Can't display listing/play shows?

[JasonOlsen59297]

Hi all,

I want to apologize in advance if this has already been asked -- I've tried doing a number of searches here, on Google and over at DealDatabase. I haven't gotten terribly close, probably because the key words I think to use just don't match up with what others have used to describe this problem.

I've been running my HR10-250 (two drives) on InstaCakeHD-6.3d and PTVNetHD-6.3x since August 16th. It's been great! Things had been going very well until the other day (Aug 31) when the TiVo crashed and rebooted. Since then I've encountered two problems, one minor and one rather major...

* Minor and annoying: After reboot the TiVo can't acquire satellite information on the first pass, it gets to about 20% and gives up and i have to tell it to try again. But that pales compared to the other issue!

* The major and biggest problem: Shows are recording, they're appearing in the "Now Playing" list but when I try to open them it starts to draw the Program Description screen and then stops, instead going back to the Now Playing list.

I am seeing errors in /var/log/tverr file. Some errors are obviously normal, but since the crash on the 31st I'm seeing a new set that may be related to this issue. To try and confirm if they are related I telnetted into the 10-250 and did a "tail -f" on the tverr file while I recreated the problem of not being able to display the program description/details. The following type of message is appended to the log every time I try to display a program (no matter how new or old, HD or SD, in a group folder or not I get this...):
----
Sep 2 20:42:51 (none) findActionsInfo[237]: FindProgramSourcesForShowingNoRetry: GetDisplayTitleNoRetry, err: 0xffff
Sep 2 20:42:51 (none) findActionsInfo[237]: FillInRestNoRetry: FindProgramSourcesForShowingNoRetry, err: 0xffff
----

Anybody have any thoughts? This smells like some sort of DB corruption to me. The TiVo is recording the shows, and they're taking up space on the hard drives, and they show up in Now Playing. I just can't get them to play, and this error seems to tell me it's because it can't find the program itself! I've rebooted repeatedly and am currently considering doing a "clear program information & To Do List" but I want to avoid that if at all possible... I've got a /ton/ of shows on the disk that I haven't had a chance to watch in HD glory yet!

Thanks much for any insight.

[Lou Jacob]

First and foremost, you should rule out the possibility that you have a drive that may be failing. If you can pull the drive and run the manufacturer's diagnostics on it, can at least do that.

I've not heard of this specific problem, and it could be something else (including the unit, itself), but most of the time, problems like these are a result of a failing hard drive...

[JasonOlsen59297]

First and foremost, you should rule out the possibility that you have a drive that may be failing. If you can pull the drive and run the manufacturer's diagnostics on it, can at least do that.

I've not heard of this specific problem, and it could be something else (including the unit, itself), but most of the time, problems like these are a result of a failing hard drive...

First and foremost: Thanks for a great product, Lou. InstaCake and PTVNet are both really awesome! Second, thanks for your insight and prompt reply. I've got some sort of resolution on this to share, along with a quick question of considerably less importance...

I did a lot of digging around on Google to try and match the messages I was seeing in tverr and never got any joy. I did see some other things that made me curious so I tried doing an "mfscheck," which failed with an error TmkInit[447]: InitializeProgramOrDie (./mfscheck) failed: 0x11001 I tried doing an "mfsassert -please" which failed with a number of interesting errors ("thread strayed" and "assertion failure," amongst other things). Though failed they at least caused the HR1-0250 to reboot but only got the GSOD to show up once (I did the mfsassert several times). I finally gave up and did a "Clear Program Data and To Do List," figuring if that didn't work I'd rip the drives out of the chassis, check them and re-install instaCake and PTV. The TiVo chunked away on the "Clearing data" screen for a little over two hours before rebooting one last time. The system came up, locked onto the satellites flawlessly and surprised me by still having all my recordings! Even better, the recordings were viewable once more! Stuff from yesterday, stuff from two weeks ago, it was all there and working again!

I don't know exactly what happened to screw things up in the first place but it seems to have been resolved by the Clear Data I did -- at least it is for now.

I do have a question for you, though! Your advice was to pull the drives out and run manufacturer's diagnostics on them (And I may yet end up having to do that). I saw the S.M.A.R.T. output for the drives in TivoWebPlus, under the "Disk Information" section of the Info Page. Both drives report S.M.A.R.T. as "passed," would diagnostics performed on a PC possibly turn up something that the TiVo wouldn't through the on-board drive diagnostics that comprise S.M.A.R.T.? Would you have any particular utilities to recommend for diagnostics when the disks are attached to the PC?

Thanks again,
-Jason