Just noticed TiVo Desktop 1.9 was released on 2/9. Blurb says:

TiVo Desktop for Mac v1.9 (236kb) Updated February 09, 2005. This update contains: a revised preferences mechanism, support for photo album heirarchies, a new plug-in API, and minor bug fixes.
Music & Photos only

"a new plug-in API" ??? Hope springs eternal!

TD

1.9? At least it sounds like they are getting closer to 2.0

I upgraded my G3 DT running 10.2.8 to version 1.9 of TiVo Desktop for Mac, and it refuses to run. (the previous version was fine) Everytime I click on the start button in the sys pref, it reverts back. Simply will not work. I've repaired permissions, rebooted, no go. Upgrade at you own risk!

I had the same problem as Bierboy, 1.9 is no good.

Working fine for me here (G4 running 10.3.7.) I did see the behavior that Bierboy describes the first time I clicked start, but a subsequent click and it fired right up.

Bierboy -- did anything get logged to your console, or did a CrashReporter log get generated? If you've never done that before, look in /Applications/Utilities for the Console app and launch it. It typically opens up on the console log. I'd check the console and system logs, which you can access by clicking the "logs" button and opening that tray, and look in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter for related logs. I'm not sure if the system would generate a crash log as TiVoDesktop or as a JavaNativeCrash, since the TiVo Desktop on the Mac, at least the server portion, is a java application.

Someone else (I've lost the thread) had reported similar problems with the 1.8 version after migrating their system, and was only able to solve the issue with an OS reinstall.

So, since I'm a geek, I poke around to see what the new version has installed, and see several things in /Library/Application Support/TiVo than used to be there, including an executable called SoundConvert. So, I run 'strings' against it, and see that there are references to lame.

Curious.

Now, I had some of lame installed (the library, but not the command-line executable. which is what the strings referred to), so I went and grabbed some reasonably current Mac OS X binaries (3.96.1) from:

http://vastheman.paservices.com/

and installed the package. The significant piece appears to be having /usr/local/bin/lame installed.

Restart the 1.9 version of the server.

I am now listening to a file that I know to be encoded as unprotected AAC on my TiVo.

Note that the TiVo is still playing .mp3 (since that's all it can play) -- the desktop machine is transcoding on the fly. This is similar to how the 3rd-party WMA plug-in works on the Wintel side of the fence.

I don't know how much CPU you need to cope with this, or even how general the support is (protected AAC is still not supported given a cursory examination.) I've only tried this with one file, and it is working at the moment.

Remember: this is something that I found by poking around, and have so far tested with exactly one file. TiVo has made no claims of support for this. This could very well be a feature in its infancy that will crash your Mac, blow up your TiVo, slay your firstborn, et cetera .

Back to Bierboy's problem -- I can reproduce the behavior on my machine. If you haven't selected anything to share yet, you'll click "Start", and it will flash "Stop" then go back to "Start" again.

Once I select "Share my music" or "Share my photos" (i.e. check the checkbox) then the server starts normally.

Looks like the server is just starting up, detecting that it has nothing to do, and stopping. Which, when you think about it, is probably correct, although it'd be nice to give you a message to that effect.

I have iPhoto and iTunes publishing on and still get the bug, where it resets to off after about a second. Also on the Tivo, it won't recognize the IP address for the computer to share

If the server hasn't started, then the TiVo won't see anything. You've turned on iTunes and iPhoto publishing since installing 1.9, right? Because of the new preferences mechanism (which places global preferences in /Library/Preferences and individual user prefs in ~/Library/Preferences) you need to do this again, since the settings don't migrate (at least, they didn't when I installed.)

Have you checked for logs, as I mentioned above?

Is everyone that's seeing this behavior running Mac OS X 10.2.8? The two posters that have listed their configs have this in common. Any other TiVo servers running on the machine (like javaHMO?)


There is additional logging in the TiVo Desktop that can be turned on. This thread:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...ad.php?t=220000

was someone seeing the same behavior, albeit with TiVo Desktop 1.8 on Mac OS X 10.3, after migrating an install. Instructions for turning on more detailed logging are in that thread. Might help.

The other thing you could try would be to quit the System Preferences app, then delete any of the TiVo preference files. At the very least, that would be:

/Library/Preferences/com.tivo.desktop

and

~/Library/Preferences/com.tivo.desktop.plist

And then opening System Prefs and reconfiguring.

Deleted:

/Library/Preferences/com.tivo.desktop
and
~/Library/Preferences/com.tivo.desktop.plist

... and reconfigured the prefpane to publish playlists. Still no go.

system.log said:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: push
at com.apple.cocoa.foundation.NSAutoreleasePool.push(Native Method)
at com.tivo.server.TiVoDesktop.main(TiVoDesktop.java:36)
TiVoDesktop: can't launch TiVoDesktop!


Everything Java touches turns to crap!

