# Losing connection even when attached to Fios Router...



## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

The mini was used with a coaxial directly to it with the router upstairs. It would drop connections from time to time. "Finding tuner...." Then error code.

I was sick of it and decided to take router downstairs and install it right next to the Mini. Coaxial goes into Router, and ethernet connects the mini. To my surprise and disappointed, I still lost connection yesterday, error code v87. 

It takes turning on and off the router to get it fixed, but this is very annoying. I do have several attenuators attached to the main tivo, which is upstairs by the way. I do this cause the signals were coming in too hot. I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the drop connections for the mini? If I remove them, then I would frequently get stuttering and lose volume, and would have to hit rewind or something to snap the drive out of it. 

What do you guys think, could it be the attenuators?


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## lgnad (Feb 14, 2013)

Um, exactly how is everything wired here? Is your main tivo using Ethernet or Moca? Coax into the router? 

It could be attenuators... But not knowing the whole layout makes it hard to theorize


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

lgnad said:


> Um, exactly how is everything wired here? Is your main tivo using Ethernet or Moca? Coax into the router?
> 
> It could be attenuators... But not knowing the whole layout makes it hard to theorize


Main unit is moca.

Or, should I flip it around and move router to main unit?


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## lgnad (Feb 14, 2013)

I guess I was hoping you'd explain the entire layout. Do you have attenuators between the tivo and the mini? If so, I'm sure they are attenuating the Moca signal as well.


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

lgnad said:


> I guess I was hoping you'd explain the entire layout. Do you have attenuators between the tivo and the mini? If so, I'm sure they are attenuating the Moca signal as well.


Maybe I don't know the proper lingo... attenuators or filters? They look like those things people buy to steal cable. They thread them on to the coaxial head, then thread the whole thing into a unit. The main unit has these "filters" threaded on the coaxil. So not sure what you mean when you ask if I have attenuators between the tivo and the mini.

Dropped connection again today during sports game. Very annoying now. Going to move router next to main unit and see what happens.


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

I moved my router next to my main unit today. We'll see what happens. But I had the funniest brain fart. I've never ever had the main unit attached to the router in any house I've lived. So I thought it was just like the mini set-up, cable goes into router, ethernet goes into Tivo Plus. I was scratching my head for the longest time while I was able to get the tivo menu, but no channels. I was ready to talk to tivo chat and even start another thread here. I realized at the last moment, the main box needs a coaxial feed, and I had to split it. Duh!!


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

Okay, getting very annoying. Even with router hooked up to main unit. Mini lost connection again today.


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

siratfus said:


> Okay, getting very annoying. Even with router hooked up to main unit. Mini lost connection again today.


You might not want to hear this, but I gave the Mini several days on one our two main TVs before switching it out for a Roamio. We still have a Mini on a lesser used TV, but it was way too flaky for use on a primary TV. It would lose connection to the Roamio with too much frequency, despite the FiOS network running perfectly fine with everything else. The Roamio that's replaced it has worked wonderfully though (knock wood).


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

sangs said:


> You might not want to hear this, but I gave the Mini several days on one our two main TVs before switching it out for a Roamio. We still have a Mini on a lesser used TV, but it was way too flaky for use on a primary TV. It would lose connection to the Roamio with too much frequency, despite the FiOS network running perfectly fine with everything else. The Roamio that's replaced it has worked wonderfully though (knock wood).


That's not acceptable. Are we in the minority? Doesn't seem to be a big discussion in this forum. To have to use another tivo and pay cable card rental takes away one of the special benefits of upgrading to Roamio.

Going to do some more troubleshooting today, but this thing is on the brink of being returned. I'm still within my 30 days.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

siratfus said:


> That's not acceptable. Are we in the minority? Doesn't seem to be a big discussion in this forum.


Yes, you're in a quite small minority. There are hundreds of people here with Minis, and they would be posting and discussing if the Minis didn't work!

