Tivo Freezing

[Kerryokie]

I've had my Series 2 for about 9 months with no problems. But the other day I was watching a recorded program and the picture suddenly froze and wouldn't respond to the remote. The Tivo's front panel showed the yellow light. I unplugged the Tivo from the UPS so it would do a restart and afterward was able to resume watching my program. However when I turned on the TV this evening the screen was black and the Tivo wouldn't respond to the remote again. The front panel light was green this time. I unplugged again for another restart and got the unit going but it had failed to record a show I had programmed it to record. Everything seems to be working fine for the moment but that's two failures in two days. Does anyone have any ideas what is happening to my unit? Could this have anything to do with the recent Music & Photos free-trial they are offering (but which I haven't taken advantage of)?

Also, I was once told by Dell that if you leave your PC on all the time you should do a restart every few days. Since the Tivo is always on and recording would it also benefit by weekly restarts?

[JPriller]

There's no need to periodically restart a TiVo (or a PC, for that matter). All that does is stress the components needlessly. Only power-cycle either when you have to.

It's hard to say what's causing your problem, but the hard disk going bad sounds the most likely. That's what usually causes freeze-ups.

[lrbarnes]

My TiVo has been stopping and starting during playback. Is that the only explanation - that the hard disk is going bad?

[JPriller]

Originally posted by lrbarnes
My TiVo has been stopping and starting during playback. Is that the only explanation - that the hard disk is going bad? If it goes in fits and jerks but doesn't seize up entirely (requiring a reboot) then other posibilities are (I'm assuming you have a stand-alone TiVo, not a DirecTV-TiVo):

A weak input signal. The TiVo won't record when it thinks it's lost the signal, and they can be pretty sensitive. Check all cables and connectors. If you've got plain analog cable into the TiVo, try removing any splitters you have as a test.

Excess heat. That causes the MPEG chip to act wonky. Check the internal temperature on your System Information screen. A stand-alone TiVo shouldn't be any hotter than the low 40's.

And it could always be the hard drive. :(

[lrbarnes]

Thanks!

It does not seize up entirely. It just pauses and then starts again and then pauses for a longer period and starts up again.


I checked the internal temp. and it's normal.

Also, I have a stand-alone TiVo.

My next task will be to check the connections.

Thanks again and I'll let you know if this fixes the problem.

[WabbyTwax]

I am having the same exact problem with my standalone tivo. I've had it about 5 months now and just last week it started showing pixelation and freezing at random points while watching live tv and playing back recorded shows. Is this a bad hard drive? Does tivo cover this under warranty?

[JPriller]

It could be the drive, or the other things I mentioned above (heat, weak signal, bad cable/connectors). At 5 months old the unit is probably out of warranty (the standard is just 90 days) unless you bought an extended warranty for it. It wouldn't hurt to check where you bought it, though.

[jerobi]

Several of us have been noticing freezeups since a week or so ago. Either it's a coincidence that we're all having hard drive problems, or it has something to do with a new software update pushed down around then.

I'm sure statistically it's acceptable that a small percentage of people have HD errors at any given time, of course. But no one likes to be in that boat.

[Kreeper-X]

I've been having a similar problem that just started up last night at about 4am... The player was going just fine and I was watching the Tampa Bay lightning Whoop the Flyers when it just stopped. It would start again, play about 2 to 4 seconds and then freeze for an equal amount of time.

I pulled the plug, and reboot the machine and it worked fine for about 15 minutes and then it started doing the same thing. It would not resond to the remote, but when I hit the Tivo button it made the Tivo sound, but it just sat there... Keep in mind that my player was working fie until last night without a problem...

This time I rebooted the machine, forced it to make the nightly call again, and then put it on standby.

This morning it worked like a charm for about 10 hours and then it started again. This time I noticed that the fan in the back was pumping out some seriously warm air so I now have it unplugged and letting it cool down... Tomorrow I plan on taking it apart (since it's no longer under warranty) and giving it a good cleaning and I'm thinking of replacing the fan in the back... I've had this player for going on 2 years no with no problems until just recently...

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to look for while I'm in the unit?

[WabbyTwax]

That sounds exactly like what is happening with mine. Only I was rooting for the flyers and I actually switched to VCR because i was getting mad when it would freeze up. Flyers wouldnt be the Flyers though if they didnt lose in the semifinals though right?

