# Roamio Boot Loop?



## markp99

My Roamio has been flawless since I first bought it ~1yr ago (I expanded the hard drive on day-one).

Tonite it re-booted unexpectedly. After its normal start-up sequence, I got to the TiVo intro video, it played for ~15 seconds and then re-booted again. This process has repeated 5 times.

On one attempt, I pressed the TiVo button to bypass the intro, the TiVo went to the Live programming and played for a minute or two, then rebooted.

Any suggestions to troubleshoot?


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## ajayabb

Mine is doing the same thing tonite.


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## Tom Pich

I'm getting the same thing just now. I'm not sure what the problem is. I have two Roamio Pros and only one is doing this at the moment.

Right now the problem machine has boot looped 5 or 6 times now.


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## jjd_87

Having the exact same problem with my Premiere 4.


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## PoobBubes

Same here with my Roamio Pro. Maybe someone should tweet Margret about it.


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## markp99

Strange this is new for us all at ~same time. I wonder if an update was pushed today?


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## markp99

I just sent a PM to Marget - will keep this thread posted with any replies.


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## stevecny

This just started for me as well, I was watching an older saved show when it stopped responding to the remote, now it just keeps rebooting after about a minute.


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## ajayabb

Thanks Mark


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## pds1979

Am having the same problem. We are at re-boot #6 or so...getting ridiculous.


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## gtidriver

Just to add another data point... Got home a few minutes ago, and same issue here on a Roamio+. No modifications on my box, and it has the same drive since I bought it.


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## Tom Pich

Just disconnected ethernet and that stopped the boot looping for me.

2nd Roamio Pro still working fine though.


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## markp99

Yanked Ethernet here. Reboots have stopped, but this is only a temporary fix


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## JSearfoss

This just started for me to. Was watching a recording and it rebooted. Now it reboots every few minutes. I think I'm going on number 6 right now.


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## Wiggly

Same thing here in Denver CO. Have pulled the ethernet cable and it has stopped for now. WTF?


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## NJguy

Same issue here. Pulled the Cat5. Pissed because it's 8:15 and I'm missing shows being taped!


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## csmith0406

Just to add to the chorus, two Roamios, one rebooting over and over, the other fine. Unplugged network cable to get it to stop.


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## NJguy

My problem with disconnecting network cable is that my 3 minis are now useless unless I want to go through trying to connect through MoCA


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## PedjaR

Same here. Bunch of reboots in a row, looks like OK after removing ethernet cord.


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## jmpage2

Same problem. I disconnected it from the Internet and for the moment it appears to be working.


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## NJguy

Thank goodness for this forum. I would have been cursing at the tv all night if it wasn't for tivocommunity. I wonder how many are having the issue and haven't checked here.


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## peekb

+1 

Lots of reboots tonight. Glad I came here to check.  Ran disk check and everything else first. Appears to be network related...the ad squares across the top are now missing, and selecting a recorded show to view details now displays a blank screen, then the progress indicator, then finally draws in 30s later.


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## Tom Pich

This is really strange. I have two Roamio Pros. They both have the same software version. One had the boot loop issue till I pulled the ethernet. The other is working fine. I even forced a connection to tivo on the fully functional unit and everything is still fine on that Roamio.


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## kelavine

I to am experiencing the reboot loop. The TV Support phone line is really broken up while on hold. Can hardly understand what the IVR is saying. I checked status.tivo.com and it shows everything working.


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## rsnaider

I should have come here sooner, just forced a GSOD thinking I had a bad HD. Hopefully it will be fine afterwards.


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## stevecny

Follow-up: I'm still connected via ethernet, and my Roamio stopped rebooting after flipping through some channels and another saved show. Not sure what happened, the one in the living room has been chugging along fine all this time.


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## GoldnDoodle

I got through on the customer support line before it went dead. They said it is a nationwide problem, they are aware of the problem, they are working on it.

They warned to NOT do a COLD BOOT. Do not disconnect everything then reboot.

While I was waiting on hold, as one of the reboots started - and I got the TiVo cartoon - I clicked the LIVE TV button, then immediately went into Settings > Network and did a call home. It completed the call to TiVo and my Roamio has now been stable for about a half hour.


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## markp99

GoldnDoodle said:


> I got through on the customer support line before it went dead. They said it is a nationwide problem, they are aware of the problem, they are working on it.
> 
> They warned to NOT do a COLD BOOT. Do not disconnect everything then reboot.
> 
> While I was waiting on hold, as one of the reboots started - and I got the TiVo cartoon - I clicked the LIVE TV button, then immediately went into Settings > Network and did a call home. It completed the call to TiVo and my Roamio has now been stable for about a half hour.


I did a COLD boot. D'oh.


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## wmhjr

Just started with mine at just after 8pm Eastern time. Since I have two minis, pulling ethernet effectively makes my Tivos a brick. Nice software development, Tivo.


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## dminunni

Same here. Mine has been working flawlessly for months. Have been using it all night and then suddenly started rebooting continuously around 7:30. Unplugging power cord and plugging back in seemed to have stopped it, but now it doesn't respond to the remote. I just pulled the ethernet cable. I guess I can at least watch Gotham for now. I hope they figure it out soon. this is very annoying. Ironically, I got a Tivo Roamio satisfaction survey in my email right when this started happening. LOL.


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## y8z742

Had same issue with Roamio Plus. Rebooted about 8 times, started during recording 1 show, then finished reboots and messed up 2 more shows. Tivo phone support says they are trying to figure out what caused the problem. Static on tivo's phone line too.


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## wmhjr

GoldnDoodle said:


> I got through on the customer support line before it went dead. They said it is a nationwide problem, they are aware of the problem, they are working on it.
> 
> They warned to NOT do a COLD BOOT. Do not disconnect everything then reboot.
> 
> While I was waiting on hold, as one of the reboots started - and I got the TiVo cartoon - I clicked the LIVE TV button, then immediately went into Settings > Network and did a call home. It completed the call to TiVo and my Roamio has now been stable for about a half hour.


My reboot process starts too quickly and the Roamio Pro locks up before you can navigate to the settings menu.


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## elwaylite

Mine too. Was watching Amazon tv shows downloaded. Deleted one, then just got spinning blue ring and then C501 error so I did a restart. Now its booting up, locking up, and then rebooting.


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## wolfson

Having same issue. Started rebooting around 7:30PM EST. Did a cold reboot and got the same. Assumed HD was going bad, so ran a SMART test, and its doing a KickStart 52 now. I should have checked here first.


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## markp99

y8z742 said:


> Static on tivo's phone line too.


Solar flares! That's my bet


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## leeherman

Yep, same problem with my Roamio, froze, rebooted several times, responded very slowly for a few minutes then seemed to go back to normal.

While responding slowly, the tabs at the top of the screen and programming details did not appear.

This started around 8PM EST and seemed to be back to normal by around 8:10.

LH


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## elwaylite

These boxes are too damned dependent on a connection...


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## markp99

I'm having lots of intermittent connectivity issue with 500px tonite as well. I wonder if related?


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## pds1979

OK, we pulled the ethernet for a while, just plugged it back in, and we seem to be back in business. No idea what that was all about, but let's hope it doesn't happen again!! (For us, this went on for 50 minutes.) 

Roamio Plus
2 Tivo Minis


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## ddonohue

+1, Premiere

I noticed it right around 7:55 pm EST, it rebooted once while it was not recording and no one was touching the remote. Came back up and I grabbed the remote to check something in the guide, but after a few button pushes the amber light hung solid, then after about 20 seconds the green light went out, the amber stayed on, and down she went. It's been rebooting continuously through dinner tonight. C'mon man.


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## RichardY

Ok - I did unplug power (ya - should have checked here first) rebooted ok, did a quick change to standard menus (this will find stream-baby, fast) went back to HD menus and did a service connect - seams to be working fine (was rebooting every 2-3 min after the menus came back)


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## wexler2

Mine started this reboot cycle around 7:30 EST. it stopped around 8:03 and for now is still working but now have c133 error. Seems everytime a new update comes out there are many new problems. I won't list my other complaints now because they are minor compared to this one. tivo please fix it!


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## Tom Pich

I tried to reconnect ethernet and no go. Locked up and rebooted after a few minutes.


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## elwaylite

Pulled ethernet on mine too. Been fine, and at least I can watch my Amazon downloads with now cable plugged in.


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## JimT1701

My Roamio Pro started rebooting around 730pm est as well. I did not go to the forums right away so I did cold boot it several times, trying different outlets etc. I finally came here and saw removing Ethernet helped so my Tivo has stayed on since the Ethernet was removed. Spoke to a nice support rep and she admitted it is an issue with the Tivo service connection and they are working to resolve the issue on their end. It has nothing to do with the boxes themselves but rather the Tivo service connection. Hopefully it is resolved soon as my Tivo mini is also useless now until I can restore the network connection.

She could not tell me when we will know it is fixed except to connect the cable sometime in the future and if it does not reboot then it is fixed. Not the best solution for notification but I suppose it is better than nothing. At least my shows will record tonight but I missed the first 15 min of Dancing with The Stars this evening, and Big Bang Theory is useless. I have gotten so used to forgetting what time things come on and depending on Tivo to do it for me. Derp


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## Zinfandel

Same problem here with my Roamio Pro. Based on interrupted recordings in My Shows, the first reboot was at 5:01 pm PST. I unplugged the Ethernet and things seem to be working fine for now. First time something like this has happened to me. I'm lucky I checked to make sure Monday Night Football was recording. Normally I wouldn't notice a recording problem until later when I tried to watch the show.


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## duckydan

I'm having the same issue. My TiVo is actually hooked up over MoCa so Ethernet actually isn't the issue here. I contacted TiVo via the chat and before I could even type my problem the tech posted "Before we begin, is your question related to your TiVo rebooting." He told me it was a major issue and they are working on it but have no ETA for a fix. Glad it wasn't just me as I was worried my TiVo was dying just after the 1 year mark! (I also have an annoying spinning circle that sometimes stays on the screen for a minute before displaying my shows list but I'm hoping it's related)


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## elwaylite

Mine didnt start until about 730 CST, which is odd.


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## RichardY

Interesting, I have a premier 4 -unplugged the power and did a reboot (also checked my external HD) - came back on fine the I did a connect to tivo, still have the ethernet cable hooked up (never removed it) all is working fine - I did all this at about 5:20 PM Pacific time.


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## NJguy

dminunni said:


> Same here. Mine has been working flawlessly for months. Have been using it all night and then suddenly started rebooting continuously around 7:30. Unplugging power cord and plugging back in seemed to have stopped it, but now it doesn't respond to the remote. I just pulled the ethernet cable. I guess I can at least watch Gotham for now. I hope they figure it out soon. this is very annoying. Ironically, I got a Tivo Roamio satisfaction survey in my email right when this started happening. LOL.


That's one of the taped shows I have. Missed the first 15 minutes!!! I just watched it.....dare I say....live....WITH COMMERCIALS! Ugh!


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## Ben_Jamin75

+1 for 7:55pm EDT
Rebooted 3-4 times, finally pulled the plug and did a cold boot, then played a recording as fast as possible, seems like I was able to avoid going into another reboot by not giving it time to try to populate the discovery bar.

I checked status.tivo.com. And everything reports online.


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## JimT1701

NJguy said:


> That's one of the taped shows I have. Missed the first 15 minutes!!! I just watched it.....dare I say....live....WITH COMMERCIALS! Ugh!


Its all a conspiracy to force us to watch commercials again!!!!


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## JackStraw777

elwaylite said:


> These boxes are too damned dependent on a connection...


This is happening on my Premiere also. There is a reason the Tivo's are dependent on a connection. Unless I'm mistaken if you cancel your Tivo sub you can no longer watch your saved programs on your Tivo. Tivo owns all the recorded programs on your unit. I am a Verizon Fios subscriber using a cable card. I was told if I purchase a Tivo Roamio, switch the cable card and deactivate my Premiere sub I would no longer have access to my recorded programs.


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## Scott NY

Hi everyone,

I just spoke with someone at TiVo. They know that there is a nationwide outage of sorts, affecting Premiere and Roamio models but they do not yet know the source of it. I told the gentleman about pulling the ethernet cable (which has so far worked for me) and he said it was the first he had heard of it but thanked me for the tip. He also said they are experiencing severe phone problems and that I was the first customer he could actually hear. He said the best advice he had right now was to not do any of the normal troubleshooting procedures. He was also grateful to get the details of what happened and how it occurred since he couldn't hear anyone else. He was also intrigued that it didn't affect my TiVo HD, only the Premiere XL.

I'm trying to out this into perspective. Hopefully this is a network issue on their end that they can fix quickly. One fear I had is that this is some kind of DDOS on TiVos somehow. Is that even possible?

Good luck all.

-Scott


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## elwaylite

JackStraw777 said:


> This is happening on my Premiere also. There is a reason the Tivo's are dependent on a connection. Unless I'm mistaken if you cancel your Tivo sub you can no longer watch your saved programs on your Tivo. Tivo owns all the recorded programs on your unit. I am a Verizon Fios subscriber using a cable card. I was told if I purchase a Tivo Roamio, switch the cable card and deactivate my Premiere sub I would no longer have access to my recorded programs.


I get that, but if the box can be sent into a reboot loop because of the ethernet connection, there is too much drama on the other end...

DVR is no good in primetime if it cant DVR.


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## JimT1701

JackStraw777 said:


> This is happening on my Premiere also. There is a reason the Tivo's are dependent on a connection. Unless I'm mistaken if you cancel your Tivo sub you can no longer watch your saved programs on your Tivo. Tivo owns all the recorded programs on your unit. I am a Verizon Fios subscriber using a cable card. I was told if I purchase a Tivo Roamio, switch the cable card and deactivate my Premiere sub I would no longer have access to my recorded programs.


Interesting. When I replaced my Series 3 HD Tivo with the Roamio they offered me Lifetime service on the old Series 3 for $99 bucks rather than cancelling the service all together. I guess that solution will prevent them denying your programs. But it still needs an internet connection Im sure.


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## wmhjr

Ben_Jamin75 said:


> +1 for 7:55pm EDT
> Rebooted 3-4 times, finally pulled the plug and did a cold boot, then played a recording as fast as possible, seems like I was able to avoid going into another reboot by not giving it time to try to populate the discovery bar.
> 
> I checked status.tivo.com. And everything reports online.


And exactly how often has Tivo publicly acknowledged an issue?


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## Flyguyjake

I then unplugged the power cord and it came back stable, but some channels like MSNBC & CNN are glitchy & pixelated. 

Under system info "Service Connection" last successful was @ 10/6/14 5:34pm PST when the reboot loop started. This last connection caused my problem.


