Tivo Home Networking issues

[andrewmc]

Raising this as it seems I am not alone,

Got 3 Tivo's all modded and with the same MAK but in the last few days while they can all see each other on the home network the recordings do not show up as available, have been working fine since the mod so has something been done at the backend?

All 3 Tivo's also initiallly seemed to be duplicated on my home network with not only the original tivo name from the old mothership advertised but a new name DVR-xxxx

did tivo and router reboot etc but no change ... except that post the reboot the old tivo mothership assigned name no longer appears and they are listed as DVR-xxxx (where xxxx is the last 4 chars of the tivo service number)

pytivo still works from desktop (not that I think its related) ... something on the backend change or something timing out with the loss of the tivo mothership?

Andrew

[tfb]

As per the other thread, I have the same issue and I think I've worked it out. On one of my tivos (A) I did a clear and delete everything not long after the end of service. Even though it still shows the MAK in the menu I believe it has been wiped. It still sees the name of the other tivo (B) which wasn't cleared but can't see any of its recordings. B can no longer see the name of A and lists it as DVR-XXXX.

I'll probably try restore a backup (unfortunately it's of the original 160gb drive) over the weekend to see if that brings it back.

[andrewmc]

If you still have the MAK I think it should still work .. as with yours I can still see the other tivo's but no shows are available even though it does have recordings

Mine had been working fine up to a few days ago ... common MAK and all were registered with custom names on the old tivo server and as these custom names have now disappeared I do suspect some timeout of the home networking setup and custom names may have occurred, I have not altered anything that would have this affect.

give it a few days and I suspect others may notice something has changed

[cpab]

If you still have the MAK I think it should still work .. as with yours I can still see the other tivo's but no shows are available even though it does have recordings

Mine had been working fine up to a few days ago ... common MAK and all were registered with custom names on the old tivo server and as these custom names have now disappeared I do suspect some timeout of the home networking setup and custom names may have occurred, I have not altered anything that would have this affect.

give it a few days and I suspect others may notice something has changed

G'day, I'm in Perth. Just to tell my recent experience with recording transfers:

Yes, I did a C&DE on my spare Tivo and lost the MAK and the ability to transfer between Tivos. However, I've not been able to transfer recordings to my PC for a year or so. Not that I transfer recordings very often. Anyway, I installed Tivo Desktop on a win 7 Laptop and lo and behold I could transfer recordings to it.
Because I also had a firewire problem with win 10, I installed a win 7 OS on my main workhorse desktop pc - (dual boot). I installed Tivo Desktop onto the win 7 and now I could now transfer recordings to that PC.
I try to follow what is happening with everyone's experiences through this transition to OzTivo, so when I saw these posts about the transfer problems, I turned on my PC to check out if it was occurring here in Perth. Well after starting Tivo Desktop and clicking pick transfers, the transfers got to 91 of 174, then froze, then after a few minutes said it had a problem connecting to the Tivo. The spare Tivo is still picked up by this new Tivo Desktop installation, but transfers are not possible, 'cos I lost the MAK on that one.
Anyway, after closing down Tivo Desktop a couple of times and then trying to transfer recordings again after rebooting the PC, to no avail, my wife called from the TV room to say the Tivo had rebooted itself.
Now the transfer recordings is working again from my Tivo with MAK.

I hope this info helps anyone wondering what is going on.

[andrewmc]

As a fyi, this does appear to be a issue for all ... has been mentioned on the oztivo tech forum and is affecting other people so some analysis I assume will occur, could be a hard one

[cpab]

G'day, I'm in Perth. Just to tell my recent experience with recording transfers:

Now the transfer recordings is working again from my Tivo with MAK.

I hope this info helps anyone wondering what is going on.

Well, I'm discovering stuff I never knew in 8 years of Tivo ownership: I had occasion to visit my deleted recordings tonight(to recover an Endeavour and refresh the aging memory); to my surprise I found my PC listed below the deleted files. Do you know, I've never seen that before. When I opened it there were 3 recordings that I'd recently transferred to win 7 Tivo Desktop(win 10 doesn't work). Well, after having asked on forums before if the recordings could be transferred back from the PC to Tivos, the answer was there. But 'not only but also', I decided to try a desktop to Tivo transfer with some mp4s I've been converting from VHS transferred avi files, so I put one in the Tivo transferred recordings folder on my PC and lo and behold it came up on the Tivo. When I selected it, it asked if I wanted to transfer it and crikey it worked. I'm absolutely amazed, 'cos years ago it was difficult to convert the Tivo files to play on PC even. I hope there isn't a D day on the MAK, 'cos this is brilliant.

