# TW and TWP installation problems



## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi. Me again. I installed a cache card and RAM this w/e just gone. No problems there at all. However I'm banging my head against the wall trying to get around a problem with the installation of TW and/or TWP V 1.3.1 / V2. I've read through stacks of threads but I can't find a problem quite quite like mine!!

I've tried using several FTP pieces of software and I'm having the same problem with them all. 

I've currently got SmartFTP installed. Which ever set of instructions I follow (Steve Conrad etc) at some point I'm told to copy/paste the TW tar.gz file to var /hacks -when I do this the FTP software (ALL of them) changes the string to .tar.gz.tar or .tar.tar - no matter what I do I can't edit them back to the correct string and therefore they won't open in Telnet. 

I tried to install TWP V1.3.1 and/or V2 instead and in this case the tar.gz file changed to .tgz - again, I can't rename the file and it won't operate as per the instructions in Telnet. 

I have checked that my FTP settings are Binary. Can anyone point me in the right direction or to a thread that'll help? Or at least to which of these 3 pieces of software I should be focusing on.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

I had no such problems but, as far as I can remember, I used the DOS prompt.

I followed these instructions and it worked first time; I think


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

rickynumber18 said:


> I've currently got SmartFTP installed. Which ever set of instructions I follow (Steve Conrad etc) at some point I'm told to copy/paste the TW tar.gz file to var /hacks -when I do this the FTP software (ALL of them) changes the string to .tar.gz.tar or .tar.tar - no matter what I do I can't edit them back to the correct string and therefore they won't open in Telnet.


An FTP program won't channge the file name. Are you sure you don't have file extensions hidden on yopur PC so what looks like foobar.tar is in fact foobar.tar.tar but Windows hides the extension?

Why can't you rename the file via telnet - what happens when you try?


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi. File extensions are not hidden on my PC. When I try to drag and drop the .tar.gz file it appears as .tar.gz.tar or tar.tar - I've tried every free FTP software out there and they all do the same thing. FTP refuses to change the name claiming I've caused a Syntax error!! I haven't tried in Telnet.

I've followed instruction after instruction including the one posted by CWaring and they just don't work. The instructions for unzipping in a folder on the C drive don't work either, Winzip refuses to unzip the files. 

Why is it that every instruction says it's easy when it's so flipping hard!!


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

The Syntax errors are mostly related to size issues. Example...

[23:35:29] SIZE tivoftpd.ppc
[23:35:29] 500 Syntax error, command unrecognized.
[23:35:29] SIZE not supported.
[23:35:29] MDTM tivoftpd.ppc
[23:35:29] 500 Syntax error, command unrecognized.
[23:35:29] Obtaining file information (size/date) from directory listing.


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

More Syntax errors.

[08:26:00] SYST
[08:26:00] 215 UNIX Type: L8
[08:26:00] Detected Server Type: UNIX
[08:26:00] FEAT
[08:26:00] 500 Syntax error, command unrecognized.
[08:26:00] TYPE I
[08:26:00] 200 Type set to I.
[08:26:00] REST 0


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## SilkMan (Feb 13, 2007)

I think the syntax errors aren't important (famous last words) - it is just that the tivo ftp daemon does not support all the features available. Your ftp client will use the error messages to determine what is and is not supported and work round the limitations appropriately. 

I use filezilla and have never seen the problems you describe. If you select the file in Windows Explorer and select properties off the pop-up menu, do you see the same filename? 

My latest version of TWP is in a file called "tivowebplus-v1.3.1-061018.tgz" which itself contains just a single tar - "tivowebplus-v1.3.1-061018.tar". Winzip v9 has no problem opening either of these files.

Try using telnet to rename the file on the tivo and let us know what happens.


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## yungee (Dec 29, 2002)

Yes, those SIZE errors are a bum steer. That's just a "nicety" that's unsupported by the Tivo FTP client.

I have seen WinZIP playing silly buggers with extensions on windows before, mangling names in the way you mention.

Just rename the files correctly again on the Tivo from the shell, then continue with the instructions you're following.

mv filename.tar.gz.tar filename.tar

(or whatever)


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Thanks for this information. I'll have a play but I'm nearly at the point of giving up. Tivoweb/Plus would be real nice but is it worth loosing so many hours trying to get it to work?! 

Which of the three softwares should I be concentrating on installing? TW, TWP 1.3.1 or TWP 2.0? At the moment I'm trying to get all three to work on rotation, maybe I should just stick to trying to get one to load.


