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[mzman]

After messing with administrator privledges, uninstalling Tivo Desktop, and firewall settings, I finally got "running on port 8070" to show up on my Tivo Server screen. However, the Tivo doesn't show anything on its Music, Video, etc. screen. It was showing my library just fine using Tivo Desktop/Server before I downloaded JRiver. Any ideas? Thanks!

[JimH]

MC's Tivo Server only serves audio.  Is that what you're trying to do?

[mzman]

MC's Tivo Server only serves audio.  Is that what you're trying to do?

Yes, I'm trying to play MP3s because I don't like Tivo's native player.

[mzman]

Can someone please give me some ideas? I want to give this an honest shot before my trial expires. Thanks.

More info: I have since reinstalled Tivo Desktop so I have access to music while attempting to get JRiver to work. Media Center still shows that it's running the Tivo Server, but the Tivo doesn't see it. It only sees Tivo's native published music.

[bob]

I think sometimes the beacon gets messed up. You can try resetting that. If it still doesn't work and you can spare port 80 on your PC, set the port to 80 and try again.

[bob]

Almost forgot, you can add the MC server by ip address in the Music, Photo's and More section.

[mzman]

Unfortunately...

I tried resetting the beacon many times. It didn't affect anything.

I cannot spare port 80. I use the PC for browsing and everything else.

I tried adding the server manually at the Tivo already. No dice.

Is this a very unusual problem? I am surprised this is working for so many people. I don't have an unusual setup or anything. Any other ideas?

[bob]

Unfortunately...

I tried resetting the beacon many times. It didn't affect anything.

I cannot spare port 80. I use the PC for browsing and everything else.

I tried adding the server manually at the Tivo already. No dice.

Is this a very unusual problem? I am surprised this is working for so many people. I don't have an unusual setup or anything. Any other ideas?

If you aren't running a server on your PC on port 80 then you can spare it.

You need to be on the same LAN segment as the TiVo, sometimes routers can mess up the broadcast if, for example, the TiVo is wireless and the PC isn't (or the other way around).

[mzman]

Thanks. Still no luck. I tried port 80, and again my Tivo can't see Media Center.

I am on the same segment. I verified there is nothing between the PC and the router (other than a switch), and nothing between the Tivo and router. Might it be a firewall setting I am missing?

[mzman]

Can someone from JRiver support help me get to the bottom of this? I'd love to buy the product, but really need this to work before I consider it. Thanks.

[bob]

What about wired vs wireless? Are both the PC and TiVo the same? They may go into the same router but not all routers treat wired and wireless as being on the same segment without filtering.

Is your router blocking multicast?

If you open port 80 on your firewall and the TiVo server is set to port 80 does that change anything? Do you have more than one firewall running (I.E. Windows Firewall and Zone Alarm)?

If your PC isn't directly on the outside network, you could temporarily turn off all firewalls on the PC and see if it works, then turn the firewall back on and make the proper changes to the firewall configuration(s).

Since you changed MC to use port 80 for the TiVo server, did you then try manually entering the MC PC's address into the TiVo's manually add a server dialog?

It's a bit difficult to figure out what is going on in your situation since here it just works without any messing around.

[mzman]

All devices in question are wired. My router was blocking multicast. I disabled that filter. I then turned off Windows Firewall completely. It's the only firewall I use on the internal network (the router has a firewall). With every test, I also try manually adding the server on the Tivo, and it doesn't work.

Here's something interesting. After doing the above steps (firewall off, multicast not filtered), I tried resetting the beacon. I received the errors below. Then, I immediately changed the port to run manually, port 80. Then I set it back to automatic and it worked. Why would the reset have failed when every port change works? I replicated this for purposes of posting here, but before I did that I tested each port on the Tivo.

10/27/11 09:57:11 - Checking TiVo Beacon installation
10/27/11 09:57:11 - Removing existing Beacon.
10/27/11 09:57:12 - Existing Beacon removed.
10/27/11 09:57:12 - Installing new Beacon.
10/27/11 09:57:12 - Starting new Beacon.
10/27/11 09:57:12 - Unregistering Beacon API.
10/27/11 09:57:12 - Installing new API.
10/27/11 09:57:12 - Unable to copy new API.
10/27/11 09:57:12 - Please stop all programs (like TiVo Desktop) that might be using it.

