# Roamio OTA not recording



## K2extreme (Feb 22, 2016)

Got my new Roamio OTA, cut the cord mounted an outdoor antenna and was up and running! Loved the TIVO, set up one pass recordings, slowly realized things weren't recording? Checked history and said not recorded, no signal. Tested signal strength all way above par, shows still not recording (2 week timeframe now) check signal strength again no issues. To further troubleshoot I started watching shows that were labeled as currently recording, but low and behold never recorded and had no signal error, even though I watched the entire show!!

Any help is appreciated.


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## mjh (Dec 19, 2002)

Ok. That's pretty wierd. Couple of things:

Are the channels you wish to record from listed as channels you receive in your channels listing?
Have you tried manually forcing a recording and seeing if records and stays?
Maybe try rescanning channels?
After that I'd take this up with tivo support. If this was an actually brand new tivo, you should be able to get warranty support for it.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

K2extreme said:


> Got my new Roamio OTA, cut the cord mounted an outdoor antenna and was up and running! Loved the TIVO, set up one pass recordings, slowly realized things weren't recording? Checked history and said not recorded, no signal. Tested signal strength all way above par, shows still not recording (2 week timeframe now) check signal strength again no issues. To further troubleshoot I started watching shows that were labeled as currently recording, but low and behold never recorded and had no signal error, even though I watched the entire show!!


Does the red recording LED come on when it should? Is there an entry in My Shows while the show is (supposedly) recording? When you watch live, do you see a progress bar, and can you back up and replay normally within the 30-minute buffer? If certain timing information is missing from the broadcast transport stream, "trick play" functions won't work properly, and after the programs ends the TiVo will discard the My Shows entry because it thinks that nothing actually recorded. But that problem would be with your local broadcast station, and if several different channels are failing to record, it seems unlikely that they would all have such problems.


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

K2extreme said:


> Got my new Roamio OTA, cut the cord mounted an outdoor antenna and was up and running! Loved the TIVO, set up one pass recordings, slowly realized things weren't recording? Checked history and said not recorded, no signal. Tested signal strength all way above par, shows still not recording (2 week timeframe now) check signal strength again no issues. To further troubleshoot I started watching shows that were labeled as currently recording, but low and behold never recorded and had no signal error, even though I watched the entire show!!
> 
> Any help is appreciated.


What antenna did you mount?

Anecdote:
Connected a new Roamio Basic to a 4 bay bow tie antenna, which "should" only provide UHF frequencies (expected.)
And, much to my surprise I got all locals here in Torrance... during the day.
At night the Roamio would only tune in UHF stations, in my case, cbs-2, nbc-4 and ktla-5.

Could just be the antenna.


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## mjh (Dec 19, 2002)

Teeps said:


> Could just be the antenna.


He stated that he's able to watch the program that he wishes to record through the tivo, while it's supposed to be recording. But that it doesn't actually get recorded.

Is there a scenario in which he can watch the program live but not record it that could be caused by the antenna? My instinct is that if the antenna is correctly delivering the program to be watched live, then the tivo should be able to record it. Is this instinct wrong?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

mjh said:


> He stated that he's able to watch the program that he wishes to record through the tivo, while it's supposed to be recording. But that it doesn't actually get recorded.
> 
> Is there a scenario in which he can watch the program live but not record it that could be caused by the antenna? My instinct is that if the antenna is correctly delivering the program to be watched live, then the tivo should be able to record it.


Thats what I would think, the only time I don't get any recording at all is if there is no channel lock. Even if there is a lock for a few minutes with a non-watchable picture I get a recording. Sounds like something he will need to get worked out with Tivo Support.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

mjh said:


> He stated that he's able to watch the program that he wishes to record through the tivo, while it's supposed to be recording. But that it doesn't actually get recorded.
> 
> Is there a scenario in which he can watch the program live but not record it that could be caused by the antenna? My instinct is that if the antenna is correctly delivering the program to be watched live, then the tivo should be able to record it. Is this instinct wrong?


Perhaps he is watching the program on one tuner but a different tuner (bad?) is failing to record. Hitting Info then down during the recording would answer my speculation. I've never tried to have all tuners on the same channel then having a recording start for that channel. Maybe I will.

Update: that would do it. Not saying it did, just that it could.


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

mjh said:


> He stated that he's able to watch the program that he wishes to record through the tivo, while it's supposed to be recording. But that it doesn't actually get recorded.
> 
> Is there a scenario in which he can watch the program live but not record it that could be caused by the antenna? My instinct is that if the antenna is correctly delivering the program to be watched live, then the tivo should be able to record it. Is this instinct wrong?


I don't know, I asked a question.
Supplied a personal experience.
Stranger things have happened...


