Series1 DirecTiVo Software Update (3.5.0) Migration Thread

[tivoupgrade]

updated 9/2/08

3.5d has been rolled out for Series1 DirecTV TiVo units. The information (and fixes) discussed below still applies and has been slightly revised to reflect current status (some of the information is no longer relevant.


As mentioned in this thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=297060&page=1&pp=30), an update to the aging, but still viable Series1 DirecTV TiVo line of DVR's (Sony SAT-T60, Philips DSR6000, and Hughes GXCEBOT systems) is impending.

Here is what we know so far:

LBA48 Support
The 3.5.0 release does not contain an LBA48 kernel - this means anyone who is using a > 137GB drive and has used an LBA48 kernel, or kernel utility (such as CopyKern) will experience strange behavior when selecting programs from the Now Playing List.

We have confirmed that use of CopyKern, or direct use of Todd Miller's modified 2.4.24 kernel from the 3.1.0 software release, will NOT work when applied to 3.5.0. In fact, inititial tests will put the unit into a reboot loop if you attempt to do this (so don't...).

Note that TiVo has not yet released the source code modifications for 3.5 on their site, but it is expected that they will do so shortly. Once that happens, work can begin on creation of a newly modified kernel with LBA48 support. We will release a utility (at no charge) to the community, to aid in installation of the new kernel.

update: 5/10/2006 - 5:02CDT

Thanks to Todd Miller, we have an EXPERIMENTAL kernel that appears to be working for us in the lab. It is a recompiled version of the 3.1 kernel (the new config file is included in the tarred and gzipped contents along with the kernel).

You can download it from here, use tpip to install it and post your experiences to this thread. If you are unfamiliar with the kernel updating techniques and wish to not learn the details of updating your kernel and using tpip, then please be patient, we will update CopyKern and our free CD soon.

3.1+ Experimental Kernel (www.ptvupgrade.com/downloads/kernel-3.1+.tar.gz)

update: 5/12/2006 - 7:31CDT

New Release of the LBA48 CD (ver 4.04) includes a revised copykern and a recompiled kernel (labeled 3.10+) in the s1_kernels directory. We have done preliminary testing with this kernel in conjunction with version 3.5 of the Series1 DirecTV TiVo release and early tests are encouraging. If you have built LBA48 drives which are spuriously rebooting, or contain content that is not accessible through the "Now Playing" list, we encourage you to use copykern to transplant this newly updated kernel. Also note that you will need to use killinitrd to zap the new initrd (or use nic_config in the silicondust network driver release to achieve the same result).

Please see the PTVupgrade LBA48 Boot CD (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=2266039#post2266039) for more details.



Network Hacks
By definition, ALL hacks will be disabled as a result of a software update. This is because the new version of the software will be installed in what is now your "inactive" partition. The inactive partition will become active, and your active partition will become "inactive" after the update.

TurboNet drivers should still be intact in the new version of the software (however, telnet and ftp will not be accessible until you install them). CacheCard drivers will not be be intact as they were never part of the standard software release.

Prom Flash
We have confirmed that a prom update is not part of the update to 3.5; therefore, use of tivoflash is not required when rehacking your units.

Will applications work?

We have confirmed that versions of TiVoWebPlus 1.2.1 and 1.2.2 and 2.0 are almost entirely functional with 3.5.0. We have not tested many of the user contributed modules. Anyone with specific experiences or details is encouraged to post their observations and workarounds here.[/COLOR]

Folks experiencing the update to 3.5.0 and beginning to re-hack their units, please post your experiences and best-practices recommendations here. There are probably more questions that answers at this point, so please be patient as the upgrade will be rolling out over the next several weeks and will take some time to propagate.

Happy upgrading!

Lou

[lew]

It looks like the slice files D/L Monday. Are you planning to install it and see what changes or are you waiting for Directv to initiate the upgrade via phone call?

[brophey]

I must be the only one who's system has upgraded.

It does a big 'Updating DB. This will take awhile.' when it booted up, so I imagine it's going to screw up a lot of programs that play in the DB, ie, TiVoWebPlus.

On the plus side, my 110hr box, fully loaded, loads the Now Playing list in about 3-5 seconds if not cached, and almost instantly if cached.

At any rate, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to grab an actual PC around my house here to test the hacks. Plus, I have no idea how to officially fix anything if anything goes wrong. ;)

But, since it's not my main TiVo anymore, I'm willing to help out with any testing. I do have a network card in there (I forget which one it is. TurboNet? The one that's fully integrated into itself.)

[vertigo235]

I must be the only one who's system has upgraded.

It does a big 'Updating DB. This will take awhile.' when it booted up, so I imagine it's going to screw up a lot of programs that play in the DB, ie, TiVoWebPlus.


Hopefully it uses the same type of database that 6.X uses, since TiVowebplus works with that just fine.

[ADent]

CacheCard drivers installed and working.

Doesn't seem quite as snappy as 3.1.x sometimes - but I think the DDB is getting reindexed.

[curtis-r]

Hughes DirecTV 30 (or 40) hour Series 1 Tivo. This week it started to reboot spontaneously. Last night it rebooted 4 times while watching pre-recorded material! Driving me crazy.

Software 3.1.0c2-01-1-031. No hacks.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[tivoupgrade]

If you have telnet access to your TiVo, you can verify whether or not the new software has been downloaded (but not installed yet) by typing the following:


echo mls /SwSystem | tivosh


If you see something like this:


Name Type FsId Date Time Size
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
3.1.0c2-01-1-031 tyDb 29558 07/29/04 17:31 708
3.5-01-1-031 tyDb 83344 04/27/06 07:37 680
ACTIVE tyDb 29558 07/29/04 17:31 708


It means the new software has downloaded, but the 3.10c2 software is still active.

If you want to attempt to "force" the install, you can do so, but you should do this first:

Edit the file /tvbin/installSw.itcl and find the line (its around line 155) where you see the "reboot" command, and replace the word reboot with "exit 0".

Now type:


./installSw.itcl 3.5-01-1-031


Once the installation is completed, the final steps won't be taken until you reboot the unit, but if you want to now mount the inactive partition, poke around, etc and even possibly attempt to preserve some of your hacks, you can do so.

I have just completed the above steps, but have not looked at any of the system files and have no idea whether it will be as simple as just moving drivers and binaries to their respective places in the new partitions or now. Perhaps some of you will forge ahead and we can compare results.

Do tread at your own risk, of course.

[tivoupgrade]

The manual installation documented above worked just fine.

I attempted to preserve hacks and drivers by copying things over from the old active partition to the new one, but failed. I forgot a couple of files, and as it turned out, killinitrd was need again. So, things to do after you've manually invoked the install and rebooted your unit

1) pull the drive from your unit
2) backup drive using mfstools
3) reinstall network drivers using nic_install and don't forget to kill the initrd when asked

4) reinstall hacks

the kernel install is

Linux version 2.1.24-TiVo-2.5

This build is NOT lba48-aware.

First attempts to install 3.1 lba48 kernel with copykern, did not have good results.

If any of you out there have experience building the kernel, consider rolling up your sleeves and building 3.5...

As a quick test, I installed TiVoWebPlus 1.2.1 and the startup was *almost* clean (see below); I haven't figured out what functionality has been affected by this error, yet:


bash-2.02# TivoWebPlus Project - v1.2.1
The program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This program is licensed under the GPL.
See the 'copyright' and 'README' files for copyright and credit information.
Loading modules...
backup
channelprefs
favicon
hackman
--hackman Version 4.0.2--
-Root directory mounted read-write
-Freepages left at 128 192 256
-Thursday, April 27, 2006, 03:08 PM, local time
index
-initializing logo index
-initializing channel table
--caching 699 channels for source of type=6 (DirecTV)
errNmNameNotFound object not found (errNmNameNotFound)

while executing
"mfs find $guideindexdir/ChannelTable"
("uplevel" body line 2)
invoked from within
"uplevel $body"
invoked from within
"transaction {uplevel $body}"
(procedure "RetryTransaction" line 5)
invoked from within
"RetryTransaction {
set channeltablefsid [lindex [mfs find $guideindexdir/ChannelTable] 0]
set channeltabledata [mfs get $channeltablefsid]
}"
(procedure "init_channelindex" line 125)
invoked from within
"init_channelindex"
(file "./modules/index.itcl" line 736)
invoked from within
"source $module "
info
lj_utils
logos
logs
mail
mfsbrowser
phone
resources
Loaded 0 resource definitions
sched
screen
search
theme
ui
webremote
whatson
wishlists
xplusz
Accepting Connections


And lastly, for those of you patching tivoapp; you'll need to find the new offsets. I have no idea what they are, and I'm not certain whether the folks on DDB have looked at this stuff yet. Please don't ask me, I don't know...

Meetings to go to, but will do some more tonight/tomorrow and update with any other discoveries.

[ISWIZ]

I had used InstantCake and got the update. No problems seen so far.

[rhuntington3]

Any more LBA48 news on V3.5?

[Blackfoot]

I had used InstantCake and got the update. No problems seen so far.

I have two SAT T-60's both which have drives built with the InstantCake CD. One has a 200 Gb drive that is pretty empty and the other has a 300 Gb drive that is about 1/2 full. The 200 Gb drive unit is working, has the 3.5 software and I can watch TV and any previously recorded shows. The 300 Gb drive will not boot. Almost like the cache card drivers are set to read only (from some previous upgrade) or there is more than 137 Gb of data on the drive.

I was thinking about pulling the drive out and re-installing the cache card drivers but am not sure if that will resolve anything. After that, I need to find the new tivoapp codes.

[tivoupgrade]

Any more LBA48 news on V3.5?

I've just verified that the kernel installed with 3.5 is NOT lba48-aware.

Whats' worse, is that my first attempt to use the 3.1 kernel provided by Todd Miller (installed with copykern) did not work - the system came up almost completely, but rebooted in the final stages. I have not picked through the logs yet.

[edit:] kernel log file attached

[Blackfoot]

I attempted to reinstall my cache card drivers and dumped the log to my screen. I don't have a floppy to dump it on so I may have to summerize it as best I can.

I starts up and the first error message is that is can't open /var/mtab. It goes on to activate swap partitions.... Yeah who am I kidding about getting this in there.
It starts the fan control then errors that it can't open /dev/tivoconfig.
Checks on new software installation but errors that it could not check because it can't open the object (errDbNotFound)
Scans for phase3 and 4 repair scripts
Says rc.sysinit completes
MCP startup is complete
Using a smartSorter
Creating ApgReader
And the last line is InitializeProgramOrDie failed: 0x30001

[MadMike]

My T-60 booted the 3.5 software yesterday. I pulled the drive and ran Steve Jenkins cd to get telnet, ftp and tivoweb going. The web interface comes up except for the NPL, I get this:

INTERNAL SERVER ERROR
--cut here--
action_nowshowing " "
can't read "cache_ns_rec": no such variable
while executing
"lsearch $cache_ns_rec $fsid"
(pricedure "print_nowshowingrow" line 64)
invoked from within
"print_nowshowingrow $chan $rec $nstype $rcount"
("uplevel" body line 4)
invoked from within
"uplevel $ body"
invoked from within
"ForeachMfsFileTrans fsid name type $nowshowingdir "" 15 (
set rec [db $db openid $fsid]
if {$nstype == 6} {
print_nowshowingrow $chan $r..."
(procedure "::action_nowshowing" line 61)
invoked from within
"::action_$action $chan $part $env"
("eval" body line 1)
invoked from within
"eval {::action_$action $chan $part $env}"
--cut here--

Any ideas?

[ronsch]

Mine had already installed and rebooted. Can I use bootpage to drop back to the previous lba48-aware implementation on the inactive partition or did the upgrade do a database conversion that will only corrupt everything if I try and drop back to 3.1?

[Blackfoot]

Mine had already installed and rebooted. Can I use bootpage to drop back to the previous lba48-aware implementation on the inactive partition or did the upgrade do a database conversion that will only corrupt everything if I try and drop back to 3.1?

I was wondering the same thing. But it does do a database upgrade, so it sounds like it wont work.

[vertigo235]

All this talk is making me glad I allready added softwareupgrade=false to my bootpage!

[Blackfoot]

I grabbed a spare 120 gb drive and restored my 3.1.0c2 software on it. Upgraded it to 3.5 and attempted to backup a show using the original unscramble.o module but it failed.

Speaking of the SoftwareUpgrade=false, where can I find that. I know I have seen it before, but I think my eyes are starting to cross. I am going to restore my 3.1.0c2 image again and want to make sure that when my tivo calls home it doesn't try to update.

Ultimately I want to update the kernel and apply the tivoapp patch, but this way gets the tivo back up and it makes my wife happy to have her tv back again.

[ronsch]

I think you can set it as a bootpage parameter but I haven't tried that myself. On my SA on or about line 740 of rc.sysinit is a reference to upgradesoftware where it checks to see if there is an update to install and then does it.

I believe you need to add the following statement:

export upgradesoftware=false

immediately before the check for that flag:

if [ "$upgradesoftware" = false ]; then


That should prevent the upgrade from happening. I'm still kicking myself for not adding it to my DTivo but who ever thought there would be a new release for S1.....

I have a backup of my image with all my hacks except the update to rc.net to implement wireless networking but that will be easy enough to redo. It's the nearly 284 hours of programming including a lot of movies I haven't watched yet that I hate to lose. I may just put my smaller 250gb drive back in with upgradesoftware fixed and wait and see if the hacking Gods can come up with an lba48 kernel to go with this release.

[catbert00]

I realized that I got the upgrade when I couldn't access TiVoWebPlus today. I did notice a couple days ago that my favorite channels were gone - but I just swore at the TiVo and didn't think anything else of it.

So I cracked open the case tonight and reinstalled the Airnet drivers and I'm all connected again. I made copies of the important lines in my rc.sysinit and profile files to assist me in getting back on my feet ASAP after an upgrade.

TiVoWebPlus had problems - but I see that is mentioned as to be expected. I don't really have much else in the way of hacks.

My main problem is that I get a "failed while negotiating" message when trying to make the daily or test call using the network. I verified my prefix is OK (and even re-entered it).

I didn't go through the TiVoflash step. Could that be my problem?

Any other ideas?

[Blackfoot]

I think you can set it as a bootpage parameter but I haven't tried that myself. On my SA on or about line 740 of rc.sysinit is a reference to upgradesoftware where it checks to see if there is an update to install and then does it.

I believe you need to add the following statement:

export upgradesoftware=false

immediately before the check for that flag:

if [ "$upgradesoftware" = false ]; then

That did the trick. I also found another section in there that mentioned a software upgrade.

# Check for software upgrade
if [ "$swupgrade" = true ]; then
/tvlib/tcl/updateSoftware.tcl
fi

Forced a daily call, it downloaded the update and set the unit to pending restart. Rebooted the machine and I never saw the "Tivo is upgrading your software" spalsh screen. I am still running 3.1.0c2. Now I need to disable the CSO, reload TWP and all my season passes. At least my wife is happy and has TV until the TiVo gods can do their magic so we can get our large disk back in there. Thanks for the post ronsch.

Oh yeah. And I bummed I missed out on how to make chile rellenos...:rolleyes:

[ronsch]

The other bad thing is I have to put the NFL draft on my SA today. At least I can set that to Basic quality.

[tivoupgrade]

I didn't go through the TiVoflash step. Could that be my problem?



We've confirmed that you will not need to use TiVoFlash again - ie, the software update does not affect the firmware, so if you've previously used tivoflash to update to an earlier version of the firmware (which allows hacks to be installed), you should not need to do it again (doing it won't hurt anything, though).

[tivoupgrade]

For those curious about this issue...

To create an updated LBA48 kernel for 3.5, we will need access to the updated source code, which is typically released on TiVo's web site, in accordance with the GPL. Its not there, yet but when it becomes available, we will be working towards getting an updated kernel (and a revised version of copykern) made available as soon as possible.

[jsharper]

hmmm. i know tivo has been the one to release the gpl'ed code in the past. But technically, it is DirecTV who is selling us this binary software (via our DirecTV DVR Service) and therefore I'd say they are the ones required by the GPL to provide the source for included software that was GPL licensed (the linux kernel, glibc, various utilities and any necessary toolchain components to build it all).

[tivoupgrade]

hmmm. i know tivo has been the one to release the gpl'ed code in the past. But technically, it is DirecTV who is selling us this binary software (via our DirecTV DVR Service) and therefore I'd say they are the ones required by the GPL to provide the source for included software that was GPL licensed (the linux kernel, glibc, various utilities and any necessary toolchain components to build it all).

That may be the case (as it may always have been). My guess is that nothing will change and that it will show up in its usual place, here:

http://www.tivo.com/linux/linux.asp

All I can say at this point is that a few folks at TiVo know that its not there, that we are waiting for it, and that it is being looked into (as of yesterday afternoon) but beyond that, we will have to wait.

[ronsch]

That did the trick. I also found another section in there that mentioned a software upgrade.

# Check for software upgrade
if [ "$swupgrade" = true ]; then
/tvlib/tcl/updateSoftware.tcl
fi

Forced a daily call, it downloaded the update and set the unit to pending restart. Rebooted the machine and I never saw the "Tivo is upgrading your software" spalsh screen. I am still running 3.1.0c2. Now I need to disable the CSO, reload TWP and all my season passes. At least my wife is happy and has TV until the TiVo gods can do their magic so we can get our large disk back in there. Thanks for the post ronsch.

Oh yeah. And I bummed I missed out on how to make chile rellenos...:rolleyes:

You are the one who's right. Both of them need to be commented out or otherwise fixed. I put an alternate disk in with just the one I pointed out to you taken care of and it installed the update anyway.

So i dropped back and punted. Took care of both flags in rc.sysinit and, just for good measure, also set the flag in the bootpage. The software got downloaded but did not install on the reboot.

Now I have my 250 back in with the same treatment and it's happily indexing guide data. I expect to see my SP recordings show up on the To Do list by morning.

[Lateshowrob]

Could this darn 'upgrade' have fried my stock, non-upgraded Phillips DTivo? I am stuck in an endless 'Welcome Powering Up' loop.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

[Francesco]

It's been reported in the past -- and happened to me -- that the work necessary for the hard drive when a big update happens might push an old, on-its-last-legs drive over the edge. So while it may have been working fine before the update, it's possible there were errors on the disk. Think of this as an opportunity, rather than an impediment. :)

[ronsch]

Could this darn 'upgrade' have fried my stock, non-upgraded Phillips DTivo? I am stuck in an endless 'Welcome Powering Up' loop.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.


Absolutely. It's entirely possible that you had bad sectors in the inactive partition that the 3.5 software was loaded into. There's a spirited discussion on this phenomena elsewhere in the forums.

[cosmictrucker]

I had recently used Instantcake to build a 250 gig drive for my Sat-T60. All was fine until I noticed when I selected DIRECTV Central and clicked on Now Playing List, the unit would display that menu in a "clear" format while the currently viewed program continued to play in the back ground. That went on for a day or so and then the unit began to LOCK UP whenever I selected the Now Playing List.

I was unable to view the current software info or such. I assumed that maybe the used 250 gig drive had failed, so I installed a "fresher" 250 gig WD drive with the same version on instantcake. I let the unit make a few phone home calls and then noticed something else...

I noticed since installing the Instantcake software, and even though I had selected a "local" phone number to call, the unit was also making 5 or 6 daily calls to two different 800 numbers. I rechecked the local numbers selected and they appeared to be good. (I found this out thanks to Vonage logging all out bound calls) I have since unplugged this unit from the phone line to prevent the download until a fix is made available.

Why was/is this unit calling 800 numbers? :confused:

[Lateshowrob]

So if I try to replace my fried drive with a 160 GB drive using 'Instantcake' will this work? Sorry, not up on all the technical details of 'lba-48' and such.

Thanks.

[Crispian]

If you have telnet access to your TiVo, you can verify whether or not the new software has been downloaded (but not installed yet) by typing the following:


echo mls /SwSystem | tivosh


If you see something like this:


Name Type FsId Date Time Size
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
3.1.0c2-01-1-031 tyDb 29558 07/29/04 17:31 708
3.5-01-1-031 tyDb 83344 04/27/06 07:37 680
ACTIVE tyDb 29558 07/29/04 17:31 708


It means the new software has downloaded, but the 3.10c2 software is still active.

OK, so I did this and I do indeed have the upgrade downloaded, but 3.10c2 is still active.

My question is how to inhibit the upgrade from happening just yet. I have an "instant cake" prepared drive that was "network ready" so I didn't have to go through all the hastle of installing telnet & ftp originally, and I have a slew of shows to pull off and dump to dvd for my 6 year-old son before we go on vacation. So I'd like to keep everything just the way it is until I've done that and the dust has settled and PTVUpgrade have a nice, simple way to fix everything figured out for me :)

So, can someone post an "idiots guide" to inhibiting the upgrade from happening once it's been downloaded?

