# TiVo Stream and TiVo Online



## marcberm (Nov 23, 2014)

I currently have two (2) Premier two-tuner DVRs and a TiVo Stream. I've yet to experience any issues, however a couple of weeks ago, the stream quality via online.tivo.com degraded significantly.

Viewing is just fine on the television/DVR itself. Same goes for viewing via the TiVo app (at least on iPhone and iPad).

My problem seems to be related exclusively to viewing from online.tivo.com. Nearly every show has become unwatchable due to many, many momentary blips, freezes, and other video/audio anomalies. For example: temporary freezing of video for just a moment as audio continues, what seem like short breaks in video that come along (every several seconds) along with a corresponding disturbance of the audio.

The issue strikes me as some sort of problem or change with the online.tivo.com site itself, and the behavior almost seems like what you'd get with a bad or not-quite-right video codec. I am unsure what to believe - whether there's a problem with the Stream device, or it is something else entirely.

I have so far replicated this behavior in Google Chrome on both a Windows 7 and a Windows 10 PC. Microsoft Edge (Windows 10) tells me that my streaming device can't be found or that I'm outside my home network (I am not). Internet Explorer on the Windows 10 machine won't even load a video successfully, and just hangs on the spinning blue loading/buffering icon.

I have tried several times to repeat setup of the Stream via the iOS app to no avail.

Is anyone else experiencing this, or able to offer some insight and/or suggestions?

Thanks to anyone that is able to help!


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## PCurry57 (Feb 27, 2012)

Other places to look for changes that affect other devices include router firmware, had it recently been upgraded, is it the latest. Microsoft and their more frequent security updates that in Windows 10 you can't say no to could also be causing issues. Have you installed any new software on your devices. Try turning off syncing for Google drive/photos, Dropbox, box, Idrive, onedrive, Amazon photos... These and anything running I the background can all interfere.

I've not experienced any degradation streaming on my notebook except when I had background operations running.


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## OhFiddle (Dec 11, 2006)

I would just wait a few days before you do any troubleshooting. It's not just you having issues, and I think they may be working on a fix already tonight. My hunch is that there is a significant problem with the Tivo site and at least the latest version of Flash in Chrome and Chromium based browsers.

See another thread on this topic here.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=539143


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## plvick (May 3, 2010)

marcberm said:


> My problem seems to be related exclusively to viewing from online.tivo.com. Nearly every show has become unwatchable due to many, many momentary blips, freezes, and other video/audio anomalies. For example: temporary freezing of video for just a moment as audio continues, what seem like short breaks in video that come along (every several seconds) along with a corresponding disturbance of the audio.


This is exactly what is happening to me now. Hmm.


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## GPT999 (Jun 22, 2009)

same problem here


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

Use Firefox, or, with Chrome, turn off hardware acceleration. Should fix your problem.


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## OhFiddle (Dec 11, 2006)

I'd already been trying turning the hardware acceleration on and off to test it since I started having issues, and it never made any noticeable difference for me up to this point. The choppiness is also not always gone in Firefox for me still, it is usually just significantly better than the Chrome based browsers...but not always. 

One day it was working particularly strange. I was trying to watch it in Opera (same flash plugin as Chrome) and the video was horribly choppy. I thought I would try toggling the hardware acceleration, which didn't make a difference at all. But, just right clicking on the flash video to access the flash menu with the hardware acceleration option made the video play flawlessly. As long as I left that right-click menu open on the video it played perfectly. The second I closed the menu the stuttering resumed. I repeated this behavior with the same result at least 15 times during the video. I thought maybe this happened because accessing the flash menu also made the tivo player controls disappear and perhaps they were causing the stuttering somehow? But, the next day I tried the same thing and it didn't work anymore. Very odd. Even stranger....prior to that day, right clicking to access that flash menu would cause the video to freeze while the audio resumed.

It is hard to know for sure if any changes to the playback are caused by a change on my computer, their website, or the tivo itself.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Works fine for me with Firefox on Win 10 64-bit after updating Flash plugin to latest version.


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## Dulanic (Dec 15, 2015)

This has been happening here lately... something changed and I know it isn't on my side. I have 3 PC's and all 3 have issues now. 1 Linux 2 Windows. Router has been rebooted "just in case" but no help. The android app has 0 issues since it isn't use online.tivo.com.