Anyway is this recently surfaced problem software related or hardware is my question.

[Kreeper-X]

Well, since my Wings choked this year (again) I kinda took to the Lightning and am PRAYING that they beat the Flames and take home thier first Cup.

I'm not sure if it is indeed a temporature problem now though, because my system is running at 32c at the moment... I think it's kinda odd that several people are experiencing the same problems at about the same time...

I still plan on stripping it down and cleaning it out.

[WabbyTwax]

Yeah im regularly a penguins fan. Right now Im at least hopeful for the AHL penguins team to take the calder cup and I'm following those games closely. I was also rooting for nashville earlier in the season and was at game 4 of the predators/wings game in nashville to watch vokoun get the 3-0 shutout. I am surprised though that the wings couldnt get farther than they did and they even have my all time favorite player Robert Lang!

[Kreeper-X]

I know... I think that it's got a lot to do with the coaching... Scotty kept the guys in line... It just seemed like Dave just kinda let the boys run the show and they just looked kinda flat even against Nashville... (which is nothing new... They always play flat against Nashville. I've been to see my mighty Wings in Nashville five times now and each time they've either lost or tied...

Anyway, back on target. Tivo unit has been cleaned out and is running perfectly right now and running at 38c. I'll post again if the freezing issue comes back up today.

[sweetie]

I am without a tivo for a few days. ( boy am I addicted) I too have been using my Tivo for 2 years without a hitch and then bang a few days ago the freezing up as described.

One thing I was curious about is what do you think about making a backup now onto another drive . If its the drive thats bad I would think it might be possible. I have not turned my tivo on since it kept freezing. I know if I reboot it it will start for a bit but would like to get a backup quickly. I never thought of backing it up in its Virgin state but I do have another Tivo that is working correctly and can take a copy from that drive too. They should be the same since both were HDR212 . One was already upgraded with more harddrive space prior but I never touched the one that is crapping out.

I have at this present moment opneed up the Tivo and one thing I did notice it is very dirty. SO maybe the cleaning is needed.

I would like an answer to the backup question if anyone has any comments on backing up a drive on the fritz.?

[DarkLighter]

I have had my sony svr3000 since last september, no problems ever. In the last week, it has started to freeze and freeze/reboot.

Software rev is 4.0.1b-01-2-110 lifetime subscription with home media option (since september).

When watching recorded shows it will freeze for a little bit (4-10 seconds) then play then freeze again. Sometimes it recovers, sometimes it freezes completely and then reboots after about 30 seconds.

I first noticed a crash about a week ago, when I turned on the tv, tivo was in a black screen state and I had to reboot it manually. Since then it has done the freeze & freeze/reboot thing about 4 times (twice today!).

I also noticed it being extra slow when playing streaming media from a local computer. It would take a few seconds to start actually playing a selected song.

This is all new behavior within the last week, and I would agree that if it is not a weird software bug, it is definitely a hard drive problem. TiVo is on 24/7 with good ventilation and a steady temp of 49C. It had never crashed before the first one a week or so ago.

I saw this post here and thought I should say this also just started happening to me. I don't know if the "me too's" here constitute an abnormal number of machines failing like this at once or if it would be a normal failure rate, just thought I would add my two cents.

DL

[Kreeper-X]

Okay, Everything was going fine, I put my Tivo into standby mode while I left the house. I come back after work and hit the TV power and there's a black screen.

I hit the Tivo Button and nothing happens... It seemed that the unit wasn't responding to the remote at all...

I rebooted the Tivo like normal, got it to come back, and all my shows had been recorded except for one show that was all screwed up... Well I delete the screwy show and start to watch sone of my other recordings and 15 seconds into it, the thing starts the pause, play, pause, play, pause play. I reboot again, then I let it sit a while and check the internal temporature of the unit which was 39c. The unit had made it's daily call and worked out all the data and was working perfectly. So I choose another show and again, about 15 seconds into the show it starts again...

It's recording everything jsut fine, but it's just not going to let me watch anything off the drive...

I called the support center and got the stupid voice recognition computer and got a 15 minute run around until it finally told me that the support center was closed and I should call back later...

I'll be calling them tomorrow and getting it looked at... It's going to kill me to be without my Tivo, but It's pretty much useless ot me now...

