# New Update



## harveyvicky2006 (Oct 4, 2007)

I recevied a update on my series 2 tivo today, 9.3 software, main page now has find programs movie down loads and video casts This was on my 540 series the 240 series hasn't received it yet.


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## garypratt (Dec 31, 2002)

I also received this update today. Unfortunately it has stopped the TiVo that received the update from receiving transfers from my other TiVo (which is still using the old version).

I posted a question about this in the TiVo Home Media Features & TiVoToGo forum with the title "Transfers not working".

I'm wondering whether this new update is the cause of the problem....


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

garypratt said:


> I also received this update today. Unfortunately it has stopped the TiVo that received the update from receiving transfers from my other TiVo (which is still using the old version).
> 
> I posted a question about this in the TiVo Home Media Features & TiVoToGo forum with the title "Transfers not working".
> 
> I'm wondering whether this new update is the cause of the problem....


You may want to try forcing a connection from the box that was updated.


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## garypratt (Dec 31, 2002)

Thanks for the suggestion!

I had already tried forcing a connection on the newly upgraded TiVo. It connected successfully, but that didn't resolve the issue.

Per a suggestion in the other thread, I forced a restart of the TiVo which received the new upgrade and that did the trick. I should have done that before I posted my question, since it usually takes care of most problems.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

A couple of things I noticed with 9.3 (just showed up on one of my boxes overnight):

* Is a remote TiVo NPL slightly faster to appear?
* The TiVo recorded a suggestion and then stayed on that channel when it was done instead of reverting back to its previous channel, as has normally been the case. Since the Channel was Nickelodian I know that it was only there for the suggestion.

BTW, I'm having no trouble transferring from the 9.3 box to a 9.1 box. Are both of your TiVos at least at 9.1?


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## fishbate (Sep 18, 2005)

Does 9.3 fix the letterbox bug?...that is, all wide screen programs are currently letterboxed, even when I set the Tivo to 16:9 aspect ratio. I've got upgrades blocked and don't want to upgrade to 9.3 if the bugs are not fixed. Thanks


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I got it as well. My Toshiba DVD TiVo is considerably snappier then it's ever been. (that thing is normally dog slow, now it's not half bad) Beyond that I haven't done much testing. I'll try out the letterbox thing in a few minutes and let you know if it works.

Dan


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Doesn't Tivo usually announce an ''update priority" page before rolling out the update, or is this the limited beta roll-out stage?


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## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

Usually it's at http://www.tivo.com/priority, but right now that still redirects to the 9.1/9.2a completion page.


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## dwit (May 5, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> I got it as well. My Toshiba DVD TiVo is considerably snappier then it's ever been. (that thing is normally dog slow, now it's not half bad) Beyond that I haven't done much testing. I'll try out the letterbox thing in a few minutes and let you know if it works.
> 
> Dan


After the 9.3 update, my SDH 400 is noticeably slower when selecting a show from the now playing list until the "program menu" screen shows.

Funny because if I press the play button from the NPL, the show plays immediately. It's just when I press select from the now playing list, it seems to take a few seconds before the program menu shows.

In fact, I just compared it to my *non 9.3* updated 540x. It takes the 540x a second or less to select from npl. Took the Tosh shh400 about 5 sec. The Toshiba has a 400g drive. the 540x has a 300g drive. I'll see how the 540 acts after it receives 9.3.

For the times I've had them, I have never noticed the sdh400 to be slower than the 540x. In fact, imo, it's always been a little faster. Although, I do remember after an update a year or so ago, it was extremely sluggish to change channels, but that was corrected on a subsuquent update. Might have been 2 years ago though, as I don't remember having the 540 to compare it to at the time. I've been using the 540 a little over 2 years.


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## mrmike (May 2, 2001)

Often after updates, the database is reindexing etc. That can make the box a little sluggish for a day or so, depending on what else it's doing in the foreground. YMMV.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

steve614 said:


> Doesn't Tivo usually announce an ''update priority" page before rolling out the update, or is this the limited beta roll-out stage?


The priority page is a further stage in the software release process. It will be available in 2 weeks or so.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

As suggested above, I would wait 2-3 days before assessing the performance of any new software version.

With many new software updates, the guide data must be reindexed, and that slows performance -- sometimes dramatically so -- for up to 72 hours.


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## h00ligan (Nov 29, 2007)

hmm, i wonder when this will roll out to everyone.


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## TromboneKenny (Mar 28, 2003)

TiVo better not be pushing updates during March Madness. That's not cool. That's on par with rollouts before the Superbowl or World Series.

If I miss something or the picture doesn't look good, I want to blame CBS, not TiVo! (I'll blame the Illini not being there on free throws.)


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## HPD (Feb 25, 2008)

TromboneKenny said:


> TiVo better not be pushing updates during March Madness. That's not cool. That's on par with rollouts before the Superbowl or World Series.
> 
> If I miss something or the picture doesn't look good, I want to blame CBS, not TiVo! (I'll blame the Illini not being there on free throws.)


I have had Tivo for almost nine years. There has never been an update that caused me to miss a show or have a bad picture. Your issues were not software related.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

I noticed something new this morning. With 9.3 you can begin viewing Unbox content before it has completed downloading (there appears to be some sort of check that enough has been downloaded relative to your bandwidth to allow it to finish wihtout interruption). While the S3/HD platforms had this in 9.2, it's new on S2s.

And it appears that the suggestions channel bug I mentioned yesterday was a one-time issue.


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## TivoZorro (Jul 16, 2000)

TromboneKenny said:


> TiVo better not be pushing updates during March Madness. That's not cool. That's on par with rollouts before the Superbowl or World Series.
> 
> If I miss something or the picture doesn't look good, I want to blame CBS, not TiVo! (I'll blame the Illini not being there on free throws.)


Actually I'd prefer to get the update as soon as possible. The sooner I can get the MRV problem fixed (if they fixed it) the better. Of course, since I want it, none of my boxes have gotten it. I'll probably be last on the list. Going away on a job on Monday and won't be back till Friday so I kind of wanted to get it installed and started working before I left. But I don't want to miss a show either due to something in the software.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

pdhenry said:


> I noticed something new this morning. With 9.3 you can begin viewing Unbox content before it has completed downloading (there appears to be some sort of check that enough has been downloaded relative to your bandwidth to allow it to finish wihtout interruption). While the S3/HD platforms had this in 9.2, it's new on S2s.
> 
> And it appears that the suggestions channel bug I mentioned yesterday was a one-time issue.


Do you know if widescreen videos transferred from the PC will now display correctly on a Series 2 connected to a widescreen TV? In 9.2, they display with black bars on top and bottom, even if the video is a 16:9 aspect ratio (which should fill the screen).
EDIT: oops, just saw that fishbate asked about that same thing a few posts up. Hopefully someone knows.  Dan203, did you try it out?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Looks like they went the opposite direction in this release. I just tried a 16:9 video and it played full screen regardless of the TV and display settings on the TiVo. I don't get why this is so hard for them to get right. If the TV is set to 16:9 play it full screen. If it's set to 4:3 then play it letterboxed or cropped as selected by the user. At least it's better then the original release which played a weird double image when trying to play 16:9 content and the only way to fix it was to change the MPEG header to trick it into thinking it was 4:3

Dan


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> Looks like they went the opposite direction in this release. I just tried a 16:9 video and it played full screen regardless of the TV and display settings on the TiVo. I don't get why this is so hard for them to get right. If the TV is set to 16:9 play it full screen. If it's set to 4:3 then play it letterboxed or cropped as selected by the user. At least it's better then the original release which played a weird double image when trying to play 16:9 content and the only way to fix it was to change the MPEG header to trick it into thinking it was 4:3
> 
> Dan


Well at least this way it works for me.  Thanks for testing it.

The funny thing is that it WAS working perfectly on my TiVo Series 2 before 9.1(?). On a 4:3 TV it displayed 16:9 videos in letterbox, on a 16:9 TV it displayed it fullscreen. I don't know how they managed to screw it up.


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## larkor (Mar 3, 2008)

Has anybody run "repeat guided setup" to see if dtv converter boxes are supported?


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

pdhenry said:


> I noticed something new this morning. With 9.3 you can begin viewing Unbox content before it has completed downloading.


:up::up::up::up::up::up::up::up:


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## vasilemj (Jul 2, 2002)

fishbate said:


> I've got upgrades blocked and don't want to upgrade to 9.3 if the bugs are not fixed. Thanks


fishbate, what do you mean that you have the ability to block upgrades? How do you accomplish this?


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## Da Goon (Oct 22, 2006)

vasilemj said:


> fishbate, what do you mean that you have the ability to block upgrades? How do you accomplish this?


You pull your drive, boot with a linux disk and use the "bootpage" utility to write a boot parameter (upgradesoftware=false) to your tivo drive. fishbate's box is most likely hacked.

