[Bug/Report] Non-live data update

[GLWine]

When I play I usually go into the system scan the rings and then go to all the stations, open the market and make sure Inara sees the update. EDminermerit does not report the new information.
Is there something I do wrong?
I use EDMC at the latest version connected to both INARA and EDSM and of course EDDN to synchronize with all my readings.

How do I update the site with fresh data?

[subzerofun]

There is no feature for live update built-in.

It would be hard to manage since i would need to pull the current state of prices/demand etc. from a server everyday when you start the script - that would be the up-to-date data you see on inara, edsm and spansh. Right now the only way to get the most recent data is to download the json dump from spansh and convert it like you need to do when installing. The spansh data gets uploaded every 24h. So no updates during the day, just a snapshot saved everyday at 4 AM GMT.

I would need to set up an independent update server and manage that it produces regular database dumps that can then be downloaded by the users. I have no intention in doing that since i don't know how much bandwidth it would need and most hosting providers limit your download/upload bandwidth. But everyone is free to set up a server themselves and just would need to convert the data he gathers from https://github.com/EDCD/EDDN into the sqlite database tables that the python script loads.

I've tried some things like downloading intermediary updates (between days) from an edgalaxy ftp server - but that would also not be the newest data - just the latest changes between two days.

I did not set up an auto-download script that gets the 1.6 GB json from spansh everyday because it is totally inefficient and i don't want that people use up spanshs bandwidth.

So for now the local install project is closed, i'm working on the web branch which you can access here:
https://meritminer.cc

This site has live-updates built in, because the server it runs on has a background service that updates the database with the player journal data from EDDN. So what you see there should reflect inara & co. prices & demand.

[GLWine]

Thanks for the reply @subzerofun
I am using the site, however I am not sure if I understand... but I only know that when I update the system the site is not updated with the prices and the rest, since it says 17h ago.

I really do not understand what you wrote... it seems conflicting.

Can I ask you to explain better please?

Or it could be just the update indicator that is bugged.

[GLWine]

Yes I confirm is the update counter to be bugged? It updates as it should, but does not correctly indicate the latest update.
The photo I post is updated a few minutes ago.

P.S.
In time action, does it indicate when the last tick of the game occurred?
Honestly it's not as clear as written

[subzerofun]

Hi GLWine,

there is no "tick of the game" you can access – you can't pull live data from the game.

All sites get their updates via EDDN https://github.com/EDCD/EDDN - https://eddn.edcd.io/

Those updates are uploaded by players via their game journal. They must have a program like EDMarket Connector or EDDiscovery installed that uploads their player logs.

So only when a player enters a specific station and has a background service running that uploads his data, will this stations prices & demand be updated. This data gets send to EDDN which in turn broadcasts it and you can listen and save the data. EDDN is no archive or database - simply a broadcasting service which you can tap into.

Inara, Spansh, EDSM as well as meritminer.cc all use the same source for the station data.

There are stations and surface ports players have not visited for years, so the entry on the website will show "Updated 2 years, XX days ago".

Do you understand it now?

Unfortunately there is no way to show the real live data with second-precision without hacking the game. You can't directly access the Frontier Servers holding the data - only the game client can do that.

[GLWine]

What you report to me is perfectly in line with what I have learned over the years about how the dynamics of these tools work.

There is always a single incongruity that I cannot come to terms with. As written before, I use EDMC connected via API Key to Inara and EDSM, plus I share data with EDDN. When I go to read a station it is updated as on your site as for Inara and co., however the time indicator placed on the page does not seem to give it any attention.

I'm talking about "updated:", I don't understand why it doesn't indicate the last reading done... or maybe I just don't understand what it does.

In any case the site updates with my readings as it should, reporting the new prices detected in the game at the moment I detected them...

Thank you so much for this tool, it's brilliantly useful.. at least until FDEVs debuffs the mechanics. Thank you for your insight and time.

[subzerofun]

I don't quite follow you there - when you enter the station in game and your background EDDN connection software runs it should update the time to "Updated: 1min ago" or last visit: MM-DD-YYYY or something. What do you see? Just the wrong time format or nothing at all?

Do you mean when you refresh the station page online that it does not update the date to your last page visit?

If you mean the uploaded date is wrong, these are some reasons that could cause this:

1. Some error in the time format string (but can be ruled out since the game always saves the data the same)

2. Your timezone could affect the offset calculation (which timezone are you in?)

3. Your background service might not be running, not uploading the data correctly or needs re-coupling with the frontier account

4. Some error on my site when calculating the offset between saved time and the current time (more realistic 🤦‍♂️)

5. Sometimes when you log into the game it uploads the last available station data, which can be hours or days old and that produces some wrong numbers

I will look into it by simply playing the game tonight and flying to a station i know is in the list.

But i am quite sure that after i enabled the live data that i flew to "Bounds Station" in HIP 100072 and tested if it updated the data and i saw it changing to "Updated: 1min ago"

I just looked on the site now and found this:

So in principle should work.