# The HR10-6.3 TrojanWorm



## zamzickles (May 21, 2002)

I'm sure that D* wouldn't intentionally try to destroy our $1000 TIVOs.
Being a computer professional and systems design engineer, I can tell you that a forced reset(ie, software lockup or hardware problem) with two active tuners buffering channel data continuously will produce at LEAST two disk corruptions per reset event. Given almost daily resets with the NEW SOFTWARE, how long will it take before the disk surface, FAT and Directory files are almost unusable. More and more people are going to have to do a clear and erase just to get their systems functional again.

I don't mean to be an alarmist but D*s problems with these rogue TIVO systems existence won't be long for this world. We will all be blissfully happy to have whatever piece of junk that they'll give us as long as it records our shows.

This just plain sucks.....


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## Billy66 (Dec 15, 2003)

The members on this forum overwhelmingly begged DTV to give them this great piece of TiVo software. Be careful what you wish for.

Seems like everyone thought it was wonderful when DTV was holding it back, now it stinks and DTV should have held it back longer.

TiVo wrote this garbage and designed the hardware platform.


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## bwaldron (Mar 16, 2003)

Billy66 said:


> The members on this forum overwhelmingly begged DTV to give them this great piece of TiVo software. Be careful what you wish for.
> 
> Seems like everyone thought it was wonderful when DTV was holding it back, now it stinks and DTV should have held it back longer.
> 
> TiVo wrote this garbage and designed the hardware platform.


The corresponding 6.2 release on the SD machines was done long ago and was trouble-free for the most part. It was not unreasonable for people to "beg" (as you put it) for a corresponding upgrade on the HD units. Chastising the forum members for that expectation, well, I don't see the point.

Tivo and D* had _lots_ of time to develop and properly test this upgrade. They both share blame for the problems that many folks -- but not all -- are having. The longer the wait for a fix, the lower my opinion of both parties.

At least we have the option to use a stable 3.1.5f on the HR10; people having problems on the HR20 are not as lucky.


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## redfiver (Apr 17, 2006)

and some of us are lucky enough to have no problems with 6.3. I have to wonder how many people are having no problems compared with the people who are having problems. In most cases, the people having problems scream louder and demand to be counted, but the people with no problems just quietly go about enjoying the new folders and faster guide draws.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

zamzickles said:


> Being a computer professional and systems design engineer
> 
> how long will it take before the disk surface, FAT and Directory files are almost unusable.


You'd think a "systems design engineer" would realize that a TiVo does not use FAT disks.


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## bwaldron (Mar 16, 2003)

redfiver said:


> and some of us are lucky enough to have no problems with 6.3. I have to wonder how many people are having no problems compared with the people who are having problems. In most cases, the people having problems scream louder and demand to be counted, but the people with no problems just quietly go about enjoying the new folders and faster guide draws.


Sure, we don't know percentages, and happy people are less likely to show up here, as are non-power users. The fact is, though, that the 6.3a release has bugs that should have been caught through proper testing. Not everyone will see them, and those folks will be happy with the upgrade -- as they should be! There are obviously a lot of unhappy folks who've been bitten by 6.3a, and are rightly waiting upon a fixed release.


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

zamzickles said:


> Given almost daily resets with the NEW SOFTWARE, how long will it take before the disk surface, FAT and Directory files are almost unusable.


What daily resets? My machine has been going fine for over a month. How would the disk surface be effected by a reboot? The heads never come in contact with the disk. The TiVo does not use a FAT file system, it uses a proprietary flat file system (no directories) optimized for large block I/O. Please do not post misinformation especially if you are a "computer professional and systems design engineer"


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## Rojma (May 18, 2002)

Arcady said:


> You'd think a "systems design engineer" would realize that a TiVo does not use FAT disks.


Ha ha! I thought the same thing when I saw that


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## Pab Sungenis (Apr 13, 2002)

zamzickles said:


> Given almost daily resets with the NEW SOFTWARE, how long will it take before the disk surface, FAT and Directory files are almost unusable.


Ummm...not everyone has these problems that people are attributing to 6.3. My HR10-250 had been running 6.3 flat out for 6 days without a reset until yesterday, when I rebooted it to install 6.3a finally.

I've never had dropouts, short recordings (other than from poor antenna reception), or reboots. I don't know why some of you are having these problems, but I never have.


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## bwaldron (Mar 16, 2003)

Pab Sungenis said:


> I don't know why some of you are having these problems, but I never have.


Uh, the software? 

The only problem that I had was the 8-10 sec. audio dropout on FOX OTA. It was bad enough that I reverted to 3.1.5f. The "ring buffer overflow" errors causing this have been documented in the logs of those with access to them. The problem does not occur with 3.1.5f. There seem to be other issues with 6.3. I didn't see them in the limited time I was running 6.3.

I'm glad that you and others are running 6.3 w/o problems, and hope that continues for you.

But there are issues that enough people have seen and reported here that should and would have been caught with a wide enough test of the software before general release.


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## zamzickles (May 21, 2002)

OK, in the name of accuracy, TIVO uses a filing system that does not use MS style FAT. That does not mean that two continuous streams of data being written to the drive and then interrupted by unrecoverable software/hardware errors will not corrupt the disks data integrity. And if that process occurs once or twice a day, how long is it before the disk errors start becoming the source of further errors. Now if your lucky enough not to be having problems then I guess you needn't be concerned. But it is more than obvious that a significant number of us are having problems and what you see here are only those that frequent such forums. How many others suffer in relative silence or worse yet with a CSR.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

Billy66 said:


> The members on this forum overwhelmingly begged DTV to give them this great piece of TiVo software. Be careful what you wish for.
> 
> Seems like everyone thought it was wonderful when DTV was holding it back, now it stinks and DTV should have held it back longer.
> 
> TiVo wrote this garbage and designed the hardware platform.


Ah, another blatent DirecTV shill. Good to see you.

(Word of advice - you'd be a lot more effective with some subtlety.)


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## jfischer (Oct 14, 1999)

zamzickles said:


> OK, in the name of accuracy, TIVO uses a filing system that does not use MS style FAT. That does not mean that two continuous streams of data being written to the drive and then interrupted by unrecoverable software/hardware errors will not corrupt the disks data integrity


You don't suppose that TiVo is using a journaling file system, with appropriate consistency checks upon reboot? Nah, they'd never think of doing that on a consumer device with a drive that's constantly being written to


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## Billy66 (Dec 15, 2003)

bwaldron said:


> Tivo and D* had _lots_ of time to develop and properly test this upgrade. They both share blame for the problems that many folks -- but not all -- are having. The longer the wait for a fix, the lower my opinion of both parties.


That's all I'm looking for, because they do clearly share the blame for it. My point was that everyone here made it all DTV's fault when it wasn't released, and now they make it all DTV's fault that it isn't great for everyone. They are in it together.



> ]Ah, another blatent DirecTV shill. Good to see you.
> 
> (Word of advice - you'd be a lot more effective with some subtlety.)


I was just stating the history, there's an enormous begging thread to show it. I guess simply not being a TiVo fanboy any longer makes me a shill for DTV.  I've owned and supported every TiVo generation since the PTV114 (or whatever that old 14 hour model was). Love them. Shill them all the time, but guess what? Not every crap they take is gold. For DTV, they took a lot of crap from posters like you about how they just didn't want to give you the features blah, blah. Looks like they were protecting you.


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## Sir_winealot (Nov 18, 2000)

> I guess simply not being a TiVo fanboy any longer makes me a shill for DTV.


Thanks for clearing that up.


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## ShiningBengal (Mar 19, 2001)

redfiver said:


> and some of us are lucky enough to have no problems with 6.3. I have to wonder how many people are having no problems compared with the people who are having problems. In most cases, the people having problems scream louder and demand to be counted, but the people with no problems just quietly go about enjoying the new folders and faster guide draws.


I have only one problem--not significant. I get the dreaded 8 second audio dropout on both of my HR10-250's. However, they are ONLY on OTA, and ONLY on Fox! It doesn't seem to matter whether the local affiliate is broadcasting local content or network programming.

Others posting here claim to have had the problem on other OTA networks. I get all of the networks OTA, and a number of other local digital channels, and I have yet to see the dropouts anywhere else. Either they are very rare elsewhere, or non-existent. I watch network news and sports on Fox--not much else. The dropouts are not a big deal on sports. Heck, I can SEE what is happening without a sportscaster pointing out the action on the field or court.

Don't get me wrong. I want the software issue addressed, but it isn't a calamity for me if it doesn't. I am happy with 6.3 overall, and wouldn't consider going back to 3.1.5f.


