Problems with Missing "Groups" on Premiere Box

[ajergo]

I have been a loyal TiVo customer for over 11 years now and have owned just about every TiVo box from Series 1 thru my most recent purchase 3 weeks ago of a TiVo Premiere box. BUT, I have had the worst time with getting all the features to work on my Premiere box and the main reason is what Tech Support tells me are missing "Groups". I have no idea what exactly these "Groups" are, but its something that the TiVo 3rd level Engineers have to enable for my box. Why the "Groups" were not there when the box was shipped to me from TiVo is beyond me also.

Here are a list of problems that I have had due to missing "Groups":
1) I could not get the HD menu's and Discovery Bar to work for almost a full week after setting up my Premiere box. Took numerous calls to TiVo Tech support to bug them. Just got a lot of BS as to why it took so long.
2) I was using a My DVR Expander with my prior TiVo HD box. I "unpaired" it from the TiVo HD and hooked it up to the TiVo Premiere. The Premiere recognized the DVR Expander and was suppose to go thru some setup menu's to reformat the HD and make it usable, but TiVo Premiere just gave me some error message. When I called TiVo Tech Support they once again told me that I am missing some more "Groups". I have been going on 5 days now with TiVo Tech support stalling me and saying they are working on the problem.
3) Used TiVo To Go (PC Desktop program) on my prior TiVo HD box. BUT, of course it will not work at all with my TiVo Premiere. Care to guess what TiVo Tech support told me the reason why is? YUP, once again, I am missing "Groups".
4) I can not get the Whole House DVR function to work and transfer shows from one TiVo box to the other (either from HD to Premiere or vice versa). At least Tech Support did not blame this one on missing "Groups". BUT, they gave me a complicated explanation of my Router not allowing certain ports, even though one of the TiVo menu's tests the ports and all my Ports that are needed are open and working. I gave up on this problem and decided not to use the feature ... too much trouble to resolve it and TiVo Tech support has worn me down with spending literally 5 to 7 hours on the phone with them so far (for all problems together above).

Question for anybody - Has anybody else been told they are having problems with "Groups" missing that TiVo Tech support has to add for them first? Any explanation in Layman's terms of what these "groups" are?

As I said at the beginning of this post, I have been a loyal TiVo customer for over 11 years, but given my horrible experience in getting this Premiere box to work and Tech Support being so slow to help me, this may be the last TiVo that I buy! :confused:

[DinoBambino]

ajergo - TiVo support has told me the same thing about "groups" being the issue. I'm now coming up on two weeks since I activated my Elite and I still can't transfer shows between TiVos.

It took a week for my TiVo to be put into the HD menu group. They keep telling me the same thing - that the techs are looking into the issue. How hard is it to update a flag in a freakin' database? Conversely, why do they have the "groups" at all? Shouldn't they all be enabled by default?

[innocentfreak]

They probably have groups because the Premiere is also used to cable companies so they have to be able to disable features like Netflix depending on the provider.

One trick that sometimes helps is to uncheck sharing on tivo.com for that box and force a daily call. Wait a while and then recheck sharing on TiVo.com and force another daily call.

Also it can take up to 7 days before all the features are activated. Usually a good way to know is to name your TiVo and wait until you see the name on your TiVo under system info.

[ajergo]

Just keep calling TiVo Tech support back once a day and tell them you want the problem escalated. I have the basic Premiere box, but I finally got the HD menu's and I think I just got my External "My DVR Expander" HD to work. Its too bad you have to call so many times, but I think that is the only way to get the level 3 tech support people to do the job they are suppose to do. This should not really happen in the first place. My impression of TiVo has gone down considerably in the past few weeks since I received my latest TiVo Premiere box.

[DinoBambino]

They probably have groups because the Premiere is also used to cable companies so they have to be able to disable features like Netflix depending on the provider.

One trick that sometimes helps is to uncheck sharing on tivo.com for that box and force a daily call. Wait a while and then recheck sharing on TiVo.com and force another daily call.

Also it can take up to 7 days before all the features are activated. Usually a good way to know is to name your TiVo and wait until you see the name on your TiVo under system info.

Unchecking and rechecking sharing on Tivo.com was the attempted "solution" twice when I called support. All it did was flip the TivoToGo flags on the System info screen from i,i,a to i,i,i and then back to i,i,a when I re-enabled the flags and forced a connection.

I've been told three times that it is a "groups" issue and that the engineering guys need to put my Tivo into right group. I've been pretty understanding so far and haven't caused much of disturbance. But, it's just getting annoying because all of our previously recorded content is on the Tivo that has now been moved to the bedroom.

[ajergo]

Reply to InnocentFreak - I tried unchecking the two boxes for sharing and something else on tivo.com under my account. That did not work for me. I also changed the name I had for my TiVo box and it took several days for that to update for me to see under TiVo menu for System info ... still had problems after that also. Only thing that worked for me was repeated phone calls to TiVo Tech support and bug them to get my "Groups" enabled. Now I am finally up and working completely with TiVo to Go and the HD Menu's and my DVR expander external HD. BUT, it took almost three weeks and that should not be!

At one point TiVo Tech support tried to tell me that my box had a hardware problem and they wanted to send me a new box for free (still under 90 day parts and labor guarantee). BUT, that proved to be false and I certainly did not want to start from scratch with setting up a new box. Takes too much time and way too much of a pain. They were 100% wrong about being a hardware problem after another tech support guy discovered the missing groups.

Not sure about Whole House DVR feature to send non copy protected shows to other TiVo's ... but that is more trouble than its worth ... just record the same show on two TiVo's if you want that. Besides most shows are copy protected and can not be transferred.

[DinoBambino]

ajergo - congratulations on getting your issues resolved.

I called tech support again last night and was told that it might be a few weeks before my TiVo was added to the group. Either the guy was telling the truth or he didn't get the memo to lie to the customer and say it will take 2 to 3 days.

I told him it was ridiculous to have to wait for something that long. He said the engineers are aware of the problem and are working on it. They've been "aware" of the problem for almost two weeks.

Maybe they should rename the product - TiVoNoGo.

[ajergo]

DinoBambino - that is just insane that it would take 2 to 3 weeks. Call back and ask to talk to a supervisor. If that does not work, ask to talk to the 3rd level tech support people, who are the ones that actually get this work done.

I would also add your complaint to the "official" TiVo Forum: http://forums.tivo.com/pe/elementDisplayRedirect.jsp?elementID=10100101
That way it will get more visibility and maybe a quicker response.

It took me 2.5 weeks and literally 10 phone calls (probably 4 to 5 hours on the phone total) to TiVo Tech support to get all my issues resolved and FINALLY my Tivo Premiere has the HD Menu's, has TiVo to Go working OK, has the "My DVR Expander" working well and showing the extra 70+ HD Recording hours and my Whole House DVR is working so I can transfer shows from my Premiere to HD box and vice versa (don't use that too much). BUT, in the process, I had two Tech support people give me bad answers and waist my time.

Spent an hour on the phone during one phone call about my Whole House DVR not working and he did not resolve the problem and just told me to reboot everything (classic solution to everything!:eek:) Also said it was a problem with my Router not allowing the proper ports to communicate, or some BS complicated tech story. Turned out to be the Groups not turned on again.

During the first day or two of problems they almost shipped me a new DVR replacement until I managed to convince them its not a hardware problem and cancelled the shipment at the last minute.

Its very disappointing that the first level tech support has gotten so bad.:mad: