PVD Selenium MOD v4 IMDb Movie, People and FilmAffinity Scripts

[afrocuban]

And I wasn't saying that anyone else was a programmer either, 

When you say "I am not programmer, I say  "I am not too". I am not able to get what you meant.


But when you say

my point was simply that some people here have a lot more knowledge about programs and scripts and such than others like myself.

now when I know what you meant, I will repeat: these are the times when if you want to get data to PVD you will have to go beyond usual, no just "copy/paste/click here" options. You have to invest yourself.

But sometimes these more knowledgeable users seem to forget that. ... but for the vast majority of that time, it was extremely easy to use and I wasn't required to know so much about how it actually works.

We don't forget. I will repeat again - these are the times when if you want to get data to PVD you will have to go beyond usual, no just "copy/paste/click here" options. You have to invest yourself.

Don't worry, I have been reading all of your responses very carefully, and I have also gone back to other threads and tried to get any helpful information that I could. However, there is a LOT of information in these forums, and I can't possibly read and comprehend all of it in a few days. And yes, I have been using this program for a long time,

I am not worried. There is a lot of info, but why when I asked

for the .log and .txt files and a screenshot in /Tmp folder

and even when I asked afterward, you didn't turn "show file extension" on in Windows explorer, because then you would know that

I see two text files in that screenshot.

means that text files = .txt files    log files = .log files...


Now to your logs. I am completely baffled! You uploaded PyPVDbScriptsConfig-v4.txt while I said PyPVDbScriptsConfig-v4.log file. No script was ever coded to produce PyPVDbScriptsConfig-v4.txt but PyPVDbScriptsConfig-v4.log. I have no idea how you got .txt instead .log file. Also, from the log you provided you ran it several times and nothing seems suspicious in that log. Try to run it from the cmd as

python "C:\Program Files\PVD_1.0.2.7_MOD-V20191020\Scripts\PyPVDbScriptsConfig-v4.py"

and let me know what happens in cmd and in log files


Respond to this separately, but try to run IMDb script anyway, meaning steps 4-6.

[RazorHall]

Quote from: afrocuban on April 26, 2026, 08:04:40 pmWhen you say "I am not programmer, I say  "I am not too". I am not able to get what you meant.


When I said I wasn't a programmer, I wasn't implying that you or anyone else was a programmer, so you didn't need to explain that you and Ivek aren't programmers either. I was simply pointing out that I have basically no understanding of how programs and scripts and logs and so forth work, and that's why I didn't want to claim that my first issue was solved.

Quote from: afrocuban on April 26, 2026, 08:04:40 pmnow when I know what you meant, I will repeat: these are the times when if you want to get data to PVD you will have to go beyond usual, no just "copy/paste/click here" options. You have to invest yourself.


And that's exactly what I have been doing. I've searched through the forums for anything that might help. I've tried my best to understand your instructions and tell you step by step what I've done. I've tried to attach every file and screenshot I've been asked for. I've asked for clarification when I was confused. I don't know what else I can do to "invest myself".

Quote from: afrocuban on April 26, 2026, 08:04:40 pmthese are the times when if you want to get data to PVD you will have to go beyond usual, no just "copy/paste/click here" options. You have to invest yourself.


And again, I don't see anyone just copying, pasting, clicking. I'm doing everything I can to help get this issue fixed.

Quote from: afrocuban on April 26, 2026, 08:04:40 pmyou didn't turn "show file extension" on in Windows explorer


Yes, I sure did, as soon as you mentioned doing that. But you didn't say anything about this until after I had already posted those screenshots and asked about which files you wanted. It would have been helpful to mention it before that, because again, this might seem obvious to you but it isn't to me.Anyway, I'll address the log/text file in my next post...

[RazorHall]

Sorry about the confusion about the ScriptsConfig file. When I try to attach .log files, it says I'm not allowed to attach that type of file, and there are only a few options among the "allowed file types" under Attachments. So, for the ScriptsConfig file, I copied it to a separate folder, saved it as a text file, and attached it. But it's still in its original .log form in the Scripts folder.

I've attached a screenshot of what happened in CMD. There was no change to the log.txt/bugreport/firebird files, and I've attached the ScriptsConfig file, again with "log" changed to "txt".