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## JimT1701

I finally got into Support Chat. The rep I chatted with said that some boxes were bricking if you cold booted them during this outage. I am glad mine did not brick I cold booted about 3 times 

Here I thought the Power Rangers were protecting my Tivo from all harm.


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## coldtoes

Pfew. Glad I checked here right away. I've had it playing all day but it didn't reboot until 8:23pm EST. When it came back up and started again to record Gotham, it rebooted a second time. I found this thread and forced a call. Interestingly, it had last connected at 2:33am and was scheduled for its next connection at 8:53pm - since it doesn't usually connect again until more than 24 hours have passed, that makes me think that TiVo has code that fixes the problem and is having all boxes call back in to get the fix. It hasn't rebooted in the ~30-40 minutes since we forced a call, so thanks GoldnDoodle for that suggestion.

_Note: the number of times I said "forced a call" shows my age and how long I've been using TiVo. No, I'm not still dialing up!_


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## Flyguyjake

Anyone getting pixelation on CNN or MSNBC? On cablecard.


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## JimT1701

Flyguyjake said:


> Anyone getting pixelation on CNN or MSNBC? On cablecard.


Not my favorite channels but I check CNNHD real quick and it looked fine. CableCard on Comcast in MA.


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## nooneuknow

Flyguyjake said:


> Anyone getting pixelation on CNN or MSNBC? On cablecard.


Lots of problems with CNN macroblocking, dropping signal, even going full black-out with no AV at all.

I don't think it has anything to do with the reboots.

Three Base Roamios with Cisco CableCards, and Cisco Tuning Adapters.

The TiVo being actually used for something (remote being used) rebooted once here. I used KMTTG to force a service connection 2x on all, and only had the one reboot, on the one unit. The idle TiVos didn't reboot.


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## JimT1701

What is KMTTG?


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## jmpage2

elwaylite said:


> I get that, but if the box can be sent into a reboot loop because of the ethernet connection, there is too much drama on the other end...
> 
> DVR is no good in primetime if it cant DVR.


I agree.. Welcome to the future of everything being cloud dependent.


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## nooneuknow

JimT1701 said:


> What is KMTTG?


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=387725&highlight=kmttg


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## JimT1701

My main take away from tonight's reboot loop is what it feels like when Tivo is your only TV tuner in the house. I invested everything into Roamio Pro and Tivo mini, gave all my boxes back to Comcast and have been happy as a clam since March. It was not so much missing recordings as I was going to watch live anyway. It was loosing all ability to watch TV because this thing kept rebooting. That's my story.


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## CybrFyre

wmhjr said:


> And exactly how often has Tivo publicly acknowledged an issue?


publicly ack'ed on @Tivo twitter


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## JZC

My Roamio isn't rebooting but I've been getting the spinning blue circle all day when I try to bring up a show details screen. The screens do eventually come up after about 5 to 10 seconds.


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## RTPGiants

No reboots here on Premier or Roamio, but have seen a bit of slowness tonight when navigating.

This feels like Tivo was hacked.


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## elwaylite

JZC said:


> My Roamio isn't rebooting but I've been getting the spinning blue circle all day when I try to bring up a show details screen. The screens do eventually come up after about 5 to 10 seconds.


That is what I was getting (blue ring) and a C501 error. I restarted, still getting the C501, so I contacted the mothership. After the box did that it started rebooting too.


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## JimT1701

Replugged the Ethernet after being on for an hour and forced a service connection. Seems ok although the first service connection attempt failed and I had to try again. Noticed the VCM Connection tries to connect every 45 min. I wonder if this is the issue.


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## elwaylite

TiVo &#8207;@TiVo 16m16 minutes ago
If your box is currently rebooting, try & unplug the ethernet cable. We apologize for the inconvenience & will update with more info shortly


Twitter


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## JimT1701

The should thank this forum for figuring that part out for them.


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## jl234

My guess, since we probably aren't getting an official response. 

I think it was a high priority code update, perhaps a shellshock patch/update, with way too many devices having the same update time. When that time hit, their servers or bandwidth got swamped. The units kept trying to phone home and with no response - they rebooted, and continued until they could connect. As some were able to make the connection and get the update, the demand lowered and more and more were able to get it and it gradually came to an end. 

That's why disconnecting the ethernet connection worked as a workaround.


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## Jed1

My downstairs Premiere 4 started rebooting around 7:45 PM. After about 6 reboots I went through guided set up and now I am stuck at the downloading of the set up data. I get a N11 connection error. I got through to TiVo and they said my box maybe bricked and I have to call back tomorrow morning. The lady I spoke to sounded like she was losing her voice.
My upstairs Premiere 4 is fine as it has not rebooted at all. It even sees all the recordings on the downstairs TiVo. I am currently offloading the recordings of my downstairs TiVo to my spare hard drive on my computer using TiVo desktop.


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## Flyguyjake

JimT1701 said:


> The should thank this forum for figuring that part out for them.


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## Hubbins

Disconnected ethernet and "problem solved".

As a guess, they pushed a software update to their servers that didn't quite work as expected.


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## elwaylite

Not plugging back up ethernet until they say "good to go".


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## JimT1701

I thought that too and looked at the version before and after the forced connection and did not see it change.


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## TiVoMargret

We are terribly sorry for the trouble tonight. We are still working on it. I'll post here when we know more. For now, please unplug your Ethernet cable.

--Margret


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## elwaylite

TiVoMargret said:


> We are terribly sorry for the trouble tonight. We are still working on it. I'll post here when we know more. For now, please unplug your Ethernet cable.
> 
> --Margret


Thanks!


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## Flyguyjake

CNN & MSNBC are no longer macroblocking. VZW cablecard CA


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## Sixto

No problem here until 10:03pm ET. Was at 58 minutes into watching tonight's recording of Gotham and the Roamio Pro screen froze and then spontanteously rebooted. There was also 2 recordings going on that had just started at 10pm ET. It was 2 min 57 sec into the recordings. Since the reboot, no issue. It only rebooted once, and I haven't disconnected anything, though I will if I get the loop that others have.


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## nooneuknow

TiVoMargret said:


> We are terribly sorry for the trouble tonight. We are still working on it. I'll post here when we know more. For now, please unplug your Ethernet cable.
> 
> --Margret


Is everybody supposed to unplug their ethernet cable, no matter what is (or isn't) going on at the actual TiVo?

All TiVos, everywhere, of every model?

If there is a risk of "bricking" a TiVo, we need to know about?.

The post seems to say "everybody unplug until you hear from us". But, why do we need to unplug, when the problem is at the other end of things, and could be unplugged there?

It's times like this, past issues with TiVo service data, and service outages, that helped me resist buying Minis, while they were cheap, available, and came with lifetime service at activation. I reminded myself how easy a whole-home TiVo setup, using Minis, could be turned into a home with no cable TV access at all.


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## TiVoMargret

Ok, I've been told that it is now safe to plug the Ethernet back in. 

Again, we are VERY sorry for the inconvenience.

--Margret


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## El Maestro

We had the issue at about 10:11pm eastern. Was watching a recording of Homeland when it froze and reboot...roamio pro connected via Moca, fios for service. 

It was just one reboot, no further issues as of now...wife is sad we missed a few minutes of the Castle episode we were recording. 

This is our first random reboot; owned the unit since last November.


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## markp99

Performance is quite laggy since the reboots, lots of that spinning blue thingy when navigating around.


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## LoadStar

I only had a single reboot, at 8:55 PM CDT. No other unusual symptoms.


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## danak

TiVoMargret said:


> Ok, I've been told that it is now safe to plug the Ethernet back in.
> 
> Again, we are VERY sorry for the inconvenience.
> 
> --Margret


What should we have done if we were wireless?

Care to give us a brief rundown on what happened and whether it will happen again?


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## jedilord

Sorry, but I want some more info other than "everything is okay now". 
These things should not be crippled once the TiVo servers screw up.


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## Jed1

After a hundred connection error messages I finally made it through guided setup and my TiVo is back in action again. I have to admit my heart fell into my stomach when the TiVo rep told me I may have to get a new box.
I should have checked the forums first as this would have saved me a lot of aggravation and worry.

I originally thought about disconnecting the Ethernet cable as I noticed when it came out of the first reboot I had no discovery bar and had the spinning blue circle. I also notice I had none of the streaming services or search features. I tried to get to the diagnostics menu but it rebooted by then. I started panicking after the 6th reboot and thought to try guided setup. I will never do this again with out checking the forums first.


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## Toni

I was just tweeted by TiVo support that I should be able to o plug Wi-Fi in now. I'm waiting because I don't want tonight's recordings to screw up if it's not fixed, and I suspect they are getting a million connections right now anyway.

I'd love to know what caused this.


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## HarperVision

Maybe TiVo was updating everyone's units with the new Amazon Prime and Vudu and totally borked it up?


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## elwaylite

Just reconnected mine (615 cst), and all seems well. I had 3 Amazon downloads pending when all this started, and as soon as I plugged back in and called home one time, the downloads started right up.


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## jlb

My TiVoHD was fine.....


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## Captainbob

I would imagine if the power grid ever went down, there would be mass suicides across the US,


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## elwaylite

Captainbob said:


> I would imagine if the power grid ever went down, there would be mass suicides across the US,


Watch out sitting on that high horse, it is a long fall.

I have plenty of guns to cover me when the power grid falls, wont need a TiVo.


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## karpodiem

My parents called me complaining about their Premier. Sent them a link to this thread via e-mail. Thanks guys!


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## wmhjr

CybrFyre said:


> publicly ack'ed on @Tivo twitter


That's BS. Twitter is not an industry standard means of communicating issues.

A "Good" company would post "real" and "accurate" system status on a web page at a minimum, acknowledge the issues, and then provide updates with ETA and reason the issue occurred.

How much of that happened here?

Answer: None.


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## elwaylite

wmhjr said:


> That's BS. Twitter is not an industry standard means of communicating issues.
> 
> A "Good" company would post "real" and "accurate" system status on a web page at a minimum, acknowledge the issues, and then provide updates with ETA and reason the issue occurred.
> 
> How much of that happened here?
> 
> Answer: None.


Well, most companies use twitter as a means of a quick update. I know people fight the concept, but it MUCH faster than updating a website, unless you send out a mass email to all customer (most ideal).

I fought twitter for a long time, but use it for local emergency response and other things now, because it is instantaneous.


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## aaronwt

Hmm.. I did notice that my Premiere had rebooted last night. Only because I happened to see the lights flash on. I completely forgot about it until I saw this thread. I never checked it last night since I don't really use it. But I do know my Roamio Pro and Basic were fine.


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## wmhjr

elwaylite said:


> Well, most companies use twitter as a means of a quick update. I know people fight the concept, but it MUCH faster than updating a website, unless you send out a mass email to all customer (most ideal).
> 
> I fought twitter for a long time, but use it for local emergency response and other things now, because it is instantaneous.


Not true. "Most companies" do not "use twitter as a means of a quick update". I challenge you to show me the data on that statement. According to Gartner, that simply is not true.

"Many companies" have started to use twitter as an ADDITIONAL means to communicate - but not their primary means.

Updating content on a web site is extremely fast, when those sites are built and intended for use to communicate such information. For gods sake, even my local community uses this as a primary means, and can update emergency information and have it posted within minutes on both the community TV channel, and the community home page.

Twitter is simply a poor choice as primary communications because there are so many failure modes. It is not persistent, and more to the point - such a large population in our demographics don't even know what it is - much less use it.

Rule #1 in customer service. Know your customer.

1) Only 7 to 8% of Americans actually use twitter

2) Of those, the overwhelming majority are under the age of 29

3) Senior citizens rarely use it

4) Many of the 7-8% are actually "ghost users" who actually have an account but do not frequently use it.

5) Twitter is "noisy". If you took the approach you're talking about, and got ALL of your service status's via twitter, you wouldn't be able to keep up. When you're talking about support where you want information when you NEED it, you don't need another feed junking up your collaboration device. Doing this undermines the core value of twitter, and masks "real" valued information with what is effectively spam.

Again, Twitter is a great tool. However, GOOD companies actually use appropriate tools to reach their customers TODAY - and not what somebody thinks might be the majority years from now.

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/s...rprising-statistics-about-twitter-in-america/

http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/05/31/twitter-use-2012/


----------



## dlfl

jlb said:


> My TiVoHD was fine.....


He He. Guess there are small consolations for still using only a Series 3! On second thought there was the recent similar issue where Series 3's would reboot at the end of playing back a recording. 

Maybe TiVo should have kept some of those software people they recently fired.


----------



## BSUGrad

Are there are any updates as to what caused this? I was watching live TV almost all night on my Roamio Pro and had no problems. As far as I know everything recorded correctly last night as I had no reboots when I was watching.


----------



## elwaylite

wmhjr said:


> Not true. "Most companies" do not "use twitter as a means of a quick update". I challenge you to show me the data on that statement. According to Gartner, that simply is not true.
> 
> "Many companies" have started to use twitter as an ADDITIONAL means to communicate - but not their primary means.
> 
> Updating content on a web site is extremely fast, when those sites are built and intended for use to communicate such information. For gods sake, even my local community uses this as a primary means, and can update emergency information and have it posted within minutes on both the community TV channel, and the community home page.
> 
> Twitter is simply a poor choice as primary communications because there are so many failure modes. It is not persistent, and more to the point - such a large population in our demographics don't even know what it is - much less use it.
> 
> Rule #1 in customer service. Know your customer.
> 
> 1) Only 7 to 8% of Americans actually use twitter
> 
> 2) Of those, the overwhelming majority are under the age of 29
> 
> 3) Senior citizens rarely use it
> 
> 4) Many of the 7-8% are actually "ghost users" who actually have an account but do not frequently use it.
> 
> 5) Twitter is "noisy". If you took the approach you're talking about, and got ALL of your service status's via twitter, you wouldn't be able to keep up. When you're talking about support where you want information when you NEED it, you don't need another feed junking up your collaboration device. Doing this undermines the core value of twitter, and masks "real" valued information with what is effectively spam.
> 
> Again, Twitter is a great tool. However, GOOD companies actually use appropriate tools to reach their customers TODAY - and not what somebody thinks might be the majority years from now.
> 
> http://www.convinceandconvert.com/s...rprising-statistics-about-twitter-in-america/
> 
> http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/05/31/twitter-use-2012/


You need to re read what I said.

One I never said it was their "primary" means, you used that word. I'll give you "most companies", because what I meant is companies like Directv, ATT, Comcast, Dish and TiVo can and do use twitter/facebook for a quick blast to all customers *listening*, as one means. I also said a blast email would have been the *best* means, because you can't call everyone, and posting here in a forum is not the answer either. You glazed that over by trying to teach me what I already know about social media.

