Series 2 no longer plays saved shows

[Regardie]

My 240 series 2 with the latest service update has recently refused to play many shows that previously worked fine.

This unit was originally hooked up to a digital cable box from Comcast and I recorded many shows from digital channels. I moved to Verizon Fios when it became available but did not get a digital tuner for this TiVo. The new S3 that got the lifetime transfer got the cable cards and this unit reverted to the analog channel lineup.

Another S2 in the house did get a digital tuner and I had been transferring shows to the S2 240 fine.

Now the TiVo tells me that:

Error playing a recording

The TiVo DVR was not able to record this program because there was no video signal on the channel. You may have been trying to record on a channel that you don't receive.

Press select to continue

The shows take up space on the hard drive and the info screen is complete except for the channel number. These recordings used to play fine. Now they will not transfer to another TiVo or the TiVo Desktop application and they simply do not play.

Has anyone else seen something like this? Are these recordings gone or just mis-indexed?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Later,

Regardie

[scandia101]

Have you tried a restart?

[Regardie]

Sorry I haven't looked in on this but work got in the way.

A restart did not fix the problem. And I have found programs missing on a second TiVo in my house. I get the same message on shows that were recorded when I had Comcast a few years ago, and the channels do not exist in my current Fios digital install.

I'm quite annoyed by the whole thing. It's like the TiVo did a current inventory of channels available and forgot about any recordings that did not match the current lineup.

Later,

regardie

[Regardie]

Just got off the phone with TiVo customer support and they have never heard of the problem and will not even try to fix it since I upgraded the hard drives several years ago.

So goodbye to TiVo for me. If I can't expect to store recordings on my Tivo for any length of time it becomes far less useful to me.

later,

Regardie

[ddonohue]

TiVo may say they've never heard of it, but look around the forums and you'll find references to the same problem. I had it once before and I'm also having it right now. And it's a non-upgraded box.

I don't have a solution, but the first time it popped up was just after a TiVo software upgrade and it went away after a few days. There was some discussion of the problem here, so I suspect maybe TiVo fixed the problem soon after the upgrade.

Now I'm having it again, but I haven't gone through the time and effort of looking into it right now. One thing I'm interested in trying is transfering a "bad" recording either to another TiVo or to my PC to see if it remains unwatchable. There may be other info, search the forum.

[Regardie]

My shows will not transfer between TiVos or to the computer, using TiVo Desktop or the web interface.

A lot of my problem shows are partial recordings. My wife would transfer childrens shows from TiVo to TiVo, stopping the transfer at the end of the show, before the commercials or between show filler.

Later,

Regardie

[ddonohue]

I have new info on this - go here.

[Regardie]

I know I am bringing back an old thread but with the release of the 9.3 update I was hoping there would be a fix, but no.

Here is the problem. My wife had been busy transferring shows from TiVo to TiVo (both Series2), and stopping the transfer at the end of the show, not letting the trailing programming transfer. A lot of children's shows from Noggin come with beginning and trailing content that she did not want my kids to see. So she would watch the original program up to the start of the show, pause, and move to the other TiVo and start a transfer from the paused location. She would then check the transfered show and stop the transfer when she reached the end of the program. This was her way of editing the show.

The end result was a 30 minute show reduced to a 23 minute show that the destination TiVo would mark as a partial recording. She would then delete the original copy.

These played fine until the 9.2 upgrade when they stopped playing with the message at the top of the thread. The 9.3 upgrade did not fix this problem.

Any suggestions short of finding a way to roll back the software to get the recordings onto a computer?

Later,

Redgardie

[scandia101]

Originally Posted by Regardie

These played fine until the 9.2 upgrade when they stopped playing with the message at the top of the thread. The 9.3 upgrade did not fix this problem.

That would be the 9.2 update, and what you mean is the 9.1 update because v9.2 was for the S3 and HD units only.

Have you tried transfering to PC with the latest version of Tivo Desktop?
Have you tried a Kick Start? I don't have the info on this PC, but you should be able to search the forums for info about Kick Start.

In another thread you started you mentioned the importance of a sports recording from a local origination channel. Have you contacted them to see if you can get a copy of it from them?

[AZ_Tivo]

Originally Posted by Regardie

Now the TiVo tells me that:

Error playing a recording

The TiVo DVR was not able to record this program because there was no video signal on the channel. You may have been trying to record on a channel that you don't receive.

Press select to continue

Bypass Tivo and hook up to TV directly. Make sure that you have signal coming in. I had this problem when cable guys 'accidently' put a filter on my cable line.

[scandia101]

Originally Posted by AZ_Tivo

Bypass Tivo and hook up to TV directly. Make sure that you have signal coming in. I had this problem when cable guys 'accidently' put a filter on my cable line.

He's talking about recordings that have been transfered via MRV and were at one time watchable.