[kaiser]

[QUOTE=andrewmc;18409]If you still have the MAK I think it should still work .. as with yours I can still see the other tivo's but no shows are available even though it does have recordings

Mine had been working fine up to a few days ago ... common MAK and all were registered with custom names on the old tivo server and as these custom names have now disappeared I do suspect some timeout of the home networking setup and custom names may have occurred, I have not altered anything that would have this affect.

give it a few days and I suspect others may notice something has changed[/QU

I have three running at the moment, 2 can see each other but both say they have no recordings. (they lie!) The third cannot be seen or see the other 2. It' had it's HDD completly renewed from scratch. THe other 2 can be seen from TiVo desktop under win 7 and will transfer to the HDD OK but it's very touchy, it will freeze if you look sideways at it!
No biggee but would be nice if would work. My names have changed back to the box serial numbers to.

[cpab]

G'day kaiser,

Do you have a Desktop Plus Key as well as you Media Access Key? I believe they work together to allow the transfer from PC to Tivo.

Below is a description from a Tivo Support site - troubleshooting Tivo Desktop Plus Keys:

"What is the TiVo Desktop Plus Key?
The TiVo Desktop Plus Key extends the file transfer and conversion abilities of TiVo Desktop. TiVo Desktop Plus allows you to automatically convert your TiVoToGo transfers to play on a variety of portable devices with video support, including the following:

Apple iPod, Apple iPhone, Apple iPod Touch, Apple iPad
BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Pearl, BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Tour
Nokia N80
Palm Pre, Palm Treo 650
Sony Playstation Portable (PSP)
Zune, Zune HD
H.264 compatible devices
MPEG-4 compatible devices

TiVo Desktop Plus also makes it possible to view videos, collected from the web, on your broadband connected TiVo DVR.

Supported formats include:

Windows Media Video (.wmv)
QuickTime Movie (.mov)
MPEG-4/H.264 (.mp4, .m4v, .mp4v)
MPEG-2 (.mpg, .mpeg, .mpe, .mp2, .mp2v, .mpv2)
DivX or Xvid (.avi, .divx)"

[cpab]

More to the Desktop Plus Key:

From Tivo support sites and information, it appears that the Desktop Plus Keys were withdrawn from purchase in 2015.

After reading other pages I found that each PC must have a separate DPK.

However, I have put my DPK in my laptop and am now in the process of transferring mp4 files from my PC and laptop; one is waiting for the other to complete.

Both transfers have completed and they play fine on the Tivo.

So, atm my DPK is installed on both my PC and laptop.

As the registration of the DPK cannot take place, because Tivo Hybrid has shut down, I have just skipped that bit, but video transferring is enabled and you just add the folders you want to transfer from.

Edit:

Just installed Tivo Desktop on a Samsung Laptop. Finally got everything working as I've explained above and previously.

Hiccup occurred after putting in the DPK; for some reason the MAK, which I put in during the installation of the Tivo Desktop software, was not saved. I had to "Set Media Access Key" again from the file menu.

It seems that there are a few little quirks with this software.

I now have 3 PCs able to transfer either way with my one Tivo that has MAK.

[Maxcat]

I have four Tivos with MAK and all now are showing the same problems.

I can see the other units (some with number and Assigned names), but no programmes are seen (or transferable).

Does anyone know if a solution is possible for the HNP to work once again? Is anyone busy behind the scenes working on it?

[andrewmc]

For cpab - try pytivo ... simple utility that advertises the PC folders you define to Tivo units ... has the MAK defined (not sure it really needs it) and no desktop plus key required

in regards to the MAK keys timing out - there were a few guys on the techo slack forum looking into it before xmas but no solution and not sure anyone is looking into this at the moment

bump bump .... any comments from tech leads? transferring between tivo's was a major feature used in our house and would be great to resolve if possible

[jesi]

I have same behaviour with our 2 TiVos on same network. They can see each other, but recordings are not listed. TiVo Desktop works fine on latest Win10 Pro. It was a useful feature, so hopefully there is an easy fix for it.

