# 6.3c coming?? Still getting lock-ups...



## gio1269 (Jul 27, 2006)

and I am on 6.3b now


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## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

As far as I know; as of right now... there are ZERO indications of their being a 6.3c

Is it possible that your hard drive is going bad?


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## Cheezmo (Apr 26, 2004)

Many users are reporting log files filling up with a pair of "APG" related messages to the tune of several per second with 6.2 (obviously not the HD Tivo), 6.3a, and 6.3b. This occurs at such a rate that the file system where logging takes place will fill up after about 3 days or so. Since scheduled calls are 10 days apart now, it is likely that most HD Tivo's (assuming most are suffering from this problem) will be rebooting about every 3 days.

Hopefully it is a transitional problem with the guide data and will go away within a couple of weeks, but that could the explanation for many random hang/reboot problems in the near term.


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## WeKnSmith (Jun 24, 2002)

One of my two HR10s is on 6.3b. It has locked up at least once since the update, and is rebooting every day (have to reset 30 second skip every day.)

Not looking good...


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## thepackfan (May 21, 2003)

I had one machine totally lock up on a black screen(woke up, turned it on and nothing). I had notice TWP was not responding the day before. I think I'm going to reboot whenever TWP fails to operate normally as a precursor to prevent future lock ups.


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## kkluba (Oct 18, 2002)

Word in the underground forum is 6.3b is not in the stream right now. Nobody has gotten the slices for a few days. This may change tonight or tomorrow but it could also mean there is trouble in paradise..


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## Meathead (Feb 19, 2002)

I got 6.3b the other day & my HR10 rebooted yesterday afternoon for the first time since I have had the box. I happened to turn the TV on around 6PM & walked out the room. I noticed the volume went silent so I came back in to see the "Acquiring data from satellite" screen.

Until it does this regularly, I will not freak out, but it is certainly unnerving.


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## purduelion (Jan 13, 2004)

I have had 6.3b for 5 days now. I have yet to see any issues other then positive fixes over 6.3a. 

Knocking on wood!


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## rifleman69 (Jan 6, 2005)

I've had one reboot of 6.3b that I've personally seen, but other than that, it's been rock solid for me. Audio issues and remote locking up issues are gone.


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## jgkurz (Feb 4, 2005)

Hi Folks,

My unmodified HR10-250 is at 6.3a and like everyone else I was having lock-ups and reboots daily. I started to think my drive was bad so I open the case and removed the Western Digital 250GB IDE drive. I have a USB to IDE adapter so I was able to attach the drive to my Windows XP PC and run a free tool from Western Digital called WD Diagnostics. BTW, since the drive is not formated with FAT or NTFS Windows only recognizes the presence of a drive but will not mount it to the filesystem with a drive letter. After I did the scan it found and corrected several errors. I re-ran the scan to see if the drive was error free and it kept coming back with errors. I would allow it to correct the errors but finally just gave up re-running the scan and reinstalled the drive. Amazingly I have had zero problems since I reinstalled the drive. No reboots lockups or anything. This is just my experience. I hope it's valuable to someone.

John


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## gio1269 (Jul 27, 2006)

rifleman69 said:


> Audio issues and remote locking up issues are gone.


No audio issues, but getting the remote lock-up.
The remote lock-up is the issues with my HR10-250 freezing.

Yesterday, the video/audio was working perfectly but the picture of forwarding was stick on scree and the HR10-250 would not respond to the remote or the keys on the box. But you could watch the channel that it was stuck on perfectly!


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## chris_h (Dec 17, 2003)

kkluba said:


> Word in the underground forum is 6.3b is not in the stream right now. Nobody has gotten the slices for a few days. This may change tonight or tomorrow but it could also mean there is trouble in paradise..


Well Fooey! I was just getting ready to plug the phone line back in. I am willing to take a chance with 6.3b, but not with 6.3a, as I use Fox for football, which is important to me.


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## gio1269 (Jul 27, 2006)

No idea Earl. I has NO issues with the HR10-250 when I was on the 3.1 software.

This is getting very old. Looks like when the HR20 gets most the bugs worked out and now that OTA is available, I will be switching soon. I am not married to the whole "TiVo" software.

I just want a DVR that recored what I want with season passes, not miss recordings, run smooth, search for programs when I ask and pause live TV. That's basically it.

BUT I don't want a unit that locks up or where I have to keep sending the unit back and losing shows and SP!

