# Bolt Can't Transfer from Upgraded Series 3



## sbedelman (Nov 24, 2009)

I've own three TiVo's, two Series 3 and new Bolt. All are on lifetime. One of the Series 3's had it's disk upgraded to 2TB by Weaknees. The three are connected to each other via hardwired ethernet through a 24 port switch.

At first the Bolt couldn't see either Series 3 for transferring. A supervisor named Luke did something and that allowed the Bolt to work with the Series 3 that had not had it's hard drive upgraded however the other Tivo is still giving the message that there is a problem with the network that they were both giving before Luke did whatever he did. Luke told me to call in the next day if both Series 3's weren't connecting properly to the Bolt. He said it was a know issue.

Today I call in and a different supervisor tells me that the Series 3 with the upgraded hard drive will never connect to the Bolt. He all but comes out and says that by upgrading the hard drive I've done something wrong and so it's my fault. He goes on to say that because of the disk upgrade they will be doing nothing further and that's the end of it.

I'd like to know if anyone else is having this issue and what was the outcome.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

sbedelman said:


> Today I call in and a different supervisor tells me that the Series 3 with the upgraded hard drive will never connect to the Bolt. He all but comes out and says that by upgrading the hard drive I've done something wrong and so it's my fault. He goes on to say that because of the disk upgrade they will be doing nothing further and that's the end of it.
> 
> I'd like to know if anyone else is having this issue and what was the outcome.


What version of OS do you have on bolt? There was an OS update around november that broke show transfers between older units and bolt/roamio. They finally fixed it around january timeframe. The symptoms were you could see the older units but trying to transfer failed. I believe you couldn't even get the list of shows, though the unit would be listed as one of the units that could be seen.

Other than that, once they put out the fixed OS, I haven't had problems between Roamio and old S3 OLED. I seriously doubt upgraded drive has anything to do with it.

I think the bad version was 20.6.3 RC something, I forget the release candidate #, might have been 7


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

sbedelman said:


> He all but comes out and says that by upgrading the hard drive I've done something wrong and so it's my fault.


I've never heard, here, of any validity to that excuse except as its being an excuse. Perhaps others will know better.


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## scottopus (Oct 26, 2004)

I'm also seeing this same online transfer issue between my upgraded HD and my new Bolt+. I've been manually going through each individual show from my bolt+ which is a royal pain since I have over 200+ shows I want to transfer.

During the initial setup, the Bolt+ when through two updates before the guide install. I'll be sure to check my version when I get home.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

sbedelman said:


> Today I call in and a different supervisor tells me that the Series 3 with the upgraded hard drive will never connect to the Bolt. He all but comes out and says that by upgrading the hard drive I've done something wrong and so it's my fault. He goes on to say that because of the disk upgrade they will be doing nothing further and that's the end of it.


If that is truly TiVo's new policy regarding units with hard drive upgrades, such unreasonable pettiness would make me wonder if TiVo is circling the toilet bowl for the last time before disappearing. But I think you just talked to a clueless support drone.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I would make sure the bolt is on current generation software, reboot everything (including switch/router), and then reassess.


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## sbedelman (Nov 24, 2009)

The Bolt is on software revision 20.7.1.RC2-USC-11-849

Keep in mind the following...

I have two Series 3 units and it's only the one with the upgraded drive that is refusing to connect.
The one that is refusing to connect is claiming, falsely, that there is a problem with the network
The way I know it's false is the two Series 3 units talk to each other just fine.

Even more interesting...

The Bolt was giving the same false error regarding the network when attempting to communicate with either Series 3 yesterday. 
After my call with Luke at TiVo, during which he confirmed the problem was well known, he said he would do something that would fix the problem.
Today the problem was fixed, but only for the Series 3 with the original disk drive. The unit with the upgraded drive displays the identical, false, error message from yesterday.

I'm going to power on reset the 24 port switch, the Time Capsule that functions as my router and the cable modem to see if that has any effect. If not, then I'm going to turn off video sharing for the unit giving the error, perform an update with TiVo, re-enable sharing and perform a second update with TiVo and see if that cures the problem.

Good to know I'm not the only one experiencing this.

I appreciate everyone's help. Stay tuned.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

scottopus said:


> I'm also seeing this same online transfer issue between my upgraded HD and my new Bolt+.


