# TiVo HD is Frozen Every Single Night



## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

I have had my TiVo HD since it first came out and never had any issues whatsoever. Here recently I upgraded to a new TiVo for the living room and put the TiVo HD in the bedroom. That is when all the trouble started...

Days after I put it in the bedroom, I began to notice that it would be frozen/locked up when I would turn on the TV. The remote does not work and the picture would be frozen. It would miss recordings and everything. This would happen randomly, not every single time...

My first solution was to try another HDMI cable, because I had just used a cheap thin one I had lying around. That actually seemed to work for a while (not sure why), but then it started doing it again. At that point, I thought it was the hard drive, because of the age of the unit. So I bought a WD Red drive and replaced it. I thought finally I had it fixed, but 2 days after getting the new hard drive installed it began to do it again...

I actually think it is doing it more frequently now then it had previously. Every night when I turn on the bedroom TV, the TiVo is frozen. We are going on 8 nights in a row here.

I thought it may have had to do something with it connecting to the TiVo service, but it does that fine on its own and when I try it manually. And I am almost 100% sure it does not lock up at the same time every night or anything like that because I have just left the TV on all night and it will never freeze. Just to be clear, it never freezes while watching TV. So this makes me think it has something to do with the TV. It is a LG 60PA6500 TV.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.


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## jerrymc (Sep 17, 2001)

There's no way for the TV to affect the Tivo. The Tivo has no way to know what its outputs are connected to.

First thing I would try is replacing the cables from your source (antenna or Cable outlet). Garbage in, garbage out.

Second thing I would try is "Clear Program Data and ToDo list". This forces the Tivo to update the program data. In previous models, the program data could become corrupted and cause all sorts of strange behavior. Happened on my Series 2 HR10. When you copied the old drive to the new drive, then your second drive may have inherited a corrupted program data base from the first.

If that doesn't work, pull the drive and run FULL diagnostics from the manufacturer. Do this for both drives if you have the original one. If they pass, it leaves the power supply or the main board of the Tivo. You can replace a power supply for under $100 (less for a used one). Obviously, if it's the main board, you're out of luck.

Hope this helps.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Due to the Series 3 line being infected with "capacitor plague", it's time to suspect the power supply.

Check the power supply for any bulging or leaking capacitors.










Keep in mind capacitors can be bad without showing any outward signs, so to do a thorough check, you need to read the power supply output with a volt meter.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

TaterTot24 said:


> I have had my TiVo HD since it first came out and never had any issues whatsoever. Here recently I upgraded to a new TiVo for the living room and put the TiVo HD in the bedroom. That is when all the trouble started...
> 
> Days after I put it in the bedroom, I began to notice that it would be frozen/locked up when I would turn on the TV. The remote does not work and the picture would be frozen. It would miss recordings and everything. This would happen randomly, not every single time...


This is probably a long shot, but make sure all your outlets are properly grounded and that everything (outlets, network cables, coax shields) is connected to the same grounding point. Varying ground levels can cause strange problems.


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## worachj (Oct 14, 2006)

Try different video formats on your TiVo. Try matching TiVo's video format to your TV. If your TV does 1080i set TiVo's format to 1080i.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

TaterTot24 said:


> I have had my TiVo HD since it first came out and never had any issues whatsoever. Here recently I upgraded to a new TiVo for the living room and put the TiVo HD in the bedroom. That is when all the trouble started...
> 
> Days after I put it in the bedroom, I began to notice that it would be frozen/locked up when I would turn on the TV. The remote does not work and the picture would be frozen. It would miss recordings and everything. This would happen randomly, not every single time...
> 
> ...


Borrow a voltmeter from someone and check the yellow wire for +12V relative to the black wires, the red for +5V, and the orange for +3.3V.

Even if none of the power supply caps show any signs of bulging or leakage the fact that it's newer than a Series 1 and older than a Series 4 makes power supply problems due to "capacitor plague" very likely, and that can cause all sorts of strange symptoms.

Fortunately you're only looking at about ten to fifteen bucks for new replacement low ESR caps rated at 105 degrees C.


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

Thanks everyone for the replies so far!

I know you guys are talking about the power supply and the capacitors being a common issue, but does that really fit what is going on here (maybe it does)?

I mean I have left the TV on for 24 hours and not had a single issue, but if I turn off the TV and a few hours later turn it back on -- then it will be frozen...

I just did a little research and turns out there is like 3 firmware update for my TV and 2 of them address errors with HDMI handshake & protocol. I am going to try to update the TV tonight and then report back here.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

TaterTot24 said:


> I know you guys are talking about the power supply and the capacitors being a common issue, but does that really fit what is going on here (maybe it does)?


