Failed. Call Interrupted. (Two steps forward one step back ...)

fallingditch · 01-06-2010, 01:22 PM

OK so I believe that CS have finally got the ".a" release waiting on the server for download. How do I know this? Because the Tivo can spend 45 minutes with the screen saying "downloading". However, what it then displays is Failed. Call Interrupted.

I must have attempted this Make Daily Call Now operation 15 times in the last 24 hours. Fails every time. Without fail. (Sometimes after 5 minutes; sometimes 10 muniutes; sometimes after 45 minutes).

I have powered it off and on many times. I have moved it to a different telephone line in my house. (One ADSL, one not). I have swapped phone cables. I have tried at different times through the day and night. Making a Test Call works fine.

I have searched this forum for answers - but because I am on BT (and not Tiscali) I cannot see what the cause might be.

Anyone feel confident to say what's going on here?

Should I try a shorter cable? Take it to a friend's house on Virgin Media? Is it a Phone Company thing? or could it be dodgy disk drive related? Is it some bloke at CS who I have offended is standing there watching the modems and pulling the plug whenever he clocks me?

Automan · 01-06-2010, 01:31 PM

Have you got any gadgets in your house that pick up the phone line to check for call waiting tone or 1571 type services?

If in doubt unplug any such gadget and try again.

BTW, Could even be a Sky box (if you have one) trying to call out.

Automan.

fallingditch · 01-06-2010, 01:59 PM

No other devices on the phone line(s). Sky not connected to the phone line either. No call waiting services or anything like that.

mrtickle · 01-06-2010, 02:06 PM

I'm not confident to say what's happening as there are many variables - but if you have ADSL note that TiVo's telephone connection must go through a microfilter. Everything in your whole house that uses a phoneline, except your adsl modem/router, should go through the "phone" half of a microfilter somewhere along the chain. (If you have a bunch of phones chained off an extension which is itself plugged into a microfilter, that's fine too - everything downstream of that will be filtered).

If you're already set up like that, next thing to try is to unplug all extensions, phones, everything including the router leaving only TiVo connected to the Master socket of the house (via a long cable if required) - again very importantly via a microfilter,

If that doesn't work try making the call from someone else's house who has a BT line. This would eliminate the phoneline as being the thing at fault if it still didn't work. You said "line(s)" - so why not try your other phone line if you have two? :-)

fallingditch · 01-06-2010, 03:03 PM

I have two lines in the house - one ADSL and one not ADSL. Have tried it through both - identical symptoms. Agree that the next step is to try from a different location. (By the way - for several days before it was quite happily downloading daily updates of the Programme Guide, and it went through Guided Setup without a hitch - its just the ".a" Release that its having diffilculty with ...)

fallingditch · 01-21-2010, 03:27 AM

OK so after getting snowed in, experiencing various vehicular mishaps, I have now tried downloading at two additional locations (one with a direct BT line - one with Virgin Cable - none with call waiting/sky boxes etc etc) and still no joy.

A Clue
what I have found however, is that if I power off the Tivo then power it on, then Make Daily Call, it will spend about 45 minutes downloading (the ".a release") before hanging up with a Failed. Call Interrupted. If I then try again immediately (without a hard system reset) then it gets nowhere near 45 minutes - its more like a couple of minutes before I see Failed. Call Interrupted. Try again, and its likely to be a matter of minutes before it gives up. But then a hard system reset and we are off on a 45 minutes download.

Can anybody hazard a guess at what might be happening here? And how I get out of this cycle of defeat and despair?

AMc · 01-21-2010, 03:48 AM

Has your Tivo been upgraded or networked?
My brother's poorly upgraded Tivo would download one call of listings then fail on subsequent days because the swap file specified during the upgrade was non existent. The solution was to redo the upgrade specifying adequate swap.

