Personal Video Database

A,B,C,D,E = different machines
A = DB Server 1
B = DB Server 2
C = DB
D = Client 1
E = Client 2

D can talk only to A and E can talk only to B. You want to use only one db (C). A and B both can talk to C. This is the case in many production environments of databases. But it doesn't work with NFS/SMB shares because locking isn't safe with the classic server. With one server the locking mechanism matters (if db is not locally attached) as latency on NFS/SMB shares is slow and if you send two concurrent commands it may fail.

Post is old but still valid:
http://forums.devshed.com/firebird-sql-development-61/firebird-and-networkdrives-under-win32t-227963.html

Firebird FAQ page 22
http://firebirdsql.org/pdfmanual/Firebird-2-QuickStart.pdf

I didn't want to scare anyone but to issue a warning if someone is considering a setup like this.

Quick shot. Did you modify the configuration file of the server?

# ----------------------------
# Remove protection against opening databases on NFS mounted volumes on
# Linux/Unix and SMB/CIFS volumes on Windows.
#
# This also permits creating database shadows on mounted network volumes.
#
#     ***WARNING*** ***WARNING*** ***WARNING*** ***WARNING***
#
# This option removes an important safety feature of Firebird and can
# cause irrecoverable database corruption. Do not use this option unless
# you understand the risks and are prepared to accept the loss of the
# contents of your database.
# Unless this configuration option is changed from 0 to 1, Firebird can
# open a database only if the database is stored on a drive physically
# attached to the local computer - the computer running that copy of
# Firebird. Requests for connections to databases stored on NFS mounted
# drives are redirected to a Firebird server running on the computer that
# "owns" the disk.
# This restriction prevents two different copies of Firebird from opening
# the same database without coordinating their activities. Uncoordinated
# access by multiple copies of Firebird will corrupt a database. On a local
# system, the system-level file locking prevents uncoordinated access to
# the database file.
#
# NFS does not provide a reliable way to detect multiple users of a file on
# an NFS mounted disk. If a second copy of Firebird connects to a database on
# an NFS mounted disk, it will corrupt the database.
# Under some circumstances, running a Firebird server on the computer that
# owns NFS mounted volumes is inconvenient or impossible. Applications that
# use the "embedded" variant of Firebird and never share access to a database
# can use this option to permit direct access to databases on NFS mounted
# volumes.
#
# The situation for SMB/CIFS is quite similar to NFS with not all configurations
# providing file locking mechanisms needed for safe operation. Using SuperServer
# engine with the database on NT file server may be considered relatively safe
# as file locking protects the database from being used by the several engines.
# Network stack can still change order of writes so you may get a corrupted
# database in case of network errors or power outage.
#
# The useful and safe case is working with a shared database marked read-only.
#
# DO NOT ENABLE THIS OPTION UNLESS YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
#
# Type: boolean
#
#RemoteFileOpenAbility = 0

Ok, thanks. 




Although I would consider the problem with the redraw ( -http://www.videodb.info/forum_en/index.php/topic,3142.0.html -) a bit more important. Currently I have a lot of difficulties to work with PVD under Windows 7. Maybe if you could dedicate a bit time to this argument. I would help where I can.
Often the skin shows up like in these screenshots:

http://www.imagebanana.com/view/2tvo0xd1/DogwoodsBugClassictabs.jpg
http://www.imagebanana.com/view/w3kx8bq8/DogwoodsBugClassictabs2.jpg

So the scanner should be using <title>, not <origtitle>.

Hmm, so you're saying currently the scanner evaluates only the named capture <origtitle> to compare the filename with the movies in PVD? To tell the truth I expected the scanner to evaluate every one of the named captures (<origtitle>, <title>, <year>, <season>, <episode>, <eptitle>) contained in a regular expression. Then in case that their combination in a filename matches an existing record in PVD it would offer to change the path (if different). Only if they don't match it would offer other guesses it made in base of filename, records etc.
It does so at least for the named captures <episode>, <season> and <eptitle>. There it does detect whether <eptitle> already exists in PVD or not and it doesn't concatenate.

From my point of view for the file scanner a filename (movie/episode) which matches exactly a regular expression and matches exactly a movie in PVD (id est all three, filename, regular expression and record, are intentionally managed by the user) should always have the highest priority over the suppositions which makes the software.

