[Jeff]

I've recently moved over to XBMC from Plex (which I've been using for more than 2 years). I've now been using XBMC for a few weeks and have to say how impressed I am with the stability of the player.

I was really hoping my first post would not be related to a scraping issue. I have spent a lot of time reading the wiki and have successfully set up my movie collection without issue. However, I've hit a brick wall with the 1st TV show I'm trying to set up.

As the title says, the TV show Planet Earth (id 79257) scrapes fine using TheTVDB as the following from the debug log shows:

Code:

14:19:54 T:2954420224 NOTICE: VideoInfoScanner: Starting scan ..
14:19:59 T:2954420224 DEBUG: VideoInfoScanner: No NFO file found. Using title search for '/Volumes/Movies 2/Blu-Ray/TV Shows/Planet Earth/'
14:19:59 T:2954420224 DEBUG: FindMovie: Searching for 'Planet Earth' using The TVDB scraper (path: '/Applications/XBMC.app/Contents/Resources/XBMC/addons/metadata.tvdb.com', content: 'tvshows', version: '1.2.4')
14:19:59 T:2954420224 DEBUG: scraper: CreateSearchUrl returned <url>http://www.thetvdb.com/api/GetSeries.php?seriesname=planet%20earth&amp;language=en</url>
14:19:59 T:2954420224 DEBUG: FileCurl::Open(0xb018d6c4) http://www.thetvdb.com/api/GetSeries.php?seriesname=planet%20earth&language=en
14:19:59 T:2954420224 INFO: easy_aquire - Created session to http://www.thetvdb.com
14:20:01 T:2954420224 DEBUG: GetVideoDetails: Reading movie 'http://www.thetvdb.com/api/1D62F2F90030C444/series/79257/all/en.zip' using The TVDB scraper (file: '/Applications/XBMC.app/Contents/Resources/XBMC/addons/metadata.tvdb.com', content: 'tvshows', version: '1.2.4')
14:20:01 T:2954420224 DEBUG: FileCurl::Open(0xb018d534) http://www.thetvdb.com/api/1D62F2F90030C444/series/79257/all/en.zip

The episode files seem to be picked up correctly and the episode list is retrieved from TheTVDB:

Code:

14:20:11 T:2954420224 DEBUG: VideoInfoScanner: Found episode match /volumes/movies 2/blu-ray/tv shows/planet earth/season 1/planet earth.s01e01.mkv (s1e1) [[Ss]([0-9]+)[ ._-]*[Ee]([0-9]+)([^\\/]*)$]
14:20:11 T:2954420224 DEBUG: VideoInfoScanner: Found episode match /volumes/movies 2/blu-ray/tv shows/planet earth/season 1/planet earth.s01e02.mkv (s1e2) [[Ss]([0-9]+)[ ._-]*[Ee]([0-9]+)([^\\/]*)$]
14:20:11 T:2954420224 DEBUG: VideoInfoScanner: Found episode match /volumes/movies 2/blu-ray/tv shows/planet earth/season 1/planet earth.s01e03.mkv (s1e3) [[Ss]([0-9]+)[ ._-]*[Ee]([0-9]+)([^\\/]*)$]
14:20:11 T:2954420224 DEBUG: GetEpisodeList: Searching 'http://www.thetvdb.com/api/1D62F2F90030C444/series/79257/all/en.zip' using The TVDB scraper (file: '/Applications/XBMC.app/Contents/Resources/XBMC/addons/metadata.tvdb.com', content: 'tvshows', version: '1.2.4')

Then a strange error just before the episode list is returned:

Code:

14:20:11 T:2961870848 DEBUG: Thread Jobworker 2961870848 terminating (autodelete)
14:20:11 T:2961338368 DEBUG: Thread Jobworker 2961338368 terminating (autodelete)
14:20:11 T:2960805888 DEBUG: Thread Jobworker 2960805888 terminating (autodelete)
14:20:13 T:2954420224 ERROR: PCRE: Match limit reached

The following messages are then issued after the episode list has been retrieved:

