TiVo web vs. Tivowebplus

[Paperface]

Which is better?

I've never seen anyone on here mention tivoweb plus (that I can remember) does anyone use it?

Cheers,

Dave

[Fred Smith]

Get's regular mentions, the last being here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=308746

[john1980]

TivoWebPlus is quite an improvement in areas of asthetics and functionality. I am a little bias though :)

The TWP thread can be found on DD, but newer versions are also available here (http://Thomson.Tivo.googlepages.com/TivoWebPlus). If you use TivoWeb quite a bit then you will definitely find a few improvements.

[iankb]

I've seen a few posts that say they had to downgrade from TW+ to TW because of resource problems, and that there were no real benefits on UK TiVo's. If you have a working copy of TW, I wouldn't bother to 'upgrade'.

No offence intended to the author(s) of TW+, who probably aimed for improvements on US models and software versions. :)

[AndyP]

I use TWP all the time - love it ! Much better than the original, much more features, easier to install, prettier - did I mention I like it !!!

[Paperface]

Thanks for your thoughts everyone. I think I'll give TiVoWeb Plus a go first and if that doesn't work - drop back to TiVoweb standard.

[Pete77]

You are tempting me to try and dual install TivoWeb Plus using the Hackman option. although I wonder how tricky this is in practice and how much I might live to regret Tivoweb+ destroying an otherwise totally reliable and fully functional Tivo. :eek:

My main question would be what are these alleged real signifcant functional improvements in Tivoweb Plus versus Tivoweb. Can those of you who have used both and believe you can identify significant functional (as opposed to cosmetic) enhancements in Tivoweb Plus please list them.

Many thanks.

[CarlWalters]

inspired by this thread I've installed TivoWebPlus. I stopped TiVoWeb, installed TivoWebPlus and started it - all seemed OK. But I read that if I want to be able to run both of them I need to change the port that one of listens on by editing the tivoweb.cfg to read say

tivoweb.cfg (TiVoWeb)
port = 80

tivoweb.cfg (TiVoWebPlus)
port = 8080


If I do this and then in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author do
/var/hack/tivoweb-tcl/tivoweb
/var/hack/TivoWebPlus/tivoweb

then both TivoWeb and TivoWebPlus should be running

when I now try to access TivoWeb remotely as before
https://www.myname.dyndns.org:443/
that still works OK as on my router orenosp is listening on port 443

but ... which bit do I ned to fiddle to get to TiVoWebPlus remotely if it is on port 8080 and TivoWeb is still on port 80 as before? Is it something in the sproxy.conf file in the oreosp directory on my PC?

:confused:

[Pete77]

but ... which bit do I ned to fiddle to get to TiVoWebPlus remotely if it is on port 8080 and TivoWeb is still on port 80 as before? Is it something in the sproxy.conf file in the oreosp directory on my PC?

:confused:

I suppose you could always compromise and only use one or the other for remote access as you surely don't use remote access nearly as much as local? Or does Orenosp not handle listening on more than one Port at once?

But coming back to my original question what significant improvements (if any) have you spotted in Tivoweb Plus compared to Tivoweb?

[CarlWalters]

I suppose you could always compromise and only use one or the other for remote access as you surely don't use remote access nearly as much as local? Or does Orenosp not handle listening on more than one Port at once?

But coming back to my original question what significant improvements (if any) have you spotted in Tivoweb Plus compared to Tivoweb?

Actually I do tend to use remote access much more than local :) The PC at home is right next door to TiVo and it's usually when I get to work and look at DigiGuide that I see something I'd like to record.

As to the differences between TiVoWeb and TiVoWebPlus - I haven't really had chance to experiment yet - apart of course from installing the marvellous LovelyBlue2 (http://www.dixon.ws/tivo/lovely.html) theme!

[Pete77]

Actually I do tend to use remote access much more than local :) The PC at home is right next door to TiVo and it's usually when I get to work and look at DigiGuide that I see something I'd like to record.

I'm sure your employer will be pleased to hear that. ;) :D

Do you also use the Highlights module that looks up the Radio Times recommendations and has a direct hook in to set the program/series for recording?

I find that this is the main means by which I discover and record new series and programs of which I was previously unaware.

[CarlWalters]

I'm sure your employer will be pleased to hear that. ;) :D


:D

Do you also use the Highlights module that looks up the Radio Times recommendations and has a direct hook in to set the program/series for recording?

I find that this is the main means by which I discover and record new series and programs of which I was previously unaware.

Not really - I tend to just browse DigiGuide and manually set recordings for interesting stuff using TiVoWeb

[CarlWalters]

I wonder if it would be something like this in the orenosp config file?

# listen port
proxy_listen_name = lis-sslA 0.0.0.0@443 https
proxy_listen_name = lis-sslB 0.0.0.0@443 https

# forward all requests received on lis-sslA to backend server (port 80)
proxy_pass_by = lis lis-sslA 192.168.1.100
# forward all requests received on lis-sslB to backend server (port 8080)
proxy_pass_by = lis lis-sslB 192.168.1.100:8080

and then
www.mydnsname.org/ gets me to TiVoWeb and
www.mydnsname.org:8080/ gets me to TiVoWebPlus

I'm just guessing obviously :)

[iankb]

I wonder if it would be something like this in the orenosp config file?

# listen port
proxy_listen_name = lis-sslA 0.0.0.0@443 https
proxy_listen_name = lis-sslB 0.0.0.0@443 https

...

www.mydnsname.org/ gets me to TiVoWeb and
www.mydnsname.org:8080/ gets me to TiVoWebPlusYou cannot use the same port number for both listening ports.

https://www.mydnsname.org gets you to TiVoWeb because using https switches from the default port 80 to port 443.

If you access the second port using port 8080, then the second listening port has to be specified as port 8080.

i.e. proxy_listen_name = lis-sslB 0.0.0.0@8080 https

There is a small possibility that company firewalls, etc, will object to you using https with a non-standard https port.

[CarlWalters]

You cannot use the same port number for both listening ports.

https://www.mydnsname.org gets you to TiVoWeb because using https switches from the default port 80 to port 443.

If you access the second port using port 8080, then the second listening port has to be specified as port 8080.

i.e. proxy_listen_name = lis-sslB 0.0.0.0@8080 https


does that mean I also have to have orenosp forwarding port 8080 as well as port 443 on my router settings too?

[iankb]

does that mean I also have to have orenosp forwarding port 8080 as well as port 443 on my router settings too?Yes.

[john1980]

No offence intended to the author(s) of TW+, who probably aimed for improvements on US models and software versions. :)

Hehe... the current "author" has a UK Thomson running the v2.5.5 software :) There is nothing that can be done under TW that is not better under TWP. Remote security is much better for those wishing to access their Tivo over the net - you can now restrict the client IP addresses so if you only ever access it from work you can place in your works IP/Proxy address, it also has a log file and the ability to only ask you for a username/password if the system is being accessed remotely (ie: it will not bug you if you are accessing it from your home network).

There are literally hundreds of bug fixes, and great new graphics and better date/time formats. There is a lot of functionality for those that use wishlists to do all their recordings (block lists is very handy in this area). In fact for those actually wanting to create Wishlists this can be done via the "Search" module.

I guess it is up to the individual... but if you do find something that you don't like in TWP or something you would like improved then let me know.

[B33K34]

I've been using v1.0 since i installed my cachecard a couple of years ago(?) without any problems. i like the look of 1.2 so will probably try an install of that soon - the interface is certainly a lot prettier.

The one issue i have with Tivoweb is that the pages it delivers are data heavy which makes it slow (and expensive) to use with a phone browser. Is there any way of accessing a cut down version or a Wap browser?

[iankb]

There is nothing that can be done under TW that is not better under TWP.I'm sure that is more robust than it used to be. I was just repeating the comments of those who had to 'downgrade', because of stability problems. It probably depends very much on what other hacks were running at the time, but the general feeling was that TW+ was more resource-hungry than TW and, at the time, the benefits for UK users were not much more than cosmetic. I believe that the resource problems may have affected the stability of the live playback.

Never having tried TW+, I couldn't say whether I would have had problems or not. I find basic TW is far too slow for day-to-day use, and only use it to re-orders SPs, and to upload logos. I assume that TW+ doesn't really add functionality in those areas. I would probably increase my usage of TW, or try TW+, if I were working away from home, or able to go on holiday.

[CarlWalters]

You cannot use the same port number for both listening ports.

https://www.mydnsname.org gets you to TiVoWeb because using https switches from the default port 80 to port 443.

If you access the second port using port 8080, then the second listening port has to be specified as port 8080.

i.e. proxy_listen_name = lis-sslB 0.0.0.0@8080 https

There is a small possibility that company firewalls, etc, will object to you using https with a non-standard https port.

Excellent! That seems to work now :) Thanks Ian.

The only slight problem was that my router wouldn't let me have orenosp forwarding to pors 443 and 8080 but it would let me specify a range so I made it forward from 443 to 444 and evrything was fine.

Now to fiddle about with TivoWebPlus and see what I think...

[CarlWalters]

except as Ian suspected it doesn't work from my work PC.

from home
https://www.mydomain.dyndns.org gets me to TiVoWeb
https://www.mydomain.dyndns.org:443 gets me to TiVoWebPlus

from work
https://www.mydomain.dyndns.org gets me to TiVoWeb
https://www.mydomain.dyndns.org:444 gets me

The connection to www.mydomainname.dyndns.org:444 was interrupted while the page was loading.

# The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few
moments.

# If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network
connection.

# If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

[iankb]

... from home
https://www.mydomain.dyndns.org gets me to TiVoWeb
https://www.mydomain.dyndns.org:443 gets me to TiVoWebPlus

from work
https://www.mydomain.dyndns.org gets me to TiVoWeb
https://www.mydomain.dyndns.org:444 gets me ...
I presume you meant ...

... from home

https://www.mydomain.dyndns.org gets me to TiVoWeb
https://www.mydomain.dyndns.org:444 gets me to TiVoWebPlus

... or both would be using the same port.

Not that that will solve your problem.

[CarlWalters]

I presume you meant ...

... from home

https://www.mydomain.dyndns.org gets me to TiVoWeb
https://www.mydomain.dyndns.org:444 gets me to TiVoWebPlus

... or both would be using the same port.

Not that that will solve your problem.
Yup :)

Darn that cut and paste.

As you say - doesn't solve the problem though.

[iankb]

If you aren't running a webserver with port 80, then you could try using that port as the external port for the second TiVo. Port 80 should be no problem when accessed externally, although some routers will present a router-maintenance website when used internally.

