Tivo freezing/hanging daily

[dyrplq]

...if you have a cron job setup and your Tivo crashes, the cron won't run. I've now gone to the extent of having it connected via a Dick Smith Timer switch which literally cuts power for 10 mins everyday at 3pm (Bold and the Beautiful is on I think so thats safe enough to avoid) just to ensure it isnt frozen when I get home from work.

It ran for about 3 days non-stop up to yesterday, then crashed 3 times. This is my second image on a second disk. I am going to try with another image and will also try the network card suggestion below. I never use Tivoweb now and have no other 'hacks' running.

A friend of mine tried 5 seperate images on 3 disks before getting one that is pretty much stable now so maybe its the luck of the draw.

[dyrplq]

...wheres the 'nic_config_tivo' file?

[thomson]

I've now gone to the extent of having it connected via a Dick Smith Timer switch which literally cuts power for 10 mins everyday at 3pm just to ensure it isnt frozen when I get home from work.

One other potential cause could be a high level of IR interference. I'm thinking that if there is a lot of IR noise then some items of the TiVo may be getting overloaded trying to determine which ones are for it. So you might try a different spot for the TiVo (if possible).

If you do use the "phone" module under TivoWeb then you might like to comment out the line that reads "event register $TmkEvent::EVT_DIALUPEVENT DialupCallback" (this can be done by adding a hash '#' to the start of the line). This can be found in the modules directory and is called phone.itcl. I do not know if this will help, but it might be worth a try if you are having trouble.

[T1voZA]

...wheres the 'nic_config_tivo' file?

It's in the '/sbin' directory, which is in the $PATH. When connected to your TiVo via telnet (if using PuTTY, make sure to have the "Return key sends Telnet New Line instead of ^M" unticked, see here for details), just type:

nic_config_tivo

[dyrplq]

One other potential cause could be a high level of IR interference. I'm thinking that if there is a lot of IR noise then some items of the TiVo may be getting overloaded trying to determine which ones are for it. So you might try a different spot for the TiVo (if possible).

If you do use the "phone" module under TivoWeb then you might like to comment out the line that reads "event register $TmkEvent::EVT_DIALUPEVENT DialupCallback" (this can be done by adding a hash '#' to the start of the line). This can be found in the modules directory and is called phone.itcl. I do not know if this will help, but it might be worth a try if you are having trouble.

Thanks for the tip TivoZa. Thomson, what does this line do?

[thomson]

Thomson, what does this line do?

It reduces the number of hooks into the event handler... which could be a reason why the system becomes unresponsive (as any hung event handlers can cause this to occur).

[timl]

I think that setting 'failsafe' timing under 'nic_config_tivo' has meant that I now am able to telnet in (it wasn't even pingable before the change) and perform diagnostics during a screen freeze/lock up.

However - it may be that I haven't allowed enough time since the change to see if this is always the case during a freeze - ie. I'll be monitoring that behavior from now on.

My other issue is that I don't get much (any??) opportunity to diagnose via telnet during a lock up because that means the Missus is delayed watching the latest Shortland Street. (ie. Instant reboot required in order to restore household peace). I gather that most people around here get the same issue in their household - the TiVo becomes the most insideous addictive drug once it's introduced!

My new Seagate 7200.9 series 250GB drive arrived about 30 mins ago!! I'll image it up tonight and see if it makes a difference too. Does anyone think that using an UltraATA cable (80 wire) in place of the normal IDE (40 wire) cable would make a difference? It certainly does in a modern PC - but is the TiVo IDE controller that advanced?

[Darren King]

Does anyone think that using an UltraATA cable (80 wire) in place of the normal IDE (40 wire) cable would make a difference? It certainly does in a modern PC - but is the TiVo IDE controller that advanced?

It won't make any difference. The TiVo ASIC chip can only handle ATA-33 at best. We are only talking an overall processor speed of 40MHz in a TiVo.

[petestrash]

I think that setting 'failsafe' timing under 'nic_config_tivo' has meant that I now am able to telnet in (it wasn't even pingable before the change) and perform diagnostics during a screen freeze/lock up.

However - it may be that I haven't allowed enough time since the change to see if this is always the case during a freeze - ie. I'll be monitoring that behavior from now on.

It depends on what causes the lockup. The most common lockups will kill the remote and TiVoweb, but telnet usually stays up till just before it reboots itself.

My new Seagate 7200.9 series 250GB drive arrived about 30 mins ago!! I'll image it up tonight and see if it makes a difference too. Does anyone think that using an UltraATA cable (80 wire) in place of the normal IDE (40 wire) cable would make a difference? It certainly does in a modern PC - but is the TiVo IDE controller that advanced?

If you mean will the throughput will be higher, then unfortunatley not. It's the same as using that drive and cable in a PC thats over 5 years old the interface is still only ATA33 and can't run at ATA100.

Peter.

[petestrash]

Darren replied while I was still typing