Tivo Desktop 1.9.3 for Mac won't "start"

[swingline]

Hi all,

I gave searching my best try and nothing came up for this particular problem. I upgraded to OS 10.4 well after the hanging installer/ Tivo Broadcaster flap. I've been doing some house cleaning on my Macrecently. Desktop 1.9.3 installed fine on my 10.4.6 powerbook and I can swear it was working OK. But sometime in the last few days it began to refuse to "Start." Clicking the start button in the preference pane switches it to "Stop" for about 2 secs. and then it bouces back to Start, i.e., it doesn't take. I've tried re-tracing my steps to see if I installed something (or deleted something) to cause this conflict, but nothing comes to mind.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[bedelman]

Do you have the "video" feature enabled? If you do, check the contents of the folder where the video files live. I had exactly the same problem and I narrowed it down to a single file that, when present in the published video folder, would cause TiVo Desktop to do exactly as you're describing.

Another option you might want to try is to turn on logging (hold down the option key while clicking on the preference pane) and then check the contents of the log file.

[ldc]

I've searched all over, and this is the closest I can find to the problem I am having - but not quite.
I never had problems with TiVo Desktop under Panther; most recently version 1.9.1.

I knew that version 1.9.1 wasn't supported under Tiger. When I upgraded to Tiger (10.4.6), I downloaded and installed the latest TiVo Desktop, which was version 1.9.3.

It didn't ever work. When I click on the preference pane, it says "loading TiVo desktop", and never finishes. I just updated to Tiger 10.4.7, but that didn't help either.

I tried uninstalling (following the instructions on the TiVo support knowledge base, which involved removing files from 4 places: preferences; preference panes; application support; and startup items).

I wanted to try re-installing 1.9.1, after reading somewhere that it worked okay for some people even with Tiger. But, the 1.9.1 installer says "nothing to install"
So, now I'm thinking that 1.9.3 is not completely uninstalled?
Also, if i try to install 1.9.3 again (after uninstalling) the installer button is labelled "upgrade", rather than "install" - which also makes me think that I haven't managed to completely rid myself of the older installation

My best guess is that I have a messed up installation, that isn't fully 1.9.1, or 1.9.3, but I don't really know.
Does this make sense?
Does anyone know how to really uninstall TiVo desktop from Tiger?
Does anyone else have this same problem?
Is this something that TiVo broadcaster could solve?
Would 1.9.2 work any better with the latest version of Tiger (I don't need the Intel compatibility from 1.9.3) If so, does anyone know where I can find 1.9.2?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

PS, regarding bedelman's suggestion of enabling logging in the system preferences, where would I find the resulting log file?

[Dennis Wilkinson]

Look in /Library/Receipts (you can use Go To Folder in the Finder's Go menu to do this) for TiVoDesktop.pkg, and move the .pkg file to the Trash.

I would stick to 1.9.3, but I'd also delete all of the TiVo preferences. This means deleting:

/Library/Preferences/com.tivo.desktop

as well as

YourHomeFolder/Library/Preferences/com.tivo.desktop.plist


before reinstalling.

[swingline]

Idc:

The good news is that after uninstalling/ reinstalling 1.9.3, and following bedelman's advice to empty the video folder, I was able to get 1.9.3 to run properly.

Personally, whenever I uninstall an app, I run a spotlight search for the name of the program and the developer, and then I delete everything associated with it (except, of course, if I have any similiarly named apps or others from the same developer.)

[bedelman]

When applications start behaving oddly, it's a good idea to use the Disk Utility to repair permissions (a good thing to do every now and then anyway) -- and if things are still out of whack, start up with the Mac OSX DVD and use the Disk Utility to repair the hard drive (after the first screen appears, select Disk Utility from the menu)

[ldc]

Thanks everyone for the advice.
Dennis, I tried what you suggested - deleting all of those files before reinstalling 1.9.3.
I also ran disk utility (repair permissions) before and after the install. Still unable to load the preference pane :-(
I don't think I had ever used a 'video' feature in TiVo desktop, and I don't know what or where the 'video' folder is?
The only other thing I can think of that might be relevant is that I had used Galleon (1.3?) for a while once upon a time. (Not since upgrading to Tiger, though). Could that be causing any conflict?
If so, how do I uninstall it?
Any other known conflicts?
Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

[Dennis Wilkinson]

Tough to tell where it's getting hung up, unfortunately. Galleon shouldn't cause this kind of behavior, either.

In /Applications/Utilities, there's an app called Console. Open that up, click on the "Logs" button in the toolbar to open the drawer of log files (if it's not displayed already.) Look in (at least) system.log and console.log for messages related to TiVo Desktop. There may also be other TiVo Desktop-related logs in /Library/Logs. If you spot anything unusual, post it here.

[ldc]

Many thanks Dennis and Bob; the problem is solved.
Looking in the log didn't show the TiVo problem directly, but there were numerous messages saying:
"Macintosh mDNSResponder: Couldn't read user-specified Computer Name; using default"
Turns out that when I upgraded to Tiger, somehow my Mac lost its name.
Once I gave the computer a name (using the "sharing" preference), I was able to use the TiVo desktop preference, and get TiVo desktop to start up.
Thought I'd share that, in case anyone else has the same problem.
Thanks again.

[Dennis Wilkinson]

Glad to hear it!