It can't be as simple as pulling the network cord can it (though if I do that I can't download the shows I want to)? Or do I just change the phone code so it doesn't make it's call through the network (I don't have a phone line attached)? If it involves making changes to files in the system I'm fine with vi doing that, but please post *specific* instructions on which files, where they are, and exactly what to change.

Thanks muchly in advance!!!

[jackpollack]

Could someone please clarify, The 3.5.0 update will only affect the DirecTivo units. The stand-alone series 1 will not be affected.

[sbourgeo]

Could someone please clarify, The 3.5.0 update will only affect the DirecTivo units. The stand-alone series 1 will not be affected.

I think you're probably pretty safe. The series 1 standalones haven't had a software upgrade in 4 years. :)

[tivoupgrade]

So, can someone post an "idiots guide" to inhibiting the upgrade from happening once it's been downloaded?

Thanks muchly in advance!!!

Version 1.0 of the Idiots Guide to Preventing your Upgrade

Step 1: Unplug your phone line

or, as an alternative:

Step 1: Change your dialing prefix to *# so that your unit can't dial out and trigger the upgrade

In either case, you'll have to endure a few nag messages until you take the update at a later point.

Dirty, but does the trick.

[tivoupgrade]

Could someone please clarify, The 3.5.0 update will only affect the DirecTivo units. The stand-alone series 1 will not be affected.

Series1 Standalone unites were officialy "end-of-lifed" by TiVo in... well, several years ago (I think it was 2002). So no more upgrades. Plus this 3.5.0 update is SPECIFICALLY for the Series1 DirecTiVo (hence the topic name).

[sbourgeo]

Series1 Standalone unites were officialy "end-of-lifed" by TiVo in... well, several years ago (I think it was 2002). So no more upgrades. Plus this 3.5.0 update is SPECIFICALLY for the Series1 DirecTiVo (hence the topic name).
Although I agree they were for all intents and purposes "end-of-lifed" in 2002, I remember several posts like this one by TiVoPony where they maintain the "I cannot confirm or deny" position:

New Features for Series 1? (http://archive.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=1314456#post1314456)

It would be nice to finally have some closure on this issue though. Maybe someone should create a post in the Coffee House forum to see if a TiVo employee will finally confirm what we all know to be true. But until I hear otherwise, I'm hoping for a software update for my Philips HDR312 any day now... :p

Steve

[cashfoley]

I had the exact same symptom as described by cosmitrucker except I can't confirm abut the 800 number calls.

I had recently used Instantcake to build a 250 gig drive for my Sat-T60. All was fine until I noticed when I selected DIRECTV Central and clicked on Now Playing List, the unit would display that menu in a "clear" format while the currently viewed program continued to play in the back ground. That went on for a day or so and then the unit began to LOCK UP whenever I selected the Now Playing List.

(...)

I noticed since installing the Instantcake software, and even though I had selected a "local" phone number to call, the unit was also making 5 or 6 daily calls to two different 800 numbers. (...)

Why was/is this unit calling 800 numbers? :confused:

I had seen some messages complaining abut missed calls but I ignored them... "what did I care".

Then last week a couple of shows refused to play saying it was unable to record due to loss of signal. I was fairly certain I had actually started watching one of the shows.

When I got the previously mentioned symptoms, I figured I had some kind of hard drive corruption that finaly brought the system down.

I called DirecTv and second tier support is sending me a new "70 hour" TiVo for free. It's a "loaner" and I have to return it when I'm done. :(

I really don't want to loose my content on my SAT-T60. I'll be eager to see if there is a fix to get my system "un stuck".

[JoshFink]

Something I just thought I would ask.

I have an instacaked DSR6000, I'm stuck in the permanent reboot loop and one thing I was thinking was whether instacake automatically installs lba48 even though I don't need it (i'm suing a 128gb drive).

Any ideas?

Thanks

Josh

[dschoner]

Hello, All -
Lots of good information here - thought I'd report what's happening on my SAT-T60 w/ 2 X 160Gb HD's - version shows 3.5 - recording time shows 'variable, up to 281 hours' (not sure what it was before the upgrade).
Now playing list seems as it was prior to the upgrade, old recordings play OK, recently-recorded (4/27) play OK.
NO network connectivity through the CacheCard
Think I'll start copying the Now Playing list off to DVD's via the 'Save to VCR' function just in case.....
Regards.....

Dan

[mpulver]

NO network connectivity through the CacheCardAfter seeing this come up over the weekend I panicked, then threw caution to the wind, forced my DSR6000 into a call this morning, and sure enough, I got 3.5.

I _do_ have network connectivity through the cache card, but I don't think I have the "cache" side of the card ("Now Playing" list is slow, and I need to reboot again to see if the cache drivers load).

I don't of course have my other hacks like ftp, telnet and TivoWeb+, but I will once I get a chance to get to the drive.

[Crispian]

Version 1.0 of the Idiots Guide to Preventing your Upgrade
Step 1: Change your dialing prefix to *# so that your unit can't dial out and trigger the upgrade
In either case, you'll have to endure a few nag messages until you take the update at a later point.
Dirty, but does the trick.

Just want to confirm that this will stop the upgrade from happening even though I have confirmed that it has already been downloaded to the inactive partition (using the method in post #7).

I have read posts here and elsewhere that say it needs a call to trigger the upgrade, but others that say it automatically recognizes that there is an upgrade waiting and schedules it for 2am.

Sorry to be a pest- but I need to keep TyTools working 'til I can dump all the 20 or so Cyberchases I have recorded onto DVD for my 6 year old!

BTW- will we get another email like the one that warned me that this upgrade was imminent (THANK YOU PTVUpgrade!!!!) when fixes are available for instantcake drives like mine?

[stivovance]

Just want to confirm that this will stop the upgrade from happening even though I have confirmed that it has already been downloaded to the inactive partition (using the method in post #7).

I have read posts here and elsewhere that say it needs a call to trigger the upgrade, but others that say it automatically recognizes that there is an upgrade waiting and schedules it for 2am.

Sorry to be a pest- but I need to keep TyTools working 'til I can dump all the 20 or so Cyberchases I have recorded onto DVD for my 6 year old!

BTW- will we get another email like the one that warned me that this upgrade was imminent (THANK YOU PTVUpgrade!!!!) when fixes are available for instantcake drives like mine?

I can't say with 100% certainty that unplugging your phone line or using the *# will prevent the update from happening; chances are though, that it will. Another method to "spoof" the system is by installing a program called "fakecall" (obviously, you'd need telnet/ftp access to do so).

Yes, we will send another email out to our mailing list to let people know when an LBA48 kernel is available, and we will also update this thread. Unfortunately, to date, TiVo has still not released the kernel source for the 3.5 kernel, so I have no projection on when a new kernel can be made available.

For those of you who didn't get the announcement; here is the link (http://archives.subscribermail.com/msg/NEWS49C65D61.htm#1) to the archived version. You can also add yourself to the list to be notified by joining the Series1 Networking Interest list here. (http://www.ptvupgrade.com/subscribe.html)

[hawkbug]

I haven't seen this question answered yet on all the forums I read, so here goes - Can you still use the kernel module that unscrambles the recordings and live TV so you can use TyTools to pull the shows off to DVD like I've done for the last 2 years? I'll be real depressed if the answer is no since my Tivo updated before I had a chance to stop it. I had no idea it was coming, and now my shows for the last week are scrambled, so I have to watch them on the TV with my Tivo vs the TV I normally watch them on DVD from :(

[Blackfoot]

I haven't seen this question answered yet on all the forums I read, so here goes - Can you still use the kernel module that unscrambles the recordings and live TV so you can use TyTools to pull the shows off to DVD like I've done for the last 2 years? I'll be real depressed if the answer is no since my Tivo updated before I had a chance to stop it. I had no idea it was coming, and now my shows for the last week are scrambled, so I have to watch them on the TV with my Tivo vs the TV I normally watch them on DVD from :(
There is a new tivoapp patch that will take care of the CSO for you, but I have not seen a new unscramble.o file that you can run so you can pull the encrypted shows out. I know that the old unscramble.o module does not work. I tried that before the tivoapp patch was out.

[hawkbug]

I was referring to this:

http://www.angelfire.com/darkside/wanker/DTiVoBasicsAndBeyond.htm#UnScramble

I didn't realize there was an unscramble for previously scrambled shows. That would have made my life much easier for the older shows I was unable to pull off :) Will this kernel module still work?

[jgerry]

My TivoWebPlus 1.2.1 was broken, now it's only partly broken.

I fixed the first error by editing tivoweb/modules/index.itcl, line 700
set guideindexdir "/GuideIndexV2"
to
set guideindexdir "/GuideIndexV3"
This simply makes TivoWeb use the newer database format, already in use in the version 6.x boxes.

Now TivoWebPlus starts, but my most-used feature, the User Interface stuff -- where you can see your Now Playing list, To Do list, etc... This no longer works.

Something's broke in tivoweb/modules/ui.itcl. The log file error is:

ui
NONE missing close-brace
while compiling
"proc action_preferences {chan path env} { ..."
(file "./modules/ui.itcl" line 3953)
invoked from within
"source $module "

I'm going to poke around at it for a bit, but I don't think I have time to track it down today.

EDIT: Well, it seems to have fixed itself!!

[andrepartthree]

Hi all - unfortunately I have a SAT-T60 model tivo with a larger than 137 GB hard drive (160 GB actually) so I was affected by the recorded-tv-shows/now-playing-list-making-tivo-reboot-continously-in-the-middle-of-the-tv-show problems too ...

I know that Lou (or anyone who might have taken Lou's place if he's no longer with you guys? forgive my ignorance) is waiting for some sort of linux (unless I have that wrong? again forgive me for my ignorance I'm not as much of an expert as everyone else here on this) information or program to be released before releasing that copykern update he mentioned wihch will hopefully solve the problem - however I was wondering if a new Instantcake CD will be made available for sale at some point which takes into account / deals with the new Tivo upgrade that affects my tivo model ?

[Blackfoot]

I was referring to this:

http://www.angelfire.com/darkside/wanker/DTiVoBasicsAndBeyond.htm#UnScramble

I didn't realize there was an unscramble for previously scrambled shows. That would have made my life much easier for the older shows I was unable to pull off :) Will this kernel module still work?
Whoa. That seems like a lot. I used AlphaWolf's steps to modify my tivoapp and then the unscramble.o module that would unscramble the shows while they were being "backed up."

AlphaWolf's thread on DDB (http://www.************.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31213)

Unscramble.o module (http://www.************.com/forum/showpost.php?p=135041&postcount=4)

[bookert]

Does anyone know the default IP address (home network 192.168.?.?) Turbonet uses as its IP address to make a daily call?
QD :)

[vertigo235]

I think the default is DCHP assigned

[ensor999]

I was referring to this:

I didn't realize there was an unscramble for previously scrambled shows. That would have made my life much easier for the older shows I was unable to pull off :) Will this kernel module still work?
I just upgraded to 3.5 and noscramble.o still works for me. (I am able to play my shows previously recorded with the module active; using a Philips DSR6000R.)

[Francesco]

OK, so my upgraded and expanded DTiVo got the upgrade to 3.5 a few nights ago. We only noticed after one prerecorded show kept causing a spontaneous reboot at a specific point. This would make sense because it's likely that some show chunks are beyond the 127 GiB limit that is recognized by a non-LBA48 kernel. We also expected none of the hacks would work until a re-install.

I decided to wait a bit before doing a re-install in hopes of a LBA48 patch coming soon (rather than re-install twice). A few more pre-recorded shows were found to cause spontaneous reboots. Then without warning the DTiVo decided to go into a reboot loop the other night. The Seagate 200 GB drive is two months old and was exhibiting no symptoms before.

Is this loop caused by the big drive? Can I (eventually) just go ahead and re-install onto this drive (when a new kernel is built)? Or did the upgrade actually kill this almost-new drive (which happened to an old drive when we got 3.1 two years ago)?

[lew]

OK, so my upgraded and expanded DTiVo got the upgrade to 3.5 a few nights ago. We only noticed after one prerecorded show kept causing a spontaneous reboot at a specific point. This would make sense because it's likely that some show chunks are beyond the 127 GiB limit that is recognized by a non-LBA48 kernel. We also expected none of the hacks would work until a re-install.

I decided to wait a bit before doing a re-install in hopes of a LBA48 patch coming soon (rather than re-install twice). A few more pre-recorded shows were found to cause spontaneous reboots. Then without warning the DTiVo decided to go into a reboot loop the other night. The Seagate 200 GB drive is two months old and was exhibiting no symptoms before.

Is this loop caused by the big drive? Can I (eventually) just go ahead and re-install onto this drive (when a new kernel is built)? Or did the upgrade actually kill this almost-new drive (which happened to an old drive when we got 3.1 two years ago)?

I doubt it killed your drive but your existing recording are probably history. If you have your original drive put that back in your tivo until the LBA48 kernel is released. If not start from scratch with your existing drive BUT DON'T LET IT UPDATE TO 3.5

You're going to be pulling your drive and using instant cake or MFS Tools to start your installation from scratch. You'll lose all your SP, recordings, etc.

[Francesco]

Yeah, that's what I figured. I've re-authorized an old non-upgraded DSR6000 for the time being.

[winter]

My phone line has never been connected to my T60 and I received the update (and the unit rebooted itself) this morning at 2:47am. Its now running 3.5-01. I had previously replaced a failing hard drive with a 160GB using InstantCake (with LBA48 support). The unit boots fine and reports 150 hours of space but I cannot watch any programs recorded prior to today. Anything recorded since then is ok.

Just passing along another data point.

[jsharper]

winter, does (did) your T60 make its 'daily call' via the ethernet?

[winter]

winter, does (did) your T60 make its 'daily call' via the ethernet?I was unaware that it does until 10 minutes ago when catbert00 pointed it out in another thread that I also posted at(http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4003833#post4003833)

Since I added the turbonet card myself I falsely assumed that the T60 natively lacked the software to take advantage of it. Apparently the dialing prefix that is set on my unit (",#401") does in fact make the daily call via the net. Thanks.

[ICMB]

Argh.

So, I sadly got this upgrade, and now I can't get to my Tivo at all. Is there any way to get telnet/ftp access again without physically yanking the drive and reinstalling drivers on a PC?

[JoshFink]

Argh.

So, I sadly got this upgrade, and now I can't get to my Tivo at all. Is there any way to get telnet/ftp access again without physically yanking the drive and reinstalling drivers on a PC?

Check your router and make sure that it didn't get a DHCP address instead of the static one you set up.

Josh

[winter]

Check your router and make sure that it didn't get a DHCP address instead of the static one you set up. That's what happened to me but since the update overwrote all the hacks there is no telnet or ftp daemon listening anymore. I don't see any way to renable them short of pulling the drive.

[midiwall]

That's what happened to me but since the update overwrote all the hacks there is no telnet or ftp daemon listening anymore. I don't see any way to renable them short of pulling the drive.Right... you'll need to pull the drive and find that linux boot CD from WAAAAYYYY back when we all first hacked our machines.

I need to do it too, and am just being too dern lazy to make it happen.

[winter]

Right... you'll need to pull the drive and find that linux boot CD from WAAAAYYYY back when we all first hacked our machines.

I need to do it too, and am just being too dern lazy to make it happen.Yep, the first couple times I hacked it I did it all by hand (ftp'd the files, edited with joe), then I used one of the free packaged script solutions (Xtreme?) that some kind souls developed and the last time I had to replace a hard drive I just used InstantCake - I've been getting progressively more lazy as time goes on.

Is there any way I can rollback my system to the previous software release that does support LBA48 or I am just screwed? Damn, I hate losing all my recordings.

[ICMB]

Check your router and make sure that it didn't get a DHCP address instead of the static one you set up.

Josh

It's really very odd, actually. I actually wrote a batch file that pinged every IP in my range, but did not find the Tivo. However, I *was* able to get the Tivo to make its daily call via the network, so I'm not really sure where I stand.

Does anyone know the backdoor code for 3.5 so that I can get access to the logs (and if the logs would show the machine IP anywhere?)

At this point I'm more likely to just get a new box, despite the long years of service of my DSR6000 than spend all the time rehacking this one if I have to do it all manually.

[lew]

It's really very odd, actually. I actually wrote a batch file that pinged every IP in my range, but did not find the Tivo. However, I *was* able to get the Tivo to make its daily call via the network, so I'm not really sure where I stand.

Does anyone know the backdoor code for 3.5 so that I can get access to the logs (and if the logs would show the machine IP anywhere?)

At this point I'm more likely to just get a new box, despite the long years of service of my DSR6000 than spend all the time rehacking this one if I have to do it all manually.

Did you have a LBA48 kernel on your machine. Either because you have a large HD or because you used instant cake and used the wrong option?

If not just pull your drive and use the turbonet install CD. That will get you back and running. AFAIK all the current backdoor codes are done via bash, I don't think you enter them with your remote anymore.

[Roadeater]

OK, I got blindsided by this dreaded upgrade too. Pulled the drive, reinstalled the hacks, fired up my Philips DSR6000 and it rebooted again and removed the hacks. Grrr... Remove the drive, rerun tivoflash, fire up the the DSR6000 to reflash it, yank the drive, rehack it, reinstall in Tivo and..... SAME RESULT - it reboots and removes the hacks again. I've gone through this about 5 times now. GRRRRR.... This is using a WD1200 drive which is only about a year old. What do I have to do to make the hacks stick????? FYI I'm using the Steve Jenkins boot CDROM to do all this, may be there's newer stuff I need instead?

-Tim

[lew]

OK, I got blindsided by this dreaded upgrade too. Pulled the drive, reinstalled the hacks, fired up my Philips DSR6000 and it rebooted again and removed the hacks. Grrr... Remove the drive, rerun tivoflash, fire up the the DSR6000 to reflash it, yank the drive, rehack it, reinstall in Tivo and..... SAME RESULT - it reboots and removes the hacks again. I've gone through this about 5 times now. GRRRRR.... This is using a WD1200 drive which is only about a year old. What do I have to do to make the hacks stick????? FYI I'm using the Steve Jenkins boot CDROM to do all this, may be there's newer stuff I need instead?

-Tim
http://tivo.stevejenkins.com/network_cd.html#_Toc101001767

You don't need to reflash.

[pjcamp]

I've read reports that the unscramble.o module doesn't work. It does for me, on my Hughes unit.

DirecTV is getting to be a huge pain. It would have been nice to have a warning before this came down the pike. As far as I can tell, the "upgrade" does nothing other than rearrange the menus.

[tmembrino]

OK, I got blindsided by this dreaded upgrade too. Pulled the drive, reinstalled the hacks, fired up my Philips DSR6000 and it rebooted again and removed the hacks. Grrr... Remove the drive, rerun tivoflash, fire up the the DSR6000 to reflash it, yank the drive, rehack it, reinstall in Tivo and..... SAME RESULT - it reboots and removes the hacks again. I've gone through this about 5 times now. GRRRRR.... This is using a WD1200 drive which is only about a year old. What do I have to do to make the hacks stick????? FYI I'm using the Steve Jenkins boot CDROM to do all this, may be there's newer stuff I need instead?

-Tim

Sounds like it might be a killinit issue? The hacks are being wiped out by killinit each time you reboot? Just a thought...

[gravesj_98]

I had a hard drive fail a couple of years ago so I replaced it with a 160GB Maxtor and used the MFS Tools utilities to accomplish this. It appears that I have the "upgrade" and here are a few symptoms I am seeing.

1.) Didn't record a program last Tuesday night (5/2). The program does appear in the list. When I try to play it gives says that it appears there was no programming. Furthermore, I can not delete this "recording" from the list.

2.) Last night I was watching a recorded program. When finished I deleted the program and returned to live TV. Only there was nothing showing on either tuner. The other receiver in my house was working just fine. I restarted the box and everything worked fine.

I am sure this question has been answered and forgive me for re-asking but what am I going to have to do to get this straightened out? I am considering just calling in and telling them they fried my box and getting a HDTivo instead.

[cmorr70]

I am sure this question has been answered and forgive me for re-asking but what am I going to have to do to get this straightened out? I am considering just calling in and telling them they fried my box and getting a HDTivo instead.

You could get instacake and install a virgin image with the 3.1 software, which means you have to re-do all season passes, reload all guide data, etc.......and make sure to unplug the phone line so it can't make a "daily call". This will force it to stay with version 3.1 software. Then just wait until the very gifted tivo hackers using this web site come up with a solution to the root of the problem.

This is just what I have done. Myabe to much hassle?

[tivoupgrade]

Folks, still no sign of kernel source for 3.5, so no end in site. Again, I don't think this is a *tactic* on the part of anyone, but more a reflection of a bit of bureacracy that might exist within TiVo.

Beyond that, all the hacks we've been deploying (beyond LBA48) have been verified to work just fine, with a minimum of tweaking.

Hopefully, we'll have something soon...

