# TiVo HD - All Video Vanishes



## tt881

Hello. Twice now I've managed to get a TiVo HD into a mode where no video displays. When I say no video, I mean no video. The menus appear but the background light bulbs video is missing -- just black screen. The unit continues recording, but you can't play any videos and live TV is just blank. It's as if everything is working except MPEG playback. This doesn't happen spontaneously, but I'm unsure of the sequence that causes it. A reboot cures it. Running the latest (c) system.

Anyone else seen this? Thanks.


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## aaronwt

Yes. I saw this when I had my TiVoHD for use with just analog recordings. the box had a problem with a signal that was too strong and this would be the result of that. I went through a several boxes to get one that worked properly. All the boxes I tried that had serial numbers with 802C and 802D had this problem. I finally got a box with 802F and 803 that were newer that didn't have the problem. OF course it doesn't matter anymore since I only using them now with FIOS and all digital channels.


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## rcamille

Have either of you upgraded the internal drive?

I posted a similar problem a couple of days ago, but there were no replies to the thread. Here is an excerpt of my problem, which is similar.

I have a TiVo HD which was upgraded to a 500gb drive last week using winmfs beta 5. I did an mfscopy. The upgrade was completed one day before software version C was automatically downloaded. I am on Cablevision of Long Island with NDS Cards.

On two separate occasions, the unit has blacked out. 

The first time I was changing the video setting from native to 1080i and when I hit the Live TV button, the screen was just black. It did not tune to anything. If I hit the TiVo button, the menu came up, but there was no background - just black.

The same thing happend on another instance when I was doing a wishlist search. Once I was done with the search, i hit live tv and the same thing happenend.

The only way I could figure out to remedy the problem was to restart the system and rerun guided setup (but of course the cable cards did not initiate properly on reboot, so I needed to remove them and reinsert them).

Has anyone else experienced this problem? Is it because I upgraded the drive or is it the new C software version? or just a bug that I coincidentally found 2x this wekeend.


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## tt881

At least in my case, I don't believe that analog or digital recording modes have anything to do with this. The problem occurs during menu manipulation or changing modes between live video / playback video / menus -- I am not sure of the sequence yet. It does not happen when the remote is not currently being manipulated.

Once in this mode, everything seems normal except the black background to menus (instead of the normal MPEG bulb video) and lack of live or recorded playback -- just black screen when you try. Live video shows normal channel banners, but again, the video is black and no channel audio. Recordings in progress are intact when checked later, at least so far. A simple reboot restores normal functioning, no need to repeat Guided Setup in my situation.

This feels like a timing issue. As you know, you can often see the MPEG background movie come on a fraction of a second after hitting the TiVo button from live mode (for example) as the MPEG playback engine comes on. Somehow the box is wedging in a mode where it thinks MPEG output is in progress but it really isn't. 

My box is from new stock within the last couple of weeks, unmodified, running the (c) release. I've seen this blackout effect twice over the last couple of days. Since I've had the box so short a time, I have essentially no experience with it under the earlier (b) release so can't assert whether this problem appeared with (c) or not.


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## tt881

Additional thought on this. Note that normally, when leaving recorded program playback when you hit the TiVo button, there is usually a brief flash of a black screen as the top menu slides in, just before the background video commences. I believe this problem relates to some timing issue at that point, but once in that mode you can't get out without a reboot. This is assuming a lack of hardware problems, of course. As noted, I've seen the problem twice over the last couple/three days.


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## rcamille

We are definitely experiencing the same problem.

Since you have not upgraded your drive, I can rule out my new hard drive as the culprit. I never had this problem with the b software version.

It has to be something with C software upgrade. We need to get the word out to TiVo. Please call in your problem and I will do the same.


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## cody_dingo

I'm having this issue as well, exactly as described. It's happened to me twice in the last week.

I bought my TivoHD from DVRUpgrade, with a 250gb drive in it.


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## tt881

Any specific suggestions on the best way to report this issue? I have not been overwhelmed with the telephone support staffing so far. I'm still trying to find someone who understands how to change privacy preferences for example, and I am not confident that a detailed technical problem report like this will get through their front line phone folks intact.


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## rcamille

tt881 said:


> Any specific suggestions on the best way to report this issue? I have not been overwhelmed with the telephone support staffing so far. I'm still trying to find someone who understands how to change privacy preferences for example, and I am not confident that a detailed technical problem report like this will get through their front line phone folks intact.


Not really, except to ask to get transferred to a senior troubleshooter. Perhaps it woudl be worthwhile to start another thread asking if anyone has an inside track to a knowledgeable technician. It has to be a bug in the C Software update.


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## joneSi

Same problem here on my THD upgraded with 750gb drive. I have the original drive intact, and would go back to it, but it looks as if the upgrade didn't do it. Could be a software issue. Mine never did this before, only with the new software (C2 or whatever the latest as of 9-12-07 is). I don't think it is upgrade related, but then again there may be a little something that was missed in the mfstools goodies for the THD

joneSi


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## tt881

Again, my unit is new, case never opened, completely unmodified. So your hardware upgrade is almost certainly not related to this issue ...


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## sergiu

exactlly the same. brand new unit with c software unmodified


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## rcamille

Can everyone experiencing this problem please indicate the following:

Video Output Setting (i.e. 1080i fixed, Native, etc)
TV Connection - Component or HDMI

I am wondering if either of these factors has an impact on this issue.

Mine is set to Native via HdMI.


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## tt881

I'm mostly at 720p Fixed. I have spent some time in the Native setting, but I believe the error mode has always occurred so far when I've been at 720p Fixed. This may be utterly irrelevant though. And always HDMI connection.


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## rcamille

The first time I experienced the problem I was changing my video output setting (in the menus - not the front panel button) to fixed 720p. It occured when I hit the Live TV button.

I have now set my unit to fixed 1080i (i know, not optimal), but I am curious if this works.


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## BetaEleven

rcamille said:


> Can everyone experiencing this problem please indicate the following:
> 
> Video Output Setting (i.e. 1080i fixed, Native, etc)
> TV Connection - Component or HDMI
> 
> I am wondering if either of these factors has an impact on this issue.
> 
> Mine is set to Native via HdMI.


Brand new Tivo. Just got the CableCARDs yesterday. I have mine set at 1080i fixed (for my old Mitsubishi TV, only this and 480P seems to work) and I'm using component video for the feed.


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## paslax

Same problem.

Fixed 720P
HDMI + Component (I hooked up the component after it happened the first time using only HDMI. It has happened several times since.)
OTA/Analog Cable

After hitting the live TV button and everything is black, I get the thumbs-down noise whenever I try to change channels and nothing happens. This seems to make me think that it is a software problem and not a video output problem. Just my theory.

Only the TiVo button will get me back to the menu (without a background). Only a reboot of TiVo seems to solve the problem.


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## megazone

rcamille said:


> It has to be a bug in the C Software update.


Bug yes, 'c2' software no.

I haven't seen it yet on my HD review box with c2, but I did encounter it once in an earlier revision - b1 or b2 I think. So it isn't new in c2. I did tell TiVo about it at the time, so they know about it. But it seems pretty rare overall, and I haven't seen it repeat or been able to make it.


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## SAH2

I have it also using 720 Hybrid with HDMI.

My problem is slightly different in that it seems to happen right after changing the video output format and then selecting something from the Now Playing List. I will get the Tivo background with the lights, but the video will not play. When I use the back button, I get the selection you normally see after finishing a video - Do you want to delete or keep this. I choose Keep as I never really played the video.

The only way to fix this is a reboot. I do not have the problem if I don't try to change the video output.


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## garrettoomey

I am having the same issue that all video is gone, but menus still work. I called Tivo support, and I was told that this was a known issue. A software update would be released to fix the problem, but no time frame. Mine was a new Tivo HD before upgrading the hard drive, OTA and analog cable only. It has happened on multiple resolution settings. I have the same Tivo connected to feed 2 rooms. HDMI in 1 room and component in the 2nd room. When it happens, it does effect both outputs at the same time...
-G


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## rcamille

megazone said:


> Bug yes, 'c2' software no.
> 
> I did tell TiVo about it at the time, so they know about it. But it seems pretty rare overall, and I haven't seen it repeat or been able to make it.


Thanks!!


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## Evilmonkee

Figured it for a software bug. Have an unmodded THD with c2. Problem is just as the OP described. Use the 1080i fixed mode with HDMI/optical. Seemed completely random while within tivo menus. Easy enough to fix with a reboot but hope the fix(among many others) comes soon.


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## paslax

Evilmonkee said:


> Easy enough to fix with a reboot but hope the fix(among many others) comes soon.


Easy enough to reboot for sure, but I've had to do it twice now while Charter tech is here and let's just say that he's not the most patient guy to begin with. Makes it hard to authoritatively blame Charter for the cable card install issues when TiVo is crapping out at the same time.


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## moyekj

If it's any consolation it's happened a few times with 1 of my Tivo S3 units - all channels dark on 1 or both tuners but the Tivo overlays work fine. No CC problems reported in the menus when in that state and a reboot cleared the problem right up. I did a lot of debugging trying to figure out why only that S3 had this problem sporadically while my other S3 did not. One difference is the S3 exhibiting the problem was plugged into a UPS. So I decided to take it off the UPS and (perhaps by sheer coincidence) I have not had the problem since. (The UPS is a 12-year old cheap one so I figure it doesn't do much good anyway, and I'd heard of issues caused by "cheap" UPS devices that don't put out proper sinusoidal AC power so figured it was worth a shot. May have nothing to do with the problem but thought I would mention it).


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## int2str

Same problem here:
1 CableCard tuner stops working on my S3 every once in a while. Only rebooting fixes it.


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## Warhawks

Just got my THD hooked up and cable cards installed...

I have having the same exact problem. I put it to anything other than 480p and I get a black screen and must reboot in order to change it back. All my HD channels are in fact HD, but I don't understand why i can't change the output through the tivo to "NATIVE" like the manual suggests, since my Samsung Hl-T5089S will accepts ALL formats.

I need some help!


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## PSUMattDE

How did i know i'd find something about this here??  

It just happened to me yesterday morning for the 1st time - I have the Tivo HD connected via HDMI set to Native.

It happened to me after I was watching some photo's streaming from my PC.

I had no idea what was going on.

This was the 1st i'd seen it in the month i've had Tivo - and i'm on the "c" software version.


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## tmark

My screen goes blank for Live TV - seems to happen after an update. Need to restart system.

Tivo HD
SA cards.

This must be a software problem, if restarts always seem to do the trick. Would not be hardware. This probably hapens ONCE a day, which seems to coincide with updates


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## icatar

This happened to me this weekend during the Yankees/Red Sox game  . I was recording the game, and watching it time-shifted maybe an hour behind, at the first FF speed. I went to turn on the Closed Captioning, but then when I returned to viewing the game, it was just all black. The record light was still on.

I rebooted the unit to get the video back, and the game continued recording (as a second recording). I finished up on the first recording until the moment of blackout, then finished up the game on the second recording.

It was very scary at the time thinking I might miss a couple hours of the game!

1080i Fixed, HDMI.


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## silypuddy

I've also experienced the same problem. It's happened at least twice. Come out of the main menu to watch live tv and I get grey.

It even happend once while I was on the phone with tivo support trying to fix a cable card problem. He didn't seem too fazed by it because we were trying to get my cable cards to work.

I wonder if this is a problem with tuning a channel via the cable card? It's the same grey screen I get while waiting for a channel lock when flipping channels. Every time it takes more than a second to lock, I begin to grimace thinking I might have to restart.

480i Fixed, S-Video. (Yes I know it's SD, but the Samsung 5271 is in the mail)


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## BPlexico

This has happened to me once. I only have had the unit since yesterday. No modifications to box - Tivo HD - NATIVE for video - using HDMI connection. Everything works save for viewing LIVE programming then I get a grey screen. Software is up to date. A re start resolved the issue.

Barr


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## koensayr

Interesting Thread. This just happened to me as well. I've only have the Tvio for only a week. I think I was running in 1080i Hybrid, my software version says 8.1.7c2-01-2-652. I'm connected to my Pioneer Elite 940 via component cable.

Has TIVO said anything about acknowleding this as a problem yet?

A restart seems to have solved the problem for me...


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## uforia

HDMI
Fixed 1080i
Multistream cable card
Stock, no drive upgrades, latest SW levels
Samsung LCD LNT4065F

I'm really tempted to send this back and get the S3 with the $200 rebate. At $100 more than the Tivo HD, it's really tempting for the slightly larger HDD and faster, more responsive UI. I already have one S3. I'd just have to go back to 2 cable cards for the bedroom.

Hope they make the Tivo HD experience better and fast.


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## Warhawks

I'd love to return mine, but I used a lifetime gift subscription card on it...only a mear 3 days before the frickin' S3 went down with a $200 rebate and the CC coupons...ugh!


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## lessd

I just installed a friends TiVo-HD unit and 3 hours after i left his home the same thing happened to their TiVo, no channels. I checked the System Information and saw that the HDMI was not enabled so i thought it may be a problem with the new HDTV they just purchased, but after doing a soft re-boot on the THD the problem fix itself. After reading this thread I will now report it to TiVo.


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## rkleim

has happened to me 2 times on a new (3 weeks) tivoHD. Exactly as described, all black but menus, recording still works, reboot fixes the problem. Happened with different video settings and different TVs hooked up (just got a new TV).

In my case, the first time happened when checking signal strength (after coming back to live tv), I have heard of people having problems there, but prob. not this. The second time it was when perusing the online movie listings for my area (over the ethernet connection), occured when returning to live tv.

It is annoying, but rare. Now I check the box each morning to see if it is still OK, and it is. Both incidents happened when I was doing "non-standard" things.

If it occurs again, I'll report it. Would be nice to know for sure if Tivo is working on it and if is software. I can wait and put up with anything if only they are working on it. This would also save us both the expense of the call to cust svc. 

I've had tivos since 2000, so I know to give them a lot of leeway and trust. They do great things, so I don't let temp probs upset me. The HD box takes some getting used to, but I LOVE IT!!!


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## silypuddy

It sort of happened to me again yesterday.

I was flipping channels and tried to tune in ESPN2HD and got a grey/black screen. I thought "great Comcast is messing with my service."

I then stepped down one channel and was able to get ESPNHD so I then stepped back up and got ESPN2HD no problem.

I wonder if this is a CC only problem?

Next time it happens, I'm going to try and pop the CC's out and push them back in vs. a reboot.


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## Stinkweed8

I accidentaly started a new thread, moving it here.

I had this HD Tivo installed (the installation took 2.5 hours...COX ineptitude). Last night I turned on the tv, it was recording the news (as indicated by the red light), but the live TV was completely black (no show information either). Changing the channel gave the BAD BOING sound, and had no effect. Changing the tuner was black screen too.

I have had to reboot a couple of times before (I get the cablecard error screen), so I tried rebooting to see if it helped. Well, after waiting 5 minutes to reboot, the live tv was back. The odd thing was that the channel I was recording WAS recorded. There was video on the recorded news program.

This seems to be a buggy device. Its kind of a pain, especially for my wife who loves the EASE of Tivo, and is technologically incapable of troubleshooting issues. She wants it to just work, which my S2 Tivos always have.

Settings: NATIVE
Wired: COMPONENT to an ONKYO A/V R


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## JVOLLEY1

I have been contemplating on getting the TIVO HD, but with this current problem, guess I will be waiting to see what the resolution will be? Does anyone know if this has been reported to TIVO?


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## paslax

JVOLLEY1 said:


> I have been contemplating on getting the TIVO HD, but with this current problem, guess I will be waiting to see what the resolution will be? Does anyone know if this has been reported to TIVO?


Personally, I don't believe that this issue is a reason to hold off. I experienced it several times - from the time that I bought it until I got the cable cards installed and working - over the course of two weeks. I have not experienced this issue in the two weeks since then.

I believe that there is something valid in the comment above about this issue only occuring when doing non-standard things (settings).


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## Stinkweed8

paslax said:


> I believe that there is something valid in the comment above about this issue only occuring when doing non-standard things (settings).


Now I remember that this happened JUST after I had messed with teh parental control settings...I changes some settings and turned off the tv...when I turned it back on I got the black screen and had to reboot.


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## koensayr

My particular setup uses a single Multi Cable Card? Could that be the issue? I like the idea of removing and then re-inserting the cable cards. 

Has this happened to people who DON'T have cable cards?

Why spend the extra $200 on the Series 3? Me thinks they are offering the rebate so they can end of life the damn thing...


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## paslax

koensayr said:


> My particular setup uses a single Multi Cable Card? Could that be the issue? I like the idea of removing and then re-inserting the cable cards.
> 
> Has this happened to people who DON'T have cable cards?


I had it happen a few times before any CCs were installed. It also happened a few times after the Motorola S-Cards were installed.


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## net114

I've had my unit for two days, and this happened to me today. Running Native. It seemed to be something with going into the menus with Amazon Unbox and such, and then switching back. Possibly a software problem with switching resolutions, but not sure. I would also not hold off for this problem.


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## silypuddy

I just had a blank screen issue last night but I didn't have to reboot. It failed to tune in a channel on the first try. I then flipped to a channel where I got the signal and then went back to the blank channel and it tuned on the second try.

I'm running software ver 9.1.L5-01-2-652 with two SA CC's. Has anyone called into Tivo with this and gotten a response worth sharing?


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## kmdmb

New HD hooked up Thursday night. No mods no cable cards and running hybrid. Mediacom and antenna. Same problem 3 times now. Need a fix soon.


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## aus1ander

Same problem here, happened for the first time today (had the TiVoHD for a couple months now).

720p Fixed.
HDMI.
OTA digital and analog cable (no cable cards)


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## lessd

Now it happened to my unit today, reported it to TiVo, the HD TiVo CS said he had 4 reports already and TiVo knows about this problem, he does not know if the new 9.1 software fixes it or not. (I don't have 9.1 yet)


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## Charles R

silypuddy said:


> I was flipping channels and tried to tune in ESPN2HD and got a grey/black screen. I thought "great Comcast is messing with my service."
> 
> I then stepped down one channel and was able to get ESPNHD so I then stepped back up and got ESPN2HD no problem.


This is the issue I have been seeing for a few days.


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## HD4me2

kmdmb said:


> New HD hooked up Thursday night. No mods no cable cards and running hybrid. Mediacom and antenna. Same problem 3 times now. Need a fix soon.


One week old Tivo HD video failed on day 2. HDMI connection, output set to 1080i fixed. No CC, no service registration as yet. OTA via antenna and TWC analog only cable.

Switched to native mode, OK. Switched back to 1080i fixed and video failure. Thought it was a fluke, but happened again yesterday.
This time service was registered and software is at c2 version and 500GB esata added. Failure must have occurred while TV was off and no remote activity at all. After turning TV on, black screen no video.

All symptoms as described by other posters to this thread.
Reboot fixes the problem but that is no way to live.


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## rockymountaind

Not a good first post, but...

It's happened twice in the 4 days I've owned the box.

Component
Native
2 Mot S-cards
Latest sw


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## StuMan8424

It has also happened to me a few times over the past week or so. I don't have cable cards yet and my Tivo has no modifications. I think the times that it has happened have been when I've gone to the menu, and when I come back to live tv my screen is just gray. Attempting to change channels makes the thumbs down sound. The guide pops up and shows information, and the main menu works but with no background. I've had to restart to fix the problem.


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## HD4me2

Happened again this morning. This time the video loss only affected tuner 1. Unlike the previous episodes, this time recordings and tuner 2 video is OK.

No rhyme or reason to this. Had just added an HDTV program to season pass and upon returning to tuner 1, black screen. Changing channels on tuner 1 to DTV OTA or analog cable did not help.

This getting to be irksome and if a fix is not in place before the 30 day cancellation period expires, the HD will be returned.


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## aus1ander

I'm sure TiVo is working on a fix. Be patient. There hasn't been confirmation that the new SW doesn't fix this problem, so if it persists after the upgrade (9.1), keep calling the CSRs.


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## turbovr6

Sorry, started new thread but here is where I belong. I have the same issue. I have a Hitachi 1TB internal drive from WeakNees and using OTA. I will Contact Customer service. Happens when I hit Live TV sometimes. Like something is wrong with the vider decoder. Using 1080i fixed with HDMI.


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## randomsolutions

Happened to me 2 times in the last week. Almost missed Heroes. If they don't fix this soon Tivo loses my business after 7 years.

HDMI
Fixed 1080i
2 cable cards
Stock, no drive upgrades, latest 9.x SW level (TivoHD)


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## Phillysports8982

I've had my tivo series 3 hd since july and I periodically get these problems of a grey screen on channels, it is definitely a CC issue because lets face it they are horrible. I've had Time Warner out 3 times to reset the cards, which works for a little while..

I just wish there was some way for Tivo to help


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## rockymountaind

Phillysports8982 said:


> I've had my tivo series 3 hd since july and I periodically get these problems of a grey screen on channels, it is definitely a CC issue because lets face it they are horrible. I've had Time Warner out 3 times to reset the cards, which works for a little while..
> 
> I just wish there was some way for Tivo to help


I think the problem being discussed is different from the "grey screen", and it's not related to CC (some reports are from owners with no cards).

With this issue, the video processor (?) freaks. You can see static menus (Now Playing, Watch Live TV, etc), but there's no background animation. And if you try to watch anything, recorded or live, you get black. Rebooting makes it all better. At least that's how it's gone for me.

Yesterday, I did get the background, but all recordings were inaccessible. Pressing play just left the blue background. Stopping resulted in a "keep or delete" screen. All recordings were affected. Rebooting fixed.

So 3 _major_ errors in my first 10 days of ownership.

Dang.


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## rockymountaind

Called CS today and was told this was not a known problem. Mentioned something about checking signal strength, that 9.1 was being rolled out this week and ended up with a "take it back to CC and get a new box".


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## kirk1701

rockymountaind said:


> I think the problem being discussed is different from the "grey screen", and it's not related to CC (some reports are from owners with no cards).
> 
> With this issue, the video processor (?) freaks. You can see static menus (Now Playing, Watch Live TV, etc), but there's no background animation. And if you try to watch anything, recorded or live, you get black. Rebooting makes it all better. At least that's how it's gone for me.
> 
> Yesterday, I did get the background, but all recordings were inaccessible. Pressing play just left the blue background. Stopping resulted in a "keep or delete" screen. All recordings were affected. Rebooting fixed.
> 
> So 3 _major_ errors in my first 10 days of ownership.
> 
> Dang.


yep, same here.

Didn't know what caused it but after reboot all the programs I was recording on both tuners were saved. I just had to wait two hours till the recordings were done in order to reboot it.

720P and using component video

Called tivo support since I had some other problems already also with freezing with menu's and just got the replacement box in tonight. Still have the issue's with menu's freezing but not as bad.

Probably end up returning for a refund while I'm in my 30 day return period.


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## Rez

I've got both a TiVo HD and a Series 3. The TiVo HD is hooked up via component and I have not seen this issue, but with the Series 3 which is using HDMI (720 fixed) I've run into this several times after the new software update.

Only a dance of powering the receiver, TiVo and display on and off has resolved the issue. I know the TiVo is alive as I get feedback beeps from hitting the remote buttons, but the display remains blank.

In case it helps - Series 3 connected via HDMI to a HK AVR 347 and then to a Panasonic plasma display.


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## rockymountaind

Rez said:


> I've got both a TiVo HD and a Series 3. The TiVo HD is hooked up via component and I have not seen this issue, but with the Series 3 which is using HDMI (720 fixed) I've run into this several times after the new software update.
> 
> Only a dance of powering the receiver, TiVo and display on and off has resolved the issue. I know the TiVo is alive as I get feedback beeps from hitting the remote buttons, but the display remains blank.
> 
> In case it helps - Series 3 connected via HDMI to a HK AVR 347 and then to a Panasonic plasma display.


You get a true "black screen"? I can actually see the menus and select items.

I'm hoping 9.1 undoes whatever has been done, but see that randomsolutions is reporting the issue after the upgrade as well


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## rucka

I was having a similar issue BEFORE the update, so I'm not sure it is part of the problem.


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## Hoosier_1701

I've seen this happen once too. Brand new Tivo HD. No cablecards installed yet. Analogue only through Comcast. It is set to 1080i fixed over component. It happened after I had forced a daily update, right after it finished the "loading" section. Only a reboot got the video back. I'm on software 8.1.7c2.


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## rockymountaind

rucka said:


> I was having a similar issue BEFORE the update, so I'm not sure it is part of the problem.


Before c2? If so, then it's been reported on 3 different sw levels. Dang.


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## Doit2it

Happened twice to me. Once before 9.1 update (1st day of hookup, 2 weeks ago), once last night (5 days post 9.1). I have serial number 803 so that didn't make a difference. I am not using CCs but I do use manual recordings on QAM HD stations. My settings are Fixed 1080i and I use HDMI cable.


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## kirk1701

We'll, my issue has not got any better and the new tivo HD is freezing on menu's right out of the box (mainly when I brows by favorite channels) so while I'm still within the 30 days I'm thinking about returning for a full refund and wait till the issue is fixed down the line.


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## turbovr6

Now running 9.1 software. Now running native mode to my sharp aquos tv. I still use only OTA. no cable cards. Has not did this for a week yet. Lets see what happens


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## rockymountaind

kirk1701 said:


> We'll, my issue has not got any better and the new tivo HD is freezing on menu's right out of the box (mainly when I brows by favorite channels) so while I'm still within the 30 days I'm thinking about returning for a full refund and wait till the issue is fixed down the line.


I think I'll do the same.


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## kirk1701

Thought things were getting better with my newly arrived tivo exchanged unit.

Freeze ups when accessing favorite channels was down to a 5 second wait which could be tolerated as almost normal.

However, tonight I went into "Music, Photo's and More" just browsing the fetures and selected "sculls and Bones" then I backed out when I seen it was just a game. Thats when the background went grey and no video or sound just text of the menu and I had to restart the unit again.

Unit two days old, against my better judgement I want to keep it but kicking myself for not sending it back yet


----------



## hooper

Same thing here. Playing music from my networked computer. Going in and out of folders and changing songs, the background went black. Tried live tv and screen was all black. Reboot fixed this issue. 

TivoHD 
9.1 sw
720p hybrid
2 S Cards

Seems like more than a few folks have had this happen when using some of the network functionality....


----------



## johnnylundy

Same problem as above, even after 9.1 downloaded today. Oddly, I never saw the problem with 8.1.

It's too bad they don't have a logging mode we could turn on so the exact system actions could be seen right before the blank screens.


----------



## turbovr6

Got a complete lockup last night when I pressed Live TV. All video black. Yellow light does not even blink. Had to pull power cord. Tivo HD, 1TB Hitachi drive, 9.1 software. Video in Native mode. No cable cards. I use only OTA. WTF?????


----------



## johnnylundy

One of my scheduled recordings didn't record as the TiVo says there was no signal on channel 40.

So this morning I repeated Guided Setup. When Guided Setup came to the screen where it asks you to state what channel you receive on a certain numbered channel (for it to determine your lineup), the TiVo background disappeared and there was no video behind the menu screen.

It did not interfere with finishing GS, and I rebooted after that and for the moment I have both tuners OK, with signals mostly 100% but a couple of channels at 80 and about 5 at 92-95%.

Has anyone gotten any replies from TiVo about this?


----------



## rcamille

If you read through this thread you will see that I experienced this problem with the earlier software version. I spoke to a TiVo Tech support rep today. She told me that I was the first person she spoke to that has reported this problem. Then she placed me on hold and spoke to her supervisor, who advised her to open a case on the issue. She did tell me that TiVoPony regularly scans this forum and has undoubtedly reported the bug to the programmers already. Lets keep our fingers crossed that they will get this fixed. 

For whatever it is worth, I can only replicate the problem when I am a layer or two (or deeper) into the menus and press the live tv button. If i backtrack through the menus and choose watch live tv, it never seems to happen.


----------



## johnnylundy

> For whatever it is worth, I can only replicate the problem when I am a layer or two (or deeper) into the menus and press the live tv button. If i backtrack through the menus and choose watch live tv, it never seems to happen.


Thanks for making note of that. It could be the workaround we need. So to restate, if you always go to Live TV from the TiVo Central menu, and never use the Live TV button, that is apparently a way to avoid this?


----------



## rcamille

johnnylundy said:


> Thanks for making note of that. It could be the workaround we need. So to restate, if you always go to Live TV from the TiVo Central menu, and never use the Live TV button, that is apparently a way to avoid this?


To date, that has worked for me. If/when that changes I will post in this thread.

In the meantime, if everyone else can try to pinpoint exactly what they did before the dreaded black screen appeared (and report it here and to TiVo tech support), i am sure it would be helpful to the TiVo programmers.


----------



## houman

I have noticed similar problem, the tivo hd is recording shows on cable, I turn on the TV, I get a brief flash (I can't read it fast enough) saying HDMI connection not supported or something like that, then black screen, but I can go to Tivo menu with the Tivo button and I can go to my HD channels (unencrypted HD via QAM -- no CC's), and I can read the menus, but I can't go to any SD channels, the only solution is to restart.

Also when it happens, the shows that are being recorded are never recorded (they're stuck at 0sec), and you can't play them either...

-H


----------



## robm15

I had this problem last night for the first time. My TivoHD is 2 weeks old, has 9.1 software, with analog cable signal, no CC's, and no upgrades to the hardware.

I was starting a recorded show from the now playing list. The screen went black like it always does immediately before playing, and then stayed black. When I pushed the Tivo button it went back to the menus, but the background was black. Menus functioned fine, and no other show in the NPL would play. After restart all was good, and all the shows I previously tried during the blackout, played fine.


----------



## boogie

I just got my TIVOHD hooked up w/2 CC's. I was switching between different video output modes and noticed it would do the black screen/black menu thing when I pressed "live TV". I had to reboot to get any picture back.

One way around it was to not press "Live TV", but to back out and select "watch live TV" through the TIVO menu


----------



## johnnylundy

boogie said:


> I just got my TIVOHD hooked up w/2 CC's. I was switching between different video output modes and noticed it would do the black screen/black menu thing when I pressed "live TV". I had to reboot to get any picture back.
> 
> One way around it was to not press "Live TV", but to back out and select "watch live TV" through the TIVO menu


Try repeating Guided Setup after a reboot. That cured the problem for me. Haven't seen it in a week, and I was seeing it every day.

And don't change the video if you can avoid it - that is when my problem started.


----------



## paslax

Happened again today when listening to music over the network (wired). I hit the Live TV button and the screen was black. Pressing Ch-Up or Ch-Down results in the thumbs-down noise. Only resolved by a restart.


----------



## ecovelli

I have the TiVo HD, set to Native using the HDMI cable with two SA Cards from Comcast.

I use the remote to put the TiVo in standby. This black screen problem seems to surface the next use after I use the remote to put the TiVo in standby while an HD program is on. It also sometimes seems to happen if I am watching a live HD program and the TiVo changes the channel to record a non HD program.

I have had several problem with the (C) software. This is the most persistent. I lost my cable card validation, it reset my video settings, etc. I've also had several crashes.

On my TiVo Series 2, no problems except once. This was the opposite of the TiVo HD. The unit displayed the TiVo background, but no menus and no response to the remote signals (other than the boing sound). Had to pull the plug and no other problems since.


----------



## bobjjones

Tivo HD < 1 week old, 2 cc's, HDMI in native mode.

It has happened twice. Once the menus were great, went to watch a recorded show, it was just black. I deleted that show (dammit) and went to watch another (at this point the video was still in the menu). Same thing. But this time when I went back to the menu nothing at all in the background.

I'm not sure what happened the first time. 

Bob


----------



## ic316

"Black screen with menus" bug happened to me today for the first time.(Have had tivoHD for 2 weeks) We had been streaming music from over the network connection previously, so there appears to be some correlation. restart resolved it.

TivoHD
9.1
1080i Fixed
HDMI
2 S CableCards


----------



## Mars Rocket

I have a brand new TiVo HD, updated to v9.2 yesterday. Today the Comcast guy came out to install the CableCards, and during the install of the second card I got the black background/no video problem. This made it impossible to test the channels because all I would see was the channel banner and a black background. I rebooted the TiVo (which takes a loooooooong time on this unit compared to my old S1) and everything seemed fine.

I then started Guided Setup to get the new channels, and got the black background/no video AGAIN, making it impossible to confirm the channel lineup. There were only two choices anyway, so I went into advanced mode, chose one, and continued. After GS was done I rebooted again and it seems OK for now.

Not a good first impression.


