Backup of a NZ-modified UK-2.5.5

[jph116]

I need a backup of a UK tivo

I'd been debating upgrading my UK-tivo for ages. I'd just decided to go for it when sods law kicked in and the drive corrupted. I ran powermax diagnostics, which confirmed that the drive is indeed knackered.

Would someone please please please PM me a link to a backup of a NZ-modified UK-2.5.5 Thompson.


Thanks in advance


Joergen (Denmark)

[tarx]

I have been successfully running the US 1.3 image from OzTivo on my UK Tivo for about 6 months now in NZ. You can find the images here ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/tivo/images/ .

Hope this helps.

[jph116]

Thanks for your help :)

Appreciate your proposal – but bin there for the last 2 weeks. TIVO keep freezing every 2. – 3. day. Prefer a backup/image of 2.5.5 (at this time any version of 2.5.5) either as a link or as a file in a pm.

[tarx]

Hmm regarding the freezing - yes I get this about once per week (on average). The TivoApp UI will freeze while it is recording something. I thought this was related to a TivoApp issue mentioned here: http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/FAQ/ProblemsAndSolutions . But after implementing the fix, it does not seem to be the case on my UK machine :(

There does not seem to be a whole lot of advice out there for people with a UK Tivo.

Have you tried using this image? I have yet to give this a good test as I started using the US OZTivo image initially.
ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/tivo/images/pvr10uk.255.oztivo_emulator.release1.3beta

With this image you need to create a boot CD with this image file on it or have it available on some other mountable file system.

If worst comes to worst, I have my original UK Tivo drives which I can image for you but keep in mind I am rather busy right now, so an instant turn around is currently not possible from me.

If anyone else is running UK Tivo out there and some general advice for us please speak up.

[thomson]

Have you tried using this image? I have yet to give this a good test as I started using the US OZTivo image initially.
ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/tivo/images/pvr10uk.255.oztivo_emulator.release1.3beta

This image sure seems large enough to be a v2.5.5 TiVo image. The v2.5.5 images are much larger due to the large amount of animated backgrounds implemented as movies (loopsets) stored within the MFS.


With this image you need to create a boot CD with this image file on it or have it available on some other mountable file system.

You can pretty much use any TiVo boot CD for this task (the Network Boot CD, and the OzTiVo iso images will all boot into Linux and contain the mfsrestore and mfsbackup utilities).


Hmm regarding the freezing - yes I get this about once per week (on average).
As far as the hangs under the v3.0 software... this is usually the result of a Event Handler not being able to respond to events fast enough. See this post (http://www.forums.oztivo.net/showpost.php?p=3287&postcount=8).

[samjohnson]

Has anyone managed to get the UK image working on a US tivo?

[thomson]

Has anyone managed to get the UK image working on a US tivo?

People have in the past (3 years ago). There were reports of some issues caused by SwSystem disappearing occasionally (possibly as the result of the TiVo attempting to upgrade itself). Let us know how it goes :)

[samjohnson]

Well I did try a couple of weeks ago....
Just without changing anything it booted up fine except in NTSC mode. I then tried to replace the default palmod installed with the US palmod and I couldn't get the tivo to boot..it just went in an infinite loop of rebooting after the "Almost there..." splash screen.

[thomson]

Well I did try a couple of weeks ago....
Just without changing anything it booted up fine except in NTSC mode. I then tried to replace the default palmod installed with the US palmod and I couldn't get the tivo to boot..it just went in an infinite loop of rebooting after the "Almost there..." splash screen.

I would have expected it to be in PAL since the UK v2.5.5 is PAL-I by default. The ukchan.o module could be altered so as to force the chipsets into PAL. If I ever get stuck at home with nothing to do for a few days then I might give it a go. I guess I do not really see the point, as I am guessing you are just trying to make the software more stable?

If you are interested in a stable system then the best thing to do would be to avoid dodgy modules that access the Event handler. I would suggest you load up TivoWebPlus (1.1beta) and only add the modules that you require. Things like the screen.itcl TivoWeb module should be avoided if possible. If there is something in particular which is bugging you then let me know and I might be able to give you some pointers on how to resolve.

[samjohnson]

The reason I was investigating using the UK image was to get menus that are in PAL resolution and having on-screen access to the Recorder and Phone setup menus.

[thomson]

The reason I was investigating using the UK image was to get menus that are in PAL resolution and having on-screen access to the Recorder and Phone setup menus.

