# Tivo and Netflix Issues v11



## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

I really love the Tivo/Netflix upgrade but....

1) Sometimes while using Netflix my S3 gets locked up (no picture) and I have to remove the power cord and restart because my Tivo will no longer respond to the remote.

2) When I leave Netflix and go back to live tv, the sound on live tv sounds like crap (very crackled). Then I if I change the channel.... it sounds just fine. 

Is anyone else noticing this behavior?


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## dig_duggler (Sep 18, 2002)

I posted in netflix arrived today thread, but:

So, here's a new one. I tried out Netflix last night successfully for awhile. I went back in and the app locked up (unresponsive grey/black screen), so I got back to the Tivo Central via Tivo button. Shortly thereafter, my unit locked up. Strange. Pull the plug, everything is fine.

I try to use Netflix again around 10, same thing, grey screen. Hit Tivo Central button, back to Tivo central. I just now looked, but my unit locked up again (the clock froze) right after that. 

Failure of app to launch should not cause my machine to lock. Yes, it could be a hard drive issue, but I've had 0 problems until now and the timing is supremely suspect (both freezes occurred minutes after the app failure that I exited out of, the clock froze so I know the time). I will keep an eye on it, but fairly troubling.

I'm happy to pm anyone my service number if interested in logs


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## NiteCourt (Mar 31, 2005)

I had a similar issue today.  I went into Netflix and got the please wait. That was on the screen for a bout 2 minutes so I hit the Tivo button to get back to the main screen. I then tried going back into Netflix and got a black screen and my HD Tivo locked up. It was not responding and the little orange/yellow light was not responding any time I press a button on the remote. I let it sit for 10 minutes but it never came back to life. I had to pull the Tivo's power.


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## dig_duggler (Sep 18, 2002)

What's troubling me is I got back to Tivo Central and then it crashed. I never tried to watch tv (I turned off the tv at Tivo Central), so I'm not sure if maybe it had already locked up and I didn't notice (although on lock up, it was on a frozen channel, not Tivo Central).

I used netflix tonight (successfully) and no lock up. But I'm even more wary of using it now.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

Well, my Tivo just locked up for about the 4th time when using NetFlix. Since I've seen no word about the problem from Tivo and my trial is not working out when it comes to locking up my Tivo.... I'm just not going to keep the NetFlix after the 2 week trial. It's a good service but I'm not going to put up with having to hard reboot it all the time.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Issue #1 I've seen, and I am wary of Netflix now since some people are reporting that their TiVo stopped booting after it locked up. 
Issue #2 I have not, but I have seen some other video/audio issues since 11.0 that don't appear to be Netflix related.

I also noticed that after using Netflix, the closed captioning settings no longer work. Closed Captioning work, but the TiVo will always display the captions with the default settings instead of the user specified size, style, color, etc. This persists until a restart.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

I seem to have sound issues after using Netflix as well.

Netflix --> Live TV --> Sound problems (crackling sound)

Netflix --> Live TV --> Sound problem --> change channel --> sound problem gone



morac said:


> Issue #2 I have not, but I have seen some other video/audio issues since 11.0 that don't appear to be Netflix related.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

I am VERY concerned with this issue and will likely not use Netflix after the 2 week trial. I could pull my drive and back it up in anticipation of the Tivo software getting corrupted by this type of reboot but I guess I'll chance it for now.



morac said:


> Issue #1 I've seen, and I am wary of Netflix now since some people are reporting that their TiVo stopped booting after it locked up.


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## Elarek (Dec 13, 2008)

I have used Netflix with TIVO several times now with grey screen lock ups. This morning it locked up so I pulled the plug to reset.

At first TIVO would boot up but it would lock on the "dancing Tivo" video. I tried to restart several times, but at this point my TIVO appears to be dead in the water. Now it just locks up on the "Please wait..just a few minutes more" screen. TIVO software seems to be corrupted now.

I called TIVO and they tried to help, but apparently they don't know about these issues yet. They are suggesting I pay $150 dollars and exchange my box; not something I want to do since the Netflix usage seems to be the culprit. 

I would recommend against using Netflix unless you want a dead TIVO on your hands.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

I think I'd try to use the kickstart method and if that did not work then I would grab an instantcake image from dvrupgrade. It's going to be a hell of a lot cheaper than spending $150 for another box (when it's probably just corrupted OS).



Elarek said:


> I have used Netflix with TIVO several times now with grey screen lock ups. This morning it locked up so I pulled the plug to reset.
> 
> At first TIVO would boot up but it would lock on the "dancing Tivo" video. I tried to restart several times, but at this point my TIVO appears to be dead in the water. Now it just locks up on the "Please wait..just a few minutes more" screen. TIVO software seems to be corrupted now.
> 
> ...


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## bilbo (Dec 7, 2004)

I can get NetFlix to start a movie, pause the movie, and restart the movie (unpause the movie -- start it playing again). If I try anything else, my Tivo (Series 3 -- circa December 2006) reboots. I have had my Tivo reboot approximately one dozen times now (I've watch 2-3 movies). Tivo is treating us like Beta testers.


