# Close encounters of an engineer kind



## yerksha puddin (Nov 25, 2003)

Fo no apparent reason my Tivo has lit up like something from Close Encounters, and then rebooted, once too often (more than twice today after averaging about 2 per day since installation). I have an engineer coming on Tuesday and will let you know the outcome. 

Anybody else had the same?


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

yerksha puddin said:


> Fo no apparent reason my Tivo has lit up like something from Close Encounters, and then rebooted, once too often (more than twice today after averaging about 2 per day since installation). I have an engineer coming on Tuesday and will let you know the outcome.
> 
> Anybody else had the same?


Mine had been fine, but three reboots in the last 8 hours mean it's not looking good.


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

Make that 4


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

Engineer due tomorrow afternoon. Best catch up on my recordings then.


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## geekspeak (Oct 1, 2002)

Only when using the 8/30 seconds skip buttons, for me.


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## yerksha puddin (Nov 25, 2003)

richw said:


> Engineer due tomorrow afternoon. Best catch up on my recordings then.


Well, please let me know how you get on so I can prepare myself for Tuesday.


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## mike0151 (Dec 13, 2001)

This morning, I switched on the TV, TiVo already being switched on. Live TV appeared for a moment and when I tried to go to the Home Screen, everything went blank and the TiVo rebooted itself. Bit odd.


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

Reboot number 5, cutting off the end of Wonders of the Solar System


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

After another 11 reboots since last night, the engineer has arrived and is in the process of swapping the box for a new one.


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

Box replaced, and two more reboots whilst I was out. It's not looking good is it?


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## Tony Hoyle (Apr 1, 2002)

I wonder if it's something to do with your VM connection.. did the engineer check the signal levels etc.? Having two different ones reboot constantly doesn't sound right.


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

Tony Hoyle said:


> I wonder if it's something to do with your VM connection.. did the engineer check the signal levels etc.? Having two different ones reboot constantly doesn't sound right.


Signal levels were fine when he tested it, IIRC they were at 47 (I presume that's dB) according to the old Tivo, and he plugged his test kit in as well which showed everything was OK.


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## mike0151 (Dec 13, 2001)

No idea if this is relevant but when my installer was here, I lost my broadband connection and the signal level went to nothing. After making up some new cables, everything worked fine.


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## yerksha puddin (Nov 25, 2003)

Although my Tivo has been rebooting occasionally when watching live TV, I have just been trying to watch my recording of Wonders Of The Universe which Tivo decided to record in HD (even though I don't have an HD TV). In the 30 minutes I have been trying to watch this programme, my Tivo had rebooted 5 times. I have now given up and will watch it on my PC. Having read the replies to this thread, I am less than optimistic that the engineer will fix this tomorrow.


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

Well no reboots last night, but that's only because the box froze just after 9pm and needed the power removing this morning to reboot it.


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

Replacement box locked solid again just after 8am. I think I'm cursed


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## Tavis75 (Jan 27, 2011)

A friend of mine had lots of problems with his Virgin TV service (non-TiVo) but they eventually tracked it down to the cabling coming into the house. Apparently water was getting in around some of the contacts and causing the problems. So it was a regular problem but intermittent, and as long as the cables were dry the signal would appear fine.

At the last engineer visit, they fiddled about with the contacts, made sure everything was watertight and it's apparently been absolutely fine since. So might be worth investigating the cabling.

Mind you, had my first reboot (that I know of) last night when attempting to watch an on demand program


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## yerksha puddin (Nov 25, 2003)

Engineer came today. He said everything looked OK but removed the 4dB Forward Path Equaliser from the input cable. I await my first reboot. I'l let you know.


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## yerksha puddin (Nov 25, 2003)

... and with those fated words: "Every one of the trillion stars in our universe will go out." So did my Tivo. Yes, I went back to watching the end of Wonders Of The Universe and it didn't take long. The above words announced its second reboot inside 10 minutes.

So, EITHER there was a signal strength problem that means my recording of this programme is bad, and hence will not play, OR the signal wasn't the problem. The engineer is phoning tomorrow to see if the problem has gone and, when it hasn't, I'm guessing that the only action is to replace the box.

