Odd : -s 192 and TPIP not working...

slaponte · 07-24-2005, 02:49 PM

Lets see. This was an Series 2 with a 40Gb V7.1b.

I made a backup image of this unit. Then added a 300Gb second drive. THe system came up and worked fine. WHat I am tryong to do now is to make swap 192, using a new restore and TPIP to fix the swap header.

Orig 40 is on hda
New 300 is on hdb
FAT32 with image on hdd
Weaknees Boot CD with LBA 48

If I

mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi /mnt/dos/tivobak/eric40.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

Everything works and Tivo comes up.

If I

mfsrestore -s 192 -r 4 -xzpi /mnt/dos/tivobak/eric40.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdd
tpip -s /dev/hdc

All commands report ok as above but Tivo won't start, gets stuck in "just a few more minutes"... The backup is small, barely any recordings.

Last thing to try is -s 192 -r 3 but for what I know that should not matter...

Ideas?

Philly Bill · 07-25-2005, 12:35 AM

I don't get it man. You told me what to do and it worked.

After the mfsbackup and mfsrestore is done.... and it reports the new drive sizes and returns the Linux prompt I typed in the tpip command just as you specified. Took like a half second. Then I pulled the drive and put it back into the TIVO no problem

Think it matters that I'm running 6.2 and you're runing 7.x?

Also (I'm sure this has nothing to do with it) I copied recordings over..

slaponte · 07-25-2005, 12:04 PM

Maybe it is the version, who knows. I gave up yesterday. Yeah, tpip runs in a sec and says the 192 swap space is initialized. No errors. mfsinfo reports the partitions properly. It all looks ok.

Weird.

winders · 07-25-2005, 07:32 PM

Do the restore without expanding or the "-r 4" switch. Then use mfsadd with the "-r 4" switch to expand the drive. Then run tpip and see what happens...

Scott

Philly Bill · 07-25-2005, 11:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slaponte

Maybe it is the version, who knows. I gave up yesterday. Yeah, tpip runs in a sec and says the 192 swap space is initialized. No errors. mfsinfo reports the partitions properly. It all looks ok.

Weird.

So I'm confused.

Did it work? Or no?

JamieP · 07-26-2005, 01:41 AM

I did some testing with tpip (both version 1.1 from the PTVUpgrade LBA48 disk and version 1.2 from courtesan.com) and it appears that neither one produces a correct v1 swap header for a series 2 tivo when run with the defaults on an x86 PC.

Strangely enough, If you force tpip to think it is working with a byteswapped Series 1 disk, then it does seem to create a good v1 swap header for a Series 2. With the 1.1 version, add the "--swapped" argument (note: that's two dashes). With the 1.2 version, add "-1". "tpip --version" will tell you which version you have.

My guess is that Philly Bill is running with no swap. DTivo's have more memory thatn SAs (64MB verses 32MB) and may be able to run 6.2 with no swap. 7.1 won't run on a SA without at least some swap.

slaponte · 07-26-2005, 12:11 PM

Jamie, this seems up the right path. When I first started using the PVT CD I noticed that MFSINFO would not work right. I then realized I had to boot with "swap" to make it run right. I wonder if this chages the way the TPIP in there behaves.

Since I always had the Weaknees CD work for me, I copied TPIP to the FAT32 drive to use the Weakness CD. With the Weakness CD everything has worked except TPIP.

Thanks, this looks very good. I will try first thing tonite.

Philly, what he is saying is that your swap might be bad, and the Tivo (6.2) setsup a default swap space and thats why yours comes up. The way to see if it works or not is to check the logs from the Tivo boot, a non trivial exercise in mounting and decoding. Because I am on 7.1, this doesn't work for me and mine gets stuck.

This all makes good sense. Let me try it on mine.

Jamie, since MFSTools and TPIP are on the PVT CD, if I boot with "swap"(for byteswap) so that mfsinfo and all that works, should I then still use the flags for TPIP?

slaponte · 07-26-2005, 12:12 PM

And, do you know a quick way for Philly to check his swap status?

I think there is a code for older machine that lets you check out the logs on the screen.

JamieP · 07-26-2005, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slaponte

Jamie, since MFSTools and TPIP are on the PVT CD, if I boot with "swap"(for byteswap) so that mfsinfo and all that works, should I then still use the flags for TPIP?

I don't know how this interacts with a byte swapped disk. Is possible that with a byte swapped disk it works ok as is. I didn't try it.

On "the other forum", I posted Todd Millers version of mkswap that adds an -S option to generate series 2 compatible v1 swap areas. I've used that, and it definitely works on a non byteswapped disk. Again, I didn't test on a byteswapped disk. I have never actually used tpip, except for my testing last night.

Quote:

And, do you know a quick way for Philly to check his swap status?

