# Skip Mode Inconsistently Available



## GoodSpike

Not a big deal, but I notice that shows that have Skip data either toward the early evening hours (e.g. Jeopardy) or late at night (e.g. The Late Show w/ S. Colbert) don't have the data consistently. I would have thought that it would either get it or not, but those shows only seem to get Skip data about 25-33% of the time.

Is it that way for everyone, or just my machine?


----------



## atmuscarella

For me The Late Show w/ S. Colbert had been that way since day 1. Never know which days will or will not have SkipMode. Don't record anything else that fits your time frames.


----------



## dnorth12

I think the people who do the skip work never came back from the Christmas/New Years vacation.

I have not seen a show with skip since before Christmas.


----------



## GoodSpike

dnorth12 said:


> I think the people who do the skip work never came back from the Christmas/New Years vacation.
> 
> I have not seen a show with skip since before Christmas.


That's odd, particularly since we live in the same area. We must not watch the same shows. I'm still getting it inconsistent, but it's probably over 50%.


----------



## eric102

dnorth12 said:


> I think the people who do the skip work never came back from the Christmas/New Years vacation.
> 
> I have not seen a show with skip since before Christmas.


I'm just north of Seattle and get skip on about 99% of the shows I would expect it on, have only had a couple "House Hunters" not get it recently.


----------



## atmuscarella

dnorth12 said:


> I think the people who do the skip work never came back from the Christmas/New Years vacation.
> 
> I have not seen a show with skip since before Christmas.


You could reboot your machine that might help. But bottom line is you are having an issue and will likely need to call TiVo support to get it worked out.


----------



## dnorth12

Maybe for those in the Seattle area like myself, maybe we can do a little comparison.

I am on Comcast and assume that you are as well or are OTA.

Three programs from Monday night that I would expect skip on but it was not on are:

Wheel of Fortune (this is hit and miss most times)

Scorpion (very consistently works)

NCIS Los Angeles (very consistently works)

All three programs were watched or started to watch this morning.

If you guys say it is was working for you last night, then I will try a reboot, even though I just did one with the software upgrade a couple days ago, or I will give TiVo a call.


----------



## eric102

Sorry, don't record those three.


----------



## atmuscarella

dnorth12 said:


> Maybe for those in the Seattle area like myself, maybe we can do a little comparison.
> 
> I am on Comcast and assume that you are as well or are OTA.
> 
> Three programs from Monday night that I would expect skip on but it was not on are:
> 
> Wheel of Fortune (this is hit and miss most times)
> 
> Scorpion (very consistently works)
> 
> NCIS Los Angeles (very consistently works)
> 
> All three programs were watched or started to watch this morning.
> 
> If you guys say it is was working for you last night, then I will try a reboot, even though I just did one with the software upgrade a couple days ago, or I will give TiVo a call.


I am OTA and got SkipMode on Scorpion & NCIS Los Angeles (don't record Wheel of Fourtune).

Believe it or not SkipMode can be turned on or off on individual DVRs. So if you do not have SkipMode on any shows at all something may have happened and your Bolt is no longer being sent SkipMode data. I would call support and see what they can do. If you do find out what the issue was or what fixes it please post that info.

Good Luck,


----------



## dnorth12

I called to TiVo tech support and got a single trouble shooting instruction. I won't be able to confirm that it works until I get home in about 3 hours.

But here it is:

Settings/Network

Connect to tivo service now

Pull the power cord

Wait 15 seconds and plug the cord back in

Connect to tivo service now two more times without pulling the power cord.

If that doesn't work call support again.

I didn't ask, but probably should have, if the fix applies to only upcoming shows or will it fix current ones that are not showing skip.

I guess I will find out tonight or tomorrow.


----------



## dnorth12

It didn't work for me. 

On hold with tech support at the moment.

I have another bolt in the bedroom which is getting the skip info on different programs.

I transferred one of them and the skip info failed to come with it. No skip icon and no skip function.

I then streamed the same program and it skipped properly.

Tech support has not seen this before and is consulting with others.

Will follow up when I hear what they come up with. Hopefully it doesn't mean a replacement as I have an external hard drive on it.


----------



## dnorth12

They are having the engineers look at the issue and will get back to me.


