# Mini Networking issues.



## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

I'm having disconnect issues with my newly acquired Mini and brand new Roamio Plus.

The Mini works fine for a while, but then starts stuttering and at times throws up the network disconnect issue.

I have a cat 5 cable running between two GigE switches. On the office switch is an ASUS router/wifi, cable modem, various office equipment and the Mini. The Livingroom has the aforementioned GigE switch which has the Roamio, a wifi access point, sling box, Roku 3 and Roku Soundbridge. The cable between the two switches runs through walls, and has my own homemade ends, which I can't totally vouch for, but haven't given me problems till now. Last night I measured throughput between two computers with GigE NICs. First I did it with the desktop and laptop in the office off the same switch, got a benchmark of about 800 Mbps. Then I took the laptop out to the livingroom and ran the same test and got about 400Mbps. Given that this is way higher than the bandwidth needed for moving HDTV, I'm not sure where I stand. As a further test, I replaced the cable embedded in my walls with a known good cat 5 cable running between the two switches. I'm still having the same issues.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Maybe there is some issue with the Mini. Does it feel hot like it might be overheating? Mine is connected to an old 200AV HomePlug network and I never have this problem.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

Relatively cool. On the other hand it could be the Roamio as well.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Do you have any other TiVos to test with? If you had another Roamio or a Premiere then you figure out which was causing the problem. If not you may have to send one back, hope that fixes it, and if not send the other back. Or just send both back right away.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

Unfortunately I have duplicates of neither. I'm going to call support and hope they'll send me a new box first... just not sure which to ask for as a replacement in the first go round. Some more advanced diagnostics or logging would be helpful. It would be cool if there was some log of which box is losing connections to what and when it's losing it, just to give some hint of where the problem lies. I trouble shoot this kind of stuff every day administering a 25 seat Avid ISIS Unity Video Server. But that gives you logs and a whole suite of tools that help pinpoint issues. This nothing more than "disconnected" and an error code which can not be found on the internet.


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## warner (Jul 31, 2001)

I'm having disconnection issues with my Roamio Plus and Mini also. The Mini seems to lose connection to the Roamio about 2 to 3 times an hour but I usually get the connection back within a minute or two. Doesn't seem to matter if I'm watching Live TV or recorded. Everything is hooked up via wired gigabit connection. Never had these issues with my two networked Premier XL's. I seem to have better luck if the Roamio's ethernet is connected directly to the wall outlet rather than to a switch. But I haven't tested this enough yet.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

MScottC said:


> Unfortunately I have duplicates of neither. I'm going to call support and hope they'll send me a new box first... just not sure which to ask for as a replacement in the first go round. Some more advanced diagnostics or logging would be helpful. It would be cool if there was some log of which box is losing connections to what and when it's losing it, just to give some hint of where the problem lies. I trouble shoot this kind of stuff every day administering a 25 seat Avid ISIS Unity Video Server. But that gives you logs and a whole suite of tools that help pinpoint issues. This nothing more than "disconnected" and an error code which can not be found on the internet.


Ask for a replacement Mini first. Since it doesn't have any recordings or Season Passes it's the easier one to replace.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

Well, I think I found the answer to my issue... the two pieces of gear I'd least suspect. As I said in earlier posts, a GigE switch resides on either end of a cat5 cable connecting my office/den/spare bedroom and my living room. The primary router, TiVo Mini and all my other gear hang off the office switch. A router in WAP mode, Roamio Plus and other A/V gear hang off the living room switch. 

This morning I took the mini out to the living room, connected it to the switch there and lo and behold, still had issues. That ruled out the run between the two rooms. Exasperated, I almost walked away, but then in a last ditch effort, plugged both TiVo devices into the router in the living room and got no disconnects for a half hour. Wow, I'm on to something.

So, even though I had only fifteen minutes before needing to make my bus to work, I pulled the mini back into the office, totally reconfigured the wiring in my office to connect the mini, the switch and the living room line all to the Asus router, and in the living room, I connected the Roamio, the switch and the other end of the long run to the WAP/router. All my other gear hangs off the respective room switches. Since then, everything seems to be running perfectly. 

I had no idea switches which appeared to have been working perfectly, and have nothing to configure, would cause me such aggravation. 

For the record, these are TRENDnet 8-Port Unmanaged Gigabit GREENnet Standard Switches, model number TEG-S80G.