----------



## Gai-jin

Mars Rocket said:


> I have a brand new TiVo HD, updated to v9.2 yesterday. Today the Comcast guy came out to install the CableCards, and during the install of the second card I got the black background/no video problem. This made it impossible to test the channels because all I would see was the channel banner and a black background. I rebooted the TiVo (which takes a loooooooong time on this unit compared to my old S1) and everything seemed fine.
> 
> I then started Guided Setup to get the new channels, and got the black background/no video AGAIN, making it impossible to confirm the channel lineup. There were only two choices anyway, so I went into advanced mode, chose one, and continued. After GS was done I rebooted again and it seems OK for now.
> 
> Not a good first impression.


This is similar to my experience. I got my cablecards on Monday, after having just installed the tivo. Since then, I've run into this glitch a few times. I believe when this occurs the cablecard channel test screen says 'no channels available' if you try it. (I've had quite a bit of trouble, but I think these two issues seem to go together.)

Makes it really tough to know for sure whether the problem is with the cablecards, tivo, or provisioning info on the cableco side when this issue comes up right in the middle of the install/troubleshooting process.


----------



## lessd

Gai-jin said:


> This is similar to my experience. I got my cablecards on Monday, after having just installed the tivo. Since then, I've run into this glitch a few times. I believe when this occurs the cablecard channel test screen says 'no channels available' if you try it. (I've had quite a bit of trouble, but I think these two issues seem to go together.)
> 
> Makes it really tough to know for sure whether the problem is with the cablecards, tivo, or provisioning info on the cableco side when this issue comes up right in the middle of the install/troubleshooting process.


Please report this to TiVo (I have) as its a problem that not very repeatable, If you don't spend time using the TiVo menus it does not happen too much but i am bumed the it happens in v9.2, although i have not seen it yet with 9.2J.


----------



## Johnwashere

This happened to me today. I just bought this tivo hd a few days ago at circuit city. Im runing 8.1 and just got my tivo from circuit city. The screen went black for me and I could not see any video. I tried switching chanels and my analog chanels worked for a litle bit, i swithced to the other tuner and a hd show was still running, then switched the chanel and it went black. I then switched to a analag chanel and it worked, then i tried switching a couple minutes later and the other analoag chanels did not work so all were out. then all of a sudden the tivo restarted on its own. it worked for a minute, then went black for 30 seconds or so then came back in and started working. I hope this problem does not come back!


----------



## Endorphine

Well I am sad to report that I gave up on the two different TivoHD's it tried for over 3 weeks to get working. I also had the video disappearing all the time, and the cable company did everything in their power to help me out. Every time I called Tivo they blamed it on the signal strength or the cable company.

I sure wish Tivo would put out a product that worked without so many serious bugs. I still have two different series 2's, and my old one still suffers from the double button push.


----------



## koensayr

Interesting. This happened to me once right when my TIVO was installed. Though since then it hasn't happened since. Perhaps there was a bug in the original firmware and after the unit is installed for a bit a software update clears it up. 

I wonder what is going on...


----------



## zaknafein

I saw this several times, but haven't seen it since 9.2 came around.


----------



## jgerry

I'm still on 9.1, output via HDMI, resolution set to native.

I've had it happen twice now. Anything that's recording when it happens seems to be fine, so I wait for any recordings to finish, then reboot. Very annoying.


----------



## Saturn_V

Happened twice- Grey screen with menus displayed- no video or audio displayed. I've had the unit since October 6th. (purchased from Amazon)

720 Fixed, HDMI, Analog Cable & OTA HD. Original HDD, no cable cards installed. 8.1 software.

FWIW, the last time it happened, both tuners were recording...but I waited until both were finished to restart the box. Both programs (analog and HD) were recorded normally. I'm guessing it may be a display issue.


----------



## bkdtv

Saturn_V said:


> Happened twice- Grey screen with menus displayed- no video or audio displayed. I've had the unit since October 6th. (purchased from Amazon)
> 
> 720 Fixed, HDMI, Analog Cable & OTA HD. Original HDD, no cable cards installed. 8.1 software.
> 
> FWIW, the last time it happened, both tuners were recording...but I waited until both were finished to restart the box. Both programs (analog and HD) were recorded normally. I'm guessing it may be a display issue.


If you are experiencing this issue, sign up for 9.2 because it fixes the problem. If you sign up now at http://www.tivo.com/priority/, you should have the new 9.2 software by Wednesday.

The 9.2 release doesn't appear to fix the HDMI sync issue with a limited number of displays, but for that problem, switching video inputs or turning the TV off and back on will restore video.


----------



## TomRaz

Saturn what color do you have configured for the sides of your letter box screens, gray or black ?

What I found is if I have the letterbox configured for gray and the no video happens then my background on every screen is gray. 

If I have it configured for black, then all the backgrounds are black when the problem happens. 

I am running component for my video and I have one series M cable card with no ota. 

Assuming we are all talking about the same problem, 9.2 did not fix the problem for me I am waiting for a replacement Tivo HD to arrive.


----------



## hooper

In 9.1 this issue was 100% reproducible by forcing a connection and then clicking live tv while in the connection status screen.


----------



## aljack3

Ditto on the problem.

Brand new TiVo HD unit just out of the box Friday.

720P fixed, version 8 software, no cable cards.


----------



## Saturn_V

TomRaz said:


> Saturn what color do you have configured for the sides of your letter box screens, gray or black ?.


I'm configured for gray. And that's the background color when all video disappears.

Hmmmm. Should hold off on the 9.2 upgrade if it doesn't solve the problem??


----------



## Mars Rocket

As I posted above, I got the 9.2 update before I had this problem, so it definitely doesn't fix it. I haven't seen it happen since the first time, though.


----------



## Islanti

Mars Rocket said:


> As I posted above, I got the 9.2 update before I had this problem, so it definitely doesn't fix it. I haven't seen it happen since the first time, though.


Same here, 1 time only shortly after 9.2. Never happened on my other two Tivo HDs (running 9.2 also). Strange.


----------



## Mars Rocket

It just happened to me again. 

I was looking through the menus and everything was fine. One show was recording. I went to play an HD show that had recorded earlier this morning, and the screen went black. Right arrow just resulted in the drumbeat sound. Left arrow took me out to the menus, but the background was black. I couldn't play any other shows - they all just gave me a solid black screen and I couldn't do anything except exit out via the left arrow. The position indicator showed no length to the show (it was empty - no green part at all). The show that was recording didn't work either.

I was able to change the background from black to gray by going into the letterbox color menu and making the change, but the system still didn't work. I also tried switching the video output format from 1080i Fixed to 720p Fixed but that didn't help either.

After a reboot everything was back to normal, and both the show I originally tried to watch and the show that was in progress both looked fine.

Has anybody from TiVo acknowledged that this problem exists? Is it worth calling them? My past experiences with TiVo phone reps leads me to believe they have no clue about problems and just work from a script, but I'd like to have the problem on my record in case it crops up later on.


----------



## TomRaz

Saturn try setting your letterbox color to black and I bet when the problem happens again your background will be black instead of gray next time. 

Mars I spoke to a second level support person at Tivo last week that acknowledged he had seen the same issue and it was sometimes resolved with a Tivo HD hardware swap out. 

He also told me it didn't matter what version of software I was running it would not resolve the problem. 

On that last point I believe he is correct since I have had 3 versions of software so far and the problem happens with all three versions. 

I suspect their is some type of hardware problem that has not been resolved in production or they are hoping to fix the problem in a future release of firmware. 

I am going to send back my original failing unit to Amazon and I have order a Tivo HD from Tivo directly hoping to do the lifetime transfer option. 

That assumes the new unit from Tivo is more stable than the one I received from Amazon. 

I am confident the problem will get worked out otherwise I will send #2 back to Tivo under their 30 day return policy.


----------



## uforia

I've had 9.2 on my THD since the day it was announced. Today I had all video disappear again (no menu backgrounds either). Reboot was the only thing that fixed it. So this has probably happened 10-12 times in the 6 weeks I've had this unit. I hadn't had it occur for a couple weeks, but this was the last straw. I called Tivo support (no hold time either!) and their sending me a replacement unit.


----------



## jgerry

uforia said:


> I've had 9.2 on my THD since the day it was announced. Today I had all video disappear again (no menu backgrounds either). Reboot was the only thing that fixed it. So this has probably happened 10-12 times in the 6 weeks I've had this unit. I hadn't had it occur for a couple weeks, but this was the last straw. I called Tivo support (no hold time either!) and their sending me a replacement unit.


It's good that they're trying to remedy the issue for you, but I wouldn't expect a new unit to fix the issue. Does anyone really think this is anything but another software bug?

Personally, I wouldn't let them replace _my_ TiVo, mostly because I'd have to get Comcast to come back out, yet again, and re-pair my cable card. No way.


----------



## Mars Rocket

jgerry said:


> It's good that they're trying to remedy the issue for you, but I wouldn't expect a new unit to fix the issue. Does anyone really think this is anything but another software bug?
> 
> Personally, I wouldn't let them replace _my_ TiVo, mostly because I'd have to get Comcast to come back out, yet again, and re-pair my cable card. No way.


I've read reports that the card ID (the Data part?) is really the only thing the Comcast servers care about, in which case moving the cards to a new unit would still work.

I've been wondering myself whether this was a software or hardware issue. There's no hard evidence either way, except for the fact that a reboot always seems to fix it. This makes me think it's software setting a register somewhere incorrectly. This of course begs the question as to why so few people seem to be experiencing it.


----------



## Keith Mickunas

I had this happen for the first time today, and today is when I got 9.2 installed. I've had my unit a couple weeks and it was running 8.1 and working good.

A couple things to note on mine. First, I was playing music for the first time today from my PC. I hadn't tried that stuff before. I turned the TV off to see if the music would continue. The sound went away for a bit, as is typical with my receiver because of the way it handles HDMI, and when the music finally started again it kept going out and coming back on. I turned the TV on and the screen came back, then I tried to go to live TV and after that all I got was the black background and the menus. 

My experience seems to indicate it could be an HDMI glitch of some sort. I'll try reproducing it in the next day or two.


----------



## ClifG

I also hit this for the first time right after getting the 9.2 software. Hit it last night and again tonight. I don't remember exactly what I was trying out last night when it happened, but tonight it happened right after I was browsing some shows stored on my server via the TiVo Now Playing menu. 

There may be something to the network activity correlation.

I'm in native mode, component out (so not an HDMI glitch in my case), and the box is only a week or two old. Never had this problem with my old software (8.1.7 I think is what it was) but now hit this twice in two days with 9.2. Only a reboot fixes it.


----------



## pjhartman

Keith Mickunas said:


> My experience seems to indicate it could be an HDMI glitch of some sort. I'll try reproducing it in the next day or two.


I've hit this same error, and I'm currently using S-Video connection (HDMI cable should arrive today) so IMHO it's an issue with the TiVo's video output.

The Tivo overlays (menu, time bar, etc.) show fine, but there's no video transmitted.


----------



## uforia

jgerry said:


> It's good that they're trying to remedy the issue for you, but I wouldn't expect a new unit to fix the issue. Does anyone really think this is anything but another software bug?


I don't disagree at all. But I know that there are people out there with a THD that haven't seen this issue. So I'm willing to try a different box, although I've seen several people indicate they went through multiple boxes while trying to fix this.

I have to swap my 1TB hard drive anyway so I hopefully won't have to re-pair the cable card. If it's software, then I'd have the issue regardless of using the fresh hard drive or my existing 1TB drive.


----------



## texaslabrat

Add me to the list experiencing the problem

9.2J, 720 fixed, component. Took Tivo out of standby this morning, menu came up fine. I noticed there was a suggestion program recording. I hit the live TV button...and just a black screen. No Tivo screen overlays..just black. Was able to get back into the menu, but when I did the background graphics were gone (just black background at this point). All the menus worked, but Live TV didn't. Reboot fixed it.


----------



## HDRyder9

I'm experiencing the exact same problem. After multiple visits from my cable company and many calls to TIVO, TIVO is sending me a new Tivo HD. I'm pretty sure I'll have the same problem, though. 

Geeeesh, this is frustrating. I haven't had a single 24 hour period when my new Tivo worked properly and I've missed dozens of shows that should have been recorded and weren't.


----------



## Mars Rocket

HDRyder9 said:


> ...I've missed dozens of shows that should have been recorded and weren't.


The problem as I experienced it did not affect recordings in any way, just the ability to view them. Even when the black background was in effect, the recordings continued as expected, and once I rebooted I could view them.


----------



## paslax

pjhartman said:


> I've hit this same error, and I'm currently using S-Video connection (HDMI cable should arrive today) so IMHO it's an issue with the TiVo's video output.
> 
> The Tivo overlays (menu, time bar, etc.) show fine, but there's no video transmitted.


I disagree that it's a video output issue. After pressing the live TV button and getting the black screen, try pressing channel up or channel down. You will hear a "thumbs-down noise". That would imply that this is more than just a video output issue. (Disclaimer: I haven't had it happen on my 9.2J yet, so maybe things are different now. But that's how it was with 8.3 and 9.1.)

Also, according to user experiences, this issue correlates 100% with having recent NETWORK activity. With the increased number of network features introduced in 9.2, I expect the complaints to start piling up.


----------



## HDRyder9

OK, it's getting curiouser and curiouser. I got tired of rebooting Tivo every few hours or so. So, I just left it alone. Here's where it gets weird. The second tuner started to work again, after being "gone" for about 12-18 hours. 

Also, some new values have appeared on the cable card CP screen. I sure wish I knew what all those values mean. If I did, maybe I could diagnose my problem.

Edit: My joy didn't last long. Now both tuners are dark and Tivo needs rebooted just to operate. I actually think I can recreate this problem by using the "Live TV" button.


----------



## TomRaz

Well I had the same problem and contacted Tivo support and they suggested replacing the hardware. I received a repalcement Tivo HD today from Tivo directly and it does the same exact thing. 

The replacement unit came with 8.1 software, but my original unit had the same problems with 8.1, 9.1 and 9.2J software. 


So it is either a software or hardware problem that has not been resolved yet. I am using one SA M series cable card. 

I guess I can tolerate the problem assuming Tivo fixes it in the near future.


----------



## gardavis

ClifG said:


> I also hit this for the first time right after getting the 9.2 software.


Me too. I read the update message, deleted it and then, I think, went to live TV and just had gray. Reboot fixed it.

This is about the first time I had to reboot the HD Tivo for a problem since I got it a few months ago.

1080i/hdmi/ota

Gary Davis


----------



## HDRyder9

TomRaz said:


> Well I had the same problem and contacted Tivo support and they suggested replacing the hardware. I received a repalcement Tivo HD today from Tivo directly and it does the same exact thing.
> 
> The replacement unit came with 8.1 software, but my original unit had the same problems with 8.1, 9.1 and 9.2J software.
> 
> So it is either a software or hardware problem that has not been resolved yet. I am using one SA M series cable card.
> 
> I guess I can tolerate the problem assuming Tivo fixes it in the near future.




This appears to have been a known issue for weeks if not months. Tivo has released v9.2 which supposedly fixes this. It does NOT. Just in case anybody is confused, it's still broken.


----------



## szatkoff

I experienced this for the first time last night. THD with 9.2j. I have had the unit since the end of August.


----------



## rfolsom805

I've had my unit since the first week they were out (so I've had it just over a year now) and this problem JUST STARTED a few weeks ago.. I've not had any issues with the unit at all since I installed it last year. This HAS to be a software bug of some sort.


----------



## NaperTiVo

Two THD's, has happened on both of them. They are both 3 days old. One happened pre-cablecard the other post-cablecard. Each time happened when pressing Live TV. Version 9.1. Is there anybody who has had a THD up for more than a couple weeks and not had this happen to them?

PLEASE BE A SOFTWARE BUG! And please fix it soon!


----------



## doodles

I've had the black screen of doom several times of the past month I've owned my new TiVo HD. I've noticed that it has happened during specific times:

- after forcing a connection to the TiVo network and getting a new software update.
- after playing and stopping several songs off my PC quickly and losing the network connection
- after downloading a show from Amazon Unbox.

From reading previous posts, seems like the common denominator with the problem is that the network connection is always somehow involved. Something is being downloaded or transferred when it happens.

Oh yeah, and *I have 9.2* and it happened yesterday when playing songs off my PC!


----------



## tnwahoo

Hi all - 

Well, this is therapeutic! I was feeling so picked on... I get the same black screen and the restart will fix it for a few days. What I've noticed on my system (HD with cablecards, using wireless network) is that I only get black screens on the 'standard' cable channels, not the digital ones. (i.e. the ones that I could get without a cable box show up black screen, while the digital ones are fine...)

So, I do a restart about once a week - but the recordings that were scheduled during that time are either a recorded black screen or a 'partial' recording of a black screen. Since I travel a fair amount and am not at home daily, it gets pretty annoying to get home and find half of my lineup didn't record!

Has anybody seen this and or figured out a fix? There for awhile I got numerous 'repeat guided setup' messages, but figured out that the reboot pretty much does the same thing in a lot less time. (And no, the guided setup did not make a difference.)

Thanks everybody!


----------



## TomRaz

I spoke to 2nd level Tivo Support again today concerning the black background issue. They admitted they are aware o the problem and they are working on a fix at this point. 

Hopefully they will resolve the problem soon with a software fix.


----------



## RickNY

doodles said:


> seems like the common denominator with the problem is that the network connection is always somehow involved. Something is being downloaded or transferred when it happens.


Im going to agree on this.. I bought my THD about a month ago -- the bug happened when I was first setting up the box -- while it was in the middle of downloading the full guide data for the first time with a force connect.. I hadn't had it happen since then, but was on phone with Tivo rep to diagnose a CableCard issue, and it happened for only the 2nd time while I was on the phone with her after a month of it not happening since the first time. She replaced the box (which was running 9.2), and the new box did the same exact thing during the initial setup. After a few force connects, the new box was brought to 9.1..

Heres where it gets interesting.. Since TTG/MRV/TTGB was activated on both boxes, I transferred my shows from the original Tivo to Tivo Desktop.. That unit then experienced the issue several times during the transfer.. I subsequently transferred the shows again to the new unit, and once again, while it was doing the transfer, the new unit went to the black screen several times. All told, in the past two days, during the heavy network traffic transferring shows, Ive had the issue come up at least 6 times on the 2 units, all requiring reboots.

Rick


----------



## jskaras

Glad (?) to hear that it's not just my box that is having issues. I got the series 3 when it first came out and it has worked flawlessly until the last couple of weeks. One tuner will work fine but when I switch to the other tuner the screen is intermittently greyed out. No obvious precipitating factors. Interestingly, today only the digital channels were out on the second tuner. Analog still worked. First tuner was fine. No signal malfunctions on CC diagnostics. Reboot restores all functionality to both tuners.


----------



## RickNY

jskaras said:


> . One tuner will work fine but when I switch to the other tuner the screen is intermittently greyed out.


That doesnt appear to be the same issue thats discussed here -- that problem sounds like a tuning problem -- I would guess signal related if the CableCards are both reporting they are fine. The problem we are talking about affects the whole user interface losing its background graphics, and the complete loss of all audio and video.


----------



## zaknafein

Been a couple weeks since I got the 9.2 update, and I haven't seen this problem again, where I was seeing it quite a bit before.


----------



## Allanon

I have two unmodified Tivo HDs and both have this problem, It occurs when flipping through menus. This problem occurred when version 9.1 was installed and with version 9.2. I have 2 single stream cablecards in one box and the other has one multi-stream cablecard. The problem has occurred when using native or 1080i fixed as a video output and both Tivos are hooked up to the TV using HDMI.


----------



## johnb73

Im also seeing something similar to the black screen issue on my Series3 which happens periodically, and only started the night of the last service update (9.2?)

I use HDMI through a Yamaha receiver to a Pioneer plasma. When I power on my receiver, I heard audio, but when I turn on my tv i drop audio and have no video as well. Tivo is seemingly unresponsive. Does not even output on s-video. Front panel shows signal received from the remote but has no effect on a/v output. I cant use the remote to restart, so I have to unplug which makes me very nervous about my HDD.

There was only one instance where repowering the receiver/tv regained functionality. All other times I repowered them several times. Ive also unplugged the HDMI cables.


----------



## thardie

I'm just very dissapointed that we've gone through 3 software releases (8.x, 9.1 and now 9.2J) and they all have this dissapearing video trick. I've been repsonsible for 4 of these units being purchased in the last week, and I think I'm going to have to warn people to hold off until TiVo can get a handle on their QA problem here...


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## Gai-jin

I think the main thing is that it's a *relatively* uncommon issue when the tivo is under normal use. In my experince anyway, the issue occured after doing a lot of activity in the menus. Forcing connections, using the cablecard test screens, changing channels you receive, etc. 

Now that the tivo is setup the way I want it, I haven't been messing around in the setup menus much, and haven't seen the issue again since just after I got 9.2


----------



## CrispyCritter

Just to add my story, since I have a pretty bare minimum setup and thus can rule things out.

New TiVoHD last week. Just cable, composite TV connection, no cable cards - will add cards at Christmas time after I get my wife an HD TV.

After guided setup I went through changing settings. When I tried to view live TV afterwards, I got gray screens. Going back to the menus, they had no background. Reboot fixed everything.

No further problems. Updated to 9.1 and then requested 9.2. 9.2 installed fine and I tested MRV of HD shows from our S3 yesterday. Worked fine. However, I did not test Live TV after the 9.2 installation (it was a manual reboot). This morning, all live TV channels were gray, but I had the background for the menus. Checking the logs, there were no shows or suggestions recorded after I got 9.2. This was a very sharp dropoff, especially given I still have room for suggestions. "Recording History" explanation for the missing shows 


> This program was not recorded because either the TiVo HD DVR is not authorized for this channel, the program was not purchased, or the program was not available in your area.


I passed by the set last night (my wife's on a business trip, so the TV wasn't used), and it was showing it was recording two shows, both of which were not actually recorded. I rebooted this morning and everything looks fine now. I have live TV and it's recording.

Given my minimalist setup, my problem is obviously not a cablecard issue, not an HDMI problem, not a signal issue (my other S2's all were fine in this period with the analog signals, as was my S3 with its digital signal). It's only barely possible it could be HD related at all - the transfer and test of one HD movie is the only time I've done anything with HD on this machine, but it is the case the problems started around the time period I was transferring and momentarily viewing this program.

The problem either occurred on the 9.2 final reboot, or it occurred during the heavy ethernet MRV usage immediately after.


----------



## Pvgibbs

I had the dreaded gray screen twice - once before CC install (directly after service update) and once a couple days after CC install. A reboot fixes it, but going to call Tivo to complain anyway -- they need to know it impacts people.

I also get short gray screens while tuning or going from Tivo Central to Live TV...but I can live with that issue.

*UPDATE* (after about 10 mins on hold and chat w- Tivo HD tech):

According to the Tivo Tech he has heard of this happening on HD's (but not series3s). After explaining the issue 3x and some back and forth...He said the new software update should fix it.

He placed me on a priority list for "9.2" (which I later had him clarify was "9.2.1J")

I really wasnt in the mood to press him on the 9.2.1J "fix"

In any case, my advice is to call Tivo so at least there is a building of "case files" about the issue.


----------



## DrBlove

So I just started having the same issue with my Tivo series 3, Motorola m-cards, HDMI output, 9.2 software, external hard drive 750 gb

Will give a data dump of what I noticed.

I noticed the issue because some shows that I set up to record were not being recorded. Played around, could not figure anything out, so I thought it was just me. Next day I could see on the OLED front that a show was being recorded, after it was done I went to watch it a couple of hours later, and it was not there... This really perplexed me to why it was just deleting shows...

I then went through the shows that had recorded and stayed recorded and one of them was totally black, and in the time line arrow, no green... I deleted this show.

I decided it must me something about the tuners, Cable Card 1, no problems, Cable card 2, I thought that no channels are coming in (which was odd since the previous night I recorded two shows at the same time and they both came in) So started flipping around channels on Cable Card 2, and some channels work specifically local HD channels and IONSAT (I have no idea what this channel is), but local non-HD channels (the non HD equivalents did not work), nor low analog cable channels lik FX or Spike or SciFi... (which is why when I was able two channels at the same time last night).

Now an odd side note: I started playing around with changing channels and switching cable cards. (Remember CC1 totally works, CC2 only kind works, having issues) So if I go to channels on CC1 that do not work on CC2 say channel 32, then flip to CC2 (where this channels had not work) now it works on CC2. I think what happens here is that the Tivo forces the CC flip to CC1 if CC2 goes to the same channel, since if I tune CC1 to a channel that CC2 is on the channel does not come in. I guess interesting?

Anyways spent lots of time talking to Tivo folks, got no where... talked to the Cable Company they "hit" the cable card, nothing really changed (though reading through this forum makes me think this is not a CC issue)...

So I guess this is a long way to say, me too... also I have rebooted 5-6 times, that does not fix anything (for me)


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## kdmorse

I just had this problem on a brand new TivoHD with 9.1. I seemed to provoke it by installing a completely unconfigured MCard, and attempt a channel test. After that - no video, no background on menus, no live tv, etc.. I could move arround the menu's, but all video was gone everywhere.

A reboot cleared it up - hopefully never to return.

-Ken


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## tmesser

Add me to the long list of people experiencing this problem. I first saw it during the CableCARD install at the end of September, and I figured it was a random occurrence related to that, but this has persisted through 8.1, 9.1 and 9.2. It's happened three times since I bought my TiVo HD six weeks ago, and it only seems to happen after I've been in the video menus.

Because others in this thread have called TiVo and received replacement units only to have it happen again, and getting my Comcast CCs paired properly was a fiasco, I have no interest in calling TiVo to have them send me a replacement unit.

9.2J, HDMI, 720p fixed, 2 S-Cards, no upgrades/expansions.


----------



## mpmclaugh33

I have had this problem too. I have had the TivoHD less than a week and it happened once. I don't have cable cards yet so thats not the cause. Mine is a gray screen...maybe black vs gray is related to which color you have set to display the bars for 4:3 viewing. My issue occurred when going to the screen to check signal strength. I was getting decent signal strength on all the channels I checked but could only see a gray screen. signal 70% or better.

haven't seen it happen again but I haven't had the unit very long.

Native, HDMI


----------



## sidsub

Add another Ditto here -- happened twice. Exact same symptoms as reported, and I have no clue what I did to trigger it. 

TiVo: please fix this promptly! 

Thanks.


----------



## soopergeek

Not so sure this is a rare issue. I just purchsed my TivoHD and this has happened a number of times. I need to reboot each time. Very annoying. Not sure, but it may be that this happens when I use the network connection.


----------



## tomers

Same here. Black background with menus happened to me 3 times in 5 days. 

TiVoHD. 9.1. HDMI. Native.

I noticed that when it happened, in the System Information menu the HDMI Status field is blank when it normally would show "HDCP enabled". A reboot fixes the problem.


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## janry

doodles said:


> I've had the black screen of doom several times of the past month I've owned my new TiVo HD. I've noticed that it has happened during specific times:
> 
> - after forcing a connection to the TiVo network and getting a new software update.
> - after playing and stopping several songs off my PC quickly and losing the network connection
> - after downloading a show from Amazon Unbox.
> 
> *From reading previous posts, seems like the common denominator with the problem is that the network connection is always somehow involved. Something is being downloaded or transferred when it happens.*
> Oh yeah, and *I have 9.2* and it happened yesterday when playing songs off my PC!


My thoughts exactly. I only operated my HD for a few days without the network but did not have the problem until the network card arrived and I connected to the network. The 1st time the problem occurred was after a TiVoCast transfer, and then last night after the daily service connection.

Has anyone had the problem whose HD is not connected to a network?


----------



## dkaleita

I just bought my second HD TiVo, and after setting it all up with cable cards, etc., the first thing I tried was transferring a show that I had previously recorded on my slightly older unit (9.2 SW in both). I selected a show and told it to transfer. It seemed to be doing something (blue light came on), so I selected a second show to transfer as well. But as soon as I pressed the Live TV button, I got the BLACK SCREEN. Menus work, but no video. 

Other strange things happen when the screen is black: if you select a show from the Now Playing list (which you can do since the menus still work), the TiVo thinks the show has a duration of zero, and immediately asks you if you want to delete it. If you say no, and reboot the TiVo, everything seems to come back to normal. If you wait until after the blue light goes off before rebooting (several hours in my case), then the transfer of shows does properly complete and you'll find the transferred shows on your TiVo after the reboot.

This is 100% repeatable; I can make the black screen happen at any time at will just by sequentially selecting two shows to transfer, and then pressing the Live TV button.


----------



## chefelf

I just had this problem happen to me for the first time. My TiVo was setup last Wednesday (5 days ago) with two CableCARDs. I just got the black screen problem for the first time this morning.

A reboot fixed the problem. I'm just hoping this isn't a frequent occurrence.


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## TiVo Troll

I don't use CableCARDS, and initially (right after completing Guided Set-up) had the OP's problem on all of HDTiVo's analog channels. I suspected a bad A/D encoder.

After rebooting once the problem hasn't recurred. I did call TiVo to report the condition and create a case # for the record just to protect warrantee rights if necessary.


----------



## showard594

Pre 9.1: I have seen this black background working menus issue several times when playing in the menus, switching around quickly etc. 

Since 9.1 it I have stopped playing around and it the problem did not occur. Same with 9.2j or what ever that version was.

However, since I got final 9.2 it has happened twice in the last week when just coming out of standby. Of course the restart fixes the issue. 

I hope this gets resolved soon.


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## mpmclaugh33

dkaleita said:


> I just bought my second HD TiVo, and after setting it all up with cable cards, etc., the first thing I tried was transferring a show that I had previously recorded on my slightly older unit (9.2 SW in both). I selected a show and told it to transfer. It seemed to be doing something (blue light came on), so I selected a second show to transfer as well. But as soon as I pressed the Live TV button, I got the BLACK SCREEN. Menus work, but no video.
> 
> Other strange things happen when the screen is black: if you select a show from the Now Playing list (which you can do since the menus still work), the TiVo thinks the show has a duration of zero, and immediately asks you if you want to delete it. If you say no, and reboot the TiVo, everything seems to come back to normal. If you wait until after the blue light goes off before rebooting (several hours in my case), then the transfer of shows does properly complete and you'll find the transferred shows on your TiVo after the reboot.
> 
> This is 100% repeatable; I can make the black screen happen at any time at will just by sequentially selecting two shows to transfer, and then pressing the Live TV button.


The transfer shows from one tivo to the TivoHD is the same scenario that just gave me the black screen again for the second time. I selected a show to transfer, then another and then went to live tv. I will try to reproduce again before I go to bed...don't feel like waiting for the tivohd to reboot for 5+ minutes right now.

I've only had my TivoHD for a week and a half and its happend 2 times. Seems like this is not a rare occurrence based on reading this thread. Once I reproduce it a few times I will call Tivo support just so they know its happening frequently to a lot of people


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## benh57

This has happened twice to me in 2 days of having the TivoHD... very annoying.


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## mpmclaugh33

OK, first thing. This thread and this one - http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=372716 are basically the same thread. Maybe somebody can combine the two. It seems this problem is relatively common or at least not uncommon.

I had the black screen, only menus working again last night. Third time its happened in 2 weeks. 2 of the three times it happened were when I was looking at system info/diagnostic info. Here is a question for everyone having this issue:

Is anybody having this issue NOT using an HDMI connection? What I noticed last night is when the problem occurred, in the system info screen HDMI status said nothing instead of HDCP Enabled. after the reboot it said HDCP Enabled and worked fine. If you are using HDMI, do you have a "cheap" HDMI cable or a "good" one? I would consider mine to be a cheap cable. For people who have swapped out HDMI cables to a better one, has the problem gone away? I am inclined to think this issue is HDMI related. Everything else seems to function except displaying video. Recordings still record and if you change the channel, the tuner reflects the channel change.

Lets post some HDMI related info here and see if we can find some commonality between those of us having this issue.


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## fergie8

mpmclaugh33 said:


> ...
> I had the black screen, only menus working again last night. Third time its happened in 2 weeks. 2 of the three times it happened were when I was looking at system info/diagnostic info. Here is a question for everyone having this issue:
> 
> Is anybody having this issue NOT using an HDMI connection? ...


Yes, I am NOT using an HDMI connection. I've had my new TiVo for less than two weeks. I'm connecting with component cables from my TiVo HD and I've had this issue happen at least four times so far.


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## CrispyCritter

mpmclaugh33 said:


> OK, first thing. This thread and this one - http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=372716 are basically the same thread. Maybe somebody can combine the two. It seems this problem is relatively common or at least not uncommon.
> 
> I had the black screen, only menus working again last night. Third time its happened in 2 weeks. 2 of the three times it happened were when I was looking at system info/diagnostic info. Here is a question for everyone having this issue:
> 
> Is anybody having this issue NOT using an HDMI connection? What I noticed last night is when the problem occurred, in the system info screen HDMI status said nothing instead of HDCP Enabled. after the reboot it said HDCP Enabled and worked fine. If you are using HDMI, do you have a "cheap" HDMI cable or a "good" one? I would consider mine to be a cheap cable. For people who have swapped out HDMI cables to a better one, has the problem gone away? I am inclined to think this issue is HDMI related. Everything else seems to function except displaying video. Recordings still record and if you change the channel, the tuner reflects the channel change.
> 
> Lets post some HDMI related info here and see if we can find some commonality between those of us having this issue.