Haha... I must agree with you there. It is also annoying to have the playback "progress bar" appear near the middle of the picture rather than at the bottom... you hit pause, and the bits that you were intending to study a little closer are covered up :)

Seriously though, I have done a bit of playing with the tivoapp binary and may (one day) have a look to see if I can locate where the position of the progress bar is stored. I located the segment in the UK image where the progress bar is sized so as to extend the LiveTV buffer (this was done to expand the bufferhack utility). I should be able to use the offsets for the US binary in the bufferhack utility and work backwards to find the location... but assembler can get pretty tedious... and time is limited :rolleyes:

Lately I have been playing around with the On Screen Display (OSD) in order to fix up a few quirks with JPEGwriter (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=2759561&&#post2759561) and the TCS (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?p=219232#post219232) application... only to notice that even though we may run a US system in PAL, the OSD still seems to still be NTSC (likely as the result of it being controlled via ioctl's to a non-PAL kernel module)... I am still playing around with this, but I think making the v3.0 menus more PAL-friendly could be rather difficult (and way too much work for anyone to attempt).

[jph116]

Sorry – I have been out of town the last days.

Thanks for all your help – I tried the image from ozTIVO – works great!! (Not knowing that it actually is a backup-file – if not for Thomson, thanks - you are the top). I just renamed the file to tivo.bak and made a restore.

I also got an image from UK (thanks Peter) – if any one can use it, sendt me a PM.

Joergen (Denmark)

:) :) :) :)

[jph116]

Still working great – no freezing at all (2 weeks runtime)

Everything works except the channels themselves - a couple works but this is just because they happen to match the frequencies used in Nz.

I have to built a new ukchan-2.5.5.o whit the right channels for Denmark - needs to modify ukchan-2.5.5.c and then compile it to Linux.

Unfortunately I know absolutely nothing about UNIX, Perl or Linux – so I have to ask if there are someone how are willing to compile it for me ??

Nr. MHz
1 48,25
2 55,25
3 175,25
4 182,25
5 189,25
6 203,25
7 210,25
8 217,25
9 439,25
10 471,25
11 479,25
12 495,25
13 502,25
14 511,25
15 519,25
16 535,25
17 543,25
18 599,25
19 607,25
20 615,25
21 647,25
22 655,25
23 663,25
24 679,25
25 711,25
26 759,25
27 775,25
28 815,25
29 823,25
30 831,25
31 839,25

Thanks in advance
Joergen

[thomson]

I have to build a new ukchan-2.5.5.o with the right channels for Denmark - need to modify ukchan-2.5.5.c and then compile it to Linux.

No worries, expect it shortly, attached to this post. Something to note however is that you have provided the frequency list in the broadcast order.... that chances are your Channel 1 is not on Freq 1, and Channel 2 is not on Freq 2, etc...

When I compile the module for myself, I reorder the frequency table so that when I select '2' I get TV2, and '4' will give me 'C4', etc...


{ 1, 45250 }, /* freq: 1 - TV1 */
{ 2, 182250 }, /* freq: 5 - TV2 */
{ 3, 224250 }, /* freq: 11 - TV3 */
{ 4, 55250 }, /* freq: 2 - C4 */
{ 5, 783250 }, /* freq: 60 - Prime */
{ 6, 655250 }, /* freq: 44 - Maori TV */
{ 7, 623250 }, /* freq: 40 - UHF40 */


I will give you a generic slice with all your frequencies, but if you wish to reorder them then just post here and I will post another custom one for you.

I have attached a custom ukchan module (ukchan-2.5.5_dk-nicam.o) with source for you... let me know if there are any problems.

[jph116]

Thanks a million !!!

Unfortunately I must have made an error installing – no channels at all. First I tried to rename ukchan-2.5.5_dk-nicam.o to ukchan-2.5.5.o and then a simple replace – Then copy ukchan-2.5.5_dk-nicam.o to /lib/modules and corrected rc.sysinit. No effect - I will give it an other try Sunday and report back to you.

Appreciate your offer to reorder the channels for me:

{ 0, 0 },
{ 1, 48250 }, /* freq: 1 – DR 1 */
{ 2, 175250 }, /* freq: 3 – TV 2 */
{3, 502250 }, /* freq: 13 – TV 3 */
{4, 495250 }, /* freq: 12 – TV 3+ */
{5, 527250 }, /* freq: 16 – TV 4 */
{ 6, 217250 }, /* freq: 8 – DK */
{7, 711250 }, /* freq: 26 – ZULU */
{8, 55250 }, /* freq: 2 – DR 2 */
{9, 839250 }, /* freq: 32 – Discovery */
{10, 189250 }, /* freq: 5 – SV 1 */
{11, 203250 }, /* freq: 6 – SV 2 */
{12, 471250 }, /* freq: 10 – NO 2 */
{13, 182250 }, /* freq: 4 – KBH */
{14, 815250 }, /* freq: 29 – CNN */
{15, 775250 }, /* freq: 28 – TCM */
{16, 679250 }, /* freq: 25 – Cartoon */
{17, 479250 }, /* freq: 11 – KABEL 1 */
{18, 439250 }, /* freq: 9 – TV 5 */
{19, 210250 }, /* freq: 7 – ITV */
{20, 511250 }, /* freq: 14 – ZDF */
{21, 519250 }, /* freq: 15 – DW */
{22, 535250 }, /* freq: 17 – RTL */
{23, 543250 }, /* freq: 18 – N 3 */
{24, 599250 }, /* freq: 19 – SAT 1 */
{25, 607250 }, /* freq: 20 – TRT */
{26, 615250 }, /* freq: 21 – ARD */
{27, 647250 }, /* freq: 22 – 3 SAT */
{28, 655250 }, /* freq: 23 – VOX */
{29, 663250 }, /* freq: 24 – PRO 7 */
{30, 759250 }, /* freq: 27 – CHARLIE */
{31, 823250 }, /* freq: 30 – MTV */
{32, 831250 }, /* freq: 31 – EUROSPORT */

