Twenty minutes to schedule a show on TCO?

DrStrange · 01-09-2006, 08:04 PM

GAWD, when will Tivo devote some effort to speeding up Tivo Central Online? I started scheduling "Emily's Reasons Why Not" at around 8:30. It took 20 minutes to get through the whole process (which included one bogus "we can't find your email address" page and another server side page processing error, which forced me to slog through those parts of the process again). Not only does each page take several minutes to come up, but the final screen takes a minute just to process the DVR and channel drop-downs. And you have to wait for that processing before you set any of the other drop downs because when it finishes refreshing from the first one, it resets the others and you have to change them again.

It's nice that it's there, that it can schedule in something resembling real time, and it certainly looks pretty but the interface is unbearably slow throughout, and resetting other dropdowns you've changed because the page takes a full minute to process the first one is very frustrating behavior.

Oh yes, and of course someday it needs to be smart enough not to search or display channels not in my CYR list. Maybe not wading through tons of excess channels across my 5 standalone DVRs will speed the thing up.

Grr.

Stanley Rohner · 01-09-2006, 08:06 PM

I've never had any problems with it.

TiVoStephen · 01-09-2006, 08:23 PM

DrStrange, we do have an upcoming release that will improve performance. However, even in the short term, one of our TCO servers was having difficulty this afternoon; the problem has since been corrected. Please give it another try and tell me what you find.

Best regards,
Stephen

DrStrange · 01-09-2006, 08:46 PM

From a performance standpoint I've never had anything but problems with it. When I got my first S2s I had six S1s on my Tivo account and had to move the S2s to a separate account to get usable response time. Then I added a more S2s and it went back to a crawl. Maybe five Tivos is a slightly unusually large number for one person to own, but it shouldn't kill TCOs response time the way it's always seemed to.

Stephen, it is much better now, not that that helps as the show I wanted to schedule is already half over (and I haven't gotten confirmation emails from my previous request, so I guess it didn't get there in the 10 minutes that were left by the time I got through the request process). But I have to say the response I got earlier was typical of the response I've always gotten from TCO, which has led me to dread having to use it. I would really welcome an update that finally gives me decent response time.

TiVoStephen · 01-09-2006, 08:49 PM

Sorry it's been such a slow performer for you. (Dan203 has the same issue.) A handful of others see the same thing. In the past, I've had some of our developers investigate; we've really had a hard time reproducing the problem. It definitely is triggered by having many units on your account. However, personally, I have six or seven units on my account and performance is great.

If you can send me an e-mail with the e-mail address you use that is giving you such bad performance, we'll try to reproduce it in our test system. Perhaps we can fix the problem for you even before the upcoming performance release if it turns out the problem is something simple.

Sorry that you missed your show.

Best regards,
Stephen

audiocrawford · 01-10-2006, 01:22 AM

I just use the Yahoo! feature. Once you've registered, you just need to be logged in to Yahoo, and to click on "send to my TiVo". Takes seconds. The TiVo website in general is someplace I avoid unless I am looking to be frustrated.

AC

DCIFRTHS · 01-10-2006, 01:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stanley Rohner

I've never had any problems with it.

I've always had issues with the speed of TCO. You can add Manage My Account to the mix too.

timr_42 · 01-10-2006, 07:55 AM

Maybe it is the number of boxs you have. I have two and have never seemed to have problems. A couple of times using Yahoo, it didn't like my email, but I tried again and it worked. I have not had much issue with speed.

BTW not to hijack the thread, but just hit 700 whoo hoo

lajohn27 · 01-10-2006, 07:58 AM

I'll chime in .. I do find TCO *sometimes* a bit slow..

But I've had terrific luck using the Yahoo scheduling.. So.. Go figure.

Dan203 · 01-10-2006, 12:12 PM

Like Stephen said I too have this problem. Every time I use any TiVo feature that requires me to log into my account it takes 1-2 minutes just to complete the login process. And any time a feature requires me to switch TiVos, such as the credit card update screen in Manage My Account or any of the search/grid features in TCO, it takes 45+ seconds to complete the change. I still have my original account so I have the remenants of something like 12 or 13 TiVos on my account. Most are S1 which have since been sold, or TiVos bought for family that where originally registered under my account then transfered to the new owners account, but 6 are still active S2 TiVos.

Dan

Stormspace · 01-10-2006, 03:20 PM

A few weeks ago I was away and decided to borrow my step dad's PC to go online and schedule a show. It was an older PC, 1ghz or so running AOL something. I had to quit because the dial-up connection wasn't fast enough to load the page. 20 minutes went by and I gave up. And like any good PC user, I minimized AOL after a few minutes and tried IE separately but it was still too slow to be usable and the site timed out several times as well.

I guess I'm spoiled by broadband, but it certainly wasn't a good demo for the rents.