[gr8reb8]

So on a DSR6000 with two 160Gb drives, is using a disk such as mfstools2noJ.iso, restoring with "mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -zxpi /mnt/backup.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdd" and then NOT running copykern a bad idea. My thought is that since the 3.1 software (and 3.5 software) will not see past 137Gb and only use the first 137Gb. Is this wrong thinking? If it is, I assume that once the drive gets to 137Gb the Tivo will start flaking out...

[ptcartman]

On April 30 my SAT-T60 upgraded to 3.5. Now I have no CacheCard function. No Network, No Cache.

It would appear (from reading these threads ad nauseum) that the only options for getting my CacheCard working again is to A) connect my drive to my PC (I paid extra when I bought it to have it pre-bundled with the correct software so I wouldn't have to do that), or B) Send my drive back to PTVUpgrade and pay an additional $75.00 for "recertification."

Oh, well. Can someone point me to the idiot's guide to reactivating the CacheCard.

Please. :(

[lew]

Version 1.0 of the Idiots Guide to Preventing your Upgrade

Step 1: Unplug your phone line

or, as an alternative:

Step 1: Change your dialing prefix to *# so that your unit can't dial out and trigger the upgrade

In either case, you'll have to endure a few nag messages until you take the update at a later point.

Dirty, but does the trick.

I've never used your software but at least one user got their update triggered via an internet phone call. The installation software from silicondust will configure your tivo to make the daily call via the internet. I'm not sure if that's the default option.

Idiot step one isn't reliable.

Step 2 should work

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3987620&&#post3987620

AND

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3989065&&#post3989065

Is there any reason why you script didn't block upgrades? Allowing a unit to upgrade when a non-standard LBA48 kernel is being used doesn't make any sense.

[Aquanaut]

My system would reboot by itself a few times a month. I can tolerate this.

Then along came the 3.5 upgrade. My T60 then went into the reboot cycle. Figuring that it might be a loose wire, I opened up my system and disconnected and reconnected the major power and IED cables. Then when turning on my system, I got the GSOD and waited for the "fix" to occur. I had to do this three times, and after the third time, everything booted OK and my system is now performing without problems.

I was pleased that the receiver software was able to repair itself. Does anyone know how they fixed it? Maybe they moved the upgrade partition?

[gr8reb8]

Well, I have read for hours through multiple threads dating all the way back to 2002 and I am fairly confident that this iso: "http://hellcat.tyger.org/MFS/2.0/mfstools2noJ.iso" is not a lba48 iso and can be used with a dsr6000 with two 160gb drives. Booting with that ISO would mean that I would only see 137Gb (times 2) and the Tivo kernel would only use 137Gb (times 2). This is fine by me since I am in compliance with the non-lba48 software Tivo is sending down including 3.5.

[ronha]

After much reading, browsing and experimenting I have been able to come up with a solution for my Sony SAT-T60. I have verified that this does work on two different T60's both of which were upgraded before I got any warning that this was happening. In my case, it was April 30th and I didn't know anything about it until my Tivo upgraded at 2am, while I was watching a movie.

I am not an expert by any means and I've never done anything with Linux at all, but after an all weekend marathon this is the procedure that I used and does work. You TiVo will still restart at 2am after a call regardless of whether you're using a TurboCache or phone line. On my Tivo' the call is made, a new call is scheduled for one week out, the Tivo reboots at 2am, never shows the
upgrading screen and all is well.

Here are the steps that I took and I've included as much help as I can because I see comments like "I'm going to modify the bootpage" in this forum and then I had to dig all over the internet to find out how to do that.

You'll need a bootable InstantCake CD and a bootable TurboNet or CacheCard CD, if you have one.

Also download:
NetReady Core Utils plus TivoWeb (CacheCard/TurboNet) ver 1.2 (5/18/04)

I'm sorry guys, I had the links in here but it made me take them out...

1. On your pc install the NetReady program

2. Pull your disk or disks out of your Tivo and connect them to your computer. Configure the drives so that your CD is the Primary IDE SLAVE. Your Tivo disk should be set to the Secondary IDE MASTER. If you have two drives the second one would be the secondary slave.

3. Boot your pc using the InstantCake CD. Just follow the prompts.

4. Place the drive back in your Tivo and power up letting it run to completion.

5. FTP to your Tivo using it's IP address. Ex: Start – Run – ftp 192.168.xxx.xxx
And type:

lcd drive:folder where drive:folder is the location you installed NetReady to.
binary
cd /var
send .NETREADY

6. Put the Tivo disk back in your pc as outlined above and start your pc using the TurboNet or CacheCard CD. Just follow the prompts and then put the disk back in your Tivo and power on.

For all the ftp stuff I used an ftp program.

7. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
Type telnet 192.168.xxx.xxx
mount –o remount,rw /
bootpage –b (if you get a 3, use hda4 in the next line, if you get a 6, use hda7.

the following 2 lines should actually be one contiguous command:

bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda4 dsscon=true console=2,115200 upgradesoftware=false" /dev/hda

9. Use your favorite FTP method to move the following file to your pc:
/etc/rc.d/finishInstall.tcl
/tvbin/installSw.itcl

OK, some notes here. I did not know that Linux is filename case sensitive, installSw.itcl and installsw.itcl are not the same file. (I told you I wasn't an expert and figured out this the hard way).

10 Use EDLIN to edit these files. I gave up on figuring out how to edit using Linux. You'll have to rename the files so that EDLIN can open them.

finishInstall.tcl rename to finish.tcl
installSw.itcl rename to install.itc

11. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
cd to the folder you downloaded the files to and type:

edlin finish.tcl
2i
exit 0
control-z
w
e

edlin install.itc
2i
exit 0
control-z
w
e

12. rename finish.tcl to finishInstall.tcl
rename install.itc to installSw.itcl
(please mind your upper and lower case characters)

13. ftp the two files back to the Tivo.
/ect/rc/d/finishInstall.tcl
/tvbin/installSw.itcl

14. telnet to the Tivo and type:
mount –o remount,ro /

That's it. You should be safely back on 3.1.0c2 and upgrade proof. As I said, you will reboot once a week, but I can live with that given the alternative. If I understand how this all works, I think this should work on any Series 1 Tivo.
I hope you find this useful. I know I wish this had been here last week.

[Blackfoot]

One quick disclaimer.... You will loose your shows on your drive if you start over like this. Me, I want to wait until a new kernel comes out and I will apply it then. With any luck, I will be back to where a few weeks ago. (Less the shows that have aired between then and now.)

Great detailed steps though ronha

[ptcartman]

Thanks for the detailed instructions, ronha, but I have a question.

Your instructions take the system back to the previous version. Is that because there is no way for the CacheCard to function on the new version? The opening post in this thread states that the CacheCard won't function because the drivers aren't there, but it's a little vague on whether it will work ever.

Is it just a waiting game until the PTVUgrade people get a chance to make it all work again?

Thanks again.

[lew]

Some PCs won't let you boot from a CD that's on the secondary controller.

Just go to the Silcondust website and D/L the the image file. Let it kill the intrid and load the drivers and your're good to go.

http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2

[lew]

Thanks for the detailed instructions, ronha, but I have a question.

Your instructions take the system back to the previous version. Is that because there is no way for the CacheCard to function on the new version? The opening post in this thread states that the CacheCard won't function because the drivers aren't there, but it's a little vague on whether it will work ever.

Is it just a waiting game until the PTVUgrade people get a chance to make it all work again?

Thanks again.


The waiting game is for PTVUpgrade, or others, to distribute a LBA48 hacked kernel. Other than that you already have the tools. CacheCard won't work because the new software doesn't have the drivers so you have to install them yourself.

[ronha]

Thanks for all the comments everyone. I go by Ron, I should have signed it but I was pretty nervous. I wanted to be accurate and this is the first post I've ever made, so first time jitters.

Thanks Matt for pointing out that I was actually wiping the disk and starting over. My wife had pretty much gone into a permanent attitude about not being able to record and watch her shows, so it became obvious that we couldn't wait for a fix.

When they finally do release a fix, (and I mean to everything), WebPlus, ext.. then I'll just remove those exit 0's and the bootpage mod and let it upgrade. While it was upgraded I looked at it to see what it did. I really couldn't understand why they sent it out at all. I'm sure someone that knows more than me, and that's anybody, knows.

I need some help if anyone knows how to do it. Since everythings back in place my TyTool doesn't work. I can't find the information on installing it. I mean I searched and found it, but why are the not steps all together? I hate having the instructions say something like, "you may need unscambler, but I'll assume you know how to install that".. arrrggg! Everyone is not a Tivo god.

So please let me know what I should do, if you can. Hey, truly all you guys and gals are a great group of people and this site is awesome. It just is overwhelming to find the information when you don't have a clue what you need to do.

Thanks all!
Ron

[Blackfoot]

Since everythings back in place my TyTool doesn't work.
You need to put tserver on your tivo and don't forget to change the attributes so it can execute. From a bash prompt, this can be accomplished with the CHMOD command. Assuming you put tserver in /var/hacks, the command would be. chmod 755 /var/hack/tserver If you are running an older version of TyTool, say version 9, then you need to put the NowShowing.itcl file with the tserver file. Tserver was updated with version 10 and is not only faster to display the listing, but no longer requires the nowshowing file.

If you have tserver on your tivo and the attributes are correct, you will want to look at the TyTool setting to make sure that the Execute strings are set correct. By default they point to /var/hack/tserver. This can be found in the Server section of the TyTool Preferences on version 10.

If all that works but you get an error when you try to edit the key files, then you might have forgotten to apply the CSO patch to tivoapp. Different discussion for a different day that should be on a different forum. PM me if you want to know more.

[tivoupgrade]

Please see the first post of this thread for details (I just updated it). You can download the kernel from here:

Experimental Kernel (www.ptvupgrade.com/downloads/kernel-3.1+.tar.gz)

Special thanks to Todd Miller for providing this.

Lou

PS. Guys, please stop talking about extraction here. Thx

[terryroe67]

when is the appropriate time to deploy the experimental kernel?

is the right time when it is pending a restart? would i copy it to the inactive partition at that time? or is the active partition changed before the reboot

if it boots to the wrong kernel, will it trash the filesystem or corrupt data? i'm thinking it would probably corrupt data. i'm trying to figure out how much risk there is for me to copy it vs. waiting for an automated script on an iso.

[tivo-com_guy]

I got the awful 3.5 update.
I "Instantcaked" the drive.
I have already gotten the awful 3.5 again.
This sucks.

[lew]

when is the appropriate time to deploy the experimental kernel?

is the right time when it is pending a restart? would i copy it to the inactive partition at that time? or is the active partition changed before the reboot

if it boots to the wrong kernel, will it trash the filesystem or corrupt data? i'm thinking it would probably corrupt data. i'm trying to figure out how much risk there is for me to copy it vs. waiting for an automated script on an iso.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3982479&&#post3982479

You might want to wait for a script, I don't see any reason to rush to the new software and with a large HD a mistake may corrupt your HD.

[jsharper]

I got the awful 3.5 update.
I "Instantcaked" the drive.
I have already gotten the awful 3.5 again.
This sucks.

Why did you leave the phone line plugged in (or the dial prefix set to 'dial' over the internet)? It will keep updating if you do.

[botcher]

a phone line is not needed for the update. It is downloaded via satellite, and will trigger automatically, unless software is modified to stop updates.

[jsharper]

a phone line is not needed for the update. It is downloaded via satellite, and will trigger automatically, unless software is modified to stop updates.

It does download from the satellite, but it doesn't automatically install just because it is downloaded. I have not seen a single person report that any update has been actually installed without a call home to get the command to initiate the install (either via phone line or via the internet using the special dial prefix).

If you have evidence otherwise, please do provide it.

[sbourgeo]

Forgive the tangent from the lba48 talk...

But, remember when people installed Series 2 standalone software v4 on the Series 2 DirecTivo's and found that it was a universal software distribution that work would on both platforms and enabled HMO on the combo units?

Has anyone tried installing this version of 3.5 on the corresponding Series 1 standalone TiVo's? It realize that this wouldn't necessarily add much functionality-wise, but the software engineer in me is curious if this is also a "universal" distribution. :)

[ensor999]

I got the awful 3.5 update.
I "Instantcaked" the drive.
I have already gotten the awful 3.5 again.
This sucks.
What's so "awful" about it?
I.e. what is worse about 3.5 compared to the previous release (3.1c)?
I find it handy that the Now Playing list displays faster, can jump to top or bottom via the Skip key, and that scrolling (paging) the list can be repeated before the screen finishes updating (making it faster to move up or down several pages).

[cmorr70]

I find it handy that the Now Playing list displays faster

Why am I experiencing the exact opposite? My "Now Playing" screen hesitates for a second after the first show displays. Not when I page up or down, only when I first pull it up with the "press tivo twice". (DSR6000 w/120GB HD).

[claird]

I have a Series 1 Direct TV Philips 6000, which I upgraded last year to a 160GB single drive with a PTV LBA48 CD. The 3.5 release got me. Is there a way to redo the drive to limit it to <127GB so that 3.5 will work? I am not a Linux guru, so be gentle.

[dbrem26]

Please forgive my ignorance, but can anyone point me to directions on updating my kernel and using tpip. I thought my SAT-T60's Instantcaked 160gb HD had fried until I found this thread this morning. I would like to try to apply the experimental Kernel mentioned in the first thread. I can follow directions well enough, but after spending some time searching the forum for instructions I'm still not sure how to do it without potentially messing things up.
Also, just as a side note, I had used Hinsdale's how-to and copied the original drive on another SAT-T60 and upgraded that one to a 120gb. It did update to 3.5 and I haven't had any problems with that one. I am assuming that it because it is below 137gb and therefore didn't need LBA48 to begin with.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks!
David

[Francesco]

OK, so like many others who have not reverted to 3.1, I installed a different drive in my DSR6000 and did a C&DE just to be able to watch. My untouched 200 GB drive with hacks and 3.5 sits on my desk.

Forgive me for not being able to follow along, but when the new kernel is added to Copykern, will we just be able to install it and add back any missing hacks and Cachecard drivers? Shows will be intact? Or did the file system/db change in any way that would corrupt recordings?

[tivoupgrade]

Please review the first post of this thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3980643&&#post3980643) for more details, and visit the LBA48 Boot CD (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=2266039#post2266039) thread for information and links to download the updated utilities. Thanks again to Todd Miller who rebuilt the 3.1.0 kernel (now called 3.1.0+), and please understand that is released with the understanding that it is experimental and you should tread at your own risk. With that said, our experiments of the past several days have not revealed any problems.

Here are some recommended methods for those with > 137 GB drives that have received the 3.5 update and know that they are not currently running an LBA48 kernel. This includes people experiencing reboot loops, and who have content that is unwatchable from the Now Playing list.

The information below is not intended to be a step-by-step how-to; it is however, a high-level explanation of the steps you need to take. If the information isn't clear to you, or you are uncomfortable researching the use of the tools mentioned below, we will be updating our DIY software tools shortly:

1) if your network drivers have been blown away, and you haven't reinstalled them yet, now is an opportune time; pull your drive, boot upgrade CD with the Universal Boot CD in Series1 mode (or use any of other boot CD that will allow you to boot in swap mode for mounting Series1 partitions) and run nic_config to reinstall your TurboNet or CacheCard drivers. You should remove your initrd as part of the installation process, if you are asked. Alternatively, you can use the killinitrd tool to do this. after you've done this, go head and reboot with the free LBA48 4.04 CD (earlier versions will NOT work) and run copykern; choose the 3.10+ kernel and it will update it on your TiVo drive; reinstall and you are done

2) if you aren't using a TurboNet or CacheCard, you should still run killinitrd followed by a copykern in LBA48 mode

3) if you've already reinstalled your TurboNet or CacheCard drivers, ie you can telnet and ftp to your unit, you can download the 3.1.0+ kernel (or copy it from the LBA48 4.04 CD); it is compressed, so ftp it to your TiVo, and use gzip to uncompress it. either use bootpage to determine your active partition (your kernel partition is your user partition - 1), or just use dd to copy the new kernel to /dev/hda3 and /dev/hda6.

[tivo-com_guy]

I never plug in the phone line.

I assumed that the instant cake would only try the phone line for upgrades.

Somehow the 3.5 upgrade got through.

I re-Instantcaked the drive and made sure that BOTH the phone and the ethernet were not connected.

Still the 3.5 upgrade got through.

I re-Instantcaked the drive yet again and made sure that the phone AND the ethernet AND the satellite cables were unplugged.

No 3.5 upgrade got through. (Needless to say, my DTivo was not so useful either)

I installed "nosdd.tcl" per AlphaWolf's instructions...

...satellite cables have been connected for about 12 hours and so far DTivo is free of the cursed 3.5 update...

So far so good.

UPDATE 4-14-2006:
the nosdd.tcl didn't work. The cursed 3.5 update loaded and it is waiting to install... I have modified the re.sysinit file... hopefully this will work.

Tivocom_guy

[Francesco]

1) if your network drivers have been blown away, and you haven't reinstalled them yet, now is an opportune time; pull your drive, boot upgrade CD with the Universal Boot CD in Series1 mode (or use any of other boot CD that will allow you to boot in swap mode for mounting Series1 partitions) and run nic_config to reinstall your TurboNet or CacheCard drivers. You should remove your initrd as part of the installation process, if you are asked. Alternatively, you can use the killinitrd tool to do this. after you've done this, go head and reboot with the free LBA48 4.04 CD (earlier versions will NOT work) and run copykern; choose the 3.10+ kernel and it will update it on your TiVo drive; reinstall and you are done

2) if you aren't using a TurboNet or CacheCard, you should still run killinitrd followed by a copykern in LBA48 mode

3) if you've already reinstalled your TurboNet or CacheCard drivers, ie you can telnet and ftp to your unit, you can download the 3.1.0+ kernel (or copy it from the LBA48 4.04 CD); it is compressed, so ftp it to your TiVo, and use gzip to uncompress it. either use bootpage to determine your active partition (your kernel partition is your user partition - 1), or just use dd to copy the new kernel to /dev/hda3 and /dev/hda6.I'n not having any luck with anything here.

Background: DSR6000 with 200GB drive and the previous 3.1 LBA48 kernel installed with Copykern. After 3.5 update, instability and finally a reboot loop.

I followed the above directions. I can't mount the inactive partition for one thing, so I guess my hacks will indeed have to be re-installed from the PC. When I run silicondust/nic_install cachecard, it runs through setup for the script then can't run the script saying permission is denied.

I figured it must be backwards, that I should run Copykern first. This didn't work either.

What next?

Copying files...
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/lib/modules: Input/output error
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/lib/modules: Input/output error
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/lib/modules: Input/output error
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/lib: Input/output error
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/sbin: Permission denied
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/sbin: Permission denied
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/sbin: Permission denied
rm: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/sbin/tivoftpd: Not a directory
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/sbin: Permission denied
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/bin: Permission denied
Complete

Verifing route executable...
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/sbin/route: Not a directory
Route executable not found - replaced
Complete

Updating script...

Error - unable to update script.

/#

[danmcd]

Hello from the newbie.

Many of us are folks who just bought larger drives from places like PTVupgrade, and have been LBA48'ed to the Stone Age. From what I'm reading, a mere "killintrd" plus "copykern" will restore my semi-bricked drive to fully working.

What's not at all clear is:

* Will old programs that caused panics start playing again?

* Will programs recorded *AFTER* the upgrade (some are corrupt, some are not) start playing again?

* If I recorded programs after the upgrade, will that corrupt MFS enough where I need to wipe the disk clean?

Thanks, and redirects are welcome.

[Francesco]

Any ideas at all? Why would it not let me install the drivers?

[p1ng]

Just noticed this 3.5 upgrade today. DSR6000 with a PTV upgraded HD and Cache
Card... Tivo can't phone home, as the Cache card's network connection is not working.
I think I am OK without LBA support. The directions posted
Originally Posted by tivoupgrade
1) if your network drivers have been blown away, and you haven't reinstalled them yet, now is an opportune time; pull your drive, boot upgrade CD with the Universal Boot CD in Series1 mode...
leave me with a few questions...
Will these directions and the cache card driver work with 3.5?
I'd like to get back to a hacked environment, but right now the main thing
is getting Tivo to call home - and that means getting the network working.

Uh, any way to do this without prying the box from my wife's grip for
an extended period of time?

Cheers, Rich

[jsharper]

Copying files...
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/lib/modules: Input/output error
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/lib/modules: Input/output error
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/lib/modules: Input/output error
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/lib: Input/output error



While the i/o errors could be caused by a few different things (cabling not fully seated?), it is most likely either an error reading from the CD or an error writing to the harddrive...



cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/sbin: Permission denied
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/sbin: Permission denied
cp: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/sbin: Permission denied
rm: /mnt/tivoinstall/root/sbin/tivoftpd: Not a directory


But that would lead to believe it's the harddrive, and not the CD....