I'm quite unconvinced it is the same problem. I suspect there are at least two causes of the related problems, if not more. I would guess there are correlations to
1. Initial installation of a new OS
2. Heavy ethernet usage
3. HDMI
4. exit from standby mode.

Which of these are causes, and not correlations, I don't know.

For the record (as I said earlier), I had the problem with no HDMI, no component, no cable cards, and analog signals, all connected to an SD TV.


----------



## RickNY

mpmclaugh33 said:


> Lets post some HDMI related info here and see if we can find some commonality between those of us having this issue.


Its not HDMI related -- I'm using component video, and its happening to me.. Others have reported the same.


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## lessd

RickNY said:


> Its not HDMI related -- I'm using component video, and its happening to me.. Others have reported the same.


When it happened to me i even went to composite outputs and the problem was still there, a soft re-boot fixed it and it never happened again for me anyways so i never called TiVo about it.


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## njdtivo

I spoke with Tivo tech support today and the HD specialist told me that they are aware of the problems and that they are HDMI related. She told me she didn't know when there would be a fix.


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## Graymalkin

I had this problem today, but none of the usual suspects seem to be involved.

Unmodified TiVo HD, 9.2a-01-2-652 software, analog cable (no CableCards), 480i fixed, S-video connection (it's an old TV). 

A soft reboot fixed the problem, but I still get one second's worth of black screen when changing channels.


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## lessd

njdtivo said:


> I spoke with Tivo tech support today and the HD specialist told me that they are aware of the problems and that they are HDMI related. She told me she didn't know when there would be a fix.


They (TiVo) may have a HDMI problem but its not the one on this thread that we are talking about, the blackout comes from all outputs, I know because i tried all four. The problem may be that when the HDMI thinks its being cheated (by error of some sort) it shuts down all outputs.


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## boettcht

I just set up an HDT for my parents on Friday night (cablecards installed on Sat) and the Tivo went into this mode 7 times since turning it on, 3 of them before the cable cards were installed.

I could not figure out what was casing it, I saw it go to the black/gray screen once while watching live tv, during a channel change, & browsing tivo menus.

Called tech support late Sat. night and they had me do a 57 kickstart and let me go while it did the kickstart, 20 minutes after booting up the tivo went back tot the gray screen.

Called tivo back on Sunday and they are replacing the box, they did not give me any explanation of the issue. What is the likely hood that this is going to be an issue on the new box?

The screen is present on component & composite outputs.


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## Islanti

I'm not even using HDMI on the box and have seen this happen twice on only one of my 3 Tivo HD boxes.


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## TomRaz

I had the same problem with one Tivo HD unit that I purchased from Amazon and Tivo advised me to send my original unit back to Amazon and get it replaced. 

I decided to get a refund from Amazon and purchase one directly from Tivo. And the same thing happened with that unit. It doesn't seem to matter what version of software you are running or what output mode you are using. 

Tivo support has told me they are aware of the issue and are working on the problem. 

Hopefully they will have a fix soon


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## dslunceford

Did guided setup on two THDs this evening in anticipation of install Wed.; wanted to be certain to get 9.2 on the box before my cc install. Just did a quick hook up using composite/RCA jack and the wireless Ethernet for connectivity. No TV signal at all coming in to the box

First box, no issues, took 5 forced calls to get 9.2. Second box, guided setup was fine, after first forced call, background screens went away and there was just gray screen, otherwise menus worked. Forced call again, got 9.2, restarted and backgrounds are back.

The only thing i did differently was I selected "no cablecard" on first box (as I didn't have them yet); on second box, I selected "yes, cablecard" in GS, then simply skipped the install step.


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## hartebeest

I've just had the same problem for the first time.

TiVoHD with no mods, installed about 2 months, CC installed about 6 weeks ago
9.2a-01-2-652
multicast CC
component
native
Comcast cable (in Arlington, VA)

I initially had the ESPNHD/ESPN2HD problem about a week ago - ESPNHD worked, ESPN2HD was black, but all other channels that I tried were working. Later, ESPN2HD was working again. Then several days later, I noticed other HD channels missing, but non-HD still looked fine. Then today, I lost all non-HD channels and the only channels that worked were the local HD channels. I called Comcast and while I was on the phone I was going through the CC diagnostics menus and got the black background behind the menus and then all channels were gone. I then rebooted and after the "few more minutes" screen came up, it froze. Stayed there for almost 40 minutes. I unplugged the box and after it rebooted everything works.

When I was in the diagnostic menus, both cards had 100 for signal strength and appeared to be tuning properly. SNR was about 36dB for both. But when I tried to test channels, I got "No Channels Available."

Since my problem appeared to occur in phases over about a week, I can't remember if there was a common denominator to the occurrence of problems (e.g., using menus, live TV button, network connection etc. as others have reported).


----------



## steinercat

I've experienced the sqame problem on an unmodified THD.

Philips 1.3a HDMI cable.

the black screen freaked me out as I just got this thing hooked up last Friday.

Could it be the quality/type of the HDMI cable? I doubt that as the Philips HDMi cable is pretty darn good.


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## pjhartman

steinercat said:


> Could it be the quality/type of the HDMI cable? I doubt that as the Philips HDMi cable is pretty darn good.


Folks not using HDMI have also experienced the black screen problem.


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## uforia

TomRaz said:


> I had the same problem with one Tivo HD unit that I purchased from Amazon and Tivo advised me to send my original unit back to Amazon and get it replaced.
> 
> I decided to get a refund from Amazon and purchase one directly from Tivo. And the same thing happened with that unit. It doesn't seem to matter what version of software you are running or what output mode you are using.
> 
> Tivo support has told me they are aware of the issue and are working on the problem.
> 
> Hopefully they will have a fix soon


I had this issue with my original box and had it replaced by Tivo a few weeks ago. I have not seen this issue with the new box at all, although I've not purposely tried to make the issue reoccur. I have gone in and looked at system info, diagnostics, forced some updates, and have copied shows via MRV and have not had the problem again.

I was very skeptical that the new box would not have the same problem. Since I had both the new one and bad one at the same time while doing the swap, I popped the hoods on both and tried to see a if there was any difference. There were actually 2-3 chips that had later version numbers on them. None were obviously an MPEG decoder or anything that'd lead me to think it could fix the issue, but I've not had the issue occur again.

So, if Tivo wants to replace the box, I say let them. Just hopefully you can copy your shows off to another Tivo or PC so you don't lose them. We cannot, in any way, say they've fixed the problem on newer boxes, but it may just be the luck of the draw.


----------



## ajcadoo

so i got a tivo hd last week and plugged it in to my cable. i was only able to recieve the first 100 channels because they are not digital. i find out that it is only possible to watch digital channels with two S-CARDS or one M-CARD. a cox installer came to my house today to install the multistream card and after a couple of problems he finally got it to work. He then tests the channels, but every single one is BLACK! he tells me, "if there are no channels in the next couple hours, call tivo." so i do call tivo and they tell me, "have your cable provider to 'reactivate' the card." so i call back my installer and he says, "nope, thats not a problem. the card has already been activated and it is ready!" my installer suggests to get a new box. do i need to? are there any ways to fix it? HELP PLEASE! this box, by the way, was purchased brand new from amazon.com.


----------



## expletive

Same problem for me, brand new box from amazon with 2 cablecards and latest software. Using component cables. For me i can reproduce it with some regularity by going into the setup menus and then trying to return to video. This is definitely not an HDMI issue unless, as some suggest, HDMI is looking for a handshake when one is not necessary. I get all the menus but no video playback or menu backgrounds, just grey (which is what my letterbox color is set to). Very annoying. I know this issue is slightly different than those with absolutely NO video but they do seem to be related.

FWIW, my video output setting is 1080i Hybrid.


----------



## Marc421

Same problem. Brand new TiVo from Amazon this week. Two cable cards installed yesterday and twice now, black screen.
Running with HDMI out. 1080i fixed. Screen goes black menus stay, no live TV with menus.


----------



## AZrob

I had the blackout menu again tonight, a week since the last time. Of note this time: I have been trying to get TTCB to work this week, with very little success. All day I tried to get it to work, and then _finally_ a transfer successfully started. But when I actually tried to go to the screen to see the show that was being transferred to Tivo - bam, got the black screen. So maybe there is something to this idea that increased network traffic and/or decoding of a show being transferred is correlated with this issue.

Has anyone had this problem while in Native format mode? That was suggested to me by Tivo this week, but I never got around to switching to it.

Rob


----------



## wokNroll

I experienced this same problem with my new (unmodified) Tivo HD. No cablecards yet. I am using 1080i fixed output via HDMI. It has only happened once so far and a restart of the Tivo box fixed the problem.


----------



## lessd

AZrob said:


> I had the blackout menu again tonight, a week since the last time. Of note this time: I have been trying to get TTCB to work this week, with very little success. All day I tried to get it to work, and then _finally_ a transfer successfully started. But when I actually tried to go to the screen to see the show that was being transferred to Tivo - bam, got the black screen. So maybe there is something to this idea that increased network traffic and/or decoding of a show being transferred is correlated with this issue.
> 
> Has anyone had this problem while in Native format mode? That was suggested to me by Tivo this week, but I never got around to switching to it.
> 
> Rob


This is a known problem, it does not depend on anything you the owner does as it will happen when using the composite outputs also. After it happens a soft re-boot will fix the problem and for the 15 units my friends and I own it does not happen again (yet), again do a soft re-boot don't unplug the TiVo. I do hope TiVo will fix this problem.


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## Marc421

Sorry, but it absolutely happens again after a soft reboot as documented in 6 pages of posts here and my own experience. You and your friends are very lucky.

I only hope it is a temporary software issue. Seems to happen when I am playing around in system settings or accessing photos/music from my macs.


----------



## CrispyCritter

Marc421 said:


> Sorry, but it absolutely happens again after a soft reboot as documented in 6 pages of posts here and my own experience. You and your friends are very lucky.


I disagree. That's only true if you believe that there is only one cause for the problem. There's absolutely no evidence for that belief. I certainly believe that for you (and many others) it will happen again after a soft reboot. But that is not true for everybody.


----------



## TiVo Troll

NaperTiVo said:


> Two THD's, has happened on both of them. They are both 3 days old. One happened pre-cablecard the other post-cablecard. Each time happened when pressing Live TV. Version 9.1. Is there anybody who has had a THD up for more than a couple weeks and not had this happen to them?
> 
> PLEASE BE A SOFTWARE BUG! And please fix it soon!


It is likely a s/w related glitch or bug.

I experienced the HDTiVo blankscreen problem on two occasions, first right after initial running Guided Setup. There was no pix on analog channels but then they started coming in intermittantly. At first I thought it was caused by a bad a/d encoder, but a soft reboot fixed it.

Then, a few weeks later, right after installing an 'M' CableCARD (and then rerunning Guided Setup) the same thing happened. Again a soft reboot fixed it. It hasn't recurred.


----------



## mpmclaugh33

AZrob said:


> Has anyone had this problem while in Native format mode? That was suggested to me by Tivo this week, but I never got around to switching to it.
> 
> Rob


I use Native format and its happened to me 3 times.


----------



## Marc421

CrispyCritter said:


> I disagree. That's only true if you believe that there is only one cause for the problem. There's absolutely no evidence for that belief. I certainly believe that for you (and many others) it will happen again after a soft reboot. But that is not true for everybody.


So for some it only happens once and a soft reboot fixes the problem forever?

And to be clear I was responding to Lessd's assertion "After it happens a soft re-boot will fix the problem".


----------



## TiVo Troll

lessd said:


> When it happened to me i even went to composite outputs and the problem was still there, a soft re-boot fixed it and it never happened again for me anyways so i never called TiVo about it.


I use two outputs simultaneously, HDMI and Component (to a DVD recorder), and blank screens appeared on both, both times it happened.

Since my HDTiVo was brand new the first time it experienced the blankscreen issue, even though a soft reboot 'fixed' the problem, I called TiVo Tech Support the very next day to initiate a Case Number, to protect my warrantee rights in case blankscreen became a sleeper issue.


----------



## lessd

Marc421 said:


> So for some it only happens once and a soft reboot fixes the problem forever?
> 
> And to be clear I was responding to Lessd's assertion "After it happens a soft re-boot will fix the problem".


Forever is a long time, I have seen the problem on about 6 of the 15 units I helped friends install and when the video goes it goes from ALL outputs as i tried them all I also tried changing resolution to every one TiVo had, still no video, with a soft re-boot the problem went away for good as of now for the 15 units i know about (I now do a one soft re-boot on HD-TiVos that don't show the problem). The problem could come up again tomorrow or 5 years from now, I can't answer that question but TiVo should. I had one fail in the first guided setup but I completed the setup (even the start-up video would not play, only a blank screen for that time). Again a soft re-boot fixed the problem. My sample of HD-TiVos is small compared to this board but large compared to any one person on this board. (anyone need a 160Gb SATA new Hard Drive as i have about 15 of them)
Don't get me wrong, this is a problem TiVo should be addressing, they know about it and i hope it can be fixed by software. V9.2a does not fix the problem.


----------



## AZrob

lessd said:


> Forever is a long time, I have seen the problem on about 6 of the 15 units I helped friends install and when the video goes it goes from ALL outputs as i tried them all I also tried changing resolution to every one TiVo had, still no video, with a soft re-boot the problem went away for good as of now for the 15 units i know about (I now do a one soft re-boot on HD-TiVos that don't show the problem). The problem could come up again tomorrow or 5 years from now, I can't answer that question but TiVo should. I had one fail in the first guided setup but I completed the setup (even the start-up video would not play, only a blank screen for that time). Again a soft re-boot fixed the problem. My sample of HD-TiVos is small compared to this board but large compared to any one person on this board. (anyone need a 160Gb SATA new Hard Drive as i have about 15 of them)
> Don't get me wrong, this is a problem TiVo should be addressing, they know about it and i hope it can be fixed by software. V9.2a does not fix the problem.


Thank you, Les, for your helpful observations, since none of us has access to a larger sample of Tivo's. If you do start to hear of repeat occurrences I'd appreciate knowing about them...I'm talking to a couple of 2nd Tier techs at Tivo, and they can use all the data on this issue we can give them. It's obviously not such a glaring problem that it has risen to the top of their list yet, but the more we report it, the more likely it will receive proper attention.

Rob


----------



## Mars Rocket

I've only seen this problem twice: once on 10/19, when I was installing the Cable Cards, and once more on 10/22 while browsing through the menus. I haven't seen it since then. I have repeated Guided Setup once in the interim to add OTA channels, and I think the unit has been rebooted once or twice for other reasons since then (drive upgrade).

So now I'm at the 4+ weeks mark with no black screens.


----------



## Isprex

This has happened to me on multiple occasions and I've only had the unit for a few days. Hope they come up with a fix soon.


----------



## IMFletcher

just got my tivohd up and running on friday. i experienced it once that day and again tonight. i've watched very little inbetween though

my screen goes gray, not black. i use 720p fixed, and hdmi

same symptoms - menus work, but have gray underneath. all shows are gray no audio. can't even watch a previously recorded program.

disturbing - my twc dvr never lost the ability to function as a cable box......


----------



## Mars Rocket

IMFletcher said:


> my screen goes gray, not black. i use 720p fixed, and hdmi


The color you see behind the menus and instead of video is dependent on what you have the TiVo letterbox color set to. You can choose black or gray somewhere in Settings...


----------



## uforia

Has anyone noticed that the majority of folks that claim they've seen this issue are consistently saying that they just set up their Tivo? Or only had it running for a day or so and they saw the issue a couple times? I don't know that this really means anything, but I know that I saw much less of this issue after the software updates came through. Sure, I saw it again (which is why I got my unit replaced by Tivo... and haven't seen the issue on the new one), but I saw it again which much less frequency (with my old unit).

Does anyone agree that this is a pattern?


----------



## CrispyCritter

uforia said:


> Does anyone agree that this is a pattern?


Oh yes, I've noted it a couple of times. There's very clearly a bug related to a new setup, or a new OS version. But there are other causes as well.


----------



## arwild01

I set up my TiVoHD yesterday and I experienced this with the "out-of-the-box" software version (didn't look to see what the version# is shipped with). Then I got it again this morning after it rebooted with the "Fall 2007" software version.

TiVoHD with HDMI into a Denon 3808CI (repeater) then HDMI into a Mitsubishi WD65733. Two single channel Motorola CableCARDs.


----------



## willelm

This sucks. My new HD box was working fine last night after I hooked it up. Today the thing spontaneously just stopped getting several basic cable channels. Seems to be the same black screen that SO many have described here. Add me to the list too. By the way, the reboot doesn't even work for me.


----------



## lessd

willelm said:


> This sucks. My new HD box was working fine last night after I hooked it up. Today the thing spontaneously just stopped getting several basic cable channels. Seems to be the same black screen that SO many have described here. Add me to the list too. By the way, the reboot doesn't even work for me.


When you first set up the TiVo-HD it can take a long time to change channels but that goes away with time.


----------



## IMFletcher

uforia said:


> Does anyone agree that this is a pattern?


hard to say. i had mine running a few days while waiting for the cablecard installer (why they require a person to come out is a topic for another thread.....) and did all the software updates. by the time i got the CC in, i was already up at 9.2. only then did i start seeing it - but of course thats also when i really started using it for real.


----------



## f0gax

I'll get in on this too....
I've had a TivoHD for about a month or 6 weeks.
Came with a back-level software version. Not sure which one. 
The black screen problem happened within a day of setting it up, even before the cable cards were installed. Happened again a couple weeks back. And then just now.
720p Fixed, Component

The first time I was just in and out of menus, nothing specific that I can remember.
Second time I was setting up a season pass. I ended up letting "Earl" finish since the light was on, and then rebooted.
The most recent occurance was after starting a Tivo.Net transfer to the Tivo.

Like many have said (I've only skimmed the thread) there doesn't appear to be much rhyme or reason to what triggers it from a sequence of events stand point.


----------



## wmhjr

Folks, I just posted another thread about this as well as some other issues. I've had my THD for a week. I'm taking it back and am done with Tivo. Here's the problem.

1) I need the unit to be reliable. Period. When the unit fails within 48 hours and goes into this mode, that is a sign I need to think about.

2) The unit is SO hard to get setup (CCs) and I get charged for setups. A truck has to roll to my home any time there's a problem, and I need to pay. Not Tivo. Me. So, just swapping out the units is frankly a non-starter.

3) From reading this thread, it appears as though we're supposed to just accept that this will happen. Absolutely no indication that Tivo is even attempting to address this.

4) Tivo support has been extremely difficult to reach and has provided absolutely no value whatsoever. Their comment is that these things "sometimes just need rebooted".

I can get a full refund for both the unit and the service (which I intend to do on Monday). So, my question now is whether I retain Comcast with the 8300s (which can take eSATA storage) or Verizon Fios with the moto 6416-2s (which Verizon prevents from taking eSATA storage). But, it looks like no Tivo for me.


----------



## ji0005

wmhjr said:


> Folks, I just posted another thread about this as well as some other issues. I've had my THD for a week. I'm taking it back and am done with Tivo. Here's the problem.
> 
> I can get a full refund for both the unit and the service (which I intend to do on Monday). So, my question now is whether I retain Comcast with the 8300s (which can take eSATA storage) or Verizon Fios with the moto 6416-2s (which Verizon prevents from taking eSATA storage). But, it looks like no Tivo for me.


Your point is valid for sure... but the grass isn't necessarily greener where you are headed.

My Tivo blank screen issues went away once I had cable cards paired properly.


----------



## wmhjr

ji0005 said:


> Your point is valid for sure... but the grass isn't necessarily greener where you are headed.
> 
> My Tivo blank screen issues went away once I had cable cards paired properly.


It's actually where I was. I've been running SA8300HDs for almost 3 years, so I've got plenty of experience with them. I know their flaws, and they certainly have some. But, they virtually never ever require reboots or lose video. And there are other THD problems I've uncovered.

My cablecards are properly paired now. Everyone (including Tivo and Verizon) agrees that they are properly paired.


----------



## TiVo Troll

uforia said:


> Has anyone noticed that the majority of folks that claim they've seen this issue are consistently saying that they just set up their Tivo? Or only had it running for a day or so and they saw the issue a couple times? I don't know that this really means anything, but I know that I saw much less of this issue after the software updates came through. Sure, I saw it again (which is why I got my unit replaced by Tivo... and haven't seen the issue on the new one), but I saw it again which much less frequency (with my old unit).
> 
> Does anyone agree that this is a pattern?


YUP!!!


----------



## BMoreE

Going on the theory that this is video-conversion related... (and to be clear, I'm talking about the "menus visible, but background black/gray, no video" case, not the "some channels black/gray, but others there" case)...

Has anyone had this happen to them while their Tivo is set to "Native" video output mode? I was originally at 720p and had the problem 4 or 5 times (in the first week, pre-cable-card, limited usage.)

I switched the "Settings...Video...Video Output Format" to be "Native" as an experiment. So far, I've been fine for a few days while I've been playing with TTG downloads and other online features. The downside is that as I switch channels (and even swich between different Tivo menus) the changing of aspect ratios sent to my TV makes it twitter for a second as it re-syncs with the new input mode. But that's a heck of a lot better than a 10 minute reboot.

Keeping fingers crossed... I know people have said this problem is only sporadic. But before I switched, it was nearly daily. 

(p.s. $5 says I'll be posting here very soon with a "well, so much for that..." The post-post jinx!)


----------



## mpmclaugh33

I had the issue again for the 4th time. Menus work, no video. It happened for me when I was transferring a show from a PC and then 20 minutes later I selected a show to transfer from a second Tivo while the other show was still transferring.

This issue is becoming frustrating to me. I have altered my behavior in order to not risk having the issue and needing to reboot. I used to transfer shows all the time, select a few and have them queue up. Now I am nervous every time I select more than one show to transfer and more often than not avoid doing that. I really need to call Tivo support and report the issue just so they continue to get calls.

I am surprised that no one who works for Tivo has yet to comment on this issue in this forum.


----------



## threshar

I've had a TivoHD for oh, a month or so. 

Generally it works fine, but what I see happening is the gray screen syndrome happening more. WHen this happens, my menus are fine, I can go and watch something else, and it seems to only affect live tv. I haven't found any rhyme or reason for it yet. Sometimes changing the channel fixes it, sometimes not. Sometimes changing to an HD channelf ixes it, sometimes not. It is highly annoying. 

I've also noticed (I haven't made a confirmed connection between that and this) a number of recording show up in the history as not authorized for the channnel, when I know I get that channel because other things record on it too (Food TV, in this case).

It is discouraging to read this thread. I've been using tivo for years, but the quality seems to be going downhill. 

Unit is great when it works (which is most of the time I'd say)

Hopefully tivo will fix this soon.


----------



## fergie8

BMoreE said:


> ...
> and to be clear, I'm talking about the "menus visible, but background black/gray, no video" case, not the "some channels black/gray, but others there" case)...
> 
> Has anyone had this happen to them while their Tivo is set to "Native" video output mode?
> ...


Yes.


----------



## slongo

BMoreE said:


> Going on the theory that this is video-conversion related... (and to be clear, I'm talking about the "menus visible, but background black/gray, no video" case, not the "some channels black/gray, but others there" case)...
> 
> Has anyone had this happen to them while their Tivo is set to "Native" video output mode? I was originally at 720p and had the problem 4 or 5 times (in the first week, pre-cable-card, limited usage.)
> 
> I switched the "Settings...Video...Video Output Format" to be "Native" as an experiment. So far, I've been fine for a few days while I've been playing with TTG downloads and other online features. The downside is that as I switch channels (and even swich between different Tivo menus) the changing of aspect ratios sent to my TV makes it twitter for a second as it re-syncs with the new input mode. But that's a heck of a lot better than a 10 minute reboot.
> 
> Keeping fingers crossed... I know people have said this problem is only sporadic. But before I switched, it was nearly daily.
> 
> (p.s. $5 says I'll be posting here very soon with a "well, so much for that..." The post-post jinx!)


I've had my TiVoHD set at "native" from day one, and still have this issue.
Even more discouraging, I had my original unit replaced with an exchange and this one has the same problem.

I opened a case file with TiVo Support the very first day I setup the TiVoHD - had the black screen occur twice while navigating the menus. I also let Support know the exchange unit is doing exactly the same thing and had this noted in the case file in the event I want to return the unit. In the meantime, I'm hoping for a software update to fix the problem (though I'm not holding my breath).

When I asked the support person if there were plans to fix the problem, he could only say that software fixes are always "in the works", and he could not confirm there is a planned release to address this specific problem.


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## rakawski

I have two TivoHD's that are about a month old. Both will randomly have the tuners go black. I can change channels but everything is black. Recordings don't record with the message not authorized or unavailable. Rebooting the Tivo causes everything to work great again. This usually happens every 48 hours or so. I can't watch live tv or any recorded shows until I do a reboot.

I have 9.2a-01-2-652 on both units and Scientific Atlanta M cards in both.


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## willelm

So my earlier post which started, "This sucks..." needs to be retracted. Turns out Comcast fouled up the programing of my cablecards. After spending considerable time on the phone with the (very helpful and patient) Tivo support person we found the authorization code on the cablecard to be wrong. I called Comcast and explained things and the problem was fixed within seconds. They "re-hit" my cablecards to straighten out the error and I'm in business. Now it's everything that I hoped for!

Thanks, Tivo! Sorry I doubted you.


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## rakawski

One of mine died again today. The one thing I've noticed is that is if I go into the CableCard Setup and go under diagnostics for under the CableCard menu I get:
Failedtoload 'CableCARD///apps/diag.html' I get this for pretty much every option under the CableCARD menu. Rebooting and I get video back.


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## DoozerM

I'm a brand new Tivo subscriber and had it running less than 2 days (no cable cards yet) and am having this issue. I have a Series 3 and a Tivo HD. So far I am seeing this on my Tivo HD, but have not played much on my series 3 to see if it happens there too.


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## TiVoPony

Hey all, this thread was brought to my attention and I wanted to let you all know that we're aware of the issue, have been able to replicate it, and are working on a fix.

Our apologies for the inconvenience, and as always appreciate the detailed reports here on the forum. They're always helpful in tracking down these corner cases.

Pony


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## TomRaz

Pony thanks for taking the time to acknowledge this thread and the good news that Tivo is working on the fix. 

Hopefully it will be a software upgrade that fixes this issue :up:


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## ZXTT95

I've also had this problem, on my second TiVo HD. The first one, which I got in October, hasn't done this. The second had one episode soon after setting up and one more after the SW was updated to 9.2a. I don't know how long after the update, because I don't have cable cards yet so these units aren't doing much.


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## ado

I purchased a new Tivo HD on Sunday and the issue occured the first day. It's happened a couple times a day, even after the installation of 2 s-cards. The resolution is set to Native, so I'm sure that video-conversion has nothing to do with this. If something doesn't change within a week or so I'll be returning it. I really do like it, but the slow interface and black screen are getting more and more agrivating, to the point where the comcast dvr doesn't look that bad. Of course the interface on the tivo is nicer, but I value a faster, problem-free interface rather than nicer graphics. I hope there's a fix because I really want to keep it.


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## SeRv0

Thanks for the post Pony. Good to hear it's being worked on. 

You may want to let TiVo Support know about this. When I called to report the problem, I was told to stop using my surge and noise suppression strip and switch from HDMI to Component. Neither of these changes helped. 

I would have rather heard "we are aware of the problem and will contact you as soon as the fix is ready".


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## Balzer

I've had this issue happen probably about 8 times since I purchased my TivoHD the first week after it's release. Most of the times it happened, only the analog cable channels went black. The digital and HD channels worked fine. Only one time did all the channels quit working. Reboot always fixes it. After the first few times, which occurred a couple weeks after I received the Tivo, I called Tivo support. The first CSR couldn't figure it out, so she gave me a reference number and transferred me to an advanced tech or something, who said they would look into it and call me back. A couple days later, they left a message on my VM asking if I could remove the cablecards for a while and let them know if the problem still occurred. I didn't do that since I must have the cablecards for my HD shows. But in the months since then, it only happened a few more times, so I just let it go.... But good to know they are working on the issue. I should have followed up more I suppose, but it wasn't a big issue for me, since it happens so infrequently.


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## ZXTT95

ado said:


> I purchased a new Tivo HD on Sunday and the issue occured the first day. It's happened a couple times a day, even after the installation of 2 s-cards. The resolution is set to Native, so I'm sure that video-conversion has nothing to do with this. If something doesn't change within a week or so I'll be returning it. I really do like it, but the slow interface and black screen are getting more and more agrivating, to the point where the comcast dvr doesn't look that bad. Of course the interface on the tivo is nicer, but I value a faster, problem-free interface rather than nicer graphics. I hope there's a fix because I really want to keep it.


Funny you should mention the Comcast boxes. My Moto 3416 just rebooted about an hour ago when I tried to change channels. As usual for these things, there's no guide data or "My DVR" when it comes back until it downloads a bunch of stuff. It also rebooted maybe a month ago when I tried to set up a new series recording. Sometimes it doesn't respond to button clicks, occasionally it erroneously claims to be 100% full and won't record until something is deleted. I still don't know how to extend a recording for a show that has already started (other than recording the next show).

They've fixed a few of the other problems over the years to the point where it's much better than my old 6412 was, but these things are not problem-free.

*Edit:* None of which makes the TiVo crapping out any more acceptable, but at least I feel I can expect them to pay attention to the problem this year/decade.


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## bweeston

Just 8 days ago I had Cox in Phoenix install my M-Card. Everything looked fine, but over the next week, when I turned the TV off at night and didn't use Tivo until the next afternoon, the only channels available were the basic cable channels. If I restarted the Tivo, everything came back. I called Tivo support while only being able to see basic cable channels. Working with them we noticed several error messages when looking at the diagnostic page for the cablecard. Tivo support declared the cablecard defective so I called Cox. Cox hit the cablecard again. Still no cable beyond basic channels. In fact, I started getting grey screens popping up while I was watching live TV. I called Cox back again to ask them to "undo" what the previous tech had done. They couldn't see what she had done that could be undone. This time they re - paired the cablecard with their equipment. I asked the Cox support person if the coax cable could be the culprit. She said it was possible. After hanging up, I realized that I was splitting the cable from the wall outlet between two devices, one was the Tivo. I attached a different coax cable and only one cable between the wall outlet and the Tivo box. All of my channels came back up. All of the error messages were gone. I got up this morning and turned my TV on. My movie channels were up and running and there were no error messages in the cablecard diagnostics pages.

Maybe swapping your coax cable or making sure you are not splitting your wall outlet between multiple devices will ensure your cable company's equipment can maintain a reliable connection to your Tivo. Connect only one cable from the wall outlet to your Tivo and see if your problems go away.


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## DoozerM

I am curious to know if the blank screen happens to anyones tivo that owns ONLY 1 tivo. When I set up my first tivo, the install went fine. I set up the second and did NOT have ENABLE TRANSFERS selected and it was fine. I had to re-set up the 2nd and had the ENABLE TRANSFERS share video button selected - and immediately saw the blank screen. Also, I followed someone's earlier post about not hitting the live tv button anymore and also following the menu's BACK up to root to get to live tv - and so far... no more blank screens. I'm sure its just a matter of time though......


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## ChadS

rakawski said:


> One of mine died again today. The one thing I've noticed is that is if I go into the CableCard Setup and go under diagnostics for under the CableCard menu I get:
> Failedtoload 'CableCARD///apps/diag.html' I get this for pretty much every option under the CableCARD menu. Rebooting and I get video back.


Same thing is happening to me.


----------



## dianebrat

DoozerM said:


> I am curious to know if the blank screen happens to anyones tivo that owns ONLY 1 tivo. When I set up my first tivo, the install went fine.


Mine was operating as a single tivo, and did not have cableCARDs or activation when it did it the first 2 times.. I'd think your assessment isn't going to be valid (and that it was just darn bad luck)


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## ado

This is my first tivo too and the black screen happened the first day I got it. I noticed one other thing too, the new photos app has a much nicer look and feel than the rest of the tivo menus. Go to Tivo Central > Music, Photos, Products & More > Photos & Slideshows. The menu here looks like it is in the right aspect ratio, the other tivo menus looks a bit stretched. Message to Tivo, if you're marketing a Tivo HD please made the menus in 16:9 and not stretched. It looks much nicer if they are formatted right.


