PC to Tivo transfers fail half way through

[TLD]

I have two Tivos and a PC running XP all networked with a d-link router, all hardwired. I have transfered a bunch of stuff using Tivo desktop 2.2 to my PC. This works fine as does moving shows from one Tivo to the other.
I finally got around to trying to transfer the shows back from the PC to the Tivo to watch them. None of these shows will complete the transfer back. They all just stop transferring, sometime after a few minutes sometimes, in the case of movies, after an hour or more. I'm left with part of a show on the Tivo.
After searching the forums I have seen posts about problems transferring non-tivo originated programing but has anyone had this problem and know of a solution.

[greg_burns]

May not apply to you, but I'll throw it out there...

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=2621609&&#post2621609

[TLD]

Thanks, I did see that in my search, however thats not an option in my device manager because I'm not using a nVidia chip. I did check my to do list to see what the Tivo had to say about why the transfer failed. It says transfer did not happen because it was transfered using a different MAK that the one it's being transfered to or the file is corrupt. I am of coarse, transferring back to the same Tivo I took the recordings from, so I don't see how the MAK could be different and I can view the entire program on my PC using WMP, so I don't think the file, in my case many many files, are corrupt.

[greg_burns]

As a test, what happens if you use DirectShow Dump to remove the DRM from the file. That way your .tivo won't be trying to compare MAKs at all. Not sure what it will tell you, but might be a work around.

[HDTiVo]

It says transfer did not happen because it was transfered using a different MAK that the one it's being transfered to or the file is corrupt. I am of coarse, transferring back to the same Tivo I took the recordings from, so I don't see how the MAK could be different and I can view the entire program on my PC using WMP, so I don't think the file, in my case many many files, are corrupt.
I usually fix this with a simple restart.

[TLD]

Thanks for your help. I wish it were so easy to just restart. Funny you mention DSD. If you ever go to Etivo's forum you will see under the DSD section a five page thread I started about how I've never gotten DSD to work. I always ends part way through the file with a AsyncReader...Syncread Failed error. Obviously I was not alone with the problem and for a few months many of us did what we could to trouble shoot why this happened to us. I'll spare the details, they are there on the forum, but we jumped through a lot of hoops, reinstalling software, new routers and configurations, turning off the media option at the tivo website and turning back on, in the end we sort of concluded there was some bug with some MAK accounts that caused the error. My heart sank a bit when I saw in the to do list that the error was MAK related. Looks like all this might be related. There is a long thread on the Tivo forum, something like, suddenly MAK is wrong. This is a long thread of people having problems with the MAK. At the moment I have a lot of content on my PC and no way to move it back to the Tivo or anywhere else, so any clues or troubleshooting tips are appreciated.

[greg_burns]

Maybe way off base. But I seem to recall people having problems in the past with playback; errors about their MAK. The usually fix was to install a different mpeg2 codec. Have you ever experimented with different codecs? A lot of people have success with the free cole2k

http://www.cole2k.net/?display=Codec-Pack-Standard

[davezatz]

TLD do you have another computer you could test on? I assume you tried the routine stuff like disabling AV and FW software while testing to see if it has been interfering in some way?

Along with Greg, I'll throw another possibly off base piece of info out... with a Netgear WG111 adapter and a Toshiba SD-H400 TiVo I had dropped/interupted transfers using TiVoBack that were never resolved. They were sporadic though, didn't happen every time.

As an aside, is it possible the error message itself is inaccurate?

[TLD]

Yes I'm using the Cole codec now and It works great. I have no problem playing video on my PC.
Really, DSD aside, my problem is failure to transfer .tivo files back to my Tivo. It was just a little disconcerting to see the reason for the failure in the To Do list as "Wrong MAK error". The reason I mentioned the other threads is because while looking into the other problem it was theorized by some, and this is over my head, that the MAK streams with the video as it is transferring, if there is an error with the MAK the video stops transferring. Under Tivo Desktop 2.1 you would get an MAK error message on your PC, now under 2.2 because it handles the MAK differently you don't see an error, the video just stops transferring. I'm not sure if any of this is really useful, it just seemed to me the problems I'm seeing both with Tivo to go and DSD might be related . There are some other threads on this forum about people transferring from the PC to Tivo and at first seeing the blue icon and the video name in the now playing list and then checking back and there is nothing, the file is gone. I think those if they checked the to do list would see the same MAK error. Not sure where that leaves me.

[TLD]

Dave, thanks for your input. I have tried endless variables. My PC is stripped down the bare essentials and is being used only for the Tivo desktop. I suspect the message is probably correct because as I described before this behavior is so similar to the MAK problem we were trying to solve on the DSD forum. We never solved that either. I could be and hope I'm wrong and it is a simpler fix.

[greg_burns]

Yes I'm using the Cole codec now and It works great. I have no problem playing video on my PC.

I didn't mean to imply that you did have a problem with playback. Just that the MAK error seems to be related to the MPEG2 codec in some way.

Can you transfer non .tivo files? What about DVD rips? Any mpg that wouldn't have anything to do with the MAK.

[TLD]

Yes, I see what you mean, excellent question, so I transferred a couple of mpgs I had that did not originate on my Tivo, that is to say, no MAK and they transfer over fine. I also tried transferring .tivo files to my other Tivo and I get the same 'Wrong MAK" error.

[HDTiVo]

Are you certain you have entered the MAK in TiVoDesktop correctly?

[greg_burns]

Are you certain you have entered the MAK in TiVoDesktop correctly?

Wouldn't that manifest itself as playback problem? It is very odd that playback works, but DSD does not. :confused:

[HDTiVo]

Wouldn't that manifest itself as playback problem? It is very odd that playback works, but DSD does not. :confused:
You are right about that.

