TIVO Kappput?

[John McE]

My TIVO, which has always worked prefectly uptil yesterday, suddenly stopped working. If I do the usual unplug everything and re-plug, then try to re-boot, the left led lights green, then changed to amber a moment later, and then the right led also lights amber, and they stay like that, with nothing displaying on my TV.

I've tried re-booting lots of times, and once got as far as the TV displaying the intitial re-booting please wait screen), but nothing further.

Does both lcds displaying amber mean anything specific, or is it a general "not working" indication?

If it's something simple like replacing a component, I can probably do it myself, as I am reluctant to send the unit off for repair if I can avoid doing so.

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

[Pete77]

Sounds to me from the symptoms like your drive is kaput (basically any issue with the machine not starting at all after gradually getting worse and worse is nearly always the drives and the only thing that seems to fail is the modem during local lightening strikes and sometimes the power supply).

www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo shows you how to replace the hard drive yourself.

If you use www.kelkoo.co.uk to search for IDE 400Gb Samsung you will see you can now get very quiet Samsung 400Gb drives for only about 80 quid. Drives up to 548gb can now be formatted using mfstools so long as you install the upgraded kernel (as described by Steve Conrad) and use the -r4 setting. Possibly you could also benefit from something called a Cachecard with this hard drive size especially if you also want web access to the machine at home or at your office via TivoWeb. 400Gb gives you about 135 hours at Best which is probably about 150 recordings when your machine is full. Cachecards are thought to be essential to manage the larger Now Playing list if it is over 150 recordings in numbers. Or you could install a 250Gb drive which is only about 85 hours at Best in which case a Cachecard is probably not vital unless you are going to do quite a lot of recordings in Basic or Low (250Gb at Basic is about 300 hours recording).

If you ask on here for the precise command format to use when you are about to do the upgrade there are people here who can help. You only need the -r4 command if your drive is larger than 300Gb in size.

Of course you may also need an original Tivo restore set CD or download if the drives in the machine are still your originals and you don't have any other backup of the Tivo operating system.

www.tivoheaven.co.uk and www.tivoheaven.com can also sell you drives you can just drop into your machine but it works out a little more expensive than doing it yourself, especially for the largest hard drive sizes.

[Benedict]

IIRC the "double amber" signal does indicate something is not well, but I can't remember pricisely what!

I seem to think it is either:

[1] Stray IR in the room. (Check all of your other remotes to make sure you haven't got anything sitting on top of one of them.)
[2] Modem test has failed during boot-up.

I'm sure someone with a better memory than me will be able to confirm if either or neither of the above is correct.

Ben

[Pete77]

I think "double amber" only relates to remote control problems when the issue is not being able to get Tivo to respond to the remote rather than it not booting up at all.

Could be a modem issue though as they do happen suddenly in the way you describe if there has been a local storm and lightening strikes. I think Blindlemon's diagnosis skills are once again required.

A blown modem is best worked round by getting a Cachcecard and connecting the Tivo via it to your broadband ADSL router.

[blindlemon]

AFAIK double-amber always means a stuck remote somewhere. I've not heard of it meaning anything else.

[Pete77]

AFAIK double-amber always means a stuck remote somewhere. I've not heard of it meaning anything else.

But nothing displays on his Tv after boot. I can't see how a stuck on remote clashing with Tivo remote frequencies could achieve that? It just ought to make it impossible to use the Tivo remote after Tivo has booted up and reached Tivo Central.

[blindlemon]

IIRC a remote stuck under a cushion etc. and sending out a continuous stream of IR will cause the TiVo to 'hang' at the kickstart point during the boot process and display two amber LEDs.

[Pete77]

IIRC a remote stuck under a cushion etc. and sending out a continuous stream of IR will cause the TiVo to 'hang' at the kickstart point during the boot process and display two amber LEDs.

I had a hidden remote stuck like that once but it only stopped me controlling Tivo. I suppose I didn't reboot the Tivo while all this was going on.

It will be interesting to hear what the OP says.

[John McE]

I thought the stuck remote idea sounded crazy, but I moved all the remotes out of the room (about 20 of them - don't ask!), covered the remote window of the TIVO up to be on the safe side, and guess what it is working again! Yippee!
Seriously, thanks a million to everyone that replied, I really appreciate it. The thought of going cold Turkey from TIVO, even using another PVR, is just too terrible to contemplate, especially right before Christmas.

[blindlemon]

Fantastic!

I guess I should remove the 'AFAIK' and 'IIRC' weasel words from my posts now and make it look like I knew all along :D

[Pete77]

Fantastic!

I guess I should remove the 'AFAIK' and 'IIRC' weasel words from my posts now and make it look like I knew all along :D

Don't forget that Benedict got there before you though. ;)

Speaking of which I suppose that will teach me to assume that all restart problems on a Tivo are only either hard drive or blown modem related. I expect one day we may even have a failed motherboard or burnt out Tivo CPU on our hands? :eek: