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105 - Running a Full Export of My Movies Data

Chameleon CentralController (CCC) is used to export My Movies metadata directly to CMC's Movie DB, and manage User Accounts and Parental Restrictions, and tracks Watch History and WatchLists on a per-user basis.
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Pauven
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105 - Running a Full Export of My Movies Data

Post by Pauven » Wed Nov 25, 2020 5:19 pm

TL;DR:

Click the button "Full Export" to begin processing, showing title after title being exported in the log window. Expect 1.5 to 2 hours of processing for each 1000 titles in your collection.

Even though CCC doesn't access your media folders, My Movies will scan each title before the API exports the data to CCC in order to produce the Dune paths. Hopefully Binnerup will provide a solution to prevent scanning the folders, since CCC does not need the Dune paths and we would prefer not to spin up storage media.

If instead you are shown an error message, you need to follow the troubleshooting steps below.

STOP! Wait for the Full Export to finish before proceeding to: 201 - Configuring CMC to Connect to CCC



Running a Full Export
Now that you've completed the initial configuration in the previous chapter, you are ready to run your first export. On CCC's main control panel, click the button labeled "Run Full Export Now":

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Hopefully you get lucky and the export begins right away. You'll know it is working by the continuous scrolling of the log window as each title is processed.

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The Full Export will take a long time to complete, as the My Movies API takes a while to retrieve each title and export the data. On my setup, it takes about 3 hours to export almost 2000 titles, though different users have reported wildly different durations so your results will likely vary. The fastest I've heard reported was about 2 hours to export about 4000 titles. If you have an especially large collection running on slower hardware, this could easily run 5-10 hours.

You need to let this first Full Export finish before trying to connect with CMC to show your collection.



Media Drive(s) Accessed During Data Export
When CCC is exporting your movie collection from My Movies, you may notice that your media storage drives are accessed and scanned.

This is NOT CCC accessing your drives.

As My Movies generates the data for each Title, the API service automatically scans the media folder for that Title to double-check the filepaths and media types before sending the final data to CCC. The data returned by this extra scanning is not needed or wanted by CCC, but for now there is no way to turn this behavior off in My Movies. This issue has been reported to Binnerup, and we are hopeful that they will provide a solution to prevent what we feel is unnecessary and unwanted drive access.

Unfortunately, this is out of our control. If you too are bothered by this drive access, we encourage you to share your thoughts on Binnerup's My Movies support forum.


Troubleshooting My Movies API Connection Issues
CCC will begin the export process with a connectivity test, to make sure it can successfully communicate with your My Movies API service.

If there is an issue, you may get a "Connection Refused" error message like this:

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If this happens, there are several things you may need to check to troubleshoot the issue. After each troubleshooting step, try running the Full Export again to see if the problem is resolved.

The first step is to make sure that the My Movies General Service is running. On Windows 10, you would open the Windows Task Manager, select the Services tab, and scroll down to My Movies General Service.

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If the status indicates Stopped, then right-click on the name and select Start to get it running again. The My Movies General Service contains the My Movies API Service, so it must be running for CCC to connect.

If that doesn't resolve the issue, then the next step would be to double-check the PC Name (or IP Address) that you entered in the My Movies API Connection Settings, perhaps you entered the wrong value:

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If that doesn't work, then the problem may be with your firewall, especially if you are running CCC on a different PC than My Movies and connecting over the network. Make sure that CCC is not being blocked in your firewall rules, and that the My Movies API port 51415 is not blocked between CCC and My Movies.


Troubleshooting My Movies API Access Issues
Sometimes CCC is able to connect to the My Movies API service, but access is denied. If that happens, you will see a slightly different message as shown in the following screenshot:

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If this happens, it is very important that you read the response text (circled above) - this is where My Movies is telling you exactly what the problem is, so you can take steps to fix it. The two most common messages are incorrect API Keys (shown in my screenshot above), and insufficient My Movies Points (you must have 2500 My Movies Points to gain access to the My Movies API - if you don't have enough, you can buy more from Binnerup).



STOP! Wait for the Full Export to finish.

Then proceed to the next chapter: 201 - Configuring CMC to Connect to CCC
President, Chameleon Consulting LLC
Author, Chameleon MediaCenter

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