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## LlamaLarry (Apr 30, 2003)

I have only had one spontaneous reboot on any of my 3 6.3x boxes. It happened to occur right after I manually installed 6.3 and my OTA dumped on the channel I was on due to loss of signal and the box immediately puked. Since then - 0 reboots that I did not initiate.

As for the sound problem, happens to me much less than most, but it does happen now. Previously I reported that I had no dropouts on 6.3x, but that is no longer the case. Like many others, isolated to Fox OTA for me.


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## Mr. Bill (Jan 18, 2006)

bwaldron said:


> Billy66 said:
> 
> 
> > The members on this forum overwhelmingly begged DTV to give them this great piece of TiVo software. Be careful what you wish for.
> ...


Here, here! Great points! :up:


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## markrsmith83 (Jan 27, 2004)

redfiver said:


> and some of us are lucky enough to have no problems with 6.3. I have to wonder how many people are having no problems compared with the people who are having problems. In most cases, the people having problems scream louder and demand to be counted, but the people with no problems just quietly go about enjoying the new folders and faster guide draws.


Ditto. I've had 6.3 for a week, and I've had no problems. I get the usual audio/video stutter when my furnace starts up (which happened with 3.1.5f) but other than that I've only seen one audio dropout on ABC. No reboots that I know of.

After manually triggering the update, I ran a new search for OTA channels, had to re-detect satellite (to get odds on 119 back) and then manually rebooted again. Then I updated Channels You Receive and have let it run since. I also manually triggered one or two daily calls after the update.


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## markrsmith83 (Jan 27, 2004)

BTW - I do software for a living. After any upgrade, ALWAYS run the utilities once to clean things up if you can.


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## BruceShultes (Oct 2, 2006)

As far as the audio dropouts on FOX, don't guarantee that the problem is 6.3a. 

I am still running 3.1.5f and have received more frequent audio dropouts on FOX OTA for about 3 weeks. 

I also still have TW cable, which is supposed to be receiving the feed direct from my local station by fiber-optic cable. The audio dropouts exist on that box as well .


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## TomF (Apr 13, 2001)

I started getting the audio dropouts on Fox OTA immediately after the update, then CBS OTA and now, a couple of weeks later, it's also happening on ABC OTA.


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

Billy66 said:


> That's all I'm looking for, because they do clearly share the blame for it. My point was that everyone here made it all DTV's fault when it wasn't released, and now they make it all DTV's fault that it isn't great for everyone. They are in it together.


Remember TiVo is under contract with DirecTV. DirecTV may have not paid for testing, DirecTV could have paid the minimum TiVo estimated to get the release out the door. When ever someone tries to do something on the cheap they end up paying a lot more in the long run.


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

markrsmith83 said:


> BTW - I do software for a living. After any upgrade, ALWAYS run the utilities once to clean things up if you can.


Huh? What utilites?


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## guptasa1 (Mar 22, 2005)

Another person here who has no problems so far with 6.3. In fact, if anything, my unit seems to be MORE stable. Haven't experienced a reboot that I'm aware of since 6.3 (was experiencing occasional ones before) and have actually had fewer recording glitches (again, was having some weird recording problems...such as shows not recording from a certain point even though they think they are...I did have one weird anomaly with the green bar so far with 6.3, but none where the data just is gone.) Only audio problems I've noticed is the last few days on 82 (NBCE) for the news with occasional dropouts, BUT, I almost think that's a signal problem with that channel during that time as I haven't seen it anywhere else, including on primetime HD programming on the same channel...

BTW, I have NO OTA where I'm at...this is all DNS.


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## dougwx12 (Jul 8, 2004)

zamzickles said:


> Being a computer professional and systems design engineer, I can tell you that a forced reset(ie, software lockup or hardware problem) with two active tuners buffering channel data continuously will produce at LEAST two disk corruptions per reset event.


I'm sorry, but this is just patently false. It's not hard to avoid corruption in the face of power fail/reset, it just takes more care in how you write. Care that I'm sure Tivo has taken for a consumer device without an OFF switch.

I'm not happy with the audio dropouts, but the above statement is just FUD.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

dougwx12 said:


> I'm sorry, but this is just patently false. It's not hard to avoid corruption in the face of power fail/reset, it just takes more care in how you write. Care that I'm sure Tivo has taken for a consumer device without an OFF switch.
> 
> I'm not happy with the audio dropouts, but the above statement is just FUD.


You are correct.

