# Help needed with Tivowebplus crash



## pipkato (Jun 11, 2006)

My Tivowebplus 1.2.1 seems to have crashed, and I'm not sure how to sort it out. I 'Restarted' from the PC menu and although my Tivo seems fine, I can no longer access Tivowebplus. I get the error message 'cannot connect to remote server'. Should I just 'reinstall or can I 'repair' the Tivowebplus installation? Here's the full story:

I'm a newbie who has just recently finished a major upgrade of my UK Tivo with the following:

A second larger hard dsk
CacheCard and latest drivers
Tivowebplus 1.2.1
TyTool 10r4

With help from this forum verything worked fine. I could Ping, Telnet, and FTP to the Tivo, make changes using Tivowebplus, and I also used TyTool to successfully transfer files to my Windows PC.

But last evening I ran into my first problem with Tivowebplus. I accessed my Tivo with Tivowebplus while it was recording a programme.The menu system at first seemed fine, but when I tried to access certain elements I got a big chunk of text at the top of the page, with a 'cut here' at the top and bottom of the text. This text was followed by what seemed to be part of the normal menu.

I can't remember exactly what it said. I think it was saying that it could not access the particular service/command. It didn't crash Tivowebplus, or affect my Tivo recording, but repeated attempts produced the same error screen. I searched for help on Google and as a result used Tivowebplus to do a complete restart of my Tivo. After this I didn't risk Tivowebplus again, since I was recording programmes and didn't want to jeopardise anything. My has Tivo continued to work fine.

Now this morning when I try to access Tivowebplus I get the message 'Could not connect to remote server'. But I can Ping, Telnet, and FTP to it okay. And TyTool appears to work fine too although I haven't extracted any programmes today.

I've tried running the command 'tivoweb console' from the Tivowebplus directory and get the message "command not found". I tried to use the 'ls' command but that does not appear to be anywhere in my installation.

I'm pretty new to all this and would appreciate some pointers as to what to try next, without bringing the whole house down around my ears. I don't know if I can just 'reinstall' Tivowebplus, or 'repair' the existing installation.  The folder and all the files are there when I FTP to the Tivo.

Thanks.


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## 6022tivo (Oct 29, 2002)

TivoWeb+ kinda crashes a lot when I used it. Also caused screen slow downs whilst accessing it. Stick to standard TiVoweb, the + version does not offer anything new for us Series 1 users.


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## pipkato (Jun 11, 2006)

Thanks very much for that advice and I may indeed give Tivoweb a whirl. But if I decide to stick with Tivoweb+ for the moment, do you know if I can just delete the directory on the Tivo and reinstall or is there a more complicated procedure involved?


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## john1980 (Jun 17, 2004)

pipkato said:


> Thanks very much for that advice and I may indeed give Tivoweb a whirl. But if I decide to stick with Tivoweb+ for the moment, do you know if I can just delete the directory on the Tivo and reinstall or is there a more complicated procedure involved?


I would have to say that the latest version of TWP is 100% stable (it is developed and built on two series 1 units - a UK v2.5.5 and a US v3.0). There are instructions and the latest version here. If you have any trouble, post (or email me) the /var/log/tivoweb.log file.


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## pipkato (Jun 11, 2006)

I have to thank John 1980 for helping me get Tivowebplus running again. I had tried the command 'Tivoweb console' from within the Tivoweb directory, but didn't realise until John filled me in that I had to use a ./ command in Linux to get it to run properly.

So the error message I was getting 'command not found' was simply because I was not using the correct path with the command. Anyway as soon as I corrected this Tivowebplus booted again.

My next step is to try John's 1.2.3 upgrade which by all accounts is quite an improvement on my 1.2.1 version.

Thanks for all your help John.


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## beara (Aug 23, 2002)

Moving this thread along a litte, I'm running TWP 1.0 which was installed when my hard disk in my Tivo1 crashed and I had to restore on a new 200gb drive from my backup of Tivo2, using the LBA48 kernel. TWP now stops on a regular basis.

Looking at John1980's post and following the link it seems TWP has moved on, but I've got a couple of problems in that when TWP was installed for me (before I learnt to tweak...) it was placed in /var/local/ not /var/hack. the other glitch is that I rin tivoftpd, not mfs_ftp. Will I need to change the install procedure?


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## john1980 (Jun 17, 2004)

beara said:


> I've got a couple of problems in that when TWP was installed for me (before I learnt to tweak...) it was placed in /var/local/ not /var/hack. the other glitch is that I rin tivoftpd, not mfs_ftp. Will I need to change the install procedure?


It does not matter where you install it... if you wish to keep it in /var/local then just replace the "cd /var/hack" command with "cd /var/local".

MFS-FTP is actually a differnet package to tivoftpd (which is the standard ftp daemon that most people have running). The package will work perfectly fine without MFS-FTP installed.


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## beara (Aug 23, 2002)

Thanks John, got as far as the directory being created and filled, but the tivo remains resolutely flaky with telnet dropping out and ftp being very unstable. I've had no problems with either tivo for the last 4 years so the only difference has to be the large disk and the LBA48 kernel. When I picked the kernel to install there wasn't an option for the scenium series 1 so I think I picked the directTivo series 1 as it was the olny series 1 option..... could it be this I wonder?


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## beara (Aug 23, 2002)

Right, here's my last telnet session with the latest version...

bash-2.02# cd /var/local
bash-2.02#
<lus-oztivo-060715.tgz;cpio -idu -H tar <tivowebplus-oztivo-060715.tar
2688 blocks
bash-2.02#
bash-2.02# cd TivoWebPlus
bash-2.02#
bash-2.02# ./tivoweb
./tivoweb: ps: command not found
bash-2.02#
bash-2.02#

I can see tivoweb there but can't seem to start it... and line 3 was complete but cut off as I went wider...


