AltEPG

Hi

Just wondered if anyone else has seen this before.

My tivo has a cachecard and a while ago entered a reboot loop. I took out and changed various bits and it stopped happening when the memory was removed from the cachecard.

I bought some new memory and it did actually start up once and worked for a while but the next time it needed rebooting it went back into a reboot cycle.

It is not the end of the world as with the memory removed all works well - just a bit slower.

I assume it is a fault with the cachecard itself?

Thanks
Les

Haven't heard of that [the RAM being the cause] before. The cachecard tests the ram during the bootup, if it passes the test the RAM should be ok. If it fails, it should boot without using the RAM - and you can check the kernel log (/var/log/kernel and 0kernel) to verify that is what has failed. Either way it should NOT reboot itself spontaneously. It just carries on without using the ram. You can disable the RAM test for a faster boot by removing the "-t" from the call to cachectl, but in your case I wouldn't do that, it sounds as if you definitely want to be testing it every time.

There is a completely separate issue where the TiVo's sound chip doesn't initialise properly every time with a cachecard installed because of the power requirements being very very tight. You can tweak the PSU to try to mitigate this (see other threads). There is also a patch available so that the TiVo will check to see if the sound chip initialised ok, and automatically reboot to keep trying if this happens. Are you sure this patch isn't installed and that is what is happening?

Reading the logs should give clues as to why your TiVo is rebooting, but obviously you can't do this until you get to the final successful boot. As long as you don't do a daily call which would rotate the logs, your kernel, tverr and tvlog should be filling up nicely with info for each reboot cycle and there should be a clear pattern as to what is happening.

I had something similar happen to a TiVo after a power cut. The TiVo would keep try to startup, get as far as starting hacks, then reboot itself. Removing the SDRAM allowed the TiVo to boot, but it would still randomly reboot itself after a few hours so it wasn't really a cure.

I think something got corrupted by the power cut but I couldn't track down what. I think the SDRAM just changed the timing and made it crash faster. I eventually just reimaged the drive which cured the problem. It was my backup TiVo and I didn't have any recordings I wanted to preserve so I didn't spend that long on it.

I'm not sure if you reimaged your TiVo drive with the AltEPG image but if you did and you have a spare drive it may be worth trying a fresh AltEPG image on that to see if it is a hardware problem, or just the software.

Thanks for the replies.

Currently the TIVO is working fine when the RAM has been removed but soon as I put it back in the reboot cycle happens. I can live with it but would like to understand why.

I did assume the RAM was the problem and so bought a new stick but that made no real difference. But from what you say if the RAM was faulty it would ignore it anyway.

The disk drive came from Tivoland some 2 years ago I think and so is before the altepg image but does have lots of patches/hacks etc.

So it could be rebooting due to power problems. Could the RAM be sending it over the top I wonder?

Great idea for the logs - when I get time I shall put back the RAM and let it go for a while then take it out, reboot and then see what the logs say.

I'll also look up the PSU tweaks you mention.

Thanks for the advice!

Les

I've also got the reboot loop when RAM is installed in the cachecard - I reported this in the AltEPG 1.0d release notes thread where others were reporting reboot loops.
Like the OP when the RAM is removed the TiVo boots straight away to the menu - but it is then painfully slow with a 1Tb AltEPG HDD installed (bought from TiVoLand), so I really want to get the RAM back in my TiVo. I also bought new RAM but that made no difference, but I did sometimes get the TiVo to boot ok, but on next reboot would go back into the loop. It is always once all hacks have been started that the TiVo then reboots.
I may be wrong but I think all the reboots stared when I updated from 1.0c to 1.0d - but I may have just been lucky up to that point.

If you want any logs checked etc then you will need to give me an exact step by step guide on what to do as I have no command line knowledge with the TiVo OS. I know how to telnet onto the TiVo but that is about where my knowledge ends, sorry

Mark.

Elsewhere there has been discussion that reboots may be caused by a problem with the mfs_ftp hack, so you could try disabling that hack.

With altepg 1.0d, to disable mfs_ftp, enter the following command from telnet (bash) prompt:

Code: Select all

cd /hack/mfs_ftp
mv startup startup.disabled


and then restart tivo.

Thanks for that - I have now disabled mfs_ftp and restarted my TiVo, but without the RAM installed. I'll have a go at reinstalling it later and let you know if that has helped.

Mark.

Welll thanks again millsb - it worked
Installed the RAM just now and when TiVo booted there were no reboots and so far all is looking good.

Mark.

millsb wrote:Elsewhere there has been discussion that reboots may be caused by a problem with the mfs_ftp hack, so you could try disabling that hack.

With altepg 1.0d, to disable mfs_ftp, enter the following command from telnet (bash) prompt:

Code: Select all

cd /hack/mfs_ftp
mv startup startup.disabled


and then restart tivo.

I tried this and get
mv: startup: No such file or directory

which is true a listing shows that startup is not there. also startup.disabled not there (figures as it would be inside the missing startup directory).

I have had the reboot loop for the last 48 hours - I have now removed the memory for cachecard and the reboot has held for the last 1hr - but I can't use the remove mfs_ftp as it's missing

I've only had this trouble since altepg started and it's got worse since the data has been cropped!!

I have programs on my tivo I'd like to keep but as I use mac it's a slow precess to move them all off - is there a way to copy all the programs off (a dump of the harddrive) that I can then reimage the drive?

dragonlord666 wrote:
I tried this and get
mv: startup: No such file or directory

which is true a listing shows that startup is not there. also startup.disabled not there (figures as it would be inside the missing startup directory).

If there's no /hack/mfs_ftp/startup file then either you're not running altepg1.0d or mfs_ftp is not running.
What does this command give you?

Code: Select all

cat /etc/altepg.version


I've only had this trouble since altepg started and it's got worse since the data has been cropped!!

Not sure what you mean by that.

As far as the guide data and service goes, the AltEPG guide data replicates the core of a "TiVo Service" exactly - otherwise people's TiVos wouldn't have worked for 18 months and counting. Obviously, we'll never be able to implement a completely full TiVo Service unless someone wants to pay Tribune the $100K/year fee or whatever it was for us to use their proper data. It's quite remarkable that it has so far been possible to squeeze a service with working Season Passes out of the sometimes atrocious source data we get currently. This doesn't happen by magic, it happens by a lot of tedious manual work every single day.

So just to clarify: whatever is causing reboots on this TiVo with a cachecard - it can't be caused by guide data.