# Mini crashes while using Prime Video?



## scott_s

I have a Mini (Hydra) connected via moca to a roamio OTA. I primarily use it to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. If I don't reboot it daily, the prime video app gets very laggy, the "loading" circle gets stuck in the middle of the screen, and the mini becomes mostly unresponsive to the remote. I used to do tech support back in the "good old" days of windows 3.1/windows95/NT and the experience feels very much like what would happen when an application would run amok and eat up so much of the RAM that there was insufficient free memory for the OS to run properly. Does anyone else experience this with their Mini? It doesn't seem to ever happen when I watch the Prime Video app from the Roamio OTA. The problem seems to be new with the Hydra interface, but I've had Hydra for some time now and the box is on the older side. I have read elsewhere that Mini bees are kinda designed to fail, could it be that? Buggy amazon app? Buggy Hydra? Could the roamio somehow be contributing? Anynoe else dealt with this?


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## leiff

I have the old tivo experience. I'm using a Romeo as the serving video I get the same with my mini also using moca. Prime app crashes mini forcing a reboot. Netflix app works fine


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## Dillon James

I'm having the same issue. I'm running Mini II's (3) with a Bolt + all connected over ethernet. All apps that I use, work on the Bolt. However, Prime video allows me to log in and select a show but will buffer for about three minutes and then reboot. This happens on all my Mini's. They are all Hydra. Netflix works fine.


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## JoeKustra

A93 Mini using TE3 just watched 60 minutes of Prime without any problems. I have a Mini VOX that I can test if needed, but no TE4 host at this time. Content was 1080p/24 DD5.1 also.


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## Goodbar_x

I have this same problem, I have 4 Tivo Mini's + 1 Tivo Bolt, all with the updated interface and all connected over Ethernet. The Prime Video app works fine on the Tivo Bolt, but if I try to watch content on Prime Video on any of the Tivo Mini's, about 90% of the time, it will completely lock up and I'll have to unplug the power to the Mini and plug it back in to reboot it. After that, the Prime Video app will work, but of course HIGHLY ANNOYING TO HAVE TO DO THAT. The other 10% of the time, the video will play, but lags considerably, the circle stays in the middle of the video and as long as I don't try to pause, rewind/fast forward, it plays the video (closed captioning lags way behind though and catches up after about 10 minutes).

Do the new Tivo Vox Mini's have this problem too? Or what can we do to fix this???


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## JoeKustra

I can't provide a fix, but here are my observations. When watching real time TV or recordings, the data is continuous. It would seem to be the biggest stress test for the network. When watching an Amazon video, the data comes in chunks. It's not contiguous. My Mini units all work through wireless bridges so I can watch the LEDs.

On the router: disable IGMP Proxying and QoS. If a smart switch is used, disable IGMP Snooping. Since the last fix for YouTube with TE4, I have been able to stream YouTube for hours on my Mini VOX. I may rollback my Mini VOX tomorrow and test it with Prime. I don't have a TE4 host right now.


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## okay_see

I've been experiencing the same thing for the past year or so. I can't remember if it was after updating to Hydra or not, but my suspicion is it has more to do with the actual amazon app than Hydra. The previous version of the Prime app worked flawlessly. I further suspect that the processing power, RAM, and cache on the mini (I have 2 A93s) is just not powerful enough any longer to handle the poorly designed (probably resource inefficient) software. I am going to try to see if the VOX mini is better specked to handle Prime. I suspect it's a hardware resource issue because my Roamio Pro handles the same Prime software perfectly. Restarting the minis works for a while, likely because you force the cache to clear at that point. So on both ends (Tivo and Amazon) they could probably fix the mini issue with a software update to the app. But I highly doubt that will happen. Definitely not if enough people don't complain about it, and I don't think we have that sort of base. Maybe if it's reviewed in a tech journal or popular website?

Live streaming works perfect for me over Moca or ethernet. Tivo tech support is garbage now. They don't know how to troubleshoot and isolate a problem at all, and though they appear nice and polite at first, they get arrogant pretty quickly and talk over you if you start telling them something smart which suggests that you may know more than they do. I directly asked them if they read from a script last time we spoke...I was told there is a resource that they refer to.

It sucks that Tivo ditched its quality workers like this to cut costs. I'll bet their previous techs left out all the good diagnostics from the literature that these hoax techs are referencing.


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## okay_see

Update, I purchased a Tivo VOX mini and so far it's impressive. The speed of the UI noticeably outpaces that of the mini 2. Everything is snappy from Tivo home to live tv to any app. Apps seem like they are a part of the native OS the way they load. I will play around with it for a few days to see if it crashes, but my suspicion is it will be fine. I tried to tell Tivo tech support that this really looks like a device issue where the older minis are not spec'd to handle the latest software (or the software isn't written to optimize the older hardware - whichever way you wanna look at it). They continued to tell me about how I must have messed up my moca connection OR ethernet connection (I have both coax and Cat 6 UTP running to all TV points) even though everything else in the Tivo experience works except for the streaming apps on the minis.

Tivo's customer service and tech support really went down the drain in the last year or so. Something's gotta give.

P.S. I also noticed a change in the startup splash screen today. Was there a software update? Oh, and the VOX is missing the iHeart Radio app if that's important to you. Still has Pandora though. (Pic is before I hooked up the VOX mini).


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## okay_see

Goodbar_x said:


> I have this same problem, I have 4 Tivo Mini's + 1 Tivo Bolt, all with the updated interface and all connected over Ethernet. The Prime Video app works fine on the Tivo Bolt, but if I try to watch content on Prime Video on any of the Tivo Mini's, about 90% of the time, it will completely lock up and I'll have to unplug the power to the Mini and plug it back in to reboot it. After that, the Prime Video app will work, but of course HIGHLY ANNOYING TO HAVE TO DO THAT. The other 10% of the time, the video will play, but lags considerably, the circle stays in the middle of the video and as long as I don't try to pause, rewind/fast forward, it plays the video (closed captioning lags way behind though and catches up after about 10 minutes).
> 
> Do the new Tivo Vox Mini's have this problem too? Or what can we do to fix this???


WE can't do anything to fix it. Amazon and/or Tivo have to address it with a software update for the previous gen minis. VOX mini seems to work well so far. Will update in a week to see if it bogs down and crashes.


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## SteveDC

The Amazon app on the Mini has always been a complete PoS for me. This is on both original and second gen Minis. 
The whole "restart your router" etc... is bollocks. I have GBit wired connections to 200M internet and ONLY the Tivo Minis have issues. The Amazon app on Fire TV, Roku, Apple TV, XBox, Playstation all work flawlessly, even when wireless.
This is ABSOLUTELY a Tivo Mini issue. 
Network connections should NEVER be able to completely crash a system even if that is the root cause!!!
I would contemplate the new Mini, but won't risk throwing more good money after bad. 
Tivo used to be the golden standard, but now their software is beyond amateurish!!! 
Hydra is awful!!! Tried it for about a week hoping it would fix the Amazon (and Plex) issues, but nope, exact same PoS.
To anyone contemplating Tivo for their integrated experience... forget it. The apps are just too unstable. I have to completely power cycle my Minis at least once every few hours of watching and constantly get errors and remote lagging (10 seconds+) when using the Amazon app.
A real shame since there is so much potential there!!!


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## JoeKustra

I have used A93 and A95 Mini units with Amazon Prime and YouTube without network errors of any kind.


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## okay_see

SteveDC said:


> The Amazon app on the Mini has always been a complete PoS for me. This is on both original and second gen Minis.
> The whole "restart your router" etc... is bollocks. I have GBit wired connections to 200M internet and ONLY the Tivo Minis have issues. The Amazon app on Fire TV, Roku, Apple TV, XBox, Playstation all work flawlessly, even when wireless.
> This is ABSOLUTELY a Tivo Mini issue.
> Network connections should NEVER be able to completely crash a system even if that is the root cause!!!
> I would contemplate the new Mini, but won't risk throwing more good money after bad.
> Tivo used to be the golden standard, but now their software is beyond amateurish!!!
> Hydra is awful!!! Tried it for about a week hoping it would fix the Amazon (and Plex) issues, but nope, exact same PoS.
> To anyone contemplating Tivo for their integrated experience... forget it. The apps are just too unstable. I have to completely power cycle my Minis at least once every few hours of watching and constantly get errors and remote lagging (10 seconds+) when using the Amazon app.
> A real shame since there is so much potential there!!!


The VOX mini really has been a completely different (positive) experience for me. But I'll update after about a week of use. What I find so far is snappy response with zero lag and load/buffer times of maybe 3-5 seconds. I actually wish there were some way to view the specs of all mini models, including processor and RAM. I'm 100% sure there's a big difference between the A93 and A95. It's clear from usage.


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## okay_see

After a week of solid performance from the A95, I bought a second one to replace my other A93. Both A95's are running without a hitch and the menus are even smoother/load faster than the Roamio Pro. Upgrading to A95s should be a solid solution for TiVo mini appcrashgate.


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## leiff

SteveDC said:


> The Amazon app on the Mini has always been a complete PoS for me. This is on both original and second gen Minis.
> The whole "restart your router" etc... is bollocks. I have GBit wired connections to 200M internet and ONLY the Tivo Minis have issues. The Amazon app on Fire TV, Roku, Apple TV, XBox, Playstation all work flawlessly, even when wireless.
> This is ABSOLUTELY a Tivo Mini issue.
> Network connections should NEVER be able to completely crash a system even if that is the root cause!!!
> I would contemplate the new Mini, but won't risk throwing more good money after bad.
> Tivo used to be the golden standard, but now their software is beyond amateurish!!!
> Hydra is awful!!! Tried it for about a week hoping it would fix the Amazon (and Plex) issues, but nope, exact same PoS.
> To anyone contemplating Tivo for their integrated experience... forget it. The apps are just too unstable. I have to completely power cycle my Minis at least once every few hours of watching and constantly get errors and remote lagging (10 seconds+) when using the Amazon app.
> A real shame since there is so much potential there!!!


Curious to hear what your issues are with Plex? The only thing keeping me back from buying a mini Vox was to wait and see if it's supported 1080p Plex. no one here seems to know. I presume audio is also limited using Plex app on TiVo. That is no surround sound formats or HD audio


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## okay_see

leiff said:


> Curious to hear what your issues are with Plex? The only thing keeping me back from buying a mini Vox was to wait and see if it's supported 1080p Plex. no one here seems to know. I presume audio is also limited using Plex app on TiVo. That is no surround sound formats or HD audio


I'll look into it later. Maybe this weekend.


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## bigcat

okay_see said:


> WE can't do anything to fix it. Amazon and/or Tivo have to address it with a software update for the previous gen minis. VOX mini seems to work well so far. Will update in a week to see if it bogs down and crashes.


Reset the Mini, clear all settings and re-run guided setup. Worked for me, but I have to it about every 6 months


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## okay_see

Worked for you, but not for most of us. Been there, tried that, same buggy results. I'm open to the fact that there will be outlier success stories.


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## RyanGorney

Thank you all for sharing your experiences. I have six minis (four a93’s and two a95’s), my parents who live one city over have a similar setup. All of our a93’s either freeze, sputter, or keep a frozen open cicle on the screen when trying to play video on prime. If I reboot the device it may work for about 24h but then reverts to the same problems. Our a95’s however work flawlessly. This all started with Hydra and I was forced to upgrade to hydra when I added the a95’s. Being a technologies myself there is clearly an incompatibility between the a93 hardware and the hydra interface + prime software. Upon calling tivo support I found the folks polite but unimpowered. They offered to swap my a93 for another a93 and a $30 charge. I informed them that this would not solve the problem. They stated the case is still under review with developers. While purchasing a95’s would resolve this I’m not willing to shell out that money and possibly run into this issues again a few years down the road. 

Does anyone have suggestions? I found Tivo’s head of software quality on LinkedIn and emailed him on our behalf. I’ll let this group know what I hear.


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## RyanGorney

Here is a pic of the frozen circle I get.


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## Hichhiker

Seen same issues and more with apps - but wanted to add that this happens on many "apps" - including Netflix and Plex, but it does seems to happen a lot more often with Amazon Prime app. All of this started happening since Hydra started, but been getting progressively worse lately.

To add to that, after an increase in failures and freezes, one of my Mini's (most used one) died completely, and no longer boots at all :-(


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## HerronScott

RyanGorney said:


> This all started with Hydra and I was forced to upgrade to hydra when I added the a95's.


Note that you could have stayed with TE3 and the A95 should have downgraded to work with your existing TiVo's. You should not have been forced to upgrade.

Scott


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## RyanGorney

HerronScott said:


> Note that you could have stayed with TE3 and the A95 should have downgraded to work with your existing TiVo's. You should not have been forced to upgrade.
> 
> Scott


Thanks Scott that's interesting. The prompts I got when I added the devices did not give me those options (or I missed them). If I missed them I probably thought an upgrade would lead to improvements.

Is there a way to downgrade?


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## RyanGorney

A bit of up update everyone. Alfanso from upper level Tivo support called me to ask for modem model and router model. I missed the call but called back into tivo support and provided the information.

As an FYI, I have an arris sb6190 modem at 110mbps down and 10mbps up. The router is a Mikrotik CRS125 24 port Gigabit device. All minis are hard wired direct with cat5e.

I stressed to the support folks that nothing in my hardware setup has changed in nearly two years and all issues started with the Hydra upgrade. I also let them know I’ve done location test including swapping a93’s for locations where a95’s work fine. There is no difference in a93 performance.

I guess they are trying to rule out any hardware conflicts on my side. I told them to look at this forum and they said they would.

More to come as I learn more.

If you know of others with these issues, please have them post here. A simple “I’m have a93 stream issues as well” Will show the volume of the issue.


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## HerronScott

RyanGorney said:


> Thanks Scott that's interesting. The prompts I got when I added the devices did not give me those options (or I missed them). If I missed them I probably thought an upgrade would lead to improvements.
> 
> Is there a way to downgrade?


When you connected the Mini with the host TiVo running TE3, it's suppose to go through the downgrade on the Mini if it's running TE4 since it has to be running the same version.

You can downgrade the host TiVo but you will lose all your recordings unless you transfer them to another TiVo or a PC.

Scott


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## miketx

I've been having random Netflix and Amazon app problems on my Minis also. Netflix won't even run on one of my Minis, although when I test the network with the Netflix Mini app itself, everything checks out. I'm running all of mine on a MoCA network (no possibility of ethernet in the locations I have). And it seems to have starting when I upgraded to Hydra.


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## Brian Newcomb

Happy to find the group and this thread. I'm having the same issue with my Mini. It is not the new Vox, and I have it connected via MoCa provided by my Bolt. Sadly no Ethernet or way to easily run it to my room. In addition to the almost certain crash for Prime, i occasionally just 'lose' connection to the host Bolt. I'd really like this to be a more reliable solution so I'm excited to see what this group discovers. Thanks!


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## William Price

Mini 2 connected to an original Bolt via MoCA. Amazon Prime Video streaming has been causing freezes and spontaneous reboots for over a month now. I actually upgraded *to* Hydra in hopes that it was fixed in newer/updated software that maybe I wasn't getting on the older experience. Nope. Same.

Opened tickets with Tivo support. Tried to blame HDMI -- nope, it's only this one app that has this behavior. Crashes at least once a day when using Prime. Sometimes back-to-back-to-back crashes; can be at the beginning of a stream, or even 15-30 minutes into a show. Very disruptive.

On my third support ticket now; got a reply telling me to force a connection to the Tivo service and unplug/replug to restart the device. I hope that means they're pushing a software fix. My wife is about ready to throw the thing out.


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## Hichhiker

For what it is worth, after one of my A92's finally died after countless crashing, I got a Vox Mini(A95) and have to say, the menus are a lot zippier, and there is a lot less crashing. For several days this thing was nearly perfect... but today same problems came back. Crashed twice in Netflix (I have not use Prime yet), once it would not play anything, but still worked(after a reboot, played just fine), the other time another complete freeze that required a powercycle. 

Just goes to show that while better hardware helps, it can't fix bad software :-(


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## tomhorsley

I never use this, but out of curiosity I tried it last night, and also saw it crash. It was even worse trying to get logged in to amazon. I kept painstakingly putting in my email and password and it kept telling me it was invalid. I finally backed all the way out and used the login via a code on amazon web page and it worked. This morning I found emails from amazon back from when I was trying to login with the amazon login. They told me to use the temporary password they just emailed me. Why they think I'd notice emails while fooling with the mini, I have no idea. Once it finally worked I tried playing a random movie and got several minutes of spinning circle, but it finally started playing, while leaving half a spinning circle (no longer spinning now) in the middle of the screen on top of the movie. Worked for about two minutes, then the screen froze and the remote was no longer responsive. Pulled the power and rebooted. Probably not going to try prime on the mini again .


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## slowbiscuit

Hichhiker said:


> For what it is worth, after one of my A92's finally died after countless crashing, I got a Vox Mini(A95) and have to say, the menus are a lot zippier, and there is a lot less crashing. For several days this thing was nearly perfect... but today same problems came back. Crashed twice in Netflix (I have not use Prime yet), once it would not play anything, but still worked(after a reboot, played just fine), the other time another complete freeze that required a powercycle.
> 
> Just goes to show that while better hardware helps, it can't fix bad software :-(


Yeah it's a really sad indictment of their software, an app running on a Linux-based OS should NEVER crash the system. App crashes sure, but the box should never hard-lock requiring a power reset. And yet that's what happens on all the Minis with this crap.

I gave up long ago and got Rokus for my 'dumb' HDTVs. Minis work great for Tivo functions but little else IME.


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## RustyUser

I have been experiencing the same issues with the Amazon Video app and my mini. The mini is connected to Ethernet and I have to reboot it on a daily basis to watch Amazon videos. This started happening when I upgraded to the new experience (Hydra) last December.


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## Fant

I agree with everyones sentiments. The tivo interface is really convenient when it works to switch between Live TV, DVR, Netflix, prime, Plex, etc. But the unreliability of it means you either need to put up with occasionally reboots or get a roku like device and switch remotes. I wonder if a daily scheduled reboot would help things.


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## UnitMaster

I'm having the same issue as well. I have cat5e connections with Verizon FiOS, and a gigabit switch. I have 5 A93s and they all have the issues. Some more than others. Some of my Tv's are wireless smart tv's with the exact same YouTube build version as is on the TiVo mini. The wireless smart TV apps work flawlessly.

TiVo support has replaced 2 of my minis with referbs and they also fail. When I last spoke to TiVo they said the next step would be to replace my Bolt.
I asked them why this would make a difference since the smart apps bypass the bolt altogether and go directly to the internet. My bolt is working flawlessly. Tivo support doesn't seem to understand their own technology, and this was level 2 support. All they are capable of doing is replacing your current boxes with more bad return boxes.

Since my mini's once worked flawlessly, and the only thing to change has been TiVo software updates, this clearly a fundamental flaw with the mini software. It behaves like a memory leak, with the software exceeding the capability of the hardware.

I have given up as I don't think TiVo has the support infastructure to even diagnose this issue let alone fix it. I'm getting the feeling that they just want us all to go away.