Hopes the setup is useful.

Thanks again
Joergen

[thomson]

Unfortunately I must have made an error installing – no channels at all. First I tried to rename ukchan-2.5.5_dk-nicam.o to ukchan-2.5.5.o and then a simple replace – Then copy ukchan-2.5.5_dk-nicam.o to /lib/modules and corrected rc.sysinit. No effect - I will give it an other try Sunday and report back to you.

I have attached the version with your channel order in it. You should just need to replace the insmod line in the rc.sysinit.author and reboot. My entry reads "insmod /var/hack/UKChan/ukchan-2.5.5_nz-wgtn.o"

You can check what modules are loaded using 'cat /proc/modules'. Should look something like this:


ukchan-2.5.5_nz-wgtn 856 0 (unused)
ax88796 5008 0 (unused)
mixaud 5872 1
scartmux 2628 1
pxmpegdecode 65260 0 [scartmux]
therm 1164 0 (unused)
fan 976 0
fpga7114 146156 5 [ukchan-2.5.5_nz-wgtn scartmux]
i2c 10480 0 [ukchan-2.5.5_nz-wgtn scartmux pxmpegdecode therm fpga7114]



FYI: Modules can be removed using 'rmmod' which is actually the same binary as 'insmod' so if you do not have that command you can create it using the following:


# rw
# cd /sbin
# ln -s insmod rmmod
# ro

[jph116]

Thanks again Thomson – should you ever be around the Copenhagen area I will buy you the biggest and coldest beer in town.

Don’t know that I am doing wrong – but I can’t se any channels at all.

Copied the new ukchan-2.5.5_dk-nicam.o to /lib/modules

Changed /ect/rc.d/rc.sysinit from:

echo "PALmod: Setting Oz Channel Frequencies"
insmod -f /lib/modules/ukchan-2.5.5.o

to

echo "PALmod: Setting Oz Channel Frequencies"
insmod -f /lib/modules/ukchan-2.5.5_dk-nicam.o

After reboot Cat /proc/modules look like this:

[TiVo [p0] ~]# cat /proc/modules
turbonet2 12032 1
mixaud 5872 1
cachecard 279864 0 (unused)
scartmux 2628 1
ukchan-2.5.5_dk-nicam 1064 0 (unused)
pxmpegdecode 65260 0 [scartmux]
therm 1164 0 (unused)
fan 976 0
ideturbo 4920 0 (unused)
fpga7114 146156 5 [scartmux ukchan-2.5.5_dk-nicam]
i2c 10480 0 [scartmux ukchan-2.5.5_dk-nicam pxmpegdecode therm fpga7114]
[TiVo [p0] ~]#

All with out any effect – no channels at all.

If I change it back to the old ukchan-2.5.5.o (from NZ) then I have the channels back as before.

I have been working with it all Sunday – very proud of my self - but total lost.
I have learned a lot after all and will give it an other try Monday or Tuesday.

Will keep you posted – but any proposal is welcome

Joergen :)

[thomson]

Don’t know that I am doing wrong – but I can’t see any channels at all.

Module is loading correctly, so I am not sure what is going wrong. The attached version has a couple of debug lines added. It will write messages to the /var/log/kernel file. The messages will be tagged with 'getFreq_x' and should display the channel that the TiVo is trying to change to, along with the frequency. Things to watch are that the channels being used are 1-32... if they are not then the chances are that your headend has the wrong channels in it. You can either change the headend and reload it... or the simpler approach is to use the ChannelMap (http://tivo.lightn.org/channelmap.itcl.gz) module to remap the channels correctly.

[jph116]

I’m not sure how - but now it works perfectly.

After loading the file – clear and delete everything – all channels in place

Dear Thomson - Thank you so must for all your help

Appreciate it – Joergen
:) :) :) :)

(only 4 smilies allowed -sorry)