My reaction to DSD not working was basically that there's something seriously wrong with his PC. If something as basic as DSD does not work he's in real trouble.

Swapping out codecs*, maybe deleting and reinstalling the TiVo DSF, are certainly ways to go. If that's been done and didn't work, what else is there????

Has he tested playback by actually playing the entire show and making sure WMP doesn't bomb part way through?


* For that matter, does the codec even come into play with DSD???

[davezatz]

If that's been done and didn't work, what else is there????

Test on another computer or freshly installed XP system.

[greg_burns]

* For that matter, does the codec even come into play with DSD???

AFAIK it does. DSD internally uses the directshow filter to free the encrypted mpeg, just like WMP does.

[HDTiVo]

AFAIK it does. DSD internally uses the directshow filter to free the encrypted mpeg, just like WMP does.
Right, but the DSF and the codec are not the same thing. DSD only needs to copy raw - decrypted post TiVo DSF - data out to an .mpg file. It is not clear to me that the codec is involved at all.

[greg_burns]

Right, but the DSF and the codec are not the same thing. DSD only needs to copy raw - decrypted post TiVo DSF - data out to an .mpg file. It is not clear to me that the codec is involved at all.

You may be right. I don't know the technical part of that all works very well.

I do know (from playing with eTivo) that DSD needs TivoDesktop (and the correct MAK setup) to function. You also need to run it logged in with the same account that TivoDesktop is setup to use.

[TLD]

Thanks all for your input. According to the author of DSD, the codec is not needed for DSD to work.
He was very helpful in trying to solve this for a number of us on his forum. As I said before, this thread is 118 posts long and those of us affected tried everything mentioned so far. I myself tried
replacing my PCs hard drive and reinstalling Windows XP and just the few things necessary to run
the Tivo desktop and DSD. There were a number of us trying to solve this same problem with DSD. I left a post over there last night asking if they have the same problem with transferring back to the Tivo, as I suspect this is one in the same problem. I have not retried all of this again trying to solve the go back problem, but my guess is if I can solve one it will solve the other, so I may try a few of these things again.

[TLD]

Yes, I didn't want to post links because I know that some of these subjects were sensitive here, or at least used to be.

[greg_burns]

Yes, I didn't want to post links because I know that some of these subjects were sensitive here, or at least used to be.

Good point. I just removed my post with link.

[HDTiVo]

You've obviously done alot here. It looks like you've isolated this down to a bug in the TiVo DSF. Why not try to contact one of the TiVo people in this forum (like TiVoPony, or Jerry or OPSMAN?) and see if they can take this investigation to the right technical people inside TiVo?

[greg_burns]

I myself tried
replacing my PCs hard drive and reinstalling Windows XP and just the few things necessary to run
the Tivo desktop and DSD.

I would definately try and get hold of another PC to see where the problem lies (PC or Tivo/tivo account).

Maybe you have bad ram...

http://www.memtest86.com/

You can make a bootable floppy or CD.

We use this all the time at work. It is more common than people realize.

[TLD]

Thanks again for your input. Yes I did swap out my ram also if you read the DSD thread, and god knows I don't know why you would drudge through that whole thing, you see that there were a lot of us having the problem as we tried to figure out if it was the PC's the Tivo, Descktop ect. In the end the consensus was that in fact there is some bug in the MAK implementation for some. Also I spent some time at the Tivo forum where I came across this post:

From the Tivo forum....
"A possible future solution from TiVo
I am receiving the following;
"Error
You are not authorized to play this recording. It was transferred using a different media access key than the one in your Windows account.

For help, see the application you used to transfer the TiVo recording from your TiVo DVR."

I tried the following to resolv the issue;
Manually Key The MAK
Re-Load the TiVo Software
Clean Load a Windows XP Box (SP2, WMP10)

I noticed tha the show always stopped at the exact same place.

If I re-transfered the show it would stop again. Each time it would stop it would be in the same place.

Same results with either the Desktop 2.0 software or the web interface.

So.....

I called TiVo and talked with "Level 2" tech support. They basically stated that this is a known issue. It would appear to be a glitch in the transfer that is generated on the TiVo box (Not The Client!). They went on to say that there is going to be a new version of the Desktop software with an integrated codec, and media player. In this version the player will compensate and ignore these TiVo generated glitches and hence you can continue to play the files.

I don't know that this is a good solution (kludge) but at least TiVo is working on a workaround. ""..... end paste.

This person is talking about a playback problem but it's caused by the same glitch, a flaw in the MAK. If he's being truthful, it appears Tivo knows about this problem. When I first posted this here, I didn't put the two problems together and hoped there was an obvious fix. Now I'm convinced they are the same problem.

[greg_burns]

If I re-transfered the show it would stop again. Each time it would stop it would be in the same place.

Here's one for ya... :)

What if you Tivo hard drive is "bad". You known, some sort of bad sectors or something. People have had problems transferring from their tivo some shows. When they play them back on the tivo they had graphical glitches right at the spot it stops at when transferring.

That sort of troubleshooting maybe be excessive. But if you ever thought of putting a larger drive in anyways...

[HDTiVo]

Have you tried asking TiVo to generate a new MAK for your account?

[TLD]

Greg, yes I thought of that but I have the same problem with both my Tivos so that again points to the MAK. HDTivo, Thats the one thing we haven't tried yet. It was suggested to try turning of the HMO at the website , wait 24 hours for it to clear, then rename your Tivos online and turn it back on. I had read of some people having success with that. It didn't work for me. I think asking for a new MAK is an excellent suggestion and I'll call Tivo and see how hard that might be.