The "Help! My Tivo is Stuttering /Freezing /Crashing /Clicking" Thread

[ZikZak]

Stuttering, Freezing, Crashing, Constant Rebooting, Pixellation, Loud Mechanical Clicking. These are all symptoms of impending hard drive failure. If you can't get past the "Almost There" startup screen during a reboot, then your hard drive has probably already failed. But fear not! This issue is fixable with a little time and/or $$.

The Symptoms

Stuttering. If, when watching TV through the tivo, the motion is not steady, but proceeds in halts and stops, this is known as stuttering. A very small amount of stuttering is normal if your video source is satellite or digital cable. If the signal to the decoder box fades, then the decoder itself could stutter, and this is recorded by the TiVo. But if playback involves consistent stuttering, it's probably the TiVo hard drive.

Freezing. The most severe kind of stuttering is actual freezing of the playback picture. The picture "pauses" and the TiVo becomes completely unresponsive to the remote. Some users have reported needing to reboot to escape from a picture freeze. This is definitely a classic symptom of hard drive failure.

Pixellation. If the picture from the TiVo looks excessively "low-resolution" or pixellated, especially on high quality settings, this could be a symptom of hard drive failure. A certain amount of pixellation is normal, since TiVo's MPEG compression is digital and lossy. A lot of pixellization is also produced by digital cable or satellite boxes. However, severe pixellization at high quality settings, especially from analog sources could be caused by a bad hard drive.

Crashing. Depending on where on the hard drive the damage is, sometimes playback will be normal, but navigating through the TiVo menus becomes slow or even crashes. The TiVo becomes sluggish or nonresponsive to the remote. Sometimes sluggishness in the menus is normal: rearranging Season Passes in the SP Manager will often take several minutes. If the TiVo happens to have just downloaded and is analyzing new guide data, it will also be sluggish. In addition, nonresponsiveness to the remote can also be caused by Infrared (IR) interference from other remotes in the room. Check all remotes for stuck buttons and weak batteries. Check the TiVo remote for weak or dead batteries. However, menu crashing or consistent sluggishness not caused by stuck remote buttons, especially in concert with other symptoms is a symptom of hard drive failure. Crashing might be normal on your Windows PC, but it is NOT normal on your TiVo.

Constant Rebooting. It is not normal for TiVo to consistently reboot on its own. You will get a reboot every six months or so in the middle of the night when the TiVo downloads new system software. This is normal. Daily, or even weekly, rebooting, however, is abnormal. Sometimes software glitches can cause this behavior too. However, rebooting in conjunction with other symptoms signals impending hard drive doom.

Loud Mechanical Clicking. If you hear loud mehcanical clicking coming from the TiVo box itself (as opposed to the TV speakers), this is also a symptom of hard drive illness. Rhythmic clicking can sometimes be caused by the fan instead of the drive, but arhythmic clicking in conjuntion with freezing or stuttering is a symptom of complete hard drive destruction in a short time.

Freezing at "Almost There." If the TiVo never gets past the "Almost there. A few more minutes, please" screen, your hard drive has probably failed. If the TiVo freezes at "Welcome. Powering Up," it may be the cable connections to the hard drive or the power supply. Give them a check.

The Green Screen of Death. If the TiVo itself thinks that there is a hard drive problem, you will see a green screen saying "A Severe Error Has Occurred" and directing you to not do anything but to leave the TiVo connected for 3 hours to try to "repair" the receiver. This is the GSOD. During this period, the TiVo is attempting to identify the bad sectors of the drive. For relatively minor problems, letting the GSOD do its thing will work. Best to leave it alone. Even if the TiVo starts working again after the GSOD, however, a degenerating disk tends to keep degenerating. Chances are good that the problem will recur.

Check These Possibilities Too

<Thanks to litzdog911!>

Some issues can mimic Hard Drive distress. See if you can exclude these issues before concluding that your drive is terminally ill:

Check your Tivo's internal temperature. If it's running too hot you'll sometimes see problems like this. Look in "Messages & Setup" -> "System Information" and scroll down a couple of pages to see the internal temperature. Anything under 50-deg C is usually OK. If it's higher than that, make sure you have good airflow under and around your Tivo. It's a good idea to raise your Tivo up an inch or so for better airflow. Some folks use pop bottle caps under each corner.

If you're comfortable opening up your Tivo (which will void your warranty if you still have one), then disconnect and reconnect all the cables leading to the hard drive(s). Sometimes connections can work loose, or tarnish, and re-seating them will help.

If your Tivo is a combination DirecTV+Tivo receiver, you should try re-seating your access card. Remove power, remove the access card, wait a few minutes, re-insert the access card, and reconnect power.

My Hard Drive is Dying. What to do?

If your hard drive is going bad, DO NOT THROW AWAY THE BOX! It is repairable, usually by replacing the hard drive. Hard drive replacement is known as "Upgrading." An entire forum (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=25) is dedicated to this topic.

Firstly, if your TiVo is still under warranty, TAKE IT IN NOW before the warranty expires.

Secondly, some hard drive manufacturers have a utility program that will check the hard drive for problems, and fix them. You may be able to do this with your TiVo's drive. Check the Upgrade Forum FAQs for information about your hard drive model. You may be able to save the $$$ for a completely new drive.

If you need to replace the drive, the rule of thumb is 1 GB = 1 hour of basic quality.

When replacing a hard drive, your lifetime service STAYS with the box.

If you wish to save your recordings and preferences, the best way to do this is to buy a hard drive and install it yourself. Some computer experience is required, but otherwise the installation is quick. Most people use the Hinsdale How-To (http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/index9.html) page as a guide. You should also review posts in the Upgrade Forum.

But I'm not a Computer Person!

No problem. You can order hard drives ready to plug-and-play into TiVo. You will almost certainly lose your recordings and thumbs ratings, though. You may order these drives from Hinsdale, (http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/upgradeservice.html) PTV Upgrade, (http://www.ptvupgrade.com/) 9th Tee, (http://www.9thtee.com/tivoupgrades.htm) or Weeknees. (http://www.weaknees.com/)

But I'm REALLY not a Computer Person!

If just opening the box gives you the willies, you still have options. Some of the above vendors will replace the drive for you... if you're willing to send in your TiVo. It's pricey, but cheaper than getting a new box.

It's also possible to sell the driveless TiVo box on eBAY and get a good price, especially if you have lifetime service.

How To Protect Yourself Against Future HD Failures

There is one very important thing you can do to extend the life of your hard drive. Hard drives are suceptible to electric spikes and surges. Be sure to at least put the TiVo on a surge protector, but a UPS is preferable. This one precaution can extend the HD's lifetime by years.

Good Luck!

[litzdog911]

Nice post! Here are a few more tips you might want add that can cause these sorts of problems:

*** Check your Tivo's internal temperature. If it's running too hot you'll sometimes see problems like this. Look in "Messages & Setup" -> "System Information" and scroll down a couple of pages to see the internal temperature. Anything under 50-deg C is usually OK. If it's higher than that, make sure you have good airflow under and around your Tivo. It's a good idea to raise your Tivo up an inch or so for better airflow. Some folks use pop bottle caps under each corner.


*** If you're comfortable opening up your Tivo (which will void your warranty if you still have one), then disconnect and reconnect all the cables leading to the hard drive(s). Sometimes connections can work loose, or tarnish, and re-seating them will help.


*** If your Tivo is a combination DirecTV+Tivo receiver, you should try re-seating your access card. Remove power, remove the access card, wait a few minutes, re-insert the access card, and reconnect power.

[ZikZak]

Done. Thanks!

[ciscom]

I just purchased a Tivo series 2 - 40 hour unit and started having problems with stuttering and rebooting. The problems began when I extended a Season Pass recording time (to get all of 60 minutes because it started late after a b-ball game) and my wife was watching it while it was recording. While my wife was pausing\rewinding\starting again it when it began the stuttering and rebooting.

I tried restting the programming data and that did not work. I then reset everything, went through setup and since doing that this morning it has not locked up or stuttered once.

I'm hoping this was an freakish occurance due to me overloading the system but am curious if any others out there have seen this problem and had it go away forever after resetting everything.

Thanks in advance,
David Ely

[Robert S]

I love the way people make up these superstitious stories to explain these things!

The TiVo's designers did anticipate that occasionally TiVo owners would fill up their hard drives (mine are 99.5% full most of the time...). The expected result of what you did is a warning that something would be deleted early, not a crash.

Unfortunately, what's likely happened is that there's a bad block somewhere near the top of the drive and your extended recording included that block. Bad blocks make TiVoes behave oddly.

So, I predict that when your TiVo gets full again (it seems to fill the drives from the bottom, so it make take a while), you'll hit this bad block and get the same problem. If you keep the recording that contains the bad block, that will prevent it from being reused, which should make the TiVo behave a bit better.

[jmace57]

My 60 Hour series 2 did something the other day I have not read about in the forum.

The "background" went away. So, instead of seeing the green screen with the TiVo guy and now showing...I see Now Showing with a list of my shows against a black screen. All menu options looked the same. It was tru for the main menu, the system menu - all of them. When I tried to play anything, it showed the status bars at the bottom with no green stripe - shows would not play.

I re-booted and all is fine, but I have never seen or heard of that before.

Any thoughts?

Thanks
Jim

[Robert S]

The backgrounds are recordings, so anything that interferes with playback of recordings (it sounds like your MPEG-2 decoder crashed) will also stop the backgrounds.

You're right that this is a strange occurance. Missing backgrounds due to faulty upgrade procedures are common, but of course, they don't come back when you reboot.

[w2jo]

I have a TIVO model 1 that I upgraded to a 120GB+40GB unit a couple of years ago. About a year after I updated it, the unit started "pausing" at times. This occurred following a software update and has continued ever since. I am told that this was a coincidence.

I have been told that the problem was caused by bad blocks or sectors on one of the hard drives. Seeming to contradict this view are the following factors:
1) If a "pause" or "stuttering" even occurs, backing up and replaying the section always shows no "pause" or "stuttering".
2) The "pauses" can be up to 5 seconds long and when the picture restarts, it does not skip 5 seconds (if any).

This makes me think the TiVO OS is "getting busy" or some such.