The online transfer feature uses an API that is only supported by Premiere units and newer, so you'll never be able to use it to transfer shows from an HD.


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## sbedelman (Nov 24, 2009)

Dan I don't understand how that can be correct given that one of my Series 3 units is working just fine. 

Can you explain further please?


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## mrcowboy99 (Feb 27, 2012)

I had my Series 3 not be able to seen by my Premier XL the other day. (Both are Ethernet attached.)

I* took off the static DHCP address, got a new leased address (out of the pool and different), and things have worked since.* Don't know if that will fix yours but if using a static DHCP or static address, might want to give it a try.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

The info you were given is just flat out wrong. I have a Series 2, original Series 3, & a TiVo HD, all of them have upgraded hard drives and all of them can transfer shows to my Bolt. That said it is slow and if I were doing hundreds of shows I might jump first.


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## sbedelman (Nov 24, 2009)

I have confirmed that Atmuscarella is correct. TiVo is wrong. So is Dan203. 

I can't say if power cycling the router and switch did anything but disabling video sharing, having the Series 3 connect and update, then re-enabling video sharing and updating a second time fixed the problem. Give it a try scottopus and post whether it works for you.

Kudos to Weaknees for suggesting this and a shout out for their willingness to help out years after I purchased the disk upgrade from them. That's really great service.

As for TiVo shame on them for not only giving out grossly wrong information, but the engineer in particular who told the supervisor it was the disk upgrade that caused the problem. He either knew better and was deliberately misleading a customer or didn't know any better in which case he should have (or at least shouldn't have guessed and instead offered to track down the real source of the problem...their own software).

Good to have it working. Now if only the files were displayed in the same manner as on the Series 3, including folders, rather than just as a long list that would be great. Too much to ask I suppose.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

You say Dan203 is wrong. Does that mean you can see your S3's "Now Playing" and transfer shows from it to another TiVo using *TiVo Online?*


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

sbedelman said:


> I'm going to power on reset the 24 port switch, the Time Capsule that functions as my router and the cable modem to see if that has any effect. If not, then I'm going to turn off video sharing for the unit giving the error, perform an update with TiVo, re-enable sharing and perform a second update with TiVo and see if that cures the problem.
> 
> Good to know I'm not the only one experiencing this.
> 
> I appreciate everyone's help. Stay tuned.


Try changing the name on the bad s3 to something simple like DVR ABCD
Then connect to Tivo and download data.
Then reboot everything.


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## sbedelman (Nov 24, 2009)

lpwcomp said:


> You say Dan203 is wrong. Does that mean you can see your S3's "Now Playing" and transfer shows from it to another TiVo using *TiVo Online?*


It looks like Dan203 misunderstood what I was doing and I misunderstood what Dan was trying to say.

I was attempting to do a Tivo to Tivo direct transfer from the Bolt. So one goes to My Shows, scrolls down to the last entry in the list and there are the two Series 3's. From the Bolt you click on one of them and either see the programs that are on the Series 3's hard drive or get an error.

I was getting an error for both drives, then after my call to Tivo the first time only the Series 3 that had it's hard drive upgraded. After I went through the steps I described both drives are functioning the same and as far as I can tell, properly.

In hindsight I see that Dan thought I was talking using Tivo online which isn't correct. I was describing a Tivo to Tivo transfer initiated from one or the other of the Tivos themselves.

Thanks for clearing that up. I missed that Dan used the word "online." I never use Tivo Online so that this is what Dan thought I was trying to do didn't register. Likewise I don't think Dan realized that I wasn't talking about Tivo Online at all but about direct transfers.

Based on your post I've confirmed that online transfer does not work for a series 3 as Dan says. But direct transfers should and do. At least once you force the Tivo's to do so.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

sbedelman said:


> It looks like Dan203 misunderstood what I was doing and I misunderstood what Dan was trying to say.
> 
> I was attempting to do a Tivo to Tivo direct transfer from the Bolt. So one goes to My Shows, scrolls down to the last entry in the list and there are the two Series 3's. From the Bolt you click on one of them and either see the programs that are on the Series 3's hard drive or get an error.
> 
> ...


Dan's post was in response to the scottopus post that he quoted.


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## sbedelman (Nov 24, 2009)

sfhub said:


> Try changing the name on the bad s3 to something simple like DVR ABCD
> Then connect to Tivo and download data.
> Then reboot everything.


