IMDb Scraper issues on XBMC for Mac OS X?

Offtopic:

Hi eduo,

We have a new website as you will have noticed, and you have pointed out that some things need to be easier to find for new and old users alike.

You seem to write very well, so perhaps you will have a small amount of time to offer (and with any luck implement) some better content or better linking for the website, so that new users can find what they're looking for a little easier?

Cheers,
Jonathan

jmarshall: I had seen the new wiki and think it's tremendous value and a wonderful step in the right direction. The new direction XBMC has taken means whatever we thought the phrase "influx of newbs" meant will take on a radically new meaning and that, to me, is a great thing (I've been hawking XBMC as the greatest thing since sliced bread and comparing every single mediocre MC out there with it for a long time now).

I'll see what I can help with, seeing as I've used XBMC for a long time without giving anything back other than new users.

eduo Wrote:Dudeman: Weird. I tried your solution on the newest compile (0.1.2) but didn't see a difference. I was hoping it'd fix it, then I'd diff the files and find out it was probably because elan's build is using the wrong carriage returns or some stupid thing like that.

Alas, no luck. My XBMC keeps freezing when trying to scrape.

I never did have problems with the scraper freezing, just not getting it right, and that sometimes it would be nearly impossible to even manually make it work.

Could your problem have something to do with network blocking (firewalls, maybe Little Snitch)? Does it freeze and stay frozen, or does it eventually timeout?

Dudeman

Dudeman Wrote:The problem seems to be with the scripts. So here is what I tried and seems to work just fine:

I copied the contents of the scraper folder from my T3CH XBMC SVN that's on my Xbox (1/8/2008), and used it to replace the scraper folder on elan's XBMC v.0.1.2. It now works, at least all the movies that were previously detected wrong now work just fine.

To do this, either download T3CH's SVN (http://t3ch.yi.se/), or if you have an Xbox with one of the latest SVNs, FTP into it and copy the "video" folder from "System/Scrapers". Then right click on the XBMC application, click "Show Package Contents", navigate to "System/Scrapers" and replace the video folder in there with the one from the SVN.

You might want to back up the original "Video" folder just in case this one doesn't work for you.

Anyway, try it, it might help. It certainly did for me.

Dudeman

Thanks Dudeman! Your solution worked. I am finally able to pull down info for the movie "300" instead of having to settle for data on "The 300 Spartans". Tv shows are still hit and miss, but the Tv.com scraper works MUCH better.

God dammit! Dont you just love user errors

Dudeman Wrote:I never did have problems with the scraper freezing, just not getting it right, and that sometimes it would be nearly impossible to even manually make it work.

Could your problem have something to do with network blocking (firewalls, maybe Little Snitch)? Does it freeze and stay frozen, or does it eventually timeout?

Nope. I did check all of that. The problem is strange, since it doesn't pop for pulling listing results, only for pulling actual info and covers. I'd be less surprised if no scraping worked at all.

C-Quel: What user errors? The problem where the included scripts didn't work as they should have and redownloading them again fixed it? Or the problem I have where XBMC can't download anything at all and nothing close to a response exists anywhere in the manual, the faq or the forums.

Forums should have an /ignore button, really.

C-Quel Wrote:God dammit! Dont you just love user errors

Sorry about the above comment "Eduo" but i had to have a guess as my Crystal Ball has ran out of batteries... its an old one so i cannot plug it into my usb port.

Maybe you could provide a debug log so we can see what is happening

paste it here http://www.pastebin.com and post the link

Oh /ignore would not do you any favours im the one that will be fixing it if there is a problem

I have, as I mentioned already. I created a different thread and in it also provided the log from pastebin before I mentioned it here. I originally mentioned it here because it was related but not enough to hijack the thread.

But, really, I don't mind if you want to keep away from it. I could do without the unhelpful yet-so-funny remarks. I can live without them, although I'd understand if it made you happy to go there and recommend I don't scrape info or that I put it there manually from my Xbox's files or some other advice that doesn't really help me or anyone.

eduo Wrote:C-Quel: I know you think you're being wittily helpful but the whole point of searching through name is scraping all info. As well, there are some that don't keep a single NFO file as they look untidy.

If the scraper is not accurate then it's not accurate. There are problems existing in XBMC for OSX for scraping that are reflecting in different ways, and this is one of them. For some, things that the xbox version found perfectly are not being found in the OSX version.

For me, the scrapers don't work at all and actually freeze XBMC and eventually crash the system.

God knows I've been snarky in the past but I truly believe it's not the proper attitude against the slew of new users the forums will receive, none of which has run XBMC on an Xbox. This could be a real bug but the snarkiness keeps it hidden.

All that said, I'm all for sending people off to read the FAQ and the Manual, as long as we're sure they're properly linked and easily locatable.

Comments likes the above dont do you any favours... i recommended adding the year because we use it to avoid complications like "aka,same movie different year" and the list goes on... so its not that our scraper is not accurate, its the fact that users dont use it to its full potential.

Prime example... on imdb search itself "The Wild"

1.
The Edge (1997)
aka "The Wild" - USA (working title)

There's definitely something genuinely wrong with XBMC for OS X's IMDB scraper. I've had several problems with it. For some reason, it can't find certain films. I'm not talking about some low-budget unheard-of film here. I'm talking LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring (other LOTR films work) and Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone (other HP films work).

And I believe that the OS X version does not have the Settings button enabled in PM3 for the IMDB scraper, so it's also not working correctly for this reason: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=30542
IIRC, I had to change the scraper file to even get it working partially at all.

I'm busy now so I can't provide a detailed analysis, but I'll try sometime later.