If the problem persists, remove the TiVo Desktop application, reboot the system, and try again. You can reinstall the TiVo Desktop later.
10/27/11 09:57:43 - Server Stopped
10/27/11 09:57:43 - Starting...
10/27/11 09:57:43 - Checking TiVo Beacon installation
10/27/11 09:57:43 - Connecting to Beacon.
10/27/11 09:57:43 - Running on Port 80
10/27/11 09:57:46 - Server Stopped
10/27/11 09:57:46 - Starting...
10/27/11 09:57:46 - Trying Port 8070
10/27/11 09:57:46 - Checking TiVo Beacon installation
10/27/11 09:57:46 - Connecting to Beacon.
10/27/11 09:57:46 - Running on Port 8070

[bob]

I've run into the beacon reset problem once before but wasn't able to track it down. I assumed it was some sort of permissions issue.

So does it show up on your TiVo now?
If not, what TiVo do you have and what are the IP addresses of your TiVo and PC?

[mzman]

It does not show up.

I have a Tivo HD. Its IP address is 192.168.15.23. The PC running Media Center and the beacon is 192.168.15.11

[mzman]

Bob,

Are you with JRiver support?

Is anyone from JRiver able to provide diagnostic steps, or open a ticket? I figure that getting to the bottom of this might not be too hard for an engineer who knows how this is designed to work. Is there a log somewhere? I'm not sure what the support level is for this product. I don't want to get into it if it's more trouble than Tivo itself when it comes to streaming music.

[JimH]

Bob is JRiver.  We don't have anyone better.

[mzman]

Thanks for the reply Jim. I'm a bit frustrated, because it seems people like this product, and I am not finding many posts indicating that others have a problem with the Tivo Server. I have an IT background, and don't think there is anything unusual with my setup. I don't have problems with any other network functionality on my network, and like I said, native Tivo music and photo publishing works. There are just some bugs and interface limitations I want to improve on by using JRiver.

I want to invest a little time to get this to work. I hope I can.

[bob]

I'll do some testing of it on my system at home this weekend and see if I can get MC to disappear from the TiVo.

[mzman]

Thanks Bob. More info below....

I just tried to login into an account with Administrator privledges. Before, I was testing mainly by running from a regular account, but manually choosing to launch as an administrator (Windows 7). I got errors. I haven't had this issue recently. Something must have changed, but I don't think I did anything, and didn't reboot. I don't know what happened. See the errors at 13:36:02 below. Then, I tried resetting the beacon and got what you see at 13:36:34, after being told by Media Center that I need to reboot. I had done this reboot before on several occasions when resetting the beacon, so was surprised it popped up again. Rebooting reverted it to the old behavior.

Some other odd things: I have Media Center 16 listed four times in my list of allowed programs in Windows Firewall. They all point to the same .exe. I have numerous rules for Media Center 16 in advanced firewall settings.

What do you have in your firewall settings? Should I clear all the rules and have the firewall reset them after prompting me? Should I reinstall Media Center?

The errors I refer to above are listed below.

10/28/11 13:36:02 - Starting...
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Trying Port 8070
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Checking TiVo Beacon installation
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Connecting to Beacon.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Unable to connect to Beacon, the API does not exist.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Trying Port 8071
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Checking TiVo Beacon installation
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Connecting to Beacon.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Unable to connect to Beacon, the API does not exist.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Trying Port 8072
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Checking TiVo Beacon installation
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Connecting to Beacon.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Unable to connect to Beacon, the API does not exist.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Trying Port 8073
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Checking TiVo Beacon installation
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Connecting to Beacon.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Unable to connect to Beacon, the API does not exist.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Trying Port 8074
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Checking TiVo Beacon installation
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Connecting to Beacon.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Unable to connect to Beacon, the API does not exist.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Trying Port 8075
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Checking TiVo Beacon installation
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Connecting to Beacon.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Unable to connect to Beacon, the API does not exist.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Trying Port 8076
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Checking TiVo Beacon installation
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Connecting to Beacon.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Unable to connect to Beacon, the API does not exist.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Trying Port 8077
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Checking TiVo Beacon installation
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Connecting to Beacon.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Unable to connect to Beacon, the API does not exist.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Trying Port 8078
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Checking TiVo Beacon installation
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Connecting to Beacon.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Unable to connect to Beacon, the API does not exist.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Trying Port 8079
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Checking TiVo Beacon installation
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Connecting to Beacon.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Unable to connect to Beacon, the API does not exist.
10/28/11 13:36:02 - Unable to start sharing
10/28/11 13:36:34 - Checking TiVo Beacon installation
10/28/11 13:36:34 - Removing existing Beacon.
10/28/11 13:36:34 - Existing Beacon removed.
10/28/11 13:36:34 - Installing new Beacon.
10/28/11 13:36:34 - Starting new Beacon.
10/28/11 13:36:34 - Unregistering Beacon API.
10/28/11 13:36:34 - Installing new API.
10/28/11 13:36:35 - Registering the new API.
10/28/11 13:36:40 - Connecting to Beacon.

