# Tivo Mini Lost Connection Just Appeared



## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

I've got a Roamio and two Tivo Minis that have been working nearly flawlessly for about a year. One of the Minis is connected via MOCA, and the other is connected via ethernet that comes through a MOCA adapter to a gigabit switch first. As I said, they've both been working great.

Over the last couple of days, the second one has started losing connection frequently with the v87 error. Last night it was nearly constant. I would go to Live TV and it would play for about 30 seconds... stutter once... then play about about 5 seconds, and then get the error. That was the pattern over and over. I restarted the Roamio and the Mini. I restarted the MOCA adapter. And it behaved exactly the same way. Replays would work a little longer but also then drop. For the last couple of days this was the pattern. Now this morning, its been playing Live TV for a couple hours without a blip. When it wasn't working last night everything on the Mini was incredibly sluggish... taking several seconds to respond to going from screen to screen when its usually instant. 

Any ideas on what might be happening here or what other diagnostics I could try if it acts up again? I think I've restarted everything that matters.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

Another tidbit that I just noticed. The one that was losing connection had been running all day (in the family room), and then I turned on the other Mini in our bedroom and almost immediately the family room one lost the connection. So it seems that something to do with the two of them running together is contributing to the problem. Nothing has changed in our home network infrastructure recently.


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## lgnad (Feb 14, 2013)

-Do you have a "regular" setup? Cable tv & Cable modem? (vs ota, FIOS, etc)

-Is the Roamio serving as the moca bridge?

-Have a POE filter installed?

-you can look in network diagnostics on each of the tivo units, (that are connected directly via moca) as they will show you moca errors and other information that might be helpful.

-Have you rebooted all of your networking hardware, including your router and cable modem, and all of the tivos?

-you might have a dying coax splitter. sometimes they take a power fluctuation and dont pass the signal as well.

-Id consider testing: take the moca adapter and switch out of the loop and connect the mini directly via moca. Does it Work? check the moca diagnostics for any clues. Put the moca bridge back in the loop, without the switch to test. The moca bridge or the switch may be acting up. Devices that bridge networks are more vulnerable to power fluctuations/surges

-your cableco may have started to use more bandwdth. What moca channel are you using? The lower ones can interfere with cableco frequencies, and the highest ones can be harder to pass. Consider specifying different channels and look at the network diagnostics on the tivos connected directly to moca to see if it reduces error, improves connection speeds, etc.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

lgnad said:


> -Do you have a "regular" setup? Cable tv & Cable modem? (vs ota, FIOS, etc)
> 
> -Is the Roamio serving as the moca bridge?
> 
> ...


Thanks... things have gotten worse so this is timely.

This morning, the family room Mini started getting network connection errors on its own without the other one in play. At the same time, I was trying to do a Webex conference and had major problems. And also had problems with my Vonage phone and my mobile going over WiFi. Something is majorly hosed up on my home network right now and not sure what.

As far as internet speed, I'm testing you at about 75mbps down and 11mbps up consistently so no problem there. I think something on the home network is hosed.

To answer your questions:

We have Time Warner Cable and a regular cable modem.

After that, an Airport Extreme and then things go out to a switch for a couple local devices (printer, etc.) and then a MOCA network that goes to two other locations - Home Office and Family Room Media. There is a switch at each of those locations with devices connected. One of the Minis is switch connected at the Family Room, as is an Apple TV that has had no problems streaming from the internet... not tried internal streaming. The last Mini is just connected via coax in the bedroom.

All of this has worked very well for a year with no changes.

I don't believe the Roamio is serving as a MOCA bridge if I understand that correctly. It is connected via Ethernet to the network, but then there is one Mini connected via MOCA and another connected via Ethernet, that actually goes through MOCA to get to the switch the Roamio is attached to.

The only POE filter I have is installed in front of the Tuning Adapter... don't have another one on the network.

I've rebooted everything several times, all the way back to the Cable Modem.

The Mini that has been having problems is the one that is not connected via MOCA. The reason is that there is also a BluRay player and Apple TV at the same location so put a MOCA adapter there with a switch. Can I get MOCA information from the Roamio?

I'll try the other things you mentioned and see if I can figure something out.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

After posting this, my MOCA connection from entry point to home office completely stopped working. All the lights looked normal, but I was getting no traffic through it at all. To try and simplify things, I decided to do a major change and moved all the entry point gear to my home office, and see if the cable modem would work on that coax drop. It appears to be working, and now getting about 110mbps down vs. 85mbps down... so that was a plus. So this takes a lot of the traffic off the MOCA network so that now the only thing really on the MOCA network is one Vonage phone that we rarely use, the media stuff - Tivo Minis, Apple TV, and BluRay player, and WiFi for iPad and iPhone devices. I'll see if this helps the situation. 

The MOCA network is working again with this setup. But it had stopped working completely even though all the lights were showing normal. I wonder if I have a MOCA adapter going bad or something. Since there is no configuration, they either work or not. Not really sure how to diagnose that. 

Thanks for your help.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

Had a few outages again. Since I work from home and don't have time to fuss with this, I'm going to try throwing money at it. I just ordered 2 x 2 packs of MOCA 2.0 Bonded adapters and I'm going to replace my 3 x 1.1 adapters and put the 4th where the MOCA connected Tivo Mini lives. So I should have plenty of bandwidth throughout the house, and all MOCA 2.0 Bonded. That should alleviate any problems and give me plenty of capacity for anything I may ever want to do in the house.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

convergent said:


> Had a few outages again. Since I work from home and don't have time to fuss with this, I'm going to try throwing money at it. I just ordered 2 x 2 packs of MOCA 2.0 Bonded adapters and I'm going to replace my 3 x 1.1 adapters and put the 4th where the MOCA connected Tivo Mini lives. So I should have plenty of bandwidth throughout the house, and all MOCA 2.0 Bonded. That should alleviate any problems and give me plenty of capacity for anything I may ever want to do in the house.