The other alternatives are to try ports 3128 and 6588 which, like port 8080, are often used by internet proxy servers, and might just be allowed through your company firewall. Are you sure that your router doesn't allow you to specify multiple port ranges to redirect to orenosp? Your router only needs to redirect the external port numbers. It doesn't need to get involved with the redirection to the internal port numbers of your TiVo's that orenosp uses.

The main killer would be if the HTTPS protocol is only allowed if you use port 443, since that would only support one secure connection to a single TiVo.

[iankb]

Since you appear to be using a permanently-powered PC to run orenosp, I recommend that you use LogMeIn or GoToMyPC to access your PC from work, and use the internal network to access both your TiVo's. Much more useful, LogMeIn has a free version, and these product are more secure in that you don't need to open up any incoming ports on your router.

They both operate by making outgoing connections via central servers, and allow access to your PC through nearly all company firewalls, and any internet cafe worldwide, using a normal web browser.

[CarlWalters]

Since you appear to be using a permanently-powered PC to run orenosp, I recommend that you use LogMeIn or GoToMyPC to access your PC from work, and use the internal network to access both your TiVo's. Much more useful, LogMeIn has a free version, and these product are more secure in that you don't need to open up any incoming ports on your router.

They both operate by making outgoing connections via central servers, and allow access to your PC through nearly all company firewalls, and any internet cafe worldwide, using a normal web browser.

Ahh confusion. I only have one TiVo but it's running TiVoWeb and TiVoWebPlus.

I might give LogMeIn a go when I get home - I could then presumably turn off the port forwarding and remove orenosp?

[CarlWalters]

If you aren't running a webserver with port 80, then you could try using that port as the external port for the second TiVo. Port 80 should be no problem when accessed externally, although some routers will present a router-maintenance website when used internally.

The other alternatives are to try ports 3128 and 6588 which, like port 8080, are often used by internet proxy servers, and might just be allowed through your company firewall. Are you sure that your router doesn't allow you to specify multiple port ranges to redirect to orenosp? Your router only needs to redirect the external port numbers. It doesn't need to get involved with the redirection to the internal port numbers of your TiVo's that orenosp uses.

The main killer would be if the HTTPS protocol is only allowed if you use port 443, since that would only support one secure connection to a single TiVo.

My router allows me to specify a range of ports that orenosp forward e.g 443-444 (or presumably 443-8080) but I don't think it allows me to specify ports that are non-adjacent.

[iankb]

Ahh confusion. I only have one TiVo but it's running TiVoWeb and TiVoWebPlus.Yes, forgot that for a moment. :p

I might give LogMeIn a go when I get home - I could then presumably turn off the port forwarding and remove orenosp?Yes. LogMeIn or GoToMyPC can be useful in lots of ways, since you can do anything that you could do on your home PC, including reboot it. I use GoToMyPC, which is similar to the subscription version of LogMeIn. It adds drag and drop file transfer between machines and, very usefully, the ability to use your work printer from within your home applications. The only real disadvantage is that you don't get any sound from your remote PC.

Hint: It helps if your home desktop looks similar to your work desktop, so your boss doesn't spot which computer you are working on. :o

[iankb]

My router allows me to specify a range of ports that orenosp forward e.g 443-444 (or presumably 443-8080) but I don't think it allows me to specify ports that are non-adjacent.I use a Netgear router. That allows you to create new 'Services', each of which is a defined range of ports. You can then create multiple 'Firewall Rules', each of which can use one of the defined services. However, routers do vary.

[CarlWalters]

I use a Netgear router. That allows you to create new 'Services', each of which is a defined range of ports. You can then create multiple 'Firewall Rules', each of which can use one of the defined services. However, routers do vary.

hmm I've got a netgear router as well. But it wouldn't let me create two entries called orenosp on port 443

By the way I've just installed LogMeIn here at home and it looks pretty useful. Just don't try and access the PC you're on remotely though - all sorts of weird effects - just like pointing a TV camera at the monitor it's feeding. :)

I suppose LogMeIn is as secure as anything else isn't it?

[iankb]

hmm I've got a netgear router as well. But it wouldn't let me create two entries called orenosp on port 443All you need in your router is one entry for port 443 that points to your PC running orenosp on port 443, and another for port 444 or 8080, pointing to your PC on port 444, 8080, or whatever the port number that orenosp expects.

I suppose LogMeIn is as secure as anything else isn't it?Should be more secure since, to hack your machine, they would have to hack into your account on the LogMeIn central server, and then hack into your machine from there. If it's anything like GoToMyPC, you have a password to get into the central account, followed by a password that the central server doesn't know that gets you into the LogMeIn/GotoMyPC server on your PC, and then your local PC log-in password, if set-up that way. You have no open ports on your router, so no amount of port scanning is going to get in directly, and any hacking via the LogMeIn account is going to have to be LogMeIn-specific. The central servers will be constantly monitoring for any suspicious activity, and almost certainly block any account after a certain number of failed log-ins, and/or insert an artificial delay between log-in attempts.

Unless you specifically create a challenge by bragging about your security, hacking and levels of security are always about the cost/benefits. e.g. Hackers will normally only scan low-numbered ports, since they can scan far more machines than if they tried to scan high-numbered ports as well, and the time taken to find an open port with a known-hackable piece of software listening on it would be significantly increased. They are exceedingly unlikely to break two or three consecutive strong passwords by dictionary attacks, and all traffic is encrypted. The time taken to break modern-day encryption algorithms is measured in multiples of the life of the universe, so only Marvin is likely to get overly-paranoid about that.

For strong passwords that you can easily remember, try misspelling a couple of familiar words, with misplaced capital letters, and concatenate them with a number and/or punctuation characters.

Even if the hacker had an incredibly-powerful computer and was able to interate through every combination of letter combinations, and not just known words in the dictionary, it would take 65,536 times longer just to check for every possibility of capitalisation in a 16-character string. That's assuming that he even bothered to try, given the potential cost. Something that he could otherwise have done in (say) 12 hours with this impossibly-powerful computer, will now take 90 years.

[Pete77]

I have now managed to install TivowebPlus alongside Tivoweb including configuring Tivoweb for Port 443 and TivoWeb Plus for Port 8080 in the tivoweb.cfg files in the respective directories of each application. I have also managed to use the Starup Editor in Tivoweb to start both Tivoweb and TivoWebPlus on Tivo bootup and I have modified the tivoweb (no extension) file in the TivowebPlus directory to increase TIVOSH_POOLSIZE to the maximum value of 3244068 allowed (already set to this for TivoWeb). I have also have a Username and Password set up for both TivoWeb and TivoWebPlus.

However the problem I am having with TivoWebPlus is that it is refusing to accept the username and password set up for it in tivoweb.cfg in the TivoWebPlus directory and although by default TivoWebPlus only asks for the Username and Password if I try to access it remotely over the web (in this case using an old 0845 dialup connection to simulate this) if I change the setting in tivoweb.cfg so it also asks for a username and password locally I cannot login locally with username and passsword either.

I've tried all the obvious things but I can' find what the problem seems to be with username and password not being accepted. On each occasion it allows three atempts and then locks me out completely requiring a reboot of the machine to try again. I presume this 3 attempts limit is a new security feature in TivoWebPlus?

Does anyone have any ideas or have they experinced this problem themselves.

The main benefits of TivoWebPlus seem to be that the full program description of each program is shown on many different screens without having to drill down to it by clicking a link and the program has a Better Info function with information on the hard drive condition as follows:-

Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/hda4 ext2 124M 27M 91M 23% /
/dev/hda9 ext2 124M 9.1M 108M 8% /var

/dev/hda:
multcount = 0 (off)
I/O support = 0 (default 16-bit)
using_dma = 1 (on)
readahead = 8 (on)
geometry = 16383/16/63, sectors = 488397168, start = 0
drive state is: active/idle

Device: SAMSUNG HA250JC Supports ATA Version 7
Drive supports S.M.A.R.T. and is enabled
Check S.M.A.R.T. Passed

/dev/hdb:
multcount = 0 (off)
I/O support = 0 (default 16-bit)
using_dma = 1 (on)
readahead = 8 (on)
geometry = 16383/16/63, sectors = 488397168, start = 0
drive state is: active/idle

Device: SAMSUNG HA250JC Supports ATA Version 7
Drive supports S.M.A.R.T. and is enabled
Check S.M.A.R.T. Passed

[thechachman]

Well for me, v1.31 seems to place near zero load on our Tivos whereas earlier ones would cause occasional pauses/hiccups ... and the faiec theme is quite lovely I must say

[Pete77]

Well for me, v1.31 seems to place near zero load on our Tivos whereas earlier ones would cause occasional pauses/hiccups ... and the faiec theme is quite lovely I must say

I am not getting any trouble with TivoWebPlus 1.3.1 slowing down my machine or rebooting or freezing programs playing even though I have both TivoWeb and TivoWebPlus loaded and running. In fact I notice that TivoWebPlus now has a low resource mode where it ignores all channels in the database other than "Channels I Receive" via a setting in tivoweb.cfg and I am considering taking TivoWeb out of the Startup file and only using it where necessary via starting it in Hackman. Once that is I get Hackman working on TivoWebPlus as its not built in and the install process looks a bit of a fiddle mainly due to the world's most verbose and unhelpful ReadMe file.

The main Tivoweb still has which Tivoweb lacks is User Interface/Preferences/Explicity Thumbed + Implied by Recordings. This is very useful for reviewing and amending extreme thumbs ratings for programs/series although I think it was probably an Ljay add on when he reworked the Tivoweb User Interface module. But then TivoWebPlus makes accessing program descriptions much easier and also its "Info" function gives hard drive health status reports not available on Tivoweb.

However using Back in User Interface/Now Playing after you have looked up a program description (for instance to get the tmsid number which Tivoweb again does not offer) takes ages as the whole Now Playing page is built again from scratch. In TivoWeb one could go back instantly without the long wait.

TivoWebPlus is almost good enough to replace TivoWeb fully even for us UK Series 1 users. May be by TivoWebPlus 1.5 that point will have been reached. The only TivoWeb module that doesn't work well in TivoWebPlus is Now Playing with Sort but that doesn't matter as it has been replaced by the built in Folders option which has even better functionality.

[Pete77]

Better and more fun than loading TivoWeb Plus alongside TivoWeb though is this little Yahoo Widget Utility - http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/?search=oztivo&x=0&y=0 - I came across at the very useful http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com/TivoWebPlus which also tells you how to successfully install the TivoWebPlus too.

