I am in need of the newer Tivo 1.1 protocol spec and am thinking of developing this. I’ve done a couple searches and it doesn’t appear that this is in development as of now. I’ve used the 1.0/jtivo library and plugin with openhab 1 because of it’s limitations I figured it was time to get into some code and update things.
I just got OpenHAB 2 up and running locally and wanted to reach out to the communicate before i get started. My plans are to provide:
FEEDBACK from the Tivo on channel changes and current challen being viewed via status updates back into OpenHAB
Old protocol support for backwards compatibility
New Tivo 1.1 Protocol support for all options
Autodetect TiVos on the same subnet plus option to manually enter an IP
Provide some of this functionality back to the openhab 1.0 project depending on timing (based on the contribution guide lines i have to provide the plugin to the 2.0 version before a 1.0 version would be considered
Because of the above options and changing how the plugin functions fundamentally it will be a complete rewrite. Given this I don’t see this as a complicated project. My plan was to contribute this under the openhab package namespace.
Looking forward to hearing back on the above plan and looking forward to contributing to the project.
I just came across your post and I find myself wondering if you ever made any progress on this project. I just started experimenting with openHAB for the first time 2 days ago, but as luck would have it, TiVo is one of the devices I’d like to be able to control as well. I even started to build an updated binding myself before I found your post, but I’ve been slowed way down by the fact that I can’t seem to get mDNS discovery working at all, even for the IPP and PulseAudio bindings.
Anyway, enough rambling. I’d love to hear where you ended up on this.
Hey, thanks for the interest. It’s completely written and functioning. I’ll post some screen shots later today or tomorrow. I also have the auto detection working as well but backed some of the code for it out for troubleshooting a couple things when there was some significant upstream changes that caused problems plus when I had that enabled it was causing the detection of other mDNS services to not work. I am sure I have just missed a minor detail some place.
If you are interested I’ll try and submit a pull request over the weekend. Would love some feedback.
Here’s a few screen shots of the options panel and the channel up/down functionality. ALL commands that are in the PDF document provided by TiVo are supported.
One thing that I added more recently was it will detect a channel up/down event and when the channel change fails it auto adds it to the list to ignore it in the future. It then auto-tries the next channel in the direction you chose.
Here’s an update!!! I finished re-enabling the mDNS auto-detection which works great when the IPP add-on is not enabled. When IPP IS enabled then it finds printers that are broadcast on the local subnet but the TIVOs are not found. I believe this is a bigger issue upstream from add-ons and will continue to troubleshoot that.
Regardless the plugin works great for me and am looking for feedback from any and all. I’ve been using it for quite a bit. Below is a few ways I have set it up so far.
Set this up today, here are some initial comments:
this binding is spamming my log with 2016-03-29 21:34:00.166 [INFO ] [hab.binding.tivo.handler.TiVoHandler] - Refreshing thing 'tivo:sckt:Rootbeer_s_TiVo' @ rate of '10' seconds
every ten seconds, for each of my two tivos (five seconds apart, so every five seconds one or the other)
one of mine is a TiVo Mini, which spends most of its life in an idle state. When that is the case, in addition to the above, I get this every ten seconds as well: 2016-03-29 21:33:06.780 [ERROR] [hab.binding.tivo.handler.TiVoHandler] - While refreshing thing 'tivo:sckt:TiVo_Mini' no tivo status found to report!
I copied your items and sitemap, but used PaperUI to assign channels to items, rather than the .items file. The “select” button in the sitemap didn’t do what it should – when I pressed it in the Now Playing Menu, it deleted an entire folder of recordings!
I probably won’t have much time to debug for a week, but wanted to note these.
For your items 1 - this can safely be ignored. I will change that from an “info” logging state to something that makes more sense.
On #2 - I don’t have a TiVo mini so i can’t speak too much to how that would work. I do store the last state that was received from the TiVo and continue to report that back to the openHAB bus SO if that information is still accurate the fix may be just not treating that case as an error. I would need more feedback from you on what the experience is like and we can adjust as needed.