[bob]

On my home system I needed to do the following to get MC to show up:
Change from Manual to Auto port selection
Put a short simple name into the Name: box (I used Bob).
I set conversion to always convert since all of my mp3's have images in the tags and the TiVo doesn't like that.
Clicked on "reset beacon" (If you've got windows 7 or vista with UAC on, click ok on all three of the resulting UAC dialog boxes).
Click OK to exit TiVo Server Options.
Ignore the "please ...." error in the TiVo Server status window.
Click on "Stop Server"
Click on "Start Server"

Now on my TiVo I re-browse (exit back to the TiVo Main menu and re-enter the Music, Photo's and Showcases menu) and I now see
Bob's Music
and
Bob's Photos
and it works perfectly.

Hope this helps...

[mzman]

Bob,

It again required a reboot before I could follow your steps. Something isn't sticking.

After the reboot, everything looked on screen as you described. I think the only difference from what I was doing before, is that I never had put a name in the box. This time I put in JRiver.

Still no luck on the Tivo however. Native tivo server still works. I even tried reinstalling Media Center.

I think I'm going to call it quits for now. I might try again with a future version. If you can test further for future releases, that may be a good idea. I doubt my situation is unique.

Thanks for all your help.

[bob]

I'm sorry you had so much trouble with this.
If you are running on windows 7 or Vista it's possible there is a permissions problem with registering TiVoBeaconApi.dll, TiVo hasn't upgraded that in a REALLY long time.

You could try the following:
Copy the newer TiVoBeacon.exe from the TivoDesktop install into the
C:\Program Files\Common Files\TiVo Shared\Beacon
folder. Then open the windows start menu and search for cmd. You'll get cmd.exe at the top of the list box. Right click on that and do "run as administrator".
In the resulting dos box do:
RegSvr32 /s "C:\Program Files\Common Files\TiVo Shared\Beacon\TiVoBeaconApi.dll"

If you don't get an error back from that, supposedly the beacon is registered properly. You can then go back to MC in the TiVo service and do stop server, then start server. See if it shows up on the TiVo then.

[mzman]

I'm a bit confused, since I thought that MC had it's own server. Are you saying that MC depends on the Tivo Beacon? I thought one of the recommendations was to uninstall Tivo software.

[bob]

The TiVoBeacon.exe is part of the TiVo API as well as part of TiVo Desktop.

We are looking at this from another angle so you should probably not bother testing for now. BTW are you on Vista or Win 7?

[mzman]

I'm on Windows 7. If possible, please reply here if you find a potential solution in a new version of MC. I'd certainly consider reinstalling if it might work, and I'll stay subscribed here.

I might need a way to get more time with the trial if I reinstall though.

Thanks.

[bob]

I'm on Windows 7. If possible, please reply here if you find a potential solution in a new version of MC. I'd certainly consider reinstalling if it might work, and I'll stay subscribed here.

I might need a way to get more time with the trial if I reinstall though.

Thanks.

You can get a extension to the trial if you've run out.
The latest build (17.0.33) does away with the TiVo beacon api and replaces it with one we wrote. Try it out, it works great for me.

[mzman]

What a difference! Version 17 (latest build 38) worked immediately on installation, with no tweaks to the configuration. Thanks for your help getting this working. I don't know if this new Tivo server was part of your development roadmap for MC17, but I feel either lucky or privileged!

Can you let me know if I can somehow get the server to start without having to launch Media Center, or even without logging into my account? Basically, I'd like to configure the server as a process that starts on boot. Is it possible somehow?

[JimH]

On our wiki, please read about Media Server.  You can tell MC to start it on Windows startup.

[mzman]

I searched the Wiki again, and couldn't find any information on that. Could you please send a link?

[MrC]

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php?search=media+server&ns0=1&title=Special%3ASearch&fulltext=Search&fulltext=Search
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php?search=tivo&ns0=1&title=Special%3ASearch&fulltext=Search&fulltext=Search

[mzman]

Thanks. I was searching for "Tivo Server" instead of "Media Server".

