# TiVo's Message Screen Gallery



## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

My apologies if someone's done this before - a quick search brought up some pages talking about some of these screens but none that presented them all for our pleasure.

Anyhow - TiVo has eight "pages" it can put up on the screen to warn/inform us of what it's doing. Some are very familiar, a few are rarely seen and at least one I can't think of any time I've seen it come on screen nor heard of anyone seeing it.

The file format these images have been stored are an internal IBM format but there are tools out there to convert them to formats we all know and love.

Without further adoo, here they are for our viewing pleasure starting with the familiar:

*PromScreen2Version7*










We're all familiar with this one. This appears while TiVo's booting up its Linux operating system. Notice the little TIVo in the top left of the screen. I'm not entirely sure if this is added by the format converter or whether it's there in the first place. I suspect the latter as not all od them feature it. The writing would be off in the overscan of most TV screens.

The next two are displayed when certain actions are being performed in the Systems Reset menus:

*zapPgdEtc*










This is the screen that appears when clearing the programme data and todo list. Does what it says on the tin. Note that it's a resize of the NTSC version - there are some artefacts in the lettering (that are mostly lost in TV's interlace) and that Programme has been misspelt 

*factoryReset*










As its name suggests, this is displayed when a factory reset is performed.

The next two are rarely seen and aren't likely to be seen by anyone in the UK unless an original TiVo is found with version 1 of the software.

*installingSoftware*










When new software has been installed, this is the screen TiVo displays when the new version is being prepared for use.

*dbconvert*










Seen once, when the database is converted from the format used by version 1 software to version 2.

I like the ambiguity of this one. Everything else has a time scale to give you an idea of how long it's going to take. This one however will just "take a long time"!

*SevereError*










Here we have the infamous Green Screen of Death - GSOD. This is displayed when TiVo has detected an error in its internal filing system. More often or not the operation is successful and after an hour or so TiVo comes back to life. Anything more than a few hours and you're probably going to have to revert to that backup - or buy a new larger hard drive from one of the reputable people who hang around this forum.

And now we enter the realm of "really rare" and "never seen" screens.

The final two are included as a single image as the forum limits the number of images that can be attached.










*flames*

This one I've never seen nor have I seen others discuss that they've seen it. I can understand the circumstances that would cause it to happen - has anyone had an overheat that caused this?

One thing to note is that it isn't as tall as the others - it has a horizontal size suitable for PAL display but the height is suitable for NTSC. When forced onto the screen, it doesn't completely fill the screen and the previous image can still be seen in the last portion on the screen. Possibly left over from an old software build and never used/tested.

*kickstart*

And finally we have an extremely rare sighting of _kickstart_. I can't think of any normal operation that would make this appear. Has anyone seen it in the wild?

My hunch is that it's something that TiVo may trigger in a daily load on a troubled system. It displays this while performing diagnostics and then sends the results back to TiVo via the phone. I strongly suspect that this procedure isn't in use in the UK and wonder if it's ever been used for a customer.

There you have them. The eight screens pre-rendered in TiVo. Most have been widely spotted but some, like exotic particles and the last few elements in the periodic table have probably never been seen in the wild.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Excellent work. Really appreciated. Thanks


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## dirtypacman (Feb 3, 2004)

Ahh some screens I have never seen before... I think thats a good thing.


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## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

There are two kinds of gray background screens. The one with a fixed single gray background that appear to have been roughly re-rendered from the NTSC size images and the ones with the tapering gray to black background. The text on the latter is much sharper so I suspect these may have been originally rendered in the PAL resolution. 

This now makes me think that the last "Don't Panic!" one may well have been a service originally intended for the UK market but never/rarely put into practice. 

A veiled reference to Hitchhiker's Guide perhaps? We know they like doing these things - there's the "All your bases are belong to us" reference in the backdoors version of the System Information screen.


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## Stainless Steele (Feb 2, 2004)

Glad I have not seen most of those shots!


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## mrtickle (Aug 26, 2001)

Kickstart screen would appear under normal circumstances if someone was being guided through the kickstart procedure by Customer Services, if CS suspected a faulty disc etc. If they are on the other end of the phone it would probably be useful to have a way of telling if the user had triggered the kickstart process correctly. That could be the purpose of that screen!


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## mrtickle (Aug 26, 2001)

aerialplug said:


> There are two kinds of gray background screens.


There are none! We only have GREY screens in this country! 



> A veiled reference to Hitchhiker's Guide perhaps? We know they like doing these things - there's the "All your bases are belong to us" reference in the backdoors version of the System Information screen.


Not really veiled, but I'm sure that's it yes.


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## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

Wow - I've never heard of the Kickstart procedure before.

A quick google seems to reveal that it's something that's been banned for discussion on this forum - or at least the procedure for firing it up is banned for discussion (understandably as it's something that TiVo would have to initiate by adding the serial number to a list for it to be of any use).

Is this a valid procedure in the UK and is it still part of TiVo's diagnostic procedure should things go horribly wrong?


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## Fred1 (Dec 10, 2002)

aerialplug said:


> This is the screen that appears when clearing the programme data and todo list. ........
> Programme has been misspelt


Interesting one, My Oxford Concise English dictionary suggests "programme" for TV programmes and "program" for computer programs, which is how I usually use the spellings.

However if you think of the data that TiVo has as data on [TV] _programmes _ for a PVR [computer] _program_, possibly both could be correct?


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## mrtickle (Aug 26, 2001)

I think they just missed that one when doing the UK changes, or decided not to change the graphics. The program->programme change isn't easy either, as you can't just search/replace because some of them need to be left as program 

I hadn't heard of kickstart discussion being banned before? 
The wiki page has gone, only the cached version is there (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache...ivo+kickstart&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&client=opera). The procedure for starting it is simply holding pause on the remote; this is not something that needs to be initiated by TiVo! After that, the user would be talked through which codes to enter by CS, and I was thinking that certain options would present the "don't panic" screen.

(Unless I'm going mad, 57 - mfs check and 58 - perform mfs cleanup have been discussed here many times.)


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## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

mrtickle said:


> I hadn't heard of kickstart discussion being banned before?


Well, when I googled "tivo kickstart" the first page that came back was titled "Banned Topic: Kickstart Diagnosis [Archive] - PTVupgrade TiVo ...". I guess I misunderstood what it was about.

The page goes on to describe what you've said and also implies that the TiVo's individual serial number needs to be placed on a specific list/database by TiVo before the Kickstart would work. Others also refute this though saying it worked fine for them when they tried it.


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

aerialplug said:


> Wow - I've never heard of the Kickstart procedure before.


I doubt that UK Customer Services have either.


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## Wonder_lander (Jan 13, 2003)

iankb said:


> I doubt that UK Customer Services have either.


Holy thread revival, where did that reply come from


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

Wonder_lander said:


> Holy thread revival, where did that reply come from


I believe somebody made another post that brought the thread back to the top of the forum, and then deleted that post. Don't you just love it when somebody does that.


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