# Tivo HD XL - won't "soft boot", will "hard boot"



## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

I have a stock (unmodified, unopened) Tivo HD XL. It hard boots (via the plug) just fine, but it won't soft boot (via the menu, or an OS patch reboot) - it just gets stuck at the first "powering up" screen.

Any ideas?


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## rocko (Oct 29, 2002)

Please don't take this the wrong way but have you done *any *looking around before posting this?

Search for "intellipark" and Tivo HDXL ...


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

rocko said:


> Please don't take this the wrong way but have you done *any *looking around before posting this?
> 
> Search for "intellipark" and Tivo HDXL ...


OTOH when someone buys a *new, premium* product, one expects a certain level of functionality out of the box. One shouldn't have to "search" for anything!

From reading various threads here, I've been aware of the intellipark issue. But I thought it applied to DIY disk upgrades. It's absurd that TiVo's flagship product is infested with such a stupid bug.

And, how is someone supposed to know to search for the keyword "intellipark"? That's pretty obscure, except for people who spend hours reading here every day.


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## rocko (Oct 29, 2002)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> OTOH when someone buys a *new, premium* product, one expects a certain level of functionality out of the box. One shouldn't have to "search" for anything!
> 
> From reading various threads here, I've been aware of the intellipark issue. But I thought it applied to DIY disk upgrades. It's absurd that TiVo's flagship product is infested with such a stupid bug.
> 
> And, how is someone supposed to know to search for the keyword "intellipark"? That's pretty obscure, except for people who spend hours reading here every day.


Easy there. I pointed him directly to where he needed to go. Have a nice day, OK?


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

If IRC there were a couple of posts on exactly this situation with factory new units, presumably due to the Intellipark thing. Definitely a warranty return case. The place to look is the drive expansion sticky thread at the top of this forum if you want to understand the likely problem.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

And in case anyone is curious, that thread has nothing to do with the issue. At least for the current set of Tivo HD XL's that exhibit the behavior.

So any other ideas as to what causes this problem, and how to fix it?


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

I bought a second Tivo HD XL at the same time from Amazon, and it has the same issues. Manufacture date is 11/09 on both.

*It appears that this is a systemic problem with the newer runs of the HD XL. So, do not buy the HD XL until this problem is confirmed as fixed!*


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

Cross-posting here as I'm the OP and this thread is more likely to be found by people with this specific problem...

Follow-up - I can confirm it's an issue with the EVVS drives, much like we saw with the Series 3 and the WD10EACS way-back-when.

In this case, I swapped the EVVS with an old 1TB EACS I had lying around, and the EACS works fine on a soft-boot. I backed up/restored the exact image I had on the EVVS to the EACS, so literally nothing else is different.

Intellipark is a nice idea, but it's not the issue (or at least using WDIDLE3 /D to fix it doesn't work).

So, if you are planning to upgrade to the 2TB WD20EADS, you'll be fine as those work as well. If you plan to keep the stock 1TB EVVS, you're going to have to hard boot every time there is a soft boot of the system. Alternatively, you can swap an EACS with the EVVS (if you have an EACS lying around somewhere), and the HD XL will work just fine, with the same capacity.

Anyone have any other insight into a way to fix this with the stock drive?


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## pig_man (Jun 4, 2009)

AbMagFab said:


> Intellipark is a nice idea, but it's not the issue (or at least using WDIDLE3 /D to fix it doesn't work).


Try "WDIDLE3 /S255" and then test the hard drive in your TiVo.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

AbMagFab said:


> And in case anyone is curious, that thread has nothing to do with the issue. At least for the current set of Tivo HD XL's that exhibit the behavior.
> 
> So any other ideas as to what causes this problem, and how to fix it?


The other thread he was talking about... http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=438765 ... is the exact same problem you are reporting here and has been experienced by dozens of people. I reported in it almost a month ago that I had bought and returned 2 Tivo HD XLs from Amazon and they both had the same problem, as many others had done. The fact that there is a lot of speculation in the thread about what the problem is doesn't change the fact that it is in fact the exact same problem. If you want to have a separate discussion, that's up to you, but it is the same if you read through the whole thread.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

convergent said:


> but it is the same if you read through the whole thread.


That's sort of the point - it's not obvious it's the same without reading the whole thread. And it's a broader issue in that thread, encompassing modified systems, etc.

If this thread existed when I had my problem, I would have found it quickly. Hopefully this will help others in a similar situation.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

pig_man said:


> Try "WDIDLE3 /S255" and then test the hard drive in your TiVo.


I'll try that tonight, but since /D set it to 6300, I can't imagine that setting it to 255 will improve things?

I'll post again late tonight.


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## wackymann (Sep 22, 2006)

AbMagFab said:


> I'll try that tonight, but since /D set it to 6300, I can't imagine that setting it to 255 will improve things?
> 
> I'll post again late tonight.


/S255 sets it to 25500 msec (25.5 seconds). i.e. about 4 times as long as 6300 msec.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

wackymann said:


> /S255 sets it to 25500 msec (25.5 seconds). i.e. about 4 times as long as 6300 msec.