Now the Tivo sees the JRiver server after I login to my account on the computer. However, if I just reboot but do not login to an account, it does not. Am I missing something, or is this a Tivo-server bug in MC17?

[MrC]

This is a question that gets frequently asked, and the wiki should probably be updated to clarify this.  Media Server can be configured to start upon login, and really requires certain context that a login session provides.  There may be some users who have used additional software to launch Media Server upon Windows startup (i.e. prior to login), but you'll have to search the forums here to see their results (I'm not sure where things stand).

[mzman]

Now I can provide some feedback!

First of all, thanks again for all the help getting this working. MC has improved on my Tivo experience. More on that later.

I think I found a bug. When playing the album "Hazards of Love" by The Decemberists over the Tivo via the MC server, the songs don't play in the correct order! Most of them do, but a few are out of place. I downloaded the album from Amazon.com, and the tags seem correct. Playing the album through JRiver MC on the PC works correctly, and playing the same album via Tivo's native server also works correctly. Something must be tripping JRiver up. I haven't noticed this with any other albums yet. Can anyone replicate this? I am playing this by doing an artist search, then clicking play when the album folder is highlighted. Is there a workaround? It's certainly an unusual issue!

I originally found JRiver MC when trying to find an alternative to Tivo's native server. My Tivo exhibits two behaviors that are very frustrating:

1. When pausing a song during play, resuming would sometimes cause the song to only play for about 10 seconds or so. After that, the next song would start playing. That song would only play for 10 seconds, then we were off to the next song... and so on until the end of the album. The JRiver server hasn't done this yet, so this is a big improvement!

2. This problem seems to exist even when I use the JRiver MC server, and it existed on Tivo's server too.... when pausing a song during play, resuming would often (almost always) cause the song to finish, but then the next song wouldn't play. It's as if by pausing, the player forgets there are other songs in the album. Manually advancing (channel up) plays the next song, but again it stops after that one. The only solution seems to be to replay the current song, then fast forward to the end. When it pauses at the end of the track, I need to fast forward again to get it working.

This is still an annoyance, since if I need to pause the music for any reason, such as a phone call, it requires a complex manual intervention to get the album or playlist going again. If I'm off doing something and someone else must do this, forget it! Does anyone have any ideas if this can be fixed? Is it a problem that only Tivo can address?

Thanks.

[bob]

Now I can provide some feedback!

First of all, thanks again for all the help getting this working. MC has improved on my Tivo experience. More on that later.

I think I found a bug. When playing the album "Hazards of Love" by The Decemberists over the Tivo via the MC server, the songs don't play in the correct order! Most of them do, but a few are out of place. I downloaded the album from Amazon.com, and the tags seem correct. Playing the album through JRiver MC on the PC works correctly, and playing the same album via Tivo's native server also works correctly. Something must be tripping JRiver up. I haven't noticed this with any other albums yet. Can anyone replicate this? I am playing this by doing an artist search, then clicking play when the album folder is highlighted. Is there a workaround? It's certainly an unusual issue!

Do the track numbers look right in the file list in MC? How many tracks are there? Is it possible the files are playing in alphabetic order rather than track order?

I originally found JRiver MC when trying to find an alternative to Tivo's native server. My Tivo exhibits two behaviors that are very frustrating:

1. When pausing a song during play, resuming would sometimes cause the song to only play for about 10 seconds or so. After that, the next song would start playing. That song would only play for 10 seconds, then we were off to the next song... and so on until the end of the album. The JRiver server hasn't done this yet, so this is a big improvement!

2. This problem seems to exist even when I use the JRiver MC server, and it existed on Tivo's server too.... when pausing a song during play, resuming would often (almost always) cause the song to finish, but then the next song wouldn't play. It's as if by pausing, the player forgets there are other songs in the album. Manually advancing (channel up) plays the next song, but again it stops after that one. The only solution seems to be to replay the current song, then fast forward to the end. When it pauses at the end of the track, I need to fast forward again to get it working.

This is still an annoyance, since if I need to pause the music for any reason, such as a phone call, it requires a complex manual intervention to get the album or playlist going again. If I'm off doing something and someone else must do this, forget it! Does anyone have any ideas if this can be fixed? Is it a problem that only Tivo can address?

Thanks.

It's possible your TiVo doesn't like both servers on the same PC being active at the same time perhaps?
You could also try changing the setting for conversion in the TiVo server to "always convert" and see it that makes a difference. Conversion will strip the tags and I have definitely run into trouble on my TiVo with mp3 tags (especially if there is embeded album art).