Interesting Error

[dmeldrum]

I had an interesting error over the weekend, that is now fixed, which may shed some light on how certain aspects of the Virgin Tivo service work.

I have two Tivo boxes, installed last week. One of them developed a fault within a day of implementation. The symptoms:


Daily call failed
Discovery bar missing
Large exclamation mark on home page, and a message that some services are not available as the box is not connected to the network.
Search menu not available apart from wishlists
Catch-up / On demand all greyed out
Apps greyed out
Help greyed out


Watching normal tv and recordings worked fine. Previously recorded items could not be played by pressing OK, a message popped up telling me to press Play instead.

The root cause was that the internal modem had an IP address and was connected to the network, but for some reason had not received a DNS server address from DHCP. Daily calls were failing with a message "Service Not Found", whereas all other activities were just failing.

The solution was to remove stuff from my package and put it back on again, which forced a reset, which got me a different IP address with DNS.

I think the surprise for me was that search all channels was not possible without a connection, the option was greyed out. The guide worked fine for browsing, and I could create a wishlist to find items.

I think this also confirms that all on-demand is via the internal modem.

[digiflip]

I think your right about the on demand, has when I had the VHd box i was allways getting high demand errors in my area. Now I have got TiVo, I aint had the error once and usually starts within seconds when select a program now.

[matt@thehickmans]

Sounds like you may have two DHCP servers (one rogue) on your LAN (This being the 'for some reason'). You may want to find and disable the rogue one.

[richw]

Sounds like you may have two DHCP servers (one rogue) on your LAN (This being the 'for some reason'). You may want to find and disable the rogue one.

The internal modem won't be doing DHCP on a LAN you have access to, it's connected to the VM network only.

In addition, the on-board Ethernet isn't currently doing DHCP either.

[dmeldrum]

The internal modem won't be doing DHCP on a LAN you have access to, it's connected to the VM network only.


Correct, the internal modem had a Virgin Ip address on a 10.x.x.x network, but under DNS server it said none,none,none.

When working correctly there is an ip address against DNS entry.

There are also references on screen to how to edit the settings, but those options are hidden on the Virgin TiVos.

Either there is/was a rogue DHCP server on Virgins network that is not giving out DNS entries, or some glitch somewhere led to my box losing that setting.

[Faz]

I think your right about the on demand, has when I had the VHd box i was allways getting high demand errors in my area. Now I have got TiVo, I aint had the error once and usually starts within seconds when select a program now.

It's annoying how you can't play on-demand content when recording 2 programmes from live TV. I would have thought that streaming on-demand content wouldn't require a tuner. It's as if the action of streaming and/or temporarily recording to the local disk is using a virtual-tuner slot, hence the requirement for a 3rd tuner? :confused:

[dmeldrum]

My error has reoccurred, I'll give Virgin a call later to see if they can fix it again.

http://flic.kr/p/9mSJzd
http://flic.kr/p/9mSJzd

http://flic.kr/p/9mSJpo
http://flic.kr/p/9mSJpo

[mikerr]

I think this also confirms that all on-demand is via the internal modem.
Nope, it's via DVBC and so needs a tuner.

[dmeldrum]

Fixed promptly after a callback - excellent service from Virgin. They're not clear what the cause is though, so it would be interesting to hear if anyone else has the same problem.

[dmeldrum]

Nope, it's via DVBC and so needs a tuner.

I think this error proves it is a hybrid. The "catalogue" of on-demand content appears to be coming via the modem, even if the video stream when selected is via DVBC.

[Pine Cladding]

I've had this about 4 times now :mad: I can't figure out if the daily call failure is a sympton or cause.

[dmeldrum]

I've had this about 4 times now :mad: I can't figure out if the daily call failure is a sympton or cause.

If the reason for the failure is "Service Not Found", then I think the daily call failure is a symptom.

If it happens again, make a note of your IP address in the Network Settings screen, it would be interesting to compare with my findings. When it is working, my IP address is in a different range to when it is not working.