HELP! TiVo stopped responding to my 6131

jherrick · Post by **jherrick** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 2:47 pm

I was all set to post this in the extender forum, but after doing some troubleshooting, I am posting it here.

I installed the 6131 extender a few weeks ago, and was just as happy as a pig in s***. Things were going well, and then I turned on the TV today to watch the games and uh-oh. The TiVo would not respond to the remote. The yellow light on the tivo blinks as if to say "I am receiving your signal" but the tivo won't do anything. I unplugged the tivo and let it sit for a while, plugged it back in and tried again. Nothing. I tried the tivo remote, works fine.

Changed the batteries in my 6131, no difference.

Cleared the extender and put the old file back in that always worked fine. Nothing.

Cleared out all macros, all keymoves, all upgrades and protocols, and set the PVR device to 0618. Nothing.

Cleared the upper memory and purged the memory. 981 reset, then reload. Nothing.

I put my ir file here.

Please help!

Thanks.
Jim

Post by **The Robman** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 4:10 pm

I can't tell from your file what protocol you are using for the Tivo (as you're using the Device Combiner). If you're using the NEC1 protocol (ie, $005A) this is a common occurrance. Every button uses a different unit code, which is OK as long as your Tivo is set to unit code 0, but if you change the unit code in your Tivo, the upgrade no longer works.

Now, before you say "I didn't change the unit code" have you visted the screen where you would change the unit code recently (not being a Tivo user, I don't know what that screen is)? Because if you have and you were using this remote, you would have accidentally changed the unit code.

jherrick · Post by **jherrick** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 5:03 pm

Rob, I tried that, but the only button that the tivo responds to is the left arrow. I don't know for sure if it responded to the left arrow before or not. Getting a little more bizarre.
Jim

Post by **The Robman** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 5:24 pm

Could you confirm for me what I suspect, that being that you are using the $005A NEC1 protocol instead of the regular Tivo protocol.

The fact that only one button now works seems to confirm my suspicions (the implication being that whatever unit code happens to be sent with that button is the unit code that your Tivo is now programmed to).

I can't help you with the Tivo specifics as I'm not a Tivo user. If you don't know how to change the Tivo's unit code back to zero (using the original Tivo remote), hopefully another Tivo user will jump and explain what you have to do.

jherrick · Post by **jherrick** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 6:36 pm

Rob, not using the NEC protocol, using the TiVo Official 01 11. Yes, I know how to change the device on the tivo. I changed the remote ID from 0 to 1, 2, and 3, and every time, the left arrow worked. I can't figure that one out.
Jim

jherrick · Post by **jherrick** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 6:53 pm

OK. Update. I was half wrong to say that the left arrow works. It does make the TiVo respond, but not just by performing a back function and not in any menu screen except system info.

I'll explain.

To set the remote ID, you enter the tivo menu and navigate to the system info menu.
Cover the ir emitter, and hold the tivo button and pause button for about 3-5 seconds.
Red LED turns and stays red.
Enter the number 0-9 that you want to change the remote id to.
Red LED blinks.
Push Right> button to change ID. See the number change on the screen.

When I change to a number (say 1), the tivo remote works fine. The 6131 does not allow control on any button.
When I go back to the system info menu and push the left arrow button on 6131, it takes me back a menu, and continues to do so until I can't go back any further.
IT ALSO CHANGES the remote ID back to 0.
Every time. Then the tivo remote does not control the tivo until I change it back to device 0.

This happens in 0, 1, 2, 3. I didn't go further, as it was a pattern.

jherrick · Post by **jherrick** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 7:16 pm

Another update. So it appears as if the up arrow makes tivo respond on device 4. Also makes the remote id read 4 in system info menu.

5 makes right arrow do the same,

6 makes down arrow,

9 is for Select, and the left arrow always brings it back to remote id 0.

I went 0-9 and these are what I came up with.
Jim

gfb107 · Post by **gfb107** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 7:43 pm

I looked at your IR file, and you are clearly using DeviceCombiner. I don't know why you would want to do that for TiVo control. Unless we can see the KM/RM file that you used to create the upgrade you are using, it is hard for us to figure out exactly what you have done.