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## john1980 (Jun 17, 2004)

beara said:


> bash-2.02# ./tivoweb
> ./tivoweb: ps: command not found


This is because you do not have a 'ps' binary installed. This is not a big issue (but I will fix the script to check for the binary in future), and it should have still started the service.


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## john1980 (Jun 17, 2004)

beara said:


> Thanks John, got as far as the directory being created and filled, but the tivo remains resolutely flaky with telnet dropping out and ftp being very unstable. I've had no problems with either tivo for the last 4 years so the only difference has to be the large disk and the LBA48 kernel. When I picked the kernel to install there wasn't an option for the scenium series 1 so I think I picked the directTivo series 1 as it was the olny series 1 option..... could it be this I wonder?


I have a Scenium (UK v2.5.5) and installed the LBA kernel. If you wish to compare, mine was 869,376 bytes in size, and a 'uname -a' responds with the following information:

Version 2.1.24-TiVo-2.5
Compile #14 Wed Oct 8 12:06:25 MDT 2003


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## AndyP (Mar 6, 2002)

john1980 said:


> This is because you do not have a 'ps' binary installed. This is not a big issue (but I will fix the script to check for the binary in future), and it should have still started the service.


I have the same problem. Have just spent a fruitless 30 mins trying to mess with the script, but my Unix is very rusty and the Tivo doesn't seem to have most of the commands I need !


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## john1980 (Jun 17, 2004)

AndyP said:


> I have the same problem. Have just spent a fruitless 30 mins trying to mess with the script, but my Unix is very rusty and the Tivo doesn't seem to have most of the commands I need !


060717 will be published in 7 hours and will check for the 'ps' binary before using it. Depending on the size of the two ps binaries (ppc & mips) I may include them in the distribution, or may just provide a warning message with a link on where to find them. The service will still be starting, just ignore the error and use the new update facility (found under the more... menu) to update the package when I've released it.


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## beara (Aug 23, 2002)

Thanks John, really useful. I've now got to find my startup script - doesn't seem to be where I thought it would be - so that your version loads instead of the version 1 which seems to load first. The kernel was the same so it can't be that. I've noticed both Tivos keep dropping off telnet, ftp and the ToDo widgets lose the connection as well. I'm beginning to suspect that it's probably a hub or switch instead, rather than the Tivos...

John, as an aside, I went to edit tivoweb.cfg to change the port number and it was empty. Is that how it should be? I also went searching for the rc.sysinit.author file to change the startup and it just says this...

# Call the Tivo Package Manager Startup Scripts
/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.tpm


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## AndyP (Mar 6, 2002)

john1980 said:


> 060717 will be published in 7 hours and will check for the 'ps' binary before using it. Depending on the size of the two ps binaries (ppc & mips) I may include them in the distribution, or may just provide a warning message with a link on where to find them. The service will still be starting, just ignore the error and use the new update facility (found under the more... menu) to update the package when I've released it.


Brilliant, worked first time, thanks very much. :up:


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## pipkato (Jun 11, 2006)

John, 
I'd like to add my thanks too.

As you said v1.2.3 was running all the time and when I typed './tivoweb console' although I still got the error the new version continued to load. Now I just need to understand what all the extra modules do. Is that explained somewhere?
R.


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## john1980 (Jun 17, 2004)

beara said:


> John, as an aside, I went to edit tivoweb.cfg to change the port number and it was empty. Is that how it should be? I also went searching for the rc.sysinit.author file to change the startup and it just says this...
> 
> # Call the Tivo Package Manager Startup Scripts
> /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.tpm


Hmm... the tivoweb.cfg file should not be empty. Try "cat /var/hack/TivoWebPlus/tivoweb.cfg".

The Tivo Package Manager (TPM) startup scripts were something that was started when TWP was first introduced... it is a really good idea, but never really took off and TWP was the only package that I know of that used it. You are probably pretty safe in commenting out that line and adding one beneath it containing:

/var/hack/TivoWebPlus/tivoweb


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## rondun (Jan 24, 2006)

Sorry to jump in on this thread but it seems the most relevant.

I've just recently begun hacking my tivo and have worked my way up from TW 1.9.4 -> TWP 1.2.1 -> TWP 1.2.3-060710 (thanks john!).
All three gave their fair share of crashes, but i think this was down to my 'exploring' trying to do too much too quickly.

But the problem i have with 1.2.3 (which I like best!) is that after about 24-48 hours of it running all i get is a blank screen with "Done" at the bottom when i try to load it.

The address is right, but there is nothing there. It is still running because if I try "tivoweb console" from telnet I get "couldn't open socket: address already in use"
There are no other instances of tw running, and its the only one in the .author file.
I've replicated this with firefox and IE on different computers.
The only way to make it work is to reboot the tivo - which i don't really like - is there a way to stop tivoweb from the telnet prompt?



john1980 said:


> 060717 will be published in 7 hours


Now installed - will report back!

Ron


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## john1980 (Jun 17, 2004)

rondun said:


> But the problem i have with 1.2.3 (which I like best!) is that after about 24-48 hours of it running all i get is a blank screen with "Done" at the bottom when i try to load it.


This is rather odd... you can check the /var/log/tivoweb.log file for any error messages.



rondun said:


> The only way to make it work is to reboot the tivo - which i don't really like - is there a way to stop tivoweb from the telnet prompt?


Yup... you can use 'tivoweb stop' and then 'tivoweb start', or 'tivoweb restart' and there is a 'tivoweb status' to report the status of the service. It should be noted that all this does is automate a connection to the server, so if you are unable to connect to http://tivo/restart then it is likely to timeout and report that it was unable to shutdown the service.

The log file is probably the best source for what could be going wrong.


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