# Series 3 freezes, slows and the reboots



## brian1269 (Jul 24, 2003)

I first noticed this a week or so ago. My Series 3 (with two cable cards) started getting extremely sluggish. Any kind of remote action, moving between menus, building lists, fast-forward/rewind, etc. was not responding like it should. Then after a while the controls on the remote will stop working all together and the TiVo will reboot. It did this tonight during Lost and that was the last straw. Also sometimes I will turn on my TV and the screen will be black and then, after a few minutes, the TiVo reboots.
I noticed other people in the forum were having issues with video freeze, claiming it was due to a recent update. I'm not sure if my problem is related or not because I haven't seen others mention auto restarts. Is anyone else having issues like this? After having numerous cable card issues in the initial setup, my Series 3 has been working great for more than a year now until this started recently.


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## JustAllie (Jan 5, 2002)

Same thing is happening to me.


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

You are going have to take a side. Probably a hard drive issue (which is self repairable), or a software problem.

Lots of threads on this debate

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6254412#post6254412


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## brian1269 (Jul 24, 2003)

greg_burns said:


> You are going have to take a side. Probably a hard drive issue (which is self repairable), or a software problem.
> 
> Lots of threads on this debate
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6254412#post6254412


I don't think it's a hard drive issue. The unit has been working fine until a few weeks ago, right around the time 9.3 was released I think. I talked to tivo tech support, they said to try a few things. One of which was to see if it does the auto restarts with the coax cable unplugged. I did that and watched recorded programs for a few hours and the problems seemed to stop. I plugged the cable back in and immediately the freezing and auto rebooting started again. So now I don't know what to do.


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

There seems to be couple of issues out there, so I am not going to take a side myself.

But I've heard lots of people talk about unplugging the coax stops the reboots. But why does that eliminate a hard drive issue and make it software? Seems to me, if there weren't any input it would not be trying to record to the disk at all...

This thread has gotten TivoStephen's attention. But is it the same problem as yours?

That problem seems to be picture freezes but audio continues.


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## brian1269 (Jul 24, 2003)

greg_burns said:


> There seems to be couple of issues out there, so I am not going to take a side myself.
> 
> But I've heard lots of people talk about unplugging the coax stops the reboots. But why does that eliminate a hard drive issue and make it software? Seems to me, if there weren't any input it would not be trying to record to the disk at all...
> 
> ...


You're right, it doesn't eliminate a hard drive issue. It just makes me more suspect of the recent software update. Of course I already suspected that when I came on here and saw many people started having problems after 9.3.

My next step will be to unmarry the drive and then plug the coax back in and let it use just the drive in the unit to see if the reboots still happen. I have to finish watching about 10 hours of recorded programs first though. lol

Thanks for that thread, Greg. I might try what TiVoStephen suggests also, although it looks like most of those problems are on TiVo HDs and I don't see any mention of auto reboots.


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## TiVolunteer (Jul 10, 2001)

Same thing happening to me here as well -- extremely slow (so slow you can see frame by frame movement on the background videos of the menus) then lock up and auto reboot. Then the cycle starts again. Just started this three days ago -- I was traveling but saw it via slingbox but couldn't get home to debug.

Only seeing it on one of my three S3's -- it is a "stock" s3 with no external drives or modifications. The only way I've found to break the reboot cycle is to pull the plug. It then stablizes for a few hours and seems perfectly fine. Then it starts up again with the cycle.


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## EVizzle (Feb 13, 2005)

I had a weird but fairly similar issue with my S3. One recording became very pixelated and the audio kept dropping out. After ten minutes or so of it getting worse, my Tivo rebooted. I deleted the show and have had no issues at all since.

My guess is that the HDD is going bad, so I transferred my most important shows. No problems since, knock on wood.


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## wkirke (May 13, 2002)

Could be related to this?

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=393376


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## brian1269 (Jul 24, 2003)

OK after a few days of testing various things, I have narrowed it down to either the software or the original TiVo hardware.

First thing I did was unplug the cable. With no signal coming into the box, everything immediately starts to work fine. I can watch recorded programs no problem, all controls are responsive.

The next thing I did was plug the cable back in and divorce my external hard drive. After it was done removing the drive, and with cable signal connected, it was worse than ever. Nothing worked, it would freeze up almost immediately.

I then unplugged the cable again and rebooted. It returned to normal working order.

Next I removed the cable cards, plugged the cable back in and started it back up. No luck again, it freezes up almost immediately.

Lastly I unplugged the cable, rebooted with no coax or cable cards, and everything works again.

I think I have eliminated everything but the software update or the original hardware just going bad. I guess my only step left is getting a replacement box.

I still think it was the recent 9.3 update since that's when all these problems started.


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

brian1269 said:


> I think I have eliminated everything but the software update or the original hardware just going bad. I guess my only step left is getting a replacement box.


Why don't you test the drive using a Western Digital or Hitachi diagnostic boot disc in your PC?

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6269055#post6269055
This user discovered his drive would pass the read tests, but failed only during the Write Zeros test. That one is harder to perform, because you have to reimage after running it.


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## billyjoebob99 (Jan 13, 2007)

brian1269 said:


> OK after a few days of testing various things, I have narrowed it down to either the software or the original TiVo hardware.


It sounds like the internal hard drive is having problems writing. It would explain why removing the external made it worse. With the external gone every write had to go on the internal. When you disconnect the coax all writing stops and everything is fine.

I had a similiar problem with my external drive. Everything recorded before the problem could be watched but watching or recording new stuff was hit and miss. When I divorced the external and tested it showed multiple write errors. Got a replacement drive from Seagate and it's been fine ever since.


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## brian1269 (Jul 24, 2003)

greg_burns said:


> Why don't you test the drive using a Western Digital or Hitachi diagnostic boot disc in your PC?


You mean test the internal drive right? If it was the external drive that was bad, then the unit should have worked when I divorced it.

To test the internal drive wouldn't I have to open up the unit and take it out, voiding the warranty? And to replace the internal drive would cost more than the $50 to have them send a new unit anyway.

If the internal drive is bad, and according to them it is, then I will just let TiVo take care of it. In fact I just called them a whiole ago, explained all the things I did and started an exchange. They said it is a known hardware issue.


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## brian1269 (Jul 24, 2003)

billyjoebob99 said:


> It sounds like the internal hard drive is having problems writing. It would explain why removing the external made it worse. With the external gone every write had to go on the internal. When you disconnect the coax all writing stops and everything is fine.


I think you are right. That would make sense. The last thing I tried to do was copy a video over the network and that also caused the unit to freeze up.


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## madneon (Jun 17, 2007)

My vote is in the HD same symptoms ( On 3 different S3 tivos) swapped out the WD to a Segate DVR drive and all is well...


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

brian1269 said:


> You mean test the internal drive right? If it was the external drive that was bad, then the unit should have worked when I divorced it.
> 
> To test the internal drive wouldn't I have to open up the unit and take it out, voiding the warranty? And to replace the internal drive would cost more than the $50 to have them send a new unit anyway.
> 
> If the internal drive is bad, and according to them it is, then I will just let TiVo take care of it. In fact I just called them a whiole ago, explained all the things I did and started an exchange.


Yes, the internal.

Void the warranty? Yeah, technically. Would they know? Nope.

If your still in a warranty period, yeah I guess you could/should send it back if for no other reason then to get a good backup 250GB drive. 

But for as little as $100 you could double your disc space with a new drive. And avoid the hassel, possibly keeps all your settings and recordings.

Finally, because we all want to know! 



brian1269 said:


> They said it is a known hardware issue.


How could they know if *your *drive is bad? That sounds like they are implying there is a know problem with a batch of drives in Tivos out there. Of course, one should never trust a CSR.


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## brian1269 (Jul 24, 2003)

greg_burns said:


> Yes, the internal.
> 
> Void the warranty? Yeah, technically. Would they know? Nope.
> 
> ...


Yeah, if it had happened in like two more weeks I would be outside the $49 replacement window and then maybe I would have tried to do something myself. I don't know a whole lot about getting the TiVo software on a new hard drive though.



> Finally, because we all want to know!
> 
> How could they know if *your *drive is bad? That sounds like they are implying there is a know problem with a batch of drives in Tivos out there. Of course, one should never trust a CSR.


Yeah I think that is exactly what they are implying. They know the symptoms and know that it's probably the hard drive that is failing. It's not impossible that a hard drive with constant use can fail after one year, but I guarantee the MTBF rating is a hell of a lot longer than that!


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

brian1269 said:


> Also sometimes I will turn on my TV and the screen will be black and then, after a few minutes, the TiVo reboots.


If you're using HDMI, this is the thread:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=369334

I tried HDMI again with 9.3a and had no problem for about a week. After another reboot, I went back to component.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

brian1269 said:


> I guarantee the MTBF rating is a hell of a lot longer than that!


MTBF is not meaningful for individual drives.


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## lupes (Feb 7, 2007)

I had the exact same symptoms as stated by the OP. Tivo wanted me to send it back for a refurb. Having replaced several S1 drives in the past I wanted to try a new drive first; others had mentioned success with this route.

Changed out my old drive with a new 320GB WD and it is working great. I will be testing the old drive tonight to see if the WD tools can find any errors.

Swapping a drive is very easy using MFSlive cd (I prefer to backup and restore via file as I can burn this to a DVD and always have a backup image handy incase of drive failure) and if it doesn't work, well everyone can always use more hard drive space...

If you are bored, you can read my saga here:
long winded story of my tivo trouble and eventual fix


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## ljiminez (Jun 23, 2007)

If I unplug the cable my Tivo S3 breaks down as indicated in this thread. However, while that cable is disconnected, my weekly Cnet internet recording is unaffected. I can playback new Cnet recordings without lockups. That tells me that the problem is not a hard drive that cannot be written to.


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## krille (Nov 24, 2002)

They indicate that it is a "hardware issue" but provide no further info.

The only remedy is apparently to swap the unit out for a refurb. If your unit is out of warranty, they will charge you according to their sliding scale based on how far out of warranty the unit is. If you object, they will immediately offer to reduce the amount.

From various postings, I get the sense that this issue may affect only S3 Tivo's from the earliest batch (perhaps whatever hardware component it is that causes the problem has since been replaced with one from another supplier).

The S3 I have that exhibits this defect was purchased right when the S3's were first release.

I'd be curious to hear from others experiencing this issue, to find out if they are also seeing it with units from the early days of the S3.


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## Scopeman (Oct 22, 2002)

krille said:


> The only remedy is apparently to swap the unit out for a refurb. If your unit is out of warranty, they will charge you according to their sliding scale based on how far out of warranty the unit is. If you object, they will immediately offer to reduce the amount.


If you are sufficiently persistent about it they will provide the refurb hardware at no charge, and ship it for free.

Tivo is very aware that this is an issue caused by the 9.3 update, and they are not in a position to insist that their customers pay money for refurb hardware to fix an error caused by a download they pushed out to begin with.

They are trying to define this as a hardware issue because they have less of a legal duty to you regarding hardware support. If they admit this is a software issue (related to the 9.3 update) then they have to own all the costs of the fix, because the update is provided under a current contract (monthly subscription). They are obliged to help with software issues as long as you are a subscriber in good standing.

Keep escalating this issue until you get to a level of management that will act to fix your issue without you being out of pocket. ANd make sure that you are *not* being charged a monthly fee while they work to unwind the damage they have caused.


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## brian1269 (Jul 24, 2003)

OK well I got my refurb on Friday and it seems to be working properly now, although I haven't installed CCs yet.

It seems to be slower than my old unit though. It shows black screen for about 1/2 second, then flashes a green screen, then back to black for 1 second anytime I go from the TiVo menu to live TV or start to play a program. Very annoying, my original unit never did that.