[RazorHall]

I tried the IMDB script again, and attached are the requested screenshots and files. 5 total, so I'll have to continue in another post.

[RazorHall]

And here's the file (actually .log, but copied and saved as .txt to attach) that was in the Tmp folder after running the IMDB script again.

[afrocuban]

Yes, I sure did, as soon as you mentioned doing that. But you didn't say anything about this until after I had already posted those screenshots and asked about which files you wanted. It would have been helpful to mention it before that, because again, this might seem obvious to you but it isn't to me.

Anyway, I'll address the log/text file in my next post...

First, tell what you did and what you did not, when asked something to do. How would I know, otherwise? Second, sorry, but this has nothing to do with "knowing" programming or programs. This is common knowledge of Windows operating system, and knowing what file extensions are, and has nothing to do with PVD, or Python or else. Helping with it is beyond PVD, and I really have no time for it, nor the will to do it. Use Copilot or ChatGPT whenever you are unclear with my messages. That's how I learned to create scripts because I value PVD. So please stop responding to irrelevant issues and appreciate my time and focus on solving the problem by following my instructions the best you can and be more focused and responsive on steps provided.


Otherwise, I suspect you'll be able to resolve it, since you are missing basing knowledge of Windows OS, that would help you with this, for example:

When I try to attach .log files, it says I'm not allowed to attach that type of file, and there are only a few options among the "allowed file types" under Attachments.

by simply compressing files into .zip or .7z file and upload it. You could ask AI about this too, what to do when you are allowed to upload those file types but you are asked to upload the other file types. Again wasting the time by not at least make it clear in advance how you got .txt.



That is investing too.


Sorry If I sound rude, but I invested 2,5 years of my life into keeping PVD alive, and now wasting tremendous amount of time around basic Windows OS things, and I knew about programming before that not much more than you do now. I invested myself.


Now, to the issue:


Your icon is somehow corrupt. Download the one I am providing here and replace existing and try again and let me know. If the error is the same, copy paste cmd error messages from the screenshot you provided here so I don't need to retype it, so I could examine it further.


Second, opening the log file I found this

2026-04-26 14:24:58,994 - DEBUG - Starting the Python script.
2026-04-26 14:24:59,003 - DEBUG - Starting new HTTP connection (1): ipinfo.io:80
2026-04-26 14:24:59,135 - DEBUG - http://ipinfo.io:80 "GET /country HTTP/1.1" 200 3
2026-04-26 14:24:59,136 - DEBUG - Country code: US, Language code: en
2026-04-26 14:24:59,150 - DEBUG - Generated output path: C:\Program Files\PVD_1.0.2.7_MOD-V20191020\PersonalVideoDB\Scripts\Tmp\downpage-UTF8_NO_BOM.htm
2026-04-26 14:24:59,150 - ERROR - ChromeDriver not found at path: C:\Program Files\PVD_1.0.2.7_MOD-V20191020\PersonalVideoDB\Scripts\chromedriver.exe

On the screenshots provided earlier, I see chromedriver.exe there. So I really don't know what are you doing and I don't think I can help you anymore if you aren't giving full context like "I have these files there, I did this, I did this step you provided me with...", each time from the very beginning because it looks like after each message of yours we are running into completely new issues. I can't handle that this way "I meant this when saying that, I did that because I couldn't make it other way, but didn't tell you", etc... If I'd had your computer here, I'd solve it in a matter of minutes probably, otherwise. Or, your disk is failing and constantly giving other issues...


Sorry that by accident I edited your message and put my text there. Probably I clicked on "modify" as a moderator instead "Quote". If Ivek can bring back your original text, it would be good. I put as copy/paste your original message from the cache back there.

[RazorHall]

First, tell what you did and what you did not, when asked something to do. How would I know, otherwise? Second, sorry, but this has nothing to do with "knowing" programming or programs. This is common knowledge of Windows operating system, and knowing what file extensions are, and has nothing to do with PVD, or Python or else. Helping with it is beyond PVD, and I really have no time for it, nor the will to do it. Use Copilot or ChatGPT whenever you are unclear with my messages. That's how I learned to create scripts because I value PVD. So please stop responding to irrelevant issues and appreciate my time and focus on solving the problem by following my instructions the best you can and be more focused and responsive on steps provided.

