# Audio and Video freeze on all channels



## budf15 (Jul 28, 2005)

Strange problem that has cropped up over the last week or so after several months of smooth operation (other than the pixelation problems).

Every day or so, every single channel's video freezes immediately after tuning, the audio plays for about 3 seconds and then freezes too. If I change to another channel, same thing happens - frozen video, 3 seconds of audio, then nothing but a frozen picture. Happens on every channel I've tried - OTA, analog, digital, HD, premium, etc. Only remedy is a reboot which is not a great solution as I never really know when it will happen and have already missed some recorded shows, not to mention it should just work...

TiVo tech support said it was a cable co problem (Charter) with them not 'hitting' my cable cards often enough which of course Charter denies. TiVo says they should 'hit' them every day, Charter says they only hit when asked. And I'm stuck in the middle, not even sure if this is the problem!

Any ideas of what I can do? Any similar problems/solutions? The other threads I searched seemed to all have different symptoms.


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## Dan Theman (Oct 25, 2007)

budf15 said:


> Strange problem that has cropped up over the last week or so after several months of smooth operation (other than the pixelation problems).
> 
> Every day or so, every single channel's video freezes immediately after tuning, the audio plays for about 3 seconds and then freezes too. If I change to another channel, same thing happens - frozen video, 3 seconds of audio, then nothing but a frozen picture. Happens on every channel I've tried - OTA, analog, digital, HD, premium, etc. Only remedy is a reboot which is not a great solution as I never really know when it will happen and have already missed some recorded shows, not to mention it should just work...
> 
> ...


Having the exact same problem with my Tivo HD 9.2a.
It was running good for 2 months, and it has just now started to do this every few days.

Video is frozen. FF-1 has no effect, FF-2 and FF-3 work, but video is frozen as soon as you stop fast forwarding. Audio plays about 2 seconds and then freezes.

Happens on both Live TV and recordings.
The only solution I have found so far is to reboot the Tivo.


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## PSwim (Dec 6, 2007)

I have the exact same problem. Anyone have a solution?


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## andyw715 (Jul 31, 2007)

i have same situation...no cable cards, just analog cable....reboot is the only answer....has happened twice since i've owned the TivoHD (since aug)...both did happen while watching live tv while it was being recorded via season pass.


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## pl1 (Jan 18, 2007)

Looks like you can add me to the list. I have a Series 3 which has been in operation since January. Last night I was getting a lot of pixelation. Tonight I came home and the screen was frozen on an image. A reboot fixed it. Looks like a short life for my upgraded hdd.


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## Dan Theman (Oct 25, 2007)

I turned off "Suggestions" and the problem has not happened again so far... Hopefully that will keep it from crashing. Definitely seems like a tivo bug.


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## dig_duggler (Sep 18, 2002)

Hmm, I experienced this last night for the first time. Weird.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

I also had this happen yesterday afternoon for the first time. Been running fine for months. Have no cable cards but do have an upgraded drive some time ago.

Reboot cleared it up. Hope this is not a regular occurance.


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## Dan Theman (Oct 25, 2007)

So.... those of you having the problems, do you have suggestions turned on?


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## dig_duggler (Sep 18, 2002)

Dan Theman said:


> So.... those of you having the problems, do you have suggestions turned on?


I do, yes.


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## pl1 (Jan 18, 2007)

Dan Theman said:


> So.... those of you having the problems, do you have suggestions turned on?


No. Never have.


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## MassRocket (Apr 20, 2002)

Same thing happened to me today. TivoHD has been running fine (except for possible precursor issue described below) since I purchased the unit a few weeks ago. Suggestions are turned off and I am running software version 9.2a-01-2-652 and my cable provider is Comcast (Massachusetts). Today I come home and, bam, the picture is frozen on all channels when watching live TV and when attempting to watch any recording, although audio continues in both cases. Reboot has fixed it for now.

It is odd that several of us seem to be getting this same problem at this particular time. 

In the last few days before the "big freeze," I was having a somewhat similar problem when playing back some recorded programs--the picture would freeze toward the end of the program (about 2-5 min left) and the audio would continue with the frozen, partially pixelated picture. No amount of stopping, starting, FF, RR, going to the list and trying again, or other fiddling with it worked. I wonder if they are related issues? Did anyone else experience this apparently minor version of the problem before it attacked every channel/every recording?


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## budf15 (Jul 28, 2005)

OK, thought I'd post back and give an update. After calling my cable company and having them 'hit' my cable cards again, I have not had a recurrance of the problem. It's been 12 days so I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that the problem is over. I'll let you know if it happens again...


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## Christian Dad (Oct 27, 2005)

budf15 said:


> OK, thought I'd post back and give an update. After calling my cable company and having them 'hit' my cable cards again, I have not had a recurrance of the problem. It's been 12 days so I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that the problem is over. I'll let you know if it happens again...


What do you mean "hit" your cable card?

Reset it from their end? Doesn't power cycling or soft resetting the box do that?


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## psuzebra (Nov 9, 2006)

Just had this happen to me for the first time last night while watching football.

Everything was working fine, during halftime I went to watch a recorded show. When I came back to Live TV, it would play for about 3 seconds and just freeze.

FF2 and FF3 worked, but when I hit play, it would just play for 3 seconds and freeze. Very odd. Restarted and so far it's working.


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## pl1 (Jan 18, 2007)

Christian Dad said:


> What do you mean "hit" your cable card?


There is a cableCARD FAQ sticky at the top of the forum that will help to explain it, but basically, the cableco sends an initialization signal to the cableCARD giving it all of the channels you are subscribed to. This will NOT help if the PAIRING (VALIDATION) is broken (ie. you swapped cards to another device or slot.) It only SUBSCRIBES the card if it was previously not SUBSCRIBED. The cableco calls it a "hit".


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## budf15 (Jul 28, 2005)

I know I already mentioned this but it could be a problem, so just to reiterate - When I called TiVo about this, the TiVo tech I spoke with informed me that the cable company was supposed to be doing the 'hit' daily or the TiVo will have problems. When I informed Charter's techs about this, they said that wasn't possible and that they would only do a 'hit' when requested by the customer. I hope both of them aren't right because if they are, this could be a problem...


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## burningcedar (Aug 5, 2007)

Seems we've had the exact same problem for the past few weeks. Seems to occur about once a week at random times. So far (by coindidence?) its always been on live TV when it happens.

Its kinda hard for me to diagnose as every time its happend, it happend to another family member and I wasn't around to see what led up to it. They just switch to the plain cable box and wait for me to get home and reboot the TiVo.

After I reboot, everything is fine for another week or so.

I'm on 9.2a and I don't subscribe to suggestions.


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## yoyoma2 (Dec 13, 2004)

I'm having the exact same problem. Is the solution definitely to call cable company to get them to 'hit' one's cable cards?


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## Menzo1337 (Aug 17, 2007)

This happened to me twice today.

First time I rebooted and it was fixed.

Second time I reversed to see if the whole thing was frozen or just stuck, and it worked, so I fast forwarded a bit and it worked again, but froze at the same moment as it had before. However, since time had moved on and it recorded something after the freeze point, I could skip right past it and catch up.

If it happens again I'll call Comcast to have them "hit" the M-card in the my Tivo. Maybe they're sending a signal at some moment that's causing it to choke up or something.


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## TonyMac (Oct 28, 2007)

This freeze problem has happened to me three or four times since receiving this unit. Live TV and recordings video plays for a second or so and then freezes while audio continues. Only solution is to reboot.

But I do not have cable cards. I use analog cable and an OTA antenna for HD channels. So the issue can't be cable cards in my case. This appears to me to be a TIVO problem.


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## Deanq4 (Sep 30, 2005)

Add me to the list. Was showing off the TiVo and the fios audio channels and it froze. Reboot fixed it, but didn't do well for my promotion of tivoHD


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## Rabbit_Ears (Jan 2, 2008)

I had my Tivo HD freeze up last night. Its still very new... just over a week of use. It was just like how everyone else described. Live TV was frozen on all channels and the only way to fix it was to reboot Tivo. I am already a little frustrated with how sluggish the Menus are on Tivo HD compared to the Series 1 Tivo it replaced. Now the freeze thing happens last night... its got me worried. I can only hope a software upgrade will fix both problems.

