# turning off Tivo ads inserted into guide



## Flashmasta (Oct 30, 2018)

I'm starting a new thread since the discussion was clogging up the chat about pre-roll ads. I'm not sure if Tivo has talked about an official way to turn these off (like calling a CSR and asking for pre-roll ad removal). If you know of an official way then please let us know. 

As Charles R mentioned in the other thread, blocking mm1.tivoservice.com does seem to remove the ads in the guide. It appears that if you do so when the Tivo first boots then the ads will not show up, and then you can remove the block after with no other side effects. In my testing I have noticed that if I keep the block enabled it breaks Tivo suggestions, the Search interface, and online.tivo.com and mobile app access. The apps would appear to work for a few minutes but would then act like my device was offline. My guess is the device uses that domain as a sort of proxy.

On a positive note, you can enable/disable the block as needed but if your Tivo reboots in the night for an update then your left removing the ads manually the next day. It might be possible to drill it down further (ex. mm1.tivoservice.com/ads/) but it would require something other than DNS blocking like OpenDNS or Pi-hole.


----------



## Johnwashere (Sep 17, 2005)

They must of removed them recently. I rebooted my bolt and my minis yesterday and they are all gone now ! I didn’t block anything or do anything special. I hope it stays like this


----------



## Emty (Dec 18, 2017)

I tried email, chat, and phone. 0 / 3 with the same answer every time - this is a valuable new feature we have given you. There is no way to turn it off. Instructions for how to make a suggestion for a new feature ...

Blocking DNS at the router took care of the problem in much less time than the phone call to Tivo. 

I can confirm the experiences listed here and in the other thread, that you can remove the block after the Tivo boots, and that leaving the block in place does break some items including online.tivo.com. I also found that after you remove the block, there are other actions that can cause the Guide ads to come back. Using the Settings menu to change accessibility options, or using the "A" button change Guide options while the Guide is open. These will cause a hit on mm1.tivoservice.com and turn the Guide ads back on. Unfortunately the reverse isn't true. After turning on the DNS block, changing Guide options doesn't remove the ads. Restarting the box seems to be the only way to turn them off. Conclusion - once you get them turned off, don't monky with Guide options or anything from the Settings menu.

More details about "blocking DNS at the router" since that totally depends on individual routers, network configuration, and technical skills:

My router is running DD-WRT, using dnsmasq for local DNS and serving it by DHCP to the rest of the LAN, including TIVO boxes. I added options to return a static LAN address for mm1.tivoservice.com. I did not have success by returning "Not Found" or loopback address 127.0.0.1, even though other reports have said that worked. The Guide Ads were only blocked when DNS returned a valid IP on my LAN that is running a web server. I may have been making some other mistake that kept the simpler options from working, or it may be something specific to my configuration. PiHole and various router content filters behave differently in what DNS response they return, and whether they will even serve up bogus HTTP content to fool the client.


----------



## Tony_T (Nov 2, 2017)

TiVo+ "ads" gone from my Guide this morning 21.9.6.v7-USC-11-849


----------



## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

Sorry TiVo, cancelled cable and use OTA only with TE3, zoom button works now too.


----------



## JammasterC (Aug 9, 2005)

Tony_T said:


> TiVo+ "ads" gone from my Guide this morning 21.9.6.v7-USC-11-849


Same here and it's so much better now.


----------



## Fugacity (Oct 1, 2004)

My bolt with 21.9.6.v7-USH-11-A95 still has them, but my Edge with 21.9.2.1.v8-USM-12-D6F no longer does either. The Edge firmware is essentially the engineering fix for tuning adapters(although cablecard edges are D6E so that's a little weird), there hasn't been an update on the Edge since then so maybe they are rolling out firmware and removing tivo+ from the guide in waves. It could always be a bug and it could pop back up. Hopefully not, the guide looks better without the tivo+ ad there for sure.


----------



## JammasterC (Aug 9, 2005)

Boo! They’re back.


----------



## Tony_T (Nov 2, 2017)

Tony_T said:


> TiVo+ "ads" gone from my Guide this morning 21.9.6.v7-USC-11-849


...and they' back


----------



## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Tony_T said:


> ...and they' back


No ads on my Roamio host, but they still infect my Mini VOX.


----------



## JammasterC (Aug 9, 2005)

It was really nice without them. 

Make them go away !


----------



## jcliff (May 24, 2017)

No matter what I've tried, they always come back.

I decided to upgrade the HDD in one of my Bolts (the one that still have TE4), and I'm going to use it as an opportunity to sidegrade to TE3. The banners have been making the guide "jump" at certain points, which makes it impossible to browse entire sections of channels without directly tuning to them first. 

I'll miss some features, but at least the guide will be usable again.


----------



## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

After a power cycle on my Roamio the TiVo+ junk is back in my guide.


----------



## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

jcliff said:


> No matter what I've tried, they always come back.
> 
> I decided to upgrade the HDD in one of my Bolts (the one that still have TE4), and I'm going to use it as an opportunity to sidegrade to TE3. The banners have been making the guide "jump" at certain points, which makes it impossible to browse entire sections of channels without directly tuning to them first.
> 
> I'll miss some features, but at least the guide will be usable again.


I did this recently and I really don't miss a thing and love the speed that TE3 brought back to my Roamios(and it's blazing on my Bolt). I guess it's because I never used the auto skip and I don't use the box for any type of apps, I don't feel like I lost anything and gained more. Plus I much prefer the way the guide scrolls in TE3 in that when you move up/down one past what is visible, it will scroll just one line at a time instead of a full page like TE4.

Rolling back to TE3 on my three TiVo's was the way to go for us.

As a side note, be careful if you try to block things in your router(vs PieHole). I blocked a few sites in my router(Netgear) to block prerolls and got a browser cookie stuck in my Bolt that blocked me from starting new recordings. Even circumventing the router(direct connect from modem) it still had the blocked cookie in it. I had to do a complete reset to get rid of it. That's when I took the time to roll back to TE3, to save myself from more headaches.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Salacious Crumb (Jan 1, 2019)

How do you roll back to TE3 ??

Do you also lose all the recordings ??


----------



## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

How to Rollback Hydra from Roamio and Mini's v1 work with Bolt. Specific (newest) Bolt OTA does not work. EDGE does not work.

Yes. You lose data on disk. Methods to save unprotected programs are available.


----------



## Tony_T (Nov 2, 2017)

Tony_T said:


> ...and they' back


&#8230;.and today, &#8230;..gone 

(&#8230;&#8230;.but I know that this is only temporary, and that they'll soon be back )


----------



## tim_m (Mar 8, 2017)

Mine are gone again too.


----------



## Skye (May 18, 2018)

I put tivoservice into my routers list of blocked keywords, rebooted the Bolt and the guide ads are gone. So far no side effects, I can still connect to my Bolt using the Tivo app on my phone.


----------



## Tony_T (Nov 2, 2017)

My guide hasn’t had ads for a couple of weeks. But I expect that they’ll return.


----------



## Skye (May 18, 2018)

My ads were coming and going. Would have none for a day or two and then would get two lines per page.


----------



## DickMan (Dec 21, 2019)

I'm not happy with the Tivo+ adds either. I am paying for this service, and they have the gall to dump in more advertising. 
Enough ranting, I have a question. I put tivoservice into my routers list of blocked keywords, and then restarted my Bolt. Adds are still there. But it seems to me the adds won't get stripped out until the next time the Bolt connects to update the schedule?


----------



## Skye (May 18, 2018)

DickMan said:


> I'm not happy with the Tivo+ adds either. I am paying for this service, and they have the gall to dump in more advertising.
> Enough ranting, I have a question. I put tivoservice into my routers list of blocked keywords, and then restarted my Bolt. Adds are still there. But it seems to me the adds won't get stripped out until the next time the Bolt connects to update the schedule?


Are you putting them in the firewall block list? I have an Asus router and there are two places to block keywords in the firewall URL Filter and the keyword filter. Use the URL firewall filter.


----------



## DickMan (Dec 21, 2019)

Same here, Asus router. I tried the URL firewall filter, then the keyword filter. Neither are blocking tivoservice.


----------



## Skye (May 18, 2018)

Don’t know worked for me. Turned it on no ads, turned it off rebooted bolt got ads. Turned it on and rebooted bolt, no ads.


----------



## DickMan (Dec 21, 2019)

My bad. I was blocking "tivoservice.com" but it should have been just "tivoservice". Changed that and restarted to Bolt. It works!

Thanks!


----------



## Skye (May 18, 2018)

DickMan said:


> My bad. I was blocking "tivoservice.com" but it should have been just "tivoservice". Changed that and restarted to Bolt. It works!
> 
> Thanks!


Glad to help


----------



## DickMan (Dec 21, 2019)

Update. After successfully getting the ads eliminated, there was an unintended consequence. I hit the Netflix button on my remote, and Netflix was "Unavailable". After a period of unsuccessfully trying to figure out the issue, I decided to back out my changes, and removed "tivoservice" from my router's firewall filters, and restarted the Bolt. Soon after the restart I hit the Netflix button, and I got the message that the Netflix app had not loaded yet. Waited another minute and tried again. Netflix came up normally. My guess is that "tivoservice" is used to load any apps to the Bolt.

