# WARNING re: merging Tivo accounts and Media Access Key



## pgoelz (May 1, 2005)

WARNING: Merging Tivo accounts will change your Media Access Key.... apparently to the MAK from the newer device. This will render all archived recordings on a PC unplayable by your Tivos if they were stored under a different MAK. According to Tivo, this is PERMANENT and NOT CHANGEABLE. I went to the top of customer "support" and no one offered any fix or workaround. 

In my case, I have had a Roamio for several years. It (I think) took on the MAK from our TivoHD that preceded it. While using the TivoHD and the Roamio, I stored many recordings on my PC using Tivo Desktop. 

I then purchased a Bolt and set it up under a separate account. Later, I decided to put it on the same account as the Roamio so they could talk to each other. When I called, Tivo advised that they would merge the accounts, which would change the MAK on the Roamio to the MAK from the Bolt. At the time I raised the issue of the MAK and whether it would invalidate my archived recordings and I was told it would not. Come to find out that it DID. I can only play the recordings on the PC if I configure Tivo Desktop with my old MAK (which means it cannot see recordings on my Tivos). The Tivos cannot play them from the desktop at all, with no workaround. 

Tivo says there is no way to set the MAK to a specific number, so A) they cannot simply give me back my old MAK and B) I am royally SCREWED, and very ANGRY. 

So.... be careful if you have archived recordings and are merging accounts. Tivo may tell you it is not an issue BUT IT IS. 

Tivo... GET WITH IT! Stop breaking stuff. If there was a viable alternative right now I would be outa here in a cold second. 

Paul


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## leswar (Apr 14, 2005)

Sorry to hear about your problem.
Hey, you should look into kmttg for downloading your future shows in either .mpeg or .ts files to do away with MAK encryption.
pyTiVo will then allow to to pull those shows back to any tivo.

For your older shows I think you could unencrypt them using your old MAK and VideoRedo and saving them in MPEG or TS files then you should be
able to upload then to your new tivos. MAKs won't matter.


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

You might still be able to decode them with KMTTG.

New program for 1 step TTG downloads, decryption, encoding - kmttg

-KP


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## pgoelz (May 1, 2005)

Yes, I thought of that workaround. Although it is cumbersome, it is a way to recover my recordings. 

I have to say that I am getting very tired of having Tivo break stuff and then not seem at all interested in fixing it. And I am particularly weary of calling Tivo Support and discovering that I know more about the issue than they do and having to get forceful to get them to understand it. Makes me feel a bit.... dirty.... when I'm done. 

Paul


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

Well, maybe.

What was the point in archiving them encrypted?

-KP


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## pgoelz (May 1, 2005)

kpeters59 said:


> Well, maybe.
> 
> What was the point in archiving them encrypted?
> 
> -KP


Um.... because that is what the *.tivo files effectively are when transferred to a PC with Tivo Desktop. As I understand it, they are encrypted using the source MAK as a key. They will not play unless Tivo Desktop (or any other Tivo) has the same MAK that was in use in the originating Tivo. When Tivo changes the MAK like they did when I merged accounts, that effectively kills them. My Tivos now can see them on the PC but won't transfer them or play them. The only way I can watch them now is on my PC using Tivo Desktop with my previous MAK configured.

Since Tivo can't (or won't) change my MAK back, the only way I can see to recover fully from this is to use KMTTG (with my old MAK) and transcode them to un-encrypted MPGs. In that form, they can be played and transferred.

Yes I can transcode, but it is a bunch of work. And for people not willing or able to use KMTTG or some other software to decrypt/transcode stored recordings, any recordings stored in native *.tivo format are no longer playable when Tivo changes their MAK during an account merge. Note that if accounts are merged, Tivo HAS to change the MAK since each account has a different MAK. The problem is that they don't mention that it will invalidate stored recordings if the MAK changes to one that is NOT the MAK in use when the recordings were transferred to PC.

Paul


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

kpeters59 said:


> You might still be able to decode them with KMTTG.
> 
> New program for 1 step TTG downloads, decryption, encoding - kmttg
> 
> -KP


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

.tivo files do not have be transcoded, just decrypted.

To the OP - what the heck do you expect TiVo to do? They have to give all of the TiVo's on an account the same MAK. Why the heck did you originally put the Bolt on a separate account? That's what "broke" things. TiVo did nothing wrong.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

That was a shame that they gave you the wrong information and unfortunate that you didn't ask here first. I am curious why you set the Bolt up under another account?

And the correct fix would have been to move the Bolt to your original existing account.

Scott


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## pgoelz (May 1, 2005)

lpwcomp said:


> .tivo files do not have be transcoded, just decrypted.
> 
> To the OP - what the heck do you expect TiVo to do? They have to give all of the TiVo's on an account the same MAK. Why the heck did you originally put the Bolt on a separate account? That's what "broke" things. TiVo did nothing wrong.


OK, blame me if you have to. More effective than blaming Tivo? But let me try to explain.

Yes, they have to give all my Tivos the same MAK. I understand that and always have. But they should have given me a choice WHICH MAK I ended up with. Even worse, I suspected it would be an issue when the MAK changed AND I ASKED THEM about it when we merged accounts and was told (several times) that it WOULD NOT BE AN ISSUE. Wrong answer.

As for why I set the Bolt up on a separate account.... it was a Christmas present to my wife (who holds our regular Tivo account with our Roamio and the original MAK). Since it was a Christmas present and was supposed to be a surprise, I set up a new account in my name for the Bolt so I could make sure it worked, configure it and a cable card (that was a nightmare) and upgrade the HD..... if I put it on our regular account, that would generate an Email and no more surprise. Unfortunately, with it on the LAN, she noticed it in the list of devices on the NPL and the jig was up, so I gave it to her early and we called Tivo to move it to our regular account. Tivo said that if we moved it, it could take several days to become effective but if they merged accounts it would be instantaneous. I asked about the MAK and whether changing it would be an issue. They said NO, so I let them merge accounts so we could start moving recordings from the Roamio to the Bolt and figured if it really was an issue with Tivo Desktop I would have them fix it later. Trouble is they can't (or won't) fix it so here we are. Understand now?

Paul


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## pgoelz (May 1, 2005)

HerronScott said:


> That was a shame that they gave you the wrong information and unfortunate that you didn't ask here first.


I didn't have to ask here first.... I understood that changing the MAK would invalidate my stored recordings (even though they incorrectly insisted it would not). What I did NOT expect was that they would have no way of fixing the MAK.



> And the correct fix would have been to move the Bolt to your original existing account.
> 
> Scott


Yes, I know that now. As I stated above, I elected to not do that (on their recommendation, BTW) because it would have (according to Tivo) have added several days to the process..... we wanted to move our recordings from Roamio to Bolt and so she could start USING her Christmas present 

Paul


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

pgoelz said:


> I didn't have to ask here first.... I understood that changing the MAK would invalidate my stored recordings (even though they incorrectly insisted it would not). What I did NOT expect was that they would have no way of fixing the MAK.


Yes, unfortunately they don't appear to have a way to changing the MAK address on accounts back as others have posted this before as well.  In their case, I think they were having issues with their TiVo account and in the process of getting it "fixed", they ended up with a new MAK also.



pgoelz said:


> Yes, I know that now. As I stated above, I elected to not do that (on their recommendation, BTW) because it would have (according to Tivo) have added several days to the process..... we wanted to move our recordings from Roamio to Bolt and so she could start USING her Christmas present


I am surprised that they indicated it would add several days as when we've moved used TiVo's onto our accounts it was active after forcing connections on all the TiVo's on the account.

Scott


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## pgoelz (May 1, 2005)

HerronScott said:


> I am surprised that they indicated it would add several days as when we've moved used TiVo's onto our accounts it was active after forcing connections on all the TiVo's on the account.
> 
> Scott


Who knows... she may have meant that it might take two connections and if I didn't intervene and force the connections, that would mean two days?

Water over the dam now, but possibly yet another example of very poor information given out by Tivo CSRs.

Did I mention the CSR yesterday who actually hung up on me when I asked for a supervisor after she was unable to actually understand the issue? She kept telling me to "wait a couple days and the MAKs will change by themselves". And yes she hung up on me, we were not accidentally disconnected. I was being firm but not rude.

Paul


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

I agree that I can see no reason for it to have been more difficult to move one TiVo to the old account.
_*
Maybe*_ they should have mentioned the problem with the new MAK and existing .tivo files, but based on what Ira Bahr said in August, TiVo no longer officially supports PC<->TiVo transfers.

