[ACraigL]

Hi,

Since the last TiVo service update (the one with Swivel search?), I'm unable to listen to my mp3 collection without the music pausing for 10-30 seconds at a time. It happens at irregular intervals, but I can count on it happening every time, and I'm super-fustrated with it.

I'm a Galleon user, and I'm using 2.4.1 with JRE 1.6.0_02-b6. That, and TivoDesktop are all running merrily under Vista Ultimate 32-bit. There have been no changes to my desktop config or my network... the problem just appeared.

I've done every manner of trouble-shooting and I keep coming back to the TiVo as the culprit. I have 2 TiVos and the behavior is consistent on both. One is hard-wired, the other wireless. All other network activity is more than acceptable (e.g. TTG is about 700 Kbs and MRV is 2x+ realtime).

It's literally like the TiVo is choking... there is no response from it (button pushes, etc) when the music "pauses" and when it resumes, all of those presses "catch up" all at once, if you know what I mean.

I have a large music collection, over 10,000 files, and I have never been able to use the TD music player (even 2.5) -- it always times out on me, likely due to the size of the collection, which is why I use Galleon as it never had this issue.

I'm desperate to have this work again, so any suggestions appreciated!

Andrew

 

[Dan203]

Have you tried simply pulling the plug on your TiVo and allowing it to reboot?

It's also possible that there was some sort of update to the HME specification which Galleon is incompatible with which is causing the problem. But a hard boot is the first thing I'd try.

Dan

 

[ACraigL]

i 've done a ton of soft restarts... I'm not hopeful, but I'll give it a shot. Thanks!

 

[jtkohl]

You might also try telling TiVo Desktop about just a small subset of your collection. If the problem persists with that server, then it's pretty certainly some TiVo-side issue.

 

[ACraigL]

Thanks... I tried that. Something less than 2000 eliminates the timeout error, but the skip/pause issue does still persist, even with TD.

 

[ACraigL]

No luck with pulling the plug/hard reboot.
Are there any other free music server applications for TiVo out there that I can try?

 

[s2kdave]

The problem might not be manually changed configuration on your vista box, but maybe it could be something that is discovered or any other environmental factors. I know in XP sometimes explorer has a "brain fart" and pauses while it does something and prevents all apps from reading files off the filesystem during that time. The fact that it's a 30 second window sounds like a timeout to me. Maybe vista is trying to contact a server or networked machine, etc... and it has the file system locked and is preventing galleon and tivo desktop from being able to read the music file to send to the tivo.

Just a thought.

David

 

[ACraigL]

s2kdave,

Not a bad thought, but I have no idea how I would even troubleshoot for that.

 

[ACraigL]

I just downloaded J. River Media Center 12 (12.0.279) and it appears to work without the pauses -- so far. Although the display is not as sophistocated as Galleon (it looks more like the TD music screen) it loads my 1000's of files quickly, unike TD 2.5.

I'll let it run for a while more and report back on my findings.

2 questions on JRMC, for those that use it:

1. Can you customize the menus that appear on the TiVo?
2. Does the application need to be running to use it this way? Can it be installed as a service?

Thanks!

 

[ACraigL]

So far, so good with J. River. I will be able to say for sure later as I made a few tweaks. Also, I figured out my own questions:

There is a setting to enable at windows startup (under general) and you can create custom "views" in the the trees, which also display at menu items on the TiVo (after the app is restarted).

It's a pretty cool application, actually!

Andrew

 

[ACraigL]

I think I have a winner with the J. RIver Media Center! No more skipping and music (over 10000) loads immediately.

Something else improved that annoyed me with Galleon -- you can back up during shuffle. In Galleon if you accidentally skipped a song you decided you wanted to hear, it was gone. JRMC keeps the shuffled list in memory, I suppose.

I think the issue may have in fact been Galleon. I'm a long-time user, but if I had to guess now, I'd say the skipping happened during the scheduled "updates" for the various applications.

Anyway, my problem seems to be solved. Albeit without Galleon (which I'll miss) but with my music no longer interrupted

 

[sharp1]

I REALLY like J River Media Center for the TiVo. I like that I can create any old view scheme I want, and use that same drill-down menus available from the TiVo.

Plus the MP3 data is obviously in some database, so the collection size is not an issue like it is with TiVo Desktop.

I am going to give the HD updated Galleon a shot, just for the heck of it, but J River will probably remain my main TiVo Server.

 

[luckem]

I have had the same issue since the latest Tivo Service Update. I have Windows Vista Ultimate & have tried Tivo Desktop 2.5 and J River Media Center 12 with the same results. I tried playing around with the different MP3 encoding options with no luck. Does anybody have any advice?

 

[ACraigL]

This is not going to be a popular soultion in this forum but this the reason (well, that an HD support/cost) that I moved to HTPC running Vista Media Center x64, with an HDHomeRun.

The media options blow the doors off TiVo and the network issues are no longer present (same network, BTW). TiVo was more than just a recorder for me-- it was my media portal. When performance slipped in that area, I needed to look elsewhere.

I'm pretty happy ATM, sans TiVo