# Tivos don't see each other



## Austin Bike (Feb 9, 2003)

Is is so frustrating. I have the following:

TiVo premiere XML
TiVo HD
TiVo series 2
Server running TiVo desktop

The premiere Xl can only see the HD
The HD can only see the series 2 and the server
The series 2 can see the HD and the server

All have been rebooted several times. 

What the hell is going on?


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

I have the same problem. I have a premier and a HD. I can see the HD from the premier but I don't see the premier on the HD. I've played with the settings in the site many times but nothing changes.


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## herbman (Apr 8, 2008)

LAN segment? Firewalls? Nosy router messing with bonjour or other broadcast?


Usuals...


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Reboot the router?


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## Austin Bike (Feb 9, 2003)

All of the routers and switches have been rebooted as well.

The Premiere plugs into a switch upstairs, that switch cascades down to a switch in the basement. That switch plugs into the router.

In the past the units could all see each other, so there is something happening, and I would bet it has to do with software updates that tivo has issued.

I am going to set everything to DCHP, reboot them all and see what happens (they have static IPs now.

The fact that they can see *some* of the units but not all tells me that this is a tivo issue and not a network issue.


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Let's try something...

Go to tivo.com, login to your "My Account", under DVR Preferences, uncheck all the boxes for every Tivo in your account. Then, have all your Tivos make their Tivo service connections, after they finished their processing that. Reboot all the Tivos, 1 at a time may be best. Go back to your Tivo.com account and re-check those Tivo's boxes, make another Tivo connection with each tivo.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

I see this from time to time. My 2 TivoHDs always see each other, but sometimes my S2 will drop off the network. 
It happens whether I'm using DHCP or static IPs. Rebooting the S2 will bring it back. Fortunately I rarely use the S2, so I don't sweat it too much.


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## Austin Bike (Feb 9, 2003)

ThAbtO said:


> Let's try something...
> 
> Go to tivo.com, login to your "My Account", under DVR Preferences, uncheck all the boxes for every Tivo in your account. Then, have all your Tivos make their Tivo service connections, after they finished their processing that. Reboot all the Tivos, 1 at a time may be best. Go back to your Tivo.com account and re-check those Tivo's boxes, make another Tivo connection with each tivo.


Gonna rain tomorrow so I can't ride my bike, so I will try this in the morning.


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

herbman said:


> LAN segment? Firewalls? Nosy router messing with *bonjour or other broadcast*?
> 
> Usuals...


Does this mean I'm supposed to have Tivo Desktop running on my network? Because I don't have a use for it so I never bothered installing it.


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## herbman (Apr 8, 2008)

Soapm said:


> Does this mean I'm supposed to have Tivo Desktop running on my network? Because I don't have a use for it so I never bothered installing it.


I didn't say anything about Tivo Desktop..


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

I don't think it would hurt to have Desktop installed, but try giving all of your TiVos fixed IP addresses outside of the range the router uses for DHCP, and reboot everything.


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## Austin Bike (Feb 9, 2003)

ThAbtO said:


> Let's try something...
> 
> Go to tivo.com, login to your "My Account", under DVR Preferences, uncheck all the boxes for every Tivo in your account. Then, have all your Tivos make their Tivo service connections, after they finished their processing that. Reboot all the Tivos, 1 at a time may be best. Go back to your Tivo.com account and re-check those Tivo's boxes, make another Tivo connection with each tivo.


Followed those directions. Now none can see each other. extra connection to the service, still nothing. The HD can see the server. That is all.


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## Austin Bike (Feb 9, 2003)

After a week of trying everything, I am still not getting anywhere. Any thoughts?


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

You were asked about your LAN topology, but you didn't really describe it in detail. Please do so. Are there any wireless segments? Any routed segments?


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## Austin Bike (Feb 9, 2003)

All segments are hardwired gigabit ethernet. Topology looks like this:

Premiere + Stream (linksys DIR-655 used as a switch, no router function) plugged into DLink 8-port GB switch . Server, Series 2 and HD also plugged into GB switch. GB switch plugged into second DIR-655 with router functions and external connection to internet.

Because the Premiere can see the HD, I know the first DIR-655 is functioning and the switch is functioning. Because the HD can see the server, I know that the switch is functioning. The Series 2 can see nothing, but everything else on the switch is OK.

The issue is that a month or so ago, EVERYTHING could see EVERYTHING and now it is very sporadic with little rhyme or reason. The only significant change is that a TiVo stream was added. However, when I shut that down and rebooted everything, I still had the problems.


