Live TV EPG - The update you’ve been waiting for

[sa2000]

@Nindohana

Is it possible for users to request a new country to be added in the EPG guide provided by Plex?
It’s otherwise impossible to find xmltv file for my count

Unfortunately not - we are limited by what is available from Gracenote. If not available then xmltv is the only alternative

[captain_caveman2k]

@sa2000

Unfortunately not - we are limited by what is available from Gracenote. If not available then xmltv is the only alternative

I don’t know what country @Nindohana is in but after nearly 4 years of being a Plex customer I am still surprised that Plex doesn’t support the integration of the EPG from the DVB-DATA stream as it could:

• Provide an EPG (even if only 7 days worth) for countries not supported by Gracenote when it is present
• Allow for schedule changes (such as late running programmes, emergency news programmes or programmes being changed/pulled)
• Fill the holes that are sometimes present (or not present until the last minute)

I appreciate their are third-party programmes available that are able to extract this data, some I understand, can export to xmltv (and some are available with source code or as a library).

[Olli]

Hello,
since the new EPG is live these filters are never saved!!

Please fix it

[NJMorf]

5USA in the UK has been showing Blue Bloods episodes that don’t match the EPG. This may be a problem at the broadcaster, rather than with the EPG data, since the episodes are being broadcast out of sequence and sometimes repeated, while the EPG is mostly showing them in the correct order as shown on the IMDB. I tweeted at @channel5_tv a few weeks ago and got no response.

Freeview
Channel 021, 5USA
26/11/2022 23:55 GMT/UTC
EPG shows S01E14 “My Funny Valentine”, but S01E15 “Dedication” was actually broadcast
UK
WV16 4LE
Midlands region
PMS 1.29.2.6364

[sa2000]

@NJMorf

5USA in the UK has been showing Blue Bloods episodes that don’t match the EPG. This may be a problem at the broadcaster, rather than with the EPG data, since the episodes are being broadcast out of sequence and sometimes repeated, while the EPG is mostly showing them in the correct order as shown on the IMDB. I tweeted at @channel5_tv a few weeks ago and got no response.

I can see inconsistency for 21:00 for 1st December - where their schedule shows it as S1 E14 but the summary text they display for it here No access outside UK is for S1 E15 - Blue Bloods - Dedication - TheTVDB.com

The Gracenote EPG entry in our EPG is the same as that showing on TV Guide | Freeview

EPG data for 1st December

Their website shows matching summaries - but the 21:00 is showing as S1 E14
Will they be broadcasting S1 E14 for the episode with the summary

When a girl is kidnapped, Jackie and Danny suspect her drug-addicted boyfriend is responsible; Erin’s relationship with her boss takes a step forward.

or S1 E15?

Channel Schedule showing at this moment

[NJMorf]

If Ep 15 is indeed shown on Thursday at 21:00, it’ll be at least the third time it’s been broadcast since 5 USA started showing the series last month. If Ep 14 is not broadcast, it’ll be at least the third time it’s been scheduled but not broadcast.

If these eps were actually being shown in the correct numeric order, I’d suspect that the problem was with the guide data. As it stands, I’m 99% certain that Channel 5 are just grabbing the wrong file at broadcast time. I’m hoping that Plex/Gracenote might actually be able to draw C5’s attention to the problem so C5 can fix it.

[philip_com]

@sa2000

Gracenote EPG data and the detailed program metadata is not available from gracenote at that time but become available sometime after we process the schedule data

Can I delete the day’s TV schedule from the SQLite database and refresh the guide daily ? Assuming Gracenote has updated data for the current day it should be downloaded by Plex and this issue wouldn’t occur.

[pl_5309]

A manual refresh of the guide does effectively that.

[philip_com]

Based on sa2000’s statement, that is not the conclusion I come to. Given the Plex schedules are downloaded daily from Gracenote and that activty deletes incomplete or missing schedules there shouldn’t be any ‘unknown airings’

[pl_5309]

The guide data lives in it’s own database file in the same directory as the regular plex and blobs db. Stopping the server and deleting anything tv.plex.providers.* will guarantee that the epg is wiped clean of data (and possible epg db corruption).
If you do a manual refresh it will download a fresh 2 week epg into tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-(unique id)-loading.db and when finished it will replace (or create if you deleted) your current tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-(unique id).db file. If you want the latest data that Plex has versus what the nightly refresh pulled down hours ago. Either that or set your scheduled jobs to run in the afternoon.

[NJMorf]

Follow-up on Blue Bloods, 5 USA, currently on air:

For the 21:00 showing, EPG showed S01E15, Channel 5 broadcast E14.
For the 22:00 showing, EPG showed S01E16, Channel 5 broadcast E16.

My guess is that next week’s Thursday showings (EPG currently predicts S01E17 and E18) will probably be E16 and E18, or possibly E17 and E19 - they’ve usually skipped over an episode and it’s hit-and-miss whether or not they’ve repeated one.

[sa2000]

@philip_com

Can I delete the day’s TV schedule from the SQLite database and refresh the guide daily ? Assuming Gracenote has updated data for the current day it should be downloaded by Plex and this issue wouldn’t occur.