I'm just a little fed up


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

Another 5 reboots since 6pm. Any reason I shouldn't put this pile of junk out for the dustmen to collect tomorrow?


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Because it's not yours to dispose of


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

That won't stop me 

However it's saved from the dustmen for another week, I've already had to retire to bed to watch TV as it's the only way I'll get to see the whole program 

Next engineer possibly due Thursday.


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## yerksha puddin (Nov 25, 2003)

Managed to watch a big chunk of Wonders Of The Universe that my Tivo recorded from me on a non-HD channel so I'm guessing that one way to crash the box is to play an HD recording at normal low-res widescreen definition (interlaced). YouTube also crashes the box very regularly. Not watched Live TV enough to know whether it still crashes when doing nothing but watching TV.

This also raises several other questions:
1) Why does the Tivo record HD when I don't have HD (I want to disable this)?
2) Why did it choose to record the same episode of WOTU again? According to My Planned Recordings, it's going to record it many more times before the week is out.


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

Looks like it actually managed a complete recording last night. Somewhat aptly it was "How TV Ruined Your Life" 

I've not actually tried to play it yet though, so it could still be just a partial recording.


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

Another thirteen reboots since yesterday evening that I can spot from partial recordings 

I think that makes 39 since Sunday morning.


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## yerksha puddin (Nov 25, 2003)

Engineer didn't phone so I guess I'll have to phone VM again. Not crashed yet while just sat watching TV but it seriously doesn't like YouTube. Crashed while browsing for the video I wanted to watch tonight, not even playing it.


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

Another day, another engineer visit. They replaced the card this time as apparently it wasn't paired properly. 

Guess what difference it made?

Absolutely none at all. It's still rebooting every 30 minutes or so.


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## yerksha puddin (Nov 25, 2003)

Second engineer visit booked for Saturday afternoon. Fingers and toes very tightly crossed.


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## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

Well no engineer visit today, but following a phone call they think it might be an account problem. However the engineer isn't working this weekend so I'm stuck with it until Monday unless they magically fix things from the other end.

I tried to get the standard V box swapped for a V+ so I at least stood a chance of recording something, but they can't to that until next week either because the engineer is off 

The initial 28-days is up soon, and the Sky+ HD offer that's floating around at the moment is looking more and more tempting.


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## FemiH (Nov 6, 2002)

richw said:


> Well no engineer visit today, but following a phone call they think it might be an account problem. However the engineer isn't working this weekend so I'm stuck with it until Monday unless they magically fix things from the other end.


Sad to follow this thread this morning as your Virgin Customer Service (CS) experience has being as underwhelming as it could possibly be...it would have been nice if they'd have pulled out all the stops on a V+ box for you to bridge the gap and get things moving. As a casual observer it would appear that those commenting on possible water ingress into cabling leading to the property seem to be along the right lines. I recall having awful problems with my DSL service until a dormant ISDN2 (which had included an analogue phone line) line was commandeered to create a suitably up to date analogue line to run DSL. This instantly solved all of my problems with DSL. If I cast my mind back to when I first had Cable installed it was in the days of Nynex in Manchester back in the mid 90's and I'm sure there are some peoples services which are quite a bit older. All it takes is for some wear and tear (or even vandalism) to the cabling infrastructure leading to your home for this type of annoying problem to occur and render your service(s) useless effectively. Good luck to all those with the problems, hope you don't have to end up with Sky (only caveat being Sky Atlantic!) and I have to say this is a wake up call to Virgin CS that they should treat people very well who spend £149 for a premium product as early adopters and then have these kinds of issues with their services.


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## fysmd (Jan 4, 2002)

I had big issues couple of weeks ago, engineer visited and did knitting, commenting that there were big network issues locally recently.. TiVo stabilised. It started again yesterday though. Approx 8 reboots yesterday and three that I've noticed so far today..

Needs fixing!


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## yerksha puddin (Nov 25, 2003)

Engineer just left. There was interference on the line and signal problems which he's sorted. However, Tivo still reboots itself. I was told that he would definitely have a replacement box with him but he didn't. Can't get one today so another engineer coming Monday to replace the box. Seriously unhappy with this service.


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