You could sort the 2.5.5a problem by installing it yourself either on the existing or a new drive. There is a thread to ask for a link to download but I don't know if the a image is available.

mikerr · 01-21-2010, 03:52 AM

The modem (circuitry) may have become more sensitive to line noise over time, try the codes used for tiscali lines, as they may help if your modem has that problem:

Change the dial prefix to:
,#090,,08081050005
or
,#056,,08081050005

(It's in Messages and Setup / Recorder & Phone Setup / Phone Connection / Change Dialling Options / Set Dial Prefix )

Many people with bad lines, or sensitive modems would be fine on short daily calls, it's just longer calls they fail on:
e.g.
1. a new software ownload (like 255->255a)
2. the first daily call after a while of being disconnected.

fallingditch · 01-21-2010, 04:23 AM

testing now ...

fallingditch · 01-21-2010, 08:31 AM

Have tried the 1st number 5 times, and the 2nd number three times, and I keep trying, but no joy I'm afraid.

What I don't understand is why it can get to 45 minutes so many times (let's say on 10 occasions it has got that far) - and then fail at that approximate instant?

You would think that if it had 10 attempts it would complete the course just the once?

It really seems like there is another factor in play here ...

(This is so frustrating ...)

fallingditch · 01-21-2010, 08:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AMc

Has your Tivo been upgraded or networked?

Bought off ebay a year ago - AFAIK its 100% vanilla.

Quote:

My brother's poorly upgraded Tivo would download one call of listings then fail on subsequent days because the swap file specified during the upgrade was non existent. The solution was to redo the upgrade specifying adequate swap.

Very unlikely - it is a a 40MB drive and the case did not appear to have been opened until I opened it.

Quote:

You could sort the 2.5.5a problem by installing it yourself either on the existing or a new drive. There is a thread to ask for a link to download but I don't know if the a image is available.

The reason this download is taking so long is because it is pulling down the 2.5.5a release - and I need that because I use a Sony Television.

There is another reason - and that is because I have another Tivo with a blown modem which already has the 2.5.5a upgrade. That machine has a 250MB drive in with manyy recordings on it. The plan was to upgrade the ebay machine to 2.5.5a, and then simply transfer the drive (it seemed such a sensible thing to do at the time ...)

Note: it is my understanding that you cannot put a drive from a 2.5.5a unit into a unit which aint 2.5.5a .... so I am not even sure what my rollback is ...

mikerr · 01-21-2010, 08:49 AM

Actually, now you can put your old 250GB drive (255a) into the new tivo (255a) and all will work fine.
(I've just read your other thread again)

AIUI you are currently stuck at upgrading the 40GB( 255) drive in the new tivo from 255 to 255a, which is irrelevant if you are going to swap to the other drive which already has 255a on it.

The unit is now 255a (i.e. its serial number is tagged as 255a at tivo servers),
so you can safely put your old 250GB 255a drive in now.

On the daily call it will see you are running 255a and just do a daily call for guide data only.

fallingditch · 01-21-2010, 08:56 AM

Thanks to all for their contributions!

I am real happy to follow mikerr's recommendation.

Minor problem is that I am 75 miles away from that 250 MB drive and won't be able to get the screwdriver out until the middle of next week, so its all going to go a little bit quiet for a while...

fallingditch · 01-31-2010, 05:06 PM

Thanks to all to helped.

kezzy · 02-01-2010, 05:55 AM

Hi,

Did you manage to sort this yet?

I have the same problem with the "failed - call interupted". It is driving me mad. I have a BT line. All devices unplugged (actually rest of house phones lines disconnected).

Problems started after hard drive crashed. Used a known working backup (Although several years old)- onto a 120gig drive. It downloaded 2 weeks of data but then failed the next and subsequent days to load data. Tried again and samething.

Then rebuilt the disk from scratch using the a hooch disk. That spent 45 min downloading and then the same error again. After that it only takes 1 minute or so to report the error.

Tried the v30 +v90 options. No joy.

Any ideas. Does anyone have a number for Tivo support to check my account status. Looks like the number 0870 241 84 86 is longer valid.

Please help as my wife is nearing divorce proceedings.

JudyB · 02-01-2010, 07:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kezzy

Does anyone have a number for Tivo support to check my account status. Looks like the number 0870 241 84 86 is longer valid.

Please help as my wife is nearing divorce proceedings.

