Comskip Support Forum

DVRMSToolbox's File Watcher was far too unreliable for me, so I installed DirMon2 and followed the instructions here for getting comskip (donator's version) configured. Where are the .xml files supposed to be outputted though? DTb would place them in their own directory, but I see no options within DirMon2 to specify. Is that something that is controlled from within the comskip.ini file?

Regardless, I'm not confident that it's working. My DirMon2 log file is full of entries like this:

2013-Jun-22 13:01:41 - Starting: "comskip" on "S:\Recorded TV\The Colbert Report_CCHD_2013_05_14_23_31_01.wtv"
2013-Jun-22 13:04:49 - Processor done due to event.
2013-Jun-22 13:04:49 - Finished: "comskip" on "S:\Recorded TV\The Colbert Report_CCHD_2013_05_14_23_31_01.wtv"

I don't know what the "event" is, nor do I know if it completed successfully, because I can't find the .xml files. I know the DTB Plugin looks for them in the C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\CommercialsXml directory, but comskip (or DirMon2) is not putting anything in there.

The location of the .xml file is a function of comskip, not dirmon. Make certain you are specifying the correct comskip.ini file in the options field within dirmon as well.
In my setup, the .xml file is placed in the same directory as my recordings. This makes it much easier to check for what files need to be processed or deleted. Basically, if there's no .xml file for a wtv file, it launches comskip. If there's no .wtv file for a .xml file, it deletes the .xml file.
The DTb plugin will look in the specified directory for auto commercial skip, true, but it will also use any .xml files that exist in the same directory as the recording. Which, once again, is another argument for placing the .xml files in the same directory as the recordings.
In my setup, I did not specify any output directory for comskip, so it just creates the files in the same directory as the recordings. I did not specify any directory in the DTb plugin, so again, it just looks to the same directory as the recordings. nice and simple.

foogama wrote:DVRMSToolbox's File Watcher was far too unreliable for me, so I installed DirMon2 and followed the instructions here for getting comskip (donator's version) configured. Where are the .xml files supposed to be outputted though? DTb would place them in their own directory, but I see no options within DirMon2 to specify. Is that something that is controlled from within the comskip.ini file?

Regardless, I'm not confident that it's working. My DirMon2 log file is full of entries like this:

2013-Jun-22 13:01:41 - Starting: "comskip" on "S:\Recorded TV\The Colbert Report_CCHD_2013_05_14_23_31_01.wtv"
2013-Jun-22 13:04:49 - Processor done due to event.
2013-Jun-22 13:04:49 - Finished: "comskip" on "S:\Recorded TV\The Colbert Report_CCHD_2013_05_14_23_31_01.wtv"

I don't know what the "event" is, nor do I know if it completed successfully, because I can't find the .xml files. I know the DTB Plugin looks for them in the C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\CommercialsXml directory, but comskip (or DirMon2) is not putting anything in there.

Thank you for the response. Did you somehow specify for comskip to place the xml's into the same directory as your .wtv files, or did it just go there automatically? Below is my job management settings. I moved comskip to its own C:\ directory because the quotations method for the Command Line Options field was still returning "invalid parameter" errors in theDirMon2 log.)

Also, I'm still not sure what to make of "processor done due to event" within the DirMon to log. Does that signify a successful processing?

I have no idea what the "processor done due to event" message means. I've got them in my dirmon logs as well.
Are your .xml files being created in the recorded TV directory? No, I did not do anything in the .ini to specify the outlocation. The only changes I made in there was to set livetv to 1, and output_dvrmstb=1.
I see that you've got your monitored directory set as S:\recorded TV. Is that a mapped drive? if so, don't use the mapped drive. Use the UNC name (\\PCName\RecordedTVShare.
restart the service and see if the xml files are created.

foogama wrote:Thank you for the response. Did you somehow specify for comskip to place the xml's into the same directory as your .wtv files, or did it just go there automatically? Below is my job management settings. I moved comskip to its own C:\ directory because the quotations method for the Command Line Options field was still returning "invalid parameter" errors in theDirMon2 log.)

Also, I'm still not sure what to make of "processor done due to event" within the DirMon to log. Does that signify a successful processing?

My Recorded TV directory is actually on my local machine. The entire volume that directory exists on is a mapped drive for use by another machine, but the directory itself was copy pasted from the Windows Explorer path. I know DirMon is seeing files and trying to process them with comskip, because it shows all of the .wtv files in the Queued Jobs list under the Current Status tab. The .wtv files rotate one by one under the Active Jobs list as well (to indicate that they're being processed).

