# Constant problems



## joenspa (Nov 6, 2015)

I bought the separate Tivo Stream so I could stream or if necessary download TV programs while away from home. Both in the US and outside the US but I constantly have issues where it quite working and I have to go back home to make it work.
For example I live near Atlanta, GA and am currently in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. When I first got to my hotel I could stream shows from the wifi connection. I watch 2 or 3 over the course of a week. Then I went to watch a show and it told me it couldn't stream and I had to download it. So I did. Then about a week later I went to watch something else and it got "Problem with streaming device. There was a problem connecting to your streaming device." I try "Fix Now" and I get the "Problem Streaming . . . . make sure I have already set it up while on my home network. May be a problem with my current network. Please try again later." This happen every time I leave the country and usually when I am still in the States. When I get home it works fine. Hare to sound like a whiner but I am thinking this product is a joke that isn't even close to reliable. Has anyone ever used this thing over a period of time and had it work? Is there something I should be doing to my home network? Please help. I have to live in Rio for 6 months next year and that's a lot of Portuguese television if I can't get this to work. Thanks!


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## JBDragon (Jan 4, 2004)

It seems kind of unreliable to me. I also have problem when I'm watching a show and I do the 30 second skip and it skips backwards. The only way to fix is to exit out of the program and start it up again and then 30 second skip will skip forward correctly once again and after so long, fail yet again.

I don't want to say it, but maybe the best bet is going the Slingbox Route. using a Slingbox plugged into a Tivo Mini and a set of the correct cables, you can control and stream your Tivo Content that way much more reliably. SlingBox has been around streaming content like this for many years.

It's more money, but for reliability being away for 6 months, this may be the way to go, and use the Tivo Online as a backup, or the Slingbox setup as a backup. Either way you can get on your Tivo so you're not stuck watching the local channels.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

It's been pretty unreliable out of home for most of us. In home it works good most of the time, and when it fails you can reboots it to get it working again. But out of home if it fails and doesn't reboot on it's own you're kind of SOL.

Some people claim to have better luck with Slingbox, but personally I've owned two and both died in less then a year. Their service may be a bit more reliable, but the hardware has been.


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## Blakeintosh (Sep 8, 2014)

Dan,

I'm really surprised to hear about your Slingbox hardware issues. I have a Pro-HD and a 500, neither of them having any direct hardware issues. I did have a power adapter fail on the Pro-HD, but I've heard that was common with the Pro-HD's. Sling replaced the power adapter at no charge. 

The Slingboxes have been far more reliable for OOH streaming than my built-in TiVo Stream. The one drawback is the long latency when sending remote control commands. There is a rumor that Slingbox might re-introduce a tuner model, like what the Pro-HD had. I would love to see blend of the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime CableCard tuner with the streaming reliability of the Slingbox.


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## Bytez (Sep 11, 2004)

OOH streaming is a joke. They really need to get their act together to make it more stable and that damn proxy isn't helping it a single bit.


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## osu1991 (Mar 6, 2015)

Got 2 sling 350s connected to our Dish receivers. We use the SlingPlayer apps on wdtv and Roku connected to tvs to watch our Dish receivers in Oklahoma while at our Condo in Vegas. They have been bulletproof for several years now. Especially in last year since we went from 50/5 Cox internet to 100/10. The picture through the sling is very good on a 60in led.

We added a stream to our Tivo in Oklahoma but with no easy way to watch on TV in Vegas it is rarely used. I'll use it to catch the Oklahoma news occasionally on iPad. Ended up with another Tivo for locals in Vegas and use the Sling when we want to watch something from Dish. Tivo stream has been a bust for us.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk


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## joenspa (Nov 6, 2015)

On the outside chance it would help I had my wife reboot the Tivo Stream. It worked! Everything worked fine after that. I'll see how my last week goes. If it goes out a again, judging by everything I have read they seem to need this reboot occasionally. I am thinking I could get a timer like I use for my lights and plug it into that. Then every night at 3am or something it would power down and then power back up 30 minutes later, or something like that. Maybe Tivo should include this with the Stream.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

If you have a way to log in to your local network remotely, like via remote desktop or similar, then there is a system information page you can log into on the Stream and force a reboot.


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## Bytez (Sep 11, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> If you have a way to log in to your local network remotely, like via remote desktop or similar, then there is a system information page you can log into on the Stream and force a reboot.


How do you do this? I have teamviewer installed.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Go to....

http://<stream ip>:49152/sysinfo

in a web browser.


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## Bytez (Sep 11, 2004)

Thanks Dan. I wonder if there's another way by logging into the router and disabling the IP or something along those lines to force the stream to reconnect...


