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Losing all channels - Tivo Premiere

143K views 590 replies 133 participants last post by  CrispyCritter 
#1 ·
I have had my Tivo Premiere since 9-12-2011. I haven't had any problems with it until Friday, 9-30-2011. I was watching the Texas Rangers playoff game and it decided to restart on its on.

The next day the Tivo lost all the cable channels. I tried several of the channels and the unscrambled channels screen said it couldn't find a signal. The scrambled channels said channel not authorized. I restarted the Tivo from the Help menu item and the channels reappeared. The cablecard is a Motorola cablecard.

Last night Monday, 10-3-2011 we were watching some recorded shows and when we finished watching, all the cable channels had disappeared again. I tried to call Tivo, but it was after 7 pm PST. So I started a chat session. Before I called I restarted the Tivo and all channels came back. They guy had me look at some diagnostics and thought it might have been because of a signal dip. I called Tivo support this morning and the tech echoed the same thinking about a signal dip causing the restart on Friday and losing the channels on both occasions. I expressed that the software seemed to be less than robust if it couldn't recover from a signal dip. We agreed that I would monitor and not restart the next time the loss of channels happens during support hours. The tech also mentioned that a new version of the software was being pushed out toward the end of October.

Has anyone experienced these problems before?
 
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#2 ·
I came in from lunch Wednesday, 10/5/2011 and my Tivo had restarted and was coming up. I called Tivo support to log the information to my problem ticket. Asked the tech if they would honor the 30 day full refund if the problems weren't resolved when the 30 days were up. He agreed to do this since the case was active before the 30 days were up. I hope it gets resolved though.
 
#3 ·
I came in from lunch Wednesday, 10/5/2011 and my Tivo had restarted and was coming up. I called Tivo support to log the information to my problem ticket. Asked the tech if they would honor the 30 day full refund if the problems weren't resolved when the 30 days were up. He agreed to do this since the case was active before the 30 days were up. I hope it gets resolved though.
I had no channels on Wednesday morning. Second time this has happened. A restart fixed the problem both times. Not sure what is going on.
 
#4 ·
This happened to me several times during a period in which comcast was making a lot of changes. I strongly suspect that some sort of configuration change the cable company can make doesn't agree with tivo. Power cycling my tivo fixed it every time, and since comcast seems to have gotten finished with most of their changes, I haven't had the problem again for a while now.

I was trying to write a script I could run in cron on my computer at 4AM every day to use the telnet interface to the tivo to just automatically restart it every day, but the problem stopped happening before I got the script to work :).
 
#5 ·
This happened to me several times during a period in which comcast was making a lot of changes. I strongly suspect that some sort of configuration change the cable company can make doesn't agree with tivo. Power cycling my tivo fixed it every time, and since comcast seems to have gotten finished with most of their changes, I haven't had the problem again for a while now.

I was trying to write a script I could run in cron on my computer at 4AM every day to use the telnet interface to the tivo to just automatically restart it every day, but the problem stopped happening before I got the script to work :).
When in doubt, blame the cable company. It usually is their fault.
 
#6 ·
This happened to me several times during a period in which comcast was making a lot of changes. I strongly suspect that some sort of configuration change the cable company can make doesn't agree with tivo. Power cycling my tivo fixed it every time, and since comcast seems to have gotten finished with most of their changes, I haven't had the problem again for a while now.

I was trying to write a script I could run in cron on my computer at 4AM every day to use the telnet interface to the tivo to just automatically restart it every day, but the problem stopped happening before I got the script to work :).
Now that you mention that, a new HD channel had been added. I can't remember if it was before or after the restart. The TiVo had an on screen message "Bravo HD channel 430 has been added". You may be on to something.
 
#8 ·
I lost all my channels again on 10/13/2011 - Every channels shows a black background with the Tivo icon then "Problem with the signal on this cable channel. Trying again."

I waited until 10/14/2011 until Tivo support was open for business. Two prior Tivo support techs had asked me not to restart if it happened again and made it sound like they could do more troubleshooting if it hadn't restarted. The support tech I got this time said they preferred I did a restart before I called. Anyway not restarting didn't seem to help him any with the troubleshooting. He had me switch coax cables with a Series 2 that isn't having any problems. Just waiting to see if this solves the problem.
 
#9 ·
I lost all my channels again on 10/13/2011 - Every channels shows a black background with the Tivo icon then "Problem with the signal on this cable channel. Trying again."

I waited until 10/14/2011 until Tivo support was open for business. Two prior Tivo support techs had asked me not to restart if it happened again and made it sound like they could do more troubleshooting if it hadn't restarted. The support tech I got this time said they preferred I did a restart before I called. Anyway not restarting didn't seem to help him any with the troubleshooting. He had me switch coax cables with a Series 2 that isn't having any problems. Just waiting to see if this solves the problem.
When my (OTA-only) Premiere gives me that message, I believe it means that it is receiving a digital carrier but not receiving a (valid) transport stream (digital video data). So ask the cable techs what should be feeding it the transport stream. If there's not even a digital carrier, the Premiere says, "Searching for signal on this antenna channel ...".
 
#10 ·
When my (OTA-only) Premiere gives me that message, I believe it means that it is receiving a digital carrier but not receiving a (valid) transport stream (digital video data). So ask the cable techs what should be feeding it the transport stream. If there's not even a digital carrier, the Premiere says, "Searching for signal on this antenna channel ...".
Does your Premiere recover on its own? Mine doesn't. Last time I wanted 12+ hours and restarted and the channels came back.
 
#11 ·
Does your Premiere recover on its own? Mine doesn't. Last time I wanted 12+ hours and restarted and the channels came back.
Being OTA only, I have no cable card and no tuning adapter, so there really isn't anything for the TiVo to recover. Eventually the station starts sending a transport stream again, and then I see video again. In your case (cable) it's possible that restarting is needed to get the TiVo talking to the cable equipment again. But do try restarting just the tuning adapter to see if that helps.
 
#12 ·
Being OTA only, I have no cable card and no tuning adapter, so there really isn't anything for the TiVo to recover. Eventually the station starts sending a transport stream again, and then I see video again. In your case (cable) it's possible that restarting is needed to get the TiVo talking to the cable equipment again. But do try restarting just the tuning adapter to see if that helps.
No tuning card, just Motorola cablecard. The software should be robust enough to recover on its own.
 
#13 ·
I lost all channels again this afternoon. I called Tivo support. The tech support guy decided to ship me another Premiere and have me return the one I have now. I restarted and got the channels back after talking to the support guy. 5 minutes later the channels were lost again. I restarted the Premiere and it has hung at "Almost there... Just a few minutes more." for about 2 hours. I was hoping to move my recorded shows over to the new Premiere, but doesn't look like that is going to happen.
 
#14 ·
I have Comcast. They set up two elites for me today, one cable card each. At first I was getting all of the channels below 100 and a few above 100. Then they slowly disappeared from both TiVos. After a couple of hours, every channel gives me "This channel is not authorized. Contact your cable provider for more information." I've had four very long calls with Comcast and no luck. I'm pretty sure its Comcast's fault, but at this point I'm pretty much giving up and sending the boxes back. My old Series 3 boxes still work, and having four tuners that don't work is hardly an upgrade from having two tuners that do work. I'm well within the 30 days, so back they go.
 
#15 ·
My channels disappeared today. It's happened sporadically over the last few months. It seems like it happens shortly after I transfer something from my Series3 or when I download something from Amazon to the Premiere.

Usually a restart brings the channels back, but tonight I've tried 3 restarts, and no channels.

Using Broadstripe cable, so not the same Comcast issues others might have.

I think the latest software introduced some instability to the Premiere. Might have been working pretty well for months until recently.
 
#16 ·
I lost all channels again this afternoon. I called Tivo support. The tech support guy decided to ship me another Premiere and have me return the one I have now. I restarted and got the channels back after talking to the support guy. 5 minutes later the channels were lost again. I restarted the Premiere and it has hung at "Almost there... Just a few minutes more." for about 2 hours. I was hoping to move my recorded shows over to the new Premiere, but doesn't look like that is going to happen.
Got the replacement Tivo last week. Popped the cablecard from the old Premiere into the new Premiere. Got the standard HD channels, but couldn't get the premium HD channels. The cable company did a truck roll this morning and the tech walked in with a handful of cablecards. He called in the information on the current cablecard. Within a minute I was receiving all the channels I was supposed to. Hope the Tivo replacement solves the problem of losing all the channels.
 
#17 ·
I am also losing channels in the first few days since getting my Premiere Elite installed last Saturday.

After the cable company installed the cable card [they insisted], I had all channels including all digital and premium channels.

Then late on Saturday all channels disappeared. An initial reboot did not solve, but they came back again on Sunday. I spent the day sorting out season passes and wishlists. Things were running fine on Sunday night, but the channels had gone again Monday morning. A reboot on Monday evening restored all channels, but they were again gone sometime on Tuesday, and a reboot/power cycle this evening did not solve the problem.

[Background info: HDUI. Relevant Coax cable works fine when plugged into existing Series 2.]