[dirtypacman]

I just thought I would pipe in---- i have noticed also for the first time yesterday a freeze. The freeze happened several times over the course of 1 hour- 6-8 seconds black screen then would come back. I was recording the show and starting from the beginning about 1 hour in this happened.

I am hoping it is either a problem with a poor signal or tempature issue-- i dont want to have to disconnect my tivo.

[Laird]

I was watching a show earlier this week and noticed that it was skipping/freezing a lot. I just wrote it off as a bad cable signal. Unfortunately, the last two nights our unit has completely frozen, even while inactive. In the morning we see a still frame (as if someone has paused) from some time in the night. The TiVo is completely frozen - won't respond to its remote, and has to be rebooted by pulling the plug.
This unit has been completely wonderful for years now - what's made it suddenly start freezing?

SA Phillips w/2nd drive added

[JPriller]

A completely frozen TiVo is a good indication of a hard drive going bad. Eventually it'll probably give you the Green Screen of Death (GSOD) on bootup.

[TivoGeezer]

Does this sound like an epidemic? Just how widespread is this? Although my SVR2000 has work nearly flawlessly for almost 4 years, on Monday it froze up in the middle of recording Everybody Loves Raymond at about 9:20 PM EDT. I had to restart the Tivo to get it to respond to the remote. The recording was truncated, of course. Can any Tivo people tell us if there was a recent software mod which could be causing this?

[Chapper1]

Min froze up today after only 5 months of use. I have a running fan but no lights on the front of TiVo. After waiting for 65 minutes on hold, I was told that since I was outside of the 90 day warrantee that I would need to pay $99 to get it fixed/replaced. After then speaking to a floor supervisor, he agreed to waive the fee and replace the unit. If I was one of the previous posters who had similar situations, I would call and demand that fee be waived. But it is definitely interesting that we have a lot of people havng trouble at the same time...

[wownflutter]

You all are describing our tivo's symptoms to a tee.

So, Hello TIVO....what gives??

(I hope someone can shed some light on this problem)

[Poogie]

Mine started stopping/starting during playback about a month ago. :mad: It has gotten worse. I thought it was a hard drive going bad, so I sent both hard drives to Weaknees for diagnostic tests. Now I am without my TiVo, and NOT happy. And it sounds like maybe there's something else going on, with others experiencing the same thing.

[Jeana]

I've had my Tivo for more than two years and in the last couple weeks it's suddenly started the intermittent freezing that you are all talking about. :mad: It's so bad that I actually went out and priced a new unit. With so many complaining about the same problem, though, it sounds suspiciously like a software issue. What gives, TIVO?

[TiVoBill]

Sorry to hear about the issues.

If you have frequent skips, lockups, or reboots, you should contact the manufacturer of your DVR to do some troubleshooting and to arrange for an exchange if necessary.

To keep things in perspective, there are 1.6 million DVRs with TiVo service in customer's homes. The 10 reports in this thread (over a 20 day period) are mostly likely part of the (very small) normal hardware failure rate. We certainly strive to make sure that none of your DVRs fail (we know what it is like to be without TiVo!), but unfortunately hardware failures do happen on occasion. We do monitor hardware failure rates closely and there has been no increase on the failure rates for hardware over the last few months.

[Kreeper-X]

Tivo Bill!

Weaknees says that freezing and rebooting like this is more often than not (in fact they are saying it's about 99% of the time) a hard drive failure. Is there anything else I can look for as a solution?

I bought my Tivo Series 2 about a year and a half ago from Tivo, so sending it back in for exchange or repair would cost me about what Weaknees is wanting for a replacement drive.

I'm pretty sure that it's a drive problem, because the software boots up like normal, but as soon as I start drawing a show form the drive it starts the "freeze, play, freeze, play, freeze" error. I'm considering getting the Replacement drive and seeing if that's the problem.

But I want to know if there is anything else in the system that could cause this kind of error so I don't waste my money on a drive if it could be something else.

[wownflutter]

TiVo Bill

In short, I would urge you to reconsider your argument.

I have refered 7 parties to buy Tivo.

Only one of these 7 has ever jumped on this tivocommunity forum...that party being myself.

After intentionally bringing up our tivo machine's stuttering problem with these folks ...suddenly 3 more of the 7 start saying..."hey, that's what we are experiencing as well!"