The next thing I'd do is make sure the IDE cables are fully seated between that HDD and the PC motherboard and then run the drive manufacturer's disk scan testing utility and see if you have a bad harddrive. Remember that the part of the drive that holds the current root filesystem that is causing the i/o errors hasn't been used since before your last upgrade. So it could have gone bad a while ago and you wouldn't have noticed until the upgrade hit.

[Francesco]

That's possible, except that (I mentioned in another post) that it's a new two month old drive, and was upgraded from a fresh image at that time. It's entirely possible that the drive got fried -- not worried about the five-year warranty coverage, but was hoping the hundred or so hours of shows we hadn't watched or archived would still be available. I'll have to dig up the Seagate utils disk somewhere.

[captmorgan]

I got my T60 up and running after the upgrade by pulling the drive, reinstalling the CacheCard drivers from the iso @ silicondust, and restoring a backup of rc.sysinit.author and my .profile.

One problem I have noticed since the upgrade seems to be associated with MS_FTP. I've been using MS_FTP v1.2.9p for a long time to transfer shows between a series 1 SA (Sony SVR 2000) and a series 1 DTivo (Sony T60). Things worked great until the recent 3.5 software update on the T60. Now, any recording transfered to the DTivo from the SA plays back with breaks in the audio.

Is anyone else doing the same type of transfer from SA to DTivo and experiencing the same problem?

[Francesco]

Is it possible these directories/files are on parts of the disk that are inaccessible by the "Series1" version of the UBCD or any of the Cachecard boot CDs? Could they have been written to sectors beyond the 137 GB limit originally? How can I use a LBA48 kernelled boot CD to install the Cachecard drivers? UBCD 11 won't let me, and I get similar errors on the Silicondust 021805 drivers boot CD.

[lew]

Todd Miller's instructions for using a LBA48 kernel said:

Note that using an LBA48 kernel on your TiVo means that you will have issues when a new version of the TiVo software comes out since the kernel shipped with the new software will not be able to see the entire disk which may cause serious corruption of the media filesystem the TiVo uses to store programs (I don't have a spare large disk to try and see what will actually happen in this case).

Anyone with problems should NOT be complaining to DTV or tivo but might complain to whoever furnished an upgrade script/image or ISO that didn't block software upgrades.

I've never used Instant Cake. Some people posted that not only doesn't Instant Cake block upgrades but it defaults to making phone calls via the internet. I certainly hope those posters are mistaken.

[Francesco]

OK, tried the reseating suggestions to no avail. I got Copykern to apply the 3.1+ kernel by running mountcd (duh!). I tried to install the drivers again with no luck. Decided to try the drive in the TiVo anyway to at least finish watching shows and -- gasp! -- dumping to VHS. Nope, still in a reboot loop. So either the drive is fried or MFS is frelled up.

I ran Seatools quick tests and they passed 100%. Now running a full scan (takes a long time), but I suspect the drive is fine and the original reboot loops screwed up the file system somehow.

Looks like I'm going to have to install a backup 3.1 image, apply Copykern, expand without running TiVo, wait for the 3.5 update and run Copykern again. Unless someone already has a clean 3.5 image available (I'd be afraid to even try backing mine up).

[Francesco]

lew, I'm not sure where you're going with that.

I knew very well what my TiVos do and don't do. I had not been afraid of upgrades in the past; an upgrade meant a reload of Cachecard drivers and copying hacks over from the now-inactive partition to the now-active one. It was no big deal.

There may be other reasons for folks to block calls and whatnot, but I've never had an issue before now. I won't be blocking calls in the future either.

[lew]

lew, I'm not sure where you're going with that.

I knew very well what my TiVos do and don't do. I had not been afraid of upgrades in the past; an upgrade meant a reload of Cachecard drivers and copying hacks over from the now-inactive partition to the now-active one. It was no big deal.

There may be other reasons for folks to block calls and whatnot, but I've never had an issue before now. I won't be blocking calls in the future either.

In a previous post you said:

OK, tried the reseating suggestions to no avail. I got Copykern to apply the 3.1+ kernel by running mountcd (duh!). I tried to install the drivers again with no luck. Decided to try the drive in the TiVo anyway to at least finish watching shows and -- gasp! -- dumping to VHS. Nope, still in a reboot loop. So either the drive is fried or MFS is frelled up.

I don't think we'll be getting many more upgrades but given your current experience I'd think you'd follow the reccomendation of the author of the kernel hack and block future upgrades.

The choice is yours.

[Francesco]

No, I'm not saying this isn't a PITA, and your opinion is valid. But two points: I seem to have an issue unrelated to the actual kernel upgrade/downgrade, and also, nobody expected further updates to the Series 1 DTiVos. What I don't see is how it's a grave error that some choose to have phone lines or internet hookups.

[whiteviperx]

I have been watching this thread for a few days now. My hard drive crashed a few weeks ago and within a few hours of being back up and running the tivo called out and has been stuck in the reboot like everybody else.

I don't have a valid backup anymore, seemed to have miss placed it.

I used Copykern to apply the 3.1+ kernel. And ran the lastest CD from Silicondust. However I have still not been able to get the tivo to stop the endless boot cycle. I can't seem to stay connected to the tivo via telnet long enough to do anything.

Has a DIY cd been released that I have missed in the past couple of days?

Has work around been established that keeps your current shows intact?

And an off the wall question.... Anybody have experience with 1GB 128x72 SDRAM working or not working in the cachecard?

Drive A is a 40GB
Drive B is a 120GB
Total 172 hours
Using a cachecard v2.2 with network interface

SAT-T60 Tivo Service No.: 011-0000-502B-CAC1

[Blackfoot]

I have been watching this thread for a few days now. My hard drive crashed a few weeks ago and within a few hours of being back up and running the tivo called out and has been stuck in the reboot like everybody else.

I don't have a valid backup anymore, seemed to have miss placed it.

I used Copykern to apply the 3.1+ kernel. And ran the lastest CD from Silicondust. However I have still not been able to get the tivo to stop the endless boot cycle. I can't seem to stay connected to the tivo via telnet long enough to do anything.

Has a DIY cd been released that I have missed in the past couple of days?

Has work around been established that keeps your current shows intact?

And an off the wall question.... Anybody have experience with 1GB 128x72 SDRAM working or not working in the cachecard?

Drive A is a 40GB
Drive B is a 120GB
Total 172 hours
Using a cachecard v2.2 with network interface

SAT-T60 Tivo Service No.: 011-0000-502B-CAC1
Your drives are both smaller than 137 Gb so you do not need to run a LBA48 kernel. Sounds like you have a problem somewhere else. Did you by chance change your tivoapp and possibly put the wrong offset codes in?

[sbl]

I have a SAT-T60 that I had just finishted setting up with a 250GB drive (using copykern for LBA48 support) when it took the upgrade to 3.5. Otherwise it had a stock 3.1 image prior to the upgrade. I didn't experience the reboots and can't be sure about the 'now playing' problems some have experienced (since no content was recorded yet), but I figured I should install the 3.1.0+ kernel to try to head off any problems.

I read the thread that mentioned killinitrd should be run too. I have an enhanced LBA48 v4.04 iso (burned to cd) from PTVupgrade which I thought had the killinitrd script, but all I found was killhdinitrd. Sorry for the newbie question, but are killinitrd and killhdinitrd the same and how is it applied?

[Francesco]

You need to run it off one of the non-LBA48 boots.

[whiteviperx]

Originally Posted by Blackfoot
Your drives are both smaller than 137 Gb so you do not need to run a LBA48 kernel. Sounds like you have a problem somewhere else. Did you by chance change your tivoapp and possibly put the wrong offset codes in?

I miss understood what was going on. I have loaded the wrong kernel. How can I load the correct kernel and continue troubleshooting my problem?

[whiteviperx]

OK so now after reading for a little longer.. I find that the that kernel is ok, it just adds support for the larger drives. So now I am still confused as to why I am stuck in a reboot loop. If somebody tells me that it is not related to the 3.5 update. I will continue my questions in another thread. For now the timing seems to make me think that it is the cause.

[tivoupgrade]

OK, for those who have been following... we've already integrated Todd's new kernel into our LBA48 boot CD and released that. recently, we've begun 'recertifying' customer drives as per a mailing we sent a few days ago. in addition, we've revamped our DIY tools with update software and lba48 kernel support.

As I can see from some of the posts here, there's a degree of 'randomness' when it comes to recovering using the updated LBA48 tools and based upon my own experience, my guess is that it is directly related to how long a > 137GB system remains in use after the 3.5 software is installed.

IE. We've done recertifications on a few systems that were shut off and sent to us immediately following the upgrade to 3.5 - in those cases, restoration of the kernel, and reinstallation of the networking hacks worked just fine. In a few other cases, we were unable to fully boot the unit after attempting to install the updated kernel and basic networking drivers.

The only recommendation I have is to those who HAVEN'T received the update yet -- if you plan on allowing the update to occur, be prepared, or FORCE the upgrade when you are ready (see earlier posts in this thread for how to verify the slices are present and force the installation). Then use the aforementioned tools to update the kernel and reinstall the drivers.

[dbrem26]

Since I can't do without the TV and I can't even access the tivo screens without the unit locking up, my SAT-T60 instantcaked 160gb unit has been running (and recording) since the update. Live TV isn't a problem, but if I hit menu or the tivo button, I get the initial tivo screen overlaid on the live tv image and it locks up (can't make the tivo screen advance or disappear and can't shut it off. I have to unplug the unit and power up again. As such, I am assuming, based on the last post, that the kernel update won't save the old existing data and I'll have to start from scratch. I'm OK with that at this stage. I'm even willing to spend the $20 and make it easy on myself by buying a new instantcake ISO. My question is...
Does the current version of the instantcake software have the updated/experimental kernel or are we still waiting for that?

Thanks.

[schampio]

OK, for those who have been following... we've already integrated Todd's new kernel into our LBA48 boot CD and released that.
I had some problems getting S1 DTivo's to mount any partitions with your previous LBA48 v4.0 and v4.0.1 releases and had to rely on the Silicon Dust network driver disk to be able to mount them (and juggling all the LBA48 files onto the PC's local hard disk). Yes, they were large disks over the 137gb boundary but the existing partitions had been allocated under it. The mfsdump/restore pipe I used to move all my shows had no problems getting at the new and old partitions but hand mounts to twiddle a script just wouldn't work. I had NO problems mounting any of my S2 HDVR2's partitions I hacked with the LBA48 v4.0 and v4.01 boot disk. I'm hopeful that the new v4.0.4 I just bought will work on both S1 and S2 platforms. Am I missing a special boot option or mount option on the S1 LBA48 boot disk commands? I've just been using the default no parameter boot.
Finally, the full show copy mfsdump/restore runs about 30 hours and I'd seen some references in another thread somewhere about enabling DMA transfers to bring that number way down. Does your LBA48 4.0.4 disk support that (and what was the magic to enable DMA transfer with your disk)?
Thanks

[Blackfoot]

I had some problems getting S1 DTivo's to mount any partitions with your previous LBA48 v4.0 and v4.0.1 releases and had to rely on the Silicon Dust network driver disk to be able to mount them (and juggling all the LBA48 files onto the PC's local hard disk). Yes, they were large disks over the 137gb boundary but the existing partitions had been allocated under it. The mfsdump/restore pipe I used to move all my shows had no problems getting at the new and old partitions but hand mounts to twiddle a script just wouldn't work. I had NO problems mounting any of my S2 HDVR2's partitions I hacked with the LBA48 v4.0 and v4.01 boot disk. I'm hopeful that the new v4.0.4 I just bought will work on both S1 and S2 platforms. Am I missing a special boot option or mount option on the S1 LBA48 boot disk commands? I've just been using the default no parameter boot.
Finally, the full show copy mfsdump/restore runs about 30 hours and I'd seen some references in another thread somewhere about enabling DMA transfers to bring that number way down. Does your LBA48 4.0.4 disk support that (and what was the magic to enable DMA transfer with your disk)?
Thanks
I could be wrong here, but I believe for your S1 unit you need type swap and press enter at the boot prompt.

[finer]

I am the newest of newbies. I had PTV ugrade add PTV upgrade to my Sony SAT60 series one an recently I guess because of the new software i can no longer access the tivo via my pc/home network what should I do?

[tivoupgrade]

I could be wrong here, but I believe for your S1 unit you need type swap and press enter at the boot prompt.

That is correct; actually, I'm not sure if you can mount the Series1 partitions at all with the free LBA48 CD, hence the recommendation to use an older free mfstools CD (such as the tiger ISO) in 'swap' or a UBCD in Series1 mode. Also, the Silicon Dust driver CD will work fine, as well.

[tivoupgrade]

I had some problems getting S1 DTivo's to mount any partitions with your previous LBA48 v4.0 and v4.0.1 releases and had to rely on the Silicon Dust network driver disk to be able to mount them (and juggling all the LBA48 files onto the PC's local hard disk). Yes, they were large disks over the 137gb boundary but the existing partitions had been allocated under it. The mfsdump/restore pipe I used to move all my shows had no problems getting at the new and old partitions but hand mounts to twiddle a script just wouldn't work. I had NO problems mounting any of my S2 HDVR2's partitions I hacked with the LBA48 v4.0 and v4.01 boot disk. I'm hopeful that the new v4.0.4 I just bought will work on both S1 and S2 platforms. Am I missing a special boot option or mount option on the S1 LBA48 boot disk commands? I've just been using the default no parameter boot.
Finally, the full show copy mfsdump/restore runs about 30 hours and I'd seen some references in another thread somewhere about enabling DMA transfers to bring that number way down. Does your LBA48 4.0.4 disk support that (and what was the magic to enable DMA transfer with your disk)?
Thanks

I wish I could answer your question; I build those kernels for the LBA48 CD a LONG time ago and remember struggling with issues such as DMA and SWAP and ended up in a less than perfect situation. Its been a LONG time since we've revisited the Series1 units and it was never our intention for the LBA48 CD's to be used for anything other than doing mfsrestores (as opposed to mounting Series1 partitions for software installations); this was the impetus behind creating the Universal Boot CD (or just going the free route and doing a CD swap whenever necessary...)

[tivoupgrade]

I am the newest of newbies. I had PTV ugrade add PTV upgrade to my Sony SAT60 series one an recently I guess because of the new software i can no longer access the tivo via my pc/home network what should I do?

You can always have us take care of it for you. But if you are going the DIY route, please go back to the first post of this thread and follow the recommendations there.

[tivoupgrade]

Since I can't do without the TV and I can't even access the tivo screens without the unit locking up, my SAT-T60 instantcaked 160gb unit has been running (and recording) since the update. Live TV isn't a problem, but if I hit menu or the tivo button, I get the initial tivo screen overlaid on the live tv image and it locks up (can't make the tivo screen advance or disappear and can't shut it off. I have to unplug the unit and power up again. As such, I am assuming, based on the last post, that the kernel update won't save the old existing data and I'll have to start from scratch. I'm OK with that at this stage. I'm even willing to spend the $20 and make it easy on myself by buying a new instantcake ISO. My question is...
Does the current version of the instantcake software have the updated/experimental kernel or are we still waiting for that?

Thanks.

Since your unit has been in operation for some time since the upgrade, you may very well be right. However, there is no harm in grabbing the free LBA48 CD and attempting to use copykern to update your kernel. If your unit still boots up afterwards you'll be able to verify very quickly whether all is well. Do that first, and save yourself $20.

Yes, the new InstantCake has been updated with 3.5. We have decided NOT to prevent upgrades to the software which means if there are any more updates, you'll face this issue again (unless DirecTV, in their infinite wisdom, use a more current kernel).

If you choose to go the networking route, we are now including some extra scripts to give you a chance to suppress the installation of updates; it requires manual intervention, and a telnet prompt. That is a bit off-topic for this thread, however...

[adamcap]

I haven't seen this question answered yet on all the forums I read, so here goes - Can you still use the kernel module that unscrambles the recordings and live TV so you can use TyTools to pull the shows off to DVD like I've done for the last 2 years? I'll be real depressed if the answer is no since my Tivo updated before I had a chance to stop it. I had no idea it was coming, and now my shows for the last week are scrambled, so I have to watch them on the TV with my Tivo vs the TV I normally watch them on DVD from :(


Should this tivoapp patch work with the new 3.5 software and TyTool10r4 to allow shows to be recorded unscrambled? I haven’t been able to get it to work? I have a Sat T60 with an 80gb drive

mount -o remount,rw /
cp /tvbin/tivoapp /tvbin/tivoapp.orig
cd /tvbin
mv tivoapp tivoapp.tmp
cp tivoapp.tmp tivoapp
chmod 755 tivoapp
echo -ne "\x48\x00\x00\x38" | dd conv=notrunc of=tivoapp bs=1 seek=4678532
reboot

Someone mentioned a “new” tivoapp patch but I haven’t been able to find it…? Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

AC

[Blackfoot]

Your offset code is wrong. (seek=xxxxxxx) The 3.1.0c2 codes will not work on 3.5. I don't know if it will hurt when you put them in or not. I did a few weeks back and it did nothing. You can find the new values over on the "other" forums. DDB. Plus this forum should not be used to discuss this topic.

This will help. http://www.<*D*D*B*>.com/forum/showpost.php?p=256645&postcount=109

Should this tivoapp patch work with the new 3.5 software and TyTool10r4 to allow shows to be recorded unscrambled? I haven’t been able to get it to work? I have a Sat T60 with an 80gb drive

mount -o remount,rw /
cp /tvbin/tivoapp /tvbin/tivoapp.orig
cd /tvbin
mv tivoapp tivoapp.tmp
cp tivoapp.tmp tivoapp
chmod 755 tivoapp
echo -ne "\x48\x00\x00\x38" | dd conv=notrunc of=tivoapp bs=1 seek=4678532
reboot

Someone mentioned a “new” tivoapp patch but I haven’t been able to find it…? Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

AC

[Blackfoot]

That is correct; actually, I'm not sure if you can mount the Series1 partitions at all with the free LBA48 CD, hence the recommendation to use an older free mfstools CD (such as the tiger ISO) in 'swap' or a UBCD in Series1 mode. Also, the Silicon Dust driver CD will work fine, as well.
Is there a way to verify if the new kernel was applied or not? I ran copykern at the prompt and went through all the questions. When it got to the point to upgrade the kernel, it said that the /cdrom/s1_.../etc directory/folder was not found or does not exist. It also gave an error when the kernel was trying to be put in. I don't remember exactly, but it had a hex code referenced with it. Needless to say I do not think it worked.

If I were to boot off of the Silicon dust CD, would I just swap out the CD and then run copykern? Sorry for what would seem to be a stupid question, but in the past, I haven't been able to just swap out CD's. The drive would not eject the CD.

[john_o]

Is there a way to verify if the new kernel was applied or not? I ran copykern at the prompt and went through all the questions. When it got to the point to upgrade the kernel, it said that the /cdrom/s1_.../etc directory/folder was not found or does not exist. It also gave an error when the kernel was trying to be put in. I don't remember exactly, but it had a hex code referenced with it. Needless to say I do not think it worked.

I had the same problem -- you have to type mountcd first. Not that there is any error checking in copykern... It blindly goes ahead and claims success even if it has nothing to read from or write to.

Is there a similar trick to get the TiVo HD partitions to mount? I thought the drive was at hdc, but since I am still having replay-reboot issues, I suspect the copykern didn't actually copy the kernel over... (I get a bunch of "need to specify file type" issues when I try mounting the partitions as I do when I boot off of Steve Jenkin's floppy.)

Since I have network once again, can I just slide the 3.1.0+ kernel over via FTP? Where does it live?

[cosmictrucker]

After receiving the update a few weeks ago and having issues with it on a 250gig HD, I reinstalled my old version of InstantCake on a fresh 250gig drive and removed the phone line to prevent further updates. I've now learned that the updates are downloaded via the Sat, and my unit was updated even tho the unit was disconnected from the phone line and never connected via Lan Network.

My Sony now refuses to boot and only displays a message stated "unable to boot kernel", or something to that effect.

Is it true the new InstantCake version deals with this new DTV update issue and it's safe to purchase and install on HD > 120gig??? :confused:

[cosmictrucker]

Here is an update:

I pulled an old 120 gig drive off the self and installed my old/current version of InstantCake on it. All went well with the install. Within 24 hrs, the unit had updated it's self to the new software version 3.5! So far, so good. I see some improvement in the speed of the menu displays, but other than that, nothing really noticeable.

My Sony T60 is still calling out to some mothership on two different "800" numbers as well as the local number I selected. All calls appear to complete OK. 800-531-5602 and 866-709-2073. Does anyone know why my unit is making these 800 calls?

Thanks for the help

[tivoupgrade]

After receiving the update a few weeks ago and having issues with it on a 250gig HD, I reinstalled my old version of InstantCake on a fresh 250gig drive and removed the phone line to prevent further updates. I've now learned that the updates are downloaded via the Sat, and my unit was updated even tho the unit was disconnected from the phone line and never connected via Lan Network.

