# Roamio remote communication issues



## bobramsey (Nov 20, 2008)

I am a long time TiVo customer and recently replaced a forever troubled TiVo Premiere with a Roamio Plus. The unit sits in an A/V cabinet directly below (in lower level of home) our living room. With the TiVo Premiere we used a TiVo (Next Generation) Remote Extender to allow the remote to communicate with the TiVo unit. The signal is required to travel through carpet, 3/4" plywood subfloor and 5/8" sheetrock on the ceiling of the basement room where the TiVo unit is connected to my network. The distance from the unit to the remote is never more than 25 feet.

The previous remote extender worked flawlessly, but the new TiVo remote with the Roamio is hit or miss. At times I can perform a function on the remote and the signal is sent with an amber confirmation light on the remote. At these times I can repeatedly continue to depress the same remote button and most of the time the remote will continue to communicate with the Roamio unit. If I move to a different remote command like changing from scrolling down through channels in "Guide" to reverse to scrolling up the remote will work intermittently. At these times when the remote does not communicate the remote light will change to a red signal color. 

Originally I thought my issue may be directly related to my distance from the Roamio unit because I was sitting in a location which is approximately 15 feet above and away from the Roamio. When I moved to a location only 20 feet from the unit, the frequency of the problem increased. I then moved to a position directly above the Roamio unit and initially the remote communicated 100% with the Roamio unit, but after only a short time returned to the intermittent communication described earlier. Distance does seem to have some effect, but the fact that remote does have issues regardless of the distance perplexes me. I moved to the room where the TiVo Roamio is positioned, blocked the IR path where only RF signals would communicate between the remote and Roamio, and cycled through several commands from a distance of 10 feet. In this scenario the remote had less failures but still had issues where the light on the remote would flash red (instead of amber) and once this would happen would continue to struggle to pair with the Roamio unit.

I have called TiVo Support on multiple occasions without success. I have repeatedly reset the remote to factory settings at the direction of the support reps without success. I have read several posts within tivocommunity.com and see that this has been a fairly common issue with other TiVo customers. I tried to use the TiVo (Next Generation) remote extender with the Roamio Plus but have not been able to get it to work with the Roamio Plus remote. I checked and the Roamio is running Software Ver. 20.3.7.1a-USA-6-848 which I believe is the newest update. Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.


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## TiVo_Bryan (Sep 19, 2013)

Thanks for the feedback. Could you please force your Roamio remote to operate in IR mode only:

Hold the TiVo button and the Red C button down until the red LED at the top of the remote flashes? At this point, your remote will be in IR mode only. Any impact (positive or negative) on your issue?

If you want to revert it back to RF, then you can hold the TiVo and Green D button down until the top of the remote flashes amber.


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## bearcat2000 (Aug 13, 2005)

I'm in the same boat, hoping for a fix. My tivo is in a cabinet so it's a real pain when it flips to ir.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

I think bobramsey and bearcat2000 are in opposite boats.

bobramsey: remote extenders only work in IR mode. so you want to keep the remote in IR mode while sitting in a room with an extender. you can use RF mode if you're close by the box, if you want, but then you have to switch it back and forth between IR and RF mode like Tivo_Bryan described. An alternative depending how big your home is, is moving the Tivo somewhere more central so the the RF mode will work everywhere.

bearcat2000, on the otherhand, doesn't want to use IR mode, so you're going to have to improve the reception somehow. I use the Tivo Slide which came with a USB receiver. Then I put the receiver on a USB extension cable out of the cabinet, and that fixed the reception problems. IDK if that trick can be adapted to a Roamio. Don't most cabinets have glass fronts?


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## TiVo_Bryan (Sep 19, 2013)

One more thing... Just so I am clear on the remote extender you are using, could you please let me know the following:

A) Did you buy this from the TiVo store in the past?

B) Is there a URL where I can look and see the device you are using.

I am fairly certain I know the device you are talking about. But, I would be happier if I knew 100%.


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## bobramsey (Nov 20, 2008)

Actually I would prefer the Roamio remote to always work in RF mode. My Roamio is located in an A/V cabinet with glass door in the room directly below the room where the plasma TV is located. The remote extender (http://www.nextgen.us/NextGen_Remote_Extender_Plus_p/remoteextenderplus.htm) I purchased from TiVo a few years ago actually uses RF to communicate with a unit that emits IR signals to the equipment. The RF signal from this device is powerful enough to transmit the 25 feet from my seating location to the TiVo unit. The Roamio remote cycles between RF and IR randomly regardless of the distance to the Roamio unit. TiVo is sending a replacement Roamio remote to see if the issue is within the firmware of the remote. I will report back to the forum after I receive the second remote to let you know if this solves my issues.


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## hooper (Sep 22, 2007)

Did you ever get to the bottom of this. I am having the same issues. RF commands aren't being sent and reverts back to IR. Box is like 10 feet away. Almost seems to be an interference issue. 

Also notice an issue with the remote finder. This doesn't work sometimes. The RF frequency on the Roamio must be close to the wifi 2.4 GHZ spectrum or the Bluetooth spectrum.


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## David Lawrance (Aug 6, 2006)

Thank you Bryan!

You just solved my problem.

David


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## FitzAusTex (May 7, 2014)

I have terrible rf reception from my Roamio remote(s). Totally hit or miss and my leg can cause an obstruction even 8 feet away. I ordered a Slide Pro with the rf dongle, and the Slide and my other two Roamio remotes work significantly better with my Roamio when using the dongle than when remotes are paired directly to the Roamio. Only problem with the rf dongle is when the Roamio reboots, it is a major crap shoot as to whether the dongle will function after reboot. Green light flashes with remote button presses, but doesn't control the Roamio. Rebooting multiple times (sometimes more than 10) is required to correct the situation. There are obviously defective Roamios out in the wild, cause most don't have RF issues, but others on this site do.


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