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## southerndoc (Apr 5, 2003)

Green switches often turn off ports when they aren't being used. So if your Mini isn't actively receiving data from your TiVo, then your switch is probably disabling the port and dropping connectivity.


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## warner (Jul 31, 2001)

My Roamio was also connected to the Trendnet TEG-S80G switch. I tried another 8 port switch (Dlink DGS-10008G) but still had disconnect issues. My Mini is upstairs and is connected to a different switch (Netgear). So far, in my short testing, the only switch that hasn't given me a problem yet is a 5 port Trendnet TEG-S50G


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## Alanbrad (Aug 27, 2013)

I have tried an external wireless card (not sure if that is the technical name of it or what) and it doesn't pick up anything either.

Robot Vacuum


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I've noticed this issue recently with my Roamio Plus and also sometimes with my Minis. I use all Dlink Switches. ALthough I didn't realize it was because of the green switches. I had changed my DHCP lease time to only 2 minutes yesterday and I didn't have the problem after that. So I'm moving the DHCP lease time up to see at what point I have issues again. But if the green switches are the problem, I might need to dust off some of my old Netgear, non green switches that I used to have many years ago. All my my old Dlink Switches in storage are also green switches so I guess there is no reason to try those older models.


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## MScottC (Sep 11, 2004)

geekmedic said:


> Green switches often turn off ports when they aren't being used. So if your Mini isn't actively receiving data from your TiVo, then your switch is probably disabling the port and dropping connectivity.


I don't think this is the case, as I'd get disconnects while watching the Mini via the green switches.



aaronwt said:


> I've noticed this issue recently with my Roamio Plus and also sometimes with my Minis. I use all Dlink Switches. ALthough I didn't realize it was because of the green switches. I had changed my DHCP lease time to only 2 minutes yesterday and I didn't have the problem after that. So I'm moving the DHCP lease time up to see at what point I have issues again. But if the green switches are the problem, I might need to dust off some of my old Netgear, non green switches that I used to have many years ago. All my my old Dlink Switches in storage are also green switches so I guess there is no reason to try those older models.


It's also not a DHCP issue as the first thing I did when setting up both the Roamio Plus and the Mini was to assign static IPs

FYI, my primary router is an Asus RT-N56U, and the secondary router in WAP mode only is a Trendnet TEW432 BRP, 802.11g wireless router, about 5 years old.


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## southerndoc (Apr 5, 2003)

MScottC said:


> I don't think this is the case, as I'd get disconnects while watching the Mini via the green switches.
> 
> It's also not a DHCP issue as the first thing I did when setting up both the Roamio Plus and the Mini was to assign static IPs
> 
> FYI, my primary router is an Asus RT-N56U, and the secondary router in WAP mode only is a Trendnet TEW432 BRP, 802.11g wireless router, about 5 years old.


So far I haven't had any problems with static IP's. Maybe it's a TiVo bug.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

MScottC said:


> I don't think this is the case, as I'd get disconnects while watching the Mini via the green switches.
> 
> It's also not a DHCP issue as the first thing I did when setting up both the Roamio Plus and the Mini was to assign static IPs
> 
> FYI, my primary router is an Asus RT-N56U, and the secondary router in WAP mode only is a Trendnet TEW432 BRP, 802.11g wireless router, about 5 years old.


I'm using an RT-N56U also as my primary router.

I had seen the same issue on my Minis with a static IP also. I switched them off static IPs earlier this week when I switched the from MoCA back to Ethernet.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I found a Dlink Switch, a DGL series(version A2) that did not have the green label on it. Since I switched to the older DLink, I have not seen the connection drop out on the Roamio Pro. But I was also using the Pro alot too yesterday. I'll need to use it some more later this week to see if the issue actually doesn't crop up again.


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## warner (Jul 31, 2001)

Since I'm switched to a Trendnet 5 port "greennet" switch, I've only had 1 disconnect in the last 3 days. I'm back to using auto ip. When I had issues with my original trendnet greennet switch, I tried static ip but it didn't help.


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## PoobBubes (Jun 30, 2010)

Are the intermittent problems with the 8-port GREENnet switches occurring when the Mini is connected to them, or when the host Roamio/Premiere is?

I will have my Roamio connected to an 8-port and my Mini connected to a 5-port (still waiting on the Roamio to get here).


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## warner (Jul 31, 2001)

I've only used the 8 port switches on the Roamio. The mini has always been connected to a 5 port non-green Netgear switch.


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## DCIFRTHS (Jan 6, 2000)

This would be a deal breaker for me. I will stick with a dedicated box if this is an issue. It seems like the cause is not know at this point. Am I correct?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I have like 3 switches between my Mini and my TiVo, and all traffic travels across a both a powerline network and a MoCa network, and I never have any trouble with it.

Mini->Powerline->Switch->Switch->Moca->Roamio Pro->Switch->Premiere 2

My wife uses it most often and the above is the mapp the data has to take to get from the Mini to her Premiere. If she had problems with dropouts she'd let me know.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

These "switch" issues with Tivo drive me crazy. I'm not sure what IP stack Tivo is using, however unless you are managing multiple vlans and subnets and have some crazy stuff going on, with a flat network using a single DHCP server/applet, there should be zero issues. Unfortunately, Tivo seems to be somewhat non-compliant with industry standard technology - and frankly points to a deviation from the IEEE standard (whether accidentally or deliberately). Any time you report a V301 or similar issue (which btw have HORRIBLE instrumentation) Tivo CSR will ask if you have a "switch", and if you do, they then say that "Tivo does not support switches". The reality is that unless you use MOCA and unless you have zero other hardwired Ethernet TCP/IP devices in your home, the mini cannot be used in any configuration without a "switch". Keep in mind that the "router" everyone talks about (from VZ, etc) is really a combination router/access point/firewall/DHCP server/switch. Emphasis on the "switch". IMHO it is simply another cop out on Tivos part to try and blow off software defects. I experience the same V301 issues that I reported a year ago. Tivo has been of zero help whatsoever. BTW, DHCP should have absolutely nothing to do with this. If this is somehow related to DHCP leases, something is HORRIBLY wrong.


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## gweempose (Mar 23, 2003)

wmhjr said:


> Any time you report a V301 or similar issue (which btw have HORRIBLE instrumentation) Tivo CSR will ask if you have a "switch", and if you do, they then say that "Tivo does not support switches" ...


That's utterly ridiculous! These things are designed to be used on a network. How exactly is it possible to have a network without at least one switch?


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

gweempose said:


> That's utterly ridiculous! These things are designed to be used on a network. How exactly is it possible to have a network without at least one switch?


You are exactly right. IMHO Tivo preys on the non-tech savvy folks out there because there are clear quality issues with their product and they either cannot or will not dedicate resources to resolving them. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of good to Tivo, but quality has IMHO continuously declined over the past 5 years - dramatically.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

gweempose said:


> That's utterly ridiculous! These things are designed to be used on a network. How exactly is it possible to have a network without at least one switch?


Well you can setup a PC as a DHCP server and every network connection is connected directly to an Ethernet card in the PC. This is how my network was setup in the late 90's and early 2000's. But I only had a few things on my network back then.
Now with over sixty devices that is not possible for me.


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## Scooby Doo (Dec 18, 2002)

It does seem odd to be having these basic networking issues in this day and age. Sort of a throwback to the 1990s. I suspect at least part of the issue is that Tivo is a little more fussy than other ethernet devices for content security reasons. So some network configurations that might work perfectly well with say a pair of PCs will not work with a pair of Tivos. Most switches will for example quite happily bridge two subnets, but this will not work with a Tivo. Top tip: make double sure you are not running DHCP on more than one device in your network. Double sure.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Scooby Doo said:


> It does seem odd to be having these basic networking issues in this day and age. Sort of a throwback to the 1990s. I suspect at least part of the issue is that Tivo is a little more fussy than other ethernet devices for content security reasons. So some network configurations that might work perfectly well with say a pair of PCs will not work with a pair of Tivos. Most switches will for example quite happily bridge two subnets, but this will not work with a Tivo. Top tip: make double sure you are not running DHCP on more than one device in your network. Double sure.


I doubt that would be an issue with the vast majority of people. Most people have one router, which is also used for wireless access. So right there they can easily have issues with wireless because they don't have multiple APs like a proper setup is supposed to have.


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## Scooby Doo (Dec 18, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> I doubt that would be an issue with the vast majority of people. Most people have one router, which is also used for wireless access. So right there they can easily have issues with wireless because they don't have multiple APs like a proper setup is supposed to have.


