# problem with netgear readyshare storage



## hershey4 (May 31, 2006)

Last year I set up a new Netgear router with my S2. It had the "Tivo enabled storage" feature discussed here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=481538

I had offloaded a bunch of tivo shows from the S2 to Tivo Desktop and then I copied them from the PC's "Tivo Recordings" folder to a Tivo folder on the network drive.

On the DVR in Now Playing there is a new bullet item for "Videos on ReadyDNLA WNDR3800. I could navigate to the Tivo folder and see all my .Tivo shows. When I hit play, I believe it started a transfer or maybe a stream, but all was well with that. It was a good way to archive some recordings and access them easily.

Now fast forward to today. I moved and no longer have the S2. I now have a Premiere-4 and a mini and Moca network too. I hooked up the same network drive to the router and the same menu item and the same Tivo folders are accessible. So far so good. Problem is that new .Tivo files that I have put in that folder from my PC are not visible. (Earlier I had to offload some MyShows to DeskTop because my new Premier was busted and needed to be replaced. When I got the new Premier setup I wanted to watch them via the network drive and I couldn't see them. )

It's almost as if a Refresh needs to occur on something or other. On my PC I cleaned up some old folders on that drive. Via the DVR, I can still see the old folders in the ReadyShare drive.

Scratching my head here... how to refresh the view. disconnecting and reconnecting the USB drive does not have an effect.

I'm sure there is a simple solution but can't think of it...


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Do you still have the same Media Access Key on your account, and TiVos, and PC as back during the S2 era?


Something you could try, if it'll let you, is to put a shortcut to that drive on the router (or to the folder on the drive on the router) into your PC's My TiVo Recordings folder.

Then the TiVo should be able to see the PC in its Now Playing List down near the bottom, where it will show up as a folder, and inside that folder should be the folder shortcutted to, and inside that should be the shows.

One other thing, give everything on your home network that doesn't leave the house a fixed IP address, and adjust the router's DHCP pool not to include any of those addresses.

Might help, can't hurt.


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## hershey4 (May 31, 2006)

unitron said:


> Do you still have the same Media Access Key on your account, and TiVos, and PC as back during the S2 era?


yes



unitron said:


> Something you could try, if it'll let you, is to put a shortcut to that drive on the router (or to the folder on the drive on the router) into your PC's My TiVo Recordings folder.
> 
> Then the TiVo should be able to see the PC in its Now Playing List down near the bottom, where it will show up as a folder, and inside that folder should be the folder shortcutted to, and inside that should be the shows.


Tried that, that only helped Tivo Desktop see the ones on the Network drive.

Tivo doesn't see the PC...just the network drive. That reminds me, however, that my old setup had the S2 seeing the PC. Under Music and Photos I could browse to the PC's folders. Certain ones I think... I forget how that got set up. But now when I click Music & Photos on the P4, I am connected to the stale network drive folders.



unitron said:


> One other thing, give everything on your home network that doesn't leave the house a fixed IP address, and adjust the router's DHCP pool not to include any of those addresses.
> 
> Might help, can't hurt.


I have the P4 and the mini's ip addresses "reserved" if that's what you mean. Not sure what a DHCP pool is. In LAN setup I see p4,mini and my printer with _reserved _addresses. In Attached devices I see P4 and mini as wired and a handful of wireless devices. I don't see the network drive other than in the ReadyShare page and the Enable Tivo Support.

The router settings were unchanged when I moved and hooked it up here. everything stayed the same which was very convenient. But even so, maybe I'll fiddle around in the router ReadyShare stuff and remove it and re-add it if I can remember how I did that.


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## hershey4 (May 31, 2006)

I tried re-initializing the network share and creating different mount points (i.e. share mount directly to the Tivo folder). Some peculiar results, but no success with seeing the 2 new .Tivo files. I found on the router there is a setting to "automatically scan for new files" which is checked.

I disconnected the drive from the router and put it on my PC to take a closer look. The 2 new .Tivo files are definitely there. Privs and sizes look good. I found a .ReadyDLNA folder with a log file of the startup and scanning. The only thing scanned for was music and videos -- no .Tivo files.

I read a router help popup (RTFP?) about Netgear/Tivo support, which referred me to a page in readynas.com, but the link was stale. However, that site has lots of interesting info. I think I will have to move my problem there. I don't believe my router is a ReadyNAS device though. What's the diff between ReadyNAS and ReadyDLNA.

