# A severe error has occured



## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

We just had a power outage that lasted about 1 minute. out of the blue, its a beautiful sunny, but cold day.

Anyways. The DirecTiVo R10 Powered back on to a green screen saying "A severe error has occurred." And that it is going to take three hours while it attempts to repair it self.

This is the first time this Box has ever shown the green screen, and first time I have ever seen it at all.

Is this a sign that the Hard Disk might be going / took on some damage during the power outage? Or could it be as simple as a file corruption?


My S3 made it though this with out any issues, I'm relieved there. Both are plugged in to surge protectors.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Chances are it's just a corrupted file or two. Just leave it alone and most likley it will recover all on its own. If it doesn't boot back into life after 24-48 hours then I'd pull the drive and run a diagnostic on it. Corrupt software generally takes only a few hours or less to fix. Drive issues may not allow it to recover at all. If the diagnostics fail then you're looking at a new drive. You could also run a copy of SpinRite to see if it will repair and surface damage (i.e., bad clusters caused by surface defects) but a new drive would be cheaper and takes far less time to setup (SpinRite can take 40-50 hours to run even on a smaller drive).


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## dishrich (Jan 16, 2002)

LoREvanescence said:


> My S3 made it though this with out any issues, I'm relieved there. Both are plugged in to surge protectors.


Hate to tell you this, but surge protectors don't really help all that much for quick power outages/glitches - if you really want to protect your Tivo's, you really should invest in a cheap UPS. You don't need a huge one for a couple Tivo's & you can get them for around $30 at most office or video stores. Plus, whenever you DO have these short "outages", you don't have to wait for them to go through the whole reboot process for these short outages.


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## bengalfreak (Oct 20, 2002)

dishrich said:


> Hate to tell you this, but surge protectors don't really help all that much for quick power outages/glitches - if you really want to protect your Tivo's, you really should invest in a cheap UPS. You don't need a huge one for a couple Tivo's & you can get them for around $30 at most office or video stores. Plus, whenever you DO have these short "outages", you don't have to wait for them to go through the whole reboot process for these short outages.


Unless you are just trying to avoid the hassle of replacing it or losing programming, its hardly worth $30 for UPS's when replacement DTivos are only about $50.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

bengalfreak said:


> Unless you are just trying to avoid the hassle of replacing it or losing programming, its hardly worth $30 for UPS's when replacement DTivos are only about $50.


A UPS gives you peace of mind and ensures that your chances of coming home to a dead Tivo are kept to a minimum. Sure, you can buy a replacement DTivo cheap but then you have to go through setup, re-establish all of your season passes, call DirecTV and get the new DTivo on your account and, unless you have a sympathetic CSR that will help you, you may have to buy a new access card for an additional $20. Why go through all of that when a UPS lets you avoid it altogether? Getting a UPS just makes good sense.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

bengalfreak said:


> Unless you are just trying to avoid the hassle of replacing it or losing programming, its hardly worth $30 for UPS's when replacement DTivos are only about $50.


The cost is not the point, the advantage of a UPS is so that your DVR can continue to record through short power outages and you avoid the time taken waiting for the unit to restart.


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## dishrich (Jan 16, 2002)

Thx guys - glad someone "gets it"... :up: 



bengalfreak said:


> Unless you are just trying to avoid the hassle of replacing it or losing programming, its hardly worth $30 for UPS's when replacement DTivos are only about $50.


And uh, tell where you're going find ALL those new D-Tivo's f/$50 - considering they have NOT been made for over 2+ years.  And even if you are lucky enough to find a good used unit, I'd rather keep MY units up & running, & NOT have to get someone else's "hand-me-downs".

Also, you do realize that most folks here have more than 1 DVR - since you can plug more than one in a UPS, it makes the protection charge per unit even less. Since I have 3 DVR's plugged into each of my UPS's, I think $10 per DVR for backup is hardly outrageous.


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## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

dishrich said:


> And uh, tell where you're going find ALL those new D-Tivo's f/$50 - considering they have NOT been made for over 2+ years.  And even if you are lucky enough to find a good used unit, I'd rather keep MY units up & running, & NOT have to get someone else's "hand-me-downs".
> 
> Also, you do realize that most folks here have more than 1 DVR - since you can plug more than one in a UPS, it makes the protection charge per unit even less. Since I have 3 DVR's plugged into each of my UPS's, I think $10 per DVR for backup is hardly outrageous.


I just have never gotten around to getting a UPS. I have thought about it before, but never have picked one up.

With my current setup, one UPS would cover two TiVo's. The Direct R10 and a Series 3 TiVo.

