# Can't get Now Playing List/recordings from Tivo



## Uncle_Steve (Jul 23, 2004)

I occasionally use kmttg to pull files off of my Tivo in order to
(possibly) watch them later. You know the drill -- "I might watch this
someday, but right now it's a waste of space..."

In any event, I just recently went to pull some recordings onto my
home NAS and kmttg failed with exit code 52. Well, okay; I then tried
simply using https. I logged in, but the normal screen with the Now
Playing List never appeared. Uh oh!

So, I then tried using a Windows box with the Tivo desktop
installed. It gave me soothing feedback along the lines of "Getting x
of y recordings," but then reports "There was an error while
attempting to retrieve data from the selected DVR." This happened
approximately half way through the get.

It's a TivoHD and the software version of the Tivo is 11.0k-01-2-652.

Any ideas? (I have restarted the Tivo just in case.)


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Uncle_Steve said:


> I occasionally use kmttg to pull files off of my Tivo in order to
> (possibly) watch them later. You know the drill -- "I might watch this
> someday, but right now it's a waste of space..."
> 
> ...


Restart the TiVo (make sure you've gone into the phone and network settings menu on the TiVo and given it a static IP), restart all your computers, restart all of your network hardware (router/gateway, modem, etc.)

Is all of the above necessary? More than likely not, but it's faster than figuring out which is and which isn't.

Did I mention to assign your TiVo a static IP address?


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## Uncle_Steve (Jul 23, 2004)

I've

- deleted some of the recordings I didn't care about,

- replaced the ethernet cable,

- replaced the ethernet switch,

- rebooted the router,

- rebooted the tivo.

All to no avail. Tivo desktop gets to "...41 of 148..." and after a few minutes of silence reports failure.

Does anyone know a curl "incantation" which might show me exactly how far along the retrieval gets (or is that even possible?)?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

What model Tivo?


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## Uncle_Steve (Jul 23, 2004)

unitron said:


> What model Tivo?


It is a TivoHD. TV and internet from Verizon FIOS.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Uncle_Steve said:


> It is a TivoHD. TV and internet from Verizon FIOS.


You said which model in your first post and I somehow didn't see it.

It sounds like a network problem, so my first instinct is to suspect the TiVo's hard drive and power supply.

While you're waiting for one or the other to fail, use TiVo Desktop to copy off whatever you care about that it'll let you copy off, and put a small fan where it can blow directly on your router.


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## Uncle_Steve (Jul 23, 2004)

Alas, Tivo Desktop fails as well. It reports an error while retrieving the NPL. So I can't easily get anything that way either.

I thought perhaps it was a bug in somebody's software. I've been playing with curl to try and see what's happening and noticed one of the last shows in the NPL to be successfully retrieved had a "'" in the title. I didn't care about the show. So I deleted it, but it didn't make any difference. Sigh!

I can certainly replace the drive, but am reluctant to since everything else seems to be working fine.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Uncle_Steve said:


> Alas, Tivo Desktop fails as well. It reports an error while retrieving the NPL. So I can't easily get anything that way either.
> 
> I thought perhaps it was a bug in somebody's software. I've been playing with curl to try and see what's happening and noticed one of the last shows in the NPL to be successfully retrieved had a "'" in the title. I didn't care about the show. So I deleted it, but it didn't make any difference. Sigh!
> 
> I can certainly replace the drive, but am reluctant to since everything else seems to be working fine.


So is the TiVo itself working fine by itself?


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## Uncle_Steve (Jul 23, 2004)

unitron said:


> So is the TiVo itself working fine by itself?


Yes. I've not noticed any issues with the TiVo at all except when I've tried to get files off of it.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Uncle_Steve said:


> Yes. I've not noticed any issues with the TiVo at all except when I've tried to get files off of it.


Apparently you've got gremlins in your network somewhere.

Is whatever you've got that serves as a "cable modem" also your router, or do you have a separate unit, and if so, what make and model?

What else is on your network?


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## Uncle_Steve (Jul 23, 2004)

unitron said:


> Apparently you've got gremlins in your network somewhere.
> 
> Is whatever you've got that serves as a "cable modem" also your router, or do you have a separate unit, and if so, what make and model?
> 
> What else is on your network?


I suppose the rough equivalent of a cable modem is the optical termination unit. The ONT drops a WAN connection over CoAx to an ActionTec MI424WR router. From there I have an ethernet plant that makes some small businesses look primitive by comparison. I think my next step will be to hook the router, the Tivo, and a laptop together with nothing else connected and see what happens. But that's a job for tomorrow. Can you believe it? The family actually want to watch TV and use the internet?! Sheesh!


