# Blue spinning circles since 20.5.6



## kbmb

On both our Tivo's, we are getting a ton of the blue spinning circles since the 20.5.6 update. No network issues. Everything has been rebooted, etc, etc.

Anyone else seeing this.

We get it even when just hitting play on a show from the main My Show's screen. It's getting ridiculous that local content is being trapped by Tivo's crappy infrastructure!

-Kevin


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## justen_m

Yup, I am seeing them often too, even when just hitting play for a recording.


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## kbmb

justen_m said:


> Yup, I am seeing them often too, even when just hitting play for a recording.


Good to know I'm not alone. Just the latest issue with TiVo it seems.

-Kevin


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## justen_m

It's mentioned by others in another thread or two, too. TiVo gave our Roamios QuickMode :up: and more bugs :down: with the latest update.


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## NorthAlabama

justen_m said:


> TiVo gave our Roamios QuickMode :up: and more bugs :down: with the latest update.


premieres only got guide logos and bugs, no quickmode - you should feel blessed.


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## Rey

I'm seeing this again since Friday but had the update a week before this. Probably a tivo server issue again.


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## RoyK

kbmb said:


> On both our Tivo's, we are getting a ton of the blue spinning circles since the 20.5.6 update. No network issues. Everything has been rebooted, etc, etc.
> 
> Anyone else seeing this.
> 
> We get it even when just hitting play on a show from the main My Show's screen. It's getting ridiculous that local content is being trapped by Tivo's crappy infrastructure!
> 
> -Kevin


It's not new with this update. Severity seems to depend on TiVo's server's response. It's an extremely poor design.


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## dfreybur

It happens much more often that it did before the 20.5.6 update. It used to happen every so often.


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## kbmb

dfreybur said:


> It happens much more often that it did before the 20.5.6 update. It used to happen every so often.


Between our 2 Tivos, it seems that almost every show we watch is either slow or has the spinning blue circle.

-Kevin


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## hillyard

Seems to be about every other weekend for me


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## ej42137

Before the 20.5.6 update a way to avoid the blue circle of pain was to use *Play* instead of *Select* on the program line; that doesn't work any more, presumably because now it needs to access any possible SkipMode data before it starts playing whereas before it only needed to call home when it wanted to show the icon and current program information.

We are also seeing the dreaded azure ring much more frequently than we did before 20.5.6. Is it because the TiVo servers are getting hit more? Because of some new bug? Nobody outside of TiVo knows for sure, and who knows if even they have a clue.


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## skypros

My Roamio plus has been working very good for the last few months.... Then I get the update on 12/10 and I am getting the BSC, Audio drop-outs and freeze frames.

None of them are very bad...... and I am sure they will all work themselves out. :up:


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## Bytez

Happened a lot today while in the menus for managing current recordings.

I have no idea why they even set it to depend on THEIR network for local tasks. :down:


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## Damiansnpvp4

Yes this in the past was called the circle of death! I have had no problems for over a year & now the circle of death causes a C501. I've posted this already so I won't go into detail, but I have to say that I would welcome the circle of death for a solid 2 mins than it going to a C501 error. Because of this I can not select streambaby on the 2nd screen, so no PC videos to Tivo, I'm really bummed. Also dealing with the remote keyboard search now not working with Youtube, that's another problem in itself.


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## Chuck_IV

skypros said:


> My Roamio plus has been working very good for the last few months.... Then I get the update on 12/10 and I am getting the BSC, Audio drop-outs and freeze frames.
> 
> None of them are very bad...... and I am sure they will all work themselves out. :up:


Noticing the same thing since the update. An occasional freeze frame for a second or so, once in a blue moon (never ever saw them prior to the update).

Also seeing a lot of the blue spinning circle since the update. Something I hadn't seen to date with my Roamio Plus(only had it since August).

Something isn't quite right with this update.


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## dlfl

What is TiVo's name and/or definition of the c501 error? i've searched fairly hard and come up with nothing, either at TiVo.com or just googling. I've never had the error so don't know if there is a text message displayed with it.


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## ertyu

Yep, I'm seeing them too intermittently. Shows up for one show, 5 seconds later do the same operation on another show, works fine.


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## Rob Helmerichs

Chuck_IV said:


> Something isn't quite right with this update.


Either the update, or the resulting increased server load..?


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## kbmb

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Either the update, or the resulting increased server load..?


Yeah, makes me nervous that Tivo really might not be able to handle the server load for what they are doing. Especially like @ej42137 speculated on above. If Tivo has to check the mothership for Skip data, and this is how things are acting with a limited rollout - they better be asking for a few more Dell's for Christmas! 

Being that it's 2015 and we all have high speed always on internet connections - I'm not sure why Tivo can't locally cache more data. The minute a show is recorded, the data on the detail screen should be cached so if we go into it, we don't have to wait for the screen to populate.

But like @ej42137 said also - this is happening without going into the details screen now. Just hitting play on the Now Playing screen is causing slowdowns and the blue circle.

-Kevin


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## opus472

Same here. Just curious - if this is a server issue, why is it that I never saw this behavior in over 7 years with the Series 3?


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## RoyK

opus472 said:


> Same here. Just curious - if this is a server issue, why is it that I never saw this behavior in over 7 years with the Series 3?


Series 3 doesn't run series 5 software which, if the box is connected to the internet, connects to the server to report every action you take.


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## ej42137

kbmb said:


> Being that it's 2015 and we all have high speed always on internet connections - I'm not sure why Tivo can't locally cache more data. The minute a show is recorded, the data on the detail screen should be cached so if we go into it, we don't have to wait for the screen to populate.


At the time a show is recorded, SkipMode data for that show does not yet exist. Also, people have discovered that the text on the detail screen may change subsequent to the program being recorded; I imagine TiVo views displaying up to date information as a positive result of accessing that data dynamically. If not for the Blue Spinning Circle of Pain, I would too.

The fact that we all have high-speed, always-on Internet connections is the reason TiVo thinks they can get away with on-demand data access instead of updating the local cache once a day like Series 3 did. If they got their act together with their servers, I'm guessing people with good Internet connections wouldn't be having a problem. (People with bad Internet connections would still be suffering, of course.)


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## kbmb

opus472 said:


> Same here. Just curious - if this is a server issue, why is it that I never saw this behavior in over 7 years with the Series 3?


The Roamio/Bolt are basically crippled without a constant internet connection. Tivo has designed the latest software to be too reliant on the connection back to them - or at least not having enough infrastructure to handle the loads.

-Kevin


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## squiddohio

I am getting the circles almost all the time, sometimes for 10-20 seconds. I have a wired, always on, high speed connection, and this should not be happening. I'm not sure when I got the software updates, but I have noticed this for about two weeks. I'm not sure it's for "on demand" data, as I have seen this when I click on a folder to see the list of recorded shows within that folder. I have the same behavior on my XP4 and my Roamio basic and my Roamio Pro. 
It's a disaster and I cannot believe TiVo released an update with this kind of a conspicuous degradation in performance.


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## Rob Helmerichs

I've had a strange blue circle experience. I've gotten the blue circle several times lately while trying to stop recording & delete...and it's always been on the same channel (the local ABC affiliate). I think it's happened every time I've tried to do that on that channel. Also, every recording on that channel the past few days has started a minute or so late, and the status bar shows not-green (i.e., transparent) for that brief span. I've seen this on no other channel, and the recordings themselves are fine other than missing that first little bit...no drop-outs, glitches, or other signs of a weak signal.

Dunno what to make of it, but I figured it was an interesting data point...


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## kbmb

Went to view details on a previously recorded episode of Elementary tonight. We waited 12 seconds for the screen to load and the blue circle to go away. 

-Kevin


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## mattack

squiddohio said:


> I am getting the circles almost all the time, sometimes for 10-20 seconds. I have a wired, always on, high speed connection, and this should not be happening. I'm not sure when I got the software updates, but I have noticed this for about two weeks. I'm not sure it's for "on demand" data, as I have seen this when I click on a folder to see the list of recorded shows within that folder. I have the same behavior on my XP4 and my Roamio basic and my Roamio Pro.
> It's a disaster and I cannot believe TiVo released an update with this kind of a conspicuous degradation in performance.


You should call up Tivo and tell them this. Otherwise you're just talking to a wall here.


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## hooper

Blue circles and reboots here. Brutal


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## cmaquilino16

I got the blue circle last night, I have the new update, my TiVo is four weeks old I never had any problems with my 8 year TiVo HD only reason for upgrade was because of Comcast MPEG 4 I lost all my HD channels only sd channels. TiVo better fix this bug. They got until Jan 2016 to fix this when all the network shows come back from the winter break. Are the new bolt TiVo doing the same thing.


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## shamilian

hillyard said:


> Seems to be about every other weekend for me


Most weekends here too.....

It was really bad last weekend.......

I am guessing they do some maintance of Tivo servers / network on the weekends.


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## zubinh

Yup, I am seeing them often too.

If Tivo will now start imitating Apple's lousy track record of updates, how about we get the _option_ to upgrade instead of doing it automatically?

Let others be the guinea pigs first and then come to the forums to see how the update is working out...


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## NorthAlabama

zubinh said:


> Let others be the guinea pigs first and then come to the forums to see how the update is working out...


great idea! if there were only some way to test software before it's commercially released...you know, to make sure there are no errors or bugs, and that it operates without introducing critical operational problems for users of the hardware for which its designed...


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## kbmb

NorthAlabama said:


> great idea! if there were only some way to test software before it's commercially released...you know, to make sure there are no errors or bugs, and that it operates without introducing critical operational problems for users of the hardware for which its designed...


I'm guessing this problem is less because of the update itself, but more because of Tivo's awful backend infrastructure. Beta testers would have never seen this issue because there are so few of them.

Guessing also this looks to be more related to this update because of Skipmode being rolled out to some Roamios in it. More Roamios hitting the servers especially at night.

Tivo needs to at least put a bandaid on this and add more server capacity. We know they are in no position to re-write software, so I'm thinking the best we can hope for is to see these less frequently because of increased capacity on their end.

Or maybe it's all because my SNR is 40 

-Kevin


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## FitzAusTex

Has been absolutely horrific the past three days. Sucks sometimes, but has been intolerable since the weekend. Opening a folder, selecting something to watch, deleting recordings, or deleting or editing items on my To Do List, among other things are all causing the spinning circle. Very frustrating.


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## dlfl

There''s got to be more to this than overloaded servers and poorly designed software -- although both may be valid issues. How can those two issues explain that some TiVo's have little or none of this problem while others are practically disabled by it? I had just one minor occurence a couple of days ago on my Roamio basic -- 30 Mbps TWC internet, hard wired.

I guess another factor could be number of recordings -- my 500 GB drive is only about 60% full.


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## Rob Helmerichs

dlfl said:


> There''s got to be more to this than overloaded servers and poorly designed software -- although both may be valid issues. How can those two issues explain that some TiVo's have little or none of this problem while others are practically disabled by it?


Possibly not all of TiVo's servers are getting equally pounded, and it depends on which one you're connecting to. I've noticed the issue, but for me it's been a minor nuisance. I haven't seen some of the more extreme behavior others have been reporting.


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## hillyard

There is no reason to have to need internet to delete a show on your box. Tivo just trying to monetize every ****ing thing they can. Build better and cheaper and people will beat down your doors to get one, stay the same and stay small and loose subscriptions. Look they even said they are not looking out for us when the bolt came out.


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## justen_m

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Possibly not all of TiVo's servers are getting equally pounded, and it depends on which one you're connecting to. I've noticed the issue, but for me it's been a minor nuisance. I haven't seen some of the more extreme behavior others have been reporting.


Same here. It is just a minor annoyance that happens occasionally. I'd go so far to say it happens rarely. Damn, I bet I just jinxed myself.


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## HerronScott

cmaquilino16 said:


> I got the blue circle last night, I have the new update, my TiVo is four weeks old I never had any problems with my 8 year TiVo HD only reason for upgrade was because of Comcast MPEG 4 I lost all my HD channels only sd channels. TiVo better fix this bug. They got until Jan 2016 to fix this when all the network shows come back from the winter break. Are the new bolt TiVo doing the same thing.


Do you still have the HD? You might want to send Margret your TSN if you are in one of these markets and can test.

http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=535049

Scott


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## Leon WIlkinson

No whammies here ...


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## ADG

Just to confirm - I see the same blue circle when hitting play on my Roamio too (only been happening the past week).


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## lessd

ADG said:


> Just to confirm - I see the same blue circle when hitting play on my Roamio too (only been happening the past week).


Same here, now and then, but it takes about 5 sec, a pain. I guess TiVo wants to know when one watches the recorded CBS nightly news. The information they want should go into some buffer in the TiVo itself, and sent out what the server is ready, poor design IMHO.


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## NorthAlabama

the circles are strong with tivo this evening...


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## kbmb

NorthAlabama said:


> the circles are strong with tivo this evening...


Same here.....and awesome reference 

-Kevin


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## Chuck_IV

Yea, I'm still seeing them WAY more than previous updates. It's one of those things that makes you scratch your head with Tivo. 

Are they really trying to communicate back to base with EVERY keystroke? If so, that is AWFUL programming on their part. There would be ZERO reason why this would need to occur on every button push.


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## gespears

Mine have been gone for a couple of days but yesterday evening they were back. Not quite as bad (duration wise) as before but there and definitely noticeable and annoying. I'm talking specifically about the BSC that happens when you press the "play" button to play an item in your "My Shows" list.


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## SeanC

I've been seeing them as well when trying to start a recording from now playing.


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## HerronScott

lessd said:


> Same here, now and then, but it takes about 5 sec, a pain. I guess TiVo wants to know when one watches the recorded CBS nightly news. The information they want should go into some buffer in the TiVo itself, and sent out what the server is ready, poor design IMHO.


The keystroke information should still be buffered and uploaded as it always has been. Isn't this pulling information from TiVo for the show information etc?

Note that I haven't seen this yet on our new Roamio Pro. Does it only happen when playing directly from My Shows (hitting play while having a show highlighted) or does it also happen when drilling down into the show information with Select and then using Select on Play? The latter is how we normally watch shows but I did just try the former on 4 shows that I had never watched and it went straight into playing the show each time with no circle and virtually no delay. Does this get worse in the evenings (more people watching TV)?

I did see a blue circle going into one of the sub-menus (ToDo or maybe OnePass) but it was pretty brief.

Scott


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## HerronScott

Just curious, did this resolve itself for most users?

Scott


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## kbmb

HerronScott said:


> Just curious, did this resolve itself for most users?
> 
> Scott


Comes and goes for me. It has gotten better lately. But it seems nights and weekends are worse and we can still encounter the circles and slowdowns.

-Kevin


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## dlfl

HerronScott said:


> Just curious, did this resolve itself for most users?
> 
> Scott


Now if we can just get "most users" to respond -- although it might choke the forum servers! 

In general I rarely get circles. I've had only two instances over four months where they appeared when navigating My Shows and persisted for a few minutes. Then last night, when I finished playing a recording, the MyShows list didn't populate and I got the circle for about 5 seconds. Live TV was playing in the little preview window but the rest of the screen was blank until My Shows finally filled in.

Really be nice to have **TiVo** respond instead of us having to guess what causes this. If it's a server workload problem they should acknowledge it and say they're working on it. Or if they don't understand the problem they should admit it and say they're working on it.

I hope everyone who has this problem bad keeps calling TiVo support to complain. I understand the reluctance to call support and waste time going through various script-defined, mostly useless, troubleshooting, but that's what it takes for them to realize there is a serious problem.


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## RoyK

Just watched the lovely blue circles for nearly 30 seconds while deleting a recording.

Bah! Humbug!!


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## RoamioJeff

Still never seen the blue spinning circle. Is there something specific to select that makes it more commonly appear?


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## JoeKustra

RoamioJeff said:


> Still never seen the blue spinning circle. Is there something specific to select that makes it more commonly appear?


I see it (not a lot) when you select a program and hit Play. There may be a delay, sometimes a long delay, sometimes the blue spinning circle.

Also, when moving down my 1P list it may appear while waiting for the thumbnail picture to appear. That's a network issue and I think the TiVo servers are just busy.


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## JoeKustra

RoamioJeff said:


> Yeah, I've tried that too. During prime time, and at different times of the day. Ever since I first read about this, I've been looking for it and trying to duplicate it. No luck so far. Oh well, maybe I'm just lucky


It's funny, but one program that caused it three weeks in a row was SNL. Maybe it's the rarity of the program that makes the TiVo servers work harder.


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## ej42137

These days I see the Blue Spinning Circle of Pain much less frequently and they seem to be of shorter duration when they do occur. This is the behavior I would expect to see if they were caused by a server congestion problem that has been addressed.

I also saw the BSCoP frequently when I had a problem in my local network caused by a bug in my router software. These things suggest to me that the problem is not directly related to 20.5.6, except possibly that 20.5.6 has increased the overall network traffic.


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## kbmb

The fact that it's 2015 and we see this at all is crazy. There aren't THAT many TiVo users. 

-Kevin


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## keenanSR

kbmb said:


> The fact that it's 2015 and we see this at all is crazy. There aren't THAT many TiVo users.
> 
> -Kevin


It is ridiculous, offsite high power server capability is available everywhere and for cheap nowadays, there's no excuse for this sort of thing to be happening, other than maybe the underlying code is so crappy that the programmers should have been fired long ago.


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## JoeKustra

keenanSR said:


> It is ridiculous, offsite high power server capability is available everywhere and for cheap nowadays, there's no excuse for this sort of thing to be happening, other than maybe the underlying code is so crappy that the programmers should have been fired long ago.


A few hours ago I recorded an old copy of The Outer Limits from COMET. After about 30 minutes from its end, I hit play: spinning circle. No logic for this problem.


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## bareyb

Yep. I'm seeing more of those and a LOT more Video Artifacts (picture breaking up briefly) than I've seen in years. Hopefully they get it fixed, but they need to know about it to fix it. So speak up people!


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## NorthAlabama

HerronScott said:


> Just curious, did this resolve itself for most users?


this seems to be an intermittent and ongoing issue that resolves itself, then reappears, on my premierexl.

most days are ok, but when the circles are active, they're really active, and make for a miserable user experience (see post 12.19) - they go away, only to come back again:



NorthAlabama said:


> the circles are strong with tivo this evening...


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## HerronScott

RoyK said:


> Just watched the lovely blue circles for nearly 30 seconds while deleting a recording.
> 
> Bah! Humbug!!


Wow, 30 seconds. That would be frustratingly long for a basic action (and Joe also reported seeing this on a delete as well).

The above would be hard for me to test but several people mentioned seeing this when selecting Play with a show highlighted so I went through a bunch of Suggestions trying it and wasn't seeing any issues until I ran into a Twilight Zone episode recorded on SyFyHD where I can replicate this every time I hit Play with the show highlighted in My Shows. It takes about 5 seconds for the blue spinning circle to show up and then about 10 seconds of circle time before it plays. However, if I just hit right-arrow, right-arrow with it highlighted, it plays immediately. This may explain why we've not really seen it at least on the playing side since we always start our shows this way.

I went through at least 20 shows testing this on at least 10-15 different channels and this was the only show that exhibited the issue and I found it interesting that it was repeatable.

Scott


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## JoeKustra

HerronScott said:


> I went through at least 20 shows testing this on at least 10-15 different channels and this was the only show that exhibited the issue and I found it interesting that it was repeatable.
> 
> Scott


That's great information. It also explains why I will see it when, like you said, I hit Play from My Shows, but not when hitting continue on a "continue" operation.


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## HerronScott

JoeKustra said:


> That's great information. It also explains why I will see it when, like you said, I hit Play from My Shows, but not when hitting continue on a "continue" operation.


I did a little more testing this afternoon. I first verified that I was still having the same problem with the Twilight Zone recording as earlier today. I then disconnected the Internet connection (AV cabinet switch uplink to router) to my Roamio Pro and verified no connection by trying to connect to iHeartRadio, Netflix etc. I was expecting to have issues in general given the other reports here on the Roamio's dependence on having an Internet connection but I didn't have any problems or delays in playing or deleting shows during my 15-20 minute test. I went through roughly the same 20 shows testing the Play button again and also fast forwarded through 2 to the end, hit the TiVo button and then delete when prompted.

What's interesting is that during this time, I was able to play the Twilight Zone recording using the Play button and no longer got a blue circle. After I reconnected the network connection, the blue circle returned (although I think it took a couple of minutes the first time I tested this). I was able to repeat this again with this recording. No blue circle without an Internet connection on this recording (or any others) but it returns for just this recording when reconnected to the Internet.

So there does seem to be some component of the issue related to having or not having an Internet connection although in my case it's just with the one show that I've found so far. Also with my case, there doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that TiVo's servers being too busy or overloaded is the cause at this time otherwise I would expect to see it with more shows during the same time frame and not have it necessarily repeatable with just the one show. I was happy to see that without an Internet connection that I didn't seem to have any issues playing or deleting shows in general. This of course doesn't really test either a poor Internet connection or where TiVo's servers might be responding slowly if they are indeed contacted when you hit the Play button (but that doesn't really explain why that would be different than using the Play menu option).

Scott


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## NorthAlabama

HerronScott said:


> ...I was able to play the Twilight Zone recording using the Play button and no longer got a blue circle. After I reconnected the network connection, the blue circle returned (although I think it took a couple of minutes the first time I tested this). I was able to repeat this again with this recording. No blue circle without an Internet connection on this recording (or any others)


interesting, and information tivo would probably prefer not be known if you're right. it's not very difficult for me to end internet access at any moment, and forcing daily calls when connected is not difficult, either.

i haven't seen any bsc for several days, but will test this the next time i do.


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## RoamioJeff

NorthAlabama said:


> it's not very difficult for me to end internet access at any moment, and forcing daily calls when connected is not difficult, either.


Interesting ... I have parental controls in my router whereby I can block/allow internet access for specific clients on my network based upon time of day, by the hour. If I was having this issue I would shut off internet access for the Roamio except for a window of 1-3 AM when the Roamio normally phones home for updates.


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## gespears

My SBCs have all but disappeared, but they did that last week only to reappear over the weekend. So far this weekend, no issues. We'll see how long that lasts.


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## HerronScott

NorthAlabama said:


> interesting, and information tivo would probably prefer not be known if you're right. it's not very difficult for me to end internet access at any moment, and forcing daily calls when connected is not difficult, either.
> 
> i haven't seen any bsc for several days, but will test this the next time i do.


Not sure why TiVo would care. I think the tracking information (button presses etc) is probably still uploaded during the normal daily call.

Definitely let us know when it happens again if it's repeatable for that show!

Scott


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## NorthAlabama

HerronScott said:


> Not sure why TiVo would care. I think the tracking information (button presses etc) is probably still uploaded during the normal daily call.


it's not about tracking, it's about user experience. even though it may not be difficult to use the workaround now, continued use will at some point become tiring, and eventually an overall hassle, resulting in dissatisfaction with using the tivo. i'm sure they would prefer users to wait for them to address the issue, it's lose/lose either way, circles or workaround.


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## HerronScott

NorthAlabama said:


> it's not about tracking, it's about user experience. even though it may not be difficult to use the workaround now, continued use will at some point become tiring, and eventually an overall hassle, resulting in dissatisfaction with using the tivo. i'm sure they would prefer users to wait for them to address the issue, it's lose/lose either way, circles or workaround.


I'm curious to see if it's repeatable on a specific recorded show for others and of course if not using the Play button eliminates it. If it is repeatable, it would be interesting to see if everyone has the same problem on the same show.

Scott


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## TiVoSupport_Sarah

HerronScott said:


> I did a little more testing this afternoon. I first verified that I was still having the same problem with the Twilight Zone recording as earlier today. I then disconnected the Internet connection (AV cabinet switch uplink to router) to my Roamio Pro and verified no connection by trying to connect to iHeartRadio, Netflix etc. I was expecting to have issues in general given the other reports here on the Roamio's dependence on having an Internet connection but I didn't have any problems or delays in playing or deleting shows during my 15-20 minute test. I went through roughly the same 20 shows testing the Play button again and also fast forwarded through 2 to the end, hit the TiVo button and then delete when prompted.
> 
> What's interesting is that during this time, I was able to play the Twilight Zone recording using the Play button and no longer got a blue circle. After I reconnected the network connection, the blue circle returned (although I think it took a couple of minutes the first time I tested this). I was able to repeat this again with this recording. No blue circle without an Internet connection on this recording (or any others) but it returns for just this recording when reconnected to the Internet.
> 
> So there does seem to be some component of the issue related to having or not having an Internet connection although in my case it's just with the one show that I've found so far. Also with my case, there doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that TiVo's servers being too busy or overloaded is the cause at this time otherwise I would expect to see it with more shows during the same time frame and not have it necessarily repeatable with just the one show. I was happy to see that without an Internet connection that I didn't seem to have any issues playing or deleting shows in general. This of course doesn't really test either a poor Internet connection or where TiVo's servers might be responding slowly if they are indeed contacted when you hit the Play button (but that doesn't really explain why that would be different than using the Play menu option).
> 
> Scott


*Scott,
Thank you for the detailed feedback.
What happens when you bypass the switch and go directly to the router, after powercycling the TiVo box?*


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## jim1971

TiVoSupport_Sarah said:


> *Scott,
> Thank you for the detailed feedback.
> What happens when you bypass the switch and go directly to the router, after powercycling the TiVo box?*


Hi TiVoSupport_Sarah,

The detailed response you referenced stated _"I then disconnected the Internet connection (AV cabinet switch uplink to router) to my Roamio Pro_"

This implies the router is not in close proximity to the switch in question. This is a common situation in many home networks ... the use of switches.

What is the issue with Tivo and switches? An explanation from Tivo would eliminate a lot of confusion and allow users to better understand the proper use of Tivo equipment.

Thanks.

Addendum: Just had a stray thought ... What port(s) does tivo use to talk to dvrs and minis? I wonder if the need for port forwarding is the real problem. I saw a report on the internet about required Tivo open outbound and open internal ports, but NAT and SPI on all routers prevents unsolicited inbound transmissions. Is it possible that Tivo doesn't manage SPI in a standard way and port forwards are required? If so, please advise regarding Tivo standards. Does Tivo sometimes reply on a port the router/SPI doesn't expect to see? If so, then switches are not involved in the problem. If the 'wrong' port is constant, then what is it? Is the DVR the target always?


----------



## jim1971

NorthAlabama said:


> interesting, and information tivo would probably prefer not be known if you're right. it's not very difficult for me to end internet access at any moment, and forcing daily calls when connected is not difficult, either.
> 
> i haven't seen any bsc for several days, but will test this the next time i do.


Weird problem. It looks like tivo servers are sticking their noses into customer activities and won't allow you to continue if a network connection is detected and no server reply is noted by the DVR. Yet Tivo has issues with with ethernet reliability and can't navigate switches well.

*HerronScott, 
*
Just for grins, turn on uPNP on your router, wait a few minutes, and see if a connection appears after you try playing the problem video. Maybe a port forward is needed (as leaving uPNP on all the time is a major security risk). If so, please inform us here. It would possibly solve a lot of problems in other areas.

I'm also wondering if your DVR is sending on port X and Tivo is replying on port Y, throwing SPI into reject mode. This would be a Tivo problem if true.

uPNP would support an intermediate territory. I have to open ports for my slingbox to work properly. uPNP told me which ones.


----------



## HerronScott

TiVoSupport_Sarah said:


> *Scott,
> Thank you for the detailed feedback.
> What happens when you bypass the switch and go directly to the router, after powercycling the TiVo box?*


Hi Sarah,

This wasn't hard to test as I could move the network cable from the router to the switch to the Roamio and then power-cycled it. We have the switch at the AV console since there are 3 TiVo's, one Blu-Ray player and the TV that need network connections.

Same results with this one recorded show in that using the Play button causes the 15 second delay and the blue spinning circle before the show starts to actually play. When I disconnected the network connection at the router, the delay and blue spinning circle did not occur when using the Play button. The only difference was that when I tested with the network connection at the router disconnected and no switch, the TiVo displayed a "No Internet Connection (C130)" message where the Discovery Bar is located and it grayed out the menu items that need Internet connectivity. Not sure if that would have happened eventually or not going through the switch.

Scott


----------



## HerronScott

jim1971 said:


> Weird problem. It looks like tivo servers are sticking their noses into customer activities and won't allow you to continue if a network connection is detected and no server reply is noted by the DVR. Yet Tivo has issues with with ethernet reliability and can't navigate switches well..


Note that there are no issues with playback with the uplink disconnected while going through the switch. I only expected some as others had reported this before. Disconnecting the Internet connection in fact eliminated the delay and blue spinning circle from the show where I can reproduce the issue.



jim1971 said:


> *HerronScott,
> *
> Just for grins, turn on uPNP on your router, wait a few minutes, and see if a connection appears after you try playing the problem video. Maybe a port forward is needed (as leaving uPNP on all the time is a major security risk). If so, please inform us here. It would possibly solve a lot of problems in other areas.
> 
> I'm also wondering if your DVR is sending on port X and Tivo is replying on port Y, throwing SPI into reject mode. This would be a Tivo problem if true.
> 
> uPNP would support an intermediate territory. I have to open ports for my slingbox to work properly. uPNP told me which ones.


No difference with uPNP enabled and nothing in the router log indicating any uPNP requests from the TiVo. Also, the issue still exists with the one show with it enabled. I would expect this to occur with all recorded shows if it was a network issue in general.

Scott


----------



## jim1971

HerronScott said:


> Note that there are no issues with playback with the uplink disconnected while going through the switch. I only expected some as others had reported this before. Disconnecting the Internet connection in fact eliminated the delay and blue spinning circle from the show where I can reproduce the issue.
> 
> No difference with uPNP enabled and nothing in the router log indicating any uPNP requests from the TiVo. Also, the issue still exists with the one show with it enabled. I would expect this to occur with all recorded shows if it was a network issue in general.
> 
> Scott


Thanks for trying. Port forwarding is probably not involved. Since Tivo can navigate switches if Tivo servers aren't involved, then the problem lies with Tivo Servers, or so it appears at this time.

There still may be a problem with Tivo servers being queried on port X and replying on port Y. This, if it is a problem, is something Tivo needs to look at. Or maybe Tivo servers aren't replying at all. Only they know.

To me, it looks like a quality control problem that's related to the problem we originally discussed ... the DVR can't get through to an object, only now it appears Tivo servers are in the middle and can't get through back to the DVR with an OK to continue. Looks interrelated to me. You just proved switches aren't the issue since it works fine offline.

PS: I'm watching a recording now. No problems. (Maybe you need to power cycle your router ... just kidding.)


----------



## RoyK

jim1971 said:


> Thanks for trying. Port forwarding is probably not involved. Since Tivo can navigate switches if Tivo servers aren't involved, then the problem lies with Tivo Servers, or so it appears at this time.
> 
> There still may be a problem with Tivo servers being queried on port X and replying on port Y. This, if it is a problem, is something Tivo needs to look at. Or maybe Tivo servers aren't replying at all. Only they know.
> 
> To me, it looks like a quality control problem that's related to the problem we originally discussed ... the DVR can't get through to an object, only now it appears Tivo servers are in the middle and can't get through back to the DVR with an OK to continue. Looks interrelated to me. You just proved switches aren't the issue since it works fine offline.


The root cause of the problem is that the TiVo is going to the server when there is no good reason for it. It's like a toilet checking with the sewer department before it will allow you to put the seat up. No reason to do that and, if the sewer department absolutely needs to know the state of your toilet seat, that could be reported in the background.

At least the programmers had sense enough to skip the reporting if there is no internet connection.


----------



## Jed1

What I believe is happening here is our TiVo's is constantly communicating with our TiVo Online account. I just set up two new Roamios TiVo gave me to replace my Premeires and when I moved my 1Ps over using TiVo Online the move happened with in a few seconds. 
And no I did not have a service connection running or a VCM connection.

I also believe the problem some of you are having is with the network between your home and TiVo servers. The data is being held up between the two and is causing the spinning blue circle. 
Joe Kustra and I went through internet hell last winter as our service was congested so bad that I actually had my download speed hit zero. You could predict when your internet would degrade as it usually started when the kids got out of school.
On March 31st I was liberated as I was moved over into the new system and I have the most rock solid internet service in over a decade. Because of this I never see the spinning blue circle.

My cable company has been in the middle of a massive upgrade as they have deployed Arris's E6000 platform.
They have built multiple fiber hubs throughout their system which is identical to this one from TWC in California.




Service Electric and Blue Ridge Communications have partnered together to build a common ISP between both systems and this is also being upgraded. The links to Chicago, New York City, and Ashburn Virginia has also been upgraded.
All this work has basically eliminated any packet delay we were having in the previous years.
Here is a map of the interconnects:
http://www.penteledata.net/map
Anything in purple is now 40Gbps fiber. These were recently upgraded in the fall.

I think the best thing TiVo should do is put some type of Ping test on our TiVo's so they can ping the TiVo servers from the DVRs to see where the congestion is occurring. This is the best way to troubleshoot a internet connection. 
I really don't think it has anything to do with switches in the home as both of my TiVo's have to go through 2 Netgear switches before it reaches my Netgear router and I do not have the spinning blue circle or any type of connectivity issues with any of my networked devices.

What I think would help is those of you that are seeing this constantly is to report here who your internet provider is and where you are located at. This will give Tivo an idea if there is a common problem with some of the internet providers.


----------



## JoeKustra

jim1971 said:


> Jed1,
> 
> Agree that internet speed and quality might be an issue sometimes, but definitely not always. I have 75mbps / 10mbps and I still had a DVR / mini issue, which I wonder if it is interrelated with this one. Also, why does a DVR need to talk so much with a server, if this is the case? Or, why isn't the server / dvr handshake more effective?
> 
> Also, if these are programming bugs, where's quality control? Tivo keeps passing the buck to switches or the need to power cycle this or that, making the issue more difficult to deal with.


I can testify to Jed1's accuracy of the equipment quality we now share. I can also say that this BSC issue is not new, but has increased in frequency recently. I also have posted a possibility with procedures that may have an affect. I have seen this problem when hitting play on a single recording from the My Shows display. Sometimes it is so bad I wonder if the RF signal from my remote was lost. But I wait. Never have I had to hit the Play button twice. If I highlight the program, move right, then hit Select I can't recall ever having a delay. Go into a folder of a dozen programs, move down the list, and sometimes a BSC will happen. Stop a program, then resume the program and never a BSC (yet).

I don't think the TiVo communicates with the servers for every keystroke. I do know it communicates a lot. My router tells me that. Also, those thumb nails for programs are not always (or forever) cached. There may be more network activity for a user with a lot of programs. A user with an empty box may use less bandwidth.

Well, those are my observations. And my basic Roamio has had a 1TB drive for about a year.


----------



## RoyK

Again, if the box didn't attempt to call home when there is no reason on god's earth to do so (delete a show? play a show?) then it wouldn't matter in the least whether or not the server was there, or how good a connection one has. The fact that the boxes function just fine when completely disconnected proves the point. The software knows it is off line and doesn't try to connect.

If the thumb nails aren't cached, sloppy programming. The thing has GIGABYTES of drive space to cache to.


----------



## Jed1

RoyK said:


> Again, if the box didn't attempt to call home when there is no reason on god's earth to do so (delete a show? play a show?) then it wouldn't matter in the least whether or not the server was there, or how good a connection one has. The fact that the boxes function just fine when completely disconnected proves the point. The software knows it is off line and doesn't try to connect.
> 
> If the thumb nails aren't cached, sloppy programming. The thing has GIGABYTES of drive space to cache to.


I just did this test. I logged into TiVo online and I seen BBT "The Staircase Implementation" was on TBS HD at 10PM and I set a recording. In the ten seconds it took me to go from my PC to my TiVo, it was already in my To Do List.
I then cancelled the recording on the TiVo and when I came out to my PC the recording was gone.

So it is obvious that there is a constant communication with TiVo Online. So the spinning blue circle is related to the time it is taking to make communication with TiVo Online.

One thing that I must note is your download speed you pay for does not mean your data travels faster, it means you can receive a bigger payload of data in a fixed period of time. All data travels at the same speed as everything is time based.
You can judge the delay in your connection by looking at the jitter (packet delay variation). The higher the milliseconds the more your data is getting bottled up somewhere.


----------



## MikeBear

We lost power on Thursday 12/24 8am, for 51 hours, until just before 12 noon on Saturday. Charters internet hub was completely down for miles around. I had a generator running during this time, and was able to watch recorded shows on my Roamio basic used OTA only right now.

However, I was NOT able to DELETE any shows, as it wouldn't allow it with no internet connection! It would do the spinning blue thing for a short time, and then pop up the message about not being able to connect and including "however, I could watch recorded shows at this time". Sorry it's paraphrased, but that's what it said...


----------



## RoyK

MikeBear said:


> We lost power on Thursday 12/24 8am, for 51 hours, until just before 12 noon on Saturday. Charters internet hub was completely down for miles around. I had a generator running during this time, and was able to watch recorded shows on my Roamio basic used OTA only right now.
> 
> However, I was NOT able to DELETE any shows, as it wouldn't allow it with no internet connection! It would do the spinning blue thing for a short time, and then pop up the message about not being able to connect and including "however, I could watch recorded shows at this time". Sorry it's paraphrased, but that's what it said...


Is it possible the shows that wouldn't delete were streaming? I just unplugged my modem so that I had no internet connection and was able to delete recordings with no problem at all. In fact the only deleteriouus effect was blank show icons. The user experience was very peppy.


----------



## JoeKustra

RoyK said:


> Is it possible the shows that wouldn't delete were streaming? I just unplugged my modem so that I had no internet connection and was able to delete recordings with no problem at all. In fact the only deleteriouus effect was blank show icons. The user experience was very peppy.


Was there the usual error in place of the Discovery Bar? What to watch now should also be grayed out. Without internet access I have had mixed results. but always, as you said, the picture thumbnails were always missing.


----------



## RoyK

JoeKustra said:


> Was there the usual error in place of the Discovery Bar? What to watch now should also be grayed out. Without internet access I have had mixed results. but always, as you said, the picture thumbnails were always missing.


The discovery bar had no icons but I recall a few words of text across each position. I think the discovery bar is a useless waste of screen real estate and normally ignore it (on the other hand if it displayed what's up next instead of what can you jump into the middle of it would be very nice) so I didn't note what the text said.

As far as program icons are concerned AFAIAC they are just bling. Cute but add no useful information.


----------



## HerronScott

MikeBear said:


> However, I was NOT able to DELETE any shows, as it wouldn't allow it with no internet connection! It would do the spinning blue thing for a short time, and then pop up the message about not being able to connect and including "however, I could watch recorded shows at this time". Sorry it's paraphrased, but that's what it said...


How were you deleting the show (clear with show highlighted, selecting delete at the end of watching a show, etc.)? I tested deleting 3 shows with no internet connection and didn't have any issues like RoyK. Also, what specific shows did you try to delete?

Scott


----------



## HerronScott

JoeKustra said:


> Was there the usual error in place of the Discovery Bar? What to watch now should also be grayed out. Without internet access I have had mixed results. but always, as you said, the picture thumbnails were always missing.


Mine showed the C130 (no internet connection) when I had the network connection directly to the TiVo disconnected and C133 (no connection to TiVo server) when I had it going through a switch and the switch uplink disconnected. As you mentioned What to watch gets grayed out. With the C130 other network dependent features are also grayed out like Netflix, Pandora etc. Those don't get grayed out with the C133 which makes sense.

Scott


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## HerronScott

Jed1 said:


> I just did this test. I logged into TiVo online and I seen BBT "The Staircase Implementation" was on TBS HD at 10PM and I set a recording. In the ten seconds it took me to go from my PC to my TiVo, it was already in my To Do List.
> I then cancelled the recording on the TiVo and when I came out to my PC the recording was gone.
> 
> So it is obvious that there is a constant communication with TiVo Online. So the spinning blue circle is related to the time it is taking to make communication with TiVo Online.
> .


When TiVo implemented online programming they did setup a separate connection to check for changes made online.

I would not say definitively that all blue spinning circles are related to the time it is taking to communicate with TiVo Online at this point since I've only found the one show that causes it to happen which is both repeatable and only happens when you use the Play button from My Shows versus play from the menu.

Scott


----------



## JoeKustra

HerronScott said:


> Mine showed the C130 (no internet connection) when I had the network connection directly to the TiVo disconnected and C133 (no connection to TiVo server) when I had it going through a switch and the switch uplink disconnected. As you mentioned What to watch gets grayed out. With the C130 other network dependent features are also grayed out like Netflix, Pandora etc. Those don't get grayed out with the C133 which makes sense.
> 
> Scott


Thank you. That's exactly what I expect and have observed. Just pulling the network from the box won't generate the error anymore than reconnecting the internet clears the message. Some other action is needed. All my stuff goes through a router, so like you said, there's a layer between the TiVo and the internet. Some of my stuff also goes through range extenders, which adds another layer.


----------



## jim1971

JoeKustra said:


> Some of my stuff also goes through range extenders, which adds another layer.


I really don't believe home network layers are a real problem.

When the internet leaves your home it goes to your ISP router via their switches and then onto the internet backbone ... which is comprised of routers and switches. Many hops are made between your home and Tivo servers ... all of which have routers and switches.

After Tivo servers do whatever they do ... The same path is followed back to your home network via many hops which include many routers and many switches.

Perhaps the internet needs a reboot? (kidding)

The same TCP/IP that gets your message to and from Tivo on the internet is in our homes. There isn't a home TCP/IP vs an 'internet' TCP/IP. Blaming home networks is a red herring in most cases (Yes wireless isn't foolproof and some routers aren't very good. If one has a recent model router and wired ethernet, there should be few problems.)


----------



## RoyK

jim1971 said:


> I really don't believe home network layers are a real problem.
> 
> When the internet leaves your home it goes to your ISP router via their switches and then onto the internet backbone ... which is comprised of routers and switches. Many hops are made between your home and Tivo servers ... all of which have routers and switches.
> 
> After Tivo servers do whatever they do ... The same path is followed back to your home network via many hops which include many routers and many switches.
> 
> Perhaps the internet needs a reboot? (kidding)
> 
> The same TCP/IP that gets your message to and from Tivo on the internet is in our homes. There isn't a home TCP/IP vs an 'internet' TCP/IP. Blaming home networks is a red herring in most cases (Yes wireless isn't foolproof and some routers aren't very good. If one has a recent model router and wired ethernet, there should be few problems.)


The ONLY solutions to problems communicating to a server when it isn't necessary to do so is to fix the internet and all of it's components so that communcation is perfect OR write code that DOESN'T make the user wait while it connects to a server when it isn't necessary to do so as a competent group of programmers would have done in the first place.


----------



## MikeBear

RoyK said:


> Is it possible the shows that wouldn't delete were streaming? I just unplugged my modem so that I had no internet connection and was able to delete recordings with no problem at all. In fact the only deleteriouus effect was blank show icons. The user experience was very peppy.


These were not streaming shows, as I haven't watched any streaming stuff on my Tivo as of yet. These were old "Baywatch" shows recorded off a local OTA channel.

Some were re-recordings from a month or so ago I had already watched, yet it re-recorded them again. I selected them, Down arrow to 'delete' and hit Select. They wouldn't delete, and all I got was a spinning blue circle.


----------



## midas

HerronScott said:


> I would not say definitively that all blue spinning circles are related to the time it is taking to communicate with TiVo Online at this point since I've only found the one show that causes it to happen which is both repeatable and only happens when you use the Play button from My Shows versus play from the menu.
> 
> Scott


Overall I've seen less blue spinners lately. But I had one today where I hit the play button from My Shows and it took about 7 or 8 seconds for the show to start, accompanied by the blue circle. So I tried going into the program description and chose the play option using select and it played immediately. But when I went back and tried it from My Shows again there was no delay.


----------



## HerronScott

midas said:


> But I had one today where I hit the play button from My Shows and it took about 7 or 8 seconds for the show to start, accompanied by the blue circle. So I tried going into the program description and chose the play option using select and it played immediately. But when I went back and tried it from My Shows again there was no delay.


Interesting, I still have the one Twilight Zone show that was originally recorded as a Suggestion which will do it every time if you use the Play button from My Shows.

Otherwise we're not seeing this issue.

Scott


----------



## Jed1

HerronScott said:


> Interesting, I still have the one Twilight Zone show that was originally recorded as a Suggestion which will do it every time if you use the Play button from My Shows.
> 
> Otherwise we're not seeing this issue.
> 
> Scott


If this show repeats on the same channel try recording it again to see if you get the same result.
I also go into the second menu to play my recordings. I never started a recording directly form my shows menu.

This is not related but I remember I had an issue with one recording of Boardwalk Empire that would stop about 8 minutes into a transfer to my PC. I seen that the episode repeated so I recorded it again and this recording fully transferred to my PC. The other recording would always stop at the same point. I could not see any type of defect in the recording either.


----------



## NorthAlabama

i waited for 3 circles last night when i pressed "play" on a recording in a folder in my shows, but the wait was not much longer than the new 3sec delay feature when pressing play.


----------



## ej42137

NorthAlabama said:


> i waited for 3 circles last night when i pressed "play" on a recording in a folder in my shows, but the wait was not much longer than the new 3sec delay feature when pressing play.


I don't see any new delay after pressing play, and I'm seeing the Blue Circle of Pain much less frequently lately.


----------



## wtkflhn

RoyK said:


> Is it possible the shows that wouldn't delete were streaming? I just unplugged my modem so that I had no internet connection and was able to delete recordings with no problem at all. In fact the only deleteriouus effect was blank show icons. The user experience was very peppy.


 I have had this expierence, too. And no, in my case anyway. the shows were recorded from cable. They will NOT delete without internet connectivity. Which IMHO, is ridiculous. Why should TIVO care if I delete a show?

Don H.


----------



## RoyK

wtkflhn said:


> I have had this expierence, too. And no, in my case anyway. the shows were recorded from cable. They will NOT delete without internet connectivity. Which IMHO, is ridiculous. Why should TIVO care if I delete a show?
> 
> Don H.


They shouldn't. Obviously neither do they care if you can't delete a show without internet access.....


----------



## jth tv

I've been able to delete using the clear button at the My Shows listing.

I think they should let us opt out of the constant communications. Go back to the standard once a day service connections. I don't use their web interface so constant updates are really unnecessary. I am not really endeared to any shows these days and while I would not like it if something went wrong (like what problems are they preventing ?), its not that big of a deal either if the changes I made in the past 24 hours are lost. Let us do a manual connect if we were doing extensive changes.

When I surf the web I have lots of stuff turned off because over time I have learned that there are often connecting problems and don't want to wait. For example, recently I wanted some android google play apps so I signed in. Within a day or two I was noticing how the browser seemed slow, so I deleted the sign in and the slowness was gone. And on my PC my hosts file is filled with websites I have prohibited, eg facebook. And when I use this website I turn IE internet zone security to high, sometimes if I had opened a whole bunch of messages at once, ie would freeze up. With high security the problem goes away.

Always being connected is Not good.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Jed1 said:


> What I believe is happening here is our TiVo's is constantly communicating with our TiVo Online account.


Duh.



> What I think would help is those of you that are seeing this constantly is to report here who your internet provider is and where you are located at. This will give Tivo an idea if there is a common problem with some of the internet providers.


It has nothing to do with which ISP you're on.


----------



## dlfl

slowbiscuit said:


> .......
> It has nothing to do with which ISP you're on.


How can you be so sure of that?


----------



## slowbiscuit

Is everyone here on Comcast? No, and yet there are a zillion reports of blue circles.

C'mon man don't be obtuse, the issue is Tivo's servers and the crappy network code in our boxes. If it was an ISP issue it would affect way more than Tivo's connectivity.


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## kbmb

Yeah I love how I can stream an HD movie, but somehow hitting play on a recorded program is too much for my connection 

-Kevin


----------



## keenanSR

slowbiscuit said:


> Is everyone here on Comcast? No, and yet there are a zillion reports of blue circles.
> 
> C'mon man don't be obtuse, the issue is Tivo's servers and the crappy network code in our boxes. If it was an ISP issue it would affect way more than Tivo's connectivity.


Seriously, just contract account management out to AWS and be done with it. Netflix has AWS handle their front end account management services(selection of titles, etc) and with over 30 million subscribers they don't seem to have these sorts of problems.

This problem reeks of insufficient resources and bad code, something that is 100% entirely fixable.


----------



## skid71

I've seen a number of posts say something to the effect of; I don't play recordings through "My Shows", I play it (another) way.
Excuse my ignorance...what other way is there to play recordings?
My path usually is as follows:
My Shows
Better Call Saul
S01E05 Spank My Hairy Arse
then choose play from here

I'm genuinely interested in playing a different way to bypass BSC.


----------



## kbmb

I don't think the clue circles are limited to just play/delete. Personally I have seen the blue circle and slow screen loading doing any of the following:

- clicking play directly from My Shows
- going into the show details 
- going into a folder with shows in it
- clicking Watch Now from within details
- deleting a show using clear

Fact is, Tivo has coded these boxes to rely in some fashion on a connection back Tivo, and that connection at times sucks. Most likely their infrastructure is overloaded when a lot of boxes are hitting it.

-Kevin


----------



## lessd

keenanSR said:


> Seriously, just contract account management out to AWS and be done with it. Netflix has AWS handle their front end account management services(selection of titles, etc) and with over 30 million subscribers they don't seem to have these sorts of problems.
> 
> This problem reeks of insufficient resources and bad code, something that is 100% entirely fixable.


For TiVo not us


----------



## keenanSR

lessd said:


> For TiVo not us


Correct, I don't believe there's anything the end user can do to fix this problem, it's entirely in the hands of TiVo. If the device has a connection to the Internet, then that's it, the rest is up to TiVo.


----------



## JoeKustra

kbmb said:


> I don't think the clue circles are limited to just play/delete. Personally I have seen the blue circle and slow screen loading doing any of the following:
> 
> - clicking play directly from My Shows
> - going into the show details
> - going into a folder with shows in it
> - clicking Watch Now from within details
> - deleting a show using clear
> 
> Fact is, Tivo has coded these boxes to rely in some fashion on a connection back Tivo, and that connection at times sucks. Most likely their infrastructure is overloaded when a lot of boxes are hitting it.
> 
> -Kevin


Adding
- scrolling down in 1P manager
- scrolling down in To Do List

Both may be related to uncached thumb nail picture of show.


----------



## keenanSR

Do a Google search for TiVo online and the below is the top return, too funny.


----------



## HerronScott

skid71 said:


> I've seen a number of posts say something to the effect of; I don't play recordings through "My Shows", I play it (another) way.
> Excuse my ignorance...what other way is there to play recordings?
> My path usually is as follows:
> My Shows
> Better Call Saul
> S01E05 Spank My Hairy Arse
> then choose play from here
> 
> I'm genuinely interested in playing a different way to bypass BSC.


You are probably referring to my posts earlier in this thread. First, I'm not having an issue with BSC's. I think I saw a brief one once or twice in the OnePass Manager but otherwise I haven't see one while playing or deleting shows. Someone had mentioned they get them while hitting the Play button with the recorded show highlighted in My Shows so I went through 20 recorded shows and could only find 1 where this happened and it was repeatable. I found that if instead of hitting the Play button at My Shows, I drilled down into the recorded shows description and selected Play from the menu then I did not get a BSC (so highlight show in My Shows and then hit Select and Select or Right Arrow and Right Arrow).

This may not be representative of what others are seeing though and could be something unique to this one show since otherwise I'm not having an issue with BSC or any delays playing shows. I'm recording it again tomorrow to see if it happens on a new recording plus recording another episode this evening.

I was hoping someone else could point to a specific show where it was repeatable for them as well and whether or not it was specific to hitting the Play button from My Shows.

Scott


----------



## dlfl

slowbiscuit said:


> Is everyone here on Comcast? No, and yet there are a zillion reports of blue circles.
> 
> C'mon man don't be obtuse, the issue is Tivo's servers and the crappy network code in our boxes. If it was an ISP issue it would affect way more than Tivo's connectivity.


I run a Roamio basic and have no significant problems with BC's. -- four instances lasting 30 sec or less over a four month period. I have the same "crappy" code and if you rule out internet quality as a major factor (as you are doing by saying your ISP doesn't matter) what factors does that leave to explain why some of us have no issues with BC's? Is it because we always connect to better TiVo servers, somehow? Or is it determined by local usage factors such as number of recordings?


----------



## Damiansnpvp4

Still having the same problem for the last three months, "The blue circle of death!" As I said earlier in another post, I would welcome the blue circle of death for a solid 2 min. if then it would not turn into a C501 error. If I select lets say Opera app while the circle is spinning & before the C501 error, it would work. The problem is trying to go to the 2nd page where other stuff is including Stream Baby that I use. The 2nd page does not show up anymore, instead I get the C501 error. Infact if I allow the blue circle of death to run its course(about 30 sec.) the C501 error shows up on any page. Tivo claims this is a network problem, but I tried all of there tricks & it still does not work. I sure hope they fix this someday. damiansnpvp


----------



## mrecob

Companies like Google who service many server requests (searches, etc) create server farms in many locations. Google has a list of them. Google has 7 such server farms in different parts of the US and others around the world. Depending on your location and other factors your Google search can be directed to any one of these server locations to share the load. Has any of you ever tried to play a YouTube video and found it really slow to spool but other times really fast? I would be surprised if Tivo has not done something similiar. The Tivo HQ is just down the street from me here in San Jose but I very much doubt this is where their servers are located. Server farms are put in remote locations where land and power is cheap. I would not expect Tivo to have as many server locations as Google but just for redundancy they would have to have more than one. Unlike Google, Tivo will never tell us where they are or how many there are since they have a rather strict code of silence about most things. It is not out of the realm of possibility that some of their servers could have performance issues.


----------



## atmuscarella

mrecob said:


> ...The Tivo HQ is just down the street from me here in San Jose but I very much doubt this is where their servers are located. Server farms are put in remote locations where land and power is cheap.


Do we really believe TiVo owns and operates their own servers and has an independent TiVo server farms? I find that highly unlikely. I would find it much more likely that TiVo is "renting" everything.


----------



## jth tv

dlfl said:


> what factors does that leave to explain why some of us have no issues with BC's? Is it because we always connect to better TiVo servers, somehow?


It probably depends on the time of day, day of the week for TiVo's servers. Whenever the most amount of people are using the most amount of TiVo. During the day not so much, prime time a lot.


----------



## RoyK

Were the code properly written communication by smoke signals to a server that was only up every other minute wouldn't impact selecting shows for recording, listing those recorded, browsing folders, or playing or deleting programs.The fact that servers and communication is less than ideal is only a problem because the code, if there is an internet connection available, insists on making the user wait while it communicates information unnecessary to the operation of the box.


----------



## dlfl

dlfl said:


> I run a Roamio basic and have no significant problems with BC's. -- four instances lasting 30 sec or less over a four month period. I have the same "crappy" code and if you rule out internet quality as a major factor (as you are doing by saying your ISP doesn't matter) what factors does that leave to explain why some of us have no issues with BC's? Is it because we always connect to better TiVo servers, somehow? Or is it determined by local usage factors such as number of recordings?





jth tv said:


> It probably depends on the time of day, day of the week for TiVo's servers. Whenever the most amount of people are using the most amount of TiVo. During the day not so much, prime time a lot.


My Roamio is in use every day and the only hours it's not in use are 2 am to 5 am. (Different family members have different waking hours.). Not having BC problems must result from either (1) always connecting to a better server than people who have the problem, or (2) some local factor such as number of recordings, etc. -- that is assuming you won't accept differences of Internet service quality as a possible reason.

I also believe the TiVo's code is a major culprit here (assuming your Internet performs well on all other devices and functions). I just think it's curious that many of us don't have the problem while many others do -- and I haven't seen a convincing theory to explain this in this long thread.

Has there even been any sign from TiVo that they recognize this as an issue?


----------



## Rob Helmerichs

jth tv said:


> It probably depends on the time of day, day of the week for TiVo's servers. Whenever the most amount of people are using the most amount of TiVo. During the day not so much, prime time a lot.


Or it may be which server your machine is hitting...they may not be evenly loaded.


----------



## mrecob

Whether Tivo has their own servers or rents them is not relevant to potential performance issues. If Google with their resources can have regional performance issues, anyone can.


----------



## atmuscarella

mrecob said:


> Whether Tivo has their own servers or rents them is not relevant to potential performance issues. If Google with their resources can have regional performance issues, anyone can.


Actually I would think it would be logical to assume TiVo will have server issues, as you said everyone does. I have to believe TiVo knows that also, which begs to question why they haven't they made more code adjustments that hides server issues.

There really is no excuse for performance issues due to issues with Tivo servers or server contact when it comes to most core DVR functions (starting a manual recording, play back, etc.). I can understand search and to some extent setting up a one pass, but even using streaming apps shouldn't be negatively effected because of TiVo Server contact issues.


----------



## slowbiscuit

atmuscarella said:


> There really is no excuse for performance issues due to issues with Tivo servers or server contact when it comes to most core DVR functions (starting a manual recording, play back, etc.). I can understand search and to some extent setting up a one pass, but even using streaming apps shouldn't be negatively effected because of TiVo Server contact issues.


Exactly.

Folks come here and act like they've discovered something new (Tivo constantly communicates with the mothership! OMG!) and then try to see if it's anything other than Tivo causing BSCs because they personally don't see the problem.

But given the tons of complaints here across multiple threads over time it's obvious that network and local issues are NOT the problem (and usually new threads are started when many are seeing the issue). Tivo, however, doesn't seem to care even though it affects everyday core DVR functions.


----------



## HerronScott

HerronScott said:


> Interesting, I still have the one Twilight Zone show that was originally recorded as a Suggestion which will do it every time if you use the Play button from My Shows.
> 
> Otherwise we're not seeing this issue.


So I recorded another episode of Twilight Zone on SyFyHD and I recorded the same original episode again as it was on again yesterday and all 3 shows will pause for 5 seconds and then show 10 seconds of BSC when you hit the Play button to play them from My Shows, but play instantly when you pick play from the menu.

If the TiVo is checking in with TiVo on the backend when you use the Play button it sounds like there might be a lookup issue in this show as it would seem to be based on my tests with disconnecting the Internet connection. Very odd why it only does this when playing the show one way versus the other though.

Other than this one example, no issues with BSC's here. We generally watch shows between 7-10pm EST.

Scott


----------



## JoeKustra

HerronScott said:


> So I recorded another episode of Twilight Zone on SyFyHD and I recorded the same original episode again as it was on again yesterday and all 3 shows will pause for 5 seconds and then show 10 seconds of BSC when you hit the Play button to play them from My Shows, but play instantly when you pick play from the menu.
> 
> Scott


Amazing. At 12:30 to 13:00 EST I recorded The Twilight Zone from SyFy. I just now went to the My Shows folder. I hit Play. Ten seconds later I had a BSC for five seconds then it started. I wasn't using a watch so the times are guesses. You really made it easy to duplicate.

But TiVo will probably wait until next year to duplicate the problem.


----------



## snerd

JoeKustra said:


> But TiVo will probably wait until next year to duplicate the problem.


Ah, so you're an optimist


----------



## JoeKustra

snerd said:


> Ah, so you're an optimist


It's worse than that. I turned on my IP log, and there was no internet access during the failure. No internet access when it worked. I hope my router is just skipping the access and not adding it to the log.


----------



## RoyK

JoeKustra said:


> Amazing. At 12:30 to 13:00 EST I recorded The Twilight Zone from SyFy. I just now went to the My Shows folder. I hit Play. Ten seconds later I had a BSC for five seconds then it started. I wasn't using a watch so the times are guesses. You really made it easy to duplicate.
> 
> But TiVo will probably wait until next year to duplicate the problem.


Duplicated here just now on a Twilight Zone episode just recorded from SyFy. Confirmed that this recording gave me BSC every time when started ftom My Programs by pressing 'Play' but never if selected then selected again or selected and played.

Not sure what to make of this. I get frequent BSC but am not in the habit of using Play to start recordings.

Edit2. This is the only instance of BSC that has ever been repeatable for me.

Edit 3: Disconnected the modem (3Mb DSL) from the phone line. Starting Twilight Zone using Play caused BSC the first time I tried it after disconnecting but not once for six more times with it still disconnected. Reconnected the modem and after the second time starting with Play the circles returned.


----------



## lessd

JoeKustra said:


> It's worse than that. I turned on my IP log, and there was no internet access during the failure. No internet access when it worked. I hope my router is just skipping the access and not adding it to the log.


Could we all be making the wrong assumption about the cause of this BSC is?, I have nothing better than the TiVo servers to be the problem, but why would TiVo want to know some of this information, knowing what you recorded and that you skipped an ad may be good information for TiVo but real time data of what your doing on your TiVo?? This problem may just be a software glitch that TiVo has to fix, also I was under the impression that your TiVo log that downloaded about once a day is how TiVo gets the information they want, real time data for anything you do on a TiVo just makes no sense to me, as this type of server load has to cost something. Could this be some type of test TiVo is doing, to say replace voting machine


----------



## JoeKustra

lessd said:


> Could this be some type of test TiVo is doing, to say replace voting machine


That would be nice. Well, maybe not for Florida. 

I was able to get activity to TiVo by changing a 1P. Some things are sent in real time, some must wait for a VCM connection. It's all a mystery.


----------



## slowbiscuit

JoeKustra said:


> Amazing. At 12:30 to 13:00 EST I recorded The Twilight Zone from SyFy. I just now went to the My Shows folder. I hit Play. Ten seconds later I had a BSC for five seconds then it started. I wasn't using a watch so the times are guesses. You really made it easy to duplicate.
> 
> But TiVo will probably wait until next year to duplicate the problem.


Wait! Are you sure it's not your ISP??


----------



## jim1971

lessd said:


> Could we all be making the wrong assumption about the cause of this BSC is?, I have nothing better than the TiVo servers to be the problem, but why would TiVo want to know some of this information, knowing what you recorded and that you skipped an ad may be good information for TiVo but real time data of what your doing on your TiVo?? This problem may just be a software glitch that TiVo has to fix, also I was under the impression that your TiVo log that downloaded about once a day is how TiVo gets the information they want, real time data for anything you do on a TiVo just makes no sense to me, as this type of server load has to cost something. Could this be some type of test TiVo is doing, to say replace voting machine


Yes, I agree, it's a software glitch involving the home and the servers coordinating some kind of information. Others in thread noted that the stream and the home dvr keep in sync rather well, or that's the intention. The bug probably involves the sync and getting through to servers promptly and correctly. Unclear if a stream needs to be on the account for this to happen or if it's related to a region only - haven't read 5 pages of entries.

Not trying to hijack the thread ... the common element is tivo servers not in sync well with dvr activities. This is probably related to my dvr - mini issue where, I suspect, servers don't always allow the dvr to see the attached minis.

My theory at this time ... Both the stream and the mini are newer technologies and they still have glitches coordinating them with user dvrs and whatever tivo servers need to know about them for whatever reasons. These sync glitches cause failures in normal operating activities.

Somebody possibly designed a rigid system that didn't accommodate common user variances in activities or fallbacks; for example, if method A fails them method B takes over automatically until method A is fixed. Instead, some designer said "this is the way it's supposed to work and will always work." Now the issue is will they take a big picture approach and find all sync issues and fix them using best practices? In my case, blaming the switches for my mini issue is comical, annoying, and implies other things.

The tivo system involves complicated software. I don't think anyone expects 100% perfection all the time on all days. Mistakes are made occasionally and if issues occur on the fringe, then I suspect most people would cut Tivo some slack and just assume they will fix it promptly and acknowledge a boo boo. What's infuriating is the silence and appearance, to me, of scapegoating. Perhaps a log on their site of 'known issues at this time' would be appropriate.


----------



## HerronScott

RoyK said:


> Duplicated here just now on a Twilight Zone episode just recorded from SyFy. Confirmed that this recording gave me BSC every time when started ftom My Programs by pressing 'Play' but never if selected then selected again or selected and played.
> 
> Not sure what to make of this. I get frequent BSC but am not in the habit of using Play to start recordings.
> 
> Edit2. This is the only instance of BSC that has ever been repeatable for me.
> 
> Edit 3: Disconnected the modem (3Mb DSL) from the phone line. Starting Twilight Zone using Play caused BSC the first time I tried it after disconnecting but not once for six more times with it still disconnected. Reconnected the modem and after the second time starting with Play the circles returned.


Exactly what I'm seeing. Once the TiVo recognizes the Internet connection is gone, this particular BSC goes away (and comes back when you restore Internet connectivity and the TiVo realizes it has connectivity again).

If you disconnect the network connection at the TiVo, then I believe it happens right away since the TiVo knows immediately that it has no Internet connection.

As I stated before, this particular BSC may be unrelated to the other ones that people are seeing and have a different root cause. Thanks for indicating that your others have not been repeatable. If you find one that is, let us know.

I'm still curious why some are seeing the issue and others not though. If it were the servers, you would think everyone would have the issue although the current connectivity issue with Comcast on the west coast has pointed out that TiVo may have different east coast/west coast data centers. ISP/bandwidth has been mentioned but mine is standard Comcast 25/5Mbps service while users with higher bandwidth packages have reported issues. Roy, it is interesting that you are on a 3Mbps DSL line and are seeing the issue frequently. Ideally, taking your TiVo to a local friend or family's house that had the same cable company but higher bandwidth connection to test would be great since you are seeing the issue frequently but probably not possible.

Scott


----------



## RoamioJeff

It's still odd that some of us have _never_ seen this blue circle.


----------



## chiguy50

HerronScott said:


> I'm still curious why some are seeing the issue and others not though. If it were the servers, you would think everyone would have the issue although the current connectivity issue with Comcast on the west coast has pointed out that TiVo may have different east coast/west coast data centers. ISP/bandwidth has been mentioned but mine is standard Comcast 25/5Mbps service while users with higher bandwidth packages have reported issues. *Roy, it is interesting that you are on a 3Mbps DSL line and are seeing the issue frequently.* Ideally, taking your TiVo to a local friend or family's house that had the same cable company but higher bandwidth connection to test would be great since you are seeing the issue frequently but probably not possible.
> 
> Scott


Just to provide another data point, I also have 3Mbps DSL and the BSC's have not been much of an issue here on my Premiere Elite (XL4) or Mini. Granted, they are more prevalent than before the latest SW update but nothing terribly annoying other than an occasional delay of a few seconds.


----------



## HerronScott

chiguy50 said:


> Just to provide another data point, I also have 3Mbps DSL and the BSC's have not been much of an issue here on my Premiere Elite (XL4) or Mini. Granted, they are more prevalent than before the latest SW update but nothing terribly annoying other than an occasional delay of a few seconds.


More data is always good!

Scott


----------



## jth tv

The BSC has been often enough to annoy me. But not in the past few days.

My Account, System Information (page 4), Opt Status: Opt In

Could it be that opting in is bad ?


----------



## NorthAlabama

ej42137 said:


> I don't see any new delay after pressing play, and I'm seeing the Blue Circle of Pain much less frequently lately.


i've noticed significantly reduced bsc recently, too.

i'm not the only user who's reported a delay when pressing play on a recording in my shows, but it's intermittent, and i haven't been able to determine any pattern:



tomhorsley said:


> From "My Shows", when I hit "Play" on a show in the list, I always start to wonder if I actually hit the button when it finally starts playing. It definitely used to be a lot faster...


----------



## gespears

JoeKustra said:


> Amazing. At 12:30 to 13:00 EST I recorded The Twilight Zone from SyFy. I just now went to the My Shows folder. I hit Play. Ten seconds later I had a BSC for five seconds then it started.


I'm recording and watching the Twilight Zone marathon and I get the BSCs every time I press play on an episode in their folder. Completely consistent. But I'm not getting them from pressing play in "My Shows" when the items are not in a folder. I also recorded the Mythbuster's marathon and pressing play on them in their folder does not illicit a BSC.

Very interesting.

I think for some reason the TiVo has to talk to the server about the program, like it has to get data to fill in the info box or whatever.


----------



## RoamioJeff

gespears said:


> I'm recording and watching the Twilight Zone marathon and I get the BSCs every time I press play on an episode in their folder. Completely consistent. But I'm not getting them from pressing play in "My Shows" when the items are not in a folder. I also recorded the Mythbuster's marathon and pressing play on them in their folder does not illicit a BSC.
> 
> Very interesting.
> 
> I think for some reason the TiVo has to talk to the server about the program, like it has to get data to fill in the info box or whatever.


As a data point, after reading about the issue occurring with recordings of the Twilight Zone, I scheduled a few episodes to be recorded last night. Cannot reproduce the blue circle.


----------



## gespears

RoamioJeff said:


> As a data point, after reading about the issue occurring with recordings of the Twilight Zone, I scheduled a few episodes to be recorded last night. Cannot reproduce the blue circle.


That is interesting. It does it EVERY time I try to direct play an episode from the folder.


----------



## HerronScott

RoamioJeff said:


> As a data point, after reading about the issue occurring with recordings of the Twilight Zone, I scheduled a few episodes to be recorded last night. Cannot reproduce the blue circle.


Jeff,

The original Twilight Zone on SyFiHD and you are hitting the Play button on the remote with the show highlighted in My Shows? If you pick an upcoming episode to record later tonight or tomorrow, we could both record that specific episode and test?

Note this is the only place I've seen this on mine and only when using the Play button and not the menu play.

Scott


----------



## RoamioJeff

HerronScott said:


> Jeff,
> 
> The original Twilight Zone on SyFiHD and you are hitting the Play button on the remote with the show highlighted in My Shows? If you pick an upcoming episode to record later tonight or tomorrow, we could both record that specific episode and test?
> 
> Note this is the only place I've seen this on mine and only when using the Play button and not the menu play.
> 
> Scott


Scott,

Yes. Yes.

"The Long Morrow" (S5 E15)
Sun 1/03 1:00AM ET SyFy HD
In about 4.5 hours.

Can compare notes tomorrow afternoon, as I'll be out until then.

Jeff


----------



## HerronScott

RoamioJeff said:


> "The Long Morrow" (S5 E15)
> Sun 1/03 1:00AM ET SyFy HD
> In about 4.5 hours.
> 
> Can compare notes tomorrow afternoon, as I'll be out until then.


Jeff,

Got it set to record.

Scott


----------



## dlfl

RoamioJeff said:


> Scott,
> 
> Yes. Yes.
> 
> "The Long Morrow" (S5 E15)
> Sun 1/03 1:00AM ET SyFy HD
> In about 4.5 hours.
> 
> Can compare notes tomorrow afternoon, as I'll be out until then.
> 
> Jeff


My Roamio basic is set to record this episode tonight -- another data point.

I wonder if having it in a group makes a difference?


----------



## HerronScott

dlfl said:


> My Roamio basic is set to record this episode tonight -- another data point.
> 
> I wonder if having it in a group makes a difference?


After this episode records, I'll test with and then delete the other shows and test again.

Scott


----------



## dlfl

RoamioJeff said:


> ..........
> "The Long Morrow" (S5 E15)
> Sun 1/03 1:00AM ET SyFy HD
> ............





dlfl said:


> My Roamio basic is set to record this episode tonight -- another data point.
> 
> I wonder if having it in a group makes a difference?


Data point: I get the BC when hitting play on this episode from the My Shows list. About 5 seconds of no response, followed by 5 or more seconds of BC, then it plays. I don't normally use this key sequence to play recordings. I tried it on several other recordings and no BC's. When I select the show then select Play there are no BC's.

BTW I don't normally record Twilight Zone so this episode was not part of a group.

@slowbiscuit: Still considering it might be related to my ISP.


----------



## snerd

Come on people, it is *The Twilight Zone!*

Can't you hear Rod Serling laughing in the background?


----------



## mbkintner

dlfl said:


> Data point: I get the BC when hitting play on this episode from the My Shows list. About 5 seconds of no response, followed by 5 or more seconds of BC, then it plays. I don't normally use this key sequence to play recordings. I tried it on several other recordings and no BC's. When I select the show then select Play there are no BC's.


Jumping in as another data point.... I recorded this Twilight Zone episode and get the exact same outcomes as described above.


----------



## HerronScott

mbkintner said:


> Jumping in as another data point.... I recorded this Twilight Zone episode and get the exact same outcomes as described above.


I recorded this episode last night and same results as with the other episodes with or without a folder being present (I deleted the other test episodes that I had recorded). I didn't have a OnePass to this either but happened to find it going through shows that had been recorded as Suggestions. I'm guessing this may be a unique example of something that can cause it but does seem to point to some odd behavior since it's only when the Play button is used. If Sarah gets this back to the programmers maybe it can help point to perhaps some code issues or unexpected impacts of what they need the code to do.

Scott


----------



## RoyK

The BSC merely indicate that something is going on and the user should wait. There is no reason to believe that only one condition can cause them.


----------



## morac

I started getting BCs on my Roamio Pro after the update to 20.5.6 a few weeks ago. Last week it wasn't bad as I wasn't getting them, but the past few days have been very bad. I'm getting blue circles trying to play any program (press play from My Shows), going into Browse TV & Internet collections (actually got an error once for that). Pretty much doing much of anything, with the exception of using the OTT apps gives a BC. 

TiVo's servers seem to be having issues as even doing searches, which used to be fairly quick are taking over 20 seconds to return results now. I'm wondering if a bug in the 20.5.6 code is causing an increased server load, which is causing problems?

As for constant server communication. That's been in the TiVo code base for years. It's not something new in this release, nor does it have anything to do with the new features of TiVo Online. The same functionality has been part of the iOS apps for a few years now.


----------



## morac

RoyK said:


> The BSC merely indicate that something is going on and the user should wait. There is no reason to believe that only one condition can cause them.


Which makes getting them when trying to play a recording all the more ridiculous as there's nothing the user needs to be waiting for in that case.


----------



## JoeKustra

I made three SD recordings on three other channels and they played fine. I couldn't find anything in B&W 4:3 to test with.


----------



## RoyK

morac said:


> Which makes getting them when trying to play a recording all the more ridiculous as there's nothing the user needs to be waiting for in that case.


Agreed!


----------



## RoamioJeff

HerronScott said:


> After this episode records, I'll test with and then delete the other shows and test again.
> 
> Scott


Okay, just got back to the house. I have the recording. I hit the play button on the remote with the show highlighted in My Shows. No blue circles. I hit "play" in the menu. No blue circles.

The more I read about this the more I'm thinking it _might_ be connection/ISP-based. Perhaps internet congestion somewhere between some users and Tivo servers, based upon ISP or route. Some have scoffed at that possibility, but I would like to think of a way to prove/disprove it. If I could figure out the IP address of the Tivo server(s), I would like to compare PING and TRACERT results to said servers between me and folks seeing the blue circles. I still have not seen them.


----------



## JoeKustra

I need to wait until tomorrow at 8am to test again.


----------



## RoyK

RoamioJeff said:


> Okay, just got back to the house. I have the recording. I hit the play button on the remote with the show highlighted in My Shows. No blue circles. I hit "play" in the menu. No blue circles.
> 
> The more I read about this the more I'm thinking it _might_ be connection/ISP-based. Perhaps internet congestion somewhere between some users and Tivo servers, based upon ISP or route. Some have scoffed at that possibility, but I would like to think of a way to prove/disprove it. If I could figure out the IP address of the Tivo server(s), I would like to compare PING and TRACERT results to said servers between me and folks seeing the blue circles. I still have not seen them.


There are a wide variety of things that can trigger the BSC including those you mention. The CAUSE, however, is software written in such a way as to allow the problem to occur in the first place.


----------



## MikeBear

Could certain tv shows be doing this, BECAUSE Tivo is checking (or knows) to see if certain shows are available at an online provider?

Even if the show was recorded OTA or from a cable provider, etc, perhaps it's "syncing"/inventorying for some reason, maybe because of the Onepass feature?


----------



## wbrightfl

I recorded several Twilight Zone episodes during the marathon on Syfy and experienced no blue spinning circles. However I recorded 4 of the Doctor Who Christmas specials Christmas week off BBC America and each episode I experienced delays with the blue spinning circles when I click play and also when I click delete.

When I go to clear out my Recently Deleted Recordings I am experiencing a delay with blue spinning circles for each recording I delete.


----------



## lessd

wbrightfl said:


> I recorded several Twilight Zone episodes during the marathon on Syfy and experienced no blue spinning circles. However I recorded 4 of the Doctor Who Christmas specials Christmas week off BBC America and each episode I experienced delays with the blue spinning circles when I click play and also when I click delete.
> 
> When I go to clear out my Recently Deleted Recordings I am experiencing a delay with blue spinning circles for each recording I delete.


We are all trying to find what the meaning of the BBC is, your ISP provider, TiVo looking for some information about some programs you want to watch or delete, makes no sense, this is some software glitch that happens because of bad coding for something TiVo did or does want to do, like quick on-line response, somebody said that when they set up for a recording on-line it got to their TiVo very quickly, so your TiVo and the server may be in constant communication with this built in glitch that only TiVo can fix.


----------



## HerronScott

RoamioJeff said:


> Okay, just got back to the house. I have the recording. I hit the play button on the remote with the show highlighted in My Shows. No blue circles. I hit "play" in the menu. No blue circles.
> 
> The more I read about this the more I'm thinking it _might_ be connection/ISP-based. Perhaps internet congestion somewhere between some users and Tivo servers, based upon ISP or route. Some have scoffed at that possibility, but I would like to think of a way to prove/disprove it. If I could figure out the IP address of the Tivo server(s), I would like to compare PING and TRACERT results to said servers between me and folks seeing the blue circles. I still have not seen them.


That could certainly play a part in some of them but I doubt it's related to what I'm seeing with this one series since it's both repeatable and I don't see it on any other show that I have recorded (or suggestion that I've tested). It is interesting that several people are seeing this with this one but you aren't though.

Scott


----------



## skypros

I recorded the Twilight Zone episode "The Long Morrow" and is the ONLY episode I have on my Tivo

And like many are reporting here..... when I press Play from "My Shows" It will take about 3 seconds.... then the BSC will display for about 2-3 seconds. and it happens every time. If I select the program from "my shows" and then press "play" it starts right up.

It is a strange problem..... But I am not going to worry about it, as I have had very little problems with Tivo and the BSC lately. :up:


----------



## JoeKustra

It's really creepy. I've recorded old 4:3, 480i, B&W and all kinds of old programs and none exhibit the delay like The Twilight Zone. I give up.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs

JoeKustra said:


> It's really creepy. I've recorded old 4:3, 480i, B&W and all kinds of old programs and none exhibit the delay like The Twilight Zone. I give up.


Why, it's like something out of the...


----------



## slowbiscuit

RoamioJeff said:


> I make pretty heavy use of my Tivo. If it is a software issue, I would like to understand why myself and others have never seen the blue circles.


aaronwt, is that you under another nick? Are you the only user here with the Tivo-approved(tm) ISP? (Remember, network switches are not supported).


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## RoamioJeff

slowbiscuit said:


> aaronwt, is that you under another nick? Are you the only user here with the Tivo-approved(tm) ISP? (Remember, network switches are not supported).


I think you have me confused with someone else.


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## HerronScott

JoeKustra said:


> It's really creepy. I've recorded old 4:3, 480i, B&W and all kinds of old programs and none exhibit the delay like The Twilight Zone. I give up.


It's funny as I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with the actual content format (since it's coming in on the SyFy HD channel it's pillar-boxed) but I was also thinking maybe it had something to do with their database of old shows so went looking for other shows like Bonanza etc. as well to see if any of them had the same issue. 

Scott


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## ej42137

The thing that jumps out at me is there are 157 shows within the current two-week window that have the same series ID, something that isn't true for most of the shows we play. That suggests to me that what we are seeing to the Twilight Zone problem is that there is some code that is doing a really expensive walk through all programs under the given series ID when we hit play; such a walk would usually be unnoticeable for most programs because they don't have so many programs under the same series ID but for Twilight Zone it takes so long the blue "thinking about it" circle appears. We've all become sensitized to the Blue Circle of Pain lately because it was showing up all over the place, but now, for some of us at least, that problem is minimal outside of the Twilight Zone marathon.

I don't see the BCoP much lately, but my recording of a Twilight Zone episode does it every time. That is different behavior than before when the BCoP was not reliably repeatable.


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## Jed1

For an experiment I see my guide now extended beyond Friday the 15th so I wanted to change the channel Real time with Bill Maher records on so I logged into TiVo Online and brought up the 1Ps for my living room TiVo and then went into TiVo Central on brought up my 1Ps.
I then wet ahead and made the change on TiVo Online and instantly it changed on my TiVo. It even was changed in My Shows. So the connection between the TiVo and the mother ship is constant.

I did a trace route to TiVo.com and it shows 15 hops from my network to TiVo. So a lot of things can go wrong with the connection. Just look at the problem some TiVo owners are having with the MTU setting recently. Even what EJ is suggesting where there is a SNAFU in the data itself can cause the issue. 
Way to many variables at play here.


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## morac

As I wrote, that real-time connection isn't new. It's been there for over a year (ever since the iOS app came out). The only thing that's changed since these circles started is the software updated.


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## RoyK

morac said:


> As I wrote, that real-time connection isn't new. It's been there for over a year (ever since the iOS app came out). The only thing that's changed since these circles started is the software updated.


To clarify the circles were happening before the update. My own observation is that they are just as bad since the update but no worse.


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## mrecob

I also did a trace route to tivo.com and it shows 5 hops from my network to the Tivo web site. They seem to have ATT for their Internet service as I do. An address lookup for tivo.com shows it coming from their building a couple miles from me on Hwy 237. What we cannot conclude is that our Tivo boxes are connnecting to the same server location as where their web site (tivo.com) is hosted. As someone pointed out they could be using Amazon Web Services or equivalent for the boxes to talk to and that could mean multiple servers in different parts of the country.


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## ej42137

Now that the "Twilight Zone" marathon is in the past, I no longer see the Blue Spinning Circle of Pain at all as I play the episode.


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## JoeKustra

ej42137 said:


> Now that the "Twilight Zone" marathon is in the past, I no longer see the Blue Spinning Circle of Pain at all as I play the episode.


Same here. That is weird. But this whole problem is weird.


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## ertyu

This is getting ridiculous, performing random local user interface operations is waiting on irrelevant back end processes.

TiVo fix this!

The UI and local operations must work first and foremost. Queue the backend requests and fill them asynchronously. This is a long known design pattern.


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## wmhjr

First of all, don't know about anyone else, but the last few days have seen some REALLY bad blue spinning circles for me - particularly last night.

Second, while it is possible that network latency may be contributing to this issue, it is NOT possible that individual residential ISP performance is the root cause for this. This to me is clearly a Tivo (and only Tivo) issue, potentially resulting from:

1) Code/Config/design defect
2) Load/Performance issue (meaning internal hosting, such as DB contention, network performance, overall load, DoS, load balancers, etc
3) 3rd party Tivo partner performance/capacity issue, such as 3rd party hosting, Tivo network provider, QoS, etc

This is simply due to the fact that the symptoms occur across time zones, by customers using completely different ISPs, via multiple different use cases. Once you eliminate the customer ISP and user input, the rest points to Tivo.

At the end of the day, no matter what it is at a minimum a design defect, due to the ineffective and inefficient dependency on Tivo "service" connectivity for basic device functionality.


----------



## SolomonJ

wmhjr said:


> First of all, don't know about anyone else, but the last few days have seen some REALLY bad blue spinning circles for me - particularly last night.
> 
> Second, while it is possible that network latency may be contributing to this issue, it is NOT possible that individual residential ISP performance is the root cause for this. This to me is clearly a Tivo (and only Tivo) issue, potentially resulting from:
> 
> 1) Code/Config/design defect
> 2) Load/Performance issue (meaning internal hosting, such as DB contention, network performance, overall load, DoS, load balancers, etc
> 3) 3rd party Tivo partner performance/capacity issue, such as 3rd party hosting, Tivo network provider, QoS, etc
> 
> This is simply due to the fact that the symptoms occur across time zones, by customers using completely different ISPs, via multiple different use cases. Once you eliminate the customer ISP and user input, the rest points to Tivo.
> 
> At the end of the day, no matter what it is at a minimum a design defect, due to the ineffective and inefficient dependency on Tivo "service" connectivity for basic device functionality.


I agree. I have a almost brand new Bolt 1TB with the same issue happening. It's not network from my end, I have 200Mbps down/15Mbps up on Road Runner that never hiccups. I did not see this behavior until after getting the 20.5.6-RC18 update. I've been waiting on the 20.5.6a update hoping it resolves this...


----------



## NorthAlabama

wmhjr said:


> First of all, don't know about anyone else, but the last few days have seen some REALLY bad blue spinning circles for me - particularly last night.


same here, last night was terrible, worst yet. when pressing play to watch a recording in my shows (not in folders), several times i counted as many as 18 completed blue circle spins before the show started playing.

once, when trying to use explore, i waited for blue circles, only to have the guide bounce back to the previous screen. another press of select took me instantly to explore.

using the guide shouldn't be this difficult, and wasn't before this update.


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## RoamioJeff

wmhjr said:


> ... it is NOT possible that individual residential ISP performance is the root cause for this.


Even though I have never experienced the blue circles, I certainly understand the frustration associated with this issue. But we have to be careful when we unilaterally say that something is "not possible", impossible, or something can 'never' happen. There are a lot of unknowns associated with what's going on, and individual ISP factors have not been conclusively ruled out, or ruled in, yet.


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## RoyK

RoamioJeff said:


> Even though I have never experienced the blue circles, I certainly understand the frustration associated with this issue. But we have to be careful when we unilaterally say that something is "not possible", impossible, or something can 'never' happen. There are a lot of unknowns associated with what's going on, and individual ISP factors have not been conclusively ruled out, or ruled in, yet.


There are absolutely no circumstances under which ANY network issue can be blamed for problems playing and deleting programs already contained in the box. The blame is ENTIRELY on the code in the box that is UNNECESSARILY accessing the internet and delaying activities.

The connectivity performance or lack thereof cannot be blamed when no connectivity is necessary for the performance of a function in the first place.


----------



## SolomonJ

RoyK said:


> There are absolutely no circumstances under which ANY network issue can be blamed for problems playing and deleting programs already contained in the box. The blame is ENTIRELY on the code in the box that is UNNECESSARILY accessing the internet and delaying activities.
> 
> The connectivity performance or lack thereof cannot be blamed when no connectivity is necessary for the performance of a function in the first place.


I agree. I run networks for a living. This did not occur until RC18. Price to RC18, on the same ISP, it worked fine.


----------



## RoamioJeff

RoyK said:


> There are absolutely no circumstances under which ANY network issue can be blamed for problems playing and deleting programs already contained in the box. The blame is ENTIRELY on the code in the box that is UNNECESSARILY accessing the internet and delaying activities.
> 
> The connectivity performance or lack thereof cannot be blamed when no connectivity is necessary for the performance of a function in the first place.


While I respect your opinion of how your believe the product _should_ be programmed to work, the fact that it may not be designed that way is the way it is.

I like my car (which is why I bought it), but there are perhaps a feature or two that I would have preferred the manufacturer did differently. But it is what it is, and the manufacturer had an intent in its design. If it really bugged me enough, I would get rid of it, buy something else, and move on.

Now, Tivo's function and purpose for connectivity is what it is. It's their design, on purpose, for a purpose. Now if their purpose of connectivity does not work as intended with the vagaries and variables of various internet connections out there, then they may decide to alter the frequency or time at which connections are made for their intended purpose. But I do not think that one can state that the function that Tivo intended is "unnecessary". Perhaps it is flawed in execution in not determining the quality or state of the connection to Tivo servers and not having a "bail-out" option and deferring said communication. But not "unnecessary".

If I felt that way, was experiencing the issue, and could not accept it, I would abandon the product and move on. But Tivo is probably aware of it and it will probably be addressed.


----------



## wmhjr

RoamioJeff said:


> Even though I have never experienced the blue circles, I certainly understand the frustration associated with this issue. But we have to be careful when we unilaterally say that something is "not possible", impossible, or something can 'never' happen. There are a lot of unknowns associated with what's going on, and individual ISP factors have not been conclusively ruled out, or ruled in, yet.


I'm sorry but have to categorically disagree with this statement.

Unless we're willing to say that ALL major ISPs are all of the sudden experiencing major performance issues which would put them under acceptable industry standard performance, then the fact that the symptoms are happening across multiple ISPs (including VZ, ATT, Comcast, etc) eliminate this as being possible.

Be aware, I am NOT saying that it is not latency through the ISP that leads to it. However, that would still not be the root cause. In fact, the root cause in that case would be a design defect where acceptable Tivo performance can only be met when unreasonably low latency on ISP performance existed.


----------



## wmhjr

RoamioJeff said:


> While I respect your opinion of how your believe the product _should_ be programmed to work, the fact that it may not be designed that way is the way it is.
> 
> I like my car (which is why I bought it), but there are perhaps a feature or two that I would have preferred the manufacturer did differently. But it is what it is, and the manufacturer had an intent in its design. If it really bugged me enough, I would get rid of it, buy something else, and move on.
> 
> Now, Tivo's function and purpose for connectivity is what it is. It's their design, on purpose, for a purpose. Now if their purpose of connectivity does not work as intended with the vagaries and variables of various internet connections out there, then they may decide to alter the frequency or time at which connections are made for their intended purpose. But I do not think that one can state that the function that Tivo intended is "unnecessary". Perhaps it is flawed in execution in not determining the quality or state of the connection to Tivo servers and not having a "bail-out" option and deferring said communication. But not "unnecessary".
> 
> If I felt that way, was experiencing the issue, and could not accept it, I would abandon the product and move on. But Tivo is probably aware of it and it will probably be addressed.


Again, I have to categorically disagree with the blatant defensive position toward Tivo in this case.

As a very (very) senior technology leader, I simply cannot accept your position.

Let me be more clear. By definition, a design defect is "Frailty or shortcoming of an item resulting from a defect in its concept, and which can be avoided only through an alteration or redesign of the item."

Tivo may well have had a purpose for why they designed in the connectivity requirements. However, at its core, if that design prevents the product from effectively executing core functions within performance parameters, then the DESIGN is defective. The "requirement" (the reason for the design) may in fact be relevant or can be argued to be necessary or not. But the design, is, factually defective.

While you yourself for whatever reason have reportedly not experienced these issues, the fact that such reports are widespread and have no real correlation whatsoever with respect to ISPs, means of connectivity, providers, networks, specific keystrokes, or content - creates a pretty firm repudiation of any claim that the problem is resulting from improper performance of the customer ISP.


----------



## RoyK

RoamioJeff said:


> ...
> 
> If I felt that way, was experiencing the issue, and could not accept it, I would abandon the product and move on. But Tivo is probably aware of it and it will probably be addressed.


Recall the saying about the baby and the bathwater...


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## RoamioJeff

wmhjr said:


> I'm sorry but have to categorically disagree with this statement.
> 
> Unless we're willing to say that ALL major ISPs are all of the sudden experiencing major performance issues which would put them under acceptable industry standard performance, then the fact that the symptoms are happening across multiple ISPs (including VZ, ATT, Comcast, etc) eliminate this as being possible.
> 
> Be aware, I am NOT saying that it is not latency through the ISP that leads to it. However, that would still not be the root cause. In fact, the root cause in that case would be a design defect where acceptable Tivo performance can only be met when unreasonably low latency on ISP performance existed.


That is an interesting take. However, since there are Tivo users that are not experiencing this, it may be likely that there may be more than one contributing factor that is in play here.

One possibility is that capacity load at Tivo servers is such that some Tivo users with a lower ISP latency never see the issue, while others with higher ISP latency (combined with additive congestion at Tivo servers) see the issue. It is an interesting problem.


----------



## RoamioJeff

wmhjr said:


> Again, I have to categorically disagree with the blatant defensive position toward Tivo in this case.
> 
> As a very (very) senior technology leader, I simply cannot accept your position.
> 
> Let me be more clear. By definition, a design defect is "Frailty or shortcoming of an item resulting from a defect in its concept, and which can be avoided only through an alteration or redesign of the item."
> 
> Tivo may well have had a purpose for why they designed in the connectivity requirements. However, at its core, if that design prevents the product from effectively executing core functions within performance parameters, then the DESIGN is defective. The "requirement" (the reason for the design) may in fact be relevant or can be argued to be necessary or not. But the design, is, factually defective.
> 
> While you yourself for whatever reason have reportedly not experienced these issues, the fact that such reports are widespread and have no real correlation whatsoever with respect to ISPs, means of connectivity, providers, networks, specific keystrokes, or content - creates a pretty firm repudiation of any claim that the problem is resulting from improper performance of the customer ISP.


Points taken. However, I was not defending any design flaw in Tivo's programming to meet a connectivity requirement they may have. What I was stating in response to RoyK is that the intended function of accessing the network is not necessarily "unnecessary". The requirement may be valid, and not "unnecessary", and at the same time it's execution flawed.


----------



## wmhjr

RoamioJeff said:


> That is an interesting take. However, since there are Tivo users that are not experiencing this, it may be likely that there may be more than one contributing factor that is in play here.
> 
> One possibility is that capacity load at Tivo servers is such that some Tivo users with a lower ISP latency never see the issue, while others with higher ISP latency (combined with additive congestion at Tivo servers) see the issue. It is an interesting problem.


And once again, I would encourage you to fully read what is being posted. You have just made my point.

1) The fact that not all users are (yet) experiencing this problem is no more instructive than the fact that users who HAVE experienced it do not ALWAYS experience it. Recall definition of "intermittent error".

2) I never ever said there was not more than one technical defect/bug contributing to this. Or that latency was not a contributing factor.

3) Again, product requirements (and remember, according to ANY disciplined SDLC there should be full traceability from requirements/functional design all the way through master test plan, whether considering traditional waterfall or Agile methodologies) should instruct as to acceptable performance of inputs into the system. In that case, latency between host and remote are critical components and would HAVE to have established maximum latency for effective operation. If latency is a factor here, then there are only two possible conditions.

a) The design created a latency dependence that is more aggressive (and unrealistic) with respect to generally accepted ISP performance characteristics. In other words, that Tivo would have deliberately and with full knowledge designed a system that required far lower latency than any other known product in order to satisfy normal performance.

or

b) The design was NOT intended to require extremely low latency, however there are other (therefore non-ISP related) factors (such as DB contention, overall load, somebody attempting a DoS attack, etc) which are degrading system performance related to connected functions.

In the first case, it would simply be deliberately poor design, coupled with a secondary dependency on connectivity to begin with which amplifies the problem. In the second case, it would be the (poor) secondary dependency coupled with other Tivo related issues.


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## NorthAlabama

RoamioJeff said:


> If I felt that way, was experiencing the issue, and could not accept it, I would abandon the product and move on.


if the behavior continues, it's definitely something to consider, the value of tivo is with the user experience, and i could easily adjust to a competitors equipment that doesn't lock up. would tivo offer compensation to cover replacement costs of the box that was working before their software changes?

why are users having to wait for a tivo server response before being able to play a recording? delete a show? schedule a recording? view guide information? and why is this suddenly being required now, when it wasn't an issue the "update"?

data can reported to tivo's servers in the background at any time, live reporting that interrupts basic functions isn't a requirement.


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## RoamioJeff

wmhjr said:


> You have just made my point.


Sorry if you took that wrong. I was actually trying to acknowledge what you had said. My mistake if I was not clear.


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## RoamioJeff

NorthAlabama said:


> would tivo offer compensation to cover replacement costs of the box that was working before their software changes?


Unknown. Are you on a Lifetime plan? Under warranty?



NorthAlabama said:


> why are users having to wait for a tivo server response before being able to play a recording? delete a show? schedule a recording? view guide information? and why is this suddenly being required now, when it wasn't an issue the "update"?


Perhaps the communication was always a requirement. Or it's a new requirement. Either way, the execution appears flawed under the current combination of factors (software, servers, etc.)



NorthAlabama said:


> data can reported to tivo's servers in the background at any time, live reporting that interrupts basic functions isn't a requirement.


Agree.


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## gespears

Well my BSCs have stopped on the Twilight Zone episodes. Somebody posted that they wondered if it had something to do with the number of episodes in the marathon but I also recorded the Mythbusters marathon and it had more episodes than the Twilight Zone marathon and did not invoke the BSCs. 


Just my observations, and another data point.


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## JoeKustra

gespears said:


> Well my BSCs have stopped on the Twilight Zone episodes. Somebody posted that they wondered if it had something to do with the number of episodes in the marathon but I also recorded the Mythbusters marathon and it had more episodes than the Twilight Zone marathon and did not invoke the BSCs.
> 
> Just my observations, and another data point.


Your observation is correct. I kept S1E1 from a non-marathon channel that was making a BSC. After the marathon, no more delay.


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## wmhjr

Seems to me that there really isn't much in the way of strong correlation as to when the BSC's happen and when they don't. For example, whereas a couple nights ago they were absolutely horrible, across multiple functions, last night the same functions were fine and there is no evidence of them. Since when it was going on a couple nights ago there were no scheduled recordings (only viewing/browsing activity), that last night there was actually scheduled OP activity, and today (where it's fine again) there is no scheduled activity, it seems pretty clear to me that we're all trying to establish correlation where it may not be. Rather, that the root cause is somewhere within the Tivo "hosted services" compenent - albeit we can all pretty much agree that the REAL root cause is the overwhelming dependency of our devices on constant connectivity with the Tivo mother ship, and the Tivo mother ship system performance.


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## HerronScott

ej42137 said:


> Now that the "Twilight Zone" marathon is in the past, I no longer see the Blue Spinning Circle of Pain at all as I play the episode.


Same here which is interesting.

Scott


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## JoeKustra

I received a BSC today about 15:00 Eastern. It's funny how when I hit Play I wait for something to happen. My TiVo has trained me to see if it ignored me or is just thinking hard. It was Elementary from Thursday.


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## HerronScott

JoeKustra said:


> I received a BSC today about 15:00 Eastern. It's funny how when I hit Play I wait for something to happen. My TiVo has trained me to see if it ignored me or is just thinking hard. It was Elementary from Thursday.


Not repeatable I assume? I couldn't make it happen on that episode but it's 2 hours later. 

Scott


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## BigJimOutlaw

I'm not sure if this would help or not (no harm done in trying), but if you are connected by ethernet or moca, tell the Tivo to connect by wireless, and give it the wrong password. 

After the connection fails, re-select ethernet or moca and go through the setup for those again. See if that helps.

I had a weird problem that this fixed once. ¯\_(&#12484_/¯


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## Jed1

Well I had the spinning blue circles visit me last night. I was trying to look at the info for the upcoming streaming episodes of the Wire and every time I would arrow to the right for the full description it would either throw up the C501 message or get the sbc.
After a couple of times doing this I decided to arrow left if the full info did not show and then immediately arrow right and the info would show with out the error or sbc.

I made no changes to my network and there was nothing wrong with my internet service as I was streaming 1080p from Amazon with out any hiccups. 
I am also not getting any guide updates as others have indicated in other threads.
Anymore when these issues arise I do not even bother to do anything at all as all of this is on TiVos side. I don't even bother with Support as I do not need my time wasted on fiddling around with my equipment and restarting the boxes.


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## JoeKustra

HerronScott said:


> Not repeatable I assume? I couldn't make it happen on that episode but it's 2 hours later.
> 
> Scott


Correct, not repeatable.


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## RoyK

They are particularly prolific and aggravating today. Thanks a bunch, TiVo.


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## wmhjr

I noticed the same thing last night. Much worse performance last night for some reason. Lots of waiting for the blue circle.


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## JoeKustra

Just got my "wait for it....." and BSC when hitting Play with last night's SNL. New RC, same problem.

And it's repeatable.


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## NorthAlabama

yes, i've seen an outbreak for bsc this weekend, but they've usually disappeared after 5 or fewer rotations, which is an improvement?


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## morac

Pretty bad last night. I went to play something by pressing play in My Shows and it took 10 seconds to start playing: 5 second freeze followed by 5 seconds of BSC.


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## JohnnyO

Just posting to say while I see this occasionally, last night I saw it a lot. I think some of the hamsters must have gone on vacation.

John


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## ajwees41

a lot of bsc and c501 errors with Tivo and Cox ondemand this weekend


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## ej42137

I wonder what the heck is going on. I have seen the dreaded blue circles very little recently; certainly didn't see any last night and can't even remember when I saw the last one. There seems to be a lot of people from the East Coast complaining about this; I wonder what that means.


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## lessd

ej42137 said:


> I wonder what the heck is going on. I have seen the dreaded blue circles very little recently; certainly didn't see any last night and can't even remember when I saw the last one. There seems to be a lot of people from the East Coast complaining about this; I wonder what that means.


I am on the east cost and got the BSC last night for one program once when I hit play, after that no more BSC. I have RC21


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## JoeKustra

Hate to inject a second variable into this issue, but why no BSC when we drill down one layer to the Play function? I can make a program cause a delay/BSC when hitting play from My Shows, but if I select and then hit Play: no problem. I would love to hear someone explain that.


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## RoyK

JoeKustra said:


> Hate to inject a second variable into this issue, but why no BSC when we drill down one layer to the Play function? I can make a program cause a delay/BSC when hitting play from My Shows, but if I select and then hit Play: no problem. I would love to hear someone explain that.


Inconsistancy in coding.


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## JoeKustra

RoyK said:


> Inconsistancy in coding.


Most of the posts in this thread seem to indicate it's an issue with the TiVo servers. I guess you don't subscribe to that theory?


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## RoamioJeff

JoeKustra said:


> Most of the posts in this thread seem to indicate it's an issue with the TiVo servers. I guess you don't subscribe to that theory?


Bingo! Connectivity with TiVo servers.


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## lessd

RoamioJeff said:


> Bingo! Connectivity with TiVo servers.


Why does TiVo have to get real time on when I start playing a program, or is this a test for something else??


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## RoyK

JoeKustra said:


> Most of the posts in this thread seem to indicate it's an issue with the TiVo servers. I guess you don't subscribe to that theory?


I absolutely do not.

Ok, if communication to servers were perfect under all conditions and at all times this probably wouldn't be an issue. But this world is far from perfect and one of the jobs of programmers is to allow for that fact.

There is no reason core functions should wait for communication to a server before doing their thing. If TiVo wants the server to know I pushed the play/delete/etc buttons, fine. But they can inform the server in the background AFTER EXECUTING THE FUNCTION instead of forcing me to wait. Server slowness or other network/internet latencies wouldn't be noticable to the user were the code properly written.


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## atmuscarella

Basically all global issues internal to a TiVo DVR come down to being a software and/or hardware design issue. There is no way I believe there is hardware in the all Premiere/Roamio/ Bolt DVRs that is causing a random delay in the start of the playback of a recording (yes this does happen with all models as far as I can tell & I have experienced it on one of each series). So it comes down to being a software/coding issues/bug as far as I am concerned. 

Even if certain communication issues triggers the problem it still is an issue internal to the DVR caused by software/coding problems because as many have said there is no reason any communication is needed to start the play back of a recording.


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## borabora

Tivos have to do a lot of background processing to manage passes, update content, sync with servers, find suggestions, defragment databases, do garbage collection etc. These processes would need to lock certain files so that access is exclusive. I assume that BSCs are caused by the need to get access to a locked file or process that is being worked on in the background. If the background process is dependent on the internet then BSCs can correlate with internet congestion and can also disappear with lack of internet because the background process won't run.

Faster processors and better programming practices would be the solution. But, I assume that Tivo is built on Linux and inherits some behaviors from Linux that could be both the source of the problem and difficult to fix.

The above is pure speculation based on my experience observing how consumer electronics companies implement complex software.

My Roamio has been up for fewer than 12 hours and I haven't observed any problems. I would try to troubleshoot by:
- Changing power saving modes
- Removing video sources
- Turning off the recording of suggestions
- Play with network settings, streaming permissions etc.


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## wmhjr

I completely disagree. There is no reason to believe that the TiVo to server interaction would lock files - to the contrary. Given the one to many hosted design that would be a horrible Db design. Further, you don't defrag modern databases. You defrag drives. Or more accurately you used to. 

There are two likely defects here. First the design defect of excessive dependency on hosted connectivity creating a high severity vulnerability. Then the exploit of that vulnerability by poorly performing TiVo hosted services


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## JoeKustra

I recorded this week's SNL. It's not the normal schedule and I added one hour. On the Roamio I use to record it, as I posted, I get the wait & BSC every time when invoked from My Shows. Every time.

I copied it to another Roamio (still on RC14). It exhibits the same behavior. Make your own conclusions.


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## kbmb

JoeKustra said:


> I recorded this week's SNL. It's not the normal schedule and I added one hour. On the Roamio I use to record it, as I posted, I get the wait & BSC every time when invoked from My Shows. Every time.
> 
> I copied it to another Roamio (still on RC14). It exhibits the same behavior. Make your own conclusions.


Same here with this weeks SNL. We even hit play and waited.....then my wife wanted to look at something else. So she went to live tv. Then we went right back to SNL, and got the circle again.

What a joke.

-Kevin


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## JoeKustra

kbmb said:


> Same here with this weeks SNL. We even hit play and waited.....then my wife wanted to look at something else. So she went to live tv. Then we went right back to SNL, and got the circle again.
> 
> What a joke.
> 
> -Kevin


I copied the episode to my base Premiere. No delay.


----------



## Chuck_IV

Over the weekend, on one of my minis, when I hit the Tivo button, I got a giant blue circle for 5-10 seconds then finally the Tivo menu showed up. Thought I was going to have to pull the plug on it. This happened twice. Other times it was perfectly fine.

My mini still has .4a on it but the Roamio it's connected to has .6RC21 on it.


----------



## wmhjr

Let's face it folks, there is more than enough data at this point to come to at least some high confidence as to the situation.

1) Multiple people from multiple regions seem to experience the BSC at the same time. Specifically, I mean that we often see groupings of time when a bunch of us experience higher than normal BSC activity. 

2) Multiple platforms, meaning not just Roamio Pros for example, seem to experience this.

3) Multiple software versions seem to experience this - at the same time.

4) There seems to be a correlation where (as reported in this forum) we all see a temporary "improvement" (few BSCs) and then many (at around the same time) see the return of rampant BSCs.

5) When it happens, it often lasts for hours - not just minutes. Meaning that a single BSC does not last for hours, but rather that the Roamio experiences repeated BSCs for a stretch of at least hours at a time.

6) It happens on devices with very little storage utilization (not much on the device) and on devices with more heavily used storage.

7) It happens across multiple ISPs. Verizon, ATT, Comcast, etc.

8) Tivo hardly has a stellar reputation for hosting. Tivo.com has historically been one of the poorly performing web sites I've ever seen. Latency and slow response time have been the hallmarks of Tivo.com. 

When you add all of this up, to me it seems quite likely that this is as described before, a critical design defect related to requiring FAR too much connectivity between Tivo and Tivo Hosting in order for the device to operate properly, along with very poor execution even of that poor design, due to unacceptable performance by Tivo hosting services. There may well be additional contributing defects around poorly architected device software, etc.


----------



## morac

We know BSCs are caused by the TiVo waiting for a response the server. They aren't new and pop up from time to time, but they used to be limited to screens where the box actually needed server data, such as the search screen. 

The TiVo does contact the server for show data when playing a program and it has done for a few builds now. That's why sometimes show listings in My Shows will sometimes update from generic to specific when playing a program. I've seen it frequently with The Daily Show where the guest will show up in the description after playing the episode. That said having a BSC pop up when pressing play is a bug plain and simple. As it's never happened until the 20.5.6.

On a side note, because the TiVo downloads updated program data for episodes when playing them, that could explain why certain episodes, like this past weeks SNL, caused BSC to appear. The client (TiVo) is probably not liking what the server is returning or the server isn't returning the data fast enough. Either way it's a bad user experience. 

Has anyone actually tried reaching out to TiVo about this?


----------



## morac

RoyK said:


> Yes it does do this. But why? One would think that when a program is being recorded that it will be later watched and the metadata would be useful. A competent programmer would download the metadata as the program records and cache it. At most it would require a hundred kilobytes of data or so which is trivial compared to the several gigabytes required to store the program.


The issue here is sometimes the data updates after the program records. For example I've recorded episodes of The Daily Show which have the episode number, but a generic description at the time the show is recorded (pulled from guide data). At a later time the data is updated. When I play the recording the description updates to show the guest's name.

This isn't new. It's done that for at least a year now and never had issues with BSCs. The way it's doing this is fine, what's not fine and what broke in the 20.5.6 release is that the code now waits for a response before playing. It never used to do that.


----------



## RoyK

morac said:


> The issue here is sometimes the data updates after the program records. For example I've recorded episodes of The Daily Show which have the episode number, but a generic description at the time the show is recorded (pulled from guide data). At a later time the data is updated. When I play the recording the description updates to show the guest's name.
> 
> This isn't new. It's done that for at least a year now and never had issues with BSCs. The way it's doing this is fine, what's not fine and what broke in the 20.5.6 release is that the code now waits for a response before playing. It never used to do that.


Agree. I was deleting my comment when you posted yours.


----------



## JoeKustra

morac said:


> We know BSCs are caused by the TiVo waiting for a response the server. They aren't new and pop up from time to time, but they used to be limited to screens where the box actually needed server data, such as the search screen.


I don't subscribe to that. Using the same SNL episode (which was unique), both Roamio boxes had the delay & BSC and my Premiere did not. All testing was done within a 10 minute window, two were copies transferred over my network and the Premiere & one Roamio are on RC21. On a previous test, my router indicated no network traffic during the problem.

I can see them scrolling down the 1P manager's list of programs. One more to add to the list.


----------



## NorthAlabama

morac said:


> Has anyone actually tried reaching out to TiVo about this?


i called tivo support to see if there have been any reported trends with the bsc, the rep could not find any reports.

i described 3 behaviors when highlighting a recording in my shows, then pressing play:

recordings begin playing normally
there is a 3-5 second delay, then programs begin playing normally
there is a 3-5 second delay, followed by 5-20 blue spinning circles, then programs begin playing normally

troubleshooting steps so far:


rebooted tivo
cleared thumb ratings & suggestions
cleared program info & to do list
repeated guided setup

bsc behavior still exists.


----------



## wmhjr

JoeKustra said:


> I don't subscribe to that. Using the same SNL episode (which was unique), both Roamio boxes had the delay & BSC and my Premiere did not. All testing was done within a 10 minute window, two were copies transferred over my network and the Premiere & one Roamio are on RC21. On a previous test, my router indicated no network traffic during the problem.
> 
> I can see them scrolling down the 1P manager's list of programs. One more to add to the list.


So what you're saying is that during a time when the BSC happened, there was no network traffic between the MAC of your Tivo and the outside world either immediately before, during, or after the BSC?

If that is the case, it still does not eliminate the idea that it is a connectivity issue. It only moves the potential cause of that particular connectivity issue. More specifically, that the Tivo failed to even initiate the request yet was still waiting for data from Tivo hosting to continue with the transaction. It's very difficult for me to fathom that being the case and I honestly don't believe it. Not sure what you're using to measure "network traffic" on your router, but is it possible that with a more granular tool set such as Solar Winds, etc, you might find that there is communication going on that you're just not seeing on what I'm assuming is a residential/consumer grade router?


----------



## JoeKustra

NorthAlabama said:


> bsc behavior still exists.


Have you ever had it repeated on the same program? I'm saving my episode of SNL that is 100% repeatable.


----------



## wmhjr

NorthAlabama said:


> i called tivo support to see if there have been any reported trends with the bsc, the rep could not find any reports.


That hardly surprises me, given the complete lack of value I've experience with respect to Tivo (non)support. In fact, it is almost NEVER that I've talked to them and had them acknowledge any problem has ever existed - even when people on here have reported calling in and reporting it to Tivo support days, weeks or months prior.



NorthAlabama said:


> i described 3 behaviors when highlighting a recording in my shows, then pressing play:
> 
> recordings begin playing normally
> there is a 3-5 second delay, then programs begin playing normally
> there is a 3-5 second delay, followed by 5-20 blue spinning circles, then programs begin playing normally
> 
> bsc behavior still exists.


There is also a similar behavior, when you're looking for "Info". In this case, I see several different behaviors as well, such as...


Info populates normally
There is a short delay, and then info populates
There is a longer delay, followed by a varied length BSC
There is a longer delay, followed by BSC, and info never populates


----------



## NorthAlabama

JoeKustra said:


> Have you ever had it repeated on the same program? I'm saving my episode of SNL that is 100% repeatable.


yes, repeatedly, but intermittently, that's why i left the info out of my report.

i have seen the behavior for sherlock & masterpiece on pbs regularly.



wmhjr said:


> There is also a similar behavior, when you're looking for "Info". In this case, I see several different behaviors as well, such as...
> 
> 
> Info populates normally
> There is a short delay, and then info populates
> There is a longer delay, followed by a varied length BSC
> There is a longer delay, followed by BSC, and info never populates


i left this behavior off my report because i had seen it before, and didn't want to confuse the issue with my main concern. it's been my experience that too much information when reporting to tivo support sometimes slows the process down.


----------



## ej42137

When I play SNL from *My Shows* I get a really short blue circle; it doesn't quite make it all the way around. If instead I hit *Select* then *Play* there is no delay at all.


----------



## TiVoSupport_Sarah

If you are experiencing this issue please call or chat into TiVo and complete the network troubleshooting so we can rule that out. We are not seeing any notable volume on this issue other than in the forums. We would be happy to investigate this issue once the normal troubleshooting has been completed.

Thank You


----------



## JoeKustra

ej42137 said:


> When I play SNL from *My Shows* I get a really short blue circle; it doesn't quite make it all the way around. If instead I hit *Select* then *Play* there is no delay at all.


The longer delay for me may be due to using a base Roamio or that I padded it by one hour. But yes, Select then Play has no problem.


----------



## RoamioJeff

wmhjr said:


> Let's face it folks, there is more than enough data at this point to come to at least some high confidence as to the situation.
> 
> 1) Multiple people from multiple regions seem to experience the BSC at the same time. Specifically, I mean that we often see groupings of time when a bunch of us experience higher than normal BSC activity.
> 
> 2) Multiple platforms, meaning not just Roamio Pros for example, seem to experience this.
> 
> 3) Multiple software versions seem to experience this - at the same time.
> 
> 4) There seems to be a correlation where (as reported in this forum) we all see a temporary "improvement" (few BSCs) and then many (at around the same time) see the return of rampant BSCs.
> 
> 5) When it happens, it often lasts for hours - not just minutes. Meaning that a single BSC does not last for hours, but rather that the Roamio experiences repeated BSCs for a stretch of at least hours at a time.
> 
> 6) It happens on devices with very little storage utilization (not much on the device) and on devices with more heavily used storage.
> 
> 7) It happens across multiple ISPs. Verizon, ATT, Comcast, etc.
> 
> 8) Tivo hardly has a stellar reputation for hosting. Tivo.com has historically been one of the poorly performing web sites I've ever seen. Latency and slow response time have been the hallmarks of Tivo.com.
> 
> When you add all of this up, to me it seems quite likely that this is as described before, a critical design defect related to requiring FAR too much connectivity between Tivo and Tivo Hosting in order for the device to operate properly, along with very poor execution even of that poor design, due to unacceptable performance by Tivo hosting services. There may well be additional contributing defects around poorly architected device software, etc.


All very interesting. But how does it explain the folks who are not experiencing the issue? Could there not be something (yet unidentified) common to only those seeing the blue circles?

Mind you, I'm not saying that there is or isn't, but just a question to consider.


----------



## JoeKustra

TiVoSupport_Sarah said:


> If you are experiencing this issue please call or chat into TiVo and complete the network troubleshooting so we can rule that out. We are not seeing any notable volume on this issue other than in the forums. We would be happy to investigate this issue once the normal troubleshooting has been completed.
> 
> Thank You


You are welcome. However I do not wish to participate since:

You said "network troubleshooting" and I don't feel this is a network issue.

I wonder what a notable volume needs to be.

I feel people on this forum and thread are better qualified to find a solution.

With 625 employees (as of last SEC filing) at TiVo, and none of them have observed this issue, it must be very rare.

The issue is not fatal nor does it require a restart, reboot, or any active operation.

I could go on.

Thank you for your offer of help. My experience with TiVo CS has always been good. My experience with finding the solution to a problem like audio dropouts, not so much.


----------



## RoamioJeff

JoeKustra said:


> You are welcome. However I do not wish to participate since:
> 
> You said "network troubleshooting" and I don't feel this is a network issue.


So, if you were to take her up on her offer and, through troubleshooting, network issues were ruled out (which I think might be likely), would this not get closer to a solution?

I'm not saying that you should have to participate, but if I were experiencing this issue, I would. And if everybody who had experienced the issue were to call in (or chat) and open a support ticket, that might push things along.


----------



## RoamioJeff

ej42137 said:


> When I play SNL from *My Shows* I get a really short blue circle; it doesn't quite make it all the way around. If instead I hit *Select* then *Play* there is no delay at all.


I had recorded SNL but had not gotten around to watching it yet. I just hit play from My Shows with SNL highlighted and there is a slightly longer than normal delay, on the order of a second longer than usual. But no blue circle.


----------



## RoyK

RoamioJeff said:


> So, if you were to take her up on her offer and, through troubleshooting, network issues were ruled out (which I think might be likely), would this not get closer to a solution?
> 
> I'm not saying that you should have to participate, but if I were experiencing this issue, I would. And if everybody who had experienced the issue were to call in (or chat) and open a support ticket, that might push things along.


 It is a red herring.

Network issues EXPOSE the problem. Take them away (provide instantanious perfect communication to zero latency servers) and the problem wouldn't be noticed.

The solution, since it's not economically feasible to provide perfection in networks and servers, is to design and program the box to perform without aggravation under real world internet conditions at least where communication outside the box is unnecessary to the performance of its function.


----------



## JoeKustra

RoamioJeff said:


> So, if you were to take her up on her offer and, through troubleshooting, network issues were ruled out (which I think might be likely), would this not get closer to a solution?
> 
> I'm not saying that you should have to participate, but if I were experiencing this issue, I would. And if everybody who had experienced the issue were to call in (or chat) and open a support ticket, that might push things along.


Thank you. I will have to sleep on that. I am scared that the process may be worse than the cure. I would rather have the audio dropout fixed and TiVo knows about that issue.


----------



## RoamioJeff

RoyK said:


> It is a red herring.
> 
> Network issues EXPOSE the problem. Take them away (provide instantanious perfect communication to zero latency servers) and the problem wouldn't be noticed.
> 
> The solution, since it's not economically feasible to provide perfection in networks and servers, is to design and program the box to perform without aggravation under real world internet conditions at least where communication outside the box is unnecessary to the performance of its function.


I do not disagree with anything you posted.

My reply to JoeKustra was regarding engagement with customer support to start to get the wheels moving towards a solution. If fact, what the root cause of the problem is does not really matter - it is affecting the user experience of users and needs to be solved. Doesn't matter if its network, coding, slow TiVo servers, or a weather balloon over Idaho. Really doesn't matter. All that matters is for enough people experiencing the problem to engage customer service and let them troubleshoot and determine what they need to do to resolve it. That's all.


----------



## wmhjr

I have, in the past, called Tivo support about this very issue. I was told it has "never been reported" and then was told that I'd need to "connect all Tivos directly to the router" in order to troubleshoot because "we don't support switches". Of course, when I asked exactly how I was supposed to connect 2 Roamio Pros and 4 minis to a router that has only 5 ports..... Oops. No answer of course. 

So the offer for us to call about this is to me just another waste of time.


----------



## wmhjr

RoamioJeff said:


> So, if you were to take her up on her offer and, through troubleshooting, network issues were ruled out (which I think might be likely), would this not get closer to a solution?
> 
> I'm not saying that you should have to participate, but if I were experiencing this issue, I would. And if everybody who had experienced the issue were to call in (or chat) and open a support ticket, that might push things along.


I have never, ever, in the many years of being a Tivo customer, experienced Tivo EVERY ruling out "network issues". Never.

I am not bitter about this. At this point I've accepted that I'll never get anything resembling decent support from Tivo support and that chances of defects being resolved are incredibly low - but since everything is fully paid for (except the rental of 2 cablecards) it's still worth hanging onto. I tend to look around here to see if others are experiencing similar issues. If they are I usually assume that it's a design/system issue, and plan on just living with it.


----------



## wmhjr

RoamioJeff said:


> All very interesting. But how does it explain the folks who are not experiencing the issue? Could there not be something (yet unidentified) common to only those seeing the blue circles?
> 
> Mind you, I'm not saying that there is or isn't, but just a question to consider.


There are all kinds of reasons why this might happen. Perhaps the threshold for network latency is unacceptable, but some folks have much better performance than others. That latency for everyone concerned is within normal standards, but Tivo can't handle those on the slightly higher latency spectrum.

Or maybe it's something else. Like I said, what we know for sure is that the BSC is tied to "actions" (i.e. inputs) that "seem" to (now) require interaction with Tivo hosting services (when they probably should not). For example, I don't think anyone has ever reported BSC "after" content has started playing. AFAIK, the BSC only happens after you press a button on the remote.


----------



## choco

TiVoSupport_Sarah said:


> If you are experiencing this issue please call or chat into TiVo and complete the network troubleshooting so we can rule that out. We are not seeing any notable volume on this issue other than in the forums. We would be happy to investigate this issue once the normal troubleshooting has been completed.
> 
> Thank You


We have definitely been seeing a lot more BSCs since the last update. I think that people have become used to and just live with the sub-par experience. Even if they're not used to it, the majority of people will never call in to report a problem or post on an online forum. If you're seeing so much activity about this problem here, then you can be sure that it's happening to a lot more people. I just hope that your engineers are working hard to remove as many network connectivity requirements as possible in the next update.


----------



## CoxInPHX

Next time you get the BSCs, go uncheck the "My Video Providers" one by one, until the BSCs stop.

I am finding that it is those OTT Provider links that are causing the BSCs.

Cox OnDemand is the absolute worst offender, perhaps Xfinity may also be an issue.


----------



## choco

We have all video providers unchecked, so that's not what's causing it for us.


----------



## RoyK

Just finished watching an old NCIS (S3 E16) that recorded this afternoon. Tried to delete. Long pause then BSC for 15 sec and WILL NOT DELETE. Repeatable. BSCs & can't delete it.


----------



## kbmb

RoyK said:


> Just finished watching an old NCIS (S3 E16) that recorded this afternoon. Tried to delete. Long pause then BSC for 15 sec and WILL NOT DELETE. Repeatable. Can't delete it.


Had that happen before. Sometimes (rarely) a UI reset will fix it. Most times I need to reboot.

You'd think by 2016 TiVo would have the basics of DVR functions down pat!

-Kevin


----------



## RoyK

A reboot did get rid of the program. Thanks.


----------



## mrecob

I have a site that tells me who the guests will be for all the talk shows. I have no wish to record every talk show so I pick and choose based on what guests interest me and search for each talk show once a week. I did this today for the coming week and selected a few. Started off ok but then I got a rash of BSW's. I got them when I was:

1. Choosing a couple letters for search waiting for the show list to show up on right. For instance I will type TON. It starts searching immediately after the first letter. For a few searches I got a BSW waiting for search results. Once only I got a BSW for several seconds then it said, "Search results are temporarily unavailable. Please try again." I did and it was instant with no BSW. This seemed rather odd since the search should not be happening in some far off server but in the local downloaded data on the TiVo already. 
2. BSW before displaying upcoming episodes.
3. BSW when choosing a show and waiting for the list of guests to show on right. 

This came and went as I searched for about 10 different shows. I cannot repeat the same BSW for the same show search. There has been much speculation here about the BSWs being the result of the TiVo phoning home yet there is as yet no evidence that this is happening. It reminds me of my old Comcast box. There were times when it was simply unresponsive to remote key presses then it would like wake up and work again. I always assumed the box was on the edge of being close to 100% CPU usage performing various internal processes. I wonder if the TiVo is similarly close to the edge of its performance limits at random times so internal processes make it lag when asking the box to do things. There are other reports here of sluggish behavior, missing key presses, etc which would tend to support the theory that the box is busy but NOT with contacting outside servers and waiting for responses.

The way to prove this is to put a packet sniffer on the TiVo Ethernet line to see what is coming and going. Even if the data is encrypted and incomprehensible, one would still see the source and destination IPs and know every time the TiVo phoned home and how long it took to get a response. Surely there is some network guru on here who knows how to use a packet sniffer to check TiVo network communication.


----------



## morac

1. Search is done on the server. It doesn't use local data at all. That's why it's not available if there is no Internet connection and it's also why weird results can occur if the box's local data and the server data don't match. 

Getting a BSW during search will happen if there are problems with your Internet connection or TiVo's servers. With many people getting these randomly, it's likely TiVo's servers.


----------



## morac

BSC trying to play tonight's SNL again.


----------



## gespears

What's interesting for me is that the BSCs seem to get much worse on the weekends. During the week they are almost non existent, other than the repeatable Twilight Zone instances.


----------



## RoyK

gespears said:


> What's interesting for me is that the BSCs seem to get much worse on the weekends. During the week they are almost non existent, other than the repeatable Twilight Zone instances.


Not as many people on duty winding up the servers


----------



## samccfl99

I am sure this has been said multiple times before, but "The Spinning Wheel" as I will call it, seems to me to be a problem with the developers not knowing anything about PRIORITIES. I am on Moca now since I got a Mini, and the internet connection is so much better (previously I had an electrical connection from the office to the living room to a switch and a useless wireless connection before that for a very short time) and using those modes, a quick pull of the Lan cable got rid of any spinning wheels...LOL. They are usually short for me mostly, but quite annoying.

I WONDER IF THE BOLT HAS THESE PROBLEMS OR LESS OF THEM? I might want to get a Bolt Pro when they come out, that is if they will put my Roamio Pro on Lifetime service. If they won't, screw them, they won't get any more hardware money out of me. Just sayin'...


----------



## gespears

RoyK said:


> Not as many people on duty winding up the servers


Or they didn't feed the hamsters enough to last all weekend?


----------



## JoeKustra

morac said:


> BSC trying to play tonight's SNL again.


Same here.


----------



## NorthAlabama

saw them when i played snl, three.


----------



## choco

Ugh, I really see no rhyme or reason for these spinning circles. They come and go, but since 20.5.6, it's a rare occasion when they don't happen, and RC21 hasn't improved the situation at all. Sometimes, when we're watching recorded shows in the wee morning hours when we think hardly anyone (or at least much fewer people) will be awake and using their Tivo, we get the spinning circles...


----------



## lessd

choco said:


> Ugh, I really see no rhyme or reason for these spinning circles. They come and go, but since 20.5.6, it's a rare occasion when they don't happen, and RC21 hasn't improved the situation at all. Sometimes, when we're watching recorded shows in the wee morning hours when we think hardly anyone (or at least much fewer people) will be awake and using their Tivo, we get the spinning circles...


TiVo has their servers sleep at late night 
The blue circles come an go for me also, I just live with it because I don't what else to do, I am assuming TiVo knows about this problem and may or may not fix it.


----------



## tivoknucklehead

I have owned several tivos since 2002 and this is by far the most annoying problem ever. I have a roamio and a quad elite. the problem is only on the roamio. I am running ethernet connected to a router with a 200 mbps cable modem so it is NOT a network issue, it is a tivo roamio software 20.5.6 issue. the delays are getting worse too, I hit play and see a black screen for up to 10 seconds, or am getting freezes. I will not even use my roamio any more until this nonsense is fixed and stick to the "inferior" 4 tuner elite


----------



## mattack

tivoknucklehead said:


> I have owned several tivos since 2002 and this is by far the most annoying problem ever.


Call Tivo and complain.


----------



## lessd

tivoknucklehead said:


> I have owned several tivos since 2002 and this is by far the most annoying problem ever. I have a roamio and a quad elite. the problem is only on the roamio. I am running ethernet connected to a router with a 200 mbps cable modem so it is NOT a network issue, it is a tivo roamio software 20.5.6 issue. the delays are getting worse too, I hit play and see a black screen for up to 10 seconds, or am getting freezes. I will not even use my roamio any more until this nonsense is fixed and stick to the "inferior" 4 tuner elite


My three Roamios have never been that bad, it sure not your internet speed, it some return from TiVo servers. Fast internet, to be useful, has to have fast servers out in the wild, many servers are not that fast, MS is one exception, it downloads at my internet speed, that now is at 150Mb/s, I have downloaded software from other sights and some go as slow as 3 or 4 Mb/s, nothing you can do about it, must save some money to have slow servers.


----------



## morac

It had actually been getting better, but today I had a 30 second spinning circle trying to play The Daily Show.


----------



## ej42137

tivoknucklehead said:


> I have owned several tivos since 2002 and this is by far the most annoying problem ever.


You are so lucky! How I wish this were the most annoying problem I have ever seen on my TiVo!!!


----------



## slowbiscuit

mattack said:


> Call Tivo and complain.


Methinks they'll just blame your internet connection and/or tell you to reboot.

IMO they've known about this problem ever since they started tying the boxes too closely to their servers - they simply choose to ignore it as a design decision.

Their employees see it all the time just like we do, and if they provide feedback I'm sure it's been made (if I worked there you can bet I'd be giving them a list of issues every time they released new code). And it falls on deaf ears just like our complaints.


----------



## tivoknucklehead

ej42137 said:


> When I play SNL from *My Shows* I get a really short blue circle; it doesn't quite make it all the way around. If instead I hit *Select* then *Play* there is no delay at all.


interesting, I will give this a try


----------



## tivoknucklehead

wow, this simple step made all the difference in the world. went from virtually unwatchable to almost normal !


----------



## Jed1

What I started doing this past week if I come across the BSC is to arrow left (go back) and then arrow right (go forward) and the page pops right up with no BSC. 
The BSC is almost like a browser hang on a PC. This has been working pretty good so far.


----------



## dlfl

ej42137 said:


> When I play SNL from *My Shows* I get a really short blue circle; it doesn't quite make it all the way around. If instead I hit *Select* then *Play* there is no delay at all.





tivoknucklehead said:


> wow, this simple step made all the difference in the world. went from virtually unwatchable to almost normal !





Jed1 said:


> What I started doing this past week if I come across the BSC is to arrow left (go back) and then arrow right (go forward) and the page pops right up with no BSC.
> The BSC is almost like a browser hang on a PC. This has been working pretty good so far.


As someone suggested earlier, this suggests poor code. Assuming the BSC happens when TiVo blocks while waiting for a TiVo server response, this means whether it does this depends (very arbitrarily) on keystroke sequence variations that all lead to the same endpoint (playing the recording) -- bizarre!


----------



## SomeRandomIdiot

dlfl said:


> As someone suggested earlier, this suggests poor code. Assuming the BSC happens when TiVo blocks while waiting for a TiVo server response, this means whether it does this depends (very arbitrarily) on keystroke sequence variations that all lead to the same endpoint (playing the recording) -- bizarre!


Bad code! Say it ain't so joe!


----------



## CopRock

I came back from being out of the country for almost two months... can't belive this SuperStarGate thing is still going on.


----------



## JoeKustra

I wish someone could explain why SNL continues to be the most reliable way to get this problem to show up.

Yes, I know the work around. It's just so weird.


----------



## ljf6

I've been experiencing extremely slow access to my recorded content. This had been getting worse as each day went on. Whenever I tried to select a program to watch the blue spinning progress circle spins an uncomfortably long amount of time. It was getting worse and worse as days went by until the Tivo became almost unusable to watch recorded content. Here's what finally solved it for me. After *resetting the Program Info* and *To Do List* in the *Help menu* I went in to each of my season passes and modified my options to be sure all season passes only search for recordings and not *Streaming Video* It seems that every season pass was getting bogged down accessing the server to present me with available stream content within my season pass. Everything is back to normal now. I spent a great amount of time with a courteous Tivo rep who simply went through the same protocol of having me connect and disconnect cables one at a time. They offered to sell me a replacement for my recently replaced Roamio. I refused and advised them that I don't want to buy a new unit every few months to deal with what appears to be a corrupt OS/networking issue. They then offered to send me a replacement for my new (3 month old) power cord even though there was no hint of a power supply issue. Tivo has to be diligent in providing accurate troubleshooting steps that are tailored to the issued described not just make everyone plug and unplug the power, network and cable service. This was a big waste of time, I am disappointed with Tivo service today.


----------



## 325-m3

ljf6 said:


> Here's what finally solved it for me. After *resetting the Program Info* and *To Do List* in the *Help menu* I went in to each of my season passes and modified my options to be sure all season passes only search for recordings and not *Streaming Video* It seems that every season pass was getting bogged down accessing the server to present me with available stream content within my season pass. Everything is back to normal now.


I tried this and it worked but now I have a new issue. When I hit Guide the left panel pops right up but the right panel takes a full 5 seconds to come up. (I timed it) While this is going on I can't go down a channel or page down either. Any ideas here folks?

Thanks.


----------



## GmanTiVo

tivoknucklehead said:


> I have owned several tivos since 2002 and this is by far the most annoying problem ever. I have a roamio and a quad elite. the problem is only on the roamio. I am running ethernet connected to a router with a 200 mbps cable modem so it is NOT a network issue, it is a tivo roamio software 20.5.6 issue. the delays are getting worse too, I hit play and see a black screen for up to 10 seconds, or am getting freezes. I will not even use my roamio any more until this nonsense is fixed and stick to the "inferior" 4 tuner elite


Long time TiVo owner here as well and I agree, this BSC or BSW (whatever you want to call it) and the associated delay / lag that is now occurring on my Roamio Pro & 4 Minis is really annoying.

I can confirm it happens at random, is channel agnostic, and occurs on recorded shows, live TV or stream, and it also affects recordings I have from the past (4 years ago) as well as sometimes flipping too fast in the GUIs on the Minis, wtf 

This NEVER happened before the sw update and of course my 1st thought was that a HD failure was imminent.

All the devices in the home have been for the past 2 years on a hardwired LAN with Cat6s and GigaBit switches, I have FIOS quantum 300/150 Mbps so the network and internet connection are NOT the problem.

IMHO short of having a dialogue with Margaret here on the boards leads to nothing so calling and complaining is a waste of time.

Gman


----------



## GmanTiVo

^^ update 11/1
in the past 2 weeks, without me touching a thing on my network, internet connection or any changes to my Roamio Pro the BSC/BSW problem has improved dramatically and now occurs seldomly.

Some connectivity / server improvements on Tivo's part


----------



## slowbiscuit

Yeah don't get too excited, our friend the BSC is just another Tivo server screwup away...


----------



## dlfl

Suddenly today BSC's all over the place, after months without them. Anyone else seeing this?


----------



## jth tv

Yes some BSC's here also, Roamio Basic. Today was Microsoft Update day for my pc, so I thought maybe that what was slowing things down.


----------



## worachj

dlfl said:


> Suddenly today BSC's all over the place, after months without them. Anyone else seeing this?


I have them today too, on my Roamio. They're the worst I've ever had.


----------



## JoeKustra

worachj said:


> I have them today too, on my Roamio. They're the worst I've ever had.


My only recordings last night, TDS Live and @Midnight (also live), had a BSC.

Update: everything has it.

Another update: Forced a connection, no effect. They are everywhere. Maybe we've got a virus.


----------



## PaulMCO

Have same issue -- it all started last night when Trump was declared the winner


----------



## JoeKustra

Mine are gone.


----------



## Kurs0010

I have them too and can't keep a connection on my iPhone and iPad apps


----------



## dlfl

JoeKustra said:


> Mine are gone.


But for how long? Mine were gone for a while today and now are back.


----------



## AzZenCyclist

First time I have ever had them. Wow, what a pita! Makes the tivo almost unusable.


----------



## jth tv

AzZenCyclist said:


> First time I have ever had them. Wow, what a pita! Makes the tivo almost unusable.


Unplug Ethernet.


----------



## vittoria

I have never had an issue with this blue spinning circle until today. It's happening with every command through the menu but is fine when a recording is playing or watching tv. I rebooted TiVo. No help. Rebooted the router/modem. I thought it helped but it lasted only a few minutes. I don't think it's my device. What is causing this and does it go away by itself? I can't wait 20 seconds for every single command. Internet speed test was fast and normal both upload and download.


----------



## wmhjr

I've got them like crazy now too.


----------



## wmhjr

It's the stupid TiVo hosting architecture that has WAY too much dependence on their servers - which they can't seem to manage effectively


----------



## okwdvc

vittoria said:


> I have never had an issue with this blue spinning circle until today. It's happening with every command through the menu but is fine when a recording is playing or watching tv. I rebooted TiVo. No help. Rebooted the router/modem. I thought it helped but it lasted only a few minutes. I don't think it's my device. What is causing this and does it go away by itself? I can't wait 20 seconds for every single command. Internet speed test was fast and normal both upload and download.


Exact same thing here. Never had them until tonight. This is ridiculous!


----------



## 2004raptor

Ive got them too. Noticed it bad in menu trying to delete a recording.


----------



## AzZenCyclist

Reboot fixed mine. We had a power outage last night and I assume something got messed up in the process. I feel for you guys, BCS's suck!


----------



## kbmb

AzZenCyclist said:


> Reboot fixed mine. We had a power outage last night and I assume something got messed up in the process. I feel for you guys, BCS's suck!


Had one earlier tonight that eventually froze the TiVo. Rebooted, but they are still there. Wife went to play a recording from today and she sat there for 20 seconds waiting for the circle to go away.

-Kevin


----------



## jmsxl

I too just started getting these BSC's. Rebooted the TiVo (Roamio OTA) and no improvement. Forced a connection to the mothership and still have BSC's and in addition, I've lost the suggestions that appear above the Tivo Central and My Shows screens. Also can't see any details about shows in the To Do or One Pass Manager lists (No show details or number of shows planned to record in OP). Hoping for a fix soon...


----------



## El Maestro

I'm getting them as well as some 501s.


----------



## dslunceford

Started noticing them yesterday on our mini


----------



## JoeKustra

My VCM connection at 3am failed. Ok now. Maybe they're fixing guide problems.


----------



## kbmb

JoeKustra said:


> My VCM connection at 3am failed. Ok now. Maybe they're fixing guide problems.


Or shutting down the company 

-Kevin


----------



## ADG

Okay, lot's of folks are getting them. Got it


----------



## dlfl

Still getting BSC's this morning.


----------



## NYHeel

iOS app connectivity is very bad as well. 

One suggestion, when pulling up a folder in the my shows list, hit the c button to change to recordings. It pulls the list up faster since there's no internet data needed.


----------



## MichaelCoffin

I started getting BSCs a few days ago, they've been getting progressively worse each day. This morning it was taking about 15 seconds to navigate between screens in My Shows and/or delete an episode. I just restarted my Roamio Pro and so far no BSCs. Worth a try, hopefully they'll stay gone.


----------



## dlfl

I just tried to enter a complaint about this on the tivo.com support page, contact us. After entering all the requested info and a detailed message I hit the submit button. No response at all except a blank page. Don't know if it was accepted or not.


----------



## dlfl

ADG said:


> Okay, lot's of folks are getting them. Got it


Let's just hope **tivo** gets it. Last time I reported this in a new thread on the Tivo.com user forum it took 9 days before a tivo rep responded. I just updated that thread.


----------



## tivoknucklehead

has anything good happened since the Rovi update?


----------



## WorldBandRadio

tivoknucklehead said:


> has anything good happened since the Rovi update?


All I've been seeing is an acceleration of TiVo's decline, as noticed via increasingly buggy software and pretty poor guide data.

I've been seeing the BSC a lot yesterday and today. Plus all of the shows' logo pictures diasappeared again last night. I had to restart the TiVo to get them back.


----------



## Teeps

As has been described above, BSC here too Basic Roamio on OTA.
Also get BSC when streaming from XL4.



MichaelCoffin said:


> I just restarted my Roamio Pro and so far no BSCs.


How did you "restart" your tivo, via menu or pull the plug?


----------



## dlfl

dlfl said:


> I just tried to enter a complaint about this on the tivo.com support page, contact us. After entering all the requested info and a detailed message I hit the submit button. No response at all except a blank page. Don't know if it was accepted or not.


I just talked to a TiVo agent. The call was about other guide data issues I had emailed to tivomargret but I brought up the BSC issues. He checked into it, including browsing this thread, and acknowledged they had been getting reports about it and were working the issue. He couldn't state what the exact cause is although he agreed server issues were a possible culprit. I rate him highly on intelligence, understandability and helpfulness.


----------



## vittoria

The TiVo rep I just spoke to said they were aware of the blue circle thing and are working on it. He offered a temporary workaround which did work briefly, though not long. 

On the TiVo remote press: 
Thumbs down once and release. 
Thumbs up once and release 
Press Play 2x 

Screen will go black and then refresh. He says it forces an update to the server.


----------



## WorldBandRadio

Teeps said:


> ...How did you "restart" your tivo, via menu or pull the plug?


Oops, I should have been more specific. Thanks for catching that.

When I say "Restart" I mean I go to the Help Menu, select Restart or Reset, then select Restart the TiVo box.

The program logos come back within a few minutes or so after the TiVo settles down from the restart.


----------



## El Maestro

I've restarted and the BSC and C501 issues remain. I also have more generic artwork than I did before!


----------



## dlfl

vittoria said:


> The TiVo rep I just spoke to said they were aware of the blue circle thing and are working on it. He offered a temporary workaround which did work briefly, though not long.
> 
> On the TiVo remote press:
> Thumbs down once and release.
> Thumbs up once and release
> Press Play 2x
> 
> Screen will go black and then refresh. He says it forces an update to the server.


What is "an update to the server"? Is that the same as connecting to the server in Settings ... Network?

My BSC's continue as bad as ever.


----------



## tampa8

Even worse today.


----------



## JoeKustra

tampa8 said:


> Even worse today.


The VCM Connections are very erratic also. They gots problems.


----------



## vittoria

dlfl said:


> What is "an update to the server"? Is that the same as connecting to the server in Settings ... Network?
> 
> My BSC's continue as bad as ever.


He said it was the Server for the GUI. It did work for a little while, but not too long.


----------



## JoeKustra

Try a Search. Then call the number displayed. See if you can guess the country.


----------



## dlfl

JoeKustra said:


> The VCM Connections are very erratic also. They gots problems.


DDOS attack conceivable?


----------



## slowbiscuit

wmhjr said:


> It's the stupid TiVo hosting architecture that has WAY too much dependence on their servers - which they can't seem to manage effectively


Actually it's the poorly written Tivo UI code that is WAY too tied to the servers without adequate error-handling and/or background threading of stuff that could completely avoid these. Getting BSCs when simply trying to play a show is a perfect example of how poorly done it is. The UI should NEVER interfere with basic DVR functionality.

Also, 90+% of the stuff you do is (or should be) local so there's no need to hit the server anyway - what we've speculated is that they do server lookups and data metric gathering for all that and tie it directly into the UI, which means we all suffer when their servers have issues.


----------



## brandenwan

BSC's like crazy over past few days. I have them on my Roamio, but haven't really seen them on my two Minisyet. This is just terrible. Things seem to keep getting worse, and I still get marketing emails for the Bolt+ and still no promotional discount offered. This is so so sad. You would think with all these problems, Tivo would offer existing customers SOMETHING.
I am posting about the BSC because tonight I've just had it! I waited patiently through the BSC for about 25 seconds for my recordings of _Legends of Tomorrow _and guess what? The BSC finally stopped and this is what I saw:








I know for a fact there are two in there and it says "..no shows.." WTF!!!!!!!? LIES ALL LIES! Oh yeah...and notice the generic art for _Project Runway_? This is just fantastic!


----------



## clam729

We have been experiencing this problem as well. Almost unplayable. To solve the problem on both of our units - *switch to SD menus* and the problem is gone. Never been a fan of the HD ones, may stay on the SD ones for a bit.


----------



## brandenwan

The only saving grace is that I noticed *Frankenhooker* is available On Demand. 
:up: Just sayin'
LOL! :laughing:


----------



## brandenwan

clam729 said:


> We have been experiencing this problem as well. Almost unplayable. To solve the problem on both of our units - *switch to SD menus* and the problem is gone. Never been a fan of the HD ones, may stay on the SD ones for a bit.


How do I switch to SD menus? I went through every menu I could find. Sometimes the things that are the most obvious I will somehow miss. Please help. I am so sick of this BSCs, Generic Art, Wrong Guide Info, The same One Pass episodes being recorded 3 times in one night, the manual recordings, the generic descriptions for many daily shows, missing guide data. Hulu taking 2.3 billion years to load. There are so many things wrong...but I still will be damned before I get a Cable Box!


----------



## wmhjr

Pos TiVo software architecture. Also now getting c501 errors and no Netflix Amazon etc. in addition to the frighin blue circles. TiVo is imploding as a company.


----------



## sinanju

Well... Misery loves company. BSCs and a lack of graphics for shows over time. A reboot fixes things for about 12 hours.


----------



## RSCHOON

Just adding that I have been having the same issues for the past few days.

Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk


----------



## brandenwan

clam729 said:


> We have been experiencing this problem as well. Almost unplayable. To solve the problem on both of our units - *switch to SD menus* and the problem is gone. Never been a fan of the HD ones, may stay on the SD ones for a bit.


Nevermind. I found it....on older models..LOL I have a Roamio. Doesn't exist.


----------



## sjmaye

Is there anything official on this issue from Tivo Corporation?


----------



## morac

sjmaye said:


> Is there anything official on this issue from Tivo Corporation?


According to their status page everything is working fine.

TiVo Status

I have to say, the UI was a bit sluggish last night, but things were working.


----------



## JoeKustra

sjmaye said:


> Is there anything official on this issue from Tivo Corporation?


Sort of: Blue spinning circles since 20.5.6

Guide is falling behind too.

9am: no guide update today. Too many generic descriptions for next week.


----------



## dlfl

morac said:


> According to their status page everything is working fine.
> 
> TiVo Status
> ....... .


TiVo could make it easier on all of us, including reducing the number of support calls they have to handle, if they would be more transparent about this (and other) problems, instead of claiming all is good on that status site.


----------



## WorldBandRadio

Well, someone at TiVo has a dark sense of humor.

My TiVo splashed up a message about server communication problems, and that I should go to status.tivo.com for more information.

Unfortunately, status.tivo.com says everything is "operational."

Maybe TiVo has a different definition of the word "operational" which means "non-functional?"


----------



## jth tv

Very Humpty Dumpty of them.


----------



## WorldBandRadio

dlfl said:


> TiVo could make it easier on all of us, including reducing the number of support calls they have to handle, if they would be more transparent about this (and other) problems, instead of claiming all is good on that status site.


It wouldn't surprise me at all if TiVo were completely oblivious to the fact that there is an operational problem.

I remember the NTP time-server problem they had a year or so ago, it appeared they were not even aware of it until they saw the problem "trending" here and on other social media sites.
Clock 100 seconds fast since DST to CST

So maybe TiVo is equally unaware of this issue?


----------



## beobuff

WorldBandRadio said:


> Well, someone at TiVo has a dark sense of humor.
> 
> My TiVo splashed up a message about server communication problems, and that I should go to status.tivo.com for more information.
> 
> Unfortunately, status.tivo.com says everything is "operational."
> 
> Maybe TiVo has a different definition of the word "operational" which means "non-functional?"


Perhaps they prefer to distinguish between "non-functional" and "dysfunctional". Admittedly the difference is moot to the end user watching endless spinning blue wheels of death. FWIIW, it is possible to delete a program by using the clear button on the remote, which nicely avoids the SBW/D you get if you try to use the directional arrows.


----------



## Teeps

WorldBandRadio said:


> Oops, I should have been more specific. Thanks for catching that.
> 
> When I say "Restart" I mean I go to the Help Menu, select Restart or Reset, then select Restart the TiVo box.
> 
> The program logos come back within a few minutes or so after the TiVo settles down from the restart.


Copy that.
I did just as you describe above and that did fix the BSC, at least last night.

Another thing I am seeing is recalling the now playing list with kmttg seems to hang for a minute maybe 2 before showing the list.
Not sure if it's connected to the BSC problem we are experiencing, but figured I'd put it out there at least as a data point.


----------



## dlfl

WorldBandRadio said:


> It wouldn't surprise me at all if TiVo were completely oblivious to the fact that there is an operational problem.
> .......


That 's why it's important to take the time to complain to TiVo support directly. How many people posting this problem here have done that?


----------



## sjmaye

I just got off the phone with Tivo support. They are aware of the issue. The outage "name" is 451239. The outage # is INC0051700. He had me do connection to the TIvo network. Once complete I have been instructed to shutdown and unplug the box for 30 seconds, then reboot. Then re-run the connection. He said this should improve performance, but the spinning circle issue will likely come back. The real fix is being worked on, but will be another 5-7 days before it is fixed.


----------



## lmacmil

Have had my Roamio Basic for 13 months. Got the first spinning blue circle yesterday and got it again today. Google led me here. Good to know it's a known issue and is being worked on. Guess I'll just be patient until it gets fixed.


----------



## richsadams

Add our Premiere XL to the list for the BSC. Sometimes short, sometimes quite a long wait. Very annoying.

Tried various resolutions posted here. Thanks, but no luck.


----------



## jmsxl

Agree that the UI is ridiculous. When I just want to play a show where clearly all the info needed is local to my box... my guess is that the BSC's represent TiVo trying to reach out to the network in order to splash more ads and nonsense goop at us.


----------



## JoeKustra

jmsxl said:


> Agree that the UI is ridiculous. When I just want to play a show where clearly all the info needed is local to my box... my guess is that the BSC's represent TiVo trying to reach out to the network in order to splash more ads and nonsense goop at us.


I would agree, but since this started I have had no gold star promos or pause ads. I'll bet when it's fixed, they will come back.


----------



## WorldBandRadio

JoeKustra said:


> I would agree, but since this started I have had no gold star promos or pause ads. I'll bet when it's fixed, they will come back.


I have the network switch the TiVo is plugged into atop my entertainment center. I can see the blinking LEDs for network activity.

From what I can see, nearly all activity moving around the menus is sent to the mothership, it appears to be almost on a keypress by keypress basis. That part appears to be asynchronous, i.e. a response from the mothership does not seem to be needed to navigate most of the menus.

Where it gets dicey is when synchronous communication is needed during navigation. Deleting shows, going into the menu for a recording, etc., seem to be places that the navigation just stalls (a.k.a. blue spinning circle) until something times out or a response comes back from the mothership.

I've never seen such a poorly designed UI, one that requires synchronous communications with a mothership in order to just navigate around the menus, but there it is.


----------



## sjmaye

sjmaye said:


> I have been instructed to shutdown and unplug the box for 30 seconds, then reboot. Then re-run the connection. He said this should improve performance, but the spinning circle issue will likely come back.


I can attest that the above does nothing. In fact, I think things are worse. I hope they get a solution rolled out soon.


----------



## jth tv

JoeKustra said:


> I would agree, but since this started I have had no gold star promos or pause ads. I'll bet when it's fixed, they will come back.


I think the commercials stopped when TiVo officially merged with Rovi. That is one positive that should be mentioned.


----------



## rassi

Having the same problem here with our Roamio Plus. Thought it was the HD. At least I know it's not that. Hoping for a quick fix as this is extremely frustrating.


----------



## dlfl

sjmaye said:


> I just got off the phone with Tivo support. They are aware of the issue. The outage "name" is 451239. The outage # is INC0051700. He had me do connection to the TIvo network. Once complete I have been instructed to shutdown and unplug the box for 30 seconds, then reboot. Then re-run the connection. He said this should improve performance, but the spinning circle issue will likely come back. The real fix is being worked on, but will be another 5-7 days before it is fixed.


So what is a "INC0051700" ?? Does that identify a particular TiVo server? region?


----------



## achalupa

dlfl said:


> So what is a "INC0051700" ?? Does that identify a particular TiVo server? region?


