I added 2 lineups - now search does not work - need code change to allow this

[Alden Bushman]

I think this has come up in the past. I am unable to search for programs. I need some line of code changed so that it allows multiple channel lists. I estimate 2000 channels x4. That is a lot of channels. Please increase the limit.

Other ideas - it would be nice if the program does not store channel lists in the registry. I have 3 accounts on my computer - I would like to be able to set up the same channel sets quickly - presently it is a lot of work. I see the channel sets in the registry, but they should be in a file that I can access.

Thanks

[Andy Balaam (mail-artificialworlds)]

Hi Alden, please describe what happens when you search, and what you would like to happen. I don't understand what is going wrong.

On the other issue, there is a bug logged for this already - see bug 268363. Feel free to contribute a solution!

[Alden Bushman (aldbus)]

Hi Andy,

I have subscribed to two line-ups at Schedules Direct. The first line-up may have 1000 channels - it is hard to count. A lot of these are LOOR channels - I think they are informational or something. The second line up may have a 1000 channels, but only contains a couple of LOOR channels. I am able to search the first line-up in Schedules Direct. I use the first time wizard, and switch to the second line-up. Now when I search, nothing happens. It does not find any of the programs I searched for. I tried to edit the registry - and deleted everything under java - freeguide - the channel line ups. I reinstalled freeguide, and only put in the 2nd line-up. The problem persisted. I guess I do not understand what is happening. I have also installed both line-ups on a Laptop - with the same inability to search the 2nd line-up. Perhaps the problem is something to do with the 2nd line-up? I have some programming experience, but even if I had the source code, it would probably take me months to gain any familiarity with the program - I would have to study the language too. So, if you have any ideas, please let me know. Thanks for your help.

Alden

[Alden Bushman (aldbus)]

I can now clarify the problem. The first line-up downloads about 58,000 programs. These I can search with Freeguide. The second line-up downloads about 81,000 programs. It tries to search for several minutes, but does not find anything. It takes several seconds to switch between days in the schedule. I paired down the 2nd line-up to 50,000 programs. I can search this successfully. So, there is a limit in Freeguide. There must be a parameter or two in the code to change this. I also asked Schedules Direct if there was any way to use the same line-up twice - so I could download a full channel set, and a paired down set. There is no way to do this. The suggestion is that the XMLT project has tools for post-processing the download. I will investigate this next.

[Alden Bushman (aldbus)]

The XMLTV tools do not help. Freeguide must be fixed. Also, Freeguide should allow multiple listing of channels. Line-ups show the same channel many times, as they are broadcast simultaneously on several channels.

[Andy Balaam (mail-artificialworlds)]

Hi Alden, I don't think there will be an explicit limit on the number of programmes you can search. It's more likely that FreeGuide is running out of memory - I'm not aware of it being tested with such a large number of programmes.

I'm not sure how much use FreeGuide is with this enormous list of channels. Maybe you would be better off using the tv_grep tool from XMLTV rather than FreeGuide for searching for programmes?

I'm not sure whether this is a fixable bug, but here are some things to try:

1. Try launching FreeGuide's Java process with more memory (I'd suggest 512MB or more if you have at least 1GB on your machine): http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_6181628_change-heap-size-windows-xp.html

2. Try running FreeGuide on the command line and see whether any error messages appear: http://www.artificialworlds.net/freeguide/FAQ/DiagnosingProblems