# New Premiere XL Problems



## pattont (Jan 17, 2006)

I just got my new Tivo Premiere XL last night and I am upgrading from the Series3. I am having two real problems with this unit. 

First, it keeps locking up. I will be navigating through the menus and all of the sudden I can keep going up and down through the selections but I can't click anything. I let it sit there for 20+ minutes thinking that the menu would go away and maybe I could start clicking again, but NOPE. It has done this 3 times already in less than 12 hours. 


Second, It downloaded the guide last night, yet I can't record anything that starts more than 2 days out. It says no shows found... WTF...

I don't mind the menus being slow because as a software developer I know that people don't always get heard by management when saying things aren't ready. Some people just don't understand the need for testing and performance tuning. I do hope it gets better, but my new investment is making me angry so far.


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## MichaelJHuman (Aug 3, 2005)

Mine has not locked up. You should call support


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## mae (Dec 10, 2001)

pattont said:


> First, it keeps locking up. I will be navigating through the menus and all of the sudden I can keep going up and down through the selections but I can't click anything. I let it sit there for 20+ minutes thinking that the menu would go away and maybe I could start clicking again, but NOPE. It has done this 3 times already in less than 12 hours.


Are you using a universal or old TiVo remote with an exit key? This bug has been documented. Several of us have fixed it by remapping the exit key to Live TV. If not you may have a bad box.


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## oldnacl (Mar 23, 2007)

I'll have to chime in with a problem also. I got mine a couple days ago, Comcast came with an M card and I used it last night - recorded a few shows and then this morning, no channels were viewable. Called Comcast and they hit the cards (I have a TiVoHD in another room) - no joy (The other TiVo is working fine though all this). I unplugged the CC, waited a while and reinserted it and the programming came back. So far so good.
I decided to thansfer the tennis match that I'd recorded last night on the TiVoHD so I started a transfer, then clicked Start Playing. It played for a few seconds, the screen went blank and the Premiere rebooted. It just came up now, so I'll start the transfer again and see if it crashes again.

Question (since this is the first time I attempted a transfer) - is TiVo known to be fussy about playing immediately after starting a transfer? In other words, might that be what caused the reboot? This time I'll wait a while before starting to play and see if it's any better.


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## pattont (Jan 17, 2006)

I am using the remote that came in the box. I also have a harmony one, but I wasn't using it at the time since I wanted to try out the newest Tivo remote. I called tech support and he couldn't find any other instances of my issue in their system (surprise), but he noted my problem. 

So this bug you speak of mae, does it exist with the in-the-box remote?


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## MichaelJHuman (Aug 3, 2005)

oldnacl said:


> I'll have to chime in with a problem also. I got mine a couple days ago, Comcast came with an M card and I used it last night - recorded a few shows and then this morning, no channels were viewable. Called Comcast and they hit the cards (I have a TiVoHD in another room) - no joy (The other TiVo is working fine though all this). I unplugged the CC, waited a while and reinserted it and the programming came back. So far so good.
> I decided to thansfer the tennis match that I'd recorded last night on the TiVoHD so I started a transfer, then clicked Start Playing. It played for a few seconds, the screen went blank and the Premiere rebooted. It just came up now, so I'll start the transfer again and see if it crashes again.
> 
> Question (since this is the first time I attempted a transfer) - is TiVo known to be fussy about playing immediately after starting a transfer? In other words, might that be what caused the reboot? This time I'll wait a while before starting to play and see if it's any better.


I have been doing transfers since plugging it in, and no issues so far.


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## pattont (Jan 17, 2006)

When I talked to the tech about my shows he said that the Tivo would need 24 hours to index in the search. Yet, I can go manually to the date/time for a show and it's there and still once I get a season pass there it doesn't show up right in my season pass manager. It still says no episodes found yet, there is literally an episode in a day or so.


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## oldnacl (Mar 23, 2007)

MichaelJHuman said:


> I have been doing transfers since plugging it in, and no issues so far.


And mine is now working fine. After the unexpected reboot, I re-initiated the transfer and then waited 20 minutes before starting to play the transferred program.


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## mae (Dec 10, 2001)

pattont said:


> I am using the remote that came in the box. I also have a harmony one, but I wasn't using it at the time since I wanted to try out the newest Tivo remote. I called tech support and he couldn't find any other instances of my issue in their system (surprise), but he noted my problem.
> 
> So this bug you speak of mae, does it exist with the in-the-box remote?


The remote that comes with the unit doesn't have an exit key, so it shouldn't cause the problem. In the past, TiVo branded remotes worked on newer models. I used Direct TV TiVo remotes I bought on Woot. This seems to be different. Hitting exit on the Harmony (with the old exit code from an HD) or on an old TiVo remote locked it up. Remapping exit to Live TV (as suggested early in the first impressions thread) fixed it for me.


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## bleeman (Sep 5, 2004)

We got our Premiere last Sunday and had a similar situation regarding guide data. We too could only record shows within the next 24hrs. By Monday though, everything showed up and we were able to schedule the remainder of the shows we watch.

