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BirthYearCheck 4.0
The Possible invalid BYs tag has been extensively updated. | Posted: Topic Replies: 66, Topic Views: 22083 |
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Just FYI the download for BySpecial expires May 25 so you can't download it after that. It was never meant to be a supported program.
However, I intend to incorporate suspicious birth years in the next version of BirthYearCheck, and it will cover both cast and crew. Look for an announcement in the Plugins forum. Eventually ...  | Posted: Topic Replies: 168, Topic Views: 10778 |
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I have learned that there was a bug in SlowStarter 1.0 that could prevent the program from starting. This has been rectified, and the program has been updated so it shows its status during Windows startup.
I currently use it myself for autostarting DVD Profiler, and for delaying the start of tools that depend on HTTPJolie så that those tools don't start before Profiler is running. For me, that means a delay of at least 15 seconds more than the delay (if any) for starting DVD Profiler.
SlowStarter 1.1 | Posted: Topic Replies: 2, Topic Views: 5477 |
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You seem to immediately take a defensive attitude rather than answering my questions.
Quoting DJ Doena:
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The problem is that DVD Profiler is stuck in Windows XP 32-bit world with the known "foreign letters" ANSI technology on top. At some point you will just reach the natural limits of what this program is capable of.
I don't think he meant that it is the foreign characters that are causing a problem, but rather that the 32 bit technology sets some limits "at some point". I don't believe that you have reached that point. If foreign characters were a problem that caused crashes we would have heard a lot about it. We haven't.
Quoting Magmadrag:
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EVERYTHING failed! Every solution caused more troubles than I had before.
That doesn't sound like a trivial problem that will only ever affect exports. But hey, if you don't want to discuss it, that's up to you. I've said what I felt needed saying. | Posted: Topic Replies: 168, Topic Views: 10778 |
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Quoting hydr0x:
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Stan Lee of course screws up the 90 year limit for anyone with Marvel films in his collection, even just the ones which he actually performed in  This raises an interesting question though: With posthumous appearances in franchises (Marvel, Star Wars etc.) getting more and more common, will such a tool need a list of known exceptions?
That's the reason that I call it "Suspicious birth year" rather than "Incorrect birth year". It does exclude any role that contains the word "archive" though. There will always be occurrences that need to be researched. I don't think they will be more than can be handled. | Posted: Topic Replies: 168, Topic Views: 10778 |
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@Magmadrag:
I think it's a mistake not to do everything possible to fix the database. Even if at the moment the problem only manifests itself during export, it's not going to get better, but it might very well get worse.
I see you haven't uploaded you collection since March 30. Does that mean that upload doesn't work for you either? Does backup work without errors?
It is, of course, entirely up to you if you want to ignore this problem. I'm just concerned that you may be setting yourself up for a bigger problem further on.  | Posted: Topic Replies: 168, Topic Views: 10778 |
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Quoting Magmadrag:
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@GSyren:
Nice Idea but there is missing "the other part", too: If the production year is before the BY.... ;-)
No problem, just run the program backwards! | Posted: Topic Replies: 168, Topic Views: 10778 |
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Just for fun I updated my BySpecial to include check for suspicious birth years:
Any birth year that is more than 90 years before production date is flagged as suspicious.
Double clicking a line opens the corresponding profile in DVD Profiler.
BySpecial 2.0
Again, this only checks cast. I can expand it to include crew if requested. | Posted: Topic Replies: 168, Topic Views: 10778 |
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Quoting mediadogg:
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And if that does happen, I can envision a fix. Costly in terms of time, but it will work. Once the profile is saved, I can reload it with a refreshed database pointer and compare, and simply re-write to the database with the BY reset back to zero.
I'm not sure that that is going to work. If the added profile contains a birth year, that would mean that Profiler used the existing cast (or crew) record. So changing that birth year would not create a new cast record, but either change the birth year for the existing record or fail, depending on how Profiler handles it internally. At least that's what I think will happen.