Hi,
Invest a few dollars in another MoCA filter and put it on the input of the first splitter to enter your home. This will provide security to your network and actually boost the MoCA performance a bit.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

I got two of the 2.0 Bonded adapters today and thought it would be a quick swap. I shut down the Roamio and both Minis. Powered off all 3 MOCA adapters I had. I then swapped in a pair of the 2.0 Bonded adapters. They never connected. One is in the downstairs family room and the other in the bonus room upstairs. 

I tried direct connecting them and they lit right up. I tried connecting them to two jacks on the first floor and they lit right up. Connecting to upstairs they didn't. I then tried swapping back in one of the old 1.1 adapters and it connected to the 2.0. 

So basically it looks like I'm not going to be able to use these unless there is some troubleshooting step I missed. I have two more of them coming, but will probably return them all if can't figure out the problem. 

Anyone have any idea what I could do to fix this? I noted the idea of a POE filter at the entry point to the house. I haven't tried that yet and will need to hunt down where the entry is. I'm guessing its outside somewhere.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

I took a look at my box coming into the house and here are a few pics. The first one shows the two 1:4 splitters. The second shows the big cable coming into an adapter of some sort... smaller cable coming out. Then the last picture is a grounded adapter it goes through. Then it goes to the splitters. I assume each line off the splitters is a straight run to the outlets in the house because I think we have 7 total in the house. The splitters are Antronix CMC2004 which I assume should be able to pass MOCA.

If I add a POE filter in the box... should I assume I should put it just in front of the first splitter, correct?

Not seeing here why the 1.1s work and the Bonded 2.0s don't.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

These splitters are 5-1002Mhz. Would it help if I replaced them with a couple of these 5-2300Mhz splitters? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0113JAN8K?psc=1

What is puzzling is that you would think that it wouldn't work on any 2 jacks if the splitter was the problem, but it seems to work when staying on one floor... props staying in one splitter.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

Hi,
A few things I would recommend. Get another MoCA filter, get another MoCA filter, get another MoCA filter.....and consider replacing those two 4way splitters with one MoCA rated 8 way, http://www.techtoolsupply.com/CATV-MoCA-Rated-8-Way-Splitter-p/hol-ghs-8pro-m.htm
And then put a MoCA filter on the input to the new splitter.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

fcfc2 said:


> Hi,
> A few things I would recommend. Get another MoCA filter, get another MoCA filter, get another MoCA filter.....and consider replacing those two 4way splitters with one MoCA rated 8 way, http://www.techtoolsupply.com/CATV-MoCA-Rated-8-Way-Splitter-p/hol-ghs-8pro-m.htm
> And then put a MoCA filter on the input to the new splitter.


So do you think I should add another MoCA filter? Wasn't sure... ;-)

Seriously, I have one on order with new splitters. I ordered 2 x 4ways again, but now that you mention it might have been better to just get an 8way. The frequency range I think is my problem because reading the MoCA 2.0 spec, they work above 1000Mhz, which is the range of my current splitters.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

convergent said:


> So do you think I should add another MoCA filter? Wasn't sure... ;-)
> 
> Seriously, I have one on order with new splitters. I ordered 2 x 4ways again, but now that you mention it might have been better to just get an 8way. The frequency range I think is my problem because reading the MoCA 2.0 spec, they work above 1000Mhz, which is the range of my current splitters.


Hi again,
Did I mention you might benefit from adding another MoCA filter?
Splitters are often argued about, but I tested and got the best throughput with the MoCA rated ones, but I only tested the 2ways, not the 8 way. In theory most any 1GHz splitter should be ok, but in problem situations like yours, I would go with the MoCA rated type. I also got pretty good results with the green labeled Directv splitters if they are easier to come by.
One 8way splitter normally will have less loss than two 4way splitters. MoCA 1.1 uses channel D1-8, 1150 to 1500 MGz, MoCA 2.0 uses up to 1675MGz.
EDIT: The reason I push for the MoCA filter especially in a situation like yours, is that it really boosts the MoCA signal...maybe just enough in a marginal situation.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

fcfc2 said:


> Hi again,
> Did I mention you might benefit from adding another MoCA filter?
> Splitters are often argued about, but I tested and got the best throughput with the MoCA rated ones, but I only tested the 2ways, not the 8 way. In theory most any 1GHz splitter should be ok, but in problem situations like yours, I would go with the MoCA rated type. I also got pretty good results with the green labeled Directv splitters if they are easier to come by.
> One 8way splitter normally will have less loss than two 4way splitters. MoCA 1.1 uses channel D1-8, 1150 to 1500 MGz, MoCA 2.0 uses up to 1675MGz.
> EDIT: The reason I push for the MoCA filter especially in a situation like yours, is that it really boosts the MoCA signal...maybe just enough in a marginal situation.


Since I already ordered the splitters I'm going to go with those. If I still have trouble, I'll trace my jacks and get them on a single splitter. I'm only using 4 of the outlets, so I could in theory be all on one. I'd just have to trace them.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

convergent said:


> Since I already ordered the splitters I'm going to go with those. If I still have trouble, I'll trace my jacks and get them on a single splitter. I'm only using 4 of the outlets, so I could in theory be all on one. I'd just have to trace them.


That's a plan, but if you can isolate everything on one splitter, you might be good with one that you already have.


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## rich (Mar 18, 2002)

I had the same issue, Roamio with two Minis, connected via MoCA. The Roamio was not the MoCA bridge, I have an ActionTek adapter that was performing that function. I have MoCA filters in place. Everything was working flawlessly for a year. Then a week or so ago problems began. First the Roamio would not connect to the TiVo service, saying that TCP ports 8080, 8081 and one other (5662?) were blocked. Rebooting the ActionTek adapter cleared that error message. Then the two Minis started giving V87 errors saying that the network was unavailable or too slow. The Minis could use Netflix just fine, so general Internet connectivity was working, it was just a problem when communicating with the Roamio. And of course I rebooted everything several times. No luck.