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## fyodor (Sep 19, 2006)

I would play around with the multicast settings on your router and enable multicast streams.

http://support.dlink.com/emulators/dir655/121/Network.html

It seems anecdotally that people with multiple routers/switches have issues with the multicast/broadcast features on the Tivos (this is how they notify other tivos of their presences). If the above setting doesn't fix it, I would try removing the first DIR-655 from the network (plugging everything directly into the gigabit switch) to see if you have any improvements.

Try searching on the forums for "multicast" - you'll see that others have had this specific problem. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a silver bullet solution.


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## Austin Bike (Feb 9, 2003)

OK, good news and bad news.

The good news is that turning on multicast solved the problem. All of my boxes can now see each other and the server.

The bad news is that with multicast turned on, the tivo stream does not work.

I just turned off multicast on thw switch that the premiere and the stream are connected to and the ipad can see the stream and the stream seems to be working again. The main router still have multicast turned on.

When I checked the Tivo HD it can still see the other units, so theoretically it is working, but I really need to do some more troubleshooting this week to ensure everything is actually working. But in the mean time filling the ipad for my international trip is a higher priority.


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## fyodor (Sep 19, 2006)

Hmmm. I don't know enough about the stream to have a sense of what's wrong. You might want to consider just getting some cheap unmanaged gigabit switches and use them for any locations where the local network devices connect to each other with a single connection from the highest level gigabit switch to the router for uplink/DHCP.


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## Austin Bike (Feb 9, 2003)

Technically that is what I was doing with the upstairs DIR-655. All of the routing/DHCP features are shut off and the "uplink" is out of a normal switch port, not the WAN uplink port.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

fyodor said:


> You might want to consider just getting some cheap unmanaged gigabit switches and use them for any locations where the local network devices connect to each other with a single connection from the highest level gigabit switch to the router for uplink/DHCP.


Actually, I would recommend managed switches, or at least a managed switch for the main switch, through which all traffic should pass. That way he can mirror the port for any device with which he is having trouble and sniff the network with an analyzer like WireShark.


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## Austin Bike (Feb 9, 2003)

So the linkage that works is this:

http://blogs.amd.com/work/2009/08/20/master-of-my-domain/network_map-6/

The map is old so there is a few more devices on the network. The Stream is attached to 192.168.1.2 along with the premiere.

192.168.1.2 has multicast turned off with it off, I can use the stream, but then the premiere cannot see the HD or the server, only the series 2.

HOWEVER, with multicast turned off on .2 the HD can see everything and I can transfer shows. The next thing to try is to turn on multicast and put the stream somewhere else, but this is incredibly frustrating.

Why would one company create two products that need to work together where a network router setting needs to be on for one and off for the other?


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## fyodor (Sep 19, 2006)

Austin Bike said:


> Technically that is what I was doing with the upstairs DIR-655. All of the routing/DHCP features are shut off and the "uplink" is out of a normal switch port, not the WAN uplink port.


I understand how you have it set up.

My point, that I was not really expressing well, is that that certain router products don't really act purely like switches, even when you're not using the uplink capability. Why this should be is unknown to me.

Thus, I'd try maybe getting some "normal" switches and using them for all intra-lan communications. Then just have a single connection from the highest-tier switch to your router for internet access and DHCP.


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

I'm no expert but you might try changing your IP range. I don't know why but some ranges seem to work happier than others and it's seems random which range works best for you. That's been my experience but again, I'm no expert.


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## Austin Bike (Feb 9, 2003)

They have had problems with static IPs as well as with DHCP starting at .130, .150 and .200, so I do not think it is the IP range.

I have found that with multicast on, they all work fine, but with multicast on, the tivo stream will not work.

With multicast off, the MRV is sporadic between the units, each can only see one other. But the tivo stream will work, accessing the premiere.

What a mess, they have created two features that work differently under different settings. Who was testing this?


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## Austin Bike (Feb 9, 2003)

came home from work, did some recabling and everything is working now. There is a 5 port hub that connects to the main router. on this hub is the stream, the premiere and the other router plugged in as a WAP. 

Clearly there was a problem with router to router so the switch solved that problem, however, now I have even more devices in my complex network.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

This sounds promising. It's not the same router but it's the same brand.

http://forums.tivo.com/pe/action/fo...#e11037125&channelID=10&portalPageId=10432560


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## isglobleweb (Oct 12, 2012)

I had a tivo and like all other people who have one or any other PVR (Personal Video Recorder or Hard-Disk Recorder).
I love it and i am bothered if I have to watch TV without tivo.
I've switched to MythTV, which is better and provides automatic commercial elimination to boot.
TiVo set-top boxes allow you to record television programs on an internal hard drive.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Austin Bike said:


> came home from work, did some recabling and everything is working now. There is a 5 port hub


A hub, or a switch? Ethernet hubs are pretty rare, these days, and very few 100M hubs were ever made. AFAIK, no 1000M hub was ever produced. If it really is a hub, I would definitely get rid of it.