Sighs, yesterday, the power ended up going out another two times before I left for work. Don't know if it went off a few more times. In any event, it ended up taking around 10 hours for the R10 to recover it self from the Severe Error has Occurred.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

dishrich said:


> And uh, tell where you're going find ALL those new D-Tivo's f/$50 - considering they have NOT been made for over 2+ years.  And even if you are lucky enough to find a good used unit, I'd rather keep MY units up & running, & NOT have to get someone else's "hand-me-downs".


There are always DTivos listed on ebay for $50 or less. Every once in a while you may see one listed that's still new in the box. If you buy a used one just make sure the seller agrees to a refund if it arrives DOA.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

Since the OP seems to live in an area that has many power outages, getting an UPS is in his best interest. Just don't try to power the TV with it. Use it for the DVRs and don't forget the power inserter for any powered multiswitches if you want to continue to record.


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## dishrich (Jan 16, 2002)

mr.unnatural said:


> There are always DTivos listed on ebay for $50 or less. *Every once in a while* you may see one listed that's still new in the box. * If you buy a used one just make sure the seller agrees to a refund if it arrives DOA.*


Yes, I'm very much aware of this, but the point STILL is it would be much more simpler & prudent to use "an once of prevention"...I give up...


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## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

JimSpence said:


> Since the OP seems to live in an area that has many power outages, getting an UPS is in his best interest. Just don't try to power the TV with it. Use it for the DVRs and don't forget the power inserter for any powered multiswitches if you want to continue to record.


Living in the sticks power outages can happen here, especialy in the winter. But not all that often, it's actually been since July since the power went out here until those last power outages. Back in July we lost power for 16 hours after a bad thunderstorm.


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## bassmen6 (Feb 4, 2009)

I too experienced some brief power outages recently. They were off and immediately back on 3-5 times in a row. This caused by DIRECTV TIVO receiver to display the green screen of death showing Severe Error has occurred.

I left it for about an hour, then called Directv support. They said looked like a hardware problem, but to power off for 24 hrs. That, of course, didn't have any affect. BUT, I did leave it powered on with phone line connected overnight and ALL IS WELL! It managed to fix itself. I guess files were corrupted.


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## retrac (Sep 18, 2007)

I experenced the severe error green screen yesterday. While my R10 is pluged into a UPS I haven't had a phone line plugged since setting it up 4 years ago. I followed the 3 hour directions to no avail and know calling will accomplish doodly. Guess I'll do what others have suggested and leave the telephone line pulgged in for a good while.


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## retrac (Sep 18, 2007)

Well over 60 hours hooked up to the phone line and nothing. No "powering up", no "just a few minutes more" or green screen. Looks like it's FUBAR. I'm sure I could reboot and get "em back but why, just to do this all over again? I would try a hard reboot but....oh well.


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## rbtravis (Aug 9, 2005)

Retrac:
It sounds like your hard drive is going bad. If you can get back to the menu try a Clear and Delete everything. It may take three or four hours. If the drive is corrupted it may clear things up. If this does not work it is time tom buy a new drive. Good Luck


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## retrac (Sep 18, 2007)

Thanks rbtravis! I'm afraid you're correct. I did a little more reading and forced an emergency call to tivo, 52 emergency reinstall, 56 software install, 57 mfs check and 58 perform mfs cleanup.The only thing that appeared to do anything was 58 with a tivo man standing on a stage illuminated by different colorded lights/balls stating "Installing new software from the TiVo Service. This will take a few minutes." Afterwards back to "powering up", "just a few minutes more" and the green screen in a loop.


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## retrac (Sep 18, 2007)

I thought mine was a R10 but it's a RCA DVR40, they do look alike right? Anyway I do have a refurb R10 that was sent to me when I was having problems with the RCA and wondered if it were possible to pull the HD out and put it in the RCA and do an EXT. 722 to get it going. I know i'm prob over thinking this but would appreciate feedback.

Thanks


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## halfempty (Oct 17, 2008)

That won't work. The ext. 722 trick only works for swapping cards between non-RID units, or from a RID unit to a non-RID unit. Both the R10 and the DVR40 are RID units, but you don't want to swap the card anyway. To swap the drives on most series 2 DTivos you just run a Clear & Delete Everything after the swap. Unfortunately, IIRC, the R10 is the only series 2 that uses a different software image. You may want to try the drive in the unit just to make sure it spins up as a very basic test for the R10 drive and that the DVR40 power supply.

You could use the drive from the R10 and put a DVR40 image on it with InstantCake from DVRupgrade. You could also switch to the R10 and call Dtv to have a CSR swap the card in their system for you, but it can be difficult to find one willing and knowledgeable enough to do it.


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