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[vbphil]

I'm not able to access Media Center with either of my TiVos.
I have 2 TiVos on my home network, a Series 3 and a TiVo Premier.
I have TiVo Desktop running with the TiVo server using the Bonjour Service and not TiVo Beacon.
TiVo Beacon wasn't working with my TiVo Premiere for some reason.
The Premiere is connected to a network hub on a Cisco WET610N Dual-Band N Entertainment Bridge for Wireless access.
I can see music and photo sharing folders on both TiVos as setup with TiVo Desktop so that is all working.

There was a time when Media Center did show up on the Series 3 TiVo. I lost it sometime during continued troubleshooting of the Premiere.
Now the Media Center is not on either TiVo. The troubleshooting just consisted of switching between Bonjour and Beacon, trying different JRiver TiVo ports and rebooting everything.

I thought all I'd have to do is turn on the TiVo Server in Media Center and it would magically show up on my TiVos.
obviously there's more to it than that and many possibilities for it not to work.

So here's what versions I'm running.
JRiver Media Center 19, v19.0.67
TiVo Server running on port 8070.

Tivo Desktop Plus Version 2.8.3 (412370)

Any ideas on what I should be doing or how to troubleshoot this would be appreciated.

[AustinBike]

Check the settings on your router around multicast.  I had several problems with tivos seeing each other and my server, multicast (turning it on/off and rebooting) seemed to get things back in line.

[vbphil]

A little more discovery.

TiVo Server is working to both TiVos in Beacon or Bonjour configurations. I can see the transfer video folder on the PC in My Shows and the Music sharing folder in Music, Photos and Showcast.

I did find that when in Bonjour mode the Music and Photo Icons for the PC show up on the TiVo even if you have no folders configured on the PC for sharing through the TiVo Desktop program. However, when in Beacon mode you won't see any listing for Music or Photo sharing on the TiVo unless you actually configure these folders in TiVo Desktop.

So it looks pretty much like the TiVo and the PC TiVo server are performing as designed on my home network. The router and firewalls are all letting the signals through. However, Media Center 19 still isn't showing up. I don't understand how Media Center works with TiVo so I'm at a lost as to how to troubleshoot it. I was assuming MC communicated with the TiVo Beacon service on the PC but I'm not sure. The TiVo server is running in MC with no errors reported.

[bob]

A little more discovery.

TiVo Server is working to both TiVos in Beacon or Bonjour configurations. I can see the transfer video folder on the PC in My Shows and the Music sharing folder in Music, Photos and Showcast.

I did find that when in Bonjour mode the Music and Photo Icons for the PC show up on the TiVo even if you have no folders configured on the PC for sharing through the TiVo Desktop program. However, when in Beacon mode you won't see any listing for Music or Photo sharing on the TiVo unless you actually configure these folders in TiVo Desktop.

So it looks pretty much like the TiVo and the PC TiVo server are performing as designed on my home network. The router and firewalls are all letting the signals through. However, Media Center 19 still isn't showing up. I don't understand how Media Center works with TiVo so I'm at a lost as to how to troubleshoot it. I was assuming MC communicated with the TiVo Beacon service on the PC but I'm not sure. The TiVo server is running in MC with no errors reported.

We don't use the beacon in the TiVo package, we have our own.
I'm using this at home without any trouble.
You might want to try disabling the beacon for your TiVo desktop and see if that allows MC to be seen.

[vbphil]

I've tried disabling the TiVo Desktop server and verified the TiVo Beacon service was disabled but still no MC in Tivo.

Can you give me a few more tips like. Where to do I find MC in TiVo, what menu and how would you recognize that it's MC? Is your beacon running as a service from an EXE or DLL plugin? I know so little about how MC has implemented it's TiVo interface that I can't troubleshoot it very effectively.

thanks,  -phil

[vbphil]

Well, I got MC in TiVo now by selecting port 80 in the MC TiVo Server options settings. I have TiVo Desktop running on Beacon but no folders published for sharing. So, I can see my MC library and also see the TiVo video transfer folder. MC will continue to work without the TiVo beacon running so it must be using it's version which I did read about in other postings. It was called a Beacon Lite version.

I guess I'm good for now. I'll play with it some to see how it performs before I decide if I like it or not.