This OzTivo Yahoo Widget by Paul Denaro is utterly brilliant and gives you the little Tivo guy on your desktop with a mouth that flashes red with the name of the program appearing when clicking on the mouth if something is recording, a little temperature guage showing current Tivo temp when clicked on and best of all four icons below TivoGuy that take you to lists for Season Pass, To Do and Now Showing plus a full size black TivoS2 style pop up remote control that is far better than WebRemote in TivoWeb.

The piece de La Resistances are the Season Pass and Now Playing pop up lists which have brilliant and very fast graphics and scroll lists and show all programs of a series grouped together in a single drop down folder on your desktop and displaying the number of programs in that series recorded as a summary. And you can then click on the folder to open it and show the episodes and click on an icon against each episode in the list if you want to delete it. Its so much easier to use than even the TivoWeb Now Playing list that I find I'm using it all the time and pruning out a whole lot of dross from a while back that I hadn't spotted before in my several hundred hours of recordings in Now Playing.

I really advise everyone who loves TivoWeb to get this widget and install it as its totally brilliant (it relies on having TivoWeb or TivoWebPlus installed in order to run though as well as the free Yahoo Widgets software which I also highly recommend). Also Yahoo Widgets have a fantastic desktop widget for local weather conditions for the next 5 days and current temp, wind speed, pressure etc which is equally worth getting at the same time. I hope some of you will try this OzTivo Widget because I just know that you will all fall in love with it.

[jonphil]

I'm just brought a new HD with TivoWeb already installed. Is it quite easy to install TivoWeb+ onto TIVO through a cachecard and network? If I find it causes me problems can I easliy go back and reinstall TivoWeb.
Is it possible to break Tivo if I mess up something on the install?

[Pete77]

I'm just brought a new HD with TivoWeb already installed. Is it quite easy to install TivoWeb+ onto TIVO through a cachecard and network? If I find it causes me problems can I easliy go back and reinstall TivoWeb.
Is it possible to break Tivo if I mess up something on the install?

If you haven't installed your own Tivoweb or done your own hard drive upgrade it would probably seem quite tricky and potentially confusing initially and you could mess up your Tivo. For anyone who has already upgraded their own hard drive themselves and installed Tivoweb themselves there is hardly anything to it although following the instructions at http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com/TivoWebPlus and using the TivowebPlus download there makes it even simpler.

The extra functionality you get from TivowebPlus is quite small compared to Tivoweb with all the add on modules that you can install, although larger compared to a Tivoweb with no add on modules.

I think you would be better off installing the OzTivo Widget I described a couple of posts above on your desktop as that is a huge leap forward and shows you on your own PC desktop the name of the program currently recording against a flashing red Tivoguy mouth and at the click of a button on your desktop a list of all programs in Now Playing and an easy and very quick way to delete all the ones you don't want to keep. Also this TivoGuy Widget gives you a full desktop remote control and the current temp of the Tivo you can only otherwise get to in System Information. The OzTivo Widget is dead easy to install as you just need to download the Yahoo Widgets software from the link on the OzTivo Widget site and then double click the Oztivo Widget. OzTivo TivoGuy Widget uses TivoWeb to get all the information it needs.

See http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/?search=oztivo&x=0&y=0

[RichardJH]

I have installed the widget for each of my Tivos and IMHO they are really useful and worth trying.

[RichardJH]

I have both TivoWeb and TivoWebPlus loaded and running. Originally posted by Pete 77

I use hackman to swap between TW and TW+ but find that when using the OZtivo widget it works ok when TW is running but if I swap to TW+ it stops working.

Can I run both TW and TW+ at the same time ?? how. At present I have both TW and TW+ using a high numbered port, do I need to set up separate ports for each.

[Pete77]

I use hackman to swap between TW and TW+ but find that when using the OZtivo widget it works ok when TW is running but if I swap to TW+ it stops working.

Can I run both TW and TW+ at the same time ?? how. At present I have both TW and TW+ using a high numbered port, do I need to set up separate ports for each.
I tried the OzTivo Widget with both TivoWeb and TivoWebPlus and it seemed to work successfully with either of them and managed to obtain and display all the required information.

However I have set it to use TivoWeb for the time being using the full IP address and port number that Tivo is on so it will work both at home or if I take my notebook PC elsewhere and want to access it over the internet. This is because TivoWebPlus won't accept a Username and Password successfully when it needs one (which it does when accessed outside the home network). This problem also exists even if I try to log into TivoWebPlus internally through just my router if I change the tivoweb.cfg file setting so TivoWebPlus asks for a password at all times.

To use both TivoWeb and TivoWebPlus at the same time you simply need to have commands to start up both of them in the Startup files (RCSysInit) accessed via the Startup Editor in TivoWeb but first you need to have set TivoWeb and TivoWebPlus to have a different Port number in their respective tivoweb.cfg files. You can edit these files using the Joe file editor that should have come with the TivoWeb installation package. Type Start/Run then Telnet xxx.xxx.x.x:8080 to log into your Tivo then type cd /var/hack/tivoweb-tcl, then type /var/hack/joe tivoweb.cfg, then change the Port number as required in the file, then type Ctrl-K then Ctrl-X to save. Now type cd /var/hack/TivoWebPlus. Now type /var/hack/joe tivoweb.cfg. Then edit the port number and save again using Ctrl-K then Ctrl-X.

Now use the Startup Editor in TivoWeb and make sure you have the following two lines:-

/var/hack/tivoweb-tcl/tivoweb >> /dev/null &
/var/hack/TivoWebPlus/tivoweb >> /dev/null &

Also you want to edit your tivoweb file (no file extension) in the tivoweb-tcl and TivoWebPlus directories to change the TIVOSH_POOLSIZE setting to the maximum value of 3244068 to reduce the chance of any crash by TivoWeb or TivoWebPlus when doing complicated operations like using Tracker or Seaching by Advisory Codes across All Channels. So the same procedure as editing tivoweb.cfg and then just typing /var/hack/joe tivoweb in the appropriate directory with no .cfg at the end. Do this for both the tivoweb files in the tivoweb-tcl and TivoWebPlus directories.

Lastly can you tell me if you can log into TivoWebPlus if you force it to always ask for a password using the setting in the tivoweb.cfg file in the TivoWebPlus directory? I just wondered if it is a problem on my machine or a general bug with TivoWebPlus and our UK TivoS1 units.

[The Bear]

Just trying the OzWidget with TivoWebPlus 1.2.2 but can't seem to connect it to the Tivo. Got the correct 'http://192.168.0.xx' in the 'TivoURL' box as when I double click the widget, Tivowebplus opens up in a browser window. Tried reloading lists but nothing seems to work.

Do I need to restart TWP to get it to work?

[Pete77]

Just trying the OzWidget with TivoWebPlus 1.2.2 but can't seem to connect it to the Tivo. Got the correct 'http://192.168.0.xx' in the 'TivoURL' box as when I double click the widget, Tivowebplus opens up in a browser window. Tried reloading lists but nothing seems to work.

Do I need to restart TWP to get it to work?

Do you have the Port number included in the URL? For instance 192.168.0.4:443 if the port number you have set in tivoweb.cfg in the var/hack/TivoWebPlus diectory is 443?

Alternatively it may be a Username and Password issue as I cannot get my TivoWebPlus V1.3.1 to accept the User Name and password if I try to log in remotely over the internet when the username and password is required (its not required on 1.3.1 when you log in locally unless you force this option in the tivoweb.cfg file setting).

To be honest you would probably be better of pointing the OzTivo Widget at TivoWeb standard edition as I have my OzTivo widget pointed at that and it is working perfectly. And you can configure your Tivo to run both TivoWeb and TivoWebPlus at the same time without any obvious penalty, at least with V1.3.1 you can. Also I'm not really finding TivoWebPlus much of an improvement on TivoWeb with all the add on modules whereas I am finding the OzTivo Widget a huge uplift in my Tivo functionality.

I hope this is of some assistance.

[The Bear]

Yeah port is included. Password seems to login ok. May try the normal tivoweb.

[Pete77]

Yeah port is included. Password seems to login ok. May try the normal tivoweb.

Do you have normal TivoWeb on the machine already? If not just a basic install without any add on modules would support the OzTivo Widget fully.

The process for installing TivoWeb is fully documented at:-

www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo/airnet2.html

[jonphil]

I am not getting any trouble with TivoWebPlus 1.3.1 slowing down my machine or rebooting or freezing programs playing even though I have both TivoWeb and TivoWebPlus loaded and running. In fact I notice that TivoWebPlus now has a low resource mode where it ignores all channels in the database other than "Channels I Receive" via a setting in tivoweb.cfg and I am considering taking TivoWeb out of the Startup file and only using it where necessary via starting it in Hackman. Once that is I get Hackman working on TivoWebPlus as its not built in and the install process looks a bit of a fiddle mainly due to the world's most verbose and unhelpful ReadMe file.

The main Tivoweb still has which Tivoweb lacks is User Interface/Preferences/Explicity Thumbed + Implied by Recordings. This is very useful for reviewing and amending extreme thumbs ratings for programs/series although I think it was probably an Ljay add on when he reworked the Tivoweb User Interface module. But then TivoWebPlus makes accessing program descriptions much easier and also its "Info" function gives hard drive health status reports not available on Tivoweb.

However using Back in User Interface/Now Playing after you have looked up a program description (for instance to get the tmsid number which Tivoweb again does not offer) takes ages as the whole Now Playing page is built again from scratch. In TivoWeb one could go back instantly without the long wait.

TivoWebPlus is almost good enough to replace TivoWeb fully even for us UK Series 1 users. May be by TivoWebPlus 1.5 that point will have been reached. The only TivoWeb module that doesn't work well in TivoWebPlus is Now Playing with Sort but that doesn't matter as it has been replaced by the built in Folders option which has even better functionality.

So does TivoWeb+ have a lower overall load on Tivo and less likely to cause Tivo to reboot and such. Having had Tivo reboot a couple of times with Tivoweb I'm debating about not using it at all.

[Pete77]

So does TivoWeb+ have a lower overall load on Tivo and less likely to cause Tivo to reboot and such. Having had Tivo reboot a couple of times with Tivoweb I'm debating about not using it at all.

I think the latest version of TivoWebPlus may have a lower load impact than TivoWeb especially if it is only configured via tivoweb.cfg to do all its data calculation on "Channels I Receive". But you need to change TIVOSH_POOLSIZE to 3244068 in tivoweb.cfg if you are still getting these reboots.

