checking for new episodes takes ages

[Johan Vervloet]

Full disclosure: I added non-sixgun podcasts to Pony Express.

When I check for new episodes, nothing seems to happen. When running this in the debugger, I see a lot of messsages like this in 'LogCat':

09-28 22:09:11.860: DEBUG/PonyExpressDbAdaptor(2650): Tablename of Episode is: PodEps3
09-28 22:09:12.000: DEBUG/PonyExpressDbAdaptor(2650): Tablename of Episode is: PodEps3
09-28 22:09:12.110: DEBUG/PonyExpressDbAdaptor(2650): Tablename of Episode is: PodEps3
09-28 22:09:12.250: DEBUG/PonyExpressDbAdaptor(2650): Tablename of Episode is: PodEps3
09-28 22:09:12.360: DEBUG/PonyExpressDbAdaptor(2650): Tablename of Episode is: PodEps3
09-28 22:09:12.480: DEBUG/PonyExpressDbAdaptor(2650): Tablename of Episode is: PodEps3
09-28 22:09:12.600: DEBUG/PonyExpressDbAdaptor(2650): Tablename of Episode is: PodEps3
09-28 22:09:12.810: DEBUG/PonyExpressDbAdaptor(2650): Tablename of Episode is: PodEps3
09-28 22:09:13.010: DEBUG/PonyExpressDbAdaptor(2650): Tablename of Episode is: PodEps3
09-28 22:09:13.320: DEBUG/BaseFeedParser(2650): Response code: 200
09-28 22:09:13.350: DEBUG/Pony/PodcastFeedParser(2650): Podcast art from: http://sixgun.org/files/rantofabkuhn.jpg
09-28 22:09:13.450: DEBUG/PonyExpressDbAdaptor(2650): Tablename of Episode is: PodEps3
09-28 22:09:13.680: DEBUG/PonyExpressDbAdaptor(2650): Tablename of Episode is: PodEps3
09-28 22:09:14.170: DEBUG/PonyExpressDbAdaptor(2650): Tablename of Episode is: PodEps3
09-28 22:09:14.310: DEBUG/BaseFeedParser(2650): Response code: 200
09-28 22:09:14.390: DEBUG/PonyExpressDbAdaptor(2650): Tablename of Episode is: PodEps3
09-28 22:09:14.410: DEBUG/Pony/PodcastFeedParser(2650): Podcast art from: http://sixgun.org/files/linuxoutlaws.jpg

Sometimes there are podcast art lines, showing the url of the podcast art files. But these repeat theirselves as well. (While waiting, I saw e.g. linuxoutlaws.jpg pass several times.)

After half an hour or something, I just pushed the back button, so that the 'checking for new episodes'-box disappeared. That let me browse the downloaded shows again. (Each time going back to the main screen, the message 'checking for new episodes' appears again, but you can discard it with the back button.) No new episodes were found, but I guess there weren't any new episodes available anyway.

[Paul Elms (scifly)]

Thanks for the bug report!

Looks like pony is in a loop somewhere. Where you using the latest gitorious code or a release?

Adding new podcasts is a bit developmental but I've never had that happen before..

I'll keep an eye on it as Dan would say :)

[Paul Elms (scifly)]

Also checking for updates in multiple podcasts does take ages at the moment (not half an hour though :) ) I hope to speed this up. Some podcasts have huge feeds listing *all* historical podcasts which takes a long time to parse (tuxradar is one). LO only lists the latest episodes in their feed. Which non sixgun shows were you checking? I would like to check their feeds..

[Johan Vervloet (jvervloet)]

Thanks for the feedback. I pulled the latest sources yesterday, so if I did compile everything properly (I only use eclipse for pony, and very occasionally, so I might do things wrong) I have the most recent version. I noticed two more things:

  * some new episodes are found after interrupting the checking for updates.
  * some episodes are suddently marked as unlistened again. (CCHits.net Weekly and Rathole Radio)

These are the podcasts in my Pony Express:

  * CCHits.net Weekly (http://cchits.net/weekly/rss - 25 items)
  * LO
  * Interne Keuken (http://internetradio.vrt.be/podcast/Radio1/rss-11_inke.xml - 1 item - it's from our public radio, they clearly don't know how podcasting works ;))
  * Rantofabkuhn
  * Rathole Radio (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/RatholeRadio-ogg - 20 items)
  * UUPC (http://feeds.feedburner.com/UbuntuUkPodcastOgg-high?format=xml - 17 items)

So no very large feeds. I used to have to wayt for +/- 5 minutes before all those feeds updated, but since I pulled the most recent source code (tuesday and yesterday), it doesn't seem to end.

[Paul Elms (scifly)]

Thanks for the additional info.

 I think I'm gradually getting to the bottom of this issue. Do the individual podcasts update normally if you do each of them individually with their refresh buttons, rather than with the refresh all subscriptions menu item? I hope so, or I'll have to think again...

[Johan Vervloet (jvervloet)]

I can confirm they do :-)

[Paul Elms (scifly)]

Johan,

Do you still have this bug when you refresh all podcast feeds? It has me stumped at the moment :/

If you are, could you add the line of code below in and then run Pony and attach a full log to this bug. I am surprised that this bug doesn't show more error messages in the logs and was hoping a fuller log might show some.

Patch:

diff --git a/src/org/sixgun/ponyexpress/activity/PonyExpressActivity.java b/src/org/sixgun/ponyexpress/activity/PonyExpressActivity.java
index ee37659..97db3ae 100644
--- a/src/org/sixgun/ponyexpress/activity/PonyExpressActivity.java
+++ b/src/org/sixgun/ponyexpress/activity/PonyExpressActivity.java
@@ -617,6 +617,8 @@ public class PonyExpressActivity extends ListActivity {
    } else {
     podcast_names = new ArrayList<String>(Arrays.asList(mPodcastBeingUpdated));
    }
+ //DEBUG code for Johan..
+ Log.d(TAG, "Number of Podcast names in array = " + podcast_names.size());

    for (String podcast: podcast_names){
     String podcast_url =

Many Thanks.

[Johan Vervloet (jvervloet)]

Thanks for looking into it. Yesterday in the morning, it kept refreshing, but when i pressed the back-key, the new episodes were there.

I just tried again some minutes ago, and now the problem seems to be gone. Maybe there was something in a feed that caused the troubles?

So for now it's working, if it breaks again I'll keep you informed.

[Paul Elms (scifly)]

Thanks for the help. Hopefully, it was just a glitch somewhere..

[Paul Elms (scifly)]

I am closing this bug here. If it re-occurs please report it on our new bug tracker at http://sixgun.org/bugs/enter_bug.cgi?product=Pony%20Express