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## mulscully

I see in this post most are referring to the background going black, but still having menus.. is this a different problem then the one I am having black screen period and unresponsive to remote? my amber light on the front of the THD lights up when it is in the black screen mode, so the tivo is receiving the remote signals, but no video, or no sound out the optical port either... I needed to reboot a few times to get it working...


----------



## lessd

mulscully said:


> I see in this post most are referring to the background going black, but still having menus.. is this a different problem then the one I am having black screen period and unresponsive to remote? my amber light on the front of the THD lights up when it is in the black screen mode, so the tivo is receiving the remote signals, but no video, or no sound out the optical port either... I needed to reboot a few times to get it working...


Your problem is not the problem that started this Thread..I would get an exchange for your TiVo.


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## mulscully

I saw this only once, not sure if that warrants a return


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## rainwater

lessd said:


> Your problem is not the problem that started this Thread..I would get an exchange for your TiVo.


Actually, it could be the the nightly channels going black issue I have. If that is the case, both of my TiVo HD's do this every night if I turn on suggestions, so returning it would not help. For me changing channels helps though.


----------



## bweeston

bweeston said:


> Just 8 days ago I had Cox in Phoenix install my M-Card. Everything looked fine, but over the next week, when I turned the TV off at night and didn't use Tivo until the next afternoon, the only channels available were the basic cable channels. If I restarted the Tivo, everything came back. I called Tivo support while only being able to see basic cable channels. Working with them we noticed several error messages when looking at the diagnostic page for the cablecard. Tivo support declared the cablecard defective so I called Cox. Cox hit the cablecard again. Still no cable beyond basic channels. In fact, I started getting grey screens popping up while I was watching live TV. I called Cox back again to ask them to "undo" what the previous tech had done. They couldn't see what she had done that could be undone. This time they re - paired the cablecard with their equipment. I asked the Cox support person if the coax cable could be the culprit. She said it was possible. After hanging up, I realized that I was splitting the cable from the wall outlet between two devices, one was the Tivo. I attached a different coax cable and only one cable between the wall outlet and the Tivo box. All of my channels came back up. All of the error messages were gone. I got up this morning and turned my TV on. My movie channels were up and running and there were no error messages in the cablecard diagnostics pages.
> 
> Maybe swapping your coax cable or making sure you are not splitting your wall outlet between multiple devices will ensure your cable company's equipment can maintain a reliable connection to your Tivo. Connect only one cable from the wall outlet to your Tivo and see if your problems go away.


Well, I was wrong. Same problem was there when I went home that night. Had to reboot to get my channels back. I've got Cox coming out this afternoon to swap out cablecards hoping that fixes something.


----------



## bmgoodman

mulscully said:


> I see in this post most are referring to the background going black, but still having menus.. is this a different problem then the one I am having black screen period and unresponsive to remote? my amber light on the front of the THD lights up when it is in the black screen mode, so the tivo is receiving the remote signals, but no video, or no sound out the optical port either... I needed to reboot a few times to get it working...


I had this exact problem last night on my 11-month old S3. It was otherwise operating normally in that I could see this Tivo's "Now Playing" list from both my Series 2 DT and my PC, but there was no output to the TV whatsoever (audio or video). I tried powering the TV off and back on and then I unplugged and replugged the HDMI cable. The little light flashed on the front panel to show it was at least sensing the remote control keypresses. On the second reboot, all seemed well.

(This is a stock S3, with 2 m-cards added about a month ago. No external storage.)


----------



## 1283

mulscully said:


> I see in this post most are referring to the background going black, but still having menus.. is this a different problem then the one I am having black screen period and unresponsive to remote? my amber light on the front of the THD lights up when it is in the black screen mode, so the tivo is receiving the remote signals, but no video, or no sound out the optical port either... I needed to reboot a few times to get it working...


Are you using HDMI? If so, that's a well-known problem but not the same one as this thread.


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## pauljb55

I'll add my 2 cents and throw my problems upon the board for some help and hopefully very little flame...I have had my HDTivo for about a week. Everything was working fine, minus 1 dead card. But the one card that did work I got everything...no screen problems or anything. Using HDMI and 720 fixed. When a tech came out last night to supposedly bring an MCARD...(yeah right) he switched both motorola CC's with a comcast braded versions...once they were paired I only watched for a few minutes and then went to bed. Got home today and blank screens on both tuners...restarted the unit and everything was good...for about 30 minutes. Restarted again and redid guided setup...and it happend again 30 or so minutes later....same issue?


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## Mars Rocket

I'm really starting to think it has something to do with initial setup or Guided Setup. I only experienced the problem twice, and both times were shortly after I had initially set up the unit.


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## pauljb55

you could be right. I am working on 15 hours and no problems....knock on wood


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## SoonerOrLater

I have the same problem on a new Tivo HD DVR (652-0001-8032-xxxx) with the new update 9.2a-01-2-652.

--------------------------------
TiVo user since 2000
Current setup:
* TiVo HD DVR v9.2a
* M-Card from Time Warner Cable (California)
* HDMI out @1080i fixed


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## pauljb55

spoke too soon. I checked my tv and the station it was on was still there...but I change d the channel and now...back to black


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## bweeston

I went back to component video and optical audio instead of my HDMI connection. Gone all day without losing any channels. It seems my problems began the day after I started using HDMI with my TivoHD.

I noticed that whenever I turned my TV off, the HDMI indicator on my receiver would flicker off and then come back on. I'm assuming something else must have happened when I also turned off my receiver which acted as the conduit for HDMI between the TivoHD and the TV. I don't know or understand how this could be interfering with the cablecards holding their pairing with the Cox equipment.


----------



## ado

No black screen for three days now, hoping that it stays that way. The only problem though is that comcast added 6 new stations and tivo has no data for them. It's kind of a pain to have to report new stations every time they are updated, whereas with a comcast dvr they update instantly.


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## fadden0

I picked up a TiVo HD this morning, replacing a TiVo Series 3 that couldn't seem to get along with the Motorola M-cards (long story, written up in the "Comcast CableCARD" thread). I had no problems setting it up, though I was unable to verify channels right away because the (upgraded to 9.2) box wasn't displaying any video. A reboot cleared it up.

I spent the afternoon exercising various features, including setting up season passes and transferring files to and from my Series 2. Before heading out to dinner I queued up a couple of TiVo-to-Go requests.

When I came back, the current channel was showing grey, and a program on Showtime HD had failed to record (the usual "0 minutes long" grey problem). With some fiddling I was able to view channels again. With some more fiddling I lost the ability to see any channels, and the video behind the menus became solid grey.

It seems like the basic problem here is that the device is losing the ability to devote an MPEG decoder to playback. The animations behind the menus are just video streams. If you can't allocate a decoder, you can't show the menu streams, live TV, or recorded programs. You don't need an MPEG decoder to *record* programming, so that can continue to work, and from what I've read here in some cases it does continue.

The loss of the ability to record suggests a more general issue (i.e inability to allocate hardware resources), or it could be parallel and only partly related.

Whatever the case, this is really annoying, and I was disappointed to learn from this forum that the problem has been around for so long. I'm encouraged by the idea that it's related to TTG transfers, since I can live without those. (I'd feel a little better if someone from TiVo explained what we should and shouldn't do to improve our chances...)

What really bugs me here is that the issue that really pushed me toward replacing my current cable box + TiVo Series 2 DT setup was the occasional IR blaster screw-up. I occasionally end up recording the wrong program because the IR blaster and cable box don't communicate very well. If the TiVo HD is going to require the same level of monitoring and hand-holding, it's value to me is substantially reduced. (No HD output... yet.)


----------



## ZXTT95

I ordered the service for the second box tonight. I had lost video twice before, once soon after initial setup and then sometime after the 9.2 update. I hadn't looked at in a couple of days (the first week free service had expired and I don't have cable cards yet), ordered the service, went to force the connection to get the new status and found that live TV or recorded video would display a frame only.

If I turned to a channel, I'd get one frame from that channel, but no more frames (as in video). The background to the menus were still animated and I was able to force the connection, get the new status for the box. After reboot, things returned to normal.

I don't know if this is another variation of the basic problem, or something different.


----------



## steinercat

ABC on HD is now completely blacked out.

Cox Las Vegas
Channel signal is 96
SNR is 35
myDVR Expander
HDMI

*have rebooted
*have re-inserted HDMI
*have powered down THD

This just happened randomly today...and the channel hasn't come back on since.

What is the *ideal* SNR for cable (not FIOS) on a THD? And will the attenuators fix my problem?

I'm starting to get frsustrated with this.


----------



## jrm01

Ideal SNR would be 31-32 for cable also, but I would think that 35 would just cause macro-blocking or pixelation not total blackout. Any way to test to see if your provider has just lost this channel temporarily? Neighbors having this problem? Have another HD set?


----------



## fadden0

Today I got the same symptom as ZXTT95: a single still frame would show on live TV channels and recorded video, and the video background was frozen. This happened a few minutes after my CableCARD was "hit".

Why did they hit my card? Because I lost some of the premium channels (no Showtime, but HBO okay). Looks like the person at Comcast who entered my data the first time around didn't make the new data stick, and so I lost access to some things. This also explains my problems recording off of Showtime last night -- it wasn't caused by the "grey screen" problem after all.

The "still frame only" concept fits with my theory (device loses the ability to allocate MPEG decoder resources), though it sounds like it's able to feed the start of a data stream in; somehow the decoder isn't able to continue to process it.

This also fits with the causation theories that have previously been posted: network activity (like TiVo-to-Go) and CableCARD authorization hits can put the box into this state. I'm going to avoid the former, and hopefully don't need any more of the latter, and will see where this ends up.

I called TiVo customer support to see if they had any answers. The person I talked to sounded like they had never heard of the problem before (and this is after navigating to the "trouble with HD that isn't related to CableCARDs" part of the tree). Are there a batch of boxes with bad hardware? Or do so few people use network features that this just hasn't been a problem? I have 30 days to return or exchange with Best Buy...


----------



## batchannel

It's happening to me too, and I'm suspecting that it has something to do with the resolution switching that's going on. Like on a PC when you change resolution, the signal goes out for a second as the graphics card switches modes and forces a refresh of the whole screen. Some applications (like games) will themselves force a new resolution and sometimes it glitches and the resolution screws up. The Tivo HD must be switching resolutions frequently, such as the (probably) 480i of their menus to the higher resolution of the 720P or 1080i of live television and back again to SD resolution for live TV or menus. Lots of room for issues here if the video card is getting overwhelmed.


----------



## gracea

Could this be related to the SNR level being too hot, like what is happening with the FIOS pixelization?


----------



## rcamille

batchannel said:


> It's happening to me too, and I'm suspecting that it has something to do with the resolution switching that's going on. Like on a PC when you change resolution, the signal goes out for a second as the graphics card switches modes and forces a refresh of the whole screen. Some applications (like games) will themselves force a new resolution and sometimes it glitches and the resolution screws up. The Tivo HD must be switching resolutions frequently, such as the (probably) 480i of their menus to the higher resolution of the 720P or 1080i of live television and back again to SD resolution for live TV or menus. Lots of room for issues here if the video card is getting overwhelmed.


No that is not the cause of the problem. The TiVo menus are 720p. Users who set their resolution to 720p fixed (or any other resolution for that matter) have experienced the black (or gray) screen of death. TiVo is aware of the problem and is reportedly working on a fix. Be patient. Even with the minor inconvenience of having to reboot occassionally. It is still the best piece of electronics you can attach to your TV.


----------



## BurnBaby

fadden0 said:


> Today I got the same symptom as ZXTT95: a single still frame would show on live TV channels and recorded video, and the video background was frozen. This happened a few minutes after my CableCARD was "hit".


I had this still screen problem on Saturday. Happened only once. I rebooted the Tivo and everything was fine. Was there some sort of Comcast upgrade this weekend? I know my local Comcast has had some recent channel changes. Or is this still screen problem something that is common with the Tivo HD? Btw, my programs still recorded. Once I had rebooted, I could view the recorded programs with no problems.



fadden0 said:


> I called TiVo customer support to see if they had any answers. The person I talked to sounded like they had never heard of the problem before (and this is after navigating to the "trouble with HD that isn't related to CableCARDs" part of the tree). Are there a batch of boxes with bad hardware? Or do so few people use network features that this just hasn't been a problem? I have 30 days to return or exchange with Best Buy...


I haven't read thru the entire history of responses to your problem, but have you thoroughly checked out that this isn't an authorization problem on the part of Comcast? When my cablecards were first installed, all the encrypted channels were grey. The problem was on Comcast's end and was fixed by them properly adding the cablecards to my account.


----------



## fadden0

It's not an authorization problem. I had that too -- it affected the recording of some (but not all) of the premium channels. That one I got straightened out on the phone with Comcast. (Tip: Motorola M-cards should say "Val:V" on the Conditional Access page, not "Val:?". Short for "Validated".)

The "no MPEG decoder" problem affects the video backgrounds behind the TiVo menus. Comcast authorization issues should not affect the ability of the box to play internal video streams.

batchannel: due to poor calibration on my rear projection set, most HD modes are unavailable, so mine stays fixed to 480p on component inputs. Changing resolutions is not required. The triggers seem to be authorization hits and TiVo-to-Go activity combined with "live TV" activity.

I've been carefully avoiding TiVo-to-Go and inter-box transfers, and haven't had any issues since. Keeping fingers crossed.


----------



## AZrob

I have an open case with Tivo on this issue. They apparently have enabled logging on my Tivo HD in order to nail down the issue. I was just asked today by the tech if I knew of a way to replicate the issue. I do not and so far I don't think anyone else has either. It appears to come at a variety of times. Just last night, all I was trying to do was view a previously-recorded SD show when it happened. I get it about once a week.

But I thought I might as well ask: has anyone out there found a way to force this to happen? If so, I'd be happy to pass it on to the tech who is investigating - apparently my case has been "escalated" to a research team.

Thanks,

Rob from AZ


----------



## TiVo Troll

Early this morning, for the third time since I got it about 2 months ago, HDTiVo displayed the 'blank screen' issue.

A Teleworld Paid Program was being recorded while I watched another recorded program. When the program I was watching ended the screen went blank. All menu's worked. 

Attempting to change channels didn't bring a picture but the Teleworld program continued to record showing a picture. I didn't attempt to stop the Teleworld recording. When it ended there was no picture from any channel. 

I immediately performed a soft reboot and HDTiVo played its neat cartoon and started up normally, displaying all channels. 

Yep; there's a glitch. TiVo's programmers have a job to do.


----------



## Marc421

Azrob,
I have experienced and it has been reported that the problem can occur when after fiddling with resolution settings or anything to do with the TiVo settings and then go back to menu and then live video all quickly it can bring about the problem. I had the black screen twice within days after setting up my TiVo Hd and now in the last 3 weeks or so it has not happened again.


----------



## AZrob

fadden0 said:


> batchannel: due to poor calibration on my rear projection set, most HD modes are unavailable, so mine stays fixed to 480p on component inputs. Changing resolutions is not required. The triggers seem to be authorization hits and TiVo-to-Go activity combined with "live TV" activity.
> 
> I've been carefully avoiding TiVo-to-Go and inter-box transfers, and haven't had any issues since. Keeping fingers crossed.


Correct me if I'm wrong, fadden0, but aren't the Tivo menu screens generated originally at 720P resolution? If so, you would still be experiencing resolution-switch between your Tivo and your TV as you go between Tivo menus and video that is 480p.

Also, unless you avoid the HD channels entirely, there will be either 720P or 1080i switching to 480p going on when you watch those channels. So that could still be a factor in triggering the problem.

I do agree that TTG seems to be an aggravating factor. All I did was try to initiate a simple PC-to-Tivo transfer last night (though it failed right away -- another issue) and right after that I got another blackout.

Rob


----------



## pauljb55

Its been 72hours and no problems...


----------



## kdmorse

AZrob said:


> I do agree that TTG seems to be an aggravating factor. All I did was try to initiate a simple PC-to-Tivo transfer last night (though it failed right away -- another issue) and right after that I got another blackout.


All the times I, or my friends, have seen the problem, it fits with the following theory: "If garbage gets shoved into the video output processor, the video output processor stops processing all video".

This includes a few times during initial CC setup, once while rewiring the coax, twice when I tried to play a failed TTG program, and once when I tried to play a MRV'd program too fast. In all cases one could understand how the stream could have been corrupted in just the wrong way, and given the mpeg decoding chip a small heart attack.

This also somewhat explains why people seem to see it more often in their first 48 hours of operation. This includes setting up, cabling the box, playing with CC's, your first MRV, your first failed attempt at playing a video off your PC, etc... Afterwards it does occasionally happen - but it is far less frequent (for most people) - as they're not doing the same sorts of things they did in their first 48 hours with the box.

-Ken


----------



## fadden0

AZrob: it's not switching resolutions, it's scaling the output. I'm not familiar with the TiVo hardware, but they likely have a chip that does the alpha-blending / chroma-keying to composite the graphics and video, scaling both on the way out. If I were using "native" output mode it would be adjusting the scale factor when I went in and out of different types of video streams, but since I'm using "fixed 480p" the chip should just get set up once. In any event, the scaler is most likely over in the NTSC/HD encoder, not in the MPEG decoder.

kdmorse: I'm not entirely convinced of the "garbage" theory, since sometimes you get junk coming in from Comcast (or at least I do). I wonder if the disconnected cable caused the tuner to go through some sort of signal acquisition procedure that hoses the MPEG chip. You could get something similar when the authorization hits arrive.


----------



## hddude55

tmesser said:


> ...
> 
> Because others in this thread have called TiVo and received replacement units only to have it happen again, and getting my Comcast CCs paired properly was a fiasco, I have no interest in calling TiVo to have them send me a replacement unit.
> 
> ....


 Good lord, I didn't find this thread and related ones until tonight! I had my S3 replaced last week -- the 6 months old one started having frequent audio/video drops of several seconds duration. The new one -- and it was brand new -- sporadically went to a "snow" screen and audio continued to play but no controls would work and I had to unplug/plug back in to restore the picture and controls. This problem seemed to occur after I had recently turned on the TV after it had sat idle for several hours, but I'm not convinced that was anything but a coincidence.

I now have another brand new replacement of the replacement, and yes, it too has started doing the same thing. I have played with video output and now have it on 1080i Fixed but suspect that won't really matter, if I understand what others have tried and failed. One guy mentioned hitting the Guide button brought back the picture. I'll give it a try the next time it happens.

FYI, I didn't have time to get cable cards installed in the first replacement and the cable guy won't be installing until this weekend in the latest new machine, so that suggests to me cable cards have nothing to do with this particular bug.

I did notice both "new" machines were built last month and say R3 or something of the sort next to the build date. I was told by a tech at TiVo that newer TiVos have had some hardware tweaks. I wonder if that could be part of the problem, but I realize some people in this thread have had their machines for many months so software seems the more likely culprit.


----------



## hddude55

Marc421 said:


> Azrob,
> I have experienced and it has been reported that the problem can occur when after fiddling with resolution settings or anything to do with the TiVo settings and then go back to menu and then live video all quickly it can bring about the problem. ...


 Interesting. This happened to me tonight with my new replacement unit. It was set up by default for 1080i Fixed and I changed it to Native since that setting worked fine with my previous Series 3 box. But tonight, soon after making the switch I got a blank screen/frozen controls with audio working, so after rebooting I set it back to 1080i Fixed. Perhaps it wasn't the setting that was bad, but rather just the fact I messed with the setting?


----------



## ZXTT95

hddude55,

This thread is about video, as in the TV signal, recorded shows and animated menu backgrounds, no longer playing, resulting in either a blank background or a background stuck on one frame. The TiVo still responds to everything else, including all menus. Audio does not play, except maybe in sporadic bursts as the the TiVo attempts to play the video. If your TiVo is locking up, you have a different problem.

Anyway, I noticed my 2nd TiVo HD had gone stopped showing video again. Both tuned channels were blank. Initially, the menu background was animated, but it froze soon after. Strangely, one channel was working - the subchannel (or whatever) associated with our NBC affiliate. For example, channel 8 is analog, channel 8-1 is digital HD and 8-2 is the digital subchannel, which displays weather info. It stopped working after a few minutes of messing around though.

As usual, a reboot cured it. My other TiVo HD has never done this, but is on 1080i fixed. The failing TiVo has been on Native, but I switched it to 1080i fixed now to see if that affects things at all - not that that is a solution.


----------



## CrispyCritter

hddude55 said:


> Good lord, I didn't find this thread and related ones until tonight! I had my S3 replaced last week -- the 6 months old one started having frequent audio/video drops of several seconds duration. The new one -- and it was brand new -- sporadically went to a "snow" screen and audio continued to play but no controls would work and I had to unplug/plug back in to restore the picture and controls. This problem seemed to occur after I had recently turned on the TV after it had sat idle for several hours, but I'm not convinced that was anything but a coincidence.


Hmmm. It's possible it's not a coincidence. There's a number of TV models that emit strong IR and other noise, especially as they warm up. The normal TiVo symptom on these is that responses to the remote become very sluggish, but it's not out of the question that it could cause more serious problems. The TiVo could be spending all of its time trying to respond to hardware interrupts from the IR sensor and decide if they were from remote commands. It might be worthwhile experimenting a couple of times and see if anything else strange happens when the cold TV is turned on.


----------



## hddude55

ZXTT95 said:


> hddude55,
> 
> This thread is about video, as in the TV signal, recorded shows and animated menu backgrounds, no longer playing, resulting in either a blank background or a background stuck on one frame. The TiVo still responds to everything else, including all menus. ....


 With all due respect to your efforts to prevent thread hijacking, the "issue" doesn't seem that narrow at least according to some posters like AZrob who seems to be a frequent contributor to this and a "competing thread" that he suggested should be merged with this one. He wrote in the competing thread, "... there are variations: you can have black screen on some channels but not all, you can have black screen on all channels but not the menu backgrounds, or you can have black screen on all channels and all menu backgrounds. I have experienced all 3 variations in just 2 weeks." If my experiences should be discussed in a different thread I'll be happy to do so, but I think I'm going to have to be convinced by others here that I'm in the wrong place.


----------



## hddude55

lessd said:


> Your problem is not the problem that started this Thread..I would get an exchange for your TiVo.





mulscully said:


> I see in this post most are referring to the background going black, but still having menus.. is this a different problem then the one I am having black screen period and unresponsive to remote? my amber light on the front of the THD lights up when it is in the black screen mode, so the tivo is receiving the remote signals, but no video, or no sound out the optical port either... I needed to reboot a few times to get it working...


I'm having what sounds like the same problem, but unlike you I believe the remote probably is working, but who knows since I can't see anything on the TV screen to direct the remote commands. But this problem first happened on a brand-new -- not a refurb -- replacement S3 received last week. I got another new one yesterday to replace the replacement received last week and the same thing is happening, so that tells me it's not the TiVo hardware. (Unplugging the TiVo once always "cures" my problem for the moment.) Maybe its TiVo 9.2 software, HDMI issues, my TV -- but not the Tivo. One difference between you and me: I usually have sound although one time the sound disappeared, too.

If you and I don't belong in this thread as I was told by another poster, maybe someone can direct us to a more appropriate thread or we can start a new one -- but I have a hunch something happened in 9.2 to cause all of these issues, whether or not they are directly related. I had the much-discussed audio and video drops on my "old" S3 purchased a year ago -- and that's why I got it replaced last week -- but never these black screen issues until last week's "new" Series3 arrived. For a glorified VCR, these HD Tivos amazingly seem to have more problems than NASA's Space Shuttle program -- but at least our lives aren't in danger, just our sanity.


----------



## pauljb55

sooo my 72 hours didn't last long. I got home and I was back in black. Somone mentioned that it could have something to do with playing with the settings...I had revised my channel list the night before...food for thought


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## flightrisk

Just for some more data, here are some recent situations which casued the black screen for me:


Intentionally tuning to a channel I don't receive during TTG transfer.
Forcing a daily call when Tivo erroneously believed I had no guide data, after an HD upgrade.
Playing an incompletely transferred TTCB video.

I agree, too, that this stopped happening after initial setup until I started using TTG/TTCB.


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## fadden0

I haven't tried TTCB (for the acronym-deprived, that's TiVo-To-Come-Back, i.e. a PC -> TiVo transfer) since the early days of my Series 2. Half the time the downloaded video wouldn't play, even if it had just been sent up from the TiVo to the PC. Some of the time the Series 2 would lock up. I tried a DVD transfer, but if you used a free encoder the video wouldn't play back without jerking around (needed to use the non-free version of TMPGEnc.)

Has this improved? It's been a while since I tried it.

At any rate, I haven't had any problems with the TiVo HD since the first day (one week ago). I just now queued up some MRV (Multi-Room Viewing) transfers and carefully stepped away from the device. I'll see if messing with it after the transfers complete causes it to "go funny" -- not going to touch it while it runs.


----------



## ZXTT95

hddude55 said:


> With all due respect to your efforts to prevent thread hijacking, the "issue" doesn't seem that narrow at least according to some posters like AZrob who seems to be a frequent contributor to this and a "competing thread" that he suggested should be merged with this one. He wrote in the competing thread, "... there are variations: you can have black screen on some channels but not all, you can have black screen on all channels but not the menu backgrounds, or you can have black screen on all channels and all menu backgrounds. I have experienced all 3 variations in just 2 weeks." If my experiences should be discussed in a different thread I'll be happy to do so, but I think I'm going to have to be convinced by others here that I'm in the wrong place.


I'm not trying to chase you away - rather, warn you that you can't take much from the conclusions people are drawing here because almost everyone that I've noticed is reporting issues that appear to boil down to the MPEG decoder getting into a bad state. Your problem sounds worse. It could be software, but you should probably do your own troubleshooting by trying to eliminate as many of the usual suspects - things like bad power, a bad coax signal, IR interference, etc., which can affect these kinds of devices.


----------



## fadden0

Wow. I queued up 4 movies for transfer from my Series 2 DT to my TiVo HD. Walked away for a few hours. When I came back, the movies had transferred, and all the video was greyed out. I rebooted and verified that they all transferred successfully.

Pretty unequivocal. FWIW I'm using wired ethernet (100Mbps on Cat-5e).


----------



## Christian Dad

Greetings All,

I recently stepped up to TiVo HD and life is grand. After a week of normal operation on regular (analog) cable, the Cox Communications cable dude comes and puts in a multi-stream CableCard, so now I get HD. Life is spectacular... well, with the exception that there still (really) isn't a whole lot of HD programming out there.

Here's the problem

After two or three days of wonderful operation, the input signal freezes. I can hit the TiVo button and menu operation is as expected, but both playback and live TV freeze on the first frame of video, and the audio plays for about 1 second before it too goes silent. Like I said, menu operation is OK. Pressing the 'guide' button brings up an operational guide over a frozen picture.

A simple reset fixed the problem.

Has anyone else had this happen? How does one go about making the devs aware of this incident? Is this indicative of something I'm doing wrong?

Thanks.


----------



## fadden0

Christian Dad: everybody else has had this happen -- that's why this thread exists.  Read back through the thread to see what we know so far.


----------



## Mars Rocket

That sounds like a different problem. I never saw a single frame of video when I had this problem, and I don't recall anybody else mentioning anything like that either. The "1 second of sound" sounds like a new problem as well.


----------



## bonnie_raitt

First post to this thread. Went to watch the Seahawks football game tonight and saw it hadn't been recorded. It said I didn't have a signal. I checked the live TV and found nothing but a black screen. I tries several channels and did find one or two that worked. I then looked at the To Do List and found that I had missed recordings for the past 2 or 3 days for the same reason. I then came here and read this thread. I rebooted my S3 and now all channels show up. FWIW, I also have a Tivo HD that worked fine the entire time.

As I recall, I did nothing special during the last few days except watch recorded shows until today.

As they say every cloud has a silver lining. The seahawks lost 13-10 but at least I didn't have ti watch! Thanks for that anyway!


----------



## harmony.lake

I started experiencing this problem after going to 9.x as well. I am currently at 9.2A and the problem seems to be getting worse. S3 is always on, when I turn on my Panasonic Plasma, I get the black screen, etc. as many others do. For me, unplugging/re-plugging the HDMI cable from the S3 seems to clear it up most times (worse case, I have to reboot the S3).

I have not missed any recordings in my situation. HDMI is between S3 and TV only. S3 appears to record everything just fine... HDMI handshake problem between S3 and TV is what I experience.

In any event, talked to TIVO support today and this particular tech said that she has had many,many calls on this, as has most of the reps. Development team is working it, no targeted resolution date yet.


----------



## DaveDFW

I just wanted to pile on and say that I have experienced this several times over the last month I've had my Tivo HD, which is currently on 9.2a.

Same as everyone else is experiencing--the menus work, though there are no background animations, and I cannot watch live TV or recorded shows, though it appears that shows can still be recorded successfully.

It happened to me last when I had gone into the closed-captioning area, turned on captions, then hit Live TV to exit. Poof, black screen.

This matches another post I read in this thread, saying that "Live TV" pressed when you are several levels deep in the menu structure can create this error.

My HD is connected to the TV via HDMI.

TTYL
David


----------



## fadden0

Mars Rocket: I and others have seen still frames when experiencing this problem, and the "1 second of sound" is probably the small "blips" of sound many people hear every couple of seconds as something leaks through. At almost looks normal on the TiVo menus, because you get the normal background; it just doesn't animate. Rather more obvious when you try to play video or watch live TV.


----------



## jimerb

Well I just read through this entire thread hoping to see some posts from knowlegable tivo employees.

I can't believe this thread is 9 pages of problems and nothing has been done to fix this.

By the way, I see conflicting information about this being a "black screen" issue or a "gray screen" issue. My screen goes GRAY not black. 

I don't see a thread specifically for both. 

Does anyone have this nailed down? Or are we all in the dark on that too? I don't think I missed this but did anyone fix this?

Thanks.


----------



## DaveDFW

jimerb said:


> By the way, I see conflicting information about this being a "black screen" issue or a "gray screen" issue. My screen goes GRAY not black.
> 
> I don't see a thread specifically for both.
> 
> Does anyone have this nailed down? Or are we all in the dark on that too? I don't think I missed this but did anyone fix this?


You'll see gray or black depending on how you have the letterbox color set.

settings -> video -> letterbox color

I too am amazed that this issue has been known since at least September with no resolution yet.

TTYL
David


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## lordbah

I guess I won't take that TiVoHD offer, not until they show some sign that they will fix this issue.


----------



## AZrob

jimerb said:


> Well I just read through this entire thread hoping to see some posts from knowlegable tivo employees.
> 
> I can't believe this thread is 9 pages of problems and nothing has been done to fix this.
> 
> By the way, I see conflicting information about this being a "black screen" issue or a "gray screen" issue. My screen goes GRAY not black.
> 
> I don't see a thread specifically for both.
> 
> Does anyone have this nailed down? Or are we all in the dark on that too? I don't think I missed this but did anyone fix this?
> 
> Thanks.


Actually, none other than TivoPony posted on December 5th in post #203 in this thread, stating that Tivo was aware of the issue, had replicated it and was working on a solution. He also referred to this as a "boundary case" meaning it was one of those software bugs that is caused by more than one factor (hence, the lack of a clear set of causal events, as seen on this very thread) and was thus not a trivial issue to nail down.

So, no fix yet, but Tivo is clearly aware of it and working toward a fix.

Rob from AZ


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## TomRaz

My tivo hd only seemed to have this issue during the initial setup period. I have not seen this issue in over a month. 

I am confident Tivo will find a solution


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## HazelW

TomRaz said:


> My tivo hd only seemed to have this issue during the initial setup period. I have not seen this issue in over a month.
> 
> I am confident Tivo will find a solution


Same here. It only happened--and it hapened a lot--while trying to activate cablecards. been fine for a month on both units.


----------



## AZrob

Had an interesting variation on the symptoms which I'd like to report. Twice I've seen the normally red Now Playing menu background revert to a dark blue color. In addition, the Tivo character at the upper left hand corner of the screen is frozen...he doesn't move. So then I knew we were in for trouble...and since I know of no way to reverse this process, I decided to force it to the next level, which I did by going to Live. Bingo, all Live screens were black and then when I went back to Now Playing, the background had reverted to the now-familiar black hole mode. 

Just before this I had attempted to transfer files from two different PC's. As has been said before, transfers seem to aggravate the issue......

So now we have 3 possible "incorrect" colors for Now Playing's background: black or gray or dark blue.......(!).

Rob


----------



## ddonohue

I just laboriously read all 270 posts in this thread hoping for the silver bullet to fix this problem on my just-out-of-the-box THD. No luck.

