First, I would like to remind everyone to make sure that if you are using the "run mythfilldatabase" option in setup, to disable (or remove) the mythtv-backend cron.daily job (etc/cron.daily). It creates an unnecessary additional load on Zap2it. (they have asked us to spread out the load before...)

I was also seeing the "partially filled program guide" issue (almost every day). I had forgotten to remove the cron.daily job after my migration to R5A12. After I did that and moved the time for mythfilldatabase to a later time in the day (currently set to run every other day at noon EST) the problem went away - haven't seen it in weeks...

ahh that could be it, I use the cron script and do not have it set to run from mythtv at all. It could well be some issue if you have both enabled.

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Xsecrets

This was one of my questions when I upgraded that never got answered. I'm guessing that the answer was "NO" and I'm now part of th problem from the "zap2it needs our help" thread again. Sigh... Time to publish the solutions again... 8-/

Folks, if you've upgraded or installed a R5A?? version PLEASE go read this thread and pick one of the solutions there for shifting or randomizing the time when you query zap2it for your program guide info so we're not all hitting them at once.

http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1729

OBTW - The builtin capability to run mythfilldatabase seems to work properly with R5A12, so I'm going to give that a try for a couple days. It lets you chose a range of times and hopefully scatters the runs across that range...

I was having the problem with the partially-filled program guide as well. I disabled the cron.daily mythfilldatabase per cesman's instructions, and enabled the built-in mythfilldatabase.

The good news is that I'm not bogging down the zap2it servers at all. The bad news is that's because mythfilldatabase isn't running via built-in capability

tjc, since the built-in run is working for you, this wouldn't be a R5A12 change would it? (I'm still on R5A10.) Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this? I'm not seeing anything obvious in mythbackend logs.

I think it's a MythTV 0.17 change, since 0.16 didn't work for me either. Last time I checked the db had a full schedule all the way out to the limits of what zap2it provides so it seems like everything is working...

Is it possible to bake into the new KnoppMyth releases one of the random time solutions for the mythfilldatabase? At least as peeps started to upgrade this would end up becoming less of a problem. I'd hate to lose the ability to d/l the listings.

I'm guessing that not everyone who is new to Myth is aware of the problem, and although it is posted here, it is definitely something that can be easily overlooked when you are building your system and are worried about other things. As KnoppMyth gets better and becomes more popular, it may make sense to roll the solution in there so that the burdon on zap2it does not get out of control.

Maybe it's in the works already?

Would this be just as simple as some additional lines in the KnoppMyth setup to construct a cron task with a randomly generated time of day in it?

-brendan