All Series 2.

Go figure.

Im not very happy right now.....


(Btw...it has now been 3 months of "processing your $50 rebate".....that is just sad.)

[Drimple]

I've had a TiVO Series 2 for about 1 month now and I am getting the intermittant freezing. It will freeze for about 5 seconds at the most before starting again.

All these instances have appeared in this thread after the rollout of the HMO trial. Maybe there's some weird thing about the trial and this intermittant freezing?

[dahacker]

Originally posted by wownflutter
TiVo Bill

After intentionally bringing up our tivo machine's stuttering problem with these folks ...suddenly 3 more of the 7 start saying..."hey, that's what we are experiencing as well!"

All Series 2.

Go figure.


My experience is there is always a level of people having freezing problems with their Tivos on these forums. As indicated earlier in this thread, this is normally a HD problem. HDs fail or become temporarilly corrupt all the time in computers AND Tivos.

If your Tivo is out of warranty, pop over to the upgrade forum. Basically, you can fix or replace your HD.

If there were a sudden systemic problem with Series 2 DVRs, you would see literally thousands of people posting the same problem, not three.

[Rkkeller]

Less than a week after I got my DirecTV Tivo I had this same problem. It happened right after a S/W download. I was told I could do a complete reset and restart which wipes everything out or to take out the access card and unplug the unit overnite. Instead I deleted all of my recorded shows, only a few days worth as this was new, and never had the problem again. I also got the "C" upgrade recently.


Rich

[RL523]

The symptoms described here match the symptoms of my Series 1 Sony SVR 2000 exactly (lifetime sub). They also started around the same time, around a week ago. I replaced the original hard drive and added a second one about 2 years ago. Like another person mentioned, I was beginning to look at new units, but now I'm not so sure. It seems odd that many units experienced the same symptoms at the same time. I really don't need or want any other Series 2 features (other than faster processor & more memory), so I would like to keep my Sony going. I will next try putting a new "A" hard drive in unless I read more on the software problem possibility...

[devjfl1]

Hmmm...I thought it was just me.

I have had my Directv TIVO for about a month. Flawless.

Just within the last 3 or 4 days, I have noticed that after about 30 - 90 seconds I get a 1 or 2 second freeze and then everything is ok.

It happens about 100% of the time.

[wownflutter]

TivoBill and dahacker apparently see the freezing as a "It must be broke." scenario.
I see the freezing as a software issue happening rather recently after an update.

Just look at the posts and the timing of this lovely issue.

Stuttering, freezing up, whatever you call it...once the inner circle of tivo company starts experiencing it...then the problem solving will begin.

I chalk this one up to the "Squeeky Wheel" metaphor. :-O

Cheers

[tsedg]

Just my $0.02 - Sony SVR-2000 with a lifetime sub. 2 years old, started skipping/freezing yesterday.

[Rkkeller]

Mine never froze or jerked again since getting the "C" upgrade. Might not
have anything to do with it but do the people that still have the problem
have the "B" or "C" software ? Or it could have just been a download gone buggy, line noise and such?

Rich

[dharel]

I had to do a clear and delete all to get my Sony SVR-2000 to work again. Again, freezing problem occured over weekend while I was away. Daily phone call said it failed when I checked before the clear and delete.

[Drimple]

Originally posted by Rkkeller
Mine never froze or jerked again since getting the "C" upgrade. Might not
have anything to do with it but do the people that still have the problem
have the "B" or "C" software ? Or it could have just been a download gone buggy, line noise and such?

Rich

I've got the B software, and it just updated today to another version of B. I'll keep an eye out to see if the freezing/studdering goes away.

[Jeana]

Okay, I'm going to test TivoBill's theory. I've ordered a replacement drive. If he's correct, replacing the drive ought to end the freezing. I'll post the results once I've had a chance to test it.

[MonkeyTennis]

OK mine is doing all described above too, stuttering, freezing for 10 secs or so for a while and then eventually freezing or black screen.

Interestingly I put the log file up while it was misbehaving and it was getting the following over and over again

FsNodeScanner[109]: Scanner got I/O error 0x11029

Then it got the following

"TmkTransform::Trace[117]: Have a buffer (0) with zero segments, did someone zero memory?"
"TmkTransform::Trace[117]: leaking buffers=pt->theBuf=0x30301000, Trying to recover."

