Neurotic Fishbowl: TiVo Problems

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TiVo Problems

In September I upgraded my TiVo and have had absolutely no problems with it until this past week. Lately there is a problem with the saved shows having "skipping" in the sound.

The biggest problem, however, has been that the TiVo freezes up and I have to restart it by unplugging the power cord. It's missed several shows and when I checked the Recording History notes it says it was because the TiVo was either unplugged or the power was off. Btw, when restarting, it does the same skipping (think jerky play) during the TiVo intro.

The hard drive is probably pretty full, so I was wondering if maybe it's a bad hard drive issue. Has anyone else encountered this? It's a huge issue, so any help at all would be appreciated. I know several people who drop by here have units too.

FYI, the unit is about two years old.

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Comments

We don't have any problems with ours, but I'm sure it's a matter of time. I think if you google around, you might be able to find out how to defrag the hard drive or something along those lines.

.: Lisa, Gal of Unix said on February 17, 2003 11:11 PM :: link it :.

do you have the series 2?? I still have the old model and occasionally I do have to unplug and restart everything but usually when my cable turns off all together. It doesn't happen very often though so I never looked for a fix for it. It's one of the reasons I'll probably take them up on their upgrade offer.

.: eve said on February 19, 2003 08:13 PM :: link it :.

Have A Tivo gxcebot tried to set it up for duel satellite setup. When conferming setup it locks up at 28%. any ideas would be appreciated

.: richard said on August 25, 2003 08:43 AM :: link it :.

I also have a TiVo setup that locks up at 28% during the setup. Anyone have any ideas? It does not seem to be the access card, since it does it without. I have a Huges that works fine without problems.

.: XaCo said on September 2, 2003 09:27 AM :: link it :.

I am a newbie. I recorded several shows and some of them I was able to watch and others, screen goes blank and black. It shows in the history as being recorded successfully! I tried restarting it a few times and it did not work. Any ideas?

.: kddk said on October 2, 2003 08:35 PM :: link it :.

Tivo hanging has been happening to me for the past 3 months getting more and more regular until recently when I've had to "hard re-boot" (power cycle) the box to get it working. It is now at the point where it hangs on the "powering up... please wait" screen every time so I cannot use the box at all. I have tried a complete rebuild of the system on several occasions which theoretically (according to Tivo support) initialises the disk drive. This would rule out disk fragmentation as the underlying fault. I am told the startup routine is run from ROM and not the hard drive, so this may rule out the disk altogether and point more towards an internal memory error. If anyone has any other ideas please let me know... I'm going to open mine up and check all the connections and seatings of hard drive and memory as they may have worked them selves loose. I'll post something up if I find anything. Btw... Has anybody found out where you can get the things repaired? No one seems to want to touch them!

.: Clive said on February 11, 2004 04:32 PM :: link it :.

First, the "hanging/skipping" is the first signs that you are about to have serious problems. The next symptom will be "freezing" during the reboot process. Hughes says it is caused by faulty grounding on your coaxial cable, but I'm not buying that. Here is the number for Hughes tech support. They have RMA'd mine twice already in the last year. 954 597-2062. Good luck

.: Gary said on March 15, 2004 07:05 PM :: link it :.

Tivos are well known for hard drive problems. Ask any retail dealer about their return experience and you wil hear about the hard drive failure rate.

When you call up Sony and ask them about a bad product, they will first send you and replacement product, by one day express mail, and then ask you to return the bad unit. With Panasonic/Tivo, they tell you to return the unit to Long Beach, wait several weeks, and get used to it. I paid $1800 for a Pansonic DVR-57H and this is how I am treated.!!! I returned the unit the next weekend to Harvy Electronics for a full refund.

If you are going to charge premium prices, you have to provide preium service - not trailer park-level service.

.: blackdog said on March 25, 2004 05:08 PM :: link it :.

Kept getting daily call failure (failed while loading data). Used phillips 'kickstart' a few times with no luck. Reset system deleting everything, and now it freezes on 28% checking satelite (have full signal strength).
Will install new harddrive tonight and hope that fixes it.
-Bob

.: Bob said on April 23, 2004 02:41 PM :: link it :.

I'm one of about 12 people who have TiVo in England. I think it's great apart from the sound quality that goes crackly for about a minute then is fine for two then crackly again. Itas consitent as it is annoying. I have spoeken to TiVo about it and they say maybe i want to return it to them in Scotland for them to check out but frankly I don't...

Any ideas anyone out there?

.: Ian said on May 23, 2004 01:11 PM :: link it :.

We are on our second Hughes Direct TV TiVo. It is now exibiting the same problems as our original TiVo. The sensor that receives the infrared remote signal grradually deteriorates over a period of about two months. The remote works fine because the TV is instantly responsive to it's signal (but we tried a few changes of new batteries just in case). Let me know if anyone else is having this problem.

.: Jim Kowalski said on May 24, 2004 09:00 AM :: link it :.

My TIVO has stopped working as well - it's a 4 month old Series one. Tried the unplug and plug trick several times with no luck. Remote will turn TV on and off but that's it. Damn.

.: frank bernard said on June 8, 2004 07:41 PM :: link it :.

28% is a fault in the sowtware from directv. To get past it, redo guided setup but unplug both of your sat inputs, let if fail getting a signal and select fix this problem later, then plug in your cables and you should be good to go. It sometimes will get stuck on 70%, same problem, same solution. has nothing to do with your hard drive.

.: Steve said on June 14, 2004 01:17 PM :: link it :.

Have a Series Two. 18 months after purchase. Started freezing on playback. Recycled the power and could watch live programming.

Called Customer Support. Told that exchange was needed. Since we are out of warranrty, the cost is $149 plus shipping.

.: Mike Bowers said on June 30, 2004 09:12 AM :: link it :.

I have a series 2 and i use the home link cable. All of a sudden, the TiVo stopped changing channels below channel 100. Anyone else ever seen this. TiVo support can't figure it out.

.: Michael said on June 4, 2005 01:09 AM :: link it :.

You're too early! Come back at February 17, 2003 06:18 PM to see this post.

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