Austin Bike said:


> Clearly there was a problem with router to router so the switch solved that problem, however, now I have even more devices in my complex network.


It's not really that complex. Nonetheless, I do recommend simplifying it by setting up a single, moderately high density, managed Gigabit switch as the central device. Small, unmanaged gigabit switches can be deployed into areas that need more than one device locally, but I would avoid hanging any multi-port devices (that includes WLAN routers) off any of the satellite switches. I also would avoid wireless in general whenever possible.


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

lrhorer said:


> I also would avoid wireless in general whenever possible.


What??? No wireless??? Am I reading that right or did I misunderstand?


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Soapm said:


> What??? No wireless??? Am I reading that right or did I misunderstand?


No, you are reading it right. Wireless is a last resort, and in general just plain unreliable. It is only capable of delivering a tiny fraction of the bandwidth of a properly implemented hard-wired solution. In the very best of circumstances, a Wireless-N network might deliver 150 - 180 Mbps of payload across all the hosts combined. Add a repeater and that is cut in half. Add a little noise and interference, and it plummets. It is all but designed to send discovery protocols into a tailspin, and duplicate packets - which aren't supposed to matter other than gobbling up bandwidth but often do - are all but inevitable. Not only that, but every host has to deal with every packet sent on the network, meaning a fair amount of work is done on the hosts simply inspecting and deleting packets.

Compare that with a 24 port Gig switch with a non-blocking matrix. Hypothetically it can deliver 24,000 Mbps of data and more than 20,000 Mbps of payload with zero duplicate packets, no lost frames, and a bare minimum of traffic appearing at each host that is not destined for that host.

Now, in reality of course, it would be quite difficult for a home network to sustain anything nearly like 20,000 Mbps of payload - there is just usually not that much data to push around, but my home network, for example regularly experiences reasonably long periods (on the order of hours) pushing up to 3,000 Mbps, and I quite regularly push payloads of up to 950 Mbps between pairs of hosts. Compare that with my sister's wireless network, which is often hard pressed to manage 24 Mbps.


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## Austin Bike (Feb 9, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> A hub, or a switch? Ethernet hubs are pretty rare, these days, and very few 100M hubs were ever made. AFAIK, no 1000M hub was ever produced. If it really is a hub, I would definitely get rid of it.
> 
> It's not really that complex. Nonetheless, I do recommend simplifying it by setting up a single, moderately high density, managed Gigabit switch as the central device. Small, unmanaged gigabit switches can be deployed into areas that need more than one device locally, but I would avoid hanging any multi-port devices (that includes WLAN routers) off any of the satellite switches. I also would avoid wireless in general whenever possible.


Switch. I'm old school enough to remember coax cable network and BALUNs and apparently I use the old words.

The problem I have is that in the house, there is enough interruption that wifi needs to be in 2 locations for wifi. I have 2 identical routers and I turned one's routing off, use it as a switch and AP.

Maybe I just need an AP on that 5-port switch and not a router.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

So you are saying you have two WiFi networks connected by a switch (or switches) in the middle, logically speaking? One is a routed network and the other a bridged (AP) network? (This would mean the devices on the routed network are on a different subnet than the one on the switch and the AP.

This may be a silly question, but you do have the two wireless devices on different wireless channels, correct?


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## Austin Bike (Feb 9, 2003)

yes, both are on different channels, as far away as possible.

Basically the chain was DIR-655#2 -> 8-port switch -> DIR-655#1 -> Cable modem

#2 had all DHCP and routing functions turned off. It was an AP and a switch. #1 had all of the routing and functions turned on.

Basically all of the ports on #2 were full, all of the ports on the 8-port switch were full and #1 had only the link from the 8-port switch and the WAN uplink to the cable modem.

When I stuck an additional 5-port switch between #2 and the 8-port and moved all of the cables out of #2 into the 5-port, it solved the problem.

My best guess is that this was a multicast issue.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Austin Bike said:


> yes, both are on different channels, as far away as possible.


OK, just checking.



Austin Bike said:


> When I stuck an additional 5-port switch between #2 and the 8-port and moved all of the cables out of #2 into the 5-port, it solved the problem.


That's a puzzler. The routing engine should not even touch the hard-wire ports of the AP, and a switch should properly forward multicast and broadcast MAC and IP addresses.



Austin Bike said:


> My best guess is that this was a multicast issue.


There is no question of that. Regardless, however, the topology you have right now is the preferred one, even if you were not having problems with TiVo visibility.


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## Austin Bike (Feb 9, 2003)

Preferred unless you consider the extra device, cables and power required.


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