Parental Controls

Hi,

I've been having some mixed results with Parental controls (restrict by content rating). If I make the change global through tools -> options, then both my TVs continue to display and stream content above the specified ratings but the android app blocks it, however trying to use the time restriction does not work and the android app blocks the content all the time. I can restrict content on a per device basis but the time restriction does not seem to work - ie the content is hidden on both TVs all the time. I would love to use this function now that my kids are getting more tech savvy and can't quite understand why it isn't working. I have followed the tutorials and restarted the media server after any changes to try and force them through.

Thanks in advance!

Changes through tools -> options only affect new devices, you will need to make the change in Device Settings by double-clicking the device in 'Media Devices' then on the Content Ratings tab make the changes to restrict streaming.

Thanks for that Peter, I didn't realise the options menu only affected new devices. However I am still left with the problem where I can restrict on a per device basis but the time limit option does not work, the content remains restricted regardless of the time selected (I have even tried taking it down to a 5 minute window when it should be restricted to check it's not an issue with the system time being different)

Can you please post a screen capture of your settings for content ratings?

Attachment 1186
I chose R18 to allow me to experiment without accidentally blocking normal movies/shows (I'm just manually assigning R18 to a folder and some videos to test it.

Based upon this setting you should be able to view R18 files after 21:00 if you refresh the list on the device. Some devices cache the listing so this may cause problems if this occurs.

That was my understanding of the settings. I've now checked it on 2 Samsung TVs both with through the native Samsung streaming and through the new Samsung Mezzmo app as well as the android app and none of them work in the described way, all content rated R18 is hidden regardless of time of day.

Changing the content to 18 makes it visible to the devices so I assume this answers the caching question. I have tried making sure that all devices in media devices have the same setting as well but no help there either. Any other suggestions? Does the Mezzmo server have a cache to clear as well?

In the Mezzmo Android app you can enter a pin in settings to bypass content restrictions, this pin is set in Options in Mezzmo. Can you try this to see if the content rated 18 appears? Also please check to make sure the time setting on the PC running Mezzmo is correct, possibly the AM/PM setting is swapped?

Yep, the pin to bypass content restrictions in the android app works fine. The system clock is definitely correct and reducing the time period for the content restriction to 5 mins (ie 0600 to 0605) doesn't make it work.

I tested here by having some videos with an R rating in a folder with the restriction set for a device so that they would not be shown between 6am and 9pm and when browsing the folder on the device the files were not listed. I then changed the time range to between 6am and 9am and at 9:29am here the files were listed. Possibly there is something we have fixed since the 5.2.0.0 release, please send an email to suppport [at] conceiva [dot] com and we will send you a link to the latest beta to try.

Unfortunately that hasn't worked either. All devices continue to block regardless of time, the only way around the block is the PIN on android app :(

Can you please send us your Mezzmo.db file so we can investigate the issue further? Go to options in Mezzmo to find the folder location of the database then open this folder in Windows Explorer and add the Mezzmo.db file to a zip and send it to support [at] conceiva [dot] com as an attachment or upload it to Google drive or dropbox if it is too large and send us a link.

I think I have figured out the problem. The end time you have set is 1AM the next day so when this is used with the start time to calculate when to apply the settings for content ratings the start is greater than the end because it does not take into account the day. Content ratings can only be set between 12:00AM and 11:59PM, in device settings there is a message box that is shown when a time is set where the end is less than the start. In Options this does not happen so we will need to add this check to make sure it does not happen. If you set the content ratings time period in Options to 5:00PM to 11:59PM then this should work correctly.

Hi Peter,

Unfortunately that didnt work either. I even went and created a fresh install on another computer with its own library, I added a small number of files but still get the same behaviour across different devices :(

Also I couldnt help myself and I looked at the database itself, I may be misunderstanding how it works but in the devices table the (I assume) Unix Timecode on each start and end time appeared correct (I assume mezzmo ignores the date of 1/1/09 and just takes the time portion), this adjusted when settings were changed but always showed the expected time.

Mezzmo puts the timestamp from the database into a date/time class and compares the date/time objects to see if the current time is between them. For the Options the setting is saved in the MezzmoMediaServer.ini file in your Mezzmo database folder as:


ContentRatingLimit_FromHour=6
ContentRatingLimit_FromMin=0
ContentRatingLimit_ToHour=23
ContentRatingLimit_ToMin=59
StreamingRestrictionLimit_FromHour=22
StreamingRestrictionLimit_FromMin=0
StreamingRestrictionLimit_ToHour=20
StreamingRestrictionLimit_ToMin=0

Clicking the Default button in the Content Rating Settings for a device will set the content rating settings using the settings from Options. Can you please try opening your Mezzmo database folder (see in Options for the location) and open MezzmoMediaServer.ini then replace the settings for Content ratings time with the settings above and save the file then go to Device Settings and on the Content Ratings tab click the default button to set the Content rating settings to the above to see if this works.

Yay, that's solved it Peter, well done. The MezzmoMediaServer.ini file was actually in a the AppData folder as I have moved the database due to its increasing size. It was missing the StreamingRestrictionLimit lines and adding these in allows me to adjust the settings correctly in Mezzmo. Very happy with it now and it'll be great for stopping the kids watching Sin City!

Glad to hear the issue is resolved, thanks for letting us know.