Here we go again with the "you should just know it because I do" and "it's common knowledge" nonsense. No, that's not how it works, and I cannot read your mind and magically know what information you do or don't want. I've done my best to give information based on your own, often very vague, questions/requests. And that's all I can do.

Again wasting the time by not at least make it clear in advance how you got .txt.

I apologized for the confusion, and now you know how I feel when I try to decipher and follow your instructions. So much time would be saved if you would just put yourself in my place as a person who isn't tech savvy, and do a better job of explaining what things are, where to find them, etc.

Sorry If I sound rude

Yes, extremely rude. Your little jabs and insults contributed greatly to the time that's been wasted. So, sorry if I sounded rude when I started defending myself. Now I've said everything I'm going to say about that, but feel free to continue this and get the last word in if you must. I really don't care.

On the screenshots provided earlier, I see chromedriver.exe there. So I really don't know what are you doing and I don't think I can help you anymore if you aren't giving full context like "I have these files there, I did this, I did this step you provided me with...", each time from the very beginning because it looks like after each message of yours we are running into completely new issues. I can't handle that this way "I meant this when saying that, I did that because I couldn't make it other way, but didn't tell you", etc... If I'd had your computer here, I'd solve it in a matter of minutes probably, otherwise.

Those screenshots are from my old Scripts folder, before you told me to use jondak's, so maybe chromedriver.exe wasn't in his scripts? Was I supposed to move other files into the Scripts folder that was created when I downloaded his? It wasn't in your instructions, but perhaps it should have been?

[RazorHall]

So, anyway, to try to get this back on track...

Based on your last post, I tried copying chromedriver.exe and the ico file from my old Scripts folder to the current one.
I opened up PVD and tried the Config script. It worked!
I then tried the IMDB script. It showed "searching movie information..." at the bottom, so I waited for a while. I would guess at least a minute or two, but I probably should have timed it. Anyway, it finally finished and I actually had cast information, tags, etc. for the selected title!
I tried it again on a different title, and after waiting for a while, that error message popped up asking me if I wanted to retry, abort, etc.
I chose retry, and after some time passed it successfully showed the cast and other information.

So it seems to be working pretty well and I'm a satisfied customer. That last part is obviously a joke. Thanks very much to Ivek for your assistance. If I can provide any additional screenshots or other information that might be helpful to anyone, please let me know!

(This post was edited because soon afterward I realized that I was being far too generous and needed to make a correction.  )

[afrocuban]

Good for you, because I would give up anyway after your post previous to the last. As I said much earlier:

which I am almost sure it will work at this point

Even much before that point it already worked. The first time I said it was "time out issue" it worked already. It was resolved after installing psutil. Everything after that was your priority to "defend yourself", and you still had to do it even in your previous response although I explicitly asked you not to discuss irrelevant issues anymore, thus wasting my and your time instead of focusing on the problem and at least at some point showing gratitude for it along the way (which would not be strange for you, since I checked your older mesages and you knew to say thanks along the way).


Look at my posts for example. Whatever Ivek, or anyone else responds to my questions, I say "thanks" regardles if it was helpful to me or not. I never "defend myself" (ref. https://www.videodb.info/forum_en/index.php/topic,4394.0.html). Or look at jondak's posts on this very thread.


I realize you cannot grasp or accept the point, otherwise we wouldn't be here and you wouldn't feel the urge to "defend" yourslef, because I was not here to attack you but to help you. When I attack, I do it in real life, when it matters.

And because of obvious ingratitude of my hard work (exceptional kudos to Ivek, as always) while lacking awareness how huge this work for a single person not having a clue about programming (meaning - me) was to bring back all those scripts back and to create new ones, to modernize them and to bring PVD back to life when it was literally dead after Ivek kept it alive for 15 years before me, I decided I will not publicly update the scripts anymore. Now I think I will not offer my support for them publicly too except privately for some people I choose. I don't have the time for people "defending themselves", and I don't want to be dishonest to be silent or to tell "sorry, I don't know what it is".

P.S. Not to say it is literally impossible that you extracted jondak's .7z and to get error message about time out, only later to somehow miss chromedriver.exe and nothing could run. So you did something but didn't tell the truth, or at least the whole story about that, but it doesn't matter anymore. Or it matters more to you to "defended yourself" again and to spend a whole big message to "defend" on this too?

