# Pink screen lockup revisited



## gcsheph (May 13, 2005)

Series 3 HD. Pink screen has been discussed several times but not with Tivo locked up as far as I can see. Tivo to Receiver (HDMI cable) and Receiver to Sony Bravia TV (HDMI cable). This only started happening after Comcast installed and FINALLY got the 2 cablecards working. Occasionally I come in and find Tivo locked up entirely (must unplug/reboot) with a frozen pink screen on the TV. I was not actively using Tivo or TV at the time and just walked in to turn things on. On at least 2 occasions something was attempting to record at the time I discovered this but I haven't been observant enough to know that this is the case every time. 

A person at Tivo mentioned that sometimes they saw this if a speaker was too close to the Tivo (magnets, etc.) There is a big column speaker within a foot or so but it has always been there and the Tivo never did this before. 

Do any of you experts out there have any suggestions to offer of where to look? So far I haven't detected a pattern to these failures so it's hard to diagnose. Is it possible that the very act of turning on the AMP, TV, and attempting to access the TIVO while it is busily recording could create cause this kind of issue? I have no way to know if it was locked up when I turned things on or if it was already locked up and I just discovered it when turning things on.

THANK YOU!


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## Gregor (Feb 18, 2002)

Can you post a picture of the pink screen? Any text on it?


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## gcsheph (May 13, 2005)

Unfortunately I did not photograph the screen but it was just the normal screen you get when you press the Tivo button, but heavily on the pink side with no functions working. For one occasion I looked at what was actually recorded and there were 2 partials, 1 of 2 min and the other 3 min (30 min program). In another case nothing was recorded. (for both of these situations a recording was in progress when I started up the system. Next time I will make more careful notes of time, etc.


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## floppymoose (Aug 11, 2008)

I get the pink screen plus lockup on my series 3 Tivo. I've had the unit for months with no trouble. Two cablecards. No changes in setup. Then recently, it started taking 20 seconds to populate the menus in the UI screens. Then it eventually hung. I restarted it, and had it do the pink screen (normal Tivo boot splash screen, but with pink/purple where black usually is). I unplugged it, and t worked for a little while, then next day I turned it on and it was locked up on the pink screen. So this time after power cycling it I deleted everything and went through setup again. It worked for a few hours and then the next day is frozen on the pink screen. 

I'm not sure what to do at this point.


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## floppymoose (Aug 11, 2008)

Playing around with it more today, the unit is basically non-functional. I can sometimes get it to the first screen of menus after power cycling it, but I can't actually choose any of them successfully (and yes the remote is working and has good batteries). 

You can tell something is wrong with the unit because the subtle animation that goes on in the background of the Tivo UI screens is freezing up and then moving, stuttering along.


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## daveak (Mar 23, 2009)

Something like this happened to me yesterday. My kids were watching a program and the program ended and the TiVo eventually switched to live TV - also a program in the progress of being recorded. After a 4-5 minutes the image froze with lots of pink (no screen shot, sorry) - actually it was a 4x3 image and the side panels were pink and the image had a strong pink hue. We use OTA. 

HD glitch? We have the 1tb extender on a refurbished S3. The unit was not responsive and I had to turn the power off to the unit and reboot. Everything seems fine now.

Thank you for your comments.


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## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

So, I just woke up this morning to find my S3 Completely locked up on a pink screen. No sound effects, no getting to menu's, No nothing. However, the clock on the LED screen was still ticking away. All I could do was pull the power cord. I am running the SMART test to see if everything is ok.

I have noticed a couple other strange behaviors in the past couple weeks. For example, when I hit play on a video in my NPL the screen just goes black for 1 to 3 minutes and nothing responds. you think it has frozen but then the video will just start to play within that 1 to 3 minutes and everything is fine.

Should I be worried about a problem or is this possible a one time issue?

Here is a picture of the pink screen.


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## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

Well, I ran the S.M.A.R.T. Tests and everything passes on both the internal hard drive and the expander. My screen did turn pink again while running the S.M.A.R.T. Tests, but everything is fine now that I have the TiVo back up and running. I'll keep an eye on it and report back if I have any more lock ups or pink screens.


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## cmaquilino16 (Jul 7, 2009)

Hello all I too got the pink screen on my TIVOHD with 1TB expander. It happened at 2Am this Sat it recorderd 5 mins of damages that was it. I have never had this problem my tivo it is 10 months oldthe 1 tb is 20 days old. Was there a upgrade on saturday or something. Does all the posts on the pink screen have the expander installed? I hope this does not happen again, has anybody call tivo service about this? 

Thanks


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

LoREvanescence said:


> Should I be worried about a problem or is this possible a one time issue?


Did this happen with the old 11.0d software, or had the box updated to 11.0g? I wonder if the new software is to blame?


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## tiassa (Jul 2, 2008)

cmaquilino16 said:


> Hello all I too got the pink screen on my TIVOHD with 1TB expander. It happened at 2Am this Sat it recorderd 5 mins of damages that was it. I have never had this problem my tivo it is 10 months oldthe 1 tb is 20 days old. Was there a upgrade on saturday or something. Does all the posts on the pink screen have the expander installed? I hope this does not happen again, has anybody call tivo service about this?
> 
> Thanks


That's what happened to my THD with 500gig expander when the 11.0g update came down. A hard reboot fixed it (and installed 11.0g).


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## xcrunner (Feb 2, 2009)

I also just came home from the weekend to find my Tivo with the pink screen (also w/'the 1tb expander). I've unplugged it and every time it boots up I get black or the pink screen. What is this ****? Thanks again TiVo, for showing me how incompetent you all really are.


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## chris98891 (Jun 2, 2011)

Bumping this...I have the same pink screen issues...it usually doesn't stay running for more than a couple days. This is a big problem with me being at school for over half the year.
TiVoHD, 1TB Expander, 2 charter cable cards.

I haven't found any kind of rhyme or reason to the freezes at all. Software looks to be 11.0k


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