On #3 - I’m not sure what to say with that. There are no pre-coded TiVo commands except for what is input through configuration of the buttons. This allows the flexibility that if a new command is found its just a matter of updating your config and requires no plugin changes. The only way i could potentially see something like what you experienced would have been if there were a series of the same button press/command issued that caused the problem. The Plugin does have some retry logic if the it doesn’t receive a response so maybe that is what caused the issue (again if it’s the same button press re-issued). I would need the full debug log to better understand what might have happened. If you have any additional information on that or where you might be seeing 2x+ commands getting issued on occasion that would be the only situation I can think of causing what you might have experienced.
On a broader note - I’m in the middle of cleaning up and refactoring the entire thing. So it’s not in a state right now I can easily rebuild. Hopefully in the next week it will be cleaned up. I want to resubmit the PR for the project with all of that done and hopefully get some additional feedback/testing.
Have you had a chance to push any updates? I got it set up again, and am still having one weirdness: the LiveTV command, using your sitemap definition, only works from the Guide screen. In TiVo main menu, it does nothing, and in Now Playing, it is what issues the delete command I was blaming on “select” above. That is, press “Live TV,” and instead of going to TV, it pops up “would you like to delete this folder?”
This is some good additional information. I actually finished most of the changes that I wanted to make but those are more around code organization and shouldn’t impact how it functions.
I will try and replicate the problem with the information that you’ve provided. Can you post your items/config files here so I know how you’ve defined things? If you have it handy please also post your DEBUG with it turned on for this binding so I can see additional information.
I also have notice that some of the commands are not responding consistently.
I noticed another problem unique to my connection shown in the screen capture below. I am using Cox Cable. As you can see, when I was tuned to channel 1036 (CNN HD), the setpoint item on the next line says that I am on channel 36 (CNN SD).
Also, would it be possible to have a map file, that we could make carrier specific, that would convert channel numbers to the channel name (+/- icons). For the US, I suspect that 5 or 6 mappings would cover the majority of people (Dish, DTV, Cox, Comcast, TimeWarner, etc).
I’ve been using your original JAR file for around six months with no major issues. It’s an integral part of my home automation set-up (I link it to the motion sensors to pause playback when I nip into the kitchen to make the tea!).
With the last couple of updates to the openHAB snapshot, things seem to have changed an the original JAR file is no longer working for me.
First problem which started sometime in the last two weeks is an error thrown on each of the parameters. Looking at the error message thown, I noticed that each of the parameters had a .0 appended. For example the TCP port is shown as 31339.0 rather than 31339 (integer). The .0 was added to all of the numeric parameter settings somehow.
You could correct these problems by updating all the numeric settings in one of the UIs to the correct values which then allowed the “thing” to initialise correctly. A bit painful as things got reset if you restarted, but not the end of the world.
The above could be caused by my current policy of persisting / restoring all item settings within mapdb, but equally that was the case before these errors started to appear.
However since I have done the last update the initialisation process no longer works at all. It looks like the binding status on “Initializing” is no longer permitted. The error in Paper UI is:
UNINITIALIZED - HANDLER_INITIALIZING_ERROR Illegal status INITIALIZING. Bindings only may set UNKNOWN, ONLINE, OFFLINE or REMOVED.
For some reason I can’t get to my SAMBA shares / log files right now to pull out any more specific details (another new problem ). But I will get these for you if that would help.
This thread has been quiet for some time now. Are you still working on this binding? I really hope so, as from my experience it was 99% functionally complete.
You may also be interested in my use of your binding within the habPanel implementation:
Looks like SAMBA was fixed in the latest apt-get update / upgrade. Errors for the TIVO binding are:
2016-12-21 08:57:54.256 [ERROR] [ome.core.thing.internal.ThingManager] - Exception occured while initializing handler of thing 'tivo:sckt:Living_Room': java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Illegal status INITIALIZING. Bindings only may set UNKNOWN, ONLINE, OFFLINE or REMOVED.
java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Illegal status INITIALIZING. Bindings only may set UNKNOWN, ONLINE, OFFLINE or REMOVED.
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.report(FutureTask.java:122)[:1.8.0_111]
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(FutureTask.java:206)[:1.8.0_111]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.common.SafeMethodCaller.callAsynchronous(SafeMethodCaller.java:188)[97:org.eclipse.smarthome.core:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.common.SafeMethodCaller.call(SafeMethodCaller.java:81)[97:org.eclipse.smarthome.core:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.common.SafeMethodCaller.call(SafeMethodCaller.java:65)[97:org.eclipse.smarthome.core:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing.internal.ThingManager$9.run(ThingManager.java:710)[104:org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing:0.9.0.201612202037]
at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:511)[:1.8.0_111]
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)[:1.8.0_111]
at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.access$201(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:180)[:1.8.0_111]
at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.run(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:293)[:1.8.0_111]
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)[:1.8.0_111]
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)[:1.8.0_111]
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)[:1.8.0_111]
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Illegal status INITIALIZING. Bindings only may set UNKNOWN, ONLINE, OFFLINE or REMOVED.
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing.internal.ThingManager$1.ensureValidStatus(ThingManager.java:184)[104:org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing.internal.ThingManager$1.statusUpdated(ThingManager.java:149)[104:org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing.binding.BaseThingHandler.updateStatus(BaseThingHandler.java:386)[104:org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing.binding.BaseThingHandler.updateStatus(BaseThingHandler.java:415)[104:org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.openhab.binding.tivo.handler.TiVoHandler.initialize(TiVoHandler.java:379)[10:org.openhab.binding.tivo:2.0.0.201602271949]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing.internal.ThingManager$9$1.call(ThingManager.java:713)[104:org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing.internal.ThingManager$9$1.call(ThingManager.java:1)[104:org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.common.SafeMethodCaller$CallableWrapper.call(SafeMethodCaller.java:179)[97:org.eclipse.smarthome.core:0.9.0.201612202037]
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)[:1.8.0_111]
... 3 more
2016-12-21 08:57:54.515 [ERROR] [ome.core.thing.internal.ThingManager] - Exception occured while initializing handler of thing 'tivo:sckt:Living_Room': java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Illegal status INITIALIZING. Bindings only may set UNKNOWN, ONLINE, OFFLINE or REMOVED.
java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Illegal status INITIALIZING. Bindings only may set UNKNOWN, ONLINE, OFFLINE or REMOVED.
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.report(FutureTask.java:122)[:1.8.0_111]
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(FutureTask.java:206)[:1.8.0_111]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.common.SafeMethodCaller.callAsynchronous(SafeMethodCaller.java:188)[97:org.eclipse.smarthome.core:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.common.SafeMethodCaller.call(SafeMethodCaller.java:81)[97:org.eclipse.smarthome.core:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.common.SafeMethodCaller.call(SafeMethodCaller.java:65)[97:org.eclipse.smarthome.core:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing.internal.ThingManager$9.run(ThingManager.java:710)[104:org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing:0.9.0.201612202037]
at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:511)[:1.8.0_111]
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)[:1.8.0_111]
at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.access$201(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:180)[:1.8.0_111]
at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.run(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:293)[:1.8.0_111]
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)[:1.8.0_111]
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)[:1.8.0_111]
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)[:1.8.0_111]
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Illegal status INITIALIZING. Bindings only may set UNKNOWN, ONLINE, OFFLINE or REMOVED.
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing.internal.ThingManager$1.ensureValidStatus(ThingManager.java:184)[104:org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing.internal.ThingManager$1.statusUpdated(ThingManager.java:149)[104:org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing.binding.BaseThingHandler.updateStatus(BaseThingHandler.java:386)[104:org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing.binding.BaseThingHandler.updateStatus(BaseThingHandler.java:415)[104:org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.openhab.binding.tivo.handler.TiVoHandler.initialize(TiVoHandler.java:379)[10:org.openhab.binding.tivo:2.0.0.201602271949]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing.internal.ThingManager$9$1.call(ThingManager.java:713)[104:org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing.internal.ThingManager$9$1.call(ThingManager.java:1)[104:org.eclipse.smarthome.core.thing:0.9.0.201612202037]
at org.eclipse.smarthome.core.common.SafeMethodCaller$CallableWrapper.call(SafeMethodCaller.java:179)[97:org.eclipse.smarthome.core:0.9.0.201612202037]
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)[:1.8.0_111]
... 3 more
@AndyMB - Glad to see the binding is working well for you! I had been using it for quite a while as well but unfortunately I had moved. I totally dig the panel you created, I never got that far with it as I found out about that after I moved. I had already gone through the painful reverse engineering of a Sony remote and some guess work to figure out all of the discrete codes for ON/OFF and all of the inputs too… Fortunately I still have the TV but now I’m using Plex, TVHeadend and Kodi… I’ve not spent a lot of time on the automation side of things yet.
