Got the new software update yesterday!

[wg0649]

I'm one of those southern NH comcast customers --- came home last night and noticed I was now getting DD 5.1 out of my Comcast TiVo box!

Also noticed a small red "rec" light on the front panel display which was never there before when something was recording.

I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the other bugs out there....any others I should look for to see if they fixed them?

[BlackBetty]

Hows the response time going through the menu's and guide? Is it improved?

[mtchamp]

Well, that's great news. I had the crazy 8's reboot loop and I don't want to get a new Comcast TiVo box until it's confirmed it will never happen again. I'm looking forward to the software and firmware update in SE MA. If they squash every bug and speed things up too, that would be amazing. Standing by to see if they can pull it off.

[dleggett3]

can you tell us what version the tivo update is?

[Calmante]

And my wife is begging me to ask, wg0649, are the intrusive suggestions a little less... intrusive? Please tell us what you've seen!

Thanks!

[Eric90gt]

Originally Posted by dleggett3

can you tell us what version the tivo update is?

middleware version 7.8.26

[snakester]

This must be what has rendered my box totally nonfunctional...

I wake up this morning and notice the thing is in STANDBY so I get up and hit the POWER button.... ooops 8888. It goes through it's little restart cycle, and LOCKS UP when it gets to the time. I sat there for a good five minutes and the time was stuck on 8:09. So I pull the plug AGAIN. Now it reboots just fine, but REFUSES to show me Live TV. I can watch recordings, I can "change" channels, I can get to the TiVo menus, but I can't watch TV.

I thought software updates were supposed to FIX problems.


EDIT: Okay, this is even DUMBER than I thought. If I hit PAUSE, then PLAY (watch from the buffer) I can watch TV with NO problem. As soon as I FF to catch up to live, it refuses to show TV.

[cypherstream]

Originally Posted by Eric90gt

middleware version 7.8.26

Do you have the rest of the versions numbers? I can update the Motorola DVR wiki... or you can if you want.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_to_...DVR/Using_Tivo
Initial Software Version

Motorola Firmware Version 16.43 - Platfirm Built Sept 25, 2007

Middleware Version: 5.8.09

TiVo Software Version: TE-1.0.2-0021-01-01-001


Edit: I just realized that 16.43 is a DCT series firmware. Perhaps we should split it up and display the DCH series firmware also, which would be 18.xx.

[mogulbumm]

Originally Posted by snakester

This must be what has rendered my box totally nonfunctional...

I wake up this morning and notice the thing is in STANDBY so I get up and hit the POWER button.... ooops 8888. It goes through it's little restart cycle, and LOCKS UP when it gets to the time. I sat there for a good five minutes and the time was stuck on 8:09. So I pull the plug AGAIN. Now it reboots just fine, but REFUSES to show me Live TV. I can watch recordings, I can "change" channels, I can get to the TiVo menus, but I can't watch TV.

I thought software updates were supposed to FIX problems.


EDIT: Okay, this is even DUMBER than I thought. If I hit PAUSE, then PLAY (watch from the buffer) I can watch TV with NO problem. As soon as I FF to catch up to live, it refuses to show TV.

I'm having the EXACT same problem this morning. Didn't get the crazy 8s but cannot watch live TV. Can watch recorded shows, ON DEMAND, and even record shows then watch them, but all Live stations just show blank. On top of that, any PAID channels (i.e. HBO) give me a message that I am not subscribed to that service. NICE UPGRADE.

90 minutes on hold as of right now and still waiting for support. My guess is that this is VERY widespread.

[pellet30]

Woke up this morning - box on standby.

Called Comcast customer service and was told that as firmware / software update happened over night.

Unplugged my box (per cust. svc) and saw the download codes start up again......

45 minutes later, one tuner is blank the other tuner works.

The tuner that works is showing "you are not authorized for this channel, call 1-800 comcast" across the bottom of cartoon network. I tried HBO and just get a blank screen.

I didn't have any more time to fiddle with it this morning and went to work. I hope to god it works tonight.....

This has been a long 4 weeks with service up and down. Just had a tech out to the house on Friday to fix the box that was stuck on standby.

pellet30

[snakester]

Originally Posted by mogulbumm

I'm having the EXACT same problem this morning. Didn't get the crazy 8s but cannot watch live TV. Can watch recorded shows, ON DEMAND, and even record shows then watch them, but all Live stations just show blank. On top of that, any PAID channels (i.e. HBO) give me a message that I am not subscribed to that service. NICE UPGRADE.

90 minutes on hold as of right now and still waiting for support. My guess is that this is VERY widespread.

Yeah, if I put it on the movie channels it will SAY "This channel requires a subscription", but if I do the "pause, play" trick I mentioned in my other post, and then hit EXIT to clear the message, I can watch them.

[mogulbumm]

Originally Posted by snakester

Yeah, if I put it on the movie channels it will SAY "This channel requires a subscription", but if I do the "pause, play" trick I mentioned in my other post, and then hit EXIT to clear the message, I can watch them.

FYI - do NOT call Comcast for support unless you want to stay on eternal hold. Go to the Comcast.com website and follow the Contact Us links to chat with a live technician. Instant response and he seemed to know right away there was a problem. He connected remotely to "rebuild" my converter. Process takes about 20 minutes. Told me to contact them back if I still had issues afterwards (note that he did tell me I would lose any recorded shows but not season passes).

Waited 45 minutes and checked. Unit was in standby mode. Powered on and just got a 0 on the display and a prompt to enter a parental code (which I did 1234). Then, NOTHING. BLANK. NADA. F**king Comcast actually killed a box that had, until this morning, worked perfectly fine.

Another chat with support and he could not fix it. I offered to swap the unit locally and that was not an option either. Wanted to schedule a tech for TOMORROW which I did not accept. Expecting a call to have somebody here today. Will have to reenter all my seasons pass info etc...

Had I known I would have been a beta tester, I would have signed up for it.

I REALLY wish Verizon was in my area. Heard great things about their FIOS and digital service.

[snakester]

Originally Posted by mogulbumm

FYI - do NOT call Comcast for support unless you want to stay on eternal hold. Go to the Comcast.com website and follow the Contact Us links to chat with a live technician. Instant response and he seemed to know right away there was a problem. He connected remotely to "rebuild" my converter. Process takes about 20 minutes. Told me to contact them back if I still had issues afterwards (note that he did tell me I would lose any recorded shows but not season passes).

Waited 45 minutes and checked. Unit was in standby mode. Powered on and just got a 0 on the display and a prompt to enter a parental code (which I did 1234). Then, NOTHING. BLANK. NADA. F**king Comcast actually killed a box that had, until this morning, worked perfectly fine.

Another chat with support and he could not fix it. I offered to swap the unit locally and that was not an option either. Wanted to schedule a tech for TOMORROW which I did not accept. Expecting a call to have somebody here today. Will have to reenter all my seasons pass info etc...

Had I known I would have been a beta tester, I would have signed up for it.

I REALLY wish Verizon was in my area. Heard great things about their FIOS and digital service.

Yeah, I'm pissed off with this to the point where if they don't let me get another TiVo box at the local office I may possibly downgrade back to iGuide. It's a waste of my time to have a field tech come out for something thats NOT MY FAULT. I'm not stupid, I know how to hook up my own cable box...

[lkupersmith]

I got my update overnight. The new versions are :

TiVo Software Version: TE-1.03-0078-01-01-001
Middleware Version: 7.8.26

Fixes -
1. DD works on the DCH box now.
2. Info and Guide buttons bring up correct channel when pressed soon after channel change.
3. Pressing "A" in Guide display no longer takes 60 seconds to update listing. Down to about 5 seconds.


Bad news - Guide is just as slow as before.

Very Bad news - when I press Record in the Guide, I get a message that my request cannot be processed and to try again later. I will. Maybe it's just doing a one time database update after the software update.

I'll do some more testing and report back later if I find anything else.

[BlackBetty]

Originally Posted by lkupersmith

Bad news - Guide is just as slow as before.

Sometimes the guide and menus can be sluggish after an upgrade because of all of the indexing that is going on in the background. This can last for up to 3 days.

Let us know in a few days if the guide speeds up.

[lkupersmith]

Originally Posted by lkupersmith

Bad news - Guide is just as slow as before.

Very Bad news - when I press Record in the Guide, I get a message that my request cannot be processed and to try again later. I will. Maybe it's just doing a one time database update after the software update.

OK, the guide does seem to be speeding up some. I'll keep my eye on it over the next couple days. Better yet, I was able to schedule a recording. It did take about a minute before the Please Wait message went away but maybe that will speed up later too.

[Stewartsnet]

I was wondering if the upgrade is working better for DCT boxes than DCH boxes? The DCT boxes have worked better on the initial release.

I hold my breath as to what I find when I get home tonight.

[mogulbumm]

Well, apparently my blank display was a big hit with Comcast this morning. After chatting with 3 reps online (apparently the only way to contact them in a reasonable timeframe) somebody actually called me to set up an appointment for the next day. By this time, I had about 3+ hours of my morning shot.

