While your hack may work, it defeats the purpose of /etc/sysinit.conf.

Also your hack will be overwritten once you use the upgrade script.

We no longer make any changes to rc.sysinit.author

check to see the contents of /etc/sysinit.conf or if it doesn't exist look at /etc/dflt_sysinit.conf.

You should have a couple of lines like:
tivoweb_enable="YES" # Start TivoWeb or TivoWebPlus:
tivoweb_version="PLUS" # Set to "" for TivoWeb, or "PLUS"

If using TivoWebPlus.

Peter.