# Dead with only yellow light. Recently: Gray screen on video play.



## tlc (May 30, 2002)

This morning I noticed that our Premiere XL only had the orange/yellow light on the front panel on.

I turned on the TV and the screen was black and the TV was reporting the resolution repeatedly, like it was losing HDMI sync. I power cycled the TiVo and it's working now.

ALSO, twice in the last two weeks, we found it in a state where we'd only get a gray screen when trying to play video. It didn't matter if the video was recorded or live. The menus worked fine. I don't recall whether it was solid gray or snow. Some things I read made me think that _this_ might be a TV sync issue and I was going to check re-seating the TV and AVR HDMI cables when this happened again.

Any ideas? I couldn't find any "solid yellow light" results when searching.


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

Reboot the TiVo.
Disconnect power cord.
Wait 20 seconds then reconnect power.

My XL4 had hdd fail after 2 years, then after a power surge, lost hdmi output.
Fortunately, for me, the component video output works, and I mostly use the TiVo remotely to stream to another room.


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## milo99 (Oct 14, 2002)

i had this exact problem on my XL4 last week - the yellow light was on, but no signal to the TV. After reboot, all has been fine.

The other thing i've been encountering every now and again (has happened maybe 3 or 4 times) is that other systems that access it via the network can't find it. THe tivo Mini won't find it, and my DVR Commander app on my phone won't find it (it works via wifi). Both of these symptoms appear together. THe XL4 seems fine, connects to the tivo service fine, but other devices can't get to it. after rebooting the XL4, all is well again. 

Have no idea if these are related or not.


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## sharkster (Jul 3, 2004)

I had this, this morning! Scared the bejeebuz out of me! I came here to see if there was something dying or what.

It was fine during the night (I have sleep problems so often I have that tv on all night) and when I got up this morning. Went through my bdrm a little bit ago and saw just a yellow light on.

I unplugged the electrical cord from it and waited a few seconds, then plugged it back on. Turned on the TV and the restart of the Tivo seemed to go fine. It looks good.

But now I'm paranoid that there is a problem coming. Yeah, that's how I am - always thinking. 

*Is this an indication of something bad to come?*


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## tlc (May 30, 2002)

Neither of my problems have repeated since I power cycled it.


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## sharkster (Jul 3, 2004)

Thank You for your response! 

I always worry when something unknown happens that it's an indication of something bigger. My Premieres have been good so far, although I did replace one of them with a Bolt (which I love even more!). 

At least I still do have that other Premiere that's just not plugged in but it also has Lifetime so as long as no problems are caused by not having it plugged in, it's a spare.


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## MMG (Dec 11, 1999)

Had the same yellow light last Saturday. All ok after reboot...


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro


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## sharkster (Jul 3, 2004)

MMG said:


> Had the same yellow light last Saturday. All ok after reboot...
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro


Thanks for the assurance. I will not worry that it's dying or something.


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## knarf829 (Jun 10, 2007)

Woke up to this today. Has anyone who has seen this recently had any ill effects pop up?


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## sharkster (Jul 3, 2004)

Since I had that with my Premiere, a couple of weeks ago, nothing weird has happened or degradation of service. (fingers still crossed!)


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## TitanTiger (May 5, 2009)

I just had this happen today to my Premiere. Glad to hear a reboot cleared things up.


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## jaredmwright (Sep 6, 2004)

Chiming in, I also had this happen today and a reboot resolved it. Wonder if there is a bug we are hitting since it is definitely happening to multiple people. Does anyone who has this issue have an upgraded larger Hard Drive? I upgraded mine when I purchased it.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk


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## forum1 (May 25, 2011)

I just found one of my two XLs in the state with the yellow light on solid, no signal to the TV on HDMI, and unresponsive to commands from the IR remote. After a cold reboot all appears fine.

jaredmwright, neither of my units have any upgraded hardware. Both of mine are running the original HDDs for 7 years and counting. At first I was worried one had finally bit the dust, but all seems well.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

forum1 said:


> I just found one of my two XLs in the state with the yellow light on solid, no signal to the TV on HDMI, and unresponsive to commands from the IR remote. After a cold reboot all appears fine.
> 
> jaredmwright, neither of my units have any upgraded hardware. Both of mine are running the original HDDs for 7 years and counting. At first I was worried one had finally bit the dust, but all seems well.