This isn't really a good idea to do on a standalone box, since it won't stop your tivo from downloading the new software, and it will reboot every night at 2am in a vain attempt to install it. Also, you will eventually stop getting guide data if you're running an old software version, since tivo will be sending you encryption keys meant for the new software, which aren't necessarily compatible with the old.


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## timstack8969 (May 14, 2004)

I still have 9.1 on Single Tuner series 2 TIVO.


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## sparklygurl2007 (Mar 15, 2008)

My TiVo is still sitting at 7.2


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

I'm surprised there isn't a priority list up by now.


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## petew (Jul 31, 2003)

timstack8969 said:


> I still have 9.1 on Single Tuner series 2 TIVO.


9.1 is the current release for all but the S3 and TivoHD



sparklygurl2007 said:


> My TiVo is still sitting at 7.2


Is that deliberate? Unless updates are disabled you should be upgraded to 9.1 by now.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

BlackBetty said:


> I'm surprised there isn't a priority list up by now.


It's only been about a week or so since v9.3x has been out hasn't it? IIRC historically it's been at least two weeks before the priority page becomes available...I think I remember almost four weeks on one upgrade.


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

I want my 9.3 priority page now!


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## Stu_Bee (Jan 15, 2002)

petew said:


> 9.1 is the current release for all but the S3 and TivoHD


So the others with it in this thread are running a 'future release'.....beta....?
I guess it don't matter what you label it....I'd like to test out the 9.3 on my S2 to see if the fixed the letterbox & the shakey Amazon videos.


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## esb1981 (Dec 2, 2007)

Does anyone who has this know if it has fixed the Alternating Tuners problem? That one is so annoying.


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## rlcarr (Jan 18, 2003)

My S2DT has picked up 9.3 as well, though I don't recall seeing any message about a service update. Anyone notice the ToDo list being rendered in a smaller font than before?


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

I didn't get a message when I was upgraded, and I also noticed the smaller font (although there are still 8 items per page).


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

esb1981 said:


> Does anyone who has this know if it has fixed the Alternating Tuners problem? That one is so annoying.


IIRC TiVoJerry specifically mentioned that the tuner issue was going to be addressed with this upgrade.

Can anyone that's received the upgrade verify that? Basically TiVo was switching tuners when a back-to-back recording was scheduled on the same channel. With the upgrade it should remain on the same tuner.


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## erikg (Aug 20, 2007)

It seems the priority page is up for 9.3 but only series 2.
No series 3....... I can take a hint....


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

erikg said:


> It seems the priority page is up for 9.3 but only series 2.
> No series 3....... I can take a hint....


Well...Series2 folks have been waiting a long, long time, so we'll stand aside...for now.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> Looks like they went the opposite direction in this release. I just tried a 16:9 video and it played full screen regardless of the TV and display settings on the TiVo. I don't get why this is so hard for them to get right. If the TV is set to 16:9 play it full screen. If it's set to 4:3 then play it letterboxed or cropped as selected by the user. At least it's better then the original release which played a weird double image when trying to play 16:9 content and the only way to fix it was to change the MPEG header to trick it into thinking it was 4:3


I just tried to play a 16:9 video that plays correctly on my Series 3 TiVo and a widescreen TV - it STILL adds the letterbox bars on my Series 2.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

richsadams said:


> Well...Series2 folks have been waiting a long, long time, so we'll stand aside...for now.


Just to be clear, the Series 3 and TiVoHD units have also started to receive the 9.3 version. My Series 3 was updated with it last night.
See thread about that in the Series 3 forum.


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## bobsoron (Jan 24, 2002)

Just curious whether anyone who's received 9.3 has noticed basic bugs being fixed. 

When you cancel a recording in the To Do List, does the Tivo stay where you were in the list chronologically or is the bug that returned you to the beginning of the To Do List still there?

Similarly, when viewing, adding, and cancelling shows in Wishlists, does the display return to the correct spot or to the top of the list of Wishlists?

Does the Series 1 remote again work? I expect to be able to see the Guide and cancel a recording using the Clear button, features that were bizarrely removed in 9.1.

When you're using a search function and the cursor is in the list of titles, does pressing Clear return the cursor to the alphanumeric field and clear the entry line?

Does it again cache the Wishlists when you display them all? Or after going into an information screen and then returning to the View All Wishlists display, does it take a minute or so?

Thanks very much for any info.


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## Warhawks (Apr 9, 2007)

I also noticed I got gotten this update about 2-3 days ago for my Tivo HD. I have found that my "To Do List" is not at the bottom of the page rather than the 4th item down...as well as the titles displaying it has to do are in a smaller font so there might be a couple more on each page which means less scrolling. Been busy all week so I can't tell anything else right now.


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## NJ_HB (Mar 21, 2007)

I noticed that there when you choose a show to record it now list the 'episode' number as part of the description.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

NJ_HB said:


> I noticed that there when you choose a show to record it now list the 'episode' number as part of the description.


Those episode numbers never make any sense to me.


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## andyf (Feb 23, 2000)

Episode numbers mostly are 3 digits. The first digit is which season it is part of and the second two digits is which episode within the season the show is. So episode 305 is the 5th episode in the 3rd season.

It's not always like this though. HBO's John Adams just shows 1 through 7, presumably because it's a miniseries.


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## Einselen (Apr 25, 2006)

Signed up for priority got the update yesterday doing a force connection, rebooted my box since I wanted to take a looksie, also Was not watching TV then and I have been burned by waiting for an update to install when I was in the middle of watching a show at 2 AM, well long story short, my TiVo is now in a loop and gets to the Just wait a minute screen, hangs there then reboots. Kickstart isn't working so it is a pain especially since I just upgraded the drive with a 500 GB. Good news is if the drive is failing it is clearly under warranty and I have already prepped myself to losing all the shows on the drive due to a re-bake or warranty repair.

Should I start the new thread that states that the TiVo update broke my TiVo?


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## dwgsp (Aug 28, 2005)

I received the new update last night on both of my units (S2ST and S2DT), and so far all is well. The speed when I use MRV to browse between units is greatly improved (thanks Tivo!!!).

Also I was nervous about pyTivo compatibility but it still works fine. I have not checked to see if the bugs that were causing pyTivo problems are still there.

/Don


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## FrodoB (Jan 3, 2005)

Our two S2s have gotten the update (not sure on the S3; next time I'll be using it is likely this evening), and I can say anecdotally that clicking "Live TV" today on the S2 in the bedroom was several orders of magnitude faster (probably not instantaneous but it sure seemed like it). So at least for that, bravo TiVo. 

(We haven't experienced [or at least noticed] anything like the problems that some people were seeing other than the slowness in adding wishlist/season passes and the "go back to the top of the list when hitting Left" bugs, so I'd be a lousy "is this fixed?" test case.)


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

MickeS said:


> I just tried to play a 16:9 video that plays correctly on my Series 3 TiVo and a widescreen TV - it STILL adds the letterbox bars on my Series 2.


Which Series2 model are you refering to?


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

HDTiVo said:


> Which Series2 model are you refering to?


The 230 model. Before 9.1 it always displayed it correctly for me.


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## Whittaker (Oct 11, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> My Toshiba DVD TiVo is considerably snappier then it's ever been. (that thing is normally dog slow, now it's not half bad)


Mine too, so far.

An amazing transformation. Both of my Toshiba SD-H400s have been as slow as molasses for a number of the past updates, and my Series 2.5 Toshiba RS-TX20 acts like the signal from my remote is being bounced off the moon first.

If the other two turn out like the first SD-H400 upgrade, I'll be ecstatic.

My only complaint, so far, is why did they shrink the font in the 'TO DO LIST' ?


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## dwit (May 5, 2004)

Whittaker said:


> Mine too, so far.
> 
> An amazing transformation. Both of my Toshiba SD-H400s have been as slow as molasses for a number of the past updates, and my Series 2.5 Toshiba RS-TX20 acts like the signal from my remote is being bounced off the moon first.
> 
> ...


That certainly is odd. I never considered my sdh40 slow, especially compared to my s2 540x. Since 9.3 update 2 weeks ago, it is now a 5 sec wait from when I press select for a show on the npl(or group list) until the program screen displays. This was never the case before. That is really the only instance in which it is slow.

If I just press the play button for a show highlighted on NPL or group list, it plays immediately. It's just when negotiating it's way to the program screen that it's extremely slow. This is the only machine that has received an update so far.

I have since deactivated the sdh400(last Sat) and transferred the sub to an S2DT that I had been saving.


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## Solver (Feb 17, 2005)

Whittaker said:


> My only complaint, so far, is why did they shrink the font in the 'TO DO LIST' ?


TiVo wanted to give more information per line.
It is harder to see now.


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## NJ_HB (Mar 21, 2007)

It does seem too small and not as pleasing to the eye, IMO.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

NJ_HB said:


> It does seem too small and not as pleasing to the eye, IMO.