If I had guess I would say it is the tracking number in their incident management system.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Harold Anderson

Same here.


----------



## hybucket

Here as well. Besides the circles, the guide has been a disaster.


----------



## Lurker1

Glad I found this thread, I thought my Roamio is dying. Very slow to do anything, spinning circles everywhere. Often just times out and leaves an empty list or blank screen. Requires generous patience and multiple retries to do anything.


----------



## n5pwp

As was mentioned earlier, if you unplug your network connection you don't have the problem. I plan to run mine that way during the day and then plug it back in at night when I go to bed to get the eventual guide update. Not a great solution but at least you don't have to look at the SBC.


----------



## morac

I've started getting these on my Roamio and the TiVo iOS app won't connect. 

I've also seen a weird message in a group on my Roamio that streaming videos won't display if The box isn't connect to my home network, but then the streaming videos were still displayed.


----------



## sandycityscott

Been having long bouts of blue spinning circles most of this week.


----------



## twhiting9275

Same here. Almost every time I go into a show


----------



## tivoknucklehead

face it, the Rovi update has been a disaster. Search for new streaming shows has been dead for 2 months too. I want some money back


----------



## Lurker1

n5pwp said:


> As was mentioned earlier, if you unplug your network connection you don't have the problem. I plan to run mine that way during the day and then plug it back in at night when I go to bed to get the eventual guide update. Not a great solution but at least you don't have to look at the SBC.


Thanks, I didn't see that earlier. This is the first time I've suffered this problem.


----------



## wmhjr

n5pwp said:


> As was mentioned earlier, if you unplug your network connection you don't have the problem. I plan to run mine that way during the day and then plug it back in at night when I go to bed to get the eventual guide update. Not a great solution but at least you don't have to look at the SBC.


If you use minis that is not an option.


----------



## jth tv

BSC's are back this morning.


----------



## dlfl

The totally useless status page (status.tivo.com) is supplied by www.StatusPage.io -- note the link at the bottom of the page. I went there and left them a message about how their page is viewed as a joke by we TiVo customers. I linked this thread in my message. Looking at the prices it appears TiVo may be paying thousands of dollars for this poor service.


----------



## wmhjr

Truth is, nobody at Tivo gives half a crap about us complaining, and there is no evidence whatsoever that they ever will. The only Tivo representative that ever seems to even acknowledge issues and try to resolve them is Margaret. Other than that, Tivo has made it a business model to blow out defect ridden software and architecture, supported by people who "don't support networks" (even though their core architecture, i.e., minis, etc require it. I've thought for quite a while that the retain part of Tivo is not all that long for this world, and know that my existing Roamio/Mini setup is likely the last Tivo technology I ever buy.


----------



## kyiakr

vittoria said:


> The TiVo rep I just spoke to said they were aware of the blue circle thing and are working on it. He offered a temporary workaround which did work briefly, though not long.
> 
> On the TiVo remote press:
> Thumbs down once and release.
> Thumbs up once and release
> Press Play 2x
> 
> Screen will go black and then refresh. He says it forces an update to the server.


I have also been getting blue circles and I knew my remote batteries were low. Then the remote would not control the roamio at all. I changed the batteries in the remote and then still could not control the roamio at all, the Amber light would come on when I pressed a button on the remote but nothing would happen. I have a mini and turned on that TV and everything worked fine so I knew it was not the Roamio. I was also able to press mute and mute the sound and press input and see the inputs screen overlay. 
I followed the instructions above and the remote worked again although I was missing the top of the screen which comes from Internet content, didn't care never use that but after flipping a few screens it all came back.
Thanks for posting as I would have eventually been on the phone with support to figure it out.


----------



## awsnyde

I had this issue on my Roamio the last couple of days—very annoying indeed—but haven't seen it yet today. Anyone else seeing an improvement today?


----------



## Big Deficit

I've been seeing this on the Premier 3-4 days now, beyond ponderous. The semi-castrated HD seems to be immune, maybe one of the bugs in the bug ridden HD's feature removed 'maintenance' OS is responsible?


----------



## hybucket

Aside from a few CSRs with temporary fixes and comments that "they're working on it," without looking thru this whole thread, has there been any "official" comment from TiVO about this? Most recent here seemed to indicate "6 to 7 days," IIRC.


----------



## MPSAN

I also get this on my Premieres...along with the C133 message at night that is fixed in the morning. The C133 message lets everything work except searches!


----------



## dlfl

Got this email response from TiVo:


> Thank you for contacting TiVo Customer Support. I would be glad to help you with the spinning blue circle.
> 
> This is a known issue at this time. Our engineers are completely aware of the issue and will diligently work on finding a fix for our customers. When a fix is available your device will automatically update. One process you can attempt to proceed is a cold boot.
> 
> To begin, unplug the power and everything else from the back of the TiVo unit leaving only the connection to your television set. Once that is done, plug the power only back in, bypassing any power strip that may have been previously connected.


This makes it sound like a software update is the expected fix. We can only hope it will actually fix what appears to be the basic problem. Someone posted earlier the fix would take five days or more which does seem more consistent with a software update rather than a server fix.

Not too excited about their prescription for a cold boot, which is "One process you can *attempt* to proceed". So far my BSC's have been intermittent and less than 30 secs so not worth all that for me.


----------



## morac

dlfl said:


> Got this email response from TiVo:
> 
> This makes it sound like a software update is the expected fix. We can only hope it will actually fix what appears to be the basic problem. Someone posted earlier the fix would take five days or more which does seem more consistent with a software update rather than a server fix.
> 
> Not too excited about their prescription for a cold boot, which is "One process you can *attempt* to proceed". So far my BSC's have been intermittent and less than 30 secs so not worth all that for me.


I think that's the standard response for any problem. Known issue, working on it, updating coming next week, etc.

It's definitely a server problem since it's intermittent, so they might be working on it, but don't expect a software update to fix it.


----------



## Lurker1

awsnyde said:


> I had this issue on my Roamio the last couple of days-very annoying indeed-but haven't seen it yet today. Anyone else seeing an improvement today?





morac said:


> I think that's the standard response for any problem. Known issue, working on it, updating coming next week, etc.


Yes, they just hit the "known problem" button and it sends you that boilerplate.


----------



## sinanju

vittoria said:


> The TiVo rep I just spoke to said they were aware of the blue circle thing and are working on it. He offered a temporary workaround which did work briefly, though not long.
> 
> On the TiVo remote press:
> Thumbs down once and release.
> Thumbs up once and release
> Press Play 2x
> 
> Screen will go black and then refresh. He says it forces an update to the server.


What it seems to do is restart the UI, a side-effect of which is forcing complete refresh of the UI data from the server.


----------



## Razzer

sjmaye said:


> I just got off the phone with Tivo support. They are aware of the issue. The outage "name" is 451239. The outage # is INC0051700. He had me do connection to the TIvo network. Once complete I have been instructed to shutdown and unplug the box for 30 seconds, then reboot. Then re-run the connection. He said this should improve performance, but the spinning circle issue will likely come back. The real fix is being worked on, but will be another 5-7 days before it is fixed.


Thanks for the incident number; I cited it in my own support request.


----------



## richsadams

The BSC was starting to become the BCD (Blue Circle of Death) with interminably long wait times. I was about to unplug its Ethernet cable, but on a whim I forced a network connection earlier today. It's been a few hours and I've run through a dozen or more folders and recordings and up until now I haven't seen even one BSC. The whole UI feels snappy and fresh...but of course it may be my imagination since it was so pokey of late, so it well could be that it's behaving "normally" again.

I tried forcing a network connection a few days ago and it was the typical quick download > 0% to 100% in about 30 seconds. Today's download took about 8 minutes and the progress took another 12 minutes. Progress was fairly smooth but it did hang for a bit at 48% then again at 65% for some reason.

In the "old days" TiVo never pushed updates on weekends to avoid support issues, but it's possible that the new management has a different attitude. This may not even be an update/fix but a bit of temporary good luck so who knows?

In any case, I hope I didn't jinx things by posting, but so far so good. I'll report back if it rears it's ugly blue head again.


----------



## barbja

morac said:


> I think that's the standard response for any problem. Known issue, working on it, updating coming next week, etc.
> 
> It's definitely a server problem since it's intermittent, so they might be working on it, but don't expect a software update to fix it.


I've been experiencing this for at least week on my Roamio. I was able to fix it 2x by rebooting. However, I rebooted this morning at about 10am and its back with a vengance less than 10 hours later. My TiVo4 has been working consistently without issue; its running a different software version though. If this was a server problem, you'd think that both TiVos would be affected, not just my Roamio.

I hope they fix it soon, it makes me want to jump out of my skin every time it starts circling the drain. How on earth can they manage to make something slower than a TiVo1 !?!?!


----------



## [email protected]

Seems to be getting worse since it started several days ago. The workaround doesn't help for very long. This is getting old...


----------



## Random User 7

Ugh, I can't setup any onepass timers.


----------



## Razzer

n5pwp said:


> As was mentioned earlier, if you unplug your network connection you don't have the problem. I plan to run mine that way during the day and then plug it back in at night when I go to bed to get the eventual guide update. Not a great solution but at least you don't have to look at the SBC.


THANKS! It's like having a brand new Roamio. Downright "snappy."
(Come to think of it, I don't actually remember when it _was_ this snappy.)


----------



## Jeeters

I've had the blue circle problem occasionally for months. Mostly just a minor annoyance for me that comes and goes.

But last couple of days, it's been really bad.

Last night I rebooted and and it instantly fixed the problem.

Tonight, it was back, but even worse: I'd try and navigate into a show's folder, and the circle would appear, then it would disappear but the folder would then display as empty. Which means I couldn't watch any shows that were in folders since none of the episodes would appear. 

I rebooted a little bit ago and it seemed to have fixed the problem again. Well, sorta. Navigation is fast again, but I just found out that out anytime I try and do a search, I get the blue circle, and then eventually "Search results are temporarily unavailable".

I think I'm just going to watch some Netflix. Assuming my TiVo lets me into the app.


----------



## brandenwan

richsadams said:


> The BSC was starting to become the BCD (Blue Circle of Death) with interminably long wait times. I was about to unplug its Ethernet cable, but on a whim I forced a network connection earlier today. It's been a few hours and I've run through a dozen or more folders and recordings and up until now I haven't seen even one BSC. The whole UI feels snappy and fresh...but of course it may be my imagination since it was so pokey of late, so it well could be that it's behaving "normally" again.
> 
> I tried forcing a network connection a few days ago and it was the typical quick download > 0% to 100% in about 30 seconds. Today's download took about 8 minutes and the progress took another 12 minutes. Progress was fairly smooth but it did hang for a bit at 48% then again at 65% for some reason.
> 
> In the "old days" TiVo never pushed updates on weekends to avoid support issues, but it's possible that the new management has a different attitude. This may not even be an update/fix but a bit of temporary good luck so who knows?
> 
> In any case, I hope I didn't jinx things by posting, but so far so good. I'll report back if it rears it's ugly blue head again.


I read your post and tried the same thing. I forced a connection and guess what? Mine is working fine too so far! WOOHOO! Mine took about 7 minutes to complete in total. The loading process took 4 minutes and 11 seconds to complete, with brief hangs at 33%, 54%, 64%, 72% and 92%.

The 'BSC BLUES' may be over! :sweatsmile:


----------



## DallasGG

Have had blue spinning circle the last few days...really really bad on Saturday night. Tivo, please fix this!


----------



## justen_m

brandenwan said:


> I read your post and tried the same thing. I forced a connection and guess what? Mine is working fine too so far! WOOHOO! Mine took about 7 minutes to complete in total. The loading process took 4 minutes and 11 seconds to complete, with brief hangs at 33%, 54%, 64%, 72% and 92%.
> 
> The 'BSC BLUES' may be over! :sweatsmile:


What is your software version now?


----------



## David Knowles

I have been having the same issue for a couple of days now - I have also seen an error C301 as well.

Also, I wonder if this is related to another issue I have been having. When I publish videos on my computer, they no longer automatically transfer to my Tivo box. I am able to manually transfer them. This has been working for many years with no issues. Tivo support was no help for that issue.


----------



## headless chicken

I've been a TiVo user since 2002, but I've had it. This is for me--last TiVo ever.


----------



## geekaren

Jeeters said:


> I've had the blue circle problem occasionally for months. Mostly just a minor annoyance for me that comes and goes.
> 
> But last couple of days, it's been really bad.


Same here.


----------



## wmhjr

Last. Tivo. Ever.

Increased service costs, too much dependence on Tivo hosting architecture, inability of Tivo to manage that architecture, and a continued refusal to provide effective customer service.

Not exactly a winning combination. Tivo, are you listening?


----------



## justen_m

David Knowles said:


> Also, I wonder if this is related to another issue I have been having. When I publish videos on my computer, they no longer automatically transfer to my Tivo box. I am able to manually transfer them. This has been working for many years with no issues. Tivo support was no help for that issue.


No, I think you are referring to a different issue. It uses Push functionality, which has been broken for months now and I doubt it is ever going to be fixed. It's been discussed in a few threads. Here is one.
Suddenly unable to push videos to my tivo with pytivo
It seems the only way to get videos from your PC to your TiVo is to use your TiVo to manually Pull them from your PC.


----------



## AtlBritt

I Am On Verson 20.6.1a And Our TIVO Roamio Keeps doing The spinning JAVA icon. If I reset the network Wifi then it goes back to working normally for a couple of days.


----------



## hybucket

Still getting the BSC...sympathize with those saying "...this is it with TiVO..." and can understand why. However, try talking to someone with a cable company DVR and ask them about customer service when THEY have a problem.


----------



## L David Matheny

wmhjr said:


> Last. Tivo. Ever.
> 
> Increased service costs, too much dependence on Tivo hosting architecture, inability of Tivo to manage that architecture, and a continued refusal to provide effective customer service.
> 
> Not exactly a winning combination. Tivo, are you listening?


Increased service costs and ineffective customer service are problems that can be fixed (probably). But too much dependence on Tivo hosting architecture and the inability to manage that ill-advised architecture are much more serious.

It's a bit scary to imagine that somebody at TiVo decided "Sure, let's make every little thing the user does update our servers. We want to control everything. And why not? This is the age of broadband, right?" Yet the symptoms we're seeing make us wonder if that simple but arrogant decision could take down the company, unless they're willing to build server farms big enough to handle all the real-time traffic. It makes me think of the story of the Grand Vizier and the chessboard and the grains of wheat. That isn't a perfect analogy, but both things illustrate the deceptive ease with which numbers can get totally out-of-hand.


----------



## wmhjr

hybucket said:


> Still getting the BSC...sympathize with those saying "...this is it with TiVO..." and can understand why. However, try talking to someone with a cable company DVR and ask them about customer service when THEY have a problem.


The difference is (and I have one VZ DVR) that I have never, since 2007, experienced failures and issues anywhere near what I've experienced with Tivo. And with Tivo, I bear all the risk. I buy the equipment, have a (very) limited (and of questionable value) warranty and certainly don't have even the slightest bit of "better" support. A great deal of the value proposition that caused me to go to Tivo years ago has now completely reversed.


----------



## slowbiscuit

brandenwan said:


> The 'BSC BLUES' may be over! :sweatsmile:


Um no, it's not over. Did you check to see how old this thread is, and how it will come back because of the crappy way they coded the UI? Forcing a net connect, rebooting etc. WILL NOT FIX THE PROBLEM. It MAY buy you some time of BSC-free bliss, but Tivo has to fix it with a software update that hasn't come out yet.


----------



## morristabush

can the infrastructure issue/lack of support be related to the fact that Tivo was acquired last summer by Rovi? Does anyone know anyone who works at Tivo that can speak for what's going on with the engineering team there?


----------



## wmhjr

No. These issues started before then. Perhaps it has gotten worse this time as a result, but the primary problem is an incredibly poor architecture design combined with an ineffective management strategy.


----------



## diskus

Short term fix: unplug the network cable or disable the wireless connection. And everything is instantaneous no delay whatsoever. But I agree the need for contsant server communication is strange


----------



## jth tv

Bad computer guys are always over promising and under performing, lots of style, little substance, honchos fall for it. But it probably only takes one super-genius to fix something like this. The honchos just need to find them.


----------



## mrizzo80

I realize TiVo collects data every time we click any remote button or navigate anywhere in the UI, but is there a valid reason why they haven't updated the codebase to pop those interactions onto a queue and upload them periodically (as a background task) instead of doing it in real-time? As mentioned above, when you disconnect the network connection moving around the UI is noticeably faster than it normally is.


----------



## wmhjr

jth tv said:


> Bad computer guys are always over promising and under performing, lots of style, little substance, honchos fall for it. But it probably only takes one super-genius to fix something like this. The honchos just need to find them.


My guess here is that it was not the architects themselves who really wanted to do this, but rather the product managers seeing a possibility of trying to make Tivo more "sticky" - as well as potentially (in the growing over-hyped world of "big data" and "hadoop") monetizing the data in some sort of yet to be realized "realtime" functionality.


----------



## dslunceford

What the heck. My mini is becoming unusable. SBC delays constantly, and not it's been stuck on one for 5 min. Will have to physically reboot


----------



## richsadams

Per my previous post about a forced network connection (and extended download/loading times) seemingly resolving the BSC issue fails the long-term test. It did get much better - no BSC at all - for a day or so, however it's returned. Currently it's still not as bad as it was, but not gone. Based on other folk's posts here I expect it will get worse again.

I completely forgot that when I added our Mini I set up a MoCA network, so disconnecting isn't really an option without jumping through a bunch of hoops and losing the Mini's use completely.

With the Rovi guide issues, now this, ongoing TiVo problems are getting really old. There used to be the odd glitch now and then, but things do not seem to be going in the right direction.

Sadly the idea of buying a new Bolt Plus is becoming less and less attractive. That our Series3 has superior performance at this point (albeit w/o all of the bells and whistles) is also a sad statement.


----------



## L David Matheny

mrizzo80 said:


> I realize TiVo collects data every time we click any remote button or navigate anywhere in the UI, but is there a valid reason why they haven't updated the codebase to pop those interactions onto a queue and upload them periodically (as a background task) instead of doing it in real-time? As mentioned above, when you disconnect the network connection moving around the UI is noticeably faster than it normally is.


Updating everything in real-time is the simpleminded way to do it, in a perfectly networked world. Queuing the data for asynchronous updating would require better design, more coding skill and less arrogance. It seems clear now that TiVo has made some bad choices.


----------



## richsadams

wmhjr said:


> My guess here is that it was not the architects themselves who really wanted to do this, but rather the product managers seeing a possibility of trying to make Tivo more "sticky" - as well as potentially (in the growing over-hyped world of "big data" and "hadoop") *monetizing the data* in some sort of yet to be realized "realtime" functionality.


Bingo!


----------



## bmac

A work around I am trying is router based. During my main TV watching time usually evenings. I set parental settings in the router to not allow internet access to the tivo during that time. Most router you can schedule blocked access times.


----------



## Lurker1

I am also using my router to block TiVo from the internet during prime viewing time. This does indeed vastly speed up the UI. I lose a few graphics and images, but who cares. As a bonus, the useless and distracting Discovery Bar goes away.


----------



## BrettStah

I've recently started seeing the blue circles and didn't know what caused them - we've had our Roamio for a couple of months now and this just recently started (within the past week I think). So far it's just adding a few seconds when we press Play on some recordings sometimes.


----------



## cogx

Same here. After ten years, my S3 finally died, but I had a refurb Roamio in a box that I started using. The first month of using it was fine enough (although I had it mysteriously lose pause markers on baseball games), but now the past week or so I'm having these crazy long blue spinning wheels of frustration and often times going into a menu to look at program details it will just dump back out to the previous menu without showing me the screen I was expecting to see. Seriously? So, basically, my old S3 with v11 was superior to all the TiVo products that have come since? Wow. Just. Wow.


----------



## Jeeters

jth tv said:


> Bad computer guys are always over promising and under performing, lots of style, little substance, honchos fall for it. But it probably only takes one super-genius to fix something like this. The honchos just need to find them.


As a software developer myself, it's my experience that us computer guys tell the honchos "that's a bad idea", "there's gonna be problems if we do that", etc., but it very often falls on deaf ears or, best case, "nah, just do it; I'm sure you guys can iron out the kinks eventually".


----------



## b_scott

I've had BSC for awhile now and I thought it was my hard drive because it was only on one Tivo. So I just replaced my drive today. Seemed to be working fine and then I got a BSC on my remote Tivo when trying to open folders. UGH!!!!


----------



## slice1900

Utter incompetence on Tivo's part. If they're going to be so damn stupid as to phone home on every GUI activity, I'm going to block it in my router except from 3-6am. Screw these fools, this is intolerable!!! :rage::rage::rage::rage::rage::rage::rage::rage::rage:


----------



## Hanover

Having the same issue. It also spontaneously rebooted when I deleted a folder. This happened twice.


----------



## brandenwan

justen_m said:


> What is your software version now?


Sorry for taking so long to reply... It's *20.6.1a.RC10-USA-6-846* to be exact.


----------



## justen_m

brandenwan said:


> Sorry for taking so long to reply... It's *20.6.1a.RC10-USA-6-846* to be exact.


Thanks. So that means you didn't get a software update. 20.6.1a.RC10 is the same software I've got and have had for quite some time. That's why I wanted to know your software version. I expect when a fix comes out, TiVo'll bump up the version. It might just be to a newer RC version.


----------



## SMB-IL

bmac said:


> A work around I am trying is router based. During my main TV watching time usually evenings. I set parental settings in the router to not allow internet access to the tivo during that time. Most router you can schedule blocked access times.


Now, THAT is a great idea! Thanks!!


----------



## b_scott

Tivo Margaret really needs to respond to this.


----------



## richsadams

justen_m said:


> Thanks. So that means you didn't get a software update. 20.6.1a.RC10 is the same software I've got and have had for quite some time. That's why I wanted to know your software version. I expect when a fix comes out, TiVo'll bump up the version. It might just be to a newer RC version.


IIRC TiVo has tweaked their software w/o a version change in the past, so it's possible we won't see any difference. I'd also bet on an RC update, but either way it certainly would be welcome and none too soon.


----------



## FiosUser

I've had BSC increasing for the past few days on *20.6.1a.RC10-USA-6-840*

Trying to force connect to get the *6 update to *20.6.1a.RC10-USA-6-846
*
No luck yet, but will keep trying to force connect over and over I guess.


----------



## tim1724

FiosUser said:


> I've had BSC increasing for the past few days on *20.6.1a.RC10-USA-6-840*
> 
> Trying to force connect to get the *6 update to *20.6.1a.RC10-USA-6-846
> *
> No luck yet, but will keep trying to force connect over and over I guess.


The last three digits are the model number of the TiVo. Roamio basic/ota/plus/pro all have different ones.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs

bmac said:


> A work around I am trying is router based. During my main TV watching time usually evenings. I set parental settings in the router to not allow internet access to the tivo during that time. Most router you can schedule blocked access times.


That would kill SkipMode (i.e., while there's no internet connection no new shows can get it), wouldn't it?


----------



## SullyND

b_scott said:


> Tivo Margaret really needs to respond to this.


Even better would be @TiVoMargret (No middle a)


----------



## HerronScott

FiosUser said:


> I've had BSC increasing for the past few days on *20.6.1a.RC10-USA-6-840*
> 
> Trying to force connect to get the *6 update to *20.6.1a.RC10-USA-6-846
> *
> No luck yet, but will keep trying to force connect over and over I guess.


You already have the latest version for your model so don't try forcing connections to get an upgrade. The last 3 digits indicate the model TiVo the software is for. 846 is a Roamio Basic/OTA while 840 is a Roamio Pro.

https://support.tivo.com/articles/FAQ/TiVo-Service-Number-and-Model-Number-Table

The issue this time is more than likely a backend infrastructure issue that will be resolved without an update to our TiVo's (excluding the on-going issue that some users have had with this).

Scott


----------



## morac

It's now taking over 30 seconds to start playing a recording because of the spinning circles. 

Oddly that's pretty much the only time I'm seeing them.


----------



## hybucket

I'm up to a 30-second or more delay...friends are having experiences where there is the spinning, followed by a return to the previous page.
Seems to happen on mine relative to the time of day. During the day, little or no spinning...at night, accessing the same folder is almost impossible. Maybe asking for some kind of credit for the lost time and programs could move this along....


----------



## Rob Helmerichs

Yeah, it's getting pretty ugly...


----------



## bob61

Did not force update but noticed the BSC is gone currently. I checked status and see that connection was made this morning to the mother ship. Don't know if that brought any fix or if TiVo addressed problem on their server side. Since it's start of work week maybe a TiVo employee came in and turned their computer on that's used as server (sarcasm). 

Sent from my LG-H830 using Tapatalk


----------



## ohmark

So envious of my neighbors who have a cable company dvr with no spinning circles.


----------



## hybucket

ohmark said:


> So envious of my neighbors who have a cable company dvr with no spinning circles.


Agreed...but I'll bet they lose most of their guide for 2 days after a power outage (at least on Comcast).


----------



## kpeters59

Getting reports from Clients in Houston about this, too.

-KP


----------



## hhh222

Just now reset my Roamio and the spinning circle delay is now gone.


----------



## take5

Of course, I should have checked here first. I have a Roamio Plus that is doing this a lot. It ceases to be an appliance, and becomes just an app that doesn't work very well. At its worst, after the delay, the action is not even performed, and you're just back at the previous menu. I have seen empty-not-empty folders, and all of that.

I really don't want to disconnect it from Broadband because I use NetFlix sometimes. I have a Roku as well, so there's that, and of course TiVO --> HBOGo --> Comcast doesn't work anyway (but I'm not bitter).

Mine is connected to broadband via Ethernet, so scratch wifi. I have dragged it through kickstart 54 and 57 -- not fixed. Certainly a restart doesn't fix it. Combine this with hella-persistent line-up problems, and it really does feel like there's not many people who care one way or the other about the end user experience on the corporate end.


----------



## DaveMN

I'll throw my "me too" in here as well on my Roamio Plus. Been with TiVo since 2000, and this is the worst performance problem I've ever seen.
Would be nice to see some official response to this.


----------



## cTwining

Rob Helmerichs said:


> That would kill SkipMode (i.e., while there's no internet connection no new shows can get it), wouldn't it?


SkipMode survives temporary loss of the Internet connection.

I unplugged my Roamio OTA from Ethernet, then watched an old (but previously untouched) skip-enabled show. It skipped correctly.

When is the list of skip targets downloaded from Rovi's servers to the TiVo DVR ?


----------



## Rob Helmerichs

cTwining said:


> SkipMode survives temporary loss of the Internet connection.
> 
> I unplugged my Roamio OTA from Ethernet, then watched an old (but previously untouched) skip-enabled show. It skipped correctly.


But what I was talking about was getting SkipMode for new shows while there's no internet connection. You'll get it when you're hooked back up, but I like to wait until a few minutes after a show ends and then start watching to take advantage of Skip.


----------



## jpndi

As was mentioned earlier, if you unplug your network connection you don't have the problem. Evidentially your TIVO has to send data to HQ and that is the hold up?? Tivo server/software problems? All I know is after unplugging network cable my Tivo was lighting fast and no SBC. Of course now to watch anything streaming I have to plug it back in..


----------



## cogx

b_scott said:


> I've had BSC for awhile now and I thought it was my hard drive because it was only on one Tivo. So I just replaced my drive today. Seemed to be working fine and then I got a BSC on my remote Tivo when trying to open folders. UGH!!!!


I also thought, oh great, another bad drive, so I ran the Kickstart 54, but it passed the SMART tests, so that's when I came here and sure enough found this thread.

Another thing that gets me with a lot of products out there that rely on programming, such as a TiVo, don't they use their own product in their own homes? I know this isn't necessarily applicable to every product, but it would seem to me that everyone that works at TiVo has one or more TiVo devices in their own homes, so one would think they would come across these ridiculously bad glitches too and put even more emphasis on tracking down the faulty code and fixing it, if not for us faceless customers, but for themselves, family, friends and co-workers. No?


----------



## just4tivo

cogx said:


> ... don't they use their own product in their own homes?


TiVo doesn't monitor the guide data they send out rather relying on we paying beta testers to tell them when it's wrong so why would we expect them to actually use what they sell?

Seems like either TiVo is technically incompetent or their business model has mutated to be that *the customer exists for their convenience*.


----------



## Puppy76

Ugh, I started a thread on this issue on my Bolt last week as I didn't realize it was an ongoing thing. Didn't really see an issue though (at least not more than a few seconds of blue circle) until a week ago, and now I'm getting absurd sometimes 30+ second waits too.

Doesn't Tivo know about this? As someone on this page mentioned, they'd have to be seeing it themselves unless no one at Tivo bothers checking nor owns a Tivo LOL

I've seen folders that display stuff incorrectly for a while too.

I was worried about this new interface as I like the original Tivo interface a lot, but for the first couple of months things went pretty much fine (it's mostly the same, a little better in some areas, a little worse in others), but it's hilarious that my S2 runs circles around my Bolt now LOL

EDIT: Here's a Tivo article about it...at least an acknowledgement of sorts is better than nothing, though power cycling it does NOT help at all in my experience:

TiVo Customer Support


----------



## cogx

I just filled out a TiVo support incident and also linked to this thread, so they know this isn't just one customer having a fit. Not sure if all of us doing that will help or just get them even more behind on all of the other customer problems?
However, in terms of triage, now that most of us are past the Rovi guide data debacle, this would seem to be an issue affecting the most customers now.


----------



## Puppy76

cogx said:


> I just filled out a TiVo support incident and also linked to this thread, so they know this isn't just one customer having a fit. Not sure if all of us doing that will help or just get them even more behind on all of the other customer problems?
> However, in terms of triage, now that most of us are past the Rovi guide data debacle, this would seem to be an issue affecting the most customers now.


Good idea to link to the thread. I just reported it too (but didn't think to link here!)

Regarding the guide data, I've had 4 channels (which I can't actually recieve) added one day, then deleted the next EVERY DAY since the Rovi data. I've been patient, but this is getting absurd.


----------



## cogx

Puppy76 said:


> Regarding the guide data, I've had 4 channels (which I can't actually recieve) added one day, then deleted the next EVERY DAY since the Rovi data. I've been patient, but this is getting absurd.


Yikes, sorry.  Well, that's why I wrote "most" of us were past the guide data problems. In one month I'll have been a TiVo customer for 12 years, but now that my lifetime S3 is out of the picture and I have to start paying for service again, these nagging problems are making it harder for me to justify not just going back to my cable provider's old Motorola box. As crappy as they are, at least if you have a hardware problem, you just take it into the local office and they swap you out a different one. Maybe TiVo employees all use Motos too?


----------



## jth tv

Bad again here today. Could it be that Rovi and Tivo are merging their servers ? Or the personnel that maintained them ?


----------



## BigBarryQ

I just spoke to a tech support manager and Tivo is fully aware of the problem - especially the fact that almost everyone is having it happen to certain degrees in the last week or two. He said they have not pushed a code update or made any other changes to the boxes.

They have made it their utmost priority and he was very forthcoming with his acknowledgment of the problem being pervasive.

I suggest if they don't fix it in a week that EVERY subscriber call in, ask for a supervisor and request a month or more of credit. That should wake them up.


----------



## Puppy76

BigBarryQ said:


> I just spoke to a tech support manager and Tivo is fully aware of the problem - especially the fact that almost everyone is having it happen to certain degrees in the last week or two. He said they have not pushed a code update or made any other changes to the boxes.
> 
> They have made it their utmost priority and he was very forthcoming with his acknowledgment of the problem being pervasive.
> 
> I suggest if they don't fix it in a week that EVERY subscriber call in, ask for a supervisor and request a month or more of credit. That should wake them up.


Thanks for the update Barry! Really glad to know they know about it. (Although how they COULDN'T know about it I don't know, but anyway LOL)


----------



## wmhjr

jpndi said:


> As was mentioned earlier, if you unplug your network connection you don't have the problem. Evidentially your TIVO has to send data to HQ and that is the hold up?? Tivo server/software problems? All I know is after unplugging network cable my Tivo was lighting fast and no SBC. Of course now to watch anything streaming I have to plug it back in..


And again - if you have minis, they become bricks.


----------



## jeffw_00

So maybe I should set the "parental controls" on my Router to block TiVo's access during the hours I normally watch?

[and I'm onboard for the calling-tech-support-in-concert, just say the word (as clearly they don't monitor the forums anymore :-( ]


----------



## justen_m

wmhjr said:


> And again - if you have minis, they become bricks.


Only if your solution to disconnecting your TiVo from the internet is unplugging your TiVo from the router. I've seen other solutions in this thread that will let your minis work fine and prevent your TiVo from accessing the internet. Unplug your router from your modem. Configure your router to not allow internet access to your TiVo during certain hours, often under parental controls. Have your TiVo and minis on their own router, and just disconnect this router from the internet. So there _are_ work arounds.* All have drawbacks and inconveniences and should not be necessary.* Hopefully TiVo has a real fix soon.


----------



## wmhjr

Um, I replied to the "Unplug your network connection" recommendation. Not to the blocking of ports on the router/firewall. 

The other suggestions have different results, which may allow for the mini to function (though with incomplete functionality)


----------



## Lurker1

jeffw_00 said:


> So maybe I should set the "parental controls" on my Router to block TiVo's access during the hours I normally watch?


Yes, I did this and it is an effective workaround to the problem until TiVo has a real fix.


----------



## BrettStah

But it prevents the skip mode data from being sent to the TiVo, right? I guess if you allow Internet access overnight after bedtime it will get that data, but that's not helpful if you want to watch something the night it airs and take advantage of the commercial skipping goodness provided by Skip Mode.


----------



## bam1220

jpndi said:


> As was mentioned earlier, if you unplug your network connection you don't have the problem. Evidentially your TIVO has to send data to HQ and that is the hold up?? Tivo server/software problems? All I know is after unplugging network cable my Tivo was lighting fast and no SBC. Of course now to watch anything streaming I have to plug it back in..


You are absolutely right. I have been having this BSC for 2 weeks now. Annoying as hell. I just unplugged my ethernet cable to the Tivo and no more SBC. If it happens again I will also block Tivo in my router during times I usually watch Tivo.


----------



## steve771

Gotta love how companies 'fix' things that are working fine. Anyway, same spinning blue wheel on my Roamio & Premiere. A forced connection corrects this, but only for a short while. I went with Tivo over Tablo because it was faster. Seems like a mistake now.


----------



## BrettStah

I'm only an amateur programmer, but why would the status of the device's Internet connection have anything whatsoever to do with what happens when a user presses Play on a recording that's on the local disk? That makes no sense to have any sort of blocker/delay based on network connectivity, etc. When the user presses Play, the top priority should be to start playing the recording. Anything else is optional, and should be relegated to a lower priority background task.


----------



## 40wnks

ohmark said:


> So envious of my neighbors who have a cable company dvr with no spinning circles.


Must be sarcasm, the last time I had a cable company (TWC) DVR, they decided to change it's software and when they installed it I lost all my programs. They warned that the software would be changing ahead of time, but they gave no warning of the consequences of that. So that is why I went to TiVo and have not looked back.


----------



## aaronwt

I'm rarely seeing the spinning circles but I'm seeing my searches fail. or when I look for cast or episode info it fails or takes a long time to populate. And then with Skip mode I find it doesn't work on the first try like it used to. I need to back out of the program and play it again for Skip mode to work properly. That wasn't an issue until all this server crap started.


----------



## wtkflhn

Lurker1 said:


> Glad I found this thread, I thought my Roamio is dying. Very slow to do anything, spinning circles everywhere. Often just times out and leaves an empty list or blank screen. Requires generous patience and multiple retries to do anything.


 It's just awful. I think I had to force connection to TIVO about 4 times yesterday. The unit hung up at one point, last night. I had to wait until it finished recording and pull the plug to reboot. Knock on wood, but it seems better, today, so far.


----------



## kupe

Been a Tivo user and evangelist since 2003- many Tivos and thousands of dollars spent. But this past year has been rough. Our Tivo HD died the MPEG4 death, then a brand new Roamio Pro that died in a month, and now its replacement Roamio Pro exhibiting this exasperating blue spinning thing! All the other stuff I could overlook, but this latest makes me dread trying to watch our favorite shows. Would a Comcast X1 really be so bad?


----------



## slice1900

BrettStah said:


> But it prevents the skip mode data from being sent to the TiVo, right? I guess if you allow Internet access overnight after bedtime it will get that data, but that's not helpful if you want to watch something the night it airs and take advantage of the commercial skipping goodness provided by Skip Mode.


Well obviously Tivo is collecting information about everything we do in the GUI. That's annoying enough, but doing IN REAL TIME is just so goddamn stupid I can't even comprehend how dumb you have to be to think that's a good idea.

I wonder if after they "fix" this if it will still be faster to block the Tivo's internet connection except late at night? There's absolutely NO reason it should ever contact the internet outside that window as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, if you are using Skipmode or some of the apps that's a different story, but for basic functionality like playing something, changing recording padding, and other stuff where the blue circle has been driving me nuts lately this is purely on Tivo for hiring the worst possible programmers they could find.


----------



## wmhjr

slice1900 said:


> Yeah, if you are using Skipmode or some of the apps that's a different story, but for basic functionality like playing something, changing recording padding, and other stuff where the blue circle has been driving me nuts lately this is purely on *Tivo for hiring the worst possible programmers they could find.*


Look, I'm not defending Tivo for ANYTHING. But, I sure wish people would stop blaming "programmers" for this. It's Tivo as a company, and my bet would be that product managers - NOT software developers - directed the heavy integration with hosted systems. Or in layman terms, Business people demanded the architecture that placed the dependency on Tivo servers and the internet. Not saying the code is great. We don't know anything, really. But in my experience these kinds of architectural decisions occur as the result of the business leaders and product managers - NOT as a result of some sloppiness on the part of the developers.

Now, for some of the other issues - well, you'll get no accolades from me about Tivo software quality.