----------



## dnorth12

Just checking if skip is available for anyone on these programs from last night:

NCIS

NCSI New Orleans

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

I recorded NCIS on both bolts

I have no skip available on any of these shows on any device.


----------



## mikeyts

I made six recordings yesterday evening and 4 of them did not have skip information, including the _NCIS_ shows and _Limitless _ (the full evening of CBS). _Chicago Med_ did not have skip, but _Chicago Fire_ did (both NBC); _The Flash_ (the CW) and _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ (Fox) both did.


----------



## Dan203

Limitless doesn't have it for me either. Chicago Med does. Flash and Brooklyn 99 do as well. I do not record the other two shows, so I don't know about them.


----------



## medmunds

I'm seeing the same problem -- missing skip mode, even the day after recording -- for pretty much every CBS show I've recorded since 1/13. Skip mode is working fine for all other supported networks.

I'm in SF (Comcast). The similar reports up-thread all seem to be from the west coast. Maybe the TiVo staffer assigned to watching CBS and marking the ads has been falling asleep early? [Insert joke about typical bedtime of the CBS target market.]

The conspiracy theorist in me speculates that TiVo got a threatening letter from CBS legal on 1/13. But skip mode worked for CBS primetime on 1/18, so that's probably not right.

Tried the connect-to-network and power-cycle incantation that was suggested to dnorth12 above, also with no luck.

I opened a case with TiVo support. We'll see what they say.


----------



## GoodSpike

Does anyone know how the skip information gets to each Tivo? It's not there when recording so it has to be something sent subsequently. I'm guessing that there's no system in place to verify receipt and that if not received it doesn't get resent.


----------



## mikeyts

medmunds said:


> I'm seeing the same problem -- missing skip mode, even the day after recording -- for pretty much every CBS show I've recorded since 1/13.


_NCIS: LA_ and _Scorpion _from Monday had skip info for me.


----------



## Dan203

GoodSpike said:


> Does anyone know how the skip information gets to each Tivo? It's not there when recording so it has to be something sent subsequently. I'm guessing that there's no system in place to verify receipt and that if not received it doesn't get resent.


Via an MindRPC call. The same ones they use for pulling down the thumbnails, the discovery bar, etc...


----------



## scooby2

dnorth12 said:


> Just checking if skip is available for anyone on these programs from last night:
> 
> NCIS
> 
> NCSI New Orleans
> 
> Brooklyn Nine-Nine
> 
> I recorded NCIS on both bolts
> 
> I have no skip available on any of these shows on any device.


Brooklyn Nine-Nine from last night did have the skip option for me but nothing on CBS did here in Chicagoland. Checking today, the whole CBS lineup from last night is still missing skip. :down:


----------



## aaronwt

Dan203 said:


> Limitless doesn't have it for me either. Chicago Med does. Flash and Brooklyn 99 do as well. I do not record the other two shows, so I don't know about them.


Well at least I'm not alone. I was wondering what happened with Limitless. Skip mode had been consistent prior to this week.


----------



## mikeyts

Tonight (Wednesday) I got skip data for _Arrow_ (the CW),_ L&O: SVU_, _Chicago PD _(both NBC) and _Code Black_ (CBS) but not for _Criminal Minds_ (also CBS).


----------



## Dan203

I just noticed that the last two weeks of Criminal Minds don't have skip.


----------



## mikeyts

Dan203 said:


> I just noticed that the last two weeks of Criminal Minds don't have skip.


For me too.


----------



## mikeyts

Last night, recordings of _Elementary_, _The 100_ and _The Blacklist_ all had skip data ; _DC's Legends of Tomorrow_ did not.


----------



## TonyD79

Legends of Tomorrow had skip data for me. Audio was messed up but I'm pretty sure that was a local issue.


----------



## atmuscarella

mikeyts said:


> Last night, recordings of _Elementary_, _The 100_ and _The Blacklist_ all had skip data ; _DC's Legends of Tomorrow_ did not.


DC's Legends of Tomorrow first episode is free on Amazon, itunes, & Google Play. So if you have good Internet you can watch it on your Bolt from Amazon in 1080p without commercials.


----------



## aaronwt

mikeyts said:


> Last night, recordings of _Elementary_, _The 100_ and _The Blacklist_ all had skip data ; _DC's Legends of Tomorrow_ did not.


Legends had skip mode for me. On both of my Bolts.


----------



## aaronwt

atmuscarella said:


> DC's Legends of Tomorrow first episode is free on Amazon, itunes, & Google Play. So if you have good Internet you can watch it on your Bolt from Amazon in 1080p without commercials.


  If I would have known that I would have never watched it from the CW channel.


----------



## mikeyts

And it's 24p output as a 24Hz signal. Haven't watch the recording--I believe that I will stream it instead (already started ).

EDIT: As it turns out, the recording didn't get made (it cites signal loss), so I'd have had to stream it anyway. Looked good, though I don't know if I'm going to keep watching.


----------



## GoodSpike

I've been checking the networks, and if varies here. Wednesday I was not getting CBS skip mode, Thursday I was.


----------



## gweempose

Is this a Bolt issue or a CBS issue? I don't record that many shows on CBS, but on my Roamio, Two Broke Girls recorded on 1/20 and Supergirl recorded on 1/18 both have SkipMode data.


----------



## GoodSpike

gweempose said:


> Is this a Bolt issue or a CBS issue? I don't record that many shows on CBS, but on my Roamio, Two Broke Girls recorded on 1/20 and Supergirl recorded on 1/18 both have SkipMode data.


Since it's not just CBS, it's a Bolt issue.


----------



## medmunds

medmunds said:


> ... missing skip mode for pretty much every CBS show I've recorded since 1/13 ... I opened a case with TiVo support. We'll see what they say.


Well, TiVo support was spectacularly unhelpful. After sending a form response, and then requesting detailed information on the shows with problems (which I collected and sent), they replied that they'd "relay this information on your behalf so that we may continue investigating".

They _did_ provide a link people can use to report problems with skip mode in specific shows: http://survey.confirmit.com/wix/1/p3075425841.aspx.

(That said, the CBS shows I recorded on 1/21 and later all seem to have skip mode as expected, so maybe the problem is fixed.)


----------



## dnorth12

I am still waiting for the engineers to get back to me with my issue.

Would someone with 2 bolts and the ability to transfer programs run a test for me?

Transfer a program with skip on one bolt to the other bolt and let me know if the skip info is included in the transferred program.


----------



## Dan203

It isn't. Transferring between TiVos causes the loss of some of the metadata, the data needed for SkipMode to function is part of what's lost.


----------



## L David Matheny

Dan203 said:


> It isn't. Transferring between TiVos causes the loss of some of the metadata, the data needed for SkipMode to function is part of what's lost.


That's strange. It seems like transferring any recording from one TiVo to another should be a simple file-to-file copy, between similar models anyway. Is TiVo intentionally discarding some of the data? Why would they do that?


----------



## moyekj

Dan203 said:


> It isn't. Transferring between TiVos causes the loss of some of the metadata, the data needed for SkipMode to function is part of what's lost.


 Only thing really needed is "contentId" which IS preserved for an MRV transfer, so can't really explain why it doesn't work.


----------



## dnorth12

Without any further input from support that I am aware of, I had skip info on 4 out of 5 programs recorded Monday the 25th.

Of the 4 with skip info, 3 channels were involved: CBS; A&E; Fox.

So it seems my issue is resolved for the moment anyway.


----------



## humbb

mikeyts said:


> Last night, recordings of _Elementary_, _The 100_ and _The Blacklist_ all had skip data ; _DC's Legends of Tomorrow_ did not.


Last night (2/18) The Blacklist recorded without SkipMode tags at 9pm Pacific. Roamio with Comcast in SF area. Did Bolts experience the same?


----------



## dnorth12

humbb said:


> Last night (2/18) The Blacklist recorded without SkipMode tags at 9pm Pacific. Roamio with Comcast in SF area. Did Bolts experience the same?


I once again have not had any skip data since last Sunday.

I did buy the 2 bolts that I have with this feature in mind. Who knew at the time of purchase that I would be relying on human volunteers to fulfill this service.

Not to say that I would not have bought them anyway, it is just that this was an advertised feature.


----------



## atmuscarella

humbb said:


> Last night (2/18) The Blacklist recorded without SkipMode tags at 9pm Pacific. Roamio with Comcast in SF area. Did Bolts experience the same?