AAC playback is working for me also!!! Finally. I'm running on a iBook G4 1Ghz and a dual G4 533mhz, over a 802.11G wireless network with no drops in playback. Background encoding must not be too taxing.

Thanks to Dennis for finding this sweet nugget, finally I can listen to almost all of my music!!!

That's an indication that the TiVo Desktop is trying to call a native method (in this case, NSAutoreleasePool's push() method) and it can't find that method. That points to something missing or misconfigured in your OS install, usually. It may be that v1.8 just didn't make that particular call. You might want to try reinstalling Java or being sure you've updated it to the latest rev for your version of Mac OS (1.4.1 update 1 for 10.2.x, and 1.4.2 update 2 for 10.3.x.)

Posted in the thread in the Coffee House, but thought I'd better at least mention it here. I'm successfully transcoding on a PB G4 400 mhz. So I would say any fairly modern Mac should be able to handle this. Thanks for pointing out the LAME resource and finding this Dennis!

Matt

Trashed the TiVo desktop prefs....still didn't work. Selected share my music and share my photos before trying to start....still didn't work.

This is what I found in the console...

Didn't find anything in the crashreporter logs. I've got the latest version of Java. Just reinstalled my OS a few months ago.

Same here. As Dennis Wilkinson suggested, I reinstalled from scratch the whole 38 MB Java 1.4.1 and I continue to get the same failure and Console log as Bierboy.

This is getting old.

Dennis suggested a possible pattern that this failure only is occurring in Mac OS X 10.2.8.

1) Is the failure occurring for anyone *not* in 10.2.8?
2) Is anyone in 10.2.8 successful?

I have 10.3.8 and the Tivo server will not start on its own upon turning on the computer. I have to go into the pref pane and turn it on manually. Once that is done, it seems to stay running though.

The very first time I ran it after the 1.9 install I did not notice I had to start it a couple times to get it to stick.

Worked great for me on my PowerBook with OS X 10.3.8, after installing Lame I can now playback unprotected AAC files just fine. Great discovery!

I'm running 10.2.8 and I cannot get 1.9 to work, either. I have tried everything mentioned, short of re-installing the OS and nothing works. Same console log, too.

Well, that's 2 folks confirmed on 10.2.8, and both seeing the same exception (basically, unable to link to the push() function on NSAutoreleasePool.) That's a Cocoa call from Java, something that I'm hardly an expert on. Apple's documentation on that class/function doesn't indicate any particular version as a base requirement.

There should be a .class file for that class at:

/System/Library/Java/com/apple/cocoa/foundation/NSAutoreleasePool.class

You could start by verifying that exists. I don't have a 10.2.8 install hanging around to check.

First off thanks Dennis, for I now can play AAC.

Here is my issue, while music sharing works with my TIVO desktop 1.9, photo sharing does not. The check box for turning on photo sharing through TIVO desktop is grayed out(it is not grayed out in iPhoto itself).

I am running 10.3.8, on a Powerbook 12" & iLife 05, done all the repair permissions, etc. Below is the output from the console log and it shows that something is wrong. What that is I don't know because I have no idea how this stuff really works.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

19:27.404 FilePhotoFactory: about to create new root for user ryans
08:19:27.415 FilePhotoFactory: exception creating new root
java.lang.Exception: User ryans does not have preferences for plugin FilePhoto
at com.tivo.plugin.AbstractPluginRoot.readPrefsAndUpdate(Abstra ctPluginRoot.java:80)
at com.tivo.plugin.AbstractPluginRoot.<init>(AbstractPluginRoot.java:47)
at com.tivo.filephoto.FilePhotoRoot.<init>(FilePhotoRoot.java:34)
at com.tivo.filephoto.FilePhotoFactory.makePluginForUser(FilePh otoFactory.java:27)
at com.tivo.plugin.AbstractPluginFactory.addPluginForUser(Abstr actPluginFactory.java:72)
at com.tivo.plugin.AbstractPluginFactory.usersChanged(AbstractP luginFactory.java:103)
at com.tivo.calypso.Root.build(Root.java:98)
at com.tivo.calypso.Root.<init>(Root.java:60)
at com.tivo.calypso.Root.getRoot(Root.java:29)
at com.tivo.server.TiVoDesktop.main(TiVoDesktop.java:73)
08:19:27.417 iPhotoFactory: about to create new root for user ryans
08:19:27.422 iPhotoFactory: exception creating new root
java.lang.Exception: User ryans has not enabled plugin iPhoto
at com.tivo.plugin.AbstractPluginRoot.readPrefsAndUpdate(Abstra ctPluginRoot.java:83)
at com.tivo.plugin.AbstractPluginRoot.<init>(AbstractPluginRoot.java:47)
at com.tivo.iPhoto.iPhotoRoot.<init>(iPhotoRoot.java:37)
at com.tivo.iPhoto.iPhotoFactory.makePluginForUser(iPhotoFactor y.java:27)
at com.tivo.plugin.AbstractPluginFactory.addPluginForUser(Abstr actPluginFactory.java:72)
at com.tivo.plugin.AbstractPluginFactory.usersChanged(AbstractP luginFactory.java:103)
at com.tivo.calypso.Root.build(Root.java:98)
at com.tivo.calypso.Root.<init>(Root.java:60)
at com.tivo.calypso.Root.getRoot(Root.java:29)
at com.tivo.server.TiVoDesktop.main(TiVoDesktop.java:73)
08:19:27.428 iTunesFactory: about to create new root for user ryans
08:19:27.446 iTunesRoot: finding an iTunes file...
08:19:27.464 iTunesUser.findiTunesFile: Checking location /Users/ryans/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml
08:19:27.464 iTunesRoot: found iTunes file /Users/ryans/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml
08:19:27.464 iTunesRoot: Reading iTunes data from file /Users/ryans/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml
08:19:27.898 iTunesRoot: Reading album data for version 4.7.1

