# Roamio Pro - Macroblocking errors across entire picture on all tuners - Reboot fixed



## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

I had a very strange experience today with my Roamio Pro unit. I got home from work and turned on the TV to find every tuner and every channel I tuned to basically be showing an entire screen of macroblocking problems. Occasionally pieces of the show would appear but mostly macroblocking and no audio. I figured something was just generally wrong with the signal, but my Internet connectivity was fine. So I switched over the my Premiere XL4 and everything was fine there too. I rebooted the Roamio and when it came back up, everything was fine.

So somehow it got into some strange state where it behaved like it had poor signal quality on everything, but a reboot fixed it.

I hate when something happens that makes me question how much I can trust it when I don't check it every day.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

Can you reproduce this with a restart on a Copy Protected channel or one that occasionally displays a V58 error?

Had it rebooted on it's own, were all tuners on the same channel?
If so, was the channel a Copy Protected channel?
Motorola or SA/Cisco CableCARD?
Cable Provider?

I am curious in other details.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

CoxInPHX said:


> Can you reproduce this with a restart on a Copy Protected channel or one that occasionally displays a V58 error?
> 
> Had it rebooted on it's own, were all tuners on the same channel?
> If so, was the channel a Copy Protected channel?
> ...


It's only happened once, and unless there had been an update-install reboot, I don't think it had rebooted for a few weeks.

I changed across a number of different channels -- locals, "basic" cable channels and HBO/Showtime/Starz, the latter of which generally are copy protected. When I noticed the problem the live tuner was on Starz. But other tuners were on other channels (also showing the same sort of issue).

It's SA/Cisco CableCARD, on Comcast.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

It happened again, albeit slightly differently.

No major macro-blocking this time, instead it was a significant pause every 6 or 8 seconds for a couple seconds... video freeze, no audio, then it'd come back with a tiny bit of macro-blocking, and repeat the whole process.

Happened on any channel I tuned. Didn't happen on a Premiere XL4 connected off the same splitter on the coax.

Rebooted and everything is normal again.

Seems like something might "accumulate" leading to increasing severity of the problem, if I had to venture a guess.

While changing channels, once on one channel I got a V53 (not V58) error but even just a channel up/down toggle and it came in OK.


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## Bramble (Mar 28, 2009)

Did you check all 6 tuners after the reboot? I had the Fios Macroblocking issue due having an older cable card, and it appeared to go away after a reboot because it appears that only one of the tuners starts up right away, the rest don't seem to start buffering until after you purposefully switch to them, or there's a scheduled recording. I noticed that in my case the macroblocking didn't start kicking in until I had at least 3 of the 4 tuners tuned to different channels, and got worse once the 4th was tuned too.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Had the same problem yesterday. Reboot fixed it. Seems like the decoder got confused because none of the recordings I was seeing it on did it after the reboot. I've seen this a few times on my Elite as well.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

Bramble said:


> Did you check all 6 tuners after the reboot? I had the Fios Macroblocking issue due having an older cable card, and it appeared to go away after a reboot because it appears that only one of the tuners starts up right away, the rest don't seem to start buffering until after you purposefully switch to them, or there's a scheduled recording. I noticed that in my case the macroblocking didn't start kicking in until I had at least 3 of the 4 tuners tuned to different channels, and got worse once the 4th was tuned too.


I didn't check immediately, but I had 4 recordings going about 30 minutes later and I've watched two of them without issue. I'll remember to check explicitly after the reboot next time.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah I had this happen on my Premiere once when it was recording like 3 shows and I was worried it was going to mess them up. But I waited until they finished recording and then rebooted and they were fine. Like I sid I think this is the decoder somehow getting messed up.


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## shamilian (Mar 27, 2003)

dswallow said:


> I didn't check immediately, but I had 4 recordings going about 30 minutes later and I've watched two of them without issue. I'll remember to check explicitly after the reboot next time.


Next time it happens try playing a previously recorded show...
That way you know if it is the decoder or the tuner/recorder....

I have had occasion on my P4 where the decoder just "checks out" and all the video is a black screen, I still get the menus... ( except the background to the SD menus are also missing because they are really videos ).

A reboot always seem to fix it....


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

Happened again. This time with V53 errors. I think that it does appear to be on the decoding side more as I could go to any tuner showing the V53 error and a black screen, rewind just a tiny bit, and then be watching video with audio just fine from the channel.

So, TiVo, when will you fix this? Or at least when will you acknowledge there's something to fix? 

This is probably the first TiVo unit I've had in almost 13 years where I need to reboot regularly to keep it fully functional. It could be worse, apparently, since it might not actually affect recordings, but it'll be totally obnoxious if I don't find out I need to reboot it except when it's in the middle of an evening of recordings, when rebooting is a major disruption to it making the recordings.

Well, I see it's installing an update now, too, so at least there's hope.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

It happened again a week ago or so but I was too lazy to come here and report it. The reboot fixed it.

Tonight I was getting a lot of stuttering of video, regular pauses in audio of at least half a second every 5 or 6 seconds. So I rebooted it. When it came back up, the "My Shows" screen was mostly red, and when I went back to live TV, everything was mostly red and there were lots of macroblocking issues across the screen, but not like I'd usually see, more oriented towards a short line of blocks maybe 1/8th the width of the screen at various lines across the height of the display.

I think at this point we're going to have to get a replacement. There's definitely something going on here with the decoder. Whether it's just this unit or something inherent in the software in general might be up in the air. But I can't put up with this level of babysitting it anymore, especially as it may be increasing the number of macroblocking issues I might've been attributing to signal issues which instead are Roamio issues.


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