Unfortunately, I guess I didn't know enough to talk customer service into sending it for free, instead of the $49. Also, the guy that did the exchange charged my credit card three times for the $800+ charge for cross shipping, which is still not worked out yet. I think I will call them after it all gets straightened out and try and get some kind of credit.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Scopeman said:


> If they admit this is a software issue (related to the 9.3 update) then they have to own all the costs of the fix,


Since this only affects some units and a subset of those unit are fixed by copying the exact same software to a new drive how can this be solely a software issue?


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## Scopeman (Oct 22, 2002)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Since this only affects some units and a subset of those unit are fixed by copying the exact same software to a new drive how can this be solely a software issue?


Previous software versions (prior to 9.3) were coded in a way that either compensated for, or did not interact with, the anomolous hardware on these limited number of systems.

For example: if there has previously been some code in the software stack that overcame a rare type write/read errors, and that code was removed to streamline the code base in 9.3, then the problem is a software issue even though the trigger may be hardware.

The key point is that the events did not occur until the release of the 9.3 code. And I am not referring to the *public* release of the 9.3 code - these events began when the 9.3 code was released initially, and the number of Tivo customers impacted grew substantially when the code was finally publically released as an update. I am absoutely sure that these issues were logged when this code was still pre-release.

Those with security access to the right test programs would be able to find more info at:
https://fieldtrials.tivo.com/login.html


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

krille said:


> From various postings, I get the sense that this issue may affect only S3 Tivo's from the earliest batch (perhaps whatever hardware component it is that causes the problem has since been replaced with one from another supplier).
> 
> The S3 I have that exhibits this defect was purchased right when the S3's were first release.
> 
> I'd be curious to hear from others experiencing this issue, to find out if they are also seeing it with units from the early days of the S3.


One data point...

My S3 was manufactured 17-Sep-2006 and does not exhibit any defect.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

c3 said:


> If you're using HDMI, this is the thread:
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=369334
> 
> I tried HDMI again with 9.3a and had no problem for about a week. After another reboot, I went back to component.


I'm using 20 components now with HDMI(my htpc is actually DVI)
But it would be very difficult for me to go back to component and have to deal with 3 video cables and one audio cable.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Scopeman said:


> Previous software versions (prior to 9.3) were coded in a way that either compensated for, or did not interact with, the anomolous hardware on these limited number of systems.


I do not dispute that the 9.3 update was the catalyst that started your problem and that it is a significant problem as it renders the TiVo fairly useless for its specific purpose.
The TiVo is a closed hardware system that does specific dedicated tasks. Your statement above simply does not reflect how TiVo works. It also does not explain why a hard drive replacement that copied the exact same software onto it would fix things for some.

I just would not be expecting that it was only a software code issue. The update of the OS does many things - two significant events are the switching to the second boot partition to use the new update and reindexing the data that the TiVo stores from guide data and recordedshows etc. A glitch in any of that could well cuase resources like memory to fill up and then the freeze. Also just the transmission of the OS update might result in a glitch in a file that corrupts it - no matter the health of the hard drive. The reboots might finally send some weak component over the edge.

So a patch might even fix any of the above simply because it redoes something that might have broken the first time.

basically These updates will have gremlins that lurk in several dark places and any of the TiVo units sent back are likely examined and catalouged as to any specific defects found. Then the fun of analyzing that for some pattern that can be accounted for or fixed in the field begins.


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## lotusbob (May 24, 2008)

My S3 Tivo has been doing the same things. Tivo sent me a new one and it also does the same freeze up.

I should have know that there was a software issue when the very first thing that the Tivo support tech told me to do was to unplug the cable. They have confirmed that the latest update 9.03whatever is the problem and they do not have a remedy at this time.

They are going to credit my account for the loss of servcie. I suggest that everyone with this problem call Tivo support. Let them know how widespread this problem is. Ask for a credit for your loss of service.

This is the only way that I can think of to light the fire under their engineers to fix this problem.


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## steinercat (Nov 16, 2007)

oh man....atfer my problems with 9.3a! now this!

I'm getting it now also....the THD just blanks out and reboots itself for no apparent reason. 

EDIT:

Hmm, although I notice it's more prone to happen if I toggle menus or change channels quickly.


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## Ilene (Dec 26, 2001)

Not sure if this is the same problem that the OP was seeking help with, but let me list my conditions specifically and I am hoping that it will help keep this post on track without other tangents -i.e. no HDTiVos. 

1) S3 TiVo - purchased from TiVo directly from the first batch released.
2) 2 Motorola cable cards (Verizon Fios) 
3) eSATA drive added via kickstart 62 (Antec MX1. Seagate HD, Sig cable)
4) Periodic green screens - but always seemed to function correctly afterwards. 

Problem started around 5/18. TiVo started rebooting and freezing on TiVo Central. Remote or pressing the buttons on the front of the TiVo would not allow you to make any selections which means you can't make any menu selections. After some time, the TiVo would reboot automatically. Sometimes the text would appear on TiVo Central, sometimes it would not. 

I have about 60 hours of TV recorded that I really want to be able to watch. Season finales as well as series finales. 

Based on this thread - I call TiVo to see if they had any suggestions. The CSR did say that there were a number of things that it could be (including hard-drive failure). He said that they were having issues on some S3s with the coax connector. He was also very willing to send me a new S3. So before I sent back my TiVo and lost everything by divorcing the external drive, I decided to begin disconnecting one by one with the external being my last resort. 

First I disconnected the HDMI (I also have Component run via an amplifier). 
Watching on the Component input, that didn't seem to help.

Then I disconnected the Coax - and now I can watch my recorded TV. 

Not sure if this is a solution or luck at this point, but I am going to watch everything I possible can - use TiVo to Go to copy over as much as I can while it is working. 

I will also have to watch Live TV on my via the TV not the TiVo.

Once I have watched everything I care about, I will send my TiVo back and hopefully get one the works.


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## Phasers (May 29, 2008)

This happened to me. I didn't want to lose my recordings so after extensive research I downloaded the winmfs live boot cd. And attached the old tivo drive + the new drive [750GB ] to my computer and booted from the CD.

I ran dd_resue and copied the old drive to the new drive. I had 124k (Yes, only 124 friggin k) of bad files on the old drive.

Anyways after I copied the drive over, I put the new drive in the tivo. After I ensured it was working, I put it back in the computer, booted up with the bootcd, then ran mfsadd.

Anyways, long story short, I guess it *was the hard drive* that was causing all the problems, as now I have a new HD, *no freezing or rebooing*, and 98 hours of HD recording capacity.

----------------
edit: for those that are having issues, I only have a single drive in my tivo so here are the commands i used.

I first downloaded the mfslive bootcd. link here

then I burned to a CD and turned off computer.

I attached both the old tivo drive and the new tivo drive (via sata) before restarting the computer booting directly from the CD.

chose option 1 for mfslive with graphics. after a moment it took me to a command prompt.

first thing I typed was *cat /proc/partitions* (this then displayed all the hard drives attached to the computer (sda, sdb, sdc, sdd))

By looking at the sizes I could tell which was my windows drive (not needed I could have unplugged it), which was my old tivo series 3(something like 244xxxxxx) and my new drive (750GB, so like 7xxxxxxxx).

In *my case* my old drive was *sdb* and my new drive was *sdc*.

So after verifying which drive was which (IMPORTANT- you don't want to erase the wrong drive) I ran the following command to copy (*case sensitive)*.

*dd_rescue -B 1b -b 2M -A -v /dev/sdb /dev/sdc* (again- sd*b* was first because that (in my case) was the old tivo drive and sd*c* was next because that was my new tivo drive.)

After it finished (about an hour or so to copy the entire drive byte for byte) put it in into the tivo (important part if you are expanding capacity- you MUST put it into the tivo first). After it successfully booted, I took it back out of the tivo and booted from the CD again.

This time, at the command prompt (I had everything plugged in the same location- i.e. sda, sdb, sdc were all the same) I ran the following command to expand my recoridng capacity:

*mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/sdc* (remember my new tivo drive was in the 'c' location)

This took a whole 3 seconds and told me I had gained 599 SD hours of recording capacity.

So I plugged the NEW drive back into the tivo unit and voila- all my recordings, season passes, settings, etc. carried over. no need to reconfigure cable cards at all. and of course, triple recording capacity.

that's all you need to do. Pretty easy. Aside from the waiting on processes, took about 15 minutes total of my time.

Note: The 'mfsadd' above only works if you are replacing *One* tivo drive with *one* tivo drive. You can't merge two drives into one using this command.


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## AKJayhawk (Dec 11, 2006)

Ilene said:


> Problem started around 5/18. TiVo started rebooting and freezing on TiVo Central. Remote or pressing the buttons on the front of the TiVo would not allow you to make any selections which means you can't make any menu selections. After some time, the TiVo would reboot automatically. Sometimes the text would appear on TiVo Central, sometimes it would not.
> 
> Based on this thread - I call TiVo to see if they had any suggestions. The CSR did say that there were a number of things that it could be (including hard-drive failure). He said that they were having issues on some S3s with the coax connector. He was also very willing to send me a new S3. So before I sent back my TiVo and lost everything by divorcing the external drive, I decided to begin disconnecting one by one with the external being my last resort.
> 
> Then I disconnected the Coax - and now I can watch my recorded TV.


Ilene,

Fascinating -- we have the exact same problem with our S3, and it started on the same day. Pulling the coax from the back gave us the same result -- allowed the unit to reboot and we could at least watch what we had recorded.

You got more out of the TiVo CSR rep than I did -- all I got was "it's hardware" and the unit has to be replaced. Since my unit was over a year old (Jan '07) I now get to sink another $200 into a replacement ($149 + return shipping for my box).

While I'm sorry you have the issue, it does help me to see someone else having an identical issue. My big concern was spending the money to replace the unit and then discover it was a CableCard issue or something unrelated to the unit...

Thanks
Jeff


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## krille (Nov 24, 2002)

AKJayhawk said:


> Since my unit was over a year old (Jan '07) I now get to sink another $200 into a replacement ($149 + return shipping for my box).


I was in the same situation and after a small amount of grumbling the price was reduced from $149 to $79. Others in this forum report that if you protest further, you can get the replacement at no charge.


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## Duke (May 6, 2000)

....You got more out of the TiVo CSR rep than I did -- all I got was "it's hardware" and the unit has to be replaced.....

The burning question, if it truly is hardware related, is whether it's the WD harddrives giving up the ghost, or a motherboard issue.....I just wish TiVo was more forthcoming with that information. 

Duke


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## JustAllie (Jan 5, 2002)

I finally called TiVo support about two weeks ago about my problem and they have somebody researching the issue. Still no resolution of my case as of two days ago. 

We will see what they say after another week. I'm not sure what to expect at this point. I really don't want to spend $$$ on a new hard drive or a new TiVo. But I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for that outcome.


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## moonscape (Jul 3, 2004)

i have several lifetimed series 2 tivos and because of the restoration of lifetime, took the plunge and got a series 3 from amazon. it's en route.

all this talk of freezing and rebooting isn't reassuring. i see the tivo HD seems to have more problems than the series 3 and am hoping (against hope?) that the series 3 troubles are more isolated. 

right now i'm thinking i should just refuse delivery! i'll definitely delay ordering the 1T replacement drive...


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

If the problem can be temporarily fixed by removing the coax cable, then the cause cannot be the hard drive. Fortunately, other than HDMI, both of my S3s are working fine.

EDIT: Never mind. See below.


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## Roderigo (Mar 12, 2002)

c3 said:


> If the problem can be temporarily fixed by removing the coax cable, then the cause cannot be the hard drive. Fortunately, other than HDMI, both of my S3s are working fine.


