pulling data successfully! A BIG thanks to everyone on this board!

One question I have is, I notice some sports are highlighted in blue (these are the only ones showing a genre), whereas most of the other guide data is grey. How can I modify colors to match different genres?

Thanks again all!

Logjam