----------



## wmhjr

BrettStah said:


> I'm only an amateur programmer, but why would the status of the device's Internet connection have anything whatsoever to do with what happens when a user presses Play on a recording that's on the local disk? That makes no sense to have any sort of blocker/delay based on network connectivity, etc. When the user presses Play, the top priority should be to start playing the recording. Anything else is optional, and should be relegated to a lower priority background task.


First of all, it's very unlikely that the BSC, etc have anything to do with network performance, or internet latency. It seems much more likely that it's the result of poor performance in the integration between Tivo hosted services (their datacenter/servers, etc - whether they host them internally or externally) and the Tivo boxes.

The reason this probably exists - as has already been discussed - is most likely that Tivo business leaders and product managers saw a potential opportunity to monetize data collected "real-time" from Tivo users. Additionally, the "real-time analytics" may help in the future to make Tivo more "sticky" to their customers - or user base. In technology, "Big Data" is one of the current fads, with stuff like Hadoop, etc being used with structured and unstructured data to provide some (mainly let to be realized) monetary value. So, product managers that have gone to too many Gartner conferences or read too many magazines put together an MRD for the new platform that demands that integration. Then, the developers have to implement, and the infrastructure/operations folks have to support it. The concept itself is dubious - as even very few Fortune 50 corporations are digging into "real" "Big Data" in any meaningful way. Heck, they're lucky if they've made progress on master data management - much less Big Data. But it sure sounds great in concept, so Tivo decided to go down that rat-hole. Problem is, Tivo was already eating itself in terms of actual software quality, so adding this kind of requirement on top is just adding fuel to the fire. Then consider that in terms of actual "Infrastructure Management, and Operations" (like ITIL) Tivo is already a disaster.


----------



## Bob_Alder

I too have been a TIVO devotee for longer than I can remember. Really since day-one for TIVO, whenever that was. Over the years I've tried several Cable/Satellite DVRs on more than one occasion, only to realize TIVO is the best! The interface, recording options, flexibility, ease of navigation, etc. are so superior. *HOWEVER, this circle of blue death could be a deal breaker because it clearly represents a lack of regard for we high-dollar-paying customers.* We gladly pay a premium price for a premium service and don't appreciate well-known, most irritating glitches like this to persist. Expecting us to do work-rounds staggers the mind of this loyal customer.


----------



## BrettStah

wmhjr said:


> First of all, it's very unlikely that the BSC, etc have anything to do with network performance, or internet latency. It seems much more likely that it's the result of poor performance in the integration between Tivo hosted services (their datacenter/servers, etc - whether they host them internally or externally) and the Tivo boxes.


I didn't say it had anything to do with network performance or latency. But disabling the network connection keeps the BSC away, so it's pretty logical that the programming code is trying to perform some network activity right after pressing the play button.

Instead, and this seems so obvious that it shouldn't need to be stated, pressing play should start playing, and then the metrics and data collecting could be done at a lower priority as a background task. This way, whatever is happening in their datacenters to cause the delay we're seeing now wouldn't be noticeable. Instead, that background task will just take a few extra seconds.


----------



## dlfl

BrettStah said:


> I didn't say it had anything to do with network performance or latency. But disabling the network connection keeps the BSC away, so it's pretty logical that the programming code is trying to perform some network activity right after pressing the play button.
> 
> Instead, and this seems so obvious that it shouldn't need to be stated, pressing play should start playing, and then the metrics and data collecting could be done at a lower priority as a background task. This way, whatever is happening in their datacenters to cause the delay we're seeing now wouldn't be noticeable. Instead, that background task will just take a few extra seconds.


This must be true, and has been said already a number of times in this thread -- but I guess it doesn't hurt to repeat it, in case TiVo is listening and doesn't already know.


----------



## morac

Bad again tonight. Getting BSCs playing shows, going into My Show groups and doing other things.


----------



## cmeinck

Happy to see I'm not alone. I've invested quite a bit in TiVo (Roamio Pro + 5 minis), but it's times like this that make this feel like an incredibly poor solution. I won't do it, but I wish there was a service like PlayStation VUE or Sling TV that was actually a viable option.


----------



## wmhjr

BrettStah said:


> I didn't say it had anything to do with network performance or latency. But disabling the network connection keeps the BSC away, so it's pretty logical that the *programming code is trying to perform some network activity* right after pressing the play button.
> 
> Instead, and this seems so obvious that it shouldn't need to be stated, pressing play should start playing, and then the metrics and data collecting could be done at a lower priority as a background task. This way, whatever is happening in their datacenters to cause the delay we're seeing now wouldn't be noticeable. Instead, that background task will just take a few extra seconds.


I know it seems like a nit, but it's not "trying to perform some network activity". It seems to be trying to perform some client/server (for lack of a better identification) processes that are spawned by hitting whatever function key/button.

We have all agreed for over a year that what they're doing should both never have been done, and should be changed. As usual, Tivo hasn't even acknowledged really that there's an issue. This is far from the first time that this has happened. To be honest, it has sometimes been far worse in terms of symptoms, but this one is lasting a bit longer in duration than has been typical.


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## blacknoi

Happening to me tonight bad (and off and on the past couple of weeks).


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## Rob Helmerichs

I finally unplugged the ethernet for Prime Time and will forgo SkipMode for same-night shows until this is fixed.


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## kpeters59

Everybody, Everybody,Everybody,Everybody,Everybody,Everybody,Everybody, (yes, YOU!) Call TiVo and register the error. Or, it didn't happen.

DO NOT expect that TiVo is watching this forum.

-KP


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## BrettStah

wmhjr said:


> I know it seems like a nit, but it's not "trying to perform some network activity". It seems to be trying to perform some client/server (for lack of a better identification) processes that are spawned by hitting whatever function key/button.
> 
> We have all agreed for over a year that what they're doing should both never have been done, and should be changed. As usual, Tivo hasn't even acknowledged really that there's an issue. This is far from the first time that this has happened. To be honest, it has sometimes been far worse in terms of symptoms, but this one is lasting a bit longer in duration than has been typical.


Yeah, that's picking a nit where there isn't one - unless client/server process in this case doesn't involve the network, and that isn't an activity. I worded it that way because it doesn't matter what it's trying to do over the network connection - it isn't as important as playing the recording.


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## s.pearce0188

I hear of some people unplugging their Ethernet cable to their bolts ️ , if these people do not enable wireless so it can contact TiVo , won't you not be able to get guide and software updates. More so I thought that if TiVo can't call home within a certain time that the box goes into a deactivated state until it can connect ?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## wmhjr

BrettStah said:


> Yeah, that's picking a nit where there isn't one - unless client/server process in this case doesn't involve the network, and that isn't an activity. I worded it that way because it doesn't matter what it's trying to do over the network connection - it isn't as important as playing the recording.


Um it does matter. And it's not network interaction that's the problem. It's internet. Wan. Not LAN.

Architecture matters. Like I said. We've been talking about this here for more than a year.


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## BrettStah

Yeah, I thought that was clear based on the recent posts here. Parental controls on routers prevent internet connectivity and the BSC don't pop up.


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## tampa8

Didn't think it could get worse tonight it was. The circle lasted so long I got "content not found" several times trying to play back shows. Will unplug from internet tomorrow night and see if it helps.


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## plazman30

I'm glad I found this thread. This has been happening to my Roamio for the last 2 weeks. I was making plans to pull the HD out and run SpinRite on it. Looks like I need to wait for TiVO to fix the backend. If the new overloards can't get their s*** together, not sure what my options are.


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## morac

TiVo support has tweeted it's being worked on, but it's probably one guy trying to fix the problem while he also learns how it works.

Twitter


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## swyman18

Might be a total coincidence, but just for the heck of it I changed my TiVo to use a static IP and updated the DNS settings to use Google's public DNS servers (8.8.8.8 primary and 8.8.4.4 secondary). As soon as I did that, I had no more BSC's and the menu navigation was back to normal for the rest of the night.


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## just4tivo

I am dumbfounded to see TiVo in a position with the perfect product and service to ride the crest of the cord cutting wave but they don't have a surfboard or any idea where to get one.

Things could be worse... if TiVo was a DBS company they wouldn't know that their satellite had lost orbit until enough customers called to tell them the evening news reported it had crashed into the ocean.


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## BrentlyL

wmhjr said:


> Um it does matter. And it's not network interaction that's the problem. It's internet. Wan. Not LAN.


What he said!
I have taken my network apart and put it back together in an effort to solve this and I agree it IS NOT our LAN. It's not defective or failing hardware. It's either crappy ISPs and/or a TiVo server issue. This problem is not your fault. TiVo has acknowledged the problem but their suggestion of rebooting is a useless bandaid.
TiVo Customer Support


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## Rob Helmerichs

s.pearce0188 said:


> I hear of some people unplugging their Ethernet cable to their bolts ️ , if these people do not enable wireless so it can contact TiVo , won't you not be able to get guide and software updates. More so I thought that if TiVo can't call home within a certain time that the box goes into a deactivated state until it can connect ?


Not permanently...I unplug it when I start watching for the evening, and plug it back in when I'm done.


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## jth tv

I think it is more likely that the recent problems of Roamio rebooting every 10 minutes and the BSC are the result of consolidation of servers and personnel after the Rovi TiVo merger. Some guy sold them the merger based on saving costs by combining systems and they hired some specialist in mergers who said he could do the mechanics, no problem. That guy is the problem. The solution is finding the best guy in the world and hiring them. It can be done, but until they do, there will be plenty of problems.


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## spittoon

swyman18 said:


> Might be a total coincidence, but just for the heck of it I changed my TiVo to use a static IP and updated the DNS settings to use Google's public DNS servers (8.8.8.8 primary and 8.8.4.4 secondary). As soon as I did that, I had no more BSC's and the menu navigation was back to normal for the rest of the night.


please do us all a favor and report back?


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## s.pearce0188

I ended up setting statics IP's and DNS addresses on my TiVo boxes and also reserved those IP addresses in my router , so far after doing that no more spinning icon. I will have to see how things go and will report back 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## hybucket

Both last night and this AM , the SBC has not appeared on either of my 2 TiVOs. No updates, but no circles. Not sure if it will last...

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/QUOTE]


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## s.pearce0188

Hopefully it's not an issue anymore for me with BSC but I can say that it's definitely not my ISP 150/20 ( Mediacom ) and it's definitely not my router Netgear Nighthawk R7000 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## wmhjr

spittoon said:


> please do us all a favor and report back?


I've been using static IPs for years. Using a static IP will have absolutely no impact.


----------



## Zephyr

Hmmm, seems to be fixed this am. Not hoping for much but.... I will begin to look at the competitor's options because the BSC's have nullified much of the conveience features.


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## b_scott

SullyND said:


> Even better would be @TiVoMargret (No middle a)


Yeah, autocorrect. Margaret is more common, sorry.


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## Thunderclap

Well I'm happy to see this isn't just me. I really thought something was dying on my two year old box.


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## slice1900

Love the optimism of the people who report every morning that it is "fixed" because they don't see the BSC anymore. More likely there are just a lot fewer people watching Tivo in the morning than the evening, so whatever is broken on their end is less apparent.

This mess makes me VERY HAPPY I decided to stick with my lifetimed Premiere instead of upgrading. Really the only reason I didn't upgrade was because they don't have any way to seamlessly migrate ALL settings from an old Tivo to a new one - something that EVERY smartphone has been able to do for years. Tivo's management is so clueless, they have their programmers working on stupid stuff that makes it contact a server before you can play a recording, instead of making it easier for their customers to make the decision to buy a new Tivo.

This fiasco has me sold on the idea that this is my last Tivo. When it goes, I'll get one from teh cable company. They aren't quite as good as a Tivo, but good enough these days. I think Tivo is on the way to being an ex-company thanks to the idiots in charge no longer caring about the customer experience.


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## dlfl

slice1900 said:


> ......
> I'll get one from teh cable company. They aren't quite as good as a Tivo .......


Not quite as good as a **properly functioning** TiVo that is. But we haven't had properly functioning TiVo's since the Rovi "upgrade".


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## swyman18

wmhjr said:


> I've been using static IPs for years. Using a static IP will have absolutely no impact.


The static IP will have no impact, but the DNS server change might. That is what I wanted to experiment with (update DNS to use Google's public servers), however on my Roamio it looks like you can't leave the IP address as DHCP but manually plug in a DNS server. It seems to be all DHCP or all manual.

Anyway, I don't know if Tivo has different servers co-located around the country or if they are all in one location. If they are all in one location, I wouldn't think that using a different DNS server would make a difference.

Like I said, it may be a total coincidence that things "appeared" better once I updated to Google's DNS servers. I'm going to keep it this way for a couple of days and see how it goes. It certainly can't do any harm.

Also, I'm not advocating that everyone start messing around with their network settings on their Tivo's or on their routers. It certainly shouldn't be necessary. This is just an experiment I was willing to try.


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## BrettStah

I'm pretty sure I have my home router configured to use google's DNS servers, and I've seen the BSC's for the past couple of weeks.


----------



## Teeps

I just completed a chat with TiVo support.
In red is the crux of the chat.
The result: a case number and transcript of the chat.

Raudel (‎11‎/‎15‎/‎2016‎ ‎9‎:‎00‎:‎50‎ ‎AM): We are sorry to hear that you are experiencing the blue spinning circle when using your TiVo.
I can certainly address and help you with that here.

We are aware of this issue and I have associated your case with this so that our software engineers know to push the fix to your TiVo as soon as we have it available. 

We certainly do have some troubleshooting steps that may provide some relief.
What you will want to do is power cycle the TiVo by removing the power cable for at least 30 seconds then reconnect to power back on.
Once the device is fully powered on you will want to connect to the TiVo service.
Here are those steps: TiVo Central > Settings & Messages > Settings > Network > Connect to the TiVo service now
Once completed the TiVo may work more efficiently for you.

Note: My experience, this only works for a day maybe 2.


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## hybucket

Teeps-
The last line above, assuming it's part of TiVOs reply , is really amusing.
ALSO have to agree with Slice1900 about being my last TiVO. Pity - used to be so good.


----------



## morac

The TiVoSupport twitter account consists of repeated tweets over and over again stating basically, we know about, we're working on it and reboot your box as a work around.


----------



## s.pearce0188

Well so far 3 hours later and still no BSC , I have kept the 2 Bolts ️ on static IP's and DNS addresses , I even went as far as reserving IP's for every device in my house on my router upside to that is every has a permanent ip and I know what the IP's are for everything. I also changed my DNS on my router to googles DNS severs.. hopefully it keep it fixed

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## JoeKustra

s.pearce0188 said:


> Well so far 3 hours later and still no BSC , I have kept the 2 Bolts ️ on static IP's and DNS addresses , I even went as far as reserving IP's for every device in my house on my router upside to that is every has a permanent ip and I know what the IP's are for everything. I also changed my DNS on my router to googles DNS severs.. hopefully it keep it fixed


I recorded four programs last night. I just started the first and received a BSC. I stopped it and started the second. No problem. BTW, if you can watch i.TiVo.com there is access when a program is selected to play. It may do more than that. It may even be the URL to block if you want to kill the BSC. I haven't tried that yet.


----------



## Steve

I decided to call tech support just now, and I was told the issue underlying the BSC has been resolved. He had me power down, wait 30 seconds, power up and then force a network connection.

So far, so good, but there have been instances this past week where the box has been OK for a few hours, only to have the BSC re-appear.

Fingers-crossed the guy I spoke to is right and we can put this issue to bed. It was causing real connection problems with the iPad app, which we use quite often, since there's no room for a TV in the kitchen.

*EDITED TO ADD:* Less than an hour later, and the BSC is back.


----------



## Random User 7

s.pearce0188 said:


> Hopefully it's not an issue anymore for me with BSC but I can say that it's definitely not my ISP 150/20 ( Mediacom ) and it's definitely not my router Netgear Nighthawk R7000
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


R7000 owner here as well and I was reminded by the blue circle of one of my biggest gripes with this router. The inability to have scheduled internet use based on IP/MAC.


----------



## aaronwt

morac said:


> The TiVoSupport twitter account consists of repeated tweets over and over again stating basically, we know about, we're working on it and reboot your box as a work around.


No Thank you. I don't needlessly reboot my TiVos.


----------



## kpeters59

Steve said:


> I decided to call tech support just now, and I was told the issue underlying the BSC has been resolved. He had me power down, wait 30 seconds, power up and then force a network connection.
> 
> So far, so good, but there have been instances this past week where the box has been OK for a few hours, only to have the BSC re-appear.
> 
> Fingers-crossed the guy I spoke to is right and we can put this issue to bed. It was causing real connection problems with the iPad app, which we use quite often, since there's no room for a TV in the kitchen.
> 
> *EDITED TO ADD:* Less than an hour later, and the BSC is back.


I just got off the phone with TiVo Support and he checked and said a fix is still pending...'hopefully soon' he said.

-KP


----------



## Steve

Steve said:


> I decided to call tech support just now, and I was told the issue underlying the BSC has been resolved. He had me power down, wait 30 seconds, power up and then force a network connection.
> 
> So far, so good, but there have been instances this past week where the box has been OK for a few hours, only to have the BSC re-appear.
> [...]
> *EDITED TO ADD:* Less than an hour later, and the BSC is back.


Just called again as well, and a differenct CSR told me the underlying problem has not been fixed, and that the power cycling and forced network connection advice was just a work-around.

She said engineering is still working on a software fix that will be delivered to affected boxes, but it's not ready yet. She said to keep an eye on "Messages", for an update on the fix.


----------



## Teeps

hybucket said:


> Teeps-
> The last line above, assuming it's part of TiVOs reply , is really amusing.
> ALSO have to agree with Slice1900 about being my last TiVO. Pity - used to be so good.


No the last line reflects my experience with the instructions. I will clarify the statement.

I don't think it's time to eject tivo just yet.
Only time will tell if I buy another tivo product.


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## Duke

I wonder what in the world could be wrong with TiVo's back end servers that's creating such headaches for us. Hopefully they can get this fixed soon, so they can get back to addressing the inadequate guide data issues.


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## jmsxl

Random User 7 said:


> R7000 owner here as well and I was reminded by the blue circle of one of my biggest gripes with this router. The inability to have scheduled internet use based on IP/MAC.


I too have the Nighthawk R7000 router and just FYI here's how I've configured it to keep my TiVo off the internet during the day. This has kept the BSC's at bay for me since I implemented it a few days ago.

Under Advanced tab, Security sub-section:

"Block Services" section: created a service table entry with Service Type = ALL; filters IP 192.168.1.3 (for my TiVo; yours will likely be different) and set blocking to "Per Schedule"
"Schedule" section: Days to Block: Every Day; Time to block: 0700 to 2300; adjust for DST


----------



## mrizzo80

Steve said:


> Just called again as well, and a differenct CSR told me the underlying problem has not been fixed, and that the power cycling and forced network connection advice was just a work-around.
> 
> She said engineering is still working on a software fix that will be delivered to affected boxes, but it's not ready yet. She said to keep an eye on "Messages", for an update on the fix.


"Delivered to affected boxes?" I wonder if that means we have to call individually to let them know our box is experiencing the issue?


----------



## steve771

What a pain to fiddle with a router settings to kinda, sorta 'fix' a Tivo problem that Tivo should have fixed immediately (not a knock on your attempt to help, just saying...). All these fixes involve one thing and that's Tivo's crap network code. We paid big bucks for an easy to use, reliable DVR and they broke it. When a cable company DVR starts to look better than a Tivo, Tivo is in trouble.

Last Tivo for me, hopefully someone will have another DVR solution when I'm ready.


----------



## steve771

mrizzo80 said:


> "Delivered to affected boxes?" I wonder if that means we have to call individually to let them know our box is experiencing the issue?


Probably means we will need to reconnect to the Tivo network, which you have to do often now just to get this POS to work. Someone said Tivo said a message would appear.


----------



## kpeters59

mrizzo80 said:


> "Delivered to affected boxes?" I wonder if that means we have to call individually to let them know our box is experiencing the issue?


Everybody absolutely should call and get their account 'on notice' that their TiVo is not working properly.

Otherwise, it's working fine.

This forum DOES NOT notify TiVo of ANY problems.

Call NOW!

-KP


----------



## jth tv

steve771 said:


> ....Last Tivo for me, hopefully someone will have another DVR solution when I'm ready.


That's why they have patents and there are only two guide services, we are stuck. And they get the money.

For cable subscribers, the cable company DVR is an alternative. But for Antenna with 4 Tuners, TiVo and Tablo are pretty much it. And TiVo is so much better than Tablo, Tablo is not really an alternative. So unless they break it completely, I am staying.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Duke said:


> I wonder what in the world could be wrong with TiVo's back end servers that's creating such headaches for us. Hopefully they can get this fixed soon, so they can get back to addressing the inadequate guide data issues.


The back-end servers aren't the main issue, it's Tivo's idiotic UI code that talks to them in real-time when you're trying to do stuff that should all be local.


----------



## jth tv

slowbiscuit said:


> The back-end servers aren't the main issue, it's Tivo's idiotic UI code that talks to them in real-time when you're trying to do stuff that should all be local.


But it was working. And now its not. So something happened. (troubleshooting 101).

Someone at TiVo did something. Or stopped doing something.


----------



## TivoJD

See post from TivoSupport_Sarah asking for TSNs for this issue

Guide very slow


----------



## swyman18

I couldn't help but laugh out loud at the fact that she responds to that thread with the riveting original post that was bursting with helpful details instead of this thread.


----------



## mpnret

I have a Nighthawk R8000 router. I went into config and changed the DNS setting from get automatically from ISP to the 2 Google DNS servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) and BSC instantly gone on both my Roamio and Premier XL4.
Both boxes already had reserved IP addresses at the router.


----------



## Lurker1

JoeKustra said:


> BTW, if you can watch i.TiVo.com there is access when a program is selected to play. It may do more than that. It may even be the URL to block if you want to kill the BSC. I haven't tried that yet.


I added i.tivo.com to the adblocker on my router, and I immediately lost all images everywhere. The blue circles also completely went away.


----------



## schatham

I think they may be testing their new cloud dvr using our Tivo's.


----------



## sinanju

mpnret said:


> I have a Nighthawk R8000 router. I went into config and changed the DNS setting from get automatically from ISP to the 2 Google DNS servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) and BSC instantly gone on both my Roamio and Premier XL4.
> Both boxes already had reserved IP addresses at the router.


Interesting. Although, the network reconnection as part of the process may have been a temporary fix like restarting the box or just the UI as we've seen previously. Then again, it could be an ISP DNS issue -- mine is Verizon and I've seen the problem. What's yours?

In the meantime, I checked my router thinking that I had already configured it to use Google's name servers. For some reason that was no longer the case. I've gone ahead and made that change.


----------



## Ruth

Just wanted to add my voice to the chorus. The last few days I am getting near constant Blue Spinning Circles on my Premiere. If I choose a program from Now Playing, it will take 5-15 seconds of BSC to open up the program information screen. It's become almost unusably slow (much like the TiVo Netflix app, sigh).


----------



## Random User 7

jmsxl said:


> I too have the Nighthawk R7000 router and just FYI here's how I've configured it to keep my TiVo off the internet during the day. This has kept the BSC's at bay for me since I implemented it a few days ago.
> 
> Under Advanced tab, Security sub-section:
> 
> "Block Services" section: created a service table entry with Service Type = ALL; filters IP 192.168.1.3 (for my TiVo; yours will likely be different) and set blocking to "Per Schedule"
> "Schedule" section: Days to Block: Every Day; Time to block: 0700 to 2300; adjust for DST


Issue I have is I already have another schedule going for my cameras.


----------



## Random User 7

mpnret said:


> I have a Nighthawk R8000 router. I went into config and changed the DNS setting from get automatically from ISP to the 2 Google DNS servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) and BSC instantly gone on both my Roamio and Premier XL4.
> Both boxes already had reserved IP addresses at the router.


Interesting, my DNS has always been set that way.


----------



## justen_m

I've been using a static IP on my Roamio Plus since I got it... almost two years ago. Likewise, I've got my router set to use an alternate DNS. Not google, but OpenDNS (208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220), and have had SBCs for the past week or so now. Never before. It is recent.

I'm guessing if I replace OpenDNS with google (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4.4) I wouldn't see any long-term change. It seems like any change results in a short-duration (minutes to an hour or so) fix. Rebooting, connecting to galactic HQ, changing DNS, IP addr, etd. No idea why this should be the case. Maybe it is just coincidence or my poor memory and/or perception.


----------



## opus472

I've seen the suggestions about unplugging the ethernet cable. But what happens to recordings scheduled while the cable is unplugged? Or am I missing something?


----------



## hybucket

Margaret has posted on Twitter that it should be better in the AM . 
Unrelated , perhaps, but I'm now not getting SKIP feature .


----------



## Rob Helmerichs

opus472 said:


> I've seen the suggestions about unplugging the ethernet cable. But what happens to recordings scheduled while the cable is unplugged? Or am I missing something?


Shows come in through the coax cable. The ethernet cable just cuts off its internet connection, not its cable connection.

But you don't want to leave it unconnected full-time, because then you won't get any new Guide Data, SkipMode files, etc. I pull mine out in the evening when I start watching, and plug it back in when I go to bed.


----------



## mpnret

sinanju said:


> Interesting. Although, the network reconnection as part of the process may have been a temporary fix like restarting the box or just the UI as we've seen previously. Then again, it could be an ISP DNS issue -- mine is Verizon and I've seen the problem. What's yours?
> 
> In the meantime, I checked my router thinking that I had already configured it to use Google's name servers. For some reason that was no longer the case. I've gone ahead and made that change.


Mine is Comcast. Not one SBC since the fix. Performance seems better than ever but it could be just my percepton.


----------



## hybucket

Ok, wrong again. The BSCs are back as of 10.27 Eastern. And the Skips have reappeared, but now take about 2 hours to populate .


----------



## steve771

The fact that many customers who have called in and gotten conflicting answers (fixed... not fixed... fixed.... etc) is pretty telling. Maybe an indication of where Tivo is headed. Not that the CSR's were ever very good, but they should know whether a problem has been fixed or not.


----------



## tvmaster2

A CSR in Colorado told me today it would be this way until a patch was released.


----------



## sinanju

mpnret said:


> Mine is Comcast. Not one SBC since the fix. Performance seems better than ever but it could be just my percepton.


DNS change didn't work. Circles are back


----------



## justen_m

sinanju said:


> DNS change didn't work. Circles are back


Yeah, kinda figured. There are those of us here with CS Degrees, and decades of real-world multi-threaded asynchronous real-time network programming experience, and tons of TiVo experience, that know the root cause, what exposed it, etc. TiVo just needs to fix it -- not necessarily easy, depending on how things were implemented to begin with.


----------



## Zephyr

As Slice1900 noted, it's a time-of-day thing. The evening brings "bsc's" back big time. Very frustrating.


----------



## mpnret

Funny, the DNS switch from ISP provided one to Google instantly ended my BSC. I was getting BSC last night same as previous nights. All I did was change the DNS setting in the router and BSC was instantly gone and didn't return. Powered off/on router and cable modem before DNS change without any effect. Never touched the TiVo. I can't do any testing right now beacuse BSC doesn't start for me till around 5PM every evening. As long as TiVo doesn't implement some kind of fix today I will switch back and forth with settings later and post back.


----------



## questors

Tweet from Margret last night.

*TiVo Margret Schmidt*‏@tivodesign
For those experiencing the spinning circle, I apologize. I expect it to be significantly better by morning.


----------



## thyname

Lurker1 said:


> I added i.tivo.com to the adblocker on my router, and I immediately lost all images everywhere. The blue circles also completely went away.


Cool idea making the Blue Circle as your avatar pic!


----------



## b_scott

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Shows come in through the coax cable. The ethernet cable just cuts off its internet connection, not its cable connection.
> 
> But you don't want to leave it unconnected full-time, because then you won't get any new Guide Data, SkipMode files, etc. I pull mine out in the evening when I start watching, and plug it back in when I go to bed.


If you use MRV you can't do that.


----------



## mchief

Last night I selected a recorded program to watch and got the blue circle for about 2 minutes and then a black screen with live tv in the upper right corner. Waited 5 minutes and nothing - no response to remote, finally rebooted and all was fine again.


----------



## mulscully

This morning 6 - 7am EST I experienced no BSCs. Even on the mini.. So I am hoping this is a good sign..


----------



## skid71

Interested in reports from tonight primetime


----------



## ajwees41

the BSC's seem to happen more on ethernet than if I us Roamios's built in wireless they are still there on wireless, but not as much.


----------



## rad1701

Been happening for a week or two for me on my Roamio. Hope it gets better soon.


----------



## WorldBandRadio

Not wanting to jinx anything... but today I no longer see the symptom.

No blue spinning circle at all, no matter where on the menu I navigate to, or what I delete, or whatever. 

No blue spinning circle.


----------



## schatham

WorldBandRadio said:


> Not wanting to jinx anything... but today I no longer see the symptom.
> 
> No blue spinning circle at all, no matter where on the menu I navigate to, or what I delete, or whatever.
> 
> No blue spinning circle.


Same here, but my Roamio is very loud today. I think the fan is running full blast. Usually it's very quiet.


----------



## JoeKustra

schatham said:


> Same here, but my Roamio is very loud today. I think the fan is running full blast. Usually it's very quiet.


Have your checked the motherboard temperature? MBT in System Information.


----------



## MPSAN

Same here. No blue spinning circle problems on my 2 Premieres since late last night.


----------



## jrgtivo

I had the BSC issue for about a week on 1 of my 2 tivos. It would occur on the good tivo if I tried to watch a recording from the bad one. I don't know if it's coincidental, but a simple restart fixed the BSC issue on the bad box. A-B tested it. Tried a show, got BSC rebooted and immediately tried the same show: no issue.

Permanent solution? TBD


----------



## brandenwan

swyman18 said:


> Might be a total coincidence, but just for the heck of it I changed my TiVo to use a static IP and updated the DNS settings to use Google's public DNS servers (8.8.8.8 primary and 8.8.4.4 secondary). As soon as I did that, I had no more BSC's and the menu navigation was back to normal for the rest of the night.


Don't think that is it. Mine have been set to 8.8.8.8 for over a year now bc I got sick of Verizon's adverts when you would enter a bad or incorrect URL and I still have the BSCs. I can make them disappear for a *short time* by doing the _Thumbs Down>>Thumbs Up>> Play>>Play_ trick *OR* a *long time* by doing a reboot, but they always come back. So sad to see this happening for so long.


----------



## brandenwan

wmhjr said:


> I've been using static IPs for years. Using a static IP will have absolutely no impact.


Ditto


----------



## schatham

JoeKustra said:


> Have your checked the motherboard temperature? MBT in System Information.


MBT is 38. I have no Idea if this is good or bad. I did unplug the unit and reboot, but it's the same. Seems odd as soon as the blue spinning wheels is fixed my fan is running like crazy.


----------



## DaveInSD

dlfl said:


> Got this email response from TiVo:
> 
> Thank you for contacting TiVo Customer Support. I would be glad to help you with the spinning blue circle.
> 
> This is a known issue at this time. Our engineers are completely aware of the issue and will diligently work on finding a fix for our customers. When a fix is available your device will automatically update. One process you can attempt to proceed is a cold boot.
> 
> To begin, unplug the power and everything else from the back of the TiVo unit leaving only the connection to your television set. Once that is done, plug the power only back in, *bypassing any power strip* that may have been previously connected.​
> This makes it sound like a software update is the expected fix. We can only hope it will actually fix what appears to be the basic problem. Someone posted earlier the fix would take five days or more which does seem more consistent with a software update rather than a server fix.
> 
> Not too excited about their prescription for a cold boot, which is "One process you can *attempt* to proceed". So far my BSC's have been intermittent and less than 30 secs so not worth all that for me.


The answer was posted some time ago. They have isolated the problem. It's your power strip. But since TiVo can't possibly come out and replace all of our power strips, they have to find a way to fix it in software, and that takes longer.


----------



## Thunderclap

It's 8:45 here in Chicago and I haven't seen the problem yet tonight. Here is hoping it's been fixed.


----------



## HerronScott

Thunderclap said:


> It's 8:45 here in Chicago and I haven't seen the problem yet tonight. Here is hoping it's been fixed.


None here last night as well. Interesting that someone blocked i.tivo.com and the issue went away which might point to an issue with the servers that provide the images?

Scott


----------



## cogx

My online support case was responded to Wed (11/16) late afternoon and they said, "We are currently aware of this issue and it has been resolved." Sure enough, last night was the first time in several days that I had no pauses/delays/spinning circles!


----------



## brandenwan

brandenwan said:


> Don't think that is it. Mine have been set to 8.8.8.8 for over a year now bc I got sick of Verizon's adverts when you would enter a bad or incorrect URL and I still have the BSCs. I can make them disappear for a *short time* by doing the _Thumbs Down>>Thumbs Up>> Play>>Play_ trick *OR* a *long time* by doing a reboot, but they always come back. So sad to see this happening for so long.


Wow! Soooooo eating some humble pie this morning. I checked my settings and somehow they got defaulted back on my router (prob thanks to a firmware update from Verizon, but I didn't investigate.) I changed to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and no more BSC. period. Now what about everyone else who cannot or will not go in and make those changes?


----------



## BrettStah

My router has been using Google's DNS servers and I've had the BSC issue. But TiVo has apparently resolved the problem as of yesterday.


----------



## mae

brandenwan said:


> Wow! Soooooo eating some humble pie this morning. I checked my settings and somehow they got defaulted back on my router (prob thanks to a firmware update from Verizon, but I didn't investigate.) I changed to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and no more BSC. period. Now what about everyone else who cannot or will not go in and make those changes?


FYI, if you change VZ's default DNS servers to the same IP, except end in .14, there are no ads in the landing pages. I found that posted in AVS years ago, and have been doing it since then.


----------



## b_scott

brandenwan said:


> Wow! Soooooo eating some humble pie this morning. I checked my settings and somehow they got defaulted back on my router (prob thanks to a firmware update from Verizon, but I didn't investigate.) I changed to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and no more BSC. period. Now what about everyone else who cannot or will not go in and make those changes?


That's not a fix. Mine are set to those IPs and have been. You probably just coincided with the Tivo fix.


----------



## JoeKustra

schatham said:


> MBT is 38. I have no Idea if this is good or bad. I did unplug the unit and reboot, but it's the same. Seems odd as soon as the blue spinning wheels is fixed my fan is running like crazy.


That's fine, 40C is the average. My 1TB Roamio is 38C and 3TB Roamio is 43C.


----------



## morac

cogx said:


> My online support case was responded to Wed (11/16) late afternoon and they said, "We are currently aware of this issue and it has been resolved." Sure enough, last night was the first time in several days that I had no pauses/delays/spinning circles!


My online case was just responded to telling me to "power cycle the TiVo box, router and modem" and then force a connection. 

That said I didn't see any problems last night.


----------



## hybucket

MIne is also now working correctly, since last night...but the Power Strip was causing the problem? Where did you see that? Especially, considering I am not connected via a power strip and still had the problem.


----------



## brandenwan

BrettStah said:


> My router has been using Google's DNS servers and I've had the BSC issue. But TiVo has apparently resolved the problem as of yesterday.


Of course they did, which just makes me look stupid. My luck. Well, at least it is fixed.


----------



## brandenwan

b_scott said:


> That's not a fix. Mine are set to those IPs and have been. You probably just coincided with the Tivo fix.


Yup. Sure did. And I'm feeling dumber by the minute now.


----------



## brandenwan

mae said:


> FYI, if you change VZ's default DNS servers to the same IP, except end in .14, there are no ads in the landing pages. I found that posted in AVS years ago, and have been doing it since then.


Yeah, I know. Thanks for the thought though. I took a screenshot last night of that page on my router "thinking" It had reverted back, but I was tired when I was doing this, not noticing it was just fine. I am the one that originally set it....like I said in another post.. I'm feeling dumber by the minute! LOL.


----------



## DaveInSD

hybucket said:


> MIne is also now working correctly, since last night...but the Power Strip was causing the problem? Where did you see that? Especially, considering I am not connected via a power strip and still had the problem.


Sorry for the thinly veiled sarcasm. TiVo's response to one user was "... Once that is done, plug the power only back in, *bypassing any power strip* that may have been previously connected."

Really, TiVo? Bypass the power strip?


----------



## hybucket

Well don't I feel silly. Duh.


----------



## wtherrell

wmhjr said:


> I've been using static IPs for years. Using a static IP will have absolutely no impact.


Mine are on Ethernet connection and still BSc's on both. That should tell us something.


----------



## wtherrell

dlfl said:


> Not quite as good as a **properly functioning** TiVo that is. But we haven't had properly functioning TiVo's since the Rovi "upgrade".


Not quite? No, "not nearly" is more like it.


----------



## dlfl

DaveInSD said:


> Sorry for the thinly veiled sarcasm. TiVo's response to one user was "... Once that is done, plug the power only back in, *bypassing any power strip* that may have been previously connected."
> 
> Really, TiVo? Bypass the power strip?


I got that in an email response. So bizarre I didn't even post about it.

Would be really nice if TiVo would tell us what the cause of this problem is/was. But I guess that kind of transparency is too much to expect. It leaves us guessing. My guess is the root problem is (as many have said here) the HDUI blocking waiting for server responses -- very poor design. But Tivo apparently addresses the problem by tweaking server response/capacity rather than fixing the TiVo box software. This leaves me with little confidence that we won't be seeing this issue again. For me it flared up back in July and then was gone for months until this recent flare up.


----------



## Lurker1

At least I now know that if/when the problem reoccurs, I can block i.tivo.com to avoid it. I won't be suffering for days next time.


----------



## sinanju

And..... they're back? Just got one. Clicked around some and got another. 

*sigh*


----------



## cogx

Interesting, I went to check mine, skimmed around the menus for a bit, but didn't have any delays. I then went to do a network check and saw the 'Pending Restart' message, so I re-started my Roamio and it is in the process of updating...
ended up getting 20.6.3.RC7 and the message talks about new accessibility features. I did fill out the TiVo Priority Update Request last week to get 20.6.3 sooner rather than later.


----------



## snowghost

Lurker1 said:


> At least I now know that if/when the problem reoccurs, I can block i.tivo.com to avoid it. I won't be suffering for days next time.