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## RyanGorney

Hello Everyone. I have an another update to share with the group. A higher tier support person called me from Tivo on Thursday of this week. He has been reading this thread and understands the issue. He had me run some diagnostics on my a93's including 911 clear, kicking off the Amazon app, watch it crash, rebooting the device, doing 911 clear plus 777 clear, and then connecting to the Tivo service twice. Apparently this sequence sends detailed crash logs back to Tivo for analysis. The agent sounded very knowledgeable and understands the issue. He encouraged all that are having this issue to call into support and reference this thread. He informed me that they are working through not only the Amazon Prime crashes but also the Netflix and Youtube crashes folks have been reporting.

I too am frustrated given the gobs of $'s spent across my various mini's, the bolt itself, and the monthly Tivo subscription fee. I would switch if there were a better solution out there but have not found a cloud based TV/DVR service that is flexible with commercial skipping (many force watching commercials), HD quality picture and sound (Hulu TV for example does not support 5.1 sound on Apple TV), pausing live TV, complete channel package, and multi-TV streaming. I think they will get there over the next 12-18 months but there is something to be said about the speed of having your DVR recordings locally. All that said, the Tivo setup is only partially working and requires reboot or buying expensive A95's due to a software update.... that's more frustrating.


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## JoeKustra

That sequence (911/777) adds a tag to your log files. TiVo can then get them and have a reference point. Logs are cleared during a restart. Their contents are classified.


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## RyanGorney

JoeKustra said:


> That sequence (911/711) adds a tag to your log files. TiVo can then get them and have a reference point. Logs are cleared during a restart. Their contents are classified.


Thanks, good to know!


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## JoeKustra

RyanGorney said:


> Thanks, good to know!


I corrected: it's 777. Should you wish to look at the logs:
In System Information:
Hit Clear, Clear, Enter, Enter, 0. These are just full of data. Nobody knows (except TiVo) what it means. Just use Left to exit.


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## BadMouth

Having the same issues. Any way to reboot the mini other than unplugging it? It's mounted behind the TV which is mounted on the wall. My lazy self is getting tired of getting up to reset it. Tired of waiting for the reboot as well.


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## kpeters59

You can probably reboot it with KMTTG, if it's responding.

-KP


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## kpeters59

This is a fairly fresh post on Facebook:

TiVo.Innovate

-KP


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## BadMouth

The Mini is freezing almost every time I use YouTube or Prime now. On Prime if I let it sit long enough(multiple minutes of being unresponsive) it eventually does start streaming again, but only for a short time like it is buffering, then kicks out to the main TiVo menu. YouTube stays frozen until the mini is unplugged and restarted. 

It acts like a connection issue, except that the connection works perfectly fine for using the tuners in the Roamio OTA. One thing of note concerning that ...the mini always says it can't find the Roamio until I hit the live TV button. After it connects to a tuner, I can go back to the main menu and everything works (aside from YouTube and prime freezing).

Are they working on figuring this out? 
I can't read the Facebook post linked to. It says you have to join the group and I don't do Facebook.


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## BadMouth

Swapped out the the offending mini with the one from my workshop which I never use the apps on. The one from the workshop is working fine. Both are 93s, same Ethernet connection, same power supply. I'm wondering if this could be some type of heat/processor issue. Guess I'll find out when this one warms up.


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## RyanGorney

BadMouth said:


> Swapped out the the offending mini with the one from my workshop which I never use the apps on. The one from the workshop is working fine. Both are 93s, same Ethernet connection, same power supply. I'm wondering if this could be some type of heat/processor issue. Guess I'll find out when this one warms up.


A few updates:

- looks like the Facebook group is dedicated to new features and innovation whereas this one is for issues.

- I called Tivo and our case is still open and actively being worked.

- I have three a93's and all are having this issue. My a95's are fine. I've tried location swaps (does not resolve issues)

- my parents are having the same issue with their a93's

- I'm convinced this is a hardware issue being overloaded by the new Hydra software. I agree that the hardware is being stressed by the software. I suspect a memory leak as it works temporarily after a reboot.

I'll post again as soon as I have an update from Tivo.


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## JoeKustra

RyanGorney said:


> A few updates:
> - looks like the Facebook group is dedicated to new features and innovation whereas this one is for issues.
> - I called Tivo and our case is still open and actively being worked.
> - I have three a93's and all are having this issue. My a95's are fine. I've tried location swaps (does not resolve issues)
> - my parents are having the same issue with their a93's
> - I'm convinced this is a hardware issue being overloaded by the new Hydra software. I agree that the hardware is being stressed by the software. I suspect a memory leak as it works temporarily after a reboot.
> I'll post again as soon as I have an update from Tivo.


I have an A93 that I can load TE4. The host will be a basic Roamio. I also have a Mini Vox. Is there a way, using Prime, that I can duplicate the problem?


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## BadMouth

After some testing....
Both minis have identical software versions. The temperature of the one that craps out runs at 50-52 after an hour of use. App menu response seems to get worse as the temp rises, but it didn't crap out when the temp got to 52. Temp was 51 last night when it refused to stream anything.

The one that doesn't crap out only runs about 30. The one with problems has been mounted on the wall behind a TV since new. The other one has been been mounted in different locations, but has only had a tiny fraction of use compared to the problem one. 

Gonna open up the problem one and add a fan or heatsink to see what happens.

Anyone know if 50 is above the normal range for an A93 mini?


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## JoeKustra

BadMouth said:


> Anyone know if 50 is above the normal range for an A93 mini?


No, it's about right. If you want to lower the MBT, buy a 120mm fan and mount it on top. That will get you to about 35C. Add an air filter and you will have something to clean. On top of my air filter is a wireless bridge which the Mini uses to reach its host, a room and a floor away. The A95 has no vents, which makes it water resistant.


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## tomhorsley

My mini isn't running Hydra and also can't play any amazon videos without crapping out, so I don't think it is hydra, I think it is just a terrible amazon app.


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## BadMouth

I reset the heatsink using Arctic silver and it made no difference. Ended up swapping in the rarely used mini that didn't have the issues. Last night it worked flawlessly with Amazon prime, but did have the occasional short stutter with YouTube. This evening, it froze upon launching a YouTube video.


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## JoeKustra

I just upgraded a A93 Mini to TE4. I've been streaming an Amazon Prime movie for over an hour. The host is a basic Roamio. Both use Ethernet to a wireless bridge. Next will be a YouTube video. Current content is 1080p/24 DD+.


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## UnitMaster

So I finally got fed up and convinced Tivo to send me an A95 refurb. I installed it, and everything works fine app wise, however because they sent me an A95 refurb with no new remote, my old remote won't connect via RF but only IR. But the apps work well and snap along. 

Here are some interesting things I found with comparing the A93 and A95. Clearly the newer A95's have upgraded hardware. Faster ethernet, faster processors and more ram. The older A93's only have 10-baseT ethernet connections, where the newer A95's have at least 100-baseT ethernet ports in them. You can test this by opening Netflix and running the Netflix network test. So all this time I wasted by a technician telling me my gigabit network with 80 x 80 megabit Verizon fiber network was too slow, is horse crap. The mini's are limited to 10 meg.

The next thing I found interesting was that the version of the Netflix app on the A3 was dated 2013, where the version of the Netflix app on the A5 was dated 2016. So clearly this shows that the hardware of the A3 is incapable of running the same generation of apps that the A5 uses even though they are both Hydra. 

All of this tends to prove the theory that all the problems that most people are experiencing with the A3's have nothing to do with heat syncs, routers, connectivity, network speed, (A3s cant go faster than 10 megabit anyway) but rather that the latest OS version Hydra that Tivo pushed out exceeds the hardware capacities of the A3 mini. 

So initially I called Tivo, and had them convinced to replace all 4 of my remaining A3 mini's with refurb A5's. Only hours later to get a call back from a support manager telling me that Tivo changed their minds, and were going to send more refurbed A3's. They then went on to tell me that I shouldn't worry that their engineers are going to look at fixing the bugs with Hydra for the A93. 

They said that Hydra used more ram than the prior TiVo OS version. This coupled with memory leaks in the Amazon Prime and YouTube apps eventually consume all of the memory on the A3 hence causing a lockup requiring a hard power cycle. People that don't use those apps, don't tend to see the problems. So I asked what the solution was. They said I was free to buy all new Mini Voxes or wait for a fix to get pushed out. I asked when there would be a fix. They said they didn't know.

So in short Tivo pushed out a bloated OS version that the A93 mini's couldn't handle, and hoped no one would notice. Then they wasted support and all of their customer's time by blaming our routers, sending us on wild goose chases of cooling systems and heat synchs all in the name of greed.

The solution is for either Tivo to replace all the A93's with A95's (don't hold your breath) or to push out a dumbed down feature stripped OS version for the A93's when they feel like it or hope we just all go away.


----------



## tomhorsley

But prime video crashes on my mini which is not running hydra, so I don't think this is my issue (not that I ever use any apps on the mini, but I tried prime as an experiment).


----------



## DigitalDawn

Same here.


----------



## UnitMaster

Yes it started with the last few builds of T3 or the generation of apps with that version, but now this issue is widespread.


----------



## Pokemon_Dad

Agreed it's not just Hydra-enabled Minis. My Minis are all A93 models running TE3. I recently tried the Prime Video app on one of them, and found it so sluggish as to be unusable.

I wound up buying a $50 Firestick 4K, which does an amazing job of integrating with the TV. I hope the TiVo folks aren't thinking these problems will force upgrades to newer model Minis, because that's not happening here.


----------



## slowbiscuit

UnitMaster said:


> They said that Hydra used more ram than the prior TiVo OS version. This coupled with memory leaks in the Amazon Prime and YouTube apps eventually consume all of the memory on the A3 hence causing a lockup requiring a hard power cycle. People that don't use those apps, don't tend to see the problems.


