# Increasingly Unstable



## geekspeak (Oct 1, 2002)

This is since the last update although I am sure that it a coincidence. 4 or 5 times now when in standby, I press power but do not get a picture. I get the Tivo sounds but nothing else. I try to switch off - back to standby but do not get the standby leds. Eventually, it reboots.

Just now I finished watching a program and went back to the menu. Left it for 5 minutes whilst doing something else. The screen then went blank - I was expecting it to return to live tv but my tv said "no hdmi input". Tried turning on or off and it eventually rebooted again. Another 2 recordings interrupted.

Also after a reboot it is extremely slow to switch menus.

Anyone else getting this? (It wasn't happening until the last few days)


----------



## OzSat (Feb 15, 2001)

I've not had reboot issues - I only know of one reboot in past couple of weeks and that was a manual one.

The thing is you have no way of seeing the uptime anymore to see if reboots are happening without you knowing. But I've had no broken recordings.


----------



## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

I was just coming here to post a thread that I was going to call exactly what this one's called.

After the '3rd tuner' update, I was very happy. TiVo was fairly stable if a bit laggy at times and I think I'd had one crash in three weeks.

The last couple of weeks things have deteriorated quite notably. I've now had at least one crash or random reboot most days and it feels like the latest software updates / tweaks are responsible.

Quite upset. Anyone else feel that things are deteriorating?


----------



## jonphil (Aug 7, 2002)

Mine became very slow to respond Friday evening, blank screen for a while before 'My Shows' appeared.
Managed to watch an hour HD program with no problems, went to delete it and then got the red circle going.
As all 3 tuners were in use I was interested to see what happened, the red circle remained for above an hour (I was doing other things) once it timed out to live TV but going back to the menu was the same result.

Eventually had to manually power it off and back on again, thankfully all the recordings it was doing were fine so it was just the interface that crashed.

I hope that Virgin isn't rushing out fixes because of the launch date.
The issue with the pin number resetting to the default has also caused me to have to reboot to get the pin working again.


----------



## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

The red circle is something I've been seeing a lot more recently often while the menus are chugging away waiting for it to vanish, you can go back to live TV and all is fine. Quite odd.


----------



## geekspeak (Oct 1, 2002)

ozsat said:


> The thing is you have no way of seeing the uptime anymore to see if reboots are happening without you knowing. But I've had no broken recordings.


The only thing available is the time since tune start for each tuner in the diagnostics menu. However, I suspect this gets reset when the tuner switches channel. However one of my tuners is currently at 21 hours which would have been the last reboot, so at least I know it hasn't rebooted within that time.

Probably no use to those Tivo's that are particularly active, always recording etc. and I wouldn't know if those counters get set back to zero at all, other than a channel change. Plus, I am only assuming they get set to zero on reboot.


----------



## Faz (May 2, 2004)

I noticed mine getting sluggish past few days too, including first GUI restart in some time.
Darn donut / red circle showing it's self way more often than it used to.

Sometimes it seems lag is due to updating the Discovery bar. Flash is all well and good when system load / CPU is not being taxed, and I can understand Virgin wishing to keep this always visible, but at least they could ensure it's running in it's own low priority thread or something, to ensure it never causes lag on the rest of the interface.


----------



## jonphil (Aug 7, 2002)

3rd reboot since AE8 last week, this time went to watch something and nice black screen and nothing.
Recording two programs and got so *********** that I had to reboot it and miss part / or maybe even all that it was recording.

The home screen time issue was anoying but I could live with it, but the crashing recently is just beyond the joke, especially as it had been reall quite stable.

Anyway Virgin can roll back to the version before and give me back the Tivo with the incorrect home screen time as at least it didn't crash so often.

Noticed that unlike S1 it doesn't attempt to recover the recording 
correction, it does carry on the recordings but takes a very long time to recover. In total with the time to boot the box it misses a good 10mins worth of whatever was being recorded.


----------



## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

I actually found it started to deteriorate with the 'small' software update before AE8 (can't remember what they did with that one).

It is a really serious issue I think, the software is just no where near as stable as it was.


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

So why am I not seeing any (serious) stability issues? I mean, if the software update *we all got* has caused it, shouldn't all the boxes be exhibiting the same problem?

So yes it's a serious issue, of course, but there's no real way of telling how many are affected by it; and obviously not everyone is.


----------



## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

Now I know why everyone thinks you're an arse Carl. 

Software is inherently non-deterministic, and your response was unnecessary.