Newbie here on the forums. Just got a Roamio OTA a week ago and noticed the BSC as well compared to better performance on my old units. Is i.tivo.com the server URL the box talks to? And what other effects if I block it?


----------



## JoeKustra

snowghost said:


> Newbie here on the forums. Just got a Roamio OTA a week ago and noticed the BSC as well compared to better performance on my old units. Is i.tivo.com the server URL the box talks to? And what other effects if I block it?


That is one of the URLs that show up when I trap the TiVo. No idea if it matters since my BSC have gone away. Also, I saw 204.176.49.116 and 208.73.181.202 accessed too. That i.TiVo.com is the most popular.


----------



## Lurker1

snowghost said:


> Newbie here on the forums. Just got a Roamio OTA a week ago and noticed the BSC as well compared to better performance on my old units. Is i.tivo.com the server URL the box talks to? And what other effects if I block it?


i.tivo.com seems to be where it gets all of the images from. If you block it, you will not see any pictures on program descriptions or the Discovery Bar. There may be additional effects I didn't notice.


----------



## steve771

DaveInSD said:


> Sorry for the thinly veiled sarcasm. TiVo's response to one user was "... Once that is done, plug the power only back in, *bypassing any power strip* that may have been previously connected."
> 
> Really, TiVo? Bypass the power strip?


Well, that says a LOT about the 'quality' of Tivo's support. Not that anyone who has dealt with them had any doubts.

My Roamio seems ok at this point, but I'm not confident Tivo won't repeat this little fiasco. Since reports indicated that unplugging the ethernet cable stopped the BSC, I ordered an ethernet A/B switch and will leave one side open so I can just hit a button to disconnect. Where it's at is a pain to keep reaching to unplug the cable (not to mention if I drop it behind the cabinet!). Anyway, if anyone is interested it was $5.65 on Amazon. Do a search for: 
*MT-VIKI 2 Ports Network Switch Splitter*


----------



## richsadams

DaveInSD said:


> Sorry for the thinly veiled sarcasm. TiVo's response to one user was "... Once that is done, plug the power only back in, *bypassing any power strip* that may have been previously connected."
> 
> Really, TiVo? Bypass the power strip?


That "remedy" has been around for many years, but it's just a troubleshooting step. It's an old computer resolution as well. It's a valid check for folks that may have an unknown, unstable power source. Generally the advice is to unplug TiVo from the surge protector (or UPS) and plug it directly into a wall outlet. If it behaves normally, look to the surge protector/UPS as a possible fault point. Again, it's just a single troubleshooting step, not meant to be permanent.

FWIW the more preferable solution is a good UPS.


----------



## richsadams

To update my previous posts in this thread, we haven't seen the BSC in about 48 hours now. Glad to hear others are experiencing the same.

Also spoke with relatives in MSP, MN. and they confirm that their TiVos are now behaving normally as well.

On an odd side note, our TiVo actually froze last night while changing channels. The orange command light began flickering and the box would not respond to anything. An unplug/reboot resolved the issue. That's never happened to us before, and AFAIK I've never seen anyone post about something similar. Plus it may have been a coincidence, but the exact same thing happened to the folks in MN at about the same time.

Fingers crossed, whatever was happening has been put to bed once and for all.


----------



## Bob_Alder

At the same time I made the post above (Monday the 14th) I dashed off the same sentiments via TIVO online Help email, thus creating support ticket. Oddly, while I too had been experiencing significant BSC issues for about a week before the 14th, since then I don't seem to be having any BSC issues. I didn't change anything.

For what it's worth I did get a fairly quick (Thursday the 17th) response from TIVO Support. Briefly they said to cold boot my cable modem, my router, (in that order) and then re-boot the TIVO Unit (a Roamio) and use Settings (Network & Phone) to re-connect the service. Although I wasn't experiencing any BSC issues for the past several days, it seemed prudent to do those steps, which I did. Still no BSC issues so I can't say that their "fix" really did accomplish anything. All I know is that I'm no longer having issues. (fingers crossed).

But for those of you apparently still having issues, you might try thier "fix. "


----------



## samccfl99

Bob_Alder said:


> I dashed off the same sentiments via TIVO online Help email, thus creating support ticket.


That is useless. They are useless. I been in IT for over 25 years and I never saw a company so helpless when it comes to tech. But they still have the best DVR I think (and I do mean DVR). Too bad they keep trying to make it more than a DVR and ignore the purpose of the box to begin with. SkipMode and QuickMode were the only real *major* changes they made to the *basic* function of the *DVR* since 05/2012 when I got my first one (and I do love those 2 mods). I have had my share of trying to have them fix bugs and making modifications. Frankly, I just gave up. When I say basic function, I am not referring to Tivo Central (which has been modified nicely over the years) and 1P and In & Out of Network Streaming (all nice), but just the fact that they cannot add a 4th rew/FF speed or make tics 15 minutes always or give us a menu that shows the last X things played on the tivo, all which would help us get around in our recordings better....but NO. I wonder how much time it took them to do those hardly to be used Accessibility mods?

Still I love my Roamio Pro, but sadly when I got it to replace my XL4 (after around 16 months since it was way too slow), even though it was faster by a lot, it still was not enough and now they want us to buy a Bolt Pro? *NOPE.*

Has it been worth it to spend the almost $2K since then? Well luckily I do not have to deal with a Comcast X1 so I guess that is the answer...

*My 2 cents...*


----------



## b_scott

samccfl99 said:


> SkipMode and QuickMode were the only real *major* changes they made to the *basic* function of the *DVR* since 05/2012


aww Tivo baby. 4 years. I think in my 11 years it's been not much more than that with basic functions, except searching has improved.


----------



## bearcat2000

b_scott said:


> aww Tivo baby. 4 years. I think in my 11 years it's been not much more than that with basic functions, except searching has improved.


14 years here. Ditto.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Lurker1

They've already got our money. They'd rather focus on bells, whistles, dogs, ponies, smoke and mirrors to attract new users.


----------



## bob61

Despite all the animosity towards TiVo, it still remains about the only horse in the race, having left others in their dust. There's nothing that I see as a replacement so I'm hopeful for them to be successful.

Sent from my LG-H830 using Tapatalk


----------



## Thunderclap

I'm fine with them trying to improve their boxes/service such as additional services like Netflix, Vudu, Plex, etc. What I take issue with is half-baked implementations though. Netflix, Youtube and Plex are still terribly sluggish on my Roamio (better than on my old Premiere, but still sluggish) and Spotify is unusable. What I would love to see is for them to take the Roku approach: have the DVR functionality, but then allow users to search for and add channels as they want to and let the developers push updates themselves to squash bugs instead of going through Tivo directly. Focus on the box and the Tivo UI, and give developers the tools to add to Tivo.


----------



## WorldBandRadio

samccfl99 said:


> ...But they still have the best DVR I think (and I do mean DVR). Too bad they keep trying to make it more than a DVR and ignore the purpose of the box to begin with. SkipMode and QuickMode were the only real *major* changes they made to the *basic* function of the *DVR* since 05/2012...


Don't forget, in that time period, TiVo also removed significant functionality from the SeasonPass / OnePass area, i.e., the ability to have multiple Season Passes for the same show. I have to do a lot of manual entry of recordings now.

But to your main point, if TiVo is still ahead of the other DVRs, it is not by a lot anymore. The others are catching up as TiVo removes functionality from their DVR product.

Additionally, given the level of quality that Rovi seems to aspire to (e.g., the poor Guide quality), I suspect that level of poor quality will eventually trickle down from Rovi into TiVo's products.


----------



## DrewTivo

FWIW, I called in with the BSC problem yesterday. My Mini was virtually frozen when I tuned to some channels.

Solution I was provided was to connect to tivo service, power down machine, then connect to tivo service again. the tech support guy also initiated a connect to tivo service from his side before I did the first connection - not sure if that's a component.

His explanation was that tivos were having a "difficult time" fully loading the latest software update and this helped do it. Time will tell, as the problem I had was sporadic. But I didn't see the problem in the first 12 hours.


----------



## wmhjr

DrewTivo said:


> FWIW, I called in with the BSC problem yesterday. My Mini was virtually frozen when I tuned to some channels.
> 
> Solution I was provided was to connect to tivo service, power down machine, then connect to tivo service again. the tech support guy also initiated a connect to tivo service from his side before I did the first connection - not sure if that's a component.
> 
> His explanation was that tivos were having a "difficult time" fully loading the latest software update and this helped do it. Time will tell, as the problem I had was sporadic. But I didn't see the problem in the first 12 hours.


His explanation was total bs.


----------



## slowbiscuit

bob61 said:


> Despite all the animosity towards TiVo, it still remains about the only horse in the race, having left others in their dust. There's nothing that I see as a replacement so I'm hopeful for them to be successful.


Yeah, and that's always been the crux of the problem. No one pushes them to do better so they do a LOT of stuff half-assed.


----------



## dlfl

slowbiscuit said:


> Yeah, and that's always been the crux of the problem. No one pushes them to do better so they do a LOT of stuff half-assed.


So how do we "push" them? Multiple harsh posts on this forum (or on their forum) don't *directly* push them. Sagging sales are really the only thing that has impact. So an interesting question is how large is the effect of negative posts on sales? What percentage of potential tivo customers will take notice? Do most current TiVo users take notice?


----------



## jcthorne

Thunderclap said:


> I'm fine with them trying to improve their boxes/service such as additional services like Netflix, Vudu, Plex, etc. What I take issue with is half-baked implementations though. Netflix, Youtube and Plex are still terribly sluggish on my Roamio (better than on my old Premiere, but still sluggish) and Spotify is unusable. What I would love to see is for them to take the Roku approach: have the DVR functionality, but then allow users to search for and add channels as they want to and let the developers push updates themselves to squash bugs instead of going through Tivo directly. Focus on the box and the Tivo UI, and give developers the tools to add to Tivo.


With Plex, this is exactly what they have done. Plex issues the program updates and the Tivo loads the new version when you launch the program. Does not require a push out from Tivo. I surmise Netflix and Amazon apps are updated by their developers as well, not tivo.


----------



## slowbiscuit

dlfl said:


> So how do we "push" them? Multiple harsh posts on this forum (or on their forum) don't *directly* push them. Sagging sales are really the only thing that has impact. So an interesting question is how large is the effect of negative posts on sales? What percentage of potential tivo customers will take notice? Do most current TiVo users take notice?


They needed real competition long ago to push them because it's obvious now they don't much care what their users are loudly complaining about. Sales going down will probably be seen as an artifact of cord-cutting.

Again, I still feel like they have the best DVRs given the captive audiences they're competing against (for the most part). But I'm sad that they could be so much better than they are, and it's not like it would cost a lot of money. They just have to give a crap about quality software and data.


----------



## just4tivo

TiVo with OTA could easily dominate the cord cutting market but that possibility seems to escape them.

Perhaps they're so determined to stay too long in the cable market that they don't see all the subscribers
that are cutting the cord and still want a DVR.

It's remarkable how some businesses continue to make money despite their best efforts not to and the ones
who don't realize that mistake are often a memory a few years down the road.

I was a loyal DBS customer for 15+ years till DirecTV merged(?) with AT&T and adopted the business model
that the customers exist for the convenience of the company. After decades of DirecTV dominating the DBS
market Charlie Ergen is grinning like a Cheshire cat watching DirecTV customers being driven to DISH and OTA.
Charlie is perfectly positioned to benefit from the DirecTV churn to DISH and sell SlingTV to cord cutting OTA
customers while TiVo-Rovi falls farther and farther behind.

When an arrogant egomaniac like Charlie Ergen can clearly see the future how can TiVo be so blind?


----------



## bob61

I'm interested in seeing what AT&T announces for their new DirectTV Now streaming. Supposed to have DVR functionality, most likely cloud based. Sounds interesting. Right now lacks CBS due to licensing fee agreement between the two parties.

Sent from my LG-H830 using Tapatalk


----------



## Thunderclap

jcthorne said:


> With Plex, this is exactly what they have done. Plex issues the program updates and the Tivo loads the new version when you launch the program. Does not require a push out from Tivo. I surmise Netflix and Amazon apps are updated by their developers as well, not tivo.


I wasn't aware of that. I thought everything was bundled with their software patches. Regardless, I still stand by my comment that Tivo should follow Roku's lead with some sort of channel store allowing users to install the channels they want, and those channels needs to run smoother.


----------



## thyname

bob61 said:


> I'm interested in seeing what AT&T announces for their new DirectTV Now streaming. Supposed to have DVR functionality, most likely cloud based. Sounds interesting. Right now lacks CBS due to licensing fee agreement between the two parties.
> 
> Sent from my LG-H830 using Tapatalk


We'll know soon. Launch date has been announced. November 28. This Monday


----------



## MoBoost

A week ago I submitted a ticket about the BSC problem. It seems to have been fixed. Today I get an email with a survey from customer support. Filled it out and complained about the guide data problem; wouldn't buy another and won't recommend TiVo until they get their act together. When I try to submit the survey, it fails due to the server not responding!! All other internet is working, so it seems to be on their side. Maybe they won't accept surveys with low scores!?


----------



## thyname

MoBoost said:


> A week ago I submitted a ticket about the BSC problem. It seems to have been fixed. Today I get an email with a survey from customer support. Filled it out and complained about the guide data problem; wouldn't buy another and won't recommend TiVo until they get their act together. When I try to submit the survey, it fails due to the server not responding!! All other internet is working, so it seems to be on their side. Maybe they won't accept surveys with low scores!?


Absolutely. Just like the aliens visiting earth, flying discs , zombies and so on. Quite possible


----------



## WorldBandRadio

MoBoost said:


> ... Maybe they won't accept surveys with low scores!?


More likely, it is due to TiVo's all too frequent data center infrastructure problems.


----------



## MoBoost

I saw in another thread that TiVo.com was down. I kept trying and eventually I think my response did register. Hard to know for sure or if they'll actually do anything in the long run to correct their failing infrastructure.


----------



## b_scott

WorldBandRadio said:


> Don't forget, in that time period, TiVo also removed significant functionality from the SeasonPass / OnePass area, i.e., the ability to have multiple Season Passes for the same show. I have to do a lot of manual entry of recordings now.


Why is that something we need? You can do "all channels" for one show and it'll catch them all.


----------



## elprice7345

I had the BSC issue again last night. Anyone else?


----------



## n5pwp

elprice7345 said:


> I had the BSC issue again last night. Anyone else?


'Knock on Wood': I haven't seen them since the 'fix' was announced.


----------



## JoeKustra

elprice7345 said:


> I had the BSC issue again last night. Anyone else?


Today. Once and Search failed too. But ok for several hours. I'll let it go as an ordering overload.


----------



## Ruth

b_scott said:


> Why is that something we need? You can do "all channels" for one show and it'll catch them all.


I'm not the OP on that, but multiple SPs can be useful in shows that are in syndication but also showing new episodes. You might want all the new episodes at a high priority in your SP list, as well as a low priority request for reruns on a different channel. There is currently no way to do that. If you use one SP, new and old eps all get mixed together, and there's no way to set rules to make sure that all the new eps get saved and are not overwritten by reruns.


----------



## BrettStah

I guess the closest that you can get to achieving that would be to use a title keyword wish list. Those can't be limited to a single channel though.


----------



## WorldBandRadio

b_scott said:


> Why is that something we need? You can do "all channels" for one show and it'll catch them all.


There was a whole, long thread on this back when TiVo removed this feature.

But for me there are a few reasons:

1) When a show is being broadcast new, and is also in syndication, I like to have the "new" episodes recorded at a higher priority with longer retention, than the syndication episodes.

2) there are some channels that over-edit the syndicated episodes or speed them up so that more commercials can be added. If I record "All" as you suggest, those episodes will prevent the episodes on the channel that I want to record from being recorded. Also, channels that stretch 4:3 to 16:9 will also be recorded, even though I don't want the distorted video, and those recorded episodes will prevent non-distorted versions from being recorded unless I record "Everything," and not just "New and Repeats."

3) When I have had to record "Everything" and "All" channels, then I ran out of tuners.

The multiple season pass was a feature that TiVo once had. When it was removed, TiVo acknowledged that customers would miss it. There was quite the revolt when it was done, but apparently TiVo turned a deaf ear towards its customers' desires.

It still baffles me why TiVo would remove such a distinguishing feature, bringing TiVo ever closer to being just another DVR.


----------



## WorldBandRadio

BrettStah said:


> ...Those can't be limited to a single channel though.


Yeah, being able to specific a channel in a Wishlist would go a long way towards resolving the multiple season pass mess.


----------



## b_scott

WorldBandRadio said:


> There was a whole, long thread on this back when TiVo removed this feature.
> 
> But for me there are a few reasons:


Fair enough. It's not something I need since I have more than enough new stuff to watch (TOO MUCH actually) but I can see why some people might want it. Rarely do I watch re-runs of shows that are still airing new episodes. And if a show is in stretched on one channel I just don't record that channel - I pick one. Such is the case for Friends.


----------



## DrewTivo

wmhjr said:


> His explanation was total bs.


Hey - not saying it wasn't; just providing the information (insert quotations if needed) he gave me. Seemed a little odd, but at least he acknowledged there's a problem.


----------



## alexb

I got these in last 24 hours on my bolt+ is this normal?


----------



## JoeKustra

alexb said:


> I got these in last 24 hours on my bolt+ is this normal?


It is not normal. It has been blamed on overworked TiVo servers. It could be other things, like an overworked network in between you and TiVo. If it persists, I would keep an eye on this forum. Actually, the Coffee house or Bolt forum would be better. I've been working my Roamio very hard this weekend and never seen a BSC. Also, TiVo is rolling out their update to Premieres and Mini boxes. That could be the problem.


----------



## alexb

@JoeKustra thanks, will do - I will check my network, could be the update as I had that early.


----------



## HerronScott

JoeKustra said:


> It is not normal. It has been blamed on overworked TiVo servers. It could be other things, like an overworked network in between you and TiVo. If it persists, I would keep an eye on this forum. Actually, the Coffee house or Bolt forum would be better. I've been working my Roamio very hard this weekend and never seen a BSC. Also, TiVo is rolling out their update to Premieres and Mini boxes. That could be the problem.


My experience with our Roamio Pro has been similar to Joe's. Except for the recent several day incident of this which appeared to have been caused by some backend issues, I rarely see any of these with standard Comcast Performance Internet services (25/5Mbps).

Scott


----------



## b_scott

I haven't had any circles since Margret said it was fixed. So that's something. Though I did spend $100 on a hard drive. Oh well. Eventually it would've gone bad anyway.


----------



## vittoria

Just started noticing intermittent issues with the blue circles again starting last night.


----------



## rassi

Same here, although much shorter in duration than previously... just a couple seconds at most (so far).


----------



## richsadams

We've been noticing growing response times for more than a week on our Premiere, although the BSC rarely appears like it used to. We figured that TiVo simply extended the delay time required to display the BSC in an effort to quell the complaints. 

BSC or no BSC, response times are once again getting longer and longer.


----------



## RoamioJeff

richsadams said:


> We've been noticing growing response times for more than a week on our Premiere, although the BSC rarely appears like it used to. We figured that TiVo simply extended the delay time required to display the BSC in an effort to quell the complaints.
> 
> BSC or no BSC, response times are once again getting longer and longer.


I've always wondered what distinguishes people who see BSCs from those that never do. I've never seen these animals.


----------



## Puppy76

They need to separate out the network stuff from the rest of the interface. Someone on here mentioned that...log it if they must and send it when they can, fill in pictures and whatnot when they can but make the interface work smoothly even if the connection is bad.

I've seen a circle or two lately, though thankfully not like before...


----------



## richsadams

RoamioJeff said:


> I've always wondered what distinguishes people who see BSCs from those that never do. I've never seen these animals.


Never used to see them, then it was a huge problem (per other posts here and other threads) then one day they seemed to have addressed it. Until now. Likely a TiVo server issue (again). The activity delays are getting to be unbearable...again.

Count yourself lucky and keep your fingers crossed!



Puppy76 said:


> They need to separate out the network stuff from the rest of the interface. Someone on here mentioned that...log it if they must and send it when they can, fill in pictures and whatnot when they can but make the interface work smoothly even if the connection is bad.


'Zactly!


----------



## slowbiscuit

RoamioJeff said:


> I've always wondered what distinguishes people who see BSCs from those that never do. I've never seen these animals.


Aaron? Is that you under another nick? 

(aaronwt is well known here for never having any of the issues that lots of folks report).


----------



## JoeKustra

RoamioJeff said:


> I've always wondered what distinguishes people who see BSCs from those that never do. I've never seen these animals.


There is one way to reduce your TiVo server access. Set your Discovery Bar option to only "My Shows". If you have items in My Shows, there will be less network access. Sadly, the options you can select for the Discovery Bar are not reliable and approach randomness. But it's a small step.


----------



## richsadams

JoeKustra said:


> There is one way to reduce your TiVo server access. Set your Discovery Bar option to only "My Shows". If you have items in My Shows, there will be less network access. Sadly, the options you can select for the Discovery Bar are not reliable and approach randomness. But it's a small step.


We've actually done that. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to make any difference in our case.


----------



## wtkflhn

I don't want to start a ruckus, but my NBC shows were missing Skip Mode last night. I tried the usual tricks to get them, but that didn't work. I wonder if it related to the BSC issue. I'm talking about Law & Order, SVU and Chicago PD.


----------



## Mikeguy

wtkflhn said:


> I don't want to start a ruckus, but my NBC shows were missing Skip Mode last night. I tried the usual tricks to get them, but that didn't work. I wonder if it related to the BSC issue. I'm talking about Law & Order, SVU and Chicago PD.


Funny that you should mention that, I found that with Law & Order, SVU last night as well; in contrast, last night's ABC shows had Skip data within minutes of airing.

Perhaps the North Carolinian recording Skip Mode data for NBC shows took ill last evening. Let's hope she recovers soon.


----------



## JoeKustra

wtkflhn said:


> I don't want to start a ruckus, but my NBC shows were missing Skip Mode last night. I tried the usual tricks to get them, but that didn't work. I wonder if it related to the BSC issue. I'm talking about Law & Order, SVU and Chicago PD.


Ditto.

More detail: TiVo Program Guide Data Upgrade


----------



## wmhjr

Saw the friggin blue circles starting again last night at around 9. It was pretty bad. Haven't been near the tivos today so who knows. TiVo will never ever really fix this. We will see this from time to time as long as TiVo is around.


----------



## richsadams

Well, I stumbled across a workaround for the BSC/activity delays...switch to SD menus. Since there are no graphics (other than the station logo), images or the "discovery bar" there's little to no interaction with TiVo's servers.

Although the menus are not as sharp and in fact on our 65" screen look a bit blurry, a slight bonus is the larger font I suppose.

Certainly not ideal...and annoying, but until TiVo sorts things out (again) I guess that will have to do.


----------



## chiguy50

richsadams said:


> *We've been noticing growing response times for more than a week on our Premiere, although the BSC rarely appears like it used to.* We figured that TiVo simply extended the delay time required to display the BSC in an effort to quell the complaints.
> 
> BSC or no BSC, response times are once again getting longer and longer.


FWIW, I've noticed exactly the same thing here on our Premiere Elite.


----------



## morac

I've seen a few BSCs lately. They seem to show up when selecting recorded shows that had their guide data changed post-recording.

I've also run into disconnects using the TiVo iOS app when selecting items in the guide where the server guide data differs from the data on the box.


----------



## slowbiscuit

richsadams said:


> Well, I stumbled across a workaround for the BSC/activity delays...switch to SD menus.


Um, this is the Roamio forum. Not Premiere.

But given the universality of this issue due to never-ending Tivo server crappiness, this thread really belongs in Help Center.


----------



## Lurker1

BSC's are back. Whoever decided it was a good idea to design the TiVo UI so that it grinds to a halt whenever TiVo's servers are slow should be fired. I sure hope the new UI that TiVo has been showing off lately doesn't make the same stupid mistake.


----------



## JoeKustra

Lurker1 said:


> BSC's are back. Whoever decided it was a good idea to design the TiVo UI so that it grinds to a halt whenever TiVo's servers are slow should be fired. I sure hope the new UI that TiVo has been showing off lately doesn't make the same stupid mistake.


TiVo's servers are overloaded with everybody doing manual connections to get the special on HBO tonight.


----------



## MgoBlue65

Lurker1 said:


> BSC's are back. Whoever decided it was a good idea to design the TiVo UI so that it grinds to a halt whenever TiVo's servers are slow should be fired. I sure hope the new UI that TiVo has been showing off lately doesn't make the same stupid mistake.


I'd say more like a trip to the woodshed for a good old fashioned ass beating, this shyt is getting beyond ridiculous. UPDATE YOUR DAMN SERVERS YOU CHEAP BASTARDS!


----------



## Razzer

Baaaack, big time here.

Baaaaad TiVo!

Just unplugged Roamio network cable (an effective workaround) - which of course nullifies its very frequent use (in my household) as an Amazon and Netflix player.

Baaaaaad TiVo.


----------



## vittoria

It's pretty unbearable right now.


----------



## Razzer

JoeKustra said:


> There is one way to reduce your TiVo server access. Set your Discovery Bar option to only "My Shows". If you have items in My Shows, there will be less network access. Sadly, the options you can select for the Discovery Bar are not reliable and approach randomness. But it's a small step.


I thought I knew a few simple hacks but I'll cry uncle here: where in Roamio interface can one find that? (Appreciate your suggestion!)


----------



## Lurker1

If you block i.tivo.com with your router, the BSC's go away and everything responds instantly again.


----------



## cogx

Well, shoot. Tonight is the first BSC problem I've had since they sorted things out back 54 days ago (11/16/16), but of course I knew it was too good to be true that their back-end fix would last permanently (we obviously know it will require significant programming changes to truly fix it).


----------



## morac

These are the worst I've ever seen. Group folders won't even load if I'm in the My Shows or All Recordings view. I had to switch to Recordings only otherwise all groups get BSCs until they time out and the group shows up as empty.

Unfortunately there's no work around for search which shows as "temporarily unavailable".


----------



## gcondrey

It's as bad or worse here tonight than I've seen it since last October or November.


----------



## computersteve

Lurker1 said:


> If you block i.tivo.com with your router, the BSC's go away and everything responds instantly again.


What is i.tivo.com used for though? if we block that and continue to use the box will it cause us issues?


----------



## lgkahn

Search not working says unavailable, blue circles everywhere. When viewing a wish list I cannot record upcoming, it spins blue circle and then goes back to list, c501 error on what to watch now and browse TV and movies. The Box is basically useless. X1 here I come. Network test completed fine, all.ports open.


----------



## bareyb

Yep. Just got on my laptop to make sure I had Internet connection. Apparently I do... So yeah. Blue Circles everywhere here too. I can't watch anything on my TiVo that's in a Folder.


----------



## vittoria

Can't pull up info on anything. Just bounces me back to the menu. I have lifetime service. I wonder if there's any way to receive some sort of compensation? I don't think there's any incentive for TiVo to actually fix this.


----------



## bareyb

UPDATE: Just started working again. I did force a Call to TiVo but Have no idea if that helped.


----------



## computersteve

its not working that reliable yet lol One time it worked, next time I pressed the record button to setup a scheduled recording then it just timed out =(


----------



## Mikeguy

vittoria said:


> I have lifetime service. I wonder if there's any way to receive some sort of compensation? I don't think there's any incentive for TiVo to actually fix this.


LOL. If there were a compensation program, TiVo might have to _net_ _pay users _who had opted into lifetimes, in the end. 

Been a bit slow in responding for me today, but nothing like what y'all are reporting above--just 3-4 seconds, at times.

I do wonder: where are TiVo's servers--are they in Silicon Valley? If so, that area has been having record-breaking rains for the past week and continuing this week, with electrical and other utility outages--I wonder if there could be a tie-in there.


----------



## DaveInSD

My Roamio and Mini (attached to the Roamio) have been noticeably slow the last two days, with blue circles many times. But the worst offender tonight is the iPad TiVo app which cannot connect at all. TiVo needs to learn, "First do no harm."


----------



## bareyb

Mikeguy said:


> LOL. If there were a compensation program, TiVo might have to _net_ _pay users _who had opted into lifetimes, in the end.
> 
> Been a bit slow in responding for me today, but nothing like what y'all are reporting above--just 3-4 seconds, at times.
> 
> I do wonder: where are TiVo's servers--are they in Silicon Valley? If so, that area has been having record-breaking rains for the past week and continuing this week, with electrical and other utility outages--I wonder if there could be a tie-in there.


Yeah. It's raining cats and dogs here. Might be some connection.


----------



## Bighouse

I'm getting a lot of blue spinning circles waiting for data to move, and I'm reading from my Romio Pro TO my Premier XL...even had Tivo crash on me. Sounds like this is something many are experiencing???


----------



## JoeKustra

Razzer said:


> I thought I knew a few simple hacks but I'll cry uncle here: where in Roamio interface can one find that? (Appreciate your suggestion!)


Your Discovery bar options are under Settings, Displays. But like I said, they sometimes seem random. Whenever I see a block with a channel telling me what's on now or popular, and I don't get that channel, I feel there is a disconnect someplace.


----------



## JoeKustra

computersteve said:


> What is i.tivo.com used for though? if we block that and continue to use the box will it cause us issues?


It's one of two IP addresses that are used when you perform certain actions on your TiVo. As for side effects, TBD.


----------



## jth tv

Forced a connection this morning and took what seemed like a abnormally long time downloading and ended up with an S02 error during Loading Info. Rebooted and retried, same S02. Retried again, still S02 during Loading Info. The Roamio has scheduled another connection 2.5 hours from now. If everyone's does the same, I think there is going to be lots of BSC's.


----------



## Lurker1

computersteve said:


> What is i.tivo.com used for though? if we block that and continue to use the box will it cause us issues?


I do not leave it blocked permanently, just as a temporary workaround when BSC's are this bad. I lose all images on program descriptions and Discovery Bar, but nothing important that I have noticed. The main thing is everything responds quickly again and I can watch TiVo without any BSC's.


----------



## atmuscarella

Lurker1 said:


> I do not leave it blocked permanently, just as a temporary workaround when BSC's are this bad. I lose all images on program descriptions and Discovery Bar, but nothing important that I have noticed. The main thing is everything responds quickly again and I can watch TiVo without any BSC's.


If your TiVo is connected via Ethernet, you can also just disconnect the Ethernet cable, of course the unit will also loose contact with everything on your network and all streaming services but will work fine for watching live/recorded TV.


----------



## HerronScott

Lurker1 said:


> If you block i.tivo.com with your router, the BSC's go away and everything responds instantly again.


So seems like the images are again the issue similar to last time? I noticed that i.tivo.com is pointing to Akamai this morning and I don't think that was the case the last time we had this issue so I wonder if they've switched to Akamai now for distributing the images to help make this more robust. Although I'm sure Akamai can have issues too, CDN is what they do so I suspect it should be much better.

Lurker1 do you recall what i.tivo.com pointed to the last time we had this issue?

Scott


----------



## Joe3

I expect require 
*The Marx Brothers*
to be on my Tivo, not running 
their Business Plan~


----------



## Mr Tony

jth tv said:


> Forced a connection this morning and took what seemed like a abnormally long time downloading and ended up with an S02 error during Loading Info. Rebooted and retried, same S02. Retried again, still S02 during Loading Info. The Roamio has scheduled another connection 2.5 hours from now. If everyone's does the same, I think there is going to be lots of BSC's.


Same here when my Roamio Basic did its nightly call around 10PM CST. It sat on "downloading" for over 1/2 hour then gave me the S02 error. I noticed this morning it tried again and same thing.

Frustrating


----------



## Thunderclap

It's back for me too. It took almost a minute for me to start a show I had recorded. It's pretty terrible on Tivo's part. I'm really starting to think this is the year I abandon Tivo after being a happy user for over 15 years. This is just ridiculous.


----------



## morac

Everything is working fine for me now. Not having any issues. I wonder if the problem will return tonight?


----------



## JoeKustra

morac said:


> Everything is working fine for me now. Not having any issues. I wonder if the problem will return tonight?


I thought so too, but I just went to "What To Watch Now" and it sat there for 15 seconds before the BSC.


----------



## HoTatII

Not noticing any SBCs on my Roamio OTA here ...

But still can't get guide data or the 20.5.6 firmware update. Still on 20.3.6.

When manually connecting to TIVO's service the box spends an exceptionally long time in the "downloading" phase, which either terminates in a disconnected message. Or if it finally manages to get by downloading, the "loading" phase always fails with a "Unrecoverable error (SO2)" message.

Sent from my LGMS550 using Tapatalk


----------



## morac

HoTatII said:


> Not noticing any SBCs on my Roamio OTA here ...
> 
> But still can't get guide data or the 20.5.6 firmware update. Still on 20.3.6.
> 
> When manually connecting to TIVO's service the box spends an exceptionally long time in the "downloading" phase, which either terminates in a disconnected message. Or if it finally manages to get by downloading, the "loading" phase always fails with a "Unrecoverable error (SO2)" message.
> 
> Sent from my LGMS550 using Tapatalk


Sounds like you might have a different problem. 20.5.6 has been out a very long time so you should have already gotten it.

My box successfully made a connection on its own overnight.


----------



## HoTatII

morac said:


> Sounds like you might have a different problem. 20.5.6 has been out a very long time so you should have already gotten it.
> 
> My box successfully made a connection on its own overnight.


I'm sorry ....

Just checked again, its on 20.6.3 RC7

Is that the latest version?

Sent from my LGMS550 using Tapatalk


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## tim1724

HoTatII said:


> Just checked again, its on 20.6.3 RC7
> 
> Is that the latest version?


Yes, 20.6.3RC7 is the latest release. (Aside from some test releases that haven't been widely deployed.)


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## HoTatII

tim1724 said:


> Yes, 20.6.3RC7 is the latest release. (Aside from some test releases that haven't been widely deployed.)


Ok, well I finally got my TIVO over-the-hump and sucessfully complete a connect to the TIVO service and it just downloaded some kind of firmware update, rebooted it, and it's in the midst installing right now.

I think the other thread in the TCH said its a RC13 of 20.6.3. But I'll update what this is when it finishes.

Sent from my LGMS550 using Tapatalk


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## HoTatII

Yeah ....

That's what it is ....

20.6.3 RC13 ...

But the "new features" message just list the same features as under 20.6.3 RC7 from all I can see.

Sent from my LGMS550 using Tapatalk


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## Teeps

BSC for my roamio and xl4 last night.


----------



## Lurker1

HerronScott said:


> Lurker1 do you recall what i.tivo.com pointed to the last time we had this issue?
> Scott


No, I don't remember specifically, but I was under the impression it pointed to TiVo's own server back then.


----------



## HerronScott

Lurker1 said:


> No, I don't remember specifically, but I was under the impression it pointed to TiVo's own server back then.


That's what I recalled as well. I'm pretty sure I would have remembered if it was pointing to Akamai at the time. Fingers crossed this prevents any future issues with this specific issue.

Scott


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## tim1724

HoTatII said:


> 20.6.3 RC13 ...
> 
> But the "new features" message just list the same features as under 20.6.3 RC7 from all I can see.


It should have the same features. It's just a newer build of the same version. The only difference should be (hopefully) bug fixes. I think RC13 was supposed to deal with some audio or HDMI issue. I forget. But it's not been pushed out to everyone. There's also another build (with a weird version number) that has gone out to some Roamios on FIOS to address some weird MPEG-4 issues.


----------



## morac

tim1724 said:


> It should have the same features. It's just a newer build of the same version. The only difference should be (hopefully) bug fixes. I think RC13 was supposed to deal with some audio or HDMI issue. I forget. But it's not been pushed out to everyone. There's also another build (with a weird version number) that has gone out to some Roamios on FIOS to address some weird MPEG-4 issues.


I thought RC13 was to fix Minis hogging tuners when not in use. I'm not sure though since I'm not using a Mini.


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## DaveInSD

Lurker1 said:


> If you block i.tivo.com with your router, the BSC's go away and everything responds instantly again.


This worked very well for me. I tried it 24 hours ago, and it fixed the spinning circles problem pretty much immediately. In fact, I think I actually *prefer* the TiVo this way. I'm not a big fan of the images, and with i.tivo.com blocked, I get words instead of images, which I think is better. I might just leave it...

Thank you for this!


----------



## Lurker1

DaveInSD said:


> This worked very well for me. I tried it 24 hours ago, and it fixed the spinning circles problem pretty much immediately. In fact, I think I actually *prefer* the TiVo this way. I'm not a big fan of the images, and with i.tivo.com blocked, I get words instead of images, which I think is better. I might just leave it...
> 
> Thank you for this!


You're welcome, but be aware that there may be undesirable side-effects we haven't noticed yet.


----------



## Thunderclap

With the latest update (RC13) the spinning ball never appeared for me last night, so that was good. I'm cautiously optimistic the problem has been fixed. Time will tell though.


----------



## Teeps

The BSC were not present on either of my TiVos last night.
XL4 data is streamed to Roamio Basic.
Roamio software Version, as reported my kmttg: 20.6.3.RC7-USA-6-846
XL4 software Version: 20.6.3.RC7-01-2-758

12 DEC 2017:
This morning my Roamio shows that it got the RC13 update.
XL4 is still on RC7 this morning.


----------



## wtkflhn

It looks to me that RC13 fixes the issue of Roamios/Bolts not being able to see S3 and HD TIVOs. I got it last night on my 846 OTA Roamio. I just wish it would come to my 840 Pro. I wonder if them pushing this out is what's causing the BSC's. More traffic on the servers because of this rollout.


----------



## a68oliver

I have two minis attached to my Roamio and they could not find my Roamio this morning. I pulled the Ethernet and cycled the power on one of them and that did not fix the issue. I did a network test and it succeeded. The mini was also producing live video and audio from the Roamio, but couldn't access the NPL. I checked the 2nd mini and it was also reporting it could not find the Roamio. I finally rebooted the Roamio and that fixed everything. Was this a one time glitch following a power failure a couple of days before, or a more common problem? I am running 20.6.3RC7.