What logic are you using to come to this conclusion?


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## AKJayhawk (Dec 11, 2006)

krille said:


> I was in the same situation and after a small amount of grumbling the price was reduced from $149 to $79. Others in this forum report that if you protest further, you can get the replacement at no charge.


Guess I should have elevated the grumbling -- there was no haggling. I'm waiting to get the replacement unit and see what happens. If there's further issues then I might call back and start working up the chain to see about getting a reduction in the price.

Or, I might just fax a letter to corporate HQ outlining my disappointment with TiVo in reasonable terms. I've had moderate successes doing that with other companies...

Thanks
Jeff


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

Roderigo said:


> What logic are you using to come to this conclusion?


Huh? Are you saying they're related, or something else? I think people are reporting solutions to different problems in this thread.

EDIT: Never mind. See below.


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## billyjoebob99 (Jan 13, 2007)

c3 said:


> Huh? Are you saying they're related, or something else? I think people are reporting solutions to different problems in this thread.


When you remove the coax the TiVo stops recording and stops writing to the hard drive. So yes, removing the coax can help when you are having a hard drive issue. Not to say it is definitely the hard drive but a hard drive writing issue could be part of the problem.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

billyjoebob99 said:


> When you remove the coax the TiVo stops recording and stops writing to the hard drive. So yes, removing the coax can help when you are having a hard drive issue. Not to say it is definitely the hard drive but a hard drive writing issue could be part of the problem.


I understand that (coax and writing), but TiVo writes and reads the drive all the time, not just when you try to watch a program. This kind of hard drive problem should cause problems with the recordings as well.

EDIT: Never mind. See #46. I didn't realize the problem is that bad.


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## Ilene (Dec 26, 2001)

Since I still have hours of last seasons shows to watch and do not want to risk losing the ability to watch them - many are shows that I enjoyed, but were cancelled by the networks - I have not done anymore experiments like reattaching the coax. 

Has anyone tried to rehook after getting to the live TV screen? 

The CSR did indicate that they have documented some problems with the coax connector. I have no way of diagnosing if this is the issue or the hard drive. I am not interested in attaching my TiVo to my computer and running any software fix. I will send my TiVo back to it's home and exchange when I am ready. 

I cannot retrain myself to watch live TV. I keep forgetting I can't pause or rewind. Luckily I have another S2 in the bedroom, so if I can stay awake - I can watch the few things we are recording right now (So, You Think You Can Dance).


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## AKJayhawk (Dec 11, 2006)

Ilene said:


> Has anyone tried to rehook after getting to the live TV screen?


I did -- it immediately froze and went back into endless reboots.

Thanks
Jeff


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## Ilene (Dec 26, 2001)

Since Jeff answered the question about what happens when you hook the coax back up, I decided to see what would happen if I MRV. I am currently wirelessly transferring tonight's So You Think You Can Dance from my S2 TiVo to my S3. Seems to be working (I have watched some of it). 

Not sure if it explains anything, but it seems to me that something is causing the coax connection to be hosing up the S3. I wonder how many of us are having this problem. Is it 9.3? Is it dependent on when we got our S3s? Can we eliminate the hard drive failure? 

Would be nice if TiVoPony would PM me.


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## AKJayhawk (Dec 11, 2006)

According to the CSR, my S3 received the 9.3 update about Apr 25-ish -- I don't remember the exact date, but it was last week of Apr. Then the unit started the freezing/reboot problem on May 18th.

I really don't know if I would have cause to blame the software update or not. If it's to blame, why did it work for over 2 weeks before crumping? If it's not to blame, the timing does seem rather close, and seems that a fair number of folks are complaining of similar issues, and all about the time of 9.3 update.

Of course, TiVo won't say either way -- from my perspective "troubleshooting" was rather limited and then the response was "credit card please" to pay for a new (refurb) unit. Which I still haven't received.

Thanks
Jeff


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## Ilene (Dec 26, 2001)

I find it hard to believe that there are only 3 or 4 of us with this issue. If 9.3 is causing this problem, then there should be more people reporting. If it is truly a happenstance hard drive failure, then it is what it is.


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## valderost (Dec 9, 2005)

Same problems here as everybody else. My Series 3 worked fine from March 2007 until mid-late April 2008, when I started having freezing and reboots and such. I discovered that this problem happens fairly quickly if both tuners are tuned to HD channels (with or without CableCards). The replacement TiVo worked for about 2 weeks, then around Memorial Day it starting having this same problem. Unfortunately I hadn't paid attention to the software versions when there were no problems, but both units had problems with 9.3a.

If I were to guess, I'd say that it's a combination software and hardware issue. I think the software is pushing the disk drives to their spec'ed I/O bandwidth limits (seeks+rotational latency, not data bus), perhaps a little past. A marginal drive can't keep up, the write buffers fill up, and then the system starts blocking on I/O waits. This would result in all the difficulties we're seeing and explain why some people have problems and some don't. If the software introduced any kind of change in how disk I/O happens, what's being read or written, or how it's being written, that could push a marginal drive past its limits. 

Possible solutions would be increasing buffer space, increased read-ahead and caching, and more efficient disk I/O scheduling that takes physical constraints into account. Using RAID 0 volume striping to spread I/O across disk drives ought to help too. Anybody know if the Series 3 has hardware RAID?


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## brswizz (Jun 7, 2008)

I just got back from a trip and my series 3 is doing the same thing as everyone else. I called Tivo and the rep told me it was a software issue. He said they are working to fix it but there is nothing wrong with the hardware. Weird that they now have a different story!


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## kirkfrey (Jul 26, 2002)

I just want my TiVo fixed


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## bubba1972 (Mar 28, 2005)

This is happening to me as well. I got back from a business trip to find the Tivo locked up with the 'Few minutes more' screen and the colors turned green. When I restarted, it would work for about a minute and then the backgrounds behind the menus would start stuttering and finally freeze up. It would then reboot a little while later. I can reboot with the cable and antenna pulled and get in and playback recorded shows just fine. I ran a kickstart 54 and got a Fail 7 message on the extended test. Everything else I read indicates the drive has a problem. Has anyone else run this test? I called Tivo support twice and after waiting 30 minutes each time to get to a level one person I got hung up on while being transferred to a level two person. I am probably going to order a new drive from Weaknees. I just wish I knew exactly what the problem was before spending the money on a replacement.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

moonscape said:


> all this talk of freezing and rebooting isn't reassuring. i see the tivo HD seems to have more problems than the series 3 and am hoping (against hope?) that the series 3 troubles are more isolated.


I have 2 S3s and a THD. I purchased the first S3 back in September 06. It had a serious heart attack about 4 months later, but both the replacement, the S3 purchased last June, and the THD purchased last December are working fine. Note only 1 (the replacement for the original S3) has a stock hard drive. Both S3s have external hard drives.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

bubba1972 said:


> I am probably going to order a new drive from Weaknees. I just wish I knew exactly what the problem was before spending the money on a replacement.


Replacing the existing drive with a bare drive really is not difficult. If you are at all unafraid of opening the TiVo, pulling the drive, and attaching it to a PC, then I recommend you get a bare drive, not one from Weaknees.

There is certainly nothing wrong with getting a TiVo drive from Weaknees, but in your case I think it might do you better to try the bare drive approach. The reason is, if this in fact is not an issue with a failing hard drive, then not only have you lost your programs and settings, but you also have spent a fair amount of extra money for a drive which you could have gotten much cheaper if it were bare, and the software for which you paid the extra money isn't going to do you any good. With the bare drive you can transfer all your stuff, including settings and recordings, to the new drive, and if it doesn't work, put the old drive back in and spend the money to have Tivo fix it for you. When you get the unit back, you can put the bare drive in a housing and use it as external expansion, or just replace the drive in the repaired unit with the expanded drive and have not only a larger drive but even save all your old recordings and settings.

There is an additional advantage. Getting a TiVo drive from Weaknees will take at least a couple of days. You can drive down to Best Buy later this morning, pick up a 500G drive for $129, a 750G drive for $200, or a 1TB drive for $240, and if it is a hard drive problem, be up and running after lunch. OTOH, if its is a bad TiVo, then at least you'll know it now and know you must go the repair route, rather than waiting an additional couple of days to find out.

I would check out the available drives at your local store against the list of known good drive / TiVo combinations in the SATA Drive Expansion thread before purchasing one. Also make sure you have the cables necessary to attach the SATA drive to your PC, and that the PC can handle a SATA drive. If not, you need to also pick up a SATA drive controller. I do not recommend using a USB - SATA adapter, especially if you intend to transfer the recordings.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

valderost said:


> If I were to guess, I'd say that it's a combination software and hardware issue. I think the software is pushing the disk drives to their spec'ed I/O bandwidth limits (seeks+rotational latency, not data bus), perhaps a little past.


Oh, not even close. Modern SATA drives can easily sustain much more than 100 Mbps simultaneous read / writes. The maximum required by writing two 1080i HD streams and reading another is 40Mbps + 20Mbps, and that is only burst. Most streams come in well under 18Mbps average.

I have a couple of servers here at my house, using off the shelf hard drives for their arrays, and they both can easily chunk a sustained 100Mbps per drive in and out. I once transferred more than 5 terrabytes in a day and a half. At that, the bottleneck is almost surely the network, not the drives.


valderost said:


> A marginal drive can't keep up


A marginal drive definitely can. A bad one definitely might not. The TiVo doesn't even come close to taxing a healthy SATA II drive.



valderost said:


> Anybody know if the Series 3 has hardware RAID?


No, it doesn't.


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## valderost (Dec 9, 2005)

Sustained I/O is what you get when you're operating on consecutive sectors. As soon as you've got a head that's bouncing across the disk while it reads and writes three data streams, you can't ignore seek times. I don't know what drive is inside my TiVo, but looking at the specs for Western Digital's VelociRaptor 300 MB drive, it offers 120 MB/s sustained buffer to disk. What's inside my 15-month old TiVo will certainly be slower. Looking beyond that number, the average latency is 5.5 ms. 91 seeks in a second will drop that 120 MB/S drive down to 60 MB/s. TiVo probably isn't doing 91 seeks in a second, but my drive probably doesn't have sustained data transfer rate of 120 MB/s either. Using your figure of 100 MB/s brings us to 60 seeks/second before running out of transfer rate, in a perfect world. That still sounds a bit high to me, but the point here is that far from way missing the mark, maximum drive performance is in the same ballpark as TiVo's demands. I still hold that a marginal drive will start having issues as TiVo's demands approach its limits.


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## Ilene (Dec 26, 2001)

Gentlemen,
I appreciate the suggestion of saving money by running down to my local big box store, but there are a couple of worrisome obstacles. 
1) If I open my TiVo and replace the drive - I void my warranty - that means $1000 down the drain as this is a lifetime box purchased almost the day the 
S3 was available. I had a lot of issues to get it working, so I know that TiVo is probably rewarding me for hanging in there while they got trained and Verizon got trained.
2) An even bigger issues is that I have an external eSata connected drive that is on the "approved list" using the case and the cable that has been suggested. If I disconnect and replace the drive - I lose all my recording and settings because I am required to divorce the external. 
3) And I guess the biggest obstacle is that I am not real crazy about opening up the box - if I wasn't such a chicken, I would have done that instead of hooking up the external drive to begin with. 

At this point, I really do not know if it is the external or the internal that is bad, or the more likely scenario is that the coax connector suddenly went bad either mechanical or with the 9.3 update.

Eitherway, I am trying to watch all my recordings before I send it back. I have other TiVos that I am currently using to watch the few things that are on right now - so at least this is happening during rerun season. Just need to be back in business before "The Closer" starts up again.