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## dig_duggler (Sep 18, 2002)

Tivo CSR's are notoriously behind the curve . Honestly they are some of the worst trained of any company that I've ever dealt with. It's not their fault, but they certainly appear to be kept out of the loop with any new problems. 

It really does seem that Netflix is corrupting OS's in some instances. There are just far too many occurrences in a very short time frame to chalk up to bad hard drives suddenly manifesting. I've seen first hand that it will crash your box repeatedly. But the reality is even if this is the case Tivo would never admit to it due to the legal and customer service ramifications. I'm staying the hell away from Netflix, probably for good.


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## lautry (Aug 23, 2007)

dig_duggler said:


> Tivo CSR's are notoriously behind the curve . Honestly they are some of the worst trained of any company that I've ever dealt with. It's not their fault, but they certainly appear to be kept out of the loop with any new problems.
> 
> It really does seem that Netflix is corrupting OS's in some instances. There are just far too many occurrences in a very short time frame to chalk up to bad hard drives suddenly manifesting. I've seen first hand that it will crash your box repeatedly. But the reality is even if this is the case Tivo would never admit to it due to the legal and customer service ramifications. I'm staying the hell away from Netflix, probably for good.


I'm with you, Dig. I have had 5 days of lockups and pauses, reboots and you name it. When I began to read some posts about the TIVO not even being able to reboot and the deal about "oh your equip is bad and send money" I'm not taking any chances on screwing my TIVO box up until these posts clear up or some sort of announcement from TIVO is made.
I'm not going to try TIVO/Netflix any more. My ROKU box is working just fine.


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## Elarek (Dec 13, 2008)

Magnus thanks for the suggestions. 

I was able to get the Kickstart code 52 and 57 to work. First did the 52 and it reinstalled the OS but it still hung at the "Almost there" screen after it restarted. After that I tried the 57 code and TIVO rebooted successfully.

I did have to find the Kickstart instructions for Series3 though, which are different from TivoHD. It was tricky to get the codes input at exactly the right point for them to work.

I also noticed something else that may or may not have been part of the issue. In my network settings I had setup a static ip address for my TIVO. I use a Linksys router and the DHCP server on it is a piece of crap. Anyway, for some reason my DNS primary server was showing as my router address, so TIVO was using the secondary DNS server only. After I corrected this I had fewer issues with Netflix hanging. This could have been a coincidence, but perhaps it would be helpful to review network settings. I know I did not put my router address as the DNS server. *puts on tinfoil hat*

Glad to have my TIVO back. They really do need to figure out the issues though.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

I'm glad to hear that worked for you. Awesome!

Would you post a link to those instructions (since you're saying the Series 3 is different)? As I might end up needing it. 



Elarek said:


> Magnus thanks for the suggestions.
> 
> I was able to get the Kickstart code 52 and 57 to work. First did the 52 and it reinstalled the OS but it still hung at the "Almost there" screen after it restarted. After that I tried the 57 code and TIVO rebooted successfully.
> 
> ...


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## Elarek (Dec 13, 2008)

magnus said:


> I'm glad to hear that worked for you. Awesome!
> 
> Would you post a link to those instructions (since you're saying the Series 3 is different)? As I might end up needing it.


The instructions are here in the forums, but there appear to be different sets of instructions floating around. This one is for both Series 3 and TivoHD.

Series 3 & TivoHD Kickstart Instructions


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## Rose4uKY (Mar 28, 2003)

Wow I was wanting to try the Netflix but now I am afraid to after reading all this. Rose


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## nandopr (Jun 6, 2003)

Elarek said:


> I have used Netflix with TIVO several times now with grey screen lock ups. This morning it locked up so I pulled the plug to reset.
> 
> At first TIVO would boot up but it would lock on the "dancing Tivo" video. I tried to restart several times, but at this point my TIVO appears to be dead in the water. Now it just locks up on the "Please wait..just a few minutes more" screen. TIVO software seems to be corrupted now.
> 
> ...


I was watching Netflix and my S3 stopped working. No response to the remote. Unplugged and plugged back and it got stuck at "Please wait...just a few minutes more" message as well. After that, nothing happened.

I went to Best Buy and they realized that is not working anymore. Fortunately, I had the extended warranty plan. They told me that they will ship it out for repair but when the BB employee entered some data in the system, the system told them to swap it for a new one.

He was surprise because he said they don't do that anymore. They still had the original Series 3 in stock but I asked to "downgrade" to the HD XL model. I got that one.

I could not buy another extended warranty for this one because Best Buy does not offer the warranty plan for Tivos anymore

Today while I was watching Netflix, Tivo lock up on me again. No response. It stayed a long time (15 minutes) on the same message and I got worried for a while, then it came back to life.

I think I will not use Netflix on my new DVR just to play safe for quite some time until they fix whatever is wrong.

