Tivo desktop not working

[40oz]

Installed tivo desktop plus 2.6.2 and it started the program after install. I was able to setup file paths to my videos and music, closed the tivo desktop window. I went to my tivo to check access and was able to access music but no video. Went back to my computer and tivo desktop will not come back up, I get an error message that says "Tivo desktop error. Unable to begin tivo desktop, data of this type not supported." I have restarted the computer, tried to restart tivo desktop, and even was on the phone with Tivo for about 3 hrs this morning. They had me uninstall, use the cleanup tool and then reinstall. They have had me install codecs, vbscript and try a whole bunch of other stuff. This is on a machine that has a 3 week old install of XP which I have updated to sp3 amonst all the other updates. I had the same issue last night when I tried to install to a machine running server 2k3 as that is where I store all my media. They tried to direct me to the manufacturer of the software (digital river) who told me that I should be talking to tivos tech support. This is driving me crazy. One of the 5 people I talked to at tivo was trying to tell me that it was a problem with my network topography, but I kept telling him that the program won't start so the fact that I have a network switch doesn't matter (that and I have a DNS server which would rectify any problems with communication between the tivo and computer).
Any help would be appreciated (tivo was searching here for answers).

[Dan203]

One of the videos in your video share is probably causing the issue. Try moving all the video out of the folder and see if TiVo Desktop launches. If it does then try moving the videos back into the folder one by one until you discover which one is causing the issue.

This can also happen if you have too many videos. TiVo Desktop can only handle about maybe 100 videos before it craps out, and even then it will be really slow to open. If you have a bigger collection then that you should try pyTiVo instead, it seems to do a better job with larger collections.

Dan

[40oz]

that would probably be the problem. I have about 600 files in subfolders under my video directory. Will try pytivo. Do you know if it works with server 2k3?

[40oz]

It does work on server 2k3. I can now watch videos, however as soon as I scroll past the C's (about 100 files in) it blanks the screen on the tivo with a message saying that there are no video shares in this directory. for viewing/accessing on the tivo, all the subfolders were dissolved into the main folder. For now I am going to remove all the little video clips so that it is just music videos and larger videos.

[Dan203]

pyTiVo supports folders. You should try to separate your videos into smaller groups and see if you can make it more manageable for the TiVo to handle. Also you need to make sure the TiVo Desktop server is disabled so it doesn't conflict with pyTiVo

Dan

[40oz]

It appears to support them, just not utilize them for organizing. It dissolved the files into one list instead of how the music files are accessed on a tivo (music, photos and more in tivo central). It would just be nice instead of having to scroll through everything, but I'm happy it is working. That was the main thing. Thank you for your help.

[Dan203]

Which version of pyTiVo are you running. Some versions require a setting to be enabled for the folders to appear on the TiVo. It should be on the admin page and called hack83

Dan