It's easy if you have bash running on a hacked tivo: just look at /proc/swaps or /proc/meminfo. I don't know of a way on an unhacked tivo. You might be able to pull the drive right after it was booted, mount it on a PC, and look through /var/log/kernel or messages to see if there is any indication that swap mounted.

Philly Bill · 07-26-2005, 01:08 PM

<Twilight Zone Music>

Man, I'm lost.

It appears to work ok. I had not mentioned this to Slap earlier but yesterday AM the TIVO 'froze up' watching the Today show. I rebooted and its been fine since. I don't know if the swap file is needed for normal viewing or not.

I'll be happy to do whatever anyone else wants to check into this thing. I don't have FTP access to the TIVO its pretty much standard at this point only with a 300GB hard drive. I wouldn't know how to access the logs.

I would prefer to not have to do it again only cause I recorded a few shows over the weekend I'd like to see.. but I can watch 'em first I guess.

I'm gonna be doing this again this weekend on my dad's DTIVO so maybe we can figure out something before then. If not I'll just do his with the -s 127 option and no tpip.

Let me know if I should try/do something to help out.

Bill

PS: Thanks for translating Jamie for me. My head was spinning.

slaponte · 07-26-2005, 01:35 PM

No worries, Bill. In your case the only thing is you might be working with a default size swap instead of the 192. Again, in the unlikely event you need the extra swap space, at worst, you might loose your recordings.

Let me try this tonite, I have the drives setup and everything, I just have to boot and run the commands. Seems I can

- Boot the Weakness
- mfsrestore with -s 192
- check the version of tpip
- run it with the proper flag (--swap or -1)

and be ready to go. By later tonite I can have an answer.

Then you can decide if you want to redo or not.

JamieP · 07-26-2005, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slaponte

No worries, Bill. In your case the only thing is you might be working with a default size swap instead of the 192.

Actually, this is false, Either he has swap or he doesn't. If he doesn't have swap, he may get unexplained hangs or other weird behavior when the demand for memory is greater than the amount of physical memory available. Or it might just work fine until he hits a GSOD.

The reason it may be working for him without swap, but not for you, is that he has a dtivo, which has twice as much physical memory as a SA. Also, 7.1 has a bunch of extra stuff like HME and a web server that adds additional memory demand.

Now you translate my geek speak for Philly Bill and I'll double check the translation to see if it is still correct :-)

slaponte · 07-26-2005, 01:55 PM

Philly, swap is used to move stuff out of memory when you need more space than your memory has. So Jamie says you might NOT HAVE A SWAP right now, but because your machine is a dtivo on 6.2, the need for memory is less and you might survive for now.

I in the other hand have a S2 with 7.1, which requires more memory and thus won't come up without a proper swap.

That would explain your ocasional hang. It would be related to how busy (and using memory) the machine is. When the stuff doesn't fit in memory anymore, the Linux will ask for swap, and since it doesnt find any, it hangs.

Answer is the same : let me try it at home. And again, worst case you loose your recordings. Only change is : you need to fix this. It IS an issue.

Philly Bill · 07-26-2005, 02:04 PM

LOL@Jamie.

Thanks.

I agree. Sounds like a fix is in order. A little shuffling of my season pass for Survivor I to my second TIVO is in order...

Sounds like you guys will figure out what I should do by the weekend on dad's upgrade.

Thanks.

BTW I *DO* want to hack this TIVO and learn more about it as I go along. The upgrade was done at this time mainly so my pops would go seamlessly when he gets here and we don't have to spend the entire week I have to visit with him trying to fix a TIVO.

Jamie, if I don't have a swap file.. it sounds like some sort of overload of the available memory could cause a problem like I had yester morning? The one time 'freeze' of my TIVO? I'm not sure what could cause the memory stretch just having the TIVO on.. but I imagine it could have been one of a number of things.

Thanks you guys.

JamieP · 07-26-2005, 02:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slaponte

And, do you know a quick way for Philly to check his swap status?

Here's a way to check:

Boot the tivo up. Once it is all the way up, pull the plug and pull the drive. Put the drive in your PC and boot with one of the mfstools isos.
Mount the tivo '/var' partition where the logs live:

Code:

mkdir /mnt/var
mount /dev/hdc9 /mnt/var

You will have to change hdc if your tivo drive is not the primary master.

Now, grep the kernel logs to see if you see any messages about swap. For example,

Code:

# grep -i swap /mnt/var/log/kernel
Jan  2 00:00:45 (none) kernel: Starting kswapd
Jan  2 00:00:45 (none) kernel: Activating swap partitions
Jan  2 00:00:45 (none) kernel: Adding Swap: 130044k swap-space (priority -1)

This indicates that swap was added, and that it was 130044k bytes. In this particular case I had a 127MB swap, but the same method should work to see if a larger swap was added. If you don't see the "Adding Swap:" kernel message, or the size isn't what you think they should be, then something is probably wrong with your swap setup.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philly Bill

Jamie, if I don't have a swap file.. it sounds like some sort of overload of the available memory could cause a problem like I had yester morning? The one time 'freeze' of my TIVO? I'm not sure what could cause the memory stretch just having the TIVO on.. but I imagine it could have been one of a number of things.

