SERVICE LOCKING - Enter PIN number

[AceEagle]

Hello all
I have a problem that I can't find listed anywhere on the net, so here's hoping someone can help.
I got a Thomson Tivo in from the UK and imaged Philips to the original 40G drive. Set up okay and everything worked perfectly for a few days including telnet and Tivoweb via serial.
However, yesterday morning (Wednesday 24 Aug) I turned on the TV and got a box covering most of the screen which says "SERVICE LOCKING - Enter Personal Identification Number". It also has an area with 4 asterisks which I presume is the PIN number and an Okay button as well as a Cancel button which I can't access. I've tried every button on the remote but it could be a button combination that I haven't been lucky enough to crack yet.
No matter what I do, I can't get rid of this box/screen. I thought it may be something to do with Parental Control but after enabling/disabling etc, it was still the same. Now Playing recorded programs also have this box over them so they are totally useless.
The last thing I remember doing before this happened was using Joe editor but I don't believe I actually changed anything as I didn't do any saves...Iwas just viewing.
The only other thing that I thought might be the problem is imaging over the original UK drive with the US image. Could some type of Tivo protection be lurking on the drive and do I need to do a format of the drive and then image it?
Any help would be appreciated as myTivo is currently the most expensive paper weight I have in the house.
Cheers
Bill

[AceEagle]

Just one more thing - I went into Tivoweb and had a look at the information section of my Tivo. At the bottom of the page it has the following:




The reserved space was calculated incorrectly, if you want it to be correct, send the following information to the tivoweb authors:

3.0-01-1-000
75923456 2668328
30112 6960





I have no idea what this means but I thought it may be relevant.


Cheers
Bill

[petestrash]

There is definately no problem using the current (r1.4) philips image on UK hardware.

Are you sure this message is coming from your tivo and not from your input source?

What are you using for you input source (assuming not just the antenna socket).

Peter.

[tenty]

Hello all
I got a Thomson Tivo in from the UK and imaged Philips to the original 40G drive. Set up okay and everything worked perfectly for a few days including telnet and Tivoweb via serial.
<snip>
The only other thing that I thought might be the problem is imaging over the original UK drive with the US image. Could some type of Tivo protection be lurking on the drive and do I need to do a format of the drive and then image it?
Any help would be appreciated as myTivo is currently the most expensive paper weight I have in the house.
Cheers
Bill
Did you use the US image? or the OzTiVo US Image?

I have this funny feeling that if your TiVo contacted the US mothership, it might have asked your TiVo to be locked until it can be confirmed like a mobile phone PUK (Personal UnblocKing) Code

But this is only a guess.

[Darren King]

Did you use the US image? or the OzTiVo US Image?

That's what I was thinking too. I've personally imaged three UK Thompson TiVo's with the OzTiVo Philips R1.4 image and two of them I chat to regularly and have never experienced this, and both of them are coming up to two months since imaging.


it might have asked your TiVo to be locked until it can be confirmed like a mobile phone PUK (Personal UnblocKing) Code

While we can only speculate, this does sound very possible. Hopefully unlike mobile phones the TiVo has not had anything physically written to the crypto chip otherwise it might take a bit of surgery to fix. With any luck it only writes something to the hard disk - in which case I guess the next logical thing for Bill to try is reimage the hard disk (with the R1.4 OzTiVo image of course!) and see what happens.

[AceEagle]

Thanks for the prompt replies, guys. Isn't it always the simple things? I didn't even think beyond the Tivo, but when I saw Peters response I had a look at the Thomson DT1352TH STB running into the Tivo (I use it for the digital signal & widescreen) and started hitting buttons on the remote.

As soon as I changed channels via the STB remote the box disappeared from the screen. Very strange because when I changed channels on the Tivo it changed the STB via IR anyway. Anyway I changed back to the original channel and started changing channels with the Tivo remote and everything is now okay.

Thanks once again to Peter, Tenty and Darren for the excellent response. I can now get back to my Tivo "World of Discovery" tour.

Cheers
Bill

[Darren King]

Good to hear :)