# Why is TiVo Edge a pos



## Craigdukk (May 22, 2015)

I’ve been a TiVo user since the series 1 machine first came out back in the late 90s.
I‘ve upgraded constantly, buying every new model when they came out and have been thrilled with each new generation of hardware.

Until I got an Edge. What is wrong with this box?
My Edge freezes several times a week and I have to pull the power cord to reboot. I’m currently on my 5th Edge unit.
Why do they keep failing? I’ve even bought weakknees units (with internal hard drives). And still those fail as well.
Weakknees is awesome they have replaced my Edge twice at no additional charge. They even paid for shipping. Yet still my Edge fails.
It galls me to think my only solution is to buy another TiVo from weakknees and pay $600 for a unit with an external hard drive.

TiVo has evolved into just a holding company for its patents. They have abandoned the hardware.

what should I do? Get a Frontier DVR? I need to stay with a dvr because my 80 year old mother can barely use the TiVo we have let alone having to use different apps to watch shows we could have recorded.

I’m upset and feel betrayed by TiVo. What do you folks think I should do?

thx,
c


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## MrDell (Jul 8, 2012)

I completely agree with you… TiVo hardware really went downhill. The only thing that most people on this forum recommend, and I completely agree, is to try to pick up a used Roamio with lifetime. That was the last decent Tivo that was made. I own a Bolt and a Roamio and I can assure you that the Roamio is the better of the two. Good luck!


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

Craigdukk said:


> It galls me to think my only solution is to buy another TiVo from weakknees and pay $600 for a unit with an external hard drive.


Huh? All TiVos have an internal drive.


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## DVR_Dave (Apr 19, 2017)

cwoody222 said:


> Huh? All TiVos have an internal drive.


Correct, but you can modify to use an external HD.


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## RoryZ (5 mo ago)

I daily a Roamio right now, it was the first Tivo I ever had. It is amazing, I suggest if you want to stick with Tivo, you get a Roamio.


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## Johnny Stigler (Jun 10, 2020)

I have an Edge with a cable card & ext tuner on Spectrum. I guess we are lucky in that it has not had any issues. It is the best DVR we have ever used. 2TB internal. The streaming DVR's are pretty hokey compared to a TiVo. I have a Mini also that came from Weak Knees. I fought another providers DVR before I went with Edge. When it worked the pic's were great. They got bought out and now out of business. This is the wife's entertainment and she drives it quite well.
I looked at getting an OTA Edge but the number of tuners was limited. We have the capability of 6 tuners and that is nice. The QAM signal is the weakest part of all this but that is what they use (today).


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## lprimak (Jun 30, 2019)

Bought an Edge about 2 months ago, no issues so far, works great


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## lujan (May 24, 2010)

Everyone seems to have different experiences with the Edge. I know that it seems to be getting better over time. My Edge used to have all sorts of problems when I first got it and it was a new product. I even called TiVo support on several ocassions and they went so far as to send me another one that had the same issues. TiVo takes a very long time to clean up these issues but it seems that they are eventually cleared up. It's just that we users have to go through all the growing pains if we choose to buy these devices when first released.


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## misterclick (Oct 24, 2012)

"Edge of Insanity"😱


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## Steve (Apr 24, 2003)

I currently use two 4-tuner OTA Edges. Before that I ran cable card Edges alongside them. There were a couple of software issues here and there, but all's been pretty stable for the past year or more. Knock on wood.


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## Rich113 (Aug 2, 2021)

I have 2 Edges; one for two years now and one for a year. The hardware (made by Arris) has been rock solid on both (and on two minis as well). The software, by TIVO has and continues to be VERY annoying.
1) sorting saved shows in Season order when I want them in Date order (a well known problem still unsolved)
2) Tivo records shows I've never set to record. (Diane says that is a "feature" not a problem.)
3) Tivo sets up One Passes that I've never requested. I have to "clean things up" a couple of times a week.
4) Tivo deletes shows I have saved, repeatedly. Happens dozens of times a week. I'm running about 30% to 40% of my 2 TB. I watch for this and "undelete" them constantly.
5) Many recorded shows (maybe 1/3 of them) show a "bookmark" as if they have been partially or wholly watched when they have not yet been watched.

My wife and I are the only people in the house and she relies on me to operate the DVR for our mutual watching; there is no one else in the house.

Other than that, everything is fine. I'll go now and check whether anything was spuriously recorded or deleted last night.