I sure liked the looks of the simpler guide, but this fix won't work if you use Netflix (and possibly other apps), too.


----------



## Skye (May 18, 2018)

I dont run any apps on my Bolt. I use an AppleTv so I did not se this issue. I can say the wife factor was greatly elevated as soon as the ads went away. She said they were really bothering her. So I will take the win.


----------



## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

DickMan said:


> Update. After successfully getting the ads eliminated, there was an unintended consequence. I hit the Netflix button on my remote, and Netflix was "Unavailable". After a period of unsuccessfully trying to figure out the issue, I decided to back out my changes, and removed "tivoservice" from my router's firewall filters, and restarted the Bolt. Soon after the restart I hit the Netflix button, and I got the message that the Netflix app had not loaded yet. Waited another minute and tried again. Netflix came up normally. My guess is that "tivoservice" is used to load any apps to the Bolt.
> 
> I sure liked the looks of the simpler guide, but this fix won't work if you use Netflix (and possibly other apps), too.


Keeping Tivoservice blocked will also stop search from working. What you need to do every time the ads show up is block Tivoservice, reboot the TiVo then remove the block on Tivoservice.

This process gets annoying after a while(I used PieHole for my block) and one of the reasons I eventually rolled back to TE3.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## OrangeTurtle (Jul 17, 2015)

So I called Tivo back when the preroll stuff started (though I had not yet received any) and they gave me a case number and stated that I would be "opted out" of the ads. All of that said, I went back to TE3. 

Anyone know if Tivo keeps any sort of word when they tell you it can be removed by simply calling and complaining? Or do I have to just stay on TE3 forever to avoid the ads?

I like TE3, but would be open to going back to TE4 with voice control features and what not- but have no desire for all the headaches over the ads everyone else has endured. 

Thanks in advance for the feedback!


----------



## mattyro7878 (Nov 27, 2014)

I like the new feature where you hit guide, scroll a little bit and ZAM! you are back to the original spot where you first hit "guide". Thanks Tivo!


----------



## Charles R (Nov 9, 2000)

I noticed with this week's release virtually as soon as you unblock mm1.tivoservice.com guide ads return. Previously after rebooting with it blocked you could unblock and the ads would be gone for days if not weeks... before they showed back up.


----------



## peekb (Feb 12, 2005)

Charles R said:


> I noticed with this week's release virtually as soon as you unblock mm1.tivoservice.com guide ads return. Previously after rebooting with it blocked you could unblock and the ads would be gone for days if not weeks... before they showed back up.


Just came here to report this. Same for me.


----------



## Tony_T (Nov 2, 2017)

TiVo now running Netflix Ads in the Guide.
Before we had TiVo+”Ads” (in quotes, as they were sudo Ads as they did have free content on these channels), but now they are plain Advertisements.


----------



## Mikeguy (Jul 28, 2005)

Tony_T said:


> TiVo now running Netflix Ads in the Guide.
> Before we had TiVo+"Ads" (in quotes, as they were sudo Ads as they did have free content on these channels), but now they are plain Advertisements.


Is this another horizontal line entry in the Guide?


----------



## Tony_T (Nov 2, 2017)

Yes


----------



## Tiger62 (Mar 27, 2018)

Tony_T said:


> TiVo now running Netflix Ads in the Guide.
> Before we had TiVo+"Ads" (in quotes, as they were sudo Ads as they did have free content on these channels), but now they are plain Advertisements.


I really hate those Sudo Ads! ;-)


----------



## chiguy50 (Nov 9, 2009)

Tiger62 said:


> I really hate those Sudo Ads! ;-)


Are you trying to say that the SUDO ads have you FED up?










(*Pseudo*: from Greek _pseudo-_, combining form of _pseudes_ "false, lying; falsely; deceived."


----------



## Tony_T (Nov 2, 2017)

chiguy50 said:


> (*Pseudo*: from Greek _pseudo-_, combining form of _pseudes_ "false, lying; falsely; deceived."


I've been in my Terminal too long


----------



## DouglasPHill (Feb 10, 2005)

So switched to Bolt OTA and April was an overlap with my Dish.(previous post). May comes and now I'm all Bolt. So just noticed what everyone is complaining about: Tivo uses 1/6 th of my guide screen for ads. Sometimes they put 2 ad lines in the guide 1/4 or 1/3 of the screen.

How can they think this is ok? Some little bubble ad might be ok but to use up rows in my guide is totally unacceptable. I want to support Tivo but this ad method is just wrong.


----------