Now with the HR20 having External storage capability, I am starting to lean more that way. But that has bugs. BUT I believe D* will fix those way before they ever get a Tivo unit to run perfect!

Maybe new owners will help down the road, but not holding my breath.

My old SD DVR40 in 3 years has been PERFECT!! Not one issues, even after the update gave folders and what not. That unit is SOLID, but it's not HD


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## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

gio1269 said:


> ....
> 
> Now with the HR20 having External storage capability, I am starting to lean more that way. But that has bugs. BUT I believe D* will fix those way before  they ever get a Tivo unit to run perfect!
> 
> ....


Just to point out, the "they" in your statement is the TiVo/DirecTV partnership.
TiVo writes the updates, and does the initial testing.
DirecTV received a compiled segment of code, for their testing.


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## bwaldron (Mar 16, 2003)

Cheezmo said:


> Many users are reporting log files filling up with a pair of "APG" related messages to the tune of several per second with 6.2 (obviously not the HD Tivo), 6.3a, and 6.3b. This occurs at such a rate that the file system where logging takes place will fill up after about 3 days or so. Since scheduled calls are 10 days apart now, it is likely that most HD Tivo's (assuming most are suffering from this problem) will be rebooting about every 3 days.
> 
> Hopefully it is a transitional problem with the guide data and will go away within a couple of weeks, but that could the explanation for many random hang/reboot problems in the near term.


Thanks for the info.

Could this be related to the guide data problem causing empty wishlists that folks reported here in the last few days?


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## bpratt (Nov 20, 2004)

Last night, after being on 6.3b for 10 days, my HR10-250 restarted itself. What surprises me is it should have been inactive. Because of the holidays, I only had 3 shows recorded. Both tuners were off channel and nothing was being recorded. We sat down and started watching one of the shows when the phone rang. I hit pause and answered the phone. After about a minute, the unit restarted itself. 

This is the first problem I have had with 6.3b, and other than audio dropouts on 6.3a, its the first problem I have had in over two years with the unit.


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## LlamaLarry (Apr 30, 2003)

I had no spontaneous reboots with 6.3 or 6.3a, but now all three boxes reboot every couple of days as well as rebuild /var. The dropouts are definitely gone for me but the rebooting and having to make some tweaks to /var for some mods is a little troubling. 

Has anyone gotten an feel for what the error filling tvlog even is?


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## LlamaLarry (Apr 30, 2003)

bwaldron said:


> Could this be related to the guide data problem causing empty wishlists that folks reported here in the last few days?


I was wondering the same thing. If the guide data for scheduling recordings gets cached to a directory in /var and it gets rebuilt every few days then there should be a period in which the guide date is incomplete or missing.

Would be nice to have a big brain let us know where the TiVo keeps the db it uses to set things up.


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## jcricket (Sep 11, 2002)

It's so weird... I've had 6.3a for a while now, and all I had was the audio drop-out bug (on Fox). In the last two days I've had one totally frozen lock-up (black screen, everything unresponsive) and one random reboot (while watching a program). Otherwise everything seems fine.

I was hoping to get 6.3b to fix the audio drop out problem, but am wondering what could be going on to suddenly cause my 6.3a box to lock-up/reboot. Again, could be the drive. I'll wait until I get 6.3b and there are a couple of weeks to see if it's something else.

What's the deal with the guide data that people are talking about?


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## BGLeduc (Aug 26, 2003)

6.3b fixed the only issue I had with 6.x; Fox audio drops. But...... 

I got my first spontaneous boot this morning; ironically while reading this thread! 6.3b went in last week, and as I said, has appeared to correct the audio drop outs. 

I have had the box for several years, and this is the first unexpected reboot I have seen. 

I sure hope this does not become a regular occurrence. 

Brian


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## herdfan (Feb 5, 2003)

I think I can live without Folders. Mine are staying unplugged. 

Once the series start back after New Year's, I am going to load up my HR20 and see how it reponds to a full load.


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## temp357 (Feb 18, 2004)

I hate to post this everywhere, but i went back to 3.1.5f and have not had a single lockup since. I even replaced the drive running 6.3a listening to the sage advice of forum members "your hard drive must be going bad." 

There was nothing wrong with my hard drive. It's running 3.1.5f just fine without a single lockup or reboot.

I seriously think that this is DirecTV's way of trying to get us to forklift upgrade our units to HR20's at this point. No one can be this incompetent.


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## Packertivo (Feb 21, 2002)

chris_h said:


> Well Fooey! I was just getting ready to plug the phone line back in. I am willing to take a chance with 6.3b, but not with 6.3a, as I use Fox for football, which is important to me.