I come across friends and neighbors all the time who are running two routers, most without even realizing it. People who have some devices directly connected to their modem and other devices connected to a wifi router. People who have added a second wifi AP as a range extender and are running it as a router because that's what it defaults to.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> Well you can setup a PC as a DHCP server and every network connection is connected directly to an Ethernet card in the PC. This is how my network was setup in the late 90's and early 2000's. But I only had a few things on my network back then.
> Now with over sixty devices that is not possible for me.


Actually, not sure exactly what you're saying here. I was building networks back in the ArcNet days. In the late 90s and early 2000s you would still have needed a switch to have multiple connections to a PC, unless you had multiple NICs in the PC - in which case it would be a co-homed set of networks (which is a bad idea). A NIC does not have the ability to do what you said.

Back in bus network topology, you could serially network network devices - having a terminating resistor on both ends. Other than that, you need either a switch or at least a hub to have more than 2 devices - and have needed this for decades.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

Scooby Doo said:


> It does seem odd to be having these basic networking issues in this day and age. Sort of a throwback to the 1990s. I suspect at least part of the issue is that Tivo is a little more fussy than other ethernet devices for content security reasons. So some network configurations that might work perfectly well with say a pair of PCs will not work with a pair of Tivos. Most switches will for example quite happily bridge two subnets, but this will not work with a Tivo. Top tip: make double sure you are not running DHCP on more than one device in your network. Double sure.


I agree with the first part of your statement, but your suspicion. 
I do NOT believe it has a darned thing to do with content security. There are plenty of devices that have to deal with this - specifically including cable/fios provided dvr's among others.

The bottom line here is that Tivo simply violates IEEE standards and best practices, either deliberately or accidentally. Switches do not manipulate packets. Period. Routers and firewalls can have different effects, but not switches. These are clear flaws/defects in the Tivo system, for which Tivo has not shown the slightest indication that they are trying to fix.

For my "job", I have hundreds of thousands of network devices, with encryption for data at rest and data in motion, Enterprise VoIP, video, many many many petabytes of data. The fact that Tivo points to "switches" as creating problems for their devices speaks volumes. No self respecting technology/service company (which is exactly what they are) would either allow this, or would admit it.

This really makes me question even more what will happen to Tivo as more IP delivered content becomes mainstream, and more homes become "unplugged" from cable/fios/etc. These services are Tivos weakest link.


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## WRX09MD (Aug 25, 2013)

Read through this. Sounds like the same issues I had and the assistance in this thread fixed my problems. I have verizon but the basics should work with other companies.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=508735


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

Certainly nothing to do with my issues. No MoCa. No 2nd router. No 2nd DHCP server/applet. Just a single, flat network with a single DHCP server (on the FiOS Actiontec unit). All devices connected on the same flat network segment via CAT5E.


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## Scooby Doo (Dec 18, 2002)

wmhjr said:


> I agree with the first part of your statement, but your suspicion. I do NOT believe it has a darned thing to do with content security. There are plenty of devices that have to deal with this - specifically including cable/fios provided dvr's among others..


Yes, cable/fios have to deal with these same issues. And do their whole home DVR solutions work? No, they don't. Whole home DVR is hard. The Tivo solution isn't perfect but it works a whole lot better than anyone else's product.

Look, I don't know if your issues are related to content security or not, and nor do you. But it is very unlikely to be a layer 2 networking bug because Tivo, along with everyone else in the industry, are using extremely mature stacks for that stuff. You don't seriously believe Tivo writes their own ip networking code do you? It is far more likely to be an application layer issue or user error. There are plenty of us with quite complex network configurations who are having no problems.


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## DCIFRTHS (Jan 6, 2000)

wmhjr said:


> I agree with the first part of your statement, but your suspicion.
> I do NOT believe it has a darned thing to do with content security. There are plenty of devices that have to deal with this - specifically including cable/fios provided dvr's among others.
> 
> The bottom line here is that Tivo simply violates IEEE standards and best practices, either deliberately or accidentally. Switches do not manipulate packets. Period. Routers and firewalls can have different effects, but not switches. These are clear flaws/defects in the Tivo system, for which Tivo has not shown the slightest indication that they are trying to fix.
> ...


If you go to this page, and scroll down to the "switch" sections, you will see four switches that have compatibility issues with Sonos devices. Look at the reasons listed. It seems to be that the switch is not doing something correctly.

