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Suggestion for how to solve the frequent and elusive "xmltv grabber disabled" problem.

Added by dad dmac about 9 years ago

I'm new to Tvheadend and to HTPC systems. I chose to implement it on a Raspberry Pi 2 as a family project. I have several years of experience with computers and software. I write scripts, but do not develop applications. I appreciate the effort and time that has been invested in this application. Thank you.

I've been working on my Openelec on Raspberry Pi 2 system, using tvheadend, for a couple of months. One problem that frequently appears in forums is that the internal grabber is unusable because it is disabled. Many suggestions have been made about how to get tvheadend to use the grabber in the webui configuration tool: move the grabber bin to /usr/bin, configure the EPG Grabber tab, check the grabber script, hop up and down on one leg while patting the head and rubbing the belly.

This application is very useful, and a little attention to documentation and configuration in the UI can greatly increase the enthusiasm for its adoption.

1. I have reviewed every configuration file ("config", settings.xml, etc) that I can find, and I cannot find any item where this information is stored.
2. The many posted solutions I have found for this problem here, and on other sites, are guesses about how this function is intended to operate and what it requires in order to operate as expected.

The two items listed above seem to be a significant problem for people wanting to install, support, and encourage tvheadend's adoption. Still, it seems to me to be a simple thing to correct:
Post the location of the configuration item (file, xml tag, etc) that tells tvheadend what it needs, so it will enable the grabber, without blindly trying different solutions without any understanding of the problem and solution.

Suggestion:
If there is no configuration item, please create one so we can configure it without having to guess why tvheadend won't automatically display it in the list.

This would probably be much less work than coding the webui to tell the user why it will not display the grabber module. Knowing how to configure something this simple, and important, would definitely increase the popularity of the product.

Thank you.


Replies (6)

RE: Suggestion for how to solve the frequent and elusive "xmltv grabber disabled" problem. - Added by K Shea about 9 years ago

You didn't say where in the world you are located but I can tell you about one problem that's not adequately addressed. If you attempt to use tv-grab-file (which has to be downloaded and installed separately) to import listings created by another schedule grabber program, such as zap2xml, it won't work on some systems (particularly those with ARM-based processors) because it is a bash script, and some of these systems don't come with bash. If you are at a Linux command prompt and you type which bash and it responds with /bin/bash or something similar, then bash is installed and the tv-grab-file script should work, provided you have installed it properly and it has the correct permissions. However, some operating systems (particularly those based on busybox) don't come with bash, so the tv-grab-file script has to be modified.

I don't run OpenELEC and one reason is because it tries very hard to keep the user away from Linux (which I do not consider to be a good thing unless the user has absolutely zero Linux experience), so it would not surprise me at all if it doesn't include bash (it might, it might not, I really don't know). If it doesn't, and IF you are trying to use tv-grab-file, you might be able to use the modified tv-grab-file script in this article:

http://freetoairamerica.wordpress.com/2014/09/06/review-of-the-tbs-moi-dvb-ss2-satellite-tv-linux-server-a-bit-like-a-hdhomerun-but-for-free-to-air-satellite-signals-2/#grabber

If you are trying to use some other grabber then it might be a good idea to say which one, and maybe what area of the world you are located in.

There is another article on that same blog that addresses the use of schedule grabbers but it's pretty much only for North American users, and I don't know if it would be helpful to you or not:

http://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/

RE: Suggestion for how to solve the frequent and elusive "xmltv grabber disabled" problem. - Added by dad dmac about 9 years ago

My apologies! I thought I had replied to you the day you posted. My bad.

I'm in North America.

Thank you for a lot of excellent information!

Partly based on your comments, and partly because of other comments I've read, I'm now building a separate tvheadend backend, running on Raspbian. I think the version is lower than the one packaged with OpenELEC.