I have somewhat different issues with 1.9.

G4, OS X 10.3.8

TiVo Desktop runs and shares music OK. But not so sharing photos.

With "Publish entire iPhoto Library" selected the TiVo box returns (Error#0-65535)

With "Publish only these albums:" selected the TiVo box displays message saying "No photos are currently being shared..., or a network problem is preventing you from accessing shared photos there..." despite the fact that several albums are selected for sharing.

I can access music and photos on an Imac on the same network still running 1.8 just fine.

Any ideas?

For both stx66 and sdurgin, my only thought relates to the "new preferences mechanism" in 1.9. In 1.8 and earlier, all of the preferences were stored in /Library/Preferences/com.tivo.desktop. Now, only the "global" preferences (related to starting the server) live there, along with a list of users who are sharing something, and the per-user preferences live in each user's ~/Library/Preferences/com.tivo.desktop.plist. Take a look in your user prefs (/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.tivo.desktop.plist) -- you should see a block that looks like this one:



If you have "share all albums" selected for iPhoto. If the "Enabled" key maps to <false/> instead of <true/> then sharing isn't on, and I'd expect to see a log like stx66 gets.

What I noticed yesterday is that I needed to stop and restart the server after making changes to what I was sharing for the changes to be applied. I don't remember whether that was the behavior in 1.8 or not.

sdurgin's problems sound a little more like a permissions problem or corruption in the iPhoto library. You could try repairing permissions in Disk Utility, and if that doesn't work, hold down option-shift when launching iPhoto which will allow you to rebuild (I'd back up first, just to be safe.)

I have no idea how the TiVo Desktop deals with iTunes or iPhoto libraries that aren't in the default locations, either. Just something else to bear in mind.

/System/Library/Java/com/apple/cocoa/foundation/NSAutoreleasePool.class

is there, with created & modified dates of 7/14/02.

(10.2.8)

I suppose (again, I have only a passing familiarity with java) that implies that the .jnilib file that includes the implementation of NSAutoreleasePool:: push is either missing or not being included in the list of .jnilibs when the java VM is invoked for the TiVo Desktop. I'm not sure which file that would be, though.

Could mean there's something missing on your system; or that there's a bug; or that the minimum system requirements have indeed changed to need Java 1.4.2, which isn't available on 10.2.x. I'm not sure.

It would be useful to know if the new version works for anyone on 10.2.x.

A quick google of "NSAutoreleasePool UnsatisfiedLinkError" shows that this could potentially be an Apple issue. I turned up a few threads unrelated to TiVo where this exact error would occur sporadically, but if you were to catch the exception, make a call like "print NSBundle.allFrameworks()", then retry the push() and it would succeed (which sounds like a dependency issue to me.) Not that that is any help -- the changes would need to be made in the source, which only TiVo has.

Great discovery, Dennis! It's working great for me (OS X 10.3.7 on a PowerBook G4). Thanks!

I installed the 1.9 update and it worked without a hitch. And much to my surprise it seems to have cleared up the problem I have been having with viewing photos. Both of my Humax TiVo's (T800 and DRT800) had black bars on either side and photos seemed stretched when viewing. I didn't have this problem on my earlier 240 model until it updated with 7.1. Now that I have updated to TiVo Desktop 1.9 my photos are back to fullscreen on all machines!

Tried both (wow that rebuild/repair routine takes a long time with some 8 gigs of photos) but to no avail. Same performance. I'll complare the plist of 1.9 to the ones on the Imac with 1.8.

Thanks for the ideas.

Works great for me! Took about 20 seconds to download LAME, about 30 seconds to install and it works perfect!

On my PM DP2.5Ghz, the LAME process seems to take up anywhere between 3.3% and 18% of processing power when I play a 192kbps bit rate song. It varies widely between each time "top" polls it.

This was a great catch!