It could be your environment (networking, including cables, splitters, or routers not working completely) or it could be a hardware problem with the TiVo Mini itself. It could be your attenuators as you suggested; I don't know if they might block MOCA frequencies.

Have you tried connecting Mini and Roamio with ethernet instead of MOCA? You haven't given us your connection layout, so we can't offer suggestions of things to try! At a minimum, can you tell us what is connected to what via what sort of cable?


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

CrispyCritter said:


> Yes, you're in a quite small minority. There are hundreds of people here with Minis, and they would be posting and discussing if the Minis didn't work!
> 
> It could be your environment (networking, including cables, splitters, or routers not working completely) or it could be a hardware problem with the TiVo Mini itself. It could be your attenuators as you suggested; I don't know if they might block MOCA frequencies.
> 
> Have you tried connecting Mini and Roamio with ethernet instead of MOCA? You haven't given us your connection layout, so we can't offer suggestions of things to try! At a minimum, can you tell us what is connected to what via what sort of cable?


I tried every scenario accept ethernet and ethernet. So I might give that a whirl if today's troubleshooting doesn't work out. But today, I'm trying static IP's, and I'm moving router back next to mini. There has been 4 configurations so far.

1. Router in room A. Tivo Plus in room B with direct coaxial. Mini in room C with direct coaxial. = Mini drops connections.
2. Router in room B next to Tivo Plus. Coaxial split to router and Tivo Plus. Mini in room C with direct coaxial. = Mini drops connections.
3. Router in room C next to mini attached via ethernet. Tivo Plus in room B with direct coaxial. = Mini drops connections.
4. My current configuration. Same as 3, but using static IPs.

Using static IPs, it hasn't dropped a connection today.. knock on wood. I've mentioned these configurations in my previous posts, and I don't know what else to say. If these are not the "layouts" you're looking for, then I think I don't know what a lay-out means. I know enough to get by, but I really don't understand networking. For example, even though I set the static IP, I didn't touch the subnet, dns, and router address. I'm not sure what they all mean or how they work together. I've always used DHCP and let the equipment automatically set the addresses. So if you want to help me, please understand that I may not know all the lingo.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

Thanks, that helps a lot. So far it sounds like all your tests have been Moca going through your attenuators (which remain directly attached to the Roamio?). Doing a pure ethernet test, going back to DHCP, will narrow down the possible problems a lot even it is doesn't work.


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

CrispyCritter said:


> Thanks, that helps a lot. So far it sounds like all your tests have been Moca going through your attenuators (which remain directly attached to the Roamio?). Doing a pure ethernet test, going back to DHCP, will narrow down the possible problems a lot even it is doesn't work.


Yes, a 6 db and a 3 db attenuator attached to the Roamio. BTW, I did run a few of these test without the attenuators and I still experienced the disconnection, so I've eliminated them as the source of the issue.

I'll try ethernet next if I get a drop connection today. Would using a ethernet powerline adapter still considered "pure?" I'll have to use a powerline adapter since only one of them can be next to the router. So in my current set up, the mini has the router. I'll need to powerline the Roamio Plus.


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## sangs (Jan 1, 2003)

siratfus said:


> That's not acceptable. Are we in the minority? Doesn't seem to be a big discussion in this forum. To have to use another tivo and pay cable card rental takes away one of the special benefits of upgrading to Roamio.
> 
> Going to do some more troubleshooting today, but this thing is on the brink of being returned. I'm still within my 30 days.


I'd say that yes, we're in the minority. I researched the Mini setup around here and some other forums and found very few problems, which is why I decided to go with it. However, it wasn't working optimally for me and after several days of tinkering in an attempt to fix it - changing cables, splitters, connections, etc. - I'd had enough.


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## MikePA1 (Nov 16, 2013)

sangs said:


> I'd say that yes, we're in the minority. I researched the Mini setup around here and some other forums and found very few problems, which is why I decided to go with it. However, it wasn't working optimally for me and after several days of tinkering in an attempt to fix it - changing cables, splitters, connections, etc. - I'd had enough.