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Firstly, no need for insults  Secondly, that was my point. We're not all having the problem; therefore the solution cannot be easy to find  I'm sure they're working on it. I am also wondering, out of interest, what the actual problem might be. We have a lot of experts in here who might be able to speculate.


----------



## Karnak (Jan 13, 2003)

I'm in a bad mood today, I apologise for losing my temper.

The tone of your response was however also unnecessary.


----------



## alextegg (May 21, 2002)

Karnak said:


> Now I know why everyone thinks you're an arse Carl.


:up:


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Karnak said:


> I'm in a bad mood today, I apologise for losing my temper.


No problem.



> The tone of your response was however also unnecessary.


It could have been phrased better, I suppose.

Oh, and I think you (and alex) will find that it's not "everyone" that thinks that. In fact, I _know_ it isn't.


----------



## geekspeak (Oct 1, 2002)

Karnak said:


> Now I know why everyone thinks you're an arse Carl.





alextegg said:


> :up:


I wish it was contained to just this forum and I wouldn't come back here but unfortunately there are many more similarly blighted. Ignore user only works so well.


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

So, not actual substantive contribution to make to the thread; just more personal comments? Perhaps you could take your *****ing session to PM and let the thread get back on topic.


----------



## geekspeak (Oct 1, 2002)

geekspeak said:


> Anyone else getting this? (It wasn't happening until the last few days)


Still getting frequent reboots. Just switched on for the first time in 48 hours. Within 5 seconds and without even doing anything else, it rebooted.

I only know one other person (in real life) who has VM Tivo and they regret it due to "too slow interface and constant rebooting".


----------



## VirginMediaPhil (Nov 27, 2009)

Carl, I don't know why, but because you always defend VM TiVo and everything, people just get annoyed at you.

They don't want somebody doing that all the time, you know, saying that the VM TiVo is just fine and it's just isolated to one person. They just want their opinion out there, for let the people who agree with them agree with them, and the people who disagree with them just ignore the post.

You're never going to receive a "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't realise that" response to your correction of their post, because they're annoyed, and you've made them more annoyed. Let's be honest here; the truth hurts.


----------



## OzSat (Feb 15, 2001)

geekspeak said:


> Still getting frequent reboots. Just switched on for the first time in 48 hours. Within 5 seconds and without even doing anything else, it rebooted.
> 
> I only know one other person (in real life) who has VM Tivo and they regret it due to "too slow interface and constant rebooting".


I'm not having any reboot problems - in fact I'm only aware of one reboot in the past couple of weeks and I had to force that one.

The TCF forums are great for advice - but if you are having a problem with your particular unit or VM connection - then the best place to post is http://community.virginmedia.com/

I would actually suggest 'phoning 151 and immediately indicating that you have a TiVo fault - for the fastest route.

If both you and your friend are in the same area it could be local network issues - but VM would need to look at that.


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

VirginMediaPhil said:


> Carl, I don't know why, but because you always defend VM TiVo and everything, people just get annoyed at you.


Exactly *where* did I defend VM? I said "this seems to happen to a few people so why not me?" I never said that those people it was happening to were lying, or that it was in any way *NOT* VM's fault.

It was a legitimate question. I guess I was wondering if there was some commonality between those people to which is was frequently happening; maybe they're all on ex-Telewest? If so, and I'm ex-NTL, that could be a factor? See what I mean?



> They don't want somebody doing that all the time, you know, saying that the VM TiVo is just fine and it's just isolated to one person.


Again, never ever said that. Why the hell would I when it is blatantly obviously *not* "just one person"?  



> They just want their opinion out there, for let the people who agree with them agree with them, and the people who disagree with them just ignore the post.


I'm not disagreeing though, am I? Just trying to add to the debate by trying to find common factors? I *know* that intermittent faults like this - ie that *don't* affect a large number of people - can be an absolute bugger to track down. The people having problems with their service (that *any* problems with *any* service) have my sypmathies and wishes for a speedy and succesful restoration.



ozsat said:


> I'm not having any reboot problems - in fact I'm only aware of one reboot in the past couple of weeks and I had to force that one.


So that's two of us with no problems. But I don't suppose anyone's gonna take a pop at ozsat for "defending VM" are they? Hypocrites.


----------



## VirginMediaPhil (Nov 27, 2009)

Carl, I was agreeing with you! Supporting you!


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Well there you go. Proof that things can be mis-interpreted  Thanks, though.


----------



## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Your original reply Carl definitely read as a put down - "it can't be the software because it doesn't happen to me".

