[andrew1883]

I was having a great time with pyTivo Desktop, running multiple passes and seeing how many (or few) errors there were. Thanks for this.

It took a while to get it seeing the TiVo properly, but now it is. The problem is that this afternoon there were 2 shows deleted from the TiVo while PTD was downloading. No surprise but there were sitting there, listed but nothing happening. I must have deleted them, or just closed the transfer status window, not sure. But now when I launch PTD, it sees the TiVo but then sits at "Loading show list..." for hours (presumably forever). I've restarted my notebook, even shut right down and started fresh, but it still does it.

What can I do to get it to see the list or recordings?

Not sure this is significant for troubleshooting, but it's a TiVo Premiere (ethernet cable to router), Windows 10 (on WiFi) at the other end.

Thanks!
=aw

 

[andrew1883]

:: smacks forehead ::

Thanks, that fixed it!
=aw

 

[andrew1883]

REboot Tivo.

Is there any way to avoid this? It happened again yesterday evening and I had to wait 3 hours before I could reboot the TiVo (waited for unimportant things to be recording). Then this morning I found it happened again. These aren't even the oldest recordings being deleted, just "keep 5" or whatever where a 6th episode records. This morning I deleted all the items in the queue, but it still showed 1 in the icon. So I rebooted the TiVo, and rebooted my notebook, and now PTD is stuck on "Finding TiVos" (sometimes it says no TiVos found).

I was having the problem not finding the TiVo before, and I forget exactly how I fixed it (I know I gave PTD the IP address of the TiVo -- 192.168.0.107 -- and did something else, and it was reliable for a few days, but now it's stuck again). Is there a standard set of changes to get the TiVo seen?

Thanks!
=aw

 

[andrew1883]

Thanks. I just tried that, exited pyTivo then launched pyTivo then launched pyTivo Desktop. PTD said Finding TiVos then opened the Settings window to the TTG tab. The MAK is correct, the recordings folder is on my C:\ drive (I move manually to external after). I have Transfer format set to "per-recording" though earlier it was working with "always TS". No TiVos listed.

I changed back to "always TS" and hit Save. pyTivo is restarting... and Settings pops up.

Where does TiVo Desktop fit into this app? I think I have to have it running (for decryption?) and I do, though if I try to get a list of recordings on TiVo it identifies how many there are but the "can't open [some] file". It's been like that all along, both when PTD was working and when it wasn't.

[added: somehow I had changed zeroconf to Off, I changed it back to Auto and I got a list of recordings from the TiVo. So now my concern is how to avoid having PTD fail so badly when a recording gets removed from the TiVo. I guess I could download 1 at a time and refresh the recordings list each time (which doesn't guarantee a recording won't be deleted but at least reduces the window). But that means no batch transfers overnight.]

=aw

 

[andrew1883]

I'll see what I can do. Don't think anything else is accessing, kmttg isn't running and TiVo Desktop is just sitting. My observation is that after I reboot everything and get a list of recordings again, whatever was sitting in the queue when it was stuck, is missing from the TiVo. I assumed the recording was being deleted by the TiVo due to space requirements, or save only 5, or something.

=aw

 

[andrew1883]

When I launch pyTivo Desktop I get an error "Verify pyTivo is running and retry" but I can't find any way to get pyTivo running. I'm sure this is an incredibly rookie question but I haven't done this for almost a year and I don't recall. I did reboot (Windows 10) hoping that would cause something to start up, but it didn't work. How do I get pyTivo running?

This must have happened recently because I do have a recent downloaded .ts file, dated Dec 22/19 I have "A Charlie Brown Christmas ... (^258_0).ts" so it must have been working on Dec 22. As I recall, this means 258 errors on pass 0? Last year I bought NetLimiter to throttle the transfer and reduce errors, as I recall the issue was likely the TiVo Premiere not being able to keep up and not being able to slow the transfer. This year I have a new TiVo BOLT VOX+ instead, and anticipated it would be faster and able to keep up. Do I in fact need to use NL again with the newer TiVo box, or is there something else I can do? I think the TiVo is wired to the router and notebook is definitely wireless.

Thanks.
=aw

 

[andrew1883]

Thank you. But where do I find pyTivo Tray? It's not in the tray, and not in the Start menu (Windows 10). I've rebooted at least once since I started having this problem, so it presumably doesn't start on bootup. Do I need to uninstall and reinstall pyTivo? Would prefer not if I don't have to.

=aw

 

[andrew1883]

Should have these in your start menu.

Thank you, I'm feeling better because that's where I was looking. But not better because here's what I've got (sorry about size). Is there some way to return the missing item to the menu? [added: I've added a tile for pyTivo in the main Start menu, but can't find any way to edit this list]

Thanks.
=aw

 

[andrew1883]

Thank you both. I did find some info on customizing Start menu (what a mess) and I was able to add an item (though I think I have to reboot to reload Start menu and I can't because I'm actually downloading a recording! . The page that had some info on editing the "middle" Start window (not the tiles to the right and not the categories to the left) was here How to add Files and Folders to Windows 10's Start Menu

I did launch pyTivo.exe so I've got a console window open, but I'll try pyTivoTray in the morning when I can reboot to test.

Thanks again.
=aw

 

[andrew1883]

Using my TiVo for the first time in 2 years, I had forgotten how much nicer it is than anything I've seen from the cable companies. I think it's a Bolt VOX (?), can't check right now. Has a Comcast Cablecard in it.

Thought I would take a shot at downloading recordings using pyTivo, which I also haven't done in a couple of years. Updated pyTivo and pyTivo Desktop and it seemed to be working. Listed a whole bunch of shows that looked correct, I started one (1hr show, 1.83 GB) and it was downloading at about 6Mb/s. Hit 305.00 MB and dropped to 0.01 Mb/s but in fact I do't think the 305.00 MB has changed in 10 minutes.

Is there something I'm overlooking? Is this just a fault of the TiVo? Should I kill the transfer and try again? I paid no attention to settings other than to update the apps and run them.

Thanks.

 

[andrew1883]

Did you determine the cause of this slowdown issue?

No, I got no response, couldn't figure it out, and now I'm away from the TiVo until later in the year.

 

[andrew1883]

It would seem you are using TS downloads on PyTivo Desktop. That would be expected when it encounters errors and throttles down the speed until it gets to as error free as possible. You can avoid this by using PS downloads, but only if they are not MPEG4 recordings.

If it throttles to zero because of errors, is there some way to reduce the number of errors? Other than switching to PS, and I have no idea if they're MPEG4 recordings.