[Fred1]

I have tried Telnet , Tivo answers but there is no echo of any characters I type and "reboot" doesnt seem to work.

I tried FTP and cannot log in

Anybody got any ideas?

 

[benallenuk]

Could be ur router thats crashed, worth a restart!

 

[rkester]

Anyone watching your place while you are away who can reset it?

 

[Fred1]

Thanks guys, I knew it wasnt the router
1. it never crashes - its a netgear
2. I could log into it and enable the ports for Telnet and FTP

I managed to get hold of my neighbour who has a key, and now thinks I'm mad for asking him to unplug some random box in my living room.

So, for this time, I guess its solved.

Linux server arrives on friday and I'm thinking of using one of the X10 modules to maybe reset the Tivo remotely in future. Problem is that I dont think I can use X10 through a UPS. But I guess that is for another forum (unless anyone has any suggestions for that?)

 

[Ian_m]

My mate has a unit on their servers + routers that you phone up, enter the pass digits and it turns the power off for 10s. Not cheap though about £100.

 

[alextegg]

I had similar experience whilst in Oz for 6 wks recently, my STB went haywire and lost signal, I came home to 6 weeks of black screen recordings

Anyway, I'd previously seen lots of posts about using timer plugs to reset TiVo and/or STB overnight and I think I'll be getting one in the near future.

Resets are a good idea, methinks, as I was remoting in occasionally whilst away and everything looked fine, unless you remote in and actually play the recordings (through means that can't be discussed here) then you don't know anything is wrong.

Using the reset route means you would only lose a few recordings...

Alex

 

[Fred1]

Thanks Guys,

I can see the benefit of resetting by timer at 3 in the morning, i dont think I would lose any recordings at that time.

However, I have an X-10 setup and would like to use that ideally. The only problem is that X-10 sends signals down the power line, and as i use a UPS, this breaks the line to the X-10 module that could power cycle the Tivo.

Maybe there is some sort of Infra red controlled mains relay that could be controlled from a Linux box?

 

[Anndra]

A UPS doesn't always dampen an X-10 signal, you could try it anyway. For a troublesome module of mine I set up a 'repeater' on the computer, as the computer would receive the 'on' command, but the light it was intended for wouldn't. I set the computer up to send 'on' to that light, whenever it received an 'on' for the light, and it worked like a dream!

 

[Fred1]

Hey thanks Anndra,

Am back home tonight so will try an X10 appliance module on the UPS Tivo side.

Good timing as I am away next week as well.

 

[b166er]

Hey thanks Anndra,

Am back home tonight so will try an X10 appliance module on the UPS Tivo side.

Good timing as I am away next week as well.

You never mentioned whether or not TiVoWeb was still accessible. If it was, you could have reset using the key sequence (via the web remote):

livetv (so you know that the next button takes you to the tivo menu)
tivo
surfdown (the page down button)
select
surfdown
up
select
surfup
select
thumbsdown
thumbsdown
thumbsdown
enter

I assume that even if you did have TiVoWeb access, you wouldn't have known the key sequence (I didn't till I just made a note of it now).

I also wonder whether the solution I use to reboot a remote PC might be adaptable to work on TiVo's too. I have a couple of PC's in New York that I normally connect to via VNC or PCAnywhere. Occasionally they won't respond but are still alive. So I got them both running Trillian, logged into AIM on their own unique ID's. One of the features of Trillian is that you can intercept messages and perform word matching on them. So if I send a special keyword in an IM message to one of them. it gets a hit on the wordmatch and executes a program. So I make them run the command: shutdown -s -f -t 02 (which restarts).

Presumably there's an IM client available for Linux, perhaps one with the same feature. If not, perhaps a cron task that's expecting a tivoweb access at least once a day/week, and if it doesn't get one, it reboots.

Alternatively, and cheaper than buying an X-10 device (whatever that is) would be a simple cron task that reboots at 3 am. The advantage of this is that it's a requested soft boot. The operating system will handle it cleanly. Unlike a rapid loss of power from another method, which can always lead to the chance of some bad sectors.

 

[Fred1]

DD.

thanks for your thoughts, I didnt have tivoweb access, but didnt have the key sequence in my head (not exactly anyway).

not sure about the Trillian solution, it sounds like it needs a lot of development and anyway, if the Tivo is really crashed (which it was) then the listener for Trillian probably wont be running either.

I do prefer the cron reboot at 3am idea, as you say a requested softboot is better than a power down. Although i have read in this forum that Tivo is immune to hard reboot problems??

FYI, X-10 is a system of communicating over the mains to module that control on and off (and dim) for lights and sockets in your home. I use it as a security device, but you can run a controller on a webserver to power cycle a mains socket over the web. - See http://www.simplyautomate.com/GuideToX10.asp?Cat1=82 for an explanation. - Its very cool especially with remote controls. Randomising the light on and off times and adding motion sensors takes it to the next level.

Al

 

[b166er]

not sure about the Trillian solution, it sounds like it needs a lot of development and anyway, if the Tivo is really crashed (which it was) then the listener for Trillian probably wont be running either.

