# Bolt VOX died tonight



## Phil T (Oct 29, 2003)

In the middle of watching a show tonight my Bolt Vox lost HDMI connection and TV said no signal. I did a reboot and the Tivo screen appears and then nothing and TV reports no HDMI connection. I tried to do a Kickstart diagnoses of the hard drive but no HDMI signal after the initial boot screen. 

OK I said. I have another inactive bolt and decided to swap hard drives. This only got me into a boot loop with the Tivo start up screen flashing on and off.
Swapped the hard drives back and decided I would go ahead and reactivate the good Tivo. I go into my Tivo account and it shows I have no active or inactive devices??
(I have the two bolts (one lifetime and one not) and two active minis. Website shows my service history. 

I put in the serial number of the inactive Bolt and the web site says not valid??

I guess I am done until morning with an unhappy wife.

I will have to call them in the AM.

Does this sound like a bad HDMI connector or maybe power supply?


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## DVR_Dave (Apr 19, 2017)

Phil T said:


> OK I said. I have another inactive bolt ...
> 
> Does this sound like a bad HDMI connector or *maybe power supply*?


Swap the wall wart (aka power supply) from the inactive bolt.


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## jay_man2 (Sep 15, 2003)

I have a Vizio TV that will sometimes show no HDMI connection from my Edge. I reboot the TV to fix it.


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## tommage1 (Nov 6, 2008)

Phil T said:


> In the middle of watching a show tonight my Bolt Vox lost HDMI connection and TV said no signal. I did a reboot and the Tivo screen appears and then nothing and TV reports no HDMI connection. I tried to do a Kickstart diagnoses of the hard drive but no HDMI signal after the initial boot screen.
> 
> OK I said. I have another inactive bolt and decided to swap hard drives. This only got me into a boot loop with the Tivo start up screen flashing on and off.
> Swapped the hard drives back and decided I would go ahead and reactivate the good Tivo. I go into my Tivo account and it shows I have no active or inactive devices??
> ...


You know if you swap drives around in Bolts you will lose everything on both drives correct? Anyway that's done now, but if you want to try the drive from the other Bolt again, make sure you blank/format it first. It still has software on it from the other Bolt so is probably "confused", the flash drive on the motherboard not sure what to do with it. Since swapping around drives you are pretty much starting fresh at this point, just format the drive from the second Bolt, put it in the Bolt with the "problem" and see what happens. Also do try the power supply from the second Bolt, they can go partially bad over time, provide some power but not enough.


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## Phil T (Oct 29, 2003)

Spent the day trying the suggestions in this thread without success. 

Got Tivo to reactivate my other Bolt. Tried to ask for a discount with no luck. It has taken me most of the day to get it set up properly. It was on TE4 so I had to update the TE3 mini's and won't be able to go back.  
The one with the issues (with lifetime) is on it way to Weaknees for diagnosis and possible repair. It will probably be worth it. 

So strange that the newer Edge OTA is only available with two tuners and won't work with Minis.

I looked into Tablo and Amazon for a newer DVR solution but not really wanting to give up my TiVO's quite yet.


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## lujan (May 24, 2010)

Phil T said:


> Spent the day trying the suggestions in this thread without success.
> 
> Got Tivo to reactivate my other Bolt. Tried to ask for a discount with no luck. It has taken me most of the day to get it set up properly. It was on TE4 so I had to update the TE3 mini's and won't be able to go back.
> The one with the issues (with lifetime) is on it way to Weaknees for diagnosis and possible repair. It will probably be worth it.
> ...


I have also looked at other DVR solutions but won't give up my TiVo's until all of them (4 with lifetime) are no longer working.


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## pl1 (Jan 18, 2007)

Phil T said:


> Spent the day trying the suggestions in this thread without success.
> 
> Got Tivo to reactivate my other Bolt. Tried to ask for a discount with no luck. It has taken me most of the day to get it set up properly. It was on TE4 so I had to update the TE3 mini's and won't be able to go back.
> The one with the issues (with lifetime) is on it way to Weaknees for diagnosis and possible repair. It will probably be worth it.
> ...