One question, just out of curiosity, were you using an external hard drive? If yes, what brand?

Happy Holidays


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## Rose4uKY (Mar 28, 2003)

I just got done reading more threads on this and I know I won't be trying it out at all. Maybe once the bugs are worked out. But I don't care to try it anymore. I know what shows look like cause my friend has a netflix account and he signed on to my laptop and we watched on my TV streaming from online via my laptop. There wasn't that much that interested me anyway but I still wanted to try the 2 week trial and check it out again but not now. Rose


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Elarek said:


> I was able to get the Kickstart code 52 and 57 to work. First did the 52 and it reinstalled the OS but it still hung at the "Almost there" screen after it restarted. After that I tried the 57 code and TIVO rebooted successfully.


It's good to hear that that worked. Kickstart 57 is basically TiVo's equivalent to Window's chkdsk. It checks the file system for bad data and tries to fix it. Most likely the TiVo was in the middle of updating it's databases when it locked up, thereby corrupting the data. The TiVo is supposed to detect this on boot up and clean up the bad data (the infamous green screen), but apparently it didn't.

I'm still wary of running any program that will lock up the device so completely that even the LEDs and clock on the front panel stop updating.


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## Elarek (Dec 13, 2008)

nandopr said:


> One question, just out of curiosity, were you using an external hard drive? If yes, what brand?
> 
> Happy Holidays


Nandopr,

No, I have never used an external hard drive with my TIVO, so unlike several other lock up threads my issue was not related to an external drive. This issue only occurred when I was using the Netflix streaming, and in particular when I was watching HD content.


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## DrWho453 (Jul 16, 2005)

Rose4uKY said:


> Wow I was wanting to try the Netflix but now I am afraid to after reading all this. Rose


Hey Rose4uKY,
I have been using the Netflix since it came out and in the beginning I did have the issue where it would kick me out of the Netflix screen while watching a movie but since Wednesday I have not had any issues with Netflix. It seems to play just fine. Every now and then it says it pauses and says it receiving information but I had that same issue running on my PC so I feel that is more of a Netflix / network bandwith issue than anything else. I did have a problem with Real Genius but I think Netflix may have a corrupted video data on that. It has never rebooted my Series 3.

From the Community threads, it is difficult to tell how many people are affected by it. It could be that only a small number of people are affected. Keeping that in mind, Tivo is probably trying to identify why some Tivos don't have a problem and others do. I am using a series 3 tivo bought around the fall time of 2006.

I am not saying that the reboots are not happening or that they should not be taking seriously. They defiantly should be looked into but you have to be careful and not assume or state that it affects the majority of the Tivo units.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

No external drive here either. I really don't like the idea of doing that anyway, would rather upgrade my internal one if I needed more space.



Elarek said:


> Nandopr,
> 
> No, I have never used an external hard drive with my TIVO, so unlike several other lock up threads my issue was not related to an external drive. This issue only occurred when I was using the Netflix streaming, and in particular when I was watching HD content.


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## Rose4uKY (Mar 28, 2003)

So maybe I will try it sometime soon. I have a series 3 guess it won't hurt to try it once but once it locks up one time I would not try it again. I am still leary and would like to wait a couple more days and see how many people are still having problems.


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## Davepar (Jul 9, 2002)

I've had two major issues with Netflix playback so far. We've watched about a dozen shows so far. On the whole we love it, but these issues are so incredibly frustrating. I was going to immediately demand a refund, but wait. I guess we're not actually paying anything extra for it. And thus why they've shipped this feature half-baked.

The first issue occurred while my unit was recording the last 15 minutes of our two favorite shows. The unit refused to play a Netflix program, instead displaying only a black screen. I went back to the menu and tried playing again several times. After giving up on Netflix, I tried playing a TiVo-recorded show. The unit spontaneously rebooted. Since it takes so freaking long for the TiVo to boot, we've now permanently lost the last 1/4 of our two shows that were recording. Arrrgh.

*Lesson learned:* don't try watching Netflix while the TiVo is recording something you care about.

And now tonight we are having significant problems trying to watch "King of Kong" on Netflix. I hit the replay button to watch a funny segment over and now we can't get it to go back to correct spot no matter what we try. It will only start the movie at the 40 minute mark. We ended up starting the movie over at that point and I guess we'll do something else for half an hour.

*Second lesson learned:* don't count on the Netflix movies for your Saturday night entertainment. Have a back-up plan.


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## Elarek (Dec 13, 2008)

Rose4uKY said:


> So maybe I will try it sometime soon. I have a series 3 guess it won't hurt to try it once but once it locks up one time I would not try it again. I am still leary and would like to wait a couple more days and see how many people are still having problems.


Rose,

I hope my posting did not scare you. There is a difference between the lock up some of us experienced and a simple gray screen that occurs when a temperamental router resets your internet connection.