There are EDL files being generated in the Recorded TV directory, but no .xml files. They aren't being generated in the old directory that DVRMSToolbox would use either. There is no useful information in the DirMon log to ascertain whether something is interrupting comskip or not. I've tried starting and stopping the service and rebooting a couple of times, and that hasn't seemed to help. There has to be something straight forward that I'm just missing, this isn't complicated stuff, it's all just a serious of if-then statements at its core. I'm really at a loss here...

Try to set
verbose=10
in comskip.ini to see where dirmon sets the output folder for the xml files.
Comskip will generate the .edl file in the same folder as the recording but it is possible to specify the output directory for the xml files as a second parameter when invoking comskip.
Maybe that points to a wrong folder

Are you certain you have output_dvrmstb=1 set in your ini?

Color me embarrassed.

I had convinced myself that no comskip.ini tweaks were necessary because I had just copy pasted the files from my DTb Apps folder over to the new C:/comskip directroy, but what I actually did was copy all of the comskip files from my original downloaded-zip file. Once I opened up the comskip.ini file to 'double-check' the output_dvrmstb= setting, I saw that it was set to 0. I changed it to 1 and now .xml files are being generated in the Recorded TV directory. Hurray!

I knew it had to be something simple, but I can't believe I overlooked that. Thank you very much for the responses and I'm sorry for resurrecting an old thread for something so simple.

Nah, no need to apologize about that, we've all been there, done that. It's usually something small and simple with these types of things, and generally it results in a collective sigh of relief when it's discovered to be an oversight.
Plus, if someone else has the same issue, they can rummage through this and maybe find the resolution to this symptom immediately.

foogama wrote:Color me embarrassed.

I had convinced myself that no comskip.ini tweaks were necessary because I had just copy pasted the files from my DTb Apps folder over to the new C:/comskip directroy, but what I actually did was copy all of the comskip files from my original downloaded-zip file. Once I opened up the comskip.ini file to 'double-check' the output_dvrmstb= setting, I saw that it was set to 0. I changed it to 1 and now .xml files are being generated in the Recorded TV directory. Hurray!

I knew it had to be something simple, but I can't believe I overlooked that. Thank you very much for the responses and I'm sorry for resurrecting an old thread for something so simple.

Thanks to this wonderful thread, (even) I was able to get dirmon2 working with comskip. Many, many thanks to those who contributed here, especially since there is no information available anywhere else (if there is, will someone please post a link).
And now that it's working, I have no need for the daily log files, right? So now dirmon2 deletes its own logs:

I recently had the pleasure of reinstalling my OS. And, of course, the DirMon2 settings I had saved were nowhere to be found. So I had to get it working again, which was only slightly easier the second time, since, at least, I knew I had gotten it working the first time.
For anyone else having trouble getting started, here are my settings for DirMon2, after DVRMSToolbox default installation without FileWatcher, and the recorded TV shows in the default folder.

I tried using Dirmon2. I like the interface and the cleanup functions.

When I used it though, it queued up a bunch of shows, but was only running one Comskip instance at a time. DVRMSToolbox Filewatcher will run multiple. Is there any way of doing this with Dirmon2?

mogulman wrote:I tried using Dirmon2. I like the interface and the cleanup functions.

When I used it though, it queued up a bunch of shows, but was only running one Comskip instance at a time. DVRMSToolbox Filewatcher will run multiple. Is there any way of doing this with Dirmon2?

Yes. Change the resources required value on the job management panel to less than 1/2 of the total resources available on the Global Settings panel. For example, if you leave the total resources available value at 100, and you want 2 instances of comskip to run, then change the resources required for that job to 49. If you want 3 instances to run, change the value to 33, etc.

ghostlobster wrote:

mogulman wrote:I tried using Dirmon2. I like the interface and the cleanup functions.

When I used it though, it queued up a bunch of shows, but was only running one Comskip instance at a time. DVRMSToolbox Filewatcher will run multiple. Is there any way of doing this with Dirmon2?

Yes. Change the resources required value on the job management panel to less than 1/2 of the total resources available on the Global Settings panel. For example, if you leave the total resources available value at 100, and you want 2 instances of comskip to run, then change the resources required for that job to 49. If you want 3 instances to run, change the value to 33, etc.

Do you use this? Have you been using 2? or 3? What type of CPU?

I'm currently using 2 with an i3 3.3Ghz 2 core w/HT CPU. Separate video card.

I noticed that when using Dirmon2 that my CPU usage went up using 2 instances. If I go into Task Manager, Comskip is running with Normal Priority using Dirmon2. Using DTBFwatcher from DVRMSToolbox, Comskip is using Below Normal Priority.

I'm guessing this is because in DVRMSToolbox File watcher, I have it set for Below Normal, so it opens Comskip as below normal.

I don't know if Dirmon2 has any option like that. It seems like Comskip's default priority is Normal now. It looks like it used to be Idle, sometime in the past and then it got raised to normal. Not sure why that is.