As a former Unix/Linux dev I can tell you that this should NEVER happen. Apps running out of memory should never hard-lock a box because they should never be allowed to run the OS out of RAM. Piss-poor Tivo programming, in other words, which is not surprising. The app should simply crash you back to the Tivo menu, or if it locks up the Tivo UI should still let you hit the Tivo button to exit like normal.


----------



## HerronScott

UnitMaster said:


> The older A93's only have 10-baseT ethernet connections, where the newer A95's have at least 100-baseT ethernet ports in them. You can test this by opening Netflix and running the Netflix network test. So all this time I wasted by a technician telling me my gigabit network with 80 x 80 megabit Verizon fiber network was too slow, is horse crap. The mini's are limited to 10 meg.


The A93 has a 100Mbps Ethernet port no matter what the Netflix speed test reports. I can see the speed being used on my network switch.  (I think the A92 also had a 100Mbps Ethernet port but I've never had one so can't confirm.)

Scott


----------



## slowbiscuit

Yeah there's no way it's 10mb, have no idea where that came from. That's so ancient you probably can't get chips for it now.


----------



## BadMouth

I never updated to Hydra. Prime Video/YouTube still lock it up. The memory leak sounds the most plausible based on the failure of everything I've tried.


----------



## UnitMaster

Great news here I guess. After doing battle with Tivo engineers for several months on this topic, Tivo finally acknowledged that the OS on the A92 & A93 has several issues, including a memory leak, and several DNS issues.

I got a call today from the senior Tivo support rep I've been dealing with. She claims that they have identified the issues and a new update will be pushed out on or around 3/24/2019.
We will see. Keeping my fingers crossed.


----------



## JoeKustra

On or around 3/34/2019? I'll go with "around".


----------



## Mikeguy

UnitMaster said:


> Great news here I guess. After doing battle with Tivo engineers for several months on this topic, Tivo finally acknowledged that the OS on the A92 & A93 has several issues, including a memory leak, and several DNS issues.
> 
> I got a call today from the senior Tivo support rep I've been dealing with. She claims that they have identified the issues and a new update will be pushed out on or around 3/24/2019.
> We will see. Keeping my fingers crossed.


So much, now, for your being able to convince TiVo to replace your remaining Mini's with A95 units.


----------



## UnitMaster

Here's the story on that. TiVo actually shipped 4 replacement mini A95's to me provided I returned my A93's. However they stopped the FedEx shippments in mid shipment ,and recalled all 4. I was told some higher up changed their minds once they realized it was a software issue. They were worried it would open the flood gates. They also said they were aware of this blog, and the issues that others were having as well.


----------



## tomhorsley

I'll still probably never use the apps, but I may try amazon again as an experiment just to see if it works better after the update.


----------



## slowbiscuit

UnitMaster said:


> I got a call today from the senior Tivo support rep I've been dealing with. She claims that they have identified the issues and a new update will be pushed out on or around 3/24/2019.


Yeah sure. We can only hope, but thanks for chasing it. The memory leak has been around forever and should have been fixed long ago.


----------



## BadMouth

That's good news about the problem being addressed with an update. The TV that my mini is hooked up to requires the original remote and multiple button presses to switch inputs. Juggling 3 remotes in bed when switching from the TiVo to Roku is annoying. Being able to use the TiVo Mini for most things works much better for me.

Thank you for taking the time to push the issue with customer service. We might never have gotten a fix otherwise.


----------



## RyanGorney

JoeKustra said:


> I have an A93 that I can load TE4. The host will be a basic Roamio. I also have a Mini Vox. Is there a way, using Prime, that I can duplicate the problem?


Thanks JoeKusta. If you load TE4 to the A93's and try to watch anything on Prime, you should have the issue automatically.


----------



## UnitMaster

RyanGorney said:


> Thanks JoeKusta. If you load TE4 to the A93's and try to watch anything on Prime, you should have the issue automatically.


You will probably get it quickly with the YouTube and Vudo apps as well. Netflix can go days without locking up, but eventually it will lock up as well.


----------



## RyanGorney

UnitMaster said:


> So I finally got fed up and convinced Tivo to send me an A95 refurb. I installed it, and everything works fine app wise, however because they sent me an A95 refurb with no new remote, my old remote won't connect via RF but only IR. But the apps work well and snap along.
> 
> Here are some interesting things I found with comparing the A93 and A95. Clearly the newer A95's have upgraded hardware. Faster ethernet, faster processors and more ram. The older A93's only have 10-baseT ethernet connections, where the newer A95's have at least 100-baseT ethernet ports in them. You can test this by opening Netflix and running the Netflix network test. So all this time I wasted by a technician telling me my gigabit network with 80 x 80 megabit Verizon fiber network was too slow, is horse crap. The mini's are limited to 10 meg.
> 
> The next thing I found interesting was that the version of the Netflix app on the A3 was dated 2013, where the version of the Netflix app on the A5 was dated 2016. So clearly this shows that the hardware of the A3 is incapable of running the same generation of apps that the A5 uses even though they are both Hydra.
> 
> All of this tends to prove the theory that all the problems that most people are experiencing with the A3's have nothing to do with heat syncs, routers, connectivity, network speed, (A3s cant go faster than 10 megabit anyway) but rather that the latest OS version Hydra that Tivo pushed out exceeds the hardware capacities of the A3 mini.
> 
> So initially I called Tivo, and had them convinced to replace all 4 of my remaining A3 mini's with refurb A5's. Only hours later to get a call back from a support manager telling me that Tivo changed their minds, and were going to send more refurbed A3's. They then went on to tell me that I shouldn't worry that their engineers are going to look at fixing the bugs with Hydra for the A93.
> 
> They said that Hydra used more ram than the prior TiVo OS version. This coupled with memory leaks in the Amazon Prime and YouTube apps eventually consume all of the memory on the A3 hence causing a lockup requiring a hard power cycle. People that don't use those apps, don't tend to see the problems. So I asked what the solution was. They said I was free to buy all new Mini Voxes or wait for a fix to get pushed out. I asked when there would be a fix. They said they didn't know.
> 
> So in short Tivo pushed out a bloated OS version that the A93 mini's couldn't handle, and hoped no one would notice. Then they wasted support and all of their customer's time by blaming our routers, sending us on wild goose chases of cooling systems and heat synchs all in the name of greed.
> 
> The solution is for either Tivo to replace all the A93's with A95's (don't hold your breath) or to push out a dumbed down feature stripped OS version for the A93's when they feel like it or hope we just all go away.


Thank you UnitMaster, this is the most thorough explanation of what's going on. Even if it was overheating, customers should not be expecting to open up their boxes and modify the hardware with heat syncs and fans. This confirms the suspicion that the OS is more than the a93's can handle and that there is indeed some sort of memory leak which explains why it sometimes works immediately after a reboot. Thank you for proving all of this information.


----------



## JoeKustra

UnitMaster said:


> You will probably get it quickly with the YouTube and Vudo apps as well. Netflix can go days without locking up, but eventually it will lock up as well.





RyanGorney said:


> Thanks JoeKusta. If you load TE4 to the A93's and try to watch anything on Prime, you should have the issue automatically.


Sorry. Ran YouTube and Prime for two hours without a glitch. TE3 and TE4. My TE3 A93 unit is used nightly with TV to drown out the noise. I also ran both at the same time for two hours just because I could. The A93 and A95 share a wireless bridge also. Their host is Ethernet to the router. I have two A93, so when I loaded TE4 I had to change to my Roamio TE4 host. My A95 always uses the same host.


----------



## UnitMaster

JoeKustra said:


> Sorry. Ran YouTube and Prime for two hours without a glitch. TE3 and TE4. My TE3 A93 unit is used nightly with TV to drown out the noise. I also ran both at the same time for two hours just because I could. The A93 and A95 share a wireless bridge also. Their host is Ethernet to the router. I have two A93, so when I loaded TE4 I had to change to my Roamio TE4 host. My A95 always uses the same host.


The disfunction of the 3rd party apps on the A93 mini is well known and not really disputed at this point. So I'm not really sure what your point is. Apparently it doesn't happen 100% of the time, but that doesn't mean it's not widespread. This could be caused by any number of things, most likely hardware components, and versions, firmware, etc.

For example, recently on Facebook in the Tivo.Innovate group, a person calling herself a "Research Architect at Tivo" asked the community... "What's your favorite way to watch Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon streaming video on your TV? What makes that your favorite?. The answers were all almost universal, and went something like this. We wish we could use the 3rd party apps on Tivo, but they are too slow and unstable that almost everyone has gone to other appliances. The most popular devices were Roku, Apple TV and FireTv.

Even Tivo engineers have acknowledged their issues at this point, with a new tentative release date of an OS patch being promised circa 3/24/2019.
We will see.


----------



## BadMouth

Apparently not patched yet. Last night the Mini froze halfway through an hour long YouTube video. Playback had a slight hiccup that happened more and more frequently as the video went on. Then about a half hour in, total freeze and unresponsive mini.
Had to unplug it to reset.


----------



## UnitMaster

Not yet. Spoke to an engineer last week and surprise the release got pushed back.

They did say that it should be a release that asks you to confirm installation, so we should know when it's pushed out.
They also said they have a prioritization queue that pushes out the update out to people that have complained first.

So if you haven't called TiVo to complain you should do so I guess.


----------



## The Merg

Yup, this has been one of the biggest issues for me with my Mini. I've been told multiple times here that it is my network, but I knew that wasn't the issue.

When I tried to use Amazon Prime tonight, the Mini froze as soon as I hit play on the show I wanted to watch. I had to unplug it to get it to reset..

- Merg


----------



## Springfield

New to this thread but I’ve been having this same problem with my Mini’s for quite some time and reached out to TiVo and of course got the run around. Decided to check into this forum and see if there was any news and this thread was at the top of the page.