Yes, it does. PS issues have a wide variety of symptoms, yours is one of them seen previously.

Not saying investigating other items is not prudent, but the PS is the top of the list at this point.


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

jrtroo said:


> Yes, it does. PS issues have a wide variety of symptoms, yours is one of them seen previously.
> 
> Not saying investigating other items is not prudent, but the PS is the top of the list at this point.


Ok just checking 

I will be pulling the TiVo apart tonight and inspecting the capacitors and checking voltages. I will post some pics here if I find anything goofy...

While that is going on, I will go ahead and update the TV just for good measure :up:


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## jerrymc (Sep 17, 2001)

Whatever you do, try only one thing at a time to make sure you have pinpointed the actual problem.


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

I have a power supply from a Tivo HD I received yesterday sitting on my desk. Out of curiosity, I measured the voltages with a multimeter. There are no visible signs of capacitor failure but when I measured the voltages, I got 3.34, 4.73, and 11.1V with a HDD connected.


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

squint said:


> I have a power supply from a Tivo HD I received yesterday sitting on my desk. Out of curiosity, I measured the voltages with a multimeter. There are no visible signs of capacitor failure but when I measured the voltages, I got 3.34, 4.73, and 11.1V with a HDD connected.


Is that suppose to be a new PS or a bad one?


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

The voltages should be close to 3.3, 5, and 12V so I would say it's bad. Maybe not bad enough to start causing problems but it's just a matter of time.


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

If the TV has backlighting, try turning it off.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

squint said:


> I have a power supply from a Tivo HD I received yesterday sitting on my desk. Out of curiosity, I measured the voltages with a multimeter. There are no visible signs of capacitor failure but when I measured the voltages, I got 3.34, 4.73, and 11.1V with a HDD connected.


You should be a little closer to 5 and 12 than that, especially 12.

And if it measures higher with the drive disconnected, that means it's not voltage regulating properly, which would be another indication of problems.

So go ahead and re-cap it and be done with it.

(sooner or later it's going to need it done anyway)

That way, if any further troubleshooting is necessary, you know for sure that it's not the power supply.


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

If your Tivo power supply is going bad, turning on or off the tv that it's attached to can cause a brief power surge that the power supply can't handle. Remember, there are two connections in common with with TV and tivo, the hdmi cable and the AC outlet which both are probably plugged into gather. Newer flat panel televisions don't pull as much power as the old crt type did but they still pull a lot esp when powered on. 

It might be the hdmi cable but most likely if out of the blue and since the Tivo is old, it's the TiVo's power supply.


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

I ended up having to stay at work an extra 2 hours, so I did not get a chance to disassemble the TiVo... However, I did go ahead and update the TV firmware (already had the USB drive ready) and I was able to turn on the TV without the TiVo being frozen for the first time in about 8 days.

I think it was just coincidence though because when I turned on the TV to flash the firmware, it was not frozen either (there was about a 4 hour difference between the 2 times)...

Anyway, if I am going to open it up again then I am just going to replace the caps. But I will post on here what I find...


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

But if nothing changed and your TV and tivo HD has been working fine, why would you assume it's the tv' firmware fault if out of the blue the Tivo is locked up? While it appears the tv locks up when you turn the tv on, you don't know if the Tivo was already locked up before you turn the tv back on. Just playing the Devils advocate...... 

My money is on a bad power supply or hard drive going bad.


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

eboydog said:


> While it appears the tv locks up when you turn the tv on, you don't know if the Tivo was already locked up before you turn the tv back on.


It's like Schrödinger's TiVo: both locked up and not locked up at the same time.


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## jbarm (Jan 14, 2008)

Just had a similar problem with a S3 HD I picked up a while ago. Freeze or reboot on start.

I pulled the power supply out of one of my extra S3 HD's with no service put it in the balky unit and the thing runs like a dream again.

I would recommend just buying a couple of spare part S3 HD's off of Craigs List if you don't want to go the soldering route.

I bought 3 Tivos (1 Premiere and 2 S3 HD's) for a total of $30 (for all) not that long ago as spares. Bonus was that the two S3's had lifetime on them, so I ended up buying another S3 HD for a spare part unit and sold the other two.


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

Well between work and having a newborn, I have had no free time to look at the power supply until now.

I just opened it up and expected to see a couple of bulging capaictors, but I cannot spot a single one. And get this, I brought the TiVo up to work so I would actually get it done today but I forgot the power cable... So no testing the voltages.....


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

I also just realized that I may have ordered the wrong set of capacitors...

I used this thread: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=505873 -- but I think my power supply is different...

Anyone have a list of the capacitors for this power supply?