I was then advised to completely erase all of the video from the disk drives and this might stop the problem. I did completely delete all video files and this had no effect. Soon after I began recording again (and before the drives were more than maybe 1/3 full) the pausing/stuttering was noticed again and it has continued.

Another person told me that TiVO has a disk drive tester program for TiVo, and maybe they do, but TiVO support denies this and I can find no such reference on this or other TiVO groups. I would surely like to run a disk check on my unit but not quite enough to go completely through the rebuild process as yet!

My daughter also has a TiVO model 1 that has just the original 40Gb drive. It is not exhibiting this problem. I do not know if this is meaningful data or not.

I have seen quite a few comments that all these pausing and stuttering problems are caused by disk drive problems. But I have not yet seen any confirmation of this assertion from people who have changed out the disk drives toward making the pausing/studdering go away. Is there some empirical evidence that replacing the disk drives is a fix in all cases?

Thanks

Joe

[ZikZak]

w2jo,

Replacing the disk drives is not the correct solution in all cases (see some of the previous posts). In your case, it sounds like it could be a temperature problem or a problem with the motherboard or MPEG decoder. Is your TiVo's temperature normal?

[w2jo]

Yes, The temp is 35C which is about where it always has been. "On rare occasions" (about once a month), the unit "hangs up" and I have to reboot it, but other than that and the stutter/pause problem, it gives normal operation.

Joe

[w2jo]

Are any of the 3rd party repair people mentioned in the above forum expert in fixing this stuttering problem in model 1 units?

[Robert S]

It sounds like a classic drive failure to me. The drive's electronics are failing, causing delays in reading the data. The clicks are drive resets caused by the inability to read the data - the drive resets in the hope that moving the head off the track and back will allow the data to be read.

At times it's taking several seconds for the drive to complete its read cycle and during this time the TiVo is pretty much frozen, waiting for the drive to return the data.

I would have good confidence that changing the drive would fix this. If you wanted to, you could use your PC to copy your recordings to a new drive.

[w2jo]

Maybe it IS a drive problem, but I have never had PC drive failures act like this. PC disks always seem to either just get bad sectors/clusters or to just completely fail. Failing by delaying a read operation and then after five seconds or so "getting it read completley OK" is a failure mode I do not see in PC disk drive operation.. If I get a TiVO stutter failure in a particular spot and then reread that sam spot 10 times it always works fine. This is simply NOT like any disk problem I have seen.

If this is a common occurance, does the TiVO OS have a disk exercise/diagnostic routine? Seems like this would be an urgent built in diagnostic tool (since disk drives always fail, it is just a matter of time.) but so far that seems to be wishful thinking.

[ZikZak]

Originally posted by w2jo
If this is a common occurance, does the TiVO OS have a disk exercise/diagnostic routine? Seems like this would be an urgent built in diagnostic tool (since disk drives always fail, it is just a matter of time.) but so far that seems to be wishful thinking.

Yes it does. It's called the "Green Screen of Death." (see the original post)

[w2jo]

OK.. So How do I activate the "green screen of death" so as to force the TiVO to run a disk check on my system. SURELY I do not have to hit the HD with a hammer! :)

[ZikZak]

Wow. I don't think anyone's ever asked how they can activate the GSOD before ;)

[w2jo]

Well.. did you not suggest that this was how to kick off the disk diagnostic routine into action? I do not see a "check my HDs for errors" selection in the setup menu! :)

[Robert S]

You can trigger a GSOD with diagnostic mode (http://alt.org/wiki/index.php/TivoDiagnostics). It won't make any difference, though. The GSOD is a filesystem checker, like ScanDisk, not drive diagnostics.

You wouldn't notice a drive doing this in a PC, because the drive does deliver the data eventually and there are lots of things that make PC's hesitate momentarily. This is a major problem because the standard diagnostics run on PC's and they tend to pass drives that are doing this.

I do have a drive that behaves somewhat like this in my PC and it's usually not obvious that anything is wrong with the machine.

Yours is misbehaving so badly that the diagnostics might catch it. It sounds like there's a good chance that DiskSpeed32 (http://www.geocities.com/vgrinenko/DiskSpeed32/) would show the problem, but as you've only got one drive, this doesn't necessarily tell you anything you didn't know before.

Anyway, your options are pretty limited. You can change the hard drive yourself. That may or may not fix the problem. If it doesn't, you're no worse off than you are now as then all you can do is send the TiVo for repair under warranty or whatever. When the TiVo is fixed, you can use the new drive to increase its capacity.

[w2jo]

OK.. I ran the #58 cleanup mode to completion. It said it could take up to 3 hours but it only took about 15 minutes and did not erase any recordings. I was surprised on both counts. Obviously, this is not a THROUGH reading test or indeed it would have taken more than an hour to READ 160megs (120+40).

I will now do a bit of viewing and see if the exercise actually did anything except reload the Tivo OS.

Thanks.
Joe

[Robert S]

Like I said, it's basically equivalent to ScanDisk - it's just checking through the metadata structures to look for corruption. As there are only a few hundred files in the system (MFS is about a few enormous files rather than lots of tiny ones as in a PC), it doesn't take very long to check.

[mockfam]

YIPEE!!! NEW FOUND CAUSE FOR LAG, STUTTER AND REBOOT!!! I hope this helps someone out there.

Certain remote extenders may transmit interference which confuses tivo.

Proof: For six weeks I tested by unplugging my leapfrog remote extender for random periods of time. I even varied my hours and days of testing. When my leapfrog extender is plugged in, my tivo reboots almost hourly. Sometimes 3-4 times per hour!!! The hard drive was tested as perfect at least a dozen times. I used a power conditioner with a UPS backup source.

In addition, my leapfrog only confuses the Tivo to reboot when my two- 440 watt VHO Ballasts on my Fish Tank are on. On the other hand when I turn on my 220 watt VHO Blue Actnic lights, the Leapfrog causes the Tivo to lag, and stagger.

So for all you Hard-Drive Doom-Sayers: I am an advanced computer systems specialist. And I certainly give the hard drive theory merit. But I am sure glad my tivo works now. But only when my leapfrog is turned off, or when my fish are asleep.

Thanks,
Paul

Pioneer DVR-810hs

[Robert S]

IR interference is a serious problem. There are many possible causes. Remotes with stuck buttons (or things on top of them) are the most common cause, but remote extenders and florescent lights are also possibilities.

Normally this causes the TiVo to become unresponsive to the remote and to fail to change channel on the STB. If the TiVo is rebooted, it'll go into diagnostic mode (http://alt.org/wiki/index.php/TivoDiagnostics), which really freaks people out.

I don't recall seeing reports of IR interference causing stuttering or reboots, so I think there may be more going on in your case than simply IR interference.

[w2jo]

I almost never watch "live TV" through the TIVO model 1, but have been doing so tonight. I notice that the "pausing/stuttering/pixelation" problems I see frequently on recordings are, if anything, quite a bit more frequent when I am watching "live" TV.

I know the Tivo records "live" while you are watching in the "live TV" programs but I am surprised that the "live" TiVO output video "stutters" when the input does not when you are watching "live" TV. Does TiVO record to disk and immediately play back in the "live TV" mode?

On the 5 to 10 second "pauses", I notice the there is often a metallic "click" noise comes from the unit during the pause. It sounds like a disk head retracting "home". When this happens, there are NO GAPS in the recording when I play it back. but there WERE jumps in the video output that skips several seconds at a time during the "live" viewing.. There are sometimes half second pauses when I play the section back, but NOT at the same points when the recording is played back repeatedly. When you play the recording back, there are NO time gaps in the playback video.

Since the recording on the disk has no gaps, does not have pauses at the same points when played back repeatedly, I have to conclude that IF this is a disk drive problem, it is a hell of a strange one! My vote would be for a processor having a stack overflow and recovering or some such similar software problem. I suggest that the "click" may be part of the software reset/restart process initializing the disk drive.. 5 to 10 seconds of "pausing" because of a hardware error is a LONG time.

Can someone explain? I can take a highly technical explanation.

Joe

[ZikZak]

Originally posted by w2jo
I know the Tivo records "live" while you are watching in the "live TV" programs but I am surprised that the "live" TiVO output video "stutters" when the input does not when you are watching "live" TV. Does TiVO record to disk and immediately play back in the "live TV" mode?

Yes. That is to allow the use of trickplay features.

On the 5 to 10 second "pauses", I notice the there is often a metallic "click" noise comes from the unit during the pause. It sounds like a disk head retracting "home".

That is the "click of doom" which ususally portends complete hard drive failure. It is not normal to hear loud mechanical clicks coming from a hard drive in use. A hard drive emitting "clicking" sounds is usually about to fail. The sound is most often caused by the heads or their armature hitting the edge or surface of the drive platters. This is indcative of a physical HD failure.

Since the recording on the disk has no gaps, does not have pauses at the same points when played back repeatedly, I have to conclude that IF this is a disk drive problem, it is a hell of a strange one! My vote would be for a processor having a stack overflow and recovering or some such similar software problem. I suggest that the "click" may be part of the software reset/restart process initializing the disk drive.. 5 to 10 seconds of "pausing" because of a hardware error is a LONG time.


No. The software is soft, and therefore cannot make mechanical sounds. Loud clicking sounds are not normal. You can be sure that the software is not commanding the disk drive to hit the stops. Yes, 5 to 10 seconds of stopple is a lot; your drive problem is serious.

[w2jo]

Ha.. I <know> that software is SOFT and cannot <itself> make clicking sounds! However, the software is in full control of the disk drive and if the software malfunctions, it can cause all sorts of phenomenon including reset/restart of the disk drive. You can only diagnose this sort of thing by instrumenting the software and investigating from the software side.

It can be hardware or it can be software. Just because changing the hardware (and reloading all the software) fixes a problem is (in my experience with computer systems) no assurance that hardware item was at fault. Software can do strange things. But.. It would be awfully easy for the TiVO designers to instrument the software so as to actually discover the problem and provide guidance to customers. According to TiVO support, there is no such facility in TiVo and no facility for defragging or testing the HD..

Oh Well.. A first generation product and it is pretty nice as it is.

I think I will take out both drives and replace with a new 160meg drive if this is possible.. Anyone know if the Tivo model 1 software accepts maxtor 160meg drives? Then I will put the two old disk drives on test for a few days and see if my disk diagnostic/exerciser program has a problem.