Finally, since we are here on a forum, you obviously understand advancement, and you can choose to ignore an easy means of communication from a company to it's customer about an outage (twitter/facebook/email), but I won't. And BTW, my grandmother uses an iphone, twitter and facebook. This isn't 10 years ago...


----------



## wmhjr

elwaylite, we're getting off topic here, but you're still wrong. 

Since apparently Twitter is the ONLY means that Tivo communicated this, it is in fact by default their Primary. You didn't have to say it. That's just what it is.

Email is also a poor choice as Primary. Again, smtp has no quality of service. Just a plain technology fact. Forum are also not primary - again - as I stated - a status page is typically the most effective. So long as it is accurate. 

I'm glad your grandmother is exceptional. And? Did you look at the actual data referenced in the links? I'm guessing not. Tivos responsibility is to their customers. Knowing your customer is a fundamental for effective customer service - and marketing. When all known research continuously confirms that only 7-8% of the population uses a particular means, it is simply illogical and of poor decision making to decide THAT'S how to communicate without other means. 

The fact that you are of an age where your grandmother is still around - much less using an iPhone, twitter and Facebook puts you in that demographic that is much more geared toward social media. 

I think you need to re-read what I wrote. I never said not to use Twitter. I said not as Primary. And my point remains regardless concerning advancement, ignore, etc. That takes deliberate action one way or another - as opposed to a portal allowing accurate information to be gained "when it is required". 

I'd suggest - particularly if you are in a technology field - reading a bit more of the recent and relevant data concerning where social media is effective - and where it is not. Quite frankly, Twitter themselves are doing that, trying to figure out a way to translate that 87% "awareness" into actual users. This is often very similar to the dot.com boom of the 90s, where there were so many solutions in search of a problem.

Back to the point, I'm not aware of any announcements by Tivo for this issue. I was the first person to post it on Tivo.com in the help forums. I did not see anything from Tivo regarding it.


----------



## slowbiscuit

TiVoMargret said:


> We are terribly sorry for the trouble tonight. We are still working on it. I'll post here when we know more. For now, please unplug your Ethernet cable.
> 
> --Margret


I'm sorry, but y'all need to take a serious look at the dependency that the Roamios and Premieres have on Tivo connectivity to do basic DVR functions. It is wrong that we often get spinning circles on simple stuff like looking at show descriptions, displaying upcoming eps, etc. This reboot issue is a one-off, sure, but for basic DVR functionality there is WAY TOO MUCH DEPENDENCY on connections to Tivo servers.

Thank you for your consideration, this has been brought up many times before.


----------



## telemark

My box did not reboot last night. Some of the suggestions made me concerned so am checking the logs.

It shows an outage by Oct 7 01:45 (GMT presumably) but a proper reaction. That is "middleMind" timed out but it did not update some UI cache because of the bad response.


Spoiler






Code:


DiskManager: Running task manager. nRequests=0
TvAesUiElementCacheActivity: Starting UiElementSearch from mind
TvAesUiElementCacheActivity: Setting snapshot version 6 Oct 2014 19:41:15 GMT
TvAesMiddlemindConnectionActivit:  Stopping mind receipt timer
kernel: assert: TmkLogDebugAssertionFailure: false
kernel: assert: void TvAesUiElementCacheActivity::ProcessRouterEvent(TvAesResponseWrapperQueueEvent*), line 431 (../TvAesUiElementCache.C) pid=1200
kernel: assert: UiElement cache was not refreshed because of bad response from remotemind: {"cause": {"code": "remoteMindUnavailableError", "text": "PostString failed: Curl error: a timeout was reached (28). Url: http://204.176.49.42:8085/mind/mind13?bodyId=tsn%3A746XXXXXXXXXXXX&type=uiElementSearch", "type": "middlemindErrorCause"}, "code": "middlemindError", "text": "middlemindError", "type": "error"}
kernel: assert: Backtrace: 
TmkLogDebugAssertionFailure:  false: UiElement cache was not refreshed because of bad response from remotemind: {"cause": {"code": "remoteMindUnavailableError", "text": "PostString failed: Curl error: a timeout was reached (28). Url: http://204.176.49.42:8085/mind/mind13?bodyId=tsn%3A746XXXXXXXXXXXX&type=uiElementSearch", "type": "middlemindErrorCause"}, "code": "middlemindError", "text": "middlemindError", "type": "error"} (void TvAesUiElementCacheActivity::ProcessRout
TvAesMiddlemindConnectionActivit:  Stopping mind receipt timer




The log entries from a rebooting box would be more interesting of course.


----------



## patrickthickey

Thanks to all who posted their experience.

My Roamio (1TB stock) went into this tailspin. I endured 8 or 10 reboots and I yanked the cord. Ate dinner and tried again, same thing.

Replaced the hard drive with a spare. 

The only issue was connecting to the Tivo servers to start downloading the OS..it choked maybe 25 times.

Then it went through and after all of the foo, the device is back on the air. I suspect the connection took place just about when Tivo sorted out the issues.

Upside, tonight I'll reinstall the stock drive and I learned how to replace it when it fails.

Cloud dependency is a fact of life. I hope the lads and ladies learned how best to prevent this happening again.


----------



## hybucket

To get back on topic, I didn't check here when the rebooting started around 9:20 EDT last night, but I did call TiVO after the fourth reboot. While I was talking to the CSR, it started up after the 6th reboot. He had suggested unplugging it for an hour or so...not an acceptable response, but he had no other info. When I did get to here, the only solution seemed to be unplugging the ethernet....I am wireless, so that wouldn't apply to me, or others who use wireless for their connection. Anyway, has there been any confirmation from TiVO as to what happened?


----------



## Toni

hybucket said:


> To get back on topic, I didn't check here when the rebooting started around 9:20 EDT last night, but I did call TiVO after the fourth reboot. While I was talking to the CSR, it started up after the 6th reboot. He had suggested unplugging it for an hour or so...not an acceptable response, but he had no other info. When I did get to here, the only solution seemed to be unplugging the ethernet....I am wireless, so that wouldn't apply to me, or others who use wireless for their connection. Anyway, has there been any confirmation from TiVO as to what happened?


My Premiere is wireless too, and disconnecting was the answer to the reboots. I don't think it matters if it was ethernet or wifi -- the problem was on their end, pushing bad code out to the boxes. Any internet connection would have caused the problem.


----------



## hybucket

Toni said:


> My Premiere is wireless too, and disconnecting was the answer to the reboots. I don't think it matters if it was ethernet or wifi -- the problem was on their end, pushing bad code out to the boxes. Any internet connection would have caused the problem.


Yes, I understand that...but if there was ethernet to disconnect....and I could not shut off wireless, cause the thing wouldn't boot up to get to the settings to disable it. Oh- wait - you were on a Premiere. On the Roamio, there is an internal wi-fi card, so you don't need the ethernet adapter. Sorry.


----------



## Toni

hybucket said:


> Yes, I understand that...but if there was ethernet to disconnect....and I could not shut off wireless, cause the thing wouldn't boot up to get to the settings to disable it. Oh- wait - you were on a Premiere. On the Roamio, there is an internal wi-fi card, so you don't need the ethernet adapter. Sorry.


Ah, I didn't realize that - big difference, yeah. Thanks.


----------



## telemark

The closest equivalent for Roamio (built in) Wifi is turning off the AccessPoint or logging into your router or AP to disable the Tivo's access to the Internet.

Neither are ideal, I realize.


----------



## Manc76

Wireless connection here too, so I couldn't disable the internet connection as I could not access the menus while my Roamio was in the reboot loop.

Experienced much the same rebooting issue as most of the people who posted here last night, not happy that it interrupted my shows. I have a standard Roamio for OTA antenna TV broadcasts.

I have a question though- when people say "cold booting" they mean unplugging the Tivo unit and then plugging it back in, correct? I did that several times yesterday during the reboot loop (had not checked this thread yet so was unaware of the warning NOT to do that), as it was the only thing I could think to do; I thought my Tivo was messing up, so I wanted to switch it off and of course there is no "power off" button, so the only option is to unplug. I will know better next time though, and not unplug except as a last resort.

So is doing a cold reboot a bad thing? I have done it before when my Roamio froze on me, and as I said I did it multiple times yesterday, and am now paranoid that I may have done irreperable damage to my unit. The Roamio seems to be working ok right now after they fixed the looping issue, but I am wondering if it could crap out on me some time soon. I spent a considerable amount on lifetime service and have only had the Roamio since December 2013 (the whole reason I went to TIVO was to cut the cords because we could not deal with the cost of cable/satellite anymore). Should I be worried?


----------



## HarperVision

My TiVo Roamio is smarter than everyone else's because mine waited until exactly smack dab in the middle of halftime of MNF to do its reboot, so I lost none of the game whatsoever. How considerate!


----------



## patrickthickey

Manc76 said:


> I have a question though-
> 
> So is doing a cold reboot a bad thing? Should I be worried?


I think you are fine.

The "don't reboot" appears to have been a tech support response, without much data, and in the scheme of things not bad advice until they DID figure this out. Tech support was as in the dark as everyone at that point. If you reread the thread you will only find one reference to that.

Your machine is likely fine despite a cold boot unless it has OTHER issues.


----------



## PCurry57

I was having very simalar problem the other night when I came home after a storm blew through Dallas knocking power out all over town. I unplugged the Premiere and waited a few momenrs, plugged it back in and all was well.


----------



## cheesesteak

My premiere started rebooting a little before 8 pm. I didn't think to check the Roamio thread so I didn't pull the ethernet cable. I ended up forcing it to call home. I don't know what that downloaded but it seemed to work.


----------



## Manc76

patrickthickey said:


> I think you are fine.
> 
> The "don't reboot" appears to have been a tech support response, without much data, and in the scheme of things not bad advice until they DID figure this out. Tech support was as in the dark as everyone at that point. If you reread the thread you will only find one reference to that.
> 
> Your machine is likely fine despite a cold boot unless it has OTHER issues.


Thanks, that's reassuring to know. I read the earlier comment about some people's systems possibly getting "bricked" due to cold booting and that just got me nervous. Like I said though, the Roamio seems to be working fine now so hopefully I'm ok.


----------



## aaronwt

So why did some TiVos have issues and other didn't? I was watching TV from my Roamio Pro during most of Prime time EDT(and later) and it never had a problem. Nor did my Roamio Basic. But my Premiere rebooted at least once. Since I saw all the lights come on. But I have no idea if that happened once or multipkle times since I rarely use that Tivo any more.


----------



## telemark

The most likely explanation I have, with very little information. It's just in the (randomized) timing. 

Assuming, the Mind server was speaking jibberish for some time period.

Every tivo is on a different time schedule when to call back in again. Those first to call in after that occurence, were fed bad data, and rebooted in protest. Then called in again upon startup, and got the same bad answer, resulting in reboot loop.

Eventually, it would appear as a DenialOfService attack against that service. (though more than that service since the Tivo voice lines were garbled at the same time) The waves of Tivo's would only cascade larger.

Tivo's that were late to the party / to call in, just got no answer because of the network congestion, so no reason to reboot.

Subtle point is the cascade is self correcting. Once there's enough traffic to congest the lines (or knock the server offline), nobody's getting any answer back and the no answer will delay the next call in attempt.

Or you can pretend the Network Admin should have been paged at the spike and drove to the office to turn off the server.


----------



## cherry ghost

My Premiere just rebooted. It happened once last night.


----------



## Johncv

telemark said:


> The most likely explanation I have, with very little information. It's just in the (randomized) timing.
> 
> Assuming, the Mind server was speaking jibberish for some time period.
> 
> Every tivo is on a different time schedule when to call back in again. Those first to call in after that occurence, were fed bad data, and rebooted in protest. Then called in again upon startup, and got the same bad answer, resulting in reboot loop.
> 
> Eventually, it would appear as a DenialOfService attack against that service. (though more than that service since the Tivo voice lines were garbled at the same time) The waves of Tivo's would only cascade larger.
> 
> Tivo's that were late to the party / to call in, just got no answer because of the network congestion, so no reason to reboot.
> 
> Subtle point is the cascade is self correcting. Once there's enough traffic to congest the lines (or knock the server offline), nobody's getting any answer back and the no answer will delay the next call in attempt.
> 
> Or you can pretend the Network Admin should have been paged at the spike and drove to the office to turn off the server.


I just got home, but I was watching my TiVo around 0430 it was on the tuning adapter menu, so went to live tv CNN and the TiVo seem to be working fine. Will have to check it in a few minutes.


----------



## nooneuknow

slowbiscuit said:


> I'm sorry, but y'all need to take a serious look at the dependency that the Roamios and Premieres have on Tivo connectivity to do basic DVR functions. It is wrong that we often get spinning circles on simple stuff like looking at show descriptions, displaying upcoming eps, etc. This reboot issue is a one-off, sure, but for basic DVR functionality there is WAY TOO MUCH DEPENDENCY on connections to Tivo servers.
> 
> Thank you for your consideration, this has been brought up many times before.


+1 :up:
Once again, which is a rarity, I'm in full agreement with you. This is one area, in which we seldom disagree. That, on its own, speaks volumes, IMO.


----------



## Diana Collins

Our Roamios did not reboot, but we got the spinning blue circle every time we went to a program info page. The screen finally loaded, but coming out of a recording (that we did not delete) it took a full 30 seconds to get back to the program info.


----------



## nooneuknow

Just inserting something I just noticed...

I was checking my ToDoList for conflicts, as I tend to do daily, when I remember to do so, especially if I know something is on for the first episode of the season, like Supernatural.

I have conflicts, showing the the same episode is showing both 9:00PM-9:02PM, and again on the same channel at 9:03PM.

It's CW HD Pacific Time, Cox CH. 1006

I go the explore the show, and upcoming episodes, and there are just tons of random channel numbers, like 103 137 307, and just goes on, into the thousands. I check, and some of these channels don't even exist in my lineup, at all (completely invalid channels). None of the valid channels that point to a channel like MTV, show up in the guide via as having anything to do with the program.

The worst part, is that the valid channels are missing, including the TNT 18 & 1018, where I record repeats from.

If I was to want to schedule supernatural right now, I couldn't, unless using the guide.

This looks like major corruption from yesterday's TiVo service clusterfrack.

I've made several extra connections, rebooted the UI, etc.

I hope tonight records as I set long ago, and pity anybody that might have the mess I do, and is trying to schedule.

Look like I'll be stuck doing a Clear Program Information & To Do List after tonights recordings...

Feel free to quote this post into other threads it might have relevance in.