Not according to the tool - I tried both, and S255 = 255, and D = 6300, at least with the version of the tool I downloaded from WD.

I'll try this new image late tonight.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

Update - the boot CD image above doesn't work for me - it boots, but then I get some error about the BANANA driver not finding a CDROM, and the WD utility is nowhere to be found. Further, when I run FDISK, it doesn't even see the drive.

So... I went back to my bootable USB, tried the S255 as suggested, and I think that worked! I have swapped around a few drives, but I still have one "virgin" HD XL that I'll test out tomorrow.

But I think the /S255 seems to work, and does exactly as someone said above (sets it to 25500), which appears to be long enough.

No idea why /D sets it to 6300, but whatever...

Thanks for the helpful feedback! I'll post one more time after I do it on the clean HD XL tomorrow.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

Okay, last update I think.

I did this again on the virgin HDXL, and it worked again. Same behavior though:
- /R reported 8000 default setting
- /D results in 6300 setting
- /S255 results in 25500 setting

So I set again to 255, and it works great!

Thanks again for everyone's help. The ISO image linked here doesn't work, but it's easy enough to build a bootable image and get a copy of WDIDLE3 from WD.


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## pl1 (Jan 18, 2007)

AbMagFab said:


> And in case anyone is curious, that thread has nothing to do with the issue. At least for the current set of Tivo HD XL's that exhibit the behavior.


Seems only appropriate that you edit your incorrect post.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

pl1 said:


> Seems only appropriate that you edit your incorrect post.


If you edit all your incorrect posts first, Mr. Incorrect Post Police!


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## pl1 (Jan 18, 2007)

AbMagFab said:


> If you edit all your incorrect posts first, Mr. Incorrect Post Police!


I was afraid you might take it the wrong way. If someone searches and sees your post where you warned everybody not to buy a Tivo HD XL until it's fixed....


> So, do not buy the HD XL until this problem is confirmed as fixed!


Would not be true. There is a workaround.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

pl1 said:


> I was afraid you might take it the wrong way. If someone searches and sees your post where you warned everybody not to buy a Tivo HD XL until it's fixed....


Unless you're willing to void the warrantee, this is still true. I think *most* people don't want to void the warrantee, especially if they're buying the (overpriced) HD XL. If they are willing to open the box, they would buy a regular HD and add a 1TB (or 2TB) drive.

I think you're forgetting the typical audience of an XL.

*My recommendation stands. I would recommend everyone hold off buying an XL until this problem is confirmed fixed.*

(FWIW, I bought these for a customer, specifically because he wanted to use the stock drives versus having me upgrade them but obviously void the warrantee. I'm willing to open them to do this one task though, especially since I'm keeping the stock drive in them, and since the problem would just create support calls to me and Tivo, but this is a very narrow use case.)


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

pl1 said:


> There is a workaround.


*No. No. No.*

AbMagFab has this right, you're totally wrong.

The XL is positioned and priced a *premium* product. Needing to google to find "a workaround" is beyond the pale on the absurdity scale.

The fact that this situation exists at all clearly demonstrates that TiVo manufacturing is seriously screwed up. It's shameful.


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## LoraJ (Mar 7, 2002)

Crap. I seem to be having this problem. It seemed to be working fine when I hooked it up last night. But when I tried to access Amazon Unbox it said I was not connected to my home network or whatever, but I know I was because youtube worked, it updated the cable schedule, etc. I had it re-do the network connection and it seemed like it would take a long time. Shut the TV off last night and didn't even look at it again until I got home from work tonight. It was stuck on the Powering Up... screen. Still? I did a hard boot, it powered up fine, did an update and rebooted itself and now it is stuck on the Powering Up screen again. I will look for these other threads. I took off work this coming Monday to have the cable guy come here. What a waste of a day if I have to send this back to amazon. UGHHHH! It was a Christmas gift and I don't have the box it shipped in anymore.


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## pl1 (Jan 18, 2007)

LoraJ said:


> Crap. I seem to be having this problem. It seemed to be working fine when I hooked it up last night. But when I tried to access Amazon Unbox it said I was not connected to my home network or whatever, but I know I was because youtube worked, it updated the cable schedule, etc. I had it re-do the network connection and it seemed like it would take a long time. Shut the TV off last night and didn't even look at it again until I got home from work tonight. It was stuck on the Powering Up... screen. Still? I did a hard boot, it powered up fine, did an update and rebooted itself and now it is stuck on the Powering Up screen again. I will look for these other threads. I took off work this coming Monday to have the cable guy come here. What a waste of a day if I have to send this back to amazon. UGHHHH! It was a Christmas gift and I don't have the box it shipped in anymore.


There is a workaround if you want to try it on your own. Item #13 Where are the Western Digital "Green" drives? Weren't those recommended before?