If you didn't mean it like that, then perhaps you shoukd get into the habit or re-reading your posts and thinking before hitting reply.


----------



## alextegg (May 21, 2002)

I have had two reboots over the last couple of weeks, both manifesting as turning the TiVo on to a "purple screen of death" !

My TV reports a 720p picture, instead of 1080i, and the whole screen is purple. Pressing a few buttons on the remote then causes it to reboot.

Only happened twice, but worrying, as I assume (but don't know) that it probably doesn't record in that state.

A


----------



## alextegg (May 21, 2002)

TCM2007 said:


> Your original reply Carl definitely read as a put down - "it can't be the software because it doesn't happen to me".
> 
> If you didn't mean it like that, then perhaps you shoukd get into the habit or re-reading your posts and thinking before hitting reply.


You'll not get him to accept it Stuart, he's always insistent that he's just misunderstood / the people he winds up are the ones in the wrong.


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

TCM2007 said:


> Your original reply Carl definitely read as a put down - "it can't be the software because it doesn't happen to me".
> 
> If you didn't mean it like that, then perhaps you shoukd get into the habit or re-reading your posts and thinking before hitting reply.


Well it can't be *just* the software or we would all be having re-boot issues, wouldn't we? Therefore it must either be something else or a combination, including a software glitch/bug/issue.

I know I do sometimes not explain myself clearly, or too abruptly; but I am trying not to 



alextegg said:


> I have had two reboots over the last couple of weeks...


And I'm sure I've had one.


----------



## RichardJH (Oct 7, 2002)

*Increasing Unstable* might be a comment on one of our most prolific posters as well as the thread title


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Nah. I have always been *precisely* this unstable 

Incidentally, my Tivo re-boots always seem to co-incide with posts to this thread. Had another one @ 12:10 today  I blame alextegg


----------



## alextegg (May 21, 2002)

RichardJH said:


> *Increasing Unstable* might be a comment on one of our most prolific posters as well as the thread title


ROFLMAO


----------



## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

cwaring said:


> Well it can't be *just* the software or we would all be having re-boot issues, wouldn't we? Therefore it must either be something else or a combination, including a software glitch/bug/issue.


Unless you are all recrding exactly the dame things and have all got exactly the same settings, you can't say that.

You can forgive many faults in a PVR, but instability is not one of them. If you can't rely on it making recordings, then that's a show-stopper.


----------



## alextegg (May 21, 2002)

TCM2007 said:


> You can forgive many faults in a PVR, but instability is not one of them. If you can't rely on it making recordings, then that's a show-stopper.


I agree, although I for one am prepared to give the new TiVo some time, given it's being regularly upgraded. That being said, if it's not 100% reliable in a few months I will see things differently!

I know my MCE was not 100% reliable for some time and several service packs


----------



## bobg (Nov 12, 2000)

My Tivo rebooted 4 times this evening while watching a recorded Lewis (2hours). This evenings recording is also cut into 5 and with each reboot taling about 5 minutes out of the recordings will be almost unwatchable.
Looking at the number of broken recordings its been rebooting for about a week.
Fortunately my S1 will save the day for the main channels.


----------



## OzSat (Feb 15, 2001)

Please remember that posting in this forum is not going to help resolve the issues - but is useful to see there are issues somewhere.

You need to call up TS so they can lock at the logs and TiVo readings to see why it may be happening.

It could be as simple as a low/high signal - or a software fault which is only triggers by a certain pattern of events.

If everybody was getting a few reboots each week there a pattern could be seen - but it seems here that some are getting lots of reboots while others get no reboots at all.


----------



## bobg (Nov 12, 2000)

My Tivo was rebooting every 30 minutes this morning, saw about 6 reboots.
Switched it off at wall for a couple of hours, was meant to be 3 minutes but forgot.
It then settled down for the afternoon without incident.
Had a poke at the Tivo desktop software on my PC early this evening, which does not work, and it immediately rebooted.
Have now disconnected the LAN and no incidents so far will see if stays up now.


----------



## Hambone88 (Feb 7, 2011)

cwaring said:


> So why am I not seeing any (serious) stability issues? I mean, if the software update *we all got* has caused it, shouldn't all the boxes be exhibiting the same problem?
> 
> So yes it's a serious issue, of course, but there's no real way of telling how many are affected by it; and obviously not everyone is.


It could depend on how much you use it it.
If you are only pressing a few buttons.. fine.
but if you are playing with it for say an hour
it (like my old phone) it would just give up and 
freeze.


