Emulator available

[ehintz]

Not offhand... I'd try plugging other stuff into it to see if it picks up on that (DVD, VCR, whatever). If those work and Sky doesn't, maybe different cables or something. Regardless, it probably doesn't have anything to do with the emulator, just the Tivo's inputs(though you could test this by doing a manual install ala Tim's FAQ). Might try starting a thread with the same question if none of my suggestions work, others may have ideas.

I did find one interesting bit... I just ran the guided setup with the Tivo in NTSC mode and it wasn't happy-same no signal message. I guessed it was because of the PAL signal, so I pulled out an NTSC DVD (Monty Python German episode, heh) and once I plugged it in the Tivo let me proceed. Though if you're using the oztivo image you should be able to choose the PAL-GuidedSetup option and get through the GS fine. I'm not using the oztivo image at the moment, so things are different in my world...

[Tuatara]

That's exactly how I did it in the end -- cheated with a DVD signal to get through the setup, and then returned to the Sky signal after reboot. Unfortunately it still isn't working -- it's fine with a DVD signal, but won't accept the sky decoder or VCR. The Sky signal works fine when I plug it directly to the TV. What's worse is that it appears to be intermittent -- I could see live TV when I originally turned on my tivo, and I did get it working once during setup, but haven't been able to get it back since. I'd blame hardware, but the DVD signal always works.

The PAL/NTSC setting appears to make no difference. I've tried both S-video and composite. I think I'll walk away for a few hours and no doubt it will magically fix itself ;-).

One note that might help somebody -- if the cable box setup script doesn't work, saying it "can't open object", try changing the box number in the script. Mine was 88887; it succeeded with 10001.

Cheers
Matt

UPDATE. Just in the wrong mode: switching to PAL does appear to have done the trick

[deanm]

Is this down?

I get "Downloading Call Failed. Call interrupted"

Tried last night at @10:00pm and again this morning at 10:00am.

[ehintz]

Whoops. My bad. I didn't change the ip addr on the emulator's tivo.conf file, so after connecting and identifying a new slice available, the Tivos were trying to get the new slice from the old IP. I noticed I had trouble last night as well, but was to beat to figure it out. Kept falling asleep during the calls... Anyway, mines updating now, so it looks like all is well.

[number6]

I saw this recent email post on the OzTivo mailing list digest. Its from Warren the guy who does the emulator maintenance in Australia. He reports trakcing down and solving this interesting bug in the emulator - are we at risk of suffering the same problem?

Note: The Tivo Canda guys won't have this problem as they have the same Timezone as the US.
Folks who use the emulator outside of the US (i.e. in different timezones) are possibly going to suffer from this problem.

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 21:43:51 +1000
From: Warren Toomey <wkt@tuhs.org>
Subject: [oztivo] Solution found to recent guide problems
To: Wktivoguide Owner <oztivo@minnie.tuhs.org>

All, I believe I have found a solution to the problem of missing
TV guide data on the TiVos. Right now, everybody doing a Daily Call
to the Emulator on minnie should have guide data up to Monday 14th
June. If you don't, please tell me your TiVo's unique number and
I'll fix it so that your next Daily Call will get all the data.

For those people interested in the cause of the problem, read on.
Here's how the Emulator on minnie works. Your TiVo connects to the
Emulator, tells it what "headends" the TiVo has, and asks for new
guide slices. The Emulator looks up the last time that your TiVo
connected, and sends the TiVo a list of slices newer than the
previous connection.

Now, because the TiVo software is brain-dead when it comes to
timezones, all ozTiVos actually run as if they were in the GMT
timezone; we have to do some magic around the daylight saving
changeovers, but that's not relevant here.

What is relevant is that your TiVo sends in the time of the current
connection as the number of seconds since Jan 1, 1970. But, because
the TiVo is set up to be in the GMT timezone, this number is actually
8 to 10 hours _ahead_ of the real time on that TiVo.