----------



## CoxInPHX

nooneuknow said:


> Just inserting something I just noticed...
> 
> I was checking my ToDoList for conflicts, as I tend to do daily, when I remember to do so, especially if I know something is on for the first episode of the season, like Supernatural.
> 
> I have conflicts, showing the the same episode is showing both 9:00PM-9:02PM, and again on the same channel at 9:03PM.
> 
> It's CW HD Pacific Time, Cox CH. 1006
> 
> I go the explore the show, and upcoming episodes, and there are just tons of random channel numbers, like 103 137 307, and just goes on, into the thousands. I check, and some of these channels don't even exist in my lineup, at all (completely invalid channels). None of the valid channels that point to a channel like MTV, show up in the guide via as having anything to do with the program..


Same here TNTPHD for Supernatural is showing several invalid channels that are not listed in the guide or channel list. They only show up in the Upcoming Episode list.


----------



## nooneuknow

CoxInPHX said:


> Same here TNTPHD for Supernatural is showing several invalid channels that are not listed in the guide or channel list. They only show up in the Upcoming Episode list.


To make matters worse, 1006 CW HD Pacific is recording with the Supernatural S10E1 in 4:3, "postage-stamped", with large black borders, like the commercials usually are, but the program itself is sometimes not scaling to the whole screen, and when doesn't, it is with barely audible sound. Then, sometimes it does scale to the whole screen, and almost blows the speakers out... The transition from commercials to programs, and back is all borked-up.

I can't say (for sure) this is on TiVo, but guess I should be happy it's even recording, with the mess in the cloud data for upcoming episodes...


----------



## nooneuknow

All this mess is reminiscent of back when TiVo was flying techs around and pulling streams from regional TiVos, because trickplay was borked. I had a lot of that going on in the weeks before now...

TiVo logs are screaming with stream wrapping/corruption errors, and trickplay IS acting like the FOX and affiliates issues that got so much attention, when the Roamio was still wet behind the ears...

Anybody else been seeing such things, and maybe just not said anything? I was trying to not be the first to bring it up...


----------



## nooneuknow

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=521696

Might be related.


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=521696 Might be related.


Haha, kind of ironic that you just put all of us into a "boot loop" by cross posting to go to each thread and vice versa!


----------



## CybrFyre

telemark said:


> My box did not reboot last night. Some of the suggestions made me concerned so am checking the logs.
> 
> It shows an outage by Oct 7 01:45 (GMT presumably) but a proper reaction. That is "middleMind" timed out but it did not update some UI cache because of the bad response.
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> DiskManager: Running task manager. nRequests=0
> TvAesUiElementCacheActivity: Starting UiElementSearch from mind
> TvAesUiElementCacheActivity: Setting snapshot version 6 Oct 2014 19:41:15 GMT
> TvAesMiddlemindConnectionActivit:  Stopping mind receipt timer
> kernel: assert: TmkLogDebugAssertionFailure: false
> kernel: assert: void TvAesUiElementCacheActivity::ProcessRouterEvent(TvAesResponseWrapperQueueEvent*), line 431 (../TvAesUiElementCache.C) pid=1200
> kernel: assert: UiElement cache was not refreshed because of bad response from remotemind: {"cause": {"code": "remoteMindUnavailableError", "text": "PostString failed: Curl error: a timeout was reached (28). Url: http://204.176.49.42:8085/mind/mind13?bodyId=tsn%3A746XXXXXXXXXXXX&type=uiElementSearch", "type": "middlemindErrorCause"}, "code": "middlemindError", "text": "middlemindError", "type": "error"}
> kernel: assert: Backtrace:
> TmkLogDebugAssertionFailure:  false: UiElement cache was not refreshed because of bad response from remotemind: {"cause": {"code": "remoteMindUnavailableError", "text": "PostString failed: Curl error: a timeout was reached (28). Url: http://204.176.49.42:8085/mind/mind13?bodyId=tsn%3A746XXXXXXXXXXXX&type=uiElementSearch", "type": "middlemindErrorCause"}, "code": "middlemindError", "text": "middlemindError", "type": "error"} (void TvAesUiElementCacheActivity::ProcessRout
> TvAesMiddlemindConnectionActivit:  Stopping mind receipt timer
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The log entries from a rebooting box would be more interesting of course.


How does one get to the log files?


----------



## cherry ghost

nooneuknow said:


> Just inserting something I just noticed...
> 
> I was checking my ToDoList for conflicts, as I tend to do daily, when I remember to do so, especially if I know something is on for the first episode of the season, like Supernatural.
> 
> I have conflicts, showing the the same episode is showing both 9:00PM-9:02PM, and again on the same channel at 9:03PM.
> 
> It's CW HD Pacific Time, Cox CH. 1006
> 
> I go the explore the show, and upcoming episodes, and there are just tons of random channel numbers, like 103 137 307, and just goes on, into the thousands. I check, and some of these channels don't even exist in my lineup, at all (completely invalid channels). None of the valid channels that point to a channel like MTV, show up in the guide via as having anything to do with the program.
> 
> The worst part, is that the valid channels are missing, including the TNT 18 & 1018, where I record repeats from.
> 
> If I was to want to schedule supernatural right now, I couldn't, unless using the guide.
> 
> This looks like major corruption from yesterday's TiVo service clusterfrack.
> 
> I've made several extra connections, rebooted the UI, etc.
> 
> I hope tonight records as I set long ago, and pity anybody that might have the mess I do, and is trying to schedule.
> 
> Look like I'll be stuck doing a Clear Program Information & To Do List after tonights recordings...
> 
> Feel free to quote this post into other threads it might have relevance in.


Discussed briefly here

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=521659

It's been going on since before the reboot problem.

For me, the wrong channel numbers show up in the upcoming list but are correct if I select the episode from the list.


----------



## nooneuknow

cherry ghost said:


> Discussed briefly here
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=521659
> 
> It's been going on since before the reboot problem.
> 
> For me, the wrong channel numbers show up in the upcoming list but are correct if I select the episode from the list.


I'm glad I missed that "conversation", as I wouldn't have appreciated all the insistence that it was user error, or those insisting it could be simply fixed by unchecking channels, etc...
I've often noticed some problems with data from TiVo's servers, or their "cloud", or whatever you want to call their servers that our TiVos rely on (mind/middlemind/etc.), creep in before software updates actually roll, or before other problems.
There's been an awful lot of proof that even that Series 3 and TiVo HD are not immune to being "poisoned" by bad data being fed to them in their scheduled connections (Rebooting S3s due to suspected corrupt ads).
While I appreciate that at least one actual member of team TiVo admits to problems, and apologizes for them, I'm growing tired of there being no assurances that it won't keep happening, and how these things keep happening. It sometimes feels like they can't get enough Beta testers, so they just roll changes, and fix on the fly.
Look at the SDUI problem for Premiere users, and how the software went from being a ".a" to a ".b", for some models, like they expected there to be problems.
I guess I missed the message saying "Welcome to the field trial team, which we have enrolled you in, as part of your paid TiVo service" message...
I'm not feeling very warm and fuzzy about TiVo right now, and haven't yet been brainwashed by the camp of folks who feel we should just grin, bend over, and do whatever it takes to keep TiVo in business, as good little cult members, that we joined by becoming TiVo users...
I can't help but notice the timing of TiVo's problems couldn't be much worse, either. All that summer lull time to break TiVos, and when do mass-reboots happen? Fall premier prime time...
The advice not to do all the things they have always made us do, no matter what, or possibly brick TiVos permanently, was a nice added touch, as well.
I can't wait to see what the next server-side induced issues will be.
[/sad head-shaking rant over]


----------



## wmhjr

Totally agree with the previous post by nooneuknow. Every time I think their quality has hit bottom, something new happens to adjust my expectations. Tivo has the incredibly advantage of a relatively closed system for their development - something my development teams would give more than you know to get. And yet, quality assurance, master test plans, unit, traceability matrixes, regression, integration testing all seem to be terms that Tivo is totally unfamiliar with.


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> .......... I can't help but notice the timing of TiVo's problems couldn't be much worse, either. All that summer lull time to break TiVos, and when do mass-reboots happen? Fall premier prime time... ........


Hey, they had to take their vacations didn't they? Looks like we already have our "cloud DVRs" with TiVo, except our clouds are of the storm variety!


----------



## dimitri2000

Having just bought a plus and a mini last weekend, i was going to get it all hooked up tonight or should I wait till this has been formally resloved? Dont want to start off wrong with my new equipment.


----------



## telemark

CybrFyre said:


> How does one get to the log files?


The way I do it is by connecting the Hard Drive to a PC with a USB-Sata cable, after opening the cover. That part is easy on a Premiere and Roamio Pro/Plus, don't have to take the HD out. On a base Roamio, it's harder to get to the Hard Drive connectors.

If that part is not a turn off, I'll detail the steps and which software to use for the remaining part.



wmhjr said:


> Tivo has the incredibly advantage of a relatively closed system for their development.


Yah, I think it's telling the more technical the poster, the more disappointed. 
Maybe they're under-staffing their SE and QA, because they did manage a big rewrite.


----------



## jmpage2

dimitri2000 said:


> Having just bought a plus and a mini last weekend, i was going to get it all hooked up tonight or should I wait till this has been formally resloved? Dont want to start off wrong with my new equipment.


It was a single blip and there's no way to know if it is "really resolved" or not. It could have been something they pushed out without testing or doing change control.

Considering how many angry customers they got (and likely they are having to eat replacement costs on units that died when people kept power cycling them during this) it would be expected that this never happens again.

Of course lately things with TiVo have been getting a little sketchy.

In any event this particular event is concluded, you should be fine to plug your new toys in.


----------



## SullyND

jmpage2 said:


> Considering how many angry customers they got


Just imagine the calls they got from their MSO partners....


----------



## jmpage2

SullyND said:


> Just imagine the calls they got from their MSO partners....


It was a pretty bad snafu. It wasn't another V40/44 type error were some services weren't working. They were literally doing things that could brick customer equipment.


----------



## nooneuknow

It's nice to see that things are still civilized here (this thread, for now)...

A few added thoughts.

1. The retail market (that would be most of us here) is likely never going to get any explanations, other than "there is/was a problem" (which we don't always get, unless it's clear to TiVo, denying knowledge of it won't work).
2. The TiVo MSO partners likely demand to know every intricate detail about the same things we will likely never get. I'm sure they want assurances of things not happening again, just like we do, but seldom, if ever, get.
3. If somebody (or several somebodys) were able to get the info that TiVo passes to their MSO partners, and make it available to us, it could be of immeasurable value to us (or some of us), especially if Retail and MSO were hit by the same problem(s).

I'm still in disbelief, that TiVo was scared enough about "bricking" TiVos, that we were being advised, to *not do* all the things anybody who has ever contacted TiVo support, knows is the first phase of the (normal) script. Apparently that same script had the potential to brick TiVos, this time around.

Speaking of "bricked" TiVos. Has anybody been keeping good notes on how many server-side issues have bricked TiVos, and the important, relevant, details? It's not limited to one platform. TiVo has bricked at least a few of everything back to the S3 series, in only what seems like a year's time. I wonder what the numbers look like, when the scope isn't limited to those with accounts on TCF, who actually post...


----------



## jellyandtoast

For FWIW, I'm having rebooting loop issues as well on my Roamio. I've been away, but my wife noticed that the TiVo was freezing and then rebooting while she was watching one of her shows on Monday night. When I got back home this evening, I noticed that the Roamio was stuck in the boot loop. The only way I could get it to stop was to cold boot. 

At first I thought it was the HD, so I swapped out the 3TB upgrade I'd done with the stock drive that came with it. Now I'm going through testing to see if the reboots come back. 

Needless to say, I've lost/missed a ton of recordings. 

TiVo, this is NOT acceptable for a device that I've paid $700 for (including lifetime service).


----------



## telemark

Does anyone here actually have a bricked Tivo from the Boot Loop night?

If not, I would bet it was just a precaution warning that CS would say since they didn't know what was actually going on.


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> Does anyone here actually have a bricked Tivo from the Boot Loop night?
> 
> If not, I would bet it was just a precaution warning that CS would say since they didn't know what was actually going on.


Prior server-side issues, bad guide data downloads, flaws in software updates, and other things have resulted in bricked TiVos.

I don't believe any were reported bricked, at least not on TCF (yet), by this incident. That does not mean none were bricked, as not all TiVo users even know TCF exists. That TiVo was taking precautions, and advising against their usual advice script, is eyebrow-raising, at minimum.

Did they have special knowledge, or is the script about to change? The former we will likely never know details on. The latter, only time will tell...


----------



## BigJimOutlaw

I had a Mini stuck in a reboot loop for about 24 hours from the September 1st outage. Thankfully it recovered without getting killed. Kept it unplugged for much of it. There was nothing I could do. It rebooted before the cartoon could play, even with no network connection.

This is what Jason Nealis (RCN) is saying about Monday:

"I wasn't happy.. There was a issue that got pushed out that caused some boxes to become unstable on monday night.. I was at the game working the issue with TiVo until resolution around 11PM. We are having meetings and discussions with them daily to ensure that what happened DOESN'T happen again."

Yeah, this network reliance issue needs to be fixed. Having a faster haxe UI doesn't mean much if we're staring at more frequent blue circles during mundane tasks, which have picked up since this last update.

And why has Tivo's website been so slow for so many years? Especially lately it's been ridiculous. Would they like a sub-account on my shared server host plan? It costs me only $5/mo but actually loads professionally fast. What 2-bit network ops do they have going on over there?

/rant


----------



## nooneuknow

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Yeah, this network reliance issue needs to be fixed. Having a faster haxe UI doesn't mean much if I'm staring at more frequent blue circles during mundane tasks, which I have been since this last update.
> 
> And why has Tivo's website been so slow for so many years? Especially lately it's been ridiculous. Would they like a sub-account on my shared server host plan? It costs me only $5/mo but actually loads professionally fast. What 2-bit network ops do they have going on over there?


I fully agree. I also avoid TiVo's website as much as possible. It's slow, drops offline, and even many of the internal links are broke. Most external links posted here, as well as on their product literature, and the occasional email, are dead-end, broken links, too. It doesn't inspire confidence, IMO.

I was ready to pull the trigger on 2 more Roamios, but their website went down, then refused to give me MSD, even though the mail they sent me said I was eligible. I just gave-up. I was going to snag some Minis while cheap and available, as well. Then, I thought about "TiVo doesn't support switches", and how much more dependant things get with Minis. I passed, yet again. Like I said, not inspiring confidence, and where is TiVo ever telling *US* that all these issues won't happen again? They aren't.

I'll repeat how much I appreciate that TiVoMargret posting that things are happening, posting when they are fixed, and repeatedly apologizing. Without her, we wouldn't even get that much. Yet, the lack of assurances (and their crudtastic website), has already cost them 2 TiVo Plus/Pro sales, and four Mini sales, from me.