I have no idea what is going on with the TiVo Mini, but it is my guess that it could be the fault of any device on the network - in this case that doesn't rule out either TiVo or the various networking equipment that we all have in our homes.

As I have stated before, I will NOT be purchasing a TiVo Mini until TiVo identifies the problem, and either fixes it, or identifies the conditions under which it occurs.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

Scooby Doo said:


> Yes, cable/fios have to deal with these same issues. And do their whole home DVR solutions work? No, they don't. Whole home DVR is hard. The Tivo solution isn't perfect but it works a whole lot better than anyone else's product.
> 
> Look, I don't know if your issues are related to content security or not, and nor do you. But it is very unlikely to be a layer 2 networking bug because Tivo, along with everyone else in the industry, are using extremely mature stacks for that stuff. You don't seriously believe Tivo writes their own ip networking code do you? It is far more likely to be an application layer issue or user error. There are plenty of us with quite complex network configurations who are having no problems.


I totally disagree with just about everything you've said here. Yes, I believe it's entirely possible that Tivo is using a proprietary IP stack. They would not be the first, nor the only company to do so. I happen to have VZs whole home DVR solution in addition to my XL4s and Minis. Yes, it works. It is very very reliable IMHO. Is it as feature rich as Tivo? No. Is it more reliable? Yes, in every single respect.

BTW, I do agree that it's likely software (code) - which for your info includes the IP stack.

I would encourage you to do some research before making claims that "everyone is using mature" etc. The company I left 2 years ago used - guess what? A proprietary IP stack for a network enable product. Why? Because the processor of the unit lacked the power and capability to do otherwise. Hmmm.... And exactly how "powerful" is the processor in a Premiere? Not as powerful as what's in most newer smart phones.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

DCIFRTHS said:


> If you go to this page, and scroll down to the "switch" sections, you will see four switches that have compatibility issues with Sonos devices. Look at the reasons listed. It seems to be that the switch is not doing something correctly.
> 
> I have no idea what is going on with the TiVo Mini, but it is my guess that it could be the fault of any device on the network - in this case that doesn't rule out either TiVo or the various networking equipment that we all have in our homes.
> 
> As I have stated before, I will NOT be purchasing a TiVo Mini until TiVo identifies the problem, and either fixes it, or identifies the conditions under which it occurs.


My guess is that many of those issues related to the bonjour protocol being used for multicast. That is certainly one issue that can be caused by some access point/switch/routers. However, that is not related to this issue whatsoever.

I do not, under any circumstances, hold anyone but Tivo responsible for this. It's very easy for Tivo. If you want to be transparent, simply expose exactly what ports and protocols are being used. So long as they are being properly supported, nothing else matters. The lack of such clarity speaks very very loudly. In other words, if Tivo really believed it was the fault of other network gear, they could easily put the responsibility where it lies were they to publish this and clearly show switches/routers that failed to properly implement support of such protocols.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

wmhjr said:


> I totally disagree with just about everything you've said here. Yes, I believe it's entirely possible that Tivo is using a proprietary IP stack. They would not be the first, nor the only company to do so. I happen to have VZs whole home DVR solution in addition to my XL4s and Minis. Yes, it works. It is very very reliable IMHO. Is it as feature rich as Tivo? No. Is it more reliable? Yes, in every single respect.
> 
> BTW, I do agree that it's likely software (code) - which for your info includes the IP stack.
> 
> I would encourage you to do some research before making claims that "everyone is using mature" etc. The company I left 2 years ago used - guess what? A proprietary IP stack for a network enable product. Why? Because the processor of the unit lacked the power and capability to do otherwise. Hmmm.... And exactly how "powerful" is the processor in a Premiere? Not as powerful as what's in most newer smart phones.


Just for reference purposes, I work for a company that builds network gear and it's incredibly uncommon for someone to use "their own IP stack" in anything designed or built in the last decade. Almost all companies either use the IP stacks of the OS that they use or they license a mature stack from another company.

Building an IP stack is a costly and painful endeavor.