Either TivoWeb or TivoWebPlus can reboot your machine in some circumstances but normally only when you are using it live interactively and even then only very rarely. But since TivoWeb/TivoWeb+ makes it so much easier to find and manipulate programs and data on the Tivo that's something which I am prepared to live with.

[The Bear]

I'm trying to do a complete reinstall of TWPv1.3.1, as I seemed to have buggered it up by interrupting a full reload.

Anyone know how to completely remove the TivoWebPlus folder from /var/hack/ so I can start again from the .tar file??

I can delete everything except the folders 'backups' and 'uploads'. When I try and do rmdir /var/hack/TivoWebPlus it says that 'backups' isn't empty even though there are no files in it. Same goes for 'uploads'.

Oh and I've tried reinstalling over the top but it doesn't seem to work.

[Pete77]

Anyone know how to completely remove the TivoWebPlus folder from /var/hack/ so I can start again from the .tar file??

I can delete everything except the folders 'backups' and 'uploads'. When I try and do rmdir /var/hack/TivoWebPlus it says that 'backups' isn't empty even though there are no files in it. Same goes for 'uploads'.

I always use Filezilla which comes from the same sourceforge.net website as TivowebPlus itself in order to manipulate files on the Tivo and delete directories. This is a Freeware Windows based FTP client. It will let you delete a directory and all the files in it.

See http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

I suppose to totally delete TivoWebPlus you ideally need to remove the command that starts it on boot from the rc.sysinit file that is edited using the Startup file editor in TivoWebPlus.

[Aaron451]

have you mounted the Tivo drive as read/write? You need to do this before you can delete anything.

[gjwell]

You only need to mount rw if you want to edit the rc.sysinit file. /var... is always rw. However I would hope if you have a startup command it is in the rc.sysinit.author. Also make sure to remount and sync after you finished. ( I’m guessing you don’t want to touch this as you’re reinstalling anyway)

Use rm -r this will remove all subdirectories and contents. Be very careful to specify the correct path , as there are no warnings. ;)

Geoff

[The Bear]

Cheers all, will try it when I get home. rm -r sounds the best bet. If not I'll try Filezilla.

I actually use Windows' My Network Places to browse Tivo's folders in an ftp:// explorer window to add delete stuff, but it restricts certain commands.

I usually start off a telnet session with rw to make sure when editing files.

[Pete77]

Use rm -r this will remove all subdirectories and contents. Be very careful to specify the correct path , as there are no warnings. ;)


Or just use FileZilla which is a lot safer than using native GNU Bash 2.02.0(1) Linux commands for many of these file operations.

[gjwell]

Originally Posted by The Bear
I can delete everything except the folders 'backups' and 'uploads'. When I try and do rmdir /var/hack/TivoWebPlus it says that 'backups' isn't empty even though there are no files in it. Same goes for 'uploads'.




Sorry Pete, I wasn't discounting your preferred approach . Just trying to help with Bears previous Linux command. I agree it's much safer with filezila. As its easy to make a mistake typing the path with terrible consequences

[The Obo]

Better and more fun than loading TivoWeb Plus alongside TivoWeb though is this little Yahoo Widget Utility - http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/?search=oztivo&x=0&y=0...
I really advise everyone who loves TivoWeb to get this widget and install it as its totally brilliant (it relies on having TivoWeb or TivoWebPlus installed in order to run though as well as the free Yahoo Widgets software which I also highly recommend). Also Yahoo Widgets have a fantastic desktop widget for local weather conditions for the next 5 days and current temp, wind speed, pressure etc which is equally worth getting at the same time. I hope some of you will try this OzTivo Widget because I just know that you will all fall in love with it.

Great call Pete!! it sure is nice!

Now if only it could do a HiGuide Grid and Season Pass reordering....

[Pete77]

Now if only it could do a HiGuide Grid and Season Pass reordering....

Yes if only it could do Highlights and Search by Name too and if only it would let me change a Suggestions recording it has picked up that I want to Save Until I Delete without having to use TivoWeb.

But the interface and the ease with which you can delete a whole lot of stuff from Now Playing that you don't want is just brilliant.

[The Bear]

rm -r worked like a charm.

Re-installed straight away no problems and was running again within a couple of minutes. Cheers.

OzTivo widget even worked straight away! Looks a great little tool as well.

[gjwell]

I have been experimenting with both Tivo Web and Web+. I had a lot of lock ups and rebooting with TivoWeb+, even with the TIVOSH_POOLSIZE set. I eventually reverted to TivoWeb which seems a lot more stable. I am still having a few stability issues though.

If I run the OzTivo widget (which is really cool) it accesses TivoWeb thus causing Tivo to stutter on live TV. (causing my girlfriend to start shouting ;( )

Pete if you can run both at the same time I would be really interested to see what hardware and hacks you are running, as I really prefer Web+.

I am currently running the following: -

Hardware: UK Thompson Tivo, single Hitachi 320Gig disk LBA48 Kernel
Cache Card 512 Meg

Hacks: TivoWeb, Endpad, Hackman, and Vserver.

I’m going to try a clean image and reinstall tonight as I only replaced the HD a week or so ago (so won’t loose much) and all the playing with hacks may have done some harm?

Anyone else happy with TivoWeb+ on the UK Tivo?

[aitcheff]

Anyone else happy with TivoWeb+ on the UK Tivo?

Yes, I run TWP on both my Tivos and have no problems. Just installed the latest version and I think it's great though I suppose I could have had more or less the same setup with TW and some optional modules.

IIRC, the hacks I have installed are Endpad, Autospace and Hackman.

[Pete77]

I have been experimenting with both Tivo Web and Web+. I had a lot of lock ups and rebooting with TivoWeb+, even with the TIVOSH_POOLSIZE set. I eventually reverted to TivoWeb which seems a lot more stable. I am still having a few stability issues though.

If I run the OzTivo widget (which is really cool) it accesses TivoWeb thus causing Tivo to stutter on live TV. (causing my girlfriend to start shouting ;( )

Pete if you can run both at the same time I would be really interested to see what hardware and hacks you are running, as I really prefer Web+.

I had noticed some occasional pixellation stuttering in the Live buffer or when watching recordings lately and had thought my 16 months old Samsung HA250JC drives were on the way out. It now makes sense that this happens when the OzSat Widget is polling the TivoWebPlus server for data every 15 minutes as the occasional pixellation (a second or two) only started happening around the time I started using the OzTivo Widget. The pixellation is very infrequent so I may be able to live with it as the OzTivo Widget always keeping me in touch with what is recording (even when the tv is off) and it making it so easy to delete multiple recordings in Now Playing is very handy. Of course one can make OzTivo only poll TivoWebPlus say every 100 minutes but then the data on the recording program shown in the flashing red mouth of OzTivo would then be way out of date. At the moment I have the polling interval set to every 15 minutes in OzTivo.

I hadn't found TivoWebPlus any less stable than TivoWeb although certainly the Screen function it comes with doesn't seem to do anything other than fail to produce data on our UK Tivo S1 models but perhaps it works with a Tivo S2? I have a use for both TivoWebPlus and TivoWeb as TivoWebPlus gives you much better info on Disk condition in its Info function and also gives you the program summary of each recording far more readily on many screens. Also its Folders module is superior to even the Now Playing With Sort add on module for TivoWeb.

However the User Interface/Preferences/Explicitly Thumbed option for reviewing and amending all the Thumbs ratings one has ever set for any series does not seem to exist in TivoWebPlus. Now I think the Explicity Thumbed option was probably an add on hack by Ljay in TivoWeb so no doubt it could also be implemented in TivoWebPlus by Ljay if he wanted to.

I think you may overcome your stability issues in TivoWebPlus if you edit the tivoweb.cfg file in the var/hack/TivoWebPlus directory and change the "Hide Not Received" setting to = "1" as this then means TivoWebPlus doesn't have to consider all the other hundreds of channels in the Sky database you don't actually watch.

I have also just Installed the New Internet Explorer 7 and have set up a permanent browser tab (one of several) to open on Startup with TivoWebPlus as it doesn't require a user name and password to be entered on the local network connection unlike TivoWeb. Ditto I have set the OzTivo widget to use the TivoWebPlus server as again password and username entry are not required over my local network on TWP but are for TivoWeb.

I do however have a problem with TivoWebPlus telling me my Username and Pasword are wrong if I try to log in over the internet remotely and then continually refusing to accept them. At the moment I haven't been able to find the cause or the cure for this problem although a Google search shows me that other users of TivoWebPlus are also experiencing this issue.

The only memory resident hacks on the Tivo I am running apart from TivoWeb and TivoWebPlus that load at bootup time are Endpad, Tserver and Autospace. I have installed various additional modules for TivoWeb but these have no ongoing resource implication when not in use.

[gjwell]

Thanks for the info.

I have noticed that using the OzTivo widget with TivoWeb on a different Tivo causes no ill effects to Live TV at all, so Web+ must be slightly more resource hungry.

My Tivo had just started to fail on daily calls too :). It's a bit weird as it completes a test call fine. But when you try a forced call it came up with service unavailable.

Right I'm going to restore an LB48 image now and start from the basics. I will also set the hide not received flag in the config in TivoWeb+ fingers crossed.

I'll report back later.

[The Bear]

My TW+ is working fine remotely even after an upgrade from v1.2.2 to v1.3.1 and then a complete reinstall.

Have you tried resetting the password fields in tivoweb.cfg to blank and seeing if you can login remotely, then putting them back in if it works?

[Pete77]

Have you tried resetting the password fields in tivoweb.cfg to blank and seeing if you can login remotely, then putting them back in if it works?
Good suggestion. I will give it a try.

[Pete77]

My Tivo had just started to fail on daily calls too :). It's a bit weird as it completes a test call fine. But when you try a forced call it came up with service unavailable.

That has to do with the command used to load TivoWeb at Startup.

You want the lines that call TivoWeb and TivoWebPlus to read as follows in the Startup File:-

/var/hack/tivoweb-tcl/tivoweb >> /dev/null &
/var/hack/TivoWebPlus/tivoweb >> /dev/null &

For some reason I forget the /dev/null & suffix makes all the difference to continued successful daily call operation.

[Pete77]

I have noticed that using the OzTivo widget with TivoWeb on a different Tivo causes no ill effects to Live TV at all, so Web+ must be slightly more resource hungry.

You have 320Gb of disk space and I have 500Gb of disk space, as a result of which we both have a lot more programs than most others in Now Playing.

I wonder if this is what makes the difference compared to a lower capacity Tivo.

Also using bufferhack I created a 3 hour Live buffer on my Tivo instead of the regular 30 minutes. I wonder if again this is why there is an impact on my Tivo's Live Buffer from the OzTivo widget but not on one with a more standard configuration?

