# Picture freezes briefly or pixelated.



## timchi29 (Feb 26, 2005)

I have a Roamio and a mini. I'll be watching a show and the show will freeze briefly, get pixelated and then show continues. I'll rewind and it shows it again, on a recording I see it if I go to to mini it's in the same place. WOW cable says it's probably not a cable issue. Any thoughts?


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## rsutton (Oct 11, 2015)

I'm having a similar problem with the pixilation while watching recorded shows. Does not appear to ever happen while watching live are delayed TV.


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## bunjicat (Jan 14, 2012)

Interesting. This just started happening to me also. Iv'e been running perfectly for months. Thought it might be isolated incident with Verizon but this appears to be happening to me more often and on varying channels My RS corrected/uncorrected are all zeros with a 38db snr. What symptoms would I see if the hard drive was starting to go?


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## ertyu (Nov 4, 2003)

I'm getting something similar, picture just freezes. Playback controls don't seem to work properly or take a long time to execute.


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## MikeBear (May 21, 2015)

I have a theory that it happens when the Tivo attempts to contact the mothership for data, and the connection can't establish quickly enough for whatever reason. Internet congestion, memory leak, etc.

I have had a few times where even just going into my recordings to pick one to watch, it sits there and clocks for a while with the spinning thingie showing on screen.


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## cmarti02 (Feb 6, 2004)

Three or four evenings ago this started happening to me also, base Roamio/Comcast cablecard. I happened to be watching when it started. While watching live TV, the Roamio froze for about 30 seconds then rebooted, first time in more than a year that it has happened. Since then, Recorded, Amazon prime and Comcast/Xfinity on-demand have the pixelation issue, mainly the on-demand content. But, no issue with Netflix. The day that it froze, there had been a Comcast guy on the pole outside our house, but we never lost connectivity, cable/internet/phone, that I know of.


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## FitzAusTex (May 7, 2014)

This has been happening to me for about a week on live and recordings. Was starting to think hard drive is failing. Upgraded to 3tb WD30EURX. Been freezing for a few seconds and also pixelation. RS corrected/uncorrected are zeros with snrs of 37 and 38. Had pixelations last year and TWC fixed issue in the line outside house, but didn't have freezing problem then.


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## MacBrian (Feb 24, 2002)

I've seen similar symptoms on my 3TB Roamio. Both times I've restarted the TiVo and the problems went away. I wish I'd have kept track of what was happening and when I restarted so I'd have more concrete information to offer. We're just not used to thinking about restarting our TiVos! Much less a "proactive" restart! But it is a computer and probably benefits from an occasional restart. Can't hurt to try!


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## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

Now you guys have me wondering. I have been seeing occasional pixilation on and off on various channels here and there. I was pretty sure it was Charter's issue but seeing this thread makes me think twice. Only thing that keeps me thinking it is Charter is that I see this at various times on both my Roamios. They are both fairly new(2 months but one is a refurb) so I wouldn't think they are both going at the same time.

However, I'll monitor things just to see.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

FitzAusTex said:


> This has been happening to me for about a week on live and recordings. Was starting to think hard drive is failing. Upgraded to 3tb WD30EURX. Been freezing for a few seconds and also pixelation. RS corrected/uncorrected are zeros with snrs of 37 and 38. Had pixelations last year and TWC fixed issue in the line outside house, but didn't have freezing problem then.


Try this: while powered on, disconnect the rf coax. Then connect it. Check the RS numbers. They both should be very high. If not, then a zero doesn't mean anything.


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## FitzAusTex (May 7, 2014)

JoeKustra said:


> Try this: while powered on, disconnect the rf coax. Then connect it. Check the RS numbers. They both should be very high. If not, then a zero doesn't mean anything.


oh yeah, I definitely know that if I disconnect coax that numbers go crazy high. The zero only means something in relation to a number like 238, which sometimes happens. When you disconnect coax, it climbs into the millions. Was basically just stating with zero that I didn't have a couple hundred corrections.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

FitzAusTex said:


> oh yeah, I definitely know that if I disconnect coax that numbers go crazy high. The zero only means something in relation to a number like 238, which sometimes happens. When you disconnect coax, it climbs into the millions. Was basically just stating with zero that I didn't have a couple hundred corrections.


Ok, just checking. My basic Roamio is always zero RS Corrected. My OOB SNR is 289 dB also.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Are you guys seeing the pixelation on certain channels?

When I first got my Roamio Plus that's what I was getting, but nothing on my FIOS DVR tuned to the same channel. 

I went away from using my house wiring for the Roamio and used a RG6 homerun instead and the problem has gone away. My Mini's seem happy on the house wiring (using Moca).