I has nothing to do with cable cards. My Tivo HD is connected to OTA antenna and to analog cable (no cable box). My cable card slots are empty.


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## WizarDru (Jan 18, 2005)

Add me to the list. When it started happening last week, my wife mentioned that it had happened once before. It's happened three or four times in the last two weeks. Live channels will play three seconds or so and then pause, and nothing will make it start playing again. If I play a recorded show, it plays VERY slugglishly and jumpy. Rebooting fixes the problem.

I wonder if this is a free-space problem?


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## bweeston (Nov 23, 2007)

I've had my two TivoHDs for about a month now. I've had black screens and gray screens and frozen frames on both of my TivoHDs during the same time frame and not independently. I last remember doing a lot of video transfers to my PC and the next day these problems appeared. When I call the cable company and have them "hit" the cablecards, there is no immediate change. I am forced to reboot to get my channel lineup back and a fully operational TivoHD. When my next frozen frame issue happened, I rebooted and restored my TivoHDs to operation. No cablecard "hit" was required. I can't imagine that having the cable company "hit" my cable cards regularly will deal with the problems I occassionally experience.


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## Deanq4 (Sep 30, 2005)

I can assure that it is not a space issue, I added a bigger drive to mine. I was transferring a lot of stuff, but that was earlier on. Will try to keep tabs if it does it again, but I was out when it happened, came home and found it that way.


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## Todd (Oct 7, 1999)

My parents got a TiVoHD for Christmas and I got it installed on Saturday. They ran into this problem Tuesday night! They have not had any CC's installed yet and barely have anything recorded yet. A reboot fixed it. 

Has anyone called TiVo about it yet?


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## MFDDriver (Jan 4, 2008)

I have TIVO HD that I have been using for about 2 weeks. I have had to reboot 3 time during this 2 week span for this very reason. I dont have cablecards just OTA and analog cable. It will freeze shortly after tuning to a channel, reboot is the only thing that fixes it.


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## jasabra (Jan 5, 2008)

Has anyone without cablecards called TiVo to see what they say?

I have a TiVoHD with cablecards, and I've had this freezing issue twice--just as people have described--and restarting is the only thing that's worked (I haven't called Comcast to ask them to "hit" my cablecards). I don't have suggestions set up.


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## shifty (Dec 6, 2005)

Ok, marathon post ahead, sorry if this is a TL;DR for some of you 

i want to add to this thread, since i just mentioned it in another thread.

i too have had this problem, it has occured at lest 4-5 times in the 2 weeks i've had the Tivo HD. however, being that i work with this stuff (embedded systems using CA, not Tivos specifically, but DVRs, STBs, etc.) i did a lot of troubleshooting, so i can give some feedback. 

i DO NOT believe that this is cablecard related because after this video freeze after 1second + audio freeze after 3-4secs situation started on my Tivo, the same issue was occuring that was previously mentioned with recorded videos - completed recordings would lock with the same behavior until i rebooted. 

sad to say, in my professional opinion, given the fact that i've found that this behavior occurs with a) recorded programs and b) on non-CA (unencrypted) services, this probably has absolutely NOTHING to do with the cable co "hitting" your card - if there is no CA information coming downstream, no ECMs, no EMMs, no rights management whatsoever, there is NO reason that the cablecard would be accessed at all. hell, there shouldn't even be any conditional access communication with the cablecard when you're watching recorded content (i work for a major, major CA provider if it's of any consolation, this stuff is something i work with every day )

with that said, i want to share some tips, and i surely hope that the Tivo staff can figure out a solution to this and other annoying problems such as the channel change lag (ever notice the Tivo channel banner gets ahead of itself after rapid zapping?  minor QA issue there! )

This typically happens to me when i either a) leave the TV on HD content with one of the tuners or b) am watching live content in HD. the last time it happened was during a show on Food HD with Paula Deen, I think? her ghastly face was frozen on the screen, i zapped up then down, and a new frozen frame appeared, and audio cut out. it froze on most HD or SD channels, with no rhyme or reason behind why some channels worked and others did not.

For live shows, once the freeze occurs, it can and will occur again with any given channel, whether it's in the "basic 13" (2-14?) analog channels, the "extended" analog channels that comcast provides (15-78?), and the HD, premium and even music channels. analog/digital, SD/HD, encrypted/clear, 480/720/1080 or otherwise, doesn't seem to matter.

I've found that, if it happens during live TV after a channel change (aka "zap"), that it can sometimes be temporarily corrected by rapidly entering and exiting the Tivo menu...after a few tries, sometimes audio and video will begin decoding properly again (whether it's a clear or encrypted channel/service).

I have also found that, with both live TV and completed recordings, that sometimes rewinding or jumping backwards and re-playing, or fast forwarding a few frames (pause and tap ff/>> key) will clear up the problem.

The only cure-all fix is a proper warm reset (reboot via Tivo menu).

Like I said ... I work with this kind of stuff all day long at my job. I am no stranger to debugging, and have worked with several major household brands and on many satellite/cable/terrestrial networks worldwide. I firmly believe this is a problem on Tivo's side, it has nothing to do with the Operator (hell, someone above isn't even using a cablecard and sees it), so ...

I hope Tivo is looking in on this one.


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## sdavison (Jan 8, 2008)

Mine froze tonight for the first time. The frozen picture would change when I changed channels and went back, and sometimes I would get a second of audio coming through. I noticed excessive choppiness in the video before it happened so I was jumping around between channels, then it froze. A power off reset fixed it. I have cable cards and a WD My Video Expander external drive on it. The video chops seemed to be getting worse over the previous days. Did anyone notice anything similar?


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## Luke M (Nov 5, 2002)

I experienced this bug on my TivoHD. Any attempt to play a recording fails. Also, the animated menu backgrounds don't 'play'. However, everything else still works - recording works fine, etc.


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## bmel (Apr 19, 2003)

Add me to the list. TivoHD. Unplugged it and rebooted to get it working. This just as I was considering buying a second unit. I think I'll hold off to see if it gets fixed.
Suggestions are off, but wish list is very active.


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## MFDDriver (Jan 4, 2008)

Make that 4 times now for me. I dont have cablecards or tivo suggestions turned on. I'm sure it's just a software bug and will probably be fixed in furture updates but it is kinda annoying. I just hope it doesnt do it in the middle of recording one of my fav's.


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## mae (Dec 10, 2001)

I've had it happen twice now, both when changing from one SD channel to another. Suggestions are turned off, wishlists are not autorecording.

Has anyone reported this to TiVo and received a case number?


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## shifty (Dec 6, 2005)

I should add to this that I am not using the Wishlist feature, Suggestions are ON, HME is enabled, and I also notice the exorbitant lag others have documented. For example, it takes 3-4 seconds for the Tivo to notice a keypress while in the menu system.


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## kyboyatheart (Jan 7, 2008)

After reading everyone else's replies, I definitely think this is a TiVo problem.

I purchased a TiVo Series 3 HD in late November. Mind you, I don't yet have any HD cable channels yet (so, no cable cards), and I don't even yet have an HD TV. Those upgrades are still in the offing. My cable is analog, and I don't have/use OTA HD.

Since getting it, my TiVo has frozen exactly as described above three times--twice in the past two weeks! I at first thought that perhaps I had been the unlucky recipient of a new TiVo with an already faulty hard drive, but then I encountered this thread, and I'm wondering if it's a software problem.

I haven't yet contacted TiVo. Does anyone here think I really should? Being new to the TiVo community, I don't know how good their customer service is.

In any case, this problem needs fixin'!


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## Kboteler (Jan 15, 2008)

I received my Series3 HD for Christmas. The video freeze has happened to me 4 or 5 times. I have not contacted TIVO about it yet. I was thinking it was Verizon at first but I am not so sure any more. I am going to place a call to TIVO in the morning.