[Almuliman]

AFAIK, TiVos can use all drive types except SATA, so the Maxtor 160GB should be fine. I have a (recently deceased :-P) Western Digital 160MB drive in my Series 1 that was working just fine.

[Robert S]

You can't use a 160Mb drive as the A drive in a TiVo as the drive can't be smaller than your original drive space. You could use a 160Mb drive as the B drive, but it would only give you a few minutes of recording space.

Instead of using that old drive, consider buying a new drive. The current ones are much larger - a thousand times or more - which would give you a useful amount of recording time.

(You can only use the first 137Gb of a 160Gb drive (although you can fit two of them) with the stock kernel. You can use the full capacity of the disk (or even larger drives) if you replace the kernel (http://www.ptvupgrade.com/support/bigdisk/)).

[w2jo]

Sorry.. A slip of the pen.. I meant 160 GigaByte drive. :)

Joe

[mpaolini]

I have a series one with 2 drives, a 30gb original and an additional 120gb, no other mods. This setup has worked flawlessly for the last 2.5 years! My system is freezing completely more and more often to the point that I have to disconnect the power to reboot it. How can I determine which is the bad drive to replace?

Max

[Robert S]

It's not any easy problem to diagnose. You can try the drive manufacturer's diagnostic (Maxtor's PowerMax for your Quantum drive).

You can also try DiskSpeed (http://www.geocities.com/vgrinenko/DiskSpeed32/), which is better at detecting the stutters.

You might well end up abandoning both drives, though.

[stackman]

Don't know if this is a stopple problem or not. Video image freezes during live playback and also when watching live TV. Seems to get worse when video is on the buffer. Also get artifacts, sometimes the video will replay over again maybe two or three times but the audio is not unaffected. I have a Philips HDR112 with an 80 gig Maxtor drive added. Someone had suggested that I should change the IDE cable, that I had a older one and a new one should fix this problem. Any ideas?

[w2jo]

At least a PART of the problem must be in the TiVo Operating System. My unit "occasionally" will "pause" for 5, 10, or even 15 seconds. Then it picks right up where it left off without missing more than a syllable or two. If I then "back up 8 seconds" I get to see the sequence without any gaps or stutters.

Seems like maybe the playback program occasionally "goes to sleep" and does not get brought back soon enough.

The conventional wisdom is that this is all a defective hard drive problem, but my drives both check out fine with the Maxtor diagnostic and cleaning them ot an reloading the software did not fix the problem. So.. I guess we just live with it and chalk it up to "first production technology seldom gets all the bugs out". Certainly (by now) with this problem going on for about three years that I know of, Tivo should have instrumented the OS so as to offer clues of the actual cause of this problem. As it is, if you call Tivo they simply say: We do not get involved in hardware problems. On the other hand, Philips says that they have no idea and that TiVo furnishes the software. So.. The bottom line is: The customer is caught in the middle with no where to go.

:(

[stackman]

Mine doesn't do that even if I jump back it still gets hung up in the same place. It does it both in live tv and in playback. If the picture freezes then the sound stops with it, but if it is just artifacts and the same scene replays the audio never has a problem.

[stackman]

Just an update to the problem I was having with my series 1. I upgraded the IDE cable from an ATA33 to an ATA66 cable and it seems to have corrected the problems that I was having. I don't know if this well help anyone else out but it might be something worth trying.

[w2jo]

Thanks Stackman!
For years, I have had stutter and playback pauses also. I was told repeatedly that this was caused by disk drive problems but the drives passed the diagnostic just fine.

Then I read your article where you changed the IDE cable to the disk drive from the original to one made using the 80 conductor IDE 133 Ultra cable and this had fixed your problems 100%. I did not have an Ultra IDE cable with enough cable length between the two drive connectors to work in the Tivo. So I tried exchanging a STANDARD IDE CABLE (without the wires split out as in the Philips Tivo) and Lo.. My stuttering went away completely.

My conclusion: There is a design defect in the Tivo system wherein the engineers "sliced the cable" into pairs of wires to make the section from between the two IDE connectors more flexible. This works for LOTS of units but on SOME units the added signal overshoot/ringing/crosstalk caused by the added cable mismatch is just enough to cause disk data transfer problems. Likely the Ultra 133 IDE cable is a much better technical solution but "whatever works" is good enough.

I am also told that adding the Tivo Cache Card is another complete solution to the stutter problem.

So.. BEFORE you go to the trouble of changing disk drives try a new IDE cable, preferably the Ultra 133 IDE model (if connector spacing is long enough). Your problems MAY go away.
Joe

[jimrod]

Another person told me that TiVo has a disk drive tester program for TiVo I believe Spin Rite ver.6 will work for TiVo, you may want to check their web site.

Maybe it IS a drive problem, but I have never had PC drive failures act like this. Were you not around when an IBM 1GB was around $1000.00? When they were close to full or not often defraged the stall time was at least twice the 5 sec your getting. True, the new drives are larger, but your PC with about the same size hard drive does not even come close to the way TiVo is abusing that drive.l

diagnostic tool (since disk drives always fail, it is just a matter of time.) but so far that seems to be wishful thinking Why? by the time it fails, your TiVo is out of warranty. What you need to know is that most hard drive companies will warranty their drive for 5 years, and the only proof you need is the hard drive to send in.

Jim :D

[Andrewp75]

Hi Everyone.

Just purchased a 80 hour new Tivo serial #540... I have Comcast analog cabel with a Scientific Atlanta Analog box with no Video inputs other than coax and no serial connection. It is a 3 digit box though.

The problem that Im having is that there is a 4-7 second stutter at the begining of all recordings. This happens on all channels and at all times. Happens both with scheduled recordings and with suggestions. I have tried switching the cable box to "no need to enter the enter button" with no luck.

The one time it doesnt stutter is if it is already on the channel that it is going to record before it starts recording.

Does anyone have a solution? Thanks for the help! So glad to have a Series Two after almost 5 years with a series one. Just want it to work right.

Andrew

[Andrewp75]

Bump..:)

[zdeblick]

Has anyone found a resolution for this problem? I'm having the same or a very similar error with my S2. After moving cities, I chose the reset location option so that tivo would take me through the guided setup again and update the new phone numbers and cable provider. All is well, until the end of the setup when the box tries to make the "Program Call," which should be a piece of cake. Instead, when the tivo is preparing to call and goes into the "Cleaning Up" stage, it gets stuck at 27% for HOURS. I've tried all that seems obvious: restart (by pulling the power cable since there seems to be no other way to reset). I even opened the box (the warranty period just passed, wouldn't you know) and made sure the hard drive was snugly plugged in and I reinserted the coin battery. The temp isn't hot at all, in fact it feels cool, and the hard drive isn't making any of the ominous "clicking" sounds. Its silent.

Is there anything else to try--like a hard reboot that resets all data? Or a way to skip the program call so that the reset will complete and I will worry about the program call later?

Thoughts? Please.

Nick

[bohlke]

I have a Series 1 Tivo with 2 drives, I have been seeing increased pauses, freezes, and sometimes the the audio goes away and the screen freezes and when the screen comes back the audio goes nuts to catch up. I think these are hard drive issues.

The second problem I am having is sometimes when I switch to the tivo screen I dont get the green background, I get a black one. Sometimes I get the last frame of the program I was watching with the menu titles superimposed. And sometimes I get freezes and stuttering in the menu. Are these symptoms of a different problem?

[ZikZak]

No, those are probably also symptoms of a hard rive problem. The regular background that you see in the menus is little more than just another (permanent) recording. If the hard drive is damaged in that area, the background might be difficult or impossible for the TiVo to access. That having been said, some menu wonkiness can be repaired with a re-boot. Have you tried rebooting yet?

[bohlke]

Originally posted by ZikZak
No, those are probably also symptoms of a hard rive problem. The regular background that you see in the menus is little more than just another (permanent) recording. If the hard drive is damaged in that area, the background might be difficult or impossible for the TiVo to access. That having been said, some menu wonkiness can be repaired with a re-boot. Have you tried rebooting yet?

Yeah reboots dont seem to help...

[Airwolf]

Well, after a bunch of research and holiday sales, I purchased a new 120 GIG HD with the hopes of replacing a stuttering HD. Trouble was, I had already added one HD and I had NO IDEA how to determine which HD was going bad... was it the orignal A drive, or the added B drive? Here's what I did:
1) I planned my attack with MFSTools 2.x (thank GOD for all those people who have kept that up to date!). With 100 hours of programming, I started at night to let it copy all night long...
2) I hooked up my original A drive and the added B drive to determine which was Primary, etc. (per MFS)
3) Imagine my surprise when my PC booted with SMART errors! WOO HOO! It determined that the original A drive was going BAD!!!!!!!!
4) Slight change of plan.... replaced old 30 GIG A with new 120 GIG A... and copied it.
5) Expanded with B and voila! 200 hours!

NICE! :) Why write this? Because my Sony SVR-2000 (original model) had a SMART capable HD and if I had known that I would have not waited 6 months to fix the stutter problem.

One thought: WHY DOESN'T TIVO MONITOR SMART STATUS???? :(

[bohlke]

Originally posted by Airwolf
Well, after a bunch of research and holiday sales, I purchased a new 120 GIG HD with the hopes of replacing a stuttering HD. Trouble was, I had already added one HD and I had NO IDEA how to determine which HD was going bad... was it the orignal A drive, or the added B drive? Here's what I did:
1) I planned my attack with MFSTools 2.x (thank GOD for all those people who have kept that up to date!). With 100 hours of programming, I started at night to let it copy all night long...
2) I hooked up my original A drive and the added B drive to determine which was Primary, etc. (per MFS)
3) Imagine my surprise when my PC booted with SMART errors! WOO HOO! It determined that the original A drive was going BAD!!!!!!!!
4) Slight change of plan.... replaced old 30 GIG A with new 120 GIG A... and copied it.
5) Expanded with B and voila! 200 hours!

NICE! :) Why write this? Because my Sony SVR-2000 (original model) had a SMART capable HD and if I had known that I would have not waited 6 months to fix the stutter problem.