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## yungee (Dec 29, 2002)

Definitely, if you're having problems then pick one and stick with it until you are comfortable how it all slots together.

After playing heavily with the variants earlier on in the year, I picked TivoWeb 1.9.4 and stuck with that.

Had stability issues with the others I seem to recall.


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## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

Ricky - don't be discouraged! I understand your frustration and had similar frustrations early in my TiVo hacking - everyone tells you it's easy, but there are a billion different ways of doing the 'easy' thing and whatever you try, you don't seem to be able to follow the instructions due to some difficulty or other.

The first time through is a big learning curve as one always seems to fall down potholes that others haven't. Once you've got out of the pothole and got your hack installed, you'll find it easier (but not much) for the next one and so on until you're a pro.

It's worth the effort, and - DO ONE THING AT A TIME. Trying to install three copies is going to be confusing.


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## yungee (Dec 29, 2002)

Oh, and you could just try the built in windows command line FTP client if all else fails.

Open command prompt (start / run / cmd), change directory to where your source file you want to upload resides, then:

FTP <tivoaddress>
<return>
<return>
bin
hash
cd /var/hack
put <your_file>
quit

That should do the trick with no fancy-windows-getting-in-the-way-name-mangling.


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## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

rickynumber18 said:


> at some point I'm told to copy/paste the TW tar.gz file to var /hacks -when I do this the FTP software (ALL of them) changes the string to .tar.gz.tar or .tar.tar - no matter what I do I can't edit them back to the correct string and therefore they won't open in Telnet.


Let's take this back to basics, as I think we're all picturing what you're doing - and you might not be doing that at all. If you get what I mean.

Describe mouse click and drag by keyboard press what you're doing to transfer ONE of the files to your TiVo. Also include the COMPLETE FTP log once you've done it.


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi. I downloaded FileZilla, same problem again. I tried un-installing Winzip to see if that was causing the problem and dragged the .tar.gz file over again. This time it moved correctly but obviously I can't open it because I've un-installed Winzip. Maybe I can try another Zip programme? 

Will try the the FTP suggestion this PM. Thanks.


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## yungee (Dec 29, 2002)

Sounds like you are trying to use the PC WinZip to unpack the tar.gz archive at the Tivo end. Yes?

Don't use that. From the TivoWeb install notes:

3. Unpack the archive
If you have an older version of tivoweb, you should make sure it is shutdown
first, then delete it with 'rm -rf tivoweb-tcl' or move it somewhere else.
Then decompress with 'gzip -d tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.gz' and unpack with
'cpio -H tar -i < tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar'. Do not use winzip.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

rickynumber18 said:


> Will try the the FTP suggestion this PM. Thanks.


Which is what I suggested in my post


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Sorry, I didn't realise that the DOS prompt was FTP. The whole flipping thing is too complicated for me and I know what I'm doing!!


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi guys. Thanks for all your help. I think I'm getting more and more confused with each posting. Okay, to take this back to basics let's forget about TWP and stick to TW Final.

I'm using the instructions posted by Steve Conrad on his diary page (steveconrad.co.uk/tivo/tivoweb.html), which seem really easy although he does refer to having put FTP in TiVo whilst installing the cache card but I don't know what that's about!!

His instructions work to a point but once it comes to copying over the tar.gz file I come a'cropper. The file appears to have a Winzip appearance and when I copy it over as discribed an extra string is added to the end so that when I return to Telnet is doesn't recognise the file type. 

If these instructions are the problem does anyone have any others? Really easy with A-Z steps?


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

ColinYounger said:


> Describe mouse click and drag by keyboard press what you're doing to transfer ONE of the files to your TiVo. Also include the COMPLETE FTP log once you've done it.


I copy the file over to TiVo as described in Steve Conrad's instructions. I've also tried those at lightn.org - when downloading their file it says at the top of the download box .tar.gz but downloads to my PC at tar.tar (Winzip file). Should it be downloading as Winzip?


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## lenwuk (Oct 3, 2004)

OK, so forget the ftp to TiVo. 
Are you saying that downloading the file "tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.gz" from tivo.lightn.org causes the filename to change once it is downloaded to your PC?

Regards, Len


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## SilkMan (Feb 13, 2007)

You need to follow yungee's advice when telnetting to the tivo box:



> mv filename.tar.gz.tar filename.tar


("mv" is the unix command to rename a file)

This should allow you to overcome the filename problem and then you can continue following the instructions.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

rickynumber18 said:


> Sorry, I didn't realise that the DOS prompt was FTP. The whole flipping thing is too complicated for me and I know what I'm doing!!


