# How on earth can anything boot this slowly?



## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

I accidentally powered off the surge suppressor last night and as such had to wait for the box to boot. First time it got stuck on the "a few minutes longer" screen for 20 minutes and I gave up and rebooted it. Fortunately the second time it was only suck on the "a few minutes longer" screen for 8 minutes. By then I was tired and just went to sleep. How does each generation get so much worse than the last?

This post really has no other purpose than to gripe about the long boot up time.


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## _Ryan_ (Apr 4, 2010)

It's just an ad. Nothing is loading for 8 minutes, they just want to show you and anyone else in your living room the TiVo logo for a bit. It loads in 10 seconds after the ad ends. Maybe try pressing fast-forward during the next boot to skip it?

(joke)


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

Supposedly according to some expert hackers a good portion of the boot up time is dealing with guarding against software hacks. Each generation of hardware has become increasingly harder to hack because of added security measures, and those measures slow things down for booting up. Ce la vie. I've had to do quite a few monitored cold boots lately due to issues with my Premiere getting into a state where it doesn't respond to remote control anymore, so I've watched it boot up several times. Usually takes just under 10 minutes to get to the Intro video and then another minute or so for Tuning Adapter to load channel mapping table so that tuners can go live. For my S3 I don't really care how long it takes to boot up since that is a rare event anyway.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

Just another pathetic TiVo software development attempt. It must be really embarrassing that they seem to spend more time blocking "hackers" from making leaps and bounds in functionality that TiVo should have been providing for the last 5 or 6 years than in actually doing anything to improve functionality.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

smbaker said:


> How does each generation get so much worse than the last?


Very good question. It is frustrating, indeed.

Meanwhile, with each Linux desktop update, booting gets faster and faster. It is now something like 20 seconds for my main computer to be completely up, multiuser, with X running, and even logged in.


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## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

I can install fedora linux from scratch and be up and running in the time it takes the tivo box to bootup after applying something like the 14.6 update. In my wildest dreams I couldn't imagine making anything that slow even if I tried .


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

dswallow said:


> Just another pathetic TiVo software development attempt. It must be really embarrassing that they seem to spend more time blocking "hackers" from making leaps and bounds in functionality that TiVo should have been providing for the last 5 or 6 years than in actually doing anything to improve functionality.


Actually, it has little to do with hacks and more to do with verifying the partitions. But it's nice to spread some FUD around I guess.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

tomhorsley said:


> I can install fedora linux from scratch and be up and running in the time it takes the tivo box to bootup after applying something like the 14.6 update. In my wildest dreams I couldn't imagine making anything that slow even if I tried .


You are probably installing Fedora on a PC. In that case, it is a lot more powerful than a TiVo. TiVo's are designed to be low power devices that use a little energy as necessary and have very specialized chips for deal with the video.


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## ltxi (Feb 14, 2010)

smbaker said:


> I accidentally powered off the surge suppressor last night and as such had to wait for the box to boot. First time it got stuck on the "a few minutes longer" screen for 20 minutes and I gave up and rebooted it. Fortunately the second time it was only suck on the "a few minutes longer" screen for 8 minutes. By then I was tired and just went to sleep. How does each generation get so much worse than the last?
> 
> This post really has no other purpose than to gripe about the long boot up time.


Yeah....interesting. I have a Sony S1 and an HDXL on the same UPS in my basement workout room. Changed out the UPS a few weeks ago. The S1 was up and running before the HDXL even started to seriously scratch its own butt.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

ltxi said:


> Yeah....interesting. I have a Sony S1 and an HDXL on the same UPS in my basement workout room. Changed out the UPS a few weeks ago. The S1 was up and running before the HDXL even started to seriously scratch its own butt.


What is the size of the hard drive in the S1? The XL has a a 1TB drive so the startup will obviously be longer.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

rainwater said:


> Actually, it has little to do with hacks and more to do with verifying the partitions. But it's nice to spread some FUD around I guess.