I finally gave up on MoCA and switched everything over to PowerLine Ethernet and everything is working great again. I assumed that there was something wrong with my MoCA gear but it's interesting to hear that others are having similar problems in the same time frame.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

rich said:


> I had the same issue, Roamio with two Minis, connected via MoCA. The Roamio was not the MoCA bridge, I have an ActionTek adapter that was performing that function. I have MoCA filters in place. Everything was working flawlessly for a year. Then a week or so ago problems began. First the Roamio would not connect to the TiVo service, saying that TCP ports 8080, 8081 and one other (5662?) were blocked. Rebooting the ActionTek adapter cleared that error message. Then the two Minis started giving V87 errors saying that the network was unavailable or too slow. The Minis could use Netflix just fine, so general Internet connectivity was working, it was just a problem when communicating with the Roamio. And of course I rebooted everything several times. No luck.
> 
> I finally gave up on MoCA and switched everything over to PowerLine Ethernet and everything is working great again. I assumed that there was something wrong with my MoCA gear but it's interesting to hear that others are having similar problems in the same time frame.


Glad you got it working... I haven't heard great things about Powerline, so haven't tried it.

I have 4 new Bonded MOCA 2.0 adapters and new MOCA compatible splitters... oh, and a POE filter. It all showed up too late today for me to put it together and we'll be out most of yesterday. May be Sunday before I can see if this solves my problems. I'm going to stop using MOCA on the Tivo since its the slower stuff, and use Ethernet via the MOCA adapters. Assuming it works, this should give me something closer to Gigabit throughout my house.


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## coredump4 (Aug 8, 2009)

I'm not at all surprised you're having MoCA issues with those splitters; the problems you describe definitely sound like a situation where one or more components of the MoCA network are out of spec, and you've gotten away with it until now. Definitely replace the splitters with ones that cover the MoCA 2.0 frequency range; the 2300mhz ones you mention above are fine. Also, just FYI, if you need parts on the weekend and can't wait for Amazon, look for splitters made for satellite, which tend to go up to 2400mhz. And I know radio shack sells at least a 2-way splitter rated to 3000mhz.
Also, how old is the coax in your home? Back in the '80s they sometimes used RG/59U for CATV and that's not going to work well for MoCA.
Good luck getting it back up. MoCA is definitely a great technology when it works but is a pain to troubleshoot and fix.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

coredump4 said:


> I'm not at all surprised you're having MoCA issues with those splitters; the problems you describe definitely sound like a situation where one or more components of the MoCA network are out of spec, and you've gotten away with it until now. Definitely replace the splitters with ones that cover the MoCA 2.0 frequency range; the 2300mhz ones you mention above are fine. Also, just FYI, if you need parts on the weekend and can't wait for Amazon, look for splitters made for satellite, which tend to go up to 2400mhz. And I know radio shack sells at least a 2-way splitter rated to 3000mhz.
> Also, how old is the coax in your home? Back in the '80s they sometimes used RG/59U for CATV and that's not going to work well for MoCA.
> Good luck getting it back up. MoCA is definitely a great technology when it works but is a pain to troubleshoot and fix.


Thanks for the info. I was able to swap out the splitters and put in the filter at the entry. Then just before I got to swapping in the new adapters we had a small ermegency I needed to run out with my wife for. So not completed things but glad it all still worked. Our house isn't that old... I think about 12 years... So cabling should be ok.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

Got back to the house and installed the new MOCA 2.0 adapters. Now I get the connection made.... so the splitters solved the problem of them not working. Ran a speed test and sadly I still have a problem because the speed is about the same as with the 1.1 adapters. I'm only getting about 80-90mbps. I was expecting multiples of that. 

Any idea why I might be getting slow speeds. I guess this is veering away from a Tivo problem at this point, but seems like a lot of folks on here know MOCA. I did try this test with the Roamio not connected to the network and the MOCA attached Tivo Mini powered down... so there shouldn't have been any slower devices active.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

convergent said:


> Got back to the house and installed the new MOCA 2.0 adapters. Now I get the connection made.... so the splitters solved the problem of them not working. Ran a speed test and sadly I still have a problem because the speed is about the same as with the 1.1 adapters. I'm only getting about 80-90mbps. I was expecting multiples of that.
> 
> Any idea why I might be getting slow speeds. I guess this is veering away from a Tivo problem at this point, but seems like a lot of folks on here know MOCA. I did try this test with the Roamio not connected to the network and the MOCA attached Tivo Mini powered down... so there shouldn't have been any slower devices active.


What router are you using, make and model?


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## snerd (Jun 6, 2008)

coredump4 said:


> Back in the '80s they sometimes used RG/59U for CATV and that's not going to work well for MoCA.


This is a myth that will probably never die. RG6 is better than RG59, but for most MoCA installations the difference doesn't matter.

Replacing coax should be treated as a last resort.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

fcfc2 said:


> What router are you using, make and model?


I'm using an Apple Airport Extreme 5th Generation / A1408.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

Here is a crude explanation of the components of my network:

*Coax Cabling*

Input - POE Filter - 2 x 4 way splitters 2400Mhz ->

- ActionTec Adapter 1 - 2 way splitter 1000Mhz - DLink Cable Modem - 
- 2 way splitter 1000Mhz - Tivo Roamio 
- POE Filter - Tuning Adapter

- ActionTec Adapter 2 
- ActionTec Adapter 3
- ActionTec Adapter 4

*Ethernet Cabling*

*ActionTec Adapter 1*
- Airport Extreme - Netgear Gigabit Switch ->

- Tivo Roamio
- BluRay Player
- Apple TV
- QNAP NAS
- QNAM NAS
- Vonage Adapter
- Mac Mini
- Dell Laptop
- HP Printer

*ActionTec Adapter 2*
- Gigabit Switch ->

- Tivo Mini
- BluRay Player
- Apple TV

*ActionTec Adapter 3*
- Tivo Mini

*ActionTec Adapter 4*
- Gigabit Switch ->

- Vonage Adapter
- Apple Airport Express

The 2 x 2 way splitters is kind of strange. I tried to replace them with 1 x 3 way 2400 Mhz and the cable modem would then not work. I may need to have the company come out and check the signal on the cable modem. It should work with the 3 way splitter. Also, the ActionTec adapter wouldn't work behind the 3 way splitter. Something odd going on right there.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

convergent said:


> I'm using an Apple Airport Extreme 5th Generation / A1408.