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

There are two different ones used in a THD. At one time I copied them into a separate file for when I needed to make an order, so I don't have the thread this came from, but Scott deserves the credt:



> That appears to match what's in my TiVo HD. Note that I've only replaced the capacitors in one of my S3 OLED's but while I was upgrading the hard drive in our TiVo HD, I wrote down the capacitor information for future reference.
> 
> TiVo S3 HD capacitor list:
> Acbel Polytech: ST7002-BW0G
> ...


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

Well I was able to use about 5 of the capacitors that I ordered, but the other ~5 I am going to still have to order from Digikey.

Maybe one of the 5 I replaced was the culprit.... (I really doubt it though -- I think it is probably one of three of the 2200uF 16V caps)

Also, just wanted to point out that there are actually 10 electrolytic capacitors on the AcBel power supply... the above list only list 6 of them... I am not sure why the other 4 are omitted...


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

Here is a proper list of the caps for the ACBel power supply:


```
[B][U]Capacitance	Voltage		Location[/U][/B]
470uF		200V		C4
2200uF		16V		C14
2200uF		16V		C17
2200uF		16V		C27
47uF		50V		C23
47uF		50V		C29
100uF		25V		C9
1000uF		6.3V		C15
470uF		16V		C20
1000uF		16V		C31
```


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

TaterTot24 said:


> Well I was able to use about 5 of the capacitors that I ordered, but the other ~5 I am going to still have to order from Digikey.
> 
> Maybe one of the 5 I replaced was the culprit.... (I really doubt it though -- I think it is probably one of three of the 2200uF 16V caps)
> 
> Also, just wanted to point out that there are actually 10 electrolytic capacitors on the AcBel power supply... the above list only list 6 of them... I am not sure why the other 4 are omitted...


The big one, rated at 200V, is left out because it doesn't have to work very hard at a high frequency like the medium sized ones near the heat sink(s), and probably isn't a low ESR 105 Degree C cap in the first place--it just filters 60Hz AC (which probably looks like 120Hz once it goes through the bridge rectifier, but that's still a very low frequency from a capacitor's point of view).

I haven't actually dissected one of these supplies and hand drawn a schematic and figured out exactly what every part does, but the little ones not clustered near the heat sink(s) don't handle the heavy switched currents like the medium sized ones, so they aren't particularly stressed either, and are unlikely to fail prematurely.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

TaterTot24 said:


> Also, just wanted to point out that there are actually 10 electrolytic capacitors on the AcBel power supply... the above list only list 6 of them... I am not sure why the other 4 are omitted...


Unitron covered it but the ones that I left out are unlikely to have issues based on user experiences (similar to the list for the S3 OLED).

Scott


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

Well I went ahead and replaced all the capacitors just to make sure. When I had replaced the first 5 (the ones that just happened to be the same or close for the other brand power supply), I still had the TiVo lock up twice. So I know for sure that one of the caps that did not get replaced must have been the issue. Tonight was the first night since all the caps have been replaced and it has not been frozen.

However, it just randomly restarted. It has done this quite often and I was just hoping that the freezing issue and the random reboot were related. Well I guess not. Weird thing is, it always restarts between midnight and 2am...


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

TaterTot24 said:


> Well I went ahead and replaced all the capacitors just to make sure. When I had replaced the first 5 (the ones that just happened to be the same or close for the other brand power supply), I still had the TiVo lock up twice. So I know for sure that one of the caps that did not get replaced must have been the issue. Tonight was the first night since all the caps have been replaced and it has not been frozen.
> 
> However, it just randomly restarted. It has done this quite often and I was just hoping that the freezing issue and the random reboot were related. Well I guess not. Weird thing is, it always restarts between midnight and 2am...


Do you have the TiVo plugged into a UPS?

(helps eliminate blips on the power line as a possible cause)

Try it without anything hooked to the TiVo's HDMI output for a few days, and see if eliminating the Spawn of Satan makes a difference.


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

No UPS, just plugged into a decent quality surge protector strip.

Well it is not locking up so far. It has been less than 24 hours though. But it is still randomly restarting around the same time frame every night. I can do the HDMI like you suggested, but how will I know if it restarts?


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

People have mentioned that a reboot would cause a Tivo to lose the 30 second skip "hack" if you had set that up earlier so that's one way of knowing.


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Also the onscreen clock.


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## ct1 (Jun 27, 2003)

Since I ripped the DVD, my daughter has been playing Frozen on our TiVo HD every single night!


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

Well guess what...

I came home tonight to a frozen TiVo. Well at least I got to practice my solder/desolder technique...

So does anyone else have any suggestions??


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

TaterTot24 said:


> Well guess what...
> 
> I came home tonight to a frozen TiVo. Well at least I got to practice my solder/desolder technique...
> 
> So does anyone else have any suggestions??