I just received 6.3b on 1 of my 2 units and I had forced a call last night so it is definately in the stream.


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## jcricket (Sep 11, 2002)

temp357 said:


> I seriously think that this is DirecTV's way of trying to get us to forklift upgrade our units to HR20's at this point. No one can be this incompetent.


Oh, judging by the weekly software releases for the past three months to fix core issues with the HR20, I'd say DirecTv's got a demonstrated pattern of this level of incompetence.

I've experienced more lockups/reboots (two) in the last week than I have in the previous 18 months I owned this unit. And I've had 6.3a for quite a while. I'm hoping 6.3b fixes the issue for me, but if it doesn't, I'm not going through the trouble of replacing the hard drive. I doubt so many people would be experiencing sudden lockups after 6.3 and/or not experiencing them when reverting to 3.1.5f if this was really just "bad hard drives"

If the issue persists after I get 6.3b, I'm going to call DirecTV and demand some credits, at the least. I've been pretty patient (I just turned on CC for Fox shows, rather than calling to complain after I got 6.3a with audio drop outs). Hopefully I'd at least get enough in credit to cover the cost of getting a new hard drive, which would be my "last step" before I consider something like trying the HR20. And if they tried to charge me for an HR20 after breaking my HR10, I'm out of here. Moto/Comcast, Series 3, DishNetwork, whatever, here I come.


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## Maniacal1 (Sep 1, 2000)

I'm still on 6.3a, but I had a reboot yesterday and have had two black screen lockups over the last two days.


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## LlamaLarry (Apr 30, 2003)

jcricket said:


> I've experienced more lockups/reboots (two) in the last week than I have in the previous 18 months I owned this unit.


Definitely, I had zero reboots with 3.1.5x, one with 6.3 (but I know why), and zero with 6.3a. I now have a very regular reboot cycle with 6.3b. All drives new 500GB (2 Maxtor,1 Seagate) and I find it hard to swallow that a 3.1.5f -> 6.3 -> 6.3a -> 6.3b migration path this fall has suddenly encountered faults on all three drives.


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## Bob_Newhart (Jul 14, 2004)

Dang it! I was all excited about getting 6.3b to fix the audio drops (only had a couple reboots, AFAIK), and now this new info about 6.3b having problems. 

Looking forward to it, not so much now...


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## bwaldron (Mar 16, 2003)

Packertivo said:


> I just received 6.3b on 1 of my 2 units and I had forced a call last night so it is definately in the stream.


I got it yesterday as well, but since my machine is not hacked I don't know if the slices had been sitting on my box until my "number came up" to authorize the upgrade...i.e., getting the upgrade yesterday/today doesn't mean they haven't pulled it from the stream.


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## jcricket (Sep 11, 2002)

Does anyone think the recent rash of lockups is "bad guide data" combined with 6.3? How could those of us with 6.3a running fine for weeks suddenly, this week, be getting such a rash of lockups unless something else changed?


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## jediphish (Oct 13, 2006)

Maniacal1 said:


> I'm still on 6.3a, but I had a reboot yesterday and have had two black screen lockups over the last two days.


Would that be considered a gray screen lockup if I have my side panel color set to gray? If so, then I've had one of those.


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## kbohip (Dec 30, 2003)

Have any of you that are having the lockups with 6.3b tried doing a clear and delete everything. I had TONS of reboots with mine after 6.3a, doing a C&DE fixed it.


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## GreyGhost00 (Mar 11, 2004)

Well, my box stays unplugged now. 3.15f working just fine, thank you.


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## bwaldron (Mar 16, 2003)

jcricket said:


> Does anyone think the recent rash of lockups is "bad guide data" combined with 6.3? How could those of us with 6.3a running fine for weeks suddenly, this week, be getting such a rash of lockups unless something else changed?


Yes. It's also affecting a 6.2 HDVR2 in our household, which just rebooted itself for the fist time in probably two years.


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## jhimmel (Dec 27, 2002)

temp357 said:


> I seriously think that this is DirecTV's way of trying to get us to forklift upgrade our units to HR20's at this point. No one can be this incompetent.


"Seriously"? DirecTV didn't write the upgrade, TiVo did. Now why would TiVo be trying to get DirecTV customers off their box and onto the HR20?

Also - luckily, I have not experienced any reboots with either 6.2a, or 6.2b. Not sure what is making mine so reliable. Not complaining either.