I noticed you use "mbps" to report your speed. The normal way is either Mbps, megabits per second, or MBps or megabites, they sound similar but there are 8 bits in a bite an important distinction.
The reason I asked about the router was, assuming you are reporting Mbps for your speeds, is that any traffic going through a fast Ethernet port would cap out at roughly your reported speeds. Another factor is that sometimes even a gigabit Ethernet port can malfunction and fall back to fast Ethernet speeds, this can also happen with one bad Ethernet cable. Are you sure you have all good CAT 5e or CAT 6 cables?


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

fcfc2 said:


> I noticed you use "mbps" to report your speed. The normal way is either Mbps, megabits per second, or MBps or megabites, they sound similar but there are 8 bits in a bite an important distinction.
> The reason I asked about the router was, assuming you are reporting Mbps for your speeds, is that any traffic going through a fast Ethernet port would cap out at roughly your reported speeds. Another factor is that sometimes even a gigabit Ethernet port can malfunction and fall back to fast Ethernet speeds, this can also happen with one bad Ethernet cable. Are you sure you have all good CAT 5e or CAT 6 cables?


My bad... Mbps was what I should have typed. Fully understand the difference between bits and bytes. I'm able to get 500-600Mbps on the non MOCA side, and tried directly connected to two MOCA adapters and getting around 70-100Mbps. Sometimes it goes a little over 100, so I think that eliminates the fast ethernet possible cause. The Roamio and Minis are not supposed to be using built-in MOCA, but maybe I'll try powering them all off, then powering off the MOCA adapters and then trying to bring them back online. I think I did that already though when I initially swapped them in.

I guess I'm going to have to start swapping things in and out to try and find out what's going on, but it sure seems like the MOCA adapters are deciding to run at the 1.1 speed.


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## snerd (Jun 6, 2008)

convergent said:


> The 2 x 2 way splitters is kind of strange. I tried to replace them with 1 x 3 way 2400 Mhz and the cable modem would then not work. I may need to have the company come out and check the signal on the cable modem. It should work with the 3 way splitter. Also, the ActionTec adapter wouldn't work behind the 3 way splitter. Something odd going on right there.


It sounds like the cable modem doesn't play well with MoCA signals. The MoCA 2.0 Bonded adapter should have a both a "Coax In" port and a "TV/STB" port. These adapaters have a built-in PoE filter to block MoCA signals from reaching the TV/STB port. Try connecting the cable modem to the TV/STB port. This might allow you to eliminate one of the splitters.

Cable modems like strong signals, and using two 4-way splitters at the output ensures that the signals are weaker than would be ideal for a modem. Also, chaining from an output of a 4-way splitter to the second 4-way splitter means that you end up with 3 ports at 1/4 signal strength and 4 ports at 1/16 signal strength. Each 2-way splitter divdes the signal strength in half again. It would be much better to use a single splitter that has only the number of output ports that you actually use.

All unused splitter ports or unused ports on wall plates should be capped with 75-ohm terminations, and unused TV/STB ports on the MoCA adapters should also have terminations.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

snerd said:


> It sounds like the cable modem doesn't play well with MoCA signals. The MoCA 2.0 Bonded adapter should have a both a "Coax In" port and a "TV/STB" port. These adapaters have a built-in PoE filter to block MoCA signals from reaching the TV/STB port. Try connecting the cable modem to the TV/STB port. This might allow you to eliminate one of the splitters.
> 
> Cable modems like strong signals, and using two 4-way splitters at the output ensures that the signals are weaker than would be ideal for a modem. Also, chaining from an output of a 4-way splitter to the second 4-way splitter means that you end up with 3 ports at 1/4 signal strength and 4 ports at 1/16 signal strength. Each 2-way splitter divdes the signal strength in half again. It would be much better to use a single splitter that has only the number of output ports that you actually use.
> 
> All unused splitter ports or unused ports on wall plates should be capped with 75-ohm terminations, and unused TV/STB ports on the MoCA adapters should also have terminations.


Thanks for the info.

This afternoon I rearranged the lines on the inbound 2 x 4 way splitters so that now at least 3 of the MOCA adapters are on the first one. They were all on the second. The 4th is on the other one, but I've not been able to determine if its working because the baby is sleeping! ;-)

Last night one of the MOCA adapters in the family room just stopped working for a couple of hours then magically fixed itself. That was before the change above. Then this afternoon, the cable modem stopped working completely and the only way I got it back was the splitter change above.

Are you sure about the MOCA adapters having built in POE filters because I'm pretty sure the Roamio was downstream and was able to communicate with one Mini via MOCA in the old setup? But maybe it was doing it by going through ethernet to the MOCA network. That is good to know if its the case.

Puzzling to me is in the home office line, I can not add a splitter coming out of the wall in front of the MOCA adapter and get the MOCA adapter to link. I tried two different 2400mhz splitters and the link won't work. That adapter won't work unless directly connected to the wall jack. I was going to put one splitter at the wall jack and hang the MOCA adapter, cable modem, Roamio and Tuning adapter off of it. Its working again now so will see if it stays stable. I do have a truck rolling tomorrow afternoon and will have them check my signal strength. Hopefully they won't give me a hard time about swapping the splitters in the box and adding the POE filter.


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## snerd (Jun 6, 2008)

convergent said:


> Are you sure about the MOCA adapters having built in POE filters because I'm pretty sure the Roamio was downstream and was able to communicate with one Mini via MOCA in the old setup? But maybe it was doing it by going through ethernet to the MOCA network. That is good to know if its the case.


I don't own any MoCA 2.0 adapters, but I've personally tested the ECB2500C to verify that it has a built-in MoCA filter, and I'd expect the ECB6200 to use similar construction. Also on page 9 of theECB6200 user manual they claim that the frequency range of the TV/STB port is 5MHz - 1002MHz.

Tests proved to my own satisfaction that the ECB2500C uses a passive filter which remains functional even when power is removed from the adapter. It seems likely that the ECB6200 works the same way. This allows video signals to reach whatever device is attached to the TV/STB port, even when the MoCA adapter is off.