It is unnecessarily small - especially for us older folks. That's the only problem I've found so far with this update though.


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## TivoZorro (Jul 16, 2000)

RoyK said:


> It is unnecessarily small - especially for us older folks. That's the only problem I've found so far with this update though.


And for us young folks with vision problems. I can barely see it, have to squint. Envision getting some headaches from this. Will have to spend less time viewing it than I normally do. Don't know what I would do if I had a smaller TV than my 36-incher.


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

I LOVE 9.3!!!!!!!! Both of my S2DT's are blazingly fast now. Awesome job TiVo!!! oh and progressive downloads rock. Ordered a movie from amazon unbox last night and started watching it a few minutes after I had ordered it.


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## NJ_HB (Mar 21, 2007)

BlackBetty said:


> I LOVE 9.3!!!!!!!! Both of my S2DT's are blazingly fast now. Awesome job TiVo!!! oh and progressive downloads rock. Ordered a movie from amazon unbox last night and started watching it a few minutes after I had ordered it.


Yes, thanks TiVo, you deserve around of applause for the increase in speed all around, take a bow.:up:


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

Solver said:


> TiVo wanted to give more information per line.
> It is harder to see now.


There's the same amount of info, which is why it's so puzzling.
Maybe this is simply a bug - maybe this wasn't meant to be included in this build, but is part of a future project and they figured they'd just leave it in anyway.


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## logicman1 (Jan 10, 2008)

MickeS said:


> There's the same amount of info...


Haven't gotten the update yet and was just about to ask if at least it provided more info. Oh well.


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## mchief (Sep 10, 2005)

RoyK said:


> It is unnecessarily small - especially for us older folks. That's the only problem I've found so far with this update though.


You guys would complain if you were hung with a new rope


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

Einselen said:


> Signed up for priority got the update yesterday doing a force connection, rebooted my box since I wanted to take a looksie, also Was not watching TV then and I have been burned by waiting for an update to install when I was in the middle of watching a show at 2 AM, well long story short, my TiVo is now in a loop and gets to the Just wait a minute screen, hangs there then reboots. Kickstart isn't working so it is a pain especially since I just upgraded the drive with a 500 GB. Good news is if the drive is failing it is clearly under warranty and I have already prepped myself to losing all the shows on the drive due to a re-bake or warranty repair.
> 
> Should I start the new thread that states that the TiVo update broke my TiVo?


Bummer. It sounds like a HDD issue, but before doing anything else, I would install the original drive to ensure that's what it is.

You mentioned "kickstarts" not working. Are you unable to get a KS to run or did whichever one you used just not make any difference? KS57 wouldn't do anything to correct data corruption. KS58 may help but if you haven't tried it, you may want to try KS52 to see if the download was corrupted. That will reinstall the software on the alternate partition.

If your drive was borderline the upgrade may have sent it over the edge. You can check it by running one of the disk diagnostic programs. If it comes out okay you could use Instant Cake to restore it to the original settings or WinMFS if, again, you kept your original drive.

OR (of course) it may be that the drive is just bad and needs a warranty replacement.

Best of luck and let us know how things turn out.


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## Einselen (Apr 25, 2006)

richsadams said:


> Bummer. It sounds like a HDD issue, but before doing anything else, I would install the original drive to ensure that's what it is.
> 
> You mentioned "kickstarts" not working. Are you unable to get a KS to run or did whichever one you used just not make any difference? KS57 wouldn't do anything to correct data corruption. KS58 may help but if you haven't tried it, you may want to try KS52 to see if the download was corrupted. That will reinstall the software on the alternate partition.
> 
> ...


First I did a reboot, powered down for a few min and then plugged the TiVo back in. Then I did KS57, then 58, 52 and finally 56. That also failed so I unplugged the TiVo and left it unplugged all today. I am going to try a kickstart again see if I can get it working. Next step is to check the original drive works and then run diagnostic tools on the upgraded drive. Like I said it is odd because the drive is only a few months old but drive can fail anytime so I might have just gotten unlucky.


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

Try pulling the wireless adapter and/or cablecards if it has either before plugging it back in. That worked for someone else recently.


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## Einselen (Apr 25, 2006)

CuriousMark said:


> Try pulling the wireless adapter and/or cablecards if it has either before plugging it back in. That worked for someone else recently.


Thanks I forgot that was going to be one of my steps, removing the wireless adapter and coax cable in (It is a ST S2)


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

Einselen said:


> First I did a reboot, powered down for a few min and then plugged the TiVo back in. Then I did KS57, then 58, 52 and finally 56. That also failed so I unplugged the TiVo and left it unplugged all today. I am going to try a kickstart again see if I can get it working. Next step is to check the original drive works and then run diagnostic tools on the upgraded drive. Like I said it is odd because the drive is only a few months old but drive can fail anytime so I might have just gotten unlucky.


Sound good. Historically there have always been a flurry of reported problems after every upgrade. And almost always replacing the hard drive has been the cure. I tend to agree with the the notion that the upgrades, re-indexing, etc. tend to cause borderline drives over the edge.

Keep us posted! :up:

BTW, KS56 no longer works.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

mchief said:


> You guys would complain if you were hung with a new rope


Just an observation. Be thankful you have great vision. Many of us don't.
My only real complaint about this update for S2s (so far) is that it took six months to get things back where they should have been all along.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

RoyK said:


> My only real complaint about this update for S2s (so far) is that it took six months to get things back where they should have been all along.


What if this is As Good As It Gets?

All I want is a normal TiVo that doesn´t go crazy on me.


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## wblynch (Aug 13, 2003)

RoyK said:


> Just an observation. Be thankful you have great vision. Many of us don't.
> My only real complaint about this update for S2s (so far) is that it took six months to get things back where they should have been all along.


Why can't Tivo just build in a customization function to let us choose the font style and size? Shouldn't be difficult...

We should be able to customize the menu backgrounds and colors too.


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## logicman1 (Jan 10, 2008)

wblynch said:


> Why can't Tivo just build in a customization function to let us choose the font style and size? Shouldn't be difficult...
> 
> We should be able to customize the menu backgrounds and colors too.


I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that feature to be added:



TiVoPony said:


> ... Regarding the specific features you've asked about, the free space indicator is certainly the longest running request. Longevity does not equal priority though. If that single feature would have sold more boxes and increased customer satisfaction for a significant portion of our subscribers, it would have been added years ago. It may get in there one day, but when prioritized against other things, it's often pretty low on the list. ...
> Cheers,
> Pony


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## timstack8969 (May 14, 2004)

9.3 seems to have fixed the "Blue Screen" problem with my single Tuner 240(Using seiral)


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## ntserver545 (Oct 20, 2007)

Does the 9.3 Update fixed channel 0 problems? Channel 0 no longer works since 9.0 updates came out. Had to roll it back to version 7.3 to use it


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Wow - browsing the remote TiVo's Now Playing List is now faster than browsing the local NPL used to be. :up:


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## michael new (Jan 13, 2006)

What is the exact update were looking for? One of my S2 single tuners now says 9.3-01-2-540 thats not new is it? I never got confirmation.


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## timstack8969 (May 14, 2004)

I have 9.3 on my 240 series and also never received a message about the update but I did sign up on the priority page.


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## Solver (Feb 17, 2005)

michael new said:


> What is the exact update were looking for? One of my S2 single tuners now says 9.3-01-2-540 thats not new is it? I never got confirmation.


Believe it or not, TiVo snuck in a 9.3 update that adds progressive downloads, has speed improvements, changes fonts, rearranges functions and fixes bugs, and they didn't tell you about it.

The update is good. Starting a new policy of not informing owners that their TiVo has been changed is bad.


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## michael new (Jan 13, 2006)

Solver said:


> Believe it or not, TiVo snuck in an update that adds progressive downloads, has speed improvements, changes fonts, rearranges functions and fixes bugs, and they didn't tell you about it.
> 
> The update is good. Starting a new policy of not informing owners that their TiVo has been changed is bad.


so these software numbers are correct? What about the numbers for DT?


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## TivoZorro (Jul 16, 2000)

It took me 20 minutes last night with 9.3 compared to two hours with 9.1 to complete a task I do every week. Check my Wishlists, my To Do List and go through Record by Time to see if everything I want to record is going to be recorded. A great improvement!


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

michael new said:


> so these software numbers are correct? What about the numbers for DT?


My S2DT version is 9.3-01-2-649. Never got a message on either box but I did see the "pending restart" status on the DT a couple of days after I signed up for the priority list.


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## Solver (Feb 17, 2005)

I want to thank TiVo for making it so we don't have to press Info each time we want to see the episode number of any one show. Now we can move up and down a description of shows in a series and very quickly figure out the order of episodes. This is a great feature!

Still surprised about your decision of not messaging TiVo owners after you make a major change to the software on their TiVos.


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## jdscalf0102 (Jun 28, 2005)

One more thing I've noticed if you transfer much, you can now transfer to several units from one at the same time. This tends to slow the transfers down but if you have time and are willing to come back later, it's there. After last year's update you could only transfer between two units at a time. If you tried from a third it would give you an error message. Once the two units had completed the transfer you could (if paying attention) start your transfer from the first unit. Also viewing what's available on other units is much faster now. 
And all this is important to me because my kids don't have cable in thier rooms and just Tivo's that they can transfer from the common room or down stairs into thier rooms. This way they don't have live cable and I control the content.
Everyone is going to be happier that this has been corrected. Thanks Tivo!


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

jdscalf0102 said:


> One more thing I've noticed if you transfer much, you can now transfer to several units from one at the same time.


Awesome. :up::up::up:

Looking forward to transfer speed and MRV browsing performance figures.


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## wtb (Dec 15, 2000)

> Starting a new policy of not informing owners that their TiVo has been changed is bad.


This is especially true when I get messages every few days about channel changes that I don't receive (premium or higher tier channels).


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

jdscalf0102 said:


> One more thing I've noticed if you transfer much, you can now transfer to several units from one at the same time....


Not exactly_ - at least with my 3 SD-H400s_

Pre 9.1
Go to box A and request transfer of a show FROM box C - Transfer starts immediately.
Go to box B and request transfer of (_same or different_) show FROM box C - Transfer starts immediately.

9.1
Go to box A and request transfer of a show FROM box C - Transfer starts immediately
Go to box B and request transfer of (_same or different_) show FROM box C - Get an error. The todo list states that the (source) box was unavailable or could not be found. The transfer request is aborted.

9.3
Go to box A and request transfer of a show FROM box C - Transfer starts immediately
Go to box B and request transfer of (_same or different_) show FROM box C - Transfer is queued in box B's todo list and starts when the transfer from C to A has completed.

I'll try to transfer different programs from one machine to two others later this morning and edit this post to report the results.

It isn't as good with 9.3 as it was pre 9.1 but at least its a whole lot better than 9.1.

-------------
Edit: All 3 machines above are S2. I doubt that things are different with S3 machines but of course that's possible.

Edit 2: I edited the above to include my results with two different programs. Edited text in underlined italics.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

HDTiVo said:


> Awesome. :up::up::up:
> 
> Looking forward to transfer speed and MRV browsing performance figures.


For me transfer speed (S2-S2) seems to be the same or perhaps a bit faster. I'm measuring it now - will edit post in a few minutes with the numbers.

Browsing performance is now nearly instantaneous! - less than a second to display the Now Playing of another machine, same to display the contents of a group on another machine.

=========
Edit: Transfer of a 30 minute show recorded at best quality over a wired network took 11 minutes 40 seconds. File size was 1.29 GBytes.
Transfer rate 1.84 MBytes/sec if I did my math correctly. That's about the same as I was getting before 9.3


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

RoyK said:


> For me transfer speed (S2-S2) seems to be the same or perhaps a bit faster. I'm measuring it now - will edit post in a few minutes with the numbers.
> 
> Browsing performance is now nearly instantaneous! - less than a second to display the Now Playing of another machine, same to display the contents of a group on another machine.


Awesome again. Post when you´ve done a few transfers under different circumstances with various qualities, if you have time.:up:


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## natallica (Jan 10, 2005)

bobsoron said:


> Just curious whether anyone who's received 9.3 has noticed basic bugs being fixed.
> 
> When you cancel a recording in the To Do List, does the Tivo stay where you were in the list chronologically or is the bug that returned you to the beginning of the To Do List still there?


Still happens...same with the 'Recently Deleted' folder if you restore a show.

-- N


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

natallica said:


> Still happens...same with the 'Recently Deleted' folder if you restore a show.
> 
> -- N


For me it stays in the same location if you cancel a recording in the to-do list but not if you restore one from the Recently Deleted folder.


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## jdscalf0102 (Jun 28, 2005)

RoyK said:


> Not exactly_ - at least with my 3 SD-H400s_
> 
> I have a mix of one HD and the rest are S2. Guess they could work different.


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## jdscalf0102 (Jun 28, 2005)

RoyK said:


> Not exactly_ - at least with my 3 SD-H400s_
> 
> Pre 9.1
> Go to box A and request transfer of a show FROM box C - Transfer starts immediately.
> ...


I tried to transfer the same show and it put one unit on hold. Good observation. Still I agree that it's a lot better.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

Some people still use tivo with smaller TV sets. Some people have better vision then others.

I'd settle for the same option cell phones, sirius recievers... have. Just offer a choice of a normal font or a larger font, with fewer lines.



wblynch said:


> Why can't Tivo just build in a customization function to let us choose the font style and size? Shouldn't be difficult...
> 
> We should be able to customize the menu backgrounds and colors too.


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## Einselen (Apr 25, 2006)

Einselen said:


> Signed up for priority got the update yesterday doing a force connection, rebooted my box since I wanted to take a looksie, also Was not watching TV then and I have been burned by waiting for an update to install when I was in the middle of watching a show at 2 AM, well long story short, my TiVo is now in a loop and gets to the Just wait a minute screen, hangs there then reboots. Kickstart isn't working so it is a pain especially since I just upgraded the drive with a 500 GB. Good news is if the drive is failing it is clearly under warranty and I have already prepped myself to losing all the shows on the drive due to a re-bake or warranty repair.
> 
> Should I start the new thread that states that the TiVo update broke my TiVo?


Just to update, I have installed the stock drive and things booted up ok. I have downloaded the DOS seagate tools from the website and will check my upgraded drive as soon as I can borrow my roommate's computer (I have two laptops and a desktop with only SATA connectors). From there I can either get the warranty exchange on the drive (Seagate has the 5 year warranty) or I will just IC the drive again. The stock drive is still waiting the 9.3 update and I need to check my other TiVo to see if it has received 9.3 which I am guessing it should as I added it to the priority list same time as the upgraded TiVo.


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## SkeeterTV (Oct 27, 2005)

jdscalf0102 said:


> And all this is important to me because my kids don't have cable in thier rooms and just Tivo's that they can transfer from the common room or down stairs into thier rooms. This way they don't have live cable and I control the content.
> Everyone is going to be happier that this has been corrected. Thanks Tivo!


Interesting way to control what you're kids have access to... kudos!


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## ldudek (Sep 2, 2007)

Guys, I've kind of skimmed through this thread and what I saw was that the list for requesting install of the 9.3 update is only limited to S2 users (understandable).

I just want to check in to see if that has changed. I transferred 24 1 hour programs from my TiVo HD to my desktop and I have the TiVo Desktop Plus. Estimated time of transfer was 64 hours.

I stopped after two days because some of the shows were repeats but still I had a good 10 shows to go.

So if you have a S3 or TiVo HD, is it still "you'll get it when we give it to you?"


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

Did someone say that the latest upgrade was going to increase PC transfer times for TiVo HD's and/or Series3's? I thought it was only supposed to improve MRV for Series2's.

The priority page usually is posted within 2 to 4 weeks of the pre-release; when the final is available. The initial upgrade for Series3's and TiVo HD's was 9.3Y and they are now pushing 9.3a...but I've no idea if that's the "final" or not as it still contains a suffix. (None of our boxes has received the upgrade yet.) TiVoJerry or Stephen generally give us a heads up when the priority page goes live...although some of the folks here usually see it first. 

64 hours for 24 1 hours programs seems very high even if they are HD. A lot depends on the file size and if you're using wireless (802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n) or Ethernet. 

Our Series3 and TiVo HD are both hard wired/Ethernet. I just plugged in a one hour HD program (6680 MB) for transfer from our TiVo HD to my PC using TiVo Desktop Plus 2.6 and once it settled in it listed a 1 hour and 27 minute transfer time. I did the same with our Series3 (7026 MB) and it was 1 hour 4 minutes. So even at the slowest speed from our TiVo HD, 24 1 hour HD programs should take about 36 to 40 hours or so. Of course YMMV.


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## jdscalf0102 (Jun 28, 2005)

SkeeterTV said:


> Interesting way to control what you're kids have access to... kudos!


Thanks, they're too old for the kid's zone and I've been doing this a few years now. I still rotate codes but on a few units instead of everyones, (easier for me). Kids would try to break the code if I didn't. Still there's plenty for them to watch. The past year with the prior update made things a little rough. Glad to see they fixed they problem. Even if the show they want is now cued, it will be there later or tomorrow. Painful in a world of instant everything and I have to have it now, but better than nothing. Cable in the room isn't an option.


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## Glen (May 9, 2004)

sounds really cool! and there's my TiVo still on v2.5.5!!! *sniff*


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## ldudek (Sep 2, 2007)

richsadams said:


> Did someone say that the latest upgrade was going to increase PC transfer times for TiVo HD's and/or Series3's? I thought it was only supposed to improve MRV for Series2's.