My Sony now refuses to boot and only displays a message stated "unable to boot kernel", or something to that effect.

Is it true the new InstantCake version deals with this new DTV update issue and it's safe to purchase and install on HD > 120gig??? :confused:

Yes, InstantCake has been updated with the "3.1.0+" kernel provided by Todd Miller (and CopyKern has been updated, as well); so its safe to install on > 137GB drives...

[Francesco]

Any possibility those of us who purchased UBCD 11b within the last few months will get an courtesy upgrade to UBCD 11c?

[imagegeek2]

Hi,

Newbee here -

What is UBCD and does its version 11c survive an update from this nasty download?

I was running an instantcaked SatT60 with a Cachecard + network interface... And am now hosed.

Thanks,
Dan

[tivoupgrade]

Any possibility those of us who purchased UBCD 11b within the last few months will get an courtesy upgrade to UBCD 11c?

No, but the only differences are available for free in the updated LBA48 CD!

[tivoupgrade]

Hi,

Newbee here -

What is UBCD and does its version 11c survive an update from this nasty download?

I was running an instantcaked SatT60 with a Cachecard + network interface... And am now hosed.

Thanks,
Dan

The UBCD is not really a "newbie" tool, but it does contain everything you need to do a full DIY upgrade of your TiVo, as long as your are following any of the popular guides.

As for your current configuration and the results of the 3.5 upgrade - head up to the first post of this thread for information and links to tools which can be used to remedy the situation.

No reason why you can't reuse your existing InstantCake CD, allow your unit to upgrade and then reinstall the network drivers and LBA48 kernel using the free CD's referenced in this thread.

[imagegeek2]

Cool. Thanks!

I'm not really a newbee user - I've been using/programming Linux since '93. And Sun/HP *nixes since '85. Dec VAX/VMS/, PDP11/RSX etc before that so I do grok the kernel thingy.

[maerativo]

I hacked/upgraded my Sony SAT-T60 a year ago with a Seagate 300 GB drive using InstantCake. I came back from vacation to find my DVR acting out strange behavior. :confused: I hit the underground to find out that a new software upgrade had happened while I was away. :( One morning about a week ago I awoke to the DVR in a power-up loop that included a third screen in GREEN that stated "A serious error had occured" Do not unplug or turn off the unit for 3 hours. The DVR never recovered. I pulled the 300 GB HDD out and re-installed my copy of InstantCake from a year ago. Re-installed the HDD into the DVR and power it up. The DVR booted and had all my channels, of course I lost all my recordings. During the first night the DVR downloaded the new v3.5 software from DTV and installed it. I checked the DVR and the System Information showed that the v3.5 software was indeed active and that I had 284 hours of recording available.
:) Is this possible? Does the 3.5 version recognize the larger drive? :confused:
I've had no problems with the DVR, of couse I don't have a lot of hours of recording yet!
Will I have to pull the HDD and upgrade the kernel with the new LBA48 support from InstantCake? :confused:

[tivoupgrade]

I hacked/upgraded my Sony SAT-T60 a year ago with a Seagate 300 GB drive using InstantCake. I came back from vacation to find my DVR acting out strange behavior. :confused: I hit the underground to find out that a new software upgrade had happened while I was away. :( One morning about a week ago I awoke to the DVR in a power-up loop that included a third screen in GREEN that stated "A serious error had occured" Do not unplug or turn off the unit for 3 hours. The DVR never recovered. I pulled the 300 GB HDD out and re-installed my copy of InstantCake from a year ago. Re-installed the HDD into the DVR and power it up. The DVR booted and had all my channels, of course I lost all my recordings. During the first night the DVR downloaded the new v3.5 software from DTV and installed it. I checked the DVR and the System Information showed that the v3.5 software was indeed active and that I had 284 hours of recording available.
:) Is this possible? Does the 3.5 version recognize the larger drive? :confused:
I've had no problems with the DVR, of couse I don't have a lot of hours of recording yet!
Will I have to pull the HDD and upgrade the kernel with the new LBA48 support from InstantCake? :confused:

Take a look at the first post in this thread. You may be able to just pull your drive, and update the kernel, do a killinitrd and go about your business. It may also appear to work fine, but require a "clear and delete everything" if some of the programming got corrupt. Alternatively, you could reinstall InstantCake, let your unit reupdate to 3.5, then attempt the aforementioned process right away. And lastly, if that doesn't work, or if its too much of a pain, you could use the updated version of InstantCake as a last resort.

[maerativo]

Well as luck would have it, I started having problems with my SAT-60. I was watching a recorded show when all of a sudden it rebooted, going through the power up routine. So I'm not going to mess around with this pain in the you-know-what. Time to go to the next upgrade from PTV. You can spend gobs of hours playing with this, its just not worth the time versus the money to correct the problem!

[turbodog]

My DTiVo has successfully upgraded to v3.5, but I'm no longer able to access the box via Airnet. I reset the Airnet settings to what they should be (using the instructions at steveconrad-co-uk-tivo-airnet.html), but I can't ping the TiVo.

Prior to the v3.5 update it worked fine. I also tried DHCP and different IP addresses, but neither of those worked. Also, the wifi card worked A-OK in a laptop on my wireless net.

At this point I've tried everything I could think of. Any suggestions on what to try next?

[maerativo]

Question? When upgrading the kernel with the PTV UBCD-11 which kernel is the right one to install on a SAT-60? It lists options of a 3.1.0 and a 3.1.0+ what is the difference between the two kernels?

[danmcd]

Question? When upgrading the kernel with the PTV UBCD-11 which kernel is the right one to install on a SAT-60? It lists options of a 3.1.0 and a 3.1.0+ what is the difference between the two kernels?

Assuming you've been bitten by the 3.5.0 software upgrade, put 3.1.0+ on. It's 3.1.0 + enough hacks to make it work with the rest of the 3.5.0 upgrade that isn't kernel per se.

I saw in another thread that TiVo finally published the relevant 3.5.0 kernel sources per the GPL. I wonder if we need to zap our boxes again?

[maerativo]

I'm in the process of completely re-formating my Seagate 300 GB HDD from the first encounter with V3.5 upgrade. I started having problems with newly recorded programs yesterday. I tried installing the new kernel 3.1.0+ on the upgraded software but the DVR crashed. I rebooted it and it started hanging up on TiVo button activation, just sitting there doing nothing. Soooo, I'm starting over. Question: Do I have to use the "killinitrd" command when installing the PTV UBCD-11 upgrade on a SAT-60 with no networking?

[maerativo]

:) I've finally succeeded in getting my SAT-60 up and running with v3.5 and a 300GB HDD. I had to start completely over with an old copy of PTV upgrade for v3.1.0 and wait for my SAT-60 to download and install the v3.5 software. Pulled the HDD before it had recorded anything new (I lost all my old recordings when I reformatted my HDD) and installed the new kernel 3.1.0+ using PTV's downloaded ISO ($19.95) and reinstalled the HDD into my SAT-60 two days ago. It's working perfectly and recording/playing back like its old self. Thanks for all the help and advice. It's much appreciated! :)

[master cylinder]

Ok, got bit by the 3.5 on the sat t-60 with 160gb drive :eek: .

I thought I would start with a clean system so I bought the NEW cake, started the Jenkins hacks ( yeah, I like instructions - I can read, and follow directions, sometimes ), got as far as installing telnet and then powering up the box when I got the Green Screen Of DEATH!!!! :eek: :eek: OMG !!!

What is going on? The receiver is going to heal itself ? Cmon I've been in the IT industry for 20 years and have never found one of these self repair things to EVER work.


Any clues out there? Yeah, I don't know this linus stuff that well.

Thanks for reading the rant - I feel better now. :D

[master cylinder]

update 2 hours later:

It finally came back to life, " IT'S ALIVE!! ITS ALIVE!! but wait........ :confused:

Now the doggone thing is rebooting every 30 minutes !

Damn, I hate being right all the time. :mad:

[jsharper]

Have you scanned the drive in a PC with the drive manufacturer's testing app to see if it has some bad spots?

[PyroMan]

updated 5/12/06
...snip...
Note that TiVo has not yet released the source code modifications for 3.5 on their site, but it is expected that they will do so shortly. Once that happens, work can begin on creation of a newly modified kernel with LBA48 support. We will release a utility (at no charge) to the community, to aid in installation of the new kernel.

update: 5/10/2006 - 5:02CDT

Thanks to Todd Miller, we have an EXPERIMENTAL kernel that appears to be working for us in the lab. It is a recompiled version of the 3.1 kernel (the new config file is included in the tarred and gzipped contents along with the kernel).

You can download it from here, use tpip to install it and post your experiences to this thread. If you are unfamiliar with the kernel updating techniques and wish to not learn the details of updating your kernel and using tpip, then please be patient, we will update CopyKern and our free CD soon.

3.1+ Experimental Kernel (www.ptvupgrade.com/downloads/kernel-3.1+.tar.gz)

update: 5/12/2006 - 7:31CDT

New Release of the LBA48 CD (ver 4.04) includes a revised copykern and a recompiled kernel (labeled 3.10+) in the s1_kernels directory. We have done preliminary testing with this kernel in conjunction with version 3.5 of the Series1 DirecTV TiVo release and early tests are encouraging. If you have built LBA48 drives which are spuriously rebooting, or contain content that is not accessible through the "Now Playing" list, we encourage you to use copykern to transplant this newly updated kernel. Also note that you will need to use killinitrd to zap the new initrd (or use nic_config in the silicondust network driver release to achieve the same result).
...snip...

TiVo has posted the latest source, but apparently not on all of their web servers. Depending on which IP address your DNS resolves to you either see it or you don't. I have uploaded the source to my website and you can download it from there.

Tivo-3.5-cmd.tar.gz (http://web.tampabay.rr.com/pyroman/TiVo/Tivo-3.5-cmd.tar.gz)
372448D947299EEDDF2442F07F30A610 MD5
8EB164315748D40A223EF829A5A1C9C44501097A SHA1
7E842E2C CRC-32
TiVo-3.5-linux-2.1.tar.gz (http://web.tampabay.rr.com/pyroman/TiVo/TiVo-3.5-linux-2.1.tar.gz)
93614277E35A2A8147D17AE28CCC756E MD5
5B3C04AA111F47FF5B4AAD6018E49A1E217249FB SHA1
AEE98094 CRC-32

Hopefully this will help to release an official hack. :D

[maerativo]

update 2 hours later:

It finally came back to life, " IT'S ALIVE!! ITS ALIVE!! but wait........ :confused:

Now the doggone thing is rebooting every 30 minutes !

Damn, I hate being right all the time. :mad:

Have you resolved your problem with your SAT-60? I found the only way to stop having problems with the unit was to format my SAT-60 HDD on my computer, install the PTV instant cake for v3.1 and reinstall the HDD into my SAT-60 to let the unit download the upgrade v3.5 software and install it at 2 AM. Before it had a chance to record anything I pulled the HDD and installed the 3.1.0+ kernel using the downloaded ISO from PTV ($19.95). Put it back into the SAT-60 and have not had any problems. :D Of course you loose all your recordings and season passes.

[john_o]

tivoupgrade-

Do you have any plans on encouraging a 3.5 build with LBA48 support? I notice that you are still selling > 120GB upgrades for the Series 1 DirecTiVo boxes.

In the meantime I am still dealing with reboots when entering To Do or Pick Programs to Record, (though I can still pick programs to record from within TivoWebPlus...) and video in the background after during the "do you want to delete this recording" prompt.

mfscheck and mfsassert (aka kickstart 57 and 58) didn't help.

At this point I am pretty much resigned to the fact that I am going to have to re-install from scratch, but I'd rather not lose the majority of the HD.

-johnny0

[master cylinder]

Thanks to all for support on the GSOD issue after caking my system with 3.5. I decided to go the other way and put the 3.1 cake back on and apply all the old hacks. I am going to wait a while until the dust settles on the 3.5 before going that route. BTW I did set the noupgrade option up. So far so good with the 3.1.

[Francesco]

Mine's been getting flakier and flakier over the past six weeks. Finally last week the UI kept locking up with a press of the TiVo button, overlaid on live TV. I left it plugged in and took off for the weekend. It now shows the "CANNOT BOOT KERNEL" screen despite repeated reboot attempts.

Luckily it's re-run season, or the wife would kill me. I complete rebuild is in order, it seems. Hopefully it sticks this time.

[newbr]

Is there a way to get recordings that have been messed up, because of the LBA48 issue? For example when playing I get shows jumping around. Is there any way to fix the LBA48 thing by flipping the partition to 3.1?

[dschoner]

maerativo wrote:
Of course you loose all your recordings and season passes.

Same scenario -
SAT-T60 w/2 X 160GB hdd's with about 200 hrs. of programs & passes - got the dreaded automatic upgrade, first indication was the IP access went away - but the Now Playing list was OK. 3 weeks later (?) the unit locks up whenever the TiVo button was pressed - spousal unit lost the season finale of "Lost" while I was on the road - that was NOT a good phone call.

Tried the free LBA48 kernel from PTVupgrade, didn't work, bought the new InstantCake and all works fine now - got over 300 hrs. of empty disk space and no season finale of "Lost" :mad:

Just a month out of my life messing with it....... :down:

BaldGuy

[ptcartman]

Well, I've been watching this thread and pondering on my chances of success (see my earlier posts here), and I've decided that my best bet is to return my 120GB PTVUpgrade HDD and have it recertified. I would rather do that than mess around with the hacks and ruin something. What the heck, it's only money.

My questions:
1) What do I need to do to return the drive for recert?
2) Will it come back running 3.5 AND be NETREADY AND allow my CacheCARD to operate?

Looking forward to putting this behind me.

[tivoupgrade]

Well, I've been watching this thread and pondering on my chances of success (see my earlier posts here), and I've decided that my best bet is to return my 120GB PTVUpgrade HDD and have it recertified. I would rather do that than mess around with the hacks and ruin something. What the heck, it's only money.

My questions:
1) What do I need to do to return the drive for recert?
2) Will it come back running 3.5 AND be NETREADY AND allow my CacheCARD to operate?

Looking forward to putting this behind me.

You've got a couple of different options; if you are under warranty, you can order a warranty recertification; or if you are not, order a regular recertification. Your drive will come with whatever "package" was on it previously. If your drive was a NetReady drive previously, it will come back as NetReady (except running 3.5); if it had TiVoWeb on it, it will have the latest version of TiVoWebPlus.

This also includes the TurboNet/CacheCard drivers.

Take a look at the archived newsletters here (http://www.ptvupgrade.com/subscribe.html) for more details and links to the aforementioned services; or just contact us and we'll look up your order and give you some guidance.

Thx

[tivoupgrade]

TiVo has posted the latest source, but apparently not on all of their web servers. Depending on which IP address your DNS resolves to you either see it or you don't. I have uploaded the source to my website and you can download it from there.

Tivo-3.5-cmd.tar.gz (http://web.tampabay.rr.com/pyroman/TiVo/Tivo-3.5-cmd.tar.gz)
372448D947299EEDDF2442F07F30A610 MD5
8EB164315748D40A223EF829A5A1C9C44501097A SHA1
7E842E2C CRC-32
TiVo-3.5-linux-2.1.tar.gz (http://web.tampabay.rr.com/pyroman/TiVo/TiVo-3.5-linux-2.1.tar.gz)
93614277E35A2A8147D17AE28CCC756E MD5
5B3C04AA111F47FF5B4AAD6018E49A1E217249FB SHA1
AEE98094 CRC-32

Hopefully this will help to release an official hack. :D

Thx for these links. Actually, we've had the latest kernel source for a few weeks now, but we are sort of in, "if it aint broke don't fix it" mode. The reality of the situation is that the kernel source isn't different as far as I can tell, and the only difference was in how it was built between the two software releases. Once the kernel source that was released in 3.1 was configured to be compiled differently, everything has worked fine and we see no reason to actually change it...

So I'd consider the 3.1.0+ release that is part of the LBA48 CD and used by copykern to be official at this point. If there is another upgrade or something ugly happens, we'll revisit the situation....

[ptcartman]

Thanks for the response.

The drive was Netready/TurboNet/CacheCard ready when I bought it, so I can expect to get it back ready to go. The drive will be 1 year old next week, so I believe that's out of warranty, just my luck.

I have submitted a Customer Support query at your site, so I will wait to hear back with instructions.

[tivoupgrade]

Thanks for the response.

The drive was Netready/TurboNet/CacheCard ready when I bought it, so I can expect to get it back ready to go. The drive will be 1 year old next week, so I believe that's out of warranty, just my luck.

I have submitted a Customer Support query at your site, so I will wait to hear back with instructions.

Our warranty is only six-months and although it technically does not cover software modifications, if you read this (http://archives.subscribermail.com/msg/NEWS17D9AC9C.htm) you'll see how we are treating kits that are still "in warranty."

In your case, you just need a standard 'recertification' which is discussed in the aforementioned link, as well.

Thx

[ptcartman]

Thanks, guys. The turn-around on the recertification was almost dizzying. Excellent service.

One problem, though, and I'm sure it's just something I'm forgetting.

The unit seems to be net-aware: I can FTP and it is making it's daily call via the net. However, telnet is not active and I can't tivoweb.

Do I need to download and install NETREADY again? I was afraid to try that for fear that it wouldn't be a compatible version with the newly installed software.
....................
Update: After copying .NETREADY to /var and restarting it appears that telnet is active, but for only a short period. I use Look@LAN to locate and monitor the IP. FTP remains active but telnet stops as soon as the unit finishes booting.

[Sbmocp]

Thx for these links. Actually, we've had the latest kernel source for a few weeks now, but we are sort of in, "if it aint broke don't fix it" mode. The reality of the situation is that the kernel source isn't different as far as I can tell, and the only difference was in how it was built between the two software releases. Once the kernel source that was released in 3.1 was configured to be compiled differently, everything has worked fine and we see no reason to actually change it...

So I'd consider the 3.1.0+ release that is part of the LBA48 CD and used by copykern to be official at this point. If there is another upgrade or something ugly happens, we'll revisit the situation....

I'm sorry to hear this, as I've been waiting for the "official" changes to upgrade my unit. I'd rather know that my unit is running the latest, officially-released software, and not something hacked to work. Not that there's anything wrong with that...as the saying goes. I just don't want to do the work, then redo it in a month when a 'gotcha' comes along. In the past that's always been my luck. :(

[sbl]

I have a couple questions related to two V3.5 upgrade methods I've used to install large drives in SAT-T60 units...

In one case I used the instant cake software from PTV and the upgrade yielded 235hrs w/ a 250GB drive. I another case I let a factory 40GB drive take the 3.5 upgrade during normal operation, then I removed the drive, backed up an image of it, applied the saved image to a 250GB drive, used copykern to apply the updated large drive support kernel, then installed the upgraded drive in the unit. In the later case the upgrade yielded ~221hrs. Why the difference? In the past, the factory s/w version 3.1 w/ large drive support would yield 235hr w/ a 250GB.

The other question is related to what happens during initial boot up of a instant cake upgraded unit. I set up a T60 for a friend using the instant cake image. I didn't have his subscribed access card with the unit when I did the upgrade so I booted it with another card as a surrogate. Later, when he received the unit back he had to have DTV do some kind of reset to re-marry his card, then the unit reported a serious error. It did recover on it's own, but I'm wondering if this is because I had another card installed during the initial boot up process and the unit somehow married to it . Would this have happened if I left the surrogate card out during initial boot up, then installed it after the unit was fully booted (so I could finish checking out the unit)?

[sbl]

I have a couple questions related to two V3.5 upgrade methods I've used to install large drives in SAT-T60 units...

In one case I used the instant cake software from PTV and the upgrade yielded 235hrs w/ a 250GB drive. I another case I let a factory 40GB drive take the 3.5 upgrade during normal operation, then I removed the drive, backed up an image of it, applied the saved image to a 250GB drive, used copykern to apply the updated large drive support kernel, then installed the upgraded drive in the unit. In the later case the upgrade yielded ~221hrs. Why the difference? In the past, the factory s/w version 3.1 w/ large drive support would yield 235hr w/ a 250GB.

The other question is related to what happens during initial boot up of a instant cake upgraded unit. I set up a T60 for a friend using the instant cake image. I didn't have his subscribed access card with the unit when I did the upgrade so I booted it with another card as a surrogate. Later, when he received the unit back he had to have DTV do some kind of reset to re-marry his card, then the unit reported a serious error. It did recover on it's own, but I'm wondering if this is because I had another card installed during the initial boot up process and the unit somehow married to it . Would this have happened if I left the surrogate card out during initial boot up, then installed it after the unit was fully booted (so I could finish checking out the unit)?

Can anyone help with my questions?