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

LoraJ said:


> Crap. I seem to be having this problem. It seemed to be working fine when I hooked it up last night. But when I tried to access Amazon Unbox it said I was not connected to my home network or whatever, but I know I was because youtube worked, it updated the cable schedule, etc. I had it re-do the network connection and it seemed like it would take a long time. Shut the TV off last night and didn't even look at it again until I got home from work tonight. It was stuck on the Powering Up... screen. Still? I did a hard boot, it powered up fine, did an update and rebooted itself and now it is stuck on the Powering Up screen again. I will look for these other threads. I took off work this coming Monday to have the cable guy come here. What a waste of a day if I have to send this back to amazon. UGHHHH! It was a Christmas gift and I don't have the box it shipped in anymore.


Just read this thread - there is specific advice in here for fixing this if you are willing to void the warrantee.


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## oosik77 (Nov 22, 1999)

I just got an XL last week and hooked it up and forced a reboot after the software upgrade and had no problem with a soft reboot. If you have this problem does it happen everytime? If so looks like I lucked out.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

oosik77 said:


> I just got an XL last week and hooked it up and forced a reboot after the software upgrade and had no problem with a soft reboot. If you have this problem does it happen everytime? If so looks like I lucked out.


Yes, it would happen every time with a soft-boot.

What's the manufacture date? It should be on the back of the HD XL.


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## bkdtv (Jan 9, 2003)

AbMagFab said:


> Yes, it would happen every time with a soft-boot.
> 
> What's the manufacture date? It should be on the back of the HD XL.


I too am curious. Either Oosik received an older TivoHD XL (i.e. pre-Oct) or TiVo _just_ fixed this problem.


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## oosik77 (Nov 22, 1999)

I'll try to take a look tonight. I got it from Amazon.


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## oosik77 (Nov 22, 1999)

Ya Oct 15th 2009 so I guess I am pre-problem.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

oosik77 said:


> Ya Oct 15th 2009 so I guess I am pre-problem.


Yeah, sounds like a borderline date, so likely pre-problem.


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## jlib (Nov 22, 2002)

If the drive model at fault is the same as the original one TiVo speced it is hard to fault TiVo in this case since WD changed the specs without notice. Of course, TiVo will warrant the problem but you can't expect a full QA cycle on a problem they could not be expected to know about in advance.

So, those with no computer or technical savy can simply return it and those with a computer can find a boot disk that works on their computer and fix it themselves and avoid the hassle. The whole notion of voiding the warranty in this case is akin to the thing about if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it...

As discovered, it does seem that some drive models can't have Intellipark turned off so just setting to max has the same effect.

One good thing that will come of this is that there should be a abundant number of otherwise perfectly good HDXLs available as refurbs.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

jlib said:


> If the drive model at fault is the same as the original one TiVo speced it is hard to fault TiVo in this case since WD changed the specs without notice. Of course, TiVo will warrant the problem but you can't expect a full QA cycle on a problem they could not be expected to know about in advance.
> 
> So, those with no computer or technical savy can simply return it and those with a computer can find a boot disk that works on their computer and fix it themselves and avoid the hassle. The whole notion of voiding the warranty in this case is akin to the thing about if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it...
> 
> ...


That's great. And what should the other 98.7% of the population of people who are the targets of the HD XL, and aren't capable/qualified to open it up and perform this operation, supposed to do?

I can't believe you are seriously defending Tivo for this:

1) This is a premium product, not a $69 Wal-Mart special.

2) It takes all of 7 minutes to see this error; if Tivo doesn't do a basic shakeout when there are hardware, or hardware version, changes, that include a soft boot, then shame on Tivo.

3) It is unacceptable for any CE device, to have to open it up, connect it to a computer, perform an operation, and put it back together again, to get basic, normal operations. Period.

Yes, if you're slightly technically proficient, you can work around this problem. But then again, you likely aren't buying an XL, and instead are upgrading a regular HD unit.

*Bottom line, under no circumstances is this okay.*


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## flatcurve (Sep 27, 2007)

AbMagFab said:


> 2) It takes all of 7 minutes to see this error; if Tivo doesn't do a basic shakeout when there are hardware, or hardware version, changes, that include a soft boot, then shame on Tivo.


You're presuming here that TiVo knew in some way that WD had significantly changed the specs on the EVVS to the point that it wouldn't work in the TiVo HD XL. I think that they had just as much information about it as the rest of us, which is they didn't find out until it became a problem. You're also assuming that their spot testing process could somehow catch this problem, which would mean they would have to forsee this as being a potential problem in the first place. The fact that it got through means that their QA procedures were in fact lacking, and I can certainly fault them for that. But I really think that WD should get the lion's share of the blame for making such a significant revision to an already established hard drive model and not telling their OEM partners.

I'm sure moving forward, they're either going to add something to their QA process to catch this bug, or they're going to be more demanding of WD to be more forthcoming with the revision notes. Probably both.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

flatcurve said:


> You're presuming here that TiVo knew in some way that WD had significantly changed the specs on the EVVS to the point that it wouldn't work in the TiVo HD XL. I think that they had just as much information about it as the rest of us, which is they didn't find out until it became a problem. You're also assuming that their spot testing process could somehow catch this problem, which would mean they would have to forsee this as being a potential problem in the first place. The fact that it got through means that their QA procedures were in fact lacking, and I can certainly fault them for that. But I really think that WD should get the lion's share of the blame for making such a significant revision to an already established hard drive model and not telling their OEM partners.
> 
> I'm sure moving forward, they're either going to add something to their QA process to catch this bug, or they're going to be more demanding of WD to be more forthcoming with the revision notes. Probably both.


