# Increasing the number of times Tivo connects



## Bustagut (Dec 27, 2007)

I'm having trouble with the clock on my Tivo drifting about 30 seconds every hour or so. This is a known bug that introduced in the Fall 2007 update.
(see http://forums.tivo.com/pe/action/forums/displaypost?postID=10345632)

Tivo is apparently working on a fix but it's been over 2 months and it's is driving me (and my family) nuts with all the chopped endings of shows. I'm looking for a hack that will make this go away temporarily while Tivo figures out how to fix it.

The clock gets reset to the right time every time it connects to the server for the daily update. I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to hack the unit to force the update to happen more often (hourly?). Is there a config file or registry entry somewhere to set this?

Another option (not sure if this will work) is to try to get just hit an ntp server hourly. Does tivo have cron jobs? Doe sit support ntp? Would that reset the unti's clock?

Anyone care to point a newbie in the right direction. I'm technical so not worried about editing files etc


----------



## chip_r (Apr 27, 2006)

This doesn't fix the root of the problem but you could extend the recording times by 12 minutes until a patch is released. Doesn't help for back-to-back recordings on different channels but it could relieve some of the problems.

From the thread you pointed out, [email protected] is well aware of the issue and it looks like a fix is in the works. I'm unaware of a easy fix via ntp or a hack but others may have an idea.


----------



## lafos (Nov 8, 2004)

TiVo does not have the ability to connect to an NTP server. As chip_r suggested, you can extend recording time in the season pass list or the todo list. You can also get it to start early by a few minutes.

You can also manually force a connection whenever you're in the menu system. It's under Settings, Phone and Network.


----------



## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Actually, it does connect to t an NTP server to set the time. If you can hack the DVR, you can add a cron job to set the time frequently.


----------



## Bustagut (Dec 27, 2007)

classicsat said:


> Actually, it does connect to t an NTP server to set the time. If you can hack the DVR, you can add a cron job to set the time frequently.


That's fantastic! That's the information I was looking for. Can you point me to instructions on how to get to a linix shell that I can use to do this? I'm a newbie to hacking Tivo. Thanks!


----------



## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Look in the underground section for the Sapper script.


----------



## Worf (Sep 15, 2000)

Doesn't the TiVo connect every few hours if you're using the broadband option? It seems to pick up my online schedules within a couple of hours, so TiVo is checking at least that often, no?

Now if it was dialing through the phone, it would drift a lot since it only calls once a day, but if you're using the broadband connect, it should be doing it every few hours.


----------



## lafos (Nov 8, 2004)

It has two connection schemes. One for scheduling, and one for guide and software updates. The clock is updated on the second, which generally occurs every 27 hours or so. I don't think it updates the clock when getting remote scheduling info.


----------