I have a work around that has seemingly worked for me (although I typically only watch 1-2 hours of Amazon Prime or HBO Go at a time)...

Every night, before I start streaming any apps I reboot the Mini before opening the apps. 
Menu->Help->Restart Box

It’s far from ideal but works for me.



Also, total off topic but would it kill TiVo to start supporting more streaming services like Nickelodeon, NBC Sports, etc???


----------



## slowbiscuit

You're new here - the simple workaround is to get sticks and not wait for Tivo to fix bugs or add more streaming to boxes that suck at it.


----------



## fburgerod

So, when is the Mini getting software to use Amazon Prime effectively? March 24 has passed us by. I can use Roku in one room to stream Prime but my son doesn’t have that so his Mini is useless for Amazon Prime. Netflix works fine. Just trying to relight this Amazon Prime fire...


----------



## UnitMaster

Update here on this issue. Just got off the phone with the Tivo engineer. They are beta testing release candidate 21.9.1. They hope to start pushing it out in the next 7 days. Supposedly it is going to have enhancements as well as bug fixes to address the memory leaks and open the currently capitated speed of the ethernet port at 10 megs to higher.

Also supposedly one of the enhancements is the ability to add your TV's HDMI port to the Tivo button. So that when you turn on your TV with your Tivo remote or if you hit the Tivo button, it will change your TV to the designated HDMI port.

Keep your fingers crossed.


----------



## tomhorsley

NO! Not HDMI CEC! It always does the wrong thing, it better be an option I can turn off. Otherwise I'll have to buy one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/Lindy-HDMI-A...apter+pin+13&qid=1554898540&s=gateway&sr=8-13


----------



## WayneHawn

Anyone receive the update? I talked to support this morning and was told it is currently rolling out.


----------



## RyanGorney

No update on my end. Some emotion here... I have to say I’m about done with tivo between the following issues:
- this mini crash/freeze issue
- my tivo rebooting after every EAS (emergency broadcast) on Spectrum
- the iOS app throwing an error on login 
- not being able to download shows to my iPad with any consistency


----------



## slowbiscuit

The Mini's problems are easily worked around, but yeah the mobile apps are crap and always have been. When they work it's great but often they just don't for no apparent reason. Saw the same thing on a recent vacation with Android - sometimes you could stream from Tivo no problem, others it just wouldn't work at all. And it wasn't bandwidth issues because the Roku stick I brought was fine with all apps. It also wasn't an issue with my home's internet.

Just another case of half-assed coding for all circumstances, unfortunately. Don't know if they do these apps in-house or not but there's nothing new here, seen it plenty of times with Tivo code.


----------



## HerronScott

RyanGorney said:


> No update on my end. Some emotion here... I have to say I'm about done with tivo between the following issues:
> - this mini crash/freeze issue
> - my tivo rebooting after every EAS (emergency broadcast) on Spectrum
> - the iOS app throwing an error on login
> - not being able to download shows to my iPad with any consistency


You must be using TE4 since you mention the EAS reboot. You might hold out a bit longer and see if the update that's started to rollout resolves the first 2 issues. Not sure about he latter 2 as the Android app seems to work fine for us although admittedly my use is very very limited.

Scott


----------



## UnitMaster

So I can confirm that my Bolt indeed did get 21.9.1 installed circa 4/13/19.. However none of my minis have gotten the update yet as of 4/20. 

Since the app crashes are primarily on the minis, there is no way to tell if this update will fix the app crashes yet.

One new feature immediately that I like is "auto skip". Once activated, you no longer need to hit the skip button to skip commercials in recorded shows.

I wish the minis had a check for updates so a user could self initiate an upgrade.


----------



## HerronScott

UnitMaster said:


> So I can confirm that my Bolt indeed did get 21.9.1 installed circa 4/13/19.. However none of my minis have gotten the update yet as of 4/20.
> 
> Since the app crashes are primarily on the minis, there is no way to tell if this update will fix the app crashes yet.
> 
> One new feature immediately that I like is "auto skip". Once activated, you no longer need to hit the skip button to skip commercials in recorded shows.
> 
> I wish the minis had a check for updates so a user could self initiate an upgrade.


Unfortunately nothing you can do until TiVo adds the Mini TSN's to the list to get the update after which doing a service connection will do what you are asking (but forcing service connections ahead of the TSN being added doesn't help!).

Scott


----------



## UnitMaster

I got an invitation to add all my TSN's / devices to the upgrade list to get upgraded sooner than later. My mini's got updated last night to 21.9.1. So far so good. Tivo is still limiting the speed at 10 megabit with the A93's, but I have yet to have my apps on the A93 lockup the mini. It's only been a few hours, but it looks like Tivo fixed the memory leaks. I still don't understand the need to cap the speed at 10 megabits on apps like Netflix and Youtube. The speed of the A93's is still slower than that of the Mini-Vox's, but i will take "slow and usable" over the "unusable and crash-o-matic" apps on the previous build.


----------



## Dan115

All 4 of my minis have been experiencing these freezes and lockups for months. I have had a ticket open with TiVo for quite some time and have gone through all the various troubleshooting. I have been told it's a known issue as well. I used the YouTube app alot and miss it. Really want the update and fix ASAP.


----------



## XIBM

Unitmaster If you are on MOCA would the mini go faster than 10?


----------



## jasonbradley

Anyone heard any more about a the update going out to the general community?


----------



## UnitMaster

Well sadly none of the recent updates have corrected this issue. I'm starting to think Tivo can't fix it because the A93 mini's are just underpowered for the new OS. Plus the engineer told me that Tivo has no ability to update the apps on the mini's. They can only update their OS and not the apps. This effectively means all A93s only ever get the apps on them the day you bought them. A93s still work for TV, but their ability to run apps is permanently broken. For heavens sake don't buy one. 

The sad thing is this really shows the dysfunction at Tivo. Not only did they put out a completely broken product, but they don't even know or care. I'm not sure which is worse. Man is the market wide open for a company to step in and fill this market void.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Minis (any version) are awesome simply for the ability to use Tivo functions, so it's silly to say 'don't buy one'. Everything else is just a bonus and easily replaceable.


----------



## JoeKustra

slowbiscuit said:


> Minis (any version) are awesome simply for the ability to use Tivo functions, so it's silly to say 'don't buy one'. Everything else is just a bonus and easily replaceable.


I agree. I use one nightly in the bedroom for TV. I use one in the morning while having breakfast. I can stream YouTube or Prime forever and never have a problem.


----------



## DocNo

UnitMaster said:


> Not yet. Spoke to an engineer last week and surprise the release got pushed back.


When it does get pushed please post the version number. My Mini is still screwing up but it would be nice to know exactly who has what.

Mine is still on 21.9.1.v8-A92-6-A92


----------



## UnitMaster

slowbiscuit said:


> Minis (any version) are awesome simply for the ability to use Tivo functions, so it's silly to say 'don't buy one'. Everything else is just a bonus and easily replaceable.


The Apps work for fine on the A95s, but the A93s are now a TV only solution. Many of us do not consider Netflix, Prime and Vudo just bonuses since TiVo has no on demand capabilities.


----------



## slowbiscuit

Like I said, those apps run on almost anything better than Tivo so there's no real loss here other than the minor cost of sticks and having to switch inputs.

Look we get it, Tivo's never going to fix this crap. I agree. But it's not like it's a big deal to work around the problem.


----------



## Meatball

Don't think it'll matter, but I'll throw my name into the hat as me too. Pre-TE4, my A93 Mini's would lock up on Amazon Prime and need to be rebooted. Received TE4 about a month ago, and things have gotten worse. Not only does Amazon continue to lock up, but now Netflix does it as well. I have to pull the plug on the unit 1-2x a day.


----------



## WayneHawn

6 weeks later, still no update. I would guess that 75% of what I watch is streaming on Netflix or Amazon prime. I really do think that is the direction video consumption is headed. I use the DVR functionality less and less. As a result the Mini is barely useful to me now.


----------



## silverco

Like most of you I have been waiting for the fix from TIVO to the Mini(non-Vox) stuttering, freezing, etc. I finally received the latest update today, and so far it it working great on three different Minis (models A92 & A93). The version number is: 21.9.1.v9-........


----------



## silverco

DocNo said:


> When it does get pushed please post the version number. My Mini is still screwing up but it would be nice to know exactly who has what.
> 
> Mine is still on 21.9.1.v8-A92-6-A92


I received v9 today and so far it works great.


----------



## WayneHawn

Just got the update. First test was promising.


----------



## Meatball

So, I got the v9 update on an A93 the other day and it's good and bad. Good that I can actually watch Amazon Prime video, bad, that after 20-30 minutes of it, the stream starts locking up / stuttering and eventually just stops. It doesn't fully lock up the TIVO and you can get back to the home screen, which helps, but it's still not fully fixed. I have contacted support and the best they've had me do is fully reset the mini (which does nothing) and offered to send out another A93.

I've got kids that watch Netflix / Amazon a good bit, so it's a non-workable situation if I can't get it to work in the near future. And I'm really expecting I'll need the upcoming Disney streaming service and with the challenges with Netflix/Amazon, I'm not very optimistic about the Tivo A93 support of it. I'm actually starting to consider looking at other options like Plex or a Tablo/Roku setup.


----------



## Pokemon_Dad

Meatball said:


> I'm actually starting to consider looking at other options like Plex or a Tablo/Roku setup.


I can recommend the FireTV Stick 4K. I got it when both my TV internal apps and the Mini 93 started misbehaving. The Stick integrated with my TV and TV remote very well, it supports Amazon of course but also Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services, and although I haven't tested it there is a Plex app too. We don't use Alexa but all features we've tried are very smooth and reliable.