There are plenty of people using MOCA, Ethernet and a mixture of both.

I'd be surprised if there are a lot of people using Ethernet over power line.


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

Well, if anyone's keeping tabs, or come looking for the same help, you should know that static IPs for both the Plus and the Mini did the trick. 

Knock on wood.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

siratfus said:


> Well, if anyone's keeping tabs, or come looking for the same help, you should know that static IPs for both the Plus and the Mini did the trick.
> 
> Knock on wood.


The Roamio + and pro both have two IP addresses but you can only set one of them to fixed, in my experience a fixed IP does nothing to fix connection problems, you can do the same thing by just resetting up your network on the TiVo itself using the DHCP that TiVo gives you.


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

lessd said:


> The Roamio + and pro both have two IP addresses but you can only set one of them to fixed, in my experience a fixed IP does nothing to fix connection problems, you can do the same thing by just resetting up your network on the TiVo itself using the DHCP that TiVo gives you.


Then could it possibly be the static IP on the mini that has solved my situation? I wasn't sure if a static ip on the Plus was necessary, so I did it anyway. Whatever I did, it worked. I didn't update this thread for a few days cause I wanted to make sure, and we truly have not had any dropped connections. The true test was when we had company on Christmas and watched all the NBA games on Christmas day. No dropped connections. That's when I was confident it worked.


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## tatergator1 (Mar 27, 2008)

Late to the game, but given that static IP's fixed your problems, it seems like your frequent disconnects could have been do to IP address conflicts within your network; namely there was another device on your network that was being assigned the same IP as the Mini, thereby forcing the Mini to disconnect temporarily.


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

tatergator1 said:


> Late to the game, but given that static IP's fixed your problems, it seems like your frequent disconnects could have been do to IP address conflicts within your network; namely there was another device on your network that was being assigned the same IP as the Mini, thereby forcing the Mini to disconnect temporarily.


I think so too. We even narrowed it down to which device that was causing it.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

It sounds like you should allow more IP addresses to be available. I have my router set so all 254(or is it 253?) Ip addresses area available for devices to use. I don't use static IP addresses with my Minis and they have been working great since I got them when the Mini launched.


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## n3srj (Dec 29, 2013)

siratfus said:


> The mini was used with a coaxial directly to it with the router upstairs. It would drop connections from time to time. "Finding tuner...." Then error code.
> 
> I was sick of it and decided to take router downstairs and install it right next to the Mini. Coaxial goes into Router, and ethernet connects the mini. To my surprise and disappointed, I still lost connection yesterday, error code v87.
> 
> ...


After 24 hours spent with recabling...new spliters..5 calls to tivo support (everything from software to geeze it should work) i have run a dam 25 foot long ethernet cable to my fios modem/router.. upgraded to quantum 50 mps and finally figures crossed finally this damn thing works.

can acutally watch live tv longer than 30 minutes and stream from the dvr. 
why don't they be straight up with people and say geeze we screwed up and it only works this way. sheeze what a pain in the a$%


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## siratfus (Oct 3, 2008)

aaronwt said:


> It sounds like you should allow more IP addresses to be available. I have my router set so all 254(or is it 253?) Ip addresses area available for devices to use. I don't use static IP addresses with my Minis and they have been working great since I got them when the Mini launched.


You're giving me too much credit. LOL! By saying "I should allow" implies that I "wasn't allowing" but I don't quite understand how it all technically works. Where would we go to allow or not allow more IP's? In the router admin page?


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## RayinMaui (Dec 19, 2001)

What IP addresses did you use for static? I heard only certain areas of the FIOS router are available.

Thanks, Ray


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## RayinMaui (Dec 19, 2001)

Never mind. I found your other post. I couldn't use 101, so I used 100 and 99 and now it's working perfectly!

Thanks again! Now my mini works!

Ray


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