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## jcricket (Sep 11, 2002)

bwaldron said:


> Yes. It's also affecting a 6.2 HDVR2 in our household, which just rebooted itself for the fist time in probably two years.


Wouldn't this imply that the problem will go away soon when they fix the guide data?


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## temp357 (Feb 18, 2004)

i haven't had any problems with 3.1.5f and guide data...


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## kturcotte (Dec 9, 2002)

I got the 6.3b update last night, and restarted the receiver so it could install. I got a reboot earlier this afternoon. Power wasn't lost because my HR20 is connected to the same UPS as the HR10, and my computer is connected to the same outlet, and it was still asleep when I got home.
Why does the word DishPlayer keep popping into my head?


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## trainedmonkey (Jan 27, 2004)

My DirecTV Tivo HD has been rebooting consistently on 6.3a the last 3-4 days. Last night I was watching HBOHD and the thing rebooted in the middle of my movie. 

Based on the fact that 6.3a has been on this machine since day 1 of its availability I'm guessing it must be something else or the hard drive is going bad. 

Guess I'll wait and see what happens over the holidays and make a decision about DirecTV after the new year.


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## bwaldron (Mar 16, 2003)

temp357 said:


> i haven't had any problems with 3.1.5f and guide data...


Problem occurs with 6.x software.

SD DirecTivo related thread


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## bwaldron (Mar 16, 2003)

jcricket said:


> Wouldn't this imply that the problem will go away soon when they fix the guide data?


Yeah, if it is indeed the problem, it should go away.


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## juliedrys (Sep 7, 2004)

We got 6.3b yesterday and have had 2-3 reboots since. We had several reboots with 6.3a as well, and some freezes. 

I don't even care if audio dropouts are fixed with 6.3b, the reboot thing is annoying!

We are considering trying a Clear & Delete (not Everything yet, just Program Data, Season Passes). Wondering if anyone has tried this. Seems like a long shot, this definitely seems like a software bug to me, but I don't know what else to do. I don't think it's a hard drive problem. 

The only other option is to go back to 3.1f, not sure how to do that, but I could figure it out. 

Argh.


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## shelland (Jul 12, 2003)

We still haven't experienced any reboots - of course, we haven't gotten *any* of the updates since the phone line has been unplugged for a few months...


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## Aquatic (Nov 26, 2002)

SOmeone mentioned a reboot with an HDVR2.... I second that problem. I've noticed it only once, I think it was last Saturday or Sunday morning in fact. Oddest thing too because the 2 of those units I have have been pretty darn rock solid, even through the 6.x release. I didn't notice if the other unit restarted, but interestingly enough, the one that did is modded to 2 x 120G hd and has been for quite some time. Other other unit is stock. 

Curiouser and Curiouser.


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

bwaldron said:


> Thanks for the info.
> 
> Could this be related to the guide data problem causing empty wishlists that folks reported here in the last few days?


which thread is that? i want to take a peek

my 6.3 machine only said guide data to the 27th when the 3.1 machine was way up to the 1st. Indexing time were virtually identical so it's not a lag there


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## hpb (Sep 29, 2000)

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Back to 3.15f I go ....

DirecTv needs to acknowledge the reboot, and 0:00 length OTA recording problems.

I am having these problems on a weekly basis and so are some of my friends. I have downgraded 3 hr10-250 from 6.3b -> 3.15f and ALL the problems go away.

Come on DirecTv an unreliable DVR is useless!


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## epeters (Jun 17, 2003)

I've got 6.3b now on one of my two hr10-250 boxes and have not had any audio dropouts since. strangely, though, I haven't had any on the 6.3a machine recently either. Unfortunately, on the 6.3b machine I get periodic picture pixellation that lasts 1-2 seconds occurring in clusters (i.e., 10 times in a minute's time and then nothing for hours) Most recently was on channel 649 last night during Arizona vs. Memphis. It has also been seen on Discovery HD as well. Fingers crossed...

BTW...I have been trying to force a call on the 6.3a box for two days now and have been greeted by the message that calling in is temporarily unavailable as the machine is receiving information (or something like that). does that mean 6.3b is on it's way?

And just for completeness sake, I've never had a freeze-up or spontaneous reboot of either box..not on 3.1..not on 6.3a...not on 6.3b I guess I should count my lucky stars.

Eric


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## hpb (Sep 29, 2000)

Most of the problems with 6.3x involve OTA recording.

