# Tivos (including mini) do work well with Ethernet Switches?



## MikeSp (Mar 2, 2010)

Which is what I was told today by three different Tivo Support Techs.

I have a Roamio and a Premiere on the same Ethernet 8 port gig switch that work great together. I added the new Mini in a different room and connected it to a new 8 port Ethernet gig switch and NOTHING -- knows that there is a Roamio and a Premiere but has the red slash/circle in front of both in the setup and cannot connect to them. Tivo Support indicated that Tivos on different subnets cannot communicate and were surprised that even on the same switch that they would work together -- but nowhere have I read in Tivo literature that they cannot handle switches, the advertising mentions that they work on a home network. A home network must include at least one switche unless a person only has need of the four Ethernet ports on the cable router -- I am using 15 ports.

The last tech support person had me set the Roamio for MoCA (topology of which I am unfamiliar) and indicated during the Mini setup to use MoCA and connected the Comcast Cable to the Mini -- NOTHING YET... 

QUESTION -- am I supposed to use an adapter of some sort somewhere OR were the directions sufficient -- the Mini shows it is using MoCA channel 15 but still cannot connect to the Roamio. 

Sorry for the ignorance, but am a retired teacher and retired IT person used to Ethernet and have ignorance about MoCA -- any suggestions on how to get the Mini to communicate with the Roamio using MoCA since Ethernet between two subnets does not work (I even moved that new TV and the Mini and connected it to the same switch as the Roamio via Ethernet -- NOTHING -- even tried connecting the Mini directly to the remaining spare port on the router -- NOTHING). 

So I feel that I am stuck with MoCA and as asked above, is an adapter absolutely necessary between Roamio and Mini if both are set for MoCA? Currently both the Roamio and Mini are set for MoCA and have the Comcast cable connected directly from the cable amplifier to the Mini with NOTHING to show for it.
Suggestions/Opinions appreciated -- Thanks


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## snerd (Jun 6, 2008)

TiVos can handle switches just fine. The TiVo rep *should* have said that TiVos on different LANs cannot communicate (although that may be possible with VPN, but that is a separate issue...)

You need to have the Roamio and Premiere "phone home" so that the Mini can see them. The fact that the Mini shows the red circles means that it can actually see the other TiVos, but they don't know the Mini is there. You may also need to go into your TiVo account online and be sure the right checkboxes are checked for sharing between all of your boxes.

MoCA won't work if the Mini is the only MoCA device on the coax -- you need to have either a Roamio Plus/Pro or a Premiere XL4 or an external MoCA adapter to create the MoCA network (or if you have FiOS, their system will create the MoCA network for you). MoCA is simply technology to bridge ethernet signal onto the coax along with your video signals. It tends to be used by people who can't run Cat5e/Cat6 cables to all of their devices.

I'd suggest going back to all ethernet for now, and have all boxes "phone home" to see if that gets rid of the red circles. Assuming everything has been able to reach the internet and get the latest updates and guide info, they will be able to stream over ethernet once they all can see each other.

If that doesn't work, you can try MoCA, but that may require additional equipment and expense that probably isn't necessary. One thing that could cause problems is using WiFi -- if your network is all hardwired, then it should work very well once everything is configured correctly.

Oh, just saw that you mentioned MoCA setting on the Roamio -- if it is a Plus/Pro, then you can set it to "Use this DVR to create a MoCA network" and connect the Mini to coax. One MoCA device needs to have an ethernet connection as well as a coax connection so that it can bridge from the LAN to the coax.


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## MikeSp (Mar 2, 2010)

The Roamio Pro IS connected to Cat 6 Ethernet as was the Mini -- just different switches - think that I will do as you kindly suggested and make sure the Roamio Pro and Premiere are set up for sharing, but suspect so since I can set programming and transfer programs between Tivos. If being on different switches on the same home network works (all three Tivo techs didn't think so), I will try Ethernet again since I am familiar with it and to me, MoCA seems like more of a kludge. Thanks for your help!

Mike

Continued: everything was shared in my account -- went back to the Roamio Pro and had it reload after double checking network settings -- it was seeing Channel 15, so I suspected it was doing what it was supposed to do and rebooted the Mini -- the MoCA connection is working great, Mini is what I had hoped for in its functionality -- all appears healed!!! *Ahhhhh - the feeling of success *


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## snerd (Jun 6, 2008)

MikeSp said:


> MoCA seems like more of a kludge.


