# Tivo Not recording anything but has guide data



## lucy_t (Dec 30, 2006)

I have had a search through forums and web in general and cannot find this problem posted elsewhere and Tivo has worked for the 5 years without failure  but now I have the following problem.


Tivo will not automatically record anything.

I have collected guide data via ethernet sucessfully. (I have a cache card, Larger Hard DIsk, tivoweb enabled to be accessed from the internet, backdoors (30 second and the clock)etc. but no recent changes)
If I watch live TV I have guide data and can record from the live TV guide data window.
I reset the tivo up to the point where I have recored programs left but all season passes/suggestions have been reset and tivo has been rebooted plenty of times.

The problem happened when my freeview box died so I re-ran initial set-up and pointed tivo at my Pace Sky Digital box and all worked well for a bit and then it stopped.

Help,

L


----------



## cyril (Sep 5, 2001)

The only time where this has happened to me was when I accidentally set the time to be a year in the past!


----------



## OzSat (Feb 15, 2001)

Have you made sure the required channels are ticked in 'Channels I Receive' ?

You can view any channel in livetv - but it will only record from ticked ones.


----------



## lucy_t (Dec 30, 2006)

Thanks for the replies.

Unfortunately the time is right and the channels I recieve are ticked.

When going to add anything to record it tells me to wait 4 to 8 hours whilst the guide data is being organised. Been like that for 2 days?

Any ideas?

Cheers.


----------



## RobbyBoy (Apr 21, 2003)

i got that on Monday upgraded new drive and it took for ever to d\l data, then after the d\l had completed i got no data after 6 hrs ,and had to repeat set up and approx 10 mins later the data had begun to appear on some channels and overnight all was set up.
So i assumed a bad d\l 
Robert


----------



## lucy_t (Dec 30, 2006)

Gone for the complete delete and set-up and on the first call it failed on Importing.
i.e.
Connecting (done)
Downloading (done)
Hanging Up (done)
Importing Failed
Indexing (10 seconds)

Going to try this a few times and see what happens.....


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

I wonder what the size of the swap file is? This is shown under Info in Tivoweb.

I suppose a hard drive set up with inadequate swap file space might cope ok with the Freeview database but not with the Sky Digital one. Alternatively at five years old the hard drive may have been on its way out and changing the whole database may have tipped it over the edge.

www.tivocentral.co.uk and www.tivoheaven.co.uk would I'm sure be happy to seel you a replacement hard drive with Tivoweb and the drivers for the Cachecard pre-installed.


----------



## lucy_t (Dec 30, 2006)

I love Tivo, first time ever going for the full delete, clean and reset and it's fine!!! 

How cool is that 

Just for Tivo coming back faithfully to me i'm going for some tivoweb plugins, I like the look of the recommended progs from tv guide websites such as Radio times etc..

Any other people just love and can't do without would be a welcome recomendation!!

Cheers to all for the help and keeping this forum alive.

L


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

lucy_t said:


> Just for Tivo coming back faithfully to me *i'm going for some tivoweb plugins, I like the look of the recommended progs from tv guide websites such as Radio times etc..*
> 
> *Any other people just love and can't do without would be a welcome recomendation!!L*


You can find most but not all of the main Tivoweb hacks listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoweb

Make sure to also visit www.ljay.org.uk and install all of his main hacks including the User Interface extensions for Tivoweb 1.9.4, especially Search By Advisory Codes (not available in TivoWebPlus)

Also you need to make sure to install sanderton's and maxwells_daemons famous Endpad module that automatically adds padding to the start and end of all programs to stop them being cut off by a minute or two.

You can get this from the following thread:-

www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=286631

The Autospace program that replaces the words Now Playing in the Now Playing screen with a graphic showing how many recordings + how many suggestions + how much free space you have on your Tivo is also really good and works really reliably. Make sure you install v1.4 for the UK Tivo in the post listed below.

See http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3688112#post3688112

You will probably also want to install Tivohackman.com and its different version for Tivoweb and TivoWebPlus so that you can switch easily between the two different Tivoweb versions without having both in memory at once and so that you can much more easily edit rc.sysinit.author to add commands to auto start hacks such as endpad and autospace.