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## Todd (Oct 7, 1999)

kyboyatheart said:


> I haven't yet contacted TiVo. Does anyone here think I really should? Being new to the TiVo community, I don't know how good their customer service is.
> 
> In any case, this problem needs fixin'!


Yes, please contact them.


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## FlipperJ (Dec 12, 2002)

I'm thinking this is a fairly serious bug. When I had it happen it looked like a slide show. The image appeared to be frozen but the audio played on for several seconds and then the picture changed to another still. I think this may even be related to the background turning gray which is a problem I had when my HD crashed.

I'm no expert but it seems like the Tivo operating system code may have a memory leak and/or the unit's OS runs out of memory and/or the codec is crashing. It doesn't seem like the video files are corrupt because they are playable after rebooting.

Has anyone noticed that when the video is freezing, if you go to the menus, the background isn't animated, in other words that image is frozen as well? That was my experience. That must be video "playing back" as well, which would require the codec to work. That it doesn't suggests that the video decoder has crashed. If so, somebody very smart will need to fix this because it should happen sporadically, repeatedly and should affect everybody eventually.

The only other thought I had was heat. Could it be that the the video decoder is integral to the Tivo's video chipset and if it overheats it starts to screw up? Has anyone noticed whether programs continue to record even when the picture freezes? (When you restart the program is intact.)

My 2 cents - sorry it's not a solution but if somebody could get the word to TiVo it might spawn a fix.

Peace from the Flipper


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## George978 (May 16, 2007)

Has anyone ever had a virus on their PC? Or had or known someone that had one of their web servers hacked into a spam server?
If you said yes to either or both of those questions; now watch your TiVo, look at your router logs. Ask yourself the question, has my TiVo been hacked? I know of one personal instance, a co-worker had problems with TiVo, and looked at his logs. He was 90% sure his TiVo had been hacked as a spam server. He could not access the OS of the TiVo, so he could not be 100%, he did send it in to TiVo with all of his log files, hasn't got a reply yet.


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## jafo1000 (Jan 25, 2001)

Add me to the list. Two recordings last week - a new "Simpsons" and "Grey's Anatomy" - had temporary video freezes and then a few seconds later an audio freeze. After reading all of the posts, I think it's a Tivo software problem - maybe a bad update?


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## tboggs13 (Nov 14, 2007)

Over the last couple of weeks I have had several freezes, where video goes first, then audio, then it starts back up and will continue to stutter, sometimes missing chunks of a program. It seems to only impact my SD channels, HD channels rarely act up.

I have another TV hooked up to an STB and it doesn't experience any signal issues while this is happening, so I know it is not the signal itself.

I was hoping it might be a particular tuner, but I changed channels, swapped tuners the went back to the same channel and had the same result after 5-10 minutes of watching.

Without rebooting, it sometimes goes away, particularly if I change to an HD channel.

TIVOHD / Verizon FIOS


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## TexasAg (Apr 2, 2006)

George978 said:


> Has anyone ever had a virus on their PC? Or had or known someone that had one of their web servers hacked into a spam server?
> If you said yes to either or both of those questions; now watch your TiVo, look at your router logs. Ask yourself the question, has my TiVo been hacked? I know of one personal instance, a co-worker had problems with TiVo, and looked at his logs. He was 90% sure his TiVo had been hacked as a spam server. He could not access the OS of the TiVo, so he could not be 100%, he did send it in to TiVo with all of his log files, hasn't got a reply yet.


Have you ever researched what it takes to hack a newer Tivo unit?


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## French Fry (Oct 3, 2002)

I agree with Shifty's assessment. Since it also affects recorded shows that work just fine after the reboot, it has nothing to do with the cable card (even if the cable card needs a ping, this is still a prob with TiVo).

I've had my machine for about 4 months now, this has happened to me several times and I've yet to see anyone else complain about it until now, I feel a little better .

My next course of action is to never leave the pause on a HD channel too long, I will always be hitting the TiVo button to return to the menu before turning off the TV.


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## verbaldave (Jan 1, 2008)

I just experienced this same issue.

I have had my TivoHD for just over a week (1 week exactly since CC installation).
Suggestions turned on. No choppiness or poor performance before freezing.

The symptoms:
I clicked back to live tv from the subscription manager to find the video frozen but the audio playing. I switched to 4 different channels but they all did the same thing. The channel guide and all the menus still worked, but I didn't notice whether the animations were working. I even tweaked a Season Pass setting before doing the soft reset (via menu). The reboot fixed it.

What I was doing:
I had just removed 10 useless channels from my channel guide and selected favorites (for the first time). Also, I had just done my first Season Pass subscription via TCO (Tivo Central Online) which created a scheduling conflict. The reason I bring this up is b/c I thought one of these may have caused the freeze before I found this thread.

It happened around 8pm CST and my last network connect attempt was this morning @ 9:50am (and was listed as "succeeded").

I know this seems like a lot of useless info, but I'm hoping some sort of pattern will emerge (what the Tivo or user was doing before the freeze).

I will also try and call Tivo tomorrow and direct them to this thread.


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## TiVoHippie (Dec 20, 2002)

verbaldave said:


> I just experienced this same issue.
> 
> What I was doing:
> I had just removed 10 useless channels from my channel guide...


Very interesting. My TiVo just froze for the first time today. Yesterday, I removed a couple of channels from the channel guide.

TiVo HD


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## SkylanePilot (Aug 21, 2003)

Same problem as described by most ... video frozen on all 'live' channels. This has happened twice now since I installed the unit over the holidays.

Using a HD Tivo with a cablecard from Comcast (Moto M-card). Live video on all channels is frozen, with audio intermittent. Recorded programs play just fine.

I tried the 'Test Channels' feature in the Cable Card Setup menu, which appears (don't know enough about the software) to bypass Tivo buffering, etc. and goes direct through the card. All channels hung in the same way. Reboot clears the problem.

There was a message that a channel had moved in the lineup the last time this happened. Can't say anything definitive about the 1st time. Tivo Suggestions are turned off. Know the disk isn't full as my deleted items folder still has programs available.

Hoping like h*** this doen't happen during the new season of Lost


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## afwoody (Jan 26, 2008)

Add me to list. Same problems. Can't give many details because I wasn't home when it happened either time. TIVO freezes and the family waits for me to get home to fix it....


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## French Fry (Oct 3, 2002)

afwoody said:


> Add me to list. Same problems. Can't give many details because I wasn't home when it happened either time. TIVO freezes and the family waits for me to get home to fix it....


Since it's happened to both you and me while not removing channels, did you perhaps leave a channel on pause?

BTW, I did upgrade mine with a 500GB internal HD. The instructions were so easy I did it before ever turning my TiVo on, just a few hours before the Charter cable guy showed up.


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## cptlapcat (Oct 4, 2007)

Happened to me yesterday. Exact problem as everyone else. The only thing that I can think of is that I paused the remote for quite a time just before the incident. Hope they figure this out as it is definitely a problem.


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## DrBunsen (Jan 1, 2001)

Same thing happened to me on one of my TiVoHD's. I have suggestions turned off, dual S-Cards, and had one channel recording something in HD when I first noticed this (I think it also happened before, but it was while I was troubleshooting some cablecard issues so I was doing some rebooting anyway). Some additional stuff that I didn't notice anyone else mention so I'll add it to the mix:

1) If I hit FF or REW it gives the arrows like I'm doing something, but the marker doesn't slide along the Status Bar (green bar) - it just stays in place. That's true for shows on either tuner and in pre-recorded shows.

2) When I'm on a channel I'm just freeze-framed. However, the green in the Status Bar continues to grow, so I know the tuner is doing something.

3) If I change tuners I'll be freeze-framed at what appears to be the current frame as of when I changed tuners. So if I flip back and forth between tuners I can sorta get new snapshots of whats going on on that tuner.

4) I noticed that in the show description for the HD recording of The Big Lewbowski that it said that it was 480i, which it wasn't. On the other tuner, tuned to Dirty Jobs on the SD Discovery Channel, it said that it was 1080i. Both of those were incorrect. When I changed channels from the Discovery Channel to some other SD channel it showed (correctly) that it was 480i. The Showtime HD recording still showed 480i.


Bunsen


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## DrBunsen (Jan 1, 2001)

Another bit of info: After The Big Lewbowski was finished recording the freeze-frame issue was still there. I tuned both tuners to SD channels in case having the lower bandwidth streams would make a difference, which it didn't.

I rebooted the box, and everything's OK now. When I started up the movie it started from (I think) the spot that I'd last been freeze-framed on it, so it remembered that. The show description now accurately shows it to be 1080i.

I wonder if the issue of inaccurately detecting if a show is 1080i or 480i is a cause, a symptom, or just some weird coincidence...


Bunsen


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## raiden256 (Mar 30, 2002)

Count me as another one with this issue. I had noticed lately that, when I turned my TV on, it would be paused at LiveTV, but since I always go directly to Now Playing (literally almost NEVER watch live) I didn't know I had a problem, since it would play my recorded shows fine.

Tried to watch election coverage last night though and it was having this symptom. It would play a few seconds, then just pause. At that point I could press the repeat or skip button and play for another few seconds, but still then a pause. A warm reboot seems to have resolved, at least for now.

With as many replies as this thread has, I'd call this an official issue, and TiVo needs to address it post-haste! So help me, if this starts happening during my Super Bowl party...


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## rianklong (Jan 10, 2008)

I have experienced this problem several times in my first few weeks with my TivoHD. When it has happened to me it has always been immediately after or during a transfer from my PC. Sounds like other people are having the same problem in very different ways, so who knows, but that has been my experience at least.

I have also had a different issue where the video continues to play but the audio lags behind. Sometimes within a show it will be fine for 1/2 of the show and then bad in the second 1/2. Not sure if this is related though.


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## ErikD7 (Feb 1, 2008)

Count me in for the exact same issues:

* Had the HD Tivo running for about two weeks.
* Running Comcast with one MCard. 
* Freezes on live TV. It's happened maybe 4-5 times. I haven't noticed any range of channels that it happens on more than others, although it does seem to happen a lot after going to a regular channel *after* using the music streams in the 400-460 channel range. But this may be coincidence.
* I haven't noticed any such issues when playing back recorded shows; only live broadcasts.
* Similar symptoms as others report -- frozen video, a few seconds of audio, then silence. A restart from the menu typically fixes it. 

FYI - just joined, but I'm a longtime lurker. Finally signed up here after going from a Series 2 to an HD model about a month ago.


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## raiden256 (Mar 30, 2002)

Bump -- Keeping this up there for others to see. TiVoPony?


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## rader023 (Dec 29, 2007)

raiden256 said:


> Bump -- Keeping this up there for others to see. TiVoPony?


Bump again, happened to me for the first time last night.


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## rangermonk (Jan 2, 2007)

Count me in. Been happening to me as well.

Got my TivoHD a little over a week ago, got it all setup with the Moto-M card, Comcast got it all setup, worked great the day after the card was setup, but the following day I got the grey screen after switching between HD channels. I rebooted, worked fine a few hours, then the same thing. Rebooted again, was fine for a few days. Then started happening again. Seems I have to reboot every few days. Switched from HDMI to composite cables thinking that may solve the problem, but to no avail.

I also have noticed that there is a slight video delay and video flicker when switching channels and going to Tivo Central no matter which cables I use.

I've also noticed the gray screen as well when I transfer shows from my S2DT. Sometimes when I put several shows in cue to transfer, I lose video and get the grey screen. Then I have to reboot.

I've also took the M-card out, setup everything for just analog cable, and the same thing happens. I was thinking it was a Tivo problem as well. 

The S2 that I moved into the bedroom doesn't have any problems during all of this either.

I really like the TivoHD, but so far, I'm not impressed. I've been thinking about taking it back and moving the S2 back into the living room and getting the Comcast HD box again. That seems to be much more stable.

Anyone know if perhaps this is a Tivo software issue, and if so, when will the next update be to resolve it? I'm currently running v.9.2a on both boxes.


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## rangermonk (Jan 2, 2007)

Has anyone talked to Tivo to find out about this one to see if this is a legit software bug, and do they anticipate a fix for it?

I wonder if maybe its only affecting certain hardware revisions of the TivoHD (if they even have those). On the Tivo Help Forums at the Tivo site, there are a number of folks who also have this problem who have different cable providers, even people who just use OTA. It doesn't seem to affect everyone.


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## French Fry (Oct 3, 2002)

rangermonk said:


> Has anyone talked to Tivo to find out about this one to see if this is a legit software bug, and do they anticipate a fix for it?
> ...


I think it should be stated: "Has anyone talked to Tivo to find out about this one to see _if they are aware of this_ software bug, and do they anticipate a fix for it?"


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## verbaldave (Jan 1, 2008)

verbaldave said:


> I just experienced this same issue.
> 
> I have had my TivoHD for just over a week (1 week exactly since CC installation).
> Suggestions turned on. No choppiness or poor performance before freezing.
> ...


I know I'm quoting myself, but I have an update:

This weekend, I had a similar issue only each channel I went to was black with no audio (rather than frozen image w/ audio).

I was moving the Tivo to a new entertainment center. I connected to the Tivo service, unplugged it (for about 3 hours), then plugged it back in. I did have various issues with my HDMI cable not setting well, forgetting to plug in the optical audio cable, and my ethernet cable coming out. I'm sure that having one of these coming out at the wrong time might cause issues (ethernet?).

I was able to access all menus, but they were sluggish and were completely black in the background. Previously I had menus art, just no animation.

If anyone has had this particular flavor of crash, let me know what you were doing right before. 

Thanks!


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## BOMOON (Dec 12, 2004)

Unfortunately, it's now happened to me as well. I'm using the Series 3 and the SW version is 9.2a.

My provider is Comcast. It happened while I was recording two channels at the same time and watching one of them. 

It was frozen on both tuners. I couldn't check other channels without canceling one of the recordings, so I did that. Within seconds both tuners started back up. I could then check other channels and they were OK too.

BUT - I was only recording one of the two programs I wanted.

I see from other postings that this seems to happen during all sorts of other conditions as well. Anyone else see it while recording two channels at once?

I posted a similar message on the Comcast forums. If it's specific to them and they have an answer, I'll update this thread just in case it helps anyone.

Have a good one,
Big Al Mintaka


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## ybagr (Dec 9, 2007)

I bough a tivo HD late Dec '07 and have the same problem pretty much a week into having it, I called tivo and the guy said they had never heard of this issue. At first he though it was the cablecard but after learning that it was also doing it on stuff that was recorded prior to it being frozen and I new had worked fine before he though maybe I got a lemon, and send me a replacement tivo. I got the new one setup and was ok until last week when it did it for the first time, reset the tivo and so far so good. Also my neighbor is also having the same issue with her new tivo HD. I have not called tivo again because I was waiting for it to happen a second time but hoping it didn't. I don't know what the issue is but I hope tivo will fix the problem soon. If anyone has any new info please let us know.


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## BOMOON (Dec 12, 2004)

ybagr said:


> I don't know what the issue is but I hope tivo will fix the problem soon. If anyone has any new info please let us know.


I've been following another thread that deals with an anticipated upgrade to the TiVo software. The new version will supposedly be 9.3 and will address many bugs.

You might want to check out that thread too. There's a lot of info there about problems users are having, the usual arguments, and a response here and there from TiVo moderators.

Most of us these days seem to be using 9.2 or 9.2a. The upgrade would be automatically downloaded and probably announced via one of those system messages they send to our TiVo DVRs now and then.

Anyway, here's that thread:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=384323

Good luck,


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## slutzo (Mar 4, 2008)

Looks like I'm in the same boat as the rest of you.

