[V7Goose]

Wow Dan, I finally decided to give your new pyTiVo package a try, and I am really impressed so far. Super simple installation, and it was working instantly. I transferred a couple of recordings right off the bat without problems. I have always been satisfied with the basic TiVo Desktop, but it does kind of irritate me when it wigs out while transferring large numbers of programs at once - that and the fact that TiVo and Bad Rovi have disowned it pushed me into trying something different. Glad I did.

Really do appreciate all you do around here! THANX!

 

[windracer]

2) Groups Suggestions into their own folder and adds a green thumbs up before the show name so they are easy to distinguish from regular recordings.

Perfect, thanks! :thumbsup:

 

[Redoctobyr]

Dan, thank you again for all the work you've put into pyTivo. It's very cool, and extremely accessible. Installation was a breeze, which makes it more practical for people to use.

I haven't gotten to try any of the new versions for a few days, however. I'm trying to transfer everything off my S2s, and am currently using kmttg for that, as giant transfers of everything. It will take about a week for one S2 and two weeks for the other. I'm trying to avoid "rocking the boat" during that time, so I'm not currently swapping my TiVo software around, or asking the S2s to start other transfers.

But I will try to check out the new version once one machine finishes, to see if the DLL error went away, etc. Thank you for being so responsive to issues that people encounter, and to be open to adding new features, like bulk transfers, or putting Suggestions in a folder.

 

[V7Goose]

Well, my happiness with pyTiVo was pretty short lived! I'm not sure what I am doing wrong, but the two shows I transferred from Bolt1 this morning cannot be transferred down to Bolt2 - when I access the computer from Bolt2 and start the transfer, all seems normal, and the transfer light comes on, but that is the end of that. It stays in that state for way too long, and then the program just goes away. Checking the network transfer history shows normal stats for "Videos Transferred from Remote Device" [298.00 Mb/s], but when I go to the Manage Recordings History screen, it says the program was Not Transferred because the download rate was too slow!

When I installed pyTiVo this morning, TiVo Desktop server was already installed and running - I did nothing with it. I told pyTiVo to use the same file folder that TiVo Desktop uses, and the new transferred shows are in there, right along with all the older programs that were originally copied with TiVo Desktop. And Bolt2 can transfer any of those older shows just fine, but it still cannot copy those two new shows from this morning.

I tried pausing the TiVo Server, and that just made the computer totally disappear from the Bolt menu. Stopping and restarting pyTiVo.exe did NOT bring it back.

Oh, one more thing that looked strange - when PyTivo is running, Task Manager shows TWO active instances of pyTiVo.exe. At one point, after I tried just restarting pyTiVo with th e menu option, I had FOUR pyTiVo.exe instances running at one time.

Can you point me to some instructions to help me figure out what I am doing wrong? Am I supposed to be running TiVo Server at the same time I run pyTiVo?

UPDATE: I stopped the TiVo Server from starting automatically and rebooted the computer. Then I added a video share in pyTiVo, which eventually showed up on the Bolt menus. Testing downloads now to see if the problems have been solved. I will update again as soon as I have more results.

 

[Dan203]

I've had that happen before, usually you have to reboot the TiVo you're transferring to to get it to work.

 

[V7Goose]

OK, here is an update on the problems I am seeing with ver 1.5.10 (after making sure TiVo Server is not running, setting up pyTiVo video share, and rebooting everything):

Problem1:
If I transfer a show from Bolt1 using PS, I can then download it from the computer to Bolt2 with no problems. BUT, if I transfer it from Bolt1 as TS, it does not download to Bolt2. At first, the history on Bolt2 said it "was Not Transferred because the download rate was too slow", but the most recent error (using a brand new copy from Bolt1) said it "was not transferred because it exceeded the expected size".

I will note here that I have not tried this exact test with a different computer using only TiVo Desktop, but I will.

Problem2:
When I access the video share from Bolt2, at first the list of programs on the computer looks totally normal - in particular, programs of the same name with different episode titles all show both the program name and episode name like this: Tour of Duty-"Angel of Mercy", but as soon as I select one of those programs (just simply selecting it, not even starting a transfer), the episode name is REMOVED from the display and STAYS GONE. In the example above, any Tour of Duty program that I ever selected is now shown simply as Tour of Duty. Even backing totally out of the device menu on Bolt2, going to watch live TV, then later re-opening the pyTiVo video share from the Bolt does not bring back the missing episode name!

And a strange observation (not necessarily a problem):
The Task Manager shows no pyTiVo app running, but there are always at least TWO background processes each running for both pyTiVo.exe and pyTiVoTray.exe. I also see an app called "Electron" running that also has two background process of the same name, and "Electron" shows the same icon as the other processes from pyTiVo. What the heck is that, and why is it called Electron?

 

[Dan203]

For problem 1.... are you decrypting the file? Or just downloading as .tivo and then uploading as .tivo?

For problem 2... that sounds like a TiVo UI issue. pyTivo simply supplies a list with the data, TiVo is in charge of displaying it. Maybe your new Bolt is running an older software version that has a bug. It can take a while for a new TiVo to get updated to the newest software.

For the observations.... that's completely normal. The pyTivo.exe and pyTivoTray.exe programs are compiled using a program called pyinstaller, which is what allows them to run without needing python installed on your machine. The way it works is using a bootstrap process where it extracts the python interpreter and code to a hidden directory and then runs it from there. So one process is the bootstrap code and the other is the actual app. The Electron one is normal too. That's the desktop UI. The desktop app is actually a web page, written using a technology called Angular. When it's compiled down it's basically just an html file, a javascript file and some css files. To make it run as an app I use a program called Electron which basically bundles the web page into it's own window using the Chromium rendering engine. I could have served it up directly from pyTivo like the existing web UI instead, which I was originally going to do, but the Angular code only works in the newest browsers and I was worried about compatibility so I decided to do it this way instead.

 

[lpwcomp]

Problem #2 is a limitation of the UI when dealing with .tivo files. What you see at first is the file name. As soon as you select it, it changes to displaying the title. It's always like this.

 

[Mikeguy]

Dan, what is the pyTivo Desktop default Network/Beacon setting--selected/checked? (I thought the default was unchecked, but after installing the pyTivo 1.5.10 version just now, I found Beacon checked; but I may have done that earlier.) What's the difference/practical effect between the 2 routes, and any advantage/disadvantage/recommendation between the 2?

Also, just to report, no install issue with the new version (as there had been with the .8 version earlier).

 

[Dan203]

You mean the listen check box? That should be unchecked by default.

 

[Mikeguy]

You mean the listen check box? That should be unchecked by default.

Thanks--no doubt my big fingers . . . . Might I ask, the difference?

Btw, the persistencies between versions and sessions (window size, MAK, etc.) are nice and convenient. Thanks--

 

[Dan203]

To be honest I'm not quite sure what the listen option is used for. The help in the main UI doesn't explain it very well. Although I'm pretty sure the whole beacon option is unnecessary when zeroconf is turned on. I'm pretty sure it only pertains to the old style TiVo beacon protocol.

 

[V7Goose]

For problem 1.... are you decrypting the file? Or just downloading as .tivo and then uploading as .tivo?

Thanx for the reply Dan. For these tests, I am not decrypting anything - just used pyTiVo to access the recent recordings from one Bolt, then used the other Bolt to access the video share and try to copy the same programs down.

That is not something I would ordinarily be doing, since the boxes can just transfer directly between them. But it would be important if I ever decided to temporarily hold programs on one of the computers because of limited storage space on the Bolt. I may never want to do that, but I sure do need to know it works before I ever do decide to try it. Right now the TS copy mode sure seems to be a problem here. I'll have to do some more testing and compare pyTiVo with TiVo Desktop on a different machine.

 

[Dan203]

Try downloading the file via the web interface and see if that produces the same result. That will at least tell us if it's a pyTivo problem or not.

To use the web UI what you do is it open a web browser and go to ....

https://<TiVo IP>/nowplaying/index.html

You will first get some sort certificate expired error. Ignore it or add an exception. (depends on browser) Then you will be prompted for a user name and password. The user name is tivo (lowerecase) and the password is your MAK.

 

[V7Goose]

Problem #2 is a limitation of the UI when dealing with .tivo files. What you see at first is the file name. As soon as you select it, it changes to displaying the title. It's always like this.

Interesting - been using the TiVo Desktop for over 10 years and never noticed that before. But then again, I usually just copy up to a computer then edit/archive them there - rarely ever have a need to copy a TiVo file back off the computer onto a TiVo box.

 

[Mikeguy]

To be honest I'm not quite sure what the listen option is used for. The help in the main UI doesn't explain it very well. Although I'm pretty sure the whole beacon option is unnecessary when zeroconf is turned on. I'm pretty sure it only pertains to the old style TiVo beacon protocol.

Thanks, and for making me feel more competent (or, rather, less incompetent).

 

[DevdogAZ]

New update just posted. Contains two enhancements...

1) Changes download naming convention to be like TiVo Desktop. i.e. "showname - "episode title" (recorded date, channel).tivo"
2) Groups Suggestions into their own folder and adds a green thumbs up before the show name so they are easy to distinguish from regular recordings.

I think it's great that you're responding to requests and added the suggestions thing. But in what scenario are people wanting to transfer suggestions from the TiVo to a PC, let alone from the PC back to a TiVo? Do people actually care about the shows that are recorded as suggestions?

 

[Dan203]

I think it's great that you're responding to requests and added the suggestions thing. But in what scenario are people wanting to transfer suggestions from the TiVo to a PC, let alone from the PC back to a TiVo? Do people actually care about the shows that are recorded as suggestions?

Before this they were lumped in with other recordings with no way to distinguish them. With this change they are grouped into their own folder, and when they are in another folder, because you have a suggestion that is the same show as one of your real recordings, they have a special icon now so you can distinguish the suggestions from the real recordings. So basically this change makes it easier to ignore the suggestions, because as you said most people aren't going to want to download them to their PC.

 

[omahajs]

I upgraded to latest version and can't get anything to transfer to PC now, it worked fine in earlier versions. Rebooted PC and Tivo and reinstalled pyTivo and transfers just sit in queue at 0% with no error messages. Any ideas?

 

[Dan203]

I upgraded to latest version and can't get anything to transfer to PC now, it worked fine in earlier versions. Rebooted PC and Tivo and reinstalled pyTivo and transfers just sit in queue at 0% with no error messages. Any ideas?

Exit out of the whole thing, and check the task manager to make sure all processes are gone. Then go to the install folder and launch the pytivo.exe manually. That will show a console window. Now go into the desktop folder and launch pyTivoDesktop.exe. Make sure you can see the console window and then try to queue a transfer. Does it print an error of any kind? If so can you copy/paste it here so I can see what it is?