There are various layers in how the gracenote data is processed., Plex Media Server always starts with a fresh empty EPG database when the guide is refreshed. But Plex Media Server does not interact with gracenote.

We have back end systems that ingest gracenote data periodically and it is these back end systems that Plex Media Server interacts with

The issue is with the gracenote data ingestion.

We have actually already made changes to the ingestion to help overcome this issue and the changes went live on the 24th November - it would take 2 weeks for all the existing gaps to be eliminated. I have not mentioned that we have a fix because I am monitoring how this fix is working to check that it is working correctly - the gaps will now be set to “To Be Announced” and when data becomes available from gracenote these will be replaced - we have one specific type of programming that will remain at the moment showing as “To Be Announced” and that is for shows where gracenote do not give episode information and the episodes are just airing time based - this will be looked into

[sa2000]

@NJMorf

Follow-up on Blue Bloods, 5 USA, currently on air:

For the 21:00 showing, EPG showed S01E15, Channel 5 broadcast E14.
For the 22:00 showing, EPG showed S01E16, Channel 5 broadcast E16.

I have raised with Gracenote requesting that they reach out to the station and highlight the ongoing errors in the EPG data

[sa2000]

@Tremat82

Please check what you have for 4.1 CFRS-DT (NOOVO) tonight Friday between 20h and 22h. Waiting your report…

@captain_caveman2k

I’m not sure if there has been a processing error over the weekend but there have been several Unknown Airings on E4 (Channel 13) and E4 +1 (Channel 29). For example:

The ones that I only saw on E4 for yesterday cleared on Saturday after refreshing the guide data but the others for today on both channels remained. On E4 these shows are:

16:00 - 16:30 black-ish
19:00 - 19:30 Hollyoaks
20:00 - 21:00 Below Deck Mediterranean
22:30 - 23:00 Harley Quinn
23:30 - 00:00 Duncanville

Update: It’s maybe a bit too early to say, so could just be coincidental, but strangely these same slots are also showing as Unknown Airing next Monday (the 26th July) as well.

@rossinior

But for Plex EPG, it is only showing TWO blocks of “unknown airing” (instead of showing four episodes filling those two blocks).

@gadgetchannel

Sometimes a manual refreshes of the guide will fix it, but sometimes the “unknown airing” will stick and I need to wait until Saturday for it to record that episode.

@shadowfixer

Market UK : Freeview / Channel 012 - Quest
Postcode CV35
Missing Airing for Vuelta a Espana (Daily for more than a week at 7pm

@rubi35

The second issue, and the biggest one, is that the guide is full of holes for the channel 2.1 Société Radio-Canada (CBFTDT). Those show up as “Diffusion inconnue” (in french), I believe this is “Unknown Airing” in English. Those unknown airings are showing up at random times every day of the week. I have tried using different postal codes to get diff

We have now been running with a fix for the EPG gaps issue for past two weeks and the fix appears to be working well with gaps gradually disappearing.

The issue was with delayed availability of show data arriving some time after the schedule is available for ingestion. The fix was to have some “To Be Announced” placeholders until the show information is available.

[D_eight6]

I have a new set of digital channels that needs to be added to my local listings.

• What the actual problem or inaccuracy is with any related screenshots
  An OTA channel in my region is missing from Plex’s listings.

• The lineup name (you’ll find the lineup name on the Live TV & DVR settings page under CHANNEL SOURCES )Local Broadcast Listings (110 channels)

• Channel number and channel name
  Channel Name: Positiv TV
  Digital sub channels 35.4 - in particular, but does include the following:

• For airing issues, the airing times, time zone, movie or show/series and episode titles
  n/a
• Your country
  USA
• Postal code
  60629
• Region/market
  Chicago
• Version of Plex Media Server in use
  Plex Server for Mac Version 1.30.0.6486

Evidence:

HDHOMERUN - channel is viewable through HDHOMERUN app

PLEX SERVER - DVR Channel Matching shows no listing of 35.x

[sa2000]

@D_eight6

I have a new set of digital channels that needs to be added to my local listings.

I have referred this to Gracenote to get the missing channels added
rabbitears.info shows these channels from WWTO missing

[D_eight6]

Thank you.

[pgn91]

Channel source match error. The EPG reports Channel 8.3 WGTQDT3 as ‘Comet’. The correct channel source as reported by HDHomeRun is ‘Charge!’. My area is USA, Cheboygan, Michigan, 49721. Plex version is 1.29.0.6244-7000.

[sa2000]

@pgn91

The EPG reports Channel 8.3 WGTQDT3 as ‘Comet’. The correct channel source as reported by HDHomeRun is ‘Charge!’. My area is USA, Cheboygan, Michigan, 49721.

The lineup has Comet instead of Charge! for 8.3 WGTQ station

I have referred this to Gracenote to rectify

[the_zod]

Please add the following channel for the Cincinnati, OH USA market.
ZIP: 41005
Connection: OTA
Viewing area: Cincinnati OH, USA
Channel: 25.13 TWIST
Guide: Cincinnati TV Guide - TV Listings