I am trying to decide whether to call Tivo or Broadstrip (cable) first. Anyone have advice on whether this problem is more likely a cablecard issue or an Elite issue?

Thanks,

Martyn
 
#18 ·
I am trying to decide whether to call Tivo or Broadstripe (cable) first. Anyone have advice on whether this problem is more likely a cablecard issue or an Elite issue?
You're the first person on this forum I've seen who also uses Broadstripe. My Premiere (not Elite) has generally behaved well until the last few months. Now it seems that I have disappearing channels once a week or so. I suspect it's a TiVo software thing, and might be correlated to something Broadstripe is doing.

I'm skeptical that either TiVo or Broadstripe will be able to help you, but please post here if you find any answers!
 
#19 ·
I felt compelled to post since this is a thorn in my side as well.

This happens to me on average once a week, always overnight. Occasionally it happens several times a week which makes me want to throw my Premiere out the window!
It happened last night and what restores the signal 90% of the time is to pull the cable card for 15 seconds. You may have to change the channel after plugging it back in. If this fails a reboot works every time.
 
#20 ·
I am also losing channels in the first few days since getting my Premiere Elite installed last Saturday.

After the cable company installed the cable card [they insisted], I had all channels including all digital and premium channels.

Then late on Saturday all channels disappeared. An initial reboot did not solve, but they came back again on Sunday. I spent the day sorting out season passes and wishlists. Things were running fine on Sunday night, but the channels had gone again Monday morning. A reboot on Monday evening restored all channels, but they were again gone sometime on Tuesday, and a reboot/power cycle this evening did not solve the problem.

[Background info: HDUI. Relevant Coax cable works fine when plugged into existing Series 2.]

I am trying to decide whether to call Tivo or Broadstrip (cable) first. Anyone have advice on whether this problem is more likely a cablecard issue or an Elite issue?

Thanks,

Martyn
What cablecard are you using? I am using a Motorola.

I called Tivo 6 times on my issue on losing channels.
 
#21 ·
You're the first person on this forum I've seen who also uses Broadstripe. My Premiere (not Elite) has generally behaved well until the last few months. Now it seems that I have disappearing channels once a week or so. I suspect it's a TiVo software thing, and might be correlated to something Broadstripe is doing.

I'm skeptical that either TiVo or Broadstripe will be able to help you, but please post here if you find any answers!
I also suspect it is a problem with the Tivo software. It could also be a cablecard issue. What brand of cablecard do you have? I have a Motorola.
 
#22 ·
I felt compelled to post since this is a thorn in my side as well.

This happens to me on average once a week, always overnight. Occasionally it happens several times a week which makes me want to throw my Premiere out the window!
It happened last night and what restores the signal 90% of the time is to pull the cable card for 15 seconds. You may have to change the channel after plugging it back in. If this fails a reboot works every time.
I am averaging about once a week for losing all channels. A reboot has worked for me. What brand cablecard do you have? I have a Motorola.
 
#23 ·
This morning I got up and the replacement Tivo had lost cable channels 301-349. These are the scrambled channels. Channels 235-267 were pixelating. I restarted and everything was working properly.

It could be a Tivo software issue like diamar suspects. My Series 2 is working fine in another room and worked fine for a 1 1/2 years in the spot I now have the Premiere.
I got the replacement Tivo working with the cablecard Monday before noon. If it happens again I will call Longview Cable and ask them to replace the Motorola cablecard.

Does anyone have a cron job to restart their Tivo?
 
#25 ·
This morning I got up and the replacement Tivo had lost cable channels 301-349. These are the scrambled channels. Channels 235-267 were pixelating. I restarted and everything was working properly.

It could be a Tivo software issue like diamar suspects. My Series 2 is working fine in another room and worked fine for a 1 1/2 years in the spot I now have the Premiere.
I got the replacement Tivo working with the cablecard Monday before noon. If it happens again I will call Longview Cable and ask them to replace the Motorola cablecard.

Does anyone have a cron job to restart their Tivo?
So I have had no issues at all lately, and the only thing that's changed is that I've stopped buying video on Amazon (I used to have some season passes). I think it was triggered every time I used my PC to specify delivery to my TiVo. Hardly scientific, but that's my best guess at this point.
 
#26 ·
Latest update for me
- cable company replaced cable card
--- still losing channels daily
- Tivo suggests 'clear and delete everything' (done yesterday)
--- channels lost again today

For me, rebooting does not resolve the issue generally.

Next steps, I will be asking for a replacement box. Clearly not a cablecard issue.

I have a motorola card for those who wanted to know.

Martyn
 
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