EPG Guide Issue - Airings with the same name

[niallparry_hotmail.com]

Hi,

Plex appears to confuse / mix-up shows with the same name. This then impacts the ability to record, even when restricting the channel and time.

The following Airing names are prime examples

• NBA Basketball
• NBA Basketball [New}

For example, I wish to record the Celtics on NBC Sports Boston, the airing name is ‘NBA Basketball [New}’

There are multiple additional airings on the guide with the same name, on NBC, Fox, MSG, YES etc, but these will be for the local NBA team, 76ers, Clippers, Knicks, Nets, etc.

Plex believes that these are all the same and combines them as 1 show in the guide all with the same information - thus recording one of the other channels / broadcasts instead.

The only workaround I have is to disable the other channels, but on repeat airings titled ‘NBA Basketball’ where there are multiple on the same Channel, plex still confuses them as the same.

Thanks

[niallparry_hotmail.com]

Hi Plex,

As a Plex Pass subscriber I would appreciate a response here?

Thanks

[johnm_ColaSC]

What happens if you pick one of the airings of the Celtics and when setting up the recording use the dropdown selection for Record. Does it show an option to pick All Boston Celtics Events?

[niallparry_hotmail.com]

Hi @johnm_ColaSC - Thanks for the response

I think the issues lies within the Plex epg - i.e. in the epg it assumes all ‘NBA Basketball’ airing are exactly the same - it thinks they are all one event

Therefore, I am never presented with the option you have screen shot above

[johnm_ColaSC]

Can you post a screenshot of the guide data you see? Use the search feature and capture one showing the show with all episodes.

[niallparry_hotmail.com]

Here are examples for ‘NHL Hockey’

Here is an extract from the xml code for what should be displayed…

[niallparry_hotmail.com]

As you can see, this is a problem, as 14 different airing are all mixed up and assumed to be one and the same…

[johnm_ColaSC]

Plex is going to see all of the NHL games as NHL Hockey. It will also list all of the channels that NHL Hockey appears on. I had asked for you to use the Search feature to find all NHL Hockey episodes. Kind of confused that now your are showing screenshots for Hockey when the original post was about Celtics Basketball. I have no NHL Hockey games that air in my area and only have OTA channels so I will use NFL for my search, but this should work the same whether you are searching for Celtics Basketball or some NHL team:

Click the NBA Basketball that shows under Guide/Shows.

Click the record button beside one of the airings you want to record.

From the episode record settings what shows under the Record dropdown? For this one episode I selected I have record This Event, All NFL Football events, All Seattle Seahawks Events, or All Carolina Panthers Events.

From your screenshot showing the channels list that is also expected as it is showing all channels that NHL Hockey was found on. Screenshot below is showing that in my area there are three channels that broadcast NFL Football games.

[niallparry_hotmail.com]

This is the issue, Plex comibies all the NBA Basketball listings in the epg, that’s what I demonstrated above for NHL.

This is the same for

• NBA Basketball
• NHL Hockey
• NFL Football
• Etc

Therefore I don’t get the multiple options like you do for NFL Football

[johnm_ColaSC]

Look like you are using your own EPG provider from one of the screenshots. As you can see in my screenshot I am using the Gracenote provided guide data,

Your guide data says xTeVe - 1.2.3, perhaps this is causing your different guide options from what Gracenote data would be providing.

[niallparry_hotmail.com]

You are correct, the data comes from xTeve.

Please look back at my NHL post, I included the data from the xTeVe .xml file (the epg data ingested by Plex).

As you will see xTeVe has the correct data for the two DIFFERENT showings, but the xml data is ignored / overwritten by Plex - that is the issue.

[niallparry_hotmail.com]

I just add the same device / xml to Emby - it displays perfectly.

[garyan2]

To avoid exactly what you are seeing, Plex requires either an “xmltv_ns” episode-num element with season and episode information, or an “original-air-date” episode-num element with a date and time value. The date and time value needs to be unique in case there are 2 different “NFL Football” games starting at the same time, which is why I randomize the seconds value of the time field.

I see you have a Schedules Direct account, so you can try EPG123 to generate the XMLTV file instead of xTeVe.

EDIT: Looks like you may not have an account with Schedules Direct … in which case, EPG123 won’t help unless you try their 7-day free trial. FWIW, emby handles XMLTV files much, much better.

  <programme start="20181130010000 +0000" stop="20181130043000 +0000" channel="EPG123.33914.schedulesdirect.org">
    <title>NFL Football</title>
    <sub-title>New Orleans Saints at Dallas Cowboys</sub-title>
    <desc>The Cowboys host the Saints on Thursday Night Football. The Saints boast a perfect 5-0 record on the road this season. New Orleans has won four of its last five versus Dallas, with the one loss coming at AT&amp;T Stadium, 38-17 on Sep. 28, 2014.</desc>
    <category>Sports</category>
    <category>Football</category>
    <language>en</language>
    <icon src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/schedulesdirect/assets/p191277_b_h3_ar.jpg" />
    <episode-num system="dd_progid">EP00003128.1767</episode-num>
    <episode-num system="original-air-date">2018-11-29 18:00:59</episode-num>
    <video>
      <quality>HDTV</quality>
    </video>
    <audio>
      <stereo>stereo</stereo>
    </audio>
    <new />
  </programme>
  <programme start="20181202180000 +0000" stop="20181202212500 +0000" channel="EPG123.33914.schedulesdirect.org">
    <title>NFL Football</title>
    <sub-title>Arizona Cardinals at Green Bay Packers</sub-title>
    <desc>Two California-born quarterbacks meet as Arizona faces Green Bay. This is Manhattan Beach-born Josh Rosen's (ARI) second game versus another Golden State QB, and Chico's Aaron Rodgers (GB) is one of four California QBs with over 40,000 passing yards.</desc>
    <category>Sports</category>
    <category>Football</category>
    <language>en</language>
    <icon src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/schedulesdirect/assets/p191277_b_h3_ar.jpg" />
    <episode-num system="dd_progid">EP00003128.1775</episode-num>
    <episode-num system="original-air-date">2018-12-02 11:00:28</episode-num>
    <video>
      <quality>HDTV</quality>
    </video>
    <audio>
      <stereo>stereo</stereo>
    </audio>
    <new />
    <subtitles type="teletext" />
  </programme>```