Rich


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## rkl32 (Apr 8, 2015)

It took me 4.5 months to solve my Tivo problems. Bottom line - problem was finally solved at cable company head end! For all the months I had numerous tech calls (from Spectrum); replaced Edge; replaced tuning adapter; replaced cable card; etc. etc. Finally an older tech who had worked in my area (Columbus, OH) for many years arrived. He said he thought he could find an 'old box' that they used to use, attach it and monitor. This was at the head end site, not at my house. I wish I could tell you more, but within a week all problems were resolved. System has worked flawlessly for now a year. Unfortunately I never could find out whether the fix involved defective hardware or a software change. I do keep the tech's email handy! Keep fighting. My setup is an Edge, Cisco TA, and an older Mini. By the way when I moved from Roamio to Edge my Mini didn't work. Finally got through to Tivo and was instructed on how to update Mini software. I am not known to be a patient person but I love Tivo and was determined to find the solutions. If you are still reading, let me tell one more story. I have a wifi type device which sends audio to my hearing aids. It only works with PCM audio. I set my TV is set to send audio to internal speakers and also optical. With Edge there is a menu to select PCM only for optical. When I bought a stream 4k it was not so easy but finally found a setting to select PCM. I can post if anyone interested.


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## BosTV (Aug 6, 2003)

Rich113 said:


> I have 2 Edges; one for two years now and one for a year. The hardware (made by Arris) has been rock solid on both (and on two minis as well). The software, by TIVO has and continues to be VERY annoying.
> 1) sorting saved shows in Season order when I want them in Date order (a well known problem still unsolved)
> 2) Tivo records shows I've never set to record. (Diane says that is a "feature" not a problem.)
> 3) Tivo sets up One Passes that I've never requested. I have to "clean things up" a couple of times a week.
> ...


I've only had my Edge for about 9 months, but the only issue @Rich113 described that I've experienced is 1), the sorting of saved shows in Season order, which I presume TiVo also considers as a feature rather than a bug. I don't like either, but at least it's easy to remedy simply by pressing the blue B button on the remote to change the sort to Date order.

On 2): Do you have TiVo Suggestions turned off? And are you sure that WishList Auto-Record is turned off? Either of those "features" can be disabled in settings.
On 4): Is it possible that these shows getting deleted are from a One Pass that has a limit on how many episodes to keep (the "Keep at most" setting)?
On 5): It may be that if one of the tuners is already set to the channel before a scheduled show is recorded, the TiVo acts as if it was being watched and sets the bookmark. Not that it should behave that way, but maybe that's what it's doing?


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## Rich113 (Aug 2, 2021)

Thank you for your reply. I appreciate your interest in helping.
1) Season order: I do push the blue button to date order but the following day they are all back in Season order.
2) Tivo Suggestions are turned off. Where can I find WishList Auto-Record? I don't recall seeing this in settings.
4) These shows are deleted at random, whether it is above or well below the "Keep at most" setting.
5) I'm not quite sure of what you are describing. If one of the six tuners it tuned to the channel in question, and the One Pass starts to record this show, wouldn't it set the "bookmark" at the end of the show, if such a fault were as you described? Not somewhere in the middle? Are you describing something different from what I'm envisioning?
Rich


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## BosTV (Aug 6, 2003)

Rich113 said:


> Thank you for your reply. I appreciate your interest in helping.
> 1) Season order: I do push the blue button to date order but the following day they are all back in Season order.
> 2) Tivo Suggestions are turned off. Where can I find WishList Auto-Record? I don't recall seeing this in settings.
> 4) These shows are deleted at random, whether it is above or well below the "Keep at most" setting.
> ...


1) Yeah, I know, but at least the workaround is easy.
2) See the section "Managing your WishList searches" at WishList. Apparently TiVo now defaults to having Auto-Record turned on any time you create a WishList, which sucks.
4) I haven't experienced that, so no idea why it might be happening.
5) I think you are correctly understanding what I described. Not that it makes sense for the TiVo to behave that way.

Or your TiVo is haunted, which it could be if it ever recorded the movie _Poltergeist_. 👻


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## Rich113 (Aug 2, 2021)

"Or your TiVo is haunted, which it could be if it ever recorded the movie _Poltergeist_. 👻 "

Honestly, sometimes I wonder if a neighbor is somehow getting to my TIVO and doing the recording, deleting and watching some shows... but I don't see how that could be possible, even if they were to break into my router.

Rich


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## BosTV (Aug 6, 2003)

Rich113 said:


> "Or your TiVo is haunted, which it could be if it ever recorded the movie _Poltergeist_. 👻 "
> 
> Honestly, sometimes I wonder if a neighbor is somehow getting to my TIVO and doing the recording, deleting and watching some shows... but I don't see how that could be possible, even if they were to break into my router.
> 
> Rich


If someone hacked your TiVo.com account credentials, they could remotely access your DVR through the TiVo app via the internet without having direct access to your home network. (Could be done from anywhere in the world, not just by a neighbor.)

Not that it's likely to have happened, but it's technically feasible. Changing the account password to a longer/more complex one would make it even less likely.


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## Rich113 (Aug 2, 2021)

"Changing the account password to a longer/more complex one would make it even less likely."

Sounds like a plan, Stan!
Can't hurt, just might help. Even though, as you say, it is highly improbable that someone would want to bother to do that.

Rich


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## BrokerDon (Sep 9, 2006)

Our TiVo Edge OTA 500GB has been a great upgrade from our previous TiVo Premiere XL. It is MUCH faster and has been flawless except for the middlemindError (which TiVo recently fixed). Probably uses less power too.

SUGGESTION: TiVos have marginal cooling, especially the compact Edge. I located our Edge OTA in a nice cool spot above our LG Blu-Ray player with is _rarely_ powered on. Our Edge also has lots of free air space above, behind and *BELOW* it by clipping 4 pieces of 1/2" split loom wire wrap to the 4 short Edge feet. Cheap & easy cooling upgrade.


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## juanian (Oct 2, 2002)

A few thoughts on the 'haunted' TiVo:
1) Season order: I've seen that issue; I think the setting is per folder (and not a 'global' setting that is for all folders), so you'd need to change that in every folder (and every new folder you create - ugh).

2) WishList auto-record: Whenever I make a new wish list, I intentionally add an extra letter at the end (so it doesn't find any shows to record), then turn off auto-record, and then fix the string. (Yea, there should have been an option at the "WishList Created" screen to not set auto-record (but it might have been too late to set then).)

3) & 4): Do you have anything like TiVo Streams or TiVo Minis in other rooms, and do you have kids visiting occasionally that might play in that room (that might just be pushing buttons on a remote and not even have the TV on)? For 4), have you checked the TiVo History for the deleted shows to see when the shows were deleted (which might help track down what was happening at that time? (Pressing the Info button will show that information.)

One other thing to consider - later TiVos (like Bolts and EDGEs) use RF (and not just infrared) for the remotes. Maybe a neighbor also has a TiVo, and is having the same issues you have (when you use *your* remote). I know that the IR remotes use a "Remote Address" (0 (which 'any' TiVo will respond to), or address 1-9 (which only a TiVo set to that address will respond to), but I don't know much about TiVo RF remote pairing to know if it also just uses the 0-9 codes, or if it is more like Bluetooth pairing (where each remote has a unique ID). Since the System Info screen only shows "Remote Address" (and doesn't seem to include a line that indicates a 'paired' remote ID), I'm guessing it just uses the 0-9 codes.

If the RF is like the IR (with only the 0-9 codes), you should change your Remote Address to something other than 0 (and probably avoid 1 and 2, which might be the first choice of your neighbor). But you will still be out of luck if the neighbor's remote is set to 0, because 'all' TiVos will respond to that address (unless you can find the neighbor with the TiVo and get them to pick an address other than 0). Or, you could stop your Two from responding to RF (I thought there was a setting for that, but somehow I can't seem to find it right now).

Hope some of these thoughts help!

Edit: Sorry - forgot to add this link (on TiVo's website) for setting up remotes (but hmm, how do avoid also affecting your neighbor's TiVo!):
TV Remotes: RF Pairing Instructions


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## juanian (Oct 2, 2002)

Bolt cooling issues:
I found that the fans in the Bolts I have are inadequate (and they tend to fail, which leads to overheated TiVos).

For my Bolt cooling, I make use of large plastic lids (the ones that are like ~4" in diameter). I put one under the left side ('open' side up), and another under the right side (also 'open' side up), and I put a 3" quiet rubberized USB fan on the half of the lid that sticks out to the right, blowing downward. If I recall, it dropped the temperature (indicated on the "System Info" screen) about 10C. (Since my Bolts are white, the white lids don't stand out *too* much  .) I used to get those fans for ~$10 at Fry's Electronics (but (sob) not anymore).


