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Tuning Adapter reboot?

14K views 43 replies 13 participants last post by  rcoates777 
#1 ·
It seems like I need to reboot my tuning adapters(3)more now a days then after I first got them. Anything I can to fix this?
 
#2 ·
I feel your pain. I finally put the tuning adapter power on an X10 controller and have programmed it to reboot/reconnect early in the morning every day; Because of my particular recording and sleeping habits, there has been no penalty (so far) and I haven't lost a station in about 6 months. Sorry for not having a "1st principles" solution for your problem, but thought I'd offer where I ended up after swapping boxes and seeing Time Warner guys way too much.
 
#3 ·
I feel your pain. I finally put the tuning adapter power on an X10 controller and have programmed it to reboot/reconnect early in the morning every day; Because of my particular recording and sleeping habits, there has been no penalty (so far) and I haven't lost a station in about 6 months. Sorry for not having a "1st principles" solution for your problem, but thought I'd offer where I ended up after swapping boxes and seeing Time Warner guys way too much.
Well at least I'm not the only one.:rolleyes: Thank you
 
#5 ·
Seems unlikely you would have 3 failing TA's, so it's probably a signal problem. Your signals could be weak or the cable plant could be sending you spurious reboot signals. To check signal levels go into TA diagnostics ... Status Summary ... Next Page. The RDC level should be be 40 - 50 dBmV and the FDC level should be -5 to +5 dBmV. (Applies to each TA). If levels are outside these ranges you could ask your Cable Co to check your levels, I believe short fluctuations of signals can cause the TA to reboot as it temporarily loses communication, so look for variations. Also if there are splitters inside the house, they could be replaced as well as tightening cable connectors. Note you need to use high quality 1 GHz splitters. If these signal levels are good, it's probably spurious reset signals being sent by the cable plant, and it might help to complain about that.
 
#6 ·
Might get more responses with this in the right forum. I moved to S3 forum, since that's what your profile says you have. If it's wrong and you'd rather it be in the Premiere forum let me know.

Dan
I did have a hard time trying to figure out where to post I have S3's and S4
But Thank You

Seems unlikely you would have 3 failing TA's, so it's probably a signal problem. Your signals could be weak or the cable plant could be sending you spurious reboot signals. To check signal levels go into TA diagnostics ... Status Summary ... Next Page. The RDC level should be be 40 - 50 dBmV and the FDC level should be -5 to +5 dBmV. (Applies to each TA). If levels are outside these ranges you could ask your Cable Co to check your levels, I believe short fluctuations of signals can cause the TA to reboot as it temporarily loses communication, so look for variations. Also if there are splitters inside the house, they could be replaced as well as tightening cable connectors. Note you need to use high quality 1 GHz splitters. If these signal levels are good, it's probably spurious reset signals being sent by the cable plant, and it might help to complain about that.
I kind of had a feeling this might be the problem I have added a MoCa Network and I do have good 1Ghz splitters I also have a POE filter where the cable comes into my home and I think all of this has added to a weak signal. Now thanks to you I know where and what to look for. Big :up: to you
I will say changing from WiFi then to powerline and now MoCa my speeds are WAYYYYYYY better and now I can use my new TiVo Stream thats on the way Sept 5th:D
 
#7 ·
While its always wise to make sure your signal levels are good, both my TAs stop tuning every month or two and everything goes back to normal a few minutes after power cycling them. Both my S3 and Premiere have the same issue at the same time. I think TW screws something up periodically or there's a firmware bug leaking memory or something like that.
 
#13 ·
I am a new TWC customer in NC and it's my first time with a Tuning Adapter. I'm logging how often it reboots - trying to find a pattern. Last time it went 4 days. The main problem is that if something is recording then it gets interrupted and you get nothing for that show after the interruption.

The TA has a myriad of diagnostics. It'd be nice if they logged the reason for the reboot - low signal, command from headend, AC power loss, etc.

Anybody else had success resolving these spurious reboots?

Thanks!

Bob
 
#16 ·
I am a new TWC customer in NC and it's my first time with a Tuning Adapter. I'm logging how often it reboots - trying to find a pattern. Last time it went 4 days. The main problem is that if something is recording then it gets interrupted and you get nothing for that show after the interruption.

The TA has a myriad of diagnostics. It'd be nice if they logged the reason for the reboot - low signal, command from headend, AC power loss, etc.

Anybody else had success resolving these spurious reboots?

Thanks!

Bob
You might consider the lamp timer trick where you power it down for a while in the middle of the night.

Essentially forcing a reboot before it does it on its own.

Somewhere towards the end of the (currently) 23 pages in this thread

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=472857

it is discussed in the context of allowing the TiVo to complete Garbage Collection.
 
#18 ·
So I've been logging my TA reboots. First it went 4 days, then 3.5 days , then 1 day and only about 14 hours today. Is there a pattern here?

Tonight it rebooted about 4 times within a 30 minute period. I called the Cable Card & TA hotline and was on hold for about 50 minutes and then got disconnected. AAArrrgggghhh !!!

I don't think putting the TA on a timer would help since it rebooted so many times in such a brief period. Seems like each reboot should have given it a fresh start. I was not changing channels when it rebooted. I'll just be watching a prerecorded show & get a TiVo screen announcing "Tuning Adapter Connected" and then the green light starts blinking on the TA. About 2 minutes later I get the same message when the light stops. Anything being recorded gets stopped.