The TiVo software schedules processes to run periodically. These processes might be loading guide data, managing schedules for season passes, collecting garbage in the database, etc. If one of these processes needs more memory than is available, it will fail. The results of that failure are unpredictable (at least by me). So it's hard to know whether the freeze you saw yesterday was related to a swap problem. Checking the logs is the best way to tell.

Philly Bill · 07-26-2005, 02:36 PM

Thats cool!

Thanks for the detailed instructions. I'll pull it tonight, load it to the PC and let you guys know what I find.

Curious. What does 'booting the TIVO up' and pulling the plug do?

By the way, the TIVO is already up and running at home. I can just pull the plug when I get home and pull the drive can't I? I don't have to do a fresh reboot first do I?

JamieP · 07-26-2005, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philly Bill

Curious. What does 'booting the TIVO up' and pulling the plug do?

You want to see the logs right after the tivo has 'rebooted' (that is, just powered up). So you need to plug it in and let it start up, then immediately after it is all the way started (that is, once you can get to the tivo menus on your tv), unplug it and take out the drive to examine in your PC.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philly Bill

By the way, the TIVO is already up and running at home. I can just pull the plug when I get home and pull the drive can't I? I don't have to do a fresh reboot first do I?

A fresh reboot is important. The log files 'roll over' periodically, and if it's been a while since it was rebooted, the information about swap space may no longer be in the logs.

Philly Bill · 07-26-2005, 03:52 PM

LOL. The answer to the first question answered the 2nd. Thanks. I'll reboot tonight after work sometime, pull the drive and post the results.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JamieP

You want to see the logs right after the tivo has 'rebooted' (that is, just powered up). So you need to plug it in and let it start up, then immediately after it is all the way started (that is, once you can get to the tivo menus on your tv), unplug it and take out the drive to examine in your PC.A fresh reboot is important. The log files 'roll over' periodically, and if it's been a while since it was rebooted, the information about swap space may no longer be in the logs.

gdavisloop1 · 07-26-2005, 08:11 PM

Hello everybody. I'm the "other" person with the same freezing problem using a DirecTiVo running 6.2. NASA launch this morning was a disaster (at least for my TiVo ;-)

I tried grepping the log for clues, but the commands:
mkdir /mnt/var
mount /dev/hdc9 /mnt/var
grep -i swap /mnt/var/kernel

produced a "no such file or directory" message on the grep command.

So I proceeded to try to re-initialize the swap area. tpip reported version 1.1, so I entered:

tpip --swapped -s /dev/hdc

tpip reported that it initialized a 192MB swap.

And put the drive back in the TiVo.

The results are promising but not conclusive. The recordings I made this morning (of the shuttle launch) freeze up instantly when you try to play them (or more specifically, they re-start at the freeze point), but maybe they were corrupted when recording.

But the good news, so far, it looks like a new recording is working, but I've only been up for a few minutes so its hard to say for sure.

>>> Thank you TiVo experts for figuring this out!

Do you think it's safe to delete the "corrupted" recordings? Or is there a chance they'll go into the free space in a corrupt way?

thanks--
--Gary

JamieP · 07-26-2005, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gdavisloop1

mkdir /mnt/var
mount /dev/hdc9 /mnt/var
grep -i swap /mnt/var/kernel

produced a "no such file or directory" message on the grep command.

Darn. I'd swear I cut and pasted those commands so I wouldn't screw them up, but I screwed them up anyway. It's /mnt/var/log/kernel

Quote:

Do you think it's safe to delete the "corrupted" recordings? Or is there a chance they'll go into the free space in a corrupt way?

It should be fine.

Philly Bill · 07-26-2005, 10:23 PM

LOL. I just logged on to report the same. I'll switch back and try again. Stand by for report.

Bill

Philly Bill · 07-26-2005, 10:35 PM

Ok, here we go Jamie...

After changing the grep command to the proper path, I got the following (I wrote this down and am retyping because I don't know how to copy from a 'command' session if possible at all.

(below is what comes up after the grep -i swap /mnt/var/log/kernel command)

Code:

Jan   2   00:00:41 (none) kernel: Starting kswapd
Jan   2   00:00:41 (none) kernel: Activating swap partitions
Jan   2   00:00:41 (none) kernel: Adding Swap: 65532k swap-space (priority -1)
Jan   2   00:00:40 (none) kernel: Starting kswapd
Jan   2   00:00:40 (none) kernel: Activating swap partitions
Jan   2   00:00:40 (none) kernel: Adding Swap: 65532k swap-space (priority -1)
Bus error

Seem's like a lot smaller number than you had.