I'd bet this works just as well as disabling and then reenabling video sharing. Anything that forces the Tivo to reset whatever isn't set properly will work.


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## sbedelman (Nov 24, 2009)

lpwcomp said:


> Dan's post was in response to the scottopus post that he quoted.


Yet again proof that I can be exceptionally stupid. Thanks for pointing that out . I'll read more carefully next time and remember to take into account context. My apologies Dan. Sorry.


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## scottopus (Oct 26, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> The online transfer feature uses an API that is only supported by Premiere units and newer, so you'll never be able to use it to transfer shows from an HD.


So why does Tivo say under #5


> This feature is available on TiVo Premiere, TiVo Roamio®, and TiVo BOLT™ boxes. Recordings cannot be transferred to TiVo Series3/HD boxes.


http://blog.tivo.com/2016/03/how-to-transfer-recordings-in-bulk/

Since they say "Recordings cannot be transferred to TiVo Series3/HD", this means that can be transferred from.

My Bolt's software revision is 20.7.1

Both of my Tivo's are connected to the router/modem via ethernet cables.

I'm going to cycle my S3/HD to see if that does anything.


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## scottopus (Oct 26, 2004)

The reboots didn't help anything.

I just went to my Tivo account page under "Device Preferences" and saw the both Tivo's had the Video sharing checked but only my S3/HD had the "Enable video downloads" checked. Per the Enable video downloads help, this setting will


> enable a box to download TV shows, movies, and other video content from the TiVo service over your broadband Internet connection.


I don't know if it's that issue. As soon as I choose the HD Tivo as the "From", it says "No recordings to transfer."

Has anyone got the Tivo Online bulk transfer to work between a Bolt and S3/HD?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

It will not work from a S3 either. The feature uses an API called the mind interface, also referred to as RPC. Only Premiere and newer units support that API. The TiVo docs aren't clear about that, but I'm 99.9% sure both boxes need to be a Premiere or newer for it to work.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

sbedelman said:


> I'd bet this works just as well as disabling and then reenabling video sharing. Anything that forces the Tivo to reset whatever isn't set properly will work.


There was a post a while back that claimed certain more complex names caused MRV to fail somewhere in the process. It might have been symbols or something. I reset mine to default when debugging the OS problem that prevented transfers from older TiVos. Turns out my problem was the OS problem, so I never got to investigate the reported naming issue.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

scottopus said:


> Has anyone got the Tivo Online bulk transfer to work between a Bolt and S3/HD?


Does that actually still work? I was under the impression it was broken.

I know my S3 OLEDs have much degraded functionality on TiVo online.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

sfhub said:


> Does that actually still work? I was under the impression it was broken.
> 
> I know my S3 OLEDs have much degraded functionality on TiVo online.


I used it over the weekend to transfer hundreds of recordings from my Roamio Pro to a new Bolt+. Worked fine. But as mentioned above I don't think it works with units older then the Premiere.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

Looks like it may be the old "the TiVo is confused so you must de-select the options, force a connection, re-select the options. and force another connection to get things in their proper state".


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> I used it over the weekend to transfer hundreds of recordings from my Roamio Pro to a new Bolt+. Worked fine. But as mentioned above I don't think it works with units older then the Premiere.


It should work to transfer *from* an older unit.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

lpwcomp said:


> It should work to transfer *from* an older unit.


Have you sucessfully got it to work? It's been a long time since I had a S3 so I can't confirm, but I know the website uses the mind/RPC API and I know that doesn't work on units prior to the Premiere. But I guess it's possible it doesn't actually need to communicate with the source TiVo.


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## reneg (Jun 19, 2002)

lpwcomp said:


> It should work to transfer *from* an older unit.


It (Online Transfer Recordings) doesn't work *to/from* my Tivo HD.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> Have you sucessfully got it to work? It's been a long time since I had a S3 so I can't confirm, but I know the website uses the mind/RPC API and I know that doesn't work on units prior to the Premiere. But I guess it's possible it doesn't actually need to communicate with the source TiVo.





reneg said:


> It (Online Transfer Recordings) doesn't work *to/from* my Tivo HD.


