No problem Thomas, I know how frustrating it is reading about other peoples success when you are still tearing your hair out

Ok I looked at the two files and the only difference I could really see in the structure was the opening couple of lines of xml:

The tvharvest (non working xml) started like this:
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
<NewDataSet xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="">
<tv date="Sunday, 31 October 2004">

whereas the working PHPXMLgrabber looks like this:
<tv generator-info-name="magnetikgrabber">

I dont really know why this would cause a problem if it was importing into Webguide2 ok. But if you have similar extra root tags you can try removing them (dont forget to remove their corresponding closing tags at the bottom of the file).

The only other difference I noticed between the two grabbers that worked and the one that didnt was that the two that worked had shorter length channel ids:

NOTWORKING GRABBER:
<channel id="Channel Seven Perth">
<display-name>Channel Seven Perth</display-name>
</channel>

WORKING GRABBER #1:
<channel id="7">
<display-name lang="en">Channel Seven</display-name>
</channel>

WORKING GRABBER #2:
<channel id="Seven">

<display-name>Seven</display-name>
</channel>


There is no difference at all in the <programme> sections of the xml files (except the referring to diffent channel ids as expected) but ill include an example to satisfy any curiousity:

NOTWORKING XML FILE:
<programme start="20041031063000 +0800" stop="20041031070000 +0800" channel="Network TEN Perth">

<title>Hillsong</title>
<desc />
<rating system="ABA">
<value>G</value>

</rating>
</programme>

WORKING:
<programme start="20041031063000 +0800" stop="20041031070000 +0800" channel="TEN">

<title>Hillsong</title><desc/>
<rating system="ABA">
<value>G</value>
</rating>

</programme>

Hope that helps someone

-Christian

Hi guys,

For the record (and to maybe make things clearer): different xml grabbers SHOULD NOT affect SmartGuide, because it does not use it, only WebGuide does. SmartGuide queries the (MSAccess) database that WebGuide populates through an xmltv grabber. Having said that, the following statement should be true: If WebGuide gives you a proper, browsable, guide, then SmartGuide should not have a problem.

If you have MSAccess on your hands, I suggest looking in WebGuides' .mdb file and compare things. Note that the guid column you'll encounter has no meaning (that is, it's not a problem if the guid differs between guides for the same channel/service).

If this statement is not true, then I would like to whistle the Twilight Zone tune

Regards,

Reinhard

Hi Reinhard,

Firstly thanks for all the work done on Smartguide, MCE is basically useless to me without an EPG

Ok I dont know whether this will make you whistle the twilight zone theme or not . Turns out I am able to cause Smartguide(MCE more specifically) to crash by increasing the description field past a certain length.

I noticed one of the description fields in the Non working XMLTV file had a length of 1429 characters (long movie description). This was correctly imported by Webguide and then encoded correctly by Smartguide. However when I clicked on the ImportXML2EPG (?typing from memory ) button smartguide would appear to hang and Id get the 180mb *.sdf file.

By simply removing this one long description the problem would not occur, so this leads me to believe that perhaps the MCE internal system has a description(or perhaps entire program tag) limit < 1429 characters. I noticed the next longest string I had in the file was 1104 characters long so perhaps the entire tag must have a length less than 1500 chars or something?

Perhaps limiting the length(1000chars?) of the description when appending it (EPGXMLWriter.cs line 266 on the source I have) using some sort of substring function(sorry I know nothing about .NET programming ) would solve this problem for some users ?

In any case Im happy using this fast PHP XML tv grabber with no descriptions Thanks again for your hard work.

-Christian

Christian (SmB)! You are my hero! :-)

Now we are getting somewhere!

Reinhard, Could you PLEASE make a version of Smartguide that limits the description to 1000 char.?

Best regards,
Thomas

SmartGuide for Smart People

I'll make the limit 1024, because that's the length of the description column in the MCE guide. I will also check the other lengths, so we get rid of all errors of this kind.

Regards,

 

Reinhard

Hi,

Reinhard, thanks for you work on this again!

This whole thing is driving me crazy!!!

MCE 2005 setup went fine and WebGuide2 is working 100%...

I am getting TV signal for all 5 of my channels using the new scanning for services wizard as part of setup.

I just cannot find where these channels are stored... The registry key that used to look like this:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\TV System Services\TVAutoTune\TS27-0]
"1"=dword:AEFFCE0
"2"=dword:C5E32E0
"3"=dword:2F9824A0
"4"=dwordCC68E0
"5"=dword:2DB1C4E8

...now looks like this:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\TV System Services\TVAutoTune\TS27-0]
"AutoTune"=hex:1e,00,00,00,74,4a,62,20,2a,00,00,00,74,22,1b,26,36,00,00,00,74,\
fa,d3,2b,3a,00,00,00,74,42,bc,2d,3e,00,00,00,74,8a,a4,2f

There is a file C:\WINDOWS\ehome\MCETuningOverrides.xml with what looks like pre-defined frequencies for certain countries. The file is in use all the time by MCE. If you try and edit it with the eh* processes running it won't save.