It then hung. I guess it couldnt recover.

There are also lots of FsVolume errors reading buffer pages

Does that sound like a bad disk? It does to me. It must be the weather.

[jpwoof]

Scratch that! =)

[Poogie]

Update on my freezing, stuttering TiVo. I just got a message from Weaknees. They tested both my hard drives and the diagnostics didn't show anything. They did say that in some cases the testing doesn't pick up a bad hard drive. They are going to replace my Weaknees hard drive, and the original hard drive, so we'll see if I still have these issues. Not having my TiVo (for almost a week, now) is driving me nuts!!!!! I want my TiVo back!

[MonkeyTennis]

I popped down to the local retail giant last night and picked myself up a 120M drive to replace my 22M.

The saving a backup appears to have failed which may point to a bad drive again. Anyway I have left it ticking away at home doing the slow copy (including programs) so I'll see how the new drive works in the Tivo this weekend and report back here.

[MonkeyTennis]

My new disk is in and I now don't get the freezing issues anymore.

I also get the extra capacity. Which is nice.

[lairc]

If I'm having the same problem but have 2 disks how can I determine which disk the culprit?

[todw1fd]

Having same symptoms. System only 8 months old. Just started since the home media option trial. Live tv unaffected. Playback begins to pause soon after playback begins. Pauses get more and more frequent till unit hangs and reboots itself. Got one green screen which self-fixed in about 15 minutes. Pausing still a problem. B software on the box. Connection attempts are successful. Temperatures normal at 36 degrees. Could it be that we all have HD problems popping up at the same time? Or is something in the software hinky? Not looking forward to time without my Tivo, or clearing all my saves before getting to see them. Crappers.

[Jeana]

Replacing the hard drive appears to have cured the freezing issues--with the added bonus of a greatly increased capacity. The Weaknees do-it-yourself kit was easy to use, too.

Jeana

[todw1fd]

Looks like it was a hard drive after all. Both hard drives passed the manufacturor's diagostics without failing. But I guess when you're streaming video, read errors show up visibly before the drive would show symptoms in a normal computer. I decided to yank the factory 80 gig from Maxtor and replace it with a WE 60 Gig drive. Shame I lost all the saved programs I had in the process :( , but I didn't have a large enough drive to save my stuff. Oh well..Tivo back to normal now with only the occasional pause. Weaknees kit working well..highly recommended.

[outerlimits]

This issue of heat and how hot your TIVO operates is not take seriously enough.

When possible I would suggest the following.

Keep your tivo in a well ventilated area that is not subjected to Sunlight. I would not recommend a enclosed entertainment center, closet, etc.

My Tivos sit in open style entertainment unit that has execellent ventilation.
My Home theater setup is in my finished basement. Since the basement is built into the ground the basement area of the house is cooler and the tivos are not subjected to sunlight.

I use the twinbreeze kit with the units that I have 2 120 GB hard drives installed. My units operate at 29-31 degrees celsius. These units are tightly packed and generate a tremendous amout of heat. If you treated your pc hard drives the way folks do with their tivo hard drives failure rates would go through the roof.

[Poogie]

I replaced both hard drives with new hard drives from Weaknees (thanks, Weaknees!), and so far there is no freezing. Seems to have done the trick, plus more storage! :up:

I am thinking about ordering an extra fan to help with cooling. The temperature sometimes gets in the upper 40s (degrees celsius) on warm days.

[Kreeper-X]

Update. I recieved my "replacement disk" from weaknees and so far so good. the tivo booted like normal and made it's call and download like normal.

I'm now waiting to see what happens once it starts recording my shows again... Not looking forward to rebuilding my season passes again, but as soon as I see how the Tivo is working when streaming video I'll post again.

So far, live TV is fine.

[RTOlson]

I've been experiencing the same problems that many of you have mentioned -- the one-second pauses and then resuming as normal (eariler the unit had crashed altogether and wouldn't start up from standby after I updated the software). Today, however my Series2 bit the big one.

The screen froze while I was rewatching a show and my remote stopped working. After determining that it wasn't going to unfreeze somehow. I restarted and haven't been able to get past the "Welcome. Starting up..." since.