Two things here, you CAN go back to TE3 with the Bolt. New Bolt - downgrade to HD interface? But, you do wipe out everything, but I'm pretty certain it retains the cableCARD settings.
Also, even though TiVo says that the mini requires 4 tuners, there are many reports of the 2 tuner Edge working with the minis.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

pl1 said:


> Two things here, you CAN go back to TE3 with the Bolt. New Bolt - downgrade to HD interface? But, you do wipe out everything, but I'm pretty certain it retains the cableCARD settings.
> Also, even though TiVo says that the mini requires 4 tuners, there are many reports of the 2 tuner Edge working with the minis.


Ditto both of the above.

The only roadblock to downgrading, NOW (i.e. after upgrading your Mini’s), is if your Mini’s would be blocked from downgrading by the downgrade bug reported in a few threads.

As for the EDGE, unless you’re a fan of TE4, I’d opt for a 4-tuner Roamio before considering an EDGE.


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## tommage1 (Nov 6, 2008)

Phil T said:


> Got Tivo to reactivate my other Bolt. Tried to ask for a discount with no luck. It has taken me most of the day to get it set up properly. It was on TE4 so I had to update the TE3 mini's and won't be able to go back.
> The one with the issues (with lifetime) is on it way to Weaknees for diagnosis and possible repair. It will probably be worth it.


Good luck. You say you tried some of the recommendations, what specifically? Did you blank the drive that was in the monthly Bolt and try it again in the problem Bolt? First time you swapped in a drive with TE4 software on it into a TE3 machine, that could be why it didn't work, got the flashing lights. Anyway will be interested in what WK finds and how much they will charge to fix if can be fixed.

You should be able to go back to TE3 on your monthly Bolt and the Minis (well someone mentions a downgrade bug with Minis, I know nothing about that). Monthly Bolt should be no problem though. But will lose all recordings/settings. However since pretty much starting fresh should not matter. I'd do ASAP if you prefer TE3.


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## gabrielstern (Aug 19, 2017)

tommage1 said:


> Good luck. You say you tried some of the recommendations, what specifically? Did you blank the drive that was in the monthly Bolt and try it again in the problem Bolt? First time you swapped in a drive with TE4 software on it into a TE3 machine, that could be why it didn't work, got the flashing lights. Anyway will be interested in what WK finds and how much they will charge to fix if can be fixed.
> 
> You should be able to go back to TE3 on your monthly Bolt and the Minis (well someone mentions a downgrade bug with Minis, I know nothing about that). Monthly Bolt should be no problem though. But will lose all recordings/settings. However since pretty much starting fresh should not matter. I'd do ASAP if you prefer TE3.


You can downgrade the bolt.

But just swapping out hard drives confuses aby tivo.

Plus with bolts you must back things up first before removing any hard drive I am posting a link to pytivo below.

If the drives are back in the correct bolts.

For you to test if all the recordings are still usable. And there.

As it depends on if the bios flash changes. In bolts if it is the hdmi connection that's a 12 dollar cable you can buy at Walmart.

I am posting the link to rolling back a hydra for a romio and mini.

And yes the procedure is the same for a bolt.

As long as the bolt is not a Ota only bolt.

In that case you are stuck with te4.

Hope this helps.









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How to Rollback Hydra from Roamio and Mini's v1


So after spending an excruciating 3 days with the Hydra UI on my Roamio and 6 Mini's (and with nasty family feedback), I posted the request to rollback on the Tivo forum site. I was sent a message to contact Tivo support directly to find out how. Tivo support was very helpful and gave me the...




www.tivocommunity.com


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

gabrielstern said:


> As long as the bolt is not a Ota only bolt.
> In that case you are stuck with te4.


That is not the case, if you can take the time to post a wall of double spaced text, please take a minute and review things before you say them.
There are several unique OTA SKUs on the Bolt that can not be downgraded to TE3, but it is in no way ALL of the Bolt OTAs


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## gabrielstern (Aug 19, 2017)

dianebrat said:


> That is not the case, if you can take the time to post a wall of double spaced text, please take a minute and review things before you say them.
> There are several unique OTA SKUs on the Bolt that can not be downgraded to TE3, but it is in no way ALL of the Bolt OTAs



To be on the safe side if someone wants to rollback they need to avoid a bolt Ota period this has been stated in many other forums.

And I did check my posts.

I also posted links to other forums to help the user out 

And if you bothered to read the mffs. Tools 3.2 thread and the mffs reformator thread which I have read several times. And posted the links for.

It clearly discusses the bios issue with bolts and clearly warns any user with a bolt to back up all their settings and recordings before attempting to copy or remove a hard drive from a bolt.

Due to a risk of the bios flash settings wiping and making the hard drive unusable 

I post links to other forums now to try and help out other users.

And the reason for the how to rollback a romio thread was posted by me was to assist the user with the correct procedure which also works on bolts because I have done that procedure 3 times on my romio and both of my bolts.


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## gabrielstern (Aug 19, 2017)

I am also posting the links to mffs. Tools 3.2 and mffs reformator below, since some seem to want question Info on the bios flash issues with bolts and other issues and these forums can be of better assistance to any users that may need help with there bolts and even other tivos. Such as the romio. In addition to the other forum links I posted earlier 

Hope this helps other users out and this user out further.










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MFS Reformatter (mfsr)


When will the software support larger than 8 TB hard drives. I don't have any plans to rewrite it at this time. You can go to 14TB with MFS Tools 3.x.




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## gabrielstern (Aug 19, 2017)

Also to clarify an earlier post I stated Ota only vox bolts can not downgraded to te3 not the other models of vox bolts.

This was also stated in the forum how to rollback a romio and mini forum I posted a link to earlier by a user in that forum who purchased a bolt vox from tivo directly and rolled it back sucessfully and stated clearly if I could not roll it back I would not have purchased it.

He taught me something I did not know at the time. As I assumed only first generation bolts were the only ones that could be rolled back.


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## pl1 (Jan 18, 2007)

dianebrat said:


> That is not the case, if you can take the time to post a wall of double spaced text, please take a minute and review things before you say them.
> There are several unique OTA SKUs on the Bolt that can not be downgraded to TE3, but it is in no way ALL of the Bolt OTAs


From this list of TiVo model numbers, there is only *ONE* Bolt Antenna only model, the TCD849500. There is no Bolt Vox Antenna Only version. And there is this statement from TiVo_Ted; "BOLT OTA only supports TE4, and was only manufactured and tested with TE4. There is no way to downgrade to TE3."


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## gabrielstern (Aug 19, 2017)

pl1 said:


> From this list of TiVo model numbers, there is only *ONE* Bolt Antenna only model, the TCD849500. There is no Bolt Vox Antenna Only version. And there is this statement from TiVo_Ted; "BOLT OTA only supports TE4, and was only manufactured and tested with TE4. There is no way to downgrade to TE3."



Thank you for clarifying that's the model I was referring to.

That's not dowgradable in my first post but yet was Getting told I was wrong.

To be fair at first I thought until someone told me correctly that none of the bolt vox models were downgradable. And that was the post I was referring to in the how to downgrade a romio and mini from hydra forum.

As I spent extra money to avoid any vox model.

In late 2020. Now knowing as Long as it's not that model Bolt, it can be downgraded.

So thank you again for backing me up.

As I am just trying to help and that's why I am also posting links to other forums.

To help others.


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## gabrielstern (Aug 19, 2017)

gabrielstern said:


> Thank you for clarifying that's the model I was referring to.
> 
> That's not dowgradable in my first post but yet was Getting told I was wrong.
> 
> ...


I just read through that message and post on how to downgrade a romio and mini from hydra and I saw that was you pl 1 who taught me that so thank you for teaching me that back in Sept 2021. In that forum and once again backing me up. When I cited that. In This forum and even brought up that forum. And post.

I did not want to get into nitpicking but I apreciate your replying in this forum.

And if you remember I tried an experiment with my romio to see if a hard drive that was running on te4 could work after a downgrade on my romio but got an error message.

But did with success discover you can toggle back and forth between te3 and te4 with different hard drives in case backups and restores need to be done on other tivo's.

Using a romio.

Unlike a bolt.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

pl1 said:


> From this list of TiVo model numbers, there is only *ONE* Bolt Antenna only model, the TCD849500. There is no Bolt Vox Antenna Only version. And there is this statement from TiVo_Ted; "BOLT OTA only supports TE4, and was only manufactured and tested with TE4. There is no way to downgrade to TE3."


I'm sure I've seen a cross reference chart showing a Bolt OTA taking a TE3 downgrade, but since I can't find it, I can't back it up at this time, I'll take the hit on that.


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## gabrielstern (Aug 19, 2017)

dianebrat said:


> I'm sure I've seen a cross reference chart showing a Bolt OTA taking a TE3 downgrade, but since I can't find it, I can't back it up at this time, I'll take the hit on that.




I am posting the link from the forum that pl1 posted from the how to downgrade a romio and mini from. Hydra he cleared that up for me in 2021.

That's why I am posting links to other forums.

As the goal is to help others and learn not criticize as their are times I learned too.

Now if you want to debate him that's on you.

Here is the pdf pl1 posted in September 2021

On the forum how to rollback a romio and mini from hydra




https://support.tivo.com/articles/FAQ/TiVo-Service-Number-and-Model-Number-Table


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## gabrielstern (Aug 19, 2017)

I am posting the quote directly from the how to rollback a romio and mini from hydra.

From member pl1 earlier in that forum I believe it was him that taught me that and even posted a picture of the bolt he is referencing.

After having a discussion over this as I got confused from some posts in the mffs reformator forum which I posted links to earlier as when hydra first came out there was a debate and confusion over which bolts could be downgraded.







pl1 said:


> I can tell you this, I have a TiVo Bolt Vox 500 GB Model# TCD849500V which came with TE4 from TiVo and I easily downgraded to TE3. The only Bolt that can not be downgraded is the Over The Air Model Model# TCD849500. https://support.tivo.com/articles/FAQ/TiVo-Service-Number-and-Model-Number-Table
> 
> That said, These instructions say that you need to hit the thumbs down 2 times, but I think it was 3 times for me.
> 
> ...


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

gabrielstern said:


> I am posting the link from the forum that pl1 posted from the how to downgrade a romio and mini from. Hydra he cleared that up for me in 2021.
> 
> That's why I am posting links to other forums.
> 
> ...


I have yet to understand your random posting style, I’m more than familiar with all your reference, you could have simply replied with “we all make mistakes“ and that would have covered things, and no tools are required to replace a suitable capacity drive in a roamio or higher machine.


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## gabrielstern (Aug 19, 2017)

Mistakes are okay the purpose of the links is to if another user has the same issues, have the links to the resources they need.


Instead of having to search through piles of forums to find the resources they need.

To help solve their issues.

As for mffs.tools 3 2 that is a very relevant resource as it allows a user to copy a failing drive even in bolts. To another drive of the same size or bigger. 

And that's the purpose of posting links to other forums and resources.

All have relevance depending on which method another user chooses.

Same with the pytivo link.

As a user can back up what they want to keep.

Before hand 

As for mffs reformator that is simpler to use vs mffs tools. 3.2 if a user wants to go over 3tbs. And works up to 8tbs.

We all have our methods I like things a certain way but for another user.

My way might not be practical for them.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

dianebrat said:


> I have yet to understand your random posting style, I


If I were a betting man, I’d guess voice-to-text with no draft editing.


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## gabrielstern (Aug 19, 2017)

krkaufman said:


> If I were a betting man, I’d guess voice-to-text with no draft editing.



It's a phone app, does not always, give me the same features as on my computer, which I have not been to in about 4 months.

I will say the redesigned site. Is a lot better for posting links and quickly finding the forums to site and post.

But my phones auto correct, is still annoying as I will type in the correct word, and my phone will change it to something that makes no sense.

I do try to catch it before posting, but sometimes it just does what it wants.

I hate voice to text or features like Google voice or Alexa. 

I hate those features on my computer too and do not use them.


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