Roku Direct Publisher

[SideLabsio]

Hi there, 

Having some trouble as i'm a bit new at using direct publisher. 

Here is my JSON: https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/bama-q.appspot.com/o/bama-q-roku.json?alt=media&token=c5...

I've gone ahead and published the categories and made them work. But I'm not sure how to publish the series so that it shows up on the channel 😕

[Baradanikto]

I haven't had a chance to dive into your feed file, but, I can tell you that most times when a video item does not show in the channel it's because there's a mismatch between the tags and the categories. Series are governed by tags like the other video elements. Something as simple as misspelling a tag can cause the video to not show in the channel.

I'll scan your feed file when I have more time.

[Baradanikto]

I took a closer look at your feed file.  You don't define any Category objects in the feed file.  Hopefully, you've defined them in the Developer's portal and they include one or more tags for the video items you've defined.  If not, your video content will not show on the channel.  Side note: defining the Categories in the feed file provides much more control over your feed file.  Defining them in the Developer's portal can be klugy.

Are you seeing any video content at all?  I ask this because according to the Roku Json Specification document, you are missing a required field in your feed file for Movies.  The field is 'longDescription'.

[SideLabsio]

Thank you so much for your response @Baradanikto !

I've gone ahead and added some categories in the developers portal. Those episodes are now showing on the channel. There are some tags that have been defined in the feed, But my "series" doesn't have categories. As i'm taking this channel over from another developer (who is no longer respondent) I'm trying to figure out how they were able to show "series" without the need of tags. 

I've done no modifications to the JSON and it was working perfectly before another developer tried to implement a SDK solution which mucked it all up. 

[Baradanikto]

'Categories' are separate objects in the feed.  They are used to sort your channel contents.  They are related to your video items via the 'tags' that you define.  Categories are defined either by using a playlist or a query.  So, your Series objects would not "define" a category.  They would associate to one by specifying a "tag".

I'd suggest you take a look and ensure that you've defined tags for your Series objects and that the tags relate to a defined Category.

Additionally, keep in mind that any changes you make and submit through the developer's portal typically take upwards of 6 hours to populate to your channel.  This can trip up a channel developer who makes changes and then wonders why they did not take effect immediately.