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

If you really want to get crazy you could use port forwarding and a dynamic DNS system to access that page remotely without needing to use teamviewer. But that's the only way to reboot the unit without physically unplugging it.


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## Bytez (Sep 11, 2004)

I have dynamic dns setup. Not sure how to setup the forwarding on the verizon router to access the internal IP and port from the outside.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Ever router is different. But in most cases you pick an internal IP and a port number and point it to an external port number.

So in this case you'd use the Stream IP and port 49152 and then point it to an external port. 80 is the default for websites, so if you point it to that then when you type the dynamic DNS address into a browser it will just show the stream page. If you use another port then you just put :xxx, where xxx is the port you chose, after the dynamic DNS address like so....

http://mypage.dyndns.org:81


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

FYI, for whatever reason, trying to access Stream sysinfo page from WAN side (with port forwarding set up in your router) does NOT work. At one point it used to, but not anymore. I just get a blank page in browser (both IE and Firefox that I tried). So what I end up doing is I reboot my Roamio Pro via kmttg to effectively reboot the built in stream. For that to work you need to port forward RPC port.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I remember doing a port scan on the Stream at one point and there were actually two ports it was using. (49151 & 49152) I wonder if both have to be open on the WAN for it to work? (and maybe be the same port numbers to cover hard coded ports in the code)


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## Bytez (Sep 11, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> Ever router is different. But in most cases you pick an internal IP and a port number and point it to an external port number.
> 
> So in this case you'd use the Stream IP and port 49152 and then point it to an external port. 80 is the default for websites, so if you point it to that then when you type the dynamic DNS address into a browser it will just show the stream page. If you use another port then you just put :xxx, where xxx is the port you chose, after the dynamic DNS address like so....
> 
> http://mypage.dyndns.org:81


Thanks, might be a security risk if anyone could access it?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Bytez said:


> Thanks, might be a security risk if anyone could access it?


Not sure what they could do. The options on that page are pretty limited.


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## hooper (Sep 22, 2007)

This is probably atypical but I can't get the stream to download a complete show on my lan without having to manually restart it several times. Some shows will never complete like movies from HBO. Ironically when I travel download works ok. Usually only takes 2 times to complete a show. 

This is just crap. Stream has been out for over 2 years and if anything has gotten worse. I really like the download aspect or I would just get a slingbox. Very frustrated. 

Any tips for getting downloads on lan to work? It is almost like the stream locks up and won't allow a connection for a couple of minutes. Happens over and over. Since the iPad screen goes off, the download won't continue until I restart it manually.

I am using an ipad2. Wondering if that is part of the problem. Also stream is built in to Roamio


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## fred-vo (Jan 31, 2004)

I've had various TiVo's since 2001. I have had no problems with ANY of them, including the Roamio OTA that I've had since mid-2014.

Been using a TiVo Stream with my Roamio since fall 2014, to watch TiVo shows in another room on an iPhone, an iPad 2 Air and an iPad Pro.

Streaming sucks on all of my i devices above.

Same problem as described by several members above - irregularly (but usually averages about every 5 minutes), the image and sound "freeze", followed a few seconds later by the appearance of the word "Buffering" superimposed over the frozen image. Once in a great while, the buffering word disappears and the playback resumes. But, most of time, the word "Buffering" stays displayed until the popup message appears saying "Problem Streaming There is a problem streaming this show....." and listing the three choices someone earlier described.

I've tried doing all kinds of remedies, but to no avail. Sometimes I reboot my iPhone/Pad, sometimes I take the choice "Try again". Sometimes I've taken the "Download Now" option. Download NEVER completes. Nothing reliably solves the problem for more than a few minutes.

I can watch videos through Amazon Prime's video app service. It NEVER fails.

I do not know what action would remedy this situation.

I wish I could connect my iPhone/Pad hard wire to my TiVo, but I am not aware that a hard-wired connection can be made to those devices.

TiVo Stream is an unreliable product. Useless. PERIOD.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

You have a Roamio OTA, which means you have a standalone Stream. How is the standalone Stream connected to the Roamio? The Stream needs to be hard wired to the Roamio and the Roamio needs to be hardwired to your Wifi router/AP. If you're using wifi for the Roamio or there is any sort of Wifi bridge between the Stream and the Roamio then that would be the source of your problem. 

In home streaming is pretty reliable on the Stream. It's out of home streaming most people have issues with.