We have a Tivo HD that's less than two weeks old. There's a single Scientific Atlanta brand Multi-Stream CableCARD in Slot 1 from our provider, Cox. Software version is 9.2a-blah-blah-blah-652.

For the first time tonight, we ran across symptoms that are exactly as described in the earlier messages. Channels change, but immediately freeze. Audio continues for 3 seconds or so, but then freezes also. >> and >>> show different frames, but don't fix the issue. Reboot fixed the problem.

A quick Google search later, and here I am with all my new good friends.

Other things that may or may not be relevant:

* I did just remove a bunch of channels from the list two days ago. Others have mentioned this as a possible trigger.

* This impacts (nearly) all channels, regardless of whether they're HD or not, and (nearly) all recordings. I say nearly because I noticed that a very few channels and recordings are not frozen, though their playback is very jerky, as though the CPU is laboring a bit. All of the "working" channels and recordings are HD, though not all HD channels are working.

I'm planning on running a couple of experiments. Since I rebooted, I have pulled all of the HD channels from the channel list (we don't have the TV to view them properly yet, anyway.) If removing channels helps exacerbate the problem, I should see it happen again soon. If HD content is to blame, the problem should go away. If I learn anything interesting, I'll keep you posted.


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## ybagr (Dec 9, 2007)

Ok so after my last post of 2/15/08 my replacement tivo HD has frozen a couple of more time, including tonight, I was watching a recorded show and when I switched back to live tv it was frozen on both tuners, so I tried another recorded show and also frozen, restarting fixed the problem. I will call tivo tomorrow or monday to see what they have to say.


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## French Fry (Oct 3, 2002)

I reboot about once a week or so now. I notice one channel will grey out (DIY channel, non-HD) off and on and it gets progressively worse until other channels start to do it as well - indicating it's not the drive that is not working. That's my solution until TiVo can address it.


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## *hoosierdaddy* (Dec 5, 2007)

I have had this issue since December. Welcome to my world.

I reboot 4X a day to get rid of it. I have had two Tivo units, 16 cable cards, 19 service calls from my provider and numerous calls from all levels of Tivo engineers.

They have no clue how to fix it.

The latest theory from Tivo is that the Tivo HD unit is incompatible with HDMI. They would like me to use composite cables, which I have not yet tried. The 9.3 upgrade actually made it much worse.

I do believe, but have not yet researched, that this will reduce my video quality.


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## BOMOON (Dec 12, 2004)

*hoosierdaddy* said:


> The latest theory from Tivo is that the Tivo HD unit is incompatible with HDMI. They would like me to use composite cables, which I have not yet tried. The 9.3 upgrade actually made it much worse.


Back in 02/2008 when I was reporting A/V freezes on both tuners at the same time, I wasn't using the HDMI interface on either one. Can you elaborate on TiVo's theory that HDMI is incompatible with the TiVo HD DVR? Are you talking about the Series3?

I now see the A/V freeze when I am changing SD channels on one tuner. Right after I change a channel there is always a very brief A/V freeze for less than a second; after that the A/V starts back up. Occasionally however the A/V does not start up and remains frozen. The only way to correct the problem is to tune up or down one channel and then back to the original. Then the A/V will freeze very briefly as usual but start back up.

I don't know whether this is caused by Comcast's cards or the TiVo, or both.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

*hoosierdaddy* said:


> The latest theory from Tivo is that the Tivo HD unit is incompatible with HDMI. They would like me to use composite cables, which I have not yet tried. The 9.3 upgrade actually made it much worse.
> 
> I do believe, but have not yet researched, that this will reduce my video quality.


TiVo likely said that your TiVo HD may not be compatible with _your _A/V equipment and recommended _component_ (YPbPr) not composite cables. You could also try composite cables (RCA a/v) but you're correct, the PQ would be worse.

HDMI is a known problem with a number of CE products due to the HDCP handshake and other two-way communications issues. There are a number of posts on this forum over the past year or more indicating that HDMI has been problematic with certain A/V equipment (nothing to do with TiVo). Some have resolved their problem by simply replacing their HDMI cable and others cannot use it at all and have had success with using component video.

The difference in PQ between a component connection and HDMI will probably not be noticeable...one or the other may be better depending on your TV's capabilities. Here's a link to a good article on the subject:

DVI vs. HDMI vs. Component Video -- Which is Better?

Here's a link to a very good article about HDMI and why it is or isn't always the best choice:

Connecting A Home Theater - HDMI

BTW, this may or may not resolve your problem, but it's worth a try. Our TiVo HD works perfectly fine with HDMI as does our Series3. Both also work fine with component connections.
*
EDIT:* I see on one of your other posts that you have a WD My DVR Expander connected to your TiVo HD and based on this post your TiVo HD was working fine until you connected your eSATA drive. (I also see that you replaced the expansion drive, but not the cable.) Some of the symptoms you're seeing are exactly like those others have experienced with a faulty expansion drive (usually a problem with a defective eSATA cable). Have you tried running your TiVo without it again? A number of the eSATA cables delivered with the early release of the WD My DVR Expander were faulty or didn't work at all. If you don't want to divorce your eSATA drive have you tried replacing the eSATA cable with one of the recommended ones such as the SIIG Serial ATA external cable? They cost less than $10.

Other cable recommendations (#25)


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## gregly (Jun 22, 2006)

Just had the exact same thing happen to me for the first time. Here are my stats:


Series3 hooked to a SDTV with component cables
Comcast (Aurora, IL) cable provider
Single MCard installed just last week
Running FW version 9.2a-01-2-652

I saw the exact same symptoms as everybody else: any channel or recording (including menu backgrounds) froze, sound froze about three seconds later.

When it happened, I attempted to access the Diagnostics screen; the system froze on "Please Wait" for five minutes, and finally I just pulled the plug to hard-reboot it.

Nothing was recording at the time -- in fact, the recording light came on at 5:30 right as it was supposed to while the problem was occurring, but checking Now Playing now there's no indication that it actually recorded anything (I only have the portion of the program from after the reboot, not before). No network transfers were occurring either.

This can't possibly have anything to do with the HDMI cable, as I've never touched the port (having an SDTV for now). I'm leaning towards something to do with the MCard as others have said, since it seems to be an awful coincidence that this only happened after I got the MCard installed.

This has me pretty ticked off now, seeing that people have had this problem since last December. TiVo had better get their act together if I'm going to keep paying them monthly for these three units.

*Edit:* Here's a thought: at the time of the freeze-up, one of the Tivo's tuners was set to a digital channel that we don't receive (but is still present in the channel list presented to the MCard for some reason). Has anybody else checked to see what channels both tuners were set to? I could be grasping at straws here, but then -- silly me -- I expect a product not to have giant showstopper bugs in it when I'm paying a monthly fee.


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## kiranna (Sep 16, 2006)

Well, just spent a while with the Tivo guys on the phone and have some news to report (apologies in advance if this news is already out there, I'm new to this forum). 

2 weeks ago I spent hours and hours troubleshooting the same problems as mentioned in these other posts (and got some good assistance, thanks folks). Tivo charged me $50 and sent me a replacement box which I then set up and got the old CC's paired with it. Interestingly (and frustratingly) enough, the new Tivo HD S3 worked flawlessly with the old (8.x) software, with which it was shipped. Then a few days ago the 9.2 software got installed on one of those late night calls and, yup, you guessed it, the exact same problem started happening-- frozen video, frozen menus, with or without cablecard. Totally unusable door stopper of a $799 Tivo. (Luckily I never shipped back my old Tivo and also luckily I never paired my DVR expander with the new box).

I finally cornered the Tivo guys just now, and asked them to own up to the fact that this MUST be a software problem with the box. Well, they did own up to it, and have confessed that the aforementioned 9.2 problem is a "known issue". They either have just released, or are releasing now, a version 9.3 of their software, which Tivo says resolves this problem.

To their credit, they are wiping the slate clean on the charges (of course I sure wish they could give me all those hours back).

