XMLTV: North America (XMLTVListings.com by TVMedia setup?

Lee Sheppard

Ok I guess Im confused I am coming from DVBLink trying out TVHeadend and it looks real promising compared to DVB Link but I am having a major problem getting an EPG.

I signed up for www.xmltvlistings.com as Im not afraid to pay for the service considering its in the list of Modules but Im still not able to figure out what the heck I'm doing.

For the settings in the module it gives me a location for entering extra arguments so Im assuming its whats bellow?

https://www.xmltvlistings.com/xmltv/get/{APIKEY}/{LINEUPID}/14

I add my APIKEY and LINUPID in the right spots but Im really not sure where to go after this. I have hit the enable button as well.

API Key - API Key, found on your dashboard.
LineupID - ID for one of the lineups you have selected and configured in your dashboard.
Days (optional) - Number of days of listings to pull (14 max, default 7)
Offset (optional) - Offset by number of days (default 0) (negative accepted?)
Return

XMLTV Format

Examples
2 days of listings, starting today:

https://www.xmltvlistings.com/xmltv/get/{APIKEY}/{LINEUPID}/2

Any help would be great thanks.
Lee

Em Smith

I don't use that particular grabber (Schedules Direct is an alternative with a free trial too).

Normally you'd leave the "extra args" empty and have to configure it at a command line first before it works inside tvheadend.


$ tv_grab_na_tvmedia --configure                                                                                                                           API Key found on your account dashboard page (https://www.xmltvlistings.com/account/)
API Key:

I'm guessing it will probably then ask you more questions...

Make sure you run the tv_grab_na_tvmedia --configure as the same user that runs tvheadend.

Em Smith

If you decide to go for SchedulesDirect then there is a module (sd4tvh) to do all the configuration/download inside Kodi itself, with integration with HDHomerun.

https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread/3715-schedules-direct-for-tvheadend-addon/?pageNo=1

The same person also does tvh2kodi module for easy configuration of Tvheadend from inside Kodi.

https://github.com/edit4ever/script.module.sd4tvh

(I use SD but don't use either of those module, just offering help for easy config.)

Lee Sheppard

So I signed up and added the two channels for a test within there site what I want to pull similar to other sites.

Then I added an extra args because I can't figure out where to put that argument in picture 1.

then I am not sure what to do in the EPG Grabber tab considering everything I see online shows a dropdown for tv_grab picture 2

after that I'm assuming I need to go to the channel and select an epg source but nothing comes up. picture 3.

Im more then sure Im doing this wrong but theres really nothing I can find that explains this module.

Em Smith

The "extra args" almost certainly needs to be empty, and you configure the api key on the command line/shell with tv_grab_na_media --configure (are you running Linux/OpenElec?)

Then on dialog 2 you hit "re-run internal grabbers" to start the grabber. The up-arrows at the bottom right of your screen, if you click on it once then it will show you debug information to show you if it's working.

I'm not sure about channel number heuristic on dialog 1 (it depends a bit on the grabber and your channels). Chances are if you select "numbers only" then it will automatically map the channels from your grabber to your tvheadend channels so you don't need to do any more configuration.

Lee Sheppard

ok so I messed with it the wrong way not knowing ubuntu to much so I rebuilt the system and read up on it a bit and did the commands as follows,

odroid@odroid:~$ sudo tv_grab_na_tvmedia --configure
[sudo] password for odroid:
API Key found on your account dashboard page (https://www.xmltvlistings.com/account/) API Key:**********
Choose one of your lineups. You can add or modify lineups from your account page (https://www.xmltvlistings.com/account/) Lineup:
0: Verizon FIOS-Beaverton, OR
1: Comcast-Beaverton, OR - Digital

Select one: [0,1 (default=0)] 0

Star is my key and I still get this bellow Im really confused. I have it turned on and working for my HomeRun tuners pulling from the networks I just can't seam to get this working any more ideas?