----------



## DigitalDawn

So we have five A92 mini's running on a Roamio Pro. All products are on 20.7.4 and won't update any higher. We are on TE3 and I have tried connecting to the TiVo service manually. Schedule updates work just fine. But no other OS updates.

Is this because we are on TE3?

Edit: It appears that 20.7.4 is the latest version of TE3. Oh well. I may just have to purchase a Firestick for Amazon. Not sure an A95 will work.


----------



## JoeKustra

DigitalDawn said:


> Is this because we are on TE3?


Yes. The latest TE3 software is 20.7.4.RC42 and there have been no changes since about May 2018.


----------



## UnitMaster

So Tivo has had the option to address this by choosing one of the following routes:
a) discontinue support of all 3rd party apps so people don't continue to have an expectation that they will work
b) replace the defective Mini's with functional technology
c) fix the problem on existing minis
d) get into a litigation war with Comcast, then separate into 2 different companies to make the sell of of Tivo assets easier.

Sadly, Tivo has chosen option d.

https://www.multichannel.com/news/tivo-to-split-licensing-and-product-businesses


----------



## Morris Altman

This is my first post and wanted to thank everyone for this informative thread. My family has been dealing with our mini freezing while streaming for quite some time. 

One member posted a workaround that has stopped the freezes. Simply reset the mini daily using a timer. We are using an old mechanical light timer and turn the mini off for 15 minutes at 4am.

We look forward to the day that there is a working firmware fix


----------



## slowbiscuit

This will not work with TE3 if you do any normal amount of app video watching on Minis. You're going to end up resetting them again because they will lock up on you while watching.

Again, the answer is to get sticks.


----------



## Morris Altman

slowbiscuit said:


> This will not work with TE3 if you do any normal amount of app video watching on Minis. You're going to end up resetting them again because they will lock up on you while watching.
> 
> Again, the answer is to get sticks.


What is "normal amount of app video watching"? We have watched 3 hours a few times without issue though normal for us is 1 hour. If it were to lock up we simply switch to the app on the TV yet that defeats the convenience of the TiVo integrated interface.


----------



## DigitalDawn

Until TiVo gives us TE3 owners a software fix, I think the mechanical timer solution is a great idea.


----------



## slowbiscuit

YT locks up randomly, timer reset is not a solution.


----------



## Morris Altman

slowbiscuit said:


> YT locks up randomly, timer reset is not a solution.


I suggest you start a log as I did. After ever reset the mini will run fine including streaming apps for a few hours. After this odd things start to happen to the streams such as audio out of sync or pauses. If you live with this eventually the box will lock up. It is best to reset at the first signs of trouble. If you binge watch streaming shows or movies the timer is not a solution. If you watch an occasional streaming show or movie the experience is fine.

Clearly we need a firmware fix and in the meantime one must choose what serves there needs best with a choice from: Timer, TiVo Mini Vox, Smart TV, other streaming solution.


----------



## UnitMaster

Listen everyone. The A93's are unfix-able as the new OS's and 3rd party apps are beyond their hardware capabilities at this point. Tivo will never and can't acknowledge this for obvious reasons as a giant revolt would happen in the Tivo community as well as impact their stock and sale of the company. At this point their corporate strategy is to pray all A93 users ether upgrade to A95 (Vox minis) boxes or just quietly go away. Their level one support team is uniformed and will waste hours of your time having you reboot, power cycle, and check your network cabling. None of those tasks will correct this issue. Their level 2 support is aware of your issue, but has no authority to help you or ability to escalate your problem to someone who can.

The solution is this. After you open an initial case, go to the following website:
Information Request | TiVo

With your case number log a formal complaint to the Tivo executive team. They should respond to you in 24 hours. They need to know this has to stop.


----------



## Mikeguy

UnitMaster said:


> Listen everyone. The A93's are unfix-able as the new OS's and 3rd party apps are beyond their hardware capabilities at this point. Tivo will never and can't acknowledge this for obvious reasons as a giant revolt would happen in the Tivo community as well as impact their stock and sale of the company. At this point their corporate strategy is to pray all A93 users ether upgrade to A95 (Vox minis) boxes or just quietly go away. Their level one support team is uniformed and will waste hours of your time having you reboot, power cycle, and check your network cabling. None of those tasks will correct this issue. Their level 2 support is aware of your issue, but has no authority to help you or ability to escalate your problem to someone who can.
> 
> The solution is this. After you open an initial case, go to the following website:
> Information Request | TiVo
> 
> With your case number log a formal complaint to the Tivo executive team. They should respond to you in 24 hours. They need to know this has to stop.


They probably should update the reference to Rovi Corporation there . . . .


----------



## JoeKustra

I have a question. Is there an issue with watching live TV? I run my A93 for about 10 hours every day. I reboot everything on the last day of the month. I have never lost the connection or had any other problems. Since it's only me on the Roamio host, this is a "light" load I guess. My use of Prime is light, and every time I use it for two hours to watch something I don't have any problems. But since that's been shown to be intermittent, I know it's not a good test.


----------



## Morris Altman

UnitMaster said:


> Listen everyone. The A93's are unfix-able as the new OS's and 3rd party apps are beyond their hardware capabilities at this point. Tivo will never and can't acknowledge this for obvious reasons as a giant revolt would happen in the Tivo community as well as impact their stock and sale of the company. At this point their corporate strategy is to pray all A93 users ether upgrade to A95 (Vox minis) boxes or just quietly go away. Their level one support team is uniformed and will waste hours of your time having you reboot, power cycle, and check your network cabling. None of those tasks will correct this issue. Their level 2 support is aware of your issue, but has no authority to help you or ability to escalate your problem to someone who can.
> 
> The solution is this. After you open an initial case, go to the following website:
> Information Request | TiVo
> 
> With your case number log a formal complaint to the Tivo executive team. They should respond to you in 24 hours. They need to know this has to stop.


I used the link and got the following error back:

*Information Request*
Error Occurred
We're sorry, but the page you have requested is either no longer available, or has been moved.

Please try one of the links in the navigation, or if you feel you have reached this page in error, please contact [email protected]for assistance.

--------------------------------

I then opened a standard ticket referencing this thread and asked when the problem will be resolved. If everyone in this thread were to do the same as soon as possible it should get attention.

Morris


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## Morris Altman

JoeKustra said:


> I have a question. Is there an issue with watching live TV? I run my A93 for about 10 hours every day. I reboot everything on the last day of the month. I have never lost the connection or had any other problems. Since it's only me on the Roamio host, this is a "light" load I guess. My use of Prime is light, and every time I use it for two hours to watch something I don't have any problems. But since that's been shown to be intermittent, I know it's not a good test.


We have not had one even before I started rebooting nightly


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## UnitMaster

Go to IR.tivo.com then select the little "IR Menu" box, then select "Information Request" under Other information.

Information Request | TiVo


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## UnitMaster

This only effects 3rd party apps for the most part.


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## Morris Altman

UnitMaster said:


> Go to IR.tivo.com then select the little "IR Menu" box, then select "Information Request" under Other information.
> 
> Information Request | TiVo


Thank you, posted. I hope everyone does this to get there attention


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## slowbiscuit

JoeKustra said:


> I have a question. Is there an issue with watching live TV? I run my A93 for about 10 hours every day. I reboot everything on the last day of the month. I have never lost the connection or had any other problems. Since it's only me on the Roamio host, this is a "light" load I guess. My use of Prime is light, and every time I use it for two hours to watch something I don't have any problems. But since that's been shown to be intermittent, I know it's not a good test.


Never a problem here with Minis and Tivo hosted content, live or recorded. The problem has always been the apps.


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## Pokemon_Dad

JoeKustra said:


> I have a question. Is there an issue with watching live TV? I run my A93 for about 10 hours every day. I reboot everything on the last day of the month. I have never lost the connection or had any other problems. Since it's only me on the Roamio host, this is a "light" load I guess. My use of Prime is light, and every time I use it for two hours to watch something I don't have any problems. But since that's been shown to be intermittent, I know it's not a good test.


I've never had a problem watching live or recorded TV with A93 Minis, and I haven't seen others complain about that here. It's the apps. Even when the apps work, they're very out-of-date. For better speed, sound, navigation, and other options, I added a Fire Stick 4K.


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## UnitMaster

Success! Well after 6 months and countless hours, Tivo's Inventor Relations team came through.
They replaced all 5 of my A93's with A95 (Vox Mini's). They are all setup, and the apps are working beautifully so far. I have used Netflix, Vudu, Youtube, Prime and Tubi. 

The end result is the A93's have issues of both memory leaks, old apps and they capitate the speed of the ethernet ports down to 10 meg to help alleviate the issues unsuccessfully.

Cheers and thankyou Matt at Tivo Investor Relations


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## hairyblue

I installed a Tivo mini (a93) in 2017. I had trouble getting it to work and had to call tech support and they replaced it with another a93. The mini is for my sister's room who had moved in with me. I forgot about it but she came to me 2 nights ago saying the tv wasn't working. I looked and the mini was locked up. I restarted the mini but it didn't syc back up with the Roamio OTA I had in the den. I restarted the roamio and that seemed to fix the mini. 

Then last night the same thing happened. I asked what she was watching on the mini and she said the Amazon Prime app. She confirmed it was the same app she was watching the night before. 

I haven't called Tivo yet, but I guess I will when we get back from the dentist in a bit. I am disappointed after skimming thru this thread. And after I learned of the removal of the Thumbs rating system, I too am looking at other non Tivo options for TV at my house. Shame, I was a big Tivo fan.