I also noticed that you have multiple upgrades that are using the DeviceCombiner. I believe that using Device Combiner in more than one upgrade is a bit tricky.

jherrick · Post by **jherrick** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 9:56 pm

gfb107 wrote:I looked at your IR file, and you are clearly using DeviceCombiner. I don't know why you would want to do that for TiVo control.

Greg,
I am using the device combo protocol here because I was under the impression when I built this that I could only have one protocol upgrade. Since then I think that it meant one *device combiner* protocol upgrade. Since I can add the keymoves I want with a standard tivo upgrade, I am building that now.

gfb107 wrote:I also noticed that you have multiple upgrades that are using the DeviceCombiner. I believe that using Device Combiner in more than one upgrade is a bit tricky.

After reading your response I took a look at the ir setup and tried deleting the Tivo upgrade device 1618 and going with a standard 0618. I got back the control of the Tivo!

What I can't understand is why it was working for so long and then suddenly didn't. My 5 year old son said that he touched the remote, but reloading the config should have fixed anything he did. Still puzzled by that, but I am building a straight Tivo upgrade and will load that protocol and device with the keymoves I want and go from there.

mtakahar · Post by **mtakahar** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 10:40 pm

The remote address in your device combiner doesn't look right, or at least, KM 8.31 doesn't give "00" for any remote address. Calculate the 3rd byte of the fixed data with KM and try patching at the following location in bold face in the protocol upgrade. (Address 0 ... FF, 1 ... 7F, 2 ... BF, etc.)

00 00 22 08 06 96 10 04 90 05 6B 03 E4 05 0D 38
04 2C FF E7 62 45 E7 32 44 E3 42 E3 52 1C 03 E3
72 D7 17 1E A2 36 3B F7 97 01 FF 06 D9 02 56 75
BF C6 CA 01 00 C6 C2 0A D0 70 C3 70 C2 C6 DA 17
E7 1F 17 82 50 55 5A 5F 64 68 6D 71 76 7B 7E 83
00 E8 0E 0F 4E 00 E8 0F 0A 4F 00 E8 0B 4B 00 00
E8 1A 5A 16 00 58 80 04 00 E8 19 19 19 01 11 5E
F3 00 DE 58 92 00 00 DE 58 46 00 00 34 3F 00 E8
1F 1F 1F

jherrick wrote:After reading your response I took a look at the ir setup and tried deleting the Tivo upgrade device 1618 and going with a standard 0618. I got back the control of the Tivo!.

That's because a non-Sony TiVo on any remote address responds to the address "0" signals that the 0618 generates.

jherrick wrote:What I can't understand is why it was working for so long and then suddenly didn't. My 5 year old son said that he touched the remote, but reloading the config should have fixed anything he did.

The extender can get deactivated when the the remote was dropped, etc. and the batteries came lose. It may be that you only needed to reactivate the extender. It is VERY rare that you have to reload the image, unless your son accidentally hit a command sequence and reprogrammed the remote while the extender was inactive.

jherrick · Post by **jherrick** » Sun Jan 16, 2005 8:28 pm

Thank you for the reply. I'm afraid I don't understand what you are saying with the first part of your post. I don't even know what question to ask to define my misunderstanding...?

I did try activating the extender after reloading the programming, but it still didn't work. It was a really bizarre thing. I don't think I will discover what caused the problem, but the post by Greg got me to look at my upgrades, and I realized that I didn't have to use the device combiner for the tivo anymore. Loading the standard device and one keymove was enough to get everything working again.

Thank you.
Jim

Post by **The Robman** » Sun Jan 16, 2005 8:31 pm

Rather than spending too much time trying to figure out why your device combiner stuff doesn't work, now that you know that you don't need to use the d/c you should re-create your upgrades without the d/c and see if they work.

Even though Hal was willing to reverse engineer your code, I think the rest of us would need to see your KM file in order to debug it.

jherrick · Post by **jherrick** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:28 am

I will post my KM file tonight when I get home. Everything is working quite well now, so it will be for suggestions for "neatening up". Do you wish to see the protocol(inclusive) or the upgrades (for each device)?

Post by **The Robman** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:39 am

Just put all of it into a zip file and let us figure out what's relevant. At the very least, include the KM file for the device combiner, but if you also have the KM files that you used to get the fixed data, etc those would be useful too.