Anyway - My Tivo box was leased with my old provider so I don’t have access to it anymore. I started cleaning up some of the code and abstracting it a bit but didn’t finish. What is in my git-hub repo is a good place to start. I also zipped up my in process code (which doesn’t quite compile - but it was close) here: http://www.ktechs.net/pvt_filz/org.openhab.binding.tivo.zip
Would you have the time to clean the code, so that we could eventually merge https://github.com/openhab/openhab2-addons/pull/684? Even if it is of no use to you anymore, it would be awesome if you could help making it available to the community this way!
@DigitalBites - thanks so much for responding and sharing your code. Completely understand the difficulty in continuing with the development without the hardware to test against.
Would you be happy if I pinged you the odd question about the code? I’ll try not to bother you too much and appreciate some time has passed since you probably last looked at this. As @Kai said, it would be such as shame to loose the work that you have done, given we were so close.
Anyway I guess I will start with a disclaimer! I’m not a Java programmer, but I have done a lot of application development in VBA / fixing others code (ok… now that you have got rid of the nasty taste in your mouth (!))… So what I am saying is that a lot of this is very new to me, so please bear with me… very much a Noob…
Having said that I’ve made a bit of progress… I’ve managed to load your code into the Eclipse IDE and I’ve managed to do enough work to address some of the compilation error messages and the error that I originally reported. So I have a working setup that is now discovering my Tivo and communicating with it
There is still work to do, I still have some code I commented to compile to fix and I need to work out why I’m getting some duplicate error messages. So some more to look at here…
@Kai - my thinking was to get things basically working and free of compilation errors and then work out how to get the code into git. Do you think this is the right approach?
Anyway I wanted to let you both know where I have got to and that someone is working on this
It’s been a steep learning curve and there may be much more that can be improved, but I think I may have a working binding for TiVo devices with many of the comments / observations addressed.
This has been tested on the latest snapshot/beta release of 2.1.0 . I am afraid I had problems on the openHAB Distribution 2.0 with the javax.jmdns not being resolved. UPDATE - see below, seems to be working OK on the release build.
Rename after you have downloaded to org.openhab.binding.tivo-2.0.0-SNAPSHOT.jar and place in the add-ons directory.
In brief this release:
Addresses log ‘spam’ when the binding is in normal (INFO) logging mode. It is still very verbose in DEBUG mode and I may trim this down once we have confirmation things are looking good.
Better connection Online / Offline testing, though I suspect we may need to do more here…
Channel Scanning to populate the Ignore Channel List in one go.
Ignore channel list now supports ranges as well as in individual channel numbers
CHANNELUP and CHANNELDOWN operations now update the channel number after completion.
I have only one TiVO at home, so please provide some feedback especially if you have non-VirginMedia TiVo or more than one in your setup. I’ll be off to work out how to get the code into Git in the correct way and if the feedback is possitive, hopefully we can get this into the official build…
Most TiVo DVRs that support network remote control can be managed supported by this binding. Check the web site of your service provider for the precise specification of the TiVo box they have provided.
All TiVo devices must:
be connected to a local area TCP/IP network that can be reached by the openHAB instance (this is not the WAN network interface used by cable service providers to provide the TV signal).
have the Network Remote Control function enabled to support discovery and control of the device. This setting can be found using the remote control at:
Tivo branded boxes - Go to TiVo Central > Messages & Settings > Settings > Remote, CableCARD & Devices > Network Remote Control. Choose Enabled, press Select.
Virgin Media branded boxes - using the remote select Home, from the menu select, Help and Settings, Settings, Devices, Network Remote Control. Select the option Allow network based remote controls.
Binding Configuration
The binding requires no manual configuration. Tivo devices with the network remote control interface enabled, will be displayed within the Inbox.
You can also add these manually, you will need to specify the LAN IP address of your Tivo Device.
Thing Configuration
Thing file based creation has not been tested with this version.