[cpab]

For cpab - try pytivo ... simple utility that advertises the PC folders you define to Tivo units ... has the MAK defined (not sure it really needs it) and no desktop plus key required

Thanks for that Andrew. I downloaded and installed pytivo on a windows 10 PC.
It works well for transferring recordings from the Tivo to PC and they play good.
I think the MAK is needed to unlock the tivo coding of the recording.
I remember using browser transfer and I think the MAK was necessary to unlock the coding, otherwise it won't play on PC.

The only issue I have is that my transfers from PC to Tivo don't happen. The folders and files appear at the bottom of the playing list of the Tivo, but when I transfer, it says its in the To Do List, but its not.

Does yours work this way?

[cpab]

I have same behaviour with our 2 TiVos on same network. They can see each other, but recordings are not listed. TiVo Desktop works fine on latest Win10 Pro. It was a useful feature, so hopefully there is an easy fix for it.

I haven't been able to get Tivo Desktop to work on any of my Windows 10 PCs, but it works fine on windows 7. How did you manage on Win 10 Pro, I think I have Win 10 Pro after free upgrade from Win 7 Pro. I'm puzzled; do you mean pytivo or Tivo Desktop working on Win 10?

[andrewmc]

hhhhmmmm .... I only use pytivo to transfer things from my Win10 pc to a tivo and it works fine ... never bothered with using it to move the other way and would need to 'investigate' how to do that one

think I am using an old version as I set all this up over 5 years ago now with no changes

[cpab]

Just to reinforce the Tivo Desktop software:
Providing you have a MAK:
It works fine on Windows 7.
It enables transfers of recordings from Tivo to PC.

And:

Providing you have a Desktop Plus Key(DPK), it will also enable transfer of PC videos(MP4s and other main formats) from PC to Tivo.

I believe photos and music don't need a DPK.

As there is no mothership sign in for the DPK, a key that works will do. I can provide a key that works. If anyone wants a DPK that works, I can pm one.

[cpab]

hhhhmmmm .... I only use pytivo to transfer things from my Win10 pc to a tivo and it works fine ... never bothered with using it to move the other way and would need to 'investigate' how to do that one

think I am using an old version as I set all this up over 5 years ago now with no changes

Sorry Andrew, I'm a bit confused now.

Windows 10 was only released mid to late 2015, just 2 years ago.

Was your original pytivo setup on Windows 7, before the free upgrade to Windows 10?

The problem seems to me to be Windows 10 security "build"(whatever they do to tighten security in the OS) does not allow some of the network transfers used by older software like Tivo Desktop and PyTivo.

Though your pytivo or Tivo Desktop appear the same, their connection to the Tivo is not fully enabled, so transfers cannot work.

Chris

[MadScientist]

Another affected user :(
I had two of 3 Tivo's modded and all was wonderful, couldn't believe it. I didn't do the guided setup as I was not especially bothered by the incorrect time (Adelaide area). I could still transfer recordings between the Tivo's which was great because the ability to link the 2 Tivos is critical for me.
As others have reported, recently things have changed, the Tivo's can still see each other but the names have been changed to DVR-XXXX and no recordings are listed. Is a solution likely? I really really do not want to buy a Fetch as I just love the Tivo, especially the ability to pause play on 2 channels.

[boritz]

Same here ...

... Tivo's can still see each other but the names have been changed to DVR-XXXX and no recordings are listed ...
MultiRoom viewing worked prior to modification and the TiVos still report the same MAK.
[edit: I've run some random grep's for the "has no recordings" message text in files on the TiVo but (so far) haven't found it.]

I can list recordings on the TiVo via a PC browser login - user: tivo and password: <MAK>
[edit: and I can download recordings to PC and play them - so the MAK decoding is working]

For me the loss of MultiRoom viewing is a potential TiVo killer.

I'm not whinging - just hope that a guru can solve the problem.

[Caramelojrn]

Hi guys, appologies if this has been answered elsewhere. Just following on with this thread, any answers as to why we can see the other Tivo (DVR-xxxx) but we can't see the recordings?

Thanks, Ross