Yeah. My bad! I keep forgetting not only how old the DOS prompt is but also that not everyone is as PC literate as me  Sorry!


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi. I have got allot further since I last wrote. I'm still sticking to TW. I've managed to get to a point where I'm running TW in Telnet however after the copywrite info' I get an error message 'address already in use'. Any ideas?


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hello all. Thanks to everyone for their help. It's taken nearly 48 hours of my life but I've done it. I gave up on TWP and have stuck to TW final. 

Intitially I downloaded the final version file from the web (but had to rename it as the .gz bit kept dropping off (or it would change to tar.tar!)

The various instructions on the web work just fine for TivoWeb installation, however on my PC I have to uninstall Winzip before coping over the tar.gz file to /var/hack ...

Once I'd done that I re-installed Winzip so that I could extract the replacement ui.itcl file and copied that over too. 

I guess anytime I wish to copy a tar.gz file I just have to uninstall Winzip, unless I can stop the tar.gz files from thinking they need Winzip in the first place!! 

There's no way I'm going to waste anymore time on TWP when TW looks and works just fine. Thanks to all again.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

rickynumber18 said:


> The various instructions on the web work just fine for TivoWeb installation, however on my PC I have to uninstall Winzip before coping over the tar.gz file to /var/hack ...
> 
> Once I'd done that I re-installed Winzip so that I could extract the replacement ui.itcl file and copied that over too.
> 
> ...


I'm sorry Ricky, but that makes no sense at all. Nothing you have installed on your PC could make any difference whatsoever to the filename of the file you transfer, and nothing installed on your PC could make any difference to unzipping stuff, as that is done entirely on the TiVo, the PC is only used to issue commands via Telnet

You're clearly doing something so fundamentally odd that we can't get a grip on how to correct it!

The ".gz" bit dropping off, however, makes sense. If you have WinZip installed, it can open .gz files, so the extension will by default be hidden in Windows, in the same way as your Word documents don't appear to end in .doc (but of course they do, it's just hidden). However it's just cosmetic, the extension is really still there in the file and on the TiVo.

Similarly if there is a Save As.. dialog on the PC and you select a filetype of TAR and then type a filename of foobar.tar, the actual file will be named foobar.tar.tar as the extension is added by the filetype drop-down, and it assumes any text you type in as a flename should be added to it.


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

All I can tell you is that WITH Winzip 10.0 installed on my PC I couldn't copy over the .tar.gz file in a format that would allow me to proceed with the Telnet installation, as the file was copied it added an extra .tar so I would get .tar.tar.gz (or a variation of that) which meant that Telnet had no clue what I was trying to do or didn't recognise the string. 

Once I'd uninstalled Winzip the problem went away, simple as that. I can't explain it. I'm just happy I managed to install TivoWeb after 48 hours of hard fruitless slog!! There's no way I'm gonna try TWP, I'm too afraid of messing up TW.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

I'm glad you've got it working, but there's something about the way you've done this that you're not telling us, I'm no really curious about what it is. 

It's impossible for WinZip on your PC to change the filename of a file as it's copied from your PC to the TiVo, so I'm really intrigued about what you are doing which makes it appear that that is what's happening.


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hello again. 

Okay, from the beginning. After installing the cache card on Sunday I downloaded tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.gz from the internet whilst I had WinZip V10 on my PC (I downloaded TivoWeb from dozens of sites whilst battling the problem). When downloading the file the .gz vanished so I renamed the file and put the .gz back again. The downloaded file has a Winzip appearance and states being a Winzip file (in properties). 

At the point of posting my problem on the forum I was using a couple of instructions, lightn.org and Steve Conrad, both are similar enough and both call to put the archive tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.gz in the hack folder. Steve Conrad talks more of a copy and paste procedure (or drag and drop) using FTP before continuing with Telnet the other instructions dont really tell you what to do.

At this point everything went pear shaped. When I copied the file over using copy and paste or drag and drop from the folder on the C drive to the /var/hack/ folder on FTP the file name of tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.gz would get messed up to the point where Telnet couldnt understand the file/string (for example tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.tar.gz or tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.tar). Once copied into FTP I was unable to rename the file correctly. Not one FTP programme, and I tried them all would allow me to do it. Syntax this, syntax that. 