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Uncle_Steve said:


> Can you believe it? The family actually want to watch TV and use the internet?! Sheesh!


<Bugs Bunny Voice>The noive of some people!</BBV>

Suggest you temporarily disable any encryption as well, and disable the laptop's firewall to begin with, as well as any anti-virus software.

You'll probably need for the TiVo to be connected to the Internet during the "giving it a fixed IP address" procedure, as it will want to test the network when you do that, and for it testing the network means trying to contact the mothership.


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## Uncle_Steve (Jul 23, 2004)

Tried the Tivo, laptop, and nothing else connected. No joy in Mudville; same behaviour.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Uncle_Steve said:


> Tried the Tivo, laptop, and nothing else connected. No joy in Mudville; same behaviour.


Since you seem to be using the TiVo's RJ-45 jack, you could bypass the router (if your laptop has a jack and not just wireless), and also temporarily bypass any of that WEP or WPA stuff.

Or, you could try hooking up a wireless adapter to the TiVo's USB and see if the TiVo's Ethernet port has died.

But first try pinging the TiVo (while still using it's RJ-45 jack) to see if it can be seen on the net at all.


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## Uncle_Steve (Jul 23, 2004)

unitron said:


> Since you seem to be using the TiVo's RJ-45 jack, you could bypass the router (if your laptop has a jack and not just wireless), and also temporarily bypass any of that WEP or WPA stuff.
> 
> Or, you could try hooking up a wireless adapter to the TiVo's USB and see if the TiVo's Ethernet port has died.
> 
> But first try pinging the TiVo (while still using it's RJ-45 jack) to see if it can be seen on the net at all.


I definitely have connectivity. Tivo desktop reports "...91 of 155..." before it stops responding and complains. I can browse to the unencrypted web page and get the happy "Congratulations! Youve successfully connected your TiVo® box to your home network, enabling a number of exciting new Home Media features: " message. My guess is this the Tivo failing in some fashion. If only I could see the logs on the Tivo!

Well, I'll cogitate on this a bit and see what I can come up with. 1TB drives aren't that expensive. I could just try replacing the current drive.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Uncle_Steve said:


> I definitely have connectivity. Tivo desktop reports "...91 of 155..." before it stops responding and complains. I can browse to the unencrypted web page and get the happy "Congratulations! Youve successfully connected your TiVo® box to your home network, enabling a number of exciting new Home Media features: " message. My guess is this the Tivo failing in some fashion. If only I could see the logs on the Tivo!
> 
> Well, I'll cogitate on this a bit and see what I can come up with. 1TB drives aren't that expensive. I could just try replacing the current drive.


Consult the drive upgrade sticky

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=370784

and see which models are or are not recommended for your model TiVo, and whether you'll need to run wdidle3 or not.

Know in advance whether you're getting an "advanced format" drive or not.

I think the jury is still out on whether they work without problems in which TiVo.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Uncle_Steve said:


> I definitely have connectivity. Tivo desktop reports "...91 of 155..." before it stops responding and complains. I can browse to the unencrypted web page and get the happy "Congratulations! Youve successfully connected your TiVo® box to your home network, enabling a number of exciting new Home Media features: " message. My guess is this the Tivo failing in some fashion. If only I could see the logs on the Tivo!


Well, there is a way...



Uncle_Steve said:


> Well, I'll cogitate on this a bit and see what I can come up with. 1TB drives aren't that expensive. I could just try replacing the current drive.


dd_rescue is your friend.

In the mean time, have you tried the kickstart tests? This sounds like a software issue.


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## Uncle_Steve (Jul 23, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> Well, there is a way...
> 
> dd_rescue is your friend.
> 
> In the mean time, have you tried the kickstart tests? This sounds like a software issue.


I either didn't know about or forgot the kickstart tests. I'm not sure which is worse. In any event, I have it running the SMART tests now, and think I'll then do the "fsck". I'm not a huge believer in SMART except when it predicts failure.

Thanks very much; a most excellent idea!


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## Uncle_Steve (Jul 23, 2004)

I ran a "54" (everything but the offline test), and a "57". Alas, Tivo Desktop still gets part way through the retrieval of the NPL and barfs.

I'm out of ideas.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Uncle_Steve said:


> I ran a "54" (everything but the offline test), and a "57". Alas, Tivo Desktop still gets part way through the retrieval of the NPL and barfs.
> 
> I'm out of ideas.


54 is strictly a hardware test.

57 and 58 are designed to see if your TiVo software is screwed up.

