Two days left for my T60...any ideas?

[rfc]

Well ever since May 10, the day I put my shiny new P4 in the completely unhacked T60, it has "failed at expanding data". Have done every level of reset possible. Have forced call after call (It makes several a day anyway). Now I am getting the Nag: "unless a call is made in two days, no showcases or programs will be recorded" or whatever.

DTV can not apparently solve this problem. It could be caused by a failing drive. That's the only physical thing I can think of. Something is happening/happened between the unit and the card that I do not understand. In any case, I don't think the Tivo tier even works with 2.5.2, so I have every reason to believe this thing is going to croak on Thursday.

So, what options?

I do have a clean image from an identical machine, but it seems crazy to have to resort to hacking a machine just to make it work right. Do I just put the drive with a copy of the clean image in the machine, reboot, have it make a call and see if it takes 3.1? Try to get an image of 3.1 for a T-60 and put THAT on?

Any other ideas? Clock's ticking....

[eastwind]

Lemme see if I got this right...you have an unhacked T60 w/software version 2.5.2 (is that a brand new T60?) and it fails to expand data. Is that the result on the phone screen after attempting a Daily Call? Or is that something you get from the satelite feed when it tries to send more guide data? Can you successfully make a test call? Are you trying to call with a land line or via ethernet?

ew

[rfc]

Lemme see if I got this right...you have an unhacked T60 w/software version 2.5.2 (is that a brand new T60?) and it fails to expand data. Is that the result on the phone screen after attempting a Daily Call? Or is that something you get from the satelite feed when it tries to send more guide data? Can you successfully make a test call? Are you trying to call with a land line or via ethernet?

ew

Pretty much correct. Unit not new, but got from a friend who's had it for a year or so with a P3, hence never was sent update. I got it, activated it with new P4, so it calls to get 3.1 and there the problem began.

The result is on the phone screen. Guide data seems fine. SDDs seem fine. I can (and have) made successful test calls (land line--no ethernet--remember, unit has NEVER even been opened). Modem is known good. When a call is forced, it housekeeps, dials, connects, downloads, expands etc. then "fails at expanding data".

[eastwind]

And I guess if you call TiVo they would tell you to call DTV? Didn't TiVo support some of the Series 1 DirecTiVos way back when? Is this one of them or is a T60 newer than that?
ew

[rfc]

And I guess if you call TiVo they would tell you to call DTV? Didn't TiVo support some of the Series 1 DirecTiVos way back when? Is this one of them or is a T60 newer than that?
ew

Tivo knows nothing now. Subscription is in DTV's hands (it started in Tivoland but got transferred).

I believe (and this is total conjecture and has nothing to do with my first question, i.e. what are my options now, but....) that had the timing been different, the outcome might have been different. This happened AFTER the P3 stream was shut off. When DTV had me activate the new access card, they never advised that I use the process built into the software.

They just had me put the new card in, I gave them all the numbers...the IRD, Access Card numbers etc. and they activated it. This seemed strange at the time, but, hey, who's to question it. It's their system, they ought to know what they are doing, right? Again, this may all be a red herring. All I know is that I got one day left of Tivo service on my Lifetime, lol.

Who knows? Maybe I get stuck in 2.5.2 land forever with an operating system. We'll see. In the meantime, any ideas are welcome.

[eastwind]

Tivo knows nothing now. Subscription is in DTV's hands (it started in Tivoland but got transferred).

I believe (and this is total conjecture and has nothing to do with my first question, i.e. what are my options now, but....) that had the timing been different, the outcome might have been different. This happened AFTER the P3 stream was shut off. When DTV had me activate the new access card, they never advised that I use the process built into the software.

They just had me put the new card in, I gave them all the numbers...the IRD, Access Card numbers etc. and they activated it. This seemed strange at the time, but, hey, who's to question it. It's their system, they ought to know what they are doing, right? Again, this may all be a red herring. All I know is that I got one day left of Tivo service on my Lifetime, lol.

Who knows? Maybe I get stuck in 2.5.2 land forever with an operating system. We'll see. In the meantime, any ideas are welcome.

You can't have a lifetime service on a DirecTivo. As you said DTV handles the TiVo service now. If you had a lifetime agreement with TiVo you would still have it, but I don't think it can be transferred from one unit to another or from one person from another. Since you got the unit from a friend, even if he had lifetime w/TiVo it wouldn't transfer with the unit like it would with a stand alone.

ew

[rfc]

You can't have a lifetime service on a DirecTivo. As you said DTV handles the TiVo service now. If you had a lifetime agreement with TiVo you would still have it, but I don't think it can be transferred from one unit to another or from one person from another. Since you got the unit from a friend, even if he had lifetime w/TiVo it wouldn't transfer with the unit like it would with a stand alone.

ew

Here is what happened in my case:

Lifetime with Tivo stays with the unit, and may be transferred to a friend or family member (which was my case). Says that right in the manual. When I called Tivo they said DTV is now handling it...so....