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## heifer624 (Jul 12, 2009)

I'm also having pixelation/freezing on my Roamio Plus via Brighthouse cable/tuning adapter for about the last week or so on both live and playback. I have unplugged and reset everything multiple times. My setup has not changed any for the last year. Not related to any one channel. I also have a variable attenuator and adjusting between 80-100% signal strength has no effect. My cable company issued STB further down the RG6 line is having NO problems. Beginning to think it's Roamio software related problem or my "refurbished" Roamio Plus is biting the dust.


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

I am seeing this with OTA and a base Roamio purchased new. When I get some time I am going to record the same content with a Premiere and compare to the Roamio and see if it is a signal issue or something else.


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## ertyu (Nov 4, 2003)

So are we all seeing drive issues or has there been a software change that is affecting recording or decoding? I'm starting to think it may be the later, that the software is having trouble either saving the proper stream to disk or having trouble with decoding. With decoding, perhaps it's just not handling corruptions in the data stream as well as it used to.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

I haven't noticed any issues with my Roamio Plus and FIOS since my initial problem, so, whatever it is could be isolated to the Roamio Basic and OTA.

You guys should mention which hard drives you're using.

I use a Western Digital Red 6TB.


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## heifer624 (Jul 12, 2009)

My problem is with "refurbished" Roamio Plus with original Hard Drive in live and playback modes.


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## ertyu (Nov 4, 2003)

Explained my issue, drive is going down.
After worsening symptoms and a gap into the todo list, I pulled the drive for testing and sure enough, errors.


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## sheshechic (Apr 14, 2012)

It's happening on all my tivos (Priemere XL4 and Roamio Plus), but the issue is worst on the Plus. It's new and I've only had it for a little more than a week. It doesn't always freeze but there are moments of pixelation that go from mild to extreme (last night was first and only extreme), on live and recordings. The XL4s have been having freezing with recordings for quite some time now. I'm home all the time and it mostly happens after 5pm eastern.


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## Xucam (Oct 28, 2015)

For users that see pixelation on the DVR (not a connected device like a mini), if you rewind and play that section again, is it still pixelated? 

In my case I think I see two distinct issues with our Roamio. The first is pixelation/time shifting, where a section of a recording is compromised. If I replay I see the same issues in the same place. I was led to believe that this is a S/N and signal strength issue on the incoming CoAx, generally an over-strength issue.

The second is a freezing phenomenon, where A/V playback stops for 10-20 seconds, then advances a little bit and re-freezes for 10-15 seconds, and so on until the unit starts playing normally again. In these cases, I can rewind and watch, and there seems to be nothing wrong at all... until the next time it freezes. Probably happens once per every 15 minutes of viewing time, on average.

Has anyone else seen this?


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## lmacmil (Oct 26, 2015)

Chris Gerhard said:


> I am seeing this with OTA and a base Roamio purchased new.


So am I but I am sure it is weather-related in my case. My local ABC affiliate is low power and there are multiple large trees between my house and the towers. Even in good weather, the signal sometimes breaks up (the Tivo meter reads about 57 for this station). The NBC station (which reads 72) is generally flawless but this morning, it is windy and rainy and the Today show is breaking up quite often. Heading to Comcast this morning to replace the cable card they couldn't get working yesterday. Hoping a different card or different CSR can make it work.


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## anex80 (Dec 19, 2005)

Does anyone have any updates on this issue? I have a TiVo Premier through Suddenlink with an external WD 1TB hard drive and I'm seeing all of the same issues. Most notably on the NFL Network and Redzone channel but I've seen it on other channels as well.


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## anex8001 (May 22, 2015)

I've uploaded some photos of what I'm seeing. What's weird is that the graphics on the screen are unaffected. This is the NFL Network which is the most affected for me. I've scanned the hard drive with no errors and connected a different TV to a different output with no change. Starting to look like a provider issue.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## lmacmil (Oct 26, 2015)

anex8001 said:


> I've uploaded some photos of what I'm seeing. What's weird is that the graphics on the screen are unaffected. This is the NFL Network which is the most affected for me. I've scanned the hard drive with no errors and connected a different TV to a different output with no change. Starting to look like a provider issue.


I've never seen anything that bad, even on OTA. I'm on cable now and occasionally have an audio dropout (on recorded shows) but if there's a video glitch, it's virtually unnoticeable.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

anex8001 said:


> I've uploaded some photos of what I'm seeing. What's weird is that the graphics on the screen are unaffected. This is the NFL Network which is the most affected for me. I've scanned the hard drive with no errors and connected a different TV to a different output with no change. Starting to look like a provider issue.


Your cable company is getting bad data from its feed. If it was the whole cable feed, the entire picture would look the same. I've seen such behavior, to a much smaller degree, when one network has a different network in a box for news. I would call your local cable office. email them your pictures.


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## hhh222 (Jul 28, 2005)

My Roamio Plus started the freezing game about a week ago. I'll have to study it a bit to see if just on recorded material cause I don't watch much live. My old series 3 just keeps plugging along. So much for the new "improved" all digital versions.


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