Try 58, just in case.


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## Uncle_Steve (Jul 23, 2004)

58 resulted in "...installing a software update...". Apparently it reinstalled the already installed version again (based on the string reported).

I was expecting another green screen.

And regardless, I still can't retrieve the NPL.

At least the Tivo is working fine otherwise as far as I can tell.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Uncle_Steve said:


> I can browse to the unencrypted web page and get the happy "Congratulations! You've successfully connected your TiVo® box to your home network, enabling a number of exciting new Home Media features.


That is the general web page you get when you connect from a browser using http:// <IP address of the Tivo>

Go one step further and use http*s*:// <IP address of the Tivo>.

You will probably get a security warning screen, click "continue to website" despite the warning.
Next you should get a pop-up asking for a user name and password.
User name = tivo
Password = your Media Access Key

This should get you to the Tivo's webpage that lists your recordings and you can download recordings from there.

ETA: I noticed in your first post you tried this with no success.  Hmm...


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

We know network layers 1, 2, 3 and at least partially 4 are working. That puts the problem in the TiVo itself. The fact you don't even get an NPL listing suggests something in tivoapp or one of the .tcl scripts is mangled. I don't think an unhacked TiVo would even boot if the checksum of tivoapp weren't correct, so that suggests one of the .tcl scripts has somehow gotten corrupted. Since the / mount is read-only, that suggests an errored sector on the drive.

Now note the chain of deductions above is modestly frail. There could be any number of other modes of failure going on here, but I think it to be the most likely. This could be verified by pulling the drive and switching the boot and root partitions using the bootpage command from a Linux boot and then re-installing the drive and trying again.

I think before I did anything else, I would get a new drive and copy the contents of your old drive to the new one using dd_rescue. Install the new drive in the TiVo and make sure it boots - who knows, it might even fix the problem. Then you can do whatever you want to one or the other of the drives to try to get things working.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> We know network layers 1, 2, 3 and at least partially 4 are working. That puts the problem in the TiVo itself. The fact you don't even get an NPL listing suggests something in tivoapp or one of the .tcl scripts is mangled. I don't think an unhacked TiVo would even boot if the checksum of tivoapp weren't correct, so that suggests one of the .tcl scripts has somehow gotten corrupted. Since the / mount is read-only, that suggests an errored sector on the drive.
> 
> Now note the chain of deductions above is modestly frail. There could be any number of other modes of failure going on here, but I think it to be the most likely. This could be verified by pulling the drive and switching the boot and root partitions using the bootpage command from a Linux boot and then re-installing the drive and trying again.
> 
> I think before I did anything else, I would get a new drive and copy the contents of your old drive to the new one using dd_rescue. Install the new drive in the TiVo and make sure it boots - who knows, it might even fix the problem. Then you can do whatever you want to one or the other of the drives to try to get things working.


I'm curious to see what the results of trying steve614's suggestion will be, but on the subject of swapping to the alternate partitions...

If it's the original drive, that can be done. If it's a bigger drive where MFS Live was used (and probably WinMFS as well), I'm not sure those alternate partitions were ever filled with sofware.

Assuming they're viable, the easiest way is to hook the drive up to a PC, run WinMFS, check mfsinfo to find out if you're booting from 2,3, and 4, or from 5, 6, and 7, and then use the fix boot feature to change that.

Option 1 sets it to partitions 2, 3, and 4 (no matter which way it was set before), and Option 2 sets it to 5, 6, and 7.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

unitron said:


> I'm curious to see what the results of trying steve614's suggestion will be, but on the subject of swapping to the alternate partitions...
> 
> If it's the original drive, that can be done. If it's a bigger drive where MFS Live was used (and probably WinMFS as well), I'm not sure those alternate partitions were ever filled with sofware.


They are if a software upgrade ever came down the line. I don't whether MFS_Live or Win_MFS copy the alternate partitions, but I would expect they would. I've never checked. I suppose it is possible one or both utilities might only copy the active partitions, but there's really no reason to do this. If an upgrade came down the pipe after the upgrade to the new drive, the question is moot, however. The upgrade process *always* copies the new software to the alternate partitions, setting the bootpage to the alternates and then rebooting after the upgrade is complete.



unitron said:


> Assuming they're viable, the easiest way is to hook the drive up to a PC, run WinMFS, check mfsinfo to find out if you're booting from 2,3, and 4, or from 5, 6, and 7, and then use the fix boot feature to change that.


