Since 6.3e, Tivo's freezing

Same thing at our place - 2 of 3 are rebooting and very slow afterwards each time. Guess I need to wait a while and see if this settles out or call D* and see what is up!!

 

I have an R10 w/6.3e. I haven't experienced the "freezing" problem yet.

However, my TiVo is incredibly non-responsive after the upgrade. Fast-forwarding through commercials is different. With the previous releases, I had a pretty good rhythm to get to the 3-arrow FF. But it doesn't work now. Now it ends up at only 1 arrow, and if I'm lucky 2. I have to slow way down to get to the 3-arrow FF. And then when I push play to go back to normal speed, sometimes it won't take, and I'll just keep on fastforwarding past where I want to be!

I'm not really happy w/6.3e. It doesn't seem to provide me anything, but does seem to make the device less effective.

 

I have two (2) Hughes DirecTV Tivo Units (SD-DVR120). One is freezing/pausing every few seconds, the other is fine.

TIVO thinks the hard drive is going out. DirecTV wants me to upgrage to their DVR.

I'd rather keep the Tivo DVR. I have a extra internal hard drive (130GB). Do I just replace the old one with the new one? Or is there more I need to do?

Thanks in advance! Tommy

 

I just checked and I have the update but everything seems to be working so far.

 

Check out these resources if you want to replace/upgrade the hard drive ....

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=25

http://www.weaknees.com/index.html

http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/

http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/

http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/instantcake.cfm

http://www.9thtee.com/

 

I haven't checked to see the version on my HR10 but I'm guessing it's 6.3e... and it reboots probably once a day (I know by the time being gone from the corner of the screen) and the other day it was totally locked up.

It's starting to make me like the HR20 more and more.

 

Today I did notice one thing odd. 2 recorded shows seemed to start recording late. Other than that all seems fine for me.

It's been ages since my SA Tivos did that and I only recently reactivated the Tivo functions on the R10, so I don't know if this is a common complaint or not.

 

I have two Hughes Tivos. The one that got the upgrade has frozen three times and has required a reboot to get it going again.

 

I'm having the same problem with my units. Drop outs, slow to respond and my HDVR2 just crashed on me. The HDVR2 have a new drive in it, so it isn't the drive. Hopefully, DTV will get this worked out I have no plans (what-so-ever) to replace any of my TiVos any time soon.

mark

 

I have a smiliar problem since two days ago. This is only happening in live TV and recently recorded shows and it doesn't seem to affect older recorded shows. The picture would be fine for a few seconds and then freeze up then repeat this cycle. Tried restarting and it helped for a couple of minutes before the problem came back.

 

Im having the same issues of freezing up and only a reboot is a fix with my r10, whats up D*, cant you fix this...

 

I have the Hughes DVR40 and have been having a hell of a time lately. Each time it freezes up, my only choice is to pull the power plug from the back and watch the slow reboot process. Last night it did this 3 times within 15 minutes. The first time it happened was when I was ff'ing through a commercial. The next time I'd just hit "play", and the final time before I stormed away from the box and went to read a book, it happened while I was just selecting the "Now Playing" item from the menu.

The last time I ever called DirecTV about issues with my box, all they wanted to do was send me another DVR (certainly not a TiVo box), so I don't hold out any high hopes of getting any satisfaction by calling them this time! Boy, was I mad last night.

 

Try clearing the thumbs ratings to see if the problem goes away. These ratings only affect suggestions. good luck

 

cr0100...

I hate to say it but it crashing that often sounds more like a hard drive problem then a software problem. Calling DTV for help with the TiVo units is a waste of time. Most of the people there are too new to even know they had a TiVo direct tv recorder.... Something to consider.

good luck,
mark

 

On the old series 1's there was a problem with upgrades which may or may not apply to the newer series 2 directivos. Perhaps someone more in tune with how the newer models work could opine.

On the older tivo's, there were two partitions that the operating system used, one for the 'current' software and one for an upgrade version. I believe the intent was that if the upgrade version didnt download or install correctly, the tivo could boot back to its former image. On the next upgrade, the download would go to the 'old' partition and the two partitions would swap who was 'active' on each download.

Problems came about when one of the partitions wasnt used for a long time, then a new s/w image was downloaded to it, no problems were immediately detected, but the new area was a so-so portion of the disk and progressively got worse. You'd get reboots, freezes, slowness and all sorts of similar sounding stuff.

Seems the trouble originated from the manufacturer writing the image to the disk and not testing the unused areas.

The solution then was to try to copy your disk contents to a new, non flakey drive and hope you could get everything off of it, or install a fresh new drive with a clean copy of the tivo s/w.

 

Well, I'd agree with everything above except the last sentence. You are correct about the update being written to a different part of the disk. What then happens is if there is damage to that part of the disk, the software now on it starts to give the machine problems. Those problems had not appeared before becuase the damaged area was not affecting the software then.

There's really nothing the manufacturer can test for. It is the result of pre-existing damage to the individual unit's hard drive.

 

Sounds like it is time to replace the harddrive, then. Bummer, this one is only about 2 years old!

What is the max size drive that this thing can handle? If I'm going to upgrade I might as well UPGRADE.

Thanks guys. I'm not as upset as I was last night, now that there is a plan of action!

-Charles

 

Wait to see what others say but that would be my guess. Rebooting several times a day is what mine did when it went. If your drive is only 2-years old you may be able to return it under warranty. It should have a date of manufacture stamped on it. Most drives have at least a 3-year warranty and Seagate, my favorite, has a 5-yr warranty. Just be sure not to tell them you used it in a tivo. Should not make a difference but you never know. If you can't return the drive you can still use it in a computer, Windows will mark the bad sectors and it will work fine.

good luck,
mark