One thought: WHY DOESN'T TIVO MONITOR SMART STATUS???? :(

Esp when there is an opensource toolkit, anyone know if there is a hack to implement?

http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

[richierich]

I ran SpinRite software against my 2 drives on my HR10-250 and my temperature went from 47C to 40C with no pixellation or stuttering problems. I believe this problem is due to bad sectors and SpinRite recovers the data on these bad sectors and removes them and replaces them with backup sectors which have a surface analysis performed on them and then if that sector is deemed to be good then the data is written to it. This procedure is performed for all sectors and there are several different reports that tells you what going on, etc.

[kevinv]

Originally posted by Almuliman
AFAIK, TiVos can use all drive types except SATA, so the Maxtor 160GB should be fine. I have a (recently deceased :-P) Western Digital 160MB drive in my Series 1 that was working just fine.

You mean it can use ATA/IDE drives. It can not use firewire, usb or SCSI drives so "all types" is wrong.

Also I believe anything over 160GB is useless? Not sure if this is still the case but it was when I did my upgrade. No point in buying 250GB drives if the Tivo can't use them (it will use 160GB of the 200GB drive, the rest is unusable).

Kevin

[kevinv]

Originally posted by w2jo

I have been told that the problem was caused by bad blocks or sectors on one of the hard drives. Seeming to contradict this view are the following factors:
1) If a "pause" or "stuttering" even occurs, backing up and replaying the section always shows no "pause" or "stuttering".
2) The "pauses" can be up to 5 seconds long and when the picture restarts, it does not skip 5 seconds (if any).

This makes me think the TiVO OS is "getting busy" or some such.


If you have sectors are starting to fail but can be read after several attempts that would explain both factors.

1) Disk reads are cached, so once successfully read going back and playing will play from cache, not from disk. no disk read, no failures, no stuttering.

2) because the sector successfully reads, after several attempts, it can play the video without jumping forward.

[kevinv]

OK, after reading everyone else's "it's not my drive, the upgrade caused the problem" here's my problem, and why I don't think it's drive related.

Recently got the 7.1 upgrade (7.1-01-2-240), immediately afterward (not soon or before, but immediately):

a) first 5-10 seconds of every show stutters.

b) Nothing else in a show ever stutters.

doesn't matter on show length -- 2 hour movies will stutter first 5-10 seconds, nothing for the next 2 hours. 30 minute, 1 hour, 1.5 hours all the same thing.

I can see bad sectors for some shows at random points, but every show, in exactly the same place? I can't see bad sectors for that.

Kevin

[Almuliman]

Originally posted by kevinv
You mean it can use ATA/IDE drives. It can not use firewire, usb or SCSI drives so "all types" is wrong.

Also I believe anything over 160GB is useless? Not sure if this is still the case but it was when I did my upgrade. No point in buying 250GB drives if the Tivo can't use them (it will use 160GB of the 200GB drive, the rest is unusable).

Kevin

Duh. Yes, sorry.

7.1 supports larger hard drives: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=219946&highlight=7.1+capacity

[kevinv]

Originally posted by Almuliman
Duh. Yes, sorry.

7.1 supports larger hard drives: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=219946&highlight=7.1+capacity

thanks for that link, didn't realize 7.1 added large disk support. now i have to find a weekend with little recording scheduled and do some more upgrades 8-)

[bobdietz]

Hi everyone.
Is the blue screen the same as the GSOD that I have seen refered to? I am getting and intermittent, although more off than on, problem in which all I see is the blue screen with my Input Number. When the Tivo is working the picture is having color problems.

Bob

[ZikZak]

Is this the blue screen with the big Tivo Guy and troubleshooting tips? That and the color problem could be due to a poor quality video input.

[Alphi]

I'm having a "stuttering" issue with my Series 1 Tivo, and I want to fix the problem before it fails outright (in other words, I want to be able to save my recorded programs before the hard drive fails, assuming that's the problem).


However, I was wondering something. My box is an upgraded box with a capacity of 160GB. I know that it's two drives, and I'd assumed it was two 80GB drives. Now that I think about it though, it's possible that the original was a 40GB, and the second is a 120GB, to give me the same amount.


That said, if I decide to replace both hard drives (to play it safe, not knowing which is about to fail), is it feasible to think that I might get two larger drives (two 120GB drives, for example), and copy the recorded programming (and everything else needed) to the new drives?


And more importantly, if I'm able to do that successfully, will I be able to utilize the additional 80G of space, or will it still think it's a 160GB machine?

[richierich]

Alphi, I had a stuttering/pixellating/freezing problem with my HR10-250 and I bought SpinRite data recovery software and I downloaded the software into a floppy diskette. I removed my hard drive from my PC and replaced it with one of my Tivo hard drives and ran it for about 16 hours. I then took it out and put my second drive in and ran it for 30 hours. It now works perfectly. I don't know for how long so I am going to back up the recordings and then replace the offending drive which was the first drive. The diagnostic reports will tell you exactly what is going on, when it is reading and re-reading a bad sector etc. and the documentation will explain how it recovers data from a bad sector, removes the bad sector and replaces it with a backup good sector, rewrites the data to it and then continues on.

Here is a link to the website. http://www.grc.com/sr/themovie.htm.

Check it out. It worked for me and the guy who told me about it had a Tivo that wouldn't even boot up and it fixed his problem, so I gave it a shot and I am glad that I did. It costs I think $79, can't remember but the website will tell you everything you need to know. You can use this on any hard drives that you have, to clean up bad sectors, etc.

[jscohn]

I have a brand new Series 2 box that every day or so reboots itself when I first turn on the TV. The Tivo is connected straight into the surge protector and is therefore always on. The internal temp is within normal range. Any idea why this is happening?

[ZikZak]

That is very odd. Do you mean to say that when your TV turns on, Tivo always reboots? Does this happen when you turn the TV on manually, as well as when using the remote? If so, perhaps you are overloading your electrical outlet?

[jscohn]

It does not happen every time I turn on the TV - just a few times a week. But when it does happen (reboot), it only happens when I first turn on the TV. Makes no sense to me. However, I will try to plug the Tivo into a separate outlet.

[marksponsler]

I'm having the stuttering problem with a series 2 Tivo, but it only stutters on one channel: Fox. Is this a software problem or should I plan on replacing the hard drive? Thanks, Mark

[richierich]

If you are only getting it on Fox it could be your reception from your antenna.

[marksponsler]

Hi, thanks. I'm on cable, but I'll check the leads. We do get the poorest reception on the lower channels.

[richierich]

All I know is that I had severe pixellation/freezing problems and I ran SpinRite data recovery software on Jan. 27, 2005 and ever since then I have not had a single problem, my unit runs a little faster and runs about 8 to 10 degrees cooler. It had an unrecoverable sector and several other bad sectors that it cleaned up with backup sectors and restored the data from those bad sectors. I highly recommend it to anyone with pixellation problems and particularly if you don't want to lose your recordings. I definitely believe that the OS has been pushed to the max and is very fragile and a bad sector can cause alot of problems. Removing bad sectors seems to have solved all of my problems. The heat buildup is caused by having to read many times a bad sector. The unit is running in hyper mode which causes the heat buildup. I am now running about 38C-41C and before it was over 48C. For some reason unknown to me my guide runs faster and Season Passes takes less time.

[Matt Ottinger]

You all seem very knowledgable about this stuff, let me ask if anyone can give me information about this little oddity.

I have a unit that was giving me most of the standard symptoms of a hard drive failure, as described in the excellent initial post here. Stuttering, freezing, pixilation, loud mechanical clicking, pretty much the works. It got to the point that it would only work for a few hours after a reboot before it would freeze again.

So I bought another hard drive. When it arrived, I figured I'd give the original drive that proverbial "one last chance" and replace it after the next freeze, which I thought would be later that day.

That was nearly two weeks ago. Seriously, I've done nothing, and it seems to be working just fine. As tempting as it it to personify our units, it's way too easy to say that the original drive saw the replacement arrive and decided to get its act together. But I'm guessing there's a better answer than that.

I'm not knowledgeable, but I am teachable if you use small enough words. Am I living on borrowed time, or could this thing have more or less repaired itself?

[richierich]

Alot of times it can be caused by a bad power supply which is producing marginal power which can cause these same symptoms and even emit the clicking sound which then everyone thinks that is the hard drive and off they go to replace the unit or the hard drive. Have you done anything to alter your power source. Sometimes even battery backup units can cause the power supply not to have enough power to fully activate or power up the hard drives which causes the same symptoms.

[Voyagerfl]

Pioneer DVR-57H / Channel Changing Problems !

Sometimes when I try to change channels....the channels either change very slow...like after 20 to 30 to 60 seconds...or longer....or stops responding completly..

I am not experiencing and freezing if the images.
Have checked and moved the IR cables


I have experimented with the Cable Box, Pioneer DVR-57H, IR, connections, etc...
And the only thing that seems to correct the problem is unplugging the DVR-57H
and re-booting it.

Anyone else experience this ??

This was a very expensive machine and I did take out an extended warrenty so maybe I need to take it in..........But boy you hate to do without it....

[JadziaDax]

This has become a problem since the latest upgrade of the TiVo software. I set TiVoToGo to download 2 or 3 shows to one of my computers on the network, and when I check later, the TiVo is in need of being rebooted as it has completely frozen. And sometimes the downloads never complete.

It never freezes/stutters/crashes/clicks during regular viewing or during recordings. It only seems to freeze after setting up a string of downloads on the TiVoToGo software.

When I asked this question on the TiVo website's help forum, someone was very quick to tell me that I most definitely have a harddrive problem. My machine is not even a year old, and this never happened before September. It never crashes/freezes any other time. And if I download only one show, it doesn't crash/freeze.

Is anyone else experiencing this type of problem with the 7.2.something update that happened in September? Or am I alone in this issue?

[richierich]

I believe the problem is processor related. When they went with the latest software download they reconfigured the database and there can be a problem with older recorded shows versus current recorded shows because of the way they are housed in the database, 2 different structures. That is why they ask you to purge everything and start over because of the new structure. That is my best guess. Also, if the processor is very busy and it encounters a new command via the remote it just stores that command in the task queue until it is freed up of that current task and can handle the next task in the queue, so it is not that it doesn't acknowledge your task but that it is delayed in handling that task until it get higher priority tasks out of the way.