> Puzzling to me is in the home office line, I can not add a splitter coming out of the wall in front of the MOCA adapter and get the MOCA adapter to link. I tried two different 2400mhz splitters and the link won't work. That adapter won't work unless directly connected to the wall jack. I was going to put one splitter at the wall jack and hang the MOCA adapter, cable modem, Roamio and Tuning adapter off of it. Its working again now so will see if it stays stable. I do have a truck rolling tomorrow afternoon and will have them check my signal strength. Hopefully they won't give me a hard time about swapping the splitters in the box and adding the POE filter.


MoCA won't tolerate too many levels of splitters, so you may be on the edge, depending on the length of your coax runs. The MoCA standard allows a maximum of 25dB of loss from the top splitter to any MoCA device. After that, the data rate drops off rapidly as more attenuation is added to the system.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

convergent said:


> Hopefully they won't give me a hard time about swapping the splitters in the box and adding the POE filter.


You should be able to use the out port on the adapter to feed your cable modem, which should help the signal to your modem.
I would not worry about changing the splitters, just make sure if they change them back you get your splitters returned. I would ask them if they can supply a proper 8 way splitter, the only reason they didn't in the first place is the installer probably didn't have one handy.
Sometimes Comcast likes to start with a 2 way, one leg a direct feed to your cable modem and the other leg feeding a multiport x way for your TV's. This is to minimize complaints about "internet" speeds/connectivity but in your case, the issue is MoCA related. If they do that setup, then switch the MoCA filter to the secondary x way splitter.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

fcfc2 said:


> You should be able to use the out port on the adapter to feed your cable modem, which should help the signal to your modem.
> I would not worry about changing the splitters, just make sure if they change them back you get your splitters returned. I would ask them if they can supply a proper 8 way splitter, the only reason they didn't in the first place is the installer probably didn't have one handy.
> Sometimes Comcast likes to start with a 2 way, one leg a direct feed to your cable modem and the other leg feeding a multiport x way for your TV's. This is to minimize complaints about "internet" speeds/connectivity but in your case, the issue is MoCA related. If they do that setup, then switch the MoCA filter to the secondary x way splitter.


Thanks. They are headed here now. I wonder how much troubleshooting they are willing to do with my MOCA problem! I'm going to ask them to check the two jacks to see if there is a different in the signal strength. I feel like something is out of spec because I've had these random outages... still don't believe I'm getting correct MOCA 2.0 speeds. But that shouldn't have anything to do with TW's signals.... just thinking if there is a substantial difference between the signal on the two jacks that something must be attenuating things.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

OK, TWC just left. The guy that came was awesome. Wasn't sure if he was going to really try to help me with my total situation, but he was very knowledgable and actually talked through things with me to determine the best solution. 

I have a bad drop, which will be replaced, but he had some good recommendations that should make things better regardless.

Rather than going through the 2 x 4 way coming in, he used a 2 way reversed as a joiner. So the line coming in goes through a POE filter into one output on a 2 way, then out the 2 way input up to my home office where it hits a MoCA adapter, then out of that to another 2 way splitter. Out of that splitter is the cable modem and the Tuning Adapter. And my Roamio is coming out of the Tuning Adapter (I'm not using MOCA from the Roamio). 

Then the other output of the 2 way in the box feeds the 2 x 4 ways going to the other jacks in the house.

So the signal for TWC goes through the reversed 2 way and then through another 2 way to hit the cable modem, tuning adapter, and Roamio (for TV signal only). Going back the other way the MOCA signal will hit the 2 way in the box and be blocked in one direction so hits the 2 x 4 way splitters that feed to the coax in the rest of the house. So nothing but the MOCA signal is on most of my MOCA network. 

Everything is now working, so will see if it stays stable. I'm still not getting the MOCA 2 speeds, so I'm starting to think that my testing approach is flawed. I'm using SMB into my QNAP NAS and reading that this protocol is whacked. I need a more reliable LAN testing approach.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

Well discovered that my speed problem may be unrelated to the MOCA side. I figured out that my laptop is connecting to my gigabit switches at 100BaseT instead of GigaE. The MOCA adapter connects to the switch at GigaE, so that at least tells me that its trying to be GigaE. My laptop will connect to one of my switches at the right speed, but the other 2 are the same model and it only connects at 100BaseT to each of them. Noticed other devices doing the same so something another problem to figure out.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

convergent said:


> OK, TWC just left. The guy that came was awesome. Wasn't sure if he was going to really try to help me with my total situation, but he was very knowledgable and actually talked through things with me to determine the best solution.
> 
> I have a bad drop, which will be replaced, but he had some good recommendations that should make things better regardless.
> 
> ...


Well if that conglomeration works for you great, but a simple 8 way switch would still be my recommendation. 
As far as speed testing your network, you need 2 reasonably fast computers with gigabit adapters and then use a software like this, http://totusoft.com/lanspeed1/ 
You might want to dig into the settings on your laptop network adapter and see if it is possible to force a gigabit connection. Unless that QNAP NAS is one of their newer one's with a powerful cpu, that can slow you down even though it may have a gigabit Ethernet port. The CPU speed and ram on the NAS is often the choke point on these things.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

fcfc2 said:


> Well if that conglomeration works for you great, but a simple 8 way switch would still be my recommendation.
> As far as speed testing your network, you need 2 reasonably fast computers with gigabit adapters and then use a software like this, http://totusoft.com/lanspeed1/
> You might want to dig into the settings on your laptop network adapter and see if it is possible to force a gigabit connection. Unless that QNAP NAS is one of their newer one's with a powerful cpu, that can slow you down even though it may have a gigabit Ethernet port. The CPU speed and ram on the NAS is often the choke point on these things.


That testing tool is what I had been using, but learned that the SMB protocol on the NAS isn't reliable with my Mac, and discovered two of my gigabit switches were connecting at 100BaseT to my laptop. I downloaded the Speedtest.net Mini to my NAS and now that is behaving correctly. I just need to fix the switch situation to get a real test.