Using kmttg, it wouldn't be all that hard to decrypt all of your .tivo files. Probably less effort than you have expended on this thread and calls to TiVo.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

pgoelz said:


> Um.... because that is what the *.tivo files effectively are when transferred to a PC with Tivo Desktop. As I understand it, they are encrypted using the source MAK as a key. They will not play unless Tivo Desktop (or any other Tivo) has the same MAK that was in use in the originating Tivo. When Tivo changes the MAK like they did when I merged accounts, that effectively kills them. My Tivos now can see them on the PC but won't transfer them or play them. The only way I can watch them now is on my PC using Tivo Desktop with my previous MAK configured.
> 
> Since Tivo can't (or won't) change my MAK back, the only way I can see to recover fully from this is to use KMTTG (with my old MAK) and transcode them to un-encrypted MPGs. In that form, they can be played and transferred.
> 
> ...


This is what i had to do a few years ago when TiVo changed the MAK on me. I think it was because of some account issues and the CSR said changing the MAK would fix it. At the time i did't think about the several Terabytes of recordings i had with the old MAK. So they changed it, which of course didn't fix the problem. And then I didn't have access to those Terabytes of shows. So I used KMTTG to strip the .Tivo to go to an MPG file so I could access the content again.

Of course there was no way to change my MAK back to the original one. I think, in the end, they gave me a few months of service free on my monthly TiVo. But that only costs me $6.95 a month. Nothing close to compensating me for my time. but at least it was something.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

pgoelz said:


> As for why I set the Bolt up on a separate account.... it was a Christmas present to my wife (who holds our regular Tivo account with our Roamio and the original MAK). Since it was a Christmas present and was supposed to be a surprise, I set up a new account in my name for the Bolt so I could make sure it worked, configure it and a cable card (that was a nightmare) and upgrade the HD..... if I put it on our regular account, that would generate an Email and no more surprise. Unfortunately, with it on the LAN, she noticed it in the list of devices on the NPL and the jig was up, so I gave it to her early and we called Tivo to move it to our regular account. Tivo said that if we moved it, it could take several days to become effective but if they merged accounts it would be instantaneous. I asked about the MAK and whether changing it would be an issue. They said NO, so I let them merge accounts so we could start moving recordings from the Roamio to the Bolt and figured if it really was an issue with Tivo Desktop I would have them fix it later. Trouble is they can't (or won't) fix it so here we are. Understand now?


So if I understand correctly IF they had merged account B into account A (instead of A into B) you would have kept the old MAK and everything would have been ok or if they had removed the Bolt from the new account and added to old account that would have worked also?

Is there some motivation on their end to do the account merge instead of the remove/add? Does it look bad if they have to close an account out while on a support session, or is this just incompetence?


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## pgoelz (May 1, 2005)

sfhub said:


> So if I understand correctly IF they had merged account B into account A (instead of A into B) you would have kept the old MAK and everything would have been ok or if they had removed the Bolt from the new account and added to old account that would have worked also?
> 
> Is there some motivation on their end to do the account merge instead of the remove/add? Does it look bad if they have to close an account out while on a support session, or is this just incompetence?


My vote would be ignorance / incompetence. Probably more of the former, since they only were dimly aware of the issue and I had to explain it to the first CSR I spoke with several times before she grasped it. And when she never fully grasped it and I asked for a supervisor, she hung up on me. That kinda set the tone for all that followed. Bad Tivo, BAD.

I have to assume that the MAK I was left with was the one associated with the surviving account after the merge so yes, if they had kept the old account I would have been fine. And definitely yes to putting the Bolt on my old account.

The motivation to merge instead of add was (supposedly) that adding to our old account would have taken "several days" and merging was instantaneous. At least that is how they described it at the time. Closing an account is not the issue.... that happens both when you merge OR move.

I'm over it now and have used KMTTG to decrypt all my archived recordings so this is no longer an issue FOR ME. But I was pretty pi$$ed at the time and it WILL be an issue for the next sucker that lets them merge accounts since after all my discussions with support, they have not changed anything and worse, don't seem to care about changing anything.

A side note about decrypting large numbers of recordings though... not entirely safe unless you have enough spare temporary HD space for the decrypted files AND the encrypted ones. KMTTG can delete the original after decrypting which eliminates that need, but you run the risk of losing everything if something goes wrong with the process. I did one and let KMTTG delete the original as a test. When that succeeded, I did the rest as a batch and all went well.

The only thing that isn't terribly convenient in all this is that if I want to copy my now decrypted recordings from my PC to my Roamio (which I do since it is now nearly empty), I have to do it one at a time since there does not seem to be a way to move them all in a batch like you can between Tivos. I have settled for watching them peicemeal (which also transfers them) and simply leaving them on the Roamio when done.

This would have been SO much less labor intensive / disruptive if Tivo simply allowed for the ability to set a specific MAK or had the good sense to warn about it and let the user decide which account to use.

Paul


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