You may experience a gray screen if you temporary lose your internet connection while streaming (That is a common occurrence with my router). Generally, this will cause the streaming to stop and might drop you back to Live TV.

The lock up is a hard lock up and your TIVO will not do anything. The clock stops updating and no response from the remote. If this occurs I would just let it sit for about 15 minutes. I think I exacerbated my issue by resetting my TIVO too quickly. As another poster pointed out, my TIVO may have been in the middle of a database update. By unplugging it I corrupted the database. I should be more careful and try to hear if the hard drive is running before unplugging it.

Usually a simple reset will fix a lock up. If it occurs just try not to unplug TIVO if you hear the hard drive running. 

The Netflix service is awesome...the TIVO support team is not. They are pleasant, but clearly untrained. This forum has far more help in it than they provide. Not once did my technician suggest the Kickstart codes....just send me money and we'll send you a refurbished TIVO. That comment is what bothered me the most about my TIVO lockup.


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## Rose4uKY (Mar 28, 2003)

But did the kickstart codes work for you? I just heard a couple people say they had to get new Tivos so yes I got scared. I will try it here in the next couple days. I just don't want to get a hard lock up and my Tivo not come back up. But my ex who I am still good friends with has the 8.99 account from Netflix and comes over some and we watch from laptop to the TV so he was going to activate his account for me cause I don't care about getting a DVD in the mail. But I also thought about joining this movie downloads site that has old classic tv shows and movies. They have a yearly fee I think. I am not sure yet what I am going to do but thanks for replying back. Rose


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

Well, the need to get a new Tivo really depends on the person (the kickstart won't cost you anything to try). The kickstart does work but might not every time. The other way to get it to work again would be to use an instantcake image ($20 from DVRupgrade) but that would require opening your box (still better than paying $150 for Tivo to give you another box).

I'm going to go ahead and use my 2 week trial but that will be the extent of it for me if i don't hear better results from others within this week.

I'll probably just wait a couple of months to see after my trial ends.



Rose4uKY said:


> But did the kickstart codes work for you? I just heard a couple people say they had to get new Tivos so yes I got scared. Rose


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## Rose4uKY (Mar 28, 2003)

I think I 'll still wait a bit before trying it but thanks for all your replies. I tivo enough stuff to keep me busy for now. I just have a week off in January and thought it would give me something to do. But I may just join this moviedownloads site for 35 bucks cause the couple TV shows I want to watch on Netflix are DVD only there not on the play now anyway. I don't know i may change my mind after reading some more post here in the next couple days. But thanks everyone! Night Rose


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## urwathrtz (Jan 18, 2008)

This happened last night. My son was watching a movie on Netflix. It stopped and went right to live TV. I went to Tivo Central and the selected VOD. The TiVo locked up on the "please wait" for around 15 to 20 min. I did a power cycle. When it booted back up it wouldn't go past the "Almost there" screen for about an hour. I called Tivo and the had me do the same thing, a power cycle with out the wireless adapter connected. Exact same result, the "Almost there" screen for about an hour. The guy said to let it sit overnight and try it again, he said it's rare that, that works but I gave it a try. Again, "Almost there" screen for about an hour. Good thing it's still under warranty. I'm starting an RMA.


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## Rose4uKY (Mar 28, 2003)

See that is why I am still leary on trying it just yet. Rose


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

I find it interesting that some Tivo users are having an issue their boxes and Netflix. I wonder why nobody is having issues with Netflix and their XBox 360?


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## dig_duggler (Sep 18, 2002)

XBox 360 programming resources >>>> Tivo programming resources

M$ has deep pockets.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

Also Xbox 360 computing power >>>> TiVo computing power. The 360 should be able to do this Netflix streaming thing while half asleep. It's a trivial effort in comparison to, say, running _Gears 2_ .

However, it's not true that no Xbox 360 users have had trouble with the Netflix player. I myself have been bumped out a few times, though I was able to resume playback without a problem. Yesterday someone posted that they had trouble playing three films (_Network_, _Real Genius_ and _Liar Liar_)--I tried all three on TiVo and had problems playing all of them, as well as problems playing them on the PC (in the Silverlight player). I was able to get all three to play properly on the Xbox.


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## urwathrtz (Jan 18, 2008)

Rose4uKY said:


> See that is why I am still leary on trying it just yet. Rose


I'm pretty sure what happened to me is probably unrelated to the Netflix stability. Still, my TiVo was running fine since I bought it back in February of this year, until I selected the VOD. TiVo is sending me a new one second day ground.


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## Rose4uKY (Mar 28, 2003)

I know but several people's Tivos are locking up and rebooting due to Net Flix so I will wait a bit before I try it.


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## toddc (Jun 12, 2002)

Anyone notice that the captions are only the default font now and the variable size fonts no longer work?

Posted this on another thread, but got no response.
I liked the serif proportional font.


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## SugarBowl (Jan 5, 2007)

How can you tell if a movie is available in HD?


