# Series 3 YouTube app axed - the end of HME?



## davidblackledge

OMG OMG OMG!! TIVO, YOU'RE KILLING ME!

I mean... I guess I knew they were going to kill HME some day in the future (although in the back of my mind was clinging to the hope that they'd just update it and go all developer happy again), but this really feels like the end.

Today my TiVo HD had the announcement that both Amazon AND YOUTUBE will be GONE in 2 weeks for that model... that means those HME apps will be gone... that means two things.

1) Enter Webz will no longer work with YouTube unless somebody can figure out how to launch Flash with args from HME. Even then it's not going to be as pleasant an experience.

2) They have some sort of reason for getting rid of the YouTube HME app but keeping the Flash app.
2a) I'm hoping it's a maintenance issue (youtube api change coming soon or something) and they decided the small percentage of Series 3 users weren't worth updating the HME app.
2b) Otherwise these are just the first casualties as the HME cancer spreads, and it will all die very soon.

I'm going to try and email tivomargret out of desperation in hopes that she'll give me a straight answer... is it a waste of my time to do any more HME development? Am I throwing away money every month on a public HME server? How much time does HME have left, realistically? Is there a planned plug-pulling date?

The best answer I can hope for is "we're not maintaining HME apps any more so they'll go away slowly, and the next TiVo model won't even have HME." More likely "... and the next software release for Series 4 and above won't even have HME." Worst: "HME will be disabled for all models by the end of the year."

I figure they have no strong reason to shut down HME for Series 2 and 3, but that's at most 8% of my own subscribers... I don't think I want to spend the money and effort to support 42 TiVos when I could spend it learning some other lost cause I can work on for years with no support or users until it gets pulled out from under me. Or maybe just go back to my Commodore 64 and 1200 baud dialup modem. They still have BBS's out there, right? I used to make some pretty good PETSCII art.

In the meantime...
http://EnterWebz.MayNot.Work#Much.Longer

Just the other day I bought the domains HasTo.work, HaveTo.work, MayNot.work, and Cannot.work
My own personal Internet of frustration and desperation.
I'll attach any other waste-my-time-and-not-get-rich-quick schemes there.


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## wmcbrine

I did see something about YouTube changing their API. Hopefully that's the reason.

Certainly they won't be updating any HME apps. But, actually killing it would require an active effort, so (fingers crossed) maybe they won't bother.


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## nooneuknow

Don't all the special routers and NAS devices that "support" TiVo, in an advanced way, use HME?

Think the original "Cadillac" of routers for TiVo use, the Netgear WNDR3800 Premium Edition router: http://support.netgear.com/product/wndr3800, as one example of many.


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## wmcbrine

nooneuknow said:


> Don't all the special routers and NAS devices that "support" TiVo, in an advanced way, use HME?


That's HMO. AKA Calypso, among other terms.

HMO exchanges indexes in XML format, and media files. HME is a stateful protocol on top of HTTP, that lets you treat the TiVo as a kind of graphical terminal. "Apps and Games" (the older ones) are HME. "Photos and Music", and browsing TiVo Desktop or pyTivo shares, are HMO.


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## davidblackledge

wmcbrine said:


> I did see something about YouTube changing their API. Hopefully that's the reason.


(in case anybody is waiting with bated breath, wmcbrine's right... even Google TV is losing its YouTube app due to the API change (April 20th in that case)



davidblackledge said:


> 1) Enter Webz will no longer work with YouTube unless somebody can figure out how to launch Flash with args from HME. Even then it's not going to be as pleasant an experience.


Ok, I've done the following:
try to launch flash app as an app-as-stream... expecting it to fail, and it does fail:


Code:


RESOURCE_INFO(error, [email protected]{position=0, duration=0, start=0, speed=0, error.code=100, error.text=HTTP failure (Error reading header 0x50006).})

launch the flash app using a transition - I've seen it work from the EWz "hidden apps" pages, but now I did it on purpose... but I guess I wasn't paying that much attention. According to my notes, it launched the FLASH app when I did a transition to the HME app:


Code:


RECEIVER_TRANSITION(https://204.176.49.65:7287/youtube-1.0-2010.07.27_new-20130918_113530/1379529332/1409778709-1725138709/clientip_REDACTED/, 1, n_args=0, data_size=81)

Explicitly transition to the flash app, and pass it the args I send to the HME launcher:


Code:


RECEIVER_TRANSITION(http://apps.tivo.com:8078/flash/youtube_leanback/2012-04-09-1100/flashapp.xml?jumpTo=VIDEO&videoid=ArrWgQS51Yc, 1, n_args=2, data_size=22)

It just launched the YouTube flash app's normal startup page.
Trying again with a different arg (just "v=", no "jumpTo=" or "videoid=") per moyekj's discoveries had the same result.

Given the above discrepancy in my notes, I just tried another option... a transition to the HME app, passing in args.


Code:


RECEIVER_TRANSITION(https://204.176.49.65:7287/youtube-1.0-2010.07.27_new-20130918_113530/1379529332/1409778709-1725138709/clientip_REDACTED/?jumpTo=VIDEO&videoid=0NrVidsYOko, 1, n_args=2, data_size=0)

But that (and using "?v=...") also just launches the flash app's normal startup page.

So... no hope for YouTube in EWz without yet ANOTHER locally-installed helper app, even if it's just something that does an iPad-style connection and startup of the flash app with context. (else, an app that actually knows how to handle YouTube videos itself)


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## davidblackledge

I'm taking bets on whether the TiVo Bolt will come with no HME support.


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## wmcbrine

davidblackledge said:


> I'm taking bets on whether the TiVo Bolt will come with no HME support.


I'll bet against. I don't see any reason to drop it based on a new device, unless they also drop it for the other models that still get software updates. In some of the older models, HME seemed to be linked to the hardware, but I suspect that changed around the time of the Series 4.

Although they seldom communicate with us directly, TiVo does seem to be aware of third-party development, and they sometimes act like they care about not alienating customers who use, for example, pyTivo. Then again, sometimes they do things like killing the whole TiVoCast system with no notice. So, who knows?


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## davidblackledge

davidblackledge said:


> I'm taking bets on whether the TiVo Bolt will come with no HME support.





wmcbrine said:


> I'll bet against. I don't see any reason to drop it based on a new device, unless they also drop it for the other models that still get software updates.


Technically, I won this bet.

However, a small persistent uptick in Roamio activity the past week on my graph has me hopeful for a fix that might get applied to Bolts.


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## wmcbrine

davidblackledge said:


> Technically, I won this bet.


No, the Bolt came with HME support, and it works still. It's only the "Add an App" mechanism that's broken. Locally broadcast apps work.

Also, it looks like "Add an App" was just carelessly broken rather than intentionally disabled, since they didn't remove it from the menus.


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## tatergator1

davidblackledge said:


> However, a small persistent uptick in Roamio activity the past week on my graph has me hopeful for a fix that might get applied to Bolts.


TiVo has been pushing out 20.5.6-RC21 late this week to Roamios. The main fix is thought to be related to HDMI issues in the earlier release of 20.5.6, but fixing Add An App might also have been included.


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## davidblackledge

wmcbrine said:


> No, the Bolt came with HME support, and it works still. It's only the "Add an App" mechanism that's broken. Locally broadcast apps work.
> 
> Also, it looks like "Add an App" was just carelessly broken rather than intentionally disabled, since they didn't remove it from the menus.


Fine, we'll call it a draw. Certainly they showed zero attention to the feature since they didn't even do a basic test.


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