# Have I had a GSOD?



## Benedict (Jun 8, 2002)

SWMBO was not not in a good mood on Friday night. Sitting down to watch her soaps she discovered that the second half of the 7:30 Coro was mssing, as was the whole of EastEnders and the first half of the 8:30 Coro.

Looking at the recording history in the TDL suggests that the partial/missing recordings were the result of a power failure, however we did not have a power failure on Friday and definitely did not have one that lasted for an hour! 

So, what else might cause such behaviour? The only thing I could think of would be a GSOD. Does the TiVo log failed recordings during a GSOD as if it has lost power? Is there an easy way to find out using TiVoWeb?


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

Probably a power reduction at the transmitter.


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## Benedict (Jun 8, 2002)

How would this cause TiVo to think it had lost mains power?


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

If it lost the input due to signal problems, it would have stopped recording. If it loses the input signal for a period, TiVo will reboot.


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## Benedict (Jun 8, 2002)

Definitely not that then - when my FreeView box loses signal is continues to provide a video feed to the TiVo consisting of a black screen with a small red square just right of centre.

Either way, when TiVo loses it's input signal from the STB doesn't it report failed recordings as "loss of input signal" or somesuch? Mine reported that the TiVo was unplugged or power failure or something similar.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Benedict said:


> Mine reported that the TiVo was unplugged or power failure or something similar.


Power cut while nobody was at home?


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## Benedict (Jun 8, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> Power cut while nobody was at home?


That's the point, we were at home and there was no power cut.

A simple reboot would only cause TiVo (with CacheCard) to be out of action for less than 5 minutes. This "outage" lasted for an hour, during which the TiVo had rebooted at some point.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Benedict said:


> That's the point, we were at home and there was no power cut.
> 
> A simple reboot would only cause TiVo (with CacheCard) to be out of action for less than 5 minutes. This "outage" lasted for an hour, during which the TiVo had rebooted at some point.


Don't know. Not seen that happen on my Tivo so am therefore stumped for further suggestions,


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Benedict said:


> SWMBO was not not in a good mood on Friday night. Sitting down to watch her soaps she discovered that *the second half of the 7:30 Coro was mssing*, as was *the whole of EastEnders and the first half of the 8:30 Coro.*


Have you considered the possibility that Tivo is beginning to think for itself like HAL and is trying to improve the viewing tastes of its owners.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Sounds like a freeze up (maybe caused by bad block on HDD?)

No idea why tivo would unfreeze and reboot after an hour though... so maybe it was actually stuck on GSOD for that time


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## OzSat (Feb 15, 2001)

If TiVo is looking at the SCART input and finds no signal - it will reboot itself around a hour later.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Are you sure SWMBO didn't unplug it to do the hoovering or ironing? Do you have the nerve to ask her?


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## Benedict (Jun 8, 2002)

blindlemon said:


> Are you sure SWMBO didn't unplug it to do the hoovering or ironing? Do you have the nerve to ask her?


Hoovering??? Ironing??? You've obviously never met my other half!!!!

The TiVo in question is upstairs in my cinema room and the ironing never gets done in there!

Actually, the mains wall outlets and the powerblocks are all behind my plasma AV rack so she couldn't get to them even if she wanted to.

Because it's upstairs i know 100% that nobody was in the room at the time the problem occurred - unless my house is haunted!!! - oh, wait a minute, it was only built eight years ago!.

Still scratching my head!


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## Benedict (Jun 8, 2002)

ozsat said:


> If TiVo is looking at the SCART input and finds no signal - it will reboot itself around a hour later.


I take the point about the TiVo rebooting after an hour of no STB signal, but as I said earlier, I'm using this TiVo with a very early Sony OnDigital STB which in the event of a loss of DTT signal outputs a red square on a black background which the TiVo will record, so there should always some form of video signal going to the TiVo, unless the power is removed from the STB itself.

I've seen TiVo think that there is no input signal from the SCART once or twice in the past when there obviously is (i.e I can hear sound through the TiVo). This is probably down to a bug in the TiVo software and is usually fixed with a channel change. My issue started and ended part way though a recording (i.e. not coinciding with a channel change) and there should have been two channel changes during the time TiVo was MIA!

The TiVo reported that it had lost power, rather then a loss of input signal, which is what confuses me.


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## Benedict (Jun 8, 2002)

mikerr said:


> Sounds like a freeze up (maybe caused by bad block on HDD?)
> 
> No idea why tivo would unfreeze and reboot after an hour though... so maybe it was actually stuck on GSOD for that time


That's my thinking too. The HDD is approaching five years old (120GB Hitach Deskstar) but has shown no other signs of problems in that time.

Would there be anything in the logs in TiVoWeb that would tell me that a GSOD had happened?


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## Benedict (Jun 8, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> Have you considered the possibility that Tivo is beginning to think for itself like HAL and is trying to improve the viewing tastes of its owners.


Nice theory Pete, but unlikely as it recorded ITV Nightscreen as a suggestion recently. Nobody in their right mind could class that as an improvement, even over Coro and EastEnders!!


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Benedict said:


> Nice theory Pete, but unlikely as it recorded ITV Nightscreen as a suggestion recently. Nobody in their right mind could class that as an improvement, even over Coro and EastEnders!!


This is definitely an improvent over Coro and Eastenders in my book. Only pleasant pictures and some music rather than people with strong regional accents arguing with one another all the time!

Also Tivo would not have recorded ITV Nightscreen if you had thumbs downed it correctly. I long ago did that for any programs I never want Tivo to record of its own initiative. Suggestions have never ever recorded a football program for me due to my extensive triple thumbs downing of all such programs.


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

A suggestion rather than any real explanation - Is your fan clean and quiet? 

I overheated my Dyson recently it died completely then a couple of hours later came back to life. If your fan stuck on a bit of fluff it might cause the internal temp to rise to the point of shutting down - an hour later when its cooled down the reboot might push enough extra juice through the fan to start it going again...just thinking out loud but it might be worth looking at?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Benedict said:


> Would there be anything in the logs in TiVoWeb that would tell me that a GSOD had happened?


The messages log will sometimes contain a record of any reboots for quite a while back as it doesn't get cycled as often as the others.


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