The conglomeration isn't really as bad as it seems. All the MOCA adapters are connected to one the 4 way switches, and nothing else is now going through them. The inbound signal goes around them now that we are using that 2 way as a joiner. Things have been solid all evening, so I think its stable now, and I believe I'm going to find that the speed on the MOCA side is good once I get proper switches in place.


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## snerd (Jun 6, 2008)

convergent said:


> Rather than going through the 2 x 4 way coming in, he used a 2 way reversed as a joiner. So the line coming in goes through a POE filter into one output on a 2 way, then out the 2 way input up to my home office where it hits a MoCA adapter, then out of that to another 2 way splitter. Out of that splitter is the cable modem and the Tuning Adapter. And my Roamio is coming out of the Tuning Adapter (I'm not using MOCA from the Roamio).


This new setup should improve your modem performance.

Some TCF members have reported having problems when allowing the video feed to pass through a tuning adapter before connecting to the TiVo. If you have problems, just change the last 2-way splitter to a 3-way and connect the outputs to the modem, Roamio and tuning adapter.

Using the first 2-way splitter as a joiner has certain consequences for your MoCA signals.

In a normal setup, the PoE filter is at the input of the top-most splitter. The PoE filter performs two functions. First, it blocks the MoCA signals from leaving your house. Second, when any MoCA device transmits, the signals propagate up through the splitter "tree" to reach the PoE filter, which acts like a mirror to reflect the MoCA signals back down to all of the other MoCA devices. Without this "mirror action", the MoCA network relies on "port leakage" to get the MoCA signals between devices, so the net effect is that the PoE filter boosts the strength of the MoCA signals.

In this new setup, your PoE filter is only acting to block MoCA signals from leaving hour house. There will be no benefit from the "mirror action". It might still work just fine, but you may find that data rates are lower when data transfers occur between two of the MoCA adapters that are *not* in the home office. In other words, you may only get full speed when the MoCA adapter in the home office is trading data with one of the other MoCA adapters.


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## snerd (Jun 6, 2008)

convergent said:


> The conglomeration isn't really as bad as it seems. All the MOCA adapters are connected to one the 4 way switches, and nothing else is now going through them. The inbound signal goes around them now that we are using that 2 way as a joiner. Things have been solid all evening, so I think its stable now, and I believe I'm going to find that the speed on the MOCA side is good once I get proper switches in place.


I'm confused. I thought the MoCA adapter in the home office was fed from the 2-way "joiner".

Have you eliminated one of the 4-way splitters?

Is the Roamio in the home office the only device in the house that needs catv signals?


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

snerd said:


> I'm confused. I thought the MoCA adapter in the home office was fed from the 2-way "joiner".
> 
> Have you eliminated one of the 4-way splitters?
> 
> Is the Roamio in the home office the only device in the house that needs catv signals?


Sorry for the confusion. Below is a crude diagram... hopefully it makes sense.

The Roamio in the home office (bonus room) is the only CATV line in the house being used, now that I switched to MOCA adapters to get to the Minis. My understanding is that this setup essentially keeps the CATV off everything but that one line, so I couldn't for example put a TWC cable box anywhere else. If I choose to add Mini's elsewhere I'd now have to put MOCA adapters in front of them, right? (EDIT: Actually, no but it could force me down to 1.1 MOCA if I didn't do that and let the Mini play)

I haven't eliminated one of the 4 ways, but its going to unused lines at this point I believe. Need to verify that and then I could just take it out.

Our line coming from the street needs to be replaced and once they do that the signal will be stronger and will not be fluctuating... so I could probably go back to a different setup if the POE reflection is an issue. I am adding another Airport Extreme downstairs to replace the Express & Switch... and then I should be able to really test the speed better. Right now its dropping to 100BaseT for some reason. 

```
House Input -> POE Filter -> 2 way Joiner
                                                  -> Line to Home Office  
4 way Splitter <- 4 way Splitter <-  2 way Joiner 

                                                  -> TA  -> Roamio
Home Office -> MOCA -> POE Filter -> 2 way Splitter 
                                                   -> Cable Modem -> Airport

4 way Splitter lines
-> MOCA -> Switch -> Vonage, Airport
-> MOCA -> Switch -> Mini, Apple TV, BluRay
-> MOCA -> Mini
Others unused at this point.  All used are on first 4 way I believe
```


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

Things have been much more stable, but last night I had a single glitch in video on one of the Minis... then it lost signal. Hit LiveTV and it worked without any other problems. 

This morning my internet wasn't working at all, even though all the lights on the cable modem were correct and my router showed the WAN connection active. I rebooted both and internet came back.

Since I know my line into the house needs to be replaced... I am going to hold off on any other reconfiguration until that is done unless things get worse. If I do have more video glitches I may go back to a splitter in front of the Roamio rather than feeding it from the TA.


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## snerd (Jun 6, 2008)

convergent said:


> If I choose to add Mini's elsewhere I'd now have to put MOCA adapters in front of them, right? (EDIT: Actually, no but it could force me down to 1.1 MOCA if I didn't do that and let the Mini play)


You seem to be going to great pains to avoid having any MoCA 1.1 devices on your coax. MoCA networks are *supposed* to allow a mix of MoCA 2.0 and MoCA 1.1 devices on the same coax, in such a way that MoCA 2.0 speeds/protocols will be used when two MoCA 2.0 devices communicate, while MoCA 1.1 speeds/protocols will be used when communicating with a MoCA 1.1 device.

fcfc2 has reported that some MoCA 2.0 adapters don't seem to handle this correctly, but IIRC the ECB6200 is well behaved. This means that you could simply connect the Roamio and Minis as MoCA devices.

Of course, since you already have MoCA 2.0 adapters in place that are near the Roamio and Minis, you can connect them through their ethernet ports. However, in your device list you had one case where it appears that one MoCA 2.0 adapter was used solely for a Mini, and in that room you could just connect the Mini to the coax and use the MoCA adapter somewhere that would benefit from the increased speed.

There is one significant benefit from connecting the Roamio directly as a MoCA device -- the Settings menu can be used to display status for the entire MoCA network, including MAK data rates for each MoCA device on the network. This makes it a lot easier to assess the quality of the MoCA signals, as seen by each adapter/TiVo/Mini.


