XMLTV via url?

Jimmy Lindberg · 2018-04-02T14:07:56+00:00

Hi I have set up TVheadend on my windows 10 machine via Windows subsystem for Linux but i have trouble getting the EPG to work. I have tried tv_grab_file an...

Hiro Protagonist

Tom Johnson wrote:
> > #!/bin/sh
> > wget (whatever)honeybee.it(/whatever)
> > mv ~/listings/filname.xml /home/hts/.xmltv/tv_grab_file.xmltv
> >

> > And then you would need to install the tv_grab_file script from from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Rigolo/tv-grab-file/master/tv_grab_file into the /usr/bin directory (as root) and make it executable and then (probably after a reboot) select it as your one and only grabber module in the Tvheadend EPG Grabber Modules tab.

> OK, I get the first two lines, but I don't understand why I have to install the tv_grab_file script. In that script I see where wget goes out and finds the egp.xml file on the internet. Why do I have to do this twice? First in the script you wrote, and then install and run this second script. I am confused and would appreciate if you could explain further.

You don't have to do it twice. There are two steps involved:

1) Download the data from the internet into a file on your local device - that's what the quoted script is doing.

2) Import the data from the file on your local device into TVHeadend - that's what tv_grab_file does.

Hiro Protagonist

Tom Johnson wrote:
> Let's start with your suggestion to make sure I understand it. I can set up a cron job that would take regularly run this script
>
> #!/bin/sh
> wget -O /path/to/tv.xml https://internet_location_url/epgfile.xml > cat /path/to/tv.xml | socat - UNIX-CONNECT:/path/to/xmltv.sock
>
> and then I would also have to run the external grabber xmltv and set it up on a recurring run inside of tvheadend.
>

> That should do it? I am unclear about this last part. Once I get the information to the socket using the "cat" command, do I need to do the additional part of running the external grabber in tvheadend, or does it happen automatically once I get the information to the socket?

No, you do not need to run an external grabber in this scenario. The 'cat' line in the script writes the data to TVHeadend - that's all you need to do.

Sean Micklem

Tom Johnson wrote:
> Robert Cameron wrote:
> > Have you even bothered to check any of the man pages or existing documentation?
>

> Oh, but indeed I have and that still doesn't quite make your explanation, nor that of K Shea completely make sense to me.

You do realize you replied to a 5 month old thread, right? The original participants probably aren't still reading it.

But anyway, this link may or may not help your understanding: 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/

Tom Johnson

Oh yes, and I do realize this is still very much an open question for many, many people trying to use TVheadend with IPTV networks. The instructions to date are about as clear as mud.

So, I came across this thread due to the internet search "TVheadend epg from url", and I expect several other people will as well. I've spent about 2 weeks figuring things out, running through OpenElec, LibreElec because they have a built in grabber to grab from url's (and learning that the wget function in OpenElec/Libreelec does not accept redirects, whereas wget in Ubuntu based distros do). So, my additions and comments here are to make sure that other people may get another clue on how to do this from my struggles.

Tom Johnson

Sean Micklem wrote:

> But anyway, this link may or may not help your understanding: 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/

Oh, meant to mention, yup, came across this and many that refer to this Grabber. It doesn't exist in the ubuntu version of TVheadend, and the only place I found it was on the LiberElec version. And the Libreelec version of wget doesn't allow for redirects which makes it useless for many, many url's. So I appreciate your reference, but it doesn't quite work.

Note to others, if you cannot get LiberElec to load on your computer because it's too old and needs a legacy boot from your usb, install instead OpenElec from the 5 series, using the USB creation method there. Then take the the kernal and services files from the LiberElec distro (don't use the Iso, use the other download) and put them in the update and reboot. Instantly updated to the latest LibreElec version on your old machine.

Worry not, I'll give a easy line by line way to do this in a different post, but wanted to give a quick and dirty if you're running into this problem.