I got that Bus error every time I tried it too. May be insignificant?

slaponte · 07-27-2005, 12:33 AM

Well, I got it working. Here is how :

I booted with the Weaknees CD LBA 48

I did my mfsrestore with -s 192 -r 4

I find out my tpip is V1.1

I did the tpip -s --swapped

I then did mfsinfo and it said everything was corrupted.

So then I shutdown. Go to my regular PC and download tpip V1.2. I burn a CD, go back to the Tivo PC, load it into it.

Lets try again :

Boot with weakness CD LBA 48

mfsinfo : everything looks fine.

I do my tpip -1 -s

mfsinfo : everything looks fine

Shutdown. Install on the Tivo, took about 5 minutes, and is UP!!

Pulled the plug, went back to the PC. Mounted and checked the log. It created some 196000K of swap. ~192Mb I guess.

Back to the Tivo. Booted fine. Close the case, start updates from Tivo service.

You know, this is more like a religious experience. You pray and hope for the best.

slaponte · 07-27-2005, 12:37 AM

Just saw you message Philly. Looks a lot like you are somehow getting 64Mb of swap created somehow.

JamieP · 07-27-2005, 12:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slaponte

Just saw you message Philly. Looks a lot like you are somehow getting 64Mb of swap created somehow.

Yes, that's the way it appears. This is what you get by default if you forget to specify the -s 192 (or whatever) when you restore.

Philly Bill · 07-27-2005, 12:41 PM

Yeah, I saw 64k.

I know I put the option in properly... but I musta done something wrong. I'll have to redo.

I'm pretty certain I used these commands (with hdX as the orig TIVO drive and hdY as the new 300GB drive:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 192 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ

after it finished:

tpip -s /dev/hdZ

I've certainly made my mistakes before though

So let's see. I could do this again next week if needed (after I watch two shows I recorded that I can't re-record) but I want to nail it down before this weekend so I can do my dad's with no problems.

I have an extra 300GB drive I'll be using later that I could 'redo' with now for testing I guess.

So it seems I can still use the commands above (in red) except I need to be sure I have tpip ver. 1.2? I get that from www.courtesan.com? I downloaded it but the tar/zip file had a bunch of files in there.. readmes and c code and such. Do I just need the one file called 'tpip'?

I am not home to try this, but if I D/L the .iso for PTVupgrades CD can I replace the tpip on there with the 'new one' before buring it to a CD?

After the CD is created with the proper tpip program then I can do the same thing (same commands up above in red EXCEPT to add the -1 switch to the tpip command) and it should work?

Like I said I can try this again tonight using a different 300GB drive to see how it works...

BTW, is it possible to just use the current drive and REDO the tpip command with the new version? <wishful thinking>

slaponte · 07-27-2005, 12:41 PM

Jamie, Jamie... you said before it wouldn't create a default swap! Oh, you mean the mfsrestore will assume "-s 64" if you don't state your "-s" flag... humm...

Anyway, as I said, the mfsrestore "-s 192 -r 4" with tpip (V1.2) -1 got mine working with 192Mb. Go for it, Bill!

slaponte · 07-27-2005, 12:44 PM

Bill, I downloaded also. You only need the one called tpip. No extension. What I did is I created a directory on the FAT32 where the image backup was and I put it there. That way when I mount the FAT32 drive the latest tpip is available.

I only used the V1.2 because mfsinfo stated bad headers when I used the V1.1. After the reboot, mfsinfo stated all was well, but I ran the tpip V1.2 anyway just to be safe. Couldn't hurt.

JamieP · 07-27-2005, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slaponte

Jamie, Jamie... you said before it wouldn't create a default swap! Oh, you mean the mfsrestore will assume "-s 64" if you don't state your "-s" flag... humm...

Yes, that's what I meant. I dunno where the 64MB swap came from. I didn't think any of the tivo startup scripts setup a default swap. But I don't have a dtivo and haven't examined the 6.2 startup scripts.

slaponte · 07-27-2005, 12:54 PM

Me neither. I have a stanalone S2 and a Humax.

Bill, othe readers : I have no proof that the tpip V1.1 didn't work. The only thing I saw isI ran mfsinfo and it gave me bad headers, so I assumed it could be the tpip. So I went through the trouble of getting the V1.2 from the web site, burning a CD, booting the Linux work box into XP, copying the tpip V1.2 into the directory where I keep the tivo images, shutting down, boot to Linux, mount the fat32 drive...

You might want to give tpip V1.1 a try first. Because after all that, BEFORE running V1.2, I ran another mfsinfo and everything looked ok. So I don't know if I needed V1.2 or not. I am just passing on my experience.

Sorry this got so convoluted.