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## c133roamioerrors (Dec 28, 2013)

My todo list has been disappearing. When I try to recreate it, I need to reconnect my wireless connection and reboot the box. Overnight, It goes away again. A stinking pile POS.


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## southerndoc (Apr 5, 2003)

This is what we get for hanging onto a dying technology.

I refuse to let go of my TiVo because I love the interface. If TiVo stops making DVRs/supporting them, hopefully they will sell their technology to a company or allow freesource development.

I'm assuming my hard drive died recently. I sent my Edge into Weaknees to repair it because I was afraid TiVo would send me a different unit that would require me calling Comcast to repair my CableCARD. Was afraid that I would get a "we can't use a CableCARD you must upgrade to X1" person.


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## Rich113 (Aug 2, 2021)

Rich113 said:


> I have 2 Edges; one for two years now and one for a year. The hardware (made by Arris) has been rock solid on both (and on two minis as well). The software, by TIVO has and continues to be VERY annoying.
> 1) sorting saved shows in Season order when I want them in Date order (a well known problem still unsolved)
> 2) Tivo records shows I've never set to record. (Diane says that is a "feature" not a problem.)
> 3) Tivo sets up One Passes that I've never requested. I have to "clean things up" a couple of times a week.
> ...


New data about my FALSE recordings and my FALSE deletions.
In the past couple of weeks I began to notice that when I DO select something to delete (last week's football recordings, for example), if I check "recently deleted" several other recordings have been deleted as well. I have to "undelete" these one by one.
Today, as I was setting things to record for tomorrow (Thanksgiving) I noticed that when I set one program to record, the program immediately below on the Program Guide was clicked to record (one was even set to "Season Pass". This happened three times in a row. I think I noticed this behavior in recent weeks as well, but didn't pay particular attention to it.

I have no idea what could be causing this behavior... sometimes but not always.

Rich


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## Rich113 (Aug 2, 2021)

Rich113 said:


> New data about my FALSE recordings and my FALSE deletions.
> In the past couple of weeks I began to notice that when I DO select something to delete (last week's football recordings, for example), if I check "recently deleted" several other recordings have been deleted as well. I have to "undelete" these one by one.
> Today, as I was setting things to record for tomorrow (Thanksgiving) I noticed that when I set one program to record, the program immediately below on the Program Guide was clicked to record (one was even set to "Season Pass". This happened three times in a row. I think I noticed this behavior in recent weeks as well, but didn't pay particular attention to it.
> 
> ...


Still struggling with the issue of unwanted deletions.
Can someone comment on the difference between "Recording will be kept until space is needed " (blue dot) and "Recording will be kept until you delete it" (green dot). Would one of these be more likely than the other to stop spurious unwanted deletions? I'll repeat again that neither of my Edge units are ever over 40% full (football season) and usually under 30% full.
I generally really like my Edge units except for the 7 deadly sins I cited in the original post.
After I delete anything I'll check and find what else it decided to delete, and restore it. Most mornings I'll check to see "what has it done wrong last night".

Rich


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## Rich113 (Aug 2, 2021)

I had a hunch and decided to test the "percent filled" shown on my primary Edge. It is currently showing 31% full.
I did a rough count of the shows using 1 hour for most shows and 1/2 hour for others. I came up with 296 hours of Recordings! The Tivo specs show that the 2TB hard drive can hold approximately 300 hours of HD TV.
Why is it showing 31% full when by these calculations it should be nearly 100% full?
Anybody else spot a big difference between the percentage shown vs what is actually there?
This *might *explain why it is deleting shows on me.

Rich


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

Rich113 said:


> I had a hunch and decided to test the "percent filled" shown on my primary Edge. It is currently showing 31% full.
> I did a rough count of the shows using 1 hour for most shows and 1/2 hour for others. I came up with 296 hours of Recordings! The Tivo specs show that the 2TB hard drive can hold approximately 300 hours of HD TV.
> Why is it showing 31% full when by these calculations it should be nearly 100% full?
> Anybody else spot a big difference between the percentage shown vs what is actually there?
> ...


Space is determined by file size, not program length.

Different bit rates result in different file sizes.

Your variance seems large but we don’t know many factors to determine why it’s reporting the space it’s reporting.


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