WebGrab+Plus


  • Hello primaeval

    Thank you for your offer.
    In return, if there is anythng I can do to help you out on LibreELEC (WebGrab+Plus and Mono addons), please let me know.

    Perhaps basic option would be if primeaval configurator channels when writing to its own WebGrab++.config.xml channels are somehow passed as absloute list of channels (only the <channel /channel> strings) and included in LibreELEC WebGrab++.config.xml with no other changes being applied to LibreELEC WebGrab++.config.xml?

    However I like idea that primeaval could provide an easy way in kodi for all the key LibreELEC WebGrab++.config.xml options to be modified using his WebGrab+Plus configurator (i.e. number of days <timespan> of EPG to extract) with ref WebGrab++.config.xml | WebGrab+Plus

    Edited once, last by MikeKL (August 9, 2016 at 4:27 PM).

  • I can certainly try the smb share approach for TV Guide, just access my main box that will do the work - however that means the main box has to be on all the time, which I have no issue with.

    I think the ability to post-process and movie the file to a storage location on smb would be great, it is entirely up to you if you want to develop it - I can try out the smb shares tonight and report back, but as you say it should work fine.

    It would be nice to access the sources.db file too, so I don't have to define all the channel links over-and-over again on different boxes.
    [hr]
    Just a note - this is great stuff guys, good work and collabortaion - many thanks for your efforts.

    Edited once, last by iainmacleod (August 9, 2016 at 4:34 PM).

  • Perhaps basic option would be if primeaval configurator channels when writing to its own WebGrab++.config.xml channels are somehow passed as absloute list of channels (only the <channel /channel> strings) and included in LibreELEC WebGrab++.config.xml with no other changes being applied to LibreELEC WebGrab++.config.xml?

    However I like idea that primeaval could provide an easy way in kodi for all the key LibreELEC WebGrab++.config.xml options to be modified using his WebGrab+Plus configurator (i.e. number of days <timespan> of EPG to extract) with ref WebGrab++.config.xml | WebGrab+Plus

    That would be cool, indeed!
    As long as the output files remains where the processing expects them (or that the processing is able to know where to find them) ;)


  • This looks very useful, having not ued web grabber plus before can anyone advise me how to integrate this into TVHeadEnd? I got as far as creating my guide.xml from the channels I need but the next step of telling tvheadend to use the guide is not obvious?

    Thanks for the great addon

    Just answering my own query as nobody seemed to know (or wanted to share the answer). The file location can be set via the configuration settings of the tvheadend service addon in Kodi. All working great but as others have mentioned you cannot actually browse to the location the guide.xml file is currently saved in, that should hopefully be resolved with the next update though. Cheers

  • So I did a quick remote test, and it looks like it can access the main machine file over smb - so my TV Guide addon (whiever I use) can access the remote instance of the xml guide. So I should be good.


  • Hello primaeval

    Thank you for your offer.
    In return, if there is anythng I can do to help you out on LibreELEC (WebGrab+Plus and Mono addons), please let me know.

    Thanks. I have got a report saying that exporting the config from my addon to yours produces a working xmltv file, which is good to hear.

    I'll see if I can check compatability myself in the next few days.

    That is good that the smb access works, so one device can feed the network. I am always concerned that the providers will get overloaded and lock us out. There are a lot of Kodi users these days. :)


  • Hello all,

    I have submitted a pull request to add user defined pre/post-processing to the service.
    The principle is simple: the service calls shell scripts before.sh and after.sh, if they exist in the addon home folder.
    You could use this, eg to copy the guides locally and/or remotely, update siteini.pack, etc.

    What do you say?

    Sounds great in sense before.sh and after.sh should cover multitude of user needs, any more thought on allowing external user control of frequency of EPG update requests if I remember correctly routine currently automatially runs every six hours.
    (once at a re-boot, then every six hours after re-boot)

    Edited once, last by MikeKL (August 10, 2016 at 11:36 AM).

  • Sounds great in sense before.sh and after.sh should cover multitude of user needs, any more thought on allowing external user control of frequency of EPG update requests if I remember correctly routine currently automatially runs every six hours.
    (once at a re-boot, then every six hours after re-boot)

    Hello MikeKL,

    If you could change the frequency, to what value would you set it?


  • Hello all,

    I have submitted a pull request to add user defined pre/post-processing to the service.
    The principle is simple: the service calls shell scripts before.sh and after.sh, if they exist in the addon home folder.
    You could use this, eg to copy the guides locally and/or remotely, update siteini.pack, etc.

    What do you say?

    Sounds great to me, the only issue I have currently is not being able to point tvheadend at anything in the userdata/addons directory so this will solve that. My only slight concern is I'm not sure how to do the copy command in the after.sh so hopefully there will be some dummy commands in there for non Linux guys to adapt.

    Thanks again for this addon, much appreciated.

  • Hello MikeKL,

    If you could change the frequency, to what value would you set it?