Bull. There's not a consumer TV-connected device that takes as long to boot as the TiVo Premiere -- a system supposedly with a CPU not just twice as fast as anything they've used before in a TiVo, but closer to four times as fast -- if they ever decide what to do with the second core. It's got more memory, a faster I/O bus than ever before, and it takes twice as long to boot as anything they've previously produced. TiVo is defying industry trends here.

This is just Linux. There's no real magic here. Heck, the Series 1 booted up faster. Even the DirecTV models booted up faster, and they went through a tedious data download via satellite before they'd let you interact with the UI.

TiVo has managed to do something Microsoft never could: Make Windows 2000 and Windows XP look super-fast.

It's simply sad how bad it has gotten over the years, how little innovation there has been, and how many unfulfilled promises we've been given.

There's hardly been a change in the underlying file/partition structure since the Series 1.

I swear I get into these stupid arguments, I just really want throw the thing in the trash. I feel horrible even supporting this company anymore. I guess I just still hope that there's actually something still there, still coming soon, that'll make up for this disgraceful product. But frankly so far the TiVo Series 3's I have do their job fine. Yeah, it's very disappointing to see absolutely nothing ever come out of TiVo that's a sign of any sort of innovation like the original product has been. But it works. It's often easier just to stay with the status quo -- until something better comes along, at least.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

rainwater said:


> What is the size of the hard drive in the S1? The XL has a a 1TB drive so the startup will obviously be longer.


My Linux fileserver has 2 TB of storage and boots in under a minute even from an unsafe shutdown... Modern filesystems use journaling and generally don't have to perform a full file system scan on boot.

My opinion is the same as some of the others, I think it's a misguided attempt by Tivo to lockdown the box by doing hash checks of the filesystem. The S2 is when they started progressively locking down the box, and that's where it started getting slower the more effort was put into locking it down. Locking down the box serves no purpose other than to prevent the consumer from using the hardware that he purchased. It's a 'feature' we don't need.


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## ltxi (Feb 14, 2010)

rainwater said:


> What is the size of the hard drive in the S1? The XL has a a 1TB drive so the startup will obviously be longer.


Dual 120 GB drives if I remember correctly.....it was a Weaknees upgrade kit. Understand higher capacity drives will boot a bit more slowly all things being equal, but this difference can be measured in eons in computer time. And the S1 is now a solid 10 years old. How long do you think a computer manufacturer could expect to survive if their product was making this kind of negative progress? Ten years ago I would just go off and eat breakfast while my desktop booted up. Today, my travel laptop boots to the last, Norton, sys tray icon and WiFi connected in exactly 45 seconds....admittedly SSD


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

smbaker said:


> I accidentally powered off the surge suppressor last night and as such had to wait for the box to boot. First time it got stuck on the "a few minutes longer" screen for 20 minutes and I gave up and rebooted it. Fortunately the second time it was only suck on the "a few minutes longer" screen for 8 minutes. By then I was tired and just went to sleep. How does each generation get so much worse than the last?
> 
> This post really has no other purpose than to gripe about the long boot up time.


People turn off their computers and most other electronics is turned off when not in use, TiVo was not designed to be turned off so in general this long boot (about 9 minutes) should not be a major problem for the vast majority of people.


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

lessd said:


> People turn off their computers and most other electronics is turned off when not in use, TiVo was not designed to be turned off so in general this long boot (about 9 minutes) should not be a major problem for the vast majority of people.


It is a major problem when Tivo is full of bugs that REQUIRE restarts.

Has anyone else seen a single device that takes this long to boot up in the past 5 years? 10 years? This is another one of those unique Tivo "features."


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

aadam101 said:


> It is a major problem when Tivo is full of bugs that REQUIRE restarts.
> 
> Has anyone else seen a single device that takes this long to boot up in the past 5 years? 10 years? This is another one of those unique Tivo "features."


It's not supposed to have re-boots, would people feel happier if the unwanted re-boot took say 2 minutes. The idea here is for TiVo to fix the re-boot problem, not make the re-boots quicker.