If you noticed on my post I said I kind of "skimmed" through the thread so that's probably where I got the idea that transfer times would speed up for TiVo S3 and TiVo HD. I guess that is not the case. Bummer. Oh well, you can't have everything, I just thought that 62 hours was a little long for 24 1 hour digital show (non hd).


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

ldudek said:


> Bummer. Oh well, you can't have everything...


 Whaaaaat??!!  Say it isn't so!! 

BTW, I could be wrong...it's happened before. Just ask my wife.


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## vasilemj (Jul 2, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> Looks like they went the opposite direction in this release. I just tried a 16:9 video and it played full screen regardless of the TV and display settings on the TiVo. I don't get why this is so hard for them to get right. If the TV is set to 16:9 play it full screen. If it's set to 4:3 then play it letterboxed or cropped as selected by the user. At least it's better then the original release which played a weird double image when trying to play 16:9 content and the only way to fix it was to change the MPEG header to trick it into thinking it was 4:3
> 
> Dan


I still have the same problem with the black bars on top and bottom.

Dan, can you point me to a thread that describes how to change the MPEG header so my 16:9 content plays correctly?

Thanks,
Vas

Single Tuner
Service Number 140

Edit: I figured out a way to change it so it plays in the proper aspect ratio. As suggested by Dan, I changed the header using VideoReDo in their "options" page to change it to 4:3. Convoluted but it works.


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## juanian (Oct 2, 2002)

I think the tiny font on the To Do list was intended to solve the problem with not showing all of the characters of the channel names. Unfortunately, whomever designed that change should have thought it out better. What probably happened is someone said "OK - keep making the font size smaller until all of the characters in the channel name shows", they should have said "make the font size smaller, move the columns closer to each other (since the smaller font makes the effective spacing between the columns bigger), widen the channel name column, and *then* see if all of the characters fit, and if they don't, make the font smaller and check it again". (sigh)

I did have a problem with the update on one of the TiVos. For some reason, channel 97 (the TV Guide channel) disappeared. It showed up in the Channel List as "Cab". Any recording scheduled for the channel ended up being done on Channel 1. Also, looking at the "Upcoming Showings" for something that was on Channel 97 listed each showing of a program on EVERY channel I had set up -- very odd. I needed to redo the Guided Setup multiple times to totally refresh the channel listings to get CH 97 back.

Two of my TiVos have 9.3, another still has the older version, and the last is in limbo -- this morning, I found it in a reboot loop. Did it get the 9.3 update? I don't know (yet). I've got to check the logs and see what the problem is. (The drive is a relatively new drive; I was able to pull it and successfully copy it to a new drive without any bad blocks, so I don't know the cause of the corruptions. I did try the various kickstarts to no avail.) It does seem to complete the reboot, but when it should play the 'song and dance' intro, it just has a black screen. If I press the TiVo button, I do get the main menu, but it goes black after about 5 seconds and then reboots.

One "bug" that has been annoying me is that a "Pending Restart" reboot will *still* occur during a "Save to VCR". I hate making coasters because the TiVo reboots while I am saving to a DVD. *WHY CAN'T THE TIVO DELAY A REBOOT WHEN A 'SAVE TO VCR' IS OCCURRING???* (sorry -- this 'bug' has zapped me many times over the years, and I'm surprised it hasn't been fixed yet.) it wasn't bad when I was actually saving to a tape, because I could rewind and restart; but when working with a DVD that already has multiple episodes of a show to DVD, it is extremely annoying to have a reboot occur and mess things up. Fortunately this time, I hadn't yet deleted the shows previously written to the DVD, and I could start over.


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## TivoZorro (Jul 16, 2000)

After a week of running great on 9.3 my 540 Tivo is now stuck on the Welcome Powering Up Screen. I've tried to do a 57 kickstart to no avail. Fear that it is truly dead. Lost are over 600 hours of recordings. 

Any suggestions on what to try. I left it unplugged all night and tried again this morning with the same result. 

I'm starting to come to the conclusion that this Tivo simply cannot handle the newer software although I don't know this for sure. It could just be a bad hard drive etc.

So what should I do, throw it in the lake out in the back yard, attempt to send it in to Weaknees for a repair or send it in and have them try to get the recordings transfered over to a new machine. What concerns me is that if I spend my money on a new Weaknees Tivo (large storage capacity) will it be able to handle the software.

At this point I'm a bit discouraged. A huge Tivo fan but so tired of trying to get my Tivos to work.


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## ldudek (Sep 2, 2007)

TivoZorro said:


> After a week of running great on 9.3 my 540 Tivo is now stuck on the Welcome Powering Up Screen. I've tried to do a 57 kickstart to no avail. Fear that it is truly dead. Lost are over 600 hours of recordings.
> 
> Any suggestions on what to try. I left it unplugged all night and tried again this morning with the same result.
> 
> ...


Sorry about that happening to you. How old is your TiVo? You stated it worked fine for weeks after getting the upgrade. Maybe it was just time?

Really I do sympathize that is a heck of a lot of recodings to lose.


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## TivoZorro (Jul 16, 2000)

ldudek said:


> Sorry about that happening to you. How old is your TiVo? You stated it worked fine for weeks after getting the upgrade. Maybe it was just time?
> 
> Really I do sympathize that is a heck of a lot of recodings to lose.


It's a couple of years old. I did get it restarted this morning, thank goodness. Just don't know how much longer it will work. This started last night with a frozen transfer and then I tried to reboot it etc.

Yep, things don't last forever. I'm really considering getting a new Tivo. Would have to transfer all those recordings to my PC to put on the new one though. Can't imagine how much time that would take. Or I could transfer from the 540 to the new Tivo.


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## juanian (Oct 2, 2002)

Here's a deal I recently saw:

FREE 80-hour TiVo® Series2 DVR with TiVo Service plan!

I don't know if it is a refurbished box or not. (I don't like refurbished items myself -- I just don't like inheriting someone else's headache.)


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## TivoZorro (Jul 16, 2000)

http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/dual-tuner-tivo-1800-hours.php

This is the Tivo I'm considering buying. Has anyone had any experience with the Seagate Hard Drives? How do they perform with 9.3.

Am just concerned about spending $850.00 and having the same problems I'm having with my 540. Although I do know that the 540 is the slowest Tivo out there.

Just want to get rid of all the headaches. And will I still get my mult-unit service discount if I purchase from Weaknees. The 540 I have has lifetime service so I would have to move to monthly service if I activate a new one. Currently I have two lifetime units and one monthly unit.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

TivoZorro said:


> http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/dual-tuner-tivo-1800-hours.php
> 
> This is the Tivo I'm considering buying. Has anyone had any experience with the Seagate Hard Drives? How do they perform with 9.3.
> 
> ...


You've been at this long enough for a DIY upgrade haven't you?

Me? I'd simply pick up a as large a hard drive as I could afford, use WinMFS, copy everything over and be done with it unless of course you're convinced that something else is wrong with your unit. If you want a new one, grab another Series2 or a TiVo HD cheap and upgrade the hard drive. You should be able to save hundreds of dollars as well as your recordings no?

FWIW I've been a Seagate believer for many, many years. They are as close to bullet proof as you can get IMHO. I had one of the excellent DB35 models in an MX-1/eSATA combo prior to upgrading our Series3's internal drive. It's in one of my PC's now and humming right along...quiet as can be. :up: That said I've really been enjoying the 1TB Western Digital hard drive in our Series3 for several months now.


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## esb1981 (Dec 2, 2007)

Just to let you all know, I turned on the TV this afternoon and I seem to have received 9.3 today. Not sure if other people have gotten this on the THD yet, though I know it's been on the Series 2 boxes. So far no problems or bugs.


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## BiloxiGeek (Nov 18, 2001)

Just checked and I must have gotten 9.3a on my TiVo HD sometime in the last day or two. The menus are WAY faster both on the local TiVo and when browsing my Series 2.


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## krypdo (Sep 13, 2001)

Checking in for my annual "tivo software update pushes my harddrive over the edge" post. Yup, 3rd time in 2 years, always at a software update, last was 3/07. Woke up last Friday and saw the tivo in a reboot loop.

My current strategy is to take out a spare drive (i've learnt to keep a spare drive for the tivos and PCs), Instant Caked it and popped it in. Ran guided setup and let it do its thing. Took about 2 hours and lost all the recordings but I've learnt to backup the "save til I delete" ones on the pc via desktop or tivoplaylist. And if you opt-in with the guru guides stuff your season passes are backed up at the tivo servers and after they'll come back after guided setup.

With this, wife is not pissy mad, that's worth all the effort bending over backwards to revive the tivo ASAP.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

If you've lost 3 HDs in 2 years you either have an albatross in your yard or you need to invest in a UPS.


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## krypdo (Sep 13, 2001)

pdhenry said:


> If you've lost 3 HDs in 2 years you either have an albatross in your yard or you need to invest in a UPS.