I can consistently and reliably cause the video to tank on demand by simply queuing up a few transfers from my S2. Naturally, that was the first thing I wanted to do as soon as it was set up, so I had the problem right from the get-go. A restart fixes it, then I queue up a few more and bang, out she goes. I don't have to hit Live TV, it will be out when tivo times out and attempts to return to live TV on its own. The transfers are successful, I just can't use the THD while they're transferring.

I'm surprised something so obviously wrong and catastrophically bad got through Tivo Q&A. Also, in the 5 days I've owned my HD, in addition to this problem numerous times, I've had it restart twice for no apparent reason (scanning channel lineup both times) and hang hard simply by deleting a program in NP. Just "Confirm Delete?", Yes, and a complete lockup requiring a power-down. Very poor software quality compared to my 4 other Tivos. 

BTW, I'm on 9.1a I think, no cablecards, no HD programming, output fixed at 480i via s-video.


----------



## fatboy15226

Just another me too post.

Brand new THD. Using component and only analog channels (waiting for cable company).

Happens at least once a day.

Had problems out of box on 8.x and also updated 9.x with 480p fixed, Native and Hybrid.


----------



## [email protected]

ddonohue said:


> I can consistently and reliably cause the video to tank on demand by simply queuing up a few transfers from my S2.


I've encountered exactly this as well, although not consistently.

The times I have encountered it I had short-circuited out of the "browse remote TiVo" process by hitting the TiVo button to go directly to TiVo Central. So far I have not managed to reproduce the problem if I back out of the menus step by step until I get to the local "Now Playing" list. This may be just a coincidence, but for now I'm taking those few extra steps.


----------



## BanditWS6

Add me to the list. My three-day-old TiVo HD is doing this too. I've seen the problem three or four times now -- including the first time I booted it up. The overlays still work, but everything else is gray (letterbox color). Can't change channels. Can't watch saved video. 

Here's a weird tidbit. If I start playing a saved video, after a few seconds of gray screen, the timeline bar at the bottom of the screen will appear -- and according to the time indexes on either side, it looks like it's representing the time of day! For instance, I experienced the failure at 11:09 p.m. tonight. On the left side of the timeline was "10:30" and on the right side was "11:30," with the "playback head" pointing right at where 11:09 would be.

I believe one time I definitely saw this problem occur as a result of hitting "Live TV" while several levels deep in the menus. 

As always, a reboot cures the problem right away. (Well, if waiting for that five-minute boot-up can be called "right away".)

I'm on software version 9.2a, which I got on the first day of setup. But the first time the problem occurred, it was on the original out-of-the-box software which I think was version 8-something. Currently running at Fixed 1080i. The TiVo is plugged into an APC UPS, one of the low-end models. I believe someone else in the thread mentioned that since they took their TiVo off their UPS they haven't had this problem again, but that could be a coincidence.

Combined with the CableCard problems I'm having, so far this hasn't been a great experience.


----------



## dhoward

Add me into this mix also. Is the general consensus that the hardware is ok and that problem is inherent in the software? My HD Tivo is a week old and i have seen the problem twice. Each time when I exit Tivo Central. Has anyone returned their unit for this problem? My cable card installation is scheduled for 1/3/08 so right now I am using analog only with component cables. No HDMI.


----------



## AZrob

dhoward said:


> Add me into this mix also. Is the general consensus that the hardware is ok and that problem is inherent in the software? My HD Tivo is a week old and i have seen the problem twice. Each time when I exit Tivo Central. Has anyone returned their unit for this problem? My cable card installation is scheduled for 1/3/08 so right now I am using analog only with component cables. No HDMI.


It appears that some have returned their Tivo's but that does not appear to have consistently solved the problem, if at all. Tivo is aware of the issue and is working toward a fix -- see TivoPony's post earlier in this thread. That implies to me that this problem will be solved via software. I would encourage you to hang in there.

Rob


----------



## ingleberg

Same problem on my 4 day old Tivo HD. Has happened at least 5 times. Just happened again when I tried watching a recorded show during a transfer from a Series 2 box.

Using HDMI and a Comcast M-Card with software v9.2a


----------



## hidden772

I installed a couple of Tivo HDs w/ Comcast M-Cards last week. Since then, the issue has happened twice on one Tivo HD, and once on the other. It's a gray screen and rebooting the tivo is the only way to recover. The THDs are updated to current software. Hope they fix it soon.


----------



## tnwahoo

I've been experiencing this problem since fall, and over the Christmas break, seems like I've had to reboot pretty much daily if not more often. Not sure if I'm 'tripping' it somehow as we were home so much (and thus watching more tv) - but it is INCREDIBLY annoying and I wish TPTB at Tivo would get this fixed!!!

The reboot is the only fix that seems to work. Any others? (I'll troll through the 10+ pages again too....)


----------



## hidden772

tnwahoo said:


> The reboot is the only fix that seems to work. Any others? (I'll troll through the 10+ pages again too....)


I just finished reading the 10+ pages and can tell you there isn't any other "fix" so to speak. Once it happens, rebooting is the only way to get it back. :down:


----------



## scroos

I have been paying close attention to this thread, due to having these very same issues about once every 48 hours since 9.2 and activating TTG. 

I thought I would chime in with something I've found, although I am not sure if it is coincidental:

Last week, I split the cable to my THD to add a TV downstairs for holiday visitors. This splitter has -3Db attenuation for each branch. My current signal for each cable card now hovers around 24Db with a steady 96 signal strength. 

Since I've done this, I have not experienced the aforementioned lockups.

Again, this could be entirely coincidental, but I thought I'd share.....cuz I'm fuzzy like that.

OO


----------



## aindik

scroos said:


> I have been paying close attention to this thread, due to having these very same issues about once every 48 hours since 9.2 and activating TTG.
> 
> I thought I would chime in with something I've found, although I am not sure if it is coincidental:
> 
> Last week, I split the cable to my THD to add a TV downstairs for holiday visitors. This splitter has -3Db attenuation for each branch. My current signal for each cable card now hovers around 24Db with a steady 96 signal strength.
> 
> Since I've done this, I have not experienced the aforementioned lockups.
> 
> Again, this could be entirely coincidental, but I thought I'd share.....cuz I'm fuzzy like that.
> 
> OO


I've had this problem too, but not as often as you have. My signal is split three ways: to a VCR, to an S2 TiVo, to the TiVoHD. I don't think, after that, it could possibly be too strong for something that chokes on a strong signal. The analog signal to the VCR and the S2 TiVo is pretty poor, actually, if video quality is any indication. (TiVoHD looks great because Alternative Digital Simulcast gives me all the channels in digital. It looked like crap until the CableCARD showed up).


----------



## pauljb55

I was having problems before I left for the holidays and figured that my HDtivo would go black on my first day out of town. I installed a signal amplifier for the entire house before I left. When I got back...everything was working fine...2 weeks gone by...


----------



## shelleye

Just to keep Tivo software debuggers aware: I experienced the same problem today, after going through an extensive "channel list" edit, (deselecting unwanted channels) and then hitting live tv. After that all the video except menus went gray. I was able to do quite a bit more maintenance work (ie, checking network connections, connecting to service, etc.) but no images. Then rebooted, and everything is fine. I have it set to native resolution, HDMI. Brand new everything, and a recently transferred lifetime service, so I sure hope that it's software and not hardware related.


----------



## David Platt

Add me to the list. I just set up another S3 about a week ago, and added FiOS CableCARDs to the on Sunday. I was hit with the bug yesterday afternoon.

Software version: 9.2a
Video mode: Hybrid


----------



## therlin

I don't come to this site often but I was having the problem described in this thread so I thought I'd come to see if anyone is having the same issue. It seems I'm not alone.

I'm having to reboot my S3 TiVo when I come home from work every afternoon. It's getting pretty frustrating.


----------



## lessd

therlin said:


> I don't come to this site often but I was having the problem described in this thread so I thought I'd come to see if anyone is having the same issue. It seems I'm not alone.
> 
> I'm having to reboot my S3 TiVo when I come home from work every afternoon. It's getting pretty frustrating.


If your not doing a soft re-boot try that, as it fixed 4 of my friends HD TiVos from this problem and also fixed mine.


----------



## DaveDFW

Is the Series3 less susceptible to this problem? I have two Series3's which have never done this, but my TivoHD has done it occasionally, although it hasn't happened for a couple of weeks now.

They're all at the same software version.

Thanks,
David


----------



## SGR215

I just had FiOS install cable cards today and while the installer was here the bug happened. Later on today it happened again after I pressed "live tv". Very nerve racking considering I came to Tivo to get rid of my buggy FiOS DVR. I sure hope the fix is coming soon.

Settings:
720P Fixed
HDMI
Occurred while in a menu and hitting LiveTV


----------



## therlin

lessd said:


> If your not doing a soft re-boot try that, as it fixed 4 of my friends HD TiVos from this problem and also fixed mine.


What do you mean by "soft reboot"? I just go to the settings menu, select to restart the recorder. 3 thumbs down, enter and it restarts. This usually fixes my problem for a while, usually 24 hours or so.

I take it you are taking about something else?


----------



## jrm01

Hard reboot = pull the power cord
Soft reboot = use the menu as you described


----------



## lew

Same problem, solved with a reboot. Happened while repeating guide setup after cc installation. I'm using a HDMI cable, not sure if that matters.


----------



## lessd

therlin said:


> What do you mean by "soft reboot"? I just go to the settings menu, select to restart the recorder. 3 thumbs down, enter and it restarts. This usually fixes my problem for a while, usually 24 hours or so.
> 
> I take it you are taking about something else?


You are doing the soft re-boot, I am disappointed you are still having this problem but for the grace of God there goes my and my friends HD units. I hope TiVo can find a fix this (with software), if it is hardware what a mess that would be.


----------



## SGR215

I will admit, both times it happened the menu's were being used constantly. The first time the installer just finished his install and I decided to check "Conditional Access" to make sure both cards were showing the right thing and then hit "LiveTV" and it happened. So I'm sure the Tivo was under a lot of stress already. The next time it happened I was surfing through menu's for about 15-20 minutes basically getting familiar with every feature and then hit "LiveTV" and it happened again. So again, I was putting the box under unusual stress. As long as this doesn't happen often while I'm using the box just like any other person would I'll be happy. It is a serious bug and needs to be fixed however.


----------



## baronep

Hi Folks,

I am having the same problem and I think it started when Cox replaced my single stream CC's with Multi Stream cards.

I seem to lose most of the channels and must reset to get them back. I have two Tivo HD's and must reset them daily. 

Hey Tivo, maybe on your next update you can make a daily reset automatic.


----------



## SGR215

It happened again to me. Once again, it was while I was using the menus extensively. I have FiOS and was checking if I needed to add attenuators to my setup. This basically involves tuning to numerous channels and constantly entering the menu and going to diagnostics. After doing this for awhile the bug appeared. I had some time to kill while waiting for a recording to finish before rebooting so I decided to try numerous things to see if I could get it back to normal. I tried toggling just about every feature on the Tivo, adjusting aspect ratios, resolutions, etc. Like others have said nothing will fix it besides a reboot. It sure seems like it only happens for me when I'm putting extra strain on the Tivo.


----------



## kmsarno

Why bother with yet another "me-too" message? But here's mine: brand new Tivo HD arrived today 652-0001-8044-xxxx. I did replace the 160GB disk with a 750GB before powering it up for the first time. I have FIOS and an S3 w/2 CC's since basically the day the S3 came out, have hooked it up to various receivers with both HDMI and componenent with very few problems (it hangs once in a great while but all PC's hang). The HD, on the other hand, exhibited the Gray-Screen-Of-Death problem within a few minutes...no CC's yet, just analog cable channels going to a new Pioneer plasma via a high-end HDMI cable. 

So what. This thread is the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Because this problem is so obviously widespread that a single post from TivoPony a month ago to say "we're working on it" simply is not good enough. There should be regular detailed status reports. I'm not going to send back hardware, even though my gut feel as an old computer operating systems guy is that we most likely have a hardware problem. Sending back hardware now is premature...the replacement will probably be bad too.

But this silence from Tivo after months and many software releases is sort of outrageous IMHO.

SAY SOMETHING TIVO.


----------



## cmonroe

ddonohue said:


> I just laboriously read all 270 posts in this thread hoping for the silver bullet to fix this problem on my just-out-of-the-box THD. No luck.
> 
> I can consistently and reliably cause the video to tank on demand by simply queuing up a few transfers from my S2. Naturally, that was the first thing I wanted to do as soon as it was set up, so I had the problem right from the get-go. A restart fixes it, then I queue up a few more and bang, out she goes. I don't have to hit Live TV, it will be out when tivo times out and attempts to return to live TV on its own. The transfers are successful, I just can't use the THD while they're transferring.
> 
> I'm surprised something so obviously wrong and catastrophically bad got through Tivo Q&A. Also, in the 5 days I've owned my HD, in addition to this problem numerous times, I've had it restart twice for no apparent reason (scanning channel lineup both times) and hang hard simply by deleting a program in NP. Just "Confirm Delete?", Yes, and a complete lockup requiring a power-down. Very poor software quality compared to my 4 other Tivos.
> 
> BTW, I'm on 9.1a I think, no cablecards, no HD programming, output fixed at 480i via s-video.


Before I left for the holidays I'd suspected my TTG transfers were causing the problem as well. About once every 48 hours I'd loose random channels and only a reboot would fix the problem. I just logged into my TiVo and checked, its received all of the recordings it should have in the last 2 weeks (including network HD which is usually what I loose first). During this time my main PC has been off which means no TTG transfers have occurred.

If the problem starts up when I return home this week and begin my regular transfers that should be fairly conclusive in my case.


----------



## Darthnice

I bought a TiVo HD on Sunday (I hadn't seen this thread then). It started doing it almost immediately. Called TiVo, rep told me to return unit to retailer (aside: rep asked if all channels were black-and-white, I said, "NO! ALL CHANNELS ARE COMPLETELY BLACK not BLACK AND WHITE"). Got a 2nd unit which hasn't exhibited the problem (yet).


----------



## That70sGAdawg

I took my UPS power back up out of the equation and - More lock ups. 
It's not the cable cards, it's not the UPS, it's not using the DVR expander, it's not using MVR- or Tivo to go - It's the damn new firmware. Fix it Tivo!!!!!!

This has become as unreliable as a Cable Co, or Satellite DVR...


----------



## Kit_C

I've started experiencing this on my S3, which has a 500GB drive, is set at 720P fixed, is conencted by HDMI, and has 2x SA S-Cards installed. 

The first time I noticed it was yesterday. It may be a coincidence, but yesterday was the first time I've scheduled a recording online (BCS championship) in about 8 months.

Symptoms are as described, and are almost identical to the channel blackouts that were fixed in the last S3 software update. Soft re-boot fixed it for now.

Kit
San Diego, CA


----------



## rockymountaind

That70sGAdawg said:


> I took my UPS power back up out of the equation and - More lock ups.
> It's not the cable cards, it's not the UPS, it's not using the DVR expander, it's not using MVR- or Tivo to go - It's the damn new firmware. Fix it Tivo!!!!!!
> 
> This has become as unreliable as a Cable Co, or Satellite DVR...


Quite a few firmwares in fact (back to 8.1.x I believe).

Ironically, I've only had to reboot my cable co. dvr once since this problem was first reported back in September


----------



## rockymountaind

Kit_C said:


> I've started expereinceing this on my S3, which has a 500GB drive, is set at 720P fixed, is conencted by HDMI, and has 2x SA S-Cards installed.
> 
> The first time I noticed it was yesterday. It may be a coincidence, but yesterday was the first time I've scheduled a recording online (BCS championship) in about 8 months.
> 
> Symptoms are as described, and are almost identical to the channel blackouts that were fixed in the last S3 software update. Soft re-boot fixed it for now.
> 
> Kit
> San Diego, CA


Functioning menus with black (or grey) background?


----------



## Kit_C

rockymountaind said:


> Functioning menus with black (or grey) background?


Functioning menus, black background.


----------



## AZrob

Kit_C said:


> I've started expereinceing this on my S3, which has a 500GB drive, is set at 720P fixed, is conencted by HDMI, and has 2x SA S-Cards installed.
> 
> The first time I noticed it was yesterday. It may be a coincidence, but yesterday was the first time I've scheduled a recording online (BCS championship) in about 8 months.
> 
> Symptoms are as described, and are almost identical to the channel blackouts that were fixed in the last S3 software update. Soft re-boot fixed it for now.
> 
> Kit
> San Diego, CA


Kit, do the symptoms include the black/gray-out of the menu backgrounds, or are you just seeing the loss of some/all channels?

Rob


----------



## rockymountaind

Kit_C said:


> Functioning menus, black background.


Well that's not good. HD and S3


----------



## Kit_C

AZrob said:


> Kit, do the symptoms include the black/gray-out of the menu backgrounds, or are you just seeing the loss of some/all channels?
> 
> Rob


My recordings tuned on the affected cable card are blank, and the menu is coming up against a black background. I should have taken better notes, but I believe Cablecard 2 was stuck at "initializing" in the CC menu, and my system information showed Cable Card 2 as "Not operating" or "Not operating properly". As I said previously, its an awful lot like the problem many of us had before 9.2j rolled out.

Kit
San Diego, CA


----------



## rockymountaind

So I get a new THD - 8.1.7c out of the box - component - native - no cable cards.

Finish guided setup, go a couple of levels into the search menu and hit "live tv" button to see what happens - bam!

So nothing's changed. It's been around since _at least_ 8.1.7c and has nothing to do with cable cards.


----------



## lrntowrench

Still happening to me on two THDs. It doesn't happen that often, but what happens is that the screen goes grey (which I have my borders set to) and I still have my menus. No video whatsoever - either live or playback of previously recorded content. No audio. Only a reboot fixes it (which takes about 10 minutes). 

Talked to Tivo 2 nights ago. They are aware of the issue. However, they admit that while it "seems to be network related" they have no root cause or solution that they can share. I have a new case number since they closed my earlier case even though they did not resolve it (thanks, Tivo).

In my case each time this has happened I've been using some sort of network based activity. MRV or online content. It has never happened when I was not using Ethernet network features.


----------



## Darthnice

lrntowrench said:


> In my case each time this has happened I've been using some sort of network based activity.


In the box that I returned, it happened twice: both times immediately following forcing a call to TiVo via the network.


----------



## rockymountaind

lrntowrench said:


> ...they admit that while it "seems to be network related"...


I don't even have network features (such as MRV & TTG) available to me on 8.1.7c, nor do I have any network connectivity right now.

Could be that there's multiple ways to cause the problem.


----------



## jimerb

For what it's worth, Tivo escallated my case to level 3. The supervisor told me that they are aware of this issue and that level 3 would contact me shortly. 

That was about 3 days ago.

I recommend making sure you have a case open with Tivo and point out to them that there are many people with the same problem on the forums.

Make sure they push the case to resolution.

Apparently they are not very responsive on the forums.


----------



## lrntowrench

jimerb said:


> For what it's worth, Tivo escallated my case to level 3. The supervisor told me that they are aware of this issue and that level 3 would contact me shortly.
> 
> That was about 3 days ago.
> 
> I recommend making sure you have a case open with Tivo and point out to them that there are many people with the same problem on the forums.
> 
> Make sure they push the case to resolution.
> 
> Apparently they are not very responsive on the forums.


I've demanded a follow-up, however they are very unresponsive about this. I really like Tivo service, however their software development seems to be suffering from a quality perspective. I wonder if their dev teams have been hit hard by revenue challenges.


----------



## KamPutty

Hi all,

Hey, my S3 is freaking out and I was wondering if this is the same issue as this thread...
After many months on no issues, just the other day my TiVo started freaking out.

Symptoms

#1. Becomes very sluggish. When accessing menu's etc., it gets reaaaalllly slow
#2. When watching a recorded show, the keys become unresponsive; I cannot pause, stop, etc it
#3. A few times, the box has rebooted itself when it gets in this "mode"
#4. It looks like some programs did not get recorded
#5. The background graphics/movie on the menus starts getting very bumping frame wise; meaning that the movie is not smooth...very...delayed...updates...stagger...stagger...

I have not checked (not at home right now) if there was a software upgrade this week

~Kam (^8*


----------



## Phantom Gremlin

I just "experienced" the problem with one of my Tivo HDs, software 9.2a, stock drive, 2 cablecards. I think it's network related.

First of all, I think it's easy to confirm this particular problem because of the background. Doing

settings -> video -> letterbox color

changes the entire screen (except for overlaid menus) to black or grey. There is no "letterbox", the whole screen is "letterboxed" or "sideboxed".

The reason I think it's network related is I'm currently manually connecting an ethernet cable every few days. I just did that and then did "connect to the TiVo service now". When I flipped back to this box a few minutes later I had the grey screen.

TiVo programmers and management are too incompetent to get this problem fixed after so many months. But they had no problem pushing crap to my box while this was happening. This act of connecting to their network just happened to get two ads pushed to my TiVo Central screen:

Watch the Latest Harry Potter movie
Experience Australia Yourself!

I'd like to do something with my TiVo HD and a part of Tom Roger's anatomy that would let him "experience" what I think of the current sad state of this product.

BTW if you're naive/patient enough to think you can get thru TiVo's outsourced tech support to report this (I'm not willing to struggle with script monkeys) I suggest you use a digicam and take pictures of

Account & System Information -> Diagnostics (8 screens)

that info might actually be useful to someone with a technical clue. I did that, FWIW.

If TiVo were on the ball they would be emailing people with problems and asking for info like this. But they would much rather ignore this forum full of people who are willing to help them and who are much more technically savvy than the average TiVo owner. But no, some big shot at TiVo decided against something practical like that. So the problem festers!


----------



## rockymountaind

KamPutty said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Hey, my S3 is freaking out and I was wondering if this is the same issue as this thread...
> After many months on no issues, just the other day my TiVo started freaking out.
> 
> Symptoms
> 
> #1. Becomes very sluggish. When accessing menu's etc., it gets reaaaalllly slow
> #2. When watching a recorded show, the keys become unresponsive; I cannot pause, stop, etc it
> #3. A few times, the box has rebooted itself when it gets in this "mode"
> #4. It looks like some programs did not get recorded
> #5. The background graphics/movie on the menus starts getting very bumping frame wise; meaning that the movie is not smooth...very...delayed...updates...stagger...stagger...
> 
> I have not checked (not at home right now) if there was a software upgrade this week
> 
> ~Kam (^8*


Doesn't sound like the same issue. We're discussing a problem where all (moving) videos ceases. Still get menus (with no background), but no live or recorded TV.


----------



## BMoreE

KamPutty said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Hey, my S3 is freaking out and I was wondering if this is the same issue as this thread...
> <REMOVED>
> ~Kam (^8*


Kam, this sounds suspiciously like a hard-drive's death-throes. At least that's what happened to me on an old S1 DirecTivo. I popped in a new drive, problem solved. Definitely not this problem - call Tivo support to make sure.

E


----------



## BanditWS6

Darthnice said:


> In the box that I returned, it happened twice: both times immediately following forcing a call to TiVo via the network.


Interesting; now that I think about it, in the three or four times I've experienced this problem, it was always within a few hours of connecting to the TiVo service.


----------



## rockymountaind

rockymountaind said:


> I don't even have network features (such as MRV & TTG) available to me on 8.1.7c, nor do I have any network connectivity right now.
> 
> Could be that there's multiple ways to cause the problem.


Upgraded to 9.2a (I think that's it). Comcast tech popped in an M-card, and as soon as pairing completed, I went to test channels and got nothing but black 

Rebooted and all's been well since, but dang. 2 times in 2 days.


----------



## skiajl6297

This has to be related to the interplay of networking and live tv. After reading this entire thread about everyone experiencing what I just experienced last night, I am frustrated. Got Best Buy gift cards for xmas and finally decided to get back into TiVo ownership with the lessened initial cost. I was using Comcast HDDVR box with all of its maladies, remote queueing, poor guide data, etc. I am one week into owning the new unmodded TiVoHD box, and I experienced this black/grey screen of death. After watching a taped standard def show, I went into the menus and was playing around extensively. I forced a network call, (I have the wireless tivo network adapter) had recently transferred a TiVoCast program (for the first time) and was playing in the settings menu with video output. I had initially set it at native, changed to 1080i fixed, changed it back to hybrid (which wasnt supported by my TV - 2005 Samsung DLP) and went back to hybrid. I pressed live tv from that menu and bam, black screen of death. Reset it and everything worked after that. We'll see if things work when I get home tonight. It does sound like simply playing around in the menus, particularly the settings menu somehow triggers it, along with obviously pressing the live tv button. Also someone earlier mentioned that using the left arrow out of the deeper menus seems to eliminate this problem. SO I am going to leave my video settings, when I do go deep into menus I will back out with left arrow to get to live tv, and will anxiously await further instruction from TiVo.

I was an early adopter of S1 and S2 boxes, but ditched them when I got HD in 2005. Comcast HD DVR worked, but I missed my TiVo. Now that I am back in the TiVo game I REALLY want it to work, but this is a pretty big flaw. As someone mentioned earlier, while Comcasts DVR is annoying as all he||, at least it didn't regularly require a 5 minute start up. Even if hard resetting the Comcast box eliminated the guide data for 20 minutes, I could see a picture in 15 seconds. 5 minutes in the middle of a program isn't cool, and frankly I expect more from TiVo based on my past experiences with other boxes, and my admitted TiVo love. I want you to be awesome TiVo! PLEASE fix this or at least give us more hope than one TiVoPony post.


----------



## bweeston

I've had the same problems either occurring after a lot of menu manipulations or TTG transfers or online scheduling or networking to Tivo.

If everyone who hasn't would call and opened a trouble ticket with Tivo with their symptoms, perhaps it would get more attention than just waiting to see if TivoPony responds or has an update.


----------



## locash

Add me to this crappy list, 3 day old TiVo HD, direct from Tivo themselves, fixed 1080i, component output, no cable cards (only cable via coax, and ota antenna) grey screen of death, have all menu options, just cant watch anything at all (without a reboot of course), software version 9.2a-01-2-652

This is rediculous, I own two Tivo S2 units that never did this, how did I just get tricked into paying for lifetime service and an "upgrade" to a unit that is unreliable? 

FIX THIS, TIVO!


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## fluffie

rockymountaind said:


> Doesn't sound like the same issue. We're discussing a problem where all (moving) videos ceases. Still get menus (with no background), but no live or recorded TV.


this happened to me last night after i started transferring a show back from my pc. soft reboot fixed it.


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## jtodd929

I've had this too:

Brand new box w/ no modifications.

software: 8.1.7c originally (now 9.2a)
Native thru Compoenent with Toslink
first occurred shortly after completing Guided Setup
No CableCards in use
phone connection for updates; no internet connection
no eSata or any other additions
get analog cable with QAM HD
am NOT connected to an UPS


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## tatsle

I just installed a new TivoHD and have this problem too. I was going to exchange the box, but it sounds like this won't solve the problem. Probably just return it and buy it again later when they get this fixed.

I hope Tivo is making this fix a priority. Lots of people obviously are having this problem.


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## dhoward

I would hold on to it. It does not happen that often to be a major problem. It is irritating but not fatal. However, I do wish TIVO would jump into the thread again with some assurances that a fix is coming.


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## BanditWS6

I agree, don't bother returning your new TiVo HD because the problem doesn't happen that often to disrupt day-to-day operation (at least not in any cases I have seen). It also doesn't appear to be hardware related, so there's no guarantee a new unit would fix anything.

I asked myself the same question, especially since I was about to pull the trigger and activate a Product Lifetime membership on the box. Ended up going ahead with that.

I experienced the issue several times during initial setup, but now that my CableCARDs are up and running, since my last Guided Setup I haven't had this problem again. In my case, rerunning Guided Setup or doing a forced connection to the TiVo service, followed by hitting "Live TV" while deep into the menu tree, triggered the problem. Keeping my fingers crossed.


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## CrispyCritter

tatsle said:


> I just installed a new TivoHD and have this problem too. I was going to exchange the box, but it sounds like this won't solve the problem. Probably just return it and buy it again later when they get this fixed.
> 
> I hope Tivo is making this fix a priority. Lots of people obviously are having this problem.


As others said, I wouldn't be overly concerned with the one time occurrence during setup. It happened to me, and the TiVo has been flawless ever since - no reoccurrences and no crashing or reboots.

Yes, it needs to be fixed, but the occurrences during setup (or new operating system) are pretty clearly a software bug. If it happens after that, then a hardware problem may be involved, and I would worry much more.


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## TheOrkinMan

There are clearly multiple problems occurring. In my case, the issue seems to be related to the M-card - when a program had been recording during the 'blackout', the recording history says it didn't record due to a problem with not being authorized for the channel. Additionally, when I reboot, it shows the "acquiring signal" screen for a minute or so after the reboot completes before I have access again.

My theory is that there is some kind of license given out to the cable cards that has an expiration date on it. In my case, it appears to be about 3-5 weeks long (installed on 11/17 and it's happened twice now, once on 12/13 and once on 1/9). I'm going to start rebooting once a week (Saturday morning) and see if that prevents the problem from coming back.


----------



## CrispyCritter

TheOrkinMan said:


> My theory is that there is some kind of license given out to the cable cards that has an expiration date on it. In my case, it appears to be about 3-5 weeks long (installed on 11/17 and it's happened twice now, once on 12/13 and once on 1/9). I'm going to start rebooting once a week (Saturday morning) and see if that prevents the problem from coming back.


Check this post. It tells how to see the SubExpireTime (at least on SA M-cards). Your theory sounds quite possible!


----------



## esb1981

I have had this exact problem happen twice in the month since I got the Tivo HD. Menus appear, but no background video, live tv is grey screen, can't change channels, etc. The first time it happened was right after I had switched the video output settings 2-3 times in a couple minutes since I was comparing picture quality on the different formats. The second time it happened right after I had been going back and forth between the menu and live tv a bunch of times (was checking the diagnostics screen for signal strength on various channels). Both times, software reboot solved the problem.


----------



## HVYCHVY

I'm stuck in the same @#$%@ boat.  Mine done it this morning. Rebooted twice screen flickered, then black. Unplugged the machine for 20 minutes, went through setup again, menu but no live tv. My have to call Tivo about getting a new machine. $600 is too expensive to not have stuff work less than a week old. Hardware settingis 9.2a updated 1/12 @ 0230 thru wireless thingy.


----------



## BanditWS6

HVYCHVY said:


> I'm stuck in the same @#$%@ boat.  Mine done it this morning. Rebooted twice screen flickered, then black. Unplugged the machine for 20 minutes, went through setup again, menu but no live tv. My have to call Tivo about getting a new machine. $600 is too expensive to not have stuff work less than a week old. Hardware settingis 9.2a updated 1/12 @ 0230 thru wireless thingy.


So the reboots didn't fix it? Sounds like you might have a separate (more serious!) problem.

Although you have no live TV, do your menus have backgrounds (the animated hollywood lights, etc.) or is the menu background just black too?


----------



## HVYCHVY

Yeah, I get menu area ie: now playing list, messages + settings. It's been unplugged for about 4.5 hours.....we'll see if it works now. I did change the resolution from 1080i to native after watching about hours worth of recorded shows. After I rebooted, it went to the menu screen, hten when I hit live tv, it flickered like it was wanting to show it, saw a brief second of live TV, then blackness.  

I'll undo my DVD component video and hook it to the S3, maybe it will work.

UPDATE: Wow, it had something to do with my resolution setting. I changed it back to 1080i and valia I gots a picture again. I have a Samsung 5265f, so it shoud have been able to support all the various resolutions.


----------



## ado

This is really weird because when I first got the box it happened very frequently, at least once a day, but now after more than a month it rarely happens. It did happen again the other night when i was trying to watch a show and when coming to tivo central, everything went black and I had to wait 5 minutes. A little frustrating, but I have come to love my tivo so it doesn't bother me that much. At first it was very annoying and I wanted to return it, but i'm glad i didn't. I'm not sure resolution changing triggers it because a variety of actions cause the black screen. I just hope that tivo is actually trying to fix it.


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## pauljb55

I was just told to sell my unit by a CSR! I was dealing with the black screen early in December...got back from the holidays and all was well. Started having problems again on thursday...unit will go black in 5 min! Called support...first guy was obiviously reading a script and kept mentioning the cable box. I had to remind him that I don't have one...finally got bumped to another level of support and was told...1, call the cable company and have them retrigger the cards...informed him that I had done that...2, demand new cards...Told rep that everytime they come out they hit me for $40..I asked if they could send me a new box so that if I did have the cable company out I could resolve it with an extra box as a back up...I was told no. So I said to confirm that if I spent $40 to have them come out and that did not fix the issue, I would have to prove that I had new card tried and failed...only then would I get a new box to pay another $40 to have them come out and try again....so I was out $80 on a box that I paid $300 for and then bought lifetime...I asked if I could just send the box back and get a refund since I had been a customer for 5 plus years and signed up at least 5 other people...I was told I should sell it on ebay and get my money back that way...