0844 2410 703

(This was posted by blindlemon in the customer services thread and is also on support.tivo.com here if you search for "Tivo in England".)

fallingditch · 02-01-2010, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kezzy

Hi,
Did you manage to sort this yet?

Well yes I am sorted - but not in a way that will help you (I think) ...

(You should probably read carefully through the thread to understand the history ...)

The point is, I never actually got past the "wait 45 minutes and then see Call Failed" problem.

It was taking that long because it was trying to download a new Release - but in the end I simply installed a hard drive with the new Release on it - and that's how I worked around the problem.

I think there's something else going on here - I wish I knew what!! I spent sooooo much time on this flippin' thing ...

(If Customer Services DO help, please post an explanation here!)

kezzy · 02-01-2010, 05:33 PM

Thanks for the tel number I call them tomorrow.

I'll let you know how I get on.

I cannot believe how much trouble this has been.

kezzy · 02-04-2010, 09:10 PM

still nop joy. tivo said my account is fine. Phone line sounds OK but perhaps I shopuld try it around a friends house.

I presume the internal modem is working as it manages to complete the first download on a new drive. It is subsequent daily calls that fail. I have read that be a symptom of a swap drive problem but how can I check? Is there something out there that can confirm swap drive is setup correctly?

This is driving me nuts.

AMc · 02-05-2010, 03:15 AM

I'm sure there are ways to check the swap set up with the network access or the logs which are also accessible using backdoors - but I don't know them sorry.

My brother's Tivo had a problem with the swap following a messed up upgrade. His would always download once following a reboot, but subsequent attempts would fail.
If you give it a reboot can you get a download to work?

mikerr · 02-05-2010, 05:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kezzy

manages to complete the first download on a new drive.

Do you mean it works from guided setup only?
The guided-setup call doesn't check the software version (255/255a) and gets guide data anyway.

All other daily calls do check the version, and will download a new software version if necessary.

A 255a drive installed in a machine which should be 255 will show the symptoms you describe.
Check it in messages & setup / system information.

Try the doing a daily call immediately after a reboot first though, as AMc said

arturos · 02-10-2010, 11:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikerr

Do you mean it works from guided setup only?
The guided-setup call doesn't check the software version (255/255a) and gets guide data anyway.

All other daily calls do check the version, and will download a new software version if necessary.

A 255a drive installed in a machine which should be 255 will show the symptoms you describe.
Check it in messages & setup / system information.

Try the doing a daily call immediately after a reboot first though, as AMc said

I'm a bit confused... what do you mean by 255/255a?? I began experiencing this dial-in problem approx 10-20 days ago... (I finally ran out of program info)

my software version is "3.0-01-1-000", a tivo (series 1) with lifetime service, 250 Gb drive (actually it had an 80Gb when all this began) now with the 250Gb drive, still same error.

When I read this thread... I thought the 250Gb drive would fix it...

any ideas?

AMc · 02-11-2010, 06:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arturos

I'm a bit confused... what do you mean by 255/255a?? I began experiencing this dial-in problem approx 10-20 days ago... (I finally ran out of program info)

my software version is "3.0-01-1-000", a tivo (series 1) with lifetime service, 250 Gb drive (actually it had an 80Gb when all this began) now with the 250Gb drive, still same error.

When I read this thread... I thought the 250Gb drive would fix it...

any ideas?

Not sure what you mean by that the UK only has series 1 Tivos and the latest build we got of the software was 2.5.5. That was later fiddled to deal with an issue with teletext chips on certain TVs - that version was given a 2.5.5a tag.

If you have 3.0 then you probably need to check out the US forums on here for advice.

arturos · 02-11-2010, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AMc

Not sure what you mean by that the UK only has series 1 Tivos and the latest build we got of the software was 2.5.5. That was later fiddled to deal with an issue with teletext chips on certain TVs - that version was given a 2.5.5a tag.

If you have 3.0 then you probably need to check out the US forums on here for advice.

Thanks AMc, that certainly clears things up. I'll also browse the US forums and look for this issue. It is interesting how the problem described is exactly the problem I am having... got here (this forum) by searching.

Thanks Again.

-Art