Additionally, Layer 2 problems (which are switch type problems) have nothing to do with the IP stack. A layer 2 problem, such as a link negotiation problem, power saving problem, etc, are not IP issues. They are far more likely to be issues with hardware drivers, or in very rare cases, issues with the hardware itself.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

jmpage2 said:


> Just for reference purposes, I work for a company that builds network gear and it's incredibly uncommon for someone to use "their own IP stack" in anything designed or built in the last decade. Almost all companies either use the IP stacks of the OS that they use or they license a mature stack from another company.
> 
> Building an IP stack is a costly and painful endeavor.
> 
> Additionally, Layer 2 problems (which are switch type problems) have nothing to do with the IP stack. A layer 2 problem, such as a link negotiation problem, power saving problem, etc, are not IP issues. They are far more likely to be issues with hardware drivers, or in very rare cases, issues with the hardware itself.


Just for reference purposes, as described I can give two specific examples in the last 18 months of products that use a proprietary IP stack. Most of these occur when the OS itself is a non-standard OS, and when using lesser capable processors.

Additionally, I never said this was a layer 2 issue. This could easily be layer 3 among other issues.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

wmhjr said:


> Just for reference purposes, as described I can give two specific examples in the last 18 months of products that use a proprietary IP stack. Most of these occur when the OS itself is a non-standard OS, and when using lesser capable processors.
> 
> Additionally, I never said this was a layer 2 issue. This could easily be layer 3 among other issues.


If the problem is that links drop and disconnect it seems more likely that it's layer 2 than layer 3.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

wmhjr said:


> Actually, not sure exactly what you're saying here. I was building networks back in the ArcNet days. In the late 90s and early 2000s you would still have needed a switch to have multiple connections to a PC, unless you had multiple NICs in the PC - in which case it would be a co-homed set of networks (which is a bad idea). A NIC does not have the ability to do what you said.
> 
> Back in bus network topology, you could serially network network devices - having a terminating resistor on both ends. Other than that, you need either a switch or at least a hub to have more than 2 devices - and have needed this for decades.


Yes I had multiple NICs in my DHCP server.. And when I went gigabit I had multiple NICs as well until I could finally get a gigabit switch at a descent price.
And then once consumer routers came out with gigabit ports I finally dumped the dhcp server and used a Dlink router..


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## Scooby Doo (Dec 18, 2002)

WMHJR: You are clearly very certain of your own expertise and dismissive of others who are trying to be helpful. So you are unlikely to find help for your problems in these forums. Or perhaps you are just here to vent, which is fine, but be aware that at some point it just becomes self-indulgent and dull.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

Scooby Doo said:


> WMHJR: You are clearly very certain of your own expertise and dismissive of others who are trying to be helpful. So you are unlikely to find help for your problems in these forums. Or perhaps you are just here to vent, which is fine, but be aware that at some point it just becomes self-indulgent and dull.


I'm just being accurate. It's not dismissive - it's a dislike for inaccurate information. Inaccurate information leads to assumptions about root causes. More critically, it allows Tivo to blame others for failed technologies. Tivo should be held publicly responsible for defects rather than simply accepting product defects and blaming them on vague but unsubstantiated other causes.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> Yes I had multiple NICs in my DHCP server.. And when I went gigabit I had multiple NICs as well until I could finally get a gigabit switch at a descent price.
> And then once consumer routers came out with gigabit ports I finally dumped the dhcp server and used a Dlink router..


OK, that would work. Not sure why you'd want to do that, but it would work - so long as you constructed the vlans such that you're bridging all the separate networks.

For non-enterprise, GB is typically way overkill. Curious as to what you were doing that required GB network segments. To be honest, it's only relatively recently that GB was even a mainstay in enterprise network datacenters. I say recently only in terms of comparison to when consumer grade GB switches became available. Also, keeping in mind that full duplex speeds from your gateway will be certainly a small fraction of a GB port speed.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

wmhjr said:


> OK, that would work. Not sure why you'd want to do that, but it would work - so long as you constructed the vlans such that you're bridging all the separate networks.
> 
> For non-enterprise, GB is typically way overkill. Curious as to what you were doing that required GB network segments. To be honest, it's only relatively recently that GB was even a mainstay in enterprise network datacenters. I say recently only in terms of comparison to when consumer grade GB switches became available. Also, keeping in mind that full duplex speeds from your gateway will be certainly a small fraction of a GB port speed.