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## mhalladay (Feb 12, 2007)

justen_m said:


> Use Firefox, or, with Chrome, turn off hardware acceleration. Should fix your problem.


I'd been having this same problem, on a Surface Pro 4, which I'm seeing as a replacement for both my Android tablet and old Dell laptop; and turning off hardware accel. in Chrome settings fixed it for me... 
Surface Pro 4 is quite fast and capable; and now, I'm on the lookout for more and better Win10 apps (and not holding my breath!)


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## abeln2672 (Nov 24, 2007)

I hate to resurrect this thread from the dead, but is anyone still having this problem -- and/or figured out how to fix it? I've tried Chrome (with hardware accel off), Firefox, and Edge, have updated flash, done numerous box and router restarts, and my experience at online.tivo.com at home is still horrible. iPad works fine for streaming. Tivo support has been zero help, despite numerous contacts.


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## OhFiddle (Dec 11, 2006)

Still working poorly for me. Pretty much the same as it was before. It it not consistently the same level of dysfunction though. Some times it's choppy right from the beginning of the show, other times it starts off well and then gets choppy 10-15 minutes into it. I usually can't make it through even a 30 minute show without it freezing up or getting stuck at a certain point in the show where the skipping forward or back stops working properly. That usually requires closing the video, reopening it and then manually finding my place in it again. Still has the weirdness where right-clicking and leaving the flash menu open makes a choppy video play smoothly...at least until I have to undo it to skip commercials. All my browsers and plugins have gone through many updates since this started, and I think the Tivo software on the Roamio Plus itself updated at least once or twice also. I still have never had any issues at all with flash streaming video on any other website. I think something about the Tivo site's code doesn't like my computer or my network for some reason.


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## abeln2672 (Nov 24, 2007)

OhFiddle said:


> Still working poorly for me. Pretty much the same as it was before. It it not consistently the same level of dysfunction though. Some times it's choppy right from the beginning of the show, other times it starts off well and then gets choppy 10-15 minutes into it. I usually can't make it through even a 30 minute show without it freezing up or getting stuck at a certain point in the show where the skipping forward or back stops working properly. That usually requires closing the video, reopening it and then manually finding my place in it again. Still has the weirdness where right-clicking and leaving the flash menu open makes a choppy video play smoothly...at least until I have to undo it to skip commercials. All my browsers and plugins have gone through many updates since this started, and I think the Tivo software on the Roamio Plus itself updated at least once or twice also. I still have never had any issues at all with flash streaming video on any other website. I think something about the Tivo site's code doesn't like my computer or my network for some reason.


Thanks for the reply. It's good (but disappointing) to know that I'm not the only one -- and that you've been trying things for 6 months and still not figured it out. Guess it's nothing I'm doing wrong, or some update or tweak I've yet to make. Doomed to watch choppy, skippy shows over streaming unless I use my iPad, I suppose. :-(

If anyone has figured something out, please do post back...would be appreciated!


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## Dulanic (Dec 15, 2015)

abeln2672 said:


> Thanks for the reply. It's good (but disappointing) to know that I'm not the only one -- and that you've been trying things for 6 months and still not figured it out. Guess it's nothing I'm doing wrong, or some update or tweak I've yet to make. Doomed to watch choppy, skippy shows over streaming unless I use my iPad, I suppose. :-(
> 
> If anyone has figured something out, please do post back...would be appreciated!


I THINK the software update I got today on my Roamio fixed mine. It works on my phone now at normal quality, unfortunately cant check online.tivo.com as it just gives me this error when logging in.

*500 Error*

The server encountered an error. Please try again later.


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## OhFiddle (Dec 11, 2006)

I thought mine was working better than ever a few days ago too, but I didn't get the software update until yesterday. The login problem is very widespread and people don't notice it until their login cookie expires and they try to login again and it fails. I can't login now, but the website was working better than ever for accessing my tivo box and streaming in the two days prior to getting locked out with the login issue. I speculated that perhaps it was working so well because so many people were unable to use the site and it drastically reduced the load on the servers for those of us that were still able to access it. Could just be a coincidence though.