If TiVo had a true competitor, I'd be spending my time on that website, and in their community forum. I am not a "loyal customer". I'm somebody who realizes it's either MSO monopoly, TiVo's monopoly, or cobble some alternate solution together, and try to limit my reliance on the both of them.

I wonder how many customers used their 30-day money-back guarantee, out of those eligible to do so, right after this last "incident".


----------



## BigJimOutlaw

I forgot to add in my rant that service calls can take longer too. The daily calls are usually fine, but software update downloads can take hours. Over the last few updates, at least 2 of my 5 boxes end up getting a "failed" status before it finishes, and then it has to try again for another couple hours. One time it finally failed after 3 hours.

Seriously, what bug has crawled up their connection to the outside world lately?


----------



## slowbiscuit

BigJimOutlaw said:


> I had a Mini stuck in a reboot loop for about 24 hours from the September 1st outage. Thankfully it recovered without getting killed. Kept it unplugged for much of it. There was nothing I could do. It rebooted before the cartoon could play, even with no network connection.
> 
> This is what Jason Nealis (RCN) is saying about Monday:
> 
> "I wasn't happy.. There was a issue that got pushed out that caused some boxes to become unstable on monday night.. I was at the game working the issue with TiVo until resolution around 11PM. We are having meetings and discussions with them daily to ensure that what happened DOESN'T happen again."
> 
> Yeah, this network reliance issue needs to be fixed. Having a faster haxe UI doesn't mean much if we're staring at more frequent blue circles during mundane tasks, which have picked up since this last update.
> 
> And why has Tivo's website been so slow for so many years? Especially lately it's been ridiculous. Would they like a sub-account on my shared server host plan? It costs me only $5/mo but actually loads professionally fast. What 2-bit network ops do they have going on over there?
> 
> /rant


+1000, pretty much sums up my whole issue with the way the Roamios and Premieres are coded now. It almost seems like they have no freaking idea how to do fault-tolerant code that seamlessly falls back to local-only DVR services when Tivo's servers are having yet another issue. They do report the occasional C133 error (temp having issues with Tivo service), but it's inexcusable that the result is that everything other than video is basically crippled until it comes back. And now we get spinning blue circles on a regular basis for simple everyday stuff like looking at show descriptions and scheduling.

And the web server, as mentioned, has been a perpetual slug for years now. I agree that a lack of competition results in the continual half-baked effort we see from Tivo. It is apparent in almost everything they do, because nobody at retail is pushing them to do better.


----------



## jmpage2

slowbiscuit said:


> +1000, pretty much sums up my whole issue with the way the Roamios and Premieres are coded now. It almost seems like they have no freaking idea how to do fault-tolerant code that seamlessly falls back to local-only DVR services when Tivo's servers are having yet another issue. They do report the occasional C133 error (temp having issues with Tivo service), but it's inexcusable that the result is that everything other than video is basically crippled until it comes back. And now we get spinning blue circles on a regular basis for simple everyday stuff like looking at show descriptions and scheduling.
> 
> And the web server, as mentioned, has been a perpetual slug for years now. I agree that a lack of competition results in the continual half-baked effort we see from Tivo. It is apparent in almost everything they do, because nobody at retail is pushing them to do better.


Shareholders are pushing them to do better, but TiVo seems to treat the retail business as a secondary concern lately, they are more concerned with wooing partners in the cable industry.


----------



## wmhjr

nooneuknow said:


> I fully agree. I also avoid TiVo's website as much as possible. It's slow, drops offline, and even many of the internal links are broke. Most external links posted here, as well as on their product literature, and the occasional email, are dead-end, broken links, too. It doesn't inspire confidence, IMO.


Man, do I agree with that. This is exactly one of the things I believe may be tied to the substandard performance regarding Amazon Downloads. I simply don't believe Tivo is capable of managing their own hosting infrastructure, and with the Amazon downloads being proxied through Tivo systems, it puts the whole entire mess in question. But Tivo.com itself is consistently one of most poorly performing commercial sites on the internet, and has been for years. I won't get into the highly debatable value of their support links, but am just even talking about page loads for static pages, etc.



nooneuknow said:


> repeat how much I appreciate that TiVoMargret posting that things are happening, posting when they are fixed, and repeatedly apologizing. Without her, we wouldn't even get that much. Yet, the lack of assurances (and their crudtastic website), has already cost them 2 TiVo Plus/Pro sales, and four Mini sales, from me.


I think TivoMargret does help more than any other source of information. That being said, while I appreciate it, if you take a step back and analyze the situation, "good" technology service companies (which is really what Tivo is) provide better, more consistent, and more customer focused assistance than even what Margret does. The utterly failed execution of Tivo as a whole makes Margret look incredible. Admittedly, she is probably also limited in her ability to help given the current (non)performance of Tivo as an organization.



nooneuknow said:


> TiVo had a true competitor, I'd be spending my time on that website, and in their community forum. I am not a "loyal customer". I'm somebody who realizes it's either MSO monopoly, TiVo's monopoly, or cobble some OTA solution together, and try to spite the both of them.


I'm already there, but it's not out of spite. Spite to me really means that I'd do something to try and hurt Tivo. That's not my intent. I simply want to make the best decisions for my home. I'm not a "loyal" customer. I'm a "customer". Brands really don't earn "loyalty" in IMHO. In todays world, brands continue to demonstrate value that retains customer attachment. I have thousands of dollars into Tivo, and beyond a "convenience" factor that is hard to put a dollar value on, I have not seen the value proposition being in Tivos favor for years.

Worse to me as the fact that the TV content market is continuing to change. Look at how much more on demand and IP delivered content there is compared to 5 years ago. Tivo is very very good at designing the look and feel of the user interface for legacy television. They are less good as times have passed in actually executing product that takes advantage of that user experience. But it's no secret that what they are frankly very poor at doing is anything involving IP delivered (or non-traditional) content. Unfortunately, this is more and more the default, with an ever increasing market share compared to "legacy" tv. This to me is very very bad news for Tivo, and I've been saying for a couple years that their survival may only be possible as a software provider (god help us) to MSOs, effectively designing UIs for other products produced by the likes of Motorola, etc.

I'm wondering if it's possible that Tivo has already come to the same conclusion, and is deliberately not investing in required infrastructure modernization and improvements which would be required to deliver their "retail" or "consumer" products and services, because they've already decided that within a reasonable period of time, they are effectively getting out of that business.....


----------



## nooneuknow

wmhjr said:


> Man, do I agree with that. This is exactly one of the things I believe may be tied to the substandard performance regarding Amazon Downloads. I simply don't believe Tivo is capable of managing their own hosting infrastructure, and with the Amazon downloads being proxied through Tivo systems, it puts the whole entire mess in question. But Tivo.com itself is consistently one of most poorly performing commercial sites on the internet, and has been for years. I won't get into the highly debatable value of their support links, but am just even talking about page loads for static pages, etc.
> 
> I think TivoMargret does help more than any other source of information. That being said, while I appreciate it, if you take a step back and analyze the situation, "good" technology service companies (which is really what Tivo is) provide better, more consistent, and more customer focused assistance than even what Margret does. The utterly failed execution of Tivo as a whole makes Margret look incredible. Admittedly, she is probably also limited in her ability to help given the current (non)performance of Tivo as an organization.
> 
> I'm already there, but it's not out of spite. Spite to me really means that I'd do something to try and hurt Tivo. That's not my intent. I simply want to make the best decisions for my home. I'm not a "loyal" customer. I'm a "customer". Brands really don't earn "loyalty" in IMHO. In todays world, brands continue to demonstrate value that retains customer attachment. I have thousands of dollars into Tivo, and beyond a "convenience" factor that is hard to put a dollar value on, I have not seen the value proposition being in Tivos favor for years.
> 
> Worse to me as the fact that the TV content market is continuing to change. Look at how much more on demand and IP delivered content there is compared to 5 years ago. Tivo is very very good at designing the look and feel of the user interface for legacy television. They are less good as times have passed in actually executing product that takes advantage of that user experience. But it's no secret that what they are frankly very poor at doing is anything involving IP delivered (or non-traditional) content. Unfortunately, this is more and more the default, with an ever increasing market share compared to "legacy" tv. This to me is very very bad news for Tivo, and I've been saying for a couple years that their survival may only be possible as a software provider (god help us) to MSOs, effectively designing UIs for other products produced by the likes of Motorola, etc.
> 
> I'm wondering if it's possible that Tivo has already come to the same conclusion, and is deliberately not investing in required infrastructure modernization and improvements which would be required to deliver their "retail" or "consumer" products and services, because they've already decided that within a reasonable period of time, they are effectively getting out of that business.....


As I tend to do, I used the wrong word/wording, as-in "spite", which I have now changed to "limit my reliance on", in that post. Spite is not something that is generally a reason for what I say, do, or wish to say/do.

I agree with you, although some is speculative, so some of my agreement on some of it is also speculative. I only add this, as an attempt to keep some parties from getting bent out of shape, if I don't add it.

I do feel that (as I have also said in the past) comparisons of what TiVoMarget used to post and tweet, and what she sends out since a certain point in time, seem to reflect that she may have been told she needed to stop making their contracted support/solutions provider look so bad, likely doesn't have the freedom she used to, and might even require pre-authorization to post some of what she does. It's not like Margret was needed to make their outsourced support look bad. She simply was very effective in showing how the outsourced provider was often either lying, left in the dark by TiVo (the true, main, TiVo), or come combination of the two. How often now, has Margret been on the top of things that were on TiVo's end, or caused by TiVo's end, while The support folks were having everybody reboot, rewire, and reconfigure everything, unnecessarily, even in multiples of hours after Margret posted/tweeted it was a problem on TiVo's end of things?

I'm almost certain the TiVo website is outsourced, and by one of the worst solution providers they could go with. The alternative would be that TiVo isn't outsourcing it, and that throws more of that "not inspiring confidence" onto the pile, if TiVo is doing it in-house.


----------



## nooneuknow

jmpage2 said:


> Shareholders are pushing them to do better, but TiVo seems to treat the retail business as a secondary concern lately, they are more concerned with wooing partners in the cable industry.


I feel the same way about it. But, I don't get much love when I dare to say so.

I often throw in the twist that it seems like TiVo is using the retail market as their test-bed (involuntary/unsuspecting Beta testing/field trials context) before making changes to the MSO side of things.


----------



## Johncv

Johncv said:


> I just got home, but I was watching my TiVo around 0430 it was on the tuning adapter menu, so went to live tv CNN and the TiVo seem to be working fine. Will have to check it in a few minutes.


I have no clue when the reboot happen, but look like it was after 1100 PT. No recording look like it was lost. If I find some that were lost I will just download them from Amazon and not whine like some of the children on this thread.


----------



## nooneuknow

Johncv said:


> I have no clue when the reboot happen, but look like it was after 1100 PT. No recording look like it was lost. If I find some that were lost I will just download them from Amazon and not whine like some of the children on this thread.


May I please borrow your credentials, or credit card, so I can do exactly that?

Give me that, and I'll happily watch from services I don't have subs to, or pay (with your money) to view something that I expected to get as part of my paid cable subscription, and paid TiVo hardware, plus paid TiVo Service.

Until the day comes that TiVo provides us with free passes to view legal sources of what their equipment failed to record, all the "children" have a right to be upset, concerned, and exercise free speech. Or, you can offer to do the same. It's no secret that TiVo collects and sells our viewing habits. They can use the same analytical tools to know who qualifies for a free pass to view a recording their servers caused afflicted TiVos not to record.

If you went to a movie theater, paid for a ticket, but the projector malfunctioned, clipping all but 12 minutes of the movie, would you happily walk out, go home, and pay to see it via other means? If not, and I witnessed you complaining to the theater, would you appreciate me calling you a child?


----------



## HarperVision

nooneuknow said:


> May I please borrow your credentials, or credit card, so I can do exactly that? Give me that, and I'll happily watch from services I don't have subs to, or pay (with your money) to view something that I expected to get as part of my paid cable subscription, and paid TiVo hardware, plus paid TiVo Service. Until the day comes that TiVo provides us with free passes to view legal sources of what their equipment failed to record, all the "children" have a right to be upset, concerned, and exercise free speech. Or, you can offer to do the same. It's no secret that TiVo collects and sells our viewing habits. They can use the same analytical tools to know who qualifies for a free pass to view a recording their servers caused afflicted TiVos not to record. If you went to a movie theater, paid for a ticket, but the projector malfunctioned, clipping all but 12 minutes of the movie, would you happily walk out, go home, and pay to see it via other means? If not, and I witnessed you complaining to the theater, would you appreciate me calling you a child?


Ditto, well said!


----------



## slowbiscuit

Johncv said:


> I have no clue when the reboot happen, but look like it was after 1100 PT. No recording look like it was lost. If I find some that were lost I will just download them from Amazon and not whine like some of the children on this thread.


Always entertaining when the 'Tivo can do no wrong' crowd shows up.


----------



## wmhjr

Johncv said:


> I have no clue when the reboot happen, but look like it was after 1100 PT. No recording look like it was lost. If I find some that were lost I will just download them from Amazon and not whine like some of the children on this thread.


This post illustrates exactly why Tivo feels that they can get away with sloppy, poor quality service and support. That's about the sum total of the value of it IMHO.


----------



## Captainbob

wmhjr said:


> This post illustrates exactly why Tivo feels that they can get away with sloppy, poor quality service and support. That's about the sum total of the value of it IMHO.


I guess the same could be said for Apple, Microsoft, and all the other companies that issue updates and then find out there is a bug or fault in the release and have to issue a correction. How dare these people not be *perfect*...


----------



## lessd

jmpage2 said:


> Shareholders are pushing them to do better, but TiVo seems to treat the retail business as a secondary concern lately, they are more concerned with wooing partners in the cable industry.


On Comcast the program info (for their DVR) comes over the cable, not the internet, do you people think that a MSO TiVo uses the internet or the cable to get the program and update information ??


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> On Comcast the program info (for their DVR) comes over the cable, not the internet, do you people think that a MSO TiVo uses the internet or the cable to get the program and update information ??


The last time I asked that question (actually, just asked which way MSO Roamios got it), a reputable source said internet, just like the retail TiVos. But, there was mention of MSO & Retail being run on different server nodes, even though both were affected by that particular outage of TiVo service. The latter part was really what many asking, wanted to know, at the time.

Not sure if I'm one of the "you people" you are referring to, or what you are implying about those you are lumping together. Care to elaborate on how you are grouping people, and why?


----------



## wmhjr

Captainbob said:


> I guess the same could be said for Apple, Microsoft, and all the other companies that issue updates and then find out there is a bug or fault in the release and have to issue a correction. How dare these people not be *perfect*...