----------



## TheOrkinMan

CrispyCritter said:


> Check this post. It tells how to see the SubExpireTime (at least on SA M-cards). Your theory sounds quite possible!


I will check that as soon as I get home today and see what it says. The periodic nature of it seemed suspicious. Will report back.


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## puffy66

I have the same problem. Every now and then I get a gray screen, the menu's work as mentioned above but no video. Takes a restart. Come on Tivo, time to fix this one.


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## TheOrkinMan

TheOrkinMan said:


> I will check that as soon as I get home today and see what it says. The periodic nature of it seemed suspicious. Will report back.


Interesting. I don't have that entry anywhere in my cablecard screens.


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## Lampei

Just got my TiVoHD set up tonight. Downloaded the 9.2 software and about 5 minutes after boot, it went to a black background (and no video playback, live or recorded). I do not have cable cards in yet (they're coming Saturday), but it still seems strange/annoying that everything was working correctly at the 8.1 software, install the 9.1a and BAM, nothing works correctly  I'll be rebooting soon to see if that fixes the problem.


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## jtodd929

Lampei said:


> Just got my TiVoHD set up tonight. Downloaded the 9.2 software and about 5 minutes after boot, it went to a black background (and no video playback, live or recorded). I do not have cable cards in yet (they're coming Saturday), but it still seems strange/annoying that everything was working correctly at the 8.1 software, install the 9.1a and BAM, nothing works correctly  I'll be rebooting soon to see if that fixes the problem.


it does it with 8.1 software too. It also does it with and without cablecards.


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## Lampei

Ah, I figured it was just because it upgrade to 9.1 Why's this been going on for such a long time? Does the issue seem difficult for TiVo to fix?


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## macmedic

Happening to me also on a virgin HD box with Lifetime however when mine goes black nothing records - totally unacceptable.

Bought it at Costco so I may end up returning it and fighting with Tivo to get the lifetime sub $ back or transfered to a new box.

I wish that they would give us an expected date for a fix so I'd know how long it would be...


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## britdiver

I have been watching this thread and hoping for good news. Anyway I now have something new to add that I hadn't seen in any of the other posts. It may have been there but I didn't see it. I have just come off the phone with Tivo support and of course got nowhere other than adding my case to the pile.

This is my situation. I have had an older series 2 (non dual tuner) for several years. No real problems. It's on a wireless adapter. At Christmas I came home from a week away and it was locked up. A frozen image and only pulling the power worked. I didn't think much of it at the time. It has very very occasionally done that before over the years. At Christmas I also got a new Tivo HD unit. That is now set up as well and is on the Tivo wireless adapter. The new HD unit has no cable cards and is only due to get them tomorrow morning. So the new unit has just been sitting there, updated and running. I haven't set up one thing on it in terms of recordings etc. I have obviously played some with the settings when I originally set it up. It was set up around Jan 7. Since that date I have periodically "checking" Tivo on it's Tivo input as we are still using the cable company's dvr until tomorrow. Of course I have been discovering the "gray screen problem" myself. Although sometimes its a frozen image rather than a gray screen. I think my HD unit as always kept running and all the menus are available and even a reset from the menus corrects the problem until the next time. I know what your thinking.... whats new here - we all have this problem. Now the interesting bit. My old series 2 unit has also started locking up. I think once since the Christmas lockup but for sure yesterday and again sometime today. A frozen screen. No menu access. Pull power is the only option. This can not be a coincidence. My old unit worked fine for years and now it locks up as well. In fact when I came home and saw the old unit was locked, I went in the other room and checked the new HD box and sure enough it was locked too. Of course I don't know for sure that they locked up at exactly the same time. Now given that the old unit "sees" the HD unit on the Now Playing List and vice versa on the HD unit, I'm really thinking this must be a networking software issue.

This is completely unacceptable. Tivo must fix this.

Anyway, has anyone else had a similar problem with different boxes on the same network doing this? You tech savy guys out there, does this help shed any light on the potential problem?

Tivo HELP US!!!!


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## vectorzulu

I am seeing an issue that sounds very familiar.

Here is my scenario:

Tivo HD M-Card (9.2)

- I am watching Live TV and Tivo is recording a program on the other tuner.
- Video switches to a gray screen, the program info (what you get when you hit the info button) displays but it says something like "To Be Determined" or "Not Available"
- While this happens the show my Tivo was recording stops and removes the partial recording.

Does this sound like the issue everyone else is seeing?


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## strafe

Another statistic.

New TiVo HD with 8.1 software, no cablecards installed yet. I have been repeatedly connecting to the TiVo Service to get the 9.2 software (took about 5 tries) and this has happened to me 3 times. The menus are there but the background is black and no programming. I've heard some people say gray, I changed my letterboxing to black so that may be the difference. Soft reset fixed it every time. Finally got the 9.2 software and it happened again.


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## sathead

Add me to the BSOD (Black Screen of Death) list.
New out of the box TiVoHD w/9.2 software. I was seeing some stuttering on TNT-HD while recording the movie "Stealth". I went into my cable card diagnostics to check my signal level (which turned out to be 93 BTW), when I went back to "live TV" I got the black screen w/only menu's. Only way to get live or recorded video back was via reboot, but I couldn't reboot till the recording was finished 2hrs later. So, I had a nice black screen for 2 hrs.

This is the 3rd or 4th time I've seen the BSOD since I got the TiVoHD Jan 7th 2008. As A matter of fact it happened on initial guided setup without the cable cards installed. It also happened the morning the cable guy came to install the cable cards too. We had to sit there and make awkward polite conversation for 10 minutes while the TiVoHD rebooted.

Between this issue and failed transfers with content recorded from encrypted channels (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=374790)... I'm starting to think TiVoHD & cable cards are beta status and not ready for prime time.

Hello TiVo.... anybody listening out there ????


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## tdbear

Just had my 2nd experience with the Black Screen of Death on my new S2HD... I have a S3HD for over a year without any issues with it, and the S2HD less than a month.

I noticed that it begins to act up on some shows with it going black when I hit play, but then it will come back with I return to the Tivo screeen or sometimes when I FF. But when the real crash occurs, the background (which I assume is the real video) is black and we just have the overlays. Then when I select a pre-recorded program, it acts like there is nothing there... play displays a progrss bar but it has no green and I get the warning gong. When I go to live TV, still black and when I try to change channels by pushing "22" I get 2 warning gongs and when I hit enter I hear the normal blip but nothing happens. It's some sort of strange codec crash... hopefully they can reproduce it in the lab since so many of us are hitting it.

The problem with these sorts of SW issues is that they just can't do anything until they isolate and fix it. My S1 had a problem for years where its IR would get "stuck" and I had to reboot. I "solved" the problem by removing the IR and just letting it use the internal tuner. Hopefully this will get fixed quicker 

I'm not sure if I would have purchased it if I read this forum first... the lifetime was tempting, but crashes make me nervous that it is a hardware design flaw. Let's just hope it is a SW problem.


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## djextort

I just hooked up my TiVo HD S3 this evening and have been telling it to connect to download all the latest software. The last update finished and said pending restart. So naturally I restarted the TiVo, and the menu said "installing update, this may take a few minutes". I turn away and next thing I know the screen is black, and the TiVo will not respond to any remote commands. The only light on the front of the box is the green LED.

Anyone have any suggestions? I don't want to just pull the plug on it.....could the update still be installing? I figured if it was it would remain on the splash screen.

Thoughts?


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## sathead

djextort said:


> I just hooked up my TiVo HD S3 this evening and have been telling it to connect to download all the latest software. The last update finished and said pending restart. So naturally I restarted the TiVo, and the menu said "installing update, this may take a few minutes". I turn away and next thing I know the screen is black, and the TiVo will not respond to any remote commands. The only light on the front of the box is the green LED.
> 
> Anyone have any suggestions? I don't want to just pull the plug on it.....could the update still be installing? I figured if it was it would remain on the splash screen.
> 
> Thoughts?


Nothing should take more than 1-2 hours to complete once the new software has finished uploading to your hard drive. If it's unresponsive for more than 2 hrs, as a last resort... pull the plug.


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## britdiver

Well I now have further evidence that at least my problems (with both a new HD box and my old S2 box) are being caused by a networking software bug. For the last day or 2 I have not had a problem with either. But also neither box has been seeing the other on the Now Playing list. Even after several restarts on my HD box due to cablecard installation (thats not working properly yet either, but thats another story) either was showing the other. However, sometime over night my old S2 box lockup. Frozen image this morning when I turned it on. Pulling power the only solution. My HD box was OK. BUT then after the S2 rebooted, I checked both Now Playing lists and surprise surprise they now are showing each other. I just can't believe that's a coincidence. I will be calling Tivo again shortly to update my case with this new occurrence.


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## John Wilson

I too have been a victim of the Black Screen of Death as it has been named in this thread. It does seem to occur whenever the network activity has been active or even accessing the menu. These are features of the TiVo HD, not hacks, and as such we should not be subjected to hardware hangs that require soft reboots. I fell into the Lifetime transfer trap with optimistic expectations that the performance would match that of my Series 3, with which I have had virtually no problems.

Come on , TiVo. Get this resolved now. This is supposed to be your platform of the future and yet we "early" adaptors are still being used as your Beta testers!

I just called this in to TiVo and the CS person stated that a new S/W version 9.3 is "in the works" but who knows if this issue with the BSOD is included in the revision


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## bobrt6676

I too have had the BSOD after using a network function(pics and music). New TivoHD purchased after Christmas. A Restart was the only solution to getting video back.


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## britdiver

I hope everyone that is having these issues is calling Tivo? The more people that do the sooner they will escalate the work and the sooner they will release a fix.


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## tlc

I have an HD that's worked fine using cablecards for several months.

I just got a second HD from costco with the intent of transferring lifetime from an old S1. This HD will not have cablecards (just basic cable) and will be hooked to an SD set (for now). Anyway, I've seen a gray-screen-video-freeze on the first day, shortly after the software update to 9.2a. 

It has no service plan yet and it appears that it will work for 6 more days without one.

I haven't read this whole thread yet. Should I be returning this now, before I transfer lifetime? Should I delay my transfer and see if it happens again in the next 6 days?

Thanks,
tlc


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## CrispyCritter

tlc said:


> I have an HD that's worked fine using cablecards for several months.
> 
> I just got a second HD from costco with the intent of transferring lifetime from an old S1. This HD will not have cablecards (just basic cable) and will be hooked to an SD set (for now). Anyway, I've seen a gray-screen-video-freeze on the first day, shortly after the software update to 9.2a.
> 
> It has no service plan yet and it appears that it will work for 6 more days without one.
> 
> I haven't read this whole thread yet. Should I be returning this now, before I transfer lifetime? Should I delay my transfer and see if it happens again in the next 6 days?


IMO, it's fairly clear that there's a software problem causing the video freeze or no menu background when the OS is updated. It does not mean it will occur again or that you have a hardware problem.

On the other hand, it's fairly clear it _can_ also be caused by a hardware problem, and in this case it will re-occur and should be replaced. So there's no guaranteed answer for you.

My personal history on this - lack of menu backgrounds happened on my new TiVo HD when I got it in October or so, and hasn't happened since. I've had no problems with the TiVoHD.

Note there's no real problem with transferring lifetime if you need to exchange a unit through TiVo because of a hardware problem. They'll transfer the lifetime from the bad unit to the replacement unit for you automatically (or at least they did it automatically for me on my S3).


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## NaperTiVo

I have 3 THDs, they all had this same issue. Purchased them in mid-Oct to take advantage of the S1 to THD lifetime transfer. Each of them had the loss of video between 4 and 7 times. As they all finally received the most recent software and were rebooted they settled down. I have not had the issue since and had actually forgotten about the issue. I just happened to be tracking this post and saw that people are still experiencing this issue. Are these all newer THDs and S3s? Is it happening on any that are more than a month old?

And my setup...
1 THD using HDMI w/ cable cards
1 THD using component w/ cable cards
1 TDH using component w/o cable cards (too cheap to pay for another installation of cable cards)

All have been rock solid since the first two weeks.


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## ZXTT95

I've had it happen on two TiVo HDs connected to the same TV. The first went back and replacement has the same problem. The first one was replaced before cable cards were installed and second one probably failed once or twice before the CCs, and does the same after. At least once a week it has to be rebooted to get video playback to work again. It doesn't happen when we're transferring shows, so it's not obviously related to network activity. I have another TiVo HD connected to a different TV that has never done this, although it has had a couple of other issues. Both are connected using HDMI.

I don't want to swap the TiVos to see what the problem follows because the one that works is the one that is used the most, and has a DVR extender connected. Finally, last Saturday I added a 10db attenuator to problematic TiVo to see if that would affect things. Still too early to know.

So, for me I can say the following are not likely to be causes:

HDMI (not per se, although perhaps the TV it's connected to is the problem - I haven't tried component, although I could but that would leave not enough inputs for other things).
CableCARDs.
Comcast vs Verizon (failed with both).
Networking (doesn't obviously fail when transferring shows, although can't rule out it doesn't fail when updating guide data).
Hardware (two units both failed).


----------



## eibwenovit

just wanted to add that I've having the same issue. 
Tivo HD, operating for about a month. Only antenna reception (thought this might be an interesting control as compared to everyone else's set up), 720p television.

Main menu first starts up with a different color, blue instead of red. I thought this was a neat update, but then when I chose to play my recordings, I got the grey screen. same with Live TV. At this point, going back to the home menu also produces the grey screen (except for the highlighted option, which remain that nifty blue color). 

Switching Standby on and off doesn't work.
Unplugging the computer for 30 secs, and plugging back in, works.

Honorable mention: on a separate, occasion unrelated to this grey out issue, recorded program played back with audio lagging the video. dialogue out of synch. Fast fwding for a couple of minutes resolved the issue.

Annoying stuff!


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## velo116

Well, crap. Add me to the list, too. Considering so many different set-ups and the seemingly random nature. I was on the main tivo menu while i was looking up something on the computer and the screen went gray. I thought it was a screen saver, but when I pushed a button the menu came up, but no background and no live nor recorded TV.

It did this also while accessing a menu function a couple days ago.

The only seemingly common theme among all these posts is perhaps the use of the wireless adapter or perhaps high speed? 

Is anyone using phone lines and encountering the same problem? Or even eithernet?


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## velo116

jtodd929 said:


> I've had this too:
> 
> Brand new box w/ no modifications.
> 
> software: 8.1.7c originally (now 9.2a)
> Native thru Compoenent with Toslink
> first occurred shortly after completing Guided Setup
> No CableCards in use
> phone connection for updates; no internet connection
> no eSata or any other additions
> get analog cable with QAM HD
> am NOT connected to an UPS


crap, there goes my theory


----------



## velo116

One thing I did notice after restarting the machine, I had inputted the command for the 30 second commercial skip button and this was now back to normal after the restart

Would this happen with any restart? Was anyone else who's had this problem also programmed the commercial skip button?


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## carmenloves2

Me too! just bought a THD yesterday, and it happened when I was playing with the video modes. i switched to hybrid mode, the video was gone. switching back to 720p didn't help. had to reboot to fix it.

I'm glad im not alone.


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## strafe

An update - I posted that I had repeated 'blackouts' when I was originally setting up my new TiVo HD and I was repeatedly connecting to the TiVo service to try and get the 9.2 update. The problem has not occurred since (~2 weeks).


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## lqaddict

Tivo HD software 9.2a, component, wired network, resolution is set to 720p Fixed, CC's just installed.
Going to CC's configuration and trying to go back to Live TV - no video, but TC menus are functional without the background.
Reboot fixed it...


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## Phantom Gremlin

velo116 said:


> The only seemingly common theme among all these posts is perhaps the use of the wireless adapter or perhaps high speed?
> 
> Is anyone using phone lines and encountering the same problem? Or even eithernet?


It's not the wireless adapter. I've encountered the gray screen as a result of wired ethernet activity.


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## lqaddict

Phantom Gremlin said:


> It's not the wireless adapter. I've encountered the gray screen as a result of wired ethernet activity.


The same is here, I am using ethernet cable from Tivo directly to my router.


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## Lampei

Seems like there's a lot of 720P fixed users getting the error.


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## xtracrispy

Lampei said:


> Seems like there's a lot of 720P fixed users getting the error.


I have the same problem as everyone else. My TV is 1080i only, and I use 1080i Fixed mode. It has only happened to me when I have been in the menus except one time it happened right in the middle of when I was repeating the guided set up. It asked me to verify that Channel 10 was CSN. Channel 10 was just gray and the rest of the guided set up completed with a gray background. No CableCard for me yet either.


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## julied

I just set up my new TiVo HD (ordered from Amazon) and have had the "black screen" problem (well, it originally was gray, but then I changed the letterbox color to black). Comcast is coming on Tuesday to set up HD, so it is connected to my old 13 inch Sony with analog cable. I didn't change the resolution from whatever it started with (420, does that sound right? It's 4-something). 

I keep trying to transfer all the shows from my old TiVo (via wireless adapter) so that I can give the old TiVo to my parents (there's no easy way to do this, is there?), and the black screen problem keeps happening. It's really annoying because it takes FOREVER to navigate through the Now Playing list from the other TiVo to tell it to transfer a bunch of recordings and then I end up having to restart time and time again, and it forgets all the recordings it should have qued up to transfer. After the restart, the black screen is gone and things work (but it forgets the shows to transfer from the other TiVo). But, then when I go into the TiVo menu, it usually (not always) seems to get the black screen. I've seemed to cause the black screen both by setting up shows to transfer and by setting up season passes. 

This is really annoying and I don't like having a BRAND NEW right out of the box TiVo with problems. Should I try to return it (it is from Amazon)?


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## SGR215

To those who experienced this after purchasing a new Tivo here's my .02 cents. Take it for what its worth:

Don't worry too much about it. While it seems pretty major when it happens, it happens *far* less after you've had your Tivo for a week or so. It happens after you've done a lot of things involving the menu. It rarely happens, if at all, to me now. The only times it appears to happen to me, which seems to follow a similar pattern with everyone else, is when you're using the menu for an usually long period of time. (Usually when you're doing multiple things too such as changing settings, creating wishlists, looking at the todo list, etc all in one go)

The reason this is so common with new TivoHD's is because most of us spend an usually long amount of time working with the menu's and exploring all of the features after we hook up our TivoHD and/or get cable cards. After the "curiosity" factor has diminished, and normal use has begun, you'll rarely see this bug. Although it does need to be fixed, I wouldn't get to nervous about it after it happens to you.


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## hastypete

I've been using Tivo for 4 months now. I had this problem initially a few times. Then it went away. Now today, it's happened twice. And yes, I was using the menus extensivly. Doing some cleanup. Trying to order a program on Unbox. But I can't pinpoint the point at which the video went blank. It really is an annoying error. The other thing I was doing was checking the antenna signal since ABC decided to go "no signal" for some strange reason. I'm wondering if using the signal check is responsible for my problems today?


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## cpages2

Having the same problem for about 2 months now. 

TivoHD, Native, HDMI, Brighthouse Cable Cards.

I notice that it seems like a gamble when I want to watch something recording HDTV. Sometimes I hit play and its just a black screen that wont let me FF or RW, othertimes it has recorded the show. 

I find if I goto LiveTV sometimes my HD channles suffer the same fate. All my SD chanels work fine though. 

This has been my fix. I goto the settings for my cable cards then under test chanels I goto first a SD show, then I switch to HD and it seems to bring all my channels back online. 

It doest bother me to much until I go to watch TV shows and every one of them are black 

I have had BrightHouse out here multiple times and no help. Im hoping Tivo releases a fix. 

- Mike


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## renatele

hastypete said:


> The other thing I was doing was checking the antenna signal since ABC decided to go "no signal" for some strange reason. I'm wondering if using the signal check is responsible for my problems today?


This exact thing has happened to my TivoHD just now. We were watching state of the union address on ABC (SD), terrible pixelation. Went into the signal check, the tuner 1 was showing lots of errors (the one tuned to ABC), with SNR values jumping all over the place (25 to 38 or so). Tuner 0 was ok. Watched the display for a minute or two, then hit the tivo button, and the background got black. Live TV output is also gone.

My Tivo is new, have it for less than 2 weeks. No upgrades done at all. 9.2a software. Output set to 1080i hybrid. Using wired ethernet to the router.


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## Supermurph

SGR215 said:


> To those who experienced this after purchasing a new Tivo here's my .02 cents. Take it for what its worth:
> 
> Don't worry too much about it. While it seems pretty major when it happens, it happens *far* less after you've had your Tivo for a week or so.


Actually . . . . I've had this issue and an issue where the voice channel of the sound drops out for several months. It happens often and sporadically. I'd guess it's rare I make it two days without having to reset and now the reset often does not fix it. So far, I've been patiently waiting for a fix of some kind, but am now trying to escalate this with Cox. I also will soon try with Tivo. I have a feeling that I will be fed up within the next month and will either switch back to Cox's crappy DVR or will go to Dish Network. I shouldn't have to think about my TV this much.


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## britdiver

Here's my latest news. My most recent "gray screen of death" happened to occur while it was recording. I had my normal menu access even though I had gray screens for all live tv. So I waited until the recording had finished and then did my normal reset from the menus. Then I was surprised to find that the recording had completed successfully! So it couldn't show live tv but managed to record ok. Odd! 

I have just called Tivo to "update my case" and after the usual "it's the cable cards" or "you should replace the unit", I managed to convince the girl that I know this is a software issue and there are a lot of us having this problem. Finally she did at least admit it's "a known problem" and "is being worked on". Of course no idea when the fix would be ready. So at least that gave me a little glimmer of hope that a fix is coming. Maybe.

The fact that the next morning it was locked again and when I pressed the tivo central button it restarted itself was a little more disturbing and of course that was the one she was focusing on try to get my to switch the unit. Hopefully that was a one off event.


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## rob.williams

Another data point. It happened to me today. I just got CableCards installed today, so this is the first day I've used it. I was setting up "Channels I Receive" when the TiVO HD started to record American Idol in HD. When I exited the menu, I had the grey screen, and only the guide worked. Couldn't change channels, and rebooted to fix the problem.

The 10 minutes of AI that was recorded during this time was able to play back properly after I rebooted.


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## Phantom Gremlin

britdiver said:


> So I waited until the recording had finished and then did my normal reset from the menus. Then I was surprised to find that the recording had completed successfully! So it couldn't show live tv but managed to record ok. Odd!


That's not "odd", it's quite consistent with other reports. When I had my "gray screen of death" I had 2 programs being recorded. They both completed just fine.


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## Moebius

I had this happen on my unit just out of the box yesterday, but to be honest, I believe it was half my fault anyway.

Fresh out of the box TiVoHD
No cable card
No antenna connection
Connection to cable
Component output with optical audio 
Composite output to dvdr 

Had just finished a connection and was exploring a bit while the update was loading, trying to see if I could get any of the open hd channels (don't ask why). 

Obviously, most were no signal, and somewhere along the way I think I ended up trying an invalid, like 5-0 or some such animal. Then I switched scaling mode while I was looking through the menus and end up with the menu, but no background. Live TV is blank, bonks when I hit Info, guide comes up, but pressing select on a channel doesn't act like it tries to tune it. Pretty much nothing. I manually entered 59, switched tuners and did the same thing, but still nothing. Noticed under now playing the TiVo welcome vidoes were there. Tried to play one, same result, nothing. Checked and the same was happening with both the component and composite outputs.

Finally decided to just reboot (from menu). Came back up (after a seriously nail-biting wait) and seemed fine. Both tuners were tuned to channel 59, menus had background, videos played. I checked and of course the last call to the mothership was now listed as failed, so I forced connection again, made myself not mess around until it finished loading and rebooting. So far, no troubles since.


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## Angelus2007

I have had this problem 4 times since I got my new TiVoHD. All 4 times I was deep in the menus and using them for a while. I know for a fact the last 2 times which were right after each other this evening, I was at the cable card menu (can't get my second cable card to work with Comcast but that is another issue) and hit Live TV, if I back out or hit the TiVo button before Live TV didn't have a problem. The first time I was looking at the downloadable programs(CNET, Onion, ect). The second time playing with the cable card menu. I am not sure if I hit Live TV from those menus. 

I talked to 2 different people from TiVo this evening and one person told me version 9.2b should fix it, the next guy said 9.2b doesn't exist and I have the most recent version 9.2a Does anyone know if 9.2b exists and it that may fix the problem? 

I am not too concerned, I have only had it 2 weeks and I have using the menus a lot with my cable card problems, and like a previous poster said, it seems to happen to new owners since you spend alot more times in the menu. I know with my Series 2, after the first week I never went anywhere except now playing and to do list 95% of the time.


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## britdiver

I did finally get a customer service rep to admit it was a known issue and they are "working on it". Now how close they are to a new software release, she wouldn't say. I'm sure she doesn't know.


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## kmsarno

It seems to me that there is one common element since so many things have been ruled out (HDMI vs. component, ethernet vs. phone, cable card vs. none, wired vs. wireless, various video modes set as default in the menus, etc.). 

It is simply internal resolution switching. Somehow the TiVO HD can lose track of the resolution of the digital source bit-stream it's supposed to be processing...it just gets "lost", maybe in software, maybe in hardware (i.e. a bit gets stuck in some hardware register holding a number that indicates resolution) when the box has to switch from one resolution to another. For example, it happens a lot when people press the "Live TV" button, which causes the box to have to switch out of Tivo's internal 720p background video into some other resolution, even if just for a moment. 

Once the problem kicks in, the menus and graphics work but no video source does, including TiVo's own internal background video loops. I think this shows that the internal graphics generation subsystem can sync up with the required output rez just fine, but the INPUT signal source, wherever it's coming from, can no longer be "found", decoded, and merged with internally generated graphics such as menus and channel banners. The incoming gets lost regardless of its source.

A reboot causes either (or both) the defective software module and the DAC chip to be reset and sync up properly with the video signal source again.

This might also explain why recordings that are in progress when the problem starts seem to complete normally but cannot be viewed until after a reboot--the tuner doing the recording is not disturbed by the problem because nothing changes for that tuner. But recordings that are initiated after the problem has already kicked in are more likely to record gray or black and NOT be visible after a reboot. In this case, the box is trying to start recording an input source it can't sync up with. 

This guess is based on the reports on this thread and my own experience with the problem (I can basically get it to happen at will). Maybe it's a wrong observation. In any case, what I can't figure out is why it's taking TiVo so long to find it--let alone officially acknowledge it--after 300-400 people have reported it on this thread alone over a period of months.


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## Lenonn

I has this problem again last night - again, after I initiated a transfer of a couple of programs from another room. I'm pretty sure I used the left "arrow" on the control to back-out all the way instead of hitting the TiVo button, though.

This is a major problem right now - I can't reliably start a transfer then go to watch something at the same time (or so it seems).


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## dianebrat

kmsarno said:


> It is simply internal resolution switching. Somehow the TiVO HD can lose track of the resolution of the digital source bit-stream it's supposed to be processing...it just gets "lost", maybe in software, maybe in hardware (i.e. a bit gets stuck in some hardware register holding a number that indicates resolution) when the box has to switch from one resolution to another. For example, it happens a lot when people press the "Live TV" button, which causes the box to have to switch out of Tivo's internal 720p background video into some other resolution, even if just for a moment.


Great idea, but in my case, my TivoHD is analog only, no digital to have any changes in resolution.

just adding to the data pool...


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## ZXTT95

I was having this repeatedly on one of my TiVo HDs. It would happen at least once a week. After using attenuator(s) to get the SNR from around 37 down to 31-33, depending on channels, it's gone three weeks (I think) without the problem. Not long enough to be satisfied this is working, but my hopes are up.


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## tluxon

I bought a couple TiVoHD's ($250 deal at Vann's.com) to give them a try in comparison to our Comcast Motorola DC*-3416's. One of them has been in service for just over a week while the other is still in the box. We just experienced this "black screen of death" last night. A restart resolved the issue. I have the TiVoHD outputting 1080i Hybrid through Component, and our source is OTA-HD and digital cable (M-stream CC).

Interesting behavior was that any use of the transport functions resulted in a "bonk", except for playing MP3's off of a TiVo Desktop'ed PC. At the time I wondered if anything could've been broken when I closed TiVo Desktop without stopping the TiVo Desktop Server (in the host PC's system tray). Now that I've found this thread it doesn't look the problem can be so well contained.


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## TiVoPony

An update for you all - I'd last reported that our engineers had been able to replicate the problem here. They've since developed a fix, and it's tested well in beta. It's planned for our next software update for the TiVo HD platform (not far off, weeks not months).

As usual, we are planning to have a priority list up when this release is ready to go out, I'll let you all know when it's ready. Thanks again for the detailed reports here, they're invaluable in tracking this sort of issue down (and a second thank you to those who joined the beta to test the fix).

Cheers,
Pony


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## lew

I hope this solves the problem. I reported the problem, a few weeks ago, and was told the problem was limited to users with SA cable cards. They seemed surprised when I said I have 2 Motorola cards.


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## bizzy

TiVoPony said:


> An update for you all - I'd last reported that our engineers had been able to replicate the problem here. They've since developed a fix, and it's tested well in beta. It's planned for our next software update for the TiVo HD platform (not far off, weeks not months).


Thanks for the update on this issue. I was hoping to also see an update on the Series 3 reboot thread: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=378311

Has there been any progress in determining what the problem is?


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## Lorcane

I'm glad to hear a fix is coming. I just got my TiVo HD a few weeks ago. I'm still having cable card issues, but Time Warner is sending me an M-Card this time. I noticed the problem when I was trying to troubleshoot my Motorola S-Cards. When I backed out of the cable cards menu I'd loose all video, but keep the menu overlay.


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## britdiver

Great news TivoPony. I assume you actually work for Tivo to get this inside info? At least somebody at Tivo knows they need to tell us something is happening. I bet a lot of first time users have gotten a bad taste in their mouths from their first try with a Tivo and probably will never be back. And no news from Tivo after months doesn't help. 

Can't wait for the fix. Thanks again.


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## CharlesH

britdiver said:


> Great news TivoPony. I assume you actually work for Tivo to get this inside info?


Note the "TiVo Product Marketing" in TiVoPony's signature. I think it is fair to say that he is both an insider at TiVo, as well as being authorized to disclose this sort of info to the public.


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## britdiver

Yeah. I noticed that after I posted the reply. So that's great news. Not just a rumor heard third hand but straight from Tivo product marketing. Excellent.


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## koensayr

I know how engineering teams go. You never know when you are going to be done with a project, as new unforseen problems come up. But it would be great if TivoPony would mention an expected release date for this update. I'd also be curious to see a list of other things that will be fixed in this update.

-Josh


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## britdiver

TivoPony. 

Can you also confirm that there is no hardware issues here? It appears some people are still being told by customer service to return and exchange their boxes. So is there a hardware issue or is this a stalling tactic until the software fix comes out? I just don't want to find out in a month or so I also need to switch to a new box.

Thanks in advance for your advice.


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## britdiver

Yet more confirmation of what others have been saying. My HD box hadn't had the gray screen of death in a couple of weeks at least and last night I started playing with some settings for closed captioning. And today I turned on the tv and all channels (or at least the ones I checked) are all gray (but it was recording a show fine). So confirmation that playing in the menus and changing settings seems to induce the lockup more often. I doubt Tivo will do it, but I wish they would tell us once the patch has been released, what the problem was. Just out of curiosity I would love to know what the bug is.


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## opus472

Just had something similar happen. First the Tivo Central screen changed from red to blue. Then it went to black (could still read it, white text on black background). Tried to play recorded programs, got black screen. Restarted the box, appears to have solved the problem.


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## Moebius

So far, I was only able to reproduce the problem on the first day I got my cablecard installed, and that was staying in menus for a long time while the tuner was tuned to a channel with no signal. I've played around in menus for extended times since, but the tuner had a valid signal playing when I did, so it's hard to judge for sure.


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## asualumni03

We have been having this problem since we installed the Tivo two months ago. A reboot always resolved the issue. However, last night, the gray screen appeared on channels 23 and up (basically we are getting all local and local HD, but not any others). We have rebooted five times and completed the guided setup twice with no resolution.

I just spoke with four different reps at Tivo - all four calls were disconnected by the reps. They basically said it is a CableCard problem. Does anyone have any advice on how to resolve this? After reading this forum, it doesn't seem it will be worth my time to have Cox come back out and replace the card. Or is it?


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## kupe

Well, got the dreaded "gray screen" today. Happened while scrolling through Amazon Unbox movies under "Download TV and Movies". This is our second-ever occurrence of gray-screen. The first was two weeks ago and it was the first day we had our Tivo HD (first day occurrences seem to have come up alot in this thread.) Running 9.2a on Tivo HD.