BTW, the router's help popup mentioned a selection to Rescan Media Now to generate a fresh DB, but that selection does not exist. But if the DB only has music and videos, that wouldn't help anyhow.

Oh, in the readyNAS forums, someone had a similar but different problem. THere was mention of a recent Tivo update causing some compatibility problem. It was about ReadyTivo which I don't think I have, but still... the layers and spaghetti in action!!!

http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=76&t=72076&p=400615

I also have some very old archive non-Tivo things on that drive. I am going to relocate them to try to simplify this problem (and reduce the size of the scanning log). Maybe putting all the .Tivo files at the root level may help visibility. That is the default share mount point.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

hershey4 said:


> I tried re-initializing the network share and creating different mount points (i.e. share mount directly to the Tivo folder). Some peculiar results, but no success with seeing the 2 new .Tivo files. I found on the router there is a setting to "automatically scan for new files" which is checked.
> 
> I disconnected the drive from the router and put it on my PC to take a closer look. The 2 new .Tivo files are definitely there. Privs and sizes look good. I found a .ReadyDLNA folder with a log file of the startup and scanning. The only thing scanned for was music and videos -- no .Tivo files.
> 
> ...


I may have to do a lot of reading before I fully understand what you're saying that your problem is.

In the meantime, some of this will be worded for the benefit of future searchers as well.

That TiVo update they mention on the readynas forum may actually be the "expired cookie" bug that disabled TiVo Desktop on Feb 16, 2013.

A couple of TCF'ers beat TiVo to it finding out what the problem was and coming up with a workaround, but TiVo issued a patch that does the same thing

http://www.tivo.com/tivo-assets/exe/tivotogo/tivo-desktop-patch-setup.exe

and then later issued updates of the software on the TiVos themselves (which is where the boneheaded coding that caused the problem was actually located) to fix the problem.

Series 2s got updated from "b" to "c" (9 point something c point something) and Series 3s went from 11.0k to 11.0m

Any copying you did from TiVo to either PC or that drive hanging off of your router after the 16th of February, 2013 (or as I referred to it at the time, the Saint TiVo's Day massacre) may have been screwed up.

With TiVo Desktop running, or at least the TiVoServer.exe part of it, which uses either Bonjour or Beacon to make the PC visible to the TiVos on the same network, there should be a folder at the bottom of the Now Playing list on whatever TiVos are on the same account, use the same Media Access Key, and are on the same network--for example, if the router's IP address is set to 192.168.1.1 (a common default setting), anything in the house connected to it wirelessly or by wire and using an IP address between 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.254, inclusively, is on that same network.

That folder will have the name of the PC, but the contents of the folder will only be whatever .tivo files are in* the PC's My TiVo Recordings folder (and maybe .mpg files as well).

The .tivo files have to have been encoded with the same MAK as the one the TiVos and the TiVo Desktop installation are using.

I suppose it's possible for there to be more than one folder on the PC named My TiVo Recordings, but Desktop can only be set to use one of them at a time (and it really needs to be on an NTFS partition, because of the file size limit on FAT32 partitions that cuts everything off at about one hour and 55 minutes if it's a best quality analog cable recording).

*Actually, you can put shortcuts to other folders inside the MTR folder, and the TiVo will be able to see .tivo files inside those folders as well.

Those shortcuts can point to folders on other partitions on the same drive, folders on partitions on other drives connected to the PC, or in some cases folders on network attached drives (like my Buffalo LinkStation Pro) if Windows will let you create a short cut to it.

I haven't tried a short cut to a folder on a different PC (on the same network) to see if that works, because it's less messy to just be running Desktop on that PC as well.

So, for the TiVo to be able to see a .tivo file (a show), it has to be contained in the My TiVo Recordings folder which Desktop is set to use, or it has to appear to be in that folder via a shortcut in that folder to a folder where it really resides.

All that is to do with making .tivo files on the PC visible and accessible to the TiVo, and not .tivo files on the router-connected drive.


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## hershey4 (May 31, 2006)

Thanks for the lengthy explanation, but my problem is not at all related to the PC. It does give me a refresher though on my old setup. And now I remember why I disabled all those PC Tivo* services that were taking too much resources long ago. I just restarted them again and I now see "Now Playing on WendysPC". The whole idea of the network drive is that PC does not have to be in play.

