DirecTivoTZ

So, apparently since the last DST change, my DirecTivo is confused about what time it is: it thinks it's an hour earlier than it really is. Fortunately, the program data is also off by an hour, so it's still mostly* recording the right things, but having the clock be wrong is annoying.

It's a hacked Philips 7000/17 S2 box (apparently running 4.0.1b-02-2-240), so I can't apply DirecTV's software update. Any idea how to fix this? There is no zoneinfo directory on the Tivo file system, so I don't know where its DST rules live. The clock is correct w.r.t. GMT, it just doesn't know what the new DST rules are.

I don't understand why this didn't happen last year. I think I would have noticed.


* It stopped recording The Daily Show at the proper time because I use a "manual" recording for that one (to stop getting a dozen copies of it a day when Comedy Central botches the metadata, which is often).

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10 Responses:

  1. bodyfour says:

    If you have shell access, see if it'll accept a POSIX timezone with explicit DST rules:

    $ TZ=PST8PDT,M3.2.0,M11.1.0 date

    If so maybe you can explicitly set that $TZ somewhere in the filesystem. Otherwise, just suffer until April 6th when DST would have taken effect under the pre-2007 rules.

  2. mrfantasy says:

    If you could figure out a way to get a hacked 6.2a on the units your problem would go away. I don't recommend it.

    It happened to me last fall (I have 6.2 and never did the 6.2a upgrade).

    A cheezy hack that you can do is just set it to Mountain time for the next few weeks. You do that through the TiVo interface (I assume 4.0.1 lets you do that.) Doesn't work for me since I'm on the East Coast and it doesn't have the Atlantic time zone in there. I don't think the TiVo application uses the Unix timezone data, even if it is there.

  3. funjon says:

    You didn't have this problem last year because TiVo sent out a scripted hack for all Series 1 and DirecTivo units that were no longer getting upgrades to manually jack the TZ around until OldDST took over.

    There was another one in the fall to re-jack TZ after OldDST ended until NewDST did.

    I was in a lot of those meetings (mostly from an operational standpoint), it was all very last minute and hackish, which was disappointing.

  4. philh1234 says:

    I came across an interesting trick, from TiVo's email, of all places. Specifically uses The Daily Show as an example of where this trick will work: (direct quote from the Tivo mailing)

    WishList® Search Suggestion: De-dupe Your Now Playing List
    Even more remarkable than the truth behind "My TiVo gets me" is the inspiring fact that many of you truly get the real genius of TiVo, and why a cable DVR couldn't even begin to compare.

    If you like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, you know what happens when the show takes a week or two hiatus: Your DVR records lots of repeats because they stop listing the guests for each night. Why? When the networks don't provide unique guide data, TiVo can't determine if the show is new or a repeat, so it records them all to play it safe. Waste space and/or manual recordings no more! Martin T., from the Web's most beloved TiVo community forum, exercised the new-and-improved TiVo WishList® feature to to get us our daily Jon Stewart, without the three extra servings. Here's how:
    - Go to Find Programs, and create a new WishList® search.
    - Enter the show title as your first Keyword: Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
    - Select "Done entering Keyword."
    - Next, select Keyword again, this time entering the generic program description (the following is the generic descriptor for Daily Show): A humorous slant on top news stories.
    - Now give it a Thumbs down. (By default, your first Keyword gets a Thumbs up.)
    - Set the WishList to "Auto-record" with "First-run only."
    - Delete the old Season Pass recording for Daily Show.
    So what just happened? You've instructed your TiVo DVR to record all new episodes and ignore episodes with generic guide data. No more reruns. No more multiple recordings. And if two of your tuners are busy at airtime, TiVo will choose to record a later show. Ahhhh...

    "In addition to working very well for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report," explains Martin. "I use the above method for an ongoing 'Amazing Race' WishList search that will automatically record each new season, but ignore generic reruns, as well as 'Saturday Night Live' and 'Conan O'Brien' WishList searches that ignore generic, late-night reruns." Thanks for sharing, Martin!

    I have not yet tried this, but looks reasonably promising. Updating the wishlists has been on the to-do list for weeks now... just not high enough to get done.

    Also, our DirecTivo (mostly unhacked) died recently, and we made the switch to a "normal" Tivo. For what it's worth, the new features are very well-implemented. It's good to be back in Tivo-land again, instead of the horribly limited, skewed DirecTV-sactioned Tivo land.

    Anyway, hope the timezone thing works out and that the above idea helps out some...

  5. "which is often" read:always. I got so frustrated I just stopped watching it on tv completely and watch online now.

  6. I got the same thing last year, both spring and fall, on my unhacked Series 1. Had to mess with the Daily Show manual settings.

    This spring everything worked right for me, no settings changes necessary. I noticed there was a reboot recently. Perhaps they sent out a fix again (better this time) for my model but forgot yours.

  7. dr_gluck_ says:

    DST is the new y2k
    You'd think after last year (round 1) people would know better buuuut. RIM had to yank their latest BES release 'cause it wasn't designed to accommodate new DST about 2 days after RTMing it... Since I'm on the beta server here, I don't know when any of my appointments are for anymore...nice.