Called DTV. Lifetime with DTV stays with the account as long as the account stays active. In my case, since my friend was closing his account with DTV, the CSR simply (how simple it was, I can't say) transferred the box from the one account to mine, and closed his.

Now that the lifetime is with DTV, I have the luxury of not only moving it to another Dtivo, but I can add more as well. You could say it's not lifetime because it ends with my subcription to DTV, but what the heck am I going to do with a Dtivo without DTV anyway?

My bill from DTV reads:

05/30 06/29 DIRECTV DVR (Tivo) Lifetime 0.00

By the way, the information screen says Service Active: Lifetime, but that may change if and when I ever manage to get 3.1 on the box.

Today, none of this has anything to do with my problem, but then again, tomorrow it may if the Tivo service stops, lol.

[eastwind]

If that's all correct, I don't get why DTV can't help you. Especially since you've never had the box open. Don't they have some kind of MASTER RESET code they can have you enter from your remote to make the box think it is brand new? And then they would be / should be able to marry the card to the P4 card (at least it seems that way to me).
All I can tell you now is GOOD LUCK!!

ew

[rfc]

Don't they have some kind of MASTER RESET code they can have you enter from your remote to make the box think it is brand new?
All I can tell you now is GOOD LUCK!!

ew

That question is for others to answer. I have no clue.

In the meantime, however, the 30 days is up and the "internal message from my Tivo" is telling me that no Season's passes or programs will be recorded until a call is made". Heck, if the box were hacked I could get one of those Nag removers installed and I'd be all set, lol.

Seriously, however, I tried managing and recording a season pass last night and it worked fine! I couldn't care about Showcases. I think I have full Tivo capability less that feature. This may just work fine.

I might just have to open it up and network it!

I'll keep everyone posted on this very weird situation.

[rfc]

I think I have full Tivo capability...

I'll keep everyone posted on this very weird situation.

Spoke too soon.

Fully paid lifetime; lost Tivo functionality. Stuck at 2.5.2.

Now what? I think that if this is going to be fixed, I'll have to do it myself.

Once again, any other ideas?

TIA

[PortlandPaw]

I'd be yelling like hell at DirecTV. One thing I've noticed they hate to hear are the words "Dish TV." Do a little threatening. There's more than one game in town. Tell them that without the TiVo working, you're free to take advantage of the better deals and better service at Dish TV and you're tempted to do so.

[rfc]

I tried one more time with DTV and all they had to say was "clear and reset all" (been there; done that), and that the unit was bad. I explained the unit was fine until it saw the P4, but they had no further ideas.

So I cut the seal, popped the drive, backed it up, restored the image to a new Maxtor 120 gb drive but did not do mfsadd yet.

Put the drive back in, and did do a clear and reset all followed by the guided setup. Test call completed successfully; call to get access number was successful too. After nearly an hour of downloading, expanding, etc. still failed at expanding data.

I did get tivo service set back to lifetime, however. And I learned that I could get last call completed successfully by doing a test call. It seems no different than the call to download/upgrade the software as far as "last call status" is concerned.

So the question is, If I just made a test call every 2 weeks or so, would this likely solve the Tivo Service expiration problem? Does the "internal system" sense ANY call made successfully, or just the "daily call". I know the test call does not just test dial tone. It connects with something.

If so, I will start another thread asking how to write/modify a script to make such a test call WITH THE PHONE PLUGGED IN, which might be somewhat different than the various NOPHONE, fixsub, and other scripts that are intended to "make calls" without the phone.

I will in the meantime keep bugging DTV because I really feel this problem is theirs to solve. Not optimistic that they can do it before I figure out another way.

[rfc]

[QUOTE=rfc]

I will start another thread asking how to write/modify a script to make such a test call WITH THE PHONE PLUGGED IN, which might be somewhat different than the various NOPHONE, fixsub, and other scripts that are intended to "make calls" without the phone.

[QUOTE]

At this point, why can't I hack the unit, run fixsub to satisfy the daily call problem, and leave the phone plugged in? If they ever figure out how to get the box to take the new software, well, good, because then the daily call problem would be fixed too. In the mean time, I would still have my Tivo service with the added benefit of ordering PPV over the phone.

Has anyone ever run fixsub with the phone plugged in? What happens?

[malfunct]

Has anyone ever run fixsub with the phone plugged in? What happens?

Nothing that I can notice, its not really an issue if you are running a "normal" os version for the machine, but in general there are risks in doing it. My DTivo never picks up the phone.

[rfc]

Nothing that I can notice, its not really an issue if you are running a "normal" os version for the machine, but in general there are risks in doing it. My DTivo never picks up the phone.

Isn't that an oxymoron? Don't you have to have a non-normal OS (i.e. xtreme) in order to have fixsub running?