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## abeln2672 (Nov 24, 2007)

Dulanic said:


> I THINK the software update I got today on my Roamio fixed mine. It works on my phone now at normal quality, unfortunately cant check online.tivo.com as it just gives me this error when logging in.
> 
> *500 Error*
> 
> The server encountered an error. Please try again later.


Really appreciate the heads up! Definitely worked MUCH better today after the update a couple days ago. Here's hoping the quality keeps up and I don't experience the log-in issues  Thanks again...


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## modnar (Oct 15, 2000)

Slight thread hijack, but when did they add the ability to watch directly from online.TiVo.com on a web browser? I just noticed this and was pleasantly surprised (although the quality is not great).


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## Dulanic (Dec 15, 2015)

abeln2672 said:


> Really appreciate the heads up! Definitely worked MUCH better today after the update a couple days ago. Here's hoping the quality keeps up and I don't experience the log-in issues  Thanks again...


Maybe it was a fluke, but it is looking like crap again and skipping again.


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## JBDragon (Jan 4, 2004)

I just did a 100% clean install of Windows 10 on my computer for a few issues I've been having. It hasn't helped at all for my with my Tivo Stream. I try watching something and it's just skips all over, and video quality isn't very good, it's not at all watchable. Does it work for anyone running Windows 10? Tivo has known about this problem for a few months at least now and still no fix. 

All I can say is good thing I just went ahead and got the SlingBox M2 for $99. I wish I didn't have to spend the money for it since I had spent the money for the now worthless Tivo Stream which I like better when it worked as it was much faster and easier to get around and there was no Ad's. The Slingbox lags getting around using the dumb Tivo Remote on screen to control things. The Tivo Stream is so much better, but right now it's just not watchable. Not on my clean install of Windows 10 even!!!


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## Dulanic (Dec 15, 2015)

I don't think it's a windows thing. Mine used to work fine on windows 10 till one day it started skipping like yours. It effected 5 different PC's or devices. 

I still truly think tivo broke something for some of us.


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## JBDragon (Jan 4, 2004)

It worked just fine for me with Windows 10 also until one day it didn't and hasn't worked sense. That was a couple months ago. I know it's on TIVO's end. I also assume Microsoft did some kind of Windows 10 update that broke the Tivo Stream from working correctly. That's my guess and now Tivo is trying to fix it. Otherwise it would have been fixed long ago. Others say it works just fine for them. I assume they are running Windows 7 or something. That's what I'm trying to figure out.


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## OhFiddle (Dec 11, 2006)

Back when I first starting having problems I was on Windows 7, then in August I "upgraded" to Windows 10 which made the problem no better or worse actually.

The only time the streaming worked pretty smoothly for me was a few weeks ago when so many people were locked out of using the site due to the login error. Then MY login expired and I was locked out too. Since that problem was "fixed" the site is actually working even worse. Now it first loads showing errors because for some reason the dropdown to select a Tivo box on your account is now alphabetical and defaults to selecting one of my Minis which can't stream content. So I have to change the site to use my Roamio every time I use it. Annoying but doable.

Now though many shows won't play at all...they just show the play buttons and a black video window, but hitting play does nothing. I also now frequently get the out of home error message, or one saying I am not even setup to stream. The green play buttons come and go often when the page reloads. If I do get something to play it usually freezes and loses my place in the show at some point. Also now, when it gets to the end of a show it automatically starts replaying it from a previously saved stopping point for some unknown reason.

These are all new problems that cropped recently around the time they fixed the login issue and when the Tivo boxes got the latest software update. It's so frustrating that now I have just been either transferring shows with kmttg to my computer or watching them On Demand through the Comcast site (often with commercials, arggh). Unfortunately, the recent Comcast tv site "upgrade" is a HUGE downgrade in features and usability, and almost as frustrating as using the Tivo site. At least I can usually get the shows to play there though, and they always play smoothly there. Technology is so wonderful when it actually works, but so frustrating when it doesn't!


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## FrankN (Jan 26, 2008)

When the quality (including Flash crashes) got bad on Ubuntu 16 with Chrome, closing browser tabs and restarting the browser was usually enough to fix the problem for a while. Now (Jan 2017), TiVo Online tells me I need a new version of Flash. I updated using the latest recommended process, and it still says I need a new version of Flash and won't do anything. It seems to work with Firefox.


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