# Phone connection problems



## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi. First time post. My TiVo is playing up. I have a LT Sub and a 250GB HD. I don't have an network card.

The TiVo has stopped making it's normal daily call. When it says it's next scheduled to dial (Next Scheduled Call) nothing happens. 

Also, if I try to force it to call (Make Daily Call Now) it'll fail over and over until I turn the power off at the mains and back on again. Is my modem on the blink or the TiVo? Any advice would be great. Thanks.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Have you tried rebooting a couple of times firstly with pulling out the plug at Starting Up and waiting a couple of minutes before reconnecting and then again via the System Reset menus but not pulling the plug at starting up?

Failing that you will need to rerun Guided Setup to a different hardware platform like Aerial only and different postcode and wait for that to finish. Then reboot the machine again and rerun Guided Setup back to your original hardware platform and postcode.

The problem is some form of database corruption that seems to have been affecting a few users in the last couple of months.


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## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

Ricky - your problem does sound more like a hardware issue rather than database corruption (which shows it's symtoms AFTER the call has been made - during indexing). Can you give any more information about how the call fails? Any messages shown?

What about the phone connection itself - have you had ADSL installed recently and the TiVo phone cord doesn't go into a splitter?

There are ways to display TiVo's logs on the screen using 'back door codes', which we might need to employ to show what's happening when TiVo tries to make the call.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

If your modem has blown due to a lightning spike then you can get a Cachecard to do the daily call and also enjoy the benefits of a networked Tivo with Tivoweb.

The Cachecard can be had for as little as £74 on Ebay and installation instructions are to be found at www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo

However there may be nothing wrong with the modem and rerunning Guided Setup to a different hardware platform (eg just aerial channels) and postcode and then back again would be my first port of call. Also have you had broadband installed as Colin says?


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

Does "Make a test call" succeed? That would validate the modem and connection and suggest a problem with the database.

Have you tried your landline is working properly making and receiving calls?


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Thanks for all your replies. Still got the same problem. 

AMc: Making a test call gets the same old failed message unless I pull the plug first. The message in full is Failed:Unknown Error. 

Pete77: I've tried repeating Guided Setup but that's not fixed the problem either. Have always had ADSL and all my phone jacks have splitters. 

The idea of viewing the back door codes might be good, I'd like to know what the TiVo is doing. I'd rather not shell out for a cache card just yet if I can avoid it.


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Update: Something else weird, when I pull the plug and then force a daily call the TiVo retains the original 'Next Scheduled Call' time slot. Of course this fails because the plug won't have been pulled first. I thought forcing an update would change the next call to say 24H later?


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi. I've been up most of the night tinkering. Meant to say that I have the same phone connection issues with Guided Setup too. Unless I pull the plug before starting TiVo refuses to connect and therefore I can't continue with GS.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

rickynumber18 said:


> Hi. I've been up most of the night tinkering. Meant to say that I have the same phone connection issues with Guided Setup too. Unless I pull the plug before starting TiVo refuses to connect and therefore I can't continue with GS.


How long have you had the larger hard drive for and where did it come from? Did you install the Tivo operating system on the larger hard drive yourself and if so what instructions did you follow? Did you follow www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo for instance and its Large Hard Drive Upgrade guide?

I have to say that not having a Cachecard on the grounds of cost is a very false economy indeed when you already have a large hard drive in the machine. The Cachecard with 512MB of RAM stops the machine slowing down with more recordings and also gives you all the very substantial benefits of TivoWeb and all the extra utilities that has plus accessing your Tivo remotely over the internet at work or from overseas.

The following web links give you an idea of all the extra functionality that is available with a Cachecard:-

http://tivo.lightn.org/

www.ljay.org.uk/tivoweb/

www.garysargent.co.uk/tivo/hacking.htm

www.beaconhill.plus.com/TiVo/tivohacks.htm

http://www.arielbusiness.pwp.blueyo.../TiVo/HowTo.htm

http://alt.org/wiki/index.php/TiVoWeb Modules

http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com

http://tivo.stevejenkins.com/network_cd.html

http://thomson.tivo.googlepages.com/tivowebplus

http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/?search=oztivo&x=0&y=0

www.tivohackman.com

http://www.planetbuilders.org/tivo/...rade_diary.html


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## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

rickynumber18 said:


> The idea of viewing the back door codes might be good


OK - The full-on guide is here but to distill out what you want:



Backdoor Code Guide said:


> 1. Enabling Backdoor Mode
> The Backdoor mode can be entered using the remote. This is done by doing a "Browse By Name" or "Search by Title" or wherever you can get to the Ouija screen. Enter "B D 2 5" and press Thumbs Up (that's a space between each character). After entering this code, you will see "Backdoors Enabled!" appear briefly, and it will return to Tivo Central. You can verify that backdoors are on in the System Information screen.
> 
> Clear-Enter-Clear Thumbs-Up - Will allow you to access the TiVo's log files on your TV screen. Page up and page down allow you to move through the log information and the right arrow you to move through the log files. Use the left arrow key to get back out to the normal TiVo menus. Thumbs up and Thumbs down will take you to the top of bottom of whatever log is on screen.
> ...


