Serial Console on THD.

[WTFover]

Okay Gents,
I have been screwing with trying to get serial console output.

The good news: Although Tivo decided to use a 4 pin connector for the serial connector, you will more than likely have what you need laying around. A floppy drive power connector (i clipped mine off an old power supply) is just the ticket. The Mobo, is labeled RX, Ground, and TX next to the pins. The 4th pin has a transistor butted right up against the plastic so no silkscreen on it with a tag for what it was used for (if anything). If you have the time you can take a file or dremel and take off the little plastic alignment ridge on the connector.


The bad news: I am having a tough time getting any usable output. I set the bootpage parameters S3 parameters from this thread: http://dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53169
using command bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda7 dsscon=true console=1,115200" -C /dev/sda

I have also (out of desperation and frustration) tried several other console device values (0,2,3) to no avail, as well as setting the connection speed in the bootpage and hyperterm down to 9600. I do get ASCII character gibberish upon initial boot, and then quite a few lines later a couple of minutes later, so I feel I am pretty close. I can loop back the TX and RX lines of my cable and I get the character echo in hyperterm. Also, because the pins are equidistant, you can very easily reverse the plastic connector 180 degrees and offset the plug installation by 1 pin and the TX and RX pins get reversed (ground is the center pin). I get nothing when that is done.
I will doublecheck my cable tomorrow AMwhen I pick up my multimeter.

I mounted up my current root (hda7) and looked around in dev and ttyDSS is a symlink to ttyS1 so I am pretty sure the bootparms I used were orrect anyway. Does anyone have any ideas?

[WTFover]

Here is the boot output, that i pulled out of the messages log. Notice the platform name "fusion", which would lend credence to the converged platform theories floating around and supported by all the unpopulated areas on the board as well as the corresponding rear panel cutouts.

Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: == System startup resource statistics ==
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: ++ System build version numbers ++
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: b-8-1-7a-mr @271126 2007.06.22-1519 release-mips [] ARM_IDL_FREEZE CDDB_QUERY DCT_SERIAL DSS_SERIAL HPK IDL_FREEZE IRBLAST LOCAL_CALYPSO_SERVER LOCAL_MP3_PLAYER LOCAL_MUSIC_PLAYER LOCAL_PHOTO_VIEWER LOCAL_WMA_PLAYER MACROVISION MULTI_ROOM_VIEWING PERF_LOGGER PERF_LOGGER_USER_STATS PTHREADS_TMK REQUIRE_PRODUCTION_SPIGOT_LINEAGE SANITIZE_LOGS STRONG_CRYPTO T2KSOURCE US_CABLE_AUTO_DETECT 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: 2007.06.22-1519 8.1.7a1-01-2 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: PROM version:   TiVo/mips/Gen06/rel version v1.04-rel_C1
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: Image is perfectly intact. SHA1: 0x2140D088CEF80DAE5B3B52ECD669A446BD65C5D0 Length: 74438 Build type: TiVo/mips/Gen06/rel Version: v1.04-rel_C1 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: System Serial Number: (Changed to protect the innocent)
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: Linux version 2.4.20 (build@buildmaster73) (gcc version 3.3.4) #1 Thu Jun 21 20:53:52 PDT 2007 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: ++ Memory usage ++
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats:         total:    used:    free:  shared: buffers:  cached: 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: Mem:  131710976 62984192 68726784        0  1982464 35024896 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: Swap: 134209536        0 134209536 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: MemTotal:       128624 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: MemFree:         67116 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: MemShared:           0 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: Buffers:          1936 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: Cached:          34204 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: SwapCached:          0 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: PriActive            0 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: Active:           9144 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: Inactive:        30468 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: HighTotal:           0 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: HighFree:            0 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: LowTotal:       128624 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: LowFree:         67116 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: SwapTotal:      131064 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: SwapFree:       131064 kB 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: ++ CPU info ++
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: system type^I^I: TiVo Fusion board 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: processor^I^I: 0 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: cpu model^I^I: BMIPS3300 V0.0 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: BogoMIPS^I^I: 296.55 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: wait instruction^I: yes 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: microsecond timers^I: yes 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: tlb_entries^I^I: 32 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: extra interrupt vector^I: yes 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: hardware watchpoint^I: no 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: spurious interrupts^I: 0 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: unaligned access^I: 110 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: cycle counter frequency^I: 148683593 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: ++ Module info ++
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: bcmenet                16240   0 (unused) 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: router                 67984   2 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: ubuddy                  5728   0 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: mpod                   21984   4 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: bcm7401_C1           2228784   6 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: xcode2drv            3514176   8 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: ati314_Gen06          122268  16 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: ircatch_Gen06          17824   0 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: frontpanel              2864   0 [ircatch_Gen06] 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: i2cflash                2624   2 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: i2c_Gen06              17664   2 [ubuddy ati314_Gen06 i2cflash] 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: modemtty_Gen06          5664   0 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: bcmtty_Gen06            4496   0 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: gpio                    5040   0 [mpod bcm7401_C1 ati314_Gen06 modemtty_Gen06] 
Jul 29 01:23:19 (none) Stats: tivoconfig               944   0 (unused) 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: ++ Device info ++
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: Character devices: 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:   1 mem 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:   2 pty 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:   3 ttyp 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:   4 ttyS 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:   5 cua 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:  10 misc 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:  30 tvbcmdriver 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:  91 tivoconfig 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:  97 ubuddy 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:  99 i2c 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: 104 router 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: 108 ppp 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: 111 pod 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: 112 ati 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: 120 boxster 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: 127 ircatch 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: 162 raw 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: 204 bcmsettopapi 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: 242 fbuf 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: 243 gioctl 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: 246 gpio 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: 247 frontpanel 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:  
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: Block devices: 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:   1 ramdisk 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:   3 ide0 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: 244 i2cflash 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: ++ Network device info ++
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats: Inter-|   Receive                                                |  Transmit 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:  face |bytes    packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast|bytes    packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:     lo:       0       0    0    0    0     0          0         0        0       0    0    0    0     0       0          0 
Jul 29 01:23:20 (none) Stats:   eth0:       0       0    0    0    0     0          0         0        0       0    0    0    0     0       0          0

[WTFover]

Here are the kernel logs. Interesting for sure. This is only a snippet of the log, it exhibits the same behaviour throughout. It boots up and thinks it's JAN 2, until it does an NTP check and sets the clock. I would have thought the sysclock would have been persistant across reboots.

It's too big to post with code brackets so I put it in a txt file.

[alldeadhomiez]

Does anyone have any ideas?

Are they using RS232 or TTL voltage levels?

Many devices omit the level converter chip (e.g. max232) because it is not used once the unit is deployed to the customer. The first generation device was probably rushed to market so optimizations were not made, but it would not be surprising if they made this change in the cost-reduced version.

If you are blasting +/- 12V directly into the CPU there's a fairly good chance of damaging something. Hope you bought the extended warranty...

The fourth pin might be power for the converter. That is not always needed; take a look at the 232LPTTL33 or 232LPTTL here.

[WTFover]

I am not sure to be quite honest. I am going to do some hunting with a magnifying glass tonight when I get home and see if I can identify anything. FWIW, the 4th pin is not supplying any power (checked on the THD I have been messing with as well as my second virgin Tivo HD. Also, the one I have been working with has not exhibited any odd behaviour, but I have discontinued further serial efforts until we get it sorted out.

Also mfslive backup does not appear to work either (on both virgin and the one currently running with Cable cards installed). It throws a partition error, although pdisk is able to pull the partition information just fine. I am going to concentrate on getting some backups, but I will make a dd copy as soon as my new drive shows up.

[Narf54321]

That's odd that neither of the TivoHD units works with (assuming) MFSbackup. I wonder if that's deliberate on Tivo's part.

Can you try a bzip just to archive the whole drive, as in Peter Seebach's article?

create archive of hard drive (change hde as appropriate):

bzip2 -1c < /dev/hde > tivo.img.bz2

uncompress image to (new) hard drive (again change hde as needed):

bzip2 -dc < tivo.img.bz2 > /dev/hde

[ScanMan]

There's a post over at TCF from spike2k5 that indicates mfstools doesn't work on the HD. He has successfully upgraded it with WinMFS and promises a release of that s/w to beta testers in a "few days."