Do not get me wrong I REALLY liked the speed and folders that were provided with 6.3 

But, It's like having a car with a really cool stereo that frequently dies and leaves you stranded on the side of the road. The stereo is still great, but a car's primary functions is as a transportation vehicle. A DVR's function is to record programs unattended. If it can't be trusted to work properly then all the bells and whistles are useless.


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## Krookut (Apr 7, 2002)

bwaldron said:


> Yes. It's also affecting a 6.2 HDVR2 in our household, which just rebooted itself for the fist time in probably two years.


Same here, was wondering if this happened to anyone else. First time ever reboot for the HDVR2 yesterday.

Now I'm wondering whether to stick with 6.3a on the HR10 or let it go to 6.3b. 2 weeks so far with 6.3a with no problems, I don't use OTA though.


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## bwaldron (Mar 16, 2003)

Krookut said:


> Same here, was wondering if this happened to anyone else. First time ever reboot for the HDVR2 yesterday.
> 
> Now I'm wondering whether to stick with 6.3a on the HR10 or let it go to 6.3b. 2 weeks so far with 6.3a with no problems, I don't use OTA though.


I'm assuming that the guide data issue is the cause of the recent reboot on my very stable HDVR2. Those with access to the system logs (my units are all upgraded but not hacked) indicate that the problem was causing the /var partition to fill up and the unit to reboot.

On my HR10, I initially upgraded to 6.3 a few months back, but reverted to 3.1.5f because of audio dropouts on FOX OTA. I plugged the line back in last week and got 6.3a instead of 6.3b, which then followed a few days ago.

I have not (yet) experienced any reboots or 0:00 length recordings on 6.3a/b. As noted, only issue I had with 6.3a was the audio dropout on FOX OTA, which appears fixed.

If the bad guide data was causing the issues w/ 6.X units, it should be a transient problem and the reboots on people's 6.3b machines may be coincidental timing. Too soon to tell. I'm hoping that the HR10 with 6.3b remains stable. I do have a 3.1.5f image to revert to if need be, but hoping I can stay with 6.3 this time.


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## maldini (Mar 2, 2005)

I have been on 3.1.5f for a long time. I unplugged when I heard the rash of 6.3 issues.

I finally plugged back in last week, and received 6.3b

I have experienced only one strange issue in 7 days. The unit was programming on one tuner, and I was surfing on the tuner. As I switched from a satellite station to a OTA station, the unit could not find the signal for the OTA, then eventually hung and eventually rebooted itself.

outside of that one oddity, the system has been as solid for as as 3.1.5f was, and enjoying the folders and increased speed.

Maldini


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## CAL7 (May 11, 2004)

Since 6.3a, I have had the occasional reboot. But since yesterday, I can't keep it going for more than 5 minutes - not even long enough to check for the 6.3b update. Is anyone else having reboot issues to this degree?


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

CAL7 said:


> Since 6.3a, I have had the occasional reboot. But since yesterday, I can't keep it going for more than 5 minutes - not even long enough to check for the 6.3b update. Is anyone else having reboot issues to this degree?


That is most likely a failing hard drive. Try tuning to two channels you do not receive. If does not reboot it is a failing hard drive in the live TV buffer area.


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## cdelena (Apr 30, 2004)

hpb said:


> Most of the problems with 6.3x involve OTA recording.


I don't think so. I have has 6.3b since it first came out and that is not my experience.

True, the audio drop out are confined to OTA FOX and PBS and as I understand it has to do with an incompatibility with the HR10 software and their bit stream. It can be irritating but does not happen so often that I will go back.

All of my recording problems have been satellite material. Again the failures have been infrequent.

I think the lock-ups have to do with downloaded material or something with a individual recording. It always clears with the next refresh of directory or when a problem program is deleted.

Would be great to get a maintenance release to address both problems.


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## juliedrys (Sep 7, 2004)

This is by no means definitive, because it's only been 24 hours, but we did a Clear & Delete Program Data and have not had a reboot since. Before we did the C&D, we were experiencing reboots several times per day, with both 6.3a and 6.3b. 

We've taken it through its paces, multiple recordings and OTA and DTV stuff, but so far not reboots or freezes. 

Fingers crossed that this works...Much easier than returning to 3.1f


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## CAL7 (May 11, 2004)

As mentioned above, mine (with 6.3a) is failing and rebooting within 10 minutes. I am trying a "Clear Program Data and to-Do List". It has been 12 hours and counting. Will this ever end? If not, how do I elegantly interrupt it?