[JadziaDax]

And what if everything I'm downloading is current (new since the last upgrade)?

I witnessed the image slowdown to the point where the image froze on the screen. At this point, I had not touched the remote or anything else. Then, only after the freeze, did I hit something on the remote to see if it would respond. Of course it didn't. The only thing that worked was unplugging the TiVo from the wall.

I will certainly try purging the entire system and see where that leads me. It would really be a bad thing if my 6 month old TiVo is suffering from a bad harddrive already, so I hope you're right.

[richierich]

You have 2 tuners working. Even if you are viewing one tuner/channel, the other one can be helping to cause the problem. If you experience problems such as has been reported, go to the INFO button and change tuners and then set that tuner to a non-existent channel such as 3 or 4 and then see if your problem goes away. If it is related to an overworked processor, then that should cause your problem to go away. If not then you may have a bad hard drive. Also, if you are not plugged directly into a power source and are using a battery backup system, etc. unplug from that system and go directly into the power outlet and see if that changes things. I have seen that this can work in some situations.

[ABTsportsline]

ok, i've read through this thread, and found out information that i didn't want to hear.....

but i still have a question. i have a series 2 80 hour with a weaknees kit piggybacking a 120 Gb drive... at any rate the tivo is not quite 2 years old.... and i got the problems starting....

first thing was the thing rebooted itself, and it stays on the "Welcome, powering up...." screen. this is what threw me - no one really mentioned that here. i thought if the hard drive fails you won't even get that far?

i get the clicking - it happens rarely though - like maybe once every five minutes. a big problem here is which drive is it? how do i know?

i definitely want to save everything i have, and know what i am doing with computers, so i plan on cloning whichever drive it is.... but don't know which drive it is. the drives are so close together, i can't tell which one is clicking. Is it safe to say the main TIVO drive is bad? how will i know that the next drive i put in won't go bad immediately?

thanks!

[ABTsportsline]

i guess my other quetsion is if my hard drive is bad, how do i save the information on it? i can't just slave this drive on my computer can i? if the drive is "clicking" and stuff...?

[richierich]

The clicking can be caused by a hard drive going bad or by a bad power source. If you don't have enough power to successfully boot up the drives, then it will hang with that message. I had it plugged into a an APC battery backup system and knowing that a bad power source can cause problems that mimic a bad hard drive condition, I unplugged it and ran it straight into the wall socket. That corrected the problem. There is even a way to adjust the power supply to give you more or less power because there is a window or range of power that it needs. If it is less or more than that range it will cause problems.

[thehepcat]

How about pixelation during playback - only occasionally, and never during live viewing? Unit is a Toshiba SD-H400, about 14 months old.

[ABTsportsline]

i guess my other quetsion is if my hard drive is bad, how do i save the information on it? i can't just slave this drive on my computer can i? if the drive is "clicking" and stuff...?
^^ ?

i don't think it would be a power supply problem as the tivo has been working fine for a long time - i haven't changed anything on it since i got it when i added the 2nd drive and weaknees kit.... but that was like two years ago.

i *doubt* it is the power supply, so how do i recover the files on the Hard Drive if it is clicking?

and how do i plug in the power directly to the wall socket or adjust the PS voltage?

[ABTsportsline]

two week bump...

[richierich]

I can give you a link to another website that will explain how age can cause a power supply to gradually get to a point of degradation gradually where it will not generate enough power to adequately power up the hard drives which mimics the hard drive failure symptoms even the clicking noise. You take your power cord from your Tivo and just plug it straight into the wall socket if it is not plugged into it that way now. Are you using a battery backup system? How is it getting power?
If it is a bad hard drive that is getting ready to fail or die, you might be able to recover the data long enough to offload it by running SpinRite data recovery software against on your PC. I have written several lengthy posts about SR and how it works so do a search on my posts or do a search on Spinrite. Also, do a search on power supply or PM me for the link.

[f4phantomii]

OK...here's another one to throw at you folks.....

I had a TiVo series 1 (Philips unit, I think) that I added an 80GB drive to. After about 6 months to a 1 year of use, it began more of what I'd call a "stumble" than a pause/freeze/stutter.

Basically the picture pauses just for a split second and continues. Audio stays in sync just fine. It occurs maybe every once in a while..sometimes a couple times a show, usually less. The closest thing I can think of to compare it to is when a DVD swtiches layers on older players. You get this brief pause, just long enough to for you to begin to think half of an "uh-oh" before it continues.

As time went on, it seemed to become more frequent. But about that time I sold that unit and bought a Series 2 unit for the HMO capabilities. I immediately added a 100GB drive to it.

After about 18 months of use, the same problem is showing up again.

Over the life of this unit, I've probably recorded thousands of hours of TV. I think we have nearly 50 season passes set up, plus lots of wish lists. Can't hardly watch "Live" TV as it's always recording something. I'm on normal analog cable, no converter.

In any case, I have wondered if perhaps the filesystem is getting fragmented. That's what it feels like....as if there isn't a drive hardware problem, but just enough of a brief pause while it has to go to a far-away area of the drive to pick up where it left off. It really is very slight, not even a full second. But it's annoying, and it seems to continue to get worse, which would fit with the fragmentation theory.

I've maybe only ever had it crash once, temps are usually around 40C. Other than that, it doesn't really act up.

Any thoughts on this, or is my theory total nonsense?

-Michael

[timckelley]

My series one has been pixelating and stuttering, and it's getting worse and worse. It's practically unwatchable now. :(

[docsavagedp]

I am have a problem with my new HR10-250. My old RCA HD reciever (no Tivo) worked just fine using component in. My HR10-250 however frequently pauses the restarts. I also noticed that when watching the preview loops on channel 100, the pause will happen in the same spots. When I rewind the pauses are recorded. I have only had this thing for 2 days and not sure what I can do to fix it.
The Directv installer will be out soon maybe he will have a fix? LOL? Based on what Ive read here, I have to take the HD out and run Spinrite or replace it? :confused:

[richierich]

How long have you had it? You can have it replaced under warranty. I would make sure that it is not caused by input problems. Hard drive problems normally demonstrate pixellation, stuttering, etc.

[docsavagedp]

RR, what do you mean by "Input Problems"? Should i buy monster cables?

I called Cust Support and they are sending me a new one. Wow I just bought this one! I hope I dont get one that does the same! :mad:

Have you or anyone else actually seen this problem corrected via replacement of unit or HDD?

[richierich]

Normally, if it is a bad hard drive that works intermittantly, then when it works and you rewind it, it will play perfectly not as you say with pauses in it. The pauses are caused by the reading of the hard drive but if it is happening in the same place every time you replay a recording then that was caused because the input signal was not constant and had a pause in it which was recorded because of the input signal and not the hard drive. If you have bad weather which causes pixellation, your recorder will record it and it will be like that every time you replay it. If you have a good recording but a hard drive going bad then sometimes you will get pixellation but at different spots or places in the recording. It may happen 2 minutes into the playback or 10 minutes or whatever and then the next time it may play fine. These are 2 different problems. I am wondering if your problem is caused by a bad input signal or a bad tuner.

[arbiggs]

OK. At least I know I'm not alone. I have a Series 2 DirecTiVo RCA DVR-40 that worked great for over a year and then began to pixelate/pause/stop. It seemed it was only while I was recording 2 shows and watching a third. I did some research; aha, a bad HDD. Replaced original 40GB with Maxtor 160GB (whoo hoo) and it worked great for a week and a half. Last night it did the ol' pixelate/pause thing, but this time it was non-responsive to the remote. Well, not completely non-responsive, I pressed FFwd x 2, DirecTiVo Button, Pause, FFwd, Play, or some combination thereof and after about 15 sec. it began executing the remote commands... very slowly. A command, wait about 3 sec. and another command, etc. I've read through this thread and plan to try a few of the recommended solutions. But am curious if I'm the only one with the "combo" of freezing/non-responsive remote.
Thanx for any further insight.

[timckelley]

My series one has been pixelating and stuttering, and it's getting worse and worse. It's practically unwatchable now. :(

I replaced the bad hard drive using the Hinsdale instructions, and am really happy with the results. My TiVo works perfectly now, good as the day I bought it. :up: :cool:

[richierich]

When it is not responsive to the remote, it is busy or CPU bound and queues up the task in the task queue until it can get to it. This can be caused because it is taking a long time to read the data because of a bad sector. Running SpinRite software can correct the bad sector problem for a while but if you have a relatively new hard drive I would not think that should be the case.

[woolerym]

I'm convinced that my series 2's case of the stutters is not harddrive related. A few months ago I saw the classic symptoms of a bad harddrive- crashing, rebooting, etc. I purchased a new (bigger!) drive and for a coupel days everything was good- then the stutters came back.

If I trasfer show to either my other Tivo or PC (usuing multi-room and pc-to-go respectufully), shows are flawless. When I restart my tivo, even the theme song is jumpy from time to time.

I really think this started when the last update came down- the one with games and podcasts and stuff. Called tivo, and they made it sound like they had never heard of the stuttering problem!). It really looks like the cpu/mpeg decoder,bios are just lagging.

My harddrive temp is 35degrees, and I haven't heard any clicking sounds. Have tried replacing the IDE cable.

Anyone else see these symptoms? Suppossedly there is a new update coming out in the next month or so- untill then I'm keeping my eyes open for a new box on ebay.

[richierich]

Well, I did not have any problems until the last release and then it happened to me. I finally sent the unit off and replaced the bad drive and now it is working perfectly so in my case it was definitely the hard drive but what was funny was that it worked okay until that last download occurred.

[ZikZak]

woolerym,

Sounds like a classic hard drive failure to me. If your tivo is just plugged into the wwall, for instance, and is not on a conditioned power source like a UPS, fluctuations in the power can seriously damage hard drives. This may have happened to both of yours. Hard drive problems are often be dormant until the software is updated because of tivo's partitioning scheme, in which one system partition is never in use, then gets switched in during an update. It has nothing to do with the system software itself.

[timckelley]

Could it be that something is causing his HDs to go bad, so that if he simply replaces the HD, that one will go bad too, because of the underlying problem?