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## snerd (Jun 6, 2008)

convergent said:


> Sorry for the confusion. Below is a crude diagram... hopefully it makes sense.


Yep, that helps, thanks.



> The Roamio in the home office (bonus room) is the only CATV line in the house being used, now that I switched to MOCA adapters to get to the Minis. My understanding is that this setup essentially keeps the CATV off everything but that one line, so I couldn't for example put a TWC cable box anywhere else. If I choose to add Mini's elsewhere I'd now have to put MOCA adapters in front of them, right? (EDIT: Actually, no but it could force me down to 1.1 MOCA if I didn't do that and let the Mini play)


Your understanding is correct. Using the first 2-way splitter as a joiner confines the CATV to that one line. That's fine if it is really what you want, but if there is no pressing need to keep CATV off the other coax, then there is absolutely no benefit fron this configuration, and the loss of the PoE reflection will weaken MoCA signals on some coax paths.

The tech may have thought that using a joiner would give better signal strength in the home office, but that isn't true. In my opinion, it would be better to turn the joiner back into a splitter, with the feed to the home office on the output port, and the main feed going through the PoE to the input port. This will give you the option to put the Roamio in any room you want, and it will give cleaner MoCA signals throughout the system while keeping the same improved signals levels for the cable modem.

Then if you decide to move the Roamio to another room, the home office will have only the MoCA adapter with the modem connected directly to the TV/STB out. The splitter, Roamio, TA and PoE filter could then be moved and configured as a MoCA connected TiVo.

Just a thought.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

snerd said:


> You seem to be going to great pains to avoid having any MoCA 1.1 devices on your coax. MoCA networks are *supposed* to allow a mix of MoCA 2.0 and MoCA 1.1 devices on the same coax, in such a way that MoCA 2.0 speeds/protocols will be used when two MoCA 2.0 devices communicate, while MoCA 1.1 speeds/protocols will be used when communicating with a MoCA 1.1 device.
> 
> fcfc2 has reported that some MoCA 2.0 adapters don't seem to handle this correctly, but IIRC the ECB6200 is well behaved. This means that you could simply connect the Roamio and Minis as MoCA devices.
> 
> ...


I have been trying to avoid that because I saw reports from some that the two could coexist with expected speeds, and others report that one 1.1 adapter would bring the whole thing down to the slower speed. I still have yet to measure speed above 1.1 speeds on my MoCA network because of my switch problems. When my other Airport Extreme arrives tomorrow, I should then be able to get some real speed tests. I realize that doesn't make sense because my switch shouldn't be stepping down... but I need to put it in anyways to get my coverage better... so will wait for that. If I finally get measured 2.0 speeds, I'll try mixing to see if it then slows down.



snerd said:


> Yep, that helps, thanks.
> 
> Your understanding is correct. Using the first 2-way splitter as a joiner confines the CATV to that one line. That's fine if it is really what you want, but if there is no pressing need to keep CATV off the other coax, then there is absolutely no benefit fron this configuration, and the loss of the PoE reflection will weaken MoCA signals on some coax paths.
> 
> ...


That all makes sense. The TW guy was just trying to change something to help things out. He was measuring a lot of noise and felt that splitting the traffic would help avoid one conflicting with the other. I don't think he realized that reflection on MoCA was a good thing. Once they put my new drop in... who knows how long that will take... that should clean up the signal and keep it from fluctuating. Then I will try switching things around like you suggested.

In the mean time I'm going to hold tight as long as things are working reasonably well and reliably. Working from home, if I have network problems it really wreaks havoc.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

Strangely things have running fairly well, but yesterday and today when I woke up my internet connection was not working. The cable modem lights all looked correct showing online, and my router showed green connected. But no devices could access the internet. Recycling the cable modem corrected the problem. Very odd because in the past if my connection was gone, the lights on the cable modem would not be normal.

I took a few minutes to diagram my current setup for the benefit of anyone that has been following along with this thread.

Making note of your suggested changes,


Replace 2-1 splitter in Home office with 3-1 and move Roamio out to splitter. Move POE filter back to input of Tuning Adapter.
Reverse exterior 2-1 joiner to make it a splitter. Leave POE filter at line input.

Given that my main problem is the internet dropping, I'm going to keep the path to the cable modem the same for a few more days and see if it continues. They have told me my drop is bad, so I think everything I'm doing in the house is just trying to minimize the problems from the bad drop at this point.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

While still trying to fix my speed problems, I replaced the Family Room switch with an Apple Airport Extreme (actually, Time Capsule since they were cheaper on Apple Refurb site), and removed the Airport Express and switch from the Wiring Closet. My Family Room lost connection errors on the Mini became more frequent. They always quickly recovered with hitting LiveTV twice, but was really annoying.

I then tried reversing the 2-1 splitter to make it a splitter instead of joiner as suggested. Still problems.

I then retraced my cables and found that when the TWC guy did his thing, he inadvertently put the 4 to 1 splitters in the reverse order meaning I was traversing both of them. So I removed one of the splitters entirely and had the 3 lines used going to just one of them. Still problems.

I then put the 2 to 1 splitter back in front of the Roamio and TA and moved the POE filter to the TA. Still problems.

Finally this morning I decided to remove the first 2 to 1 splitter and just have a single 4 to 1 splitter coming in. So far so good on the lost connection errors. I'll have to now wait and see if my cable modem woes now return. This is essentially the path my cable modem was on when I was losing connection periodically and called out TWC to the house. But, the network is simpler since I removed all the unused trunks and the second splitter.

I ran a speed test from laptop connected to Family room Airport to the Speediest.net Mini app on one of my NAS boxes in the home office and got a max of 462Mbps down, 255Mbps up. That is the first time I've ever gotten anything over 100Mbps across the MoCA network.

Hopefully this will hold together until they can put in the new drop from the street which should stabilize my signal to the cable modem. If I have problems with this I'm going to disconnect the wiring closet line at the main splitter. When the TWC guy was here, he was picking up a lot of noise on that line and I'm not 100% sure where its coming from because rather than a jack, its just running down into a hole in the wall. I may have to go under the house and see if its hacked in down there somewhere.