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## K2extreme (Feb 22, 2016)

mjh said:


> Ok. That's pretty wierd. Couple of things:
> 
> Are the channels you wish to record from listed as channels you receive in your channels listing?
> Have you tried manually forcing a recording and seeing if records and stays?
> ...


All channels I wanted to record were listed in the channel listing, however this may have been part of the problem.

Manual Forced recordings worked fine.

Re-scanned channels got same results but more on this later.


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## K2extreme (Feb 22, 2016)

L David Matheny said:


> Does the red recording LED come on when it should? Is there an entry in My Shows while the show is (supposedly) recording? When you watch live, do you see a progress bar, and can you back up and replay normally within the 30-minute buffer? If certain timing information is missing from the broadcast transport stream, "trick play" functions won't work properly, and after the programs ends the TiVo will discard the My Shows entry because it thinks that nothing actually recorded. But that problem would be with your local broadcast station, and if several different channels are failing to record, it seems unlikely that they would all have such problems.


The Red LED came on just fine, I believe the TIVO was under the impression it was recording, once I confirm my suspicions on what the culprit was I will post a reply later. Yes there is an entry in My Shows. Live I see the progress bar (although I believe I was just looking at the 30 min buffer now). Several diff channels did fail to record, my first clue in troubleshooting.


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## K2extreme (Feb 22, 2016)

Teeps said:


> What antenna did you mount?
> 
> Anecdote:
> Connected a new Roamio Basic to a 4 bay bow tie antenna, which "should" only provide UHF frequencies (expected.)
> ...


1byone 60 Miles Range Omni-directional Amplified Outdoor HDTV Antenna for FM / VHF / UHF with SMD Circuit Technology, Anti-UV coating, Detachable Amplifier USB Power Supply, Waterproof and Super Compact

I love it outside mount on old satellite pole, used existing coax lines, amplifier installed at back of tivo unit. Pulls a lot of channels and some FM, also some things I have no idea lol? Have about a 1/3rd of the antenna blocked by house in the direction of all broadcast antennas, however doesn't affect any tv channels.


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## K2extreme (Feb 22, 2016)

We can use the below as the solution, and I'll leave it up as long as the problem remains fixed.

During initial setup of tivo scanned channels and added all to channel list. During this process there would be multiple versions of the same channel thought nothing of it (2 nbc's 2 abcs, etc). Went about my tivo setup including activation and app installs. When I loaded the guide on the tivo unit I saw certain channels for my area that are familiar (networks that I already knew their respective call signs, i.e. KRNV is NBC etc), however when I loaded the app the networks that loaded weren't the locals I was familiar with. 

Long story short, the one pass setup from the app were trying to record the non local affiliate channels, meaning there was truly no signal (damn antenna was picking up channels way out of range and could never get a lock on those), one pass setups from local affiliates seem to be working now.

An easy fix for anyone that has this happen is to just trim down your channel list to just the channels you watch, and double check the call signs for your one pass recording to ensure it is the local affiliates your familiar with.

Not sure it matters but I disabled tivo suggestions recording, as well.


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## K2extreme (Feb 22, 2016)

Last night a show failed again on a channel that I get plenty of strength on. I noticed the show was failing about 7 min in by navigating to my shows, seeing that it is attempting to record (red circle) clicking on said show and pressing play, however 0 min was recorded, it was failing. Navigated to the channel live, pressed record and no issues? 

It is worth it to note at this time slot I had 2 channels set to record (via onepass) 1 was successful and 1 failed??

At a loss for this any help or troubleshooting will be welcome.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

K2extreme said:


> Last night a show failed again on a channel that I get plenty of strength on. I noticed the show was failing about 7 min in by navigating to my shows, seeing that it is attempting to record (red circle) clicking on said show and pressing play, however 0 min was recorded, it was failing. Navigated to the channel live, pressed record and no issues?
> 
> It is worth it to note at this time slot I had 2 channels set to record (via onepass) 1 was successful and 1 failed??


How do you mean you "navigated to the channel live"? I don't think you can tune the exact same channel on a second tuner. If it happens again, start your (second) recording from live TV, then look at TiVo Box Diagnostics to see exactly what each tuner is receiving. You might have two channels in your channel list that have the same number but which are not identical (due to different RF frequencies, for example, or even just different program IDs).

OTOH, if you could see the first recording as it recorded, even though the time was shown as 0 minutes, that might indicate that timing information in the transport stream is incorrect or missing, as I mentioned earlier.