I *believe* that 'tvlog' is the one you want - it will give descriptions of what it's trying to do during the call. Let us know what messages you're seeing.


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi Pete, Thanks for your message. I bought the TiVo from eBay a while ago (like most people now days). The person I bought it from installed the larger hard drive from early on and also had a cache card installed which he pulled before the sale. He removed the drivers and software too. No problems until last week really. 

I may get a card but not until I'm next in the US (early April) as they're half the price out there for the same card. Although my TiVo is no where near my modem/router, miles in fact. Are there any gizmos to hook up to the ethernet cable to pick up my connection?


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Thanks Colin. I'll wait until my next scheduled call tonight to see what it does and then I'll take a look at the log and come back to you.


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## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

Ricky - there are wireless bridges that can be used if you've got wireless, or even those 'power plug' affairs that use the electricity cabling between two points.

I've got a wireless bridge which works faultlessly. The only downside was that the wireless signal interferes with my IR remote extender, making it useless.


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

Dim and distant bell rings....
My brother's Tivo was sold with an upgraded drive. Unfortunately the original upgrader had messed up the swap file settings and this resulted in exactly the bahaviour you have - you need to pull the plug before the call or it fails - probably because the small swap space available is full or Tivo can't get the whole download into it before it completes the call.

My guess is your vendor either never noticed the problem as the calls were cached on the card (guess) or has goofed in some way when removing the drivers.

You'll need someone of blindlemon's level to determine if you can reinitialise a larger swap drive without pulling the drive and connecting it to a PC.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

The hazards of buying on Ebay.......................................


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

The next update is at 3.17am so we'll see what happens if it fails, and I'm sure it will!! I'll use the backdoor code to find out what the log says. Be back in the morning.

By the way, what is a "blindlemon"? And how do I make contact?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

rickynumber18 said:


> what is a "blindlemon"?


Good question 



rickynumber18 said:


> how do I make contact?


I'm here 

Check the kernel log via the backdoors and see whether the swapfile is being initialised at startup (you may need to reboot). If it isn't then I'm afraid you will have to pull the drive. If your swap is being initialised you should see something like the following in the log:-

```
Jan 1 00:00:39 (none) kernel: Activating swap partitions 
Jan 1 00:00:39 (none) kernel: Adding Swap: 130044k swap-space (priority -1)
```


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi Blindlemon, are you like the wizard master of TiVo? Hi also to AMc, Pete and Colin. 

Okay, typically my TiVo did a perfect update last night for the first time in at least 2 weeks. Probably 'cos it knew that after the night before I was gonna take a axe to it. So I'll have to come back to you on the error code next time it fails.

Blindlemon, regarding the 'kernel'. I can't find it. I rebooted via three thumbs down etc (is that what you meant?). I opened the back door and then brought up the data page via C-E-C-Tup and couldn't see kernel anywhere. I even got the Mrs to double check. Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks to you all!!


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Once you are at the logs, press right-arrow a few times to view each log in turn. Kernel will be about the 3rd or 4th.


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hello again. Well you were right. The 2nd string is showing an error. 

It reads: Unable to find swap-space signature.

There's a whole host of other weird messages in there too, about modem errors and 'This one's (29) goin' down'. Who writes this stuff?

Anyway, back to the swap-space signature. If I pull the drive, which I can do (have updated Sky+ etc) and hook up to my PC as a secondary drive what do I do from there or is it too complicated?

Thanks!


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Boot from the LBA48 CD and run copykern against the drive, specifying the port to which it is attached (hda, hdb, hdc etc.) and choosing kernel option 1.

That should copy the updated LBA48 kernel (which you may already have) and correctly initialise the signatuure on the swap partition.

Once you have the TiVo drive in your PC it's a 5 minute job - but be sure you don't allow the PC to boot into Windows with the TiVo drive attached


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Thanks Blindlemon. 

I'm off out in a while so as soon as I get home this afternoon I'll do what you've said. I'll hook up the TiVo drive as the master and disconnect the PC drive completely so there's no chance of any accidents! I'll come back to you and let you know how I get on.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Once you have the TiVo drive in your PC it's a 5 minute job - but be sure you don't allow the PC to boot into Windows with the TiVo drive attached


But won't the drive be corrupted due to having made recordings with the incorrect kernel up to this point and so need reformatting totally and starting from scratch?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Not necessarily. 

a) we don't know if the LBA48 kernel is installed or not and
b) even if it isn't, corruption can't occur until the old kernel tries to write past the 137gb mark. 