This has been driving me crazy for a couple of weeks and hope this setup will stay stable.

Here is an updated diagram:


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

Well an official "ARGHHH" is in order. Getting lost connection errors again. I really don't get this. I ran MoCA in this house for almost a year with rarely a problem... and now nothing I do seems to work. I've tried just about every combination I can think of. 

I just disconnected the wiring closet trunk... will be surprised if this fixes it. Running out of things to try.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

That didn't do it. I now trying to swap out the 4 to 1 splitter with a totally different brand splitter. I happened to find one that covered the frequency range in my cable bucket that I don't know where came from.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

Still no fix. I'm about out of ideas here. I've swapped out every component at the Family Room side back to the drop coming in other than the cable itself. I'm thinking about trying to see if the mini will stay online better with its built in MoCA.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

I added a 2 to 1 splitter before the MoCA adapter in the family room and ran coax to the Mini to see if would stay connected like that. Its now been running for hours and not dropped the signal.... definitely longer than I've seen in days. I'll let it go until tomorrow before messing with anything else. 

If this continues to work it would mean that this Mini can connect to the Roamio going through its internal MoCA 1.1 adapter, but not through the ActionTec MoCA 2.0 adapter. I tried two different splitters for what I believe to be the only thing between them. No clue why that is happening other than if I just have a bad piece of coax going to the drop. The Family Room spot is actually just inside the window from the exterior box so I might wait until a nice day and open the window and run coax through the window as a test for the MoCA 2.0 adapter.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

Almost 24 hours and we had 1 lost connection. Definitely a whole lot better this way, but still very puzzling.


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## snerd (Jun 6, 2008)

convergent said:


> I just disconnected the wiring closet trunk... will be surprised if this fixes it. Running out of things to try.


When you're disconnecting things, are you adding a 75-ohm termination to the wall plate in that room (or the now unused output of the splitter)?

Any unused ports that don't have terminations will cause reflections that can cause weird interference problems that seem to move around or come and go.

Another nitpicky thing to check is that all coax connections are snug. They don't have to be wrench tight, but loose connections can cause intermittent problems like the ones you are seeing.

Sometimes the connections inside a splitter can fail, if connectors have been attached/detached many times. In good splitters, the center conductor of the coax will make contact with a pair of parallel "shutters" that have spring action to keep them in contact with the coax center wire.

Since you have MoCA runnings for a long time, one thing to ask is "what changed?". Since MoCA 2.0 has only come out recently, I assume you were using MoCA 1.1 previously?

Another suggestion is to reconfigure the Roamio to connect through MoCA so that you can use the network diagnostics to look at all of the MoCA devices. It gives MAC TX/RX rates, some SNR numbers, and some error statistics (if my addled memory is on track...). Might provide some information that would help track down the problems.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

Thanks snerd, I'll try some of these things.

I have not been using the 75-ohm terminators, but the way I'm currently configured I've removed all the dangling ends from the equation. I'll order some of those so I have then available for troubleshooting.

I think all the connections are snug but will double-check.

On the what changed question, nothing changed when I started having a lot of problems. I started getting failures of my cable modem and the intermittent connection problems. So possibly what changed was the cable signal got worse, so maybe that is causing noise on the line. The TWC guy found noise on one of my lines in the house, but not others. They came by yesterday to put in the new line, but came without the necessary machine to run it under my driveway and instead wanting to run it all the way around my property the way it is now. I told them no... so hopefully they'll be back soon to do it correctly. 

I will try what you said on attaching the Roamio by MoCA to get the diagnostics ability. I wish there were some way to do MoCA diagnostics with the adapters, but the crazy thing is I'm not seeing them lose connection, just the Tivo Mini. And I also use Apple TV on the same network and not had any noticeable problems with that... but if these glitches are quick then its possible that the buffering in the Apple TV is just riding through it better.

Still only that one lost connection since yesterday morning running the Mini via internal MoCA.


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## convergent (Jan 4, 2007)

TWC came and ran a new line from the box today. They were really quick with it... took about a half hour to get the line under the driveway and then use the machine to trench it in to the house and the box. I expected it was going to take a lot longer. I guess that's why those machines are worth their price! Its new, and its about half the distance of the original bad line, signal should be cleaner and have less loss. That will take the line in being a problem off the table hopefully.


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## Sixmm (Oct 2, 2015)

I developed a lost connection to roamio error. After three calls to Tivo and mulitple reboots they told me that there is a known error on the minis since March that they have not resolved yet. 

Two of my minis work while one reports the no connection error. Funny thing is I can connect to the Premier on my system still.

They told me there was nothing they could do and I had to wait for the problem to be resolved by tivo.


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## fcfc2 (Feb 19, 2015)

Sixmm said:


> I developed a lost connection to roamio error. After three calls to Tivo and mulitple reboots they told me that there is a known error on the minis since March that they have not resolved yet.
> 
> Two of my minis work while one reports the no connection error. Funny thing is I can connect to the Premier on my system still.
> 
> They told me there was nothing they could do and I had to wait for the problem to be resolved by tivo.


That's very interesting...if there was a "known" connection error with the minis you might expect these forums to be plastered with threads about it, but you are the first one to report the "known" problem. 
You don't say how you are connecting to your Roamio via coax or Ethernet, but on a wild guess I will say MoCA. If that is the case, a simple troubleshooting step would be to try switching the location of the "working" and "non-working" minis. Does one continue to fail in the same location as the other? Can all of your minis also see and connect to that Premiere unit?


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## Sixmm (Oct 2, 2015)

fcfc2 said:


> That's very interesting...if there was a "known" connection error with the minis you might expect these forums to be plastered with threads about it, but you are the first one to report the "known" problem.
> You don't say how you are connecting to your Roamio via coax or Ethernet, but on a wild guess I will say MoCA. If that is the case, a simple troubleshooting step would be to try switching the location of the "working" and "non-working" minis. Does one continue to fail in the same location as the other? Can all of your minis also see and connect to that Premiere unit?


It is one mini out of three for me. I am using Moca connection and the premier is using wifi.

No I have not tried switching them.


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