2018-09-30 02:20:47.435 spawn: Executing "/usr/bin/tv_grab_na_tvmedia"
2018-09-30 02:20:48.085 spawn: You need to configure the grabber by running it with --configure
2018-09-30 02:20:48.100 xmltv: /usr/bin/tv_grab_na_tvmedia: no output detected

2018-09-30 02:20:48.100 xmltv: /usr/bin/tv_grab_na_tvmedia: grab returned no data

Thanks in advance

Lee Sheppard

So I tried another provider http://www.schedulesdirect.org a subset of the service I used with DVBLink and what I have found is the conf file is not getting saved so I got this error,

2018-09-30 05:16:17.006 spawn: Executing "/usr/bin/tv_grab_na_dd"
2018-09-30 05:16:17.662 spawn: using config filename /home/hts/.xmltv/tv_grab_na_dd.conf
2018-09-30 05:16:17.663 spawn:ERROR Username not specified. Please run --configure
2018-09-30 05:16:17.677 xmltv: /usr/bin/tv_grab_na_dd: no output detected

2018-09-30 05:16:17.677 xmltv: /usr/bin/tv_grab_na_dd: grab returned no data

when I go to the file /home/hts/.xmltv/ folder the file tv_grab_na_dd.conf is not there after running the config entering the username and password. I know I connected to it because I seen a list of channels come from there server even my preset items.

for some reason ubuntu-18.04-4.14-mate-odroid-xu4-20180501.img. This is the ubuntu image for my odroid board Im using as my TVHeadend server. I have had 6 channels open without any problems or loss of picture on my laptop its just figuring out why the conf files are missing.

Lee

Joe User

Lee Sheppard wrote:

> odroid@odroid:~$ sudo tv_grab_na_tvmedia --configure

> [sudo] password for odroid:

You missed:

Em Smith wrote:

> Make sure you run the tv_grab_na_tvmedia --configure as the same user that runs tvheadend.

Lee Sheppard

yep I ran it as sudo and I'm using the same user/pass odroid for both.

Lee Sheppard

anyone know whats in the tv_grab_na_dd.conf file for arguments? I know user pass for the site I'm getting epg data from what else?

If anyone has an example file minis there user / pass would be great.

Joe User

sudo runs applications as root (if you don't specify a user...)
is odroid's home directory /home/hts or /home/odroid ??

Em Smith

So you probably need to do "sudo -u hts tv_grab_na_tvmedia --configure"

The .conf file should probably be ignored as "not user modifiable". The grabber normally writes to the file the information from --configure and other information you need. For example, many grabbers will write information about databases or channels selected in there along with api keys, etc. But that's all handled by the grabber itself.

Lee Sheppard

so I get this running that command

sudo -u hts tv_grab_na_tvmedia --configure

Cannot write to /home/odroid/.xmltv/tv_grab_na_tvmedia.conf at /usr/share/perl5/XMLTV/Configure.pm line 184.
odroid@odroid:/home$

maybe that could be the full problem for some reason I don't have rights based on the odroid image from odroid hmm

Im using build ubuntu-18.04-4.14-mate-odroid-xu4-20180501.img

Lee

Lee Sheppard

Im gong to ry an older version of ubuntu maybe hmm it could be something they have done with the image that locking me out of stuff. I really haven't figured out how to just install a fresh install from ubuntu with this board yet it might be worth figuring that out as well instead of fighting this builds they give me but I read something about kernel changes or something like that.

Lee

PS I did get a response from the provider of the EPG but I am using command line and I thought exe files are for windows not ubuntu

just use the command line version of tv_grab_na_dd. If it doesn't print the default location (I think <home>\.xmltv\tv_grab_na_dd.conf) you can always pick a location and specify it with --config-file.

xmltv.exe tv_grab_na_dd --config-file c:\xmltv\tv_grab_na_dd.conf

Em Smith

OK, it could be that the home directory isn't changed.

Try this:

sudo su - hts <---note the '-' echo $HOME <--- should probably be /home/hts ls -la .xmltv <--- should probably say "no such file or directory", or have zero files in it. tv_grab_na_dd --configure

Lee Sheppard

Ok problem solved and this is what I found out. I downgraded from Ubuntu 18.x to 16.x witch gave me a lot cleaner setup also I found that for some reason when I run the config file it put it in the root user account NOT the odroid location where it was looking for it.

Also found that even if I Mapped it to the root location it would not let me read or right to that locations as it was for root only access. when I used sudo it allowed me access but when tvheadend went looking it could not read it even if it wanted to as it was not root so I copped the file from root to odroid location and was able to pull the information. I don't think this was a tvheadend thing I think its something the odroid build was forcing. Anyway thanks all for the help I really don't think I would have figured this out with out a few of the messages that allowed me to figure out it could not read a file.

The two reasons reposting is to say thanks and also let anyone else that has this same problem know what I found so maybe this thread will help someone else like it did me.

Thanks again
Lee