Partitions 2 and 5 haven't been used for a rather long time. Note also it doesn't have to be 3/4 and 6/7. It can be 3/7 and 6/4. It also doesn't have to be 3, 4, 6, and 7. As long as bootpage points to valid kernel and root partitions, the system can boot.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

unitron said:


> I'm curious to see what the results of trying steve614's suggestion will be.


Note my edited post. The OP said he tried to access the NPL via web browser in his first post, and it never appeared.

OP: Did you let the browser time out before closing the window? Have you tried accessing the NPL via web browser multiple times?

If you can't access the NPL via web browser, none of the other methods will work either.


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## Uncle_Steve (Jul 23, 2004)

steve614 said:


> Note my edited post. The OP said he tried to access the NPL via web browser in his first post, and it never appeared.
> 
> OP: Did you let the browser time out before closing the window? Have you tried accessing the NPL via web browser multiple times?
> 
> If you can't access the NPL via web browser, none of the other methods will work either.


The second thing I tried after kmttg failed was firefox. After a minute or so, it displayed a blank screen. I have also tried chrome and ie with similar results. I've played with curl and actually gotten partial NPL results, but that's not working this morning for some reason. I'll try rebooting the Tivo and see what happens. It could be user error. I'm strictly an amateur when it comes to using curl.


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## Uncle_Steve (Jul 23, 2004)

Newegg had the Western Digital AV-GP WD10EURS on sale for $55. So I went ahead and bought one.

Now the question is, "What's the best way to replace the existing drive?"

I'd really prefer to keep my recordings, season passes, etc.

Since my current tivo drive is an upgrade itself, does that limit my options? I recall in "olden" days, one always had to copy from the original tivo drive.

I still have the original drive. So if I have to, I can go that route.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Uncle_Steve said:


> Newegg had the Western Digital AV-GP WD10EURS on sale for $55. So I went ahead and bought one.
> 
> Now the question is, "What's the best way to replace the existing drive?"
> 
> ...


What size is your current replacement drive?

How many partitions are on it?

How many partitions are on the original?


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Uncle_Steve said:


> Newegg had the Western Digital AV-GP WD10EURS on sale for $55. So I went ahead and bought one.
> 
> Now the question is, "What's the best way to replace the existing drive?"
> 
> ...


The easiest route may be comer's JMFS software.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=462179
It looks like you got a 1TB hard drive. I know for a fact that JMFS works for a 2TB hard drive, I would think it would also work for a 1TB.
Only caveat is you have to use WinMFS to do the 'supersize' option.
Just follow the steps.

ETA: This won't work if your original drive is toast, or you no longer have it available.


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## Uncle_Steve (Jul 23, 2004)

Apparently just the threat of replacing the hdd fixed the problem. Yesterday I connected to the Tivo web page, logged in as tivo, and can now see the NPL!?

I tried kmttg. It also works. Tivo desktop also works. Everything still works this morning.

Well, I know I'll lose my hacker badge, but I'm leaving it alone. I'd love to know what was wrong and what fixed it.


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## Darr247 (Mar 21, 2010)

Is there any way to force a restart of the HTTP(S) server without rebooting the tivo?

It's ridiculous having to wait 10-15 minutes for the tivo to come back up just so the web server portion of its software can be restarted.

I would have no problem removing the drive to connect to my linux box if tivo mounts root read-only, as I think I saw said earlier. Besides the trayless front SATA bay, I could use a USB SATA adapter, or even open the case and mount the HDD inside temporarily, if need be... to e.g. alter a script or add one somewhere.

I can't believe that server restart functionality isn't in the menus anywhere already.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Uncle_Steve said:


> Apparently just the threat of replacing the hdd fixed the problem. Yesterday I connected to the Tivo web page, logged in as tivo, and can now see the NPL!?
> 
> I tried kmttg. It also works. Tivo desktop also works. Everything still works this morning.
> 
> Well, I know I'll lose my hacker badge, but I'm leaving it alone. I'd love to know what was wrong and what fixed it.


I went back and re-read the first page of this thread because I'd forgotten the details (not to mention the big picture).

Since everything about the TiVo seemed to work fine except for getting all of the list of the shows in the NPL over to the computer, could it have been the computer choking on it somehow? RAM going bad or something?

Anyway, you should probably go ahead and upgrade the hard drive anyway, since it's got some mileage on it now.


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## 9dollor (Sep 14, 2011)

Darr247 said:


> Is there any way to force a restart of the HTTP(S) server without rebooting the tivo?
> 
> It's ridiculous having to wait 10-15 minutes for the tivo to come back up just so the web server portion of its software can be restarted.
> 
> ...


The same to me ,i am waiting for your advice ,thanks.


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