[WTFover]

That's odd that neither of the TivoHD units works with (assuming) MFSbackup. I wonder if that's deliberate on Tivo's part.

Can you try a bzip just to archive the whole drive, as in Peter Seebach's article?

create archive of hard drive (change hde as appropriate):

bzip2 -1c < /dev/hde > tivo.img.bz2

uncompress image to (new) hard drive (again change hde as needed):

bzip2 -dc < tivo.img.bz2 > /dev/hde

Bzip doesn't appear to be on the MFSLive CD. I also attempted it from my Ubuntu workstation and received a device not ready error, although I was able to view the device moments ago when booted with MFSlive.

[bkdtv]

Could someone post or link to a recent Series3 log for comparison purposes?

[WTFover]

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/sh...808#post263808
This is the only thing I have seen so far. It's the serial output which is what you basically get out of the messages log. I don't have an S3 Omikron has my THD and will be socketing the prom. Once I get it back I will enable bash and telnet. I am still looking in to getting the serial console working as well. I ordered one of the RS232 to TTL converters suggested a couple of posts prior. I will let everyone know how it turns out.

[WTFover]

ADH was right, an RS232 to TTL coverter is required. I bought a cheap one off of Ebay for $16 shipped. Plugged it in and it worked immediately. It did not require external power from the 4th pin on the tivo, although I rechecked that pin on the tivo and it reads a constant 4.95 volts. If you had to you could power a converter of if it. Below is the output, it wouldn't fit in the code tags of this site.
Here is the link in case anyone wants one. I have no affiliation with these guys, just passing it along.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=110155521584

[bkdtv]

Splash the screen
Unaligned Access to 0x89c9b99e in kernel mode at 0xc06bef18
Creating framebuffer of size 1280,1080 with 0 back_buffers PixFmt:5
Created HD framebuffer 0x8b90a4a0
Creating framebuffer of size 720,480 with 0 back_buffers PixFmt:5
Created SD framebuffer 0x8b90a2a0
[TV_BCMDISPLAY_SET_VIDEO_OUTPUT_MODE] mode=1
Running boot Stage D_PreMfs scripts
Remote control is TIVO
MFS partition on /de
***** HDCP Authentication Initialized
Look for debug board
Starting podapp...
Configuring uBuddy for P0
Loading ubuddy.o
Loading router.o
7138: 0x31 0x11 0x38 0x71 0x81 0x24
7138: 0x31 0x11 0x38 0x71 0x81 0x24
Loading bcmenet.o
Ethernet bridge revision 7401 C0 or later
MAC initialized OK 00:119:0A:00:A5
enet : link down
Updating system clock
Time set to: Thu Aug 16 18:55:34 2007
gen_ioctl: LOCKMEM command STUBBED
/tvbin/podapp: ATSC/CATV PSIP/POD Manager Version 0.34, compiled on Jul 26 2007

Can someone clarify what that means?

Does that mean the TivoHD is only doing its video processing with a 1280x1080 framebuffer?

[Jamie]

Can someone clarify what that means?

Does that mean the TivoHD is only doing its video processing with a 1280x1080 framebuffer?

I would guess that the framebuffer is for the 2D graphics engine: OSD, menus, etc, not for video processing. Aren't the menus all in 720p?

[pantsface]

ADH was right, an RS232 to TTL coverter is required. I bought a cheap one off of Ebay for $16 shipped. Plugged it in and it worked immediately. It did not require external power from the 4th pin on the tivo, although I rechecked that pin on the tivo and it reads a constant 4.95 volts. If you had to you could power a converter of if it. Below is the output, it wouldn't fit in the code tags of this site.
Here is the link in case anyone wants one. I have no affiliation with these guys, just passing it along.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=110155521584

Great forum. Been reading and learning much.

Will normal serial commands, specifically to replace IR to FWD, pause, play, etc. work through the TTL converted RS232 interface? I would assume the S1 and S2 commands would work, but wanted to see if anyone had tried.

[ciper]

If I have no modifications to the file system will I see any output from the serial port of a THD?