My Roamio has SkipMode for the Blacklist from last night (OTA). SkipMode failure doesn't seem to have an rime or reason and for the most part varies unit to unit (there have some been some global failures but most are not). If you start missing lots of shows that should have it I would call support.


----------



## Dan203

moyekj said:


> Only thing really needed is "contentId" which IS preserved for an MRV transfer, so can't really explain why it doesn't work.


Not quite. There is also a hash table generated from the captions. I'm willing to bet that that table is generated in real time as the show is recording because scanning the file after the fact would be very resource intensive. If that hash table is not copied with the recording then the destination TiVo would have no way to match up the SKipMode segments to the actual recording. An alternative to copying the hash table would be to copy the actual skip points from unit to unit, but they don't appear to be doing that either. (the timestamps between units might not line up, so maybe this isn't possible)


----------



## f4phantomii

Same problem on my Bolt. Haven't seen skipmode on any show in several weeks. At first I thought it just wasn't on shows I was watching, but any primetime network shows aren't getting skipmode data at all.

Looks like a call to Tivo support is coming my way.


----------



## debdtexas

My roamio in TX with TWC recorded The Blacklist 2/18 with Skipmode. For the first day or so that I had skipmode I was mostly missing it on CBS shows but now it's random. Is anyone having trouble with Animal Planet, CW, Food Network, PBS, TVLand and Velocity channels? I recorded seven shows on Sat 2/20 and not one of them had Skipmode on them?

Otherwise I'm really happy with it. I almost bought the Bolt for this feature but prefered the Roamio with it's larger size and now I'm sure glad I did since it (sometimes) has this feature now.


----------



## beyondthetech

medmunds said:


> They _did_ provide a link people can use to report problems with skip mode in specific shows: http://survey.confirmit.com/wix/1/p3075425841.aspx.


I've made it into an easier link to remember.



Code:


http://t i n y u r l.com/SkipModeIssue


----------



## BigJimOutlaw

debdtexas said:


> Is anyone having trouble with Animal Planet, CW, Food Network, PBS, TVLand and Velocity channels? I recorded seven shows on Sat 2/20 and not one of them had Skipmode on them?


In general, SkipMode has been inconsistent since inception. But Skip is only available on these 20 channels:

https://www.tivo.com/popup/skipmode-channels


----------



## mikeyts

debdtexas said:


> Is anyone having trouble with Animal Planet, CW, Food Network, PBS, TVLand and Velocity channels? I recorded seven shows on Sat 2/20 and not one of them had Skipmode on them?


So basically of those only CW and Food should be covered. You have long ad breaks on your PBS channel? I haven't watched anything on PBS in a while but all I recall are brief mentions of contributors and maybe an occasional "ad" about upcoming programming.


----------



## dnorth12

I emailed TiVo support regarding my ongoing issue of inconsistent skip data.

This is the response I received this morning:

We are sorry to hear you are seeing issues with your TiVo Bolt using SkipMode. If the data is not downloading we would recommend restarting the device and forcing a connection to the TiVo service. To manually initiate a connection to the TiVo service go to TiVo Central > Settings & Messages > Network > Connect to the TiVo service now.

I restarted the Bolt and while I was doing the connection to the TiVo service I went into the recently deleted folder and lo and behold all the recordings that did not have skip data while I was watching them showed skip data.

So it remains to be seen if this holds up over the next week.

At least it is something that others can try.


----------



## debdtexas

mikeyts said:


> So basically of those only CW and Food should be covered. You have long ad breaks on your PBS channel? I haven't watched anything on PBS in a while but all I recall are brief mentions of contributors and maybe an occasional "ad" about upcoming programming.


Generally PBS has the long breaks on concerts or other specials where they are looking for subscribers. The newer series such as Mercy Street have regular commercials.


----------



## TonyD79

debdtexas said:


> Generally PBS has the long breaks on concerts or other specials where they are looking for subscribers. The newer series such as Mercy Street have regular commercials.


Mercy street does NOT have commercials during the show. The "grant provided by" card has evolved into a mini commercial but those are at the beginning.

As for the breaks, there is no way they would ever do skip mode for such programming. It is live, it is based upon how quickly the pledges come in and it is local.