BS. Again, pure BS. One of the most uneducated comparisons I see is when people compare embedded devices with highly complex, configurable, open architecture such as Windows, OSX or whatever. The use cases they need to test for are immense, given the FACT that even users have the ability to heavily modify so many different parameters of the system. Tivo has no such excuse - and excuse is exactly the proper term to use. This, IMHO is simply another fanboy excuse used to justify the poor quality and reliability as well as highly questionable architecture implemented by Tivo.

If somebody wants to have a fact based discussion on the comparisons of software development between devices such as a Tivo or a Garmin GPS as opposed to developing for an "open" (and I'm using that term for comparison) system such as a PC operating system, I'm game - Bring it on.


----------



## Captainbob

wmhjr said:


> BS. Again, pure BS. One of the most uneducated comparisons I see is when people compare embedded devices with highly complex, configurable, open architecture such as Windows, OSX or whatever. The use cases they need to test for are immense, given the FACT that even users have the ability to heavily modify so many different parameters of the system. Tivo has no such excuse - and excuse is exactly the proper term to use. This, IMHO is simply another fanboy excuse used to justify the poor quality and reliability as well as highly questionable architecture implemented by Tivo.
> 
> If somebody wants to have a fact based discussion on the comparisons of software development between devices such as a Tivo or a Garmin GPS as opposed to developing for an "open" (and I'm using that term for comparison) system such as a PC operating system, I'm game - Bring it on.


Lets see, you have been a member of this forum for 7 years, and obviously seem to be unhappy with Tivo, so my question to you is " Why haven't you moved on", rather than calling me a "fanboy"? If I had a product, and the company that made the product annoyed me as much as Tivo apparently annoys you, I would toss in the dumpster, buy a different product, and bash that on another forum.


----------



## nooneuknow

Captainbob said:


> ...


If the rest of you haven't noticed, if you give Captainbob a rise, this thread will become the next to become overrun by his agenda to change all existing points of view, to match, or align with, his own. There is no point in arguing, unless you want to see another thread killed by off-topic dilution. If you enable him, more will then join in, and the never-ending battle, since he joined, will consume every thread it gets a foothold in.

If you see what I see, and agree, I suggest voting by reporting the posts where he's breaking acceptable posting guidelines and rules, rather than responding to him, or to me. I don't wish to enable him by engaging more.

"Ignore member" doesn't work, when those you ignore, are being quoted, over and over. "Ignore thread" doesn't work, when you have a vested interest in many thread thread topics, and the arguments you wish to ignore just keep infecting new threads. At some point, the mods are the only hope to restore order and balance. The ones who take action, don't do so, unless complaints/reports are made, from what I can tell.


----------



## Banker257

nooneuknow said:


> I'm not feeling very warm and fuzzy about TiVo right now, and haven't yet been brainwashed by the camp of folks who feel we should just grin, bend over, and do whatever it takes to keep TiVo in business, as good little cult members, that we joined by becoming TiVo users...


It's not a cult. It's a "bandwagon"!


----------



## wmhjr

nooneuknow said:


> If the rest of you haven't noticed, if you give Captainbob a rise, this thread will become the next to become overrun by his agenda to change all existing points of view, to match, or align with, his own. There is no point in arguing, unless you want to see another thread killed by off-topic dilution. If you enable him, more will then join in, and the never-ending battle, since he joined, will consume every thread it gets a foothold in.
> 
> If you see what I see, and agree, I suggest voting by reporting the posts where he's breaking acceptable posting guidelines and rules, rather than responding to him, or to me. I don't wish to enable him by engaging more.
> 
> "Ignore member" doesn't work, when those you ignore, are being quoted, over and over. "Ignore thread" doesn't work, when you have a vested interest in many thread thread topics, and the arguments you wish to ignore just keep infecting new threads. At some point, the mods are the only hope to restore order and balance. The ones who take action, don't do so, unless complaints/reports are made, from what I can tell.


Yeah, a guy with a single Roamio Basic, who has been on the forum for less than 60 days, trying to school others.

In case nobody noticed, when confronted with facts, such as the massive differences between development on a closed system versus Microsoft, etc, the subject gets changed. It's easy to make utterly ridiculous comparisons - until somebody who knows a little about the subject speaks up.

Maybe if individuals like that would take less time trying to figure out how to bash people with legitimate issues on a valid discussion and perhaps more time doing some self education, they'd be less bombastic and more relevant.

You can always tell when somebody is brainwashed with "Fanboy" attitudes. When a discussion in any way not complimentary of Tivo comes up, they shift to attacking the people in the discussion. Again, excellent examples of how companies can be misled into providing substandard performance and service. Cult, bandwagon, it's all the same.


----------



## elborak

Can we please get back to discussing (or dropping discussion of) the reboot issue, rather than making this yet another battle between the usual suspects?


----------



## nooneuknow

elborak said:


> Can we please get back to discussing (or dropping discussion of) the reboot issue, rather than making this yet another battle between the usual suspects?


I'd much prefer to continue the discussion of the reboots, as it's not the first time such a thing has happened, nor will it be the last. It would be nice to keep the thread for continued discussion of (closely) related matters, and not some 30 page pissing contest, on some unrelated other argument, already occupying 30 other threads, just because the recent incident ended, and there's space here not filled...

The only thing special about this thread subject is the "Boot Loop" in the title. Otherwise, it's still pertinent to the base issue, which has caused reboots before, just not a constant cycle of them, like this time. Past incidents were called "Random Reboots".

If the thread goes silent until somebody posts about another boot-looping Roamio, that's fine by my book, too.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> The last time I asked that question (actually, just asked which way MSO Roamios got it), a reputable source said internet, just like the retail TiVos. But, there was mention of MSO & Retail being run on different server nodes, even though both were affected by that particular outage of TiVo service. The latter part was really what many asking, wanted to know, at the time.
> 
> Not sure if I'm one of the "you people" you are referring to, or what you are implying about those you are lumping together. Care to elaborate on how you are grouping people, and why?


It was just a simple question of any difference in how a retail TiVo get its program/update information as compared to people that get their TiVo from an MSO. You answer my question, both types of TiVos use the internet, but the Comcast DVR does uses the cable system to get its program data, no internet needed.


----------



## Johncv

elborak said:


> Can we please get back to discussing (or dropping discussion of) the reboot issue, rather than making this yet another battle between the usual suspects?


Can someone explain what happen and what cause the reboot(s). As I stated it did seem to affect my TiVo until after 1100pt. Is there any way to check this? What time/day did this happen? Did start on the East coast moving West? How long did it last 1 or 2 hours or more? Did affect all Roamio or just some? All I know is I turn on my TV at 0400 pt and found the TiVo on the tuning adapter page and went to CNN and everything working.


----------



## wmhjr

I'm not aware of Tivo providing any information whatsoever other than they "had an internal problem". While I think somebody was asking of any information provided to an MSO be made available here, I am not aware of anyone actually getting such information or putting it here. Thus far, I think all we know is that some component of the Tivo hosting platform that our devices are integrated in went buggy sometime on or about Oct 6th for an undetermined period of time, for unknown reasons, and with unknown overall effects that included at least the whole reboot thing as well as potentially some corruption of data related to guides, scheduled recordings, etc. The former (reboot loop) is definite. The latter stuff was mentioned, but I don't know what has or has not been confirmed.

I also don't think we will ever get answers to the above.


----------



## CinciDVR

wmhjr said:


> BS. Again, pure BS. One of the most uneducated comparisons I see is when people compare embedded devices with highly complex, configurable, open architecture such as Windows, OSX or whatever.


Okay, I'm going to step in it. The post to which you're referring mentioned Apple and Microsoft. Didn't mention Windows or OSX. Both of those companies produce devices that are comparable to a Tivo. Take the iPhone for example. Apple totally controls the environment, and only really needs to interface with the AT&T and Sprints of the world. That's a whole lot like Tivo controlling their environment and only having to deal with the Comcast and TWC's of the world.

So I suppose you missed the whole "Oops we sent out an IOS 8 update and totally screwed your ability to make a phone call" debacle. I wonder how many more developers Apple has than Tivo. I wonder how much more cash in the bank they have than Tivo. And yet they're able to lose control of their own closed environment.

I'm not excusing Tivo's screw up. A DVR should record and play back video. But to act like no other company makes the kind of mistakes Tivo does is just silly.


----------



## Captainbob

CinciDVR said:


> Okay, I'm going to step in it. The post to which you're referring mentioned Apple and Microsoft. Didn't mention Windows or OSX. Both of those companies produce devices that are comparable to a Tivo. Take the iPhone for example. Apple totally controls the environment, and only really needs to interface with the AT&T and Sprints of the world. That's a whole lot like Tivo controlling their environment and only having to deal with the Comcast and TWC's of the world.
> 
> So I suppose you missed the whole "Oops we sent out an IOS 8 update and totally screwed your ability to make a phone call" debacle. I wonder how many more developers Apple has than Tivo. I wonder how much more cash in the bank they have than Tivo. And yet they're able to lose control of their own closed environment.
> 
> I'm not excusing Tivo's screw up. A DVR should record and play back video. But to act like no other company makes the kind of mistakes Tivo does is just silly.


That was the point that I was trying to make, but since I haven't been a forum member until recently, some folks didn't approve .


----------



## aaronwt

CinciDVR said:


> Okay, I'm going to step in it. The post to which you're referring mentioned Apple and Microsoft. Didn't mention Windows or OSX. Both of those companies produce devices that are comparable to a Tivo. Take the iPhone for example. Apple totally controls the environment, and only really needs to interface with the AT&T and Sprints of the world. That's a whole lot like Tivo controlling their environment and only having to deal with the Comcast and TWC's of the world.
> 
> So I suppose you missed the whole "Oops we sent out an IOS 8 update and totally screwed your ability to make a phone call" debacle. I wonder how many more developers Apple has than Tivo. I wonder how much more cash in the bank they have than Tivo. And yet they're able to lose control of their own closed environment.
> 
> I'm not excusing Tivo's screw up. A DVR should record and play back video. But to act like no other company makes the kind of mistakes Tivo does is just silly.


Since when does Apple control the cell phone environment? Only a minority of the phones out there are Apple. Although I still get baffled every time I see an iphone with a case that has a hole in it just so you can see the Apple logo. WTH? Why would they put a non functional hole in a case to see a logo?


----------



## wmhjr

CinciDVR said:


> Okay, I'm going to step in it. The post to which you're referring mentioned Apple and Microsoft. Didn't mention Windows or OSX. Both of those companies produce devices that are comparable to a Tivo. Take the iPhone for example. Apple totally controls the environment, and only really needs to interface with the AT&T and Sprints of the world. That's a whole lot like Tivo controlling their environment and only having to deal with the Comcast and TWC's of the world.
> 
> So I suppose you missed the whole "Oops we sent out an IOS 8 update and totally screwed your ability to make a phone call" debacle. I wonder how many more developers Apple has than Tivo. I wonder how much more cash in the bank they have than Tivo. And yet they're able to lose control of their own closed environment.
> 
> I'm not excusing Tivo's screw up. A DVR should record and play back video. But to act like no other company makes the kind of mistakes Tivo does is just silly.


Actually, you just exposed a lack of knowledge in this area. OSX IS Apple/Mac. You saying I did not include it while I explicitly spoke of Apple clearly indicates a lack of education on this subject.

Point #2. IOS8. This is NOT a closed environment - far from it. How many third party apps do you install on your Tivo? How many third party toolkits to you use on your Tivo? The answer for probably 99.9% of Tivo owners? Zero. Zilch. Nada. How many are installed on iPhones? You can't even count them.

Point #3. The IOS8 debacle was absolutely unacceptable, and if this were a forum about iPhones, I'd say the same exact thing. However, pointing to other vendors issues in defense of Tivo is the pure definition of fanboy. ESPECIALLY when that same vendor has a reputation and history of delivering on their marketing promises. As opposed to.....

Point #4 - kind of a repeat of the my initial paragraph. Microsoft IS Windows! What planet are you on? I was simply stating Microsoft so as to not just include Operating systems, but also the plethora of other products out there that are forced to coexist with thousands - if not millions - of other third party applications - on the same system.

My strong advice to you is to really think about what you're typing. Like I said, if somebody wants to really have a discussion about developing for what is essentially an embedded closed system (Tivo) to developing for open, and even Enterprise systems, I'm game.


----------



## wmhjr

Captainbob said:


> That was the point that I was trying to make, but since I haven't been a forum member until recently, some folks didn't approve .


No, some folks didn't approve of the "whining" comment from somebody who apparently does not understand the difference between embedded/closed system development and open system development, has almost no experience with Tivo, and almost no experience on this forum.

Captainbob, it was not the fact that you are mistaken in your understanding of the environment that ticked people off. It was your rude categorization of others (some who do) that ticked people off.


----------



## Captainbob

wmhjr said:


> No, some folks didn't approve of the "whining" comment from somebody who apparently does not understand the difference between embedded/closed system development and open system development, has almost no experience with Tivo, and almost no experience on this forum.
> 
> Captainbob, it was not the fact that you are mistaken in your understanding of the environment that ticked people off. It was your rude categorization of others (some who do) that ticked people off.


First of all I have been professionally involved in technology and video since the late 50's, and starting working with computers in the very early 80s, so I know just a bit about the topic. I have taught training classes for for thousands of people in the military, broadcast industry, airlines, movie industry, Flight Simulation companies, Aircraft manufacturers, and factory technicians for many companies, and I don't appreciate one or two people on a forum devoted to a DVR that costs a couple of hundred dollars, acting like they know everything about the world of technology and everyone else's opinion on the topic is stupid.

In the post I made on this thread, I was just simply pointing out that even the largest tech companies, and I have worked for a few by the way, can release firmware or software versions or products that turn out to be buggy, and have to be updated. This happens all the time, in all fields of technology. I have worked on troubleshooting video display products that cost up to a million dollars, and hitting glitches was not uncommon. If people want to act like this is not true, or that I don't know what I am talking about, then knock yourselves out.

Oh an BTW, you saying that my common was "BS", you don't consider rude, or did I miss something.


----------



## wmhjr

Sounds to me, Bob, like you're whining about peoples impression of your response...... 

I still see no evidence that you acknowledge or understand the differences between developing for open versus closed systems, Bob. And as somebody who started (only a little) later than you did, I can honestly say that the development environments, processes and controls of even 15 years ago do not even remotely resemble those of today. Nor did the environment that they were developing for. And I have more than 15 years of experience, not just teaching, but actually running development, QA, and hosting - for companies more recently much larger than Tivo. This is not supposed to be a size or credential comparison, but since you brought it up. 

