There are some TV shows that I've recorded that are not sorted correctly. For example, I record Poldark on Masterpiece. From Chrome running on Windows 10, season 4 episodes appear in the following order when sorted by air date: 3, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 2, 1. On iOS and tvOS, the same list of season 4 episodes appears in the following order: 3, 2, 1, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4.
It's been two months since I posted this. Any thoughts about this from the people at Channels?
Possibly when they were recorded there was an issue with that version of Channels DVR or with the Gracenote EPG data.
Looking at the zap2it site Episode Guide for the air dates now, they seem correct.
If you look at your recordings data at http://127.0.0.1:8089/dvr/files
the json data returned for each recording has three different dates, not sure which one is used in the web UI or the clients.
Airing->OriginalDate: 2019-04-23
Airing->Raw->program->releaseDate: 2019-04-27
Airing->Raw->program->origAirDate: 2019-04-25
In the web UI there is a "Refresh" under each recoding's gear icon which will reload the metadata from Gracenote's servers.
I hit "Refresh" on every episode of Poldark. It made no difference in their sorted order.
It did make some minor changes to the descriptions of a few episodes. However, there are two season 3 episodes which are both tagged as season 3 episode 7 and with the same description. One of those is actually season 3 episode 8. After refreshing, there were no differences to either of those 2 episodes.
If this occurs due to errors with the Gracenote EPG data, then we would see exactly the same incorrect ordering on Chrome running on Windows 10, iOS and tvOS. However, we see a different incorrect ordering on Chrome running on Windows 10 than the other incorrect ordering on iOS and tvOS. I therefore think that this points to a Channels DVR bug.
I have sent error reports to Zap2it.com whenever I noticed errors in any episode descriptions. There was a period of more than a week when the description of each episode of 77 Sunset Strip on MeTV described the episode that aired the following day.
I just looked at my Channels iOS app and figured out where it's pulling the aired date from.
It's Airing->Raw->program->origAirDate: 2019-04-25
If you bring up an episode detail in the iOS (maybe tvOS, I don't have that) client it will show the aired date to the right of Season# Episode#. Below that is the duration, recorded date and network.
If you then check your recordings metadata you may find that date is incorrect.
Not sure which date the web UI uses, as it doesn't display the aired date.
oh, and if you know how to sort a shows episodes by recorded date or airdate or season/episode in the iOS client, let me know, I can't figure out how to sort them (I can only do that in the web UI).
Following are 6 episodes of Moonshiners Season 4 that I just recorded to show my point.
I picked these because I noticed the date discrepancies for episodes 7 & 10 in the guide info.
In the DVR web UI (sorted by "Air Date") and in the iOS app on my iPod and iPad episodes appear to be sorted by 'Airing->OriginalDate' or 'Airing->Raw->program->releaseDate'
S04E12
S04E11
S04E09
S04E08
S04E10<-
S04E07
Not sure about an ATV as I don't have one to try.
For each episode, line 1 is the recorded filename.
Lines 2,3 & 4 are the Recording json metadata from http://127.0.0.1:8089/dvr/files
Moonshiners S04E07 2014-04-07 Moonshine Takedown 2019-07-02-0400.mpg
Airing->OriginalDate: 2014-04-07
Airing->Raw->program->releaseDate:2014-04-07
Airing->Raw->program->origAirDate:2014-12-09
Moonshiners S04E08 2014-12-16 White Lightning Wars 2019-07-02-0500.mpg
Airing->OriginalDate: 2014-12-16
Airing->Raw->program->releaseDate:2014-12-16
Airing->Raw->program->origAirDate:2014-12-16
Moonshiners S04E09 2014-12-23 Liquid Assets 2019-07-02-0600.mpg
Airing->OriginalDate: 2014-12-23
Airing->Raw->program->releaseDate:2014-12-23
Airing->Raw->program->origAirDate:2014-12-23
Moonshiners S04E10 2014-09-09 Shine Jacked 2019-07-02-0700.mpg
Airing->OriginalDate: 2014-09-09
Airing->Raw->program->releaseDate:2014-09-09
Airing->Raw->program->origAirDate:2014-12-30
Moonshiners S04E11 2015-01-06 Moonshine River 2019-07-02-0800.mpg
Airing->OriginalDate: 2015-01-06
Airing->Raw->program->releaseDate:2015-01-06
Airing->Raw->program->origAirDate:2015-01-06
Moonshiners S04E12 2015-01-13 Shine Overboard 2019-07-02-0900.mpg
Airing->OriginalDate: 2015-01-13
Airing->Raw->program->releaseDate:2015-01-13
Airing->Raw->program->origAirDate:2015-01-13
If they used the 'Airing->Raw->program->origAirDate' they would sort correctly.
S04E12
S04E11
S04E10
S04E09
S04E08
S04E07
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Nice sleuthing! Looks like we use releaseDate when available, but the intention was to only use that for movies. I'm updating the next build to ignore it for tv shows, so refreshing recordings after update should fix the sort.
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Thanks.
If you could post when the new version is ready, I'll try it out.
Question: Is this data cached on the client apps and if so how to refresh the clients?
That was quick.
2019.07.02.2109 fixed it on the DVR web UI and both iOS app devices for me.
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Thanks for figuring this out!
When will the new build be available through the Apple store?
For the access from Windows 10 using Chrome, it was going to Channels DVR on QNAP. When will this be available for QNAP?
The fix is on the DVR server side. To update, hold the SHIFT key and click Check for Updates on the DVR's web UI.
Thanks. The list is now sorted correctly through the web API when sorting by air date.
On iOS and tvOS, there is no option to sort by air date; it looks like it's sorted by record date. For me, sorting by record date is not useful, because I record shows from multiple channels, which air the sequence of episodes starting on different dates. Could you add an option to sort by air date on iOS and tvOS?
It looks like the iOS/tvOS episode sorting problem is fixed in version 3.2.30. Thanks for fixing it.
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