Sean Micklem

Tom Johnson wrote:
> Sean Micklem wrote:
>
> > But anyway, this link may or may not help your understanding: 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/ >

> Oh, meant to mention, yup, came across this and many that refer to this Grabber. It doesn't exist in the ubuntu version of TVheadend, and the only place I found it was on the LiberElec version. And the Libreelec version of wget doesn't allow for redirects which makes it useless for many, many url's. So I appreciate your reference, but it doesn't quite work.

Go back and read the article again. Tvheadend does not include that particular grabber in any version and never has, you need to download tv-grab-file from https://github.com/Rigolo/tv-grab-file and install it by following the instructions. If it's in LibreElec it's because they added it, and they probably did that because they will not let you do anything from a Linux command line :P so if they hadn't put something in, user would not have been able to.

LibreElec and Openelec suck in my opinion because they try so hard to keep their users from doing anything at all that might require going to a Linux command prompt, which seems great at first glance but sooner or later you are going to want to do something that requires going to a Linux command prompt and on those distributions you just can't, by design. To each their own but I would never run either of those and would not advise anyone else to do so either.

Tom Johnson

I totally agree, I set up LibreElec only to find out that wget didn't work on my url because it had a redirect. sigh.

So I finally got this set up, and had also done it the other way with the socat, and I still have the problem of nothing showing up in my Electronic Program Guide tab. Here is my output when I run the internal grabber

2018-09-03 01:36:50.665 spawn: Executing "/usr/bin/tv_grab_file"
2018-09-03 01:36:51.428 xmltv: /usr/bin/tv_grab_file: grab took 1 seconds
2018-09-03 01:36:51.713 xmltv: /usr/bin/tv_grab_file: parse took 0 seconds
2018-09-03 01:36:51.713 xmltv: /usr/bin/tv_grab_file: channels tot= 443 new= 443 mod= 443
2018-09-03 01:36:51.713 xmltv: /usr/bin/tv_grab_file: brands tot= 0 new= 0 mod= 0
2018-09-03 01:36:51.713 xmltv: /usr/bin/tv_grab_file: seasons tot= 0 new= 0 mod= 0
2018-09-03 01:36:51.713 xmltv: /usr/bin/tv_grab_file: episodes tot= 0 new= 0 mod= 0

2018-09-03 01:36:51.713 xmltv: /usr/bin/tv_grab_file: broadcasts tot= 0 new= 0 mod= 0

I have checked and my xml file does have episodes, etc. but they are referred to by a channel number in the xml, not the actual channel name. Is there a standard against which I can check my xml file to make sure it will work here?

Em Smith

Your file should contain a list of channels such as:


<channel id="abc.def.ghi">
<display-name>ABC</display-name>
...

Your programmes should reference the channel id such as:


<programme channel="abc.def.ghi" start="20180910112334 +0000"...>

Your epggrabber tab in Tvheadend should list all the channels it noticed in your xml file and channels that it cross-referenced to a scanned channel. This is based on the "display-name" so "ABC" in xml file will automatically link to "ABC" in your scanned channels. If it doesn't match, then you need to fix up the mappings in the Tvheadend tab.

Also check to ensure your programme start time is in the future (format is YYYYMMDDHHMMSS with timezone usually GMT).

Tom Johnson

I think I was running the internal grabber too soon after the download. I have no idea why it shouldn't work when I run it immediately after I watched the download complete, but for some reason it matters. I waited 3 minutes, and bang! it works ...

nityfan nityfan

I want to bump topic. Although this metod:

cat tv.xml | socat - UNIX-CONNECT:/path/to/xmltv.sock

works fine, I'm experiencing some issues with that:
- after tvheadend restart, no epg data loaded from xmltv, all iptv channles have no epg again. Need to write to socket again and then epg appears again.
- probably not directly related, but all iptv slots are in use all the time. On "status" page I can see it's titled "epggrab" and full bandwidth for that particular channel is used. It never stops, it looks like channel is downloading with title "epggrab". It seems to be random channel or recently played. Why? Epg is provided by xmltv, there is no any epg to download from iptv!

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