[ZikZak]

If there is an underlying problem, it is usually simply an unconditioned power supply combined with local power fluctuations coming from the electric company. I highly recommend using a UPS for your tivo.

[richierich]

I have the APC S15 which is one of the best power conditioning battery backup units out there and my unit failed right after the last upgrade. I think that is very interesting, however after running SpinRite I found out I had some bad sectors so I ran it and it worked for awhile and then screwed up again so I ran SR again and it worked for awhile and then whammo. I then sent it off to Weaknees for a replacment drive.

[ZikZak]

Even with power conditioning, it's unfortunate, but drives do go bad. Again, it is common for drive errors to lay dormant for a while, only to show up immediately after a system upgrade because of the way Tivo uses dormant system partitions.

[timckelley]

I've always used UPS's, but after owning my series 1 for 2 years, a hard drive failed. I wasn't the original owner, so I can't speak to what kind of power conditioning the first owner had.

I wound up not using Weaknees, but instead following the Hinsdale instructions and saved money, but I will confess it took me 3 evenings to figure it all out and to fix it.

[James Nichols]

My Tivo is stuck on the Welcome,Powering Up screen.Can anyone help me?

[timckelley]

My Tivo is stuck on the Welcome,Powering Up screen.Can anyone help me?

Same thing's currently happening to my boss's daughter's one-year old combo-TiVo-DVD-burner unit. I'm thinking this could also be a hard drive problem, but I not the resident expert here. I'm sure others will soon confirm or deny this.

[ZikZak]

Stuck on "Welcome, Powering Up" means the tivo can't see the hard drive at all. Open the box and make sure all the connecting wires to the drive are seated firmly on both ends. If that doesn't help, the most probable issue is a busted power supply.

[richierich]

Also, unplug your power cord and plug into another outlet and see if that helps. A bad power supply could be causing your problem and that can be replaced by a company that specializes in fixing Tivos. If the power ribbon is loose, it can cause the same problem or if the power cable to your hard drive is loose that can cause the problem or it can just be a bad hard drive. If you do a search on my moniker you will find alot of my posts on this subject and where you can go to find or troubleshoot the problem.

[blindlemon]

If that doesn't help, the most probable issue is a busted power supply.IME the most probable issue is always a busted drive :D

A totally dead drive will give the same symptoms and is much more likely than a dead PSU. After you've checked the drive and found it to be working OK, then suspect the PSU. It's a shame though, as PSUs are a lot cheaper than drives :(

[ljk76]

i have a Directv dvr r10, which is a receiver and tivo all in one. I am getting a bad care of freezing over the last 2 months, but I do alot of recording daily; I have 55 season passes, and have about 39-40 hours of of now playing list. I am purchasing a dvd recorder (panasonic es10s), so I can record to dvd and clear out my now playing list, which I am told would help clear up my freezing issue; to describe it, my recordings freeze midway thru recording (remote control inoperable), and when trying to switch between live tv channels, the picture does not follow; I get the tivo green screen and audio. I reboot, and it clears up, but a reboot seemingly means 2-3 reboots within days before it clears up.

[timckelley]

That sounds a lot like a bad hard drive. I had many of your symptoms, and replacing my bad hard drive cleared it all up.

[lajohn27]

If your TIVO is stuck on POWERING UP and never gets past that point or continually reboots..

Follow the instructions in this post:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3845759&highlight=disk+check+57+pause#post3845759

Do it once with the command 57 (which performs a HD check) and then with a 52 (which installs the current software on the opposite system partition ... This *may* get your TIVO back up and running - at least long enough for you to watch your shows.

J

[ZikZak]

i have a Directv dvr r10, which is a receiver and tivo all in one. I am getting a bad care of freezing over the last 2 months, but I do alot of recording daily

Your rationale doesn't make much sense. You do exactly as much recording per day as everyone with a tivo does: 24 hours worth.

[krisnfred]

We have a 140-hour TiVo Series 2, purchased direct from the TiVo site in July 2005. Within the last week our Tivo has rebooted a couple of times (we understand this is abnormal). Since the middle of last week recordings (occasionally) have been rolling so that the bottom half of the recording is on the top of the screen and the heads of the persons in the recording are on the bottom (like when the vertical hold would go bad on your parents' 70s/80s cabinet model TV), the images pixelate to the point of causing the image to become unwatchable, or the image & audio "stutter" for a couple of seconds here and there throughout the recording. This is happening on both recordings and live TV, though not all the time. Some recordings are particularly bad, however; others have no problems at all.

We have contacted TiVo customer support and were told our options are to either pay $49, send them our TiVo, and on receipt of it they will send us a refurbished Series 2 (in which case we would have no TiVo for over a week); or to pay $349 up front, they send us a refurbished Series 2, then we send ours back, and on receipt, they refund only $199 of the original amount deposited. Either of these options seem poor as our unit has warranty until July 2006 and the refurb model would only have 60 days according to two Tivo customer support reps. Also, with either of these options, we would lose all of our preferences and have to reprogram all of our season passes, wishlists, etc.

I (Fred of KRISnFRED) have a general knowledge of PCs and helped construct our home PC from scratch, a complete custom build. Is it possible that this could be a software issue? Do we need a new hard drive? This all began after the recent upgrade from Tivo to add Live 365, games, online features, etc., to TiVo Central.

Anyone have any advice?

[timckelley]

If it's under warranty, why do you have to pay anything?

[krisnfred]

Good question. It apparently had a 90 day full replacement warranty, but after that there is a $49 service fee according to two TiVo customer support techs.

[timckelley]

To me your symptoms sounds like a bad hard drive, and replacement will likely need to involve replacement of the hard drive + reconfiguring of the software on it.

You could do it yourself if you like, using the Hinsdale instructions found in the 'TiVo Upgrade Center" subforum. The people there will also give you instructions on diagnosing whether this is in fact your problem, but I predict it is. It's too bad your hard drive didn't even last a year.

[richierich]

I will state this one more time as I have many times in the past. So many times if one has a unit that has a bad or fluctuating power supply it can mimic symtoms that are common with a bad hard drive. So you must determine if it is a bad hard drive, a loose connection to the hard drive or a bad or fluctuating power supply which can be caused by battery backups, etc. Have you tried to plug your unit into another outlet? You can't just assume that it is a bad hard drive. Alot of people have found out that it was a loose connection and that when they disconnected it and added the new hard drive it worked not because of the new hard drive but making a good connection or a bad IDE or power cable. You need to check out all connections first. Then it could be a bad power supply or bad power coming in.

[krisnfred]

Thanks richierich, we are new to the board so I appreciate any input. I have checked all the external connections (outside the TiVo), changed the cable coaxial from the wall to the TiVo, and actually added a larger UPS device than the one that was there previously when the problem first began. I, as you have implied, am also concerned that the problem will not be the HD, but rather a connection. However, if I open the TiVo case to check inside...will that not void any warranty we have left on the unit?

[kasey3333]

After reading this thread I have come to the conclusion that I may soon have to replace my harddrive - my question is how do I know what kind to buy? I have a Phillips HRD212.

I see so many listed on Ebay as Tivo harddrives - and I love the bargains Ebay can offer - but I don't want to have to load the software on the new harddrive myself. Do I have to buy a specific type or one with specific software on it?

What would happen if I bought a harddrive advertised as Series 2 - will it work on my Series 1? I don't want to lose my lifetime subscription!

Any help & guidance would be appreciated - thanks!

[Roadblock]

I bought my mother a Tivo for Christmas and she is now getting the stuttering/freezing/pixellation problems in live TV. The picture is pixellated completely and the audio is gorked. The recordings look ok. Anyone had a problem with a hard drive this soon (4 months, conveniently past the 90 days)?

And is the Hinsdale guide still the best info for replacing the drive?

[richierich]

Try plugging the Tivo directly into another receptacle. Low power or bad power can mimic a hard drive going bad. Also, sometimes it can be a power supply unit going bad or needing to be tweaked (yes, it can be fine tuned) or sent off to a company I know of that will diagnose the problem and fix it whether it is the hard drive or a bad power supply.

[bfoote]

I have a lifetime subscription Series 2 TCD140060 with the origional HD plus a 120G I put in long ago. I replaced the power supply about 8 months ago. I installed the Tivo Desktop software a few months ago. No other modifications.

About 2 months ago it started freezing occasionally, and now it's happening about 3 times a week. As far as I can tell, it only happens when it completes a recording. The recording saves properly without errors, then the screen freezes and the red light stays on. It will not respond to the remote or record anything else until I unplug it and plug it back in. This has happened while I was watching something else and while it's just sitting. The highest temperature I've seen it at is 48C. Increasing open space around it does not help. Freeing up extra space on the HD does not help.

It does not stutter or freeze under any other condition. Only upon completion of a recording.

Any thoughts? This doesn't seem to match the bad HD symptom reports I'm seeing.

[Buck6196]

I have a RCA - Directv Tivo that has recently been acting up on me. The only problem is that it locks up while watching. It will be on a lot of the day since my wife is at home with the kids. It will go most of the morning fine, then lock up after a while. By late afternoon it will be locking up every 20 or 30 minutes. Some days are better than others with minimal lock ups. I called her a little while ago for her to check the temp and it was 47C. Do I have a pending drive failure or a temp problem?

Thanks.

[ZikZak]

If it's happening only in the afternoon, it might be a temperature problem... especially if the room isn't air-conditioned. 47C is kinda high. I'd try to improve the ventillation around the tivo and see if it helps.

[killme]

I've got a DT unit that likes to reboot when I am transferring a recording from my other DT unit. After the reboot the transfer starts over from the beginning. It doesn't always reboot at the same spot in the transfer. I called TiVo and they told me to replace it. Didn't say anything else. I wish they would tell me what's wrong, but I plan to do that.

Another issue is that both of my DT units experience a stutter problem (1/2 second pause in video and sound) every now and then (10-40 minutes). It even happens when you fast forward.

[whistler]

[QUOTE=JadziaDax<Snip>Is anyone else experiencing this type of problem with the 7.2.something update that happened in September? Or am I alone in this issue?[/QUOTE]

Yes, I am having the same problem since 7.2. I have been reading through the suggestions here and I am trying some things listed here - I will report on the results.

