Tivo Says its recording, but nothing recorded

fatnose · 04-25-2005, 03:32 PM

Help!!!!! Please, Im new to forums so be gentle with me.
I have had a Tivo for 18 month, and a friend has modified it a bit, Bigger hard drive,etc.
This week Tivo has been showing it records programmes, it changes the channel etc. But when you come to watch it nowt.
The first two now playing menu's show tivo has recorded the programme, but when you select Play I get a blank page, with the time bar at the bottom of the screen is blank and nothing plays. Not a happy bunny as i have missed 24 and nip tuck from last night. I am on analogue NTL. They say Tivo changes your life and I am missing it already, anyone have an idea as to what is wrong

cwaring · 04-25-2005, 04:00 PM

Firstly, welcome to the Tivolution

Now, as to your little problem. I am 99% certain that this happens when your Tivo (for whatever reason) does not "see" any signal from your picture source; in your case your analogue NTL box. Perhaps it got switched off by accident or something?

PhilG · 04-25-2005, 04:40 PM

On the Tivo, go to "Watch LIve TV" (or whatever it's called, the option IMMEDIATELY BELOW Now Playing!)

Is there a signal?

Try changing the channel - anything?

Do you have your terrestrial aerial looped through Tivo - if so, try seeing if they show anything

If there is nothing on Live TV, then Tivo will record just that - nothing.

Check all your plugs - sometimes SCARTS can look "IN" when they are really "OUT"

Also, try restarting your Tivo - mine occasionaly does this trick when I reboot it - a second reboot usually cures the problem

Good luck

fatnose · 04-25-2005, 06:10 PM

Thanks, for the replys. Just been crawling around behind the TV, unplugged everything plugged it all back in. Went to live TV and nothing on the screen. Changed the channel nothing, turned off and on the cable box(which is left on 24/7) so the Tivo just changes to the required channel. So there is the reboot option, If I reboot it will it loose all the stuff I have recorded, If it does I will have to speend hours recording shed loads of stuff to video before I do it.

cwaring · 04-25-2005, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fatnose

So there is the reboot option, If I reboot it will it loose all the stuff I have recorded, If it does I will have to spend hours recording shed loads of stuff to video before I do it.

Doing a re-boot will not lose anything. Go ahead and try it.

David Cameron · 04-25-2005, 06:59 PM

Daft question, but sometimes the daft questions are best:

I am no expert in analogue cable as it is 14 years since I had such a system, but how is the cable box connected to TiVo?

Analogue cable experts forgive me if I have got it wrong, but IIRC the cable box should be connected via RF and tuned into TiVo on a spare RF channel - have you specified the appropriate free RF channel?

Carl is correct - if TiVo does not see a signal then the recording will stop pretty sharpish; therfore we need to figure out how the signal should be delivered into TiVo.

cwaring · 04-25-2005, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Cameron

Analogue cable experts forgive me if I have got it wrong, but IIRC the cable box should be connected via RF and tuned into TiVo on a spare RF channel - have you specified the appropriate free RF channel?

I'm not expert either, but I believe that you are correct. That is certainly how my TW analogue box was connected to my TV anyway

iankb · 04-26-2005, 04:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sherminator

... will delete the recording if no valid video source to appear during said time.

It doesn't delete the recording, it just leaves an empty one. During periods of no input signal, it never actually records anything, but it still creates a shell of a recording which displays with the correct timeline. This timeline will only show green sections (if any) during periods of a valid input signal.

PhilG · 04-26-2005, 04:36 AM

Also, on the reboot issue, I discovered another reason why Tivo is better than any CVR I owned.

We had a spate of power cuts (usually less than a minute, but enough to knock out any "computers"). When Tivo rebooted, if it realised it should be recording something, it immediately started to record - even if it was in the middle of a program.

So, instead of missing whole programs, we tended to only miss the odd few minutes here and there

"Good old Tivo"

davidg · 04-26-2005, 10:59 AM

Getting back to Fatnose's problem. I had a similar issue with programs looking ast hough they had recorded, but then plaback not working, or only seeing 5 minutes of a hour long programme.

It was just after I had upgraded to a 160GB drive, and the problem was using the non-LBA48 kernel.

Taking the drive out of Tivo and following the instructions again, fixed the problem.