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## poppagene (Dec 29, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> You have a Roamio OTA, which means you have a standalone Stream. How is the standalone Stream connected to the Roamio? The Stream needs to be hard wired to the Roamio and the Roamio needs to be hardwired to your Wifi router/AP. If you're using wifi for the Roamio or there is any sort of Wifi bridge between the Stream and the Roamio then that would be the source of your problem.
> 
> In home streaming is pretty reliable on the Stream. It's out of home streaming most people have issues with.


I've been having in home issues with streaming to Amazon Fire TV. Craps out at activation. Stream is stand alone, is activated on account, and tivo and 
stream are hardwired to router.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I've only briefly tried the Amzon Fire TV app. When you say activation do you mean logging in to your account or the part where you set up the stream?


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## poppagene (Dec 29, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> I've only briefly tried the Amzon Fire TV app. When you say activation do you mean logging in to your account or the part where you set up the stream?


During the setup of the app on the fire tv. 
And on a different amazon fire tv that was previously work, the streaming failed and required to rerun setup.

The amazon app sees the now playing lists, but in trying to play it gets an error and says to try rerunning streaming setup. The setup recognizes that there is a streaming device on the network, but cannot get past the tivo activation. It thinks the stream isn't activated on tivo.com, which it is.


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## fred-vo (Jan 31, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> You have a Roamio OTA, which means you have a standalone Stream. How is the standalone Stream connected to the Roamio? The Stream needs to be hard wired to the Roamio and the Roamio needs to be hardwired to your Wifi router/AP. If you're using wifi for the Roamio or there is any sort of Wifi bridge between the Stream and the Roamio then that would be the source of your problem.
> 
> In home streaming is pretty reliable on the Stream. It's out of home streaming most people have issues with.


My standalone Stream is hard-wire connected to my Roamio OTA. My Roamio OTA is also hard-wired to my wi-fi router/AP. From when I set up my tv-stereo-tivo system, the connectivity has always been all hard-wired (ethernet).

I also re-state that I have never ever had a problem streaming with my Apple TV or my Roku 3 (Amazon Prime Video), which are also hard-wired to my router.

This situation has been occurring for me since I got the Stream about a yr and a half ago. I have lived in two different places, each with different ISP's and the issue has been the same in both places. The problem happens randomly, but frequently. Why did I put up with it for so long? I believed (wrongly, it seems) that the problem would disappear because 1) TiVo corporate HAD to know about this (ie,it's not just me) and 2) they cared enough to address it. I really like(d) every one of my many TiVo DVRs, but after a year and a half, seems clear fixing this Stream-ing problem is not one of their priorities. So, I am switching to the only option that I can see "tell every potential TiVo buyer about this" so they will know "going in". I'll try to contact TiVo Cust Support one more time, but I have zero expectations.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

fred-vo said:


> I also re-state that I have never ever had a problem streaming with my Apple TV or my Roku 3 (Amazon Prime Video), which are also hard-wired to my router.


This means nothing when comparing to a TiVo Stream. Your ATV and Roku are streaming ~6mbps streams from the internet to your TV over a hardwired connection capable of at least 100Mbps. Your Stream works different. First the Stream has to get the full bitrate MPEG-2 stream from your TiVo, which will be roughly 12-15Mbps. It then has to transcode it to H.264 at roughly 3Mbps and send that to your wireless AP. It then travels over your wifi to your mobile device before being played back. That's why it's important for the TiVo and Stream to be hardwired to each other and for the Stream to be hard wired to your AP. Also, unlike most internet streaming services, the TiVo Stream does not do adaptive bitrate streaming inside the home. It's a constant bitrate. So if the network is unreliable you will notice cut outs and buffering, whereas a service like Netflix would just lower the resolution or bitrate to adapt.

I personally use in home streaming on my Roamio Pro all the time and rarely have issues with it. The main issue I have is that occasionally the Stream hardware will lock up and reboot and I have to wait a few minutes for it to come back. I never have buffering issues like you're describing.


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## poppagene (Dec 29, 2001)

poppagene said:


> During the setup of the app on the fire tv.
> And on a different amazon fire tv that was previously work, the streaming failed and required to rerun setup.
> 
> The amazon app sees the now playing lists, but in trying to play it gets an error and says to try rerunning streaming setup. The setup recognizes that there is a streaming device on the network, but cannot get past the tivo activation. It thinks the stream isn't activated on tivo.com, which it is.


Update: tivo support couldn't get me going either so back to amazon goes the stream


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Maybe you had a defective one.


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## muhsdm (Jan 6, 2016)

I have a stand-alone Stream. It's fine at home, but sucks over WAN. I have 33 Mbps upload speed, FYI. My Slingbox HD PRO streams with no issues, AND I can watch ALL of my cable channels. I should sell my Stream before it's worthless.


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