[mr.unnatural]

It sounds like the image used for the Instantcake CD may have been a more minimalistic image than what you had when taking the update naturally. In other words, PTVUpgrade may have trimmed out some of the fat when creating the image.

The error your friend received on his T60 was probably the hardware error #51 message that everyone gets when using an image from one Tivo in a different machine. This will always happen when using an InstantCake image since it was pulled from a different Tivo. A Clear & Delete Everything will get rid of the error. It has nothing to do with your unsubbed access card.

[mr.unnatural]

I finally took the plunge and dusted off one of my old retired DSR6000's to start playing with the 3.5 update. I started with a fresh 2.5Xtreme image on a spare hard drive but didn't set up the fixsub hack so the unit could dial out. I forced a daily call and it downloaded the 3.5 update on the first attempt.

Since I hadn't hacked a S1 DTivo in many years my mind was a little rusty on the process so I used Steve Jenkins' guide as a reference. I set up telnet and serial bash as well as a static IP address in rc.net but I couldn't get either to work via ethernet or serial connection. The 9th Tee website indicates that OS version 3.0 and above has built-in support for ethernet and has the Turbonet drivers already installed.

I have been reading conflicting reports where may posters said they followed the same guide and everything went hunky dory whereas many others said they had to use the nic_install script from the Turbonet install CD to set up ethernet connectivity. I ran the script and bingo - I'm now connecting via ethernet using my static IP as well as via the serial connection. I'm assuming that the ethernet drivers are only installed in the factory OS for the SA models and not the DTivos. Now, I can certainly understand the ethernet suddenly working but the serial port should have worked regardless of what ethernet drivers were installed. Has anyone else seen this or have a clue what's happening? I've got to admit it's got me stumped.

[ronsch]

So Lou,

I would really like to get my unit up to 3.5 for the start of the new TV season on Monday(for me at least). I have reviewed all the salient posts from this thread as you recommend but am not sure of the best course to take.

I am running on my 250GB drive on my DSR6000. The 3.5 update has been downloaded but not installed thanks to the use of the bootpage parameter. Therefore, I have a reboot performed about once a week after my TiVo calls home and realizes that he has the new software but is still running on the old software. I use the Jenkins hack method and have a cachecard installed. I have my 300GB drive that was hosed by the 3.5 update in April that I want to restore to service.


The first part of my plan is to dd the 250 to the 300 so I have a pristine fallback and use mfsadd to expand to the full 300gb. I was wondering if I could use your procedure from the "Experiment #1" post to manually install 3.5 and then pull the drive and use copykern to put the new kernel in place prior to a reboot that might corrupt the file system?

Also, the Jenkins method encourages copying hacks to both active and inactive partitions so I was thinking that apart from redoing the cachecard install with killinitrd that I could just copy my other hacks into place, and change tivowebplus to V3.

What think everyone who has tried something like this? Has the new kernel been reliable given the three months of experience so far?

[PeteEggebeen]

Hey,

I didn't try anything as complex as what you mention, I had very good success with a GXCEBOT and an SAT-T60 doing the following:

Start with 160GB drive and 'bake' with instant cake 3.5
Put drive in TiVo and do 'clear and delete everyting'
take drive back out and run 'jenkins' hack on it. I did everything on that doc but the install of tivoweb plus
put drive back into tivo
set dial in prefix to ',#401' and forced daily call

I did notice after both of these that i lost my local channels after this process. the first time i called directv and they fixed it for me. This time i did some searching on the ptvupgrade forum and found that you are supposed to either go to a failed channel and call directv and enter '1 7 1 1' or just wait a day or two. i tried the phone call and it didn't work, so i am waiting patiently. i will give it another day or so and the have a directv tech fix if needed.


hope this helps.

[ronsch]

Thanks but the requirement for me is to keep current recordings intact.

I just don't want to have to risk the database corruption between the post 3.5 reboot and pulling the drive to use copykern if I can get away with the manual install and copykern prior to a reboot. I'm perfectly willing to reinstall the Jenkins hacks and TivoWebplus if I have to.

[blips]

Also, the Jenkins method encourages copying hacks to both active and inactive partitions .....


Why does he recommend the copying to both partitions? If DirecTv send a new download down doesn't it wipe the inactive partition, make it active and then your old active partition becomes inactive. Thus your stuff is still on the inactive side. Or do I not understand how it works?

[PyroMan]

Thanks but the requirement for me is to keep current recordings intact.

I just don't want to have to risk the database corruption between the post 3.5 reboot and pulling the drive to use copykern if I can get away with the manual install and copykern prior to a reboot. I'm perfectly willing to reinstall the Jenkins hacks and TivoWebplus if I have to.
ronsch,

I finally have the time to sit down and work on my 3.5 upgrade. Did you have any success updating to 3.5 and keeping your recordings? If so, how did you do it?

Thanks!

[lew]

ronsch,

I finally have the time to sit down and work on my 3.5 upgrade. Did you have any success updating to 3.5 and keeping your recordings? If so, how did you do it?

Thanks!

There isn't any problem with removing the reboot command, running the install script, hacking the new software then completing the installation by rebooting.

My memory is you can just use the DD command to copy the new hacked kernel.

As long as you don't skip a step or make a typo you'll be OK.

[PyroMan]

Ok, let me make sure I understand since all the steps seem to be rather spread out when it comes to keeping your recordings.


Take drive from unit (already done)
Attach HD to PC, disconnect XP HD. (done)
Boot LBA48 CD and run copykern
Boot Silicondust ISO and run nic_install
Put drive back and watch old shows that have been sitting on it for nearly one year


Am I missing any steps here? Also I receive a message when running copykern that states "tpip: unknown boot block signature: 0x44a8ac9d." From some quick searching online it looks like I may need to run mfsrestore -s 300. I suppose this needs to be done before copykern, but what parameters should be used for a single drive where I am not connecting anything but the 300GB TiVo drive (hdc) and a CDROM (hda) drive to the PC?

***EDIT***
I noticed when searching under /cdrom/s1_kernels/kernel-3.1+/ that the vmlinux file is GZipped but it is referred to without the .gz in the filename for the tpip command line. Should the file be unzipped first or does tpip take care of this?

[lew]

What is the current status of your unit? What about the 3.5 software? Has your drive already been upgraded to 3.5? Did you use the unit after the 3.5 upgrade? Did you previously use he LBA48 hack?

You could have done the upgrade without pulling your drive.



Ok, let me make sure I understand since all the steps seem to be rather spread out when it comes to keeping your recordings.


Take drive from unit (already done)
Attach HD to PC, disconnect XP HD. (done)
Boot LBA48 CD and run copykern
Boot Silicondust ISO and run nic_install
Put drive back and watch old shows that have been sitting on it for nearly one year


Am I missing any steps here? Also I receive a message when running copykern that states "tpip: unknown boot block signature: 0x44a8ac9d." From some quick searching online it looks like I may need to run mfsrestore -s 300. I suppose this needs to be done before copykern, but what parameters should be used for a single drive where I am not connecting anything but the 300GB TiVo drive (hdc) and a CDROM (hda) drive to the PC?

***EDIT***
I noticed when searching under /cdrom/s1_kernels/kernel-3.1+/ that the vmlinux file is GZipped but it is referred to without the .gz in the filename for the tpip command line. Should the file be unzipped first or does tpip take care of this?

[PyroMan]

lew,

First, thank you for getting back so quickly each time and for the assistance so far.

Here is exactly what has occured with this drive to date:

Pre-3.5 rollout:

Upgraded from 40GB HD to 300GB HD
Added support for cachecard, telnet and ftp but did NOT add a cachecard (I didn't want to have to pull the drive when I finally decided to purchase a cachecard)
I can't remember exactly where I went, but I used a site that will create a guide for you after entering your model number, number of drives, and whether you want to keep all recordings
Obviously I had LBA48 from the free LBA48 CD before since this was a large HD
Unit had 3.1 at the time this was done (around Sept. 2005)
These steps were followed for two SAT-T60's, the only difference is that one does have a cachecard


After-3.5 rollout:

Forgot to unplug phone cord from unit without cachecard and it updated to 3.5
Unit would no longer boot, error: Cannot load kernel (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4055756&&#post4055756)
Pulled 300GB drive and replaced 40GB stock drive
Waited until I had time to work on this and a stable modified kernel with LBA48 support was released
40GB drive now has 3.5


If you need further information to assist, let me know.

Again, thank you!

***EDIT***
Found the site I used: http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php

[lew]

I don't know what, if any, corruption occured when you got the boot error. Others in your position were able to boot and run their tivos but got problems later on.

Try your luck, I'm not sure anyone knows what the result will be. People seem to think you're OK if you didn't actually run with the 3.5 but YMMV.

I don't know why the upgrade guides don't suggest blocking updates in the software.





Forgot to unplug phone cord from unit without cachecard and it updated to 3.5
Unit would no longer boot, error: Cannot load kernel (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4055756&&#post4055756)
Pulled 300GB drive and replaced 40GB stock drive
Waited until I had time to work on this and a stable modified kernel with LBA48 support was released
40GB drive now has 3.5


If you need further information to assist, let me know.

Again, thank you!

***EDIT***
Found the site I used: http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php

[PyroMan]

Do you know how I need to use mfsrestore in my situation (i.e. CDROM in hda and TiVo Drive in hdc, no other drives connected)?

[tivoupgrade]

A couple of people have mentioned that they are seeing 3.5b on their upgraded Series1 DirecTV units. If anyone receives the update and has a chance to apply copykern to their drives before attempting to give their newly updated software a full workout, I'm interested to know how it goes.

[ronsch]

A couple of people have mentioned that they are seeing 3.5b on their upgraded Series1 DirecTV units. If anyone receives the update and has a chance to apply copykern to their drives before attempting to give their newly updated software a full workout, I'm interested to know how it goes.


Ditto here. Lew and pyroman, Sorry I kind of dropped out of the thread but I decided at the time that discretion was the better part of valor. Now that the DST is here, I'm reconsidering. I still have the old 3.1 kernel running with my 250gb drive. I haven't recevied the 3.5b yet but have been holding off 3.5 with upgradesoftware=false. I've been considering the manual install route and using copykern or a direct dd to copy in the new kernel assuming it will still work with 3.5b.

[Blackfoot]

A couple of people have mentioned that they are seeing 3.5b on their upgraded Series1 DirecTV units. If anyone receives the update and has a chance to apply copykern to their drives before attempting to give their newly updated software a full workout, I'm interested to know how it goes.
The 3.5b-01-1-011 slice is sitting on my Tivo. Any idea what fixes are incorporated? Also anyone know if the slicer program from DVRUpgrade would work on a series 1?
3.5-01-1-011 tyDb 747435 04/27/06 02:35 708
3.5b-01-1-011 tyDb 1919835 03/03/07 02:32 684
ACTIVE tyDb 747435 04/27/06 02:35 708

[danmcd]

The 3.5b-01-1-011 slice is sitting on my Tivo. Any idea what fixes are incorporated? Also anyone know if the slicer program from DVRUpgrade would work on a series 1?

I haven't been bitten yet, but does anyone know if they had the good sense to include LBA48 support? Or does this patch even MODIFY the kernel? I have hours of unwatched programming that'll be corrupted if I get a non-LBA48 kernel.

[spike2k5]

Update: It might have lba48 support.. Will let you know if it fails.

3.5b-01-1-011 does have lba48 support. :)

My 250GB reports 235 hrs w/ stock 3.5b kernel.

[tivoupgrade]

3.5b-01-1-011 does have lba48 support. :)

My 250GB reports 235 hrs w/ stock 3.5b kernel.

That would be great.

BUT if you are basing that statement on nothing more than what is "reported" then you may want to double check on that. Are you sure and if so, why? (still waiting to get the update here)

[spike2k5]

That would be great.

BUT if you are basing that statement on nothing more than what is "reported" then you may want to double check on that. Are you sure and if so, why? (still waiting to get the update here)

You are right. I should not have jump the gun.
It's going to take some time to fill up beyond 137GB so will let you know if it fails.

Did 3.5 act the same way?

[danmcd]

You are right. I should not have jump the gun.
It's going to take some time to fill up beyond 137GB so will let you know if it fails.

Did 3.5 act the same way?

3.5 did show all of the available space on my 160GB disk. And you won't have to wait as long as you think. Your old programs will start disappearing or flaking out horrible if a non-LBA48 kernel gets put on your machine. Try random programs on your queue, fast-forward... you'll notice.

[tivoupgrade]

If you have a networked unit, run the powerpc version of lba48chk on the box and it will tell you whether your kernel addresses the full lba48 span of the disk.

I seriously don't expect that there would have been a major kernel revision in a minor release like this; a lot of other things would have had to change.

[danmcd]

If you have a networked unit, run the powerpc version of lba48chk on the box and it will tell you whether your kernel addresses the full lba48 span of the disk.

I seriously don't expect that there would have been a major kernel revision in a minor release like this; a lot of other things would have had to change.

I'm worried that you're right (about a non-LBA48 kernel). Could someone PLEASE confirm/deny lba48-ness of the 3.5b kernel? I have no network hacks - hell, I don't even have a whitebox PC (I had to borrow a friend's last time) to put an LBA48-happy one on.

Someone please confirm/deny the 3.5b kernel mods? If this is just for the timezone fix, wouldn't they just upgrade user-level bits? Or does D* just send a whole wad every time?

(pardon my panic...)

[tivoupgrade]

Sorry, I wish I could confirm it for you, but I can't; as soon as we get the update, I will post it, promise. Hopefully, someone else will beat me to it.

With that said... don't worry about it - just assume that it isn't lba48; that is the *worst* case scenario. And with that, its not so bad if you make that assumption. Just use the one we provided for 3.5 and you will be fine.

[Blackfoot]

I'm worried that you're right (about a non-LBA48 kernel). Could someone PLEASE confirm/deny lba48-ness of the 3.5b kernel? I have no network hacks - hell, I don't even have a whitebox PC (I had to borrow a friend's last time) to put an LBA48-happy one on.

Someone please confirm/deny the 3.5b kernel mods? If this is just for the timezone fix, wouldn't they just upgrade user-level bits? Or does D* just send a whole wad every time?

(pardon my panic...)
My SAT T60 upgraded last night on my 200 GB drive and my shows are freaking out now. Getting the delete prompt as soon as they play, or switching to another show part way though. I'm 99% sure this kernel does NOT support LBA48. I will be attempting to copy over my 3.1.0+ kernel this morning and hope I don't have too much corruption.

[danmcd]

My SAT T60 upgraded last night on my 200 GB drive and my shows are freaking out now.

Ouch. Okay, my box is supposed to phone-home at 2pm today. I'll have to see if I can find my LBA48 CD or (<sigh>) shell out another $5.

[sbourgeo]

Ouch. Okay, my box is supposed to phone-home at 2pm today. I'll have to see if I can find my LBA48 CD or (<sigh>) shell out another $5.

You can download it for free here: link (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/lba48_support.cfm).

[Blackfoot]

Ouch. Okay, my box is supposed to phone-home at 2pm today. I'll have to see if I can find my LBA48 CD or (<sigh>) shell out another $5.
I pulled my drive and reinstalled the cachecard drivers from the CD. Put the drive back in the tivo and then copied my 3.1.0+ kernel over the new 3.5b kernel. The shows that were freaking out are back to normal. Then put my rc.sysinit.author file from the inactive partition to the active one and all my hacks are back. Didn't have to pay for anything.

[tivoupgrade]

I pulled my drive and reinstalled the cachecard drivers from the CD. Put the drive back in the tivo and then copied my 3.1.0+ kernel over the new 3.5b kernel. The shows that were freaking out are back to normal. Then put my rc.sysinit.author file from the inactive partition to the active one and all my hacks are back. Didn't have to pay for anything.

Good to know and that is what I expected.

I think the important thing to note (aside from the fact that the kernel in the new release is not LBA48) is that the longer you wait after receiving the update, the more of a chance you have of the 'transplant' not working.

If your unit receives the update to 3.5b and you leave it up and running - and you start deleting programs, or shows begin to get recorded, it will most definitely scramble things up; possibly beyond repair.

[spiffy]

Why is this happening now again? I bought my InstantCake CD online last year (around August or so, if I remembered correctly.) I could have swore the version I got already had 3.5 on it...

I used it on a 400GB new HD, it worked fine for a couple of months, then my SAT-T60 went into "Welcome, Power Up" reboot loop. I bought a Seagate DB35 500GB, took out the 400GB, did a dd_rescue (with help from my friend who knows Linux), thinking the drive was failing again. But the drive copied perfectly -- yet my T60 still got stuck in reboot hell with the 500GB drive.

Running out of options, I re-InstantCaked the 500GB drive at the end of Feb., and everything seem to be working OK... Until today.

First I notice all the recordings from this past Sunday were not recorded, even though they're on the Now Playing List; then this afternoon I lost the blue background when accessing the menu -- it became transparent while a show is still playing in the background.

I got my first Green Screen early this evening; then it went away but I couldn't access the recordings. Now it's on a second Green Screen and again is trying to "repair" itself.

Can someone please tell me what do I need to do? I am not knowledgeable with Linux at all; do I need another version of InstantCake? My version supposedly has been tested for up to 500GB capacity with no problems. I don't have the stomach to take it offline for another long period of time... (The only mod I've performed is upgrade the capacity of the drive; everything else is stock original -- no networking card, cache card or anything else.)

Please help!

Spiffy

[spiffy]

OK, so after I calmed down a bit, and went back to re-read the first and recent posts, I'm suspecting that I'm getting the 3.5b upgrade too, and got the non LBA48 kernel put on my HD.

Now, is copykern the only way to fix this? If so, can anyone please be kind enough to post a step-by-step instruction on how to do this from start to finish (for those of us non-Linux people)? Do I just download the LBA48 CD, boot from it, and type "copykern"? How about how should I connect the HD, and the correct Linux naming convention?

I came upon this thread too late, and I already started deleting shows that I thought were not recorded. But I need to figure out how to fix this, because even if I wipe everything clean and re-InstantCake my HD again, I am still going to encounter this problem later on.

Thanks again in advance, and apologies for needing so much hand-holding.

Spiffy

[ISWIZ]

I pulled the ptvlba48-4.04.iso back down after receiving the upgrade email. I am not able to run the copykern command though. I ended up trashing the programs on the Series 1 and setting it all back to 3.01. It's now updating to 3.5 again. Any help on running copykern would be appreciated.

[Crispian]

I would also be very grateful if someone could post step-by-step instructions!

I am pretty linux happy, but I'm not sure where to start! I have a GXCEBOT with a Cachecard that I added a new drive to (over 137GB) with the latest Instantcakeafter the last upgrade DTV sent out. I had added Tivoweb and was using TYTool. I just checked it after getting the upgrade email and can confirm that Tivoweb is gone and I cannot connect to it at all (I assume 'cos the Cachecard drivers are gone).

I know I need to upgrade the kernel for the bigger dirve, but how do I reinstall the Cachcard drivers- Instantcake gave me a net-ready Tivo so I didn't have to do that before.

I've pulled the plug on it for now- but help would be most appreciated!!!

[maerativo]

I have a question, if we just keep our units unplugged from the phone line for the next month will the 3.5b upgrade just fade away?

Luckily, I read the notice from D* about the new "fix" for the time adjustment before it was downloaded over the phone line and unplugged my phone line.

I have a two hundred hours of saved movies and shows that I do not want to loose.

[ISWIZ]

From what I read, all will be OK once past the "old" DST change. Though that's some one's best guess I'd say.

[InspectorGadget]

I think I just got whacked by the "upgrade."

I got home Thursday night to see my Sat-T60 (200GB-LBA48) in a "Welcome, Powering Up..." reboot loop. Never did apply the "upgradesoftware=false" directive because people told me it would never again be updated... Never say never I guess.

Not yet knowing about this DST "upgrade", I tried switching the boot partitions back and forth to no avail. I then found this thread and tried re-copying my LBA48 kernel. I ran copykern of PTVUpgrade 4.04 CD, selected [3] S1 DTiVo v3.1.0+, and got this error:

tpip: unknown partition signature 0x504d (expected 0x4d50)
Kernel updated!
...

Does anyone know if it really worked? I've been getting byteswapping warnings all along, but I thought that meant that the s/w was aware of it? I never had to worry about byteswapping the first time around when I set up this drive with the very same CD tools!

Well, the thing won't boot at all. I don't get any console output, even though I ran:

bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda7 dsscon=true console=2,115200 upgradesoftware=false" -C /dev/hdb

I doesn't even reboot-cycle now, just stays on "Powering Up" screen. Oh yeah, I ran "pdisk -l /dev/hdb" and it says:

pdisk: No valid block 1 on /dev/hdb

Is this the boot block? Did I hose it with byteswapped writing from the "bootpage" usage? Or what? Or did the dastardly LBA32 kernel overwrite it (along with much of the rest of my disk)?

Any ideas would be helpful. I had most of the 200GB filled with stuff I wanted to record off of it, and a few PPV's we hadn't even seen. I would like to try to recover it before reverting to recopying my original 80GB Quantum and reapplying the upgrades.

[spiffy]

From what I read, all will be OK once past the "old" DST change. Though that's some one's best guess I'd say.

So this 3.5b upgrade is actually optional then? I'm confused. :confused:

(I had to re-InstanCake my entire HD -- lost at least 300 hours of recordings... :mad: )

So if we just leave the phone cord unplugged through tonight, we'll be OK? Seems like every time I make a Test Call, it grabs the time from D*. The programming guide for tomorrow right now is off by one hour. If we don't get the software upgrade, but just get the time through the phone line, would that bypass the upgrade?

[spiffy]

I am not sure what's going on; but other threads are saying D* has stopped sending out the 3.5b upgrade -- but I had just re-InstantCaked my HD, forced a couple of calls to test the phone lines, and I got the upgrade anyway (AGAIN.)

So far everything is still working, but that's Because my HD is fairly empty still. I guess unless someone is kind enough to post a step-by-step instruction on how to do the copykern command today, I will have to experiment tonight and just hope for the best.

Can anyone please at least confirm if the kernel in the LBA48 CD is the same kernel as the kernel in the latest InstantCake? I read that the LBA48 CD kernel is 3.10+; but my InstantCake makes the software into 3.5 -- do they both use the same kernel?

[sbourgeo]

So far everything is still working, but that's Because my HD is fairly empty still. I guess unless someone is kind enough to post a step-by-step instruction on how to do the copykern command today, I will have to experiment tonight and just hope for the best.


Download and burn free LBA48 CD: link (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/lba48_4.04_license.cfm)
Pull drive from TiVo and put in PC
Boot PC with LBA48 CD
Type "mountcd" at the bash prompt to verify that you can access the LBA48 kernel on the CD
Type "copykern " at the bash prompt and follow the directions to install the LBA48 kernel
Shutdown PC and remove drive
Put drive back in TiVo

[spiffy]

Download and burn free LBA48 CD: link (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/lba48_4.04_license.cfm)
Pull drive from TiVo and put in PC
Boot PC with LBA48 CD
Type "mountcd" at the bash prompt to verify that you can access the LBA48 kernel on the CD
Type "copykern " at the bash prompt and follow the directions to install the LBA48 kernel
Shutdown PC and remove drive
Put drive back in TiVo


Thanks so much sbourgeo! Just one question: PTVUpgrade also indicated in the first post that, and I quote, "Also note that you will need to use killinitrd to zap the new initrd" -- is this a necessary step if I don't have any other hacks installed into my SAT-T60 except putting in a bigger HD? If so, what are the steps in performing this task?

Thanks again,

Spiffy

[sbourgeo]

Thanks so much sbourgeo! Just one question: PTVUpgrade also indicated in the first post that, and I quote, "Also note that you will need to use killinitrd to zap the new initrd" -- is this a necessary step if I don't have any other hacks installed into my SAT-T60 except putting in a bigger HD? If so, what are the steps in performing this task?

I don't believe that you need to disable initrd if you don't have any other hacks, but am not 100% sure about that. I did it on my DSR6000 ages ago to get elseed working.

It's pretty straight forward to do, although I don't know if the LBA48 cd includes it. Check out the section on kill_initrd at stevejenkins.com: link (http://tivo.stevejenkins.com/network_cd.html#_Toc101001767) for more info.

[spiffy]

I guess the more trials and errors I went through, the more I learn... But according to PTVupgrade, I do need to run kill_initrd -- and that finally made sense, because not doing it will cause DTivo to revert back whatever changes I made (in this case, copykern.)

So I ran copykern again, and used the Jenkins ISO to run kill_initrd. I still lost a whole bunch of recordings, but that may be because I leave my SAT-T60 on all day, and it's always recording anyway. Strangely, I only lost recordings from the last couple of days -- after I copykern but not killinitrd, I think -- yet shows recorded today seem to be OK, even though they were done before I came home tonight and repeated copykern and performed killinitrd this time. I still don't know how all this works, maybe that group of shows were on the same partition? (There were also a bunch of shows recorded last week that did not go haywire at all.)

How will I know I've successfully replaced the kernel then? I checked the System Information section, and the unit still reports 3.5b.

[Mike Mack]

Spiffy,

After you successfully ran kill_initrd and copykern if you watch one of the damaged recordings does your unit still reboot itself?
I also have a SAT-T60 unit with an upgraded HDD and got the 3.5b upgrade which hosed my unit.
I ran the copykern utility and everything seemd to go fine, at least there were no error messages. The unit boots up fine, I got the Tivo animation back, but several of my recordings from the week of the upgrade are damaged and when I try to vierw them they only get so far before the freeze up and the unit reboots itself.
Is there any definitive way to tell if we successfully replaced the kernel and if so how?
Thanks

[spiffy]

Spiffy,

After you successfully ran kill_initrd and copykern if you watch one of the damaged recordings does your unit still reboot itself?
I also have a SAT-T60 unit with an upgraded HDD and got the 3.5b upgrade which hosed my unit.
I ran the copykern utility and everything seemd to go fine, at least there were no error messages. The unit boots up fine, I got the Tivo animation back, but several of my recordings from the week of the upgrade are damaged and when I try to vierw them they only get so far before the freeze up and the unit reboots itself.
Is there any definitive way to tell if we successfully replaced the kernel and if so how?
Thanks

I couldn't watch any of the damaged recordings. Some had infos, some did not -- when I selected a title to play it, the error message screen would pop up -- some gave me the option to delete, some didn't (I could always use the 'clear' button to delete the entry if the delete option was not present.) But last night I basically went through my entire Now Playing List and tried playing each title -- if it looked like it would play, I kept it and tried another one, and deleted anything that could not play at all. I have no idea at this point if the ones I've kept are damaged or OK. But I might have deleted approx. 15-20 shows that were previously watchable but couldn't after my HD went haywire. Luckily I've never had the issue of the unit rebooting itself after the upgrade (it's a Seagate DB35 drive, I don't know if that makes any difference. My previous HD was a regular Seagate, and it started to reboot after only a few months, I believed due to software corruption. But 3.5b was not implemented then.)

I don't know how to verify a successful patch either. Hopefully PTVupgrade or any of the gurus will let us know.

[PeteEggebeen]

I couldn't watch any of the damaged recordings. Some had infos, some did not -- when I selected a title to play it, the error message screen would pop up -- some gave me the option to delete, some didn't (I could always use the 'clear' button to delete the entry if the delete option was not present.) But last night I basically went through my entire Now Playing List and tried playing each title -- if it looked like it would play, I kept it and tried another one, and deleted anything that could not play at all. I have no idea at this point if the ones I've kept are damaged or OK. But I might have deleted approx. 15-20 shows that were previously watchable but couldn't after my HD went haywire. Luckily I've never had the issue of the unit rebooting itself after the upgrade (it's a Seagate DB35 drive, I don't know if that makes any difference. My previous HD was a regular Seagate, and it started to reboot after only a few months, I believed due to software corruption. But 3.5b was not implemented then.)

I don't know how to verify a successful patch either. Hopefully PTVupgrade or any of the gurus will let us know.

I am having the same problem with damaged shows on a S1 Hughes GXCEBOT and have found that if I play the show and it hits the 'bad spot' it will reboot the TiVo. If I fast forward thru the show, when it hits the bad spot I have enough time to press the TiVo button, and then go back into the now playing list and delete the broken show.

I am waiting for the InstantCake of 3.5b to be released so that I can rebuild with a clean version and then put my other hacks back on (like permanent 30 second skip and turning off encryption and then adding tserver).

[tivoupgrade]

I am having the same problem with damaged shows on a S1 Hughes GXCEBOT and have found that if I play the show and it hits the 'bad spot' it will reboot the TiVo. If I fast forward thru the show, when it hits the bad spot I have enough time to press the TiVo button, and then go back into the now playing list and delete the broken show.

I am waiting for the InstantCake of 3.5b to be released so that I can rebuild with a clean version and then put my other hacks back on (like permanent 30 second skip and turning off encryption and then adding tserver).

Hang in there; it will be available very soon.

[Crispian]

Me too! I thought I had it licked after following the instructions, (see the other thread I started here http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=344944), but I think I skipped the kill_initrd step and now I'm not sure what to do so I've pulled the plug until someone can give me a definite answer.

I had the reboots in some shows happening, so I redid the copykern etc. and now it's rebooting about 30 seconds after it finishes all the boot up process and gets programing on the screen.

So, should I run copykern and reinstall the cachecard drivers but this time run kill_initrd? Should I instantcake it and start again? Should I wait untill they come up with a new instantcake that includes 3b? I'm kinda hoping I don't have to lose all my recorded shows, but what I really need right now is a working Tivo- especially as this is a DirecTivo so without it I can't watch anything off the dish!

[Crispian]

Hang in there; it will be available very soon.
Can you give us a hint- does this mean hours, days or weeks? And how will you announce it- here, via an email like the original that warned us of the timechange update, or on your site?

Thanks- in antici...............pation!

[PeteEggebeen]

Me too! I thought I had it licked after following the instructions, (see the other thread I started here http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=344944), but I think I skipped the kill_initrd step and now I'm not sure what to do so I've pulled the plug until someone can give me a definite answer.

I had the reboots in some shows happening, so I redid the copykern etc. and now it's rebooting about 30 seconds after it finishes all the boot up process and gets programing on the screen.

So, should I run copykern and reinstall the cachecard drivers but this time run kill_initrd? Should I instantcake it and start again? Should I wait untill they come up with a new instantcake that includes 3b? I'm kinda hoping I don't have to lose all my recorded shows, but what I really need right now is a working Tivo- especially as this is a DirecTivo so without it I can't watch anything off the dish!


Hey,

Here is what I did and the results I got:

1 - put tivo drive in pc and booted from Steve Jenkins CD
2 - determined that my active partition was hdc7 (not hdc4). I don't remember exactly how I determined this, but I know that running Kill_initrd will tell you this
3 - copied all files from /mnt4/etc/rc.d to /mnt7/etc/rc.d (i wanted my sysinit.author, etc to try to put my static IP and other startup hacks back to the way they were - this didn't work exactly as I wanted)
4 - ran kill_initrd info and found that initrd was enabled, so I ran it with 'disable' to turn it off.
5 - I then put the drive back in the tivo, but no network :(
6 - put the drive back in the PC and booted with steve jenkins again.
7 - found the tivocommunity thread titled "Series1 DirecTiVo Software Update (3.5.0) Migration Thread" (sorry I haven't evolved to learning how to add links here yet) and read that I should try re-running the nic install.
8 - After mouning all my drives, i did a "cd /"
9 - then I did a "cd nic_install"
10 - then i did a "nic_install turbonet" (i have the turbonet card, not cachecard)
11 - I replied '0' to apply the changes
12 - I put the drive back in the TiVo and could telnet into the box

I don't deem this process a success, because the /var/hack directory I created both times (sorry i didn't list it in my process above to keep it short) as part of the jenkis how to was gone, so I assume I failed to do something. I figured it was better to leave the tivo running than to somehow completely disable it and have the family take up pitchforks and rakes agaiinst me :)

I am not that skilled with linux, so I am waiting for the experts to get instantcake for 3.5b. If only these boxes ran z/OS, then I could be more of a contributer. I could write some REXX scripts.....

[Crispian]

So, this morning I tried:

1. pull drive
2. boot with Steve Jenkins CD, "run kill_initrd info", no initrd found
3. boot with LBA48 CD, run "mountcd", run "copykern", choose correct drive and option for 3.10+, tells me kernel is updated, all good
4. boot with Silicon Dust CD, run "/nic_install/nic_install cachecard", all goes fine, accept defaults and hit 0 to save
5. boot with Steve Jenkins CD again just to be sure, "run kill_initrd info", still no initrd found
6. put drive back in Tivo, boots fine, see cachecard screens, get past "getting info from satellites", up comes the Discovery channel, 30 seconds later it reboots

Help!

Guess I'm just gonna have to wait for InstantCake to be upgraded, does anyone know when that might be? I'm already getting that "This would never have happened if you hadn't #$@%ed with it in the first place" look from my family!

[InspectorGadget]

I just Instant-Caked my SAT-T60 this weekend (was LBA48, got destroyed by 3.5b, couldn't restore old 2.5 drive). I was just enabling TiVoWebPlus Sunday night and this morning when I restarted it had downloaded 3.5b and blew away my IC kernel network driver, and whatever other hacks were in there. (I have a TurboNet/CacheCard).

My question is: I still have NO IDEA what-all was in the Instant Cake installation. Will I have all the same features, utilities, and hacks if I just:

1. copykern from PTVu LBA48 disk?
2. nic_install from TurboNet disk (w/killinitrd)?

Is there anything I'll be missing? Like, what's the difference between the PTVnet disk and the TurboNet disk?

(Originally posted in the PTVupgrade/LBA48 thread, asked to move)

[Crispian]

OK, I'm getting desperate and can no longer bear the looks I'm getting from my family- I just need to get a working DTivo up and running ASAP.

Can anyone confirm if the following will work (at least to buy me some time till the 3.5b version of InstantCake is available)-

If I go buy a 120GB drive, use my old (3.5) version of InstantCake to bake it, install it and force a call to get the update, pull it and reinstall the cachecard drivers, that should work right? It's the fact that my current drive is over the 137GB limit (200GB) that's causing the problem, right?

Please can someone confirm that this should work?

Thanks!!!

[tivoupgrade]

Folks,

If you have a drive you've built using InstantCake (3.5.0) or mfstools along with the Todd Miller LBA48 kernel AND have a hard drive that is greater than 137GB, you will need to update the kernel.

If your TiVo is still running after the update to the 3.5b, then there is a possibility you may not have lost everything.

To update the kernel, you need to boot with the Silicon Dust boot CD (free) (http://www.silicondust.com/forum/) or the Universal Boot CD if you have it, and run the nic_install tool and allow it to erase initrd for you. Alternatively, if you have access to kill_initrd, you can run that as well, it does not matter.

Then run CopyKern from the free LBA48 CD (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/lba48_support.cfm) as previously discussed.

There is no guarantee that it will work, but if there is a chance of it working then that is the correct way to do it.

If you are rebuilding your drive with 3.5.0, you can let it update to 3.5b and you should have success with the aforementioned steps as your unit will not have had a chance to record too much since the fresh install and you'll probably be fine.

With all of that said, InstantCake has just been updated to 3.5b. Although it is not customary to offer free updates, we are doing just that. All orders placed in the new cart that was launched in late November, 2006 have been updated with links to the latest version. If you still have downloads left, then you will be able to download the newest version.

You can log in to review your previous orders here (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/login.cfm?ReturnURL=orders.cfm) and redownload, if necessary. Please be sure to review the README file, first; and don't use a download manager as it will screw up your download count and corrupt your download.

Thanks for your patience; we had no intention of leaving people hanging for over a week...

A couple of other things: We have removed BASH serial access from this release of InstantCake because a few folks were complaining about external modems not working properly. Also, by default, we have turned OFF the daily call so that your unit will not automatically update beyond 3.5b unless you choose to do so (this can be done by editing your dialing prefix and forcing a call). We've attempted to suppress the DirecTV "nag" message, however if you do receive it, it can be ignored.

[Crispian]

With all of that said, InstantCake has just been updated to 3.5b. Although it is not customary to offer free updates, we are doing just that. All orders placed in the new cart that was launched in late November, 2006 have been updated with links to the latest version. If you still have downloads left, then you will be able to download the newest version.

May I be the first to say thank you!

You guys didn't have to do this and I'm very impressed to see that the art of caring for your customers is not dead. You will have my custom whenever I need anything related to DVRs.

That said, I've just downloaded the new IC and I'm off to run it and stop my family looking at me with hate in their eyes....you may have saved my life!

Thanks again!!!

[tivoupgrade]

May I be the first to say thank you!

You guys didn't have to do this and I'm very impressed to see that the art of caring for your customers is not dead. You will have my custom whenever I need anything related to DVRs.

That said, I've just downloaded the new IC and I'm off to run it and stop my family looking at me with hate in their eyes....you may have saved my life!

Thanks again!!!

Much appreciated. Its been a long week getting things updated and 'just right' I've noticed that the numbers of people using these older DirecTiVo units has dwindled quite a bit. Its too bad, because when fully tricked out, they are still quite nice (with the cachecard, and all) and still quite viable. Good luck with the update!

[Crispian]

I'm sorry to say that I'm still having problems :(

I downloaded the new (3.5b) InstantCake and used that on my 200GB drive. All seemed to go well with the bake and when I put the drive back in the Tivo it booted up and then quickly rebooted (as I remember it doing the first time I used IC) and then I got the CacheCard screens and then to the Tivo setup. I went through the setup for my dish etc. and all seemed fine for about 20 minutes. Then it rebooted. This time it stayed with programing for only about a minute before rebooting.

At this stage I figured it must be something wrong with the drive after all the screwing around with it I've done over the last week, so in desperation I went to Staples and bought the cheapest drive they had (a Western Digital 250GB). I brought this home, used IC and baked it and again all went well. After putting it in the Tivo and going through the set up it stayed up for about 20 minutes, then it rebooted.

At this point I remembered something about doing a "Clear and delete all", so as soon as it booted I jumped into the Tivo menu and did that. It rebooted and then gave me A PTVUpgrade screen saying it was clearing and deleting and warning me that it would take several hours. Then after about 30 minutes it rebooted.

Now it seems to be in a loop- I get the DVR upgrade screen, then (but not always) the CacheCard screen, the the "Last step: acquiring from satellite" screen, then I get about half a second of programing and then it reboots.

HELP!

I am at my wits end now... my family are circling (and now I have to explain the $85 I dropped on the new drive to my wife) and I'm ready to drop kick the thing through the window.

Please, can someone suggest a way to get this thing working again?

[PeteEggebeen]

I'm sorry to say that I'm still having problems :(

I downloaded the new (3.5b) InstantCake and used that on my 200GB drive. All seemed to go well with the bake and when I put the drive back in the Tivo it booted up and then quickly rebooted (as I remember it doing the first time I used IC) and then I got the CacheCard screens and then to the Tivo setup. I went through the setup for my dish etc. and all seemed fine for about 20 minutes. Then it rebooted. This time it stayed with programing for only about a minute before rebooting.

At this stage I figured it must be something wrong with the drive after all the screwing around with it I've done over the last week, so in desperation I went to Staples and bought the cheapest drive they had (a Western Digital 250GB). I brought this home, used IC and baked it and again all went well. After putting it in the Tivo and going through the set up it stayed up for about 20 minutes, then it rebooted.

At this point I remembered something about doing a "Clear and delete all", so as soon as it booted I jumped into the Tivo menu and did that. It rebooted and then gave me A PTVUpgrade screen saying it was clearing and deleting and warning me that it would take several hours. Then after about 30 minutes it rebooted.

Now it seems to be in a loop- I get the DVR upgrade screen, then (but not always) the CacheCard screen, the the "Last step: acquiring from satellite" screen, then I get about half a second of programing and then it reboots.

HELP!

I am at my wits end now... my family are circling (and now I have to explain the $85 I dropped on the new drive to my wife) and I'm ready to drop kick the thing through the window.

Please, can someone suggest a way to get this thing working again?


I seriously wish I had a suggestion for you because I have a series 2 Hughes HDVR2 that keeps rebooting even though it shouldn't be.

I went thru two of these identical units and still they keep rebooting.

The only thing I can think of drive wise is that people keep talking about using seagate DB35 drives. I think weaknees advertises they use those. It may be worth a shot.

Another alternative is to call DTV and let them know you are having problems. They will probably offer to replace your TiVo with a DTV DVR. It won't be as nice as a TiVo, but at least you can come home and not worry about an ambush :)

Due to my S2 DTiVo rebooting, I am trying to get two S1s working - a GXCEBOT and an SAT-T60. I am downloading a copy if InstantCake 3.5b for each as I type this. Wish me luck

Again, I wish I had more for you other than the other drive and replacing with DTV DVR, but that is about it. You can always cross your fingers and try e-bay.



Pete

[tivoupgrade]

I'm sorry to say that I'm still having problems :(

I downloaded the new (3.5b) InstantCake and used that on my 200GB drive. All seemed to go well with the bake and when I put the drive back in the Tivo it booted up and then quickly rebooted (as I remember it doing the first time I used IC) and then I got the CacheCard screens and then to the Tivo setup. I went through the setup for my dish etc. and all seemed fine for about 20 minutes. Then it rebooted. This time it stayed with programing for only about a minute before rebooting.

At this stage I figured it must be something wrong with the drive after all the screwing around with it I've done over the last week, so in desperation I went to Staples and bought the cheapest drive they had (a Western Digital 250GB). I brought this home, used IC and baked it and again all went well. After putting it in the Tivo and going through the set up it stayed up for about 20 minutes, then it rebooted.

