Boot failure after tivo_installer_0.6 update

[Pawl]

tivo_installer_0.6 left both of the TiVos on which I tried it unbootable, permanently stuck at the "Just a few minutes more ..." screen. I've since solved the problem and got them working again, but if anyone else has the same problem (and I don't yet know why I had it, or why everyone else doesn't), this is why:

The installer makes a symlink in /lib/modules (i.e., /tmp/tivo_mount/lib/modules from computer running the installer) for router.o pointing at routerplus-2.4.20.o and a symlink in /tvbin for tivoapp pointing at tivoapp.patched. Go into those directories, remove the symlinks, and either rename routerplus-2.4.20.o to router.o or make a "hard" link for it, and similarly for tivoapp. Then it boots, and it's possible to ssh into it and look around on the running TiVo. What I found is that trying to list the /hack/bin directory results in a couple of pages full of "Input/output error" followed by the listing with all the symlinks (i.e., most of the files in there) broken. They can be fixed manually, and then everything runs smoothly (almost: there are some files in there that should be executable but aren't; chmod a+x /hack/bin/*). I don't know why symlinks created from the installer system fail, but that's why it wouldn't boot initially. (When I get my other boards back (currently out getting chips replaced), I'll fix the install and then put a drive back in the computer and investigate further...)

[Islander]

Did both machines have the latest versions of software (either 11.3b8 or 11.3b10) in them?

[Pawl]

11.3b10 on both. The remaining units will be 11.3b8 because the motherboards have been away since late Oct., before -b10 came out. (Actually, I've got one that's about three years out of date, so won't update so easily...)

[Pawl]

So I just got the rest of my TiVos back today; installed the update (with a fix for the previous problem) and two of them seem to be OK except that during boot they said "Not starting ticketmaster", and now they claim not to have a MAK (I don't know what "ticketmaster" is or whether or not those two things are related). Both failed to reboot properly after "Clear program information and To Do List" (edit: one restarted after I pulled the plug; the other now seems to be stuck at "Welcome! Powering up..." edit2: another power cycle fixed that. I should note that ticketmaster started during the later boot), one (the stuck one) showing a rapidly-flashing green LED (it's possible the other did too, and I didn't notice). The third aborts during boot which I've tracked down so far to "previous loadModule failed: drx.o" in /etc/rc.d/StageD_PreMfs/rc.Sequence_175.CheckFailedModule.sh

Edit2: in the ticketmaster.log file there are lines like "TvBusHello // MSG IN: ... // (data) // TvDbMediaAccessKey // Not updating MAK" -- the MAK is in the "data" block. Anyone know why it's not working. Probably 80% of the value of the TiVo for me is in the HNP.

(PS: is there any reason I can't replace the tivoapp binary on these with the one from a unit running 11.3b10?)

[MattCallow]

Hi. The MAK is stored in the MFS file system. Ticketmaster will not remove it (or create one). Normally the TiVo features are controlled by time limited signed 'tickets' which are delivered by the tivo server (mothership) It seems that the upgrade to 11.3b10 provided tickets with a longer (possibly infinite) life.
Replacing tivoapp binary may work, but I don't think it's been tested and you still wont get the new tickets.

The message 'Not starting ticketmaster' will appear if the TiVo did not complete the previous boot. It is a safety feature which prevents ticketmaster running if the previous boot failed. After a clean reboot you should see the message "Loading ticketmaster <VERSION>" on pre 11.3b10 software (it's not required on 11.3b10 software)

[Pawl]

As just posted in another thread, I've solved this issue. It was simple as telling ticketmaster to enable multi-room viewing and telling it the MAK, by adding "-m -M <mak>" to the command line in the rc file.

[MattCallow]

Be aware that, although that may appear to superficially work, it will not give you MRV functionality. It is still a work in progress.

[Pawl]

Be aware that, although that may appear to superficially work, it will not give you MRV functionality. It is still a work in progress.

Well, something appears to have changed in the last couple of days: the 11.3b10 units, which were previously working fine, have lost their names and now show up as DVR-XXXX (so do the 11.3b8 units, but they were offline until now), and none of them can see any files on the others (which the b10 units could until yesterday); but I don't care much about TiVo--TiVo transfers (that's always been finnicky anyway; failed as often as not, and there was a weird bug where if I transferred any show from another TiVo and later tried to get anything from the computer, it just re-transferred the show from the other TiVo instead, and the only way I could get it to get what I asked for was to either reboot or delete the file from the other TiVo). Transfers between my TiVos and my computer work fine now.