Agree completely. Except I don't think the EVVS was the original Tivo HD XL drive, was it?


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

flatcurve said:


> The fact that it got through means that their QA procedures were in fact lacking, and I can certainly fault them for that.


Yes, quite lacking.



> But I really think that WD should get the lion's share of the blame for making such a significant revision to an already established hard drive model and not telling their OEM partners.


I would gladly place a 10:1 bet that WD notified their customers. I'd be very surprised that WD would make a "significant" revision to a product and not bother telling their customers. But in this case the customers are contract manufacturers, not TiVo.



> I'm sure moving forward, they're either going to add something to their QA process to catch this bug, or they're going to be more demanding of WD to be more forthcoming with the revision notes. Probably both.


Ha. TiVo has subcontracted their engineering and manufacturing to third world countries all around the globe. Those third party "engineers" don't get paid for doing a good job, just for being inexpensive. If WD tweaks the drive, do you think anybody at the subcontractor really gives a flying f***? A TiVo doesn't even work in any of the countries to which the engineering and manufacturing has been subcontracted. To them a TiVo is just some sheet metal into which a PCB, hard disk, and power supply are inserted.

Welcome to globalization.

Welcome to the race to the bottom.


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> Ha. TiVo has subcontracted their engineering and manufacturing to third world countries all around the globe. Those third party "engineers" don't get paid for doing a good job, just for being inexpensive. If WD tweaks the drive, do you think anybody at the subcontractor really gives a flying f***? A TiVo doesn't even work in any of the countries to which the engineering and manufacturing has been subcontracted. To them a TiVo is just some sheet metal into which a PCB, hard disk, and power supply are inserted.


Please supply your evidence that the number of domestic (US) engineers has gone down at TiVo. As far as I know, those numbers are expanding, and those engineers are still the core engineers. Perhaps it has escaped your attention, but TiVo is doing, or has announced they will be doing, business in most major areas of the world (Europe, Asia, Australia & NZ, Mexico, and I believe South America(Brazil?)). Of course they have international engineers!


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

CrispyCritter said:


> Please supply your evidence that the number of domestic (US) engineers has gone down at TiVo.


Well, I knew some engineers who worked there, and they quit. Therefore, the number went down. But that was about 10 years ago. Does that count?

More seriously, there is this comment from their 10K from 2008 (I'm too lazy to see if boilerplate changed recently, but I'd bet it hasn't):

_We have from time-to-time outsourced of engineering work related to the design, development, and manufacturing of our products. We have and expect to in the future work with companies located in jurisdictions outside of the United States, including, but not limited to, China, South Korea, India, Ukraine, and Mexico._​
Do you seriously believe that TiVo employs people in those countries because they will be announcing TiVo boxes in those countries? Rogers is a glad-handing media type who IMO doesn't understand/appreciate engineering. He's employing engineers in third world countries because they're cheap, not because they are better than US engineers or because he plans on selling TiVo boxes in those countries.



> As far as I know, those numbers are expanding, and those engineers are still the core engineers.


Well, WTF do those "core" engineers do there? Huh? Anything at all?

There are many long standing minor bugs that those "core" engineers can't be bothered to fix, even years later. E.g. just a few minutes ago I read someone's complaint about Netflix crashing his box. The box is great for basic functionality, and has been for years, but is a POS for anything other than basic functionality.

All I see in terms of improvement is more ads, more partnerships, more of the "dealmaking" that a media type like Rogers loves to do. Not more solid engineering.

Furthermore, actions speak louder than words. Something as basic as the TiVo XL failing to warm reboot is totally unacceptable for any "core engineers" who know WTF they are doing. A fundamental mistake like that should never have been allowed to happen, and certainly should not be allowed to fester for months like it has. Telling people to extract hard drives and reprogram them on their PCs is simply not acceptable in a consumer product.

Sorry, I've been there and done that (I've worked at companies that took quality seriously). I'm sick and tired of apologists for products that don't work. Especially in this case, where a product isn't just purchased but has a $10/mo continuing revenue stream supporting it. (It has been estimated that guide costs are under $1/mo therefore the revenue IMO should be used to continue to improve the product, not to add ever more intrusive advertising).


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> Well, I knew some engineers who worked there, and they quit. Therefore, the number went down. But that was about 10 years ago. Does that count?
> 
> _We have from time-to-time outsourced of engineering work related to the design, development, and manufacturing of our products. We have and expect to in the future work with companies located in jurisdictions outside of the United States, including, but not limited to, China, South Korea, India, Ukraine, and Mexico._​


Of course they work with international companies!!! They are an international company! I think they're close to 10 countries that they have announced projects in.

So you have no evidence that core design or bug fixing is no longer being done in the US. You've just been making up all these claims of yours for the past year!

