Take care when hacking OAD data

[spitfires]

I've noticed this morning that all future episodes of Star Trek (CBSACTION) have their Original AIr Date set to 10th Oct 2011. They weren't like this yesterday Have you changed something in the TVGuide that might have caused this (unlikley), or has something gone screwy subsequent to my editing my existing already recorded copy of the same programme (more likely)?
(I edited my Star Trek recordings in NPL to be KUID rather than expired - perhaps the "editprogram" script has messed something up?).

[mrtickle]

I've noticed this morning that all future episodes of Star Trek (CBSACTION) have their Original AIr Date set to 10th Oct 2011.

Impossible - there are no OADs in our data...

They weren't like this yesterday Have you changed something in the TVGuide that might have caused this (unlikley), or has something gone screwy subsequent to my editing my existing already recorded copy of the same programme (more likely)?
(I edited my Star Trek recordings in NPL to be KUID rather than expired - perhaps the "editprogram" script has messed something up?).

I think something's wrong at your end.

Here's what I have for Tomorrow's "Friday's Child" showing:

Code: Select all

Program 6929257/11 {
  ServerVersion  = 2
  Series         = 6705979/-1
  Title          = {Star Trek}
  EpisodeTitle   = {Friday's Child}
  IsEpisode      = 1
  Genre          = 88 1014
  Description    = {(s2e11) The unexpected presence of Klingon warriors on a mineral-rich world jeopardises delicate negotiations for a treaty with the Federation. Kirk and his crew end up trying to prevent a war and drive their deadliest foes from the planet.}
  Director       = {Joseph Pevney}
  Actor          = {William Shatner} {Leonard Nimoy} {Deforest Kelley} {James Doohan} {Walter Koenig} {George Takei} {Nichelle Nichols} {Julie Newmar} {Tige Andrews} {Michael Dante}
  ServerId       = 328712046
  Version        = 1
  IndexPath      = /Server/328712046
}

[spitfires]

Ok sorry MrT, it would appear to be a bug in TWP which isn't clearing the OAD properly when you delete it. I'm guessing there must be something in the TiVo indexer which is setting any "new" episodes to have an OAD at least equeal to the last known OAD. If said last known OAD is wrong then...

Code: Select all

Program 640828/11 {
  ServerVersion  = 2
  Series         = 531347/-1
  Title          = {Star Trek}
  EpisodeTitle   = {Friday's Child}
  IsEpisode      = 1
  Genre          = 88 1014
  Description    = {(s2e11) The unexpected presence of Klingon warriors on a mineral-rich world jeopardises delicate negotiations for a treaty with the Federation. Kirk and his crew end up trying to prevent a war and drive their deadliest foes from the planet.}
  Director       = {Joseph Pevney}
  Actor          = {William Shatner} {Leonard Nimoy} {Deforest Kelley} {James Doohan} {Walter Koenig} {George Takei} {Nichelle Nichols} {Julie Newmar} {Tige Andrews} {Michael Dante}
  ServerId       = 328712046
  Version        = 2
  OriginalAirDate = 15257
  IndexPath      = /Server/328712046
}


Note the OAD!

[spitfires]

True It wasn't me though. They are future recordings which can't be edited in TWP yet, so TiVo must have created those OADs all by itself!

[spitfires]

Just to clarify what I meant there:
1) I inadvertently set the OAD of the last recorded episode of S.T. to 10 Oct 11 (using the 'edit program' feature in TWP you can manually edit OADs).
2) When my TiVo processed last night's slice (which did not contain any OADs) it has automagically set the OAD for all upcoming episodes of S.T. to 10 Oct 11.

It seems it has somehow decided that all upcoming episodes must by definition be later than the 'last known' OAD (and in the absence of episode numbers) and set them all to be 10 Oct 11.

Most strange. You've probably never come across this since I don't think TW 1.9.4 has a function to edit OAD (?).

[mrtickle]

Understood. ok as a test perhaps you could
a) delete all the oads manually, and check that none gets put back after tomorrow's new data
b) if feeling brave - on a different series, set an OAD for 2 weeks' hence on 1 episode, and see what happens to the other episodes that arrive after tomorrow but due to be shown before your OAD date.

[spitfires]

a) delete all the oads manually, and check that none gets put back after tomorrow's new data

TWP doesn't seem to let me edit the OADs for future recordings so I can't change the upcoming programmes which are still set to 10th Oct. I reset all my NPL recordings to OAD of 0 (the default). The 2 new showings in last night's slice (Patterns of Force (s2e21) & By Any Other Name (s2e22), showing 19th Oct) have been given an OAD of 10th Oct 2011 !

It seems one needs to be really careful with these OADs or the TiVo can royally cack things up for ever after!

b) if feeling brave - on a different series, set an OAD for 2 weeks' hence on 1 episode, and see what happens to the other episodes that arrive after tomorrow but due to be shown before your OAD date.

Hmm interesting idea. I'll try that and report back.

[mrtickle]

a) delete all the oads manually, and check that none gets put back after tomorrow's new data

TWP doesn't seem to let me edit the OADs for future recordings so I can't change the upcoming programmes which are still set to 10th Oct. I reset all my NPL recordings to OAD of 0 (the default). The 2 new showings in last night's slice (Patterns of Force (s2e21) & By Any Other Name (s2e22), showing 19th Oct) have been given an OAD of 10th Oct 2011 !

What I meant was you'd probably have to write a script to do it (the program objects for each episode both upcoming and shown), or type the commands carefully in a tivosh.

It seems one needs to be really careful with these OADs or the TiVo can royally cack things up for ever after!

indeed

[spitfires]

What I meant was you'd probably have to write a script to do it (the program objects for each episode both upcoming and shown), or type the commands carefully in a tivosh.

Agreed

[spitfires]

Understood. ok as a test perhaps you could
a) delete all the oads manually, and check that none gets put back after tomorrow's new data
b) if feeling brave - on a different series, set an OAD for 2 weeks' hence on 1 episode, and see what happens to the other episodes that arrive after tomorrow but due to be shown before your OAD date.

Sorry I guess this should be a separate thread really MrT ( )

Ok here's a few tests.

1) Set latest NPL episode to 1st Nov. New episodes are added with no OAD

2) Set latest future episode of a series to 1st Nov. New episodes are added with no OAD

3) Set all OADs on recorded + future episodes of Star Trek (c.f. previous posts) to null. New episodes are still being added with an OAD of 10th Oct !!

4) Change the latest NPL episode on (1) to 1st Oct. New episodes are still added with no OAD.

It seems TiVo is storing the "latest" OAD somewhere else as well as against the individual recordings (presumably the series record?)

[mrtickle]

Understood. ok as a test perhaps you could
a) delete all the oads manually, and check that none gets put back after tomorrow's new data
b) if feeling brave - on a different series, set an OAD for 2 weeks' hence on 1 episode, and see what happens to the other episodes that arrive after tomorrow but due to be shown before your OAD date.

Sorry I guess this should be a separate thread really MrT ( )

Yes, you should be sorry . Hehe. I'll move these posts into a new threads at some point and put it in General.

Ok here's a few tests.

1) Set latest NPL episode to 1st Nov. New episodes are added with no OAD

2) Set latest future episode of a series to 1st Nov. New episodes are added with no OAD

3) Set all OADs on recorded + future episodes of Star Trek (c.f. previous posts) to null. New episodes are still being added with an OAD of 10th Oct !!

4) Change the latest NPL episode on (1) to 1st Oct. New episodes are still added with no OAD.

It seems TiVo is storing the "latest" OAD somewhere else as well as against the individual recordings (presumably the series record?)

You can easily browse the series record in the MFS browser in tivoweb to check, they're all linked.

I think it's in its index (which would be a clear all guide data scenario) and because you removed the OriginalAirDate field entirely, there was no change made to the index. One more thing you could try is to reinstate the OriginalAirDate field, but with an empty value for (3). Then hopefully the indexing after the next call would put the 'new' OAD in the index? Other than that, Clear all guide data

[spitfires]

One more thing you could try is to reinstate the OriginalAirDate field, but with an empty value for (3).

Yeah I did try that but TiVo insists on it being numeric so the best I can do is 1/1/70, which has no effect on the index

So the short message is: don't mess with the Original Air Date unless you know what you are doing!


EDIT: MrTickle added when he pressed Edit rather than Quote :

Hmm. There used to be plenty of pre-Epoch OADs in the Tribune data. Eg Batman and Mission Impossible TV series from the 1960s, and early 1940s films on some channels. If you have any saved slices from the old days you could see how to set earlier dates and set them to be correct for each episode?