Whenever I run the scan for services wizard, all the data in this file gets added to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\TV System Services\TVAutoTune\ registry key.

I have tried editing that file with a list of channels and frequesncies for South Africa but had not luck.

I know that SmartGuide is working but I think MCE is failing to match the data in the EPG with the channels and frequencies that SmartGuid is placing there.

Any ideas anyone?

Regards

Chris

---

My Blog | South African MCE Community | Xbox Bloggers

Hi,

OK, I managed to get it all working, for now at least.

I reset my MCE using a cool little app called MCE Config Reset. I chose 'Maximum Clean'. This wipes out almost all your MCE data and basically leaves your box as if you have never run MCE. I launched MCE and went through the setup wizard. I told it to scan for serices. Set the region to South Africa and said No to using the guide. It found 19 this time. Sometimes I get 17, sometimes 6, etc etc etc...

I went through the channels and noted the best image quality per channel. I then did a SmartGuide EPG import. I did NOT delete the c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\eHome\EPG folder. Doing this messes up your TV channels as some data is stored in there somewhere. I did NOT import frequencies.reg. Only did the EPGTOSAgreed.reg and the others listed earlier in this thread.

Then I went to MCE. Settings -> TV -> Guide -> Add listings to channel.

You can then create the mapping between what MCE found during the scan and what is in the EPG.

Once I created those mappings, I just disabled the other channels and sorted out the channel order. All these settings are then saved to c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\eHome\EPG\prefs\prefs.xml

One other thing I noticed is that if your guide is 'disabled' (as in you have not made all the registry hacks) then the Settings -> TV -> Guide menu is different. A whole lot of options like 'Add missing channels', 'Add listings to channels' are not present.

I will see tommorrow if all this works as a permanent solution when I update my guide with new data.

I will let y'all know

Cheers

Chris

---

My Blog | South African MCE Community | Xbox Bloggers

Hi,

Here's a new SmartGuide 2005 version. The commandline is enabled again, and it will check for description and title lengths before entering them in the MCE xml file (BTW: It's not SmartGuide that hangs, it's MCE code. I am still convinced that MS should have included that check in MCE; one bug in the original EPG delivery service and MCE hangs!).

I also included a .reg file for the enablement of the Guide button in MCE.

.....and for those eagerly awaiting it: sourcecode included.

Regards,

Reinhard

PS: A lot of people mention 'object not set blah blah' errors, but the result is still succesful. If someone can point me to the location of the error, maybe I can fix it (After all, I have never pressed the 'import' button myself in this this version of MCE )
PS2: A tip: If you're looking for the proper channels to override in the registry (in my case, my cable provider changed channels, but the native EPG doesn't know about it yet), you can use the Guide Browser button, zoom in on a Channel from the list and then zoom in on the TuneRequest for that channel. The number that is shows is the one to put the override for in the registry.

Hi Reinhard,

Thanks for your efforts, unfortunately there still seems to be major problems.

When starting smartguide from the win environment it crashes with an unhandled exeption error at once.

I am able to start the app from the commandline with the /i parameter, however when i click the first button i smartguide it responds with the following error:

just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Index and length must refer to a location within the string.
Parameter name: length
   at System.String.Substring(Int32 startIndex, Int32 length)
   at SmartGuide.EPGXMLWriter..ctor(String partslocation)
   at SmartGuide.SmartGuideWorker.CreateXMLFile(String& encryptedFile)
   at SmartGuide.Form1.button10_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
    Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
    Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
    CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/microsoft.net/framework/v1.1.4322/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
SmartGuide
    Assembly Version: 1.0.1764.39212
    Win32 Version: 1.0.1764.39212
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/ehome/SmartGuide.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
    Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
    Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
    CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.windows.forms/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.windows.forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
    Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
    Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
    CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Data
    Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
    Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
    CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.data/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.data.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
    Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
    Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
    CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.xml/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.xml.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
    Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0
    Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032
    CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.drawing/1.0.5000.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/system.drawing.dll
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just in time (JIT) debugging, the config file for this
application or machine (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:

<configuration>
    <system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the machine
rather than being handled by this dialog.

 

Any clues?

 

Best regards

Richard 

Hello Reinhard

You are my man... the SmartGuide is also working for me. Had to follow my old instructions from 2004 though, to get it working (but the german hack is not necessary anymore :laugh.