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## bizzy (Jan 20, 2004)

Ilene said:


> 1) If I open my TiVo and replace the drive - I void my warranty - that means $1000 down the drain as this is a lifetime box purchased almost the day the S3 was available. I had a lot of issues to get it working, so I know that TiVo is probably rewarding me for hanging in there while they got trained and Verizon got trained.


er; how long do you suppose your warranty period is?


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## Ilene (Dec 26, 2001)

I know how long my warranty is for, by the way - is bizzy for busy body? 

That said, unless you are experiencing the same issues or have an actual working solution to the issue - I would suggest that you hold your comments, just like I should have done in this response. It doesn't feel good to be publicly criticized, now does it?


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

valderost said:


> Using your figure of 100 MB/s


lrhorer was taking about 100 Mbps, not 100 MBps.


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## pl1 (Jan 18, 2007)

Ilene said:


> I find it hard to believe that there are only 3 or 4 of us with this issue. If 9.3 is causing this problem, then there should be more people reporting. If it is truly a happenstance hard drive failure, then it is what it is.


I am having similar problems. I have two S3's. The one WITH cableCARDs froze up, so I copied it to a new hard drive. A few days later, same thing, froze up. It does not require a reboot. A few skips forward and about 10 seconds later, the picture returns. This unit has two cableCARDs, but I have been using OTA for the local channels. It seems as though it is the OTA channels that are causing the problems, from what I can tell. It appears to be minor droputs and/or pixelation. The last freeze was during a FIOS commercial, of all things. 
Oddly enough, I feed both TiVo's with the same OTA signal and I do not have any of these issues with the unit that does not have cableCARDs. I'm not sure if any of this info is useful or helps anyone, but that seems to be the problem I'm having.


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## valderost (Dec 9, 2005)

c3 said:


> lrhorer was taking about 100 Mbps, not 100 MBps.


The mismatch is the result of my not having had enough coffee yet 

Say the drive is spec'ed to 100 MB/s, or 800 Mbps. At that rate a seek costs 4.4 Megabits. With (800-60)=740 Mbps headroom, that give us 168 seeks/sec allowance, which is easily within an order of magnitude of reality. In my book that's cause enough for serious performance benchmarking.

Inside my broken TiVo I hear a disk drive that's continuously seeking, slow enough for me to discern but way too fast to count. Is it 168/sec? Probably not. Is it 60/sec? I can't tell. 20? Definitely more. These are thin margins, and all it takes is inefficient I/O scheduling to back everything up. You cannot look at the drive specs alone, you've got to look at how the drive is being used.

I may be wrong. All I'm saying is that it's worth some serious investigation.


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## DougJohnson (Dec 12, 2006)

bubba1972 said:


> This is happening to me as well. I got back from a business trip to find the Tivo locked up with the 'Few minutes more' screen and the colors turned green. When I restarted, it would work for about a minute and then the backgrounds behind the menus would start stuttering and finally freeze up. It would then reboot a little while later.


This happened to me about four months ago. I ended up replacing the harddrive and the problems went away. I was able to use WinMFS to get my programs and the TiVo OS off the failing drive onto a new bare drive. Smooth as silk, but I don't have an external drive. -- Doug


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## AKJayhawk (Dec 11, 2006)

I think my situation has officially reached "saga" status.

Received the replacement S3 on Friday. Plugged it in and *tried* to get through guided setup. Never made it all the way through -- got as far as the screen where it tunes to Ch20 and asks "Is this QVC?" When I said yes, it would reboot and start over at the beginning of guided setup. Tried it about 5 times, and sometimes didn't even get that far before a reboot.

Called TiVo on Sat morning, and their response was to swap it out again, so they're sending me yet another unit.

Have been trading some email with the local cable company (I have a friend who works there) to see if they have any additional info. They're at least offering to swap out the CableCards once I get the new unit to see if that makes a a difference.

I wish I'd though to try and get through guided setup without inserting the CableCards -- that might have shown if they're part of the problem. Since they were already affiliated with the cable company, they seemed to re-synch and recognize as part of setup.

Hope we achieve success on the next unit.

Thanks
Jeff


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Ilene said:


> Gentlemen,
> I appreciate the suggestion of saving money by running down to my local big box store, but there are a couple of worrisome obstacles.
> 1) If I open my TiVo and replace the drive - I void my warranty - that means $1000 down the drain as this is a lifetime box purchased almost the day the
> S3 was available.


Then your warranty expired over two years ago. What's more, in no case would the $1000 be down the drain. Not having the warranty means you have to pay for repairs. That's all. I don't know for certain, but I suspect there may be 3rd party repair available for the S3 now, as well, but either way a repair won't cost you anything like $1000.



Ilene said:


> 2) An even bigger issues is that I have an external eSata connected drive that is on the "approved list" using the case and the cable that has been suggested. If I disconnect and replace the drive - I lose all my recording and settings because I am required to divorce the external.


Not necessarily, although perhaps. Using Win-MFS, if you have a large enough drive you should be able to backup the contents of both drives to a larger drive. If your total current storage is in excess of 1TB, this could be highly problematical. Even if not, it means you must have a temporary storage location larger than the size of your recordings, and of course the new drive must typically be as large as or larger than both old drives together.

Edit: I just realized you said the external drive is on the "approved list", which would seem to indicate it is a 500G or smaller drive, and from the rest of your post, it sounds like you have a stock 250G drive in the S3, which adds up to 750G. If so, then at worst you will need to have 750G free space on one of your PC's hard drives and would need to purchase at least a 750G bare drive in order to be guaranteed of effectively transferring everything including recordings from the old drive pair to a backup file and then to a large new bare drive.



Ilene said:


> 3) And I guess the biggest obstacle is that I am not real crazy about opening up the box - if I wasn't such a chicken, I would have done that instead of hooking up the external drive to begin with.


...Which is why I qualified my statement above. On my first TiVo I used the built-in kickstart because it was convenient, not because of any trpidation on my own or because of the warranty. I've upgraded and hacked quite a few TiVos, and the warranty was expired in any case. Admittedly your case is a bit more complex than otherwise, but certainly not insurmountable.



Ilene said:


> At this point, I really do not know if it is the external or the internal that is bad, or the more likely scenario is that the coax connector suddenly went bad either mechanical or with the 9.3 update.


A problem with the coax is not going to cause the symptoms you describe. A problem exclusively associated with 9.3 is exceedingly unlikely, or we would all be having it.



Ilene said:


> Eitherway, I am trying to watch all my recordings before I send it back.


You will probably lose all your recordings if you send it back, yes, but a bare drive upgrade won't permanently lose anything. You can upgrade to the bare drive without transferring the recordings, which will require much less time and trouble, and then set both your interrnal and external drive away safely on the shelf. After verifying the state of the TiVo, you can either swap the other drives back and forth utill all the recordings have been watched, or upgrade the bare drive again, this time with recordings.

If pulling the internal drive and attaching it to your PC really gives you the willies, then don't do it. No one is forcing you to, and one must indeed employ a similar amount of care as when hand washing one's good china dishes, for example, but it truly is not anything like neurosurgery on a live human, or even as fretful as trying to paint a portrait of a friend.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

valderost said:


> Say the drive is spec'ed to 100 MB/s, or 800 Mbps. At that rate a seek costs 4.4 Megabits. With (800-60)=740 Mbps headroom, that give us 168 seeks/sec allowance, which is easily within an order of magnitude of reality.


An order of magnitude is quite a lot. A 2GHz CPU is cheap. A 20GHz CPU is not. Walking 2mph on level ground for quite a long distance is easy for any normally healthy adult of less than geriatric age. Running 20mph requires an Olymipc class athlete, and that only for a a few hunded meters.

Don't forget, too, these drives all have 8 or 16 MB buffers, asnd I'm sure the TiVo has hardware buffers, as well. Your suggestion isn't totally impossible, of course, but I remain very skeptical, and failing hard drives seems a much more plausible solution.



valderost said:


> Inside my broken TiVo I hear a disk drive that's continuously seeking, slow enough for me to discern but way too fast to count.


Yes, my TiVos sound the same way sometimes.



valderost said:


> Is it 168/sec? Probably not.


I very seriously doubt it, as well. Of course hypothetically it could be 1/10 second butsts of 168Hz seeks.



valderost said:


> Is it 60/sec?


I would say definitely not. To my ear it sounds as if I can discern individual beats. 60/sec would sound like a continuous tone.



valderost said:


> I can't tell. 20? Definitely more. These are thin margins, and all it takes is inefficient I/O scheduling to back everything up. You cannot look at the drive specs alone, you've got to look at how the drive is being used.


Yes, but that's also part of the point. The TiVo isn't dealing with vast numbers of random seeks. It's only reading one or two streams and writing one or two streams, for the most part. Certianly I/O scheduling could be bollixed up, but with the limited number of streams involved it should not have been too difficult to implement the I/O scheduling. This would even more especially seem to be the case since the kernel is just a fairly plain vanilla Linux kernel, and the 9.x kernel seems functionally identical to the 8.x kernel. Add to this the fact such a limited number of streams is really easy to buffer, and it all sounds unlikely to me.



valderost said:


> I may be wrong. All I'm saying is that it's worth some serious investigation.


Well, that, even if only for curiosity's sake, IMO.


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## kirkfrey (Jul 26, 2002)

Ok, so now on my 3rd replacement unit (4th overall) and its doing the same thing. I am thinking about replacing the drive. I realize that opening it voids the warranty, but... If replacing the drive will fix my issue I'll live without the warranty, if it doesn't, I'll put the original drive back and wait for it to get fixed.

So my question is:
Looking at the unit how do they tell if its been opened? The older units use to have a "warranty void if removed" sticker.


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## SteveH66 (Aug 23, 2005)

I've just finished reading all the posts in this thread and I wanted to pipe in with my experience and a question.

I had what sounds like a similar experience to many people here. I have a S3 and, for about 4 months, I used it with just an antenna source and an approved 500GB external drive. I finally took the plunge and got Comcast (I live in Mass). A tech came out, installed the 2 cablecards and everything was good for about a week. Then came the weirdness: the S3 started freezing up, sometimes 2 or 3 times per day and I'd have to power cycle it. I also had several GSOD experiences. Thinking that I had been operating the S3 with the external HD for so long, I suspected the cablecards but I brought the S3 back to "stock" setup: I took out the cablecards, divorced the external HD, and went back to an antenna source. I ran in this setup for several weeks without any problems, so I had Comcast come out and put in the cablecards again. This has been working perfectly for the last month, so I suspect the external HD was the culprit.

So...what should I do? I really need the additional storage capacity so I want to hook up the drive again. Is there something I should do to the external drive to prepare it for use? In a traditional computer situation, I would do a low level format of the drive to map out bad blocks, etc. Is there something similar I should do with the drive before I marry it back to the S3? Thanks for any advice!

- Steve -


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## anonymous22 (Jun 11, 2008)

Posted this on the other thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...=1#post6373405), don't know if it belongs here instead

______________________________________________________

Add me to the list...

I have a very basic setup, basically out of the box:
Series 3 w/ Lifetime plan
Coax coming in
2 M-cards (Motorolla) from Comcast
Component Video
Digital Audio to Receiver
TiVo wireless adapter
No external devices, storage, etc.

I have a series 3, that I bought in Early February. I have had difficulties with Time Warner/Comcast of Houston on getting CableCards, but that was finally resolved and all had been working fine, until...

About 2 weeks ago (I believe), it started acting sluggish, slow to respond to the remote... in the last 4-5 days it has become unwatchable... reboots every 30 minutes and hardly ever makes it to the TiVo Central screen. If it does, it is sluggish, and will freeze if I try to go thru menus. I can watch about 4-5 minutes of LiveTv before it freezes... HD channels are worse than Standard. I was getting ready to replace the CableCards when I came on to the TiVo Community to see that it is a common issue. Unplugging the coax does prevent the unit from freezing, so I can watch saved shows, but I cannot record new ones or watch live tv (obviously) with the coax unplugged.