Well, apparently the rep that did the "rebuild" of my converter online was not aware that it did not take 20 minutes, but more like an hour and a half to do the rebuild. Also, he assured me that although I would lose recordings, I would NOT lose any setup (wrong again, I lost all season's passes, settings, etc...)

Good news is that the box FINALLY came back online at about 11:30am (started the process at 7:00am). Channels seem to work, my paid channels work again, and overall seems a fraction faster (though that may be my imagination).

Two problems still remain:

1. I lost the TIVO "sound" on the clicks. Gone. I kind of got used to that feedback and no matter what volume level I set it doesn't work.

2. Really bad news is that when setting up a new recording (one time or seasons pass) I calculated the "hourglass" to be anwhere from 3 minutes to 10 minutes before it went away. This is for EACH recording setup. I'm really hoping this will change after the "indexing" people refer to here.

I hadn't minded the small bugs before, but having to wait well over an hour and a half on hold (still with no response) and lose hours on end to the upgrade, and also be told that I couldn't even go to the local center to exchange the box... that just sucks.

I'm hesitant to complain about the problems above since I'm afraid they will screw up my system again

This is a disaster of a product and deployment, but I feel I'm in so far now that I need to see it through... at least until a competing provider comes in which I will jump on unless Comcast changes how they are handling the TiVO issues.

[mark03110]

I've also received the new software on my DCT box and I now have the problem of TiVo sounds layering over each other. For example, if I hit thumbs down and then FF, each time I press FF I hear both sounds. This never happened to me with the older version.

Also, I have noticed the time it takes to return from when I press record went from 10-15 seconds to 1-2 minutes.

So in my mind, this upgrade added nothing to my setup (DCT box so no DD issue) while adding 2 very annoying bugs.

[miricle]

Originally Posted by mark03110

Also, I have noticed the time it takes to return from when I press record went from 10-15 seconds to 1-2 minutes.

Just a quick note, without the software update, my record time (season pass, individual episode) has been growing longer and longer. I don't know if it has something to do with size of season pass list (pretty small) or what it would be related to. This is with a DCT box as well.

[NCARalph]

Originally Posted by lkupersmith

I got my update overnight. The new versions are :

TiVo Software Version: TE-1.03-0078-01-01-001
Middleware Version: 7.8.26

Nevermind - I found it on the Tivo settings. Apparently I've been updated as well. I wonder if that's the cause of the extremely long waits for starting recordings and changing season passes? It wasn't anywhere near as slow as it is now until a couple of days ago.

[Hew]

Wow the problems of Comcast Tivo keep mounting. Could this just be because the software wasn't designed for the hardware? The things I've read and heard Mr. Rogers (CEO) say are that actually putting the software on the boxes was a miracle in software engineering. If this is true can't it also mean that putting the software on to motorola box is like playing halo 3 on a PS2? Sure it can happen with months worth of work but the end result is just a much slower and low resolution halo 3...

Are these boxes fast enough for the software? Or is it the software thats all buggy?

[mogulbumm]

Originally Posted by Hew

Wow the problems of Comcast Tivo keep mounting. Could this just be because the software wasn't designed for the hardware? The things I've read and heard Mr. Rogers (CEO) say are that actually putting the software on the boxes was a miracle in software engineering. If this is true can't it also mean that putting the software on to motorola box is like playing halo 3 on a PS2? Sure it can happen with months worth of work but the end result is just a much slower and low resolution halo 3...

Are these boxes fast enough for the software? Or is it the software thats all buggy?

Its the software. The hardware is more than adequate to support it. A good example is running Windows Vista and MAC OSX on the same platform. My Vista platform took almost 7 full minutes to boot fully. Loaded with OSX, the exact same computer now takes 37 seconds. Same with Linux.

Something with the "tweaked" TIVO software that Comcast rolled out has killed speed, reliability, and features. Good thing is that because it is software, it is upgradeable and can be fixed. Bad thing is that we who have adopted the TIVO platform in these first few months are unknowing BETA testers.

As the box indexes, I do notice a slight increase in speed. I'm hoping that it will be back to full in a couple of days.

Current Issues/Corrections:

1. It now takes about 1-2 minutes (versus 3-10) to setup a seasons pass or recording (or even modify an existing one). Still brutally slow compared to the 10 seconds or so it used to take.

2. I had an issue yesterday where I would "uncheck" channels I don't get/watch so they would not show up in the guide, but they still showed up. Today, they are not there (this is a good thing).