But why maintain multiple records for the same movie, when all that's different is the language?

Yes, that would be my ideal world . Most of my movies are done this way (and a lot of work to synchronize . Unfortunately this can't be done for all movies ... First there are different versions for both languages like an extended cut and a normal version. (those have different original title) Then we have different versions which seems to be the same movie. But for some reason the distributors for one or the other country decided to cut out different scenes of the movie (I.g The Queen, Angels & Demons and many others). So in the end you have different video tracks (and consequently different audio tracks). Although there would be hardly a saving in diskspace I could put them all in one container (2 video tracks and 2 audio tracks) but unfortunately my streaming box doesn't support choosing between different video tracks in the same container, only between audio tracks and subtitles. So in the end I have to maintain two different movie containers id est files.

This is a real problem where there's a need to intentionally record two or more paths in one record (e.g., a movie and it's trailer). When one is matched, the scanner is unable to add the other.

As I said above for <episode>, <season> and <eptitle> it doesn't. Trailers for episodes are also very common And it doesn't concatenate. This doesn't seem to be a consistent way to treat the filenames. I think the treatment should be consistent through all kind of filenames. One way or the other.

I didn't consider the fact trailers (because more than one file for the same movie (parts) could be resolved very easily with regular expressions)
I could immagine a solution to this problem would be an option to switch of this concatenation for all kind of filenames (a similar option exists for multiple disc detection). But the best way, IMHO, would be the logic mentioned above.

Thanks

I created a screenmovie to illustrate the steps until the error. You can download it at the link below. It is a zip file. Inside you'll find an exe (it's about 1MB and it is not a virus which you can simply start to see the the movie. To extend it to the original resolution press the little square in the right below. There should be no problem to visualize the video I use it often (let me know if not).

I created a new database (no pvdconf.ini in the beginning) and inserted/downloaded two movies. These steps I didn't record because there was really nothing special. The movie starts where I create a custom field checkbox. Then I checked this box for one movie, changed between the two movies to let you see that it is checked only for one. Then I start to open the advanced search etc. until you see the error.

This time the error (and the video) was created on a XPSP3 32bit system, always v1.0.2.2.
Let me know if these infos are enough or if I should do other steps to make you reproduce it better. If you want I can send you the test database.

BTW: Downloading the infos from IMDB for the two movies I saw the famous No movies found! error although it downloaded all infos correctly. The IMDB plugin was the latest version (updated this morning). Let me know if I shall investigate further.

http://www.mediafire.com/?f5mwy0m6c4nesql

@mgpw4me

Thanks for your answer. I'm not completely convinced by your guessing, for various reasons.

As far as I know PVD doesn't use the msxml* libraries and I'm not really sure whether it uses implicitly a xml library. It uses the mshtml.dll and therefore xmllite.dll. (btw I have on both systems only version 3 and 6 of the msxml* libraries - these are the ones that are necessary for parsing xml with windows (32 or 64) if you want to link them, 4 often is installed but not used).

But apart from this the control in question is not autosized. The poster control is autosized, the description and also all father objects aren't. (Autosize that is to say the poster fills all space available inside the 35% column/row) If you remove autosize from the poster the misalignment appears nevertheless. Or did you mean autosized by the PVD window? In this case it should occupy all the available horizontal space of the father column (obviously to the side of the poster) because there isn't defined a size for the column. Indeed the comments tab does it correctly (horizontally expanded til the border of the father column).

For a multi-line display, it makes sense to look at the height of the page, then make the control's width whatever is necessary to fit the text into the display.

If this was the case you'd have a column with one word in every line if the text doesn't fit the height. It is not the way renderers work (at least in the occidental world Every browser is the proof.

Also putting a fixed width doesn't resolve the problem. In fact in the meanwhile I could reproduce the problem with both systems and various skins (see screenshot). As I said above, once discovered the guilty state of the values of MovieExpanded for a skin I can reproduce it.

I think the only answer can give us nostra when he will find a bit time to investigate the problem.

Thanks

VinT skin:

Without an example movie it is difficult for us to verify the problem. Could you please name a movie where it doesn't work (maybe the imdb URL)

BTW:
Did you know that you can also import the images in one go selecting several movies and using the import function?

If you have an export of your old images you could also try the method mentioned in this thread:
http://www.videodb.info/forum_en/index.php?topic=1734.0

In the beginning I did it this way and it worked quite well. Given 1400 movies maybe it is an option.

I don't want criticize your achievement of inserting 1400 movies but maybe it would have been easier asking for help why the conversion (import/export) from Ant Movie didn't work out. Usually it is not a big problem. At least for the basic data like the URLS. Afterwards you could have made anyway an update of all movies with the import function. At least you could have spare yourself a long night 

Thank you.

It behaves sligthly different on my system. The description tab is never correct and always in form of the narrow column. Neither a restart nor refreshing etc. does help.

These were the good news.

On a XPSP3 32bit system the error doesn't occur with the skin above ... 

But ... I could reproduce the "narrow column" with another tab skin and one of my other skins (3. screenshot).

It occurs only with expandable sections and with every skin it behaves differently. In the end when I could reproduce the error with one skin it was sufficient to keep the MovieExpanded settings in the [UI] section of pvdconf.ini, delete the configuration file, copy the MovieExpanded settings to make appear the error again. Which means it depends on the combination of already expanded sections during the visualization of the skin. This would explain why deleting the pvdconf.ini initially resolved the problem for me.

But it doesn't explain the different behaviour on different systems and why the bug with my Windows 7 64bit system also without a pvdconf.ini produces the bug (except the initial setting MovieExpanded of virgin pvdconf.ini was provoking the bug there)

Edit: I forgot something. It is not the column width of the previous column it picks. The width doesn't correspond to any other column width in the skin. But ... the width seems to be the same through all the skins which produce the error. Maybe it is some default width it uses.

You were right. Cancelling the pvd.ini resolved the problem. Thank you Rick.
I'm a bit annoyed with myself that I didn't think about this before. Maybe because I didn't associate the settings in configuration file to the skin visualization. First I had some doubt not seeing the problem on an XPSP3 system today. The graphic card I excluded from the start as it usually works on a pixel level (also because as you can see clearly in the screenshots that the column width of the description is changing which, as a consequence, makes going wrong the text wrapping)

I try to nail down which setting is provoking the error and report it.

Thanks again

Hi,
developing a skin with tabs I found a probable Bug with the text alignment in tabs (description and comments).
Included I have a very simple skin with two tabs. The first tab presents a misalignment of the text. The second tab however presents a correct formatting of the text. The misalignment doesn't vanish neither with a refresh nor with a restart of PVD. The same misalignment (same column width) PVD shows regulary with normal skins without tabs during daily operation (usually in the description field), but it is more casual and not easily reproducable. In the sample skin however it is always present.

The sample skin contains nearly all borders of sections and columns to reveal the structure.

Thanks

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xml>
  <pvd_skin_movie>
    <skinname>PVD Bug 2</skinname>
    <version>1.0.0.0</version>
    <author>goddert</author>
    <description>Skin with bug in tabs</description>
    <section space="15">
      <row>
        <column valign="top" space="15" width="35%">
          <section>
            <color>$000000</color>
            <border shape="none"/>
            <row>
              <column valign="top" halign="center">
                <section space="5">
                  <color>$ffffff</color>
                  <border shape="none"/>
                  <row>
                    <column space="5">
                      <poster autosize="true"/>
                    </column>
                  </row>
                </section>
              </column>
            </row>
          </section>
        </column>

        <column valign="top" halign="center">
          <section>
            <row>
              <column valign="center" halign="left">
                <section permanent="true">
                  <row>
                    <column valign="top" halign="left">
                      <origtitle>
                      </origtitle>
                    </column>
                  </row>
                </section>
              </column>
            </row>
            <row>
              <column valign="center" halign="left">
                <pagecontrol>
                  <tab>
                    <caption>Description</caption>
                    <row>
                      <column>
                        <description>
                        </description>
                      </column>
                    </row>
                  </tab>
                  <tab>
                    <caption>Critics</caption>
                    <row>
                      <column>
                        <comment>
                        </comment>
                      </column>
                    </row>
                  </tab>
                </pagecontrol>
              </column>
            </row>
          </section>
        </column>
      </row>
    </section>
  </pvd_skin_movie>
</xml>