I called last night... waited 45 minutes to get a technician. Explained the problem. He was courteous and easy to work with, but explained that this is a "known issue" and that there are two different problems, one is a software problem that they are working on their end to solve, and the other is a hardware issue. He told me that my options were to take a refurbished unit, or I could buy a new one - but my lifetime would not be transferable. I told him that neither option was acceptable so he put me thru to a supervisor.

Supervisor was again very courteous. I was told that 1 out every 15 or 20 units seems to be experiencing difficulties. Everyone who calls in gets put on a list and it helps the technicians diagnose the problems and understand how rampant the problem is. He suggested to wait it out, because they are working on a new software update. He understood my position that I did not want a used/refurbished unit. I was told that I could not be supplied with a new one, because they were out of stock and would be for possibly another 4 months. He also said that my account would be noted and that TiVo was discussing internally what/how they would go about refunding/rebating/crediting people while service is down. I told him that I had 2 requests: 1) put a public statement out there stating that this is a known issue and that they are working on the problem, and 2) notify people what the status is on getting the issue fixed. He stated that had been discussed, but since they did not have a definitive answer as to what the problem was they did not want to issue a statement. I told him that at least stating that they are AWARE of a known issue would have saved me from being on the phone for 1.5 hours plus the time spent wasted researching online what was going on.

He told me to keep checking the TiVo Community and calling back to check status.


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## anonymous22 (Jun 11, 2008)

^ That's my post....

In reading thru the message board again it looks like there are multiple issues going on:

1) Video freezes (but audio, menus, everything else work) [I think this is the 777 - clear issue]
2) Unit freezes (no video, no audio, no menus... no functions at all) [I think this is the unplugged coax issue]
3) Unit restarts continuously

I fall into more of the #2 and #3 category... when my unit goes down (freezes) it is basically unusable and will go into a vicious rebooting cycle.

Does anyone else agree? can anyone confirm that these are the "known issues"? are they related?


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## barbeedoll (Sep 26, 2005)

Same problem with freeze, remote doesn't work, black screen problems with a Series 3. Identical Series 3 hooked to the same set works fine.

With the cable unplugged, the Tivo updates, records SP offerings, and I can transfer them to other sets. But I can't program or watch from that TiVo to the attached TV. (Suppose I could program it online).

TiVo customer service rep says it's a known software issue. However, it's been over two months and they don't seem to be in any hurry to fix it.

It's a Lifetime Subscription, so there is no service credit for me to request......just loss of the ability to enjoy the unit.

Early on, I thought it might be a hard drive issue -- but it has none of the failing hard drive symptoms.

Barbeedoll


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## moonscape (Jul 3, 2004)

i've been running happily with an older series 2 (240) and just got a series 3 - arrived yesterday.

both units are from the same cable outlet, to the same tv. series 3 has 2 motorola CCs - comcast. series 2 is on a cable box.

last night for the first time ever, my series 2 started rebooting. then the screen was black and remote unresponsive. reboot, same thing. eventually it worked. 

today the series 3 froze when i was lining up transfers. remote unresponsive, but it continued recording on both tuners. i left it alone, and in an hour or so it did a spontaneous reboot.

the series 2 froze again and when i did a cold reboot, i got a screen that there was a problem, tivo was going to try and repair itself, and it could take 3 hours. after an hour or so it worked again.

this all seems far too coincidental. i'll call tivo but am concerned about all the series 3 problems in these threads. love the unit but... is it worth going through box replacements? don't know whether to do that or wait it out for a software fix. i rather doubt it's a hard drive issue right out of the box. yeah, i know it could be, but highly improbable.

life was so sweet humming along innocently w/ my series 2. have 2 other lifetimed series 2 (540s) on the other coast and they've worked without a problem as well. all this is a new side of tivo - and i hope like gas it passes quickly.


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## Duke (May 6, 2000)

Add my name to the growing list of folks experiencing problems with a Series3 freezing & unresponsive, resulting in automatic rebooting. My difficulties started just after the 9.3 software update.

Duke


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## Televisionary (Oct 24, 2000)

Add my name, too.  It started three days ago. I have two S3s on the same Samsung HD TV and the same cable. (They have separate UPSes.) My wife's S3 hasn't had a problem, but mine is constantly rebooting now, even when I'm not even using it.

I have tried the Pause-5-7 disk diagnostic and I just finished the Pause-5-2 System reinstall. I'm not too hopeful, because it just finished the reboot and TiVo Central hasn't come up yet after a minute. Also, the background animation (the spotlights sweeping left and right) are very jerky.

This is so not fun.


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## hexagenia (Aug 7, 2005)

Add me to the list--waited about 25 minutes with Tech Support before they had me pull the coax input. Full access to my saved recordings resumed and I had a normally functioning remote but no access to live TV. TivoQandA should have their a** handed to them for this fiasco.


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## Televisionary (Oct 24, 2000)

I haven't called Tech Support. What was their long-term solution for you? Wait for a new SW revision?

I think I've been mostly reboot-free since my post last night. There was one right after the Pause-5-2, which may have been normal, but I haven't seen one since. None of my recordings have been split, either.


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## moonscape (Jul 3, 2004)

Televisionary said:


> I haven't called Tech Support. What was their long-term solution for you? Wait for a new SW revision?


i'm not the one you're asking, but what they told me was that there were no known issues with the series 3, that it was the HD. uch.

so - i asked to return and get a new unit and he said there was nothing he could do if the tivo was now working.

my conundrum is that i really want the box. i can return it to amazon (just got it) but am not optimistic a new one will be trouble-free. i'd feel a lot better if i was hearing some acknowledgement on tivo's part that there was indeed a problem with the series 3 because in the absence of that, i might just end up with a very expensive doorstop. a cynic would say 'no wonder they brought back lifetime, it's a money-making proposition for them.'


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## hexagenia (Aug 7, 2005)

After the initial diagnosis yesterday, Tech Support said my only alternative was to wait for a software revision.

Another call last night to get them to re-authorize my Series 2 so I had access to some channels (one TV household) yielded a two and a half hour phone call with over two hours and fifteen minutes just listening to musak. Talk about going postal.

Tech Support I spoke with said he had lost a Tivo HD to the problem. Based on the call wait last night, I think there are some really hosed installations out there.


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## MoranJ2000 (Aug 7, 2007)

Just wanted to add my two cents:

I had my S3 go freaky on me this past week with no warning. Stock S3, no external drive, runs abysmally slow, freezes, reboots, but works A-OK when you pull the cable out.

My current unit is a replacement, as my first S3 died in 2/07 with exactly the same symptoms. At the time it was replaced under warranty, though the first replacement TiVo sent me also had to be replaced, as it had one bad tuner that only displayed images in black and white.

After this newest occurance, I called tech support three times and each time got a different explanation for the problem-- bad cablecards, software bug, and finally bad drive. When I explained to the final tech that I still had the problem sans cablecards and had been running the 9.3 software since April, I was finally offered a advance replacement for $198, and after I screamed bloody murder I got them down to $79, which I still feel is unjust after having exactly the same problem twice in barely over a year.

What bothers me the most about this whole situation (aside from the fact that I've never owned a TiVo that lasted more than 15 months-- and I've owned almost a dozen TiVos since 2001) is that after more than 18 months on the market, TiVo should have collected enough data to be able to definitively diagnose this issue (and better yet prevent or at least mitigate whatever is causing it). At this point, we should not have to speculate about what is causing this apparently VERY common problem. If I was less technical and took TiVo support at their word, I'd be barking up the wrong tree with Comcast or waiting weeks for a software upgrade that has nothing to do with my problem.


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## JustAllie (Jan 5, 2002)

I have called TiVo about this issue several times and all they've done so far is tell me that the issue is still being diagnosed and that someone will call me or e-mail me when they figure out what to do.  

I call back about every week or so and get pretty much the same story. So far nobody has offered to send out a replacement unit, even for a hefty fee, so I guess they don't think it's a hardware issue. 

But my dealings with tech support on this have not really been satisfactory so far. All they'll tell me is that the engineers are studying the issue and I should just wait. My Series3 is essentially unusable now, as it freezes or slows down to a snail's pace as soon as the coaxial cable is connected. 

I am afraid to go ahead and replace the hard drive when they keep telling me that the engineers are still diagnosing the issue.  

I guess I'll keep watching DVDs for a while and call them back again next week. Luckily my TiVoHD seems to have gotten over its video freeze issue and so I am not left completely TiVo-less.


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## Televisionary (Oct 24, 2000)

I spoke too soon. My S3 has rebooted twice in the last 30 minutes. Thankfully, my wife's S3 is still stable.


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## valderost (Dec 9, 2005)

I'm trying to get TiVo to suspend the monthly charge for my S3. It ought to be a no-brainer and their level 1 techs ought to be able to do it right there if the issue has already been diagnosed. But after a day I haven't heard back.

I'm also trying to prod TiVo for an answer as to why they can't back out the upgrade, and just return me (and everybody else in this situation) to the previous software. The techs claim that's not possible, but I rather doubt it can't be done. At this point I don't care if backing out would wipe out my stored programs.

I'm also going to ask for return+refund if they can't sort this out soon. I now have an expensive brick sitting on a shelf, and TiVo owes me something for causing that to happen. If they can't fix it, I'd like money back, at least pro-rated since I got a year of use from it before it lost its mind.

Doesn't TiVo realize that they're losing customer goodwill here? As much as I love the TiVo (and that's the only reason I've put up with this for two months), if TiVo can't take care of me and everyone else with the problem, I'm going to start telling my friends to get the cable company's DVR when they buy their HD sets. I'm just about at that point now.


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## hmm52 (Feb 25, 2008)

I just posted a strange story about my recent S3 experience in the TiVo HD Pixelation Troubleshooting thread. Correcting one problem brought about another; that being a nasty new freeze & reboot syndrome on channels which previously had no tune or tiling/pixelation. An 8db attenuator at cable coax input put an immediate stop to it, and cleared up the residual tiling channels (locals). It worked for me though I haven't encountered this issue much prior to a recent change in setup.

Might work for others also...


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## MoranJ2000 (Aug 7, 2007)

I'm also trying to prod TiVo for an answer as to why they can't back out the upgrade said:


> I asked for a downgrade when 9.3 broke the HDMI output on my HD and they told me the same thing, and I don't buy it either. TiVo used to allow specific individuals to submit their TSNs online to get early upgrades of the TiVo software, and it seems to me if they can selectively upgrade people, they should be able to selectively downgrade them too.
> 
> IMHO they have the capability, but don't want to do it because its a tacit admission that there's a problem with the latest software


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## Roderigo (Mar 12, 2002)

MoranJ2000 said:


> TiVo used to allow specific individuals to submit their TSNs online to get early upgrades of the TiVo software, and it seems to me if they can selectively upgrade people, they should be able to selectively downgrade them too.


The problem isn't "selectively downgrading," but downgrading at all.

The way I understand it, when you get a software upgrade, stuff changes on the disk for the new software. There's no software in place to reverse the permanent changes to the data.


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## Gavroche (May 27, 2007)

Hi all.

I just wanted to chime in and say that since the 9.3 upgrade I too have been experiencing the same sysmptoms as everyone else in this thread with my Tivo series 3 recorder.

