# Skip "mostly" doesn't work



## gsusser (Jul 10, 2011)

Frustrating. I didn't see anything in this forum about it, at least recently, so I thought the problem was with my setup.

The skip feature works with about 15% or so of those pre-recorded shows with the green skip icon under the recordings section. The green skip icon also appears when I start watching the show. Yet most of the time, it doesn't work. Why it works sometimes though, tells me that it's not indigenous to me. 

My software is up to date.

A call to TiVo support yielded some info. The CSR actually checked this board for info! They say there's a thread in the Bolt section about it, though I couldn't find it. Support's response was that the networks are lagging behind and have not properly marked the commercials. 

Does anyone else have this problem? I am not exaggerating when I say it only works with about 15% of the shows it's theoretically supposed to work with.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Last few weeks it's been working 100% for all shows it's expected to work on for me. Seemed to improve with 20.5.9 software update for me.


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## JohnS-MI (Jan 25, 2014)

If (Skip Icon) Works perfectly, at least for me.

Still a fair number of prime time shows on the Big Four OTA missing the skip icon


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

Sometimes show won't get the skip icon when they should, but if the icon is there, it works perfectly. I think that is the general consensus on the board. Yours may be the first post I've seen saying it usually doesn't work.

Worked perfect for me with 20.5.6, and now with 20.5.9, which I just got a couple days ago.


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## andyw715 (Jul 31, 2007)

Doesn't work as is "doesn't show the icon and ding at commercial break" or "pressing D doesn't do anything"?

Sometimes I don't see the notification or hear the ding, but the D button still works.


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## tatergator1 (Mar 27, 2008)

andyw715 said:


> Doesn't work as is "doesn't show the icon and ding at commercial break" or "pressing D doesn't do anything"?
> 
> Sometimes I don't see the notification or hear the ding, but the D button still works.


Yeah, this is the only issue I have encountered as well. Occasionaly, the "ding" and on-screen prompts are missing for a Skip tagged show, but that's it.

Skip is highly dependent upon Closed Captioning. I would recommend watching the Closed Captions for shows you're having trouble with. If they looked jumbled or glitched, that is likely why you're having so much trouble. In that case, you need to contact your Cable provider and complain. This is a serious compliance issue with Federal regulations and they will fall over themselves to fix it quickly.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

gsusser said:


> Frustrating. I didn't see anything in this forum about it, at least recently, so I thought the problem was with my setup.
> 
> The skip feature works with about 15% or so of those pre-recorded shows with the green skip icon under the recordings section. The green skip icon also appears when I start watching the show. Yet most of the time, it doesn't work. Why it works sometimes though, tells me that it's not indigenous to me.
> 
> Does anyone else have this problem? I am not exaggerating when I say it only works with about 15% of the shows it's theoretically supposed to work with.


I've never seen it not work and we have SkipMode on 98% of the shows that we watch.

What happens when you see the SkipMode prompt and hit the Channel Up button?

Scott


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I have a few shows that show the icon but when I press D it does nothing. I posted a thread here about it a while ago. No one else corroborated, and I haven't seen it since, so I assumed it was a couple of bad recordings or something.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

gsusser said:


> A call to TiVo support yielded some info. The CSR actually checked this board for info! They say there's a thread in the Bolt section about it, though I couldn't find it. Support's response was that the networks are lagging behind and have not properly marked the commercials.
> 
> Does anyone else have this problem? I am not exaggerating when I say it only works with about 15% of the shows it's theoretically supposed to work with.


There is a thread here. It's a mixed experienced. There may be some geographic or server issues causing some programs to get SM, some to not. Let's just hope it's new and all the bugs are being worked on.


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## jth tv (Nov 15, 2014)

It has always worked here, if there is a skip icon, pressing the CH button works. Roamio Basic with an antenna


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

gsusser said:


> A call to TiVo support yielded some info. The CSR actually checked this board for info! They say there's a thread in the Bolt section about it, though I couldn't find it. Support's response was that the networks are lagging behind and have not properly marked the commercials.


