# My Bolt Nightmare



## Dlee (Jan 25, 2005)

I got my new Bolt with lifetime service in June 2017. Worked great until in November, we noticed that we were not receiving certain channels that we used to get. Went through troubleshooting with Spectrum...changed out tuning adapter, cable card, team tech came out to check signal,...no fix, but found out that if the Bolt loses power, it wouldn't reboot (no green indication, no TiVo menu, no video). Need it to cool down anywhere between 10 minutes to overnight. Called Tivo, went through troubleshooting and spend over an hour with the tech. They sent me new power cord. Still having the problem and spend another hour with a tech. Bolt is out of 90 day warranty, but they will honor it since it's so new. Bolt #2 comes. It won't read the cable card and it has the same issue of not rebooting. Spend another two hours troubleshooting with a tech and explaining why I'm going to send back Bolt #2 instead of Bolt #1 back (because it still works as long as there's no power outage). Bolt #3 arrives. Set it up, call to pair cable card, everything looks good until after guided set up...no video, just a black screen. I can see the TiVo menu, but no channels. Call Spectrum, they verify the host ID, re-pair the cable card...nothing. Call Tivo to activate service and troubleshoot the black screen. Tech said that I have to wait 24 hours after the TiVo has been activated until they can continue troubleshooting. Now I sit here looking at the TiVo menu and black screen wishing I could go back to my Tivo Premier.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

I had the same reboot problem as your two Bolts. Unfortunately I had sent it to Weaknees for an upgrade to 12 TB before I discovered there was a problem, so I just live with it.

I bought a second Bolt that had a weak tuner, so weak that it couldn't read the channel mask unless I removed all my splitters and even then it was a crap picture; it only took four hours on the phone jumping through diagnostic hoops with a nice Filipino chap before his supervisor would okay the exchange. I've seen enough people here on TCF with the weak tuner problem to convince me that the Bolt line has a quality control problem.

Now that I am thinking about it, I also had a problem getting some of my channels. That turned out to be a weak signal caused by a splitter in the crawl space getting wet; when it dried out, the channels came back. If your problem is the same, those channels will have significantly lower signal strength and SNR percentages showing in the Diagnostics screen than the ones you get.


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## Sparky1234 (May 8, 2006)

Dlee said:


> I got my new Bolt with lifetime service in June 2017. Worked great until in November, we noticed that we were not receiving certain channels that we used to get. Went through troubleshooting with Spectrum...changed out tuning adapter, cable card, team tech came out to check signal,...no fix, but found out that if the Bolt loses power, it wouldn't reboot (no green indication, no TiVo menu, no video). Need it to cool down anywhere between 10 minutes to overnight. Called Tivo, went through troubleshooting and spend over an hour with the tech. They sent me new power cord. Still having the problem and spend another hour with a tech. Bolt is out of 90 day warranty, but they will honor it since it's so new. Bolt #2 comes. It won't read the cable card and it has the same issue of not rebooting. Spend another two hours troubleshooting with a tech and explaining why I'm going to send back Bolt #2 instead of Bolt #1 back (because it still works as long as there's no power outage). Bolt #3 arrives. Set it up, call to pair cable card, everything looks good until after guided set up...no video, just a black screen. I can see the TiVo menu, but no channels. Call Spectrum, they verify the host ID, re-pair the cable card...nothing. Call Tivo to activate service and troubleshoot the black screen. Tech said that I have to wait 24 hours after the TiVo has been activated until they can continue troubleshooting. Now I sit here looking at the TiVo menu and black screen wishing I could go back to my Tivo Premier.


Splitters inside and outside corrode / oxidize over time. Even an upstream neighbor can affect your signal. Have cable company come out and read the signal at your house access point. Then troubleshoot / change your in house splitters. Problem was probably already there and maybe Bolt / timing was incidental.


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## jlanderson227 (Aug 18, 2009)

Sounds familiar. Bought a Bolt with lifetime service in April 2017 during the "once in a lifetime " special offer. That one was replaced with a refurbished unit in May when it crapped out from a bootloop problem. I was using it with an OTA antenna as I was a Dish subscriber at the time. In June I moved to an area with Charter, the planned use case for the original purchase that included 3 Minis. Charter tried multiple times to install, going through several tuner adapters and many cable cards. TiVo support was useless and consisted of pointing me to a pdf containing generic instructions for pairing with a cable card. They finally took the Bolt back but refused to take the Minis, even though they were useless without the Bolt. After multiple attempts to convince them to issue an RMA for them, I finally sold them at a loss on eBay.

I'd been a Tivo customer since the Series 2 but never again. Customer loyalty means nothing to them. I hope you are able to resolve your problem more favorably than I was.


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## ffitzgerald39 (Apr 17, 2011)

I also have been a TiVo user since the series 2. I used an upgrade offer in Nov to go from a Premier to a Bolt 1000. Last week the Bolt stopped getting a signal after TiVo sent a signal to improve streaming reliability. In two 3 way calls with Comcast TiVo insisted it was a cable card issue. Comcast has no cards available in the Chicago area since they are phasing them out. TiVo wanted them to send multiple cards so I could keep trying them. After much arguing they agreed to replace the Bolt. A 2+ week process I am still waiting on. I was so fed up with the cable card run around I picked up an X1 and installed it. I had been paying for it on my Comcast plan with a $2.50 TiVo credit.
The installation took about 20 minutes. The UI is much easier to use. The only downside is the commercial fast forward is not as smooth and no skip button. The streaming is light years ahead of TiVo.
I will probably stay with the X1 and dispose of the TiVo. If my experience is any indicator at least in the Chicago area Tivo’s days are numbered. The reliability of the Bolt is not good and repair is very difficult.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

ffitzgerald39 said:


> Comcast has no cards available in the Chicago area since they are phasing them out.


You are letting Comcast lie to you and letting the bad guy here win over it. They MUST provide a cablecard to you. I'm on mobile, just search "cablecard bill of rights" and the FCC gives clear direction.


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## dougdingle (Jul 4, 2007)

jrtroo said:


> You are letting Comcast lie to you and letting the bad guy here win over it. They MUST provide a cablecard to you. I'm on mobile, just search "cablecard bill of rights" and the FCC gives clear direction.


For now.

It should be pretty clear that the current attitude in Washington is that anything that is burdensome to poor put-upon corporations (like cable cards and tuning adapters, or treating all Internet traffic identically), needs to be made optional instead of mandatory lest it impact the bottom line and thus shareholder value.

I give it six months before cablecos are informed they no longer have to support TiVos or any third party hardware by supplying cable cards or TAs.

Current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is not someone who has demonstrated empathy for the little guy (and gal).


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

This seems to be a current problem and applicable to the service they should have received today.


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## Dlee (Jan 25, 2005)

Update: 24 hours went by and still had the black screen. Spent a lot of time with both Spectrum and Tivo tech support. Had Tivo blaming Spectrum for having too strong a signal and too high SNR. The tech attenuated it to where Tivo wanted it and still nothing. Finally, the Tivo tech support gave in and decided to sent out a 4th Tivo. Forth one came in and worked perfectly. No reboot issues, no black screen. Just in time for the Olympics. Hopefully this one lasts longer than the 1st one.


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