As even a little investigation reveals, they have continued to actively recruit engineers for their San Jose site. Their current online "want" list gives about 20 engineer positions, most of which are San Jose, with a couple in England. Most of the positions are full positions and not contractor work. I think that's strong evidence that you are wrong.


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## flatcurve (Sep 27, 2007)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> Yes, quite lacking.
> 
> I would gladly place a 10:1 bet that WD notified their customers. I'd be very surprised that WD would make a "significant" revision to a product and not bother telling their customers. But in this case the customers are contract manufacturers, not TiVo.


I will gladly take that bet. As somebody who buys WD drives wholesale and has actively tried to seek out information regarding changes to drive models from them, I can tell you right now not to hold your breath waiting for WD to proactively tell you that they changed setting x in their firmware and that it may or may not cause compatibility issues with the broadcomm soc.

For now, every time I see a new rev number on a WD drive, I test it like I've never used it before. But that's only because we've been burned by these practices in the past. Something TiVo hasn't had the distinct advantage of yet. For the longest time, they were only using two SATA drive models in their HD units that were well proven. Now that those drives have been discontinued, and WD can't seem to make up it's mind on what kind of drives they want to offer in their AV line, we're seeing them put different models in their units all the time just out of necessity.


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## flatcurve (Sep 27, 2007)

AbMagFab said:


> Agree completely. Except I don't think the EVVS was the original Tivo HD XL drive, was it?


No, it wasn't. I think they switched to the EVVS after the AVVS was discontinued.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

flatcurve said:


> No, it wasn't. I think they switched to the EVVS after the AVVS was discontinued.


Right... and I think that's when the problems started.

So this was a known change, by Tivo (at some level), and they didn't test it? Crazy.


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## flatcurve (Sep 27, 2007)

AbMagFab said:


> Right... and I think that's when the problems started.
> 
> So this was a known change, by Tivo (at some level), and they didn't test it? Crazy.


No, I'm sure they tested it when they first started using it. The problem with the EVVS model did not exist until recently.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

flatcurve said:


> No, I'm sure they tested it when they first started using it. The problem with the EVVS model did not exist until recently.


I would love to know if there are any working EVVS drives out there that didn't get modified by the owner.

I thought the problems started recently due to Tivo finally exhausing their supply of older drives, and this was the first batch shipped with EVVS? But I could be misinformed.


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

flatcurve said:


> I will gladly take that bet. As somebody who buys WD drives wholesale and has actively tried to seek out information regarding changes to drive models from them, I can tell you right now not to hold your breath waiting for WD to proactively tell you that they changed setting x in their firmware and that it may or may not cause compatibility issues with the broadcomm soc.


Two problems.

1) You're "small potatoes" to WD. Do you even buy direct from WD, or must you use some sort of distributor? I'm sure Dell knows *exactly* what they're getting.

2) Thanks to the "race to the bottom" in terms of price, for a long time nobody could make any building and selling disk drives. Every customer was willing to sell their own mother into slavery to get a $0.50/drive discount. As a result, most drive vendors have been merged out of business. Now the remaining few drive makers don't have to give a s*** about little customers. Not coincidentally, WDC and STX both just reported "better than expected" earnings. They're the survivors. Capitalism at its finest. Unfortunately that's not good for small companies, and it's not good for consumers.



> For now, every time I see a new rev number on a WD drive, I test it like I've never used it before. But that's only because we've been burned by these practices in the past. Something TiVo hasn't had the distinct advantage of yet. For the longest time, they were only using two SATA drive models in their HD units that were well proven. Now that those drives have been discontinued, and WD can't seem to make up it's mind on what kind of drives they want to offer in their AV line, we're seeing them put different models in their units all the time just out of necessity.


That's too bad. WD is probably making too much money to care about concepts such as ISO 9000, which is controversial, but which is very useful as long as people focus on the true intent of the standard. Plus, WD was an incompetent company in the 1970's, when they made floppy disk controller silicon. Perhaps a company's culture just can't change, even after 30+ years and after countless bankruptcies and reorganizations.

Plus if you, as a "little guy" can test like you've never used a drive before, why can't that esteemed cadre of "core engineers" at TiVo do the same? They're bigger than you are, why can't they be competent?

And maybe this just demonstrates that the whole "AV drive" concept is too much of a niche to attract serious attention at the drive makers. E.g. didn't Seagate drop the DB35 line?


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

CrispyCritter said:


> So you have no evidence that core design or bug fixing is no longer being done in the US. You've just been making up all these claims of yours for the past year!


The thing I'm *not* making up is that long-standing bugs fester for months and years in TiVo code and fail to attract any attention from TiVo's "core engineers". I want *results*, not BS. Instead, I can order Dominos Pizza from my TV screen. Thanks, Tom Rogers, you're doing "a heck of a job".

I don't want to hear BS like how many job openings TiVo has posted. I've heard from hiring managers in the Bay Area that resumes from competent people are flooding in by the hundreds for a single job opening. TiVo is lying if they claim they can't fill 20 reqs. Either that or it's just an excuse for H-1B or more offshoring and outsourcing.


