# Has my TiVo (finally) died after 12 years? Help please.



## Snowyowl2 (Oct 1, 2012)

My very trusty TiVo has been through a lot, and has provided 12 years of faithful service. It has in its time had a new HD, a turbo cache card, and has been accessing the new ALT EPG very successfully over Ethernet/IP since it was established.

But - now I seem to have a problem. When I press "Live TV" I get "The recorder cannot show live TV..." with the blue sreen and troubleshooting tips. Whenever I have had this in teh past, a recorder restart has invariably solved the problem - but not this time. Input is from a Sony VTX-D800U STB, and if I press "Aux" then I get what I would expect. With "Aux" enabled, I can change channel using the TiVo remote and the STB does change channel - but when I press "Aux" again - Live TV has nothing. ALl my recordings have been blank since the weekend.

With the STB scart input seemingly fine into the AUX input, I can think of nothing else that might be the problem - so am wondering if something else on the encoding side in the TiVo might have failed... Is this the end of my TiVo???

Any help or suggestions from anyone would be very gratefully received.

Kind regards
SnowyOwl2 (was Snowyowl)


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## steveroe (Oct 29, 2002)

You may have done all this already:

Power off the Tivo and the Sony 
Disconnect and reconnect the SCART connections making sure everything is in the right socket and firmly plugged in
Power up the Sony, then Tivo
Retry

If you still have the same problem then it sounds like the MPEG encoder chip may have died, which would be pretty terminal. 

Someone with more knowledge than me may be able to point to something to look for in your logfiles that might help.


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## Snowyowl2 (Oct 1, 2012)

Thanks for the advice - and I just wanted to post an update, in case it helps anyone else.

Although I had restarted the TiVo several times, this time I actually pulled the plug on both teh Tivo and STB and re-powered both. This time, it all came back working. I am not sure what the difference would have been - the STB was working previously and showing a picture through "Aux". It does seem that pulling out power and starting again had a different effect than just a "restart recorder".

Anyway - the TiVo lives on for a little longer...


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## staffie2001uk (Apr 1, 2004)

I vaguely remember reading, on here somewhere, that you have to cold boot the TiVo (pull the plug) to reset the mpeg encoder if it hangs.


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## steveroe (Oct 29, 2002)

Great news. If all else fails switch it off and on again.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

My Tivo has been going off automatically for 2 minutes at 5am once a day on a timer for the last 7 years since I upgraded it to 500GB with two Samsung HA250JC plus a Cachecard.

I used to get a lost source message without explanation in the way you describe once every so often when I never powered down my Tivo. Now I do the auto power off restart once a day if I get any problem with the a source disappearing at all it is only for one or two recordings and the daily automatic reboot fixes it.

These two Samsung HA250JCs are still working reliably after seven years by the way, which rather undermines the theory of those who claim that a daily power down and restart causes unacceptable strain that will shorten HDD life.

I am beginning to wonder what the eventual life of these HA250JCs might be? Perhaps the AltEPG will have in fact given up the ghost before they do?????


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