So I will find out soon if 9.3 is indeed the cure to all my Tivo ills. I just finished setting up my (good ol) previous S3, and got back all the countless hours of programs stored on the DVR expanderI thought were lost forever. Now, the Tivo is unconnected to the coax (apparently that is what triggers the bug, or so I am told), and I am waiting patiently for the 9.3 to download.

AARRGHH. At least I read a few good books last couple weeks.


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## PrincetonTech (Apr 13, 2008)

I just got done reading this entire thread. Here are my observations. 

1) The thread is more than four months old.

2) A very large portion of the posters report that a reboot fixes the problem. Nobody reports that a reboot does not fix the problem

3) If it was a software bug then everyone would be experiencing it and this thread would have thousands of posts.

4) Not even one person posting in this thread has tried replacing their hard drive to see if that fixes the problem.

5) On a similar thread I read a few months back, one person decided to replace their hard drive and it fixed the problem. Over the course of time, more and more of those people replaced their hard drive and reported the problem went away. Eventually, there was a huge percentage of the posters who replaced their hard drive and nobody reported that they still had the problem with the new drive.

6) Bad sectors on a hard drive or a head that is a bit damaged can cause corruption that takes a while to build up. When there is enough corruption to affect the task at hand, the video freezes. That is why a reboot helps. It clears out all the bad data a begins a anew.

So who is going to be the first one to replace their hard drive?


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## billyjoebob99 (Jan 13, 2007)

PrincetonTech said:


> Nobody reports that a reboot does not fix the problem


This is a recent problem for me(I just found this thread last night) and a reboot does not fix the problem. Here are my symptoms:

While watching recorded or live material the video and sound will freeze for a moment to several seconds. This can happen once or several times usually over the course of one or two minutes of show. It's almost like someone playing with a pause button. After a reboot the recorded show will do it again in exactly the same spots. What is really odd is that I can play through the same segment in slow motion with no problems at all.

I could argue it either way but I'm leaning towards a hard drive problem. It seems like a portion of the disk is going bad and the unit is having a hard time pulling data off the bad area of the disk in a timely fashion. That would explain it playing in slow motion OK. Plenty of time to re-read a sector before the buffer empties.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

billyjoebob99 said:


> This is a recent problem for me(I just found this thread last night) and a reboot does not fix the problem. Here are my symptoms:
> 
> While watching recorded or live material the video and sound will freeze for a moment to several seconds. This can happen once or several times usually over the course of one or two minutes of show. It's almost like someone playing with a pause button. After a reboot the recorded show will do it again in exactly the same spots. What is really odd is that I can play through the same segment in slow motion with no problems at all.
> 
> I could argue it either way but I'm leaning towards a hard drive problem. It seems like a portion of the disk is going bad and the unit is having a hard time pulling data off the bad area of the disk in a timely fashion. That would explain it playing in slow motion OK. Plenty of time to re-read a sector before the buffer empties.


It looks like you've figured it out. A bad hard drive can cause a number of problems, some repeatable, some not. A hard drive I/O issue could cause what you're seeing as well as bad sectors.

You could give TiVo's diagnostic programs called "Kickstarts" a try to see if they can rectify the situation (specifically KS57 and KS58). But if the read/write heads are failing or there is an I/O problem or if the sectors are too numerous to resolve by isolating them it may be time for a new hard drive.

Let us know how it goes. :up:


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## billyjoebob99 (Jan 13, 2007)

richsadams said:


> Let us know how it goes. :up:


After performing the Kickstart "57" I had a trouble free night. Shows that were recorded before the Kickstart still had the same problem but everything after the fix was fine.

Thanks much for the Kickstart info, it appears to have worked wonders.


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## French Fry (Oct 3, 2002)

PrincetonTech said:


> ...
> 
> 6) Bad sectors on a hard drive or a head that is a bit damaged can cause corruption that takes a while to build up. When there is enough corruption to affect the task at hand, the video freezes. That is why a reboot helps. It clears out all the bad data a begins a anew.
> 
> So who is going to be the first one to replace their hard drive?


I'm not convinced it is the HD. I have been rebooting about once a week but the first symptoms I have is a specific channel that freezes up, all others are fine. The longer I wait to reboot the more channel start to fall out. The first channel I notice is a SD channel.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

billyjoebob99 said:


> After performing the Kickstart "57" I had a trouble free night. Shows that were recorded before the Kickstart still had the same problem but everything after the fix was fine.
> 
> Thanks much for the Kickstart info, it appears to have worked wonders.
> 
> P.S. Here is a link to performing the Kickstart methods on the Series3. It differs with regards to the color of the lights but is more or less the same:


Good to hear that things are back to normal now. :up:

The KS procedure referenced is for KS62 which does _not _work anymore (it was a hack to add an eSATA drive to Series3's about a year ago). The reference to my post on Kickstarts has links to pictures which include the correct "yellow light" references for Series2, Series3 and TiVo HD. You might want to edit your post and remove the link. (I'm surprised Spike still has it on his site!)

Enjoy your "new" TiVo!


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## snitm (Jul 9, 2006)

French Fry said:


> I'm not convinced it is the HD. I have been rebooting about once a week but the first symptoms I have is a specific channel that freezes up, all others are fine. The longer I wait to reboot the more channel start to fall out. The first channel I notice is a SD channel.


My Series3 had been working flawlessly for ~8 months (and a 1TB eSATA upgrade has been in place for 6 months); with Comcast in MA. Starting about 10 days ago my Series3 would become completely unresponsive, the picture and sound would stall and then ultimately the Series3 would freeze and then reboot.

I called Tivo earlier this week and explained that if I removed the coax the unresponsive nature of the Tivo would stop. The CSR said that the 9.3 update _should_ resolve the problem and to simply wait for the update.

I patiently waited for the 9.3 update (from 9.2) and finally pulled 9.3a down last night. Unfortunately this "lockup with the coax connected" problem got significantly worse. Tuning HD channels induces the problem quickly but last night (after the upgrade) even my SD channels were unwatchably pixelated.

So the kicker is: I called Tivo and the CSR said that Tivo engineering is aware of the problem and has asked that all cases with the problem be escalated to engineering. There is no estimate on a fix yet though. The CSR went on to say that Tivo has realized that replacing the Series3 (like they've apparently been prone to do given my symptoms) does _not_ fix the problem. As such the CSR said they have been instructed to not replace the unit and that I'm to wait to hear from Tivo engineering (in the next 3-5 business days).

After the call I played around with the cable cards (swapped slots) and repeated guided setup. The SD channels were still pixelated but this morning I turned on the TV and the Tivo had rebooted (greeted by THX); the SD channels were completely fine but the HD channels still induced immediate slowdown when tuned (I quickly switched back to SD so as not to allow the Tivo to lockup).

It'll be interesting to see what Tivo engineering has to say, in the meantime I'm hopeful that at least the SD channels will remain functional.

This smacks of Comcast doing something to their signal/cablecards (knowingly or not) that has the side-effect of really hurting Series3 Tivos.


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## oldradio99 (Nov 23, 2005)

I have a TIVO HD and just started experiencing the frozen video issue

Was told it could be the wireless network adapter

So disconnected and rebooted.

Now waiting to see


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## Keith Mickunas (Jul 23, 2003)

I've had this issue pop up in the last couple weeks. I have TiVoHD with FIOS in the Dallas area and a 500GB drive I put in the Tivo just after I got it. One thing I've found though is that it's only happening on a select range of channels, roughly 150 to 180. Everything else works fine. It also happens with both tuners, and the diagnostics show a strong signal. Oddly enough at times Comedy Central, which falls in that range, will work just fine, as do some others. I recorded a show on CC and on Bravo at the same time, the CC show was fine, the Bravo recording is a mess. I can fast forward and watch some of the video, but as soon as I press play it freezes up.

I do find that everything, including shows recorded with the problems, work after a reboot. That's good to know.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

snitm said:


> My Series3 had been working flawlessly for ~8 months (and a 1TB eSATA upgrade has been in place for 6 months); with Comcast in MA. Starting about 10 days ago my Series3 would become completely unresponsive, the picture and sound would stall and then ultimately the Series3 would freeze and then reboot. <snip>


Man, that has to be frustrating! 

I agree with you and a number of others here that it's a signal issue (works fine w/o the coax connected). The question is whether it's causing I/O errors that TiVo can't handle, problems with the actual signal, both?  Seems some have replaced their hard drives with success.

At least TiVo is admitting that there is an issue. My gut tells me that it's something to do with cable cards and TiVo's ability to process some of their signals. Why some work and others don't I haven't a clue. Wish I had a cure.

In your case if only HD channels are causing issues, could you attach an external antenna (re-running Guided Setup to use both cable and the antenna)? At least you might be able to receive the local HD broadcasts until things are resolved. Perhaps others can offer some ideas.

Best of luck and keep us posted. :up:


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

richsadams said:


> I agree with you and a number of others here that it's a signal issue (works fine w/o the coax connected). The question is whether it's causing I/O errors that TiVo can't handle, problems with the actual signal, both?  Seems some have replaced their hard drives with success.


I'll point out that just because things work fine with the coax removed, it does not necessarily mean it's a signal issue. When the coax is removed (ie: no incoming signal), the TiVo stops writing to the drives so if there is a problem with the certain areas of the drive (ie: the live buffer), removing the coax would allow the TiVo to boot up and even read already recorded programs from the drive (from non-corrupted areas). Also note that HD channels write more data to the drive than SD channels do. This is why replacing the drive sometimes fixes the problem.

If replacing the drive does not fix the problem, then obviously the problem lies elsewhere.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

morac said:


> I'll point out that just because things work fine with the coax removed, it does not necessarily mean it's a signal issue. When the coax is removed (ie: no incoming signal), the TiVo stops writing to the drives so if there is a problem with the certain areas of the drive (ie: the live buffer), removing the coax would allow the TiVo to boot up and even read already recorded programs from the drive (from non-corrupted areas). Also note that HD channels write more data to the drive than SD channels do. This is why replacing the drive sometimes fixes the problem.
> 
> If replacing the drive does not fix the problem, then obviously the problem lies elsewhere.


All good points. :up:


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## rudolpht (Mar 8, 2003)

*hoosierdaddy* said:


> The latest theory from Tivo is that the Tivo HD unit is incompatible with HDMI. They would like me to use composite cables, which I have not yet tried. The 9.3 upgrade actually made it much worse.
> 
> I do believe, but have not yet researched, that this will reduce my video quality.


The component cables will not impact video quality appreciably but it wont fix the problem either. I have always used component cables and have THIS issue.


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## Nightowl33 (Jan 1, 2006)

So just to add my two cents of experience, we recently (in the last week) started noticing a problem on our HD Tivo where any video playback stream would just stop, as if paused, with audio stopping a few seconds later. Sometimes you can "shake it loose" by rewinding or fast forwarding a little, though it's likely to happen again soon. A restart seems to push off the next problem for a while.

Checking our version, we HAVE 9.3a, which makes me think that it's 9.3's fault. We DO have an external HD, and are using HDMI, but then again we were using all that before 9.3 (for months) without issue. Grrr. Should I bother calling Tivo, or just hang tough?


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

Nightowl33 said:


> So just to add my two cents of experience, we recently (in the last week) started noticing a problem on our HD Tivo where any video playback stream would just stop, as if paused, with audio stopping a few seconds later. Sometimes you can "shake it loose" by rewinding or fast forwarding a little, though it's likely to happen again soon. A restart seems to push off the next problem for a while.
> 
> Checking our version, we HAVE 9.3a, which makes me think that it's 9.3's fault. We DO have an external HD, and are using HDMI, but then again we were using all that before 9.3 (for months) without issue. Grrr. Should I bother calling Tivo, or just hang tough?


Hard to say what to do next...it may never happen again. (Not sure if you have a TiVo HD or a Series3) Our TiVo HD has done that about three or four times in about five months. Each time the incoming cable signal strength dropped to below 65. A reboot cured it and I've since replaced the coax so I'm not sure who or what to blame for it exactly.

A longtime cause of what you're seeing has also been the OEM eSATA cables supplied with the WD My DVR Expander and a few other expansion drives. (See Section III, #26 of this thread for more info.) Check to ensure that the eSATA cable is seated snugly at both the drive and TiVo ends. If it's loose, it's worth replacing. Replacing that cable and/or possibly the HDMI and/or coax may resolve things if it happens again. Otherwise my money would be on an impending hard drive failure. Upgrades have been infamous over the years for sending a borderline hard drive over the edge.

Best of luck and keep us posted. :up:


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## nightline (Sep 16, 2002)

I have this freezing problem, but it only happens when the station that is being viewed does that required weekly test of the Emergency Broadcast System. It does something to the Tivo, and 80&#37; of the time it does not recover.

Bad thing is, if it happens during the day, it wont switch channels properly to record, and I have to restart the unit when I get home.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

nightline said:


> I have this freezing problem, but it only happens when the station that is being viewed does that required weekly test of the Emergency Broadcast System. It does something to the Tivo, and 80% of the time it does not recover.
> 
> Bad thing is, if it happens during the day, it wont switch channels properly to record, and I have to restart the unit when I get home.


Good info and food for thought. :up:

BTW...noted your signature and both the TiVo HD and Series3 are black with silver on them.


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## wadewieser (Apr 23, 2008)

Hey guys. I'm new to the forum and actually found you because I'm experiencing the same issues with my Series 3...hd channels (and now sometimes sd) pixalate and freeze the box, until I remove the coax. The techs I spoke with instructed me to run kickback 54 (HDD scan/test) which it passed. When I called back the next day she let me know that the problem is now affecting the _majority _of Series 3 units and also Tivo HD. She confirmed that it is a software (update) problem, and that they are working on it. "Soon" was the answer to when, however that could obviously mean months. She escalated my case (I presume for more fact finding if necessary), however did offer to leave me a voicemail when news of a fix was available. Fingers crossed.


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## sarahp019 (Apr 25, 2008)

you can add us to the list of those people who are "frozen" with their tivos....and man, what a bad night to have it happen! we watch like six hours of tv on thursday nights! and it's the premire of all the shows after the writer's strike!  at least it seems that the shows are all still recording so we can hopefully watch them after we do a reboot (which we can't do til after all the shows are done taping at 11p!).

i hope tivo gets this fixed soon....we went thru 9 hours and 3 visits from a tech from our cable company (charter in northeast CT) - and finally got the tivo & a m-card that worked....only to have this happen less than a week later. SO frustrating!


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## tlc (May 30, 2002)

Thought I'd chime in with a variation...

I've had 3 freezes today, but never a freeze on "all channels". The first two times I wasn't paying close attention I entered the room to find a frozen live-tv screen in one case and a black playback screen in the other. I initially thought "I must have paused before I left the room". Then I had trouble resuming. FF got weird results. In both cases, left/right or a channel change cleared things up.

The third time it happened while I was watching an SD recording. *Exactly* at the transition between commercials, the screen went black, the audio stopped ~2 seconds later. FF got weird results. Hitting the "15 minute jump" key got me to regions that would play. Other recordings and live tv would play, but this spot was very repeatable. I could come back to this recording and get stuck in the same place.

After a reboot, it no longer got stuck there.

THD, approved WD expander, 2 CableCARDS.


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## jkbrowne (Dec 14, 2005)

I'm a new Tivo HD owner (previously had DirecTivo units). One of my new Tivo HDs is a brand new unit and the other is a refurb I bought directly from Tivo. The new unit is located in the living area of our home and the refurb is in the bedroom. Every day I'm getting frozen video on both tuners with the new unit. It is on software version 9.3a. Menus continue to function. Oddly enough, the refurb unit has yet to give me any issues. It's still on 9.2 because I have it disconnected from the phone line. It could be due to the software version, or it could be due to the fact it does not have many season passes so it is not flipping channels and recording as much. Or, maybe it's working fine because it's a "fixed" unit with a newer motherboard revision. I am running out of guide data on that unit, so I'm going to have to go ahead and let it update. We'll see what happens.

