Some Answers to Frequent Problems


  1. How do I actually START pytivo
  2. Error: line 975, in _execute_child raise child_exception
  3. Why does the initial display of a folder take so long?
  4. Help, My pyTivo Share replaced my Now Playing List
  5. Warning you don't have the C version of NameMapper installed
  6. socket.error: (98, 'Address already in use')
  7. How can I prevent pyTivo for using 100% of my CPU.
  8. Video Shares never appear in "Now Playing" List (NPL)
  9. Input Video with Nonsquare Pixels
  10. Sub Folders Problem. Files Appear in Wrong Folder
  11. Using Mac OS X I get "No module named subprocess" error
  12. ImportError: No module named Image
  13. .mkv Matroska files do not play properly
  14. Network Shares are Empty on my TiVo When I run pyTivo as a Service


How do I actually START pytivo

This depends what version you downloaded and what options you have selected.

Windows Installer

If you selected "Install as Service" pyTivo should already be running. You can see it by going to http://localhost:9032 from the server.

Otherwise go to:
start -> program files -> pyTivo -> pyTivo Console
You will have to leave this console window open for pyTivo to run. If you want it to run without an open window you need to uninstall and reinstall it as a service.

Compressed Packages

First, download python. Install it. Download pytivo, install it. Then you want to use python to run pytivo. Python is a program that will interpret and run the pytivo.py python script. So, in windows, you could do this by running a command window (Start / Run and type in cmd). In the window you can launch python by typing 'python' if your path points to it. Otherwise, you have to spell out the location, like D:\python25\python. To pass a script to python, you'd type 'D:\python25\python pytivo.py'

Error: line 975, in _execute_child raise child_exception

. . . [Previous Lines Omitted]
File "/pyTivo/plugins/video/transcode.py", line 135, in video_info
ffmpeg = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stdin=subprocess.PIPE)
File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4//lib/python2.4/subprocess.py", line 543, in __init__
errread, errwrite)
File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4//lib/python2.4/subprocess.py", line 975, in _execute_child
raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory 

This means that you have entered the path to ffmpeg incorrectly in the Configuration File

Why does the initial display of a folder take so long?

This used to be the case with pyTivo. However under the CurrentRelease this is no longer an issue. pyTivo used to use a cache however it no longer needs to do this.

Help, My pyTivo Share replaced my Now Playing List

This is a bug in TiVo somewhere. Every now and then for no reason when you pull up the Now Playing List it displays the folders and files from the pyTivo share and not the recordings that are present on your TiVo.

Solution: Go to the bottom of the list, you will see Recently Deleted and TiVo Suggestions as the last items. Enter either of these TiVo folders and then exit back to the NPL. This will refresh your NPL with the correct info.

Another Solution: Hit the "Enter/Last" remote button, then hit the left arrow.

Another Solution: You can also just press 2 twice on your remote (to turn groups off and back on). This should force Now Playing to show up again.

Warning you don't have the C version of NameMapper installed

You likely see an error similar to this:

C:\PyTivo\pyTivo\Cheetah\Compiler.py:1508: UserWarning:
You don't have the C version of NameMapper installed! I'm disabling Cheetah's us
eStackFrames option as it is painfully slow with the Python version of NameMappe
r. You should get a copy of Cheetah with the compiled C version of NameMapper.
"\nYou don't have the C version of NameMapper installed! "

This is just a warning, the C version of NameMapper is not included in the distribution, but it works just fine without it.

socket.error: (98, 'Address already in use')

This error occurs when the port used by pyTivo is already used by another program. See port setting for help on how to fix this.

How can I prevent pyTivo for using 100% of my CPU.

On windows you can try this method by wgw here

Video Shares never appear in "Now Playing" List (NPL)

Please see the TroubleShoot page to try and diagnose your problems.

Input Video with Nonsquare Pixels

Most computer video files will have pixels which are square since computer screens display square pixels. pyTivo generally assumes that it is reading a file with square pixels. Under a few circumstances, where the file is in a TiVo compatible form, where the PAR is within a list of known non-square pixel dimensions pyTivo will assume that the file has nonsquare pixels. However if the file is not in a standard format and has nonsquare pixels the image may be distored on the TV. This is because ffmpeg does not return the PAR of the input file. This issue is rare, but is a known problem. See Aspect Ratio for more discussion.

Sub Folders Problem. Files Appear in Wrong Folder

Likely this is caused by a bug introduced by TiVo in the 8.3 software update. This continues to affect all TiVo software from this date on. More information can be found 8.3 Software

Using Mac OS X I get "No module named subprocess" error

This is because you are using an earlier version of python than 2.5.

ImportError: No module named Image

This occurs if you are using the photo plugin and you have not installed the python imaging library available here

.mkv Matroska files do not play properly

This seems to be a common problem. It appears that ffmpeg does not currently handle these files very well. It seems that some files work while others do not. See Post

Network Shares are Empty on my TiVo When I run pyTivo as a Service

In order to access UNC or Network shares you need to add a username/password, that has access to the share, manually. Follow the instructions here: http://pytivo.krkeegan.com/viewtopic.php?p=1125#1125