Tracker and TWP 2.x

[mrtickle]

Ta for the report. Will add to the list. But I haven't really changed the rebuild code that much .

NB this "made-up tmsids" idea may fall over in a heap, but it needed maintenance anyway in preparation for our own tmsids so I put it in.

It tracks programmes that tivo has 'cancelled', which are either
a) deleted from the to-do list by you (this includes programmes it tracks for you to delete)
b) the oldest deleted recordings that have had their disc space overwritten

[Velocitysurfer]

It tracks programmes that tivo has 'cancelled', which are either
a) deleted from the to-do list by you (this includes programmes it tracks for you to delete)
b) the oldest deleted recordings that have had their disc space overwritten

Thanks for the explanation:

a) I don't normally delete stuff from the to-do list. I've just checked with the F1 Korean rerun on Sunday and Tracker picked it up.

b) because of the large disk (500Gb) I don't think that my deleted recordings havet got overwritten since the start of altepg - time for a purge!

[spitfires]

It tracks programmes that tivo has 'cancelled', which are either
a) deleted from the to-do list by you (this includes programmes it tracks for you to delete)
b) the oldest deleted recordings that have had their disc space overwritten

So to try and clarify something in my mind; when we speak of TiVo not re-recording programmes which it has already recorded within the previous 30 days, we don't really mean 30 days, what we actually mean is ones which are on disc deleted but not yet purged - is that right?
And with larger discs that could be 6, 9 months or more?

(I know this is pretty fundamental but I've never really looked at this side of things - I've always used blocklists rather than tracker )

[mrtickle]

It tracks programmes that tivo has 'cancelled', which are either
a) deleted from the to-do list by you (this includes programmes it tracks for you to delete)
b) the oldest deleted recordings that have had their disc space overwritten

Thanks for the explanation:

a) I don't normally delete stuff from the to-do list. I've just checked with the F1 Korean rerun on Sunday and Tracker picked it up.
b) because of the large disk (500Gb) I don't think that my deleted recordings havet got overwritten since the start of altepg - time for a purge!

a) cool
b) eek. I have 250GB and I'm fire-fighting with the last 20% of space all the time! Don't necessarily purge - turn on Suggestions and/or create some Actor wishlists

[mrtickle]

It tracks programmes that tivo has 'cancelled', which are either
a) deleted from the to-do list by you (this includes programmes it tracks for you to delete)
b) the oldest deleted recordings that have had their disc space overwritten

So to try and clarify something in my mind; when we speak of TiVo not re-recording programmes which it has already recorded within the previous 30 days, we don't really mean 30 days, what we actually mean is ones which are on disc deleted but not yet purged - is that right?
And with larger discs that could be 6, 9 months or more?

(I know this is pretty fundamental but I've never really looked at this side of things - I've always used blocklists rather than tracker )

Think back to small 40Gb discs, programmes were normally watched, deleted and overwritten all well under 28 days. But the 28-day rule (it's never been 30) still works, so tivo must use the recording history for this. (and perhaps needs TmsIds for it to work fully)

On the other hand big discs, if it's not yet purged, it's treated as "still in now playing" - so yes (with TmsIds) you don't get another copy of that film that gets shown every other week. Currently without TmsIds, films aren't Episodic so the 28-day rule isn't applied at all. They are episodic in the tmsid test system though.

[spitfires]

[nods] I'm just trying to get my head around what happens in the 'gap' between TiVo's 28-day rule and the recording being added to Tracker (which could be 6-9 months later on a 1TB disc).

[mrtickle]

[nods] I'm just trying to get my head around what happens in the 'gap' between TiVo's 28-day rule and the recording being added to Tracker (which could be 6-9 months later on a 1TB disc).

TiVo's description in Recording History is something like "another showing is/was in Now Playing within the last 28 days". It's very difficult to improve on that (eg to change it to "another showing is/was in Now Playing (or is deleted but not yet overwritten) within the last 28 days" without confusing users . The "is/was" logically caters for many cases.

The rule certainly wasn't designed with the idea that there would be deleted recordings hanging around for 6-9 months! But, it doesn't 'break'. The presence of a recording in Now Playing/deleted stops you getting duplicates for the time you've got the recording. If it's deleted and overwritten quickly, the 28-day rule just delays the length of time before you'll get another recording of it, if it's shown again. Designed to make things nicer in general, especially with small discs. Tracker is designed to extend this forever, but just because it hasn't been "tracked yet" (because it's in a huge recycle bin) that's perfectly fine - TiVo is already doing the job of not recording it again.

The minute it's overwritten, and you're past 28 days, an unhacked TiVo springs into life and tries to record it again. A TiVo with tracker will add it to the tracker, and then be able to block it.

[spitfires]

Ah right I see! I need to think about things t'other way around...

Roughly speaking... (tmsids etc. notwithstanding)
1) TiVo won't re-record anything which is on disc (i.e. in Now Playing, or deleted but not yet purged)
2) It won't re-record anything within 28 days.

Yes so with 40GB discs recordings were usually deleted within 28 days (as you say) so rule (2) would come into play. But with 1TB discs it's likely rule (2) won't ever be executed (but that's still OK )

Tracker then adds rule (3)
3) It won't re-record anything for the "Lifetime of the Box"

Thanks MrT.


Edit: FTAOD the above "factoids" depend on how one uses the box: YMMV

[Velocitysurfer]

I'm glad that's all cleared up!!!

Now that I understand how TiVo and Tracker works, it means that I can get TiVo to reschedule shows (primarily The Bang Bang Theory) that my wife and children have stopped TiVo recording part way through e.g. after 2mins of recording!

[mrtickle]

Ah right I see! I need to think about things t'other way around...

Roughly speaking... (tmsids etc. notwithstanding)
1) TiVo won't re-record anything which is on disc (i.e. in Now Playing, or deleted but not yet purged)

Well, TiVo's own 28-day rulebook is in /mfs/Recording/NoReRecord. The active recordings [now playing + deleted] are held in mfs/Recording/Active. There is often an overlap.

Yes so with 40GB discs recordings were usually deleted within 28 days (as you say) so rule (2) would come into play. But with 1TB discs it's likely rule (2) won't ever be executed (but that's still OK )

Tracker then adds rule (3)
3) It won't re-record anything for the "Lifetime of the Box"

Effectively yes. After a deleted recording has been overwritten (or a ToDo item is explicitly deleted), it moves from mfs/Recording/Active to http://tivo/tivo/mfs/Recording/Cancelled . It is these Cancelled recordings entries which Tracker logs - where they were actual recordings or deleted-from-ToDo items (if that option was set) as opposed to conflicts etc - when you Update the tracking list.

[mrtickle]

New updated version. Many thanks to spitfires and millsb for their help and Velocitysurfer and SolidTechie for testing so far

# Dec 28, 2011
# mrtickle, 3.2.0-rc5
# 1. factor out common procs (display title etc) to separate file
# mrt_get_verbose_title, mrt_get_program_tmsid, mrt_check_program_movie, mrt_check_films_genre, mrt_firsttwochars. mrt_display_tmsid
# 2. fix tivoweb2 colours problem reported by spitfires using CSS
# used spitfire's colours, and added mrt_css_fallback (in mrt_utils) to be called after every html_start to cater for (most) people who don't add the new styles to the theme.
# 3. fix braces for spitfire's mfs insert programmes errors
# used millsb's version of strim
# 4. prepend sNNeNN to start of Episode titles that are saved. Can be sorted in the series display. Suggest you hand-edit old files for completeness.
# 5. watched/unwatched issue reported by Velocitysurfer
# tracker_rebuild needs $chan passed to it, but only outputs if $trackerdebug is on. If you have that and 'autorebuild' set, this configuration needs testing.
# 6. invalid HTML fixed in links with parameters and in trackerseries. Bug fixed where title variable was being wiped.

NB: From now on, Tracker also requires the support file zz_mrt_utils which is included and should be uploaded to the same directory (for tivowebplus 2.1b3 it might need to go in the libs directory instead if it doesn't work in modules). This uses a slightly different version of spitfire's expand_epnum routine which pads single-digit season/episode strings with leading zeros (ie sNeN becomes s0Ne0N). It's in a different namespace to avoid clashes.

Attachment removed: please see this thread for updated version.

[asfafa]

Hi mrtickle

Thanks a lot again for your hard work (also to spitfires and millsb). Before I install rc5...

I've been using version rc4 until now, and with rc5 being released, can I just replace the file without deleting any of the config or files that have been built up, or is it best to scrub and start again? I can see that #4 in the change history may mean editing files, but other than that?

cheers again!


paul

[mrtickle]

Hiya,

Many thanks for your testing! Yes, you can just upload the new module and keep your config, settings and history. The way I would do it is:
* full stop of tivoweb or tivoweb2.1b3
* delete rc4
* upload rc5 and zz_mrt_utils
* full start of tivoweb or tivoweb2.1b3

I was considering changing the format of the files to store the sNNeNN details in another field, but in the end I put it in the same field as the episode title so that it could be sorted more easily.

[Gilly]

Hi

I am fairly new to hacked Tivo ownership - so please excuse my level of ignorance.

I have a newly supplied AltEPG Tivo from Dave with TWP 2.1.B3, which generally works but seems to be 'broken' around the Tracker / NoReRecord routines and always crashes. I would like to apply the fixes from MrT's signature but I have no idea how.

Can any of you good people out there provide idiot-proof, step-by-step guide to applying a patch?

[millsb]

The AltEPG approach to idiot-proof patching is to produce updated versions of the AltEPG software that you can install automatically from the AltEPG server. The latest update (Altepg 1.0d) doesn't contain these TWP patches but the next one will. I'm not making any promises about when that will happen though.

TWP patching is usually just a case of unzipping/untarring a load of files into the right place on your TiVo, and then restarting TWP but if you're not familiar with it then I'd recommend waiting for an "official" build.