Category Error on Direct Publisher

having the same issue here with categories. our channel doesn't have any categories, just a single live stream that it goes to automatically. can't seem to get past adding a category in direct publisher. when i try and create one like you did, it gives error that i don't have any tags or playlists?

I had the same category problem until I created an additional category, even if you don't use it. once that was created, the category item showed a checkmark.

Brian

What i found was you have to press enter in order to have the categories "stick". You cant just click off of it. 

I get the same error, I have one video in my jsonfile, with the tag drama, when I add drama as a category, it says "Category "drama" is missing either tags or a playlist"

I'm lost on this.. and I typed in drama, hit enter, then checked off overlay titles and clicked save, got the error... it's driving me nuts trying to figure it out.. anyone got any ideas?

here is my json file


{"providerName": "TVByDemand Productions",
  "lastUpdated": "2017-03-01T21:37:37+00:00",
  "language": "en",
  "movies": [
    {
      "id": "1",
      "title": "The OutLaws Den 03-06-2015",
      "content": {
        "dateAdded": "2015-11-11T22:21:37+00:00",
        "videos": [
          {
            "url": "http://www.tvbydemand.com/media2/iis/old/2015-03-06/iis/finished.ism/manifest",
            "quality": "SD",
            "videoType": "SMOOTH"
          }
        ],
        "duration": 2408
      },
      "genres": [
        "sports",
        "special",
        "news"
      ],
      "thumbnail": "http://www.tvbydemand.com/old.jpg",
      "releaseDate": "2015-03-06",
      "shortDescription": "The OutLaws Den 03-06-2015 all the happenings in Loco Wrestling",
      "longDescription": "A series of TV shows started By the Outlaw Frankie G to inform the fans of what is going on in the world of DWF/Loco",
      "tags": [
        "amazing",
        "drama",
        "comedy",
        "pro wrestling"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

By the looks of it, you don't have "Categories" listed in the json feed, right?  So I take it you are adding the Categories straight onto the Roku Checklist.  If so, when you Add a new Category, with it you'll need to select tags for it to inherit. Let's say you add a "Foreign" category. Well then you might want to give it tags like "Latin" "Mexico" "Asia" etc...

To do so, click Add Category, then make sure to add Tags where it says Select Tags.

Thank you for the reply. but the only place I can see to add a category appears to be grayed out, it doesn't click just shows up as text and no box after it or checklist.. Is there another spot to add categories I missed? I figured it should be showing my tags from the json file, if so, is it possible I didn't format them correctly?

Ok, I tried something different, figured maybe because I use firefox the script wouldn't work properly, so I tried chrome (latest) edge and IE and non of them worked on my main desktop. So I tried on my server, Chrome, firefox and IE 11 would not work, IE 9 from a virtual win 7 machine did however. BUT then not too many of the other pages that do work in all the browsers work in IE 9..

It appears to me to be a scripting problem. Also, it only allows the selection of the first tag "drama" it will not display the other two in the json file for the sole video.. Also, it is throwing an error on the monetization settings, I went in, turned it on selected the default of roku ad engine etc etc and I get an !, no description of the error and I can not turn it off in any of the above mentioned browsers on three platforms of windows, the win 7 virtual machine being a brand new install with all updates..

In your screenshot above, enter the Category, then below that there is a field Based On - Tags.... below that is a field that is pre-filled in with Select Tags.  You will need to click in there and type the tags associated with that category (ie. Drama, Romance, Fiction etc). 

yes, and the field that is supposed to be prefilled with the tags is grayed out and unclickable in all my browsers on all my computers except a virtual windows 7 machine with IE version 9.x.. That browser though can't do much else, now I am stuck on the screen selecting the channel countries, I had originally selected all of the countries, now that I want to monetize I figured out that I have to deselect everyone but USA. Which is fine, did that, but then it says I have to select a rating, I selected all ages, it says I have to select a rating, I select not rated, it says I have to select a rating, I tried all of them through adult, and it will not take any of them. I tried it now on three computers two of them are brand spanking new and can not be corrupted in anyway in three different browsers on each computer. The form is flawed in someway. Looking at the source file, it appears that it is not setup to pass that field value..

I'm going to continue to develop the direct channels for both of my  of my channels that are currently private but I'm going to hold off on publishing until I can figure out if I am doing something wrong and what I am doing wrong, or Roku gets the forms working consistantly enough that I won't be wasting money advertising my channels. My two private channels have over 15,000 subscribers and I know I can triple that by going public. I spend too much time now explaining to end users how to add the private ones, it's 90% of my tech support email..

Figured out what I was doing wrong. Maybe from being awake for 40 hours straight working on this direct publisher and learning json.. Anyway:

I found out that I have to press the first character of an existing tag in order to populate the tag section on all the browsers except IE9, on IE9 it puts a down arrow after the "select tags", but on all the other browsers you have to press the first character of an existing tag then it drops down a list of all the tags that begin with that character.

On the properties screen it was not the age rating that I was missing (the red characters saying "you have to pick one option" was for the field above that.

Ok, now just two issues left. One that I might make a suggestion for future development.
I still can not turn on ads without getting the exclaimation point on them.
and the second one is I finished my asp code to create the json file of all 1800+ videos in my library, it passes through both json checkers with no errors found.. BUT when I set it as the source for the channel it says

The feed URL(s) could not be validated.

JSON (SyntaxError: Unexpected token in JSON at position 10125)

So that means Roku detected an error that http://www.jsonschemavalidator.net/ did not find. at character 10125..

But every json editor I have tried counts whitespaces and carriage returns as characters. AND only gives a cursor position based on x and y coordinates (row and column).
So, short of counting manually to character 10125 the only solution I can come up with is to replace the carriage returns and remove the whitespace with another script, probably in powershell or maybe asp.. BUT thats gonna have to wait, I am now at this for 55+ hours on zero sleep, so gonna nap a few hours and work on it later. If anyone has an easier way to do it, please let me know. I really want my json file formatted for easier human view with the carriage returns and whitespaces in place, just makes it easier to make corrections down the line. But if this is the way it has to be then I will forgo it and permantly remove them.. Once I figure that out, then I just have to update the existing thumbnails to the proper sizes and figure out why the ads won't turn on and I'll be ready to go live.

Then I wanna try to find a way to get all my subscribers from the private channels to the public channels.. if at all posible,,