Aside: Here's an example. Right now my TiVo is saying 9:30pm
Wed 9th June 2004. So is my wall clock. But remember that
the TiVo thinks its in England, and right now it's only
11:30am there (ignoring daylight saving). When it is _really_
9:30pm in England, it will be 7:30am Thu 10th June here!

So, when the TiVo connects to the Emulator, the Emulator actually
records that the connection was 8 to 10 hours in the future. So,
if your TiVo happens to do a Daily Call in the 8 to 10 hours before
the new slices become available, then a) it won't get them as they
don't exist yet and b) will be recorded as connecting in after the
slices became available, so the TiVo must already have them!

The solution is for the Emulator to completely ignore the timestamp
that the TiVo sends in, and simply record the actual connection
time. When the TiVo phones home next time, the last connection is
correctly retrieved, and any new guide slices since then can be
downloaded. I've made this change to the Emulator on minnie, and
hopefully this will fix the problem.

While diagnosing the problem, I counted the number of TiVo unique
ids and timestamps currently known by the Emulator. At present 286
different TiVos are making Daily Calls to the Emulator on minnie.
That's an impressive number!

Cheers all,
Warren

Any comments Ed?

[ehintz]

Any comments Ed?

If I understand correctly, it won't affect us, because our emulator is physically (and "mentally") in the US running PDT (and ergo ~-7-9GMT rather than positive, meaning the system won't have the future connection issue). Regardless, I pm'd Warren and asked for the code mods, so if/when I get 'em I'll apply 'em anyway

[finethen]

Hi Ed,
Love the emulator, thanks to those that have slaved, following the emulator setup instructions works well as long as I run a video feed through C or S Video. I however wish to use the RF connection on my PAL TiVo and eliminate the external tuner. I have tried different source selections (cable, aerial, sattelite/aerial etc) during guided setup but keep striking out with getting a signal. What am I missing......apart from Brain Cells?

[ehintz]

Hi Ed,
Love the emulator, thanks to those that have slaved, following the emulator setup instructions works well as long as I run a video feed through C or S Video. I however wish to use the RF connection on my PAL TiVo and eliminate the external tuner. I have tried different source selections (cable, aerial, sattelite/aerial etc) during guided setup but keep striking out with getting a signal. What am I missing......apart from Brain Cells?

Hmmm... Probably would require a whole new headend and all that. The current stuff is designated as a cable box (since all of us working on it were on Sky Digital), so I believe we'd have to create an entire new headend for it. For the moment you'll probably have to go the old manual route, I don't expect I'll have the time to set that up for a while(of course, if somebody else wants to create the headend and all that I'll be happy to add it to the emulator). I'm still sitting on doing the Saturn one-though I think Zolly may be giving it a go so maybe I'm off the hook on it. ;-) Anyway, I've already got 2 weekends shot this month with Fire Service training so it's unlikely I'll have the time to create a new headend terribly soon.

You might be able to manually remove/add channels after running guided setup. I believe you'd have to add a RF signal source, then channels, and map those channels to the same FSIDs as the emulator uses (7998001 through 7998099, with a couple of odballs in there like UKTV at 7998101). I think it would then still do the daily calls and pull data from the emulator. A new headend slice might cause problems, but then again maybe not, as it would only affect cable lineups. Anyway, it might be easiest to just follow the old manual procedure and use loadguide to pull the data slices...

[finethen]

Thanks for that Ed. Saves alot of time discovering I think. Next question is where should I be looking if my computers dont want to know about ftp transfer to my TiVo. I have pinholed port 21 but am getting failed connection. I am able to access the TiVo with Telnet and TivO web


Update: Oops had to make the system read/write ...... right now it copies

I should be able to apply for a propellor soon huh? I have the hat.

[Marv]

Hi guys,

Having some trouble but I think im getting there...

Problem is im not sure what prog to use to network, ie make changes on the Tivo files.

Im stuck at the

Start off with the oztivo image, get it networked, and edit the file /etc/tclient.conf thus:

# This is for the server emulator on minnie.
127::66.238.88.163:80:::

ANy help or pointers on where to get help would be appreciated.

Marv