TiVo Community Forums Archives - HMO stops when ISP is down

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HMO stops when ISP is down
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Posted by: funkyjunkman

I just found something very problematic with the Tivo HMO package.

My ISP went down for a few hours yesterday, and during the outage my Tivo could only barely and occasionally connect to my local Tivo Desktop server. I like to listen to music through my Tivo while I'm working, and it was quite the disappointment to realize that when my Internet/TV Cable connection went down I couldn't really listen to music anymore either.

My setup is a Toshiba cable modem to my D-Link DI-624 WAN port. My G4 is connected via Ethernet and static IP. My Tivo is connected via wireless D-Link DWL-122/RE and dynamic DHCP IP. My D-Link firmware is 1.25 (current) and Tivo s/w version is 4.0.1b-02-2-230.

I just double checked this today by disconnecting my cable modem from the D-Link WAN port. Any time the WAN port is disconnected the Music & Pictures page stalls out.

Does the Tivo require DNS servers to be online in order for HMO to work? Obviously if the cable modem is disconnected the network served by the D-Link still functions. I can transfer files between my laptop and tower machines while the cable modem is disconnected.

This seems like a pretty big flaw in the HMO service that I would love to see fixed in the next revision of Tivo software.

Posted by: Onibroc42

If it DNS, then the solution is simple - install DNS on your mac.

Posted by: funkyjunkman

OK. So you are suggesting that if HMO is flawed by an irrational dependence on a DNS server to see the servers available on the local network, I should find/download/build/install/configure/run a DNS server to solve the problem?

All I wanted to do is find out if this is a persistent problem among other users and if so use the information to alert Tivo to the bug in their software.

Posted by: bedelman

AFIK -- The Home Media Features for Music and Photos do NOT require DNS for them to work. With a Mac running TiVo Desktop, it uses Apple's Rendezvous technology to discover and connect to the machine running TiVo Desktop.

Posted by: funkyjunkman

I agree. As far as I know there shouldn't be a dependence on any public DNS server for local HMO service. Tivo uses what Apple calls rendezvous, which is an open standard also known as zero-conf to discover HMO services. more info

But... when the ISP is disconnected from my router, even when I can get into my music (for example) the pages load extremely slowly and there is a multi-second pause after every song plays while it tries to pre-buffer the next song through the network.

Any chance someone else can try temporarily unplugging their WAN connection at the router to prove that this is a reproducible problem? TIA!

Posted by: TiVoBill

quote:
Originally posted by funkyjunkman
I agree. As far as I know there shouldn't be a dependence on any public DNS server for local HMO service. Tivo uses what Apple calls rendezvous, which is an open standard also known as zero-conf to discover HMO services. more info

But... when the ISP is disconnected from my router, even when I can get into my music (for example) the pages load extremely slowly and there is a multi-second pause after every song plays while it tries to pre-buffer the next song through the network.

Any chance someone else can try temporarily unplugging their WAN connection at the router to prove that this is a reproducible problem? TIA!

DNS is definitely not required. Many customers actually have their TiVo and PC connected without a broadband connection at all. I'd suspect that the issue may lie with your router (perhaps it keeps checking for the Internet connection to return and is slowing down for that reason)?

Posted by: funkyjunkman

Just tested this again with configuration mentioned earlier.

Tivo on wireless network.
G4 laptop on wireless network.
G4 tower, running Tivo Desktop, on ethernet network.
All connected to the same D-Link router.

With file sharing running on the G4 tower, I can start a copy from the G4 tower to the G4 laptop wirelessly and it runs at 'full speed'. Tivo continues to play music and work. Unplug the cable modem from the 'WAN' port at the router. Tivo stalls out. Trying to get to Music & Photos page on Tivo gets the informational 'first-use' page, giving an option to enter a manual IP. (the manual IP has already been entered) G4 laptop/tower file transfer completes at 'full speed'. Try another G4 to G4 transfer with expected results, Tivo still down. Plug in 'WAN' port. Tivo starts to work again. G4's appear unaffected.

So no, I don't think the gateway at the router (192.168.0.1 in my case) is getting bogged in some strange way.

Any other ideas out there?