However the last version you posted had a few "comma errors" (It is hard to test, without running the actually running program, so you are excused :hehe.

I compiled and found the errors, which basically occurs because you are trying to take the substring of the description, even if it is not to long.

So I changed the code in EGPWMLWriter.cs so it looks like this:

private string NoDataTitle = System.Configuration.ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["NoDataTitle"];
private string NoDataDescription = System.Configuration.ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["NoDataDescription"];

...

title = System.Web.HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(programs[i]["title"].ToString());
if (title .Length > 1024)
{
    title = title .Substring(0,1024);
}
descr = System.Web.HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(programs[i]["description"].ToString());
if (descr.Length > 1024)
{
    descr = descr.Substring(0,1024);
}

I also tracked down and corrected the "Object not set to an instance of an object" error. I'v added the c.Init... in PresetHandler.cs (around Line 47), so it looks like this.

SqlLiteConnection c = new SqlLiteConnection();
try
{
    c.Init(Microsoft.Ehome.Epg.Helper.EpgFileHelper.CurrentEpgFile, false); //I'v added this line
    c.Open();
    ....

For all you how can’t wait, I’ve attached the SmartGuide.Exe with the above changes. You’ll have to trust me on this

Now I just have to figure out how to get the command line options to work (never took the time in 2004). I found that I had to import the frequencies.reg everytime I ran the SmartGuide import.

Hello Again

Reinhard... now you are at it. Would you add the following line to SmartGuideWorker.cs. Other wise the Command Line will fail and say that you should initialize the guide first.

 

Microsoft.Ehome.Epg.Guide.GuideTimeAndDate = Microsoft.Ehome.Epg.EPGUXHelper.GenerateCorrectTime(Microsoft.Ehome.Epg.Guide.GuideTimeAndDate);
Microsoft.Ehome.Epg.Ehepgdat d = new Microsoft.Ehome.Epg.Ehepgdat();
b = d.ReprocessGuide(fname);
if (b)
{
    Microsoft.Ehome.Epg.Guide.Initialize(); //Please add this line
    Microsoft.Ehome.Epg.Guide ggg = (Microsoft.Ehome.Epg.Guide)Microsoft.Ehome.Epg.Guide.CurrentEPG;
    ...

If you noticed the new installation guide says that after pressing button 1, it was necesary to go to the Guide Browser and click initialize, before clicking on button 2. This line also fixes that.

Again I'v compiled a new SmartGuide.exe. BUT THIS VERSION REQUIRES "/I" TO SHOW THE WINDOWS FORM. I was missing a parameter to just import without rebooting in the old version.

But the great news are that my command line is also working. I've added the following to lines to c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\WebGuide2\MCE\MCE_Wizard\download_guide.bat:

cd C:\WINDOWS\ehome\
C:\WINDOWS\ehome\smartguide.exe /f

I need /f because otherwise my frequencies is reset after each import.

So now I'm a happy man.

Reinhard... thank for not leaving us, now that you have native EPG. A lot of us are very glad 

Thomas

Hi All,

Some of you may recognize me from Reinhard's application you are all using. I while back I mentioned to Reinhard that I was looking at something that was exposed in MCE2004, initial investigations indicated the loophole I was looking to exploit was closed off in MCE2005. After a bit more investigation it appears that one door was closed and another opened so to speak. The image attached may not be of significance to most people unless you live in Australia. We were sort of lucky and MCE2005 was officially released to the Australian public. However the local broadcasting companies over here have not been able to agree on the provision of EPG data for MCE.

The image shows the selection of providers from within the MCE application, a process you must go through in order to configue MCE to download the guide, this was done without hacking any of the MCE files. I still have a bit more work to go yet, but when finished the experience between having a guide and not having a guide will be non existent.

Sorry for stealing your thunder a bit Reinhard.

JB

Hi JB,

 

Being a fellow Aussie I am extremely excited to see what you have managed to do! Will you be making your secret available to all? If I can help in any way I would be more than happy, otherwise good luck and I hope we all hear more from you soon

Cheers,

Max

Hi Max,

Yes I will be sharing my discoveries with you, and others. Reinhard used information I published long ago about the internal workings of MCE for his original smartguide (which I am quite pleased about ).

I am currently at a point where I can manipulate the information supplied to MCE enough that MCE will try to download the guide data from a BITS server of my choice. I now must collect the guide data, format it correctly, encrypt it and send it over the wire. I will then refactor alot of the code to break it up into a more extensable achitecture. This will allow new data sources to be plugged in and thus support more countries.

Once I have it to this stage I would welcome help and would even consider sharing the source through sourceforge or gotdotnet workspaces.

JB

Hello,

Have problem with the Asp net, dount find it under com security!!

Please help me....

Regards

Jesse