This document covers getting a Bash (Shell) prompt through Hyperterm or another Terminal program.

1. Plug the serial cable into a 9pin male COM port on your PC, and the other end into the stereo-type 3.5mm Serial port on the back of the Tivo.

2. Using Hyperterm, in Windows this is under Accessories=>Communications set your settings to:
Bits per second: “9600″
Data bits: “8″
Partiy: “None”
Stop Bits: “1″
Flow Control: “Hardware” or “None”

Note: you can change the speed during the session with stty speed 115200 at the bash prompt. This is well worth doing but remember it will drop back to 9600 on the next reboot.

3. I find you have to establish connection as the TIVO is booting up. Later it will ignore connection attempts.

Common Setup Hurdles

If you’ve tried to connect your purchased (or built See: ftp://orac.caffeine.co.nz/install/tivocable.jpg) Serial cable to the Tivo and it doesn’t work, try looking at some of the following things:

Firstly, is your Tivo connected to a TV, and starting up normally? If it’s not booting properly, then you won’t get a Bash prompt.

If you have Hyperterm set at 115200 bps and it’s connected to the Tivo and you boot the Tivo, then you should see a bit of garble in the Hyperterm session as Tivo tries to set up and Internet connection and fails. Wait a few minutes and the Tivo will drop back to normal serial communications. Press the Enter key
You should eventually be rewarded with a Bash prompt which looks like:

[TiVo] #

You can then type a command like

ls  (thats LS but in lowercase)

and hit <Enter> to see a directory listing. From here you can go onto other commands. If you can reach this stage, read on.

1. If you don’t see anything in hyperterm at all (no response from the Tivo)then:
The cable is faulty or you have Hyperterm set to an incorrect COM port.
* Make sure that you have plugged into the Tivo’s serial port and not the IR port, which is right next to it.
* Also check that you are plugged into the right COM port on the PC.
* In rare circumstances, another application can be using the COM ports. If this is the case, when the terminal tries to connect, it will display an error message about this.

Try closing all applications, and if that does not work, go into Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del, then select ‘Task Manager’) and in the ‘Processes’ tab, start hi-lighting processes that look like they could be to do with communications, and click ‘End Process’ to shut those processes down. This is a real guessing game, but I found that a ‘Router Control Manager’ was using the COM ports, to ending that process freed up access to the ports via HyperTerminal. If Windows becomes unstable, reboot your computer and try ending different processes.

To check that the cable is ok, unplug the mini-stereo plug from the Tivo and stay in Hyperterm. Use a paperclip or something metal to touch the plug’s tip and ring together. With these connected, everything you type in Hyperterm should be displayed on the screen as you have just made a loopback cable. If you don’t see anything, then your cable is probably bad.

2. If you get a Bash prompt and it responds but you can’t see what you’re typing then try typing the command:

stty echo

3. If you get a Bash prompt but it doesn’t respond, maybe the transmit wire is broken.

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Tips:

HyperTerm ain’t all that. I’ve had problems with it before so if continuing to have problems then definately try an alternative.
Tera Term is a nice little freeware one

If you are still having problem with serial it’s possible it’s bung, it happens, i’ve seen complaints of this in oztivo mailing list and also i had one bung, one from 25 ain’t bad, lol