    I would personally prefer to be able to set specific time that the guide is updated and for my usage case run routine once a day. Additionally don't particularly want job to run everytime I re-boot the device, when busy doing other boot up activities..(although I have not noticed any issues :blush: )

    Settings option "config file" that allowed me to specify time/frequency per week. (i.e. 04:00 everyday of the week) would be great.

    Edited once, last by MikeKL (August 10, 2016 at 11:20 PM).


  • I would personally prefer to be able to set specific time that the guide is updated and for my usage case run routine once a day. Additionally don't particularly want job to run everytime I re-boot the device, when busy doing other boot up activities..(although I have not noticed any issues )

    Settings option "config file" that allowed me to specify time/frequency per week. (i.e. 04:00 everyday of the week) would be great.

    If I would know how to this implement this feature on LE, I gladly would.
    Moreover, I gather from your reply the addon works for you, even without this feature.
    I therefore keep this feature on my to-do list, but with a very low priority ;)

  • If I would know how to this implement this feature on LE, I gladly would.
    Moreover, I gather from your reply the addon works for you, even without this feature.
    I therefore keep this feature on my to-do list, but with a very low priority


    Maybe have a look at the code for the backup add-on, as that has such a configurable timer in it for kicking things off.

    Like MikeKL I've also got this addon running very nicely on my Pi2, hooked up with Primaeval's configurator and fullscreen TV guide add-ons plus iPlayer WWW, ITV, BLXD's old TV Catch-up and Radio add-ons as media sources. They all seem to be playing very nicely together, so my box now has a nice Freeview-based TV and radio guide as back-up for when the OTA signal gets screwed up by atmospherics.

    I would agree that being able to set the time/frequency of the update would be nice, if nothing else to minimise the hits on the servers to keep them from getting upset. And being able to toggle the start-up update would be nice as well, just to minimise risks of lock-ups or things clashing around that time (not that I reboot very often these days). But overall top job all round :)

  • Hi. A couple of issues have come up with Webgrab+Plus Configurator.

    I thought I read somewhere here about the addon's addon_data folder being restricted between addons. I might have been dreaming. ;)
    It works ok at the moment.
    Is there going to be any problems with copying the config file output from my addon to yours?

    Someone is having problems with access the xmltv file from smb.
    Could you help solve that for us. I suggested it might be an smb user permission issue.
    TV Guide Fullscreen - possibly the most powerful TV Guide in the world. ;)

    Right now I copy out the necessary ini files into the folder that has the webgrab config file and then copy all of them over to your addon's folder.
    Your addon also has a siteini folder.
    What is the best way to make sure we are using the right set of ini files?

  • I thought I read somewhere here about the addon's addon_data folder being restricted between addons. I might have been dreaming.
    It works ok at the moment.

    This is the only problem I currently have when using this addon, but hopefully that will be resolved with the PR mentioned above where there will be a before and after script.

    A basic example is from your TV Guide addon LibreElec restricts browsing to this addons userdata folder where the guide.xml is produced, the same restriction occurs with the TV HeadEnd addon.

  • Addons can access all the data, users cannot access special://userdata from the Kodi user interface.

    If a user has an SMB problem, then he should open a specific thread in the forum, and provide a log. I this specific instance, I think he has already done, and it is addressed.

    There should be no problem copying the files, as long as WGP produces guide_wgp.xml, which is expected by the next processing step.

    The service uses the siteini.pack in its home folder. If the date of siteini.pack in the home folder is earlier than that provided with the addon, the service updates siteini.pack in the home folder.

    I hope to have answered all of your qurstions.

  • Addons can access all the data, users cannot access special://userdata from the Kodi user interface.

    If a user has an SMB problem, then he should open a specific thread in the forum, and provide a log. I this specific instance, I think he has already done, and it is addressed.

    There should be no problem copying the files, as long as WGP produces guide_wgp.xml, which is expected by the next processing step.

    The service uses the siteini.pack in its home folder. If the date of siteini.pack in the home folder is earlier than that provided with the addon, the service updates siteini.pack in the home folder.

    I hope to have answered all of your qurstions.

    Thanks. All Answered.

    I had a good look at service.webgrabplus and tested out compatability with Webgrab+Plus Configurator.
    It seems to work fine for me as long as the filename and folders are set up right.

    The filename has to be guide_wgp.xml to enable the postprocessing, as you mention,
    and the folder has to be /storage/.kodi/userdata/addon_data/service.webgrabplus

    I checked your code and it only copies new ini files if they don't exist.
    That's good for me as I copy the necessary ini files into the config folder.

    I accessed the guide.xml on LibreELEC from Windows and everything was fine. So SMB seems ok.

    One more cheeky question which you don't need to answer if it is against LibreELEC rules:
    Have you tried to run the webgrab exe on android with mono?
    I didn't want to start trying to compile mono for android if it already exists somewhere.

    Edited once, last by primaeval (August 12, 2016 at 12:42 PM).