Also how often did the OzTivo Widget poll the other Tivo you are talking about for fresh data? It can be set to poll once a minute or only once every few hours..................

[gjwell]

You have 320Gb of disk space and I have 500Gb of disk space, as a result of which we both have a lot more programs than most others in Now Playing.

I wonder if this is what makes the difference compared to a lower capacity Tivo.



Agreed We do have Larger drives, and also the LBA48 kernel. I only installed my drive last week or so though, so I only have four or five programs in my now playing list. I haven’t yet installed the buffer hack. Although I will soon.


/var/hack/tivoweb-tcl/tivoweb >> /dev/null &
/var/hack/TivoWebPlus/tivoweb >> /dev/null &


hmm I cannot remember for sure my startup command ( I thought it was as you said ) I have just put the Tivo back together after re imaging so too late to find out :rolleyes:

Still every days a school day! :)

I notice V1.4 beta is out http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com/TivoWebPlus
has anyne tried this? I wonder if its worth a go?

Oh I had the OzTivo widget set on around 15 mins

[Pete77]

I notice V1.4 beta is out http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com/TivoWebPlus
has anyne tried this? I wonder if its worth a go?

Oh I had the OzTivo widget set on around 15 mins

I'm right off Beta software after my experiences with the Internet Explorer 7 Beta that wasn't at all compatible with my Norton Anti Virus software's memory resident bit. However now that the full IE7 is out it works with Norton AntiVirus with no problem.

My OzTivo Widget is also set to 15 minutes. It seemed the best compromise between the Now Recording flashing mouth being fairly up to date and the Tivo forever being polled and so the OzTivo Now Playing and To Do lists being unavailable most of the time.

You should be able to use StartUp Editor in TivoWebPlus to edit your startup files.

[gjwell]

Well I restored an image yesterday. Installed TivoWebPlus 1.4 beta. So far so good. I haven't had any lockups or reboots (yet).

The ‘Threadpool’ and ‘Hide not received’options are no longer available in the tivoweb.cfg file. However so far there have been no performance problems.

I tried navigating through most of the pages on TivoWebPlus and there was no stutters or pauses on live TV, so it’s looking really encouraging :)

I haven't done much else yet other than installing joe and tivo-bin. I'm going to run up OzTivo widget next, to put some load on TivoWebPlus and see how it goes. The next job will be Hackman, Endpad and buffer hack.

[Pete77]

Well I restored an image yesterday. Installed TivoWebPlus 1.4 beta. So far so good. I haven't had any lockups or reboots (yet).

I have now managed to get all the Tivoweb modules I was using in TivoWeb operating under TivoWebPlus 1.3 including the missing UserInterface/Preferences/Explicity Thumbed module add on from www.ljay.org.uk

Although sanderton previously maintained that some older TivoWeb modules wouldn't operate successfully under TivoWebPlus I can't find any I use for which this is true. Or has TivoWebPlus perhaps been updated to overcome whatever was previously stopping the modules from working?

I have now stopped TivoWeb from being loaded on Tivo startup and am only using TivoWebPlus and the OzTivo widget and am going to see how that goes in terms of the rebooting and program freezing issues that I occasionally previously encountered with both TivoWeb on its own and then with TivoWeb, TivoWebPlus and the OzTivo Wiget all running.

One problem I am getting with the OzTivo Widget used with TivoWebPlus though is that he won't show the ToDo list but only a blank screen list instead. Rather annoying, although it doesn't matter that much as it was only really his program now recording flashing mouth and his Now Playing program deletion features that I was really mainly using. However I did get the ToDo list perfectly ok using TivoWeb 1.9.4 as the server for OzTivo widget and I thought I was getting the ToDo list ok at one point using TivoWebPlus too?

Does anyone have any ideas or is anyone who us using OzTivo Widget with TivoWebPlus rather than TivoWeb also experiencing this problem?

[gjwell]

I was doing quite well with 1.4 beta, however Hackman does not support this version so I have reverted to the previous release.

I used the update from TivoWeb feature which seem to work very smoothly, and TivoWeb Plus seems to be running very well also (at the moment), which makes me think that my previous Tivo build had problems. Navigating through the options//modules in TW+ is much faster than before. I have managed to crash Tivo once and that was while I was in Hi guide.

Pete not sure what your problem with OzTivo widget is, as mine has worked perfectly with all three versions of Tivoweb I have tried. I don't suppose its a security thing ? as you have been playing with UserName\PWs or something to do with changing your default port numbers. A bit weird though as some of the widget features work and some don't.

[RichardJH]

I am running both TW & TW+ (OzTivo) on both my Tivos with no problems so far. The reason I have both is that TW runs the latest Higuide with extras by ShaneW but TW+ doesn't support the newer features. There are several bits of TW+ that I like especially the RSS feeds.

I am having problems running the OzTivo widget in that it happlily connects to TW but not to TW+.

[Pete77]

I am running both TW & TW+ (OzTivo) on both my Tivos with no problems so far. The reason I have both is that TW runs the latest Higuide with extras by ShaneW but TW+ doesn't support the newer features. There are several bits of TW+ that I like especially the RSS feeds.

I am having problems running the OzTivo widget in that it happlily connects to TW but not to TW+.

I have discovered my OzTivo Widget Now Playing problems are in fact arising because in User Interface in TivoWebPlus itself the "Now Playing", "To Do", "Scheduled Suggestions" and "Suggestions" options are all not working even though "Season Pass", "Deleted Programmes", "Preferences", "Channel Guide", "Wishlists" and "Recording History" are all working fine. I have tried rebooting the Tivo a couple of times but the problem still immediately recurs.

Here is the error message I am getting for the "To Do" list option. Does anyone have any idea:-

INTERNAL SERVER ERROR
--cut here--
action_ui '/todo' ''
invalid command name "get_verbose_title"
while executing
"get_verbose_title $program $episodic 0"
("uplevel" body line 54)
invoked from within
"uplevel $body"
invoked from within
"ForeachMfsFileTrans fsid name type $path $prefix 15 {
set rec [db $db openid $fsid]
set manual 0
set suggestion 0
if {$::version >= 3} {
set recbeh [d..."
(procedure "action_todo" line 122)
invoked from within
"action_todo $chan 7 $env"
(procedure "::action_ui" line 39)
invoked from within
"::action_$action $chan $part $env"
("eval" body line 1)
invoked from within
"eval {::action_$action $chan $part $env}"
--cut here--

[john1980]

TivoWebPlus v1.3.1 (http://beam.to/TWP) is compatible with the OzTivo Widget and many of the older TW v1.9.4 modules - although many modules have been included in the distribution so it is unlikely that additional modules will be required. The latter versions of Hackman (v4.2.7) will work with TWPv1.3.1 (they can be found here (http://www.tivohackman.com/)).

There should be no issues running TivoWebPlus v1.3.1 and you should find it a vast improvement over TivoWeb v1.9.4.

PS: Unless you are running a DirecTV (DTivo) unit, or wish to get real dirty then you probably want to avoid the v1.4.0-beta distribution as it is constantly undergoing major changes/rewrites. Changes to both Hackman and the OzTivo widget are required in order to get them working with v1.4.0.

[Pete77]

There should be no issues running TivoWebPlus v1.3.1 and you should find it a vast improvement over TivoWeb v1.9.4.

Dear John,

As I had quite a few module improvements etc for TivoWeb 1.9.4 that I mainly obtained from www.ljay.org.uk/tivoweb/tivoweb.html but also from other places I did unfortunately find several disimprovements in TWP 1.3 compared to TivoWeb 1.9.4 that I had to manually rectify.

1. Phone - The module supplied with TWP does not give data on either Last Garbage Collection or Last Guide Data Index (which is as you know show on the System Information screen). The version of phone.itcl I was formerly running with TW 1.9.4 did provide this data which is very handy when deciding whether to kick off a full reboot of Tivo from Telnet (as you know Rebooting in the middle of a Reindexing session is a very bad idea) I have ported the old TivoWeb 1.9.4 version of phone.itcl into my modules directory in place of the supplied TWP version and it works fine and provides the additional functionality without problem.

2. Ljay made a series of improvements to the User Interface model that included a new Explicitly Thumbed + Implied by Recordings function. This has been extremely useful to me over time in changing rashly made +3 and -3 thumbs suggestions I was unaware of having made so as to get better Suggestions. This module is not replicated in TWP 1.3. I have been able to Port Ljay's revised ui.itcl module and his companion lj_utils.itcl modules to TWP 1.3 modules directory successfully in place of the supplied ui module. I now have the Thumbs editing facility via the TWP interface.

3. Search by Advisory Codes - This is another module Ljay created and that I use from time to time to identify shall we say more bizarre fims of more extrem tastes but that is not functionality built into TWP at the present time unless I have missed something obvious?

4. Hackman - I installed the latest version but despite trying to use it as per instructions and having activated it still found it had various undesirable consequences that stopped ToDo and Suggestions working at all under User Interface (there were error messages when they tried to load) and so my OzTivo widget also could no longer show the ToDo list and nor could TWP running the Ljay UI interface. Removing Hackman and reinstalling TWP again and then adding back the revised Ljay UI modules brought this functionality back. To be honest I have no real obvious need for Hackman so long as I can get to TivoWeb 1.9.4 if I need to by taking out the # I put in front of its startup command in the relevant editable version of the rc_sysinit file using Startup Editor which was an add on to TivoWeb 1.9.4 but may or may not be incorporated as standard in TWP? I can see I have ported over the startuped.itcl module I had for TivoWeb 1.9.4 to TWP where it seems to work. Is Startup Editor built into TWP somewhere or is one meant to use the editor in the unreliable and unstable latest version of the Hackman module instead? Also I note that you do not supply Hackman with the distribution version of TWP 1.3 and one has to get it from Portland Paw's own website.

5. OzTivo Widget - when this is polling the Tivo for data it causes pixellation in the live tv biffer from time to time. This may of course be a consequence of the paultry and miserable processors in our UK Tivo S1 units and therefore no way to avoid this? Although of course I am running bufferhack with a 3 hour buffer (I have 500Gb total hard drive capacity in my machine now). Would I not have this problem if I was still running with a 30 minutes live buffer?

