TivoWebPlus testers

[thomson]

I would be very interested in any feedback from anyone who wishes to try out a TivoWebPlus bundle that is being proposed as a replacement for TivoWeb on the image distributions. It really is worth checking out if you do use the web interface on your TiVo.

The bundle should be near perfect, but you may be able to spot a UI tweak or feature that others have missed. A big thanks goes out to Peter whose feedback was a great resource in helping migrate all the existing features from TivoWeb over to TivoWebPlus.

Some documentation and the and software can be found here.

[T1voZA]

Hi Thomson

The distributed TivoZA image has always made use of TivoWebPlus and with it's 80+ users we've come across some problems which I've since corrected. I've also added/created some additional modules which are quite useful. Keep in mind that the TivoWebPlus I distribute is based on version 1.0 and not the 1.2.2 you are distributing so some of the issues may have been fixed in the official release.

If you view the "Problems with video streaming & TiVoWebPlus" thread, I provide a "patch" which fixes the following video streaming problems in TiVoWebPlus:

• MFS Stream doesn't work
• Streaming a show when selecting "View" from "TiVoWebPlus -> User Interface -> Now Showing" doesn't work when using a DHCP assigned IP address (the IP address was being reported as 0.0.0.0)

The following modules for TiVoWebPlus have also been included:

• live TV module: stream the live feed to your PC
• tserver 10r2: used by TyTools to download recordings
• bufferhack: allows you to specify how big the TiVo's live TV buffer should be (from 15 minutes to 3 hours, I'd recommend about 90 minutes or 2 hours though)
• HackMan 4.0: allows management of running modules such as configuring the bufferhack settings, starting and stopping telnet, vserver, tserver, etc as well as enabling the 30 second ad-skip feature and other backdoor codes.

It may also be worth including the "quitstart_tivoweb.sh" script with your TivoWebPlus release as some users have still found it necessary to make use of this. I've also created a modified version of the script so that it will automatically read the username and password settings from the 'tivoweb.cfg' file. The script works for both TivoWeb and TivoWebPlus, the only adjustment that needs to be made is to set the TivoWeb directory path.

[thomson]

The distributed TivoZA image has always made use of TivoWebPlus and with it's 80+ users we've come across some problems which I've since corrected. I've also added/created some additional modules which are quite useful.

Thanks! This is definitely the kind of information I am after.

I will have a look at the quit/start script and add it to the bundle as it's handy to be able to stop the process from the command line, although if people are finding that they need to run this regularly from cron then they are likely to be using a badly written module - which is one of the reasons I wanted to put together a minimal/stable bundle.

The bufferhack module can not be included due to license restrictions, and I have always left the hackman module out of the bundles as I feel if people require that level of access then they will be able to install and update it themselves (it's really a support thing, those kinds of low-level modules can cause many interesting situations, and people then start asking why all the other modules and hacks that hackman supports are not provided in the image ). It also messes around with startup files would could cause some users problems, depending on their setup. At the moment I prefer to leave the Hackman installation up to the end user (or the image creator as they can ensure the startup files are appropriate).

The issue with the IP Address disappearing does not look like it will be an issue in this release. TivoWeb needs to be started after the network has been brought up. It could be that some DHCP implementations are taking a little longer to setup their addresses (you may even want to add a small sleep inside the DHCP network startup script?). TivoWeb should be one of the last things to load in your startup files.

I have had streaming working with this release, but have left it defaulting to off, and do not intend on including the livetv module as it really is not required/suitable for the majority of users out there. I am trying to keep the bundle fairly generic and stable, and leave all the location/image specific options and modules for the various image builders to include.

If you wish to try this bundle and copy over the hackman, bufferhack and livetv modules then I am interested in fixing any faults or bugs that you encounter.

[T1voZA]

The bufferhack module can not be included due to license restrictions, and I have always left the hackman module out of the bundles as I feel if people require that level of access then they will be able to install and update it themselves (it's really a support thing, those kinds of low-level modules can cause many interesting situations, and people then start asking why all the other modules and hacks that hackman supports are not provided in the image ). It also messes around with startup files would could cause some users problems, depending on their setup. At the moment I prefer to leave the Hackman installation up to the end user (or the image creator as they can ensure the startup files are appropriate).