What might have a better chance of succeeding would be to assign a fake birth year (like 9999) instead of zero when adding the profile. This would force Profiler to create a new cast entry, which could possibly be changed afterwards to zero. Not sure though if such a change would change the actual database record, or just temporarily change a copy in memory. | Posted: Topic Replies: 168, Topic Views: 10778 |
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Just a thought:
When you download a profile and it has a person w/o birth year, and your local database has the same name with a birthyear, the person in the downloaded profile will get that birthyear. This is the problem that Magmadrag wants to avoid.
But ... what's to say that the exact same thing doesn't happen if you add a profile (without a birthyear) through the API? It might be a good idea to test this - if not already done - before investing a lot of time and effort. | Posted: Topic Replies: 168, Topic Views: 10778 |
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Quoting mediadogg:
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Quoting GSyren:
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Quoting Magmadrag:
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I would need to export my (whole) collection to xml and export doesn't work anymore. It runs and runs... and at about 99 % the Error-Popup comes...
DVD Profiler can be a bit unstable. So if I had that problem, I wouldn't want to mess up my database further by trying to add stuff via the API. But that's just me. At least not without first finding a way to fix that export problem.
I assume that you have tried a database repair? I realize it's really slow with a database of that size, but it should be done.
That's hilarious. Adding stuff with the API is the Invelos provided, and sanctioned way to do things programmatically. In general, you don't "mess up" the database any more than the main program does when it has a bug. That's why we test and make backups. People should not fear plugins.
What I mean is that if the database is already compromised (export crashes) then I wouldn't try to add data en masse. Not through the API or otherwise. Not meant to disparage plugins in any way. | Posted: Topic Replies: 168, Topic Views: 10778 |
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Quoting Magmadrag:
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I would need to export my (whole) collection to xml and export doesn't work anymore. It runs and runs... and at about 99 % the Error-Popup comes...
DVD Profiler can be a bit unstable. So if I had that problem, I wouldn't want to mess up my database further by trying to add stuff via the API. But that's just me. At least not without first finding a way to fix that export problem.
I assume that you have tried a database repair? I realize it's really slow with a database of that size, but it should be done. | Posted: Topic Replies: 168, Topic Views: 10778 |
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Like I said:
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For each such name, create a cast (or crew) entry without a birthyear. This I don't know if it is possible to do through the API.
So yeah, it's just a listing. If it's no help at all, then sorry! | Posted: Topic Replies: 168, Topic Views: 10778 |
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I whipped up a little program to see if this is something useful to you.
It lists all cast in your collection that does have a birth year, but has no matching non-BY entry.
To keep it simple I just used cast, but if you think it's useful I can add crew too.
BySpecial 1.0 | Posted: Topic Replies: 168, Topic Views: 10778 |
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I was asked by mediadogg if I could write a graphical user interface for CommandOnEvent, so I did:
CommandOnEventGUI 1.0 | Posted: Topic Replies: 7, Topic Views: 5041 |
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@Magmadrag:
What you suggest would entail two steps:
1) Create a list of names that have birthyear, but does not have a corresponding non-birthyear entry. A tool that does that is fairly easy to develop.
2) For each such name, create a cast (or crew) entry without a birthyear. This I don't know if it is possible to do through the API.
Even if it could be done, creating a cast/crew entry that is not connected to a profile has its problems. If you do a full database repair, the name will be gone. I think it will survive a basic database repair, but I'm not sure.
However, I believe there is an even bigger problem with your suggestion. Let's take David Brown as an example since you used that name. Presumably the Non-BY actor occurs in fewer movies than the BY actors. So if an update comes down without a BY for an actor that should have a BY, then it will accepted without a BY since there is such a cast entry in your database. Thus you get an incorrect linkage to the Non-BY actor.
Basically this is a design flaw in DVD Profiler itself. There is no way to distinguish between "birthyear known but not (yet) entered" and "birthyear unknown", and I don't see how this can be reliable fixed by a tool at the local level. | Posted: Topic Replies: 168, Topic Views: 10778 |
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