Guide Date EPG accuracy vs. zap2it

I noticed a problem with one of my series passes where it was going to record an episode before it actually airs, so looked on the zap2it website (which I assume is correct) and it doesn't match my ChannelsDVR guide.

I reloaded my ChannelsDVR guide via web UI Guide Database Maintenance ReDownload Entire Guide and also clicking the refresh circular arrows under my Prime device.

ChannelsDVR guide still does not match zap2it guide. How long does it take for them to sync?

CHANNELS
Channels%20DVR

Zap2It


If ChannelsDVR can get me an episode before it airs, I would be interested in how to record the Lottery results the same way :grinning:

Do you have a TVE source? If so, does it have higher priority than your Prime?

It's possible Channels is matching the TVE East feed of DISC to your Pacific feed on cable.

New episodes air on Sunday at 9pm.
S10E03 airs on Sunday 08/18/2019 at 9:17 PM
So Tuesday 08/13/2019 at 3:00 PM is too early, even with a 3hr timezone difference.

On this NAS it's only using the PRIME for a device, I have TVE only setup on my other NAS. That way I can record and compare the same programs on two different NAS's, one via the HDHR PRIME and the other using TVE.

So I set it to record the new showing S10E03 on my TVE NAS (East Coast feed) on Sunday 08/18/2019 at 6:17 PM. Will see what happens and I hope the recording isn't missed or corrupted. I'd hate to rely only on a TVE feed right now.

ChannelsDVR would otherwise miss this new episode if I hadn't done this.

This one fixed itself with the ChannelsDVR EPG Guide refresh this morning.
Would still like to know how far behind your (ChannelsDVR) EPG API feed is compared to the zap2it website.
If there was a last minute/hour/day schedule change, do we need to refresh the ChannelsDVR EPG Guide info to pick it up and when should we do that.

i was about to open a new thread, but saw this.

When does Channels, centrally, go out to zap2it? I have a game that zap2it had badly timed, it's since been fixed, but channels is still showing the old time, despite refreshing guide data.

On my system it usually happens sometime during the 9AM hour.

(And to be a bit pedantic, but Channels isn't getting its data from Zap2it, rather both Channels and Zap2it get their data from Gracenote.)

Fair, but that's not what I'm asking.

I'm assuming that Channels (the service) provides data from Gracenote (or zap2it, etc) to Channels (the app). I'm asking how often this happens, not how often the app initiates a guide refresh.

This could end up being a zap2it vs gracenote discrepancy in play, but just want to be sure.

That's what I was saying. It happens daily, and in my system, it happens sometime during the 9AM hour usually. It fluctuates, but that's when it occurs on average. (I was always referring to the DVR server, not the client apps. The client apps update their data on-demand, not on a regular schedule.)

Check your DVR logs. The guide updates will be prefixed with a [DVR], and then follow with Fetching guide data … and which source and time period it is grabbing data for.

If you're feeling impatient, you can manually initiate a guide update from the web UI in Settings > Guide Database > Maintenance > Fetch Guide Updates.

Sorry, you're still misunderstanding me. My "despite refreshing guide data" from original post means that I've been trying the "if you're feeling impatient" from your post :slight_smile:

My point is that Channels isn't sending every one of its DVR instances direct to gracenote or zap2it - they're hosting guide data themselves, and the "impatient" is reading from that source.

My question is how often Channels (the service, not each client) is updating from their central source.

I think you're confused. Your DVR server (the one running on your computer, handling recording, etc.) gets guide updates every day. It does this by contacting Gracenote's servers, and gets the guide data directly from them.

You client apps talk to your DVR server to get their guide data to display in the app. The client does not talk to Gracenote's servers, only your DVR.

If you are saying that something in your guide database has changed, but Channels is not getting the change from Gracenote, that is different than what you were asking. In that case, you can use the Re-Download Entire Guide, which will query Gracenote's servers for a full refresh, including guide data that you already have. Or, you can go nuclear, and choose Delete and Recreate Database, which will completely deleted Channels' guide information, and start from scratch.

OK - we're closer now - I'm simply wondering (and doubting) if Channels is sending every DVR instance pull direct to Gracenote, or something hosted internally by them.

Like i said, this could be zap2it vs gracenote at play, but that seems less likely.

This. To my knowledge there is no central Channels server that is hosting the guide data. It is my understanding that each DVR server contacts Gracenote's servers individually to receive the data.

Ugh - it's unfortunate, if so, because Gracenote doesn't have (at least to my knowledge) a responsive way to ask for changes. Zap2it has been pretty good, when I've raised data issues.

Sooooooo - this looks like it may be more of a channels bug than i thought. Unless i got incredibly unlucky with timing - a "refresh" didn't pick up the updated game time, but a "download entire guide" did. This shouldn't happen, especially on day-of, should it?

I think what is happening is that Channels is not checking if existing listings have updates.

I know that when using Schedules Direct (which also serves Gracenote data), it's a two-step process. First you get a brief list of checksums for the guide data, so you can compare those against what you've received in the past. Then, if there was a change, the checksums won't match, so you can request the full data.

(Of course, the checksums are just MD5 hashes, so you may have run into a rare occurrence: a collision. That happens when two different data have the same checksum. That could be what happened in your case.)

the 2 instances had 2 serial numbers, though, but same EP id - seems to point at it being updated:

2021/01/28 11:04:12.008934 [DVR] Deleting job with expired serial: 1611871190-54 Women's College Basketball (EP036891984417)

2021/01/28 11:04:12.962140 [DVR] Rule 'Connecticut Huskies: Basketball' (54) found 1 new airings
2021/01/28 11:04:12.964674 [DVR] queued recording job for EP036891984417 @ Thu Jan 28 5:59:50PM (1611874790-54)

I think it does check for updates as I’ve noticed during the pandemic something that was already in the guide and was cancelled gets pulled and replaced by something else. Assuming gracenote updates it by 9AM of course. :grin:

The serial numbers you see are the 'unix epoch time'-'pass_rule#' of the last guide update that scheduled the recording from your pass.

Most likely, since both Channels DVR and zap2it get their guide data from gracenote, they probably use different api's and may even be pulling from cached data on some server.

I've noticed changes made at zap2it, but after refreshing guide data, Channels DVR isn't updated to match zap2it. IIRC, it took an hour or two of refreshing before Channels DVR matched zap2it.

It seems to me the guide data isn't as accurate as it used to be, or maybe I'm just picky because I'm depending on it more :man_shrugging:

See, you're thinking the same thing i was thinking, albeit from different sources. Good to see it's not just me.

The current solution mostly works, but i would prefer that i not need to "babysit" it at all, hoping for a return to normalcy later this year. A missed UConn game, in my house, is DEFCON 1, so it's a good example of something i don't want to have to worry about.

That being said, the same situation causing me to be home is the same one causing games to be bumped around, so this might just be noise.

Same thing today. Rescheduled basketball game that "guide updates" didn't grab, but a rebuild did.

2021/02/02 07:19:32.614054 [DVR] Rule 'Connecticut Huskies: Basketball' (56) found 1 new airings
2021/02/02 07:19:32.616978 [DVR] queued recording job for EP036892055083 @ Wed Feb 10 3:59:50PM (1612990790-56)
2021/02/02 07:19:33.056304 [DVR] Deleting job with expired serial: 1613008790-56 College Basketball (EP036892055083)