[niallparry_hotmail.com]

Cheers for the info @garyan2 - I will pass it on to xTeve and my provider

It would appear that Emby uses the ‘sub-title’ of the program to differentiate the DIFFERENT programs -

Plex, why don’t you also do this?

[niallparry_hotmail.com]

Why is Plex not using the dd_progid!!??

[marmei]

I get my data from Schedules Direct, not every program has the entry original-air-date or episodes (xmltv_ns)

Here is an example of SD, Bundesliga football game (All matches are shown as the same in Plex)

"EP018588321211": {
      "descriptions": {
        "description100": [
          {
            "description": "From ESPRIT Arena.",
            "descriptionLanguage": "de"
          }
        ],
        "description1000": [
          {
            "description": "Aus der ESPRIT Arena in Düsseldorf, Nord Rhein-Westfalen, Deutschland.",
            "descriptionLanguage": "de"
          }
        ]
      },
      "entityType": "Sports",
      "episodeTitle150": "Fortuna Düsseldorf - Hertha BSC",
      "genres": [
        "Soccer"
      ],
      "hasImageArtwork": true,
      "hasSeriesArtwork": true,
      "md5": "4joZAjqf8UwCkT9DTttZfA",
      "originalAirDate": "",
      "programID": "EP018588321211",
      "resourceID": "3589962",
      "showType": "Sports event",
      "titles": [
        {
          "title120": "Fußball: Bundesliga"
        }
      ]
    }

Here is a TV show with an episode system (displayed correctly in Plex)

"EP018630760008": {
      "descriptions": {
        "description100": [
          {
            "description": "Eine schwedische Staatssekretärin hat eine Affäre mit einem russischen Diplomaten.",
            "descriptionLanguage": "de"
          }
        ],
        "description1000": [
          {
            "description": "Eine schwedische Staatssekretärin wird aufgrund ihrer heimlichen Affäre mit einem russischen Botschaftsmitglied zum Sicherheitsrisiko. Um den Diplomaten zur Ausreise zu zwingen, wollen schwedische Staatsschutzbeamte ihm einen Mord anhängen.",
            "descriptionLanguage": "de"
          }
        ]
      },
      "entityType": "Episode",
      "episodeTitle150": "Russisches Roulette",
      "genres": [
        "Crime drama"
      ],
      "hasEpisodeArtwork": true,
      "hasImageArtwork": true,
      "hasSeriesArtwork": true,
      "md5": "FZYUsbZJTjL7V64APdkk6A",
      "metadata": [
        {
          "Gracenote": {
            "episode": 2,
            "season": 1
          }
        }
      ],
      "originalAirDate": "1997-12-17",
      "programID": "EP018630760008",
      "resourceID": "8998638",
      "showType": "Series",
      "titles": [
        {
          "title120": "Kommissar Beck - Die neuen Fälle"
        }
      ]
    }

[niallparry_hotmail.com]

Yeah - I get the same

Works in Emby - doesn’t in Plex

[garyan2]

I see. In the case of the soccer game, since there is no OAD, and no NEW flag, epg123 will give it an OAD of 0001-01-01 with no time value. It will succeed in preventing Plex from identifying it as a movie, but will still have a problem thinking they are all the same. I could add another check on program id… I see it is an EP prefix which I can use to add a time value and make each one unique.

I’ll make a quick build and make it available if you want to try it out. I’m not too happy with the amount of work I need to do to find work-arounds to how Plex handles XMLTV files.

Emby obviously works and is what personally use.

[marmei]

OAD 0001-01-01 crashes the Plex app on the NVIDIA Shild.

Nvidia Shield grid guide crash when particular tag present

Server Version#: 1.13.8.5395 Player Version#: Shield 7.6.2.7169 Hello, there is a bug in the live tv grid on the nvidia shield. While scrolling around the grid, some channels would crash right out of the Plex client. I took a look at one specific channel that was crashing and by process of elimination determined it was this line of the xmltv file that was crashing it: <episode-num system="dd_progid">EP02342554.0009</episode-num> For example, this caused the Plex client to crash <pro…

Comparing the Sub Title would probably be the simplest solution for Plex. What do you want to do a quick build for, epg123?

[garyan2]

Yes, epg123. I have no problem with bringing the OAD into at least the 20th century by default. Hopefully that will be enough.

EDIT: I will not however be removing the dd_progid entry. That will affect my users and it is explicitly allowed in the XMLTV DTD.

EDIT2: I will correct myself here… dd_progid is not explicitly allowed. I was thinking of xmltv_ns. What is stated though is that you can have any ‘system’ attribute… even your own made up system.