----------



## dnorth12

medmunds said:


> Well, TiVo support was spectacularly unhelpful. After sending a form response, and then requesting detailed information on the shows with problems (which I collected and sent), they replied that they'd "relay this information on your behalf so that we may continue investigating".
> 
> They _did_ provide a link people can use to report problems with skip mode in specific shows: http://survey.confirmit.com/wix/1/p3075425841.aspx.
> 
> (That said, the CBS shows I recorded on 1/21 and later all seem to have skip mode as expected, so maybe the problem is fixed.)


Funny after using the link you supplied to report my ongoing issue with skip data being unavailable the next screen that shows up is an ad to purchase a bolt. And no confirmation that my input was received. Cheesy.


----------



## PdX

dnorth12 said:


> Funny after using the link you supplied to report my ongoing issue with skip data being unavailable the next screen that shows up is an ad to purchase a bolt. And no confirmation that my input was received. Cheesy.


Same here.


----------



## susandennis

Any new info here? This is still going on - at least here in Seattle (Wave Broadband - Roamio Pro [not Bolt but prob same issue] - no changes in anything recently)...

Many examples but here is the most succinct one:

Four episodes of Scandal. All recorded on ABC. Thursday nights at 9pm. This is what the Scandal folder looks like now:

5/12 episode NO skip mode
5/5 episode skip mode
4/28 episode NO skip mode
4/21 *episode skip mode

I have rebooted and then connected to TiVo. No change. What the heck is going on?


----------



## JTHOJNICKI

I am seeing more and more inconsistencies in Skipmode on my Bolt, Roamio OTA and Roamio Pro; both on the OTA and Comcast cable side. Love it when it works, but hate it when it doesn't.

Anybody know why we don't have Skipmode on the #1 most popular cable show out there: The Walking Dead?


----------



## mikeyts

In contrast, I've been very satisfied with the consistency of Skip Mode on my recordings of late (mostly ABC, NBC, CBS with some USA, Bravo, Lifetime and TNT on Cox San Diego South). It was pretty flaky in the beginning but seems to have settled down. The only recent recording which did not have Skip Mode information was _DC's Legends of Tomorrow_, the previous 9 recordings of which did have Skip Mode info (they've been piling up).

I've even seen a few random episodes with skip info for the final ad block before the preview-of-next-week's-episode and credits, which is something that I really appreciate.


----------



## aaronwt

susandennis said:


> Any new info here? This is still going on - at least here in Seattle (Wave Broadband - Roamio Pro [not Bolt but prob same issue] - no changes in anything recently)...
> 
> Many examples but here is the most succinct one:
> 
> Four episodes of Scandal. All recorded on ABC. Thursday nights at 9pm. This is what the Scandal folder looks like now:
> 
> 5/12 episode NO skip mode
> 5/5 episode skip mode
> 4/28 episode NO skip mode
> 4/21 *episode skip mode
> 
> I have rebooted and then connected to TiVo. No change. What the heck is going on?


I have the same here from cable and ota recordings for Scandal.


----------



## snipes

dnorth12 said:


> I am still waiting for the engineers to get back to me with my issue.
> 
> Would someone with 2 bolts and the ability to transfer programs run a test for me?
> 
> Transfer a program with skip on one bolt to the other bolt and let me know if the skip info is included in the transferred program.


Did you ever here back from TiVo if they are working on addressing this? I transferred all my programs from one tivo to another, before replacing the hard drive. Now I've lost skip mode on all the programs after transferring them back.


----------



## JoeKustra

snipes said:


> Did you ever here back from TiVo if they are working on addressing this? I transferred all my programs from one tivo to another, before replacing the hard drive. Now I've lost skip mode on all the programs after transferring them back.


On a Roamio, transferring ANY program from one to another will not keep SM. I record The Late Show on two basic Roamio boxes. Some nights one gets SM, some nights the other box gets SM, some nights they both get it, some nights neither gets it.


----------



## snipes

JoeKustra said:


> On a Roamio, transferring ANY program from one to another will not keep SM. I record The Late Show on two basic Roamio boxes. Some nights one gets SM, some nights the other box gets SM, some nights they both get it, some nights neither gets it.