Regards,
David

fatnose · 04-26-2005, 02:59 PM

Well 3 reboots later sweet FA has happened. When I get a free minute or 60 I will check all the connections again, and its hopefully something I have missed before. A big thanks to all of you for your advise.. I will post again when I have visted my friend Doctor Tivo, hopefully he can sort out the problem as we cant live without Tivo for long here at chateau Fatnose.
Oh and I forgot to mention, the RF feed from the cable box runs to the Tivo, then to the Video, and finally to the TV, scart cable from Tivo to video for copying and scart to TV, Ixos scarts and Phono cables alround.

fatnose · 04-26-2005, 04:33 PM

RF from cable box to Tivo, RF out to Video in,Vid out to tv. Scart to vid, and scart to TV. Ixos scart and phono cables alround. Unplugged and plugged everything back in, was wondering if would be an idea to go through the assisted steup again, but still worried about loosing all the stuff the misses has recorded.

cwaring · 04-26-2005, 05:07 PM

Your setup sounds right to me. Not sure what the problem is, but if you do re-run Guided setup you will lose all recordings.

AndyP · 04-27-2005, 06:16 AM

Oh dear ( x 2 )

It was actually me who modified Fatnose's TiVo a year or so ago and after chatting to him on the phone it sounds like it's either receiving nothing or doing nothing with any signal it receives from his cable TV box. No live TV, no recorded programs ...

By complete coincidence, mine has also done the same, sometime over the last two weeks whilst I've been away on holiday. Checked my Netgem and that's fine - bu99er !

Cainam · 04-27-2005, 11:58 AM

I also have analogue cable, and experience this problem. It happened once to me when I moved the video, and managed to dislodge the aerial cable from the back of the Tivo. It looked like it was in properly, but it was not in enough for TIvo to lock onto the signal.

But what gets me regularly is the cachecard. I have not seen this mentioned anywhere else, maybe it is an analogue cable thing, but if I have the cachecard installed and the crossover cable connected to it is plugged into something (e.g. my laptop), then when Tivo is rebooted it often cannot lock on to the analogue signal, with exactly the symptoms described.

Sometimes a soft reboot with the cable disconnected works, sometimes not.

Sometimes a cold reboot with the cable connected works, sometimes not.

The only way i can reliably get it working again is to unplug the network cable and do a cold reboot (i.e. unplug it, leave it for 30 seconds). This one has not failed yet.

This is fine now I know about it, but it really had me scratching my head at the time trying to work out what was wrong!

HTH

fatnose · 04-27-2005, 02:40 PM

Well the Tvo is off to AndyP this evening, so he can have a long hard look at it and poke at it with a big pointy stick. If that does not work I have just purchased another one that is supposedly brand new off Ebay. This time around I will get the lifetime subscription rather than cough up a tenner a month. Will post the diagnoisis and the cure when we have an answer.

AndyP · 04-29-2005, 08:44 AM

Well it's a curious thing .....

Fatnose's TiVo is connected up to my spare aerial in the kitchen and it doesn't seem to work - no great surprise there because it'll be tuned to different channels etc etc. Connect up my Netgem to the AUX port and nothing happens, move it to the VCR port and all of a sudden we have Live TV again. Odd.

Bring my TiVo in, connect it all up as normal, Netgem on AUX port etc and it now works perfectly. Put it back in lounge as connected originally and it all still works fine - strange.

Put my old 40Gb drive in Fatnose's machine, run the guided setup for my area etc and all works fine.

So we've basically gone from two broken TiVo's to two working TiVo's without actually mending anything. Sometimes I amaze myself ....

AndyP · 04-29-2005, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cwaring

Your setup sounds right to me. Not sure what the problem is, but if you do re-run Guided setup you will lose all recordings.

Actually, that's not quite correct. Re-running the guided setup does not lose previously recorded programmes, but I believe it will if you choose to clear all data from the same menu.

cwaring · 04-30-2005, 05:45 AM

ReallY? Okay. I sit corrected

(You learn something new every day!)

KiNeL · 04-13-2006, 04:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndyP

Oh dear ( x 2 )
By complete coincidence, mine has also done the same, sometime over the last two weeks whilst I've been away on holiday. Checked my Netgem and that's fine - bu99er !

Absolutely ditto.........................!

My 2nd TiVo (antenna only) has stopped recording basically because it has stopped playing live TV. I've booted it x times, run guided setup at least 3 times and also done a Clear Programme Data & To Do List, all to no avail.

Incidentally, this is a very early 601E model running Status 3 but nothing has seems to have changed on that side of things, daily call is OK etc. etc. and following this mornings efforts the Programming Guide is valid to 4 May.

From what recordings I have got this behaviour would appear to have started on the evening of Sunday April 4th, did TiVo do something ?

LATER:

It's fixed! (and shame on me for not trying this in the first place) but all it needed was power off restart.

I vaguely remember reading here somewhere that a Restart from the handset was the same as a power recycle but clearly it is not.

The question remains as to why it decided to go into sulk mode in the first place of course.

This may well explain Fatnose's and AndyP's problem's if they too hadn't done a full power off restart.