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marc.bau · (This post was last modified: 2014-01-12, 02:50 by marc.bau.)

Epg data is not cached at all on raspbmc. Everytime the system starts up the data and other stuff is downloaded again and again. This takes extreme long time and show a useless progress bar on top right.

Please fix the caching bug and remove the progress bar. Make all this stuff background tasks, please. It is useless to show this.

**TechLife** · 2014-01-12, 04:20

The progress bar isn't useless. It's showing the progress of the data being loaded from the backend. The channel list is being synced with the client as well as the EPG data. If it doesn't sync that data, it can't populate the guide. What would you have us do? Require a manual sync each time? If it takes more than a few seconds, you have an issue. I'm guessing from one of your other posts it's a network issue...

krustyreturns · 2014-01-12, 04:30

Also some of your assumptions are incorrect. Our pvr addon does not keep the data cache or control how much, or when, this data is sent to xbmc, our addon only provides the data when xbmc asks for it. We con't even control that little progress bar. If we are transferring data too slowly you can see that in the serverlog, feel free to post a link to that here if you think its too slow and we'll check it out (put the actual server log on pastebin.com - or the like - and most a link here). But of course the speed of your network connection will have an impact on this.

marc.bau · 2014-01-12, 13:36

I do not like the progress bar. It's very bad usability and the status of completness nothing i care a lot about. Once everything has been synced the very first time there is no need to show this. My windows media center does not show me any epg sync bar at all and the stuff is also synced from satelite. When mc starts very first the program guide may be empty, but i nevertheless see all channels and can start a channel, view something, also without EPG being updated or fully populated. A few minutes later the EPG has been populated in background and everything is fine. With a propper caching this is really no discussion worth as we only need to sync the diffs and not everything.

You should do the same. Do not lock the pvr as long as epg has been synced and allow hidding the progress bar that may be usefull for debugging and techis, but not for endusers. Make it just working and not flickering any unimportant bars and status bubbles. Expect that network is stable, please.

clientxero · 2014-01-12, 19:34

For what it is worth, I like the EPG progress bar, as do 'nontechies' in my family who use it as well. It is a good way to ensure all is working properly without manual intervention.

krustyreturns · (This post was last modified: 2014-01-12, 19:35 by krustyreturns.)

@marc.bau,

I don't think you read my post. I promise that we, the humble addon authors of pvr.wmc, do not control the progress bar, or lock the pvr until all the data is input. We just provide the data when xbmc asks for it.

Just as an experiment, why don't you try turning 'on' the 'Do not store the EPG in the database' option - just to see if you find the experience less horrific in that mode. You can find it in the xbmc settings:
Settings>Live TV>EPG.

marc.bau · (This post was last modified: 2014-01-12, 21:42 by marc.bau.)

'Do not store the EPG in the database' means it is NOT cached. The complete opposite of what I'm looking for. What should the benefit be of making something faster? It sounds like - disable local caching if I'm not totally wrong. This is what I'm complaining about - the local caching on raspbmc looks broken.

I have read what you said... This makes the progress bar a xbmc bug. It's not wrong to inform users if something failed or go wrong, but by default - hide it, nobody needs this information. We know that EPG need to by synced.

IanPH · 2014-01-12, 21:54

@marc.bau:

Without the intent of being rude. Why are you complaining about a Raspbmc problem (or for that matter, standard XBMC behaviour) in the wmc.pvr section?
XBMC (and thus Raspbmc as well) are designed to schedule a complete EPG check everytime XBMC is started or woken up from standby. There is nothing the ServerWMC team can do to change this as XBMC PRV is designed that way. There are many, just like you and me, who don't like the progress bar (just check google for it) but unfortunately you can not turn it of (for now atleast).

Wmc.pvr merely responds to request of XBMC in that case.

marc.bau · 2014-01-12, 22:50

Until now I thought that the PVR addon controlls what (channels, epg, recordings list) it downloads from where (serverWMC) and not XBMC, isn't it? If not, let me know and move the case to xbmc, please.

If it's not the PVR that controlls this it may be extremly difficult to implement custom pvr's, but I'm open minded to learn what component does - what in the background.

bandook · 2014-01-12, 23:08

(2014-01-12, 22:50)marc.bau Wrote: Until now I thought that the PVR addon controlls what (channels, epg, recordings list) it downloads from where (serverWMC) and not XBMC, isn't it? If not, let me know and move the case to xbmc, please.

If it's not the PVR that controlls this it may be extremly difficult to implement custom pvr's, but I'm open minded to learn what component does - what in the background.

The EPG information is pulled by xbmc live TV. The PVR addons simply provide the tunnel between the client and server, which xbmc then uses to get the information and display it on your screen. At least that is my understanding and basically what krusty has already told you a couple times.

You will need to ask for this feature (caching) to be modified as a feature request in the main PVR forum. I will be happy to add to your thread if you do so. But do be polite and remember this is free software and people do this because they want to, not because they have to. Your posts have a slight tone that seems kind of demanding, IMO. Coming through as grateful and patiently making your feature requests will take you places here.

bandook · 2014-01-12, 23:22

BTW, I've done a little quick searching and came up with these posts. You may want to read. I've not mentioned this yet because I have not got to this issue yet. I would do a search before claiming something is a bug. Just haven't worried to much about it because it is still rather quick. Guess we should consider ourselves fortunate because it used to be much slower. It still sounds likely that it is a network issue for you that you need to correct first.
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=123916
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=151317

scarecrow420 · 2014-01-13, 07:45

As explained, XBMC is making the EPG requests and storing the EPG information in the EPG database. The PVR addons are simply providing the data XBMC requests. You have a considerably heavy TV requirements (700 channels and however many thousan EPG entries) but are using probably the least powerful device that XBMC can be run on, and also seem to have some issues with network bandwidth. If you are able to improve your network connection and/or run XBMC on better hardware the time to load/process the EPG information will hopefully be un-noticable.

Suggestions about the EPG process, not having the progress bar etc, should be taken to the PVR development forum as these are not part of the PVR addons so there is nothing we can do about it.

Also FYI in my situation (Australian over the air DVB-T broadcast) the EPG data changes quite frequently - it starts off as more general time blocks (such as 19:00-19:30, 19:30-20:30) and then as the time draws closer, these become more accurate to reflect the actual running length of programs etc (eg 19:01-19:34, 19:34-20:32). If XBMC didnt refresh EPG entries often enough, or only new shows were sent (and not shows that have a different start/end time to what was initially known, whenever this client last requested EPG data) then things would not be accurate in my situation.