My set up is:

Tivo Series 3
Comcase Digital Cable with HD and premium channels
2 Motorolla Cable cards

Everything was working perfectly before the 9.3 update, but since then I experience the following:

Tivo starts to slow down
Tivo eventually becomes unresponsive
Tivo reboots itself or just locks up and must be manually rebooted

Now, I noticed that for the most part this beaviour only occurs when the Tivo is doing something the with HD channels offered by Comcast - i.e. recording or viewing HD channels. Playing previously recorded HD material from the now playing list seemed to be fine, as long as the tuner wasn't also tuned to an HD channel.

I, like others on this thread, also noticed that disconnecting the cable from the unit fixed the responsiveness problem immediately and allowed normal use and navigation of the now playing list and other menus.

SO, here is my temporary work-around... this worked for me with my setup but I can not say if it will work for others with a similar setup. 

- Remove both cable cards
- Set up Tivo as regular cable with no cable cards
- Insert cable card 1
- Set up tivo for SINGLE TUNER use with just 1 cable card

It has worked perfectly ever since I did that.

Now, of course, there is still the possibility that my second cable card is bad, but I sort of doubt that since this problem only started after 9.3. I'm going to be watching for the next update, then will re-insert my second cable card.

Has anyone else out there who's having these issues and has 2 cable cards tried running with 1 cable card? Would anyone be willing to try it and report back to this thread?

It really did work for me. Not a single problem or reboot since I removed the second card, and the responsivness of the unit is quite fast now.

Thoughts, anyone?


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## hmm52 (Feb 25, 2008)

I'll try it, but only if my S3 displays this syndrome far more freqently than it has. I doubt many are willing to give up a tuner unless lockup/reboots are routine. There was only one day recently where my unit went into a monotonous repetitive lockup/freeze/reboot cycle. Tuned to SD channels BTW. Attenuator on cable feed stopped it. Except for perhaps once I've been unable to force this syndrome to occur since then.

Seeing frozen video upon powering up TV hasn't been that rare. It goes back to first use in February. If anything I've seen it less often after 9.3 update. I have witnessed the syndrome while watching TV, and the S3 has rebooted itself in short order. The odds are long that I'm catching the cycle just before reboot when powering up TV. When I saw video freeze last night, I tried to disconnect cable coax ASAP and not touch any remote key. Didn't have enough time before reboot occurred. Primary output is through component video. Secondary output through HDMI switch - powered off 99.5% of the time. There is feedback from TV with HDMI. But a component video connection triggering a reboot?


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## AKJayhawk (Dec 11, 2006)

We received our second replacement S3 yesterday. Went through guided setup without the cable cards, and it finished it with no freezes or reboots.

Inserted the cable cards and went through guided setup again. It made it all the way again, no freeze/reboot, and seems to be working normally. At least for the short period we watched last night and checked it again this morning.

Here's the interesting part. Instead of getting a refurb S3, we appear to have received a brand new box. It was in a sealed retail package instead of the generic box the first replacement came in.

Checked the software version, and it's currently sitting at 8.0! Will definitely be interesting to see what happens when it upgrades itself to 9.3. If it starts freezing and rebooting after that, I think it will be pretty clear that 9.3 is the cause.

Thanks
Jeff


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## hexagenia (Aug 7, 2005)

Yearning to check in on the NHL draft this evening, I have tried Gavroche's fix for circumventing the slowdown, freezing, reboot cycle that had rendered my S3 a real paperweight. Initial feedback is that for non-HD channels, including encrypted non-HD channels, it does appear to work. I have good control from the TIVO handset and good response at the unit. No displays of freezing.

The moment that I go to an HD channel, however, I have instantaneous slowdown, freeze issues, and if not for rushing off to a non-HD channel, I'm certain it would have been reboot city. I'll try adding the second card and staying off HD to see if that is the problem. And I'll probably get a signal attenuator, given the other thread, and report back.

S3, Comcast, 1 Motorola CableCard as of this report.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

hmm52 said:


> Seeing frozen video upon powering up TV hasn't been that rare..... Primary output is through component video. Secondary output through HDMI switch - powered off 99.5% of the time. There is feedback from TV with HDMI. But a component video connection triggering a reboot?


Component would not trigger reboot, but HDMI would. Check the HDMI status on the system info screen when the HDMI switch is "powered off".


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## hmm52 (Feb 25, 2008)

I'm still testing things, now in 10-12 hour blocks - one tuner set to a local HD (that generates over 10,000 RS Uncorrected per minute - high enough for a test?) and second channel tuned to a premium HD channel which has been notoriously bad, though not currently. With 11db attenuation at rear of S3, RS Unc errors will accumulate slowly; I don't notice tiling but don't keep my eyes glued to set either. - the RS Unc errors tend to come in bursts, some of them massive. With this level of attentuation, there are long intervals in between. To test combination of attenuation and low pass filter, I left it this morning as follows:

TV off
HDMI cable disconnected
Low pass filter in place at ONT to splitter feed
Actiontec router connected by coax to ONT
8 + 3db attenuators at S3
Tuners set as noted to 2 HDs

I checked in on it at lunchtime, turned on the TV and found the second frozen video in as many days. Today I did have time to disconnect the coax, but touched nothing else. Within moments the S3 rebooted with GSOD etc. As always after a reboot triggered this way, both tuners were set to most offensive channel - the local found to still be generating RS Unc.s at over 10k/minute (w/o att.). My VHO/CO are doing what they can to help me out with the tests. Going on two weeks now. I wonder what Monday's elimination of analogs will bring?

Back to the drawing board... I'll step up the attenuation eventually but I don't think I have enough observations yet to support attenuators as a reliable remedy for the S3 freeze/lockup syndrome. Same for the low pass filter obviously. Consistency would be nice.

---- This time the frozen display itself was tiled. A first. Must have been a great effort from Verizon to do that through attenuators.


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## EFWong (Jun 4, 2008)

I want to share my experience so here's a copy of my post from tivo.com.

http://forums.tivo.com/pe/action/forums/displaypost?postID=10381803

I ran into this problem a few days ago and found a workaround that works for me and might be useful for other folks.

In my case, I think the problem is isolated to the LiveTV feature that records the 30 min buffer. Turning off the LiveTV buffer by unplugging the coax cable or CableCARD so there's no signal to record immediately makes the Tivo responsive again for me. I set the channel to an empty one (again, no signal to record) and that keeps my Tivo from stuttering/freezing after reconnecting the coax cable or CableCARD, at least until my next show is done recording and the LiveTV buffer kicks in again.

I think my CableCARD is ok because recorded HD shows play fine and I believe the CableCARD does the work of decrypting the content on playback (as long as the Tivo isn't destabilized by the LiveTV buffer problem).

I think the programmed recording functionality is separate from the LiveTV buffer, and I've confirmed that a show recorded after my Tivo hit the stuttering/freezing problem was fully recorded and plays back fine (I made sure LiveTV was set to an empty channel so the bug wouldn't manifest and destabilize the system during the programmed recording). UPDATE: This worked once, then stopped working, meaning the Tivo would record 3-5 minutes of a show, then freeze and/or reboot.

My best guess on the cause is the file holding the 30-minute LiveTV buffer has bad sectors.

Based on that assumption, I tried to "encourage" the Tivo to move the 30-minute buffer file by clearing out the Recently Deleted folder (freed 6 hrs of disk space) but that didn't improve the LiveTV stuttering/freezing. Next, I hit the record button while on LiveTV, hoping the bad sectors would end up in a recording I would never delete (to get the bad sectors out of circulation), but the slow "Please wait" message that pops up makes me think the Tivo makes a copy of the buffer, bad data and all, so the recording stutters/pixellates on playback and the LiveTV buffer is still bad.

I'm already out on a limb here with all my speculation based on limited observations, but if I really had to guess on the _root_ cause, it might be that the latest software upgrade made the LiveTV buffer a fixed file rather than one that "roams" all over the hard disk so the constant 24x7 recording over the same patch of hard disk may wear it out prematurely. It would be great if a developer who works on the Tivo system software can confirm or deny. 

http://forums.tivo.com/pe/action/forums/displaypost?postID=10384038

Update:
I replaced the hard disk and my Tivo Series3 is fixed. The problems described in my post are solved. As a bonus, I now have double the HD recording capacity.  I still set both tuners to empty channels as a habit whenever I use the Tivo so the hard disk doesn't get used 24x7 recording the 30-minute buffer for each tuner. I want my new hard disk to last longer than the original hard disk!

Details:
My first attempt to copy the entire contents of the original hard disk to the new hard disk failed because of bad sectors, probably in the 30-minute buffer file for each tuner (using the "dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=1024k" command from http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/10/26/how-to-upgrade-your-series3-drive/ ). I had to limit the copy just to the OS, not the recorded shows, to avoid the bad sectors (using the "backup -f 9999 -qso - /dev/sda | restore -s 128 -xzpi - /dev/sdb" command in step 9 from http://coffee.sdsc.edu/rcw/tivo_upgrade/ ). I favor the MFSLive Linux boot CD over the one from Weaknees or MFSTools, though the best instructions on opening the Tivo and extracting the hard disk was the Weaknees PDF.


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## Duke (May 6, 2000)

AKJayhawk said:


> ....Here's the interesting part. Instead of getting a refurb S3, we appear to have received a brand new box. It was in a sealed retail package instead of the generic box the first replacement came in.


What is the manufacture date?


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## Ilene (Dec 26, 2001)

This thread and the Series 3 Lockup thread are pretty similar and I see many of us posting to both. So to join the guilty, I posted last night that I gave up on my original WD2500BS-55RPB1, DOM 26 Aug 2006 and I replaced with a Seagate 750gb drive from Weaknees - still on 9.2a. 
Seems like I have the earliest "born on date" and for those of you that follow the forum, I have posted my history of trials as being an early adopter of the Series3 TiVo. I am so happy to be "back in business" and even though it's been only a few hours my new drive seems to be working better than the old one, the channels that were pixelating aren't. Replacing the internal drive was easier than I expected (especially when you have a good friend do it for you, but I watched). On the down side, when I was disconnecting the TiVo so that I could replace the drive, I damaged the green component connection (it pulled out weird) - I hate Monster component cables! Luckily I have HDMI too.


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## AKJayhawk (Dec 11, 2006)

Duke said:


> What is the manufacture date?


According to the sticker on the back:

Made in Mexico
13 May 08

Checked software version this morning, and it upgraded to 9.3a last night and is working today. Certainly not ready to claim victory yet, but fingers crossed!

Thanks
Jeff


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## Jon545 (May 20, 2005)

Boy I read this thread with a feeling of sympathy for all of you with the problem, but I joined the club this week.

My S3 has just started doing the stutter, slow menu and then freeze/lockup thing too. I've had it going for a exactly one year now and the last 6 months with a 1 TB external (antec MX-1 and WD green drive) with no problems, until now. I'm on Verizon FIOS with two cable cards that haven't given me one problem since they were installed. The problems started happening while I was traveling and my wife and daughter told me about it. Since coming home, I've done a dozen reboots, cleaning out some of the 350 "deleted" shows, unplugging the cable and antenna, all have had no success. I'm waiting to see if the supposed fix comes soon. I've haven't tried unmarrying the external drive or doing a full clear and delete yet because I got a ton of recordings I haven't watched yet. Good thing we've got two non-S3's that have been working well for well over 4 years. I may try replacing the internal drive with another 250 GB with a full transfer of all the recordings to see if that helps soon. Has anybody tried that without loosing the merger with their external drive?

I strongly suspect a SW problem since so many people are seeing this recently. Even a bad batch of hard drives wouldn't *all *start failing a year after being spun up. I can buy into bad sectors, but if so, why haven't I seen problems on either of my two non-S3 TIVOs that have been running fine much much longer that the S3's 1 year. Maybe there is error tolerant SW that isn't so error tolerant in the latest versions? If it is a sector holding the operating system/kernal, that could explain the slowdowns before full lockup, but could this many people be having a bad sector right where the system SW is stored? I'm thinking more along a memory leak type problem that goes along until all that hard disk space is used up a few times and then it leaks into the OS storage region of memory.