It's my understanding that the bufferhack module can be distributed, so long as it's not part of a paid for solution. I agree that hackman is for the more advanced users, it does provide a nice interface for bufferhack though. I was under the impression that hackman was now included with the official distribution of TivoWebPlus (since 1.2.1)?

To make the 'rc.sysinit.author' file compatible with hackman, the full directory paths need to be specified when calling other hacks. Going this route allows hackman to start and stop installed hacks such as telnet, ftp, mfs_ftp, etc.

The issue with the IP Address disappearing does not look like it will be an issue in this release. TivoWeb needs to be started after the network has been brought up. It could be that some DHCP implementations are taking a little longer to setup their addresses (you may even want to add a small sleep inside the DHCP network startup script?). TivoWeb should be one of the last things to load in your startup files.

Although the sleep method would also fix the issue, I decided that a better implementation would be to only set the IP address once it's actually required.

If you wish to try this bundle and copy over the hackman, bufferhack and livetv modules then I am interested in fixing any faults or bugs that you encounter.

When I create the next TivoZA image I will be making use of your TivoWebPlus distribution plus the extra modules that are not included. Once done, I'll let you know if we come across any problems.

Thanks for all your efforts in this regard

[thomson]

It's my understanding that the bufferhack module can be distributed, so long as it's not part of a paid for solution.

The fact that it is not included in Hackman due to "some licensing and copyrighting issues" scared me off a little, and I've even contributed to the hack under my DD id (john1980).

I was under the impression that hackman was now included with the official distribution of TivoWebPlus (since 1.2.1)?

Correct, but I ended up removing it because of the warnings and compatibility issues with various custom TiVo setups just made it look like a support nightmare (not everyone who is going to want to load TWP will have an rc.sysinit.author file with full directory paths). It's also a very, very large module... which could cause issues with available memory, etc, so in my opinion should only be loaded if absolutely necessary. I also have very little knowledge or experience with this particular module.

I wanted to create a no-fuss, stable bundle, suitable for the majority of users out there. I am also willing to fix any issue found within the bundle so did want to limit the modules to those that were seen as essential.

[thomson]

For those that wish to have a look before making the plunge I have put together a demo of a system running the new software: http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com/main.htm

[Islander]

I have loaded and run TWP 1.2.2 it looks good so far (I haven't tried all the features yet) but as I have SVR 2000 tivos would it be possible to have a Sony remote on the web remote page? ( the current NZ image has one on tivoweb)

Thanks

[thomson]

would it be possible to have a Sony remote on the web remote page?

The webremote module for TivoWeb uses images from the MFS database (in particular SonySMRemoteImage, and PhilipsDMRemoteImage). I can't speak for the Sony image, but the Philips remote was a fairly basic outline, and many of the newer model Tivo's had trouble with their images. It was decided (and implemented a couple of years back by Bushido and Falcontx) to provide an enhanced and more functional module that utilises a generic remote (HDVR2) containing all the required buttons for all TiVo versions.

If you (or the image creators) prefer the older method of pulling the image from the database then you can simply replace the /var/hack/TivoWebPlus/modules/webremote.itcl file with that found in TivoWeb - it will work without problems... in fact, all of the older modules should work without issues.

[thomson]

Latest update includes the following:

Fixed the "recording history" filter code as backPath was not being correctly set in some situations (such as clearing a filter when viewing the last 5 days of history). The filter changes are now automatically saved in the tivoweb.cfg file.

New option added to SysAdmin module for v3.0 users. It is a function that will clean up old file handles, which can cause people who run a lot of scripts hooking into the Event Switcher issues (as they will eventually run out of handles).

Minor correction to deleted shows header. DirectTV button changed for a TiVo button on the Web Remote.

Some documentation and the and software can be found here.

[Wiked]

I have installed it and tried everything and installed hackman and bufferhack and its a lot better than the older one.

Thanks for letting us know and I would say to anybody that they should in fact install it for sure