In 2001 I got a couple of HiPix cards for recording OTA HD content. At the time I could not find an antenna that gave me reception in my condo so I had one pc setup at my GFs house to record a bunch of HD shows every week. I had a removable drive bay and would swap out an 80GB drive each week with 30 to 50 GB of shows. So when I brought it home I would transfer it to a PC I used to store the content for network access for playback later. At first I only had 100BT cards and it took forever to transfer the content each week. That was the only reason I set up a gigabit network. So I I could transfer that content much faster to the PC I used for network storage.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> In 2001 I got a couple of HiPix cards for recording OTA HD content. At the time I could not find an antenna that gave me reception in my condo so I had one pc setup at my GFs house to record a bunch of HD shows every week. I had a removable drive bay and would swap out an 80GB drive each week with 30 to 50 GB of shows. So when I brought it home I would transfer it to a PC I used to store the content for network access for playback later. At first I only had 100BT cards and it took forever to transfer the content each week. That was the only reason I set up a gigabit network. So I I could transfer that content much faster to the PC I used for network storage.


Ah, got it. I can understand. OTA is uncompressed with pretty darned high bit rates. I can imagine individual file sizes would be pretty large - much larger than the compressed MPEG2/MPEG4 stuff we get from Fios - and even more so from other providers such as Comcast, etc.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Anyone who rips blu-ray disks has (or needs) a gigabit network as the file size for a single BD movie can easily be 30+ GB and transfering over 100Mb takes an eternity.

Similarly things like Time Machine (or other network backup solutions) go much faster with gigabit.

Gigabit costs a few bucks more these days over 100 megabit. I actually don't see why anyone does NOT get gigabit home network gear... even if they don't need it now, it's entirely possible they will down the road. I have a basement full of older slower hubs and switches because my uses have outgrown them.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

I agree that if you're buying new equipment, no reason not to get Gig-E. However, for most people if you don't already have it, it is massive overkill at the moment. Lots of people burning BR disks aren't doing any of the work over the network, so the Gig network is a non-issue. If you're using an internal backup (meaning internal on your network) then I suppose Gig can help if you're always doing full backups. If you're doing incrementals, it's a non-issue. While I've had Gig for quite a while, honestly there has been no real reason other than I wanted to upgrade my switch for other reasons (port density). From a performance perspective, it has not made any difference but I'm not ripping disks, etc.

That being said, to stay at least a little on topic, since I've duplicated these issues using a number of switches, including old 8 port 10/100 switches with no "green" capability, I think we can safely say that either Gig-E or green switches are NOT the root cause. Each case I've duplicated this ALL Tivos have been behind the exact same switch at that time. Meaning, all of them on an 8 port Linksys 10/100 (fail). All of them behind Cisco 24 port Gig (fail). etc.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

wmhjr said:


> That being said, to stay at least a little on topic, since I've duplicated these issues using a number of switches, including old 8 port 10/100 switches with no "green" capability, I think we can safely say that either Gig-E or green switches are NOT the root cause. Each case I've duplicated this ALL Tivos have been behind the exact same switch at that time. Meaning, all of them on an 8 port Linksys 10/100 (fail). All of them behind Cisco 24 port Gig (fail). etc.


Sorry, but all we can conclude is that YOUR problems are not caused green switches. Your problems have existed for a year; almost everybody else's problems have started in the past 3 weeks. You haven't produced any evidence that your problem is caused by the same thing as everybody else, and the timing strongly suggests that the cause is different. What you report here is just further evidence that YOUR problem is different, since many people report that swapping switches has made a difference for them.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

CrispyCritter said:


> Sorry, but all we can conclude is that YOUR problems are not caused green switches. Your problems have existed for a year; almost everybody else's problems have started in the past 3 weeks. You haven't produced any evidence that your problem is caused by the same thing as everybody else, and the timing strongly suggests that the cause is different. What you report here is just further evidence that YOUR problem is different, since many people report that swapping switches has made a difference for them.


Actually, strongly disagree. Here is why.

1) My TIVO NETWORK issues (which include Mini and Premiere) have existed for more than a year. Obviously, I did not HAVE minis for more than a year.

2) The statement that "almost everybody else's problems have started in the past 3 weeks" is also false.

3) Because "some" people report success with green switches, "some" people report issues with them, "some" people report success with older (non-green) switches, and "some" people report issues with older (non-green) switches. Again, your statement is false.

The common issue here is that at least starting with the Premiere line, Tivo has been less than stellar in terms of network compatibility and reliability. And that further, it is very unlikely that the ROOT CAUSE of this issue is green switches. You simply cannot pick and choose the people experiencing issues to determine what root cause is. Perhaps an FMEA would be enlightening, no?


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