I agree with another poster that *TIVO needs to acknowledge the problem *to us all and keep us up to date on their progress in resolving it, otherwise they will look worse when it hits the mainstream media. And you know it will.


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## cwolf2k (Jun 22, 2008)

I just started getting this as well. When I was on phone with tech support yesterday, the guy did say there was a known problem with the S3 software, though he had no information on the exact nature of the problem or when a fix would be ready.

I just tried disconnecting the input source which seems to have cleared the problem for me at the moment, though it means I can't record anything new with no input. It seems like it may be related to that buffer thing others have mentioned when the storage is nearly at capacity. I have the WD expander (no mods that would void warrenties) and I'm close to being full.

The tech also told me how to get to a hard drive test screen on the S3. 1) Hold down pause button on tivo remote while rebooting. 2) When all the front panel lights go off and just the one yellow light (lower right one) comes on, release the pause and enter 54. (have about 10 seconds)...the yellow light will go off. The tivo will then finish booting and go to the HD test screen.


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## EFWong (Jun 4, 2008)

Regarding the lack of problems in Series2s versus Series3s, I think HD programs recorded on S3s could be more susceptible to bad sectors than SD programs recorded on the S2s because HD programs are much larger (more disk exposure), tend to be encrypted (bad read could corrupt a swath of picture), and the two HD tuners in an S3 means two large buffer files being written to the disk 24x7.

I've seen occasional pixelation on my old S2, but I think there's a larger window for rereading the disk in case of bad sectors because there's just so much less data to pump through the system per second with analog-converted-to-SD programs than large encrypted HD programs on the S3.

Also, I imagine the 60 GB disk of a Series2 is more resilient to physical problems on the platter than the 250 GB disk of a Series3 if both have the same size platter but one is four times as dense as the other.


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## pl1 (Jan 18, 2007)

EFWong said:


> Regarding the lack of problems in Series2s versus Series3s, I think HD programs recorded on S3s could be more susceptible to bad sectors than SD programs recorded on the S2s because HD programs are much larger (more disk exposure), tend to be encrypted (bad read could corrupt a swath of picture), and the two HD tuners in an S3 means two large buffer files being written to the disk 24x7.


I'm not suggesting what you say is not true, that the S3 is mentioned more, but I still have an S2 with Lifetime and I never use it. I updated to 9.3 when it came out and it wrecked my unit. Unbearably slow menus and freezes. I had to replace the hdd and everything was fine. Since this is an S3 forum and I never read the S2 forum, I have no idea if the same problem is ocurring with other S2 users.


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## hmm52 (Feb 25, 2008)

c3 said:


> Component would not trigger reboot, but HDMI would. Check the HDMI status on the system info screen when the HDMI switch is "powered off".


I agree with your logic. Unfortunately my S3 doesn't seem to. I guess it operates in the realm of Mythos, not Logos. I've witnessed 2 episodes of frozen video after turning on TV since the morning of the 20th. Each time the HDMI cable was completely disconnected, as was antenna.

first - No programmed recording. Frozen screen. Had enough time to disconnect cable coax. S3 rebooted within a minute. Both tuners tuned to previously frozen channel upon reboot.

second (today) - Single 8 hour programmed recording. Turned on TV 5 hours 12 minutes into it. Frozen screen. Did nothing for 5 minutes. Then pressed play button. Indicated time at end of recording run was 5 hrs 12 mins elapsed - TV power up time, not 5 hrs 17 mins - actual ET. S3 then rebooted within a minute. Both tuners upon reboot were tuned to channel which had been recording and frozen. I'll check this recording later.

In 312 minute period, what are the odds against checking in just as a frozen video occurs, without there being a triggering event? Disconnecting coax or hitting play button may have triggered the reboot, but not the frozen screen as it had already happened. I'll continue to monitor this as I'm recording in 8 + 2 hour blocks all week. Will detach CV cables at some point and just check with S video, or do nothing.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

Did you turn on the TV with the TiVo remote? If so, that probably triggered something in the TiVo. Otherwise, there may be some sort of interference (AC power?) between the TV and the TiVo.


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## hmm52 (Feb 25, 2008)

Tv was turned on with a Phillips universal remote macro: TV on - Preamp and Amp on - mute off. TV is used with input for S3 as the "default". Among other devices, S3 and TV are plugged into the same UPS/line conditioner; not the amp & preamp. I'll turn on the TV for now with its own remote just to be sure - TV/Amp power macro doesn't include any commands for S3 but it is under its remote mode.

None of the 5+ hour recording was accessible. "Recording did not occur because signal was not present" or some such statement. Remaining recordings of the day on same channel were OK. Something very odd last night: Both tuners were losing display of all HDs for minutes then regaining them for a few minutes, losing them again and so on. Diagnostic tuning values behaved normally throughout - as if only cablecards or authorization were being pulled and replaced. Strange.

Too many symptoms


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## Duke (May 6, 2000)

I wonder if the 9.3 software update did something with the way the S3's Tuners function, in concert with the original WD drives; especially with HD content.


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## sbgilbert (Aug 3, 2007)

The same thing happened to me. Tivo tried everything and said it was either the software or the unit. As I'm not willing to wait for some future software that may or maynot help I sent it in (two months out of warranty of course) and for $150 got a refurbished unit. It works fine. I found out today that the refurbished unit has zero warranty. Next time I think I would use a DVR repair service that has 6 months warrranty on Tivo units.
Steve
Update.
It didn't work fine. It was just as bad. I got level 4 support that said it was a software problem and will refund my $150 and credit my service. I now think it is a buffer problem based on the tivo community so I have bought a replacement hard drive that has a bigger buffer. Most people have a fix with a replacement hard drive. Here is hoping.


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## rossm777 (Mar 20, 2004)

greg_burns said:


> There seems to be couple of issues out there, so I am not going to take a side myself.
> 
> But I've heard lots of people talk about unplugging the coax stops the reboots. But why does that eliminate a hard drive issue and make it software? Seems to me, if there weren't any input it would not be trying to record to the disk at all...
> 
> ...


Sorry everyone but I could not find anything about this error in the forum. So I'm putting it here.

For old windows users, I've run across the Tivo version of the blue screen of death.

My system ran fine until I added the esata 500gb tivo drive with 9.2 support. I may have installed the drive before 9.2 I don't know for sure. After several weeks of everthing running fine, I got a green screen that said:

"The DVR has detected a serious problem and is attempting to fix it.

This will take about 3 hours

Please do not unplug or restart your DVR"

After several minutes not hours it reboots and everything looks normal and runs for a period of time like normal. Back in Feb the problem reocurred at least 2 times while working with tech support. They had me remove the Hard drive, which lost many of my recorded programs.

They sent me a new S3(refurbed unit I'm sure) which had 8.x on it. so I had to wait until the 9.2 was download and then installed the esata drive. So I had to install all my season passes Etc. Everything was fine until 2 days ago when the same problem happened. Has anyone seen this before and what was the result?

Is it the external hard disk or the Tivo unit or even possibly my Cox cable cards. It is less painful to live with the problem than to replace my S3 unit.

Help!


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

rossm777 said:


> Is it the external hard disk or the Tivo unit or even possibly my Cox cable cards. It is less painful to live with the problem than to replace my S3 unit.


I've had the green screen of death a couple time myself. Never seen one until I added an external drive. I've since pulled the drive and checked it for problems and found none. My conclusion was the Tivo had an internal inconsistency which it was able to fix itself. Unless it starts occurring frequently I wouldn't sweat it.


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## Frank78 (Jun 30, 2008)

Thank you to all who have posted to this site. It has been helpful.

My Tivo Series 3 has been freezing and restarting for the past two months. Sometimes it will work for about 2 hours, sometimes it won't make it past the home menu.

I have been in contact with customer support for the past 6-7 weeks. Here is the timeline of responses:
- Call 1: Do a hard reboot (unplug and plug it back in): did not work, call back in three days
- Call 2 (three days later): We now know there is an issue with the 9.3a software release, it should be fixed in a few weeks
- Call 3 (a few weeks later): The Tivo tech group continues to address the issue, it should be fixed by the end of June. They passed me to the finance department and they gave me a three month service credit.
- Call 4 (end of June): The box you have needs to be exchanged. You can either go to a retail store, or purchase a refurbished box from Tivo for $149. Otherwise, I can wait 6-7 more weeks to see if it fixes itself.
I told them I did not want to purchase another Tivo. Considering they gave me service credit until November, I will wait it out. (Just called the cable company and got one of their DVRs)

Just as an FYI - if you ever have any trouble call and ask for a service credit.


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## hexagenia (Aug 7, 2005)

by replacing the drive. Despite a Tivo diagnostics report that the original disk was fine, couldn't stand a one-tuner S3 that only captured SD channels if it were to be kept from rebooting. So I bit the bullet, bought the 1 Gig drive from Weaknees, and am reboot, freeze, and stutter free for almost a week on the original two cablecard, HD configuration.

I am not suggesting this is an acceptable response to poor service or a viable quality product strategy, but I just wasn't going to wait weeks upon weeks for TIVO to figure out the magnitude of their problem. Or to wait on hold for hours after hours only to hear that they were aware of the problem but unclear of resolution. Sucks, but I just decided to pay my way out of this one.


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## Jon545 (May 20, 2005)

I did the same- I sucked it up and got a weaknees 1GB internal replacement drive. Had slowdowns and then menu freezes, and then total freezes for the last few weeks. I had a stock S3 with 2 cable cards on Verizon Fios that had worked great for 1 year and 5 days before the problem started. I did add a antec MX-1 with 1GB WD "approved" drive (per the S3 expansion thread), but it, too had been working without a glitch since installation over 4 months ago. Read all the posts and firmly believe it's a SW problem that didn't show up instantly when they upgraded to 9.3a.

I ran the Kickstart 54 diagnostics and started seeing occassional SMART failures in the main drive on multiple overnight testings and once on the extended test, but the shorter tests always passed, as did some of the longer tests and all the tests passed on the expansion drive. *Maybe *the hard drive was failing, but the symptoms are too similar to what everyone else is seeing to believe they aren't related to the SW, unless we want to believe there were a hughe number of bad drives that all decided to fail around the same time and only after the 9.3 SW came out.

After 3 weeks TIVO-less (except for my 2 non-HD TIVOs ), I gave up and got the 1GB internal replacement drive from weaknees. I had previously gotten bare drives and instantcake to upgrade the non-HD TIVO's but I had never played with SATA on my 3 year old Dell PC and didn't want the extra complication of needing a SATA card and getting it to boot correctly with a SATA PCI card, so I payed the extra for the preformatted drive.

Went in easy, as expected, and it started up fine and did not require Verizon to restart the 2 cablecards. Lost all my recordings and can't hook the external 1GB to the expanded internal drive, but I can live with that. So far (1.5 days) so good. But, it still has 9.2 on the new drive, and I'll need to see what happens when it gets back to 9.3a. If it c..s out again, it's SW, but I'm hoping a fix will be found and I'll never ever get 9.3a (please, please, please). Personally, I think it's a combination of 9.3a and the drive(s) filling up, and that's why people don't see it instantly when they get 9.3a. While I'm a pretty happy camper again, I'm sorely unhappy with TIVO for not acknowledging they had a problem instead of letting hundreds (thousands?) of S3 and HD owners wonder what the heck was going on. :down:


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## Ilene (Dec 26, 2001)

John545 - same experience here. I have had my new Weaknees drive for a couple weeks now. I am now running 9.3a much to my chagrin, so far no freezes, green screen or reboots. (I am crossing my fingers). Is it TiVo's original WD drives (mine was Aug 2006) that were somehow not good, not sure. I purposely chose the largest Seagate drive rather than the WD 1Tb drive - I have nothing to base fault with WD, but did not want to try another experiment.