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## cjv2 (Dec 16, 2009)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> Plus if you, as a "little guy" can test like you've never used a drive before, why can't that esteemed cadre of "core engineers" at TiVo do the same? They're bigger than you are, why can't they be competent?


Shoot-the-messenger politics.

Of course, I have no evidence that this is going on in Tivoland, but I have certainly run into it as part of a technical group that had to tell management (coughmarketingcough) about something inconvenient, cost-inducing, and customer-facing.

You would be *amazed* at how people twist and turn when faced with such political dynamics. Especially management. And before anybody kvetches about how there are some good managers, they shoot good managers too. Blammo.

Again, not speaking of Tivo, just in general.


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## flatcurve (Sep 27, 2007)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> Two problems.
> 
> 1) You're "small potatoes" to WD. Do you even buy direct from WD, or must you use some sort of distributor? I'm sure Dell knows *exactly* what they're getting.


Distributor, but that's besides the point. Even if I actively try to seek out the information, it's hard to come by. And even if WD is giving them rev notes that say "revision made to intellipark feature in r/n 701670 on WD10EVDS" how is TiVo supposed to know that it's going to cause a compatibility problem, especially when WD says that the AV-GP line of sata drives has been tested and works with their Silicon Image drive controller (PDF)?



> Plus if you, as a "little guy" can test like you've never used a drive before, why can't that esteemed cadre of "core engineers" at TiVo do the same? They're bigger than you are, why can't they be competent?


I completely understand and agree with what you think _should have_ happened, but I think you might have missed my point... It's already happened, and I'm simply trying to hypothesize as to how. We can talk about should have and could have all we want, but hindsight is 20/20. Like I said, it's hard to test for a problem that you've never encountered before or don't expect. I always adjust my testing procedures every time I encounter something I haven't seen before. For us, if we don't catch it before it goes out, then the worst case scenario is that it inconveniences a couple of customers. For TiVo, worst case scenario is that they ship an entire run of units with incompatible drives and disenfranchise a lot of people before they become aware of the problem. Unfortunately for them, problems don't scale linearly.

I'm just trying to give you some perspective from the other side here. Yeah, the situation sucks. But these things will happen when you're working with other vendors and they make changes that you are either unaware of, or don't fully know what they will do. If we went back in time to August, and somebody made a post saying that WD was planning to change the intellipark feature on their AV-GP drives, how many people here would be able to see that it might cause a problem? Exactly.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

flatcurve said:


> Distributor, but that's besides the point. Even if I actively try to seek out the information, it's hard to come by. And even if WD is giving them rev notes that say "revision made to intellipark feature in r/n 701670 on WD10EVDS" how is TiVo supposed to know that it's going to cause a compatibility problem, especially when WD says that the AV-GP line of sata drives has been tested and works with their Silicon Image drive controller (PDF)?
> 
> I completely understand and agree with what you think _should have_ happened, but I think you might have missed my point... It's already happened, and I'm simply trying to hypothesize as to how. We can talk about should have and could have all we want, but hindsight is 20/20. Like I said, it's hard to test for a problem that you've never encountered before or don't expect. I always adjust my testing procedures every time I encounter something I haven't seen before. For us, if we don't catch it before it goes out, then the worst case scenario is that it inconveniences a couple of customers. For TiVo, worst case scenario is that they ship an entire run of units with incompatible drives and disenfranchise a lot of people before they become aware of the problem. Unfortunately for them, problems don't scale linearly.
> 
> I'm just trying to give you some perspective from the other side here. Yeah, the situation sucks. But these things will happen when you're working with other vendors and they make changes that you are either unaware of, or don't fully know what they will do. If we went back in time to August, and somebody made a post saying that WD was planning to change the intellipark feature on their AV-GP drives, how many people here would be able to see that it might cause a problem? Exactly.


Okay, then what's the excuse for people calling customer service and still being told that this is a new problem, and no one else is having it?

It's either:
a) Tivo is intentionally saying that in a poor attempt to control bad PR, or to minimize returns, or something else
b) Tivo CSRs are still unaware of a systemic problem with all HD XLs made since October/November

I don't think either option speaks well for Tivo. And that's if you just ignore the failure in their manufacturing/testing/QC process.


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

I seriously don't get why you guys are soft booting your TiVo's. I've never soft booted mine. That means it's only an issue after a software upgrade, which is pretty rare...


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

Adam1115 said:


> I seriously don't get why you guys are soft booting your TiVo's. I've never soft booted mine. That means it's only an issue after a software upgrade, which is pretty rare...


I think you are missing the point. It is defective. I refuse to pay $700+ for something that involves a "lifetime" contract when it is defective out of the box. According to Tivo, they may or not replace this broken unit down the road with a refurbished unit. Again, not wanting to spend that much money to start out with a refurb. I also find it totally amazing that they keep right on shipping replacement units to people for this problem when its been proven multiple times over that ALL of them have this problem. So I'm a little concerned at the ineptness of this company to keep wasting money and people's time when they could easily come up with a statement to put people at ease. I would likely still have the XL I bought (and not be shopping for an alternative to Tivo) if they had given me an official statement that said a) Yes, this is a product problem that exists in all the products, and b) When we have it sorted out, we will repair the unit or replace it with a new unit at no cost. But that isn't what they did.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

Adam1115 said:


> I seriously don't get why you guys are soft booting your TiVo's. I've never soft booted mine. That means it's only an issue after a software upgrade, which is pretty rare...


