TiVoDesktop won't start on Mac OS X 10.4.10

hargreae · 08-21-2007, 11:03 PM

The subject pretty much says it all, but here are some more specifics: I have an iMac G5 with Tivo Desktop 1.9.3. It has worked fine in the past, but I tend to turn it off on occasion because it uses up a lot of processing power even when idle. When I tried to start it yesterday, it wouldn't. When I click the Start button, it just switches back from Stop to Start within one second. I have installed a few updates (iTunes 7.3.2, OS X 10.4.10) so I have no idea where the incompatibility is (if there is one).

bracoh · 08-21-2007, 11:39 PM

I just noticed the same thing yesterday. It was the first time in a long time that I had launched it. I'm on an Intel iMac with 10.4.10.

Dennis Wilkinson · 08-22-2007, 10:59 AM

Working here for me, 10.4.10 with all the latest updates, PowerMac G4.

Note that I do not have iLife '08 installed. That installs a new version of iPhoto that I know has had changes to the iPhoto Library format -- those have the potential to break TiVo Desktop, although I've seen no reports of that yet.

ForrestB · 08-22-2007, 09:54 PM

Mac troubleshooting 101:
1. After a system update, run Disk Utility and repair permissions
2. Restart the computer

As for Tivo Desktop 1.9.3 being a CPU hog - that's simply not the case. I'm running the same OSX and iTunes versions as you on my 1.3 GHz G4 and according to Activity Monitor, Tivo Desktop is using 0.3% and 28 MB of RAM while actively streaming music to my DirecTivo. When it's not streaming music, CPU useage drops even lower.

joneSi · 08-22-2007, 10:08 PM

I'll check tomorrow...I've got 10.4.10 on a Macbook Pro 2.4 Ghz (4 gigs of ram

all used cause its the new Santa Rosa chipset) as well as on an old iBook 1.2 ghz...I'll be able to see if it is a memory hog (at least on the iBook...though it has 1.25 gb of ram) A simple top command in the terminal should show that, or even a process command.

joneSi

bedelman · 08-22-2007, 11:15 PM

I've seen exactly this situation happen when I had what must have been a corrupt .tivo file in the TiVoShows directory. I moved half of the files, started up TiVo Desktop and it stayed up. I then moved in half the files I had moved out back into the TiVoShows folder and checked again. After a while, I found the culprit and once I had it out of the folder all was well.

I don't know if you have the Videos tab enabled -- but if you do, you might want to try this.

Also, you might want to try turning on logging by holding down the Option key when you click on the TiVo Desktop preference pane (and then enable logging)

Dennis Wilkinson · 08-23-2007, 08:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ForrestB

As for Tivo Desktop 1.9.3 being a CPU hog - that's simply not the case. I'm running the same OSX and iTunes versions as you on my 1.3 GHz G4 and according to Activity Monitor, Tivo Desktop is using 0.3% and 28 MB of RAM while actively streaming music to my DirecTivo. When it's not streaming music, CPU useage drops even lower.

On many systems, for reasons that have never been clear, TiVo Desktop will occasionally consume increasingly more CPU (I've seen as high as 14% utilization on a 1.0GHz G4) until it is actively accessed by a TiVo. My wild guess is that there are JVM garbage collection issues, but I have little to back that up (TiVo Desktop does poll the file system periodically to look for new music/pictures/movies.) So, yes, it can be a "CPU hog" for some folks.

Most of the time, simply accessing TiVo Desktop from a TiVo addresses the issue, as does restarting the process (I have a periodic task that fetches the song list a few times a day, which keeps things in check for me.)

hargreae · 08-24-2007, 12:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bedelman

I've seen exactly this situation happen when I had what must have been a corrupt .tivo file in the TiVoShows directory. I moved half of the files, started up TiVo Desktop and it stayed up. I then moved in half the files I had moved out back into the TiVoShows folder and checked again. After a while, I found the culprit and once I had it out of the folder all was well.

I don't know if you have the Videos tab enabled -- but if you do, you might want to try this.

I moved all the files out of the TiVoShows directory and TiVo Desktop still wouldn't start up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bedelman

Also, you might want to try turning on logging by holding down the Option key when you click on the TiVo Desktop preference pane (and then enable logging)

I have Enable Debugging checked. What level should I use? It's currently at 1

bedelman · 08-24-2007, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hargreae

I moved all the files out of the TiVoShows directory and TiVo Desktop still wouldn't start up.

I guess it could be a bad Music or Photo file as well -- but those would be a lot more difficult to track down (at least it would be for me). If you uncheck the various "publish" checkboxes, does it stay running?

Quote:

Originally Posted by hargreae

I have Enable Debugging checked. What level should I use? It's currently at 1

I don't think there's much difference in the levels, I think I usually go all the way to the highest (I think that's 20) to start

PeternJim · 08-24-2007, 11:20 PM

It's all working fine for me. !0.4.10 on an Intel Mac Pro.