Another really cool hack is DailyMail that shows recording conflicts etc in a daily email from the Tivo but that is a lot more fiddly to install. I notice that is another hack that seems to be missing and is not mentioned in the rather deficient Wikipedia Tivoweb page, even though it is controlled by a Tivoweb module once installed.

See http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=1761496#post1761496 for more details

You will probably also want to install cron to automatically send you the daily mail email once a day.

Details on how to install cron and other useful stuff can be found at:-

www.planetbuilders.org/tivo/tivo_upgrade_diary.html

Installing all this may well keep you busy for a while but do come back in due course and let us know how you have got on.

I assume that you are already aware of www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo if you have got as far as installing a network card and Tivoweb 1.9.4 and TivoWebPlus 2.1.0?


----------



## lucy_t (Dec 30, 2006)

I did miss this most excellent post, and will now begin to work through it. Fabulous, I love tinkering!!!


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

lucy_t said:


> I did miss this most excellent post, and will now begin to work through it. Fabulous, I love tinkering!!!


Lucy,

I missed one other pretty good hack that most people with a larger hard drive on their Tivos often also want to use.

This is Bufferhack which lets you run a tcl file on the Tivo that does a one off alteration of the Tivo database to alter the length of the Live Tv buffer from the standard 30 minutes to anything between 15 minutes and 180 minutes (I have 180 minutes here). This tcl module can also be maintained through the Hackman module in Tivoweb 1.9.4 and TivoWebPlus 2.1.0 subject to the addition of the bufferhack itcl file to the Tivoweb and TivoWebPlus modules directory.

I find it very handy to be able to wind back a channel more than 30 minutes if you happen to come in and find it showing something that you decide you want to watch from the start. Or sometimes also during live news coverage of a major event such as yesterday's Turkish Airlines crash in Amsterdam.

The thread containing the bufferhack files and discussing it are all to be found on the Database of Deals and we are not allowed to post direct links to that site in this forum. However if you visit the Wikipedia page for Tivoweb at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoweb you will see I have updated it to include Bufferhack and there is a link there to the thread on the Database of Deals website.

Let us know how you get on in due course with installing these various hacks. By the way be careful when editing rc.sysinit to add entries to start up endpad and autospace and so one every time the Tivo reboots (as most people find convenient). If you mess up editing rc.sysinit correctly it can cause Tivo to go in to an endless reboot loop. For that reason it is safer to install Sanderton's Startup Editor utility and Tivoweb 1.9.4 module following the processes listed in the StarupEditor thread accessed from the link on the Wikipedia Tivoweb page. Perhaps you may want to do that before installing the various other hacks and needing to edit rc.sysinit.author


----------



## lucy_t (Dec 30, 2006)

been fighting with tivo trying to get it to keep it's listings, or be able to search correctly. I think the hard drive must be on it's way or tivo DB is corrupt somewhere. I'll begin backing up what I can and I have to original tivo drive kit in a box. So new HD built from the old one, and then restore the backed up stuff e.g. /var/hack/* and /etc/rc.d/* season passes I can re-create from scratch.

Cheers for your help and all seems to be well but the machine is intermittent


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

lucy_t said:


> I'll begin backing up what I can and I have to original tivo drive kit in a box. So new HD built from the old one, and then restore the backed up stuff e.g. /var/hack/* and /etc/rc.d/* season passes I can re-create from scratch


I'm not quite clear what size replacement drive you are planning to fit?

I take it you are aware of the easy to follow Steve Conrad drive installation guides at www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo?

And the fact that pre-formatted Tivo drives can be purchased from www.tivocentral.co.uk, www.tivoheaven.co.uk and www.tivoland.com?


----------



## lucy_t (Dec 30, 2006)

I have a 160GB ide drive spare, so using the Steve Conrad guide I'll build a new one.

However as I can currently access the drive maybe going wrong in my tivo, should I backup and restore from that drive, or I have the original drive I can use?

If I can backup some data what should I take off by ftp/telnet?

Thanks for your help.


----------



## lucy_t (Dec 30, 2006)

memory and hd are ok, new image is super, and tivo is green and go go go 

just filling tivoweb abd tivoweb modules back up!!!

Thanks for your help Pete77


----------