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## JonR (May 1, 2004)

I finally said enough is enough (reboots) and pulled my original WD drive, upgraded to 6.3a not 6.3b yet, and hooked it up to a spare PC and booted to WD HD utilities. I ran a quick scan and YES the diagnostics program found errors and forced me to run an extended media surface scan which took an hour and a half. When completed the utility reported it found errors and "fixed" those errors. I installed the drive back into the Tivo and so far so good.

My theory is the initial 6.3x upgrade somehow, on some machines, corrupted several areas of the HD and this is the root cause of our problems. I believe if it was a software problem with 6.3x many more people would be complaining (how many HR10's are there in service).

I hope the unit will now update to 6.3b which as of this writing it has not done.

John


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## CAL7 (May 11, 2004)

JonR said:


> I finally said enough is enough (reboots) and pulled my original WD drive, upgraded to 6.3a not 6.3b yet, and hooked it up to a spare PC and booted to WD HD utilities. .....John


Thanks for the idea. A couple of questions: Does the PC have to run linux, or is W2K ok? Is there a boot CD (ISO image) of the WD HD utilities available? If so, I would appreciate a pointer. Thanks.


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## JonR (May 1, 2004)

> _Originally Posted by *CAL7*_
> Thanks for the idea. A couple of questions: Does the PC have to run linux, or is W2K ok? Is there a boot CD (ISO image) of the WD HD utilities available? If so, I would appreciate a pointer.


I used a spare PC and disconnect it's HD and only had the Tivo HD connected and used a floppy boot disk from the WD web site. Very simple and NO chance of messing the drive up with a Windows or Linux operating system.

John


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## temp357 (Feb 18, 2004)

CAL7 said:


> As mentioned above, mine (with 6.3a) is failing and rebooting within 10 minutes. I am trying a "Clear Program Data and to-Do List". It has been 12 hours and counting. Will this ever end? If not, how do I elegantly interrupt it?


I had this happen to me a few times along with the DVR becoming completely unresponsive. I timed it between reboots and changed the channel on both tuners and the DVR recovered. (Even tried to brand new hard drives) Since i went back to 3.1.5f though haven't had to worry about any of this anymore.


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## kturcotte (Dec 9, 2002)

You should be able to find what you need here http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?swid=1 Do NOT boot into Windows with that drive connected though. Better if you just completely disconnect your Windows drive.


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## CAL7 (May 11, 2004)

OK, thanks for all the help. I have the WD diagnostics boot floppy, and ready to go. But, my unit is still (18+ hours) running the clear and delete. Can I just unplug it?


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## CAL7 (May 11, 2004)

Well, there is not much on TV these days anyway, so I am filling my time playing with linux and prepping the computer for my TIVO hdd. I am hoping that the C&D (programs & ToDo) will finish on its own, but at 36 hours, hope is giving way to reason. If it doesn't happen soon, I guess I am going to have to pull the plug.


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## davsherm (Feb 23, 2003)

temp357 said:


> I seriously think that this is DirecTV's way of trying to get us to forklift upgrade our units to HR20's at this point. No one can be this incompetent.





jhimmel said:


> "Seriously"? DirecTV didn't write the upgrade, TiVo did. Now why would TiVo be trying to get DirecTV customers off their box and onto the HR20?
> 
> Also - luckily, I have not experienced any reboots with either 6.2a, or 6.2b. Not sure what is making mine so reliable. Not complaining either.


Exactly! Maybe it is Tivo's way of trying to get folks to "forklift" upgrade units... Oh yeah I forgot, only Directv is evil and calculating...


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## maldini (Mar 2, 2005)

I have now rebooted twice with 6.3 in about 10 days.

Maldini


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## leesweet (Mar 13, 2004)

I doubt that C&DE actually fixes things permently... one of my boxes has a brand-new copy of 6.3a in it from a drive replacement with 3.1.5f where it had to be C&DE'd (the drive was from another HR10 when an upgrade failed), and then it got 6.3a over the phone line (!).

After all that, that box has had several reboots, one while it was playing a DHD show.

On both of boxes (both on 6.3a), I often find that one or the other has rebooted overnight for no reason. (No new software, and they are on UPSs; 30 sec skip missing to indicate reboot).

I'm glad I have an IC3.1.5f CD to use if I need to.


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## CAL7 (May 11, 2004)

leesweet said:


> .......
> I'm glad I have an IC3.1.5f CD to use if I need to.


I completely gave up and went the IC way. At first, I tried it on my old drive. It sort of works. Meaning, it powers up and gets to the TIVO menu, but the bootup process takes 3-4 hours.