In fact, I just set it up the other day, having finally upgraded to Toast 8 and wanting to start using it. Transfers work both ways. I don't use iPhoto much, so can't speak to that, although I have used it to view a couple photoshop pics on the tivo (to use as titles on video burned to a standalone DVD burner). I find that when I make a change to iPhoto, the change does not show until I turn off the tivo desktop and then start it again. Other than that, all is good.

hargreae · 08-25-2007, 02:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bedelman

I guess it could be a bad Music or Photo file as well -- but those would be a lot more difficult to track down (at least it would be for me). If you uncheck the various "publish" checkboxes, does it stay running?

Nope, regardless of which publish checkboxes were on or off, I could not get it to start.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bedelman

I don't think there's much difference in the levels, I think I usually go all the way to the highest (I think that's 20) to start

I had it set to 1 and I changed it to 20. No logging is being done. The existing log was last modified July 11, 2007 and is 2.1MB in size. I pulled it out of the Logs folder and relaunched TiVo Desktop. It still wouldn't start and no new log file was created.

Dennis Wilkinson · 08-25-2007, 07:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hargreae

I had it set to 1 and I changed it to 20. No logging is being done. The existing log was last modified July 11, 2007 and is 2.1MB in size. I pulled it out of the Logs folder and relaunched TiVo Desktop. It still wouldn't start and no new log file was created.

Look in the regular system.log and console.log for TiVo-related messages, as well as in the CrashReporter logs. Sounds suspiciously like a corrupted install, the OS may be recording other errors that might help describe what's happening.

Microman66 · 08-25-2007, 08:01 PM

I cannot see my music as well. I reinstalled Tivo Desktop, but no go. I had it 2 days ago., But suddenly quit working. Latest OSX on G4/400. Maybe I should run it on the PC.

hargreae · 08-25-2007, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dennis Wilkinson

Look in the regular system.log and console.log for TiVo-related messages, as well as in the CrashReporter logs. Sounds suspiciously like a corrupted install, the OS may be recording other errors that might help describe what's happening.

Here's what shows up in console.log:

JavaVM FATAL: Failed to load the jvm library.
[JavaAppLauncher Error] Error starting up VM.
TiVoDesktop: can't launch TiVoDesktop!

Dennis Wilkinson · 08-26-2007, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hargreae

Here's what shows up in console.log:

JavaVM FATAL: Failed to load the jvm library.
[JavaAppLauncher Error] Error starting up VM.
TiVoDesktop: can't launch TiVoDesktop!

Can you run any Java applications?

hargreae · 08-26-2007, 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dennis Wilkinson

Can you run any Java applications?

How can I check this? Are there any Java applications sitting around on a default install of OS X? Or can you recommend a Java application I could download and attempt to run?

Dennis Wilkinson · 08-26-2007, 07:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hargreae

How can I check this? Are there any Java applications sitting around on a default install of OS X? Or can you recommend a Java application I could download and attempt to run?

You could try something simple at www.java.com.

Another check might be to open a Terminal window and run

Code:

java -version

That should load enough of the JVM to see if it will load, although TiVo Desktop loads Java from a Cocoa "shell" application, which might add a wrinkle or two.

hargreae · 08-26-2007, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dennis Wilkinson

Another check might be to open a Terminal window and run

Code:

java -version

That should load enough of the JVM to see if it will load, although TiVo Desktop loads Java from a Cocoa "shell" application, which might add a wrinkle or two.

Terminal returned no result when I ran that command. I installed the Java for Mac OS X 10.4 Release 5 and now TiVo Desktop is running successfully. Thanks for your help pinning down the problem. Java!

Microman66 · 08-27-2007, 09:16 AM

I have the Tivo Desktop running. And I use to get the Music Playlists from my Mac, but now at least I get the "Play My Music" source listed for my computer, but when I choose it, it gets "A problem occurred while accessing the server. THis may be temporary problem due to a network interruption or the server being busy. If the problem persisits checxk your network connections and verify that the TIVO server application is running on your computer.

Just as I was typing this I got the "playlists" , but then when I choose a playlist, it got that same error above, that it is getting just trying to get to the playlists.

I have checked just one playlist or publish them all, still seems to hang and not load.

Was able to to finally play a song, but everything I do gets the "PLEASE WAIT" and the timeclock. Something is slowing this communication down to a crawl. I now have TWO Playlists to choose. They took over 30 seconds for them to show up. Now playing a folder with 108 songs. Using the TIVO USB Wirelss adapter that seems work fine, with updating, although I did have to restart my Cable Modem and Router yesterday to get connected to upgrade guide.

Tried to advance to the next song on playlist and it takes a minute to change songs.. Well 30 to 40 seconds.

Why is communicatins so slow?