P.P.S. Scripts are scripts, exe's are exe's, icons are icons, png's are png's, log files are log and txt files when indicated, so when someone(me) says "jondak's scripts" that means exactly that - scripts without any doubt, not "delete whole folder /Scripts and extract jondak's .7z file there" and, sorry, you are expected to know that if you want to use computer, not only PVD. No one ever told you to extract his .7z

At the end, try jondak's scripts and let us know.

P.P.P.S. I gave you icon file, but you wanted to use your "old" icon file. Imagine that one wouldn't work too. Would you then waste my time too, beside already wasting my time to prepare and upload icon file for you? You indeed spend a lot of my time by not following instructions, not trying to understand them while not asking to clarify, "forgetting" to tell me, voluntarily and arbitrarily taking actions not asked to take, etc... That is ingratitude.
P.P.P.P.S. "User" would be more appropriate term instead of "customer"
P.P.P.P.P.S. No hard feelings possible on my side, because I know no one here personally. That is why I am so straightforward.
P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Please do not respond to this message. It could be considered as a spam/trolling so other users could later find useful info harder at some point.

Best regards

In order my message not to feel detached (the part about "hard feelings" specifically, not flattering parts of it), I am posting RazorHall's original part he edited after I was posting this message:

So it seems to be working pretty well and I'm a satisfied customer. Thanks very much to afrocuban and Ivek for your assistance. And afrocuban, despite the rollercoaster ride that it was, I do greatly appreciate your efforts and I hope there's no hard feelings. If I can provide any additional screenshots or other information that might be helpful to anyone, please let me know!

I am assured after this he will appreciate communication here more in the future.

[Ivek23]

Sorry that by accident I edited your message and put my text there. Probably I clicked on "modify" as a moderator instead "Quote". If Ivek can bring back your original text, it would be good. I put as copy/paste your original message from the cache back there.

I can't refund this because I can't access the original post anymore.

[Ivek23]

I see that RazorHall user has a lot of problems solving these problems, so I highly recommend that he start using ChatGPT help. With the help of ChatGPT, he will be able to solve many problems himself before asking for further help on our forum. This is how the Afrocuban user learned how to handle these things, took his PVD usage to the next level, and the program still works. With the help of ChatGPT, I taught myself how to use Python, which I knew nothing about before, and I have been using it successfully for a year and a half now.

I also highly recommend ChatGPT help to other users of PVD or any other program, even if you know almost nothing about them.

[afrocuban]

Sorry that by accident I edited your message and put my text there. Probably I clicked on "modify" as a moderator instead "Quote". If Ivek can bring back your original text, it would be good. I put as copy/paste your original message from the cache back there.

I can't refund this because I can't access the original post anymore.

No problem, it is important that the original text is there anyway.

I see that RazorHall user has a lot of problems solving these problems, so I highly recommend that he start using ChatGPT help. With the help of ChatGPT, he will be able to solve many problems himself before asking for further help on our forum. This is how the Afrocuban user learned how to handle these things, took his PVD usage to the next level, and the program still works. With the help of ChatGPT, I taught myself how to use Python, which I knew nothing about before, and I have been using it successfully for a year and a half now.


I also highly recommend ChatGPT help to other users of PVD or any other program, even if you know almost nothing about them.

Thanks Ivek. That is crucial tip, I completely agree and you emphasized that many times so far.

To enclose resolving all issues RazorHall had, I am posting a solution how after 3 months of testing I beat time out issue due to heavy obstacles IMDb is putting in front of us. Find Function WaitForPageFile(const FileName, PageLabel: String; InitialWait: Integer; StabilizeMs: Integer): String;//BlockOpen in IMDB_Movie_[EN][Selenium]-v4.psf and replace it with this

//(*
Function WaitForPageFile(const FileName, PageLabel: String; InitialWait: Integer; StabilizeMs: Integer): String;//BlockOpen


//The function waits for the exsitence of the files to be downloaded, then when found, it converts their encoding and reads them
Var
   i, currentWait: Integer;
   tryResult: String;


Begin


   Result := '';
   i := 0;


   //Provide defaults manually
   If InitialWait = 0 Then InitialWait := 2000;
   If StabilizeMs = 0 Then StabilizeMs := 1000;


   currentWait := InitialWait;