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## cogx

I didn't notice any issues with RC13, but right after my Bolt got RC15, I started having delays moving around the menus, but the kind where you press the buttons on the remote and nothing happens instantly like you expect, but all the presses are queued and eventually the UI reacts for each press to catch up on what you were intended to do. Only occasionally do I see the blue spinning circle for a split second while this is happening. I did replace the batteries in the remote, just to rule that out, but the problem has persisted on and off.
I know TiVo HDD problems typically manifest themselves after a system update, which now with two updates in three days made me think oh great here we go again with a bad HDD, but once I get into a recording/recorded program the UI behaves perfectly which doesn't really jibe with my past experience with failing TiVo HDDs that the entire system on any screen periodically locks up and eventually to the point where the system spontaneously reboots itself which it hasn't done yet.
I was actually hoping this thread was going to have several post already describing the same exact laggy UI problem after getting RC15, but now I'm back to worrying it is the HDD in my Bolt (which I've only had now for a month and a half).


----------



## ajwees41

I saw slowness on Roamio, but 2 days after RC15 everything is back to normal. have tried a reboot maybe it wil rearrange stuff


----------



## cogx

I tried to do a kickstart 54, but apparently that doesn't work on a Bolt or at least it no longer comes up with a menu screen?? I don't know, it sure seems like it is the blue spinning circle problem but without the spinning circle which in reality is worse because I'm still pressing buttons on the remote to navigate around before I know that the entire UI has locked up for 1 to 4 seconds. Funny how now I WANT the BSC as a way to alert me to stop pressing buttons.


----------



## ajwees41

cogx said:


> I tried to do a kickstart 54, but apparently that doesn't work on a Bolt or at least it no longer comes up with a menu screen?? I don't know, it sure seems like it is the blue spinning circle problem but without the spinning circle which in reality is worse because I'm still pressing buttons on the remote to navigate around before I know that the entire UI has locked up for 1 to 4 seconds. Funny how now I WANT the BSC as a way to alert me to stop pressing buttons.


not a kickstart just reboot via the help menu or unplugging and plugging back in


----------



## cogx

ajwees41 said:


> not a kickstart just reboot via the help menu or unplugging and plugging back in


Yes, I've rebooted four times now since getting the RC15 update on Friday (1/13) evening. I submitted a support ticket, we'll see what they say.
I have to honest, if my Series3 hadn't finally died after almost exactly 10 years of use, even though it only has two tuners and requires a second CC that I've already turned back in, I'm ready to go back to good old reliable v11 software (well, pre-Rovi guide data at least). I deal with stupid software bugs and failing hardware all day at work, can't I just have a DVR that just works the way it is suppose to, like my old Series3 did for YEARS upon YEARS without giving me any grief at all? Is that too much to ask? So frustrating.


----------



## hybucket

Every once in a while (maybe one out of 6 or so), I'll get the spinning circle. Most of the time, if I go back to TiVO Central and try again, it comes right up


----------



## tampa8

hybucket said:


> Every once in a while (maybe one out of 6 or so), I'll get the spinning circle. Most of the time, if I go back to TiVO Central and try again, it comes right up


Exactly the same for me.


----------



## wmhjr

Holy crap the bsc's are bad tonight. Can't even delete a recorded show. The extraordinary bad architecture combined with continued inability of TiVo to manage their service is amazingly bad.


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## astrohip

I keep getting BSC, then the TiVo just returns to the menu. I can't even get past it. Roamio Pro.

I'm pretty much over my TiVos. Bad guides, poorly written software/upgrades, the flip-flop on the accommodation features (really? how do you eff that up?), the endless return of the left column on the Now Playing screen. I have no urgency to leave, but I also have no reason to buy any more in the future. In just a few short months, they've turned me from a fanboy to a nobody.


----------



## morac

I didn't see any BSCs tonight, though of the three shows I watched, one never got skip info and another one had no guide data.


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## wmhjr

astrohip said:


> I keep getting BSC, then the TiVo just returns to the menu. I can't even get past it. Roamio Pro.
> 
> I'm pretty much over my TiVos. Bad guides, poorly written software/upgrades, the flip-flop on the accommodation features (really? how do you eff that up?), the endless return of the left column on the Now Playing screen. I have no urgency to leave, but I also have no reason to buy any more in the future. In just a few short months, they've turned me from a fanboy to a nobody.


I'm not looking to leave. I'm just not looking to stay. I haven't the slightest interest in any new TiVo product. When my hw dies or is no longer supported I'm done. Between the bsc issues that will never be fixed, the increased service costs without any compelling advantage for me, the increasing competition from cable providers and streaming sources, there is just no possible way I would even remotely consider spending more on TiVo. What I have is paid for so I'll ride that as long as I can.


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## iconoclast

Roamio Pro, v.20.7.1


I still get the SBCs sometimes. It's not terribly annoying when it's just for a few seconds but, when it's for 30 seconds or several minutes, it is really annoying. I can use the workaround of highlighting the desired program in my list and then press the play button and that so far eliminates the problem. However, when the show is one of several in a folder, this obviously doesn't work.


I also get the failure to delete a show issue. A reboot of the TiVo box so far has always solved this… But it's time-consuming and annoying.


I actually just finished reading all 35 pages in this thread hoping for a solution and sadly there is none. Reading all the posts on this forum has convinced me that the issue is absolutely not related to the customers’ Wi-Fi. 


I originally searched this issue to see if people who connected their TiVo to the Internet Direct via ethernet, did not have the issue. Or if it was somehow related to a weak or unstable Wi-Fi signal strength or Wi-Fi dropouts versus people who had a very strong Wi-Fi signal. But there was no correlation. It's a TiVo issue. 


I do believe it's related to TiVo software requiring frequent Communication with TiVo servers, even for a basic DVR functions such as play, delete, etc. I imagine there's a current or future plan to monetize this information. I'm guessing but, I suspect companies want to know many things about us for a variety of reasons all related to eventual profit. Perhaps they wish to know if we actually watch the entire shows that we record, do we delete the show after watching or save & watch them more than once, etc. The reason why TiVo maybe collecting this data is not as important as the fact that that TiVos are requiring some type of communication with The network. And that is the likely cause of this issue.


At least a couple times a week I get the audio dropout issue, if I hit rewind for eight seconds I can hear the audio I missed maybe ⅒ X but, the majority of times, that audio was just missing. I also get partial recordings every couple of weeks. I think it is 100% the fault of TiVo that we have the SBC problem. I'm not sure who is at fault regarding the partial recordings and the audio dropouts.


Overall, Based on these problems I would not choose TiVo in the future. It is just not worth the high cost given all of these problems.

I would make do with a rented Cox Communications DVR.


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## kpeters59

Like Churchill said, TiVo is the worst DVR, except for all the others...

-KP


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## sjmaye

kpeters59 said:


> Like Churchill said, TiVo is the worst DVR, except for all the others...
> 
> -KP


I would not call it the worst, for sure. I think, in concept, it is the best I have seen. The only issue is it falls short in performance. The streaming video provider selection is extremely limited. Tivo does not seem committed to new apps. Nothing like Roku or Amazon. Movie, TV and actor background information is about the worst I have seen. I got better information for free on my Media Center PC. I like the DVR function, commercial skip, and Tivo minis. Again, the concept of a DVR that can do cable cards that can be converted to using with an antenna when you become a cord cutter is great. A DVR with seamless streaming apps integrated in to the ecosystem that is easily accessed with Tivo Minis elsewhere in the home, also great.

The question is whether these shortcomings make me want to continue the monthly service fee. Right now. Not so much. I have a 1 yr requirement. By then I will likely be on to SlingTV and its cloud dvr.


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## Rob Helmerichs

sjmaye said:


> I would not call it the worst, for sure. I think, in concept, it is the best I have seen. The only issue is it falls short in performance.


I think you missed his (and Churchill's) point...he said, the worst, except for all the others. In other words, the best, but that's not saying much.


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## HerronScott

iconoclast said:


> At least a couple times a week I get the audio dropout issue, if I hit rewind for eight seconds I can hear the audio I missed maybe ⅒ X but, the majority of times, that audio was just missing. I also get partial recordings every couple of weeks. I think it is 100% the fault of TiVo that we have the SBC problem. I'm not sure who is at fault regarding the partial recordings and the audio dropouts.


I wonder what's different with either your TiVo or environment (and others having these issues) since we're not having any of these problems (nor is my brother 1 town over but still fed by same Comcast head-end and Internet service). We both have Roamio Pro's as well. Our setups are pretty much the same except that we're feeding our older Onkyo receiver with component video and fiber audio while he's using HDMI to a newer Onkyo receiver.

Scott


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## richsadams

The issue appears to be server related. When there's a delay it's apparent that TiVo is searching for graphics, either for a particular program or the images at the top. When this thread began it was clearly a TiVo problem. Once an update was issued most of the complaints stopped.

It was a terrible problem for a while and the same for my brother-in-law that lives on the other side of the country. Since the update a while back we rarely see the BSC.

When it became unbearable the work-around for us was to switch to the SD menus. Doing that alleviated almost all delays - no graphics involved - and our TiVos were instantly responsive to all commands. The HD menus have a lot of positive features, but at the time having a responsive TiVo was better than the alternative.

Going forward it still could be the occasional TiVo server problem, however it could also be a user's Internet connection; a temporary inability to connect to TiVo servers for some reason.

My two-cents.


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## JoeKustra

I'll admit to seeing that circle a few times lately, but only for a split second. It could be my ISP, my router, or the spring thaw. It has never caused me to wait, so I can live with it. It takes me 10x longer to change channels.

Just wanted to mention that it's not related to the last update. I've had that since it was first sent to those on the priority list.


----------



## Mikeguy

JoeKustra said:


> I'll admit to seeing that circle a few times lately, but only for a split second. It could be my ISP, my router, or the spring thaw. It has never caused me to wait, so I can live with it. It takes me 10x longer to change channels.
> 
> Just wanted to mention that it's not related to the last update. I've had that since it was first sent to those on the priority list.


I've seen it every now-and-again in the past, but the appearance and length seems to have gone up a bit since the last update. Or perhaps it's just my imagination.


----------



## HerronScott

richsadams said:


> The issue appears to be server related. When there's a delay it's apparent that TiVo is searching for graphics, either for a particular program or the images at the top. When this thread began it was clearly a TiVo problem. Once an update was issued most of the complaints stopped.
> 
> It was a terrible problem for a while and the same for my brother-in-law that lives on the other side of the country. Since the update a while back we rarely see the BSC.





richsadams said:


> Going forward it still could be the occasional TiVo server problem, however it could also be a user's Internet connection; a temporary inability to connect to TiVo servers for some reason.


Note that TiVo has moved to using Akamai (content delivery network) for the images (i.tivo.com) so at least that part isn't hitting TiVo's servers any more and that should provide better service.

Scott


----------



## RoamioJeff

HerronScott said:


> Note that TiVo has moved to using Akamai (content delivery network) for the images (i.tivo.com) so at least that part isn't hitting TiVo's servers any more and that should provide better service.
> 
> Scott


That is interesting info, indeed. I have very rarely had the spinning BSCs, perhaps once or twice in early 2015. But for the last 9 months I have certain specific subdomains of Akamai blocked at my router (ad, clickbait, and "sponsored content" images). It will be interesting to see if those blocks affect my TiVo in the future.


----------



## TeamPace

I've had the BSC issue on and off on my base Roamio over the same time period as noted in this post. It hasn't been a major problem in recent months but have seen some reoccurrence in past week. I'm fairly convinced it's on TiVos end and related to server issues. I also know that as of a few days ago a TiVo service tech told me they were doing something server related at the time of the call that wouldn't let me set up a new TiVo account or activate a new TiVo for a friend. They were able to do that on their end though. Wish I had quizzed her a bit more as to what was going on with their servers.


----------



## richsadams

HerronScott said:


> Note that TiVo has moved to using Akamai (content delivery network) for the images (i.tivo.com) so at least that part isn't hitting TiVo's servers any more and that should provide better service.


I'd hope TiVo is using a healthy CDN for _everything_ they're doing online.  A CDN simply serves requested content from a server that's ideally closest to the user. It does help to improve response times. However the source content is still pulled from an originating server or servers and is cached on the CDN's servers until new content is updated/created. A CDN is only as good as the source so hopefully TiVo has improved their server and content management. :thumbsup:


----------



## Puppy76

And they should write the interface to work at full speed locally and attempt to pull in Internet content and display it as available in the background...


----------



## richsadams

Puppy76 said:


> And they should write the interface to work at full speed locally and attempt to pull in Internet content and display it as available in the background...


Agreed. There should be enough memory, particularly in the latest models, to cache a good deal of the content required rather than depending on continual two-way communications. IMHO.


----------



## WTP

I, too, had erratic problems of My Shows responding slowly, and even more slowly (sometimes over 2 minutes) when listing the individual episodes of each show. That swirling blue pinwheel irritated my wife intensely, and then ultimately: me. Additionally, sometimes the connection to the TiVo servers failed, and it could not connect to Netflix. Our ISP is Comcast with speeds up to 25 Mbps. This is on a TiVo OTA connected via Ethernet cables, no WiFi issues to cause problems.

I tried all the suggestions (reboot the cable modem, reboot router, reboot TiVo OTA). I found that my Cable Modem was listed as EOL (end of Life) by Comcast, so I purchased a new Arris SB8200 cable modem, but still had erratic performance issues with the My Shows lists. Then I found that my almost 1-year old Linksys EA9500 Max-Stream™AC5400 MU-MIMO Gigabit Wi-Fi Router was frequently rebooting, and had it replaced with a brand new one under warranty. That stopped the router reboots, but the My Shows lists were still very slow.

I traced all the Ethernet cable connections from the router on the 2nd floor at the far end of the house, to the TiVo OTA on the 1st floor at the other end of the house. All tight, no loose connections.

The last connection at the TiVo end was an old Netgear5 port 10/100 Mbps Switch FS605 v3. Well, THAT couldn't be a problem, right? It has no moving parts and no configuration to set up - it's like a coax antenna cable splitter (with mildly fancy automatic IP configuration built in to assign IP addresses, etc.). So I unplugged the Ethernet cable from the TiVo and plugged it into my Laptop. That WAS the problem... when connected to the network (without WiFi) using only the ethernet cable coming out of the switch, the laptop could not access the network. Connecting the cable from the network, without the switch, to the TiVo and everything was very quick. Three days later a new Linksys 8-port Metallic Gigabit Switch (SE3008) arrived, I quickly installed that and all once well again; My Shows responds properly, Netflix can actually connect and stream movies, and there are no more TiVo connection error messages.

A failure of an inanimate network switch, who would have suspected that? <sigh> I don't blame the old Netgear switch, everything has a natural lifetime. I just wish it had failed completely instead of displaying normal flashing lights.


----------



## Puppy76

WTP said:


> I, too, had erratic problems of My Shows responding slowly, and even more slowly (sometimes over 2 minutes) when listing the individual episodes of each show. That swirling blue pinwheel irritated my wife intensely, and then ultimately: me. Additionally, sometimes the connection to the TiVo servers failed, and it could not connect to Netflix. Our ISP is Comcast with speeds up to 25 Mbps. This is on a TiVo OTA connected via Ethernet cables, no WiFi issues to cause problems.
> 
> I tried all the suggestions (reboot the cable modem, reboot router, reboot TiVo OTA). I found that my Cable Modem was listed as EOL (end of Life) by Comcast, so I purchased a new Arris SB8200 cable modem, but still had erratic performance issues with the My Shows lists. Then I found that my almost 1-year old Linksys EA9500 Max-Stream™AC5400 MU-MIMO Gigabit Wi-Fi Router was frequently rebooting, and had it replaced with a brand new one under warranty. That stopped the router reboots, but the My Shows lists were still very slow.
> 
> I traced all the Ethernet cable connections from the router on the 2nd floor at the far end of the house, to the TiVo OTA on the 1st floor at the other end of the house. All tight, no loose connections.
> 
> The last connection at the TiVo end was an old Netgear5 port 10/100 Mbps Switch FS605 v3. Well, THAT couldn't be a problem, right? It has no moving parts and no configuration to set up - it's like a coax antenna cable splitter (with mildly fancy automatic IP configuration built in to assign IP addresses, etc.). So I unplugged the Ethernet cable from the TiVo and plugged it into my Laptop. That WAS the problem... when connected to the network (without WiFi) using only the ethernet cable coming out of the switch, the laptop could not access the network. Connecting the cable from the network, without the switch, to the TiVo and everything was very quick. Three days later a new Linksys 8-port Metallic Gigabit Switch (SE3008) arrived, I quickly installed that and all once well again; My Shows responds properly, Netflix can actually connect and stream movies, and there are no more TiVo connection error messages.
> 
> A failure of an inanimate network switch, who would have suspected that? <sigh> I don't blame the old Netgear switch, everything has a natural lifetime. I just wish it had failed completely instead of displaying normal flashing lights.


Thanks for going through all that-good ideas to check!

I'm not having this issue anymore, but I do have a problem with an 8 (?) port Linksys...not that model, but a plastic model, that's supposedly Gb, and supposedly a switch, but actually completely kills the rest of my network if 100Mb is transferring between two ports on it.

I didn't know those metal models existed...wonder if they'd work better.

I was thinking of buying a Cisco model, but a little nervous since Linksys was Cisco at the time I bought this (even has Cisco largest on the label...)


----------



## WTP

Your switch question is sort of off-TiVo thread, but...
I'm not a network geek, though I am a retired mainframe systems programmer... the network geeks handled the network, and for the most part we kept our hands off. ;-)

That said, a network switch should be designed to handle the traffic on all its ports. Maybe your router is affecting the traffic when the 100Mb data is passing between the 2 ports on the switch? Older switches did not include QoS (Quality of Service), that may help a newer model? The SE3008 supports QoS standard 802.1p, you can google that for more detail. 

I did not pick the SE3008 for the metal case; it sits behind closed doors next to the TiVo under the TV. There's a very similar model, the Linksys LGS108 small business switch. They look pretty identical to me: unmanaged QoS for both. Good luck!


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## richsadams

WTP said:


> A failure of an inanimate network switch, who would have suspected that? <sigh> I don't blame the old Netgear switch, everything has a natural lifetime. I just wish it had failed completely instead of displaying normal flashing lights.


Welcome to the community!

Unrelated to TiVo, I've had network switches fail as well. IIRC the last one was a D-Link 5 port that was about 4 years old. Still have a couple like it of the same age working without any issues. There's no indication that they're about to fail, until they do.

Agreed that it's one of the last things folks normally think of to test...and most don't have an extra one lying around. Lesson learned for me though. Since I have a half-dozen switches (or more) in service I keep one that I know is good handy so I can easily swap it out. They don't quit often, but it's a fast way to diagnose a potential fail point.

So if there appear to be network issues...BSC, frequent buffering of streaming programs, etc. it's worth checking. :thumbsup:

Cheers!


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## Puppy76

WTP said:


> That said, a network switch should be designed to handle the traffic on all its ports. Maybe your router is affecting the traffic when the 100Mb data is passing between the 2 ports on the switch? Older switches did not include QoS (Quality of Service), that may help a newer model? The SE3008 supports QoS standard 802.1p, you can google that for more detail.
> 
> I did not pick the SE3008 for the metal case; it sits behind closed doors next to the TiVo under the TV. There's a very similar model, the Linksys LGS108 small business switch. They look pretty identical to me: unmanaged QoS for both. Good luck!


I just realized I could actually list the model. It's a Linksys SE2800, and from it's behavior, it's neither really a Gb switch, nor actually a switch at all...really a piece of junk, and that's becoming more annoying given I'm more regularly having to move stuff around the network-between streaming/copying stuff from the Tivo, copying Tivo shows from my storage PC to my SD card on another PC in another part of the house, streaming stuff on Amazon/Hulu/Netflix, streaming games around the house, and downloading games from GOG.com and the like, it's pretty bad when it all dies because 100Mb/s are transfering between two of its ports.

And geez, that piece of junk is STILL being sold!


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## slowbiscuit

Yep, I had a TP-Link 8-port GigE switch fail recently after years of service - symptoms were that the devices connected to it would randomly experience disconnects. Not at the Ethernet level, at the TCP/IP level. Found this with kmttg complaining that it was getting disconnected from my Tivo and Minis that it monitors for the auto-skip service. Go figure. You'd think if it was failing everything would go bad but this was just random connectivity issues caused by the switch. Swapped it out for a Trendnet and back to normal.

These things are like $20 shipped so no big deal other than finding out the cause of the problems.


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## gespears

I feel your pain. I recently had a client that swore their LAN was up and down and it came down to a 16 port Linksys switch that acted like it was working and actually was working on several ports, but some ports would not work (no rhyme or reason lights flashing correctly.) It was very frustrating to find because it mostly worked. I think it was heat and dirt related. It was installed in an outside closet.


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## vittoria

Blue spinning circle started again tonight. I hope it's not the beginning of another long stretch of dealing with it, as it was last November.


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## choco

I'm also seeing the spinning circles again. Started last night I think, for me.


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## vittoria

My friend, the blue spinning circle, has returned again. It's been about 24 hours now and has gotten worse rather than better throughout the day. Romio Pro


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## Johnwashere

vittoria said:


> My friend, the blue spinning circle, has returned again. It's been about 24 hours now and has gotten worse rather than better throughout the day. Romio Pro


Ive been getting this on my roamio, Bolt and mini the last 24 hours (from what ive noticed). I cant get into show folders easily, cant play programs unless I hit play on folder, and cant get into the tivo app. Now my bolt with the new expierence wont even take remote functions, I can see the menu I was in and active video preview. I dont want to pull the tivo power plug because im recording shows. Something is clearly going on with the tivo servers again...


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## heelsbigc

I've all of sudden got blue spinning circles on both of my Roamios today when I try to access show folders.


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## jeffw_00

Yup - same here - too bad TiVo doesn't care enough to fix it.


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## aaronwt

I noticed spinning circles on my Roamio with Hydra. But my Bolts and Mini, also on Hydra, didn't have them.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk


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## AZrob

Yup, getting them here in Phoenix big time all day for the first time in months.


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## 2004raptor

Add me to the list.


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## Kurs0010

Same here...on both my Bolt and Roamio.


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## javabird

Same here on Roamio Pro


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## Johnwashere

aaronwt said:


> I noticed spinning circles on my Roamio with Hydra. But my Bolts and Mini, also on Hydra, didn't have them.
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk


I have it happening on all my tivos - doesnet matter which software. I have the new and old interface and they all are plagued with it. Plus side the tivo app worked this morning


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## Teeps

Same here with roamio and xl4


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## gespears

Also in Phoenix with the same issue.


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## hybucket

Same here...noticed it last night on Roamio. Couldn't get into folders unless I just hit "Play". No problem with the TiVO app...yet.


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## dlfl

Me too on Roamio base model, with no Hydra upgrade. Wonder if server load related to Hydra is the culprit?


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## HerronScott

I saw it last night on our Roamio Pro but not tonight.

Scott


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## richsadams

Misery loves company. Intermittent BSC on all TiVos for the last week or so. Thought (hoped) that they had this issue resolved.


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## Reese

Still happening in NY.


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## Odds Bodkins

They are out of control for me.


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## iconoclast

BSC started again yesterday or today for me in Phoenix with my Roamio Pro.


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## cruff

I have the BSC also, pretty annoying last night. It is pretty stupid design decision that locally recorded content can not be accessed instantly without having to apparently query a remote server.


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## dlfl

cruff said:


> I have the BSC also, pretty annoying last night. It is pretty stupid design decision that locally recorded content can not be accessed instantly without having to apparently query a remote server.


I agree, although such a design **can** work well if the server infrastructure maintains enough capacity -- which apparently TiVo can't achieve. My Amazon Fire TV seems to depend a lot on server response and has no such issues. And it appears that the new "Hydra" UI depends even more heavily on server info. I have to wonder if all the people switching to Hydra now explains the upsurge in BSC?


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## wmhjr

dlfl said:


> I agree, although such a design **can** work well if the server infrastructure maintains enough capacity -- which apparently TiVo can't achieve. My Amazon Fire TV seems to depend a lot on server response and has no such issues. And it appears that the new "Hydra" UI depends even more heavily on server info. I fact I have to wonder if all the people switching to Hydra now explains the upsurge in BSC?


Actually, any architect would instantly know that the design is utterly ridiculous. Anybody knowing anything about development and architecture would do a FEMA or C&E matrix and instantly know that there are tons of variables beyond their control (such as last mile, etc) which could render their product at least partially non-functional when such a dependency exists - and when there is no apparent benefit in adding such a vulnerability. I'm not even addressing the obvious - which is that Tivo even on Tivo.com, has never shown any skill or expertise in class leading hosting. But more, that the Tivo is not at heart a "streaming device", so to add the dependencies and vulnerability of a streaming device such as a Roku or FireTV without any of the advantages (or necessity) is the hallmark of poor architecture driven by what is likely a marketing or product management decision. There is no local content other than microcode on a Roku or FireTV. One of the key advantages of a Tivo USED TO BE that even if you lost your connection, your ability to use the majority of functions and features remained intact until full service was restored. Now, it's the exact opposite.

More to the point, people not understanding hosting point to "server capacity" or "network" when in fact there are a ton more variables when it comes to these kinds of issues. Some of them even architecture and development on the "hosting" side. Amazon is a class leader when it comes to hosting. AWS and other products depend on Enterprise class, well run, well designed, architecturally sound systems - and have demonstrated over time the ability to effectively manage them with ITIL and CMM based processes. Tivo has never (and probably never will) done the same.


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## dlfl

wmhjr said:


> Actually, any architect would instantly know that the design is utterly ridiculous. Anybody knowing anything about development and architecture would do a FEMA or C&E matrix and instantly know that there are tons of variables beyond their control (such as last mile, etc) which could render their product at least partially non-functional when such a dependency exists - and when there is no apparent benefit in adding such a vulnerability. I'm not even addressing the obvious - which is that Tivo even on Tivo.com, has never shown any skill or expertise in class leading hosting. But more, that the Tivo is not at heart a "streaming device", so to add the dependencies and vulnerability of a streaming device such as a Roku or FireTV without any of the advantages (or necessity) is the hallmark of poor architecture driven by what is likely a marketing or product management decision. There is no local content other than microcode on a Roku or FireTV. One of the key advantages of a Tivo USED TO BE that even if you lost your connection, your ability to use the majority of functions and features remained intact until full service was restored. Now, it's the exact opposite.
> 
> More to the point, people not understanding hosting point to "server capacity" or "network" when in fact there are a ton more variables when it comes to these kinds of issues. Some of them even architecture and development on the "hosting" side. Amazon is a class leader when it comes to hosting. AWS and other products depend on Enterprise class, well run, well designed, architecturally sound systems - and have demonstrated over time the ability to effectively manage them with ITIL and CMM based processes. Tivo has never (and probably never will) done the same.


It sounds like you know what you're talking about, especially when you interject acronyms like FEMA, C&E, ITIL and CMM probably unknown to most forum readers. 

Too bad Amazon didn't take over TiVo -- although they probably didn't see it as a good business proposition.


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## wmhjr

dlfl said:


> It sounds like you know what you're talking about, especially when you interject acronyms like FEMA, C&E, ITIL and CMM probably unknown to most forum readers.
> 
> Too bad Amazon didn't take over TiVo -- although they probably didn't see it as a good business proposition.


FMEA: Failure mode and effects analysis
C&E: Cause and effect 
ITIL: IT Infrastructure Library, a number of versions, leading to ITSM (IT Service Management) in many ways
CMM: Capability maturity model

These - and many others- are core processes to be managed in order to deliver technology services on an Enterprise level. The first two are really part of Six Sigma beyond even IT.


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## HoTatII

wmhjr said:


> FMEA: Failure mode and effects analysis
> C&E: Cause and effect
> ITIL: IT Infrastructure Library, a number of versions, leading to ITSM (IT Service Management) in many ways
> CMM: Capability maturity model
> 
> These - and many others- are core processes to be managed in order to deliver technology services on an Enterprise level. The first two are really part of Six Sigma beyond even IT.


What I wish I could understand in "semi-layman" terms at least . Is what is it about the UI that specifically requires the TIVO to remain in constant contact with the servers this way?

And what is the real need for the formal daily network connection to the internet to call home if there is already a constant contact with TIVO's servers anyway?

Sent from my LG-H918 using Tapatalk


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## morac

HoTatII said:


> What I wish I could understand in "semi-layman" terms at least . Is what is it about the UI that specifically requires the TIVO to remain in constant contact with the servers this way?
> 
> And what is the real need for the formal daily network connection to the internet to call home if there is already a constant contact with TIVO's servers anyway?


TiVo maintains a constant contact with the servers for the purpose of allowing remote streaming, scheduling, etc. It also allows real-time updating of the "skip" feature for recordings.

As for why the UI requires a constant connection to TiVo's servers to work, I think that's a side effect of a design decision TiVo made a number of years ago. For whatever reason, anything having to do with scheduling requires a connection to the server. You can't set up a recording or OnePass or cancel a recording without a connection to TiVo's servers. The local guide data is only used to display the guide and also for the internal recording scheduler (so the box can continue to record shows while offline).

I believe the TiVo UI also has an "offline" mode where it falls back to allowing certain features like playing shows when a connection to the server is completely lost. This is easy to test by pulling the Ethernet cable or shutting down your modem or router. The problem occurs when the server isn't technically down, but simple slow to respond. The TiVo UI remains in online mode which causes BSCs, unresponsiveness and other problems.


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## wmhjr

People should really cease describing it as when the "server" isn't technically down, etc. It's the entire hosting platform That includes servers, switches, routers, load balancers, (probably) SAN, firewalls, the actual internet connection from Tivo hosted services to the outside world, etc. Just saying "server" over-simplifies what the level of interaction and potential failures are. 

Furthermore, it's not necessary to maintain "constant contact to allow remote streaming. It would certainly be possible to instantiate a connection if - and when - remote streaming is requested. The reasons mentioned above are actually not prerequisites to accomplish the task - or in other words, the same features and functions could have been made available without such dependencies all the time.


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## gespears

Whatever. I just want the BSC to stop. Mine haven't been quite as bad over the last several days.


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## JoeKustra

wmhjr said:


> People should really cease describing it as when the "server" isn't technically down, etc. It's the entire hosting platform


The TiVo Status page says everything is fine. Always check the status page for current status. TiVo Status

What? You don't believe that web page?


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## RoamioJeff

So, has anyone contacted customer service?


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## gespears

JoeKustra said:


> The TiVo Status page says everything is fine. Always check the status page for current status. TiVo Status
> 
> What? You don't believe that web page?


I do believe them when they say it's operational, but who know to what level it's operational at!?!


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## JoeKustra

gespears said:


> I do believe them when they say it's operational, but who know to what level it's operational at!?!


It's really sad. The page is produced by a company that you can find by using Google with "Statuspage". Just speculation: The page relies on updates from TiVo's servers. However, that logic fails since if TiVo's servers are down, or sick, then they can't tell "Statuspage" there is a problem. It's an easy fix: just let "Statuspage" query the systems periodically. No answer in a timely manner? Then post a problem exists. Again, just a guess.


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## morac

JoeKustra said:


> The TiVo Status page says everything is fine. Always check the status page for current status. TiVo Status
> 
> What? You don't believe that web page?


TiVo's aware that the status page doesn't actually show the correct status. One of the possible solutions they are considering is to remove the status page.


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## wmhjr

gespears said:


> Whatever. I just want the BSC to stop. Mine haven't been quite as bad over the last several days.


Good luck with that. It's the new normal. It's been happening on and off for a long time now.


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## HerronScott

morac said:


> You can't set up a recording or OnePass or cancel a recording without a connection to TiVo's servers.


That's not entirely true. Without an Internet connection (either at the TiVo or the router), I have no problem deleting shows or setting up a 1P from a currently playing show (hit record). Search though depends on contact with TiVo's servers so that severely restricts your ability to search for a new show and set up a 1P even if it is in the local guide data. We know that the images that are displayed for shows while cached depend on hosted infrastructure although that is now hosted by Akamai and not TiVo's own servers, but there must be something else that's impacting it as well.

Scott


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## wmhjr

HerronScott said:


> That's not entirely true. Without an Internet connection (either at the TiVo or the router), I have no problem deleting shows or setting up a 1P from a currently playing show (hit record). Search though depends on contact with TiVo's servers so that severely restricts your ability to search for a new show and set up a 1P even if it is in the local guide data. We know that the images that are displayed for shows while cached depend on hosted infrastructure although that is now hosted by Akamai and not TiVo's own servers, but there must be something else that's impacting it as well.
> 
> Scott


To add to this, I have at times been unable to create a 1P when disconnected, even by selecting the show in the live guide. Specifically, a future show (not one that is currently playing). By choosing content from the live guide in the future, "selecting" and then trying to create a 1P - it failed. Don't know if is still the same behavior to be honest - when it gets that bad I now just ignore the Tivos and don't waste my time anymore.


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## dlfl

Do BSC problems also occur with the new Hydra UI? Has anyone who was experiencing BSC before upgrading to Hydra determined this?


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## wmhjr

I’m pretty sure the answer to this is yes.


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## vittoria

Tonight the blue spinning circle situation is so bad I cannot view the description nor make any new recording schedule of any show in the listings. It just returns me back to the screen before. 

It's things like this that have me regret I bought a lifetime service package.


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## vittoria

And once again tonight the blue spinning circles. What is going on with TiVo that this is becoming such a chronic issue? I'm trying to program and it's impossible.


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## IHG

vittoria said:


> And once again tonight the blue spinning circles. What is going on with TiVo that this is becoming such a chronic issue? I'm trying to program and it's impossible.


I got around the blue spinning circle problem by temporarily unplugging my ethernet cable on the back of my Roamio. Now it's responding normally. Must be a Tivo server issue.


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## gworkman

I am experiencing the BSC while trying to play a program from the local Tivo. Tried restarting the device, and it did not help. Took nearly 20 minutes to start a recorded program. I have a recently updated Roamio with VOX and Hydra.


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## jeffw_00

I contacted customer service 2x tonight. The smarter one said it was known, they were working on it, but no ETA. The other one said the only known BSC issue was with TiVo Online and told me to clear my browser.

I like the idea of disconnecting the Ethernet cable on the nights it's bad - will give it a try!

I would suggest that ALL of us contact customer service -every- time it happens, maybe that will get their attention 

[and yes - it happens when you try to playback a program on your local tivo - for some reason it needs to "phone home" (probably has to report every program we decide to watch) and because of poor SW design the product hangs)


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## WorldBandRadio

jeffw_00 said:


> ... for some reason it needs to "phone home" (probably has to report every program we decide to watch) and because of poor SW design the product hangs)


My TiVo is on hardwired Ethernet. The network switch is visible on the entertainment center cabinet. What that means is that I can see the network activity that the TiVo produces.

Nearly every button press on the remote results in some manner of network activity. Just moving around the TiVo menus creates a lot of network activity.

I'd think that the TiVo is phoning home with a lot more than just the program we choose to watch.

One of these days, I may fire up tcpdump, and see just what is being sent back and if TiVo has encrypted my data.


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## slowbiscuit

Well, yeah. It's not news that the UI is slaved to their servers, and that is the root of the problem.

REALLY dumb design/implementation decision (not sure which), one of many for this company, mostly due to a lack of serious retail competition.


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## WorldBandRadio

slowbiscuit said:


> Well, yeah. It's not news that the UI is slaved to their servers, and that is the root of the problem.
> 
> REALLY dumb design/implementation decision (not sure which), one of many for this company, mostly due to a lack of serious retail competition.


Yeah, I've been mentioning the "tied to the servers" problem for well over a couple years (not necessarily on this site, though).

While I won't go as far as saying the decision to use the cloud architecture is a bad decision, I will say that the decision to use the cloud architecture when it seems that TiVo is unable to reliably manage a server farm is the bad decision.


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## slowbiscuit

Using cloud is not bad. Tying the UI synchronously to the servers is VERY BAD. There's just no excuse for doing so when everything is on the local box. These are not primarily streamers where a net connection is required to function.

You wanna collect data, do it async. Yep, we're all beating a dead horse.


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## olsen623

Agreed! The UI should NOT connect to the mothership with EVERY keypress! 

BSC all over the place tonight -- first time I've noticed it. Hella Laggy UI. Ugh. Already contacted Tivo customer support...


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## J3ff

takes me 30 to 45 seconds to get a list of shows that are already recorded inside folders. Has been all night. So frustrating.


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## tampa8

Same for me came to see if others having the problem again...


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## redbeard25

Me too. I finally got a show to play about 9:45.


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## Boid

Me too. Roamio has been intermittently cranky over the last month, but tonight it is nearly unusable. Actually it is literally unusable in one sense - I am unable to get into Recording Options on an active recording. I get BSC for 20 seconds and then it just reverts back to the Play Now menu.

TiVo customer since Philips, and it was the TiVo UI that kept me faithful. So much for that.


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## danm628

Odd. 

I had no delays at all this evening. Watched a few 30 minute shows. 

CDN issues possibly? That could make it regional.


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## RoamioJeff

danm628 said:


> Odd.
> 
> I had no delays at all this evening. Watched a few 30 minute shows.
> 
> CDN issues possibly? That could make it regional.


I've always wondered about this. I've never had these BSC's except for a couple of brief occasions one week in 2015. Pretty heavy Roamio user too, with several recordings a day, and I'm always exercising the menus and folders. Odd.


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## HerronScott

danm628 said:


> Odd.
> 
> I had no delays at all this evening. Watched a few 30 minute shows.
> 
> CDN issues possibly? That could make it regional.


No issues here either (Staunton, VA with Roamio Pro gen3 interface on Comcast).

Scott


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## BrettStah

No issues here in San Antonio either. I did have the issue back when this thread was created two years ago.


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## danm628

I had the issue back when the thread was created.

And when a few people mentioned issues a week or so ago I saw a few delays (spinning circle for a second or two). But I haven't seen any in the last few days. 

This is on my Bolt. (I rarely switch to the Roamio; usually I just watch shows on the Roamio using the Bolt.)


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