Yes, I will be using tv-grab-file. That is another reason I'm moving the backend to Raspbian; some comments said it has to be in the /bin (or /usr/bin? folder to work as designed. OpenELEC has that folder in the squashfs. Maintainability is important to me, and that eliminates the idea of maintaining the squashfs.

I'll be referring to your post as I work on the backend tonight, and I'll post the adventure/results.

Again, thank you for taking the time to respond to my post!

RE: Suggestion for how to solve the frequent and elusive "xmltv grabber disabled" problem. - Added by dad dmac about 9 years ago

I have progressed in building my tvheadend backend, which is using the Raspbian OS. I am using the apt version of tvheadend, which is 3.4~wheezy and appears to be circa 2013. So, I have an update, and new questions. The distro is current, as I update it daily, and the Pi is a Pi2.

I will be happy to open new threads for my questions if it is the correct way to ask them, just tell me if I should.

  • The grabber is working now, though I am not far enough along in the configuration to know if the data will be imported. This is definitely a better solution than trying to get it to work reliably under Kodi on Pi.
  • Am I using the correct repo, or should I compile a newer version? Kodi included tvh 3.9 version of tvh. I saw some comments about compiling 4.x to use with Raspbian on Pi, and some folks said it was not ready or was not intended to run on Pi.
  • tvh 3.9 was able to capture all the station id information via the ATSC stream. This version seems to find information for only five or six out of 33 stations. This makes it very difficult to confirm the channel name exactly matches the xmltv.xml name (I am using schedulesdirect.) I am using the same antenna that was connected to the Kodi front end server. Maybe the answer to my next question is the solution to this one?
  • With this version, I have not been able to find the configuration for the "Network". I've looked everywhere I can think of, and I wonder if it is something in the webui that I am seeing, but not recognizing. Again, all suggestions are welcome!

Thank you for all the previous information; it was very helpful for the progress I made!

RE: Suggestion for how to solve the frequent and elusive "xmltv grabber disabled" problem. - Added by Mark Clarkstone about 9 years ago

dad dmac wrote:

I have progressed in building my tvheadend backend, which is using the Raspbian OS. I am using the apt version of tvheadend, which is 3.4~wheezy and appears to be circa 2013. So, I have an update, and new questions. The distro is current, as I update it daily, and the Pi is a Pi2.

I will be happy to open new threads for my questions if it is the correct way to ask them, just tell me if I should.

  • The grabber is working now, though I am not far enough along in the configuration to know if the data will be imported. This is definitely a better solution than trying to get it to work reliably under Kodi on Pi.
  • Am I using the correct repo, or should I compile a newer version? Kodi included tvh 3.9 version of tvh. I saw some comments about compiling 4.x to use with Raspbian on Pi, and some folks said it was not ready or was not intended to run on Pi.

Tvheadend is fine on the Pi as long as you know its limitations (the main one being the usb bus which ethernet also shares, don't expect to be able to record and stream more than two SD streams over ethernet but YMMV.)

  • tvh 3.9 was able to capture all the station id information via the ATSC stream. This version seems to find information for only five or six out of 33 stations. This makes it very difficult to confirm the channel name exactly matches the xmltv.xml name (I am using schedulesdirect.) I am using the same antenna that was connected to the Kodi front end server. Maybe the answer to my next question is the solution to this one?

With 4.1.x you won't need schedulesdirect any more as it's able to parse PSIP ATSC guide data. perexg recently added this.

  • With this version, I have not been able to find the configuration for the "Network". I've looked everywhere I can think of, and I wonder if it is something in the webui that I am seeing, but not recognizing. Again, all suggestions are welcome!

Thank you for all the previous information; it was very helpful for the progress I made!

RE: Suggestion for how to solve the frequent and elusive "xmltv grabber disabled" problem. - Added by dad dmac about 9 years ago

Thank you both for the information, it resolved the situation!

I'm looking to solve new ones now, and will either start new threads or check in with the irc folks (who have also been very helpful!)

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