The hard drive could be in a degraded state after 7 years and probably should be replaced.


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## forum1 (May 25, 2011)

shwru980r said:


> The hard drive could be in a degraded state after 7 years and probably should be replaced.


*shwru980r*, are you suggesting the "yellow light on solid" state described by me and others in this thread is a sign of a dying HDD and that everyone in this thread should take notice? If so, someone probably should have chimed in on this sooner for those posting as far back as February. I only mentioned my drives in response to jaredmwright asking about user upgraded vs. original HDDs. As for my specific drives, sure, they "could" be degraded after 7 years. I just haven't seen any symptoms to make me think that's the case, unless you count this single solid yellow light occurrence. Of course some HDDs don't make it past 7 days and some last 10+ years.

On a side note: I actually had a Seagate 7200 RPM laptop drive, of all things, that lasted 11 years before it was peacefully retired. It had to deal with quite a bit of shock and vibration yet never missed a beat. It's just sitting on a shelf now, ready to go again if one was ever so inclined.

Anyway, I'm guessing the TiVo isn't kind enough to report SMART errors in the GUI. Is it? I'm guessing a media scan for bad sectors is out of the question too. Unless there is a way to glean further diagnostics on the drive without having to take it out of the TiVo I'm just going to wait and see what happens. If I'm bothering to open it up it will be when it's time to actually replace the drive or do other maintenance. The only other reason I'd probably open the units up is to lubricate the fans, but I last did that 4 or 5 years ago and they have been sounding great ever since.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

forum1 said:


> *shwru980r*, are you suggesting the "yellow light on solid" state described by me and others in this thread is a sign of a dying HDD and that everyone in this thread should take notice? If so, someone probably should have chimed in on this sooner for those posting as far back as February. I only mentioned my drives in response to jaredmwright asking about user upgraded vs. original HDDs. As for my specific drives, sure, they "could" be degraded after 7 years. I just haven't seen any symptoms to make me think that's the case, unless you count this single solid yellow light occurrence. Of course some HDDs don't make it past 7 days and some last 10+ years.
> 
> On a side note: I actually had a Seagate 7200 RPM laptop drive, of all things, that lasted 11 years before it was peacefully retired. It had to deal with quite a bit of shock and vibration yet never missed a beat. It's just sitting on a shelf now, ready to go again if one was ever so inclined.
> 
> Anyway, I'm guessing the TiVo isn't kind enough to report SMART errors in the GUI. Is it? I'm guessing a media scan for bad sectors is out of the question too. Unless there is a way to glean further diagnostics on the drive without having to take it out of the TiVo I'm just going to wait and see what happens. If I'm bothering to open it up it will be when it's time to actually replace the drive or do other maintenance. The only other reason I'd probably open the units up is to lubricate the fans, but I last did that 4 or 5 years ago and they have been sounding great ever since.


The symptoms are the Tivo locks up and you have to reboot. It seems reasonable to suspect the hard drive. Hard drives are inexpensive and you've gotten 7 years out of this one. If nothing else, you can rule out the hard drive as the cause of the issue.


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## forum1 (May 25, 2011)

shwru980r said:


> The symptoms are the Tivo locks up and you have to reboot. It seems reasonable to suspect the hard drive. Hard drives are inexpensive and you've gotten 7 years out of this one. If nothing else, you can rule out the hard drive as the cause of the issue.


