Misbehaving Tivo

[toibs]

Re-imaged my Tivo on the weekend, due to the HD crashing and perminent GSOD - installed everything and it seemed ok. Changed HD whilst in the process. Used Wonder_lander's image. AND remembered to upgrade the rom to allow >137Gb recordings.

However, it's starting to misbehave again. Things such as :

Saying there was an error whilst recording - unable to play back
During watching of a recorded programs tivo inexplicably jumps to the end... say 15 minutes into the playback.
Missing programs that are due to be recorded is another... they are in the list, just dont record.

Have a got a haunted image?? ;)

Anyone any ideas where to start?

Paul

[blindlemon]

Are you sure you're running the LBA48 kernel?

[toibs]

well i did run the copykern command and selected option 1 i think, and it seemed to run ok and didnt complain.

Will have a look later and see if the kernel is correct..

Paul

[dermiestv]

I'm getting the same error message after doing the same re-imaging onto a new drive after a HDD crash.

Was it an LBA48 issue?

thanks

[blindlemon]

To check the kernel version go in via telnet and check the file /proc/version in the root (usually on /dev/hdX4)

If you have the standard kernel it will say Linux version 2.1.24-TiVo-2.5 (build@buildmaster17) (gcc version 2.8.1) #2 Thu Feb 7 17:49:48 PST 2002whereas the LBA48 kernel will show up as Linux version 2.1.24-TiVo-2.5 (millert@xerxes.courtesan.com) (gcc version 2.8.1) #14 Wed Oct 8 12:06:25 MDT 2003If you don't have network access, then the above string can also usually be seen in the kernel log just after a reboot.

[dermiestv]

Thanks for the tip, I don't have Telnet as I tried to resist playing too much.

But sure enough when I checked the logs, the kernel was the old version, not LBA 48 enabled.

I've now run copykern and the kernel now checks out ok.

Strange sympton still. The exact same original Error message has since appeared on a recorded movie (Downfall) that I've been watching over the last few nights without any problems.

Some other recorded programmes played fine while some give the Error message "Error playing a recording. The recorder was not able to record this programme because there was no video signal on the channel". The message seems to be at random on the stored programmes.

I'm sure theres a logical explanation but I'm hoping this error only happens on recordings prior to the kernel upgrade.

Is there anything else I should be checking?

thanks

[Rob Moss]

Some other recorded programmes played fine while some give the Error message "Error playing a recording. The recorder was not able to record this programme because there was no video signal on the channel". The message seems to be at random on the stored programmes.

I'm getting this a lot, too, as well as the random skipping thing. I recently upgraded to a 160GB drive, of which I can use 137GB.

Is there anything I can do to fix this problem, bearing in mind I don't have a Cachecard, TiVoWeb, or indeed anything other than the silver brick under my telly!

Instructions for idiots, please..! :rolleyes:

[Pete77]

Is there anything I can do to fix this problem, bearing in mind I don't have a Cachecard, TiVoWeb, or indeed anything other than the silver brick under my telly!

Instructions for idiots, please..! :rolleyes:

Re-image your drive(s) again from scratch in your desktop PC, carefully following the instructions at www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo/upgrade3.html and making sure to run copykern in the way instructed at the appropriate moment but not using the -r 4 switch unless your drive(s) are larger than 300Gb.

Or for the true idiot/fool proof solution you could always buy an upgrade download called Hooch from a place called www.tivoheaven.co.uk which should give you a virtual Tivo hard drive formatting expert in your own living room. ;)

I think the cost is under £20 so may be worth it for the piece of mind compared to finding all those corrupted recordings on your hard drive later on.................

EDIT - unfortunately at the time of writing the tivoheaven website seems to be down - calling blindlemon to the rescue.

[blindlemon]

Sorry about that - should be fixed now :)

[Pete77]

Sorry about that - should be fixed now :)

Its good to hear that all is well again on your website.

By the way does Hooch have any facility to let people copy over their existing recordings to the new drive(s), subject of course to there not being too many partitions on the disk(s) from which the data has to be copied?

[blindlemon]

Not in version 1 - maybe in version 2.... ;)

[Pete77]

Not in version 1 - maybe in version 2.... ;)

I hope Version 2 is coming soon as wanting to keep existing recordings, season passes and thumbs data is surely a rather common customer requirement?

But perhaps Version 2 of Hooch will cost a little more to reflect the increased functionality. ;)

Also is there any way to provide functionality to create Tivo drives in external USB2 hard drive enclosures as once again this would be rather popular with those customers who only have a functioning Notebook PC.