[Buck6196]

I lifted my unit off of the shelf it is on by about 1/2". We are now lock-up free for about 2 weeks or so. I guess the ventilation and temp we affecting it a lot.
:D :up:

[rtatlow]

I recently added a second drive to TiVo (Series 2, Model 240-0001-F022-12a1) and now have 235 hours capability. Recently, the system started stuttering even shows I recorded a month ago. Also, everything (menu selections, menu navigation, etc.) is in "slow motion". Now, I can't delete old shows, using either the new "clear" facility or the old "select / delete" method. It doesn't record scheduled shows in my "To Do" list , and I cannot restore any recently deleted shows.

I have been able to copy shows over to my PC and they appear without the stuttering.

Is this still a bad drive or something more serious? Please advise.

[banditotivo]

New to the forum! This is a great amount of info. I have tried to read all teh faq's before posting. I have a Tivo, RCAhd40 model. Have used the system reformat command today. I am still getting stuttering and freezing. I am thinking that the drive is having a hard time. This is MY Tivo and I am not worried about trying to open it up and replace the drive (Pc tech for many years). My questions is do I need to replace with the same brand/type drive or can any drive work? I am happy with a 40 gb drive (original type) is fine with me. I have a 40 gb drive out of a pc now and can easily use it. If I use a larger drive will I need to do anything special? Or can I just put in a larger drive and the Tivo will see it for what it is?
Thanks
Brian

[timckelley]

New to the forum! This is a great amount of info. I have tried to read all teh faq's before posting. I have a Tivo, RCAhd40 model. Have used the system reformat command today. I am still getting stuttering and freezing. I am thinking that the drive is having a hard time. This is MY Tivo and I am not worried about trying to open it up and replace the drive (Pc tech for many years). My questions is do I need to replace with the same brand/type drive or can any drive work? I am happy with a 40 gb drive (original type) is fine with me. I have a 40 gb drive out of a pc now and can easily use it. If I use a larger drive will I need to do anything special? Or can I just put in a larger drive and the Tivo will see it for what it is?
Thanks
Brian

You have to initialize the drive with linux commands. When you do so, that'll tell the TiVo how big the drive is.

[GBIDrugLord]

I've been having some problems lately. My Humax DRT-400 started freezing up on my factory refurb unit (my orig DRT-400 had a bad DVD drive in it). Randomly, the unit would freeze up, wouldn't respond to the remote control, so on and so forth. Of course, I think maybe a bad hard drive.

So I upgraded my 40Gb drive to a 160Gb drive (pre loaded with the image) from Weaknees, hoping the would solve my problem. Well, it didn't. It kept locking up, so I thought that maybe (probably not) that they sent me a bad drive. I checked it out with Maxtor's PowerMax utility and everything passed.

I then tried switching power outlets in my room. No such luck there. I've had a surge protector for the whole time, but I decided to go out and get a UPS battery backup. Maybe my problem was the fluctuations in the power line from the wall were causing the drive to freeze up. Is there a product out there that will "smooth out" electricity coming from a wall (that won't cost me a ton of money)?

Nope, last night it froze again. I'm getting really frustrated because I can't get this unit to work properly, and I really don't want to send my unit back to Humax and wait over 3 weeks for the replacement.

I've got a TiVo brand wireless adapter with a D-Link 624 (rev. C) router. I am doubting that the adapter (or if the router drops the adapter for whatever reason) is the culprit here, because I went a few days with the adapter not plugged in to the unit and it still froze up.

[richierich]

A bad power supply can cause similar problems that mimic a bad drive so you might want to do a search on power supply or bad power because I have posted numerous posts on this subject. There is a company that you can send your unit to and they will fix it after they determine exactly what the problem is.

[timckelley]

Also, I think before replacing a hard drive it's good to test the bad one to confirm it's bad. Sorry you spent all that money on weaknees.

[GBIDrugLord]

Also, I think before replacing a hard drive it's good to test the bad one to confirm it's bad. Sorry you spent all that money on weaknees.


It wasn't all bad. I had a 40 hour drive originally, so upgrading to the 160 was nice in and of itself

[JoelR]

I tried resolving my stuttering problem by replacing the drive and found that I still had the same problem. I thought it could then be the power supply or the main board of tivo (per previous posts). Well, I also noticed that my picture on all tv's in the house had a line scrolling up the TV. So, I called the cable company to look into that problem. The display problem turned out to be the need to replace the cable amplifier that boosts the signal (used for when the line is split multiple times). After the amp was replaced I was hopeful the tivo problem would go away as well. At first the problem did not go away but then I tried doing a tivo complete reset and the problem was then resolved. And yes... I tried the tivo reset on the new drive before the amp was replaced and that did not solve the problem. so it appears that the amp caused the tivo stuttering.

I hope this helps others.

[TypeSDragoon]

I have a series 2 240040, and it has been losing power everyday for the past week. it sounds like it's still on, but is non-responsive with the remote (remote is not the problem).

i have to unplug it and plug it back in. then when its' back up and running i check my to-do list history and it didn't record a few shows due to "loss of power"

is this contributed to hard drive failure? or the power supply?
when it dies, it's still making fan noises/normal noises

thanks all

[Ali-G]

My Sony TiVO Series 2 has started to act in recent months. It is the reboot issue. Previously it wasnt so bad, but since the 7.3.1 software upgrade, it now reboots every 5 minutes or so. This makes it unusable.

I have another older TiVO box, should I swap the hard-drive in, and see if it solves anything? I dont want to buy a new hard-drive if this is a software issue by TiVO.

I tried the experiments with removing the wireless adapter. In fact, with nothing hooked up to TiVO, except Power, it still reboots constantly.

HELP !!

[pixelguy]

What about if i have pixelization only on some channels but not others? does that sound like a HD problem still or something else.
the 2nd Tivo in the house displays no problems at all

bill

[valkaz]

My mom's TiVo has started with the stuttering and freezing. My brother was apparently on the phone with TiVo for 4 hours on Saturday. They told him that they updated the software and now a lot of people are having trouble with their boxes. They tried a mass assortment of different things, and they told my brother to call back the next day with an update about whether or not it was working. They said if it wasn't - they would send a replacement TiVo to my mom and her lifetime subscription would be saved.

My brother calls back yesterday. Whatever they suggested didn't work, so my mom wants to get a replacement box. Now it turns out that they want $149 for it. She wasn't happy about it, but she agreed to pay the money since they were going to transfer her lifetime subscription.

Now today my brother gets an email that the box is refurbished. WTH? You can buy a new system for $99, and they want $149 for a refurbished box because they're going to save her liftetime subscription?? My brother called to complain, and the girl told him that they can't transfer a lifetime subscription to a new machine. That's total B.S. They could do whatever they wanted to do.

I can tell you that when my TiVo dies, I'm switching over to a Comcast box. I've already had enough myself with the local numbers no longer being available and now I'm having to pay for long distance phone calls to update my programming guide.

[dleewo]

My mom's TiVo has started with the stuttering and freezing. My brother was apparently on the phone with TiVo for 4 hours on Saturday. They told him that they updated the software and now a lot of people are having trouble with their boxes.

Can anyone else confirm this? I have 2 TiVos and one started doing this. I was about to investigate changing the hard drive, but if it's a software update issue, then changing the HD wouldn't help.

[ZikZak]

Bad drives are often discovered when the software is updated, because the software is installed on a part of the drive that was not previously in use. If a bad sector develops in that partition, it will only become apparent after an update. It is not the software; it is your drive.

[dleewo]

Bad drives are often discovered when the software is updated, because the software is installed on a part of the drive that was not previously in use. If a bad sector develops in that partition, it will only become apparent after an update. It is not the software; it is your drive.

Thanks....I'll replace the hard drive later today.

[timckelley]

Thanks....I'll replace the hard drive later today.

Before replacing it, you might want to run a hard drive fitness utility to confirm whether or not it's actually bad. To do that, you could pull the drive and look to see who the manufacturer is, and then google it to get the fitness utility.

[rdrrepair]

I will pass along an observation that I had with my TiVos. I ran a new TiVo network adapters to each of my boxes. After I did that and set them up I found that my TiVo was freezing. Thinking that I had an issue with the downloads or network interference I disconnect the adapter from the one box. All stuttering stopped.

I swapped them around and still had the same problem. Odd, I thought, maybe it has something to do with the cable box. None of the other TiVo's are suffering from this. After taking this out of the system it started to work right.

I tried several combinations until I found, that the stuttering had to do with the TiVo wireless adapter sending a signal into the top of my cable box. The stuttering was on the output of the cable box feed. The additional TiVo adapter was causing interference.

I remounted the adapters higher up and farther out of the way. My cable box on that TiVo is a "Scientific Atlanta - Explorer 3250HD".

As an added test I went into the bedroom and mounted my adapter closer to another cable box, a "Pioneer Voyager - BD-V3510" and was able to semi-duplicate the same conditions.

Try to unplug your network adapter before you replace your hard drive. it just might save you time, money, and aggravation.

[TracerBullet]

On one of my TiVos, the picture on recorded programs or live TV will sometimes exhibit quick lines going across the screen. The best approximation of what it looks like is what a VCR with a tracking problem would display.

I have ruled out all problems and have it narrowed to one possibility: the connection between the cable box and the TiVo. Is it possible that the composite video connector is faulty? How would I determine this?

[CrispyCritter]

On one of my TiVos, the picture on recorded programs or live TV will sometimes exhibit quick lines going across the screen. The best approximation of what it looks like is what a VCR with a tracking problem would display.

I have ruled out all problems and have it narrowed to one possibility: the connection between the cable box and the TiVo. Is it possible that the composite video connector is faulty? How would I determine this?Have you really ruled out the possibility of a "floating ground"? If not, I'd do some searches and see if the symptoms match yours (your brief description indicates it might be the problem).

[TracerBullet]

Have you really ruled out the possibility of a "floating ground"? If not, I'd do some searches and see if the symptoms match yours (your brief description indicates it might be the problem).

You know, it might be this. The problem didn't start until I moved a few months ago. Of course, it could also be that the hard drive got banged around during the move, but I'll try to see how I can fix this.

Edit: I found this (http://www.topmic.com/41145.html): is this something to try?

