# Does the Roamio Record Suggestions?



## donnoh (Mar 7, 2008)

I apologize if this has been asked already, but I didn't see it in my search. Has Tivo fixed the Roamio where it will record suggestions when connected to a tuning adapter?


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## Tico (Dec 10, 2002)

Mine did before I turned it off.


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## carld (Mar 9, 2012)

My Roamio Plus has been recording suggestions steadily, the Premiere it replaced (same tuning adapter and cable card) stopped recording suggestions months ago.


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## DaveDFW (Jan 25, 2005)

donnoh said:


> I apologize if this has been asked already, but I didn't see it in my search. Has Tivo fixed the Roamio where it will record suggestions when connected to a tuning adapter?


My Plus has been up for 24 hours now with no suggestions. I vote that Suggestions is still broken.


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## Labo (Sep 1, 2013)

I've had my plus hooked up for 2 days and it's recorded about 15 suggestions.


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## DaveDFW (Jan 25, 2005)

Okay, I have to retract what I said before. My Roamio Plus is now showing about three pages of suggestion for the next several days. Maybe this is really fixed for tuning adapter users?

None have actually recorded yet, but at least the list is being populated.


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## elwaylite (Apr 23, 2006)

Mine grabbed like 3 before I even cut it off, and that was pretty early on. So yes, its still spamming until you turn it off


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## DaveDFW (Jan 25, 2005)

DaveDFW said:


> None have actually recorded yet, but at least the list is being populated.


I am officially excited--my Roamio is now recording suggestions without me doing the tuning adapter power off procedure. Perhaps this issue from the S3 and Premiere is finally fixed.


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## ahwman (Jan 24, 2013)

I can also confirm that my Roamio Pro is recording suggestions with a tuning adapter attached - finally! I was plagued with having to keep my TA on a timer with my XL4 in order to record suggestions which was a total nightmare as sometimes the TA would not sync back up and I'd have to power cycle it again and again. Thankfully those days look to be behind us...


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## Rose4uKY (Mar 28, 2003)

We just got our plus yesterday and have no suggestions! I am not sure if we have a tuning adapter or not. What is this powering off the tuning adapter? We have some kind of little thing with one coaxial plugged in on one end and three things plugged in on the other is that it? I am not sure!


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## tim1724 (Jul 3, 2007)

Rose4uKY said:


> We just got our plus yesterday and have no suggestions!


Give it a few days. In my experience a TiVo needs a few days to do all its indexing of guide data and such before it starts recording suggestions.



> I am not sure if we have a tuning adapter or not. What is this powering off the tuning adapter? We have some kind of little thing with one coaxial plugged in on one end and three things plugged in on the other is that it? I am not sure!


A tuning adapter will be connected to your cable via coax and to your TiVo via USB. It also has a power cord. If you don't have a splitter on your coax, then there will also be a piece of coax connecting the the to the TiVo. The Tuning Adapter will probably have a Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, or Cisco logo on it.

But with the Roamio it should hopefully not matter whether you have a tuning adapter or not. So far my Roamio Pro is recording lots and lots of Suggestions for me, even with a tuning adapter.  (Hooray. It's been years since I've really gotten any Suggestions on my old Series 3 TiVo!)


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## tivogurl (Dec 16, 2004)

I transferred my SPs via kmttg, which cleared the thumbs up/down flags on the SPs. When I added a single thumbs up for each SP, as is standard for SPs, my Roamio started recording suggestions.


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## JohnnyO (Nov 3, 2002)

tim1724 said:


> Give it a few days. In my experience a TiVo needs a few days to do all its indexing of guide data and such before it starts recording suggestions.


My Suggestions just started - 72 hours after installing the Roamio, and about 60 hours after configuring the CableCard.

John


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## donnoh (Mar 7, 2008)

My Roamio Pro is recording suggestions like crazy. Why can't Tivo fix it for the Premieres?


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## DaveDFW (Jan 25, 2005)

donnoh said:


> My Roamio Pro is recording suggestions like crazy. Why can't Tivo fix it for the Premieres?


Perhaps Tivo wants to pretend the Premiere line never existed?


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

I thought Margret implied it was fixed in the Fall update for Premiere.


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## bradenmcg (Dec 29, 2007)

For those with tuning adapters - is it recording suggestions on SDV channels?

I had a Series 3 with cablecard and TA several years ago. Suggestions still WORKED just fine, except they wouldn't record on SDV channels, which in my area meant most of the HD stuff. I would still get non-HD recordings of stuff from analog/non-SDV channels.

The SDV/TuningAdapter spec is pretty specific about how recordings are supposed to work, and there is a flag for "user-requested tuning" (or recording) vs. "autonomous tuning/recording" (i.e. suggestion). Cable companies have the power to block autonomous tuning requests because they undermine the main purpose of SDV.