Lastly although when I first installed TWP a few days ago Info was working correctly and was a much more fully featured module compared to Tivoweb 1.9.4 (adding all the disk status information) it is now failing to come up with the User Space information at the bottom of the screen (that also used to show in TivoWeb 1.9.4) and only shows the heading but none of the "User Space" data below. Everything else is shown but at the top of the screen before the other data I am now getting this error message:-

User Space
INTERNAL SERVER ERROR
--cut here--
action_info '/' ''
no value given for parameter "bold" to "disp_spacerow"
while executing
"disp_spacerow $chan [get_type $type] $count($type) [expr $space($type)/1024] [timeconv $time($type)] $::usersize"
(procedure "::action_info" line 418)
invoked from within
"::action_$action $chan $part $env"
("eval" body line 1)
invoked from within
"eval {::action_$action $chan $part $env}"
--cut here--

Do you have any suggestions what is causing this error message and the lost data?

6. Ljay came up with a revised version of the httpd-tt.tcl file that enabled it to log unauthorised access to the Tivo over the web via the Cachecard or Turbonet card. This was installed in the /var/hack/tivoweb-tcl main directory and added to the httpd log file all unauthorised access attempts and also some authorised remote ones too in some circumstances. I have tried porting this version of httpd-tt.tcl to TWP 1.3 but it doesn't cause illegal web access attemps to the Tivo to be added to the httpd log.

However I note that on TivoWeb 1.9.4 in the tivoweb-tcl directory I also have a file called httpd-tt.itcl as well as the tcl version of the file, even though all my other itcl files are in the modules directory. I cannot find httpd-tt.itcl on Ljay's site but the file does not exist on a TWP 1.3 installation in either the TivoWebPlus directory or modules subdirectory.

Overall I agree TWP is an improvement but it still has quite a few rough edges and/or functionality losses compared to those available with add on modules for Tivoweb 1.9.4 that need resolving. Especially the httpd logging issue and the loss of editing the Thumbs data functionality issue. Also the pixellation caused in the Live Buffer by the OzTivo widget is quite an unfortunate problem. However I didn't run OzTivo widget with Tivoweb 1.9.4 fot long enough to be sure if it also happened there too.

Are you the developer of TWP now John? If so congratulations on the work you are doing but as you can see there are one or two areas of add on functionality that were available for TivoWeb 1.9.4 that still appear to need to be incorporated in TWP.

[Mark Bennett]

Oh I'm confused....

I installed 1.3.1 today. Looked great!

Played a while, installed a few of AerialPlugs logos, and then the Tivo rebooted whilst we were in the middle of watching aprogramme.
Oh well, I was going to have to do that to get the logos to a-ppear anyway :)

Problem is, that the OLD tivowebplus (v1.0) is now back :(
What do I have to do to swap it round?

I've gone to /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author and all it has in it is:

# Call the Tivo Package Manager Startup Scripts
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.tpm


Which isn't what it implies on the Tivowebplus site http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com/TivoWebPlus

I'm confused because that site shows /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author having references to both TW+ and TW in it, where surely it should just have TW+ (?)

Anyone help ?

[Pete77]

I've gone to /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author and all it has in it is:

# Call the Tivo Package Manager Startup Scripts
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.tpm


Which isn't what it implies on the Tivowebplus site http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com/TivoWebPlus

I'm confused because that site shows /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author having references to both TW+ and TW in it, where surely it should just have TW+ (?)

Anyone help ?

It sounds like you now have directories for TivoWebPlus 1.0 and 1.3 on the machine and the auto startup scripts are still starting up the old version. Do you not have the Startup Editor for TivoWeb installed as that is a much easier way to edit what is in the Startup files.

TivoWebPlus 1.3 expects you to edit the startup files using the latest version of Hackman but I have found there are issues with the latest Hackman and Ljay's (www.ljay.org.uk) revised and enhanced version of the TivoWeb User Interface and an add on for it (lj_utils) (which I choose to run with TWP because it supports an option to edit thumbs in Preferences) not being compatible and blocking correct operation of To Do and Preferences in theUser Interface and on the OzTivo Widget. Also I in general don't like the dangerous way Hackman seems to work.

Much better is to not use Hackman and use the Statup Editor add on for TivoWeb which works perfectly under TivoWebPlus. I think there are details on installing this somewhere at www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo. You have to mount the drive to edit the dangerous rc-sysinit file at some point in the process though. Once you have done this you only ever have to edit rc-sysinit the safeway from there on.

[Mark Bennett]

...and I thought I was getting confused before! :eek:

I'm pretty sure I have both versions on the Tivo as that is almost how the TW+ site is written. It has no instructions for removing the old version :(

I didn't see anything on the TW+ site that said anything about "hackman" either.

I ported the TW+ file over using Filezilla (as mentioned earlier in this thread) - had to use the "alternate" extract as I couldn't find TAR on my system, and the links I found to a copy of it don't work anymore.

I really don't like the idea of mounting the drive in order to edit a file though. Perhaps I'll just live without it (or telnet in to start TW+ each time I REALLY want to use it...)

Thanks anyway :o

[RichardJH]

With Tivoweb+ when I access the info page I no longer get all of the disk info but get this error report. Anyone have any ideas.
INTERNAL SERVER ERROR
--cut here--
action_info '/' ''
df: cannot read table of mounted filesystems: No such file or directory
while executing
"exec df -h -T"
(procedure "::action_info" line 220)
invoked from within
"::action_$action $chan $part $env"
("eval" body line 1)
invoked from within
"eval {::action_$action $chan $part $env}"
--cut here--

I do not get any error when accessing info from Tivoweb 1.9.4

[Pete77]

I do not get any error when accessing info from Tivoweb 1.9.4
No well I didn't either initially but now I do for no obvious reason.

I was really looking for a response from someone who had encountered the problem and could suggest a solution.

[RichardJH]

The interesting thing is that my other Tivo with exact same TW & TW+ setup is fine. The only thing I have done with the one that gives a problem is via TW+ bulk delete a load of unwanted programmes that had gone elswhere :D :D

[Mark Bennett]

...and I thought I was getting confused before! :eek:

<snip>
Perhaps I'll just live without it (or telnet in to start TW+ each time I REALLY want to use it...)

Thanks anyway :o

Well, so much for that idea...
Now, if I fire up the browser and head off to TivoWeb, I just get :

The page cannot be displayed
The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings.
...etc...

Seems to have only worked untill I rebooted the PC :(

[Pete77]

The interesting thing is that my other Tivo with exact same TW & TW+ setup is fine. The only thing I have done with the one that gives a problem is via TW+ bulk delete a load of unwanted programmes that had gone elswhere :D :D

Since I started only running TivoWebPlus my Tivo menu speeds on the box directly have improved hugely whereas when I moved over to running TWP as well as TivoWeb (which I had 15 months experience of) it basically made no difference to the speed of the menus.

This says to me that TivoWeb 1.9.4 is far more resource hungry and takes up far more memory on the Tivo than TWP 1.3. The Backup module on TWP is also hugely faster and more stable than the add on module for TW 1.9.4 and also appears to add on a few more Backup functions from the dialogue that accompaied the backup process.

Unfortunately TWP still has a few rough edges though and will not for instance run Ljay's httpd add on for logging unauthorised external web access attempts to Tivo. So TWP 1.3 is better in some respects than TW 1.9.4 and unfortunately still inferior in others....................

Perhaps by TWP version 1.7 they will get it right. Say about the same time as Tivo pull the plug on the UK EPG service.......................... :eek:

[Pete77]

Well, so much for that idea...
Now, if I fire up the browser and head off to TivoWeb, I just get :

The page cannot be displayed
The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings.
...etc...(

Try rebooting the Tivo and you should be fine. TivoWeb can get into a variety of conditions where it won't respond without a full box reboot. This usually only hapens when you have been thrashing it rather than it just sitting there quietly running its server and waiting for action. When its not used it can stay up for weeks on end.

[RichardJH]

For the moment I have decided to live without TW+ on one of my boxes which is a shame as some parts of it I liked.
For info I completely removed TW+ and all its directorys from /var/hack and did a clean re-install and it still gives same problem.

[Pete77]

For the moment I have decided to live without TW+ on one of my boxes which is a shame as some parts of it I liked.
For info I completely removed TW+ and all its directorys from /var/hack and did a clean re-install and it still gives same problem.

Well I'm trying to run with TWP alone having added all the TW 1.9.4 modules that weren't part of it like Highlights, Tracker, Search Advisory codes etc to its modules directory. All of those seem to run ok but TWP's own Info module is having the slight problems mentioned.

On the face of it TWP1.3 seems more resource efficient and does many things better with more features but still seems more buggy compared to TW1.9.4.

Its only a work of a minute to use the Startup Editor I ported across from TW 1.9.4 to TWP to start running TW1.9.4 alongside TWP 1.3 again and/or instead of it.

[Mark Bennett]

Try rebooting the Tivo and you should be fine. TivoWeb can get into a variety of conditions where it won't respond without a full box reboot. This usually only hapens when you have been thrashing it rather than it just sitting there quietly running its server and waiting for action. When its not used it can stay up for weeks on end.


OK I rebooted again, and yes - TivoWebPlus v1.0 did work.

So I thought I'd have another go at getting 1.3.1 to work...
I found uniunstallation instructions for 1.0 here --> http://tivo.fp2000.org/twp/README

And followed that (ok - it's one line :p )

Re-boot of the Tivo and 1.0 is gone, and I can run 1.3.1 by telnetting in and running the
cd /var/hack
cd TivoWebPlus
./tivoweb

sequence, but it doesn't run automatically at boot as v1.0 did.
Is there a simple way of doing this? Or do I have to add loads more stuff?

If it means telnetting in each time I reboot the Tivo then so be it.

[thechachman]

You would edit the rc.sysinit to invoke it at bootup by adding the following line to the end:

./var/TivoWebPlus/tivoweb &


Or ... if I read your post correctly, and the 'old' version did autostart, check where your rc.sysinit line 'thinks' the old version was, and reinstall TWP v1.3 into that directory instead.

[Pete77]

If it means telnetting in each time I reboot the Tivo then so be it.

You can easily edit your startup file permanently to start TivoWeb or TivoWebPlus once you have installed the Startup Editor for TivoWeb which also runs satisfactorily under TivoWebPlus if you place startuped.itcl in the modules directory of TivoWeb and TivoWebPlus. Alternatively if you install Hackman on your TivoWebPlus you should be able to edit the rcsysinit startup file that way.

See http://www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo/airnet2.html - Part 6 Autostarting TivoWeb

Or see www.tivohackman.com/

[Mark Bennett]

This is getting like "the place that cannot be mentioned..."

What Startup Editor for TivoWeb?
What is startup.itcl? What should be in it?