I can understand how MoCA might seem like a kludge to someone who hasn't worked with it before. TiVo reps sometimes tell customers just to wait a couple of days to see if the system resolves itself, which it usually does after everything has a chance to "phone home." Underneath the covers and hidden from view, MoCA jumps through incredible hoops in order to squeeze maximum throughput from whatever coax configuration happens to be in play.

Glad that it is working for you now, I think you'll find it is very reliable.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

snerd said:


> ........ TiVo reps sometimes tell customers just to wait a couple of days to see if the system resolves itself, ........


<OFF TOPIC RANT>
Yes, this infuriating response is a favorite during setup issues, not just for MOCA issues. In most cases just forcing a service call or two, or restarting or power cycling the TiVo device(s) will get very quick results. I feel like telling them, "OK, you wait a couple of days before charging my credit card."
</OFF TOPIC RANT>


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## JBDragon (Jan 4, 2004)

snerd said:


> I can understand how MoCA might seem like a kludge to someone who hasn't worked with it before. TiVo reps sometimes tell customers just to wait a couple of days to see if the system resolves itself, which it usually does after everything has a chance to "phone home." Underneath the covers and hidden from view, MoCA jumps through incredible hoops in order to squeeze maximum throughput from whatever coax configuration happens to be in play.
> 
> Glad that it is working for you now, I think you'll find it is very reliable.


Most of my Network is on a 24 port switch, but I only have 4 Ports in my Wall in my Bedroom and filled them all up and so needed to expand and so added a 5 port switch. As far as my Router is concerned, all those ports is just part of it's self. Instead of just the 4 it would normally have, there's a bunch more and my TIVO Roamio and 2 Tivo Mini's and a Tivo Stream all work great. I did give them all a Static IP address they'll always get and use so that never changes. I think doing this just gives better overall Network Reliability. I do that with all my Network attached devices. I'm problem free for months on end. Don't have to touch a thing.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

I've got a Mini running through 3 gig switches and a router, and it works fine. Either Ethernet or MoCA provides plenty of bandwidth, I just use whatever is available.


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## akhnaten (Dec 3, 2009)

I have a Tivo Mini connecting to a Bolt. In my desired setup, my Mini has 3 switches between it and the Bolt. I have not been able to get it to work reliably. Finally I took the Mini down stairs and hooked it up in numerous configurations of switches (I have 5 switches at my disposal) and I found that my Mini and Bolt will only work together, for more than 15 minutes, if they are both on the same switch. I tried every combination of switch in both 3 and 2 switch daisy chains. Finally, the setup works great on all the switches as long as both devices are on the same switch. I hope this helps other people as I have been troubleshooting this for over a week.
BTW, my routers are:
Netgear jgs524ev2
Netgear GS108Tv1
Netgear GS108Tv2
TP-Link TL-SG108Ev2
ActionTec (Frontier) MI424-WRvI (not using WAN port)

Forgot to mention, I also had to setup the DNS server on my router to resolve both Tivo names to their respective, static, IP addresses. For example:
TIVO-AI2832739279 192.168.1.3
TIVO-BF3902938282 192.168.1.4
These numbers are just made up. You can find yours by going to your account on Tivo's website and looking at your registered devices, just remove the hyphens.


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## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

I don't know if this is your problem, but I have almost exactly the same Netgear switches as you, and I had a very similar problem of TiVos randomly loosing visibility to each other. What resolved the problem for me was to disable IGMP snooping using the ProSafe utility.


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## akhnaten (Dec 3, 2009)

ej42137 said:


> I don't know if this is your problem, but I have almost exactly the same Netgear switches as you, and I had a very similar problem of TiVos randomly loosing visibility to each other. What resolved the problem for me was to disable IGMP snooping using the ProSafe utility.


I found your post in the other thread and that solved my problem. I am now able to daisy chain all three switches (with IGMP Snooping turned off on all of them) and it works great.

For those reading later, here is the original thread:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10930783#post10930783


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## dougdingle (Jul 4, 2007)

Once I threw away all my Netgear "green" switches, my connection problem stopped.

A standard 8 port switch draws enough power to cost right around $5/year, with a 'green' switch costing $4.50/year. In exchange for the 50 cents a year in savings, you get a switch that randomly lowers speed or even shuts down ports when it feels like it, based on some algorithm you can't control. 

A major boondoggle worth nothing that impacts network performance significantly, not just for TiVos but all network traffic.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

dougdingle said:


> Once I threw away all my Netgear "green" switches, my connection problem stopped.
> .


For what it's worth, I haven't had any issues with the D-Link "green" switches models DGS-2208 and DGS-2205. Note that I bought them because they were inexpensive used on e-bay and not because of the green feature.

Scott


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