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Oh yes. It's done that before


----------



## OzSat (Feb 15, 2001)

My TiVo is being hit a lot - but not getting reboots - which makes me wonder if it is a bit sensitive with signals.


----------



## bradleyem (May 23, 2002)

My engineer did mention that the signal had to be a lot higher than standard TV - he had to go back to the box to make some adjustments as well as disconnect my neighbour


----------



## royfox (Apr 5, 2004)

Hi all,
Back from China (been there for 4 weeks) and my tivo hasn't rebooted once.. all programs safe and sound. So to defend Carl (as I know he gets a bit of a raw deal..lol) I think he may have a point. Surely, if this was purely a software problem. All people with the latest build should be experiencing the same fault of re-boots. 
I believe SW does play a part in this issue you guys are seeing but I also don't think it's the only issue that is causing it. It would be interesting to see what other similarities exist between people getting the re-boot issue. 

Roy


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Thanks Roy. Good to see someone else realise I'm not just talking nonsense.

As some have mentioned, here and elswhere, I think signal level also plays a part.


----------



## alextegg (May 21, 2002)

Signal strength is definitely a possibility, but anyone who knows anything about software development knows that the fact that everyone doesn't experience it doesn't mean it's not a software fault, it just means it's not a blindingly obvious one that they would have found in routine testing.

There could be any number of reasons why only some people have experienced it, if it is a software 'bug'.

As others have said, best thing to do is report to VM (I have done so) as they have all the info about where you are, how strong your signal may be, and probably a fair amount of usage data, all of which could point to the reason.


----------



## Brangdon (Feb 9, 2001)

There are probably several different causes. I was getting several reboots a week, and now I've not had one for quite a while, so I think they've probably fixed my bug.

I believe Carl has Suggestions turned off, and that might have been the reason his box was more stable; however, I had them turned on, so it's probably not that. But that's the kind of thing it could be, ie some difference in how we use the boxes. I have quite a few very generic wishlists (eg FILMS: HORROR) which could also load the system, so I guess that's OK too. If I was getting the crashes, I could change how I use the box to see what made a difference, but as mine is all working I'm rather inclined to leave it alone.


----------



## OzSat (Feb 15, 2001)

I have suggestions on with around 200 recordings in that folder at present - and about 100 SL/SPs active of which around 20 are wishlists.

As longs as people are reporting the problems to TS by 'phone - then the logs can be logged at to see what is causing crashes.


----------



## richw (Jul 27, 2002)

Brangdon said:


> I believe Carl has Suggestions turned off, and that might have been the reason his box was more stable;


Mine was rebooting like mad with suggestions turned off.

The last engineer to visit blamed the reboots on the fact I had the box connected to my network. To be fair, I've not seen a reboot since, but I have a suspicion that they might have fiddled with my connection back at the cabinet as the broadband died for a few minutes a short while after he left.


----------



## bobg (Nov 12, 2000)

My Tivo has been totally stable since I disconnected it from my network.
Lesson learned - for the moment


----------



## brightonjohn (Mar 3, 2011)

bobg said:


> My Tivo has been totally stable since I disconnected it from my network.
> Lesson learned - for the moment


I have only had one reboot and that was immediately after I first connected to my network. BUT since then no problem at all and it is still connected.

However I can find no useful reason for the connection at the moment and the only indication that it is connected is that it appears in the table of devices on my router. Anyhow, there it is ready for the wonderful world of opportunities for transferring stuff between TiVo and PC, etc., etc.


----------



## nbaker (Sep 28, 2002)

Richw & Bobg are your boxes still stable since disconnecting from your networks?

Just wondering as my box is rebooting on a regular basis resulting in split or incomplete recordings.

VM seem to be unable to solve the issue


----------



## Pine Cladding (Aug 4, 2001)

Mine reboots (as far as I know) about once a month now, compared to 10 - 12 times a week when I had the network cable attached


----------



## brightonjohn (Mar 3, 2011)

Pine Cladding said:


> Mine reboots (as far as I know) about once a month now, compared to 10 - 12 times a week when I had the network cable attached


Attaching the network cable has made no difference to my TiVo. It works pretty well perfectly either way - given all the niggles and fixes required - and I don't have the HDMI problem with my TV that others have reported.

Lucky lucky me.


----------



## nbaker (Sep 28, 2002)

I disconnected my network cable on Sunday & not had a reboot since as far as I can see:up:


----------