At this point I remembered something about doing a "Clear and delete all", so as soon as it booted I jumped into the Tivo menu and did that. It rebooted and then gave me A PTVUpgrade screen saying it was clearing and deleting and warning me that it would take several hours. Then after about 30 minutes it rebooted.

Now it seems to be in a loop- I get the DVR upgrade screen, then (but not always) the CacheCard screen, the the "Last step: acquiring from satellite" screen, then I get about half a second of programing and then it reboots.

HELP!

I am at my wits end now... my family are circling (and now I have to explain the $85 I dropped on the new drive to my wife) and I'm ready to drop kick the thing through the window.

Please, can someone suggest a way to get this thing working again?

Crispian,

This does not sound like an InstantCake problem. Have you run full diagnostics on the hard drive you are using? Have you checked all the cables in the unit to ensure no damage was done as part of swapping the drives? This is sounding more like a hardware problem, so try to eliminate those variables, if you can. Remember, just because a drive is brand new doesn't mean its not defective. If you are adventurous, try poking the cables in the unit while its running - especially the cable that connects the power supply to the system board - we've seen damaged ones cause reboots when they are nudged (be careful doing this).

Also, you DO NOT need to do a clear and delete everything. There is more information on this in the last few screens of the installation; all of that is taken care of automatically for you (your unit will boot TWICE the first time you install the drive - and as you noticed, there are splash screens to tell you what is going on)...

[InspectorGadget]

Thank you for the 3.5b upgrade. We really appreciate the support. These hacked DTiVos really are great, and if you have a lifetime sub like I do, you don't want to just toss it out; they're irreplaceable. (Until I feel like shelling out $800-$1K for the HDTV version.)

Can you please elaborate on how you suppressed the daily call? Will "editing the dialing prefix" reverse this permanently or do we have to do it and force a call every time we want it to call?

How does what you did compare to setting "upgradesoftware=false" in the bootpage or exporting it in rc.sysinit.author?

And my earlier question: if I take my 3.5b (from DTV) DTiVo now, nic_install from the Silicon Dust disk, and copykern from the PTVu LBA48 disk to get the LBA48 kernel back, will I have all the components (utilities and hacks) that I did when I Instant Caked it last Sunday? Or do I need PTVNet

[tivoupgrade]

Thank you for the 3.5b upgrade. We really appreciate the support. These hacked DTiVos really are great, and if you have a lifetime sub like I do, you don't want to just toss it out; they're irreplaceable. (Until I feel like shelling out $800-$1K for the HDTV version.)

Can you please elaborate on how you suppressed the daily call? Will "editing the dialing prefix" reverse this permanently or do we have to do it and force a call every time we want it to call?

How does what you did compare to setting "upgradesoftware=false" in the bootpage or exporting it in rc.sysinit.author?

And my earlier question: if I take my 3.5b (from DTV) DTiVo now, nic_install from the Silicon Dust disk, and copykern from the PTVu LBA48 disk to get the LBA48 kernel back, will I have all the components (utilities and hacks) that I did when I Instant Caked it last Sunday? Or do I need PTVNet


We did not set upgradesoftware=false (as of a few years ago, I don't think it makes a difference on Series1 units). What we did do was install "fakecall" to get rid of the nag message. We also installed a *# in the dialing prefix. To force a call, you need to edit the dialing prefix and then force the call. You will have to force a call each time you want to do it, because the fakecall will run approximately every 12 hours. If you reboot the system, the *# will be replaced in your dialing prefix.

As for your last question; InstantCake creates a NetReady drive (that is how we've done it for over 3 years now). There is no PTVnet for Series1 units. If you need more information on that, please check out the support area of our site; its documented pretty extensively - the information is relatively old, though because nothing has changed with NetReady for a long time (short version is that NetReady includes CacheCard drivers, TurboNet drivers and FTP support, by default). FTP a file called .NETREADY into /var, reboot and you will have telnet access, as well.

[InspectorGadget]

Thanks for the fakecall and netready info, that helps a lot. I know the info is there and I've been piecing it together, but an overview and confirmation really helps.

By the way, I just successfully resurrected my SAT-T60 according to your instructions a few posts up: first Silicon Dust TurboNet disk, nic_install, disable initrd, install cachecard/turbonet drivers. Second PTVu LBA48 disk and copykern LBA48 kernel back in. The thing booted up like a champ. Recordings from the last 2 days are still there, everything looks good. So I'm running the LBA48 kernel, TurboNet, CacheCard, all with the TiVo 3.5b s/w and DST working properly!

One last thing: I want to verify the LBA48 kernel. It's not exactly like some of the examples. Does this look right?


bash-2.02# cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.1.24-TiVo-2.5 (millert@inverness.columbia.ads.sparta.com) (gcc version 2.8.1) #9 Wed May 10 11:08:35 EDT 2006

[Crispian]

Crispian,

This does not sound like an InstantCake problem. Have you run full diagnostics on the hard drive you are using? Have you checked all the cables in the unit to ensure no damage was done as part of swapping the drives? This is sounding more like a hardware problem, so try to eliminate those variables, if you can. Remember, just because a drive is brand new doesn't mean its not defective. If you are adventurous, try poking the cables in the unit while its running - especially the cable that connects the power supply to the system board - we've seen damaged ones cause reboots when they are nudged (be careful doing this).
You may be right :)

I went back and opened up the unit again, pulled out the drive, removed the CacheCard, removed the memory stick, cleaned the contacts on the DIMM & The CacheCard with a pencil eraser, removed the cables from the drive and the board, reseated (carefully) the white cable next to the CacheCard, put everything back together and booted it up. So far so good :)

There was a frightening moment when I foolishly followed all the "netready" instructions and managed to overwrite the cacheCard drivers with the old one (which caused immediate reboots as soon as live TV came on). I got over this by hitting the Tivo button and going into Sat Setup as soon as I got the "Acquiring..." screen- this seemed to hold off the reboots and give me time to ftp the updated drivers from the Silicon Dust site and telnet in and install them.

Since then we seem to be good- I even installed TWP2 and the Tyserver (and the offset) and apart from the reboots I triggered as part of those installs it seems to be holding- fingers crossed and we'll see if it stays up over night (that's one of the nice things about TWP- it gives you an "up time"), I'll report back in the morning and let you know.

So, the lessons to learn seem to be:
1. Be very careful when messing around inside your Tivo, I guess I'd just pulled/installed the drive so many times I got careless.
2. All you need to do to enable telnet access is to ftp .NETREADY over and reboot- DON"T send the rest of the PTVtemp folder over and run it- you'll end up sticking the old v.1 CacheCard drivers on.
and 3. Don't let your frustrations get the better of you, I probably didn't need to go buy the new drive, if I'd taken a little more time and checked all those connections first.

Thanks again!

[Blackfoot]

3. Don't let your frustrations get the better of you, I probably didn't need to go buy the new drive, if I'd taken a little more time and checked all those connections first.

Thanks again!
Go return the drive. You could either play dumb and say you bought the wrong one, you needed a SATA drive. Or be honest and tell them you thought you needed it but turned out you didn't. Saves you the $ and then you don't have to explain it to your wife.

[spiffy]

Does the order matter? I first did copykern, then ran kill_initrd -- instead of doing kill_initrd first then copykern -- now I just checked, and I got this big gray screen said "Cannot boot kernel". I hope I didn't lose everything again. :(

[tivoupgrade]

Does the order matter? I first did copykern, then ran kill_initrd -- instead of doing kill_initrd first then copykern -- now I just checked, and I got this big gray screen said "Cannot boot kernel". I hope I didn't lose everything again. :(

The order does matter. You need to do the kill_initrd before you do the copykern. If you do the copykern first, the kill_initrd will not do what its supposed to do.

[spiffy]

The order does matter. You need to do the kill_initrd before you do the copykern. If you do the copykern first, the kill_initrd will not do what its supposed to do.

Well, when I tried to do it in the correct order last night, Jenkins' ISO reported that it couldn't find mfs. I went ahead and copykerned again anyway, and still got the GSOD and the can't boot kernel message. So inevitably I did something that corrupted the software... :(

I purchased the new updated InstantCake 3.5b this morning and reformatted the whole drive (again). Thanks for making this available so quickly -- I had to start from scratch, but I guess it could have been a LOT worse -- at least hopefully it is all fixed once and for all.

[Mike Mack]

Do I need to run kill_initrd even if I am not doing any of the cool network things with my SAT-T60?
I originally did the IC to a larger drive for more storage and never got around to doing any of the network access options that were available. I probably will not do that now that I have an HR10-250 that is networked.
However, I sorely want to recover all the recordings on my SAT-T60 and at least watch them before I reformat with the new IC version.
I have run the copykern replacement successfully as far as I know but I do not know how to definitively check to see that I am running the correct kernel.
My TIVO is currently powered off until I can confirm that the kernel is the correct LBA48 one and I will not incur any more damage to my recordings as a result of having it run.
Any advice on how to confirm this will be much appreciated.
Thanks to tivoupgrade for providing the new IC version - I will be purchasing again soon.
Regards,
Michael

[tivoupgrade]

Do I need to run kill_initrd even if I am not doing any of the cool network things with my SAT-T60?
I originally did the IC to a larger drive for more storage and never got around to doing any of the network access options that were available. I probably will not do that now that I have an HR10-250 that is networked.
However, I sorely want to recover all the recordings on my SAT-T60 and at least watch them before I reformat with the new IC version.
I have run the copykern replacement successfully as far as I know but I do not know how to definitively check to see that I am running the correct kernel.
My TIVO is currently powered off until I can confirm that the kernel is the correct LBA48 one and I will not incur any more damage to my recordings as a result of having it run.
Any advice on how to confirm this will be much appreciated.
Thanks to tivoupgrade for providing the new IC version - I will be purchasing again soon.
Regards,
Michael

Yes, you do. And the order of things does matter. If you follow this post (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4978615&&#post4978615) to the letter, you have a very small chance of recovering. But in all honesty, if you run has been running for some time now with the new version, chances are that any new recordings have overwritten critical portions of what was already there, so I wouldn't have much faith in it.

As for confirming the installation of the kernel, you can verify this by looking at /var/log/messages after the unit boots, and you should see a message documenting the new kernel's use (i think there is a "courtesan" in there). However, if CopyKern has run successfully you should get a confirmation message and a swap initialization message which means its been run just fine. Of course if you didn't run the kill_initrd FIRST, you will have other problems, and the game is up...

[mattereater]

I have a five year old SAT T60. Two years ago I added a 160G and TurboNet using Jenkins/Hinsdale/etc. Never really used the network stuff. Two weeks ago strange behavior began and ten days ago infinite reboot. After trying in vain to backup/restore with MFSTools concluded that original 40G had died - it took the low-level hour long floppy boot disk diag to prove this (to me). Alas I had no image backup. If I made one two years ago I couldn't find it. I discovered InstantCake and decided to use it to put a new image (3.5) on a brand new 300G and remove my still-good 160G which still has tons of video on it but I assume, with its A drive dead, is inaccessible. Long night of work paid off with brand new TiVo in morning. During directed setup saw the weird dialing prefix - hadn't done enough research on phone calls and updates and 'fixed this' with a valid dial-in number. Everything seemed back to normal (minus all of our video) until ... It only took a few days to get 3.5b on the device and then the real strangeness began with recordings causing reoots, messages about recording errors, background screens disappearing, googling, and arriving at this great thread. Two nights ago I tried a few iterations of copykern and kill_initrd but nothing worked and so got the very latest InstantCake with one of my remaining downloads (Thank you very much BTW), baked new 3.5b into dirive, had to do a kill_initrd, after baking (this is right, right?), ftp'd .NETREADY from another PTVupgrade download (Thanks for this too) and all is well again ... but TiVo is banned from using the telephone.

Thank you again DVRUpgrade for InstantCake and support and thank you TiVo community.

[tivoupgrade]

I have a five year old SAT T60. Two years ago I added a 160G and TurboNet using Jenkins/Hinsdale/etc. Never really used the network stuff. Two weeks ago strange behavior began and ten days ago infinite reboot. After trying in vain to backup/restore with MFSTools concluded that original 40G had died - it took the low-level hour long floppy boot disk diag to prove this (to me). Alas I had no image backup. If I made one two years ago I couldn't find it. I discovered InstantCake and decided to use it to put a new image (3.5) on a brand new 300G and remove my still-good 160G which still has tons of video on it but I assume, with its A drive dead, is inaccessible. Long night of work paid off with brand new TiVo in morning. During directed setup saw the weird dialing prefix - hadn't done enough research on phone calls and updates and 'fixed this' with a valid dial-in number. Everything seemed back to normal (minus all of our video) until ... It only took a few days to get 3.5b on the device and then the real strangeness began with recordings causing reoots, messages about recording errors, background screens disappearing, googling, and arriving at this great thread. Two nights ago I tried a few iterations of copykern and kill_initrd but nothing worked and so got the very latest InstantCake with one of my remaining downloads (Thank you very much BTW), baked new 3.5b into dirive, had to do a kill_initrd, after baking (this is right, right?), ftp'd .NETREADY from another PTVupgrade download (Thanks for this too) and all is well again ... but TiVo is banned from using the telephone.

Thank you again DVRUpgrade for InstantCake and support and thank you TiVo community.

Actually, you did not need to do the kill_inird after baking the cake. TurboNet and CacheCard drivers are already pre-installed, and in the last step of the bake, software is put in place to 'flash' the firmware of your unit; this allows the already-modified kernel to boot, and the fact that the image used for InstantCake has already had its initrd "neutered" means that ftp will be automatically enabled, and with your additional .NETREADY file, telnet, as well.

Lastly, you are not banned from using the telephone, but the default is to have a *# in your dialing prefix so that you don't accidentally make a phone call. To make a call, just edit your dialing options; use your phone, or change it to ,#401 if you want to make a call over the network. But be forewarned: If there is another update to the software (eg 3.5c), you may have problems, as the kernel is likely to not be lba48 aware.

[maerativo]

;) I know that miracles do happen on occasion. Why don't we all email the TiVo Directv engineers and ask real nice like for them to incorporated the lba48 into future software upgrades for the series one units. It really would not cost them anything to do this and would make the rest of our lives a lot more pleasant. :D

[sulli2p]

;) I know that miracles do happen on occasion. Why don't we all email the TiVo Directv engineers and ask real nice like for them to incorporated the lba48 into future software upgrades for the series one units. It really would not cost them anything to do this and would make the rest of our lives a lot more pleasant. :D

I'll second this. I keep checking back here with each upgrade, hoping that lba48 has been added to Series 1. Then I look at the posts, and decide that life at 120 GB isn't all that bad. :-)

However, when Comcast rolls TiVo in this market, it will make this a moot point for me. But that's OT....

[scarabus]

My SAT-T60 has been permanently at 3.1.0b ever since the 3.5 upgrade hit and killed it the first time. Now that sufficient time has passed, is there a safe way to take the upgrade if you have a large disk?

I'm thinking that if I let it reboot, install the software and reboot again, then unplug it straight away before it has chance to trash the database I might be able to patch the kernel at that point. Has anyone tried this successfully?

Is there a better/easier way to do this, without losing all my recordings??

[tivoupgrade]

My SAT-T60 has been permanently at 3.1.0b ever since the 3.5 upgrade hit and killed it the first time. Now that sufficient time has passed, is there a safe way to take the upgrade if you have a large disk?

I'm thinking that if I let it reboot, install the software and reboot again, then unplug it straight away before it has chance to trash the database I might be able to patch the kernel at that point. Has anyone tried this successfully?

Is there a better/easier way to do this, without losing all my recordings??

It is likely that if you use copykern right away, after allowing 3.5 to install, before you attempt to record anything else, it will work fine. No guarantees, though - only way to know for sure is to try it on your own unit (we were able to get this to work in our test environment some time ago, but never with any of the customer units that were sent to us).

[danmcd]

Let's bring this thread back from the dead.

I've been noticing reboots lately, and saw that I now have 3.5c on mine. Is this a new update, and if so,
how long ago did it appear?

[tivoupgrade]

Let's bring this thread back from the dead.

I've been noticing reboots lately, and saw that I now have 3.5c on mine. Is this a new update, and if so, how long ago did it appear?

Could very well be. What is the configuration of your unit? ie, has it been upgraded, and if so, with what size drive and how did you do it?

[danmcd]

Could very well be. What is the configuration of your unit? ie, has it been upgraded, and if so, with what size drive and how did you do it?

Hello! I have one of your fine drive upgrade, 160GB to be exact.

I guess what I was trying to verify was whether or not DirecTV is pushing out ANOTHER software upgrade that's gonna force me to bring my HD into work and push an LBA48-happy kernel on to it (AGAIN!).

So are there others reporting a software upgrade to 3.5c? Or am I imagining things?

[tivoupgrade]

Hello! I have one of your fine drive upgrade, 160GB to be exact.

I guess what I was trying to verify was whether or not DirecTV is pushing out ANOTHER software upgrade that's gonna force me to bring my HD into work and push an LBA48-happy kernel on to it (AGAIN!).

So are there others reporting a software upgrade to 3.5c? Or am I imagining things?

We've not heard anything from anyone about 3.5c; but the fact that you have it is an indication that something is going on (and that others may get it too) and yes, you'd need to put the LBA48 kernel back on...

Some follow-up questions:

What type of kit did you put in - and how long ago did you get it? What version of the software was on it prior to 3.5c?

The curious thing, to me, is that ever since 3.5b started shipping, we've set up these drives, by default, to not automatically upgrade unless you explicitly change the dialing prefix and have the system dialing out.

So what I'm wondering is... was your unit making its daily call by itself? Did you make any changes to the software on the drive after we sent it?

More info is good, even if it doesn't seem important...


Thx,
Lou

[danmcd]

We've not heard anything from anyone about 3.5c; but the fact that you have it is an indication that something is going on (and that others may get it too) and yes, you'd need to put the LBA48 kernel back on...


If ANYONE else here, or if any of your customers can confirm that 3.5c exists AND is messing up things, I'd appreciate it. As I answer your questions below, you'll see why I'm worried it's just me.


Some follow-up questions:

What type of kit did you put in - and how long ago did you get it? What version of the software was on it prior to 3.5c?


I bought a 3.1<something> drive from you in December of 2005.

I had to scramble it into work and put an LBA48 kernel on it when 3.5 hit us five months later. I had to do it again for the jump to 3.5b.


The curious thing, to me, is that ever since 3.5b started shipping, we've set up these drives, by default, to not automatically upgrade unless you explicitly change the dialing prefix and have the system dialing out.


I'm DEFINITELY NOT one of those customers, so this is good news for you, I suppose in that your not-automatically-upgrade fixes are not broken.



So what I'm wondering is... was your unit making its daily call by itself? Did you make any changes to the software on the drive after we sent it?


It WAS making the daily call, and since I was mucking around with power yesterday, I (finally) forced my TiVo to reboot, which caused the upgrade/regression to occur.

I hope this alleviates your concerns, Lou, and if you hear from others about 3.5c (someone posted "Yup" in another thread of mine) please share with the forum!

Thanks (from a still-happy dvrupgrade.com customer)!
Dan

[Blackfoot]

3.5c is on my SAT-T60 and my system is pending a reboot. It dials in nightly and as of a few days ago, I did not have the 3.5c slice. It would appear that last night phone home triggered the upgrade. Anyone know what they fixed in it? Or is this their 2008 upgrade to get remote booking and all that other jazz working seeing as 6.3e is in the pipe line to some other units.

[tmembrino]

My Hughes GXCEBOT S1 unit is running 3.5b now and after seeing the update to this thread I checked the MFS Database and see that 3.5c slices are there now. The database shows 8/30 as the date for the slices. The unit is blocked for upgrades and phoning home so it looks like they were pulled down off the satellite last night.

[danmcd]

Thanks everyone for verifying that it's a new upgrade. Pity I was the pioneer who got the arrows in the back. Now I just gotta find that CD or the .iso file...

Dan

[tivoupgrade]

Thanks everyone for verifying that it's a new upgrade. Pity I was the pioneer who got the arrows in the back. Now I just gotta find that CD or the .iso file...

Dan

ok, your explanation, as well as the other replies really do explain a lot.

by the way, i'd suggest that the arrows wound up in your chest, not your back (after all, you haven't been running away from anything!) :-) but if things haven't gotten too garbled, simply using CopyKern from the LBA48 CD (its free) may very well solve your problem.

Hopefully, we'll get 3.5c versions of the software soon - and we can update our tools and kits, as well; otherwise, another alternative might be to just go with 3.5b and stick with that for now.

Its interesting (and good to see) that DirecTV is still updating these units, as much of a PIA as it is...

If I see or hear anything my end, or we make any updates to the tools, I'll let you know; please do let us know if/when you get your system straightened out.

Lou

PS As was pointed out by one of the guys here: "isn't it interesting that DirecTV tends to roll out these updates right before a new TV season starts?"