Others have commented on your issue, so nothing to add there. But I wanted to make sure you were aware this answer you were given is total BS. Networks don't "mark" their commercials, TiVo does it for us, as part of the SM process. As far as they are concerned, networks don't even know TiVo does this, or has SkipMode.

Hard to believe someone would actually say that. I'm not doubting you, just saying of all the answers to give, making that up is far left field.


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## gsusser (Jul 10, 2011)

astrohip said:


> Hard to believe someone would actually say that. I'm not doubting you, just saying of all the answers to give, making that up is far left field.


Thanks for the comments, now I know it probably is with my setup. The tech got that answer from this board! She couldn't find anything in the TiVo notes so she resorted to going to this forum, or the Bolt forum to be specific, which I think is pretty funny. Why bother with TiVo, just come here!

In any event, I'm going to escalate this.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

If she continued searching here, she would've asked you if you were a Comcast customer and if your channels are switching to mpeg4 as skip does not appear to work with mpeg4.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

TonyD79 said:


> If she continued searching here, she would've asked you if you were a Comcast customer and if your channels are switching to mpeg4 as skip does not appear to work with mpeg4.


I believe with the MPEG4 issue you don't get the Skip indication on the show though.

Scott


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

HerronScott said:


> I believe with the MPEG4 issue you don't get the Skip indication on the show though. Scott


You may be right. That has been unclear in most of the conversation.


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## choco (Nov 3, 2000)

Dan203 said:


> I have a few shows that show the icon but when I press D it does nothing. I posted a thread here about it a while ago. No one else corroborated, and I haven't seen it since, so I assumed it was a couple of bad recordings or something.


This happens to me occasionally, but I'm not sure if it's exactly the same situation as yours. What happens to me is that I play a show which has the skip icon next to it, but when the show first plays, it doesn't show the skip info message above the progress bar. At that point, I know that skip won't work. But if I go back to the show list and immediately play the show again, it will somehow load the skip data correctly the 2nd time, give me the skip info message above the progress bar, and then skip will work.


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## Chevelleman (Feb 28, 2016)

TonyD79 said:


> You may be right. That has been unclear in most of the conversation.


They both don't work with MPEG-4. Skip mode and the prompt to skip does not show up.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

choco said:


> This happens to me occasionally, but I'm not sure if it's exactly the same situation as yours. What happens to me is that I play a show which has the skip icon next to it, but when the show first plays, it doesn't show the skip info message above the progress bar. At that point, I know that skip won't work. But if I go back to the show list and immediately play the show again, it will somehow load the skip data correctly the 2nd time, give me the skip info message above the progress bar, and then skip will work.


No I still have these recordings. (couple software versions now) They show the Skip banner when the show starts but pressing D does nothing. This happend on 3 shows from different networks on different nights, but the same week.


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## gsusser (Jul 10, 2011)

My situation seems to be unique, at least to the extent skip doesn't work. 

I do get the skip icon next to the show. I also sometimes get it when the show starts playing, not always. However, I don't get it when there's a commercial break along with the ping sound that plays - except for those times that it works.

I have Verizon FIOS, not Comcast and know nothing about MPEG-4. 

I find it one of the best features TiVo has come up with in a long time and will pursue it further with them.


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## opus472 (Jul 4, 2007)

I've seen Skip work a couple times on programs that had no Skip icon. Guess there's nothing to lose by hitting D to give it a shot...


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

gsusser said:


> My situation seems to be unique, at least to the extent skip doesn't work.
> 
> I do get the skip icon next to the show. I also sometimes get it when the show starts playing, not always. However, I don't get it when there's a commercial break along with the ping sound that plays - except for those times that it works.
> 
> ...


Just FYI you don't have to wait for the ding for skip mode to work. You can press D at any point and it will skip to the start of the next show segment.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Just FYI you don't have to wait for the ding for skip mode to work. You can press D at any point and it will skip to the start of the next show segment.