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## Jon545 (May 20, 2005)

Ilene, I thought about going the Seagate route too, but I was already going backwards from the 250 GB internal plus the external 1 TB to only 1 TB internal. Time will tell, and I've got fingers and toes crossed. Why doesn't Tivo let us choose in preferences whether we want to accept a SW "upgrade"? I don't want to be a beta tester on my S3. And I believe that's what we all are, since TIVO's own beta testing sure didn't find some major problems with the 9.3a SW.


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## AdmiralTivo (Feb 25, 2005)

I just started having the exact same issues with my Series 3, stock everything, a few days ago. I see a lot of people theorizing (with some supposedly told by CSRs) that it might be a software issue with a fix on the way. I have also seen a lot of theories about how a software problem could translate into a HW problem, bad sectors on the disk, fixed buffer location, etc. etc.

I have since purchased a replacement drive and plan on doing an image/replacement on the internal drive myself to save a little money. My question is this: to the people who already have done the replacement, or plan to do the replacement, aren't you concerned that the problem will manifest itself again with the new drive? Or is the current theory that the combination of defective drives + defective software is the root of the problem? I have seen one or two posts from people that have had the same issues with replacement drives too, which worries me greatly.

I'm just concerned that I'm throwing good money after bad, when TiVo really needs to fix the software problem before I go about replacing any hardware.


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## Jon545 (May 20, 2005)

Yes, that's a concern. But not having my HD TIVO for more than 3 weeks was a bigger concern than the money. I was also worried that with the poor state of my S3 it might not be able to download the "fixed" SW when it came out.

I've decided to try and *not *let it get 9.3a for a while. I'm disconnecting my wireless from the S3, and I'm only going to reconnect it every day or two and then allow it a quick "call" to get updated guide data. Don't know if this will keep the mothership from downloading 9.3a or not, but I'm going to try.


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## Rev. Noch (Dec 29, 2003)

I just wanted to put in my experiences as well. 

I bought my S3 in December when CompUSA was going under. I've been using it OTA ever since. It was fine until a few weeks ago when I noticed it was not responding to any commands. It was also stuck at the UI menu where the animation looked choppy. I tried to reboot and it would either reboot it's self at a random point or get stuck in the UI menu. I let it sit for a week unplugged while I went out of town. When I got back, it worked for a couple of hours but then locked up again.

I saw here on the forums before I went out of town that people were having luck with replacing the disk drive. After it froze up, I decided to actually get a larger hard drive like I had been planning on since I got the TiVo. I bought a WD 1TB drive from MicroCenter since they had it on sale for $160. I copied all of my stuff from the old drive to the new with the winMFS tools. So far all seems well. I'm crossing my fingers that this does not rear it's ugly head again.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

Rev. Noch said:


> I bought a WD 1TB drive from MicroCenter since they had it on sale for $160.


Try restarting TiVo from the menu. Most likely it would NOT work because of a compatibility problem with that drive and S3.


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## hiddentrout (Feb 1, 2002)

Jon545 said:


> ...I strongly suspect a SW problem since so many people are seeing this recently. Even a bad batch of hard drives wouldn't *all *start failing a year after being spun up. I can buy into bad sectors, but if so, why haven't I seen problems on either of my two non-S3 TIVOs that have been running fine much much longer that the S3's 1 year. Maybe there is error tolerant SW that isn't so error tolerant in the latest versions?...


Yeah. I agree that it sure *seems* there's more going on here than simply bad HDs. In this post, TivoJerry states that "To date, all reports that I know of for the 648 prefix unit have also been accompanied by more severe symptoms such as system slowdown/lockup, inability to access menus, or reboots. We performed analysis of these units and found them to have bad drives."

I couldn't agree more with Jon that this (apparently) massive rash of S3 HDs aren't coincidentally *all failing at the same time*. I'm not an engineer, nor a statistician, but I'd guess the odds of so many folks having simultaneous HD failure, which just happens to be right about the same time that the 9.3 update causes serious problems on the TivoHD units, is pretty dang slim.

I'm not trying to "gotcha" TJ with the quote above, I'm just agreeing with Jon that it seems far fetched to me.

FWIW, I just purchased a new 1tb Seagate drive to replace the stock drive in my S3 but, if it turns out it's not entirely HW-based, then that's another $150 down the drain...

Sigh.


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## garyriet (Dec 23, 2007)

I experienced lockups, slow response and reboots for the since June 13th. After reading the forums and basically losing my mind "Oh my GOD what are we going to do the Tivo is broke" we pickup up a Seagate 1TB drive from Best Buy for $180. Tried running WinMFS and it would just stop responding. SO I downloaded MFSLive and tried a backup that way, it failed with a bunch of errors. I then ran dd_rescue it found 8 errors completed and then went to expand it. mfsadd failed with a no header error or something , long night can not remember the exact error message. Booted back into windows and was able to do a truncated backup. Lost all my recordings but saved the wishlists and season passes. Have not had any problems the last 12 hours. SO I would say it is definetly releated to hard drive issues. Is there a way to telnet or ssh into the Series 3? I it be cool to run iostat and sar to get some performance data from the unit. 
Gary


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## Rev. Noch (Dec 29, 2003)

c3 said:


> Try restarting TiVo from the menu. Most likely it would NOT work because of a compatibility problem with that drive and S3.


So far the TiVo is working without any problems. Thanks for the heads up that restarting from the menu may be a bad idea. I don't want to rock the boat.


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

Rev. Noch said:


> So far the TiVo is working without any problems. Thanks for the heads up that restarting from the menu may be a bad idea. I don't want to rock the boat.


Assuming you have an original S3 and not a TivoHD you'll experience the restart problem (with that particular drive) during any software updates too I would imagine. Could leave you missing recordings if not caught in time.


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## Rev. Noch (Dec 29, 2003)

greg_burns said:


> Assuming you have an original S3 and not a TivoHD you'll experience the restart problem (with that particular drive) during any software updates too I would imagine. Could leave you missing recordings if not caught in time.


So what exactly are the symptoms of the issue with the S3 and that HDD? So far still I have not had any problems.


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

Rev. Noch said:


> So what exactly are the symptoms of the issue with the S3 and that HDD? So far still I have not had any problems.


From what I've read, when you reboot from the menu it doesn't boot it just hangs. Have to do a cold boot to get it going again.

Presumably the same thing would happen if it reboots at 2am due to a software update.

Seems simple enough to test on your part and see if you have that problem. If it doesn't start back up, pull the plug.


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## saibari (Jan 11, 2008)

Rev. Noch said:


> I just wanted to put in my experiences as well.
> 
> I bought my S3 in December when CompUSA was going under. I've been using it OTA ever since. It was fine until a few weeks ago when I noticed it was not responding to any commands. ...


So am I to understand that this is _not_ a cablecard problem since Rev. Noch is not using cablecards and still experiencing problems? I haven't had this particular issue, but the other day my TiVo did mysteriously re-boot itself so I'm really worried that soon I too will experience this problem. And frankly, I've got my hands full with the problem I _am_ experiencing and I wonder if the two issues are related. I'm having channels drop suddenly (grey screen) and then within a minute or so, the channels spontaneously come back. If a program is recording at the time, I get a partial recording because TiVo does not resume recording when the channel comes back. This means I cannot reliable record programs--a HUGE problem! Cox (in AZ) says they are aware of the problem (error code 161-38) and are working with the cablecard company on a fix with _no estimated time_ for a solution! 

So I'm wondering if you all have experienced similar and whether or not you think it's a problem related to the freezing, slowing, and re-booting problem you all are experiencing...


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## saibari (Jan 11, 2008)

I've been trying to reach Cox for 30 minutes now and keep getting the message that "all circuits are busy." Hmmmm, I wonder why...could it be that they have a ton of dissatisfied customers calling them?! I am completely fed up with this situation! I just filed a complaint with the FCC. I don't know if it will do any good, but we'll see.

*PLEA TO EVERYONE: Please file your own complaint with the FCC!* In it, please reference my complaint number so they'll know it's a related complaint. The number is: *08-C00034081 *and, be sure to mention that this *complaint was filed over the internet*.

Here's the link:* http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm?sid=d1e640&id=d1e735*

In the complaint I noted that we are receiving completely unreliable service; that no sooner is one problem solved, another arises; and that Cox, TiVo, and Scientific Atlanta point fingers at each other leaving the consumer out in the cold and paying for unacceptably bad service! I did not give details of the problems experienced since you're limited in how much info you can include. I just noted that currently, due to intermittent and repeated dropped signals I am unable to enjoy live TV and cannot reliably record anything due to partial recordings resulting from the dropped signals. I also noted that this is a widespread problem that is occurring all over the USA.

As soon as I manage to get through to Cox they are going to get an earful!


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## Rev. Noch (Dec 29, 2003)

greg_burns said:


> From what I've read, when you reboot from the menu it doesn't boot it just hangs. Have to do a cold boot to get it going again.
> 
> Presumably the same thing would happen if it reboots at 2am due to a software update.
> 
> Seems simple enough to test on your part and see if you have that problem. If it doesn't start back up, pull the plug.


You were correct, the TiVo does not appear to be able to come back from a soft reboot. It is fine if the power is disconnected and restarted. I'll just have to keep an eye the tivo and make sure that it's ok. This problem is still much better than the one I was having before which made the TiVo totally unusable.

Did I understand correctly that this model of Hard Drive would work in a TiVo HD? If so, I may replace one of my older TiVo's with the HD and swap the Disk.

For the S3, what is everyone's recommendation on a compatible drive? I would like this high capacity while remaining quiet.


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

Rev. Noch said:


> Did I understand correctly that this model of Hard Drive would work in a TiVo HD? If so, I may replace one of my older TiVo's with the HD and swap the Disk.
> 
> For the S3, what is everyone's recommendation on a compatible drive? I would like this high capacity while remaining quiet.


Yes, the less expensive WD10EACS (what you have) will work as internal only with TivoHD.

I just bought this drive (WD10EVCS) for my original S3 and am very happy. It is very quiet.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

c3 said:


> Did you turn on the TV with the TiVo remote? If so, that probably triggered something in the TiVo. Otherwise, there may be some sort of interference (AC power?) between the TV and the TiVo.


That's what my problem was. At least it has to with HDMI. It's officially rock solid now that I connected the HDMI cable directly to the TV, even if I turn the TV off. 
A clue was that the S3 actually failed to fully boot if the AV receiver was off.

See my saga here:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...95#post6460095

The signal over HDMI TiVo<-->AVR/TV is two way and somewhere the 9.3a code is going south if it doesn't like what it hears.

Note that my problem was different than video freezes, pixelation, or lockups while watching. Mine almost always failed while the receiver was off.

I've had some hiccups in recordings but those are rare and I'll blame the cable signal for now.


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## bmgoodman (Dec 20, 2000)

netringer said:


> That's what my problem was. At least it has to with HDMI. It's officially rock solid now that I connected the HDMI cable directly to the TV, even if I turn the TV off.
> A clue was that the S3 actually failed to fully boot if the AV receiver was off.
> 
> [snip]
> ...


My situation sounds similar to yours. It seems like the freeze occurs when turning on the Tivo/TV. My HDMI is connected directly between the two. I did replace the original HD a few weeks ago (which failed diagnostics), but I still get these freezes on occasion. I've been tempted to temporaily go to component, but I think I'm just going to wait for 9.4 or whatever and hope they get this stuff ironed out. I'm really starting to get nervous about all the DRM involved in digital TV. Plenty of drawbacks for the customer. At least the picture is great....


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