This was the first time I'd witnessed the reboots in a while. Normally I learn about it from looking at the TA diagnostics. So I can't really say if those reboots came in spurts or not. It sure would be nice if the TA stored the reason for the reboot.

Maybe I'll kill some time tomorrow and call the Hot Line again. I would think that after all this time TWC would be able to figure this out & fix it.

Thanks for listening - if I have any success I'll post results.
 
#19 ·
So, again, I suggest looking at my post #5 in this thread. What are the numbers for FDC and RDC? If these are out of spec you are going to have problems for sure and you need to get your cable co to address the signal issues. You may have trouble finding someone who knows what those TA numbers mean -- but you need to insist. The national cable card hotline SHOULD be able to help but ????
 
#20 ·
dlfl -

My signal numbers seem fairly consistent - not much fluctuation. right now they are:

Tuner -8 dbmV
FDC -6 dbmV
RDC 39 dbmv

Normally I'd say they are -7, -7 and 40 respectively.

It's been a little more humid the last couple of days so I'm wondering if that is contributing. Of course it's not possible to know what the signal strength is at the time of the reboot.

*** UPDATE ***

Just got off the phone with the call center guy. No breakthroughs. He said he doesn't have many calls on TA reboots. He said signal strength should be +/- 7 for FDC and 35-55 for RDC.

I moved unit from on top of TiVo to see if it might be a heat issue. The top of the TiVo is not even warm but now the TA has good airflow beneath it.

If problem persists I'll probably swap the TA for another one. I'm grasping at straws here.
 
#21 ·
I'm still suspicious of a low signal problem. I think the limits the "call center" guy gave you are somewhat optimistic. BTW is that the national center, at 866-532-2598 ? Your FDC is low enough to be questionable IMHO. I suspect there are occasional droops that cause your TA to drop out. Also your Tuner level is kind of low -- -2 to +2 dBm is more typical.

Go into DVR diagnostics for a few different channels and note the Signal Strength and SNR. While you're there check RS errors. Are they zero? Signal strength should be 80 or above for most channels.
 
#22 ·
Yes, that is the telephone # that I used.

I will check the other numbers and report back later. Do YOU have a tuning adapter?

I have read (someplace) that some people hook up their TA & TiVo in parallel rather than in series. This would involve a 3-way splitter rather than my current 2-way. (I've got modem/telephony on the other leg). I would NOT think that would help my signal strength but something else to try if all else fails.
 
#23 ·
Oh yeah, I have a TA, bless its evil soul! I learned what I know as a defense mechanism. I've never had the frequent random disconnects that you're having. I do lose some or all of my SDV channels every 2 to 4 weeks and have to power-cycle the TA and restart my TiVo. For the first year I had my TA, it lost authorization (stopped working) every month requiring me to call in and have them authorize it again. Authorization was supposed to happen automatically but they didn't have that working. There was never any cogent explanation of the problem -- it just got fixed somehow.

Which makes me think: Look in TA diagnostics ... PowerKEY Information ... 3rd page ... Sub Expires. This gives you the exact date and time your authorization expires.
 
#24 ·
I had another reboot last night - almost 24 hours after the previous one.

The TA diagnostics still show the following values fairly consistently:
Tuner -8 dBmV
FDC -6 dBmV
RDC 42 dBmV

My subscription is due to expire: 0105.022800 - not exactly sure how to interpret that date.

Channel signal strengths are in the 75 to 100 range
SNRs were 33 - 36 for the few I sampled

I saw RS uncorrected = 367 and corrected = 225. I think these may be kept on a per channel basis.

If time permits I am thinking of disconnecting the coax into the TA (the ultimate in low signal) and seeing if it causes the disconnect problems that I am seeing. I do think that you are correct in that the problems are coming from a temporary low signal.

And thanks for your help!
 
#25 ·
Your TA sub expires date is 1/05 at 2:28 am. For my system the times are in local time. Ironically, when I checked my sub expire date it was 20 minutes past midnight tonight (1208002000) which is alarming and not typical for my system. I may have a problem to deal with it appears. Usually this date is 20 to 30 days in the future when things are working right -- as in your case.

I should have mentioned that when your sub expires, the TA light will blink a repeated 8-blink-pause sequence. I've watched this start in the past at exactly the time, to the second, indicated by the sub expires date.

Your DVR diagnostic numbers don't look bad -- fairly typical. I rarely see RS error counts greater than zero on a cable channel but the numbers you see, assuming they aren't climbing rapidly, don't indicate a major problem.
 
#26 ·
Since it's a slow day here & I have nothing scheduled to record I thought I'd try a couple of things.

1) I undid the coax input to the TA. Naturally I lost the picture (and got "searching for signal" msg.) But when I plugged it back in a minute later everything was fine. I got no "Tuning Adapter Connected" messages and no TA reboots. There were a lot of RS errors (both corrected and uncorrected) from the TiVo diagnostics as would be expected. No blinking green light.

2) I unplugged the USB cable between the TA and TiVo. I got a "Tuning Adapter Missing" message. The green light on the TA started to blink but no discernible pattern. When I plugged it back in the blinking stopped and everything was fine. The TA did not reboot.

Given the fact that physically unplugging the coax did not cause a TA reboot I am thinking that my reboots are not related to low signal or sporadic dropouts.
 
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