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## ericlhyman (May 19, 2001)

Having the same problem repeatedly with ABC on certain shows only and in some weeks only of the season pass via antenna with the roamio. During recording, the episode is in my shows list, but if you click on play, you can't see it. After recording ends, it disappears from the my shows list. History says "not recorded, no signal". However, the show can be viewed as live tv, so no signal makes no sense. Signal strength was fine. Rescanned channels and reset and problem continues with the shows. No recording conflict. This has happened whether no other show was recording or only one other show. Different shows on same channel same evening recorded fine on their season passes.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

ericlhyman said:


> Having the same problem repeatedly with ABC on certain shows only and in some weeks only of the season pass via antenna with the roamio. During recording, the episode is in my shows list, but if you click on play, you can't see it. After recording ends, it disappears from the my shows list. History says "not recorded, no signal". However, the show can be viewed as live tv, so no signal makes no sense. Signal strength was fine. Rescanned channels and reset and problem continues with the shows. No recording conflict. This has happened whether no other show was recording or only one other show. Different shows on same channel same evening recorded fine on their season passes.


What you're seeing might be consistent with some timing data (Program Clock Reference?) being missing or stuck (not incrementing) in the transport stream. TiVo seems to rely on proper timing information for some functions like trick play. I've seen this with OTA broadcasts from a local translator (re-transmitter) for one of our PBS stations when a piece of equipment which inserts new PSIP data goes wonky. When the program ends, the TiVo sees that the time apparently didn't advance, concludes that nothing was recorded, and deletes the recording even though everything but the timing information is actually there.


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## Jana Fleming (Oct 5, 2018)

ericlhyman said:


> Having the same problem repeatedly with ABC on certain shows only and in some weeks only of the season pass via antenna with the roamio. During recording, the episode is in my shows list, but if you click on play, you can't see it. After recording ends, it disappears from the my shows list. History says "not recorded, no signal". However, the show can be viewed as live tv, so no signal makes no sense. Signal strength was fine. Rescanned channels and reset and problem continues with the shows. No recording conflict. This has happened whether no other show was recording or only one other show. Different shows on same channel same evening recorded fine on their season passes.


Did you ever figure out the problem here? I have a Roamio OTA that does this with ABC as well. I bought it 2-3 years ago and gave up on it and went back to using my older Premiere Tivo. The Premiere worked fine but the fan starting going out on it and makes a terrible noise. I switched back to the Roamio OTA hoping whatever issue it had would be resolved by now, but it still misses shows on ABC. Somedays it records but most days it doesn't. I think it records, but at the end of the show, it goes away and shows "no signal" in the history. I saw your post was from 2016 and wondered if you figured it out. I will set it up for manual recording to see if that helps.


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## hankbates (Jan 26, 2010)

Jana Fleming said:


> Did you ever figure out the problem here? I have a Roamio OTA that does this with ABC as well. I bought it 2-3 years ago and gave up on it and went back to using my older Premiere Tivo. The Premiere worked fine but the fan starting going out on it and makes a terrible noise. I switched back to the Roamio OTA hoping whatever issue it had would be resolved by now, but it still misses shows on ABC. Somedays it records but most days it doesn't. I think it records, but at the end of the show, it goes away and shows "no signal" in the history. I saw your post was from 2016 and wondered if you figured it out. I will set it up for manual recording to see if that helps.


I have a roamio plus which suddenly started doing the same thing on NBC this week. You can watch the show ok live, but after it is over the recording disappears and history shows "not authorized". I will also just put it on manual recording....


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

My xl4 (timewarner cable) and ota roamio failed to record station 19 last night.


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## ericlhyman (May 19, 2001)

Jana Fleming said:


> Did you ever figure out the problem here? I have a Roamio OTA that does this with ABC as well. I bought it 2-3 years ago and gave up on it and went back to using my older Premiere Tivo. The Premiere worked fine but the fan starting going out on it and makes a terrible noise. I switched back to the Roamio OTA hoping whatever issue it had would be resolved by now, but it still misses shows on ABC. Somedays it records but most days it doesn't. I think it records, but at the end of the show, it goes away and shows "no signal" in the history. I saw your post was from 2016 and wondered if you figured it out. I will set it up for manual recording to see if that helps.


Try rescanning antenna channels to see if that helps.


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## a68oliver (Jul 15, 2000)

ericlhyman said:


> During recording, the episode is in my shows list, but if you click on play, you can't see it. After recording ends, it disappears from the my shows list. History says "not recorded, no signal". However, the show can be viewed as live tv, so no signal makes no sense. Signal strength was fine.


I know this is an old thread, but this just happened on my sister's Bolt. Went to start watching Survivor about 25 minutes into the recording while it was still recording and there was no recording there. Just a blank timeline. When we went to the live tv buffer, the program was there. So we rewound the buffer and watched it there. After the recording completed we went to the history report and it said it was not recorded because of no signal. Of course that was not the case.

I know the station is doing work on the repack in this market so perhaps they also have some timing issues as mentioned elsewhere in this thread.


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