Thing is, those drives are currently churning fine in USB external boxes with my PC. I've ran diagnostics (the seagate one) and they all passed, so I just reformatted them for use in the PC. I didn't run spinrite (don't have it, seems a bit expensive) or try mfstools (cmd line stuff too intimidating) and also because of time. Basically i've given up trouble shoot because of time.

Don't flame me, but in the back of my mind, and I'm no expert, I still think the software update process did not account for corrupt download or botched install and that's what might have happened to my box. Tried kickstart 52, 56, 57, 58, all went back to the reboot loop.

BTW, the box is plug in to one of those "protected" power strip, and there was no power surge as far as I know, just coincide with software updates.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

krypdo said:


> ...
> Don't flame me, but in the back of my mind, and I'm no expert, I still think the software update process did not account for corrupt download or botched install and that's what might have happened to my box. Tried kickstart 52, 56, 57, 58, all went back to the reboot loop.
> 
> .......


Some of us agree with you. I've also had "bad hard drive" problems after an update. Subsequent testing showed the drive to be fine and it worked just fine in my tivo after reimaging.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

I've had a hard drive fail, under warranty. It passed with the normal (quick) diagnostics. I had to run the extended, overnight diagnostics before I got an error code I could use for an RMA.



krypdo said:


> I've ran diagnostics (the seagate one) and they all passed, so I just reformatted them for use in the PC. I didn't run spinrite (don't have it, seems a bit expensive) or try mfstools (cmd line stuff too intimidating) and also because of time. Basically i've given up trouble shoot because of time.
> 
> Don't flame me, but in the back of my mind, and I'm no expert, I still think the software update process did not account for corrupt download or botched install and that's what might have happened to my box. Tried kickstart 52, 56, 57, 58, all went back to the reboot loop.
> 
> BTW, the box is plug in to one of those "protected" power strip, and there was no power surge as far as I know, just coincide with software updates.


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## TrueTurbo (Feb 19, 2008)

krypdo said:


> Thing is, those drives are currently churning fine in USB external boxes with my PC. I've ran diagnostics (the seagate one) and they all passed, so I just reformatted them for use in the PC. I didn't run spinrite (don't have it, seems a bit expensive) or try mfstools (cmd line stuff too intimidating) and also because of time. Basically i've given up trouble shoot because of time.
> 
> Don't flame me, but in the back of my mind, and I'm no expert, I still think the software update process did not account for corrupt download or botched install and that's what might have happened to my box. Tried kickstart 52, 56, 57, 58, all went back to the reboot loop.
> 
> BTW, the box is plug in to one of those "protected" power strip, and there was no power surge as far as I know, just coincide with software updates.


DVRs like TiVo put way more stress on a hard drive than you'll typically see when used as an external USB drive on a PC. When used as a PC USB drive, the disk will only be active when you are explicitly accessing the data on the drive. Even then, you're typically reading or writing and not doing both at the same time for too long.

In a TiVo, the disk is spinning 100% of the time. Data is constantly streaming through the drive. Incoming data is being written (buffered) while also being read and piped for output. Double this for dual-tuners and add more activity if you are watching a recorded show at the same time. All this seeking, reading and writing will eventually break a drive that is marginal.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

TrueTurbo said:


> Double this for dual-tuners and add more activity if you are watching a recorded show at the same time.


All this activity on a Tivo had me (at one time) wondering how a hard drive can handle all that data.

What I know for sure can be done at the same time...

 Record data from 2 tuners
 Record data from another Tivo
 Record data from a Tivocast
 Read data to be output to TV

Sometimes I wonder how the HD in my S2 has lasted 2.5 years.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

steve614 said:


> All this activity on a Tivo had me (at one time) wondering how a hard drive can handle all that data.
> 
> What I know for sure can be done at the same time...
> 
> ...


These demands really don´t seem to stress the HDDs all that much. The sum total doesn´t even come within an order of magnitude of the theoretical data rate, and with big buffers like 8 or 16 MB it all doesn´t seem to be a big deal.

My opinion is that the whole AV drive thing is a lot of hype, and that the key is to buy a good drive with a multi year warranty. I have had many drive years of successful experience with 5yr Seagate Barracudas.

I think the original drive in my S3 was not an AV drive, although subsequent THDs I think are. All WDs I believe.


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## krypdo (Sep 13, 2001)

TrueTurbo said:


> DVRs like TiVo put way more stress on a hard drive than you'll typically see when used as an external USB drive on a PC. When used as a PC USB drive, the disk will only be active when you are explicitly accessing the data on the drive. Even then, you're typically reading or writing and not doing both at the same time for too long.
> 
> In a TiVo, the disk is spinning 100% of the time. Data is constantly streaming through the drive. Incoming data is being written (buffered) while also being read and piped for output. Double this for dual-tuners and add more activity if you are watching a recorded show at the same time. All this seeking, reading and writing will eventually break a drive that is marginal.


I have no illusions that the drives are gonna last forever. But the fact that my box APPEARED to be absolutely normal and then software updates came and bam, reboot loop, just doesn't feel right.

I probably just don't know better.


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## writdenied (Sep 2, 2003)

dwit said:


> After the 9.3 update, my SDH 400 is noticeably slower when selecting a show from the now playing list until the "program menu" screen shows.
> 
> Funny because if I press the play button from the NPL, the show plays immediately. It's just when I press select from the now playing list, it seems to take a few seconds before the program menu shows.
> 
> In fact, I just compared it to my *non 9.3* updated 540x. It takes the 540x a second or less to select from npl. Took the Tosh shh400 about 5 sec. The Toshiba has a 400g drive. the 540x has a 300g drive. I'll see how the 540 acts after it receives 9.3.


I haven't checked my software version yet, but I noticed the exact same behavior on my S2 this weekend. I'm going to assume for now that I just got 9.3 and the sluggishness is due to the box re-indexing, but if it's still like that in a day or two, I'll be back to gripe some more...


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## dwit (May 5, 2004)

writdenied said:


> I haven't checked my software version yet, but I noticed the exact same behavior on my S2 this weekend. I'm going to assume for now that I just got 9.3 and the sluggishness is due to the box re-indexing, but if it's still like that in a day or two, I'll be back to gripe some more...


For what it's worth, the only thing that cured this with my Toshiba was a retstart and a repeat of guided set up. Don't know if I should really say restart, as that had been done several times. Probably, it was the repeat of guided set up that did it. This was over 3 weeks after the update, so it was probably not a matter of indexing as the main factor.


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

dwit said:


> Probably, it was the repeat of guided set up that did it.


Some people consider it worthwhile to reinstall Windows every so often, perhaps once a year.

Maybe TiVo is becoming like Windows in this regard. Just redo guided setup once a year. And unfortunately lose all recorded programs and season passes in the process.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> Some people consider it worthwhile to reinstall Windows every so often, perhaps once a year.
> 
> Maybe TiVo is becoming like Windows in this regard. Just redo guided setup once a year. And unfortunately lose all recorded programs and season passes in the process.


Guided setup does not cause you to lose your recorded programs. The only way you will lose season passes is if you are changing lineups and it can't find the equivalent channel in the new lineup. Guided setup is not re-installing the OS, so I don't see how you equate the two.


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## AZ_Tivo (Jan 17, 2005)

dwit said:


> For what it's worth, the only thing that cured this with my Toshiba was a retstart and a repeat of guided set up. Don't know if I should really say restart, as that had been done several times. Probably, it was the repeat of guided set up that did it. This was over 3 weeks after the update, so it was probably not a matter of indexing as the main factor.


I tried re running guided setup on my S2 but it did not help me . Are you thinking of "clear and delete everything" ?


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

rainwater said:


> Guided setup is not re-installing the OS, so I don't see how you equate the two.


I meant to say "clear and delete everything". That is closer to re-installing the OS.

About the only difference is that when you reload Windows you start with whatever is on your CD, while with TiVo you keep the current version of the OS on the hard disk.


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## dwit (May 5, 2004)

AZ_Tivo said:


> I tried re running guided setup on my S2 but it did not help me . Are you thinking of "clear and delete everything" ?


Definitely not cde. This is essentially a full 400g drive of some of my favorites, mainly cooking shows that I reference for recipes.

It's possible that it was just a coincidence. In that case, wait 3 weeks or so and see what happens. That's when mine cleared up.


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## writdenied (Sep 2, 2003)

dwit said:


> For what it's worth, the only thing that cured this with my Toshiba was a retstart and a repeat of guided set up. Don't know if I should really say restart, as that had been done several times. Probably, it was the repeat of guided set up that did it. This was over 3 weeks after the update, so it was probably not a matter of indexing as the main factor.


For what it's worth, I'm now 5+ days from when I first noticed the problem (and I've confirmed that I'm running 9.3), and it still persists, so it's definitely not due to re-indexing. I'll try your suggestion of a reboot and Guided Setup and hope for the best. I'm also leaving this message as a data point, as I suspect that we're not the only two TiVo owners with this problem, and if enough people gripe about it, the powers that be will look into it.