My inspiration came this morning when I uninstalled WinZip V10 to install V11 in desperation. I dont know what made me do it but I decided to drag and drop the file again whilst not having any WinZip installed. Low and behold the file name stayed intact and I could run the Telnet instructions from A-Z. I then had to re-install WinZip to extract the ui.itcl file.

There must be something about my PC and WinZip that confuses .tar.gz files. I found one setting to adjust relating to .tar files but it didnt help. Obviously my PC thinks that a tar.gz file needs Winzip. I need to break that link somehow for the future or Ill have to keep uninstalling and reinstalling WinZip!

Id love to install TWP 1.3.1 or 2 but to be honest the instructions on the TWP's website need their own instructions. Does anyone have really good A-Z steps I could follow?


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

rickynumber18 said:


> Hello again.
> 
> Okay, from the beginning. After installing the cache card on Sunday I downloaded tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.gz from the internet whilst I had WinZip V10 on my PC (I downloaded TivoWeb from dozens of sites whilst battling the problem). When downloading the file the .gz vanished so I renamed the file and put the .gz back again. The downloaded file has a Winzip appearance and states being a Winzip file (in properties).


Aha! Things become clearer...

With WinZip installed, .gz and .tar are recognised file extensions of WinZip, so Windows hides them, just as it hides .doc on Word documents or .xls on Excel spreadsheets. The file is still called tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.gz but _displays_ on your PC desktop as tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar with a WinZip icon. If you then rename the file "tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.gz" what it's actually now called is tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.gz.gz.

I'm thinking the same thing could happen with .tar.

When you FTP the file over, it's true filename is revaled at the other end and you think it's been changed by the FTP - in fact it was changed by you earlier, you just didn't realise.



> At the point of posting my problem on the forum I was using a couple of instructions, lightn.org and Steve Conrad, both are similar enough and both call to put the archive tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.gz in the hack folder. Steve Conrad talks more of a copy and paste procedure (or drag and drop) using FTP before continuing with Telnet the other instructions dont really tell you what to do.
> 
> At this point everything went pear shaped. When I copied the file over using copy and paste or drag and drop from the folder on the C drive to the /var/hack/ folder on FTP the file name of tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.gz would get messed up to the point where Telnet couldnt understand the file/string (for example tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.tar.gz or tivoweb-tcl-1.9.4.tar.tar). Once copied into FTP I was unable to rename the file correctly. Not one FTP programme, and I tried them all would allow me to do it. Syntax this, syntax that.


Aha 2.

TiVo's implementation of FTP is very basic - just upload and download files really. It doesn't support renaming, so any FTP client software will fail to do it.



> My inspiration came this morning when I uninstalled WinZip V10 to install V11 in desperation. I dont know what made me do it but I decided to drag and drop the file again whilst not having any WinZip installed. Low and behold the file name stayed intact and I could run the Telnet instructions from A-Z. I then had to re-install WinZip to extract the ui.itcl file.


With WinZip uninstalled, Windows no longer recognizes .gz or .tar, so doesn't hide them in the filename



> There must be something about my PC and WinZip that confuses .tar.gz files. I found one setting to adjust relating to .tar files but it didnt help. Obviously my PC thinks that a tar.gz file needs Winzip. I need to break that link somehow for the future or Ill have to keep uninstalling and reinstalling WinZip!


Just turn off hiding of file extensions, so you can see what you're doing.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

TCM2007 said:


> Just turn off hiding of file extensions, so you can see what you're doing.


From the OPs second post (#4), the first time he answered that query:


rickynumber18 said:


> File extensions are not hidden on my PC.


So, was he lying or didn't he actually know? (Or something else )


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## rickynumber18 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi. As explained to cwaring, file extensions are not hidden on my PC (are you guys trying to catch me out?).

In the early stages (before I got the hang of this), I WASN'T renaming the file in anyway - just drag and dropping it into FTP. It was only when this started to copy over with the wrong ending or minus a essential .gz that I started to play around and made my initial posting.

I still mantain, 100%, that it's the installation of Winzip on my PC that's messing up the smooth transfer of these files. It's pretty quick though to uninstall and reinstall Winzip, and let's be honest most of us have to unless we want to make big bucks to purchase the full version!!


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

The point, ricky, is that as Windows/FTP software _never_ renames files as it transfers them, you must be mis-interpreting something somewhere or you're (un-intentionally!) not telling us something or missing something you _should_ be telling us. If you see what I mean


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