Steve Conrads page I had already looked at and disregarded as it is talking TivoWeb not TivoWebPlus, nonetherless, what command would I use for TivoWebPlus?

I've already ftp'd rc.sysinit over to my pc, edited it as suggested in the post above, but with /hack in the path

./var/hack/TivoWebPlus/tivoweb &

I used notetab light, and ftp'd it back and forth using FileZilla.
The permissions are the same as before. I haven't rebooted the tivo yet though as now I dare not! Why would I need to Unmount and Remount the drive? Everything looked ok. Have I completely trashed it if I need to reboot now?

[Pete77]

I've already ftp'd rc.sysinit over to my pc, edited it with notetab light, and ftp'd it back using FileZilla. The permissions are the same as before. I haven't rebooted the tivo yet though as now I dare not! Why would I need to Unmount and Remount the drive? Everything looked ok. Have I completely trashed it if I need to reboot now?

Dear Mark,

Editing rc.sysinit on your PC is a suicidal thing to do. You can trash the whole Tivo if gets saved in Windows format with line feeds. You must use a Unix format file editor under Windows and even they you can easily still change it to Windows format if you double click on it in file manager without thinking or something.

Or install the Startup Editor (a Tivoweb or TivoWebPlus add on module that will appear in its menus) using the Steveconrad instructions I gave and then you can subsequently edit the startup proces like a notepad file easily.

To start Tivo or Tivoweb you need to have command lines like the following from my Startup file. Putting a hash at the start of any line disables it if you only want to run one of them.

#!/bin/bash
#/var/hack/tivoweb-tcl/tivoweb >> /dev/null &
/var/hack/TivoWebPlus/tivoweb >> /dev/null &
/var/hack/endpad.tcl -s 1 -e 4 -sugqual 0 -sugeq -auto >> /dev/null &
/var/hack/tserver &
/var/hack/autospace.tcl start >/tmp/autospace.err 2>&1 &

[Mark Bennett]

Pete77, thanks for your patience!

Actiually - I think I've fooled myself thinking that I had updated the rc.sysinit file - the date is 07/07/2005, and not todays date(!) So Filezilla evidently didn't copy the one over from my PC after all... And In the style of Unix, didn't tell me either :)

At least I tried to edit it with a UNIX-style editor :)

So, if I install Starup Editor (which I don't see in Steve Conrads instructions... Sorry) I can edit the startup files from there? I'm not sure that doesn't sound even more dangerous :)

I feel a little less worried now I realise the files didn't get edited after all :)

[Pete77]

So, if I install Starup Editor (which I don't see in Steve Conrads instructions... Sorry) I can edit the startup files from there? I'm not sure that doesn't sound even more dangerous :))

I started off like you wanting to edit these Linux format text files on my PC but soon I realised that this was not the safe or sensible approach (as Blindlemon of TivoHeaven will repeatedly tell you when asked). Using the joe editor on the Tivo via telnet is the best way.

It took a lot of hunting but I have now finally discovered the archived thread about installing sanderton's Startup Editor as its not in the Steve Conrad guide ad I had thought it would be.

See http://archive2.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=146542

Hope this is some help.

[B33K34]

Damn. My tivoweb access disappeared sometime in the last few days. Tivo was running but only had an uptime of 2 days or so which makes me think the loss of tivoweb co-incided with a reboot. Tivo still has net access for listings.

I seem to remember that if Tivo crashes badly it will overwrite var/hack so presumably i've lost all my modules as well along with vserver, logos? and anything else i'd put on.

I trust the tutorials are pretty good now - hacking tivo is the only time i deal with Unix commands.

[Pete77]

Damn. My tivoweb access disappeared sometime in the last few days. Tivo was running but only had an uptime of 2 days or so which makes me think the loss of tivoweb co-incided with a reboot. Tivo still has net access for listings.

I seem to remember that if Tivo crashes badly it will overwrite var/hack so presumably i've lost all my modules as well along with vserver, logos? and anything else i'd put on..

Have you tried rebooting your Tivo?

Failing that working have you tried accessing it with an FTP Windows client like FileZilla to see whether the /var/hack directory and subdirectories are still there on the machine?

[RichardJH]

I have just installed the latest TWP+ and still get the following error :confused:

INTERNAL SERVER ERROR
--cut here--
action_info '/' ''
df: cannot read table of mounted filesystems: No such file or directory
while executing
"exec df -h -T"
(procedure "::action_info" line 256)
invoked from within
"::action_$action $chan $part $env"
("eval" body line 1)
invoked from within
"eval {::action_$action $chan $part $env}"
--cut here--

No other modules added on a clean install so unless someone can interpret the error message for me I guess I will sticking with TW1.9.4 :mad:

[B33K34]

Have you tried rebooting your Tivo?

Failing that working have you tried accessing it with an FTP Windows client like FileZilla to see whether the /var/hack directory and subdirectories are still there on the machine?

No hack directory under var/. Strangely no hack directory in the folder i've got labelled var backup on my PC either. clean install of hacks when i have the time i think

[Pete77]

No hack directory under var/. Strangely no hack directory in the folder i've got labelled var backup on my PC either. clean install of hacks when i have the time i think

Sorry to hear that. How long had you been running Tivoweb before this happened? I always live in dread that this may happen to me one day too. I have got the hack directory backed up on my PC and can't see how the Tivo throwing a wobbly would have deleted your PC hack directory. A case of Murphys Law in operation it appears.

I understand the chances of this happening are greatly reduced if you configure the Tivo with a very large swap file?

[Cainam]

IIRC , Tivo wipes the /var directory itself sometimes, and hence gets rid of the /var/hack directory as well.

I think it does this if it spots Tivo has rebooted a few times in quick succession (which may be caused by something wrong in the /var directory, so wiping it out and starting again is a good idea), although there are probably other times it does it as well.

[Pete77]

I think it does this if it spots Tivo has rebooted a few times in quick succession (which may be caused by something wrong in the /var directory, so wiping it out and starting again is a good idea),.

Not a good idea for us TivoWeb users though. Only if your Tivo is just being used as the original Tivo manufactured applicance with no mods.

I have heard the theory put forward that the /hack directory often disappears when your hard drive is getting near to the end of its life so the Tivo keeps on rebooting frequently due to those hard drive problems.

[cwaring]

Only if your Tivo is just being used as the original Tivo manufactured applicance with no mods.
Which is, of course, legally how we're supposed to be using them :D

[Pete77]

Which is, of course, legally how we're supposed to be using them :D

I don't think there is anything legal stopping us putting extra programs on the machine is there and if they hadn't wanted this to happen why did Tivo provide both a serial port socket and an expansion card slot on the side of the motherboard?

The only thing that's illegal is trying to obtain the Tivo EPG service without paying for it.

Now I agree modifying your Tivo with TivoWeb is not supported by Sky Tivo Customer Service and when you had a warranty would have no doubt invalidated your warranty but as to being illegal no I don't think so. Its no more illegal than putting a different enhanced perforamce exhaust on your car from the manufacturer standard one or rechipping the engine management system to gain more power. Perfectly legal as long as it still passes the MOT and you can still get insurance for the modification, although again no doubt possibly invalidating any warranty on the car you might still have.

[Raisltin Majere]

and if they hadn't wanted this to happen why did Tivo provide both a serial port socket and an expansion card slot on the side of the motherboard?



The serial port would be for engineer diagnostics, and if you mean the network inteface, then AIUI the tivo boxes we use were originally meant to be a "server" with smaller client boxes situated near each TV - hence the bit on the motherboard for networking. When they scrapped this plan, it would have been easier to leave the motherboard as is then redesign it.

Either way neither of these were put there for use by the consumer.

Still, there's nothing "illegal" about using them.

[cwaring]

Okay. I concede that 'illegal' was the wrong word to use. What I meant was that, as far as Tivo are concerned, they only support un-modded boxes so if their S/W wipes out any installed Mods then we can't blame them for that. Or something ;)

[B33K34]

I have heard the theory put forward that the /hack directory often disappears when your hard drive is getting near to the end of its life so the Tivo keeps on rebooting frequently due to those hard drive problems.

I'd heard that too. i've definitely been having more trouble in the last 6 months than in the 12 before. The first of the two Seagate drives went in not long after i bought Tivo (a couple of months at most) so must be about 3 1/2 years old. The second is probably a year or so younger so they're both still quite young though I could be looking at a drive failure.

Is there any way of reliably testing? To be honest I'll probably wait until it dies until replacing but then how do i know which drive is kaput?

[kitschcamp]

Well I restored an image yesterday. Installed TivoWebPlus 1.4 beta. So far so good. I haven't had any lockups or reboots (yet). I've not run it for a good while, so I thought I'd have another look...

It's definitely faster than the old Tivoweb, but it's caused several reboots on the tivo in the last 24 hours, something that rarely happens with the original version. Old tivoweb just seems a lot more solid.

[Pete77]

Is there any way of reliably testing? To be honest I'll probably wait until it dies until replacing but then how do i know which drive is kaput?

You can telnet on to the box and run the command "mfscheck" to get a report on the disk condition. Just did that on mine and no errors reported. Only takes a couple of minutes.

If you do have errors reported you can then run "mfsassert -please" which others have indicated reboots the box into a GSOD (Green Screen of Death) checking and fixing the disk repair process in which it attempts to put right any serious disk errors that exist. Since you have already lost the /var/hack directory you probably have nothing to lose as I imagine an "mfsassert -please" command might sometimes wipe out the /var/hack directory in an attempt to repair the disk structure. It stays on the GSOD for quite some time till it has been through the whole disk check and repair process.

See www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/archive/index.php/t-250188.html

Disks are so cheap now that if you have to replace one I should have thought you would be better off replacing both of them,

Larger hard drives would appear to fail more quickly than the originals from what others have said. Only getting 18 months to two years life in a Tivo would not appear to be that unusual.

[Pete77]

It's definitely faster than the old Tivoweb, but it's caused several reboots on the tivo in the last 24 hours, something that rarely happens with the original version. Old tivoweb just seems a lot more solid.


1.4 is only a Beta so more buggy. 1.3.1 seems very stable. My Tivo menus run faster than before due to a smaller footprint in memory and no reboots so far after a couple of weeks.

[kitschcamp]

1.31 is the one I was using.

[B33K34]

Can someone point me to a 'first principles' install guide for TivoWebPlus. I need to go right back to basics of navigation and changing file permissions I think - ages since i've messed around here.

[sanderton]

I thought TWP had an automatic one-line installer?

[Pete77]

Can someone point me to a 'first principles' install guide for TivoWebPlus. I need to go right back to basics of navigation and changing file permissions I think - ages since i've messed around here.