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## n240sxle91 (Dec 1, 2005)

I have two series 2 tivos. I have a 60 hour tivo and a 40 hour tivo. The 60 is about 5 or so years old. The 40 is about 3 years old. Both were working perfectly up until the 9.3 update. My 60 hour got 9.3 first. I noticed right away that anything with guide info in it took about 8 seconds to showup. I thought that my hard drive might be on its way out. However, about 4 days after my 60 hour got the 9.3 update my 40 hour got the 9.3 update. Right away the same results. I REALLY doubt that the hard drive in both died right after the 9.3 update. Everything works fine, but anything that shows guide info takes a long time to show up. This has to be a bug in 9.3. I ran kickstart57 on the 60 hour and it didn't help at all. Hopefully Tivo is working on a fix!


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

I woke up this morning and noticed my S2 had rebooted.
Looking at system info, I see that I now have 9.3c.

I wonder what this version is supposed to fix?


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## worachj (Oct 14, 2006)

steve614 said:


> I woke up this morning and noticed my S2 had rebooted.
> Looking at system info, I see that I now have 9.3c.
> 
> I wonder what this version is supposed to fix?


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6220632#post6220632


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## writdenied (Sep 2, 2003)

Just to keep this up to date:

At *dwit*'s suggestion, I tried a restart and repeat of Guided Setup. No change -- selecting a program in Now Playing, paging through the Guide, or a "back" button press to retreat from a recorded program back to the program information screen results in 5-10 second delays while program information is retrieved. Problem has existed for at least two weeks, beginning at approximately the time 9.3 arrived on my S2. Obviously, a problem with organization of or recall from the program info database.

Sounds like at least four of us in this thread (and at least one person in  another thread) have identified precisely the same problem.

TiVo Pony: any chance we can get you to look into this?


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## AZ_Tivo (Jan 17, 2005)

I got 9.3c yesterday and after the reboot this problem was gone!! If you want 9.3c, get on the priority list. www.tivo.com/priority.

Hope this helps.


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## AZ_Tivo (Jan 17, 2005)

AZ_Tivo said:


> I got 9.3c yesterday and after the reboot this problem was gone!! If you want 9.3c, get on the priority list. www.tivo.com/priority.
> 
> Hope this helps.


I spoke too soon. The issue is very much there.


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## n240sxle91 (Dec 1, 2005)

My TiVos are setup for input from both coax cable and composite video-in. I told my tivos that I also had a satalite input so I could use my DVD player in the video input (channel 00). I repeated guided setup again and told my TiVos that I only had coax cable input. Now my menus on both TiVos work perfectly. However, I no longer have access to channel 00 for my DVD player. I am going to try guided setup again and add satalite input again. Hopefully the menu system will continue to work as fast as it does now.


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## n240sxle91 (Dec 1, 2005)

Well, I tried doing the guided setup again using "satalite and cable" and it's back to the same old slow menus. It has something to do using the satalite and cable setting. This worked perfectly before the latest service update. Hopefully TiVo figures this out quickly because I hate not having my video-in option.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

n240sxle91 said:


> Well, I tried doing the guided setup again using "satalite and cable" and it's back to the same old slow menus. It has something to do using the satalite and cable setting. This worked perfectly before the latest service update. Hopefully TiVo figures this out quickly because I hate not having my video-in option.


If you just re-ran Guided Setup, then it will take a while to re-index all of the guide data. You should wait another day or two and see if the speed changes.


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## dwit (May 5, 2004)

n240sxle91 said:


> Well, I tried doing the guided setup again using "satalite and cable" and it's back to the same old slow menus. It has something to do using the satalite and cable setting. This worked perfectly before the latest service update. Hopefully TiVo figures this out quickly because I hate not having my video-in option.


From my experience(although I didn't express it), I think I agree. I had my Toshiba set up for cable no box and satellite(for chanel 00 input), and after 9.3 is when the slowness during select from npl began. Lasted over 3weeks.

During the rerun of guided set up, I chose cable no box as the only program source.

Fortunately for me, and evidently coincidently, the slowness was gone.

Although I guess this satellite input theory can be confirmed or not by others with the slowness issue.


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## AZ_Tivo (Jan 17, 2005)

dwit said:


> From my experience(although I didn't express it), I think I agree. I had my Toshiba set up for cable no box and satellite(for chanel 00 input), and after 9.3 is when the slowness during select from npl began. Lasted over 3weeks.
> 
> During the rerun of guided set up, I chose cable no box as the only program source.
> 
> ...


I had SAT only on one box and it was real slow with 9.3. After I got 9.3C, I thought it was fixed as it worked pretty good. I ran a guided setup and added antenna (which I wanted anyway) and it is slow again. So, is the dual input causing the slowness?


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## n240sxle91 (Dec 1, 2005)

Rainwater, thanks for the idea, but this is not caused by the TiVo re-indexing. When I ran the guided setup with just "cable no box" it was fast as ever right after I finished the setup. It's slow only when it has dual inputs. When I first got 9.3 my TiVos were both slow for over a week (that was cable no box and satallite). The re-index shouldn't take near that long. I just re-ran guided setup and put both of my TiVos back to "cable no box" only and they are both running full speed. I would bet a lot of money that anyone who has slow guide menus after 9.3 is using dual inputs. I won't have time tomorrow, but hopefully I can talk to tech support next week. I'm sure they can't help me, but maybe they can notify their programmers about this problem (or bring back support for channel 00).


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## mytivosandme (Jun 10, 2004)

I've got two Tivo Series boxes that are running 9.3. One of units received it a week or two before the other unit did. After each update, the Tivos slowed down. It's incredibly annoying. 

For what it's worth, we're using a satellite connection (Dish Network). We do not have dual inputs.


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

n240sxle91 said:


> I would bet a lot of money that anyone who has slow guide menus after 9.3 is using dual inputs.


Not here. Satellite only. It is only slow going to program information from the now playing list or a folder. Everything else is fast. This slowness is new with 9.3 but is not as slow as other things were with 9.1. I see about a 3 second delay. I do not use dual inputs.


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## n240sxle91 (Dec 1, 2005)

So, it might just be people who are using satellite input (along with any other input) that are getting slow guide info. Are there any of you who have 9.3 and are using satellite input who's Tivos are running at full speed?


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## Wayne at Pelican (Aug 5, 2004)

It's slow for me too, very annoying. Waiting for them to fix it!

-Wayne


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

Has anyone here tried a C&DE on this? Did it help?


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## Bergamo (Dec 3, 2006)

One more person to add to the list - I've got an original S2 (single tuner) running with satellite (Dish Network) and it is incredibly S-L-O-W to get to the main menu, browse the NPL, etc...


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## ccain (Feb 13, 2003)

I have 9.3c series2 with satellite and antenna, and am experiencing the same VERY SLOW response time for me also. I sure hope TiVo is working to fix this!!

I wish there was a way to uninstall a release and go back to the previous version!

Another 9.3c issue: Anyone else notice this annoying bright blue background that shows up just before playing a recorded show or going back to live tv? Also a bright blue line seems to be stuck on the right side of the screen when viewing shows thru TiVo.
The also moved the "Save to VCR" to the "More options" menu... Also annoying when archiving shows to DVD.


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## n240sxle91 (Dec 1, 2005)

One of my Tivos does that annoying blue background before live TV or recorded shows. The other Tivo does not. However, I think my Tivos have different versions of 9.3 on them.


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## Jaeger (May 27, 2008)

Same slowdown here. Series 2 with no modifications running version 9.3. Taking 5 seconds or more to respond to pressing a button on the remote and probably more than 1 minute to show what's in the Now Playing list. Very annoying! Any ideas if 9.3C fixes this? Have people here already called Tivo to ask for a fix?


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

Jaeger said:


> Same slowdown here. Series 2 with no modifications running version 9.3. Taking 5 seconds or more to respond to pressing a button on the remote and probably more than 1 minute to show what's in the Now Playing list. Very annoying! Any ideas if 9.3C fixes this? Have people here already called Tivo to ask for a fix?


Welcome to the forum...too bad it's under frustrating circumstances.

The symptoms you're describing may have been due to an update, but may not as what you're seeing has been around for years. It could be a software or hardware (hard drive) issue.

You've probably already tried it, but if not, you might try a hard reboot...unplug TiVo, wait 10 seconds and plug it back in. If that doesn't help you could run a couple of TiVo's diagnostics called "Kickstarts". If still no joy I'd call TiVo and open a case file.

Best of luck!


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## Jaeger (May 27, 2008)

Much less lag than before I did that. Thanks!


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

Jaeger said:


> Much less lag than before I did that. Thanks!


Glad to help!