I had multiple lockups during the initial setup but after talking with support they recommended that I take all the defaults and then modify things after it was done. Sure enough, when I didn't try changing the resolution and other options during the initial setup then I was able to get through it and make my changes later.

Since the initial setup last Sunday, we have only had one additional lockup. It happened this evening when I was cycling through the various menus checking the options, and hopping from one section to another. I had to power cycle the box to get it to "wake up".


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## curiousgeorge (Nov 28, 2002)

Agreed. These TiVos are *easily* the buggiest out of ALL the TiVo releases (I've had all the standalone boxes from Series 1 forward). Lockups, lag, spontaneous reboots - it's really shocking. Easily needed another 3 months of polish just to have *acceptable* stability and speed.

I ended up getting three to replace our 3 S3 units mainly to get the 3-5x faster MRV transfers, but TiVo had better get a stable release out in the wild stat or my name is MUD with my wife. She's not happy with what she's experienced so far on the one she uses (they're ALL a mess so far, though).


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## Dr_Diablo (Nov 24, 2003)

pattont said:


> I just got my new Tivo Premiere XL last night and I am upgrading from the Series3. I am having two real problems with this unit.
> 
> First, it keeps locking up. I will be navigating through the menus and all of the sudden I can keep going up and down through the selections but I can't click anything. I let it sit there for 20+ minutes thinking that the menu would go away and maybe I could start clicking again, but NOPE. It has done this 3 times already in less than 12 hours.
> 
> ...


What did tivo have to say bout this muck up?


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## PacketBoy (Mar 12, 2005)

curiousgeorge said:


> ...I ended up getting three to replace our 3 S3 units mainly to get the 3-5x faster MRV transfers, but TiVo had better get a stable release out in the wild stat or my name is MUD with my wife. She's not happy with what she's experienced so far on the one she uses (they're ALL a mess so far, though).


My wife is quite pleased with our Premier XL, no real issues to date. Of course she's been using MCE for the last few years, and by comparison, the Premier is in a different league when it comes to ease of use.

I'm a hero (for today, being me, I'm sure it won't last all that long.)


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## DaveWhittle (Jul 25, 2002)

curiousgeorge said:


> I ended up getting three to replace our 3 S3 units mainly to get the 3-5x faster MRV transfers, but TiVo had better get a stable release out in the wild stat or my name is MUD with my wife. She's not happy with what she's experienced so far on the one she uses (they're ALL a mess so far, though).


Would you consider switching to "classic view" for the menus, at least on her machince? It operates very fast, and I would image is pretty much the same experience as you she had before, except faster transfers.

I don't know if that will help the lockups, but at least will smooth out the frustrations with the new interface.


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## curiousgeorge (Nov 28, 2002)

DaveWhittle said:


> Would you consider switching to "classic view" for the menus, at least on her machince? It operates very fast, and I would image is pretty much the same experience as you she had before, except faster transfers.
> 
> I don't know if that will help the lockups, but at least will smooth out the frustrations with the new interface.


I've already done that because the new UI is just too unstable to actually USE for any length of time at any depth. No lockups/reboots today...yet.

I seriously hope TiVo pushes another update to these boxes soon to fix a TON of bugs. The condition they were launched in is embarrassing (or SHOULD be).


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## MichaelJHuman (Aug 3, 2005)

Hmmm...two days of using mine, and I am not having any interface issues. I wonder what the difference is between Tivos with problems and Tivos without problems.


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## curiousgeorge (Nov 28, 2002)

MichaelJHuman said:


> Hmmm...two days of using mine, and I am not having any interface issues. I wonder what the difference is between Tivos with problems and Tivos without problems.


Most of the problems we had were when it switched from the HD UI to the SD UI for things like settings and messages. You could always tell when it a hard reboot was coming because the SD UI would freeze after one or less menu clicks and the fan would ramp up like crazy. Turning off the preview pane seemed to help a little, but it was still too unstable to keep using, so we went all SD menus for the time being.


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## sghrush (Mar 8, 2005)

MichaelJHuman said:


> Hmmm...two days of using mine, and I am not having any interface issues. I wonder what the difference is between Tivos with problems and Tivos without problems.


True. My HD UI is somewhat laggy but overall is working fine.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

curiousgeorge said:


> I've already done that because the new UI is just too unstable to actually USE for any length of time at any depth. No lockups/reboots today...yet.
> 
> I seriously hope TiVo pushes another update to these boxes soon to fix a TON of bugs. The condition they were launched in is embarrassing (or SHOULD be).


My boxes seem fine with the HD and SD menus. No instability with the seven units I've set up so far. I'll probably hold off on the last one until I get some of my old units sold.


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## pattont (Jan 17, 2006)

I have since switched to the old SD UI's and it hasn't locked up a single time. Also, my programs are all in my search now that the indexing is finished. I wish that the indexing information for the search would be more widely known because when you first get the tivo, all of the guide is there, but the search basically is worthless until you finish the 24-48hr indexing.


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