It's a refurbished unit that I've had for a week and a half. I'm not all that happy that this has happened so soon (especially because I've liked TiVo so far).

Obviously, the unit's still under warranty and I'm going to take advantage of calling customer support. Hopefully, it's something that can be fixed.

[Kreeper-X]

Okay... Final Update:

Everything is working fine since replacing the drive. Shows are recording and playing perfectly. It's just like I got a new unit.

So if there are problems with freezing like I had, then it really does seem to be a hard drive problem.

[Jeff8737]

After seeing the response from TivoBill that this freezing/pixelation thing is likely to be coincidental failures on the part of 10 people I thought I would post.

My Tivo is doing it too. Stared a short time ago, maybe 2 months back, and its getting worse.

Didn't have this problem at any time in the past 3 years, our Tivo is nowhere near capacity, my drives are only 18 months old, and they're making NO noise to speak of...

[WabbyTwax]

I replaced my hard drive from that site that sends them to you preformatted for tivo.. and it works great now. So it was a bum hard drive for me too. At least now i tripled my recording time.

[veritech]

I have been having the problems with sporadic video freezing and pixelation. After reading different forums I went to Maxtor and checked their support site for some help and I found this under performance issues..............

"Maxtor hard drives are normally shipped with the "write verify" feature enabled. The "write verify" feature is enabled to provide protection against any particles that may have moved caused by mishandling. This feature is enabled only for the first 10 power cycles after which the feature will be disabled. A power cycle is the normal shutdown operations of the computer, including turning the power off.

Since reading this I figured I'd give it a try, since I was having problems I have already powered off my TiVo a number of times. To be sure I powered it down 2 more times and as a result for the past week I have not have any problems with TiVO freezing up, pixelation or sound problems that some people have come accross after upgrading their harddrives. I know it states write performance but according to what I've read these "non-pvr specific drives" write as they read to check data accuracy. go here for more info...

http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/popup_adp.php?<?%20print("p_sid=$p_sid&p_lva=$p_lva&p_li=$p_li")%20?>&p_faqid=1219&p_created=1030489466

Hope this helps....

[JT-KGY]

I'm having the same frozen tivo problems...

Are there any utilities out there that attempt to do things like chkdsk/scandisk
on Tivo hard drives?

[emdee]

I had the screen freeze problem with my Series 2 (15 months old). Over the last 3 weeks it began freezing during every conceivable situation--while watching live TV, while watching a recorded playback, while recording playback to a DVD, and even on the start-up screen itself. The only way to get it going again was to power cycle, and I was having to do that at least once a day. I called Tivo a few times, and after a lengthy and sometimes heated, on my part) "chat" with a supervisor, he agreed to drop the exchange fee to $79 (from $149). They shipped me a refurbed unit in two days, and I sent them back the other unit. The refurb unit has only a 30-day warranty, though, so I hope it doesn't fail in the next few months. I won't have gotten my money's worth out of the lifetime subscription for another year or so. I asked the rep if he had any ideas why the Tivo unit failed...he made the usual noncommittal noises and spiel about surge protection. I have a surge protector on the unit, as well as on a $2500 LCD TV, DVD recorder, and stereo equipment, with which I have had no problems. Then he suggested that perhaps it was a phone line power surge, although the sat box is also on the phone line and has had no problems. I am looking into getting a surge protector for the phone line. If the "new" unit fails I will look into DirecTV's DVR or maybe a Humax DVR.

[mrj597]

I've had my series 2 for just a couple of weeks. After about 3 days the intermittent freezing started. :mad: There may be many more users experiencing this that are not on this forum. There is probably someone @ TiVo that can fix this - if they knew about it.

[wownflutter]

Look at the thread date.

Its been a great while.

Clearly TIVO doesnt care...

[megazone]

Clearly TIVO doesnt care...Right... They have over 1.4 million standalone users, and because a handful of users have reported sporadic problems and TiVo hasn't magically found a fix, they don't care.

[irene]

TIVo has replaced our unit twice because of freezing. We've only had TIVo a few months. Last night we turned it on and once again found it was frozen and that it had not recorded the 4400. This is our third unit.

I cannot believe we keep getting bad units. It has to be something else.

Our TIVo is networked along with our computers to our wifi cable network. I wonder if perhaps the wireless "dohickey" they sold us could be to blame?