I figger'd that maybe the drive was the source of all the problems, so I replaced it with another WD2500 and IC'd it. I am 20 minutes into the booting of that IC version, and still at the gray "powering up" screen. It looks like a repeat of the above, so I am expecting no joy.

Is it a known issue that a new IC'd drive takes this long to boot?

FWIW, I never am able to actually watch TV. After a laborously long Guided Setup, the end result is that it does not recognize the Access Card. I doubt my same old access card and access card reader are suddenly failing after 2.5 years. So, something else is going on.


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## sk33t3r (Jul 9, 2003)

CAL7 said:


> I completely gave up and went the IC way. At first, I tried it on my old drive. It sort of works. Meaning, it powers up and gets to the TIVO menu, but the bootup process takes 3-4 hours.
> 
> I figger'd that maybe the drive was the source of all the problems, so I replaced it with another WD2500 and IC'd it. I am 20 minutes into the booting of that IC version, and still at the gray "powering up" screen. It looks like a repeat of the above, so I am expecting no joy.
> 
> ...


I used IC for my hr10-250 and it took a few minuted for my tivo to come up, not 20 minutes, maybe something is up with the image you are loading. Take the IC image you are using and add it do the zipper tool directory then create the zipper iso image.


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## leesweet (Mar 13, 2004)

What Sk33t3r said..... any new drive takes a little longer at the 'Powering up' screen the first time only. I seem to recall on a new drive it's checking the partitions or something? I just upgraded one of mine from a single 250 to a single 500 and it took *just* long enough for you to start going uh-oh... but nothing like 20 mins. Perhaps 2 minutes max. It *feels* like 20 minutes. 

You may want to report those symptoms in the Upgrade forum.


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## sk33t3r (Jul 9, 2003)

The record light should come on for a few seconds and then go off
But as Lee said, it waits just long enough for you to doubt yourself and then the almost their screen comes up.


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## OhioUmpire (Dec 2, 2003)

Cheezmo said:


> Since scheduled calls are 10 days apart now, it is likely that most HD Tivo's (assuming most are suffering from this problem) will be rebooting about every 3 days.


Woudl manually forcing the scheduled calls daily resolve this until a fix is in place?


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## temp357 (Feb 18, 2004)

CAL7 said:


> I completely gave up and went the IC way. At first, I tried it on my old drive. It sort of works. Meaning, it powers up and gets to the TIVO menu, but the bootup process takes 3-4 hours.
> 
> I figger'd that maybe the drive was the source of all the problems, so I replaced it with another WD2500 and IC'd it. I am 20 minutes into the booting of that IC version, and still at the gray "powering up" screen. It looks like a repeat of the above, so I am expecting no joy.
> 
> ...


Are you upgrading to 6.3a/b during the guided setup process? You need to make sure you disconnect your cable immediately after the activating the DVR call so you don't get the upgrade. I was gettin gthe invalid access card message with 6.3.a and have not had it since I went back to 3.1.5f, also I found that despite what the IC tell you, you must do a clear and delete everything after imaging the drive (before you go through a guided setup).


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## temp357 (Feb 18, 2004)

leesweet said:


> I doubt that C&DE actually fixes things permently... one of my boxes has a brand-new copy of 6.3a in it from a drive replacement with 3.1.5f where it had to be C&DE'd (the drive was from another HR10 when an upgrade failed), and then it got 6.3a over the phone line (!).
> 
> After all that, that box has had several reboots, one while it was playing a DHD show.
> 
> ...


+1

I imaged two brand new drives with 3.1.5f and upgraded to 6.3a and a CDE, both worked ok but then rebooted pretty regularly after awhile.


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## RexB (Apr 25, 2004)

jcricket said:


> Does anyone think the recent rash of lockups is "bad guide data" combined with 6.3? How could those of us with 6.3a running fine for weeks suddenly, this week, be getting such a rash of lockups unless something else changed?


For a month I had no lockups after allowing 6.3a to download, but starting three days ago the HR10-250 rebooted itself once a day, then yesterday it rebooted three times in an hour.

Plus one lockup where the frozen picture stayed on the screen but none of the remotes could control anything, like changing channels, FF, or Power on/off.

Unplugged the HR10, let it sit a few minutes. Powered back up and its been fine for about 12 hours.

Reading these posts, I don't expect much improvement from 6.3b.

Leaving the phone line unplugged and keeping 3.1.5f would have been better. Oh well.