As for "DVRs that cost a couple hundred dollars", better check your math, there Bob. Don't know about others, but I've got two (2) Roamio Pros, 2 Minis, a Premier and a HD - all with lifetime service. And these are far from my first. The LEAST expensive of a single one of these were over $200 once service was added. And the big issue here, Bob, is that while you may not be aware (due to your very recent joining here and who knows what Tivo experience you have) the recent issue was simply one more in a long line. In other words, additional data in a pattern - not a unique one time event.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Captainbob said:


> In the post I made on this thread, I was just simply pointing out that even the largest tech companies, and I have worked for a few by the way, can release firmware or software versions or products that turn out to be buggy, and have to be updated. This happens all the time, in all fields of technology. I have worked on troubleshooting video display products that cost up to a million dollars, and hitting glitches was not uncommon. If people want to act like this is not true, or that I don't know what I am talking about, then knock yourselves out.


Sure, but none of this excuses the main issue, which is that our Tivos are tied way too closely to Tivo servers that have had repeated, documented issues here. For basic DVR functionality, no less.

What we're talking about is poorly done architecture and even poorer regression testing with QA. Almost everything Tivo does at retail is half-baked.


----------



## Captainbob

wmhjr said:


> Sounds to me, Bob, like you're whining about peoples impression of your response......
> 
> I still see no evidence that you acknowledge or understand the differences between developing for open versus closed systems, Bob. And as somebody who started (only a little) later than you did, I can honestly say that the development environments, processes and controls of even 15 years ago do not even remotely resemble those of today. Nor did the environment that they were developing for. And I have more than 15 years of experience, not just teaching, but actually running development, QA, and hosting - for companies more recently much larger than Tivo. This is not supposed to be a size or credential comparison, but since you brought it up.
> 
> As for "DVRs that cost a couple hundred dollars", better check your math, there Bob. Don't know about others, but I've got two (2) Roamio Pros, 2 Minis, a Premier and a HD - all with lifetime service. And these are far from my first. The LEAST expensive of a single one of these were over $200 once service was added. And the big issue here, Bob, is that while you may not be aware (due to your very recent joining here and who knows what Tivo experience you have) the recent issue was simply one more in a long line. In other words, additional data in a pattern - not a unique one time event.


I see what you are saying, but the post that I made was not referring to development of open versus closed systems, in fact it was not even mentioned in what I wrote. I simply stated that errors happen when new firmware or software is released, and it happens to all companies. The engineers are under the gun, many times, to get something finished, and the beta testing of it is rushed, it is released, and whoops things like the latest version of IOS on the newest iPhone6 causes the phone not to work properly with various bugs reported. How my comment can be misunderstood, by *injecting a totally different issue* into what I wrote ( closed versus open systems) , *after I wrote it,* and then claiming that I don't understand the "inserted topic", is some strange kind of logic that I don't quite understand.


----------



## wmhjr

Bob, here is the issue. The Roamio (and others) boot loop was just another defect/issue to some extent resulting from the "always connected to the mothership" design of the newer Tivo devices. In comments prior to yours, others even explicitly referenced other issues, and the fact that this "connection" dependency has caused a number of issues - not to mention that it's simply not good development, nor good business.

You, Bob, came on and said 


Captainbob said:


> I guess the same could be said for Apple, Microsoft, and all the other companies that issue updates and then find out there is a bug or fault in the release and have to issue a correction. How dare these people not be *perfect*...


*YOU Bob*, injected the issue of comparing Tivo to others. The problem is that you used examples of open versus closed development to justify Tivo defects. *I did not introduce that subject. You did.* The fact that you used those examples clearly demonstrates either a lack of understanding of the details and/or intricacies, a "shoot from the hip" response without really thinking through the consequences, or a deliberate attempt to ignore facts. There is no other option.

Now if we could get back to the subject, has anyone gotten any information whatsoever behind this? Again, I don't think we will - at least not officially, but I'd like to try and keep track of it.


----------



## Johncv

wmhjr said:


> Bob, here is the issue. The Roamio (and others) boot loop was just another defect/issue to some extent resulting from the "always connected to the mothership" design of the newer Tivo devices. In comments prior to yours, others even explicitly referenced other issues, and the fact that this "connection" dependency has caused a number of issues - not to mention that it's simply not good development, nor good business.
> 
> You, Bob, came on and said
> 
> *YOU Bob*, injected the issue of comparing Tivo to others. The problem is that you used examples of open versus closed development to justify Tivo defects. *I did not introduce that subject. You did.* The fact that you used those examples clearly demonstrates either a lack of understanding of the details and/or intricacies, a "shoot from the hip" response without really thinking through the consequences, or a deliberate attempt to ignore facts. There is no other option.
> 
> Now if we could get back to the subject, has anyone gotten any information whatsoever behind this? Again, I don't think we will - at least not officially, but I'd like to try and keep track of it.


Clearly "something" happen on TiVo end, so "what" would cause random TiVo's to reboot in what seem to be at different times.


----------



## wmhjr

The random and different times could be explained by the fact that each Tivo has it's own scheduled time (which varies) to call in. I said could, not is. That might possibly explain the different timing between Tivo units - even, in my case, different starting times for different Tivos in my own home.

As for what happened to actually cause the issue rather than just the timing, to my knowledge nobody knows because Tivo refuses to provide information.


----------



## CinciDVR

wmhjr said:


> Actually, you just exposed a lack of knowledge in this area. OSX IS Apple/Mac. You saying I did not include it while I explicitly spoke of Apple clearly indicates a lack of education on this subject.


You like to say that people have "exposed a lack of knowledge" quite a bit. It doesn't make it so, though. I was referring to Captainbob when I said OSX was not referred to. You implied that he referred to OSX when he said that Apple has had problems. He did not.



wmhjr said:


> Point #2. IOS8. This is NOT a closed environment - far from it. How many third party apps do you install on your Tivo? How many third party toolkits to you use on your Tivo? The answer for probably 99.9% of Tivo owners? Zero. Zilch. Nada. How many are installed on iPhones? You can't even count them.


IOS8 is the very definition of a closed environment. Apple completely controls it. Apps that run within IOS8 must conform to Apple's rules. Toolkits that run on IOS8 must conform to Apple's rules. You can't add device drivers to an iPhone. You can't even add an app without going to the Apple app store. What makes you possibly think that IOS8 is not a closed system?



wmhjr said:


> Point #3. The IOS8 debacle was absolutely unacceptable, and if this were a forum about iPhones, I'd say the same exact thing. However, pointing to other vendors issues in defense of Tivo is the pure definition of fanboy. ESPECIALLY when that same vendor has a reputation and history of delivering on their marketing promises. As opposed to.....


I did not use Apple's debacle to excuse Tivo's problems. I used it as a comparison. If a company with Apple's resources and money makes a mistake that renders a phone unable to make calls, then it's not surprising that a company like Tivo can make a mistake that renders a DVR unable to record a show.



wmhjr said:


> Point #4 - kind of a repeat of the my initial paragraph. Microsoft IS Windows! What planet are you on? I was simply stating Microsoft so as to not just include Operating systems, but also the plethora of other products out there that are forced to coexist with thousands - if not millions - of other third party applications - on the same system.


And I was pointing out that Captainbob mentioned Microsoft but not Windows. Microsoft is more than just Windows. They make the Xbox, the Zune music player, keyboards, and other devices. Some of those use embedded systems. And sometimes Microsoft screws up their updates for those devices.



wmhjr said:


> My strong advice to you is to really think about what you're typing. Like I said, if somebody wants to really have a discussion about developing for what is essentially an embedded closed system (Tivo) to developing for open, and even Enterprise systems, I'm game.


Perhaps you should take your own advice. The iPhone is an embedded closed system. Only Apple can update it and add features. Unlike OSX, you cannot add device drivers to it that might screw things up. You can't even add apps without going to the Apple App store. The iPhone interfaces with the carrier's cell towers. That's just like the Tivo which is a closed embedded system that only Tivo can update but which interfaces with the video providers Cablecards, and the Television manufacturers TV's. I would be happy to go offline and discuss developing for embedded closed systems, which I have done, but you've clearly shown that you don't even know what a closed embedded system is, let alone how to develop for it.


----------



## Captainbob

CinciDVR said:


> You like to say that people have "exposed a lack of knowledge" quite a bit. It doesn't make it so, though. I was referring to Captainbob when I said OSX was not referred to. You implied that he referred to OSX when he said that Apple has had problems. He did not.
> 
> IOS8 is the very definition of a closed environment. Apple completely controls it. Apps that run within IOS8 must conform to Apple's rules. Toolkits that run on IOS8 must conform to Apple's rules. You can't add device drivers to an iPhone. You can't even add an app without going to the Apple app store. What makes you possibly think that IOS8 is not a closed system?
> 
> I did not use Apple's debacle to excuse Tivo's problems. I used it as a comparison. If a company with Apple's resources and money makes a mistake that renders a phone unable to make calls, then it's not surprising that a company like Tivo can make a mistake that renders a DVR unable to record a show.
> 
> And I was pointing out that Captainbob mentioned Microsoft but not Windows. Microsoft is more than just Windows. They make the Xbox, the Zune music player, keyboards, and other devices. Some of those use embedded systems. And sometimes Microsoft screws up their updates for those devices.
> 
> Perhaps you should take your own advice. The iPhone is an embedded closed system. Only Apple can update it and add features. Unlike OSX, you cannot add device drivers to it that might screw things up. You can't even add apps without going to the Apple App store. The iPhone interfaces with the carrier's cell towers. That's just like the Tivo which is a closed embedded system that only Tivo can update but which interfaces with the video providers Cablecards, and the Television manufacturers TV's. I would be happy to go offline and discuss developing for embedded closed systems, which I have done, but you've clearly shown that you don't even know what a closed embedded system is, let alone how to develop for it.


That was exactly the point that I was trying to make, and all I got in return was a couple of insults. I have learned that a few of the long time members on his forum feel that they are the supreme experts in every aspect of technology and if anyone states something that they disagree with, that person is open to attack. I just don't bother arguing with them anymore, it's not worth it. I think it is very important for them to feel that they are 100% right.


----------



## wmhjr

CinciDVR said:


> You like to say that people have "exposed a lack of knowledge" quite a bit. It doesn't make it so, though. I was referring to Captainbob when I said OSX was not referred to. You implied that he referred to OSX when he said that Apple has had problems. He did not..


Strike one.

Yes, CaptainBob DID refer to OSX.



Captainbob said:


> I guess the same could be said for Apple, Microsoft, and all the other companies that issue updates and then find out there is a bug or fault in the release and have to issue a correction. How dare these people not be *perfect*...


Note Cinci the comment being made about APPLE and MICROSOFT. NOT about iPhone IOS or WindowsPhones. I implied nothing. I responded to his direct comment. However, not even that matters, because of Strike #2.



CinciDVR said:


> IOS8 is the very definition of a closed environment. Apple completely controls it. Apps that run within IOS8 must conform to Apple's rules. Toolkits that run on IOS8 must conform to Apple's rules. You can't add device drivers to an iPhone. You can't even add an app without going to the Apple app store. What makes you possibly think that IOS8 is not a closed system?


What planet are you on? "Conforming to rules" or standards does not create a "closed system". Earlier in this thread I made the point that by using the term "open" and "closed" I was speaking to the ability to make configuration and application changes to the device - NOT to the open vs closed discussion concerning for example Linux. However, even using the industry standard definition of "open systems architecture" - there is only one qualification that Apple IOS does not meet, and frankly, it's probably the least important. It has a published set of standards and interfaces, it has been stable over a reasonable length of time, and it has been fully published. The only restriction in this case is that the standards and interface standards are controlled by Apple. However, ANY user can add over 1.2 MILLION applications, including ANY combination of such applications. Beyond this, your statement that you can't add an app without going to the app store is utterly false. The app store is the most common means of distribution, but there are apps that are distributed and installed outside of that ecosystem - and Apple endorses it. Don't believe me? Read from Apple themselves.... I would encourage you not to make shoot from the hip statements.

https://developer.apple.com/library...sOutside/DistributingApplicationsOutside.html

There are plenty of companies out there doing this for IOS as well as Mac. Most of this is currently in the Enterprise space - which is a space Apple has studiously avoided for almost all of their history.....



CinciDVR said:


> I did not use Apple's debacle to excuse Tivo's problems. I used it as a comparison. If a company with Apple's resources and money makes a mistake that renders a phone unable to make calls, then it's not surprising that a company like Tivo can make a mistake that renders a DVR unable to record a show.


This is a fanboy comment. First of all, as I've already proven many times, the comparison is fundamentally flawed and has no relevance or value. Apple and Microsoft operate in FAR FAR FAR (repeat infinitum) more complex development environments. But the bigger issue is that it doesn't matter that Tivo as a company is slower. As a matter of fact, that's my point. Design, manufacture and sell a product? You'd better do it right. If you don't because you don't have enough resources, your fault - not the consumers. This is not a public assistance non-profit we're talking about. It is a commercial, consumer device and service market. Period. Do it right, or don't do it.



CinciDVR said:


> And I was pointing out that Captainbob mentioned Microsoft but not Windows. Microsoft is more than just Windows. They make the Xbox, the Zune music player, keyboards, and other devices. Some of those use embedded systems. And sometimes Microsoft screws up their updates for those devices.


And pointing that out shows a lack of comprehension. I brought up some specific examples of Microsoft - and made clear the point that there were many other products. It was CaptainBob himself you (as I quoted above) used (improperly) Microsoft as an example. Since he himself would not cite a specific product in one of their families, your rebuke here is without value.



CinciDVR said:


> Perhaps you should take your own advice. The iPhone is an embedded closed system. Only Apple can update it and add features. Unlike OSX, you cannot add device drivers to it that might screw things up. You can't even add apps without going to the Apple App store. The iPhone interfaces with the carrier's cell towers. That's just like the Tivo which is a closed embedded system that only Tivo can update but which interfaces with the video providers Cablecards, and the Television manufacturers TV's. I would be happy to go offline and discuss developing for embedded closed systems, which I have done, but you've clearly shown that you don't even know what a closed embedded system is, let alone how to develop for it.


As I've already proven from Apples own sites and development resources, you are in fact wrong. If you want to go offline and discuss, fine, but my guess is that my development background is far more robust given your response. The scary thing is that it does not take somebody with an engineering background to understand this at a ground level, however you've chosen for some reason to swim against the flow. Your comments about the iPhone "interfacing with carriers cell towers" and how you believe only app store products can be installed on an iPhone give me great pause about your experience in this case.