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## Pokemon_Dad

hairyblue said:


> I installed a Tivo mini (a93) in 2017. I had trouble getting it to work and had to call tech support and they replaced it with another a93. The mini is for my sister's room who had moved in with me. I forgot about it but she came to me 2 nights ago saying the tv wasn't working. I looked and the mini was locked up. I restarted the mini but it didn't syc back up with the Roamio OTA I had in the den. I restarted the roamio and that seemed to fix the mini.
> 
> Then last night the same thing happened. I asked what she was watching on the mini and she said the Amazon Prime app. She confirmed it was the same app she was watching the night before.
> 
> I haven't called Tivo yet, but I guess I will when we get back from the dentist in a bit. I am disappointed after skimming thru this thread. And after I learned of the removal of the Thumbs rating system, I too am looking at other non Tivo options for TV at my house. Shame, I was a big Tivo fan.


If the TV in there has an available HDMI port, I suggest trying a Fire Stick, especially as it will soon have a TiVo app. Other options will be Roku and Apple TV. Some Android TVs will have the app too. There will be some trade-offs with the new TiVo app, like a max resolution of 720p, but overall it may offer just the right balance of features to replace Mini units.

Or keep the Mini and use one of the newer options just for streaming. I have an A93 Mini, a Fire Stick, and a Blu-ray player connected via HDMI, and use the main TV remote for the latter two. The apps in the A93 unit _and _in our five year-old Sony TV are all failing, but even when they work they are very dated and are likely to stay that way. All apps on our new Fire Stick are a pleasure.


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## hairyblue

I'll have to look into this Tivo app. Fire sticks are cheap. I never owned one but have heard good things about them.

I asked my sister to let me know if/when the mini crashes again and I'll get info and call tech support.


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## JoeKustra

Pokemon_Dad said:


> The apps in the A93 unit _and _in our five year-old Sony TV are all failing, but even when they work they are very dated and are likely to stay that way. All apps on our new Fire Stick are a pleasure.


Agreed. Also, Sony has dropped Vewd (Opera), so a lot of apps are gone.


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## Pokemon_Dad

JoeKustra said:


> Agreed. Also, Sony has dropped Vewd (Opera), so a lot of apps are gone.


I think it's a crashing Opera browser in the Sony that causes Prime, Hulu, and other apps to suddenly get covered by a black window saying "Error: Internet Browser Will be Closed Due to Internal Error". I've tried all the adjustments and resets suggested on Sony forums with no luck. The TV's Netflix app doesn't seem to depend on that browser and still works, but as I said all of the apps are dated. Also Screen Mirroring suddenly stopped working one day and nobody knows why.

This is an otherwise top-of-the-line 4K big screen TV, but Sony doesn't seem likely to fix the serious bugs, much less update the apps in general.

Knowing this, I have little hope TiVo will be updating old Mini units much. But Fire Stick is the fix.


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## JoeKustra

Pokemon_Dad said:


> I think it's a crashing Opera browser in the Sony that causes Prime, Hulu, and other apps to suddenly get covered by a black window saying "Error: Internet Browser Will be Closed Due to Internal Error". I've tried all the adjustments and resets suggested on Sony forums with no luck. The TV's Netflix app doesn't seem to depend on that browser and still works, but as I said all of the apps are dated. Also Screen Mirroring suddenly stopped working one day and nobody knows why.
> This is an otherwise top-of-the-line 4K big screen TV, but Sony doesn't seem likely to fix the serious bugs, much less update the apps in general.
> Knowing this, I have little hope TiVo will be updating old Mini units much. But Fire Stick is the fix.


I have a Fire TV too. As for VEWD, I never had any errors. I should have said the app was pulled from Sony devices. Maybe I should say the "mother app" was pulled, so all its children went too.


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## Pokemon_Dad

JoeKustra said:


> I have a Fire TV too. As for VEWD, I never had any errors. I should have said the app was pulled from Sony devices. Maybe I should say the "mother app" was pulled, so all its children went too.


My Sony's browser is pre-Vewd, so-to-speak. So even less likely to get fixed. It's a good TV as a TV anyway, just like the Mini is still a good TiVo device for watching TiVo. Until there's an app for that too.


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## tomhorsley

Pokemon_Dad said:


> ...as it will soon have a TiVo app...


Note that's "TiVo soon", not your standard English dictionary "soon". I'll believe it when I see it. I'll also believe it will work more reliably than the TiVo android app when I see that (it usually takes a good five minutes of retrying to get the android app streaming).


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## Morris Altman

I opened a support ticket and in the support ticket referenced this thread. This was back in late June. The first Customer Support Representative (CSR) I worked with asked me to do all the things posted online to troubleshoot mini streaming problems. I told him that I already tried all of that and it doesn't work. I asked if he had read the thread I'd linked where a TiVo rep acknowledged it is a firmware issue. The result was he emailed another troubleshooting guide and closed the ticket without hearing back from me. 

I filled out the post ticket survey indicating unsastasactfaury to all questions and wrote a long explanation of what was going on. The case was reopened and the CSR that handled it this time stated that TiVo is aware of the firmware issues. They asked me to test something for them and I was happy to do this are report back which I did. The next CSR to pick up the ticket asked me to troubleshoot again! I laughed and asked the CSR to look at the notes form the one that admitted there is a firmware issue. Next I heard from the CSR that admitted there is an issue who asked what router I'm using and what ISP. I provided this information. On July 4 I here from a CSR that stated my mini was defected and needed to be replaced. I waited a few days and then called in when I could talk to them nicely. The CSR I spoke with spent considerable time reading case notes and talking to second level support. He eventually told me that level 2 suggested replacing the mini and I asked if they could make this a mini vox. He asked for permission and informed me that they would provide a recertified mini vox for $40 and I gladly accepted. I received the mini vox, hooked it up and it worked well except I could not get my old remote to pair for radio control, only IR worked. I called in, and asked if the old remote is compatible with the vox. I was told yes. I then fiddled per instructions of the CSR for 30 minutes and then she spoke to second level support. They told her to send me a new remote. She informed me that they would be sending me a Bolt remote. When I received the order confirmation I noticed she had entered Bolt remote two times. Yep, I received two bolt remotes, put batteries in one and it would not radio pair. I called support, spend more time fiddling per instructions. I was asked if there are any radio devices that might be interfering. I stated I have the usual set of consumer radios: WiFi both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. Also bluetooth devices and a 5 GHz cordless phone. I asked what frequency the remote uses and he did not know. He contacted second level support and waited for a response. While he was waiting to hear from him he searched there case history and stated, there seem to be a cluster of tickets that indicate a VOX remote is required. I'll order you one. It arrived today, I inserted the batteries and it immediately paired.

I now have streaming and an upgrade to 4k which I wanted so I'm happy about all of this. As for customer support, there incompetent...


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## Goodbar_x

Morris Altman said:


> I used the link and got the following error back:
> 
> *Information Request*
> Error Occurred
> We're sorry, but the page you have requested is either no longer available, or has been moved.
> 
> Please try one of the links in the navigation, or if you feel you have reached this page in error, please contact [email protected]for assistance.
> 
> --------------------------------
> 
> I then opened a standard ticket referencing this thread and asked when the problem will be resolved. If everyone in this thread were to do the same as soon as possible it should get attention.
> 
> Morris


I had this same issue, the link to the Information Request form worked fine. I entered all my info and my complaint, but after submitting I got this same error.


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## magicbobNJ

UnitMaster said:


> Success! Well after 6 months and countless hours, Tivo's Inventor Relations team came through.
> They replaced all 5 of my A93's with A95 (Vox Mini's). They are all setup, and the apps are working beautifully so far. I have used Netflix, Vudu, Youtube, Prime and Tubi.
> 
> The end result is the A93's have issues of both memory leaks, old apps and they capitate the speed of the ethernet ports down to 10 meg to help alleviate the issues unsuccessfully.
> 
> Cheers and thankyou Matt at Tivo Investor Relations


Hi! Lucky I found these forums as I thought it was my Xfinity service. My mini is connected via MOCA. I bought these about 2-1/2 yrs ago so I think my warranty is over. Were yours still in warranty or are they replacing any who complain about this bug?


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## windracer

I just encountered this today as well ... ok, my daughter did. I don't normally use Amazon Prime on the Minis in the house, just the Bolt. My daughter complained that "the TV in the bedroom doesn't have enough bandwidth for Amazon." So I checked it out and saw the freezing/sluggishness issue. Both of my Minis are A92s from 2013. Maybe I should have upgraded to Vox Minis during the recent summer upgrade promotion.


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## tomhorsley

Much cheaper than a TiVo upgrade is to buy a firestick. It has no problem playing amazon video, and it works fine with the wireless connection (at least with my wireless it works fine - meanwhile the TiVo app on my tablet has major problems on the same wireless network, I'm fairly certain no one at TiVo understands anything about networking).


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## glennwaliczek

Due to not wanting to spend money to replace my numerous TiVo minis, I have been dealing with this issue for a very long time. At this point it appears to me that TiVo cannot or simply will not correct the issues on the afflicted devices (perhaps this is an actual fact which was already stated in the thread? I am not going to read through everything to be certain). While their marketing used to be almost entirely centered around the TiVo value as a DVR it has changed significantly to instead be positioned as a superior media service aggregation device. It is pretty big screw up from a business stand point when the device in question cannot even utilize many of the streaming services without requiring the user to restart the device in the worst possible way...having to manually remove and restore power by pulling the power cord. Given that TiVo has identified that they have sold faulty devices, they should really offer something up to all the affected folks such as a replacement program to a newer device...perhaps not free, but at the very least heavily discounted. I for one am not typically inclined to stick with a company that has such terrible processes in place that they missed something this big in their product, but could be swayed by an act of good will such as previously stated along with the observation that newer generation hardware works flawlessly out of the box or has the ability to easily identify and correct issues that may have gotten past the quality assurance phase. The latter is kind of a pipe dream as this is very difficult to do with "appliances" using embedded software.