Kupe


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## hijammer

I just bought 2 new Tivo HD and i have had several instances of the gray screen in the few days I have had them. I was wondering when this software up date is coming b/c i may just return them if it not coming soon.


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## kenrippy

i've had the grey screens also with a new tivoHD. (9.2a software) it's happened about 5 times in the first week of use. a restart fixes it, but i sure hope this new fix from tivo will take care of it for good.

on a side note, TW cable can't get any M-cards to work so far in this box. someone is coming by tomorrow with a variety of "pre-tested" cards (some S-cards too) to see if they can get any of them to work. this is very frustrating, since time warner doesn't seem to care much whether or not they get it working for me. (huntington beach, ca)


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## hijammer

I did find out that even thou I had a gray screen my Tivo continued recording and the recording came out fine.


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## Grungir

After the first few days of random rebooting and grey screens, the issue seems to have fixed itself a bit. I have only had one random reboot after I got an update.

One problem i still have:
In TC, it still plays live TV instead of showing the normal TC background. After reading a few threads, I may go back and switch the res from Native to Hybrid. Anyone else know what the issue is? It is pretty hard to read the text without the right background


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## rockymountaind

Grungir said:


> After the first few days of random rebooting and grey screens, the issue seems to have fixed itself a bit. I have only had one random reboot after I got an update.


Same here. Twice in the first week or two, but not since then.



> One problem i still have:
> In TC, it still plays live TV instead of showing the normal TC background. After reading a few threads, I may go back and switch the res from Native to Hybrid. Anyone else know what the issue is? It is pretty hard to read the text without the right background


Never seen this, but I think some owners might like such a feature


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## RoundBoy

im going to chime in... TivoHD with the latest software... I only get this problem when i change the output resolution in the options menu repeatedly to test output quality.

Only has happened twice, but a reboot fixes. Glad to see a fix is ready.. hopefully this new update also fixes the dual tuner scheduler bug as well.


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## h00ligan

I'm running 9.2a on mine as well.. i have had one grey screen in the last week or so - on one of my boxes.. that said.. it seems to coincide for me with channel lineup changes - and plenty of those are coming this month.. so we will see..

Regardless there are several bugs that need to be worked out, hopefully the gray screen is banished. When was 9.2a pushed? I don't think it was directly responsible for less gray screening for me but I am not sure.


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## Eccles

I just had this happen to me again. At the time, I was transferring programs from my S2 in the background, and was working on my Season Pass list. I went away for a few minutes, and when I returned the THD was displaying a black screen instead of Live TV.


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## h00ligan

I jinxed myself, i had to reboot one last night due to the gsod


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## BEZMan

HVYCHVY said:


> Yeah, I get menu area ie: now playing list, messages + settings. It's been unplugged for about 4.5 hours.....we'll see if it works now. I did change the resolution from 1080i to native after watching about hours worth of recorded shows. After I rebooted, it went to the menu screen, hten when I hit live tv, it flickered like it was wanting to show it, saw a brief second of live TV, then blackness.
> 
> I'll undo my DVD component video and hook it to the S3, maybe it will work.
> 
> UPDATE: Wow, it had something to do with my resolution setting. I changed it back to 1080i and valia I gots a picture again. I have a Samsung 5265f, so it shoud have been able to support all the various resolutions.


I had a 4065f, and unfortunately it did NOT support 480i. I am assuming the same holds for your 5265f. To make it work, I had to use Hybrid, NOT Native. It may be what caused your problem in this case.


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## vulture99

New TiVo HD owner - I bought a refurb unit from the recent woot.com deal. Setup went fine but later I encountered the gray screen issue. If I hit the TiVo button it brings up the main menu, but no background image. This also occurred when watching live TV. I have not tried recording yet so I don't know if recording is affected.

This happened both with the 8.1 software and after the box updated to 9.2a. The reboot after the service update restored the normal background image, but this morning when I turned on the TV it had the gray screen again. Hit TiVo button, got menu with no background image. Rebooted, back to normal for now.

My THD was built in Dec 2007. I have it set to Hybrid 720p because I use an HDTV with max 720p resolution. I am only recording OTA signals (no cable cards).

So...after reading through the thread I understand we are awaiting a magical software update from TiVo? But we don't know when it will arrive or whether it will fix this issue??


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## taomaster99

Also received the TIVO HD from Woot.com and so far have gotten the black screen once - here is the setup:
component cables, 720 fixed, non-modded, comcast cable (with m-card, Motorola).

The one time it happened I had just transferred some shows over from my old Series 2 Tivo and went back to the main TIVO screen and hit the live tv button when it went black screen. I was leaving for work so I just shut the tv off, hoping it would clear up after I got home, but it didn't. I rebooted and it came back, the shows by the way transferred over ok (other then one being cut short but that is for a different thread), I was able to play them with no problems. That was a few days ago and since then I changed the resolution to 720p hybrid and haven't had any problems, even after tranferring files. We'll see how long that holds true though. Nice to see there is a fix, probably, coming along though.


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## daverdfw

mine hasnt done it today, here is my sw version 9.2a-01-2-652 anyone else have the same of diff version?


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## dhoward

I have had the grey screen problem like everyone else here. However, it is now manifesting itself in a new way now. I upgraded to the latest version of Tivo Desktop. Now when I initiate a pc to Tivo transfer about 4 minutes in my screen goes grey and I have to restart Tivo to get out of it. Anyone else with this problem and where is the promised fix?


----------



## substance12

dhoward said:


> I have had the grey screen problem like everyone else here. However, it is now manifesting itself in a new way now. I upgraded to the latest version of Tivo Desktop. Now when I initiate a pc to Tivo transfer about 4 minutes in my screen goes grey and I have to restart Tivo to get out of it. Anyone else with this problem and where is the promised fix?


I used pytivo and initiated a transfer of a movie while 2 shows were being recorded and I attempted to watch a show at the same time... I believe that was what caused my grey screen. Simply doing too much. Were you by any chance doing something similar?


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## dhoward

No, nothing. I had tried twice and for some reason each time it stopped the transfer after about 4-6 minutes and then erased it. On the 3rd time I decided to stay on the now playing screen to watch the copy progress and this time everything went grey. I had to restart the Tivo as usual to clear the problem. Now that I have done a restart I am trying it again.


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## inahaz

I'll join the club here. I just bought and installed 2 THD's. (Cable company is coming next week to hook up cable and install M-cards). So, coax isn't even connected to these boxes yet. I have networked them and have been downloading music videos from the broadband connection. At the same time I was transferring video from my home PC and playing around with other features. I quickly had one with the GSOD. I've had to reboot 3 times tonight. I haven't noticed it yet on my second box, but maybe that is because I haven't used it much yet. 

Until I saw this thread, I was under the impression (as others have mentioned) that I was doing too much at once and it just crashed. Hopefully an update will clear this up. 

It takes A LOOOOOOONG time to reboot these things... I may rethink my decison to cancel my DirecTV if this continues. I'll give it a week, then return them to the store and cancel the service if it doesn't clear up. (I'm not very patient when I'm paying good money for this stuff.)


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## kenrippy

inahaz said:


> I'll join the club here. I just bought and installed 2 THD's. (Cable company is coming next week to hook up cable and install M-cards). So, coax isn't even connected to these boxes yet. I have networked them and have been downloading music videos from the broadband connection. At the same time I was transferring video from my home PC and playing around with other features. I quickly had one with the GSOD. I've had to reboot 3 times tonight. I haven't noticed it yet on my second box, but maybe that is because I haven't used it much yet.
> 
> Until I saw this thread, I was under the impression (as others have mentioned) that I was doing too much at once and it just crashed. Hopefully an update will clear this up.
> 
> It takes A LOOOOOOONG time to reboot these things... I may rethink my decison to cancel my DirecTV if this continues. I'll give it a week, then return them to the store and cancel the service if it doesn't clear up. (I'm not very patient when I'm paying good money for this stuff.)


hang in there, it will stop after a couple days. same thing happened to my new tivoHD. it's been about a month now and no more GSOD's or forced reboots.


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## Devx

inahaz said:


> I'll join the club here. I just bought and installed 2 THD's. (Cable company is coming next week to hook up cable and install M-cards). So, coax isn't even connected to these boxes yet. I have networked them and have been downloading music videos from the broadband connection. At the same time I was transferring video from my home PC and playing around with other features. I quickly had one with the GSOD. I've had to reboot 3 times tonight. I haven't noticed it yet on my second box, but maybe that is because I haven't used it much yet.
> 
> Until I saw this thread, I was under the impression (as others have mentioned) that I was doing too much at once and it just crashed. Hopefully an update will clear this up.
> 
> It takes A LOOOOOOONG time to reboot these things... I may rethink my decison to cancel my DirecTV if this continues. I'll give it a week, then return them to the store and cancel the service if it doesn't clear up. (I'm not very patient when I'm paying good money for this stuff.)


I have 2 THD's too and no GSOD's on either box. Either before the cable card was installed or after. They've been solid other than seemingly random disappearing of the background and even that's rare. I've only seen it 3 times in 4 months between both boxes. IMO, GSOD's are a bit more serious. If one box has GSOD's and the other doesn't then I would exchange the box giving me the problem. If you think it might be the type of activity (ie. the transfers, etc.) you should test the other box to make sure it's an actual software issue and not failing hardware. I've transferred video from my PC and my S2, streamed music, and used the local weather features and haven't had any issues with crashes. Like you said, you paid good money for a new box. I'd hate for you to have to take advantage of the warranty and get a refurb'd box 2 months later and lose any shows on it when the problem presented itself much earlier. All their quirks aside, these boxes are pretty solid.


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## chewy2314

tivopony,
any more news? add me to the list of BSOD. happens when i mess with output resolution. been okay with hybrid 480p/1080i. running with analog cable and OTA HD.


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## britdiver

Yes. PLEASE. News.

I thought my GSOD were diminishing in number but two in three days. I had set it to record the repeat of a show it failed to record on Sunday again today, and once again the GSOD meant it failed to record it for a second time. NOT HAPPY. I'm running out of patience Tivo. Still no official word that they have even found this problem.


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## tluxon

chewy2314 said:


> tivopony,
> any more news? add me to the list of BSOD. happens when i mess with output resolution. been okay with hybrid 480p/1080i. running with analog cable and OTA HD.


That's when it's happened with mine as well. I don't really like the "Native" setting because of all the video snap, crackle, pops when going between channels of different resolution, but as long as I leave it there I haven't had any BSOD's.


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## h00ligan

man you guys here are being SOOOO nice about this.. i have another message for tivopony, one that will get censored so why don't i censor the post myself. I say this having had this issue about 40% of my powered on time and having had to reboot the tivos (2 of them) daily for the last 4 days,, so yah sorry but let's get to the point.

tell the TiVo staff, to stop adding &*(^ing useless ^&*%ing features and fix the *&^(ucking fact that in SIX MONTHS you guys have done NOTHING about this. I am SICK AND TIRED of missing s^&t because my tivo decides it can't see video anymore.

J(Sus get it together, at the very least credits should be ROLLING out at this point.. i am paying for a service that fails constantly.. between this and other issues, i can't say i'll be recommending TiVo to anyone, unlike when I had my series 1 directivo and couldn't brag enough about how great it was.

Reliability is apparently directly inversely proportional to 'added extras'. The reason people buy a tivo and don't build a media center (at least people like me) is a lack of desire to spend their evenings figuring out why the piece of crap in the livingroom fails to work properly... so they pay a premium..

apparently i lose on both sides.

ps i set to 720p fixed and don't res change and it STILL happens daily... to BOTH units.



asualumni03 said:


> We have been having this problem since we installed the Tivo two months ago. A reboot always resolved the issue. However, last night, the gray screen appeared on channels 23 and up (basically we are getting all local and local HD, but not any others). We have rebooted five times and completed the guided setup twice with no resolution.
> 
> I just spoke with four different reps at Tivo - all four calls were disconnected by the reps. They basically said it is a CableCard problem. Does anyone have any advice on how to resolve this? After reading this forum, it doesn't seem it will be worth my time to have Cox come back out and replace the card. Or is it?


BULL. I have had at this point SIX cable cards in my units and this is a consistant issue.. and IIRC it was two different brands - sci-at and motorola.


----------



## h00ligan

I just spoke with a TiVo supervisor, explained the situation - and basically they credited me for the service (or lack thereof) and told me i could cancel my contract (i bought the units at costco so they can still be returned).

She also said they have made 'progress' but when pressed mentioned there is still doubt as to the origin of the issue, and there is no specced time for a fix. 

Effectively it would seem they really have no idea how to fix this.. as such I am now exploring other options.

Disappointing.


----------



## Devx

h00ligan, not to belittle the issue or derail your efforts in any way but you shouldn't be missing shows because of the no video issue. The whole point of the issue was that it was an inconvenience. A serious one, but still just an inconvenience. The Tivo can still see video but any user watching the Tivo cannot until it is restarted. The workaround is to let it continue recording shows in the background and come back later to restart it once it's done to make sure you don't miss anything. Should anyone have to do this? Of course not, but that workaround is available for the shows that are too important to miss even 5 mins.


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## h00ligan

That is not what happens for me.

The screen goes grey and any recordings register as 0:00 and ask for a delete as soon as they are played. Thing is, it keeps recording - but just shows up as a nothing show. So yes, I am missing shows, frequently.


----------



## Dmyze

Well I hope the fix comes out soon. 

I have been having this issue for some time now. It happens fiarly often when I transfer data from my TS3 to my THD.

My theory is that there is some kind of 'buffer overflow' going on with the network card, when it gets too much data, it knocks out, or at least hijacks the Video Processor. 

I wonder if it's realated to wired vs wireless.

When people post they should mention if they are using wired or wireless, on each of their Tivos.

My HD is on wired, TS3 is wireless


----------



## chewy2314

h00ligan said:


> That is not what happens for me.
> 
> The screen goes grey and any recordings register as 0:00 and ask for a delete as soon as they are played. Thing is, it keeps recording - but just shows up as a nothing show. So yes, I am missing shows, frequently.


hmm. strange. when i get GSOD, if i tried playing a recorded show, it does what you said, but as soon as i reboot the TiVo, the same show plays fine.


----------



## aindik

chewy2314 said:


> hmm. strange. when i get GSOD, if i tried playing a recorded show, it does what you said, but as soon as i reboot the TiVo, the same show plays fine.


Me too. The PITA factor is that if this happens while a show (that you care about) is recording, you can't reboot the TiVo or you'll miss almost 10 minutes of the show while the TiVo reboots. So, until it stops recording, you can't watch anything.


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## Mars Rocket

I've had the black screen issue pop up twice in the past two weeks after no problems for several months. I don't remember what I was doing for the prior event, but this last time I was just messing around in the program guide and trying to tune to some channels that aren't in my lineup yet (but are due to be added).

The strange thing to me is how some people have the problem frequently and others only see it every few months.


----------



## jebbbz

chewy2314 said:


> hmm. strange. when i get GSOD, if i tried playing a recorded show, it does what you said, but as soon as i reboot the TiVo, the same show plays fine.


I think you and h00ligan are talking about different things.

There are two different problems that superficially present similar symptoms. You are experiencing loss of video playback, which is a problem with the Tivo (probably the MPEG2 decoder freezing, which I will assume to be the problem for now) while h00ligan appears to be suffering a cablecard authorization bug that prevents display of encrypted cable channels.

Thus, your recordings continue unaffected because mere recording does not involve the MPEG2 decoder. You cannot watch live TV because that does require a functioning decoder, as does playback of recorded shows as well as playback of the animated backgrounds Tivo displays behind menus (display of the menu text does not involve the MPEG2 decoder).

The problem h00oligan describes affects only reception and display of encrypted channels from the cable company, whether live or "recorded" after the problem arises. Previously recorded shows play back fine and analog cable and all OTA shows from an antenna play fine, and menus look normal. If h00ligan records a show after the cable card goes crazy the show will be black and zero length.

Rebooting always (to my knowledge) fixes your problem and usually fixes h00ligan's but eventually reboots stop working for the cable card problem h00ligan describes. Tivo can fix the MPEG2 decoder problem all by themselves but the cable card problem h00ligan encounters seems to require help from the cable card manufacturer. As far as I know, only Scientific Atlanta cable cards are affected.

(If h00ligan is in an area that uses Motorola equipment then ignore everything I have said about that problem.)


----------



## chewy2314

jebbbz said:


> I think you and h00ligan are talking about different things.
> [snip].. while h00ligan appears to be suffering a cablecard authorization bug that prevents display of encrypted cable channels. [snip]


ahh. i see. i'll find out if CC affect my box soon. CC due to be installed April 5th.


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## britdiver

This is amazing. Although I had this problem a lot when I first got the machine in Jan, it hadn't happened much in the last couple of months. BUT just as a couple of posters mentioned it has happened twice in the last few days. We have different machines, different cable cards, different cable companies, different parts of the country but we all got several GSOD in the past few days. Now thats amazing.

Also up until these last two occurrences it has always kept recording something if it was scheduled. However, these last two times it has NOT recorded what was scheduled. Now that is new for me. In fact the most recent occurrence I couldn't even get the menus up. Again new.

TivoPony we need news. People on these forums are tivo "fans" and are a lot more tolerant than most. Most people would have already returned the machine and gone in another direction. And I can't blame them. I too can not possibly recommend Tivo to anyone right now. I was actually considering getting a second machine but I will have to wait to see if Tivo fix this first.

Tivo will be out of business very soon if they continue to have these problems. RIP Tivo!

Added:

I strongly urge Tivo to make an official announcement about this issue. Remember there has not been one single official acknowledgement that there is even an issue. As far as we know Tivo may not even be looking for a fix as every customer service rep says something different and none seem confident of a fix coming soon.


----------



## BMoreE

I need to second that last post: sitting on the phone with tech support, I commented to my wife that there isn't a chance in hell that any normal (i.e. non-geek) person would put up with the crap we're going through to just make the basic functions of our DVR work. I was totally devoted to TiVo, but slowly I'm realizing that the FiOS DVR that I initially thought sucked (because it did) is improving to the point where the reasons for fighting to get TiVo working are fading.

Add in the fact that there are a few issues with seemingly non-existent resolution out there (I'm on two "it happens to me" lists) and I cannot imagine this company staying in business. When your product is basically competing against one that is free, you need to shine. And Tivo used to shine. But now, their problems are even losing us first-adopter zealots, to the point where they just survive on their brand name I guess.

Sucks for me as I fought to get life time service on this latest box. Keeping fingers crossed that they keep going long enough to make that investment pay off.

ANYWAY, to the point of the thread: hoping not to jinx myself, but my GSOD hasn't happened to me for at least 3 months. It only happened a few times during my initial setup and playing. I do not utilize the PC features very much, and don't download shows at all, so maybe I avoid the pitfalls. If you get them at first, give it a few weeks and hopefully you'll experience the same.


----------



## Mobocracy

Dmyze said:


> Well I hope the fix comes out soon.
> 
> I have been having this issue for some time now. It happens fiarly often when I transfer data from my TS3 to my THD.
> 
> My theory is that there is some kind of 'buffer overflow' going on with the network card, when it gets too much data, it knocks out, or at least hijacks the Video Processor.


I've had it happen twice in the last 2 days. The first time was transferring shows from my S2 to HD. The second was switching from "Native" back to "720P Fixed".

Maybe mode changes and network utilization cause some kind of interrupt problem or something else that hangs the decoder.


----------



## Greg_R

I have a Tivo HD and a Series 3 HD. The Tivo HD has required 3 soft reboots so far in the past month to fix the blank recording / choppy video / no video issue (I guess I'm lucky?). The Series 3 HD has worked perfectly. Both units have 2 S-cards w. Verizon Fios. This is definitely a Tivo issue. Both units are connected to my router through a GigE wired switch network.


----------



## aaronwt

I've not had any problems with the TiVoHD I have on FIOS. All my TiVs ar on a gigabit network. I did have a GSOD, but that was when I downgraded from a 1TB drive to a 500GB and there was a bad sector on it. The TiVo did it's thing so it skips over the bad sector and it's been fine.


----------



## dd_0

I have a THD with 2 Comcast s-cards (they refuse to give me an m-card). Programming works fine, so it's not worth arguing. Software is 9.2a. 

My TV supports all formats up to 1080p and I can get GSOD to happen/not happen simply by switching video output from native (GSOD) to 1080i fixed (no GSOD.) Naturally, I would prefer to have native, but if I can avoid GSOD by selecting 1080i, so be it, for the time being. If I get GSOD under other circumstances, that's a differnt matter!

Incidentally, there seem to be two types of GSOD - one low res and one high res, presumably depending on the input.

Add me to the list of people anxiously waiting for a fix, but I'm not holding my breath as there are way too many variables. TiVo and the cable companies will point fingers at each other while we paying consumers are consigned to ignorant CSR Hell.


----------



## xboard07

I have had the black screen occur when scrolling through my music on the Tivo, not just when in live TV mode or watching a recording.


----------



## toy4two

Add one more to this behavior. I've only had my TIVO HD 2 days, exact same thing happened day 1.

You can still go through all the menus etc, but if you try to play anything or watch live tv all you get is a black screen.

Color my not impressed with TIVO so far.

When the problem occured details: No cable cards, just analog cable and OTA and QAM. Output res set to 1080i Hybrid. Software version 8.1.7.

I feel your pain guys, when the Directv HR20 first came out it had lots of bugs like this, luckily they were all fixed through updates in the stream. I hope it gets better, but I'm not keeping this thing longer than 3 weeks because I want to return it.


----------



## lessd

toy4two said:


> Add one more to this behavior. I've only had my TIVO HD 2 days, exact same thing happened day 1.
> 
> You can still go through all the menus etc, but if you try to play anything or watch live tv all you get is a black screen.
> 
> Color my not impressed with TIVO so far.
> 
> When the problem occured details: No cable cards, just analog cable and OTA and QAM. Output res set to 1080i Hybrid. Software version 8.1.7.
> 
> I feel your pain guys, when the Directv HR20 first came out it had lots of bugs like this, luckily they were all fixed through updates in the stream. I hope it gets better, but I'm not keeping this thing longer than 3 weeks because I want to return it.


A soft re-boot will fix your problem until TiVo comes out with v9.3 for the Series 3 and TiVo-HD.


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## MIghtyTitan

Add me to the list of people experiencing this problem.

I have had my TiVo HD unit for less than 2 weeks and I have lost the picture and audio twice. When this happens, I can still see the TiVo Central and other TiVo menu displays except that the backgrounds are gray. When I switch to Live TV I get a gray screen and no sound. 

Toggling through the different video output modes on the TiVo does not fix the problem. 

I can reestablish the picture and audio by resetting my TiVo unit. When I reestablish the picture and audio I see that whatever was being recorded at the time of the problem was recorded OK. 

I use an antenna for my HD source. I don't use cable. 

I normally use the fixed 720P video output signal with my Sharp LCD HDTV.

In 7 days, TiVoPony's promised fix will have taken (2+) months; not weeks as hoped for.


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## jebbbz

toy4two said:


> Add one more to this behavior. I've only had my TIVO HD 2 days, exact same thing happened day 1.
> 
> You can still go through all the menus etc, but if you try to play anything or watch live tv all you get is a black screen.
> ...
> 
> When the problem occured details: No cable cards, just analog cable and OTA and QAM. Output res set to 1080i Hybrid. Software version 8.1.7.


My experience was that this problem only occured if I had spent a lot of time navigating the Tivo menu system as was the case when I first ran setup and again when I had cablecards installed. By any chance did your problem arise on your first day during or immediately after your setup?


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## britdiver

I just tried to send a private message to TivoPony to beg for news, and he has exceeded his quota and can't receive any more messages. Emailing him is also blocked.

TivoPony - news please I beg you!


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## KRKeegan

I have had this issue for quite some time. Although, for me it only occurs every 2 weeks or so. Mine is a wired TiVoHD. It happens a lot while browsing and downloading content so I agree it could be a buffer overflow.


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## MIghtyTitan

I received the following message from the TiVo Help Forums Team regarding my posting on their web site:



> Initial release stages of 9.3 for the HD models is occurring right now.
> In a couple weeks it should be ramped up.


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## 1080p_Junkie

Add another to the mix.......Series3 HD, Latest SW, 1080i Hybrid Video Mode here. I've had the unit for a little over a week now. I have the same/similar problems to most of the folks in this thread, and I'm desperately awaiting a fix if ever one does arrive.

I only get the blank screen/no audio with certain HD channels, but I can NEVER get them to appear live. I can record on those channels....most of the time. Oh yeah, and there are other HD channels that seem to ALWAYS be available for live viewing.....perhaps I haven't given the unit enough time to screw those up, too. Standard resolution channels also seem fine......for now.....

I'm running dual Motorola M-cards in Single mode (I'm 90&#37; sure....not sure how to confirm the single-mode part).

I have rebooted (hard and soft) several times to no avail.

I've even recorded a few episodes of Heroes on MojoHD and managed to get HD video, but NO audio .... what the hell??? 

I have counted on the machine to record all the HD shows that I cannot view live, but as I mentioned before, that has backfired a few times (showing 0:00 for the recording...again, even after a reboot). 

If it weren't for my reliable S2 DT Tivo that is set to record the same shows in standard resolution then I would've missed those episodes altogether!

I'm going to give this a couple more weeks before the unit gets returned, and I demand a full refund for my $400 lifetime membership.

VERY DISAPPOINTED PREVIOUSLY LOYAL CUSTOMER.

Series3 HD w/ ESATA 640GB Expansion in 1080i Hybrid Display Mode
Series2 DT No Mods


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## ZXTT95

1080p_Junkie,

The problem on discussed by most people on this thread does not involve most of the strangeness you describe. It looks like you have an S3, but I also think that this problem relates to TiVo HD only, but I'm not 100% sure of that. We see the TiVo lose the ability to play back all video, including menu backgrounds, which is always fixed by a soft reboot. The TiVo can record normally while the video can't play. This behavior is consistent, with some minor variations in how the video looks when it starts failing.

I point this out because you may want to consider cable card problems, hard drive problems or other hardware problems rather than waiting for a software fix.


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## tmesser

ZXTT95 said:


> I point this out because you may want to consider cable card problems, hard drive problems or other hardware problems rather than waiting for a software fix.


Yeah, I agree. In particular, the "video but no audio" points to a pretty common CableCARD pairing problem.

There has definitely been a problem here, but it has not occurred on my THD since October.


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## 1080p_Junkie

Ok, I'll look more into the CableCARD possible issues.....seems odd because both CC's 'subscribed' & 'verified' just fine.....


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## britdiver

Well my old S2 box was updated to software version 9.3 last night. I signed up for the priority list (only for S2 machines) and last night I got the update. Note, there was no message at all. It looked like a normal overnight connect but when I checked the software version, it had been updated. My TivoHD was not updated. Hopefully that will come soon.

So at least 9.3 is out. Whether it will fix our GSOD problem of course has yet to be seen.


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## bizzy

That's really strange. I thought Tivo didn't add units to the upgrade pool on fridays or weekends!


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## dd_0

Received 9.3 a couple of days ago, and haven't had a single GSOD since. Instead, I have experienced lockups three or four times where both recorded and live playback just locks up. Skip forward gets a second or two of play, then it locks up again. Soft reboot fixes the problem, so the data is being received/recorded - it's the playback that's the problem. I preferred the GSOD which at least I could control by staying in 1080i mode. The latest lockups have happened in both Native and 1080i modes. Any other similar reports?


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## britdiver

dd_0 said:


> Received 9.3 a couple of days ago, and haven't had a single GSOD since. Instead, I have experienced lockups three or four times where both recorded and live playback just locks up. Skip forward gets a second or two of play, then it locks up again. Soft reboot fixes the problem, so the data is being received/recorded - it's the playback that's the problem. I preferred the GSOD which at least I could control by staying in 1080i mode. The latest lockups have happened in both Native and 1080i modes. Any other similar reports?


I don't have 9.3 yet on my TivoHD but for what it's worth I couldn't control the GSOD by staying in 1080i fixed as my machine as always been in that mode and I still got them.


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## fadden0

I've been in TiVo hell for the past 3 weeks or so. The only real relevance to the discussion here is that the 9.3 update appeared briefly on the box, and then disappeared.

The box in question has taken to rebooting spontaneously, and the "downgrade" happened somewhere around the time that the service was transferred to the (to-be-delivered) replacement box. Not sure if it was deliberate or just an artifact of the perpetual rebooting. All I can say is that it had 9.2, one time I looked and it had 9.3, and from then on it was back to 9.2.

Of course, the aforementioned replacement box arrived a week ago, and was doing quite well until this evening when it simply died. If I apply power I hear a feeble "click click click" and nothing further.

I suspect bad power supplies in both cases. Too late to call TiVo tonight.

FWIW, I did get the grey-screen problem after the M-card authorization on the new box, but the new box was also only updated to 9.2 when left to sit overnight.

I'm giving serious consideration to resurrecting the Series 2 DT, but the IR blaster misses channel changes far too often.


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## ZXTT95

dd_0 said:


> Received 9.3 a couple of days ago, and haven't had a single GSOD since. Instead, I have experienced lockups three or four times where both recorded and live playback just locks up. Skip forward gets a second or two of play, then it locks up again. Soft reboot fixes the problem, so the data is being received/recorded - it's the playback that's the problem. I preferred the GSOD which at least I could control by staying in 1080i mode. The latest lockups have happened in both Native and 1080i modes. Any other similar reports?


Yes, I think so. We've had to reboot the THD three or four times since 9.3. The failures seem different than before, and more frequent too (need more time to be sure of the frequency). Now, when this happens, I can't play, but I can FF or Rewind successfully. I'm not sure if it looks normal, but it works. The menu background animation also was working last time it failed - before, it would freeze as well.


----------



## fadden0

ZXTT95 said:


> Now, when this happens, I can't play, but I can FF or Rewind successfully. I'm not sure if it looks normal, but it works.


At one point I had it where it would FF/Rew, but if I hit play I would only hear audio. The video frame was frozen. Rebooting cleared it. I can't recall if this was during "9.3 day", but it's possible.

In other news, TiVo support is providing UPS return labels for the rebooting/dead boxes and next-day-shipping a new one out. They get big points from me for that.


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## britdiver

Version 9.3 just installed on my TivoHD. Now it's time to hold my breath and wait and see.......................


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## dd_0

britdiver said:


> I don't have 9.3 yet on my TivoHD but for what it's worth I couldn't control the GSOD by staying in 1080i fixed as my machine as always been in that mode and I still got them.


Sounds like staying in 1080i fixed isn't always the solution, then. However, I think I'll stay there for the time being, since it seems to work for me! If it stops working, I'll have to think again.


----------



## dd_0

britdiver said:


> Version 9.3 just installed on my TivoHD. Now it's time to hold my breath and wait and see.......................


Maybe I reported my problems too early - I haven't had any further lockups or GSODs in a week or so.

I did have some very unstable recording on the night of the last presidential debate, though. I was watching and recording the debate on ABCHD and every five or ten minutes, the video would freeze and I would lose audio for a few seconds. My Amplifier would report the Dolby signal being re-acquired (via HMDI), and things would continue properly. It got much worse in the program following the debate, which quickly became unwatchable. Maybe there was a weak cable signal that night, since it doesn't seem to have happened again. Anybody else have similar problems?


----------



## Overdoze

i just got off the phone with tech support at tivo

they seem to be very well aware of the situation, and will give you a months free service if you call and complain

i asked the lady about a fix and she told me that the engineers believe it is a hardware issue and not a software issue...
she wanted me to run some tests to see if the hardware issue was with the tivo HD unit or the cablecards. she said the tivo unit may need to be replaced

though recoding seems to work fine, its just playback thats freezing
so its probably not the cable card

i do not know if she was just blowing smoke up my seat though

i really hope its not hardware, i was lucky enough to get a good cable tech over to do the cards after 3 weeks of failure and missed appointments 

im hooked up via HDMI


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## britdiver

Well it was a good run. But I have just had my first GSOD since 9.3. All menus ok. Still recording and the recording was working ok. All digital and HD channels ok. Just all the analog channels were gray. Restart of course fixed it. Oh well. I guess it was too good to be true that they had fixed it. But it least it doesn't seem as regular as before 9.3. I haven't seen many new posts here since 9.3 so did it fix most peoples problems?


----------



## britdiver

Well just got my second GSOD right in front of my eyes and it was at the exact second it started to record something. That recording (and channel) were OK but others went gray. Even the channel I was watching froze.