This should be all you need if you follow the instructions for upgrading from TivoWeb:-

http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com/TivoWebPlus

[Pete77]

I thought TWP had an automatic one-line installer?

It still requires you to run commands at the Telnet prompt though to complete installation. Upgrading to subsequent versions is merely a case of downloading the Upgrade file from the TWP website and then using the Upgrade options in the TivoWebPlus menus to install the upgrade.

Unfortunately though due to continued instability in the program I cannot recommend running it resident on your Thomson Tivo S1 24/7 in place of TivoWeb 1.9.4 as sooner or later it will make Tivo have a permanent freeze in its menus which it will only recover from via a power cycle or via the Reboot command at a Telnet prompt.

TWP1.3 has some better features in there being a module to edit Channel Preferences, an enhanced Info module (including disk health data) and far easier access to program description data without having to drill down to each individual program entry one by one. It also has a smaller footprint in Tivo box memory than TWP1.9.4 leading to faster box menu performance. Unfortunately however TW1.3.1 is still unstable software so can only be recommend for occasional use of its better features by calling it up from the Hackman module in Tivoweb 1.9.4 You cannot run TWP 1.9.4 all the time on your Tivo because if you do sooner or later your Tivo box will fail to make scheduled recordings due to a box crash cause by TivoWebPlus's memory resident portion.

[RichardJH]

You cannot run TWP 1.9.4 all the time on your Tivo because

That should read TWP not TWP1.9.4. Normal TW 1.9.4 is stable on UK S1 Tivos

[alan_m_2004]

Hi Pete77,

Unfortunately however TW1.3.1 is still unstable software so can only be recommend for occasional use of its better features by calling it up from the Hackman module in Tivoweb 1.9.4 You cannot run TWP 1.9.4 all the time on your Tivo because if you do sooner or later your Tivo box will fail to make scheduled recordings due to a box crash cause by TivoWebPlus's memory resident portion.

but 10 days ago you said
1.4 is only a Beta so more buggy. 1.3.1 seems very stable.

Can I ask why you concider TWP to be unstable now? It's been running on both my tivos for about a month now with no issues that I've seen.

Thanks

[Pete77]

Can I ask why you concider TWP to be unstable now? It's been running on both my tivos for about a month now with no issues that I've seen.

I experienced two total hangs of the Tivo box where it just stuck in the Tivo menu screens and would not recover without a mains lead out reboot and/or use of the "Reboot" command from a Telnet prompt (which comes to more or less the same thing). Normally my Tivo box never freezes in a way that it can't go on carrying out rescheduled recordings - the worst that happens is that it reboots fully and then goes on recording if placed under very heavy load by a Tivoweb module like Tracker or Search by Advisory Codes.

The first of these hangs involved the Tivo screen freezing half way between changing from the Now Playing screen to the television screen and in another case it completely froze up while adding a Season Pass using the box. I never had this kind of problem ever in 18 months while using TivoWeb alone.

Also due to the 500 plus recordings I have in Now Playing the OzTivo Widget interferes more with the stability of a recording program extracting the data from TivoWebPlus than it does extracting the data from TivoWeb.

So on balance and all things considered using TivoWeb 1.9.4 as my main web interface for Tivo makes more sense.

[B33K34]

i'm not sure i have gzip on my Tivo - it's not standard is it? I did my upgrade ages ago and seemed to manage to do it without installing a number of the standard tools.

[Pete77]

i'm not sure i have gzip on my Tivo - it's not standard is it? I did my upgrade ages ago and seemed to manage to do it without installing a number of the standard tools.

gzip is a standard tool that's on the Tivo. Its dos2unix that's not on the Tivo but that sometimes gets mentioned but in fact always seems to prove to be unnecessary.

[Pete77]

I have just had this email from Paul Denaro, the developer of the OzTivo Widget, in response to my email of last week about issues with the Widget causing programs currently recording to stutter or stall.

You might also be particularly interested in the hidden feature mentioned by Paul where clicking on the Trademark symbol on the OzTivo Widget brings up data on the Widget's polling of TivoWeb or TivoWebPlus to collect the Now Playing, To Do, Season Pass and Temperature (Info) data.

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Denaro
Sent: 08 November 2006 05:59
To: Pete77
Subject: Re: Feedback on OzTivo Widget 1.2 with UK Tivo S1


Thanks for the kind words

The widget simply requests 5 different URLs from your TiVo, these can be seen in the window that opens up when you click on the Registered Trademark symbol. I do wait for the response from one request before launching another to lesson the load on your TiVo but obviously it still has an impact. I would say that the longer it takes to download these pages, the more the impact on you recording - 500 is an awful lot of shows!

I could put a small delay between these URL requests to give TiVo's CPU a breather, but the widget code already does some post-processing of the URL content, which does take time and therefore already gives a break between the URL requests.

I would certainly change the refresh rate, and remove some of your shows, maybe even stream them to your PC and burn to DVD if they are important. I personally only run the widget once a day to check the shows that have been recorded and also to trim the ToDo list. Less often I manage the Season passes through it.

Paul

On 11/4/06, Pete77 wrote:

Paul,

I have a UK Tivo Thomson PVR10UK Series 1 Tivo which has a Cachecard with 512MB of RAM and 2 x Samsung HA250JC 250Gb Hard Drives.

I have been using TivoWeb 1.9.4 since I upgraded the machine with the Cachecard and the larger hard drives 17 months ago but I only installed both TivoWebPlus 1.3.1 and your OzTivo Widget 1.2 around 3 or 4 weeks ago.

I was initially keen on TivoWebPlus 1.3.1 but decided to go back to TivoWeb 1.9.4 with its many added Hacks because when I left the machine running with TWP 1.3.1 over a couple of weeks it experienced a couple of total hangs where the machine stuck on a menu or part way between menus a couple of times and only a full power off or a reboot command via Telnet would restart it. I had been getting no such hangs with the machine frozen when running TivoWeb 1.9.4.

I tried your OzTivo Widget with both TW1.9.4 and TWP1.3.1 and it seemed to get all the data it needed fine with either of these but I noticed that with TWP1.3.1 that when a recording was taking place the live buffer and especially what was recorded on disk would become pixellated and loop 2 or 3 times for a few seconds of recording when your Widget was polling the box for data (set to 15 minutes although perhaps I should settle for 30). The problem was quite a lot worse when polling the data from TWP1.3.1 (another reason TWP1.3.1 had to go) but is still there if less bad with TW1.9.4

Is this purely down to the demands your Widget imposes on our puny S1 boxes with their slow processors and so there is no way round it? Or does it not help that I have over 500 recordings in Now Playing due to a sad toleration of Basic Quality recording and a much greater intolerance of being told there is inadequate disk space available to record something new or to keep something I recorded a year or two ago I want to hang on to. Would your Widget spend less time polling for data if I had say only 100 items in the Now Playing list?

I love your Widget overall and its fantastic interface and recording status information but any advice you can offer on the Widget's data polling affecting recording and live buffer issues would be appreciated. Also are you planning any further upgrades to your Widget to try and address any of these issues?

Regards,
Pete77

[Pete77]

Here is my further email back to Paul Denaro showing that I have discovered TivoWebPlus 1.3.1 is significantly slower in serving data enquiries from the OzTivo Widget for both Now Showing and the ToDo data.

Now Showing data polling in particular increases from 31 seconds to 47 seconds which no doubt explains the significantly worse pixellation when the box is being polled by the Widget using TivowebPlus 1.3.1 compared to TivoWeb 1.9.4

-----Original Message-----
From: Pete77
Sent: 08 November 2006 13:40
To: Paul Denaro
Subject: Comparable Polling Time Figures for TivoWebPlus vs TivoWeb

Paul,

I have now done the comparison with how long OzTivo Widget takes to get the data from TivoWebPlus 1.3.1 vs TivoWeb 1.9.4

Here are the results:-

TivoWeb Version TivoWeb 1.9.4 TivoWebPlus 1.3.1

Now Showing 31 Seconds 47 Seconds
Temperature 15 Seconds 15 Seconds
To Do 6 Seconds 10 Seconds
Season Pass 5 Seconds 5 Seconds

As you can see both Now Showing and To Do data takes substantially longer to get data from TivoWebPlus 1.3.1 than from TivoWeb 1.9.4. For Now Playing this is particularly critical as it is the Now Playing data polling that seems to interfere with current recordings causing them to pixellate and reloop until the polling request ceases. If you can think of any ways around this it would be good to know what they are.

What model of Tivo do you run your OzTivo Widget in conjunction with by the way?

Regards,

Pete77

[alan_m_2004]

Thanks for the clarification. I've got a lot less recordings than you (circa 100) so that could account for the difference in stablility.

[Pete77]

Thanks for the clarification. I've got a lot less recordings than you (circa 100) so that could account for the difference in stablility.

Do you not get any pixellation at all caused to your recordings by the box being polled for data by the OzTivo widget then?

[Pete77]

Just some final thoughts on the reliability and stability issues of TivoWebPlus 1.3.1 vs TivoWeb 1.9.4 on a UK Thomson Tivo S1.

Basically after a couple of nasty box freeze ups running only TivoWebPlus memory resident for a couple of weeks I have now reverted to running only TivoWeb 1.9.4 memory resident but with the latest version of Hackman installed in both the TivoWeb and TivoWebPlus directories and both TivoWeb versions set to use Port 443. This means that using Hackman I can swap over to TivoWebPlus if I need to painlessly either locally over my network or remotely via the web.

Since returning to TivoWeb 1.9.4 there have been no more nasty freezes or misbehaviour by TivoWeb menus so therefore my conclusion is that the memory resident server for TivoWebPlus 1.3.1 works in such a way that it compromises the reliability and stability of the Tivo.

The final clincher is Paul Denaro's OzTivo Widget which I absolutely love but where due to my huge number of Now Playing items the time taken to poll the box for data is an issue and does cause some brief pixellation in recordings during the once every half hour polling for data if my PC Is on and running OzTivo when a recording is taking place. Again TivoWeb 1.9.4 is the winner because OzTivo Widget finds it can get the data 15 seconds quicker from the TivoWeb 1.9.4 server than TivoWebPlus 1.9.4 so there is less pixellation or interference with any running recordings. I am prepared to live with this small annoyance from OzTivo because I love the way it keeps me up to date with what is currently recording when my TV is off and also makes it easy to get rid of recent recordings I don't need (especially those unexpecteldly picked up by Wishlists or generic data series program repeats) and also lets me stop To Do items I don't want from recording.