Right, and if my unit started exhibiting said symptom regularly I'd be inclined to start digging in more, to at least rule out the HDD as you mention. But in this thread it seems like most folks are talking about isolated incidents and a very specific state with the yellow light being on. I chimed in under that context, nothing more. If my drives do start to act up any time in the near future and I ultimately deem them bad I'll try to remember to update folks here, but for now I'm putting myself solidly in the "transient thing that happened with nothing else amiss" column.


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## forum1 (May 25, 2011)

Three days ago it happened again, so now the second occurrence, still on the same unit with the other unit never having an issue. In between these two occurrences I received the 20.7.2 software update, so if it's a bug it exists in this and the previous release.

As far as a possible HDD failure, while no one answered my question about on box HDD diags I did find the so called "kickstart codes" that can be entered at boot time. While not as good as the TiVo actually reporting/warning of these things in the normal UI, I used code 54 (Miscellaneous Services from WeaKnees.com) and took the downtime hit to let all but the last test run and pass. That took a number of hours (4 or so) and by that time I didn't have the additional 6 hours it was going to take for the off-line scan. I had to cancel and reboot so the attached TV would work for the day. If I can find the time to initiate the tests again during an appropriate window I will, but it probably requires me doing so at a time when I should be sleeping.

Under suspicion of impending failure I did order two new drives though. Now I just need to get MFS Tools working on one of two systems that it doesn't want to play nicely with. It's always something.


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## knarf829 (Jun 10, 2007)

FWIW I replaced the hard drive in my Premiere XL4 in February (straight swap in size, no upgrade), three months before I saw this yellow light / gray output issue. So not a dying / old hard drive problem over here.


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## forum1 (May 25, 2011)

knarf829 said:


> So not a dying / old hard drive problem over here.


One would hope not, but I have seen new drives fail. Just something to keep in mind.


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## knarf829 (Jun 10, 2007)

No further problems since then. Drives usually either fail very quickly or last their normal lives. Replacement Bolt via the rollover offer coming in two days anyway, so it doesn't need to make it too long!

Either way, the fact that we've all seen this issue with widely varying configurations and at different points in the lives of our respective drives, plus the fact that it seems to not happen again to people much, makes it seem very unlikely to be drive related (to me). Hardware issues usually get progressively worse, not show up, go away, come back, never come back.


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## nuraman00 (Dec 28, 2012)

milo99 said:


> i had this exact problem on my XL4 last week - the yellow light was on, but no signal to the TV. After reboot, all has been fine.
> 
> The other thing i've been encountering every now and again (has happened maybe 3 or 4 times) is that other systems that access it via the network can't find it. THe tivo Mini won't find it, and my DVR Commander app on my phone won't find it (it works via wifi). Both of these symptoms appear together. THe XL4 seems fine, connects to the tivo service fine, but other devices can't get to it. after rebooting the XL4, all is well again.
> 
> Have no idea if these are related or not.


I just had this problem today. I've had my XL 4 since 2013. Put in a 4 TB hard drive in 2020.

Thankfully a reboot fixed it.

I haven't checked my mini yet, I'll try later tonight.

The old hard drive still works, I just felt it was time to change it.


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## doconeill (Dec 13, 2002)

My Premiere XL4 has now died twice with just the yellow light, no HDMI output, in the span of a week. I have been noticing for a while that more than one tuner would be on the same channel, usually a sign of a reboot, almost every day. Reboots both times have brought it back, but my guess is it is dying? I can't tell if it is just a drive problem, or that the system itself is dying...


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## nuraman00 (Dec 28, 2012)

nuraman00 said:


> I just had this problem today. I've had my XL 4 since 2013. Put in a 4 TB hard drive in 2020.
> 
> Thankfully a rebot fixed it.
> 
> ...


I had the yellow light for the 2nd time today.

Should I be concerned?

A reboot fixed it again.


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

Make a Backup of your OnePasses and Channels List with KMTTG.

Offload any shows you think you can't live without.

Consider swapping the Hard Drive preemptively.

-KP


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