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## tommy275 (Jun 8, 2003)

can someone clarify something? wasn't this the release that was supposed to speed up the interface? i noticed a marked improvement a while back, but now the interface is as slow as it used to be. is this a second release on top of that last one?


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

It seemed like it it did speed things up a tad but I don't know that I saw a _big _improvement with the TiVo GUI after the last update...although some others said they did. I haven't noticed it being any slower than before either.

With our Series3 it seems like the more SP's, WL's, etc., etc. that I have, the slower things get...not a lot but some. I don't have anywhere near as much info saved on our TiVo HD and it's pretty snappy. Might be my imagination though...I don't have a stop watch handy.


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## PinkL (May 24, 2008)

I recieved an update on my Tivo for the 1st time today. It came randomly and after rebooting it said "Preparing the service update. This may take up to an hour, possible longer." 

Are updates always this long or is it because I am still on dial up? (I am waiting for my wireless adapter to come in the mail.) If they are this long, is there any way to schedule a time to do it? It doesn't make sense for it to happen while I am recording tv shows..


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

PinkL said:


> I recieved an update on my Tivo for the 1st time today. It came randomly and after rebooting it said "Preparing the service update. This may take up to an hour, possible longer."
> 
> Are updates always this long or is it because I am still on dial up? (I am waiting for my wireless adapter to come in the mail.) If they are this long, is there any way to schedule a time to do it? It doesn't make sense for it to happen while I am recording tv shows..


Once an update is downloaded TiVo would normally reboot and install it at 2 a.m. local time unless it is manually restarted from the menu or you do a hard reboot (unplug, and plug it back in) for some reason. Doing so will "force" an update to install immediately.

Downloading an update over a phone line would take the longest but it's transparent to you; it would have no impact on your ability to watch or record programming. With respect to the installation time, once it's downloaded it doesn't make any difference how it arrived. The time it takes to install an update is dependent on the amount of data TiVo pushed out. It can take a few minutes to over an hour. I don't recall if anyone here timed the latest update. My WAG would be 20 to 40 minutes but YMMV.

Once you have your wireless adapter connected future downloads will take less time, but again, they are done in the background and don't affect your recording or viewing pleasure.

Once it's back up and running, let us know what version you're on (System Info). Updates usually take less than a few weeks to be distributed and IIRC the most recent update began distribution more than a month ago. It would be interesting to know if you've received anything new.


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## PinkL (May 24, 2008)

Thanks Rich for the response  The weird thing was that I was just watching tv and this happened. It was actually recording another show while I was watching tv and it stopped to do this update. I didn't restart it or anything. It's not that big of a deal I just wanted to know if this happens a lot. 

My software version is 9.3-01-2-649. I have a Series 2.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

PinkL said:


> Thanks Rich for the response  The weird thing was that I was just watching tv and this happened. It was actually recording another show while I was watching tv and it stopped to do this update. I didn't restart it or anything. It's not that big of a deal I just wanted to know if this happens a lot.
> 
> My software version is 9.3-01-2-649. I have a Series 2.


Interesting for sure...rebooting any time but 2 a.m. is unusual but if everything is working, guess it's okay. v9.3...was there a lower-case letter involved, like 9.3c by chance? v9.3 (with or w/o a letter) is the latest update.

In any case, thanks for reporting back and glad it's working! :up:


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## zoma4 (Jul 20, 2004)

I'm still experiencing extreme slowness on my S2 with satellite input. Any updates on this? Has anyone figured out what is going on?


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## mytivosandme (Jun 10, 2004)

Our Tivos are still extremely slow. We are seriously thinking about switching over to another DVR because the speed of the Tivo is so annoying and Tivo has done nothing about it. 

We've had one Tivos since they first came out and this is the first time we're considering any other product!


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## AZ_Tivo (Jan 17, 2005)

Can we complain to FTC or BBB or any other body? I paid for lifetime service plus the box and now I am not getting the quality of service that was promised. It has been over a month. This is not fair.


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

tommy275 said:


> can someone clarify something? wasn't this the release that was supposed to speed up the interface? i noticed a marked improvement a while back, but now the interface is as slow as it used to be. is this a second release on top of that last one?


I am not seeing any new slowdown. No new software has come out since 9.3 or 9.3c.

I use satellite and I see the slow opening of the program details screen. This particular slowness in only this one last place in the UI, all the other slow places are now fast and have stayed that way, seems to only affect satellite users. I tried clearing thumb ratings and it seems slightly better. I may try a C&DE after I get everything watched to see what that does for me.

In either event, TiVo is working on their summer release, the one that promises youtube and stuff like that for the series 3's and the one that hopefully provides support for antenna converter boxes for series 2's. Perhaps that update will address this one last little bit of slowness.


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## hb-runner (Jul 20, 2006)

I agree about the slow speed and serioiusly considering another DVR. It takes me 4 seconds from the time I select a show from the "Now Playing" list to seeing the "Play" menu choice for the recording. Ridiculously long and not the service I signed up for. I spend over 2 hours with Tivo Tech Support - level 1 and level 2, and they weren't even aware of the issue. Someone at Tivo MUST CARE that the 9.3 release has made so many people unhappy and ready to switch. I have 2 Tivos, 1 lifetime and 1 monthy, and was considering upgrading to the Series 3.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

hb-runner said:


> I agree about the slow speed and serioiusly considering another DVR. It takes me 4 seconds from the time I select a show from the "Now Playing" list to seeing the "Play" menu choice for the recording. Ridiculously long and not the service I signed up for. I spend over 2 hours with Tivo Tech Support - level 1 and level 2, and they weren't even aware of the issue. Someone at Tivo MUST CARE that the 9.3 release has made so many people unhappy and ready to switch. I have 2 Tivos, 1 lifetime and 1 monthy, and was considering upgrading to the Series 3.


That sounds very frustrating and no one would blame you for making the switch. It's still very curious that it affects some TiVo's and not others. All of ours are on the latest software version and they are all working flawlessly.

I wish we had a "line item" data base that would allow us all to share exactly what our setups are not only in terms of cableco's, etc., but equipment-wise right down to the components in each of our TiVo's. There has to be some sort of commonality with those that are suffering problems and the others that are working fine.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Both of my Series 2 Tivo's developed slowness problems after the 9.3 update, getting to the point where you are actually watching a recorded show is painful. I ran one of them through kickstart 57 & 58 diagnostics no improvement. I have been just living with it hoping the next software update would fix it. The TiVo HD is fine, I can actually pull a show from one of Series 2 TiVos to the TiVo HD and start watching it faster than I can bring it up to watch on either of the Series 2 directly. 

Thanks,


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## Ivan275 (Jun 21, 2008)

I'm also having the slow Now Playing>Show Info menus. I had two inputs, one is TW Cable, second was Dish Network and it was slow as hell. I tried Restart, power cable On/Off and Clear & delete everything and menus were still slow. After reading this thread I did a Guided Setup and went with one input, TimeWarner Cable. I'm not 100&#37; sure but I think the menus are back to being as fast as they were before, they are at least 70-85% faster then when I had 2 inputs. Can it be the 1000's of channels that dish has?

Tivo Series 2
LifeTime
40hours
v9.3-01-540


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## AZ_Tivo (Jan 17, 2005)

This thing may be a delibrate attempt on Tivo's part to move us over to TivoHDs. The problem is that being a satellite customer I don't want to get all THDs. 

Has anyone called Tivo CSRs and ask them about this issue? They will play ignorant and ask you to reboot and stuff. But I am thinking of wasting another hour with them. Would like to know if anyone else tried that.


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## mdedmon (Nov 9, 2005)

I'm just adding to the thread. I've been suffering from this same slowness problem for about a year. I have a series 1 and series 2 with lifetime. The series 1 is LIGHTENING fast! The Series 2 is about to go out the window.

Rebooting the box makes it a little faster for about an evening. Then it's back to the same slow behavior. What does it take for loyal Tivo customers to get some type of response from Tivo.

In addition, all recorded programs will at some point show pixellated images and stop/start hesitation for about 2 seconds. This was happening with the original hard drive and after they replaced it, the same behavior! I'm tired of hearing it's a hard drive issue. It never happened until the 8.x software came out. Then it was all the time.

At least this forum lets me vent. It doesn't seem to do any other good for this issue.


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## snedecor (Jun 27, 2001)

little BirdiE, update To come, pAtience.

I can say no more.



atmuscarella said:


> Both of my Series 2 Tivo's developed slowness problems after the 9.3 update, getting to the point where you are actually watching a recorded show is painful. I ran one of them through kickstart 57 & 58 diagnostics no improvement. I have been just living with it hoping the next software update would fix it. The TiVo HD is fine, I can actually pull a show from one of Series 2 TiVos to the TiVo HD and start watching it faster than I can bring it up to watch on either of the Series 2 directly.
> 
> Thanks,


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

snedecor said:


> little BirdiE, update To come, pAtience.
> 
> I can say no more.


Something along these lines maybe? 

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=399394


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