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## yuki-nagato (Nov 2, 2010)

_Ryan_ said:


> It's just an ad. Nothing is loading for 8 minutes, they just want to show you and anyone else in your living room the TiVo logo for a bit. It loads in 10 seconds after the ad ends. Maybe try pressing fast-forward during the next boot to skip it?
> 
> (joke)


The Tivo button skips it instantaneously.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

dswallow said:


> This is just Linux. There's no real magic here. Heck, the Series 1 booted up faster. Even the DirecTV models booted up faster, and they went through a tedious data download via satellite before they'd let you interact with the UI.


That was one reason I posted immediately about my Linux desktop taking 20 seconds... to assure people it has nothing to do with Linux, which is one of the fastest booting OS's around. Like some people suggest, it probably has something to do with DRM and anti-hacking.... all of which are a waste of time (literally, and conceptually) or perhaps just filesystem health checks and such (which should be done in the BACKGROUND).


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

lessd said:


> It's not supposed to have re-boots, would people feel happier if the unwanted re-boot took say 2 minutes. The idea here is for TiVo to fix the re-boot problem, not make the re-boots quicker.


I think perhaps they should fix both.


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## drevilkep (Aug 4, 2010)

aadam101 said:


> It is a major problem when Tivo is full of bugs that REQUIRE restarts.
> 
> Has anyone else seen a single device that takes this long to boot up in the past 5 years? 10 years? This is another one of those unique Tivo "features."


The COX DVR i had took 5-7 minutes to fully become useable after you plugged it back in. About the same as my TiVo HD.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I'm certainly in the who cares? category -- with the caveat about unexpected TiVo OS reboots (luckily, I don't have these) must be annoying to those who have them and must continue to be addressed.

Without an OS reboot- it should simply not be an issue. A power outage, whether though the utility or self-inflicted (as in the OPs case), do not indicate a sense of urgency that TiVo should avail themselves. I would prefer that TiVo spend their resources with avoiding the need for a reboot than shaving time off of the start up time.

After the critical Premiere items are addressed- reboots, HD menus, ect, then they can go ahead and reduce boot time...


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

I suspect it is some file system checking.
This is probably necessary since there is no orderly power off.

I happen to agree with the lack of innovation and poor management.

Clearly, there are no design goals for boot time or operation speed.

Rarely do you get a well designed good performing product by accident 

Too bad, you cannot put an SSD in one of these 

- Rich


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## orangeboy (Apr 19, 2004)

jrtroo said:


> I'm certainly in the who cares? category -- with the caveat about unexpected TiVo OS reboots (luckily, I don't have these) must be annoying to those who have them and must continue to be addressed.
> 
> Without an OS reboot- it should simply not be an issue. A power outage, whether though the utility or self-inflicted (as in the OPs case), do not indicate a sense of urgency that TiVo should avail themselves. I would prefer that TiVo spend their resources with avoiding the need for a reboot than shaving time off of the start up time.
> 
> After the critical Premiere items are addressed- reboots, HD menus, ect, then they can go ahead and reduce boot time...


+1


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

RichB said:


> I suspect it is some file system checking.
> This is probably necessary since there is no orderly power off.
> 
> I happen to agree with the lack of innovation and poor management.
> ...


I don't think a SSD would reduce the boot time by much, for my computer it took 50% off but does not change the BIOS check time.


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

lessd said:


> I don't think a SSD would reduce the boot time by much, for my computer it took 50% off but does not change the BIOS check time.


My guess is it would be 10x.

Not that it matters because they are too small and not well suited for DVR that write all the time.

Now and SSD would be great if I could tell my TiVo to use my ReadyNAS for video storage. Now that would kick butt.

- Rich


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

RichB said:


> I suspect it is some file system checking.
> This is probably necessary since there is no orderly power off.


This is a file system designed by TiVo that's supposed to handle ungraceful shutdown without an issue... at least the partitions that contain video content -- not the OS/file system, which is pretty standard -- and comparatively a tiny portion of the drive.

Plus that there are kickstart codes specifically to cause a file system check and recovery would seem to indicate that's unlikely going on as a matter of course during a normal boot.