   While Not FileExists(FileName) Do Begin
      LogMessage('Function WaitForPageFile - Waiting ' + IntToStr(currentWait div 1000) + 's for the presence of:|' + FileName + '|');
      Wait (currentWait);


      //Escalate wait times
      case i of
         0: currentWait := 5000;
         1: currentWait := 5000;
         2: currentWait := 5000;
         3: currentWait := 5000;
         4: currentWait := 15000;
         5: currentWait := 5000;
      End;  //case i of should end here


      Inc(i);
      If i = INTERNET_TEST_ITERATIONS Then Begin
         case MessageBox('IMDb Movie Function WaitForPageFile - Too many faulty attempts to internet connection for ' + PageLabel + '. Cancel, Retry, or Continue (Ignore)? NOTE: IF YOU PRESS IGNORE YOU WILL NOT GET DATA FROM THAT PAGE, SO CONSIDER TO RETRY OR TO CANCEL AND START DOWNLOAD AGAIN! IMDb really makes it harder and harder to get the data.', SCRIPT_FILE_NAME, 2) of
         3:  //Cancel
            Begin
               LogMessage('Function WaitForPageFile for ' + PageLabel + ' ended with NO INTERNET connection===============|');
               Result := '#CANCELLED#';
               Exit;
            End;  //Begin 3:  //Cancel should end here
         4:  //Retry
            Begin
               i := 0;
               currentWait := InitialWait;
            End;  //Begin 4:  //Retry should end here
         5:  //Ignore
            Begin
               LogMessage('Function WaitForPageFile - Creating dummy ' + PageLabel + ' HTML file due to Ignore selection|');
               with TStringList.Create Do
                  try
                     Add('<html><body>Dummy ' + PageLabel + ' due to user Ignore.</body></html>');
                     SaveToFile(FileName);
                  finally
                     Free;
               End;  //with TStringList.Create Do should end here
               Break;
            End;  //Begin 5:  //Ignore should end here
         End;  //case MessageBox... of should end here
      End;  //If i = INTERNET_TEST_ITERATIONS Then Begin should end here
   End;  //While Not FileExists(FileName) Do Begin should end here


   //Stabilization wait
   LogMessage('Function WaitForPageFile - ' + PageLabel + ' file detected, waiting extra ' + IntToStr(StabilizeMs) + 'ms to stabilize...');
   Wait (StabilizeMs);


   //Manual error handling instead of try/except
   If Not FileExists(FileName) Then Begin
      LogMessage(ProcException('Function WaitForPageFile - FileError', 'NOT_FOUND:|' + FileName));
      Exit;
   End;  //If Not FileExists(FileName) Then Begin should end here


   tryResult := FileToString(FileName);  //If the environment throws, replace with safe read
   If tryResult = '' Then Begin
      tryResult := ''
      LogMessage(ProcException('Function WaitForPageFile - FileError', 'FAILED to read ' + FileName))
   End Else Begin
      Result := ConvertEncoding(tryResult, 65001);
      LogMessage(ProcException('Function WaitForPageFile - FileRead', 'SUCCESS:|' + FileName));
   End;  //If tryResult = '' Then Begin should end here
End;//BlockClose
//*)

AND SET

Number of attempts before alerting the user that no internet connection is detected. Increase this if the provider has low speed.

in PVD in **pyPVDbScriptsConfig-v4** to 16 instead to 6.

This way, when IDMb allows pages will be downloaded and parsed in 20-30 seconds or so, but when IMDb lags, it will allow ~92 seconds (yes, sometimes IMDb makes it that hard) before that pop-up window offers to Abort/Retry/Ignore.

If pop-up window shows up again, that would most probably mean that python.exe failed for some reason (/Tmp folder would be without .htm files for Main and/or additional pages), so most probably the one would need to abort and examine if python failed actually.

I think I now addressed all the issues brought so far. If not, please remind me which one I didn't cover. I wouldn't want to owe any.


Best regards

[Ivek23]

Poster download does not work. If poster download is enabled using PyPVDbScriptsConfig-v4.py, it can take up to half an hour to download all the data for one movie title. There are also no downimage-BIN-Poster.jpg images or downpage-UTF8_NO_BOM.htm files in the Tmp folder.