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

mikeyts said:


> Also Xbox 360 computing power >>>> TiVo computing power. The 360 should be able to do this Netflix streaming thing while half asleep. It's a trivial effort in comparison to, say, running _Gears 2_ .


In addition, the TiVo's primary task is always to record TV. Pretty much no matter what happens short of a reboot, the TV recording continues. I think that can make it harder to resolve conflicts sometimes.

That said, the error handling on TiVos leave much to be desired.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

SugarBowl said:


> How can you tell if a movie is available in HD?


You can see a partial list of the available HD titles here (the Watch Instantly "HD Genre" list). I say "partial" because they say that there are over 300 and there are only 165 movies and TV seasons in the list (if you count individual TV episodes, it's over 500).

You won't necessarily get HD if you select one of these--your connection speed must be high enough (not the rated speed of your service, but the current measured speed of your connection to Netflix' server).


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

MickeS said:


> In addition, the TiVo's primary task is always to record TV. Pretty much no matter what happens short of a reboot, the TV recording continues.


True--TiVo is using some portion of its available computational capacity to record or buffer both tuners, all the time, unless you set them to unrecordable channels (like two cable channels you don't subscribe to). This might be a strategy for improving Netflix streaming performance. (It can speed up TTG transfers, though that may be mostly due to cessation of competing activity on the HDD).


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## larrs (May 2, 2005)

I have 3 THDs and one S3. When Netflix arrived, I watched a movie on the S3 (hard wired ethernet) and although SD, the pic quality was good. The next evening, I watched a movie (SD) on my THD in my Master Bedroom (Tivo Wireless Adapter) and, again, the pic was good.

On Friday, we watched a movie in our media room (100" screen) and then I stayed down there to watch another movie on Netflix on the THD. This one is also hardwired through an ethernet switch, which is shared by my PS3, my HD DVD player, a PC and the THD. This time, the quality indicator would only go to half way and the pic quality was super fuzzy. I ended up diconnecting the switch nd wiring straight to the THD with the same result. I went to the PC and tested the connection at 35Mbps (I have FIOS) and then loaded the same movie on the PC and it was fine with the quality bars full.

I tried an HD movie and same result on the THD, half quality bars, down rezzed result. Went upstairs to the S3 and HD movie was fine.

Weird, huh?


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

toddc said:


> Anyone notice that the captions are only the default font now and the variable size fonts no longer work?
> 
> Posted this on another thread, but got no response.
> I liked the serif proportional font.


From what I've seen this appears to occur after playing a Netflix video and persists until a restart.

Shortly after the Netflix release, I noticed the closed captions were displaying as "normal" on my S3 when I had them set to "small". I had to reboot my S3 at some point and after that captions displayed "small" again. They went back to "normal" again after trying out Netflix again.

I can confirm that when the captions ignore the size setting, they also ignore the font style setting.


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## toddc (Jun 12, 2002)

morac said:


> From what I've seen this appears to occur after playing a Netflix video and persists until a restart.
> 
> Shortly after the Netflix release, I noticed the closed captions were displaying as "normal" on my S3 when I had them set to "small". I had to reboot my S3 at some point and after that captions displayed "small" again. They went back to "normal" again after trying out Netflix again.
> 
> I can confirm that when the captions ignore the size setting, they also ignore the font style setting.


Thanks for confirming the bug.


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## koensayr (Sep 18, 2007)

For what its worth, I'm having pretty similar issues. Though I'm just sure I'm seeing any corruption. When the Netflix deal came out, I was stoked to try it. And I streamed the first 20 minutes or so of Gone Baby Gone without issue. I was less interested in watching the movie, so recently when I've gone back to watch something of interest, like Weeds or Heros. The NetFlix grey screen comes up, the quality meter is almost full, and then Poof! It goes to a black screen! Pressing the TiVO button brings the system back to the main screen. 

Does anybody know if Tivo or Netflix has confirmed this issue? I'd sure like to know whats going on, especially since there are plenty of people complaining about this issue.


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## Armchair Bronco (Aug 9, 2008)

dig_duggler said:


> XBox 360 programming resources >>>> Tivo programming resources
> 
> M$ has deep pockets.


Rather than ascribing this to deep pockets, I would say that Microsoft has a deep commitment to rigorous and methodical testing whereas TiVo and the recent TiVo+NetFlix partnership clearly does not.

Say what you will about MSFT, but the folks in Redmond would *never* have foisted this POS software on an unsuspecting user base when the problems could have been uncovered by a college intern with a modicum of common sense and less than one week's training.

I mean, what's so freakin' hard about stocking a lab with a row of variously configured S3 TiVos (some with external hard drives, some without, some with upgraded WeakKnees hard drives, or whatever) and then writing an automation script to repeatedly start and stop a NetFlix stream? We're not talking rocket science here, folks! Hell, you could pay an intern to just sit there manually watching NetFlix titles and probably uncover 50% of *all* problems reported on this site and have bullet-proof repro scenarios, too!

It takes a unique flavor of corporate arrogance to utterly bypass standard testing procedures as TiVo and NetFlix have *clearly* done. And trust me: money isn't the issue here, as half (or more) of these bugs could have been uncovered by a small team of testers.

Microsoft's deep pockets are what allows it to do exhaustive testing to ensure that the crap-ola North Korean video card you bought 8 years ago still works with the crap-o-ramma sound card from Vietnam in your knock-off Chinese motherboard. This is vastly different from TiVo (and NetFlix) which pretty much own the entire technology stack on which their offerings are built.

Shame on TiVo! Shame on NetFlix!


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## justlen (Dec 28, 2006)

Well, it looks like Netflix totally borked my Series 3.

Started a movie last night and got the lockup described in this thread. I have tried kickstarts 52 and 57 but I am stuck on "almost there."

I guess I'm off to buy a new hard drive.

Thanks, Tivo and Netflix!


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## Scopeman (Oct 22, 2002)

justlen said:


> Well, it looks like Netflix totally borked my Series 3.
> 
> Started a movie last night and got the lockup described in this thread. I have tried kickstarts 52 and 57 but I am stuck on "almost there."
> 
> ...


I'm more convinced than ever than once your Tivo is out of warranty you should be allowed to refuse software updates (or that you should at least have to manually approve them).

That would at least allow folks to skim these message boards for info before opting to accept something as bad as this NetFlix update appears to be before (apparently) impacting the functionality of their Tivos.

Folks who sign up for Tivo beta programs get a chance to decide if it is worth risking their Tivo experience in order to test new features. It is sad that *outside* the beta program there is no option, just risk.


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## SugarBowl (Jan 5, 2007)

I've tried to watch Frequency on 2 different nights, and kept getting audio dropouts at the same point. Around the 1:25 mark, where the NYPD officer comes into the house and asks where the dude was last night.


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## Armchair Bronco (Aug 9, 2008)

justlen said:


> Well, it looks like Netflix totally borked my Series 3.
> 
> Started a movie last night and got the lockup described in this thread. I have tried kickstarts 52 and 57 but I am stuck on "almost there."
> 
> ...


Sorry to hear about this, man! 

I pulled the plug on this "frebie" offering after fighting with out-of-synch dialog, horrid pixelation, latency, and mysterious system reboots of my own. Thankfully, I managed to deactivate the link between my NetFlix account and my S3 TiVo before any damage was done.

I'm sure there are many folks who will be blaming you for not thoroughly researching this freebie feature *before* you signed up for it and entered in the NetFlix activation code. I mean, after all: if you had only been smart enough to spend 2 hours reading through countless posts about problems with the Series 3 TiVo, you would have known NOT to use this feature.

By their thinking, it's all basically *YOUR* fault, and you have no one to blame but yourself. I mean only someone utterly naive would trust that a new feature announced by TiVo on their home page wouldn't bork your Series 3, right? Look in the mirror, pal, if you want to blame someone, but whatever you do, don't go pointing fingers at the TiVo+NetFlix partnership.


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## justlen (Dec 28, 2006)

After many attempts the Tivo is now doing a 57 kickstart that has been running for a few hours. Previously it would only take minutes. I'm hopeful.

Weakknees happily gave me an RMA for my drive, so if this doesn't work I can send it back. I'll still likely run out and get another drive anyway as I am not going to go through a week with the in-laws and no TV.


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## justlen (Dec 28, 2006)

After the last 57 kickstart I got things working. What a nightmare.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

justlen said:


> Weakknees happily gave me an RMA for my drive, so if this doesn't work I can send it back.


So it should be noted that your problem occurred on a TiVo with an unsupported modification. (No criticism intended--just to clarify). I wonder if there's any correlation of S3's which have seriously frozen up and replacement internal drives. Probably not, but it's a possibility.


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## Yuckle (Oct 9, 2003)

I have a weaknees HD. Initial experience was picture with no sound. Tried it a few days later at it worked fine. Watched The Fugitive without any issues. Pausing and resuming worked fine.

But, last night I was watching Wild Hogs and paused when phone rang. After that TiVo was locked up. Even the yellow light that usually flashes when I use the remote didn't work. Couldn't get off the screen with the movie paused. I had to unplug it. After rebooting it resumed the movie where I left off and played fine. I kept my fingers off of the Pause button.

After that I watched some You Tube and it worked fine - until I got a gray screen that said Retreiving Video Please Wait. After 10-12 minutes I got tired of waiting and hit the TiVo main button This caused the actual video to appear briefly and then I was back the home screen. Trying to go back in, I went to Video on Demand, then You Tube, then I go a gray screen that said Please Wait. And that was it - all locked up and had to unplug.

So, this is a cool feature but it's not worth trashing my TiVo for. How great is the risk of this?


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## Rose4uKY (Mar 28, 2003)

I'm glad I haven't tried it yet and it looks I won't be trying it not worth it.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Your loss, works fine for me. Way too many threads complaining about the same thing, too.


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

Exactly. There are many people who haven't had much (or any) problems with it and you could be one of them. Few of them would post to these threads to say that.


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## rocko (Oct 29, 2002)

mikeyts said:


> Exactly. There are many people who haven't had much (or any) problems with it and you could be one of them. Few of them would post to these threads to say that.


I actually think lots of people, myself included, have been saying exactly that. The folks who are having problems are, quite understandably, posting a bit louder and the fact that we're not having any problems is of little comfort to them.


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## jhimmel (Dec 27, 2002)

rocko said:


> I actually think lots of people, myself included, have been saying exactly that. The folks who are having problems are, quite understandably, posting a bit louder and the fact that we're not having any problems is of little comfort to them.


Rocko, could you try playing "Head Caseair of Hearts" (episode 9) and tell me if it works right for you?

It keeps pausing to download the content, and then loses sound for me every time.

Jim H.


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## stephenaye (Aug 7, 2008)

Have a Tivo HD. It got trashed after using Netflix. Tivo is sending me out a replacement unit. N/C except shipping. The tech inferred that they were aware of some problems and didn't even question me since I had already tried the kickstart's. BUT he did say something very important. They are in the middle of a service update which will resolve the Netflix problems so I won't be trying it again until after I see a service update come across.


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## drewpydog (Jan 10, 2005)

I've done a lot of things to get the Netflix on Tivo to work properly - and I think I'm at the end of the rope. I have an S3 and THD both using Tivo Wireless adapters. My original router was an old WRT54G. The problems is that I keep getting the "Retreiving" message every 20-30 seconds while trying to watch a movie. I've since replaced both my DSL modem (6MB AT&T) and router (new Belkin N+) - still having the problem. So I decided to take the wireless out of the equation and strung an ethernet cable out of one window into another (so ghetto). I'm still getting the retrieving message. 

I don't care about getting HD streaming. I just want to get a connection, even if it's the lowest quality, that doesn't have to buffer. I think I have plenty of bandwidth to do the 11/13 bars (if not full HD). Any other suggestions?


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## drewpydog (Jan 10, 2005)

I've been troubleshooting this for weeks and I don't give up easily. I think I've narrowed it down to the Tivo software. Reference my above post for background.

I changed my S3 output from HDMI to component: no change, still "Retrieving". In my mind there are only two more things to rule out: internet connection problems and Tivo software problems. I pulled out the trusty old laptop and streamed wirelessly _Spies Like Us_ with no buffering or stutters for ~10 minutes. As far as I'm concerned, it's the Tivo software problem.

Hopefully they can get this fixed soon. I really, really want this to work.


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## joemc72 (Oct 12, 2009)

I bought my TiVo HD earlier this week, and I'm having the same random issue with Netflix. Plays fine for a while, but then randomly stops and hard locks. The only way to fix it is to unplug and replug it in. Has anyone gotten a firm answer on what might be causing this? It doesn't happen on every show or movie I watch, for example tonight it happened while watching an episode of Star Trek, but not last night while I was watching Superman (yeah, I'm a nerd).


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

joemc72 said:


> I bought my TiVo HD earlier this week, and I'm having the same random issue with Netflix. Plays fine for a while, but then randomly stops and hard locks. The only way to fix it is to unplug and replug it in. Has anyone gotten a firm answer on what might be causing this? It doesn't happen on every show or movie I watch, for example tonight it happened while watching an episode of Star Trek, but not last night while I was watching Superman (yeah, I'm a nerd).


See this post.


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## geraldken (Dec 30, 2006)

morac said:


> See this post.


I just added NetFlix to my S3 box and it just went into vapor lock on me. Is there any updated info on this?


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

geraldken said:


> I just added NetFlix to my S3 box and it just went into vapor lock on me. Is there any updated info on this?


The only update to Stephen's original post is that the issue where the box can't boot up without a network connection after a lock up has been fixed. So if you're network goes down while streaming Netflix, the box will likely freeze but you will be able to boot it back up.

The lock up issue itself hasn't been fixed though and probably never will be, at least not on the Series 3 models. I don't know if the Premiere has this problem or not.


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## TiVo Steve (Nov 8, 2005)

Recently I've been having problems with my wired TiVo HD connection. It would take over a minute to play a video after I clicked on it, then it would stop with the "acquiring" message multiple times. I have my TiVo connected directly to my Comcast Business Gateway (with a new cable). I did a couple of restarts... 

Now for the strange part. I went to my Watch Instantly queue online with my PC. I removed "Buffy" and "Angel" (hey, there's nothing on the networks, and I'm OTA only on my TiVo). I added "Brotherhood" to my queue. 

I could use my HTPC to play Brotherhood... but... my TiVo still had Buffy and Angel. And I could play an episode of Buffy! This leads me to believe that there are indeed separate servers for TiVo.