Sounds frustrating. I hadn't noticed the transfer issue before. I tend to just watch my shows directly from wherever they happen to have SM available.

Hopefully TiVo will keep fixing and enhancing this feature.


----------



## JoeKustra

snipes said:


> Sounds frustrating. I hadn't noticed the transfer issue before. I tend to just watch my shows directly from wherever they happen to have SM available.
> 
> Hopefully TiVo will keep fixing and enhancing this feature.


I'm past frustrated. I don't know why it has such behavior so I feel helpless to correct anything. But, like they say, don't get upset about what you can't control.

I also record The Tonight Show. It never fails.


----------



## aaronwt

snipes said:


> Sounds frustrating. I hadn't noticed the transfer issue before. I tend to just watch my shows directly from wherever they happen to have SM available.
> 
> Hopefully TiVo will keep fixing and enhancing this feature.


Is there anything to fix? This seems like it is by design that you lose skip mode when moving a show from the box it was initially recorded on. It's been this way from the beginning. Since Autumn last year.


----------



## Dan203

It seems like something they could fix. Doesn't seem like it would be that hard to send the skip points to the TiVo the show is being copied to, or at least the data needed for the new box to re-download the skip points itself. 

Although they still haven't fixed the issue with the Mini where skip only works for shows from the host TiVo and not TiVos selected from the device list. Even though the same process works fine when playing a show from TiVo to TiVo.


----------



## DEC2955

Dan203 said:


> It seems like something they could fix. ..... Although they still haven't fixed the issue with the Mini where skip only works for shows from the host TiVo and not TiVos selected from the device list. Even though the same process works fine when playing a show from TiVo to TiVo.


That's strange Dan as with my setup is seems more to do with the Network I have recorded and not the program / DVR recorded on.

Recorded on the same DVR which is a slave Roamio DVR to host BOLT to MINI.. 'SPIKE' programs never allow for 'SKIP' and yet the newer CBS shows allow 'SKIP'?? On a different Roamio DVR slave to BOLT to same MINI, SYFY programs allow for 'SKIP' only on a few programs while two AMC programs allow 'SKIP'??

I always thought that it had something to do with the original DATA Stream.

David


----------



## snipes

Dan203 said:


> It seems like something they could fix. Doesn't seem like it would be that hard to send the skip points to the TiVo the show is being copied to, or at least the data needed for the new box to re-download the skip points itself.


It sounds like this would be a small amount of metadata to transfer along with the recording. Hopefully it can be addressed.



Dan203 said:


> Although they still haven't fixed the issue with the Mini where skip only works for shows from the host TiVo and not TiVos selected from the device list. Even though the same process works fine when playing a show from TiVo to TiVo.


I hadn't even noticed this, but just tested and do see the problem. Now that I've lost all my skip mode data on one TiVo I'll need to rehost my minis until I get caught up again. Thanks for pointing this out.


----------



## lujan

What do other Bolt owners do when the "Skip" function stops all of a sudden? I don't record much in the summer time but in the last week or two all of the recordings (3 or 4 of them) have not had the "Skip" function available. The only thing I could think to do was reboot the Bolt hoping that this corrects it?


----------



## aaronwt

lujan said:


> What do other Bolt owners do when the "Skip" function stops all of a sudden? I don't record much in the summer time but in the last week or two all of the recordings (3 or 4 of them) have not had the "Skip" function available. The only thing I could think to do was reboot the Bolt hoping that this corrects it?


It's been pretty consistent this Summer, except for a handful times it was missing for some reason. But if skip isn't there there is nothing I can do. If it isn't there I use the FF scanning to scan over the commercials instead of skipping them.

Typically for me, if skip isn't there it's because the show just ended. After one or two minutes I just back out to the main menu, then when i re-enter My shows and go back to the program, Skip will be there.


----------



## sharkster

Since I got my Bolt a few months ago I have noticed inconsistency. I would watch TDS and TNS on Comedy Central and one would have skip, but the other (airing right after) didn't. Then the next night they both would.

Yesterday I watched two movies I recorded on Lifetime. They were recorded one immediately after the other. One had skip, the other didn't.

It's not that big a deal, but it would be nice if they ironed it out. Numerous other times I've had a show that I record regularly on Pass and sometimes it has skip - sometimes it doesn't.


----------