I too haven't had an S3 in a while but it allowed me to select my S2 but says there are no files to transfer. Says the same thing for my Roamio and Roamio Pro. The only TiVo I have that does get a list is my local Premiere.


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## scottopus (Oct 26, 2004)

Just check Tivo online again it's still it can't connect. As I said before, I was able to transfer my Season Passes to the Bolt's OnePass which tells me Tivo can connect to my S3/HD.

I'm about half way done with about another 100 shows to select. It takes about 25 seconds to select the show, wait, select transfer, wait, then select OK. This means I need to spend another 40 minutes to finish all the transfers. I've been spreading out the pain by only doing about 20-30 each day. I still have plenty of time (6 days) before I loose service.

Have to say that I'm really enjoying the clearer picture, speed, apps (Amazon/Netflix/Youtube), and new remote.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I tried the same thing with the S2 on my account and it simply shows "no recordings". So I'm back to saying I don't think this works on any TiVo that's older then a Premiere.


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## phox_mulder (Feb 23, 2006)

I decided to just transfer everything from my OLED S3 to my emptiest Roamio OTA, rather than wait till the Bolt got here and try to get everything transferred in the 10 day window.

Then once the Bolt gets here, I should be able to use TiVo Online to transfer from the OTA to the Bolt, quicker and easier.

Having to transfer one at a time though, didn't even think to try TiVo Online.
(well, cue up 4-6 to transfer, one at a time, then repeat the process a couple hours later)


phox


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

phox_mulder said:


> I decided to just transfer everything from my OLED S3 to my emptiest Roamio OTA, rather than wait till the Bolt got here and try to get everything transferred in the 10 day window.
> 
> Then once the Bolt gets here, I should be able to use TiVo Online to transfer from the OTA to the Bolt, quicker and easier.
> 
> ...


I've been doing 150-200 at a time from S3 OLED to Roamio Pro so I think you are fine to do more. It hasn't froze up once despite me expecting it to. I'm doing it from slingbox so basically just hit right, right, right, up, (repeat) from computer keyboard. It is pretty brain dead operation so I do it while catching up on shows.


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## George Cifranci (Jan 30, 2003)

I was doing this yesterday as a matter fact after I got my Bolt. I connected my TiVo Series 3 to my network and was able to see it on my TiVo Bolt. I was able to transfer the recordings to my Bolt. My Series 3 had the original 250 GB drive in it and all the recordings were from Antenna.

Question: I have a TiVo Series 2 that doesn't have any service. If I plug it into my network should I be able to see it with my Bolt and transfer shows from it? I connected the S2 to my network but my Bolt wasn't able to see it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

George Cifranci said:


> Question: I have a TiVo Series 2 that doesn't have any service. If I plug it into my network should I be able to see it with my Bolt and transfer shows from it? I connected the S2 to my network but my Bolt wasn't able to see it.


Not without service?


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## Redoctobyr (Jun 21, 2008)

I started wondering about something kind of related. I am transferring my Series 2 Lifetime to my new Bolt. 

It made me wonder what would happen for transfers if I denied the Series 2 internet access after I transfer the Lifetime to the Bolt. I wonder if transfers would stay enabled on the Series 2, if it didn't know its Lifetime was turned off. 

It couldn't get Guide data, etc, so it wouldn't be terribly useful (and this is more of a mental exercise). But maybe you could get more time for transfers. Of course, having it on my network, while preventing it from reaching the internet, would be awkward. I might need to just set up a separate switch/router and mini network for the transferring devices, without an internet connection.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

Redoctobyr said:


> I started wondering about something kind of related. I am transferring my Series 2 Lifetime to my new Bolt.
> 
> It made me wonder what would happen for transfers if I denied the Series 2 internet access after I transfer the Lifetime to the Bolt. I wonder if transfers would stay enabled on the Series 2, if it didn't know its Lifetime was turned off.
> 
> It couldn't get Guide data, etc, so it wouldn't be terribly useful (and this is more of a mental exercise). But maybe you could get more time for transfers. Of course, having it on my network, while preventing it from reaching the internet, would be awkward. I might need to just set up a separate switch/router and mini network for the transferring devices, without an internet connection.


I had read elsewhere that this could be a way to get further use out of the TiVo--keep it isolated from the Internet prior to deactivation, and be able to continue using the box for manual recordings (but there will be an issue with the clock, with clock drift and Daylight Saving Time). But I haven't read anything about the transfer angle.