After a few more restarts (via the menu, not pulling the plug), my TiVo had the correct queue, and I was able to watch a few episodes of Brotherhood in HD.


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## Videodrome (Jun 20, 2008)

Netflix crashed 3 times last night for me , it usually perfect. Now its gone from Tivo ?


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

TiVo Steve said:


> I could use my HTPC to play Brotherhood... but... my TiVo still had Buffy and Angel. And I could play an episode of Buffy! This leads me to believe that there are indeed separate servers for TiVo.


There are separate encodings for the PC--the PC and TiVo do not play the same files. (The PS3 has its own encodings as well, in AVC with stereo AC3 sound whereas the others use VC-1 and WMA sound. TiVo plays the same encodings as Roku, the Blu-ray players, etc).


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## cogx (Sep 23, 2006)

Videodrome said:


> Netflix crashed 3 times last night for me , it usually perfect. Now its gone from Tivo ?


It was around 12:45am EST time today (6/15) when I went to bring up my NetFlix queue and the option just wasn't there. I went to the networking screen and tried to connect, but I got a negotiating failure which I honestly don't ever recall seeing in 3.5 years with my Series3. I tried a second time and it also failed. I went into diagnostics and then the connection to TiVo worked, so I went back and tried to connect again and then it worked. After that waste of 20 minutes, I went to bed, so I didn't actually try to stream anything.
It just worked now, though.


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## joy_division (Nov 22, 2007)

wow, same exact thing for me. I never saw a failure to communicate. then without rebooting, last night Netflix reappeared. to me, this points to a problem AT Tivo and not with the Tivo box.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Videodrome said:


> Netflix crashed 3 times last night for me , it usually perfect. Now its gone from Tivo ?


Netflix missing from the NPL is a common problem. The solution is to force a connect to TiVo. Netflix will reappear very soon after starting the connect -- you don't have to wait for the connection to complete.



cogx said:


> ......... After that waste of 20 minutes, I went to bed,..........


You've led a charmed TiVo life if you find just 20 minutes of wasted time worth mentioning! I've wasted many hours on a number of different issues, not just Netflix, in the year I've had my THD.


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## joy_division (Nov 22, 2007)

dlfl said:


> Netflix missing from the NPL is a common problem. The solution is to force a connect to TiVo.


But we both received the "negotiating failure" message and could not connect to Tivo, that's why I am thinking it has to do with something AT Tivo and not with the box.
Also, it's not only not appearing in the Now Playing list, if you click on Video On Demand you are told there is a problem with the VOD feature and cannot get into VOD at all.


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## Videodrome (Jun 20, 2008)

joy_division said:


> But we both received the "negotiating failure" message and could not connect to Tivo, that's why I am thinking it has to do with something AT Tivo and not with the box.
> Also, it's not only not appearing in the Now Playing list, if you click on Video On Demand you are told there is a problem with the VOD feature and cannot get into VOD at all.


Yup exactly, i think something crashed at tivo internally. Really HME is a terrible product. The VOD didnt reappear after connecting, and it was back the next day, doing nothing.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

joy_division said:


> But we both received the "negotiating failure" message and could not connect to Tivo, that's why I am thinking it has to do with something AT Tivo and not with the box.
> Also, it's not only not appearing in the Now Playing list, if you click on Video On Demand you are told there is a problem with the VOD feature and cannot get into VOD at all.


Not saying the "negotiating failure" is common, just the disappearance from the NPL, which Videodrome didn't seem to know. At the time of my post he had not posted that he also got the "negotiating failure" message.


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## areeda (Dec 10, 2006)

Does anybody know if Premier does a better job with NetFlix?

Also what is the reason my TivoHD can't/won't get an upgrade for this flaky feature?

Before I started watching NetFlix streaming video I never unplugged or reboot my Tivo. Now I do it at least once a week. First flaky symptom I reboot with the remote else it will lock up hard and have to unplug, sometimes twice (I don't understand that either.)

I guess I should get a BlueRay player with NetFlix those seem to work much better.


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## gearSHIFTer (Sep 11, 2010)

areeda said:


> Does anybody know if Premier does a better job with NetFlix?
> 
> Also what is the reason my TivoHD can't/won't get an upgrade for this flaky feature?
> 
> ...


I've owned my Premier for months and watched NetFlix without any problems. The other day it started locking up on NF and doing a hard reboot. This sent me to the forums--here and elsewhere--to sadly learn that this is common and there's apparently no fix from Tivo


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## turbobuick86 (May 3, 2002)

Wanted to go on record as having zero issues with Tivo/Netflix/youtube in the last 2 months. Prior problems with lockups had me watching through Xbox and not even attempting Netflix with Tivo. Hooked up via FiOS wireless through TivoHDXL. 

Not sure if it's software updates or hardware related. Knocking on wood...


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

Yep, I've not had any more problems with the reboots but the sound issue is still there on the S3. If you leave netflix and go to live tv then the sound is still crackled. Switching to the other tuner seems to fix the problem.


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