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=517829

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=517733

Check out these threads and see if it may be a case of database corruption, which may be the result of bad data being received from the scheduled TiVo Service connections.


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

I've bought and repaired 3 Tivo HDs and one Series 3. The hard drives tested fine in all 4. Two HDs simply needed to be re-imaged followed by a clear and delete everything. The Series 3 needed new power supply capacitors and a re-imaging. The final HD unit is truly broken and is a work in progress.

So, my vote is to re-image the drive. You can do this with a different drive so that if it doesn't improve things you haven't deleted all your shows for nothing.


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

Well my TiVo has been frozen almost every single night since I originally posted this and I have yet to solve this problem...

With a new baby and traveling a lot for work, I just have not had a chance to mess with it. My wife is getting tired or resetting the TiVo and it only getting half (or less) of her favorite shows, so looks like I need to start messing with this thing again...

*Just to summarize:* _New Hard Drive & All New Caps. Randomly Restarts & Freezes/Locks Up while watching TV and is frozen/locked up *every* night when I get home._



squint said:


> So, my vote is to re-image the drive. You can do this with a different drive so that if it doesn't improve things you haven't deleted all your shows for nothing.


This is the first thing I am going to try, but I don't really have much hope since this is a brand new drive that was just re-image back when these problems first started (I did the option where none of the shows/content was carried over)...


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Hook up the hard drive to your computer and run the manufacturers long test diagnostic on the drive.


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## kdc914 (Jul 13, 2007)

I have a TivoHD that had the same problem. Note my use of past tense. Mine is connected to Cox Cable, using one dual-thread cable card and a tuning adapter.

Mine did the overnight freeze more or less randomly. Over the course of about a month, I figured out that when I left it on higher channels or especially any channels that required the Cox tuning adapter, it would usually lock up overnight. Not tightly, but lock up. By that I mean that I could use the channel up/down button to "unfreeze" it. I did miss a few recordings when it was frozen.

I experimented with leaving it on low number channels that I am certain do not use the tuning adapter - i.e. the local ones. Haven't had a lockup since. Coincidence? Perhaps, but it worked for me.


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## kdc914 (Jul 13, 2007)

squint said:


> People have mentioned that a reboot would cause a Tivo to lose the 30 second skip "hack" if you had set that up earlier so that's one way of knowing.


My TivoHD has been rebooting a LOT lately (apparently becoming a widespread problem when reaching the end of a recorded program). The only time I have ever lost the 30-second skip is when I was too slow changing batteries in the remote or when replacing the hard drive (which I have done twice in that unit's lifespan).


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Apparently this is something that just started this weekend for a lot of people

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=520735

indicating that the problem was probably introduced to the TiVos by a download from TiVo, Inc., and not because of anything wrong with the TiVo itself.


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

Just an update on this issue. I re-imaged the drive and also performed tests on the drive... Well guess what....

The TiVo is still locking up every single night... At this point it has just become habit to reset it every night.

Looks like I will be shopping for a new TiVo soon...


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Yikes- you have been dealing with this since may and only now are considering a replacement box? Amazing patience.

If the box is lifetime, I understand trying to drive more from it. But if on monthly you could have gotten a craigslist premiere for like $25 and been done with it.


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

jrtroo said:


> Yikes- you have been dealing with this since may and only now are considering a replacement box? Amazing patience.
> 
> If the box is lifetime, I understand trying to drive more from it. But if on monthly you could have gotten a craigslist premiere for like $25 and been done with it.


Yeah it is a lifetime and I had put the time/money to change out the caps and then the hard drive so I was determined to make it work.

The reason it has taken this long is because I had convinced my self that if I could reimage from the original drive then it would be fixed. Well i misplaced the original drive and just found it a few days ago...


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

Maybe power supply although usually those just fail outright (some can cause video artifacts for quite some time before failing).

Scott


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

TaterTot24 said:


> Yeah it is a lifetime and I had put the time/money to change out the caps and then the hard drive so I was determined to make it work.
> 
> The reason it has taken this long is because I had convinced my self that if I could reimage from the original drive then it would be fixed. Well i misplaced the original drive and just found it a few days ago...


You mentioned back in May about it, if I understood correctly, rebooting at about the same time every night.

That sounds kinda like an OS update got "stuck" somehow, where it reboots expecting the bootpage to be changed over to the alternate partition setting where the newest version of the OS was downloaded to.

Go into System Info and see if you're on 11.0k or 11.0m


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## TaterTot24 (Aug 26, 2007)

11.0m.... It has not really been doing it at the same time anymore (I think that was wishful thinking)


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