Channels
All devices support the following channels (non exhaustive):
| Channel Type ID | Item Type | Display Name | Description |
|-----------------|------------------------|--------------|----------------- |------------- |
| tivoChannelForce | Number (1-9999)| Current Channel - Forced (FORCECH) | Displays the current channel number. When changed, tunes the DVR to the specified channel, cancelling any recordings in progress if necessary i.e. when all tuners are already in use / recording. The TiVo must be in Live TV mode for this command to work. |
| tivoChannelSet | Number (1-9999)| Current Channel - Request (SETCH) | Displays the current channel number. When changed, tunes the DVR to the specified channel (unless a recording is in progress on all available tuners). The TiVo must be in Live TV mode for this command to work. |
| tivoTeleport | String | Change Special/Menu Screen (TELEPORT) |Change to one of the following TiVo menu screens: TIVO (Home), LIVE TV, GUIDE, NOW PLAYING (My Shows). |
| tivoIRCommand | String | Remote Control Button (IRCOMMAND) | Send a simulated button push from the remote control to the TiVo. See Appendix A in document TCP Remote Protocol 1.1 for supported codes. |
| tivoKBDCommand | String | Keyboard Command (KEYBOARD) | Sends a code corresponding to a keyboard key press to the TiVo e.g. A-Z. See Appendix A in document TCP Remote Protocol 1.1 for supported characters and special character codes. |
| tivoStatus | String | TiVo Status | Action return code / channel information returned by the TiVo. |
| tivoStatus | String | Custom Command | Send any custom commands that are not documented within the official specification. Both the command and action string must be supplied. Use at your own risk, support is not provided for undocumented commands! |
Commands to each of the channels (except ‘Custom Command’) do not need to include the command keyword only the action/parameter. So to change channel simply post/send the number of the channel without SETCH or FORCECH.
Custom Command is provided to allow the testing of any commands not documented within the official documentation. In this instance the COMMAND and any parameters must be sent as a single string.
Keyboard commands must currently be issued one character at a time to the item (this is how the natively supports these command).
Special characters must also be changed to the appropriate command e.g. the comma symbol( ,) must not be sent it should be replaced by ‘COMMA’.
Configuration Parameters Notes
The following notes may help to understand the correct configuration properties for your set-up:
If openHAB is the only device or application that you have that makes use of the Network Remote Control functions of your Tivo, enable the Keep Connection Open option. This will connect and lock the port in-use preventing any other device from connecting it. If you use some other application, disable this option.
Poll for Channel Changes only needs to be enabled if you also plan to use the TiVo remote control or other application to change channel. If openHAB is your only method of control, you can disable this option.
Set the correct Minimum and Maximum channel numbers BEFORE you run a full channel scan. By default these are set at 101 and 999. Consult your Tivo program guide to find these.
The Tivo will lean channel numbers that are not available as part of your subscription as you navigate / change channel. However channel changing operations will be slower if there is a large gap between valid channels. Any gap must not exceed 100. If you have a gap larger than this you must add the range of excluded channels manually or enable the Perform Channel Scan option.
The Channels to Ignore section allows you to exclude any channels that you do not want to see or are not part of your subscription. Both individual channel numbers and ranges of channels are supported e.g. 109, 106, 801-850, 999.
Perform Channel Scan as the name suggest will systematically change the channels between the specified Minimum and Maximum, identifying which of these are valid. At least one tuner must be available (not recording) while this operation completes. If this process is interrupted e.g. by a configuration change or restart, the system will restart the scan at the beginning. Any channels that are marked as being ignored will not be tested again.
If your provider adds new channels to your subscription line-up, these will have to be manually removed from the list of Channels to Ignore. You can always remove all the entries and do a full scan again.
Hint:
You can watch a recorded item while performing a channel scan and the scan will not be impacted, provided there is at least one tuner available (not recording) throughout the process.
Amend the minValue / maxValue to reflect the minimum and maximum channel numbers of your device.
This example does not use the ‘Current Channel - Forced (FORCECH)’ channel. This method will interrupt your recordings in progress when all you tuners are busy, so is obmitted for safety’s sake.
The item ‘TiVo_SetPointName’ depends upon a valid tivo.map file to translate channel numbers to channel names.
Update, I’ve just completed another rebuild with the 2.0.0 Release Build and the Tivo binding appears to be working fine.
Not sure what happened when I first tried this, but my openHabian instance crashed shortly after I tried this version, so perhaps a file had got screwed on the SD card along the way.
Bottom line, you should be able to test the binding in either the release or snapshot versions.
). But I will get these for you if that would help.