This is handy when the intro segment has played, and segued into the credits. The SkipMode ding doesn't sound & appear until the credits are finished showing. But if it's a show that always breaks for commercials after the credits (like every CBS show), you can press "D" as soon as the credits start... bam, jump right back to the show, skip the credits. :up:


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

astrohip said:


> This is handy when the intro segment has played, and segued into the credits. The SkipMode ding doesn't sound & appear until the credits are finished showing. But if it's a show that always breaks for commercials after the credits (like every CBS show), you can press "D" as soon as the credits start... bam, jump right back to the show, skip the credits. :up:


Yeah, but you have to be careful here; if the intro directly followed by resuming the show, hitting *D* will skip a whole segment of the episode. IMO it's better at the intro segment to hit skip once, then hit *D* if you're in commercial, skip reverse if you're in the show.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

ej42137 said:


> Yeah, but you have to be careful here; if the intro directly followed by resuming the show, hitting *D* will skip a whole segment of the episode. IMO it's better at the intro segment to hit skip once, then hit *D* if you're in commercial, skip reverse if you're in the show.


That's why I carefully stated...


astrohip said:


> But if it's a show that always breaks for commercials after the credits


Some shows do this, and never vary. Ever. Some don't. Watch enough TV, and sadly you know which are which.


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## Old Hickory (Jan 13, 2011)

Chevelleman said:


> They both don't work with MPEG-4. Skip mode and the prompt to skip does not show up.


Okay, what is this, MPEG-4? Examples, please.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

Dan203 said:


> No I still have these recordings. (couple software versions now) They show the Skip banner when the show starts but pressing D does nothing. This happend on 3 shows from different networks on different nights, but the same week.


How did you initiate play? My Roamio (4-tuner, 20.5.9.RC15, used for OTA) recently showed the Skip icon for some show (don't remember which), but when I pressed Play, SkipMode didn't work. So I backed out and tried entering the episode's menu and selecting one of the play options there, and then SkipMode worked. I may have seen this mentioned before.

Rereading this, you did say "Skip banner". My show had the Skip _icon_, but I believe it showed the banner message ("Skip available. Press D or ...") only when playing via the menu (where SkipMode worked).


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

gsusser said:


> My situation seems to be unique, at least to the extent skip doesn't work.
> 
> I do get the skip icon next to the show. I also sometimes get it when the show starts playing, not always. However, I don't get it when there's a commercial break along with the ping sound that plays - except for those times that it works.
> 
> ...


Are you initiating the program from the TiVo app or from the TiVo itself? I believe SkipMode isn't available when started from the app.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Just curious. What is the ping noise I see posted? I've never heard any noise on a program with SM. The messages, yes, but silence. Is it like the sound effects, only without DD?


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

You have to go to the audio settings and make sure TiVo sound effects volume is set at least to low to hear it. Every time you hear it an angel gets it's wings.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

series5orpremier said:


> You have to go to the audio settings and make sure TiVo sound effects volume is set at least to low to hear it. Every time you hear it an angel gets it's wings.


It is set to low. I can hear the noise when in System Info, etc. I have been looking for the chime, but I don't hear it. Maybe it's my Roamio?

I thought I was supposed to have a drink when the bell rang.


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

rainwater said:


> Are you initiating the program from the TiVo app or from the TiVo itself? I believe SkipMode isn't available when started from the app.


Yeah, just tried that. (Although I use the app extensively, I rarely start a program using the app). Trying to wrap my head around why it doesn't work.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

JoeKustra said:


> It is set to low. I can hear the noise when in System Info, etc. I have been looking for the chime, but I don't hear it. Maybe it's my Roamio? I thought I was supposed to have a drink when the bell rang.


Are you using Dolby for your sound? You won't hear the chime.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

TonyD79 said:


> Are you using Dolby for your sound? You won't hear the chime.


Thanks. That's what I thought. But the number of posts that reference the chime, there must be quite a few using PCM.


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

My default is Dolby also. Turn Quickmode on and/or off during a commercial and you'll hear it.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

series5orpremier said:


> My default is Dolby also. Turn Quickmode on and/or off during a commercial and you'll hear it.


Cool, now I hear it. Still nothing with SM though.


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## ohboy710 (Jun 30, 2008)

Skip works great for me, but is there anyway to take advantage of it on the Ipad App? Right now I still only see the 30 second skip button when watching shows.


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