As the OP hasn't mentioned corruption or odd behaviour other than a failing daily call, my assumption is that the LBA48 kernel is probably installed but that the swapfile was not initialised correctly.


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hello again. I thought I'd give it a whirl as I'm not going out 'till later. Not having much luck though.

I burned the ISO file to a CD and swapped the drives over making the TiVo drive the master. I attempted to boot from the CD and the PC said it wasn't a bootable disk, insert another. I then tried burning another copy making it a bootable disk. This time it gave me the A prompt and I can view the ISO file on the D (CD) drive but how do I run it? /Run doesn't work.

Thanks for the other feedback. My TiVo has only one other strange habit. It occasionally like to reboot the system in the middle of a programme we're watching. It like there's a point in a recording where it gets stuck. Once it's rebooted we can skip to the end of the prog' and go back but we'll never be able to start at the beginning and get past the "block"? Mud?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Sounds like you didn't burn the iso to CD properly. Have you tried just double-clicking it?


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Yes, but Windows doesn't know what to do with it? It asks me if I need to go on the web to locate some software to open it.


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi Blindlemon. I've given up for now. I'm just wasting blank discs. I tried burning the ISO to a CD-R again and I can see that it's on the CD but when I use it to boot the PC tells me that it's not a bootable disk, insert another. Does the disk need a certain name for the PC to see it?

Perhaps this is beyond my capability!? Thanks for all your help anyway.


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## verses (Nov 6, 2002)

ISO files are a bit like zip files, in that they contain lots of other files. When the ISO is correctly burnt to the CD, the files it contains should be on the CD and not the ISO file itself.

What software are you using to burn the ISO? If you tell us what CD writing software/version you have someone here should be able to guide you through the ISO burning process.

Cheers,

Ian


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi Ian. Just got back in. Thanks for your message. I'm using Nero, I tried creating a data disc, a boot disc and a few others but no luck. As I said earlier I can't just double click on it as Blindlemon has suggested. Any help would be great. Thanks.


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## Raisltin Majere (Mar 13, 2004)

Is there a burn image option? I have nero on my PC (I'm on the laptop now, so can't check myself) and am pretty sure I have that option.

If it's the full version of nero, double clicking will open nero burning rom. I don't think OEM versions have this though


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi. There is a burn image option within Nero Ahead. Is that what I need to do?


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## Raisltin Majere (Mar 13, 2004)

Yeah. ISOs are image files.

Can't remember off the top of my head, but I would have though you just select that option and then browse to the file you want to burn


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

rickynumber18 said:


> Hi. There is a burn image option within Nero Ahead. Is that what I need to do?


Yes that's the one.


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

I think its time for me to quit!! I managed to create the ISO file via Nero (thanks to all) but when I hook my TiVo drive up to my PC it won't do what it's supposed to. 

I followed the instructions to the letter (TiVo to secondary master etc) and I either get 'can't find the device' (hdc) or 'bad block signature or address 0x0'. Everything works a treat until the final 'Y' and then I get these messages. 

I think it'll be better to live with the fault that spend anymore time on this. Thanks to everyone for their help but I'm waving the white flag. The TiVo wins this round.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

What make is the drive? If it's a Maxtor then I guess it might be locked.


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi Blindlemon, yes you're right again. It is a Maxtor. Does that mean that I can't do what you suggested or is there a work-around? 

The TiVo managed to do it's update again last night - it's weird. Since I opened and closed the backdoor the other day it's working okay. The swap file is still in error. 

Thanks for all your help, Richard.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

If the drive is a Maxtor then it could possibly be locked by the TiVo, in which case it will show up as 10mb in your PC and copykern won't be able to address the root or swap partitions.

Try unlocking it with DiskUtil before rebooting from the LBA48 CD and running copykern.


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi. Could anyone tell me how to run the DiskUtil provided by Blindlemon? It doesn't boot in its own right so I'm not sure what to do with the .exe file. Any advise would be great. Thanks.


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hello again. 

Stike the last message. After some research on Blindlemon's website (tivoheaven) I realised that he's sent me the non-boot version of Disk Untilities (do you think he was testing me?). Once I'd downloaded the correct version it worked a treat (not sure what the other version would be for!!). 

Once I'd finally managed to unlock my Maxtor drive the Copy Kern file worked a treat. My swap file is now showing correctly. Hopefully this'll finally fix my dial up issue. 

Thanks to EVERYONE for your help and support.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

The other version is useful if you have a bootable floppy disk - then you just copy the .exe to the floppy and run it from there


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Now you tell me! Only joshing honest, I fathomed that it didn't have a boot file so went hunting and found the other version. I'll let you know if it did the trick when it tries to update tomorrow AM.


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi Bindlemon, my TiVo has been downloading data just fine for the last few days. Hopefully that's the end of that problem. Cheers.


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