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## jediphish (Oct 13, 2006)

I wish I'd left my phone unplugged. I have 1 unit at 6.3a that is rebooting every once in a while but experiences the Audio drops. The other unit has 6.3b. It had started rebooting under 6.3a and 6.3b has not cured that. In fact, I feel like its gotten worse. I might place another call to Level 2 support just to let them hear from me since 6.3 was installed.

Reverting to 3.1f is not an option for me. I only have a small laptop (Sony Vaio) so there's no way for me to connect the Tivo drives, without buying casings, drive cables, etc.


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## jcricket (Sep 11, 2002)

WTF is going on here. 6.3a was fine on my machine for a month, and now reboots once/week (or more often). From what I read 6.3b doesn't fix it either. Is it really the bad guide data? Or is there some bug that requires a "6.3c" to come out? 

I'm going to be really, really pissed off if this is now the new "norm" (reboots fairly often) with the HR10. Judging from the HR20 forums, things are likely no better if you switch to that box (and possibly quite worse).

I don't know what I'll do if this continues. Quit DirecTV and go to Comcast?


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## CAL7 (May 11, 2004)

leesweet said:


> What Sk33t3r said..... any new drive takes a little longer at the 'Powering up' screen the first time only. I seem to recall on a new drive it's checking the partitions or something? I just upgraded one of mine from a single 250 to a single 500 and it took *just* long enough for you to start going uh-oh... but nothing like 20 mins. Perhaps 2 minutes max. It *feels* like 20 minutes.





sk33t3r said:


> The record light should come on for a few seconds and then go off
> But as Lee said, it waits just long enough for you to doubt yourself and then the almost their screen comes up.


I timed the welcome grey-screen and it was up for 47 minutes! When I first tried the InstantCake image, it was on the original HDD and I could reasonably understand that maybe disk errors had it going through a constant read retry cycle that caused the time. But, I am now using a new drive that passed WD's extensive diagnostic test with flying colors. Same result. Other routine tasks in guided setup also take beaucoup time.



sk33t3r said:


> Take the IC image you are using and add it do the zipper tool directory then create the zipper iso image.


Not sure what you are saying. Could you elaborate?



temp357 said:


> Are you upgrading to 6.3a/b during the guided setup process? You need to make sure you disconnect your cable immediately after the activating the DVR call so you don't get the upgrade. I was gettin gthe invalid access card message with 6.3.a and have not had it since I went back to 3.1.5f, also I found that despite what the IC tell you, you must do a clear and delete everything after imaging the drive (before you go through a guided setup).


Actually, these are two other problems. I am still at 3.1.5f (pure IC image). I really think that disk corruption from 6.3a or bad guide data was the original cause of my issues, but despite that, I thought that upgrading to 6.3 (a or b) might be a way of solving my currentboot and other performance issues. So, I have tried to force a phone call (not to further complicate things, but I have Vonage and an external modem - using a dial prefix of ,#319 or ,#396 and *99 which worked great for me for the last year). The phone call never dials the modem and the Tivo stays in "dialing" mode literally forever. The only way out is a power-cord reboot, which of course takes me full cycle to the problems above.

Back to the access card.... I cleaned the card and gently blew the dust away from the reader contacts, which did not immediately help. But, after several pull/insert cylces and some wiggling, it did recognize my card and give me real live TV. Hooray! But, after several hours of just being on, it stops recognizing the card. Usually a re-insert will start it up again. But, this is no way to run a DVR.  The fact that I had zero access card issues for the past 2.5 years and the random timing of the current "no access card" detection and that a simple re-insert fixes it, all tells me that this is - hard to believe - a software issue and not a card or card reader issue.

At some point, I did do an C&DE, but I can' t remember when - it was probably on the first IC image (original HDD). That is just about the only thing left to try. Do I need to re-do the IC imaging and Guided Setup and C&DE, or can I just do the C&DE from where I am now?


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## jcricket (Sep 11, 2002)

Has anyone confirmed that the "faulty" guide data is at fault for /var filling up? Or that forcing a daily call to rebuild the data cleans out /var preventing the reboots? I can handle this workaround for a little while if it's what's required, but not forever. 

If so, wouldn't the reboots stop when the "faulty" guide data stream is fixed? Any news on that front? 

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?


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## dennya (Mar 29, 2003)

I've had two lock-ups with the record light on and no signal from the HDMI. A power-cord reboot fixes things.

Does this sound like the issues you guys are seeing? VERY frustrating.


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