I do prefer the cron reboot at 3am idea, as you say a requested softboot is better than a power down. Although i have read in this forum that Tivo is immune to hard reboot problems??

Oh, if it's a real crash then the cron isn't any better either. Sounds like the X10 is the only guaranteed way to go. Presumably you're worried about why it's crashing Hard drive on it's way out perhaps

FYI, X-10 is a system of communicating over the mains to module that control on and off (and dim) for lights and sockets in your home.

Cool Now I know what my next gadget (toy) will be

As for guaranteed reboot proof, I don't hold much faith in such claims. To be totally guaranteed reboot proof you need to add mechanisms around each disk write that slow things down too much. Possible but slow. There's probably lots of people here who do it, but I personally wouldn't remove power from it externally if I could avoid it. That's why I have a UPS device dedicated just to the TiVo (and Sky).

 

[Fred1]

Oh, if it's a real crash then the cron isn't any better either. Sounds like the X10 is the only guaranteed way to go. Presumably you're worried about why it's crashing Hard drive on it's way out perhaps .

Yep, its the "Real" crashes that I'm worried about fixing remotely.

My tivo seems to reboot itself spontaneously (not really a problem as it reboots not crashes) every 10-15 days or so. "Real" crashes seem to be quite rare, but infuriating if you are away.

Any clues as to which log i should look at and is it usefull after the reboot?

 

[b166er]

Any clues as to which log i should look at and is it usefull after the reboot?

'fraid not, I'm only a week and a half into having my TiVo hacked. Haven't had any problems that have needed to look into logs yet

 

[sanderton]

I posted a "Reboot" TiVoweb module somewhere which restarts the TiVo when clicked.

Re: logs, kernel and tvlog are usually the most informative.

 

[Fred1]

Thanks Stuart

Wouldnt have helped in this case as tivoweb was down - if it was up, I have hackman running with the secret reboot option enabled, so could have done it from there.

looking at the kernel log it doesnt go back as far as the 18th when the tivo crashed, but this is repeated continuously through the log:-

Jan 19 22:55:55 (none) kernel: /etc/rc.d/rc.remote-login: /dev/cua3: Device or resource busy
Jan 19 22:55:56 (none) kernel: /etc/rc.d/rc.remote-login: /dev/cua3: Device or resource busy
Jan 19 22:55:57 (none) kernel: custpppd started on /dev/cua3
Jan 19 22:56:06 (none) kernel: tcp_keepalive: call keepopen(0x8046ac40)
Jan 19 22:56:58 (none) kernel: /etc/rc.d/rc.remote-login: /dev/cua3: Device or resource busy
Jan 19 22:56:59 (none) kernel: /etc/rc.d/rc.remote-login: /dev/cua3: Device or resource busy
Jan 19 22:57:05 (none) kernel: custpppd started on /dev/cua3

**************************************************
any idea what it means?

tvlog is massive and I have no idea what I am looking for, but this doesnt look right and is all over this log :-

Jan 19 21:59:09 (none) LogTime[168]: Lineup: arrow up/down: 0.110 sec
Jan 19 21:59:09 (none) TmkMediaswitch::Trace[163]: Lost VBI lock
Jan 19 21:59:09 (none) LogTime[168]: Lineup: arrow up/down: 0.008 sec
Jan 19 21:59:09 (none) TmkMediaswitch::Trace[163]: Lost VBI lock
Jan 19 21:59:21 (none) last message repeated 105 times

*****************************************

On the positive side, my X10 module can work the "worng side" of the UPS. But I think I need to get to the bottom of why its crashed in the first place.

 

[jollyrog]

I have my two Tivos, their Sony Freeview boxes and the network switch that they're networked through, all powered up via a network powerswitch. I wrote some VB scripts that can send telnet commands to the device, from an ASP/HTML page that I run on my server. Modern ones have web browser interfaces built in, but mine is old and only has a command line interface.

So, from anywhere, I can HTTP to my server and power-cycle the devices. I could have this gizmo connected to the 'phone line too on a modem, but I've never felt the need.

When I'm away, I set Windows "Scheduled tasks" to power cycle the lot in the middle of the night. It takes the switch off-line an hour before sending another command to power down the TiVos. This stops the Tivo power-off occurring during daily call indexing. Then, 2 mins later, it sends an "ON" command, followed by another "ON" command another 2 mins later (should have no effect), just for good measure.

I know this is crude, but it works and if a Tivo crashes, it'll be fine by morning


Roger

 

[Fred1]

The power switch sounds great - any idea where I can get one - Google is not being too forthcoming (although I did find one for £2000!!!)

 

[AMc]

We used to use APC branded (?) rack mounted power strips. They had an ethernet connection and a mini webserver which we used to restart remote devices in data centres all over the world. You logged in and said which socket you wanted to kill and reopen.
Sadly ours were all disposed off but a trawl of ebay might bring up a similar device rfom a hardware liquidator (where ours all went)?

 

[Fred1]

Thanks for the reply, - it looks like there arent any on ebay and commercially they seem to cost >£500, so it looks like I need to make my own with a linux webserver and X-10.

More fun though!