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## Joe Siegler

Well, today I had Time Warner (Dallas) come out, get my cable going with my TiVoHD, and all was well. From about 5PM till about 9:15PM. My wife and I were watching a recorded show, and I flipped over to live on ESPNHD, as Baseball Tonight was being delayed by the Red Sox game (wanted to see if the game had finished). I watched a little bit of the live buffer there, and it froze. Backing up worked, but when I got to that point again in the buffer, it was just stuck. A show from VH1 Classic was recording on the other tuner. It too froze up, but I didn't discover that until later.

A few remarks:

1) I've been running this TiVoHD fine for about a week and a half before today using rabbit ears. I was impatient to see the features, but did a complete "wipe out the TiVo and restart" before the TWC guy showed up today.

2) I do NOT have an HDTV, I haven't made that plunge yet, so I'm watching everything in 480i, going through Svideo to my TV (which is about 15 years old, but still works fine). I bought this box because I was switching to TWC, and wanted to future buy given I know I'll be going HD anyway. Plus I wanted a "real TiVo" again after years of being with DirecTV.

3) All of my Basic cable channels (under 100) work. All of my Digital Cable local channels work (350-458 on TWC Dallas). SOME channels inbetween work, but most of them don't. At first I thought maybe my account got whacked for some reason and I couldn't get my digital channels, but then I wouldn't see anything over 99, so I don't think it's that.

4) I was hitting the aspect button several times in quick succession while it was recording from ESPNHD as well as VH1 on the other tuner. I don't know if it was related, but I was checking out the differences between the modes on the baseball game. (Even on my 480i TV, the HD signals look a HECK of a lot better, so I wanted to use them).

5) Everyone keeps calling these GSOD. Is that because you guys haven't changed the color of the side/top bars from the default? My screens are all black, so I assume that's what is up with that.

6) I'm using the 9.3 software release, and have one M card in Slot 1 from TWC.

All worked fine for the first four hours after the TWC left.

From one of the other threads, here's some info about me:


TSN starts with 652
HDMI or component? Neither - Svideo
Aspect Correction - Panel, Aspect Ratio - 4:3 Classic, Output - 480i fixed. However, I've been changing this frequently, so I've hit all three of these a lot, both on live TV and on recorded stuff.
How soon after? Not relevant, I haven't gotten it back to get a second.
Menu or hard? My first few attempts to fix this with a reboot were through the menu. Didn't work. Tried unplugging for about a minute, restarted, still didn't fix it. Trying to unplug for longer - like 10 minutes. That really make a difference?
Ever been around when it happened? Yes, see story above.

So right now, I'm dead in the water (mostly), and I'm a bit pissed, actually. Right now I have essentially just the basic cable channels, and all I have is my locals on digital cable, nothing else. I'm not expert, but I would think if the cable card had a problem, I wouldn't have seen anything in the first 4 hrs, and now I wouldn't see my locals in the 300's. My first thought is that it's not the cable card. Next step in the "stab wildly in the dark" would be to try guided setup again.

From reading this thread, it was hoped that 9.3 would fix this - it apparently hasn't, or at least slowed it down, but it's still there. I'm wondering if my rapid fire use of the aspect button while recording HD in the buffer on two tuners would have anything to do with that.

I'm rather perturbed. And that's never a good thing at midnight, because I generally can't sleep until it's fixed.


----------



## dwit

> Joe Siegler said:...5) Everyone keeps calling these GSOD. Is that because you guys haven't changed the color of the side/top bars from the default? My screens are all black, so I assume that's what is up with that....


Green Screen Of Death(GSOD) is something totally different. It manifests as exactly that, a green screen. It is truly a sign of a hard drive going bad, or at least a drive with errors enough to cause the Tivo operating system difficulty.


----------



## Joe Siegler

Joe Siegler said:


> Well, today I had Time Warner (Dallas) come out, get my cable going with my TiVoHD, and all was well. From about 5PM till about 9:15PM. My wife and I were watching a recorded show, and I flipped over to live on ESPNHD, as Baseball Tonight was being delayed by the Red Sox game (wanted to see if the game had finished). I watched a little bit of the live buffer there, and it froze. Backing up worked, but when I got to that point again in the buffer, it was just stuck. A show from VH1 Classic was recording on the other tuner. It too froze up, but I didn't discover that until later.
> 
> A few remarks:
> 
> 1) I've been running this TiVoHD fine for about a week and a half before today using rabbit ears. I was impatient to see the features, but did a complete "wipe out the TiVo and restart" before the TWC guy showed up today.
> 
> 2) I do NOT have an HDTV, I haven't made that plunge yet, so I'm watching everything in 480i, going through Svideo to my TV (which is about 15 years old, but still works fine). I bought this box because I was switching to TWC, and wanted to future buy given I know I'll be going HD anyway. Plus I wanted a "real TiVo" again after years of being with DirecTV.
> 
> 3) All of my Basic cable channels (under 100) work. All of my Digital Cable local channels work (350-458 on TWC Dallas). SOME channels inbetween work, but most of them don't. At first I thought maybe my account got whacked for some reason and I couldn't get my digital channels, but then I wouldn't see anything over 99, so I don't think it's that.
> 
> 4) I was hitting the aspect button several times in quick succession while it was recording from ESPNHD as well as VH1 on the other tuner. I don't know if it was related, but I was checking out the differences between the modes on the baseball game. (Even on my 480i TV, the HD signals look a HECK of a lot better, so I wanted to use them).
> 
> 5) Everyone keeps calling these GSOD. Is that because you guys haven't changed the color of the side/top bars from the default? My screens are all black, so I assume that's what is up with that.
> 
> 6) I'm using the 9.3 software release, and have one M card in Slot 1 from TWC.
> 
> All worked fine for the first four hours after the TWC left.
> 
> From one of the other threads, here's some info about me:
> 
> 
> TSN starts with 652
> HDMI or component? Neither - Svideo
> Aspect Correction - Panel, Aspect Ratio - 4:3 Classic, Output - 480i fixed. However, I've been changing this frequently, so I've hit all three of these a lot, both on live TV and on recorded stuff.
> How soon after? Not relevant, I haven't gotten it back to get a second.
> Menu or hard? My first few attempts to fix this with a reboot were through the menu. Didn't work. Tried unplugging for about a minute, restarted, still didn't fix it. Trying to unplug for longer - like 10 minutes. That really make a difference?
> Ever been around when it happened? Yes, see story above.
> 
> So right now, I'm dead in the water (mostly), and I'm a bit pissed, actually. Right now I have essentially just the basic cable channels, and all I have is my locals on digital cable, nothing else. I'm not expert, but I would think if the cable card had a problem, I wouldn't have seen anything in the first 4 hrs, and now I wouldn't see my locals in the 300's. My first thought is that it's not the cable card. Next step in the "stab wildly in the dark" would be to try guided setup again.
> 
> From reading this thread, it was hoped that 9.3 would fix this - it apparently hasn't, or at least slowed it down, but it's still there. I'm wondering if my rapid fire use of the aspect button while recording HD in the buffer on two tuners would have anything to do with that.
> 
> I'm rather perturbed. And that's never a good thing at midnight, because I generally can't sleep until it's fixed.


Turns out this wasn't the Tivo's problem. Or the cable card's problem.

It was Time Warner. In desparation at 2AM, I called their customer service, and hit a section about outages. There was an automatic option I could pick on the phone about resetting my box. I chose it. About 10 seconds later, my channels came back on.

DAMMIT! Wish I would have thought of that a few hours ago. While it's good that my hardware doesn't seem to be at fault, it is not thrilling that I could just lose programming like that from Time Warner's end.


----------



## BMoreE

dwit said:


> Green Screen Of Death(GSOD) is something totally different. It manifests as exactly that, a green screen. It is truly a sign of a hard drive going bad, or at least a drive with errors enough to cause the Tivo operating system difficulty.


My understanding that the GSOD in this thread is actually the GREY screen of death, which is NOT a hard drive going bad. It is a problem that people were having where all video would stop showing (even the animations that show up behind menus) until a reboot. All other functions continue to work, including recording shows (which could be watched successfully after reboot.)

Agreed, though, that this couldn't have been your problem (I was going to say it was probably the cable company!!!)

Forgot to mention that since I got the SW update a few months back, I've not had this problem. The thread has really died down, so I'm guessing they've mostly got it licked (although I'm sure there's a few unlucky folks out there.)


----------



## moonscape

BMoreE said:


> Forgot to mention that since I got the SW update a few months back, I've not had this problem. The thread has really died down, so I'm guessing they've mostly got it licked (although I'm sure there's a few unlucky folks out there.)


i have a month-old S3 that did this the other day, and i was directed here from another thread because i wasn't sure if my problem was a known issue. er - looks like it is/was.

i use hdmi, native - unmodified unit.


----------



## dsb411

My 2 Hd Tivos freeze at least 2 times a week. Please fix this Tivo.


----------



## opus472

Yesterday I had my first spontaneous reboot, following a blue screen. Pretty annoying, particularly considering the length of time it takes Tivo to reboot.

Lately I've also noticed a couple other anomalies, wonder if this means the Tivo is headed for a breakdown -

Select Delete on a recorded program, the checkmark appears, but nothing happens. Have to select Delete again before it actually deletes.

Been getting more video freezes, both recorded and live. Can usually fix using skip back or switching channels.


----------



## RoyK

opus472 said:


> ......
> Select Delete on a recorded program, the checkmark appears, but nothing happens. Have to select Delete again before it actually deletes.
> 
> .....


That's been happening to me on my S2 boxes lately. Actually sometimes we select Delete and the checkmark appears briefly then goes away. Select delete a second time and the file deletes.


----------



## ruinah

I opened up my brand new tivo HD last night and went through guided setup. Once that was done I tried changing video modes and got this same black screen everyone else was talking about. I checked softwar revs and I was only in the 8.x range. I tried forcing 2 or 3 connects and still it sits at the same level. Any idea how long it takes before the 9.4 comes down to a new machine? I have a Toshiba 42" plasma tv which support 720P, 1080i and I tried all sorts of modes but none seem to work, they all get the black screen. The comcast DVR I had did 720P just fine and the TV loved it. Is there a way to tell Tivo you want the 9.4 software?


----------



## TiVoJerry

Brand new HD units will automatically download the latest SW after they've finished Guided Setup. The initial connection progression for the THD goes like this:
**First connection of Guided Setup
**Setup Connection of Guided Setup (gets a few days of PGD so you can start using it immediately)
**Regular connection (gets the rest of the PGD). This connection starts automatically shortly after GS finishes.
**Once the first regular connection finishes processing, the next one is scheduled shortly thereafter to see if new SW is available for download.

If you force the connections, you will save only a few minutes. Make sure you are forcing regular connections and not test connections.


----------



## ruinah

Thanks TivoJerry, I will try and force one more today when I get home. I think I may have only done 3 of them. I'd like it up to date before Comcast comes out Friday to do the cable card installation.


----------



## thisisnotadrill

this has been traced to a software issue, hasn't it?

because i need to open the box to marry an unverified eSATA drive but obviously don't want to void the warranty if this could be a hardware issue (as i have experienced it twice thus far in a week).


----------



## wtherrell

My Tivo HD with 11. something software still experiences the gray screen of death at least two or three times a week. I have home network with the HD box wired to the router. Two s2s on wireless. It has now been over a year since Tivo has known about this problem and my THD is so unreliable that I just can't stand it. The screens are still going gray. I am not actively doing anything on the THD when it happens. I occasionally check and download content on the THD from one of the S2's which lose contact with the THD regularly and I have to reset all the IP's and it works for one session then loses it. Unplugging THD Power and network cable for about a minute, then rebooting, then reconnecting network cable fixes the gray screen problem only temporarily. A day or two later it comes up again. NONE of my s2s ever do this. Sometimes cable box goes out and I record black screen on them but thats a cable issue. My THD is connected only to the lower unencryped channels. I have no cable cards. Resolution is set at 480 and always has been. And if this issue does not get fixed soon, I will just have to kiss my $300 lifetime money goodbye and put this damned THD on ebay. It's a great concept and I really want it to work but I can't stand this GSOD unreliability.


----------



## RickNY

Hmm.. I have not experienced this issue since the Fall update.. Sure you dont have a defective unit or a network issue?


----------



## wtherrell

RickNY said:


> Hmm.. I have not experienced this issue since the Fall update.. Sure you dont have a defective unit or a network issue?


Network seems fine except for the unit not showing up in the NPL of the other Tivos periodically. Refreshing the IPs brings it back but is a small PITA. But this does not show up at same time as GSOD. As to the defective unit. Well, I don't know. From the threads, it seemed that we were sure it was a software issue and that subsequent updates would take care of it. So I patiently did all the rebooting while waiting for the updates. Now that they are here and I am still having the problem, I am beginning to wonder. Tivo CS just says to reboot by power cycle and that's as far as it has gotten. 
I guess if the updates cured everyone's problem but mine, I will have to start thinking about returning the unit for repair or swap. I just hate to go thru all that. 
Next time it happens I will try to run the Diagnostics. Also I will try to leave the problem on and see if it still records OK while on gray screen. I had the notion it was an input problem but maybe just a video output problem. I could probably live with that if I have to.


----------



## Saturn_V

I'm getting periodic GSODs as well. (OTA + Analog cable, no cards installed, 720p output, wired ethernet connection) I haven't seen GSODs since Fall 2007- and they seem to have re-surfaced with the 11 update. 

I also suspect that the THD is restarting *on its own* more often than usual. I'd wake up to both tuners set to the same channel instead of the Weather Channel and local news I set the nite before. 

I tried diagnostics once- it just hung there for over two hours. I had the unplug/replug the power.


----------



## myblubu

wtherrell said:


> My Tivo HD with 11. something software still experiences the gray screen of death at least two or three times a week. I have home network with the HD box wired to the router. Two s2s on wireless. It has now been over a year since Tivo has known about this problem and my THD is so unreliable that I just can't stand it. The screens are still going gray. I am not actively doing anything on the THD when it happens. I occasionally check and download content on the THD from one of the S2's which lose contact with the THD regularly and I have to reset all the IP's and it works for one session then loses it. Unplugging THD Power and network cable for about a minute, then rebooting, then reconnecting network cable fixes the gray screen problem only temporarily. A day or two later it comes up again. NONE of my s2s ever do this. Sometimes cable box goes out and I record black screen on them but thats a cable issue. My THD is connected only to the lower unencryped channels. I have no cable cards. Resolution is set at 480 and always has been. And if this issue does not get fixed soon, I will just have to kiss my $300 lifetime money goodbye and put this damned THD on ebay. It's a great concept and I really want it to work but I can't stand this GSOD unreliability.


I bought a used Tivo HD with Lifetime from someone in November and set it up and everything worked fine. Until about a week ago. Thats when I began having the problem with what everyone is calling the GSOD. I reset my TivoHD and everything is fine for a couple days and it happens again. I looked and my unit has software version 11.0-01-2-652. also it shows service Level: C: 020409. So does anyone know if my unit is still under warranty?

But what is the fix for the GSOD???

Update: Just got off the phone with Tivo tech support and they took a lot of information down. Said they are aware of the issue and are working on it. Told me that they would send out a fix to all the Tivo's when its solved and if I am still experiencing the issue in 2-3 weeks to call back.


----------



## wtherrell

Well, the power cycle used to fix everything for a few days. Latest time I tried when Tivo booted up I get a black screen. No, it's not just a black screen. There is no video output at all. Have not been able to watch in a couple of days now. Some scheduled recordings and suggestions have recorded and I can transfer via MRV and looks like everything recorded OK. Just no video output from Tivo HD. Using HDMI. Monitor says no signal detected. Man, if I had known Tivo HD was this squirrely I think I would not have bought it. Gray screen problem was bad enough, but this!!


----------



## miketo

myblubu said:


> Update: Just got off the phone with Tivo tech support and they took a lot of information down. Said they are aware of the issue and are working on it. Told me that they would send out a fix to all the Tivo's when its solved and if I am still experiencing the issue in 2-3 weeks to call back.


I've heard the same "we're aware of the issue" from a first-level CSR. My TiVo HD is running the same software version and has the same problem. For anyone reading this thread (TiVoJerry?), the only correlations I've been able to find are:

* Using the Pause button while playing back standard-definition content.
* A Lineup Modification e-mail arrives from TiVo.

Somewhere between 8 and 36 hours after these two events, the gray screen of death occurs. I'm betting the channel lineup modification shuffles some pointers around, which then get lost in the shuffle.

For what it's worth, if I can't get TiVo to fix this, my wife is going to (a) kill me, or (b) trade me in on a Windows Media Center computer that works fine at our neighbor's house.


----------



## myblubu

My Tivo HD hasn't frozen in a week or so - has Tivo Fixed the problem???


----------



## wtherrell

myblubu said:


> My Tivo HD hasn't frozen in a week or so - has Tivo Fixed the problem???


No, mine froze up just today. Then heavy pixellation and then the gray screen of death. I called Tivo and they said they are aware of the problem and are working on it. No hint of when it will be fixed.


----------



## Dabreeze

I recently Switched to Fios Tv. Using 2 S-Card cable cards with a Onkyo 805 A/V Reciever a Sony KDFE50A10 RPTV and the Series 3 HD Tivo $ 299 version. My other components are the Oppo 970 and the Panny BD-35 Dvd and Blueray players. I have everything setup via HDMI EXCEPT the Tivo Hd which I'm using Component and Digital Toslink. Originally, I had the Tivo hooked up via HDMI as well. 

Everything programmed into a Harmony 88O universal remote. With the remote I'm having a handshake problem with the Sony Tv. The Onkyo, the Tv turn on with sound from the Tivo program that's on but no picture. If I turn off the Harmony and hit watch Tivo real quick again it all comes on fine with picture. I went into all the Harmony Activities and the setups all seem right. Device setups seem right as well. 

Anybody have a idea why the TV doesn't show the picture right away. I was thinking it probably is in the delays somewhere. I also have everything networked to Fios Broadband with the Action-TecM142WR Via Ethernet with A Nimh splice. The Fios Tech said it worked better than running a long Ethernet cable run. It works well, I've been able to access Netflix and Amazon no problem. 

It's been frustrating. I want to get everything working 1st time with the Harmony 880. 

Help !!


----------



## ghuido

Hey All

Been reading throught this thread and trying to make sure I am experiecing hte same issue everyone is talking about.

Mostly what I get is that I am changing channels usually standard not HD and hit channel up/down and then everything Freezes. 

The Picture Freezes and the TIVO Stops respondining to any Remote Commands. The Yellow Light that blinks on/off when you send a remote comand doesn't even come on.

Restarting the TIVO HD solves the problem but is this the same thing as the GSOD or is this something different. Just trying to do my research so I don't start a new thread on something everyone knows about.

Thanks. Any help is appreciated since my wife hate it when it happens.


----------



## kirk1701

miketo said:


> I've heard the same "we're aware of the issue" from a first-level CSR. My TiVo HD is running the same software version and has the same problem. For anyone reading this thread (TiVoJerry?), the only correlations I've been able to find are:
> 
> * Using the Pause button while playing back standard-definition content.
> * A Lineup Modification e-mail arrives from TiVo.
> 
> Somewhere between 8 and 36 hours after these two events, the gray screen of death occurs. I'm betting the channel lineup modification shuffles some pointers around, which then get lost in the shuffle.
> 
> For what it's worth, if I can't get TiVo to fix this, my wife is going to (a) kill me, or (b) trade me in on a Windows Media Center computer that works fine at our neighbor's house.


Makes sense especially with the change over to digital and most if not all cable co's are doing a lot of line up changes.

Plus the fact, my TivoHD is using only standard-definition always and anything I watch I usually just transfer HD content to it when I need to.

I thought I had this issue fixed a month ago here:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6964046#post6964046
But recently there was some line up changes and 
"ITS BAAAACKKKK" 

By the way can someone test this and reply back.
I got mine working a couple a times before I thought it was fixed by going into the channel line up, selecting Channel strength and just let it find the strength of the channel, back out and all was fine for a day or so.

This time I did that I got a message saying "You have no digital channels" 

So to get my channels back I had to delete my lineup, rescann and I'm fine now till the next lineup change I assume.


----------



## TiVoJerry

Hello all,

I am not up to speed with every post in this thread as it is quite long and was built upon an old thread. Although the symptom may seem similar, the cause is different.

We believe we have a fix in place for a majority of situations and just started releasing it to a set number of random HD units as of last night. This is our initial release period where we review all cases logged against the new SW. If you are connecting on a regular basis but have not received new SW, you are not in this initial phase (i.e. making more connections will not get you SW any faster). If all goes well during the review period, the rest of the units will receive the SW shortly thereafter.

I'm sorry for not finding this thread to post sooner, but rest assured that engineering had been working on the problem.


----------



## kirk1701

TiVoJerry said:


> Hello all,
> 
> I am not up to speed with every post in this thread as it is quite long and was built upon an old thread. Although the symptom may seem similar, the cause is different.
> 
> We believe we have a fix in place for a majority of situations and just started releasing it to a set number of random HD units as of last night. This is our initial release period where we review all cases logged against the new SW. If you are connecting on a regular basis but have not received new SW, you are not in this initial phase (i.e. making more connections will not get you SW any faster). If all goes well during the review period, the rest of the units will receive the SW shortly thereafter.
> 
> I'm sorry for not finding this thread to post sooner, but rest assured that engineering had been working on the problem.


Thanks for the info Jerry


----------



## miketo

TiVoJerry said:


> I'm sorry for not finding this thread to post sooner, but rest assured that engineering had been working on the problem.


Thank you, thank you for at least *listening* to those of us who are losing analog channel recordings every week. If and when you and the engineers determine the relationship between cause, symptoms, and fix, would you kindly post a mention of that here?


----------



## DeWitt

miketo said:


> the only correlations I've been able to find are:
> 
> * Using the Pause button while playing back standard-definition content.
> * A Lineup Modification e-mail arrives from TiVo.
> 
> Somewhere between 8 and 36 hours after these two events, the gray screen of death occurs. I'm betting the channel lineup modification shuffles some pointers around, which then get lost in the shuffle.


I think you have it right. Last night, unit froze up. When it restarted I saw I had a bunch of channel change messages!

I tried forcing a connection to see if I was in the group getting the early roll out, but no luck.

Interestingly after I forced a connection it took about 1 hour to get through loading data and then hung loading data 99% for 8 hours. I rebooted , but still no software update.

here is hoping the early roll out goes well and we get the patch asap!


----------



## HD4me2

It has been one year and 3 months since I purchased and returned a TIVO HD and canceled the subscription for the problems described in this thread.

Will keep checking periodically hoping for a fix. Still, no fix from TIVO after all this time does not instill me with confidence in the TIVO organization


----------



## TiVoJerry

HD4me2 said:


> It has been one year and 3 months since I purchased and returned a TIVO HD and canceled the subscription for the problems described in this thread.
> 
> Will keep checking periodically hoping for a fix. Still, no fix from TIVO after all this time does not instill me with confidence in the TIVO organization


The original problem that this thread was opened for was indeed resolved. While the reports of grey screens (or black, depends on what you have your letterbox color set at) are the same "symptom", the root cause is different. Looking back, I would've asked that this thread be closed long ago so that newcomers wouldn't reach the same assumption you have.


----------



## HD4me2

TiVoJerry said:


> The original problem that this thread was opened for was indeed resolved. While the reports of grey screens (or black, depends on what you have your letterbox color set at) are the same "symptom", the root cause is different. Looking back, I would've asked that this thread be closed long ago so that newcomers wouldn't reach the same assumption you have.


Well, thank you.
Please note that I did start reading all posts from about 6 months ago but did not find any that clearly pointed to a resolution of the original problem. Perhaps it happened earlier.

Agree, this thread should be closed and perhaps replaced with on titled "TIVO software upgrade bugs"
That would account for the recent posts regarding the ver 11 bug.


----------



## lessd

I have a Series 3 (original ) with two cable cards and got the grey screen for the first time tonight (2-16-2009) (had the TiVo for over two years). A soft re-boot fix the problem and all channels came back. If I get one problem (with an easy solution) every two years i will be happy.
I don't know if this is the original problem in this thread as i did not read all 400+ posts.


----------



## Rikkster

How can one get this update on a priority. It's VERY frustrating having to restart your Tivo and missing programs. That's what I have the Tivo for in the first place.


----------



## russ_

I agree, it would be nice to hear what the status of the update is and if there's a way to get it sooner rather than later. I'm still having a number of issues and while falling back to SD fixes it most of the time, the Tivo is still fairly unstable and I'm tiring of SD (which I could've watched on my old Tivo and saved a lot of money).

TivoJerry, any update?


----------



## bkdtv

TiVo representatives are telling people over the phone that a fix is in testing now. They are suggesting that people who want to get the fix early sign up at TiVo Trials.

If you want to help TiVo test a fix, sign up at *TiVo's Field Trials site*. Be sure to use the *same screen name* that you use here, so TiVo knows that you are experiencing the problem.

Signing up is no guarantee that TiVo will pick you, but it increases your chances from none to potentially _much greater than none_ if they recognize you as having a problem for which they are testing a fix.

I would encourage all that are experiencing this problem to sign up above. Once again, use the same screen name that you use here.


----------



## kirk1701

bkdtv said:


> TiVo representatives are telling people over the phone that a fix is in testing now. They are suggesting that people who want to get the fix early sign up at TiVo Trials.
> 
> If you want to help TiVo test a fix, sign up at *TiVo's Field Trials site*. Be sure to use the *same screen name* that you use here, so TiVo knows that you are experiencing the problem.
> 
> Signing up is no guarantee that TiVo will pick you, but it increases your chances from none to potentially _much greater than none_ if they recognize you as having a problem for which they are testing a fix.
> 
> I would encourage all that are experiencing this problem to sign up above. Once again, use the same screen name that you use here.


Thanks for the link, just e-mailed


----------



## Phantom Gremlin

Rikkster said:


> It's VERY frustrating having to restart your Tivo and missing programs.


My boxes sometimes act flaky in various ways. So I don't wait for gray screens or other problems to occur. I pro-actively reboot my boxes from time to time when I don't have programs scheduled to record. This seems to help. But maybe it's all in my mind.

I think that a reboot about once a month couldn't hurt and probably helps. Of course this advice is useless to those who encounter problems much more frequently than I seem to.


----------



## talljoe

This sounds like something I have been trying to get Tivo to fix with both of my HD tivo Boxes. Both HD tivo were purchased a year apart. Both Tivo will drop all Large blocks of channels at any time. The channels lost mostly are analog. I have called Tivo many time to see if they knew what the problem was. They finally told me this is a known problem that almost all the HD tivos have. They have been working on a fix, but that have nothing at this time. I asked for a discount until they resolve the issue. They said there was nothing they could do because the problem affects all the HD Tivos at one time or another. They also said they had no idea on how long it would take to fix the problem. 

It would be interesting to know how many HD owners Tivo's drop blocks of channels for a day or so and then get them back?

What can I say. Misery loves company.


----------



## bkdtv

talljoe said:


> It would be interesting to know how many HD owners Tivo's drop blocks of channels for a day or so and then get them back?
> 
> What can I say. Misery loves company.


TiVo just released the 11.0b update a few days ago, which was supposed eliminate loss of analog tuners in most situations.

Are you still seeing the same problem?


----------



## talljoe

I have the upgrade to 11.b software. Yesterday I dropped all the analog channels. I did a hard boot, as told to me to fix the problem for a short time by Tivo Tech's. After the boot I lost all channels for a hour of so. I am back up at the time. Be nice it this problem would settle down.


----------



## etsolow

I have a brand new TiVo HD. No customizations, no HD upgrade, running 11.0c software. I've had it for about three weeks and I've seen no fewer than 4 occurrences of this issue. I get no sound/video output, just a black screen, but menus and overlays appear correctly. The only recourse I've found is to reboot.

I'm running @ 1080i fixed, via only HDMI directly to my Philips LCD TV. The only slightly strange thing I do, I guess, is I use StreamBaby to view downloaded video files. I haven't noticed any pattern, or any correlation with StreamBaby use.

Any thoughts? Do I need to call support?


----------



## 30340guy

etsolow said:


> I have a brand new TiVo HD. No customizations, no HD upgrade, running 11.0c software. I've had it for about three weeks and I've seen no fewer than 4 occurrences of this issue. I get no sound/video output, just a black screen, but menus and overlays appear correctly. The only recourse I've found is to reboot.
> 
> I'm running @ 1080i fixed, via only HDMI directly to my Philips LCD TV. The only slightly strange thing I do, I guess, is I use StreamBaby to view downloaded video files. I haven't noticed any pattern, or any correlation with StreamBaby use.
> 
> Any thoughts? Do I need to call support?


I believe I'm experiencing the same problem as you. I found a thread describing others with the same issue on the main tivo support forum.

This issue really began for me a few weeks ago and has been extremely frustrating. It appears to happen more on particular channels and nights than others. Typically, it happens when I am recording an HD station.


----------



## joey3002

I have 3 tivos, 2 of them do this on a biweekly basis. Just called tech support and was told, 'we are aware of the issue and a fix is being worked on'

He then asked me to record all the times this happens to help them.. how is that going to help them?

I have a trouble ticket number and all.

btw, im on 11c plus analog, no cable cards. 1 of the 2 uses rca cables, the other uses hdmi.


----------



## TiVoJerry

joey3002 said:


> I have 3 tivos, 2 of them do this on a biweekly basis. Just called tech support and was told, 'we are aware of the issue and a fix is being worked on'
> 
> He then asked me to record all the times this happens to help them.. how is that going to help them?
> 
> I have a trouble ticket number and all.
> 
> btw, im on 11c plus analog, no cable cards. 1 of the 2 uses rca cables, the other uses hdmi.


Please send me a PM with your TSN or case number so I can look up your case and coach this agent for giving out incorrect information. While we are indeed aware and investigating actively, we do not require customers to track the times.


----------



## etsolow

etsolow said:


> I have a brand new TiVo HD. No customizations, no HD upgrade, running 11.0c software. I've had it for about three weeks and I've seen no fewer than 4 occurrences of this issue. I get no sound/video output, just a black screen, but menus and overlays appear correctly. The only recourse I've found is to reboot.
> 
> I'm running @ 1080i fixed, via only HDMI directly to my Philips LCD TV. The only slightly strange thing I do, I guess, is I use StreamBaby to view downloaded video files. I haven't noticed any pattern, or any correlation with StreamBaby use.
> 
> Any thoughts? Do I need to call support?


I've been seeing these lockups on an almost daily basis, so I finally called TiVo support. They are cheerily shipping me a replacement unit. Fingers crossed!


----------



## etsolow

etsolow said:


> I've been seeing these lockups on an almost daily basis, so I finally called TiVo support. They are cheerily shipping me a replacement unit. Fingers crossed!


...and apparently they deactivated my existing unit before the replacement arrived, so I can't use it in the mean-time. Nice... is that how it's supposed to work??


----------



## HD4me2

HD4me2 said:


> It has been one year and 3 months since I purchased and returned a TIVO HD and canceled the subscription for the problems described in this thread.
> 
> Will keep checking periodically hoping for a fix. Still, no fix from TIVO after all this time does not instill me with confidence in the TIVO organization


Now there is good news to report. After checking this thread periodically it appeared that the original "video loss" problem was indeed resolved, I purchased a new Tivo HD three weeks ago. After running the DVR for 2 weeks to screen out any potential reliability problems none appeared and the unit was stable and operated as advertised.

Two days ago a TWC Tech installed an SA M-stream CC wich was succesful. In San Diego TWC advertises about 16 "free HD" channels as part of my basic/expanded analog cable subscription. It turned out that around 10 of these were missing, "channel not available", suspecting SDV I drove to the TWC service center and picked up a Cisco/SA tuning adapter.

Did a "self install" and called the TWC activation number. A very helpful Tech activated the TA and the missing channels appeared. And here is a *happy* part. The tech advised me that my TWC subscription entitles me to "free" add on pack as well as a "bundle" discount. I selected the "variety pack" (normally $ 6.00) and the Tech activated it on the spot. He also stated that my total monthly charge would decrease by $ 2.00.

Color me happy

It would seem that Patience paid off this time.

Note: I use R/S 1in/4 out *bi-directional* amplified splitters (Catalog #: 15-2506) and had some concern using that with the TA since that unit must send data upstream for SDV channel requests. Happy to report that it works. Also note that these splitters have a gain control allowing the user to either boost or decrease gain. The latter can be useful when the Tivo is susceptible to overload.


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## shadow527

I too have been experencing the problem for sometime now....i have discovered a way to temp fix it with out rebooting...go into the menu (since that still works) go to messages & settings, settings, channels, and signal strengh ... and run the anoying sounding test till the bar hits 100...then hit the live tv button on the remote and it will restore it....at least till it happens again...at least this works for me


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## joey3002

this does not happen to me anymore since I have been forced to use the access cards to get tv


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