That being said, I have a tidbit of advice for those who will continue to use the afflicted devices. DO NOT EVER press the TiVo button while using an app such as Prime Video. From what I have seen, this is the biggest factor in issues occurring. It is clear that the framework which executes the apps must clean up after itself before returning control to the primary TiVo software, but my guess is that either the apps themselves or perhaps the framework do not do so correctly when exiting through use of the TiVo button. My advice is to always use the back button on the remote to keep moving backwards until you are asked whether you wish to exit out of an app. Most apps will likely have a better behavior around clean up as the back button will probably execute the cleanup of the specific activity that was going on at that moment whereas the TiVo button forces the app and the entire framework to abruptly exit and attempt cleanup all at once which may have not bee handled or not have been coded well such that things are missed and lead to resource leaks. I am certainly not saying that this solves the problem, there are likely other actions which can cause the issues to manifest or perhaps simply using the apps themselves will eventually lead to issues. Without having tools (or desire) to diagnose and understand the problem, the only thing I can do is observe. What I can say is that when I follow this one rule, the devices typically run a lot longer before the issues manifest. I would like to say they always run a lot longer before issues manifest, but that would not be true. However, I am not the only person in my home who uses the TiVo minis and I cannot know or control how others are using the device despite my providing them with this same information.

I would be curious to know if anyone else has found what I have stated above to be true or if anyone who sees this post tries this out and observes similar results to what I have seen.


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## okay_see

glennwaliczek said:


> Due to not wanting to spend money to replace my numerous TiVo minis, I have been dealing with this issue for a very long time. At this point it appears to me that TiVo cannot or simply will not correct the issues on the afflicted devices (perhaps this is an actual fact which was already stated in the thread? I am not going to read through everything to be certain). While their marketing used to be almost entirely centered around the TiVo value as a DVR it has changed significantly to instead be positioned as a superior media service aggregation device. It is pretty big screw up from a business stand point when the device in question cannot even utilize many of the streaming services without requiring the user to restart the device in the worst possible way...having to manually remove and restore power by pulling the power cord. Given that TiVo has identified that they have sold faulty devices, they should really offer something up to all the affected folks such as a replacement program to a newer device...perhaps not free, but at the very least heavily discounted. I for one am not typically inclined to stick with a company that has such terrible processes in place that they missed something this big in their product, but could be swayed by an act of good will such as previously stated along with the observation that newer generation hardware works flawlessly out of the box or has the ability to easily identify and correct issues that may have gotten past the quality assurance phase. The latter is kind of a pipe dream as this is very difficult to do with "appliances" using embedded software.
> 
> That being said, I have a tidbit of advice for those who will continue to use the afflicted devices. DO NOT EVER press the TiVo button while using an app such as Prime Video. From what I have seen, this is the biggest factor in issues occurring. It is clear that the framework which executes the apps must clean up after itself before returning control to the primary TiVo software, but my guess is that either the apps themselves or perhaps the framework do not do so correctly when exiting through use of the TiVo button. My advice is to always use the back button on the remote to keep moving backwards until you are asked whether you wish to exit out of an app. Most apps will likely have a better behavior around clean up as the back button will probably execute the cleanup of the specific activity that was going on at that moment whereas the TiVo button forces the app and the entire framework to abruptly exit and attempt cleanup all at once which may have not bee handled or not have been coded well such that things are missed and lead to resource leaks. I am certainly not saying that this solves the problem, there are likely other actions which can cause the issues to manifest or perhaps simply using the apps themselves will eventually lead to issues. Without having tools (or desire) to diagnose and understand the problem, the only thing I can do is observe. What I can say is that when I follow this one rule, the devices typically run a lot longer before the issues manifest. I would like to say they always run a lot longer before issues manifest, but that would not be true. However, I am not the only person in my home who uses the TiVo minis and I cannot know or control how others are using the device despite my providing them with this same information.
> 
> I would be curious to know if anyone else has found what I have stated above to be true or if anyone who sees this post tries this out and observes similar results to what I have seen.


For whatever reason, A93 minis still hold value on eBay. I would pack them up and sell to replace with A95 VOX minis. OR try to get Tivo to replace your A93s (someone else in this forum was able to do that). I sold my A93s and got a fair amount for them.


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## RyanGorney

I just called TiVo support and they did not offer to replace my A93's. I have therefore followed up with the below note and will post what I find.

Dear TiVo support. We are on day 261 since this issue was reported to you and over a year since I've had the issue. Please note there is a detailed forum on the problem. Mini crashes while using Prime Video?

My account renews in March 2020 and between this ongoing issue and the pre-roll ads, I will not be renewing unless this is fixed. I feel as a paid customer, development hours should have been placed into fixing these issues rather than investing in pre-roll ads which will further harm your customer retention efforts.

Alternatively, I'd be open to having my A93's swapped for A95's.

I appreciate you looking into this.


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## UnitMaster

magicbobNJ said:


> Hi! Lucky I found these forums as I thought it was my Xfinity service. My mini is connected via MOCA. I bought these about 2-1/2 yrs ago so I think my warranty is over. Were yours still in warranty or are they replacing any who complain about this bug?


No I don't think so. I just had complained for 6 month straight. But you must reach out to Investor Relations as I posted above. Regular Tivo support is not authorized to replace your 93's with 95vox's. Working with standard level 1 and 2 support is almost pointless, but not their fault. Tivo support is not authorized to help you.


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## UnitMaster

okay_see said:


> For whatever reason, A93 minis still hold value on eBay. I would pack them up and sell to replace with A95 VOX minis. OR try to get Tivo to replace your A93s (someone else in this forum was able to do that). I sold my A93s and got a fair amount for them.


The A93s work fine for TV only. It's the apps that crash.


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## larryhitz

RyanGorney said:


> I just called TiVo support and they did not offer to replace my A93's. I have therefore followed up with the below note and will post what I find.
> 
> Dear TiVo support. We are on day 261 since this issue was reported to you and over a year since I've had the issue. Please note there is a detailed forum on the problem. Mini crashes while using Prime Video?
> 
> My account renews in March 2020 and between this ongoing issue and the pre-roll ads, I will not be renewing unless this is fixed. I feel as a paid customer, development hours should have been placed into fixing these issues rather than investing in pre-roll ads which will further harm your customer retention efforts.
> 
> Alternatively, I'd be open to having my A93's swapped for A95's.
> 
> I appreciate you looking into this.


I too will join you as app support being so broken and never is addressed and fixed.


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## Brokeback

If this is the case, sounds like TiVo is following Apple's business model; planned abselences. Is TiVo not interested in backwards compatibility? Less hassle to rent from Comcast than continue feeding the Steve Job's machine.


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## Redbird19

Glad I found this thread, having the same issue as everyone else with Prime Video being unwatchable and unusable on my old Mini after upgrading to the hydra OS. I've noticed that Prime Video seems to work albeit with noticeable lag the first time after the Mini is rebooted, but if you exit out of the Prime Video app and try to go back in, it lags, stutters, and eventually crashes, and forces the Mini to reboot. I was hoping there was something to be done to fix the problem, but I guess it's just live with it, upgrade to a Mini Vox, or use some other non-TiVo product...


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## fburgerod

I have grown tired of waiting for Tivo to fix this issue, so I went with a non-Tivo product, a fire stick. Much happier with that.


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## Elgato54

Same thing. Roamio with Mini's. Cat6a direct connects. Prime works fine on the Roamio but fails miserably on the Mini's. Videos start and stop and finally freeze after about 10 minutes. Still on the old Tivo interface. Other apps and Netflix work fine on the Mini. Is there any hope that Tivo will fix this? Is it an Amazon issue? Same problem on the crazy overpriced Mini Vox? Tivo continues their downward slide on customer service. Why even put Apps that do not work on the Mini??


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## okay_see

Elgato54 said:


> Same thing. Roamio with Mini's. Cat6a direct connects. Prime works fine on the Roamio but fails miserably on the Mini's. Videos start and stop and finally freeze after about 10 minutes. Still on the old Tivo interface. Other apps and Netflix work fine on the Mini. Is there any hope that Tivo will fix this? Is it an Amazon issue? Same problem on the crazy overpriced Mini Vox? Tivo continues their downward slide on customer service. Why even put Apps that do not work on the Mini??


Mini Vox isn't overpriced. Wait for a summer sale to pick some up. Sell your old mini's on eBay. Mini Vox is MUCH faster (must be upgraded processor and possibly more RAM) and loads apps without a problem. Only question is "what apps will Tivo continue to support?" The big ones are there for sure: Prime/Hulu/Netflix/YouTube. The Vox experience is worth it. You'll be happy when you make the switch. Prime works without any issues.


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## DigitalDawn

Prime is much better on the Mini VOX. I used to have to reboot my 92 series Mini every day. Now, only occasionally with the Vox.


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## slowbiscuit

okay_see said:


> Mini Vox isn't overpriced. Wait for a summer sale to pick some up. Sell your old mini's on eBay. Mini Vox is MUCH faster (must be upgraded processor and possibly more RAM) and loads apps without a problem. Only question is "what apps will Tivo continue to support?" The big ones are there for sure: Prime/Hulu/Netflix/YouTube. The Vox experience is worth it. You'll be happy when you make the switch. Prime works without any issues.


It's a whole lot cheaper to get a few sticks than changing all of them out, the Minis (any version) are great Tivo extenders and that's really what they're best used for.


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## Morris Altman

Support denied all problems till I pointed to thread like this one where the old mini has problems and the VOX dose not. Once I did this they offered me a refurbed Mini VOX that has worked perfectly for over a year. Ask them to make you a happy customer.


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