The TiVo music player that comes up with MC looks the same as it does with TiVo Desktop so I'm not sure if there's any advantages of MC over TiVo Desktop. Seems like I was thinking there would be more functionality in the player with MC.

I attached an image of the TiVo screen display showing how MC shows up. This TiVo is running in Standard Definition 4:3 screen without the HD menus.

Also, TiVo didn't discover MC automatically I had to perform the "Manually Add A Server..." step on TiVo and enter the PC IP address of the server MC is running on.

[vbphil]

There seemed to be more information, as well as more configuration choices, on MC with TiVo back at MC v9, like the following I found posted.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=11939.0;wap2
1) You do not need TiVo's Desktop if you are using Media Server TiVo on port 80, or if you do not need autodetection of Media Server TiVo. If you are running TiVo Publisher, you cannot use Media Server TiVo on port 80. We strongly recommend installing the desktop and using TiVo Beacon.

3) If the TiVo Beacon is not running, Media Server will run its own version of the Beacon. This lite version does not have the autodetect capability.

4) You can also manually choose the Media Server port (under options->network), but do NOT choose 2190 or 8079. You can also choose to run TiVO HMO on port 80 (make sure this does not conflict with the Media Server port (under options->network) but you must then enter the IP address of Media Server on the TiVo (no autodetect) and it make take a long time (minutes) for TiVo to identify your server.



It was recommended back then to use MC and TiVo desktop in Beacon together which is how I'm unable to make work. I am able to make it work with MC set to port 80 but then that interferes with TiVo Desktop (TiVo Publisher). Also in version 9 MC, it appears, there was a TiVo HMO settings in Media Server. When I select Tools/Advanced Tools/Media Server nothing comes up, that doesn't appear to be working. I'm running MC 19 in evaluation mode since i haven't bought a license yet, would that make a difference?

[bob]

There is no difference between the trialware and registered MC product.
The TiVo beacon is on port 2190. The server is on port 8070 by default (check the TiVo status screen in MC).
Make sure your firewall(s) are open for these.
I've never had to mess with the settings to get MC to automatically show up on my TiVo however I've never run the TiVo desktop on the same machine.
One obvious advantage of running MC is that it will convert any audio format you have to the required mp3 format for TiVo on the fly.

[vbphil]

Still not having much luck with this.

I've disabled Windows Firewall entirely even though it didn't appear to be blocking anything.
I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling Media Center and Tivo Desktop.
I've also configured Wireshark to monitor network traffic and I can see activity on the previously mentioned ports but this analysis isn't helping me understand how it should be working and why it isn't.

The only way I been able to make it work is when I have the MC19 TiVo Server set to port 80 and have the Desktop TiVo Server disabled. But, based on what I read in the MC Wiki and past forum post this isn't the ideal configuration.

It looks like I'm unable to get the MC Tivo server to communicate to the Tivo beacon as the Wiki states;
the TiVo Server must connect to the TiVo Beacon so that the Beacon can advertise the TiVo sharing available from Media Center.


Perhaps the MC19 Tivo server isn't working the same with the newer Series 4 Premier DVRs. An updated MC Wiki in the Tivo section would be greatly appreciated.

[bob]

The wiki will be updated to reflect the fact that MC has it's own beacon and doesn't need to connect to the TiVo desktop beacon.
If you change the port to say in MC's tivo server options to say 8080 and the name such that it's unique from the TiVo Desktop name
(say MCTiVo) then it should show up. As you say there could be a series 4 issue however I'd not heard of one.

[vbphil]

Bob,

Viola! It's working.

Your last comment did the trick, specifically, naming the MC Tivo Server in the options dialog. All this time I never filled in the name field.

So here's what I got now.

Tivo Desktop 2.8.3 is running using Bonjour and not Beacon. that's what they recommend.
MC19 is running with Tivo Server at port 8070. It wouldn't start up at 8080. I think Tivo Desktop is using that somehow, maybe when it was in Beacon, not sure.
MC19 TiVo Server name was set to MCTivo.

So now on the Tivo I see both the Tivo Desktop shared music folder and the MC19 music library. The attached image shows what I see in Tivo with Standard Definition menus. The 2 entries named MCTivo are from the MC Tivo Server based on the name I put in the options dialog.

Thanks for sticking with me on this Bob. Maybe the Wiki also needs to say to give the Tivo Server a name.

-phil

[bob]

Thanks for the report!