If the system never needed to reboot, few would really care about the super-lengthy boot time, but it's aggravating as hell that it takes so long when you've an installer in the house trying to get CableCARDs working OK. And then there's just the typical power outage, UPS-protected or not, a lengthy enough outage eventually will shut the unit down.

It is just sad how many different ways TiVo is screwing everything up these days.


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## cgomel (Jan 19, 2011)

I think it loads quite fast. 

Corey
sent from my commodore 64


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## lujan (May 24, 2010)

cgomel said:


> I think it loads quite fast.
> 
> Corey
> sent from my commodore 64


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

smbaker said:


> I think it's a misguided attempt by Tivo to lockdown the box by doing hash checks of the filesystem.


they are locking down the box and the long bootup is all about that, agreed.

But why is it misguided when they want MSOs to make deals to deploy these boxes and security would be a BIG selling point.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

ZeoTiVo said:


> But why is it misguided when they want MSOs to make deals to deploy these boxes and security would be a BIG selling point.


Because security at the expense of function is bad. Really bad.

You can be secure, and not have a wait time that's probably 30 to 40 times longer than necessary.

Take the PS3 for example... turn it on and it's up and usable in maybe a dozen seconds. And the only reason it's "hackable" right now (to the relatively minimal extent it is hackable at all) is because Sony did something really stupid and used a constant instead of a random number in key generation.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

cgomel said:


> sent from my commodore 64


You must still be using the cassette tape drive. You need to invest in the floppy drive. Much faster.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

dswallow said:


> Because security at the expense of function is bad. Really bad. You can be secure, and not have a wait time that's probably 30 to 40 times longer than necessary. Take the PS3 for example... turn it on and it's up and usable in maybe a dozen seconds.


Agreed. It simply shouldn't take that long to verify what it is about to run. Any additional checks should be done at an extremely low priority AFTER the unit is up and running. Of course, we don't really know exactly what they are doing, but given the "speed" of the rest of the TiVo Premiere, I have little confidence it is being done the best it could have been.


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## Audiovidman (Jan 21, 2011)

cgomel said:


> I think it loads quite fast.
> 
> Corey
> sent from my commodore 64


Ha, Ha....


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> But why is it misguided when they want MSOs to make deals to deploy these boxes and security would be a BIG selling point.


Misguided because there has got to be a more efficient way to do it. Of course, I understand that they're fighting a battle against very clever hackers trying to modify the OS. It just seems like they took a rather obvious brute-force approach rather than seek something more elegant.

For example, perhaps do the security check in the background in the general case, and then force a reboot to do a full drive signature check if a fault is detected. Optimize for the common case, which is an un-tampered-with Tivo. Ensure reboot within a guaranteed time bound on a compromised Tivo.

I'd really like to know why it's so gosh-darn important that this box is impenetrable? Is it a requirement from cable labs to secure the CCI bit? A requirement to protect the encrypted HD data? or Tivo wanting to ensure nobody can use an alternate source of guide data?


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## TheWGP (Oct 26, 2007)

smbaker said:


> I'd really like to know why it's so gosh-darn important that this box is impenetrable? Is it a requirement from cable labs to secure the CCI bit? A requirement to protect the encrypted HD data? or Tivo wanting to ensure nobody can use an alternate source of guide data?


Probably a bit of all three... but mostly, I suspect, just Tivo wanting to protect their business model, which is under threat in all those areas.

Just food for thought, though: the PS3 was secure for MUCH longer than any Tivo model ever produced was. I'm pretty certain that making it LOOK like they're doing something is the name of the game - surely there's some folks at Tivo left who realize they're not going to do jack to stop hackers. It's crucial to their business model, though, that it a) deter "casual hacking" from Joe Schmoe who doesn't so much as replace a HDD and b) keep relationships with CableLabs & media cos. from degrading further. Remember, media companies and cable companies are who Tivo's REAL target customers are, by their own admission.


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

cgomel said:


> I think it loads quite fast.
> 
> Corey
> sent from my commodore 64


Wow, the new commodore 64-bit OS 

Seriously, a windows version based on the same technology would be nice to replace the abysmally slow web interface that takes up to an hour to schedule a program.

- Rich


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