I guess you've never had a customer. It's not possible to put something with this kind of defect in the hands of a customer.

1) I have no control over what Tivo does when. 
2) I have no control on what my customer does - they might choose to reboot, or a cable installer might choose to reboot, etc. 
3) The equipment of many of my customers is in a closet rack, not super easy for someone to just unplug/replug one of the devices. 
4) It adds to my support and Tivo's support costs.

This is simply unacceptable, period. I'm really surprised to see so many people (perhaps it's just the same one or two posters) giving Tivo such a break on this.

Tivo screwed up. They didn't identify the problem in manufacturing. They didn't fix the problem when they found out about it. They aren't acknlowedging the problem when you call them. Major, ongoing screw-ups.


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

convergent said:


> I think you are missing the point. It is defective.


Oh it is not. It's a minor software glitch that requires you to do maybe 3-4 hard reboots a year.

It will get fixed, be patient.


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

AbMagFab said:


> I guess you've never had a customer. It's not possible to put something with this kind of defect in the hands of a customer.


Sure it is. Every DVR I've ever owned, DirecTV, Dish Network, Cable, TiVo, etc. have all had software bugs from time to time.

In fact it's pretty common in computers too.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

Adam1115 said:


> Sure it is. Every DVR I've ever owned, DirecTV, Dish Network, Cable, TiVo, etc. have all had software bugs from time to time.
> 
> In fact it's pretty common in computers too.


You as a customer of DirecTV is not what I'm talking about.

I run an A/V business, and I can't put this product as-is into my customer's hands. Part of my job is to ensure that the quality of the products I recommend to customers is of a high quality.

If you would give this to your customers, then your level of quality is a lot lower than mine.

(If you're just trying to be contrary, it's not working.)


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

AbMagFab said:


> You as a customer of DirecTV is not what I'm talking about.
> 
> I run an A/V business, and I can't put this product as-is into my customer's hands. Part of my job is to ensure that the quality of the products I recommend to customers is of a high quality.
> 
> ...


So tell me, what bug free alternative HD-DVR are you going to install instead...?


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

Adam1115 said:


> So tell me, what bug free alternative HD-DVR are you going to install instead...?


Come on. We're not talking bug free, we're talking something that doesn't require an unnecessary level of service and support.

A DVR in a rack that requires the user to pull the rack out and unplug it is not okay. One that has some bugs in the UI or in playback is totally different.

The Tivo HD works perfectly from a support standpoint. But the storage is too small for most of my customers. And they would prefer not to violate the warrantee by having me upgrade the internal drive, so they go for an XL. But the XL has unacceptable support demands.

There are bugs that don't require significant effort on the users parts, and there are bugs that require me to come to their house to fix them. The latter are unacceptable and way too costly. And yes, most of my high-end users can't get into their rack to unplug/replug equipment - they shouldn't have to.

You clearly don't run a business, or you're just trying to be difficult.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

Adam1115 said:


> Oh it is not. It's a minor software glitch that requires you to do maybe 3-4 hard reboots a year.
> 
> It will get fixed, be patient.


You didn't read what I wrote, apparently. First off, it remains to be seen if this can be fixed in Tivo software. Those that have hacked around the problem have had to remove the drive and boot via another mechanism to update the drive's firmware. I really don't think Tivo is going to have customers removing drives and doing patches to firmware themselves, so that would mean that it is likely they will have to replace the drive to correct the problem, even if technically it is "soft" in nature being a firmware change. But all of this is just theory and speculation.

My problems with this (and the reason that I returned the product):

- Tivo is well aware of this problem, yet they continue to deny it to their customers, AND, foolishly send replacement machines out that have the same problem. This is a total waste of their money, and the customer's time. It also creates a scenario where the customer is then unable to return the product if they bought from a third party and allowed Tivo to replace it.
- Tivo customer service told me that if my machine had been more than a couple weeks old, then they would have sent me a refurbished replacement rather than a new one. So I spend about $700 for the machine and lifetime agreement, and then within a month I have a refurb unit with an unknown prior life. In my opinion, this is not a good thing when the lifetime agreement is for the life of the machine. 
- When a company is "OK" with known quality problems going out the door and not reacting appropriately (appropriately would be to publicly acknowledge the problem to the paying customers and let them know what they plan to do in order to resolve the problem... so I know what is going to happen regarding this situation), it usually means there are other issues behind the curtain. This has been going on for over a month and I dare say you could call today with this same exact problem and after they had you unplug the machine from your surge protector and waste 15 minutes waiting for it to reboot, you'd eventually be told that they'd be happy to send you a replacement.

