# Random Tivo/ Cisco TA issues



## Dimitron84 (Mar 29, 2019)

So I keep having random issues with what I believe to be a Cisco TA issue. For my setup I have 2 TiVo bolt and 2 Cisco STA1520 TA's. At random every few days I have to reset the Cisco TA because the solid green light will start blinking on the front of the TA approx 4-5 times and the screen goes black then comes right back. This will occur continuously every 70 seconds on the second exactly until I power down TA and power it back up. Both boxes starting having this issue at the same time however After several resets over the past 2 weeks one box will act up while other is fine and vice versa. Spectrum has been out to check the signal levels and found them to be 41 going into the TA and they are pretty much useless for troubleshooting they're own equipment and just advise replacement of TA and Cable Card. Trying to figure out what could be causing this issue. If I go into Diag screen on the Tivo I do see an error come up very quickly during the black screen that states something like TA Wrong Signal or something like that? Any thoughts on what I can check? I don't see how it's a broken TA as both TA’s started having issue at same time. Could it be a db level issue? Where do I check?

Thanks,
Patrick


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## hawk521 (Aug 6, 2008)

I am new to my Tivo BOlt Vox. After living with a Moxi DVR for 10 years, the folks at Arris sold the Moxi brand to someone who shut down the EPG and thus the Moxi became a paperweight a month ago.

About 5 days into my new Tivo life I had exactly the same experience you described. TA would start blinking, video go black, and a few seconds later it would fix itself. Wait a minute or so and rinse/repeat the cycle. I pondered a lot of fixes, and decided to unstack my TA/Tivo and put them on separate shelves (thinking the stacked arrangement might be overheating something). Anyway, my problem disappeared. It is true that during this re-location of equipment I did unplug everything and set it up again. Just food for thought. Heck, if you have a small fan - use the fan to force cool the two boxes and see if the problem persists!? Give it a half hour or so to settle the temperatures...

I'd be interested to hear how this problem is resolved in your case...

-Hawk521


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

hawk521 said:


> After living with a Moxi DVR for 10 years, the folks at Arris sold the Moxi brand to someone who shut down the EPG and thus the Moxi became a paperweight a month ago.


Sorry for your loss. I'm a ReplayTV refugee.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

A question for both of you (@Dimitron84 & @hawk521), are you using MoCA on your DVR, and do you have your DVR connected via the Tuning Adapter's TV/STB Out pass-through port? (This port must not be used by a MoCA-enabled DVR, as it severely attenuates signals at MoCA frequencies.)


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## hawk521 (Aug 6, 2008)

I too was a refugee from the "really old" Replay TV days. I had to walk away from two Replay TV boxes that had lifetime rights because the cable providers switched away from using the analog signals the Replay TVs worked with. Painful, but I suppose was necessary. 

The death of my 3 tuner Moxi wasn't 'necessary' - and it too had 'lifetime rights' for service. It was simply corporate greed to shut down the EPG because it was no longer providing growing revenue (which in itself was a corporate decision!). I should probably know better by now - but I sprang for the Tivo Bolt lifetime rights - it seems to make sense as I expect the Tivo to be in service far beyond the 3.79 year break even point when compared with the $149 annual subscription.

I am not using MoCA. My Tivo has a hard wired ethernet cable that links to my router via a couple of jumps though Netgear switches. 

FWIW, I did initially hook up my cable coax through the Tuning Adapter with the jumper cable over to the Tivo. That is how it had been setup on my Moxi. About 5-6 days into my new Tivo experience the TA started glitching and losing sync (momentarily every minute or so) causing the video to be interrupted for 20 seconds or so and repeating this cycle endlessly. I did two things which together have remedied the problem. I unstacked the TA and Tivo to give both more air cirulation. And I bought a 2500MHz 2-way splitter and split the coax feed to the Tivo and TA on separate legs. Between these two changes I've yet to see any TA related problems. (knocking on wood!)

Good luck with your setup. Perhaps you can use a MoCA adapter to split the cable and ethernet signals and feed the appropriate cable connections to the Tivo and TA on separate cables? 

Hawk


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

hawk521 said:


> I too was a refugee from the "really old" Replay TV days. I had to walk away from two Replay TV boxes that had lifetime rights because the cable providers switched away from using the analog signals the Replay TVs worked with. Painful, but I suppose was necessary.


I still hung with Comcast after they went digital, courtesy of the community's efforts in developing a method for DIY uploading of new IR codes and a third-party serial cable that ensured accurate control of the simple SD DTA unit. We finally dumped Comcast when they kept raising the price on the locals-only package, inspiring me to finally make the effort to install in-attic antennas. We jumped to TiVo shortly after the Roamio was released, offering 4 HD tuners in a single box ... where my 2-tuner SD OTA ReplayTV setup required 2 Replays, 2 CM7000s and a PC to serve guide data, plus a SD analog broadcast device and IR extenders to make the programming available at a second TV.


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## hawk521 (Aug 6, 2008)

You've put far more effort and energy to expend your ReplayTV's life than I was inclined to do. My wife always advises me to "keep it simple" when it comes to our DVR.

So far so good with my new Tivo Bolt Vox (6 tuner, 1TB) recorder. It has much more functionality (especially via apps for things like Netflx, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.) that I've yet to tap in to. Maybe one day I'll explore these options a bit more. But I will say that is has done a good job replacing my Moxi as a DVR.


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