I have called Tivo about the issue, and the tech mentioned they thought the issue is related to the coax (cable, not OTA) somehow. He said the level 3 engineers are researching it. However, I have seen speculation on various forums ranging from coax signal too high, coax signal too weak, bad eSATA cable, analog vs digital recording, intentional corrupt signals from Comcast, etc, etc. I think it's still a big unknown at this point. It does appear, though, there are a-select few HD Tivos and S3 units that are *not* experiencing this issue. It could be some strange combination of factors that are preventing these units from having problems. So, I would suggest we start compiling some information from both working and non-working units that would help track down if there is a common denominator. Here are the fields I am proposing: 

- Approximate frequency of freezes (none/daily/every 2 days/etc): 
- Tivo model (S3/HD):
- Hardware type (new/refurb):
- Purchased from:
- Age of unit:
- Software Version:
- Connection type (wired LAN/wireless LAN/phone):
- External eSATA HD (yes/no):
- Upgraded internal HD (yes/no):
- Connection to TV (HDMI/DVI/component):
- Have Season Passes on digital channels (yes/no):
- Have Season Passes on analog channels (yes/no):
- Have Tivo Suggestions enabled (yes/no):
- Have auto-record Wishlists enabled (yes/no):
- Cable provider: (none/Comcast/TimeWarner/etc):
- Coax for OTA antenna connected (yes/no):
- Coax for cable connected (yes/no):
- Using coax signal amplifier (yes/no):
- Using coax splitter (yes/no):
- Using coax attenuators (yes/no):
- CableCard brand (none/ScientificAtlanta/Motorola):
- CableCard type (single-stream/multi-stream):
- Have cable modem (yes/no):

The last field I can think of would be the Tivo service number, though, I'm not sure if there are any issues with having people post this. If it is save to post, then it could be a good indicator to use for hardware versioning. Maybe the older S3/TivoHD hardware (lower service numbers) are more prone to having the freezes. This appears to be the case for me. My refurb has a higher service number than the new unit. However, do *not* post this until someone confirms it's ok and there are no security issues with this.

Feel free to suggest any other fields that we should collect. I will post the info for both my units when I get home tonight.


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## wadewieser (Apr 23, 2008)

Update

Several days ago I received a message from tivo. They've concluded it's a hardware issue with some Series 3s, and are going to swap my unit out. I asked the tech if I was going to run into the same problem once I've hooked up my "new" Series 3 and have downloaded all the updates, to which he gave me a convincing "no sir". We shall see as the replacement should be here tomorrow.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

wadewieser said:


> Update
> 
> Several days ago I received a message from tivo. They've concluded it's a hardware issue with some Series 3s, and are going to swap my unit out. I asked the tech if I was going to run into the same problem once I've hooked up my "new" Series 3 and have downloaded all the updates, to which he gave me a convincing "no sir". We shall see as the replacement should be here tomorrow.


Thanks for that and keep us posted on how your "new" TiVo works. It will likely have a new hard drive and possibly re-worked tuners to better manage things so keep your fingers crossed. :up:


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## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

I haven't read this whole thread, but from browsing it, it seems to be the same issue being discussed in this thread and TiVoStephen has said they're working on it.

I don't think it's a hardware issue. However, I've only had this problem on my TiVo HD with 9.3a and never on my S3.


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## PDFL (Nov 30, 2007)

I found this forum searching for a similar issue. I have a Philips Series 2 (I have had it for years) that just recently started freezing up in the menus which is a bit different than the issues I've been reading about here. I have no problems viewing live programs or recorded programs however the menu selections hang or freeze. I also noticed that on occasion when changing from one menu to the next the background digitalizes (you can see blocks of white in the blue as it builds the back ground almost like watching the old 300 baud modems build a screen. I initialized the system clearing everything and that did not help. Upgrading to a newer DVR may not resolve the issue as it appears the Series 3 seem to have problems of their own with freezing frames. I'm not quite sure what my next step should be.


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

PDFL said:


> I found this forum searching for a similar issue. I have a Philips Series 2 (I have had it for years) that just recently started freezing up in the menus which is a bit different than the issues I've been reading about here. I have no problems viewing live programs or recorded programs however the menu selections hang or freeze. I also noticed that on occasion when changing from one menu to the next the background digitalizes (you can see blocks of white in the blue as it builds the back ground almost like watching the old 300 baud modems build a screen. I initialized the system clearing everything and that did not help. Upgrading to a newer DVR may not resolve the issue as it appears the Series 3 seem to have problems of their own with freezing frames. I'm not quite sure what my next step should be.


Welcome to the forum...sorry it's under not-so-nice circumstances.

The menu issues you're seeing are almost certainly the initial signs of hard drive failure. You can try running TiVo's diagnostic programs called "Kickstarts", but if that doesn't resolve things, replacing the hard drive yourself using WinMFS (easy to use) or by buying one from DVRUpgrade or Weaknees would be your next step. Or since your TiVo has given you good service over the years...perhaps it's time to put it out to pasture and get a shiny new TiVo! 

BTW our Series 3 and TiVo HD have been working flawlessly since day one (a year-and-a-half and about seven months respectively) as well as our Series2 which is several years old. (Our Series1 still fires up too!  )

Best of luck and keep us posted. :up:


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## PDFL (Nov 30, 2007)

richsadams said:


> Welcome to the forum...sorry it's under not-so-nice circumstances.
> 
> The menu issues you're seeing are almost certainly the initial signs of hard drive failure. You can try running TiVo's diagnostic programs called "Kickstarts", but if that doesn't resolve things, replacing the hard drive yourself using WinMFS (easy to use) or by buying one from DVRUpgrade or Weaknees would be your next step. Or since your TiVo has given you good service over the years...perhaps it's time to put it out to pasture and get a shiny new TiVo!
> 
> ...


Thanks for the information, I appreciate it. I will try the Kickstart programs and let you know the result. Thanks again!


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## PDFL (Nov 30, 2007)

richsadams said:


> Welcome to the forum...sorry it's under not-so-nice circumstances.
> 
> The menu issues you're seeing are almost certainly the initial signs of hard drive failure. You can try running TiVo's diagnostic programs called "Kickstarts", but if that doesn't resolve things, replacing the hard drive yourself using WinMFS (easy to use) or by buying one from DVRUpgrade or Weaknees would be your next step. Or since your TiVo has given you good service over the years...perhaps it's time to put it out to pasture and get a shiny new TiVo!
> 
> ...


I tried the kickstart programs as you suggested however, there was no change. I have a spare hard drive in one of my desk top PCs. When I get a chance I'll format that drive and follow the process to copy the tivo drive to it and try that. Thanks again!


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## richsadams (Jan 4, 2003)

PDFL said:


> I tried the kickstart programs as you suggested however, there was no change. I have a spare hard drive in one of my desk top PCs. When I get a chance I'll format that drive and follow the process to copy the tivo drive to it and try that. Thanks again!


Sounds good...best of luck! :up:


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## wadewieser (Apr 23, 2008)

Well it's been about 3 weeks since Tivo has swapped out my Series 3. I had previously posted about how they _called me back_, to inform me that they've determined the freezing/rebooting (only while coax was inserted) to be a hard drive problem. I still suspect it was an hd problem brought on by a software update.

Anyhow, they swapped it out and it's worked perfectly ever since. Yes I got stuck with the shipping charges to send my box back, and with the $50 Cablevision charged me to re-insert the cable cards, but in the long run I'm just happy the hub of my entertainment center back.

I would encourage anyone experiencing those coax related issues to immediately call Tivo and tell them the symptoms. I do believe that they were legitimately confounded by the problem, but in the end they did what was right and replaced the unit...that's all you can ask! It cost a few bucks and a LOT of frustration (bottom of the 9th, 2 outs..aaaaand the box reboots--true story, really did happen). However, it all ended well Well, so far...lol.


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