DVDPedia... adding movies seems to have gone insane.

[PGW]

I tried adding a movie to DVDpedia today but the program is no longer functioning properly. I typed in the UPC number and the wheel spun as the program checked Amazon for the information, but the pop-up window with the data did not appear. Under "window" I chose "add movie" and saw the blank window with no information, but that closed on its own a few seconds later. I then tried to manually add the movie, and suddenly the window with the Amazon data appeared, already filled in. Something's screwy, that's for sure!

I re-booted the computer and tried again... same result.

I am using DVDpedia 6.2.1, Beta 261

[FineWine]

Amazon is giving the pedia's great difficulty at the moment and Conor and beta testers are working very hard to get all this up and going again.

Amazon has made this not an easy fix.

Please be patient.

[steff]

Hi there,
maybe this information helps. When I try to add a new movie (title at IMDB - thanks that this one works again) and then try to get additional information from Amazon (DE, with manual added ASIN) the gear wheel at the bottom of the add movie window shows no results, while the menu button update from (Amazon) jumps back to the last added movie and deletes the input from the new movie window.
Nevertheless, I am very happy that DVDpedia continues to be developed.

MacOS 10.15.7
DVDpedia 6.2.1 beta 261

[FineWine]

I wonder if this and yours are related: DVDpedia: Hinzufügen-Fenster schließt einfach

[PGW]

Thanks, FineWine.

I don't mind waiting until it's fixed, certainly. I'm just relieved it's a known issue, and not my computer going hay-wire.

[PGW]

A workaround...

Click on the "add" button, as usual and type in the UPC code to search under Amazon U.S.
When the search window disappears (with no visible results), go up to "Window" in the menu, and open "add movie."
A blank data screen will appear on the screen for a few seconds then disappear. As soon as it does, hit the "add" button again, then click on "add manually."

All of the correct data will then appear in the "add" window, and you can proceed to modify or save as usual.

Once you're done entering your new data, quit the program and restart. If you don't, for some reason, the info window will keep disappearing after a few seconds.

[Anami]

Great workaround! At least I'm able to add new DVDs this way. Big thanks!

[wkpna]

At the moment, Amazon search is yielding no results for any of its sites.

I'm running DVDpedia 6.2.1, with Amazon Test ticked up, on Mac OS Ventura 13.6.

[FineWine]

ASIN and UPC working but not Title Search in DVDpedia and Bookpedia.

[wkpna]

ASIN and UPC working but not Title Search in DVDpedia and Bookpedia.

Yesterday nothing was working for me, but I've just tried again and yes, both ASIN and title search do yield results now, although quite slowly and kind of glitchy and inaccurate. And by glitchy I mean that, if I enter a title, I get results for that title, but if I add the term "blu-ray" as I usually do to narrow the search, the results I get then have nothing to do with that title.

Oh, and I edit to add that it would seem the search now only works for US and CA sites. Also, none of the movie info is retrieved, and the summary is taken from Amazon's customers reviews.

[FineWine]

Please have a read of this: Re: Pedia Development Post Natural Disasters

[wkpna]

Just for the record, I was not complaining nor demanding immediate solution, just reporting my issues in case it helped in isolating the problem and pointing to a possible fix.

Of course, with Amazon in the mix, you never need to look very far to find the source of any problems. They move in such greedy and malicious way that it's unbearably frustratring and depressing.

[PGW]

So... is anything going on insofar as fixing DVDpedia? It's been months now, and it's still broken. A progress report, at least, would be welcome.
Also, when I run the program now it's asking me for access to my keychain. I say "no" and the program continues to run as usual, but it's odd behavior.

[FineWine]

So presuming you read the above article - Re: Pedia Development Post Natural Disasters - there also another article at the top of the News Forum of the 29 Sep 2023: Hiatus written by the one man band, Conor, the founder and coder of these fabulous programs.

[PGW]

No, I hadn't read that. Thanks for the link.

So the answer, then, is "no." DVDpedia is broken and no one's going to fix it. The question, then, becomes... is there a functioning, supported database program out there that can import DVDpedia data?