In my area at least, SlimeWarner Cable blocked autonomous so I could never get HD suggestions other than the locals, which pretty much made suggestions pointless to me (I never watch non-HD TV).


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## DaveDFW (Jan 25, 2005)

bradenmcg said:


> For those with tuning adapters - is it recording suggestions on SDV channels?


Yes, my Roamio Plus is recording suggestions on SDV channels while attached to a tuning adapter. I did not receive suggestions with the same setup with either an S3 or an XL4, so the Roamio appears to have fixed this problem.

Edit: I'm also on a Time-Warner cable system.


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## DaveDFW (Jan 25, 2005)

bradenmcg said:


> In my area at least, SlimeWarner Cable blocked autonomous so I could never get HD suggestions other than the locals, which pretty much made suggestions pointless to me...


I don't believe Time-Warner has ever had a policy of blocking speculative tunes for tuning adapter users. The problem was in Tivo's software which wouldn't populate the suggestions list while a tuning adapter was attached.

TivoMargret has stated that they believe the issue will be fixed with the Premiere's fall update. Presumably, the Roamio already has the new code since suggestions are working.


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## bradenmcg (Dec 29, 2007)

DaveDFW said:


> Yes, my Roamio Plus is recording suggestions on SDV channels while attached to a tuning adapter. I did not receive suggestions with the same setup with either an S3 or an XL4, so the Roamio appears to have fixed this problem.
> 
> Edit: I'm also on a Time-Warner cable system.


Wow, for the longest time with the Series3 I was told that it was due to the provider blocking speculative/autonomous tunes, so either I was being fed BS by Tivo, or Tivo has now "worked around" it by ignoring the standard and marking Suggestions as user-initiated instead of autonomous... 

This makes me much more likely to consider a Roamio, my favorite thing about Tivo was suggestions as it meant we always had a bunch of reruns of stuff we could put on. When we had Tivo, we almost never watched anything live, even if the TV was just on as "background noise" (which my wife does all the time), she'd put on suggestions and then if I started paying attention to the TV I could at least skip the commercials.


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## DaveDFW (Jan 25, 2005)

bradenmcg said:


> Wow, for the longest time with the Series3 I was told that it was due to the provider blocking speculative/autonomous tunes...


It's easy to tell if your Tivo is affected by the suggestions bug by simply checking the suggestions list. If suggestions are enabled and the suggestions list is permanently empty but will populate with the tuning adapter disconnected, then your box has the Tivo software bug.

If your suggestions list is populating but the actual recordings are failing, then you might be the victim of a denied speculative tune by your provider. This type of failure will show in your recording history.

Tivo Margret has announced a planned fall update for the Premiere line for this suggestions and tuning adapter issue. I doubt we'll ever see a fix for the HD/S3 platform.


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## tivogurl (Dec 16, 2004)

Seems like the simple fix is to lie to the TA and tell it that all recordings are user-selected. What's the TA going to do, report you for recording "too many" shows?


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## DaveDFW (Jan 25, 2005)

tivogurl said:


> Seems like the simple fix is to lie to the TA and tell it that all recordings are user-selected. What's the TA going to do, report you for recording "too many" shows?


That would only fix the issue of denied speculative tunes, which is not what is preventing suggestions recording for the majority of users.


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## donnoh (Mar 7, 2008)

OP here. My Roamio Pro has been a suggestion recording machine. I have almost a hundred in about a week.

BTW I have Charter, a tuning adapter and a Motorola M card.


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## tim1724 (Jul 3, 2007)

donnoh said:


> OP here. My Roamio Pro has been a suggestion recording machine. I have almost a hundred in about a week.
> 
> BTW I have Charter, a tuning adapter and a Motorola M card.


Same here, my Roamio Pro records sugestions nonstop. Charter, Cisco tuning adapter, Cisco M-card.

It's nice to have suggestions again, after years of going without them on my Series 3.


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## Fsron (Sep 7, 2013)

mine started recording after about 2 days. It failed at figuring out what I like. It recorded a bunch of stuff that will never get watched. I shut suggestions off.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

You need to use thumb ratings and give it a chance. It can take weeks/months before it "figures out" what you like.

People give up too easily. How does it hurt you to have it turned on?


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## mdscott (Jun 26, 2002)

Fsron said:


> mine started recording after about 2 days. It failed at figuring out what I like. It recorded a bunch of stuff that will never get watched. I shut suggestions off.


You are a complex person -- give it time. Help out by giving a :down: to suggestions that are wrong/abysmal and :up: to those that are right on.

michael


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