In this picture, I highlighted the menu item that is not working correctly:












http://imgur.com/qEbrIUj


p.s. picture isn't showing in preview...hope it posts when live..


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## SNJpage1 (May 25, 2006)

I have the same router and had the same problem with my TivoHD not being able to see the network drive. I think it might have something to do with the fact that it is not really a NAS but a USB connected storage device.


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## hershey4 (May 31, 2006)

SNJpage1 said:


> I have the same router and had the same problem with my TivoHD not being able to see the network drive. I think it might have something to do with the fact that it is not really a NAS but a USB connected storage device.


That's not quite my problem. Tivo can see the drive, but folder contents are stale and the new .Tivo's are not being recognized. My old .Tivo's play just fine.

I just now registered for the ReadyNas forum where a lot of this is discussed, but of course it asked what ReadyNAS device I owned and I don't. ;-( May not be right forum but there is no ReadyDLNA forum.

Did you ever have yours working?

update: actually there is a ReadyDLNA subforum. Not very active. Read 2 related threads that are deadends. :-(


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

hershey4 said:


> That's not quite my problem. Tivo can see the drive, but folder contents are stale and the new .Tivo's are not being recognized. My old .Tivo's play just fine.
> 
> I just now registered for the ReadyNas forum where a lot of this is discussed, but of course it asked what ReadyNAS device I owned and I don't. ;-( May not be right forum but there is no ReadyDLNA forum.
> 
> ...


And you're sure the same MAK has been used on any and all relevant TiVos and other gear throughout the recording and copying of all of those .tivo files, old and new?

You could try copying from the router's drive back to an MTR folder on a PC and see if the TiVo can see all of them there, might provide a clue.


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## hershey4 (May 31, 2006)

yup definitely same mak. I've only ever had one mak. Tivo can play the two new files fine from the PC via Tivo Server.

I am pretty sure it has something to do with the ReadyDLNA side of it. I think it is not scanning/syncing for new .Tivo files. I decrypted one to a .mpg file and Tivo immediately displayed it -- on the network drive -- and began to play it.

If I don't get any feedback on the ReadyDLNA forums, I will have to open a Netgear ticket.

Thanks for trying to think of things to try.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

hershey4 said:


> yup definitely same mak. I've only ever had one mak. Tivo can play the two new files fine from the PC via Tivo Server.
> 
> I am pretty sure it has something to do with the ReadyDLNA side of it. I think it is not scanning/syncing for new .Tivo files. I decrypted one to a .mpg file and Tivo immediately displayed it -- on the network drive -- and began to play it.
> 
> ...


I'm always trying to think of things to try.

Or at least things to get away with.


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## hershey4 (May 31, 2006)

Just thought I would document how this problem ended. No help from Netgear. I had thought that maybe the upgraded firmware I got in May might have contained a Tivo-related regression, so I was going to pursue rolling back the firmware to the version I had before to see. They sent me a download link for it. But I was reluctant to do that so I tried some more experiments.

I started wondering if maybe the Premiere-4 format was somehow different than the Series 2 causing a difference in visibility for some weird reason. So I took one of my .Tivo files that the ReadyDLNA device could see that my S2 had recorded long ago and transferred it back to the Premiere4 via MyShows->Videos on ReadyDLNA. Then I executed the same steps that failed before ... pulled it off with Tivo Desktop ... put it back on the ReadyDLNA network drive (with another name). But now Tivo saw it just fine! hmmm... Okay, so retry that with a real Premiere-4 recorded recent show. Pull it off with Desktop... copy it to Network drive and see it via Tivo...transfer it to Tivo ...and watch it. No problemmmo!!

hmmmm.. so what was my problem if its all working now??? 

The only thing I can think of is that the two .Tivo files that I had originally pulled from Tivo were corrupted somehow. They were on my original Premiere-4 that was defective and in the process of being returned. I was getting a replacement from Tivo and I wanted to grab MyShows before I gave up the original box. Maybe they had some bogus bits flying around.

Either that or some software bug got fixed by some entity somehow in the interim. Those 2 files are still not showing up, but any new transfers are okay, so I guess I'm good to go from here on in and I'll just chalk it up to one of those mysteries of life.


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