3. Still no TIVO "click/pop" sound, no matter what I change the settings to.

4. Dolby Digital now works.

5. I can now change from HD to standard channels and vice-versa without getting a blank screen. Prior to the update, this would happen frequently (pressing the GUIDE button then EXIT fixed it).

6. Recordings appear to be working fine.

7. General speed (channel changes, etc...) has improved, but only slightly.

8. The 30-second skip and 7-second rewind work for ON DEMAND shows now. I never tested this before with the old TIVO, but on the other DVR box these functions didn't work (only REW and FF).

Still think the entire TIVO rollout is a cluster-f@!& but it appears to slowly be getting better as the unit indexes and I haven't had to replace a box or have a tech out since I received it in January (though I came REALLY close Thursday morning...)

[HDTiVo]

Originally Posted by mogulbumm

Its the software. The hardware is more than adequate to support it. A good example is running Windows Vista and MAC OSX on the same platform.

Based on what do you know TiVo can turn Vista into OSX in a broadly deployed real world environment?

[NCARalph]

The update apparently has not fixed the problem with searching by time or channel where doing a page down (channel down) does the page down, displaying the next few listings, then after a couple of seconds jumps back up one listing.

Searching by name, doing a page down works OK, but seems somewhat slower than previously to display the next several names.

[mtchamp]

Thanks Mogulbumm and NCARalph and many others in this forum for putting up with the beta. I got the crazy 8888's and returned the box. I already have TiVo HD's, so I'm waiting until the bugs get worked out. You have provided a good detail on exactly what's happening and have had the patience to allow the box to index when most people would have given up for not knowing speed can be improved and certain problems resolved by waiting a couple of days.

In any case, this Comcast TiVo rollout is only for people who understand this is a beta and only experienced software testers need apply. I appreciate that you and others are putting up with so much dissapointment to realize small improvements. I will buy back into a Comcast TiVo box when the software updates stop creating new problems. We all know this can be accomplished over time, but how long will the average person wait for his TV to work?

What I would like to know, is there an official beta testing group? Where are the invites to test Comcast TiVo software updates. I think Comcast and TiVo should get off their knees and stop praying the software rollout will just work and get scientific about it. They can't possibly be doing enough testing before rolling out this lastest update. Maybe they will learn something. They are very lucky there are TiVo enthusiasts that won't go down easy.

Comcast and TiVo, will you please fix your beta program and release updates when they have been tested more thouroughly. It's way more disssapointing to see one step forward, 2 steps backwards. My hopes were set pretty high since Comcast Rep announced the software update is coming and I don't even have the box right now. I'm disgusted! I wish I knew exactly who or what is most at fault. The Moto box, Comcast or TiVo.

I hope they go to plan B pretty quick and hand out new boxes built for the promised Tru2Way platform with TiVo inside that will be designed from the ground up to work with any cable system like a TiVo HD with 2 way functionality like ONDemand requires. I have a feeling a number of people who have been waiting for TiVo on Comcast and have seen that it's not ready and still just a beta version, have already gone to TiVo HD or are waiting for Tru2Way STB's.

[boxerboys]

Originally Posted by mtchamp

I hope they go to plan B pretty quick and hand out new boxes built for the promised Tru2Way platform with TiVo inside that will be designed from the ground up to work with any cable system like a TiVo HD with 2 way functionality like ONDemand requires. I have a feeling a number of people who have been waiting for TiVo on Comcast and have seen that it's not ready and still just a beta version, have already gone to TiVo HD or are waiting for Tru2Way STB's.

Does anyone else think this may be TiVo's underlying plan all along? Play along until users get completely fed up and Comcast is forced to really work with TiVo and deliver a new box as mentioned?

If it has taken them this long to deliver a product with such glaring issues (everyday issues) perhaps it is a lost cause on this hardware anyways. Comcast should cut their losses and move on to "Plan B" as mtchamp suggests.

It is pretty sad when Comcast technicians have turned in their boxes (2 have admitted to me in North Andover, MA) because of the issues.

[VivaLasVegas]

I'm planning to return my box in the morning. I've had it for two months and now I've finally replaced it with a TiVoHD. The thing is, I wouldn't have minded being a beta tester. In fact, I would have been happy to use it and provide feedback even with the issues that I've had. Instead, I'm being billed $15.90/month for what should be a working product, but really isn't.

[HiDefGator]

Originally Posted by boxerboys

Does anyone else think this may be TiVo's underlying plan all along?

That seems more than a little hard to believe.

[markjrenna]

Originally Posted by mogulbumm

Its the software. The hardware is more than adequate to support it.

WHAT!???????