Enable Daily Call over Network for Series 1 and DirecTV Series 2 TiVos

Overview

All Series 1 TiVos and DirecTV Series 2 TiVos require that a daily call be made over using a phone line. If you do not have a home phone, this daily call will not be able to complete. For Series 1 Stand Alone TiVos, this will result in a loss of guide data. Series 2 TiVos receive their guide data via satellite download, so the only result of not making a daily call is the annoying "make a daily call soon" message that appears each day.

Applies to these TiVo Models

• Series 1 Stand Alone: Yes
• Series 2 Stand Alone: No
• Series 2 DVD Recorder: No
• Series 3 TiVo HD Stand Alone: No
• DirecTiVo Series 1: Yes
• DirecTiVo Series 2: Yes

Prerequisites

In order to make a daily call over your internet connection, you will first need to do the following (details elsewhere on this site):

1. modify the Linux kernel to run third-party code
2. add a network adapter to your TiVo (and install drivers for the adapter if it is not supported with built-in drivers)
3. have a home network router

Because this is not a feature supported by TiVo, you will have to make the modifications above. Instructions for making these modifications can be found elsewhere on this site.

Changes to allow Daily Call over the Network

Once you have your TiVo properly connected to your local network, you need to tell it to you the network connection instead of the modem telephone connection. To do this, go to the Settings screen and select Phone and Dialing Options. Set the dialing prefix to the following:

,#401

It does not matter what other setting you make for the phone preferences. Setting the dialing prefix to ,#401 causes TiVo to ignore all phone settings and use the network connection instead.

Disabling Fakecall.tcl

If you have the program fakecall.tcl running on your TiVo, it will prevent the daily call from occurring. This will prevent software updates from being downloaded. Fakecall.tcl is intended to remove the "please make a daily call soon" error messages. If you're making daily calls over the network, there is no reason to run fakecall.tcl.

To disable fakecall.tcl, edit your /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author file and comment-out the command for fakecall.tcl. Start off by making the file system read-write and then launching the joe text editor:

mount -o remount,rw /
joe /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author

Next, find all line that contain the command fakecall.tcl and deactivate them by placing a # symbol as the first character in that line.

Next, make sure that the connection to the TiVo server is not being blocked check for the following lines and comment them out of the /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author file. Find these lines:

route add -host 204.176.49.2 gw 127.0.0.1
route add -net 204.176.49.0 gw 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0

And comment them out by putting a # at the beginning of the line like so:

#route add -host 204.176.49.2 gw 127.0.0.1\n
#route add -net 204.176.49.0 gw 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0

Finally, exit save the file and exit joe by typing ctrl + k and then x.

sync
mount -o remount,ro /

Turn on DEBUG_BOARD

Go to /etc/rc.d/StageD_PreMfs by typing the following command at the prompt:

cd /etc/rc.d/StageD_PreMfs

Use your favorite editor to edit the file in this directory called rc.Sequence_150.CheckForDebug.sh
Use this command to edit the file using the joe text editor:

joe rc.Sequence_150.CheckForDebug.sh

Find the line that reads:

export DEBUG_BOARD=false

and change it to:

export DEBUG_BOARD=true

and then press Ctrl+k and then x to save the file and exit joe.