# Min reboot loop at "welcome! starting up..."



## marklyn (Jan 21, 2002)

So last week my master bedroom mini was in a reboot loop at the "Welcome! Starting up..." screen. Nothing I tried fixed the problem, called Tivo and they couldn't get it working as well. They had me temporarily hook up my guest bedroom mini, which of course worked and I left it that way until I got a replacement for the master bedroom.
Now, today, my guest room mini is doing the same thing after I hooked it up for the first time. Reboot loop at the welcome screen.
I'm apprehensive about calling Tivo again since they initially seemed reluctant to replace my mini for my master bedroom at a minimal cost and transferred/waived the lifetime service to the replacement.

I'll keep futzing with it but I'm afraid I'm going to have to call again. This doesn't bode well with me. My Roamio and two mini's are only 18 months new, with over $1000 investment in equipment and lifetime service on everything. I didn't realize that if one died I'd have to buy a new lifetime. Could this be the life expectancy for a mini?

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

*update* I've rebooted my Roamio, unplugged everything from mini, still in reboot loop.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

marklyn said:


> So last week my master bedroom mini was in a reboot loop at the "Welcome! Starting up..." screen. Nothing I tried fixed the problem, called Tivo and they couldn't get it working as well. They had me temporarily hook up my guest bedroom mini, which of course worked and I left it that way until I got a replacement for the master bedroom.
> Now, today, my guest room mini is doing the same thing after I hooked it up for the first time. Reboot loop at the welcome screen.
> I'm apprehensive about calling Tivo again since they initially seemed reluctant to replace my mini for my master bedroom at a minimal cost and transferred/waived the lifetime service to the replacement.
> 
> ...


Hi,
Check your Tivo account and see if both the new and old mini are activated. Other thoughts, force a connection to Tivo with your Roamio.
Put the guest mini back in your bedroom and see if it will boot there.
Did you just buy another mini directly from Tivo? The minis are substantially cheaper from Ebay or Amazon, the V1 / 92000 $108, V2 /93000 are $137.32. All mini's have lifetime included now. 
Invest in one or more UPS and use them for your Tivo equipment.

With your luck, consider buying some lottery tickets.


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## marklyn (Jan 21, 2002)

fcfc2 said:


> Hi,
> Check your Tivo account and see if both the new and old mini are activated. Other thoughts, force a connection to Tivo with your Roamio.
> Put the guest mini back in your bedroom and see if it will boot there.
> Did you just buy another mini directly from Tivo? The minis are substantially cheaper from Ebay or Amazon, the V1 / 92000 $108, V2 /93000 are $137.32. All mini's have lifetime included now.
> ...


Everything on the Tivo account looks good. The Master BD mini did work in place of the guest BD mini, I just forgot to mention that in my original thread.

But, now it's working. After messing with it for about 2 hours, I had to run some errands, so I kept it unplugged during my errands, around 2 hours. When I got back and plugged it in, it booted up as it normally does. I don't know if this will 'hold' but for now it works and without any explanation.

Arggh. I hate stuff like this. I like stuff that just works. Period.


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## marklyn (Jan 21, 2002)

Well that didn't last but maybe an hour of use. Ran an errand, came back and it's back to the "Welcome! Starting up..." loop again.

bleh. looks like I have to call Tivo.


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## marklyn (Jan 21, 2002)

They're now saying that my SN numbers on my Roamio are too high (41-46) and that's causing my issues!
My signal strength on all of my channels (0-5) is 100%
My SNR on each channel is between 40-46.
The RS corrected/uncorrected for all of my channels is zero.

They're recommending attenuaters to bring down the SNR to 30-35 range.

Does this make sense? I recall having these same numbers, especially the SNR numbers, for the past 18 months I've had this equipment.

I'm not confident of this solution but I'm going to get 3 anntenuaters like he suggested. Thoughts appreciated.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

How would that have any effect on the Mini? The Mini only grabs a tuner and displays live TV if you press the live TV button. It should have zero effect on the boot up. 

It sounds to me like it's overheating.


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## marklyn (Jan 21, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> How would that have any effect on the Mini? The Mini only grabs a tuner and displays live TV if you press the live TV button. It should have zero effect on the boot up.
> 
> It sounds to me like it's overheating.


I agree. As it turns out, Tivo is replacing my mini. But none of this was working in my head.


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## CinciDVR (May 24, 2014)

Dan203 said:


> It sounds to me like it's overheating.


The mini has an external power supply which removes one of the main sources of overheating in electronic equipment. And the mini does not have a cooling fan to fail and cause overheating. So if your minis are overheating, either Tivo designed the passive cooling system to be quite marginal, or the environment they're in is hard on passive cooling devices (e.g. very dusty, no room for convective airflow).

When computers exhibit this kind of symptom, the culprit is often the power supply. So perhaps the underlying culprit is the external power supply. Did Tivo have you try the power supply from the master bedroom mini on the guest bedroom mini that was in the reboot loop?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The power brick could be the culprit. could also be that the passive cooling system on the CPU was not attached correctly or there is a bad capacitor. 

Getting a new one is probably the best bet. Luvkily with a Mini swapping them out is easy. Unlike a TiVo where you have to move all your shows, SPs, etc... to the new unit.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

If the switching out the mini did not include the power brick, I think it totally makes sense. Why else would a working box in a new location suddenly fail? Most likely its something with the location- weird signal and power issues were my initial thoughts.


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## monchi123 (Aug 5, 2016)

BOOT LOOP = BAD HARD DRIVE replace with any 3.5 or 2.5 inch SATA II hard drive up to 3 TB in cpacity.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

monchi123 said:


> BOOT LOOP = BAD HARD DRIVE replace with any 3.5 or 2.5 inch SATA II hard drive up to 3 TB in cpacity.


Quite a trick. I figure a Mini can sit on top of a hard drive. Might give it better ventilation.


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## Darrell Patton (Jul 19, 2018)

monchi123 said:


> BOOT LOOP = BAD HARD DRIVE replace with any 3.5 or 2.5 inch SATA II hard drive up to 3 TB in cpacity.


No hard drive in a Mini, that I'm aware of


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

monchi123 said:


> BOOT LOOP = BAD HARD DRIVE replace with any 3.5 or 2.5 inch SATA II hard drive up to 3 TB in cpacity.


Dumb and dumber.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

I sawed my Mini in half and used a hammer to jam a hard drive into it, and it still won't boot. What do I do now? I've been waiting for an answer for 3 years, the last time there was a post in this thread.


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## youngtheking (May 2, 2015)

One of my minis just got boot looped. That is 2nd time I have got. I think auto updates causes the boot loop and I couldn’t disable the auto update. That is pretty the TiVo forces updates to all TiVo systems. I think we should get free replacements if any of the TiVo ends up boot loop.


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## keithg1964 (Feb 2, 2006)

marklyn said:


> They're now saying that my SN numbers on my Roamio are too high (41-46) and that's causing my issues!
> My signal strength on all of my channels (0-5) is 100%
> My SNR on each channel is between 40-46.
> The RS corrected/uncorrected for all of my channels is zero.
> ...


I know this is an old post, but I have had this argument with Tivo Support in the past about an high SNR. An SNR ratio cannot be too high. To say that they want an lower SNR is saying you need to introduce some noise into the signal. (SNR is Signal to Noise Ratio.)


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

Comcast requires that the SNR be in the 40's before a Tech can close the ticket...

-KP


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## buildersboy66 (Dec 9, 2016)

One way to get out of this loop is make sure no coax cable is attached. Retry until boot and setup sticks. If you can get to reset menu quickly in the midst of this do that too without coax cable.


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