I have to be honest and say too that if I was totally happy with Tivo before I had this situation, then I might have been more patient, but I still would not have kept a product that I paid $700 for with an unacknowledged problem with an unknown solution. Adding to my frustration is - The fiasco of trying to use a Tivo with Time Warner Cable is comically bad. You have to go through the hoops of getting the cable card and tuning adapter installed and working initially, and then there is an unending list of issues with all of that working well together well. Its true that much of the blame for that lies with Time Warner, but since I have no other available service options that will work with a Tivo, then the two are married as far as I'm concerned. I basically get no multi-room-viewing function, and have to deal with quality problems and random missing channels.

The only reason I've not given up is that I loath multi-year contracts and the satellite companies seem to be all about them. So its a choice of what do I hate the least. That's really a great way for a consumer to view the companies they are buying from. What happened to the notion that a company should strive to have very happy customers? If I were paying bargain prices, I'd expect to have compromises. But that isn't the case... we are talking about premium stuff here that we are paying a lot of money for.

I so, so, so hope that Apple has something up their sleeve today with their tablet announcement that is a game changer for television content delivery. I would love to wash my hands with this whole DVR/Cable nonsense and start dealing with something that uses the technology available to deliver content in a new way.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

I hadn't seen this thread until now, but just as an FYI there are posts by six owners of HDXL's that had the soft reboot problem who are confirming that it has been resolved within the last 24 to 72 hours or so. There are a few others saying that their boxes haven't received what may be an apparent update though. More here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=438765


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## cannonball (Mar 20, 2003)

My HD XL now seems to be soft rebooting. I was one of the original people in that thread. It is notable that my unit now soft reboots because it didn't just 4 weeks ago. I'll post this confirmation in the other thread and on the tivo.com forum thread that I started a while back.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

cannonball said:


> My HD XL now seems to be soft rebooting. I was one of the original people in that thread. It is notable that my unit now soft reboots because it didn't just 4 weeks ago. I'll post this confirmation in the other thread and on the tivo.com forum thread that I started a while back.


That makes it nine...just about the tipping point for confirmation of an update in my book.

Glad it's going well now...so sit back and enjoy!


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## bmgoodman (Dec 20, 2000)

richsadams said:


> That makes it nine...just about the tipping point for confirmation of an update in my book.
> 
> Glad it's going well now...so sit back and enjoy!


Rich,

Now I'm wondering how we can determine who got this update. I'm assuming it's only gone to the XL models, but if it went to all the HD models, perhaps all of Western Digital's Green drives could be back on the "easy" upgrade list.

Thoughts?


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

bmgoodman said:


> Rich,
> 
> Now I'm wondering how we can determine who got this update. I'm assuming it's only gone to the XL models, but if it went to all the HD models, perhaps all of Western Digital's Green drives could be back on the "easy" upgrade list.
> 
> Thoughts?


Since the update is apparently transparent it's going to take some detective work. Unless someone with an HDXL is willing to pull the drive and do some dissection I'm afraid we'll never know exactly what the update consists of...and even then I wouldn't have a clue what to look for exactly, but I'm pretty sure some folks (Spike at MFSLive?) could figure it out.

The only other way that I can think of to find out would be for someone to install a new WD GP drive in their TiVo HD or Series3, confirm it has the soft reboot issue and then try forcing an update a few times to see if it is resolved.

It would be nice if they pushed the update to TiVo HD's and Series3's, but I don't hold out a lot of hope since neither are supposed to have anything in them but the stock drives.

So did you say you want to volunteer?


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## rocko (Oct 29, 2002)

richsadams said:


> So did you say you want to volunteer?


After all the trouble I went through to disable Intellipark on my WD10EVVS I'm not going to sabatoge it ...


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

rocko said:


> After all the trouble I went through to disable Intellipark on my WD10EVVS I'm not going to sabatoge it ...


Oh, come on now...you _know_ how much you love to fix things that ain't broke!


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

ferrumpneuma said:


> I know I said I would check again but I have not yet. I will check my WD modded TiVoHD and report back asap.


So that gun we have to your head is making you a little nervous is it?  Not to worry...everyone appreciates your feedback...whenever you have time to post it! :up:


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

ferrumpneuma said:


> As of Feb 4, 2010 the soft boot problem persists for a WD green drive user upgraded TiVoHD.
> 
> I think I'm going to have to locate a PC with SATA on the motherboard.


Explain this one to me - I've got 3 WD Green (WD10EACS) drives in Tivo HDs, and they've always been fine. The WD10EACS didn't work in the S3, but always did in the HD.

Did they change the 10EACS recently as well?


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

ferrumpneuma said:


> Not sure AbMagFab.
> 
> I looked it up and I have a WD10EVDS with a late November '09 build date.
> 
> ...


Probably because any other problem is related to a non-stock drive, so they don't want/need to fix it?

And I'm in the DC Metro area... Where we're about to get like 3-feet of snow.


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## MPSAN (Jun 20, 2009)

AbMagFab said:


> Probably because any other problem is related to a non-stock drive, so they don't want/need to fix it?
> 
> And I'm in the DC Metro area... Where we're about to get like 3-feet of snow.


Close down DC...that has to be a good thing! Can you make it last for a few years?

OH, to stay on topic, at least the TiVo's will work as long as you have power!


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