----------



## wmhjr

Captainbob said:


> That was exactly the point that I was trying to make, and all I got in return was a couple of insults. I have learned that a few of the long time members on his forum feel that they are the supreme experts in every aspect of technology and if anyone states something that they disagree with, that person is open to attack. I just don't bother arguing with them anymore, it's not worth it. I think it is very important for them to feel that they are 100% right.


See my response. In this case, you're still just plain wrong. The comparison between Tivo and Apple and/or Microsoft is utterly ridiculous. Defensive comments trying to absolve blame are worthless.


----------



## elborak

So, so should we start a separate thread to actually discuss the boot loop and leave this thread to be solely pointless posturing and bickering?


----------



## patrickthickey

elborak said:


> So, so should we start a separate thread to actually discuss the boot loop and leave this thread to be solely pointless posturing and bickering?


Thread hijacking.


----------



## lessd

elborak said:


> So, so should we start a separate thread to actually discuss the boot loop and leave this thread to be solely pointless posturing and bickering?


I think the boot loop question has been answered

TiVos had a problem with something on the TiVo hosting side, and TiVo.inc not saying what it is/was, this problem caused some TiVos to re-boot (I have three Roamios and only one did the re-boot), could be caused by the unique call home time each TiVo has, or something else. Unless TiVo talks all we know is that the TiVo hosting can cause some TiVos re-boot.


----------



## csell

Is this reboot problem just for the Roamio? I have a Tivo HD so I barely come into this forum. However, approximately one week ago, my Tivo has begun random reboots. Sometime just once a day, other times many. I assumed my Tivo HD harddrive was failing, but after reading this thread, I have my doubts now. Anyone know if this issue is also occuring on other Tivos besides the Roamio? By the way, I have disconnected the wi-fi adapter and it has NOT stopped the random rebootings...


----------



## Captainbob

wmhjr said:


> Strike one.
> 
> Yes, CaptainBob DID refer to OSX.
> 
> Note Cinci the comment being made about APPLE and MICROSOFT. NOT about iPhone IOS or WindowsPhones. I implied nothing. I responded to his direct comment. However, not even that matters, because of Strike #2.


The reason I am not going to discuss this anymore with you, is because you make up stuff to try and prove the ridiculous point that you are attempting to make. I can't have any kind of conversation with someone that does that. I *never referred to OSX*. Here is exactly what I posted, that you chose to post an insulting response to. : " * I guess the same could be said for Apple, Microsoft, and all the other companies that issue updates and then find out there is a bug or fault in the release and have to issue a correction. How dare these people not be perfect.*"

For example, apple updated software on their iPhone6 which cause it not to be able to make phone calls.... They make the phone, they control everything on the phone, period.

Now that being said, I can see that you will probably spend another 1/2 hour creating 2 or 3 more rebuttal posts sprinkled with put downs, trying to find something to ridicule that I said in this short post. I frankly find continuing this topic with you to be totally pointless, you don't want to have a discussion, you want to give a lecture. So I will add you to my blocked list, and you can find someone else to engage.

Ciao, it's been a real pressure.....


----------



## Keen

elborak said:


> So, so should we start a separate thread to actually discuss the boot loop and leave this thread to be solely pointless posturing and bickering?


I'd recommend reporting posts by the especially argumentative people. The mods/admins are the only ones who can fix this problem, and they need to be made aware of it when it happens.


----------



## telemark

csell said:


> However, approximately one week ago, my Tivo[HD] has begun random reboots. ... By the way, I have disconnected the wi-fi adapter and it has NOT stopped the random rebootings.


I think the "boot loop" event is best considered isolated to what happened on the fateful night.

What you're describing is random rebooting, sounds different. And since disconnecting the network doesn't fix it, that's even more different.

Isn't the TivoHD on SDUI also? I don't expect any machines on SDUI being affected by this.


----------



## LoadStar

csell said:


> Is this reboot problem just for the Roamio? I have a Tivo HD so I barely come into this forum. However, approximately one week ago, my Tivo has begun random reboots. Sometime just once a day, other times many. I assumed my Tivo HD harddrive was failing, but after reading this thread, I have my doubts now. Anyone know if this issue is also occuring on other Tivos besides the Roamio? By the way, I have disconnected the wi-fi adapter and it has NOT stopped the random rebootings...





telemark said:


> I think the "boot loop" event is best considered isolated to what happened on the fateful night.
> 
> What you're describing is random rebooting, sounds different. And since disconnecting the network doesn't fix it, that's even more different.
> 
> Isn't the TivoHD on SDUI also? I don't expect any machines on SDUI being affected by this.


What Telemark said, but also, there are two other key differences.

For one the TiVo HD has far less reliance on the central TiVo servers than the Roamio and Premiere. For the newer boxes, they are in constant communication with the main TiVo servers, so a problem there very quickly propagates to the individual DVRs. Significant functionality on the new boxes depends on constant network connectivity. On the other hand, the TiVo HD runs fairly autonomously. Yes, it gets guide data from TiVo, and regularly checks in for pushed changes from the web... but assuming the guide data is current, a TiVo HD could run without network for quite some time. There isn't the risk of a change immediately propagating to individual DVRs like what happened that night.

The second difference is that the TiVo HD's codebase is, for all extents and purposes, done. There are likely to be no further changes made that would cause issues like the reboot loop that Premiere/Roamio users experienced.

If you're having random crashes/reboots, you're almost certainly looking at something local to your TiVo HD, such as a problem with the hard drive, logic board, or power supply.


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## wpatters1229

Not sure if I have started showing the problem but last week my roamio just did a re-boot. Just a few minutes ago it stopped responding to the remote until I did a re-boot..POR. Now reading all your back and forth I am a retired IBM engineer and in the old days we had updates just like MS has or any of the other OS....they all have bugs. Some are minor and would only show up with certain combinations of actions while others would crash the system. We where always doing hex by hex patches in the middle of the night to fix problems. It is just what happens when you have complex systems. BUT when something causes a re-boot or the remote commands to stop working then we have hit a serious reliability problem and a huge customer trust issue.....which is where I am at. If they are making updates maybe they should ask if we want them like MS does. They certainly never ask or tells us what they are for. We should have the choice if it is not broken don't fix it.


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## nooneuknow

Keen said:


> I'd recommend reporting posts by the especially argumentative people. The mods/admins are the only ones who can fix this problem, and they need to be made aware of it when it happens.


+1,000,000,000 :up: :up: :up: I suggested this from the start of the threadjacking. Instead, somebody used it as an opportunity to bolster their attack and agenda, rather than letting things be, and just reporting the offending post(s). Look at what happened between my first attempt to stop the threadjack, and this post.

If enough people report the guilty posts, from the guilty members, blatantly threadjacking every thread they touch, with off-topic one-upmanship [a nice way of saying what might get me an infraction for "Insulting other member(s)"], the bickering would likely get deleted, and the offenders would likely be on the mods' radar.

It's the red triangle, below the member name, picture, & other data. Using that, as opposed to entering into the bickering, will help make sure you don't get a demerit or ban, for participating.

It doesn't matter who started a fight, what was said, or how many rules somebody else broke. If you participate, you risk being the one who gets a warning, infraction, temp-ban, or even perma-ban.

As much as the powers that be suggest using the "ignore list", I find it utterly useless, as it only ignores one-way, doesn't ignore quotes of those ignored, and if I ignored every thread infested with trolls and bullies, I might just as well not even log on to TCF.

I have some data I'd like to share on the matter, which I strongly believe explains exactly what caused the issue that started this thread, and have some links to post, to back it up. I'll post about it, and provide the links, once I see enough have reported the offenders, who threadjacked a perfectly good, still-useful, thread. Otherwise, I'll assume nobody cares enough. Then, neither should I care, nor bother to post my findings.


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## nooneuknow

LoadStar said:


> The second difference is that the TiVo HD's codebase is, for all extents and purposes, done. There are likely to be no further changes made that would cause issues like the reboot loop that Premiere/Roamio users experienced.
> 
> If you're having random crashes/reboots, you're almost certainly looking at something local to your TiVo HD, such as a problem with the hard drive, logic board, or power supply.


Not so fast there. The S3 & TiVo HD user base was affected by a reboot issue, that nearly had unitron telling everybody to recap their power supplies, others suggesting everybody had hard drive failures (or some other issue, inside the TiVo), and the only thing that saved likely hundreds of people from making unnecessary repairs, and/or needlessly replacing hard drives (or re-imaging them), was a thread like this one, that isolated the issue to TiVo sending poisoned data in scheduled service connections. TiVoMargret responded, admitted it, owned it, and ultimately got it fixed, by simply fixing the data the afflicted TiVos would download on their next scheduled connection. Everybody knows/suspects it was related to ads, even though TiVo never admitted it.

If the thread wasn't so overrun, and diluted, I'd have done a full write-up on this issue. Once again: TiVo makes a change to their ads, and sends a whole bunch of people into another reboot problem. They'll never admit it was the ads. Want more info/data? Those who do, should start reporting posts made by problem members, so there can be flow and continuity to the matter.


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## wpatters1229

Simple question; How do we know when this occurs....ads being changed and the occurrence of reboots and other problems? Is there some place where we can look at a log or some indicator?


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## nooneuknow

wpatters1229 said:


> Simple question; How do we know when this occurs....ads being changed and the occurrence of reboots and other problems? Is there some place where we can look at a log or some indicator?


TiVo logs, via TiVo BackDoor: Under System Information screen, press Clear, Clear, Enter, Enter, 0. From there, it's self-explanatory, if you have the knowledge and skills to understand the navigation, have a rough idea of what log entries mean, and know what is normal log activity (and what isn't).

It's not for the average TiVo user, nor does anybody (outside of TiVo) know what everything means in there. It will take a long time, for even a technical person, to get the lay of the land, bearings, and be able to sift through it all.

There are time-stamping, and log enhancing, sequences, which can be used while in Live TV mode (only). Pressing 911-clear will place date/time stamps in the logs, while 777-clear will mark them, and enable enhanced logging. Both can be used, repeatedly. The Clear button must be pressed fast enough to stop a channel change from happening.

From here, those wanting to learn to "talk TiVo Logs", are on their own, to (attempt to) make sense of them. If a lot of scary sounding errors, will make you paranoid, or add worries, I suggest staying out of the logs.

To access all the logs, one must pull the drive, and use a disk/hex editor (or viewer), on a PC, to see logs TiVo BackDoor doesn't give access to. Some of the most critical logs are only accessible this way.


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## CoxInPHX

CoxInPHX said:


> Same here TNTPHD for Supernatural is showing several invalid channels that are not listed in the guide or channel list. They only show up in the Upcoming Episode list.


I am still seeing Non-Existent wrong channels listed in my Upcoming Shows list.

Are most seeing this problem?
Also happening on my Premieres.


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## nooneuknow

CoxInPHX said:


> I am still seeing Non-Existent wrong channels listed in my Upcoming Shows list.
> 
> Are most seeing this problem?
> Also happening on my Premieres.


Still having the same thing here, on all of my Base Roamios. I don't have any older models anymore.


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## dswallow

I just noticed my Premiere XL4 was rebooting constantly and remembered reading about disconnecting the ethernet cable; that didn't help until I also powered it off and on again; then it booted up OK.

My Premiere XL4 is on 20.4.5-01-2-758


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## Johncv

In a TiVo Roamio survey, one of the questions was Did you TiVo Roamio experience a reboot problem


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## Rey

Hi everyone. I'm new to Tivo and just received my roamio today. I went on tivo's website to activate the roamio. 20 minutes later I plugged it in for the first time and it's stuck in a boot loop at the welcome screen. 

I'm not familiar with the Tivos so any help is appreciated.


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## jmpage2

Rey said:


> Hi everyone. I'm new to Tivo and just received my roamio today. I went on tivo's website to activate the roamio. 20 minutes later I plugged it in for the first time and it's stuck in a boot loop at the welcome screen.
> 
> I'm not familiar with the Tivos so any help is appreciated.


As you can see from this thread, the problem described was caused by a network glitch that hit TiVo about one year ago.

So... it's unlikely you are experiencing the problem being described.

If you just received the unit I would call TiVo for technical support... it's very likely there is some unrelated issue with your unit and it might need to be replaced.


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## Rey

jmpage2 said:


> As you can see from this thread, the problem described was caused by a network glitch that hit TiVo about one year ago.
> 
> So... it's unlikely you are experiencing the problem being described.
> 
> If you just received the unit I would call TiVo for technical support... it's very likely there is some unrelated issue with your unit and it might need to be replaced.


Thank you so much for the reply. I remember having the same issue when trying out the mini on Saturday. Then when I decided to fool around with it further I took it to the room and it booted up. Just now did the same with the roamio and it's at the almost there screen. The only difference aside from the TV is that I was going through the HDMI of the AV receiver. In the room it's plugged in straight into the TV. Could that be the cause?


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## elwaylite

Rey said:


> Thank you so much for the reply. I remember having the same issue when trying out the mini on Saturday. Then when I decided to fool around with it further I took it to the room and it booted up. Just now did the same with the roamio and it's at the almost there screen. The only difference aside from the TV is that I was going through the HDMI of the AV receiver. In the room it's plugged in straight into the TV. Could that be the cause?


I would not think so. Get it booted up and the software updated on the tv it's working on, and then try it back on the other.


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## jmpage2

elwaylite said:


> I would not think so. Get it booted up and the software updated on the tv it's working on, and then try it back on the other.


^this^


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## Rey

Thanks guys, I'll let you know how it goes. Elway, nice seeing you here buddy


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## HarperVision

Could be this recent issue:

http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=532041


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## Rey

So far all is Great as long as I don't run the video through my AV receiver. Could this be a HDCP issue?


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## bobr42

I have a new Romio basic. Hooked to MoCA. And a new Mini. Having lockup and reboot problems. They replaced it once, still have the problem with new unit. Any advise?


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## HarperVision

bobr42 said:


> I have a new Romio basic. Hooked to MoCA. And a new Mini. Having lockup and reboot problems. They replaced it once, still have the problem with new unit. Any advise?


Follow the procedure outlined in the link to the thread I posted:



HarperVision said:


> Could be this recent issue: http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=532041


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## monchi123

BOOT LOOP = BAD HARD DRIVE replace and enjoy your new box


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## JoeKustra

monchi123 said:


> BOOT LOOP = BAD HARD DRIVE replace and enjoy your new box


Posting a reply to a three year old post might be missed.


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## krkaufman

monchi123 said:


> BOOT LOOP = BAD HARD DRIVE replace and enjoy your new box





JoeKustra said:


> Posting a reply to a three year old post might be missed.


Aside from a bad hard drive not being the only cause of a Roamio continually rebooting. (e.g.)


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## slowbiscuit

Definitely not the only reason a Roamio can fail - lightning took mine out last year and it boot looped, drive was fine.


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