Code:

14:20:13 T:2954420224 DEBUG: OnProcessSeriesFolder - no match for show: 'Planet Earth', season: 1, episode: 1, airdate: '31/12/1969', title: ''
14:20:13 T:2954420224 DEBUG: VideoInfoScanner: No NFO file found. Using title search for '/Volumes/Movies 2/Blu-Ray/TV Shows/Planet Earth/Season 1/Planet Earth.S01E02.mkv'
14:20:13 T:2954420224 DEBUG: OnProcessSeriesFolder - no match for show: 'Planet Earth', season: 1, episode: 2, airdate: '31/12/1969', title: ''
14:20:13 T:2954420224 DEBUG: VideoInfoScanner: No NFO file found. Using title search for '/Volumes/Movies 2/Blu-Ray/TV Shows/Planet Earth/Season 1/Planet Earth.S01E03.mkv'
14:20:13 T:2954420224 DEBUG: OnProcessSeriesFolder - no match for show: 'Planet Earth', season: 1, episode: 3, airdate: '31/12/1969', title: ''

I've cut out a lot of the debug file due to size constraints, but one thing I noticed in the returned episode list is the following:

Code:

<episode><id>306329</id><title>From Pole to Pole</title><aired>2006-03-05</aired><epnum></epnum><season>1</season><url cache="79257.xml">http://www.thetvdb.com/api/1D62F2F90030C444/series/79257/all/en.zip</url></episode>

The above is the 1st episode of the series and there is no value for <epnum>.

I've tried a number of different solutions, including renaming files, changing folder structure and using a tvshow.nfo file. I was going to add individual .nfo files for each episode with the required url, but the wiki says that this is not currently supported.

I'm running on a Mac Mini 2010 with USB attached passport drives.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Jeff]

Sorry - as per the guidelines on posting scraping issues, I omitted to post the complete debug log.

I've now uploaded the complete log.

I've a couple of other workarounds to try out tomorrow and, if not successful and the logs are significantly different, I'll repost with complete logs.

[jmarshall]

I don't know if the error above is the cause, but notice how there are no <epnum> (episode number) values - this is why it can't assign them.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[Chris!]

Maybe a thetvdb error - try again today?

[Jeff]

Thanks for the replies. I figured it was due to missing <epnum> from TheTVDB.

I've tried again today but still have the same results. Strangely, I just loaded Life (2009) without issue and I thought I would have problems with that one due to the number of series with the same name.

So, is there a workaroud that doesn't require creating complete .nfo files for each episode? I don't mind creating the .nfo files but I'm concerned about the impact of populating the <fileinfo> details incorrectly. Are the <fileinfo> details used by the player during playback, or are they simply there to provide info on the overview screens? If it's the latter, then I'll just create the .nfo files manually.

Thanks again

[Jeff]

Update: I've manually created .nfo files for each episode and everything is now in the library. I'm guessing the issue lies with TheTVDB.

[Bonzi]

I ran into this problem too and it was driving me crazy. There is a problem with episode numbering in thetvdb. If you rename the files to Planet Earth.101.From Pole to Pole and Planet Earth.102. etc then they will be scrapped properly.

[Aqueous]

Do these movies NEED to be in the "TV Shows" Folder or can they be in the "Movies" folder? I have renamed my files as listed above but they still won't show up under "Movies"...

[alexp4re]

i tried Bonzi's suggestion & it didn't work for me. tried diff. scrapers, tried dvd ordering, absolute ordering & still did not work. this really sucks. spent too much time alrdy.

EDIT: ok, i tried this method found in the forum & it works for me.
try 'Planet Earth/Season 1/Planet.Earth.S01E01.From.Pole.To.Pole.mkv'

it didnt recognize the initial scrape; it came up with god quiz. but i manually change under the movie info. to planet earth then it scraped correctly. good luck.

[Jeff]

I've zipped the complete .nfo files for all eleven episodes. You can download them here. Add them to the same directory as your video files. If you use a different file naming convention, please change the name of the .nfo files accordingly.