[CrispyCritter]

That sort of thing is one of the major solutions to the symptoms. What I would do first is a quick check to see if your cable coming into the house is properly grounded (whether satellite or cable company). It should be physically connected to a ground (wire or metal pole going into the ground) before it enters the house. If that connection is loose or missing, fixing it should solve your entire problem. If it's missing, you should be able to get your installers to come back and do it right.

[TracerBullet]

That sort of thing is one of the major solutions to the symptoms. What I would do first is a quick check to see if your cable coming into the house is properly grounded (whether satellite or cable company). It should be physically connected to a ground (wire or metal pole going into the ground) before it enters the house. If that connection is loose or missing, fixing it should solve your entire problem. If it's missing, you should be able to get your installers to come back and do it right.

My other TV does not exhibit this problem, so I think that would rule it out (although maybe not?). Thanks for information though, I will definitely check this out tonight.

[JerryL]

Can anyone else confirm this? I have 2 TiVos and one started doing this. I was about to investigate changing the hard drive, but if it's a software update issue, then changing the HD wouldn't help.

My TIVO S3 now has pixelation on HBO and CSN after the 8.3 update. I contacted Verizon and and they are going to reset the cablecards. I'll see if that works, but I feel it is the software update.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=352788&page=1&pp=30

[timckelley]

Question: What if the TiVo has stuttering symptoms, but when I rewind and replay, it doesn't stutter in the same spots?

Here's the history of my series 1:


Bought it used off ebay, in January 2005
In early, 2006, one of it's two drives started malfunctioning. The symptoms were stuttering, pixelation, and freezing, but when I replayed the shows, the stuttering was always in the same places.
I replaced the bad hard drive.
I then subscribed the unit for the first time
One month later (IOW spring of 2006), I converted my sub to a lifetime
Now it's starting to stutter again, though not too much. But it is noticably stuttering more and more consistently, and strangely, when I replay, it doesn't stutter in the same spots each time I replay.


So given this different type of stuttering as before, is this also the symptom of a bad hard drive? If so, I'm guessing it's the one I didn't replace last year. Maybe it's time for the other drive to go bad.

[Icehawk]

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5313402

Started last Friday - if the cable is plugged in the Tivo locks up on HD channels. Unplug all is well. New cable cards won't install, they lock the Tivo. Cable is Comcast.

Anyone?

[brendalee2]

For the past 3-4 months, my Series 1 Sony TiVo has been trying to get my attention, with stuttering, sounds not quite lining up with the images, stalling, and taking forever to get to the "Now Playing List". So I decided that a new hard drive would be in order, only because I know that the current setup works fine with my Comcast Digital Cable, and still allows me the ability to use my OnDemand and Pay Per View capabilities. Believing I would have time to hook up a VCR to download my saved programs before the hard drive 'surgical procedure', I ordered a 160G single drive from Weaknees on Tuesday evening, only to be outwitted by the TiVo. Thursday evening I turned on the television and was greeted with the green screen of death. Not exactly knowing what to do besides follow the instructions on the screen, I searched online and found this community. The TiVo has now been in its 'green' state for 24 hours now (or longer, since TiVo doesn't offer the exact time of the severe error), and I still have no idea if I should let it run its course for a full 48 hours before unplugging and letting it rest for a couple of hours.

Potential reasons I personally believe my TiVo died (or is dying):

-It's old.
-I've saved way too many programs for way too long. Perhaps the drive was using the same sections over and over again to record new programs or Tivo's choices, and eventually got tired.
-I left it on most of the time. Perhaps if I had only set the Tivo to record only the programs I wanted, or only live T.V. when I was watching it, it would have last longer.
-I kept it in an enclosed cabinet, so perhaps it couldn't breathe as well as it could have. Or perhaps the temperature wasn't optimal.
-I've been through one too many rainstorms. Recently, I've made it a point to unplug my computer equipment from the wall when I'm home during a storm. Although my computer is hooked up to a UPS, I have my TiVo and other equipment hooked up to a simple power strip with a little surge protector on it.

Any ideas on what you think I should do? If this problem isn't the hard drive, would I risk damaging any working parts (like the 'motherboard'---don't know what that is exactly) by not having more patience? I'd hate to have new materials that would never even work because I couldn't wait a few more days....but I'm still hopeful that I'll be able to at least run the machine to extract archived shows. Weaknees should be here by this Tuesday, with a new fan and 2-year warranty.

Many thanks in advance!

[dgatwood]

This sounds a little nuts, but I was having this problem until today on my S1 TiVo. I cloned to a new drive, but the problem persisted. In addition it stopped booting consistently. It would boot maybe one time out of twenty (and kept getting worse). Eventually, in desperation, I thought maybe the power supply voltage might be low, so I took a screwdriver and tweaked the vasj pot at the front left corner of the PSU clockwise just a bit. Upon powering up the machine, it booted on the first try and it hasn't stuttered all evening.

It's too early to say with absolute certainty that the problem is really gone, but thus far, is looks good. If it holds, I'll make a custom cable so I can check the supply rail voltsges under load.

Sent from my iPhone.

[timckelley]

I'm having lots of stuttering on my series 1. When I do the instant replay, it doesn't always stutter in the same place, but it does seem always stutter very close (within a second or two) of the same place upon replay.

The stuttering is getting so rampant that I need to do something about it.

I assume this sounds like a failing hard drive, right?

[Unix_Beard]

I have a Tivo that was off the network for a month or so. When I plugged it back in, it fetched the missing guide and all the other data it needed to resurrect itself. It evidently rebooted after an update at some point. It stops at the "Welcome. Powering Up" and sits there. It sat all night like that. I unplugged it and rebooted it and it did it again.

Should I assume the drive is dead?

[wdaveo]

I have a Toshiba which is pixelating, stuttering and clicking - but only on 2 channels, HBO and Showtime. The network channels as well as FX, Bravo, etc. are fine.

Hubby replaced the hard drive about a year ago.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks

[Lowcarb]

I'll be replacing the HDD on one of my series2 units.
I've been suffering with occasional stuttering and unexplained reboots about 1x / week.
Its getting worse so I have to act soon.

Checking the log file /var/log/kernel seem to indicate that I have a bad sector, (or the drive can't properly seek to the sector in question)

Log cleared on Fri Sep 28, 2007 by TivoWebPlus
Sep 28 13:08:23 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
Sep 28 13:08:23 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=79418507, high=4, low=12309643, sector=45057
Sep 28 13:08:23 (none) kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 03:0c (hda), sector 45057
Sep 28 13:08:25 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
Sep 28 13:08:25 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=79418507, high=4, low=12309643, sector=45057
Sep 28 13:08:25 (none) kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 03:0c (hda), sector 45057
Sep 28 13:08:27 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
Sep 28 13:08:27 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=79418507, high=4, low=12309643, sector=45057
Sep 28 13:08:27 (none) kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 03:0c (hda), sector 45057
Sep 28 13:08:29 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
Sep 28 13:08:29 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=79418507, high=4, low=12309643, sector=45057
Sep 28 13:08:29 (none) kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 03:0c (hda), sector 45057
Sep 28 13:08:31 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
Sep 28 13:08:31 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=79418507, high=4, low=12309643, sector=45057
Sep 28 13:08:31 (none) kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 03:0c (hda), sector 45057
Sep 28 13:08:33 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
Sep 28 13:08:33 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=79418507, high=4, low=12309643, sector=45057
Sep 28 13:08:33 (none) kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 03:0c (hda), sector 45057
Sep 28 13:08:35 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
Sep 28 13:08:35 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=79418507, high=4, low=12309643, sector=45057
Sep 28 13:08:35 (none) kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 03:0c (hda), sector 45057
Sep 28 13:08:37 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
Sep 28 13:08:37 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=79418507, high=4, low=12309643, sector=45057
Sep 28 13:08:37 (none) kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 03:0c (hda), sector 45057
Sep 28 13:08:40 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
Sep 28 13:08:40 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=79418507, high=4, low=12309643, sector=45057
Sep 28 13:08:40 (none) kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev 03:0c (hda), sector 45057
Sep 28 13:08:42 (none) kernel: hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }



Knowing where to look to find this type of error might be helpful to others who are not sure that they have a drive error.

I'm going to try using mfslive tools to copy my drive to a new one.

Any tips I should be aware of?

[Lowcarb]

The Bedroom unit is alive and well after cloning the ailing 120G drive to a 200G w/ mfsAlive.

[usmaak]

Hi,

I have no stuttering at all. What I do have is lockups. My TiVo Series 2 locks up about once a week. We missed recording three shows tonight because of one of these unexpected lockups. I wish I could know for sure that it was the HD, as opposed to something else. I don't want to spend all that money unless that's actually the problem.

[timckelley]

Hi,

I have no stuttering at all. What I do have is lockups. My TiVo Series 2 locks up about once a week. We missed recording three shows tonight because of one of these unexpected lockups. I wish I could know for sure that it was the HD, as opposed to something else. I don't want to spend all that money unless that's actually the problem.

Yes, a bad HD could be it. But to be sure, before you spend all that $, you can confirm by doing the following:


Open the hood (i.e. open the TiVo)
Take out the drive (s)
Note the manufacturer of the drive (s)
google it on the web and find some free fitness utilites and download those utilities
Run them, following the instructions to test to see if your drives are good or bad. This might involve booting to a CD or a diskette (depending on where you store the utilities), because sometimes these utilities are downloaded in such a way to make your diskette or CD bootable.

[ragnrok23]

I have had a scrambled cable signal with a green tint to it 3 times in the past month. The first two times, I unplugged the Tivo and plugged it back in, the third time, I just went to the tivo menu, then went back to live TV and everything was OK. Any ideas what this could be? I've only had the box for 2 months and have a 3 year commitment, so I want to make sure I have a working box...........

[substance12]

I have a brand new tivo hd and after I had my CC's installed I reran guided setup and it rebooted in the middle. I didn't think anything of it then later that night as I was moving my entertainment center around it rebooted again... which I thought was something I did. the next day I turn on my tivo and noticed my 30 sec skip was no longer working... which to me means it rebooted and reset itself while I was away.

I have none of the skipping/stuttering issues. presumably this is brand spankin new. Would a better surge protector work?

[greg_burns]

the next day I turn on my tivo and noticed my 30 sec skip was no longer working... which to me means it rebooted and reset itself while I was