TiVo uses an extremely robust and time tested journaling file system that is one of the most resistant to being corrupted by "improper" shutdowns in existence.

I've found that when someone feels they have to preface a technical statement with something that sounds like a resume bullet point, to wit: "Being a computer professional and systems design engineer", what follows us usually uninformed drivel.

People who truly are expert in the technical field on which they are commenting are usually content to let their statements stand on their own merits and do not feel the need to preface those statements with some sort of credential.


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## finaldiet (May 10, 2004)

No re-booting and a few drop-outs on Fox.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

Billy66 said:


> The members on this forum overwhelmingly begged DTV to give them this great piece of TiVo software...


If I may offer one gentle correction:

Only some (well, OK, most) of the forum members "overwhelmingly begged" for this. Many of us know better than to ask for trouble. And most of us prefer fully-vetted up revs to rogue PVR programmers shooting from the hip.

But even if we all begged, pleaded, threatened, and cajoled (which we did not), none of us deserve any of this, and we can't be held even mildly accountable. We did not pay, any of us, up to a grand for the privilege of testing software for Tivo or anyone else. But testing we are.

And BWaldron was correct in saying (if I may paraphrase), that we were totally blindsided. Historically speaking, this is the first Tivo up rev that really smelled like a DISH up rev. We had every expectation from their track record that Tivo would know what they were doing, and would not screw the pooch. But screw they did.

But we basically are in agreement on most everything else, and possibly even on the above points.


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## davsherm (Feb 23, 2003)

TyroneShoes said:


> If I may offer one gentle correction:
> 
> Only some (well, OK, most) of the forum members "overwhelmingly begged" for this.


The number is at least 1334 Recognize any of these people?


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

What? There was a petition? How did I miss that?


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## davsherm (Feb 23, 2003)

TyroneShoes said:


> What? There was a petition? How did I miss that?


Well look at it this way, the petition worked once, maybe we should start another one for them to fix the issues caused by them giving us 6.3?


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## vMAC (Aug 5, 2006)

No issues on 6.3a for me!


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## Budget_HT (Jan 2, 2001)

BruceShultes said:


> As far as the audio dropouts on FOX, don't guarantee that the problem is 6.3a.
> 
> I am still running 3.1.5f and have received more frequent audio dropouts on FOX OTA for about 3 weeks.
> 
> I also still have TW cable, which is supposed to be receiving the feed direct from my local station by fiber-optic cable. The audio dropouts exist on that box as well .


Those dropouts that also occur on your TW cable box have nothing to do with the 6.3a audio dropouts on the HD TiVo.

I get audio dropouts, mostly on FOX OTA, on my 6.3a HD TiVo, but not on my 3.1 HD TiVo nor on any other HD receiver in the house.

On the second or third day after the upgrade, the 6.3a HD TiVo froze up and I had to power it down to reboot. Since then we have had no problems except the audio dropouts.


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## willgetin (Dec 23, 2005)

I upgraded to 6.3a last week. I am happy with it other than Tytools not muxing to mpg. I love taking shows I don't have time to watch at home with me on my PDA.  

I haven't watched Fox OTA on my unit enough to comment on the audio drops.

I can say that before I upgraded, I would get random audio drop outs on the OTA channels I did watch. however, during the times that these did occur, I went to signal strength for the OTA and found the signal strength lower than normal. Later when checked, it would be back to normal. It seems to me after tracking this for a couple of weeks, there are times of the day and atmospheric events that the OTA signal weakens. 

I wonder if a lot of the complaints were there before, but now with the update, people are noticing it and thinking it is a 6.3 problem.


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## xuxa (Oct 8, 2001)

no problems with 6.3, been working great for me.


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## mitkraft (Feb 21, 2003)

I don't think they would have rolled a worm inside the city gates.


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## power3960 (Jun 25, 2004)

6.3a has been working great for me too. In fact the audio drop out that were occuring on 3.1f have now gone away.


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## krbriesc (Jun 11, 2003)

The day after my 6.3 my TiVo gave the message (Overheated shut down to prevent hardware damage). D tear 2 said they would send me a replacement for my HD TiVo (I specifically said if it is one of your junk pieces keep it) a HR 20 - 700S came instead. My TiVo friend is out for repair now and if there is NPF I will really be upset. D is on borrowed time. They want all receivers to be leased so everyone is equally dissatisfied with the quality of hardware! Cable is looking better all the time.


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