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## George Cifranci (Jan 30, 2003)

Mikeguy said:


> Not without service?


What I mean is that my Series 2 doesn't have any subscription service from TiVo and hasn't for years but I still have some shows recorded on it that I would like to transfer. I was wondering if I could just connect it to my network and let it boot up if my Bolt would see it and let me transfer shows from it?


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

George Cifranci said:


> What I mean is that my Series 2 doesn't have any subscription service from TiVo and hasn't for years but I still have some shows recorded on it that I would like to transfer. I was wondering if I could just connect it to my network and let it boot up if my Bolt would see it and let me transfer shows from it?


Even if you can, any TiVo that was not in service during the conversion period is going to have screwy metadata.


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## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

George Cifranci said:


> What I mean is that my Series 2 doesn't have any subscription service from TiVo and hasn't for years but I still have some shows recorded on it that I would like to transfer. I was wondering if I could just connect it to my network and let it boot up if my Bolt would see it and let me transfer shows from it?


Easy enough to try, potentially. My guess is, no--my Series 2 came with TiVo "Basic" service and if I recall correctly, part of the limitations of that was no transfer capability. But I've separately wondered, how about transfers to a PC?

When I asked TiVo recently as to transfer ability with the deactivation of a Series 2 box as part of TiVo's current Bolt upgrade promotion, I was told that transfers would not work--but I think that the rep. was focusing on box-to-box transfers.


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## sfhub (Jan 6, 2007)

Redoctobyr said:


> It made me wonder what would happen for transfers if I denied the Series 2 internet access after I transfer the Lifetime to the Bolt. I wonder if transfers would stay enabled on the Series 2, if it didn't know its Lifetime was turned off.


I think your lifetime has an expiration that gets renewed when you connect to tivo. I don't remember for sure, but I think it is something like 30 days. Look at your System Information page under service level and it should have some date. I believe that date is the expiration for your service if your unit doesn't connect.

MRV/show transfers are disabled on my box when it doesn't have service. I can still play shows that are already recorded, but other than that the tivo doesn't have much functionality.

I don't know if Series 2 behave this way. Series 3 and above I believe does behave that way.


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## George Cifranci (Jan 30, 2003)

Mikeguy said:


> Easy enough to try, potentially. My guess is, no--my Series 2 came with TiVo "Basic" service and if I recall correctly, part of the limitations of that was no transfer capability. But I've separately wondered, how about transfers to a PC?
> 
> When I asked TiVo recently as to transfer ability with the deactivation of a Series 2 box as part of TiVo's current Bolt upgrade promotion, I was told that transfers would not work--but I think that the rep. was focusing on box-to-box transfers.


I was trying to test it with TiVo Desktop just now and TiVo Desktop just sees the Bolt. When I tested the S2 the day before yesterday (it had been powered off for quite a long time) and again today I didn't have the TiVo Series 2 connected to a TV and just figured I would connect it to the network and power it on. I forgot about the Series 2 when I was playing with my Bolt and the Series stayed connected to the network and powered on for a day. Since it wasn't working with TiVo Desktop today I decided to connect it to a TV and to my surprise (although in hindsight I shouldn't have been) it is on the "Preparing a Service Update this make take an hour or more" screen. So I had it connected long enough since yesterday for it to download the latest software update and so it never booted which is why TiVo Desktop can't see it. So I will find out after the Series 2 updates if it works with TiVo Desktop or not.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

George Cifranci said:


> I was trying to test it with TiVo Desktop just now and TiVo Desktop just sees the Bolt. When I tested the S2 the day before yesterday (it had been powered off for quite a long time) and again today I didn't have the TiVo Series 2 connected to a TV and just figured I would connect it to the network and power it on. I forgot about the Series 2 when I was playing with my Bolt and the Series stayed connected to the network and powered on for a day. Since it wasn't working with TiVo Desktop today I decided to connect it to a TV and to my surprise (although in hindsight I shouldn't have been) it is on the "Preparing a Service Update this make take an hour or more" screen. So I had it connected long enough since yesterday for it to download the latest software update and so it never booted which is why TiVo Desktop can't see it. So I will find out after the Series 2 updates if it works with TiVo Desktop or not


No you won't be able to transfer shows without service.

Scott


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