The last few weeks i've been experiencing reboots once a week, the odd part is its only happening in primetime when my shows are recording. It never happens while watching live tv or a recording. It might have happened once while watching a recording. The first few times i noticed an issue by seeing recordings split in 2 i can't confirm it was a reboot because i was not awake. I don't believe those were reboots though because whenever the Roamio reboots my mom reboots the mini thinking that is the problem. She doesn't understand she loses connection cause the Roamio is rebooting and those first few times she didn't say she rebooted the mini. Another reason i think they weren't reboots there was only 3 minutes missing from the recording, with a reboot generally it loses 5 minutes. I'm wondering if it could possibly be related to the amount of disk space used, like it runs out of space and chokes. Like all the combined live buffers plus low disk space causes it to choke. When it happened with tonight's shows it was up to 93% used and 5 tuners is use. Part of me thinks it could be that cause it did something weird tonight, it affected prodigal son and the voice. The odd thing is prodigal son lost 8 minutes and the voice 5. So i went and deleted a lot of stuff to test out my theory. The fact that its only happening during primetime makes me think it isn't the drive. I know enough about computers and have enough experience with drives that have failed to know they don't continually crash at only a specific time frame. It also typically happens either just before 8 pm or between 8-9. I'm going to run the tivo hard drive test to see if it passes. I'm wondering if it could also be overheating.
Could my drive be failing?
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Its rebooting itself.
You didn't mention what model.
Roamio does take 3 minutes to reboot. A failing drive can cause rebooting and can happen several times.
You can test the drive on a pc with manufacturer's tests. Tivo doesn't have adequate tests. Just don't format it as the pc thinks its a new drive or blank.
You didn't mention what model.
Roamio does take 3 minutes to reboot. A failing drive can cause rebooting and can happen several times.
You can test the drive on a pc with manufacturer's tests. Tivo doesn't have adequate tests. Just don't format it as the pc thinks its a new drive or blank.
It's the plus model. So that would mean recording is stopping 2 minutes prior to the reboot and 8 minutes for the one show last night. I know I can run the smart test with the TiVo. I'd like to do the better test by taking it out but I don't have the necessary screwdrivers or hard drive dock. If it is failing one would think it would happen more then weekly and more random times then only in primetime.
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You could easily be having problems with either the power brick or the HDD. 3.5" drives are cheap, and MFSTools is VERY easy to use to copy an entire drive to save your recordings (unless the drive is already trashed). The wise thing to do right now would be to buy a new drive and get that old one out of there fast.
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The Torx screwdrivers are inexpensive (You don't need anything fancy), and can be easily found on amazon or your local store. A T10 is probably good enough. The Roamio Plus/Pro and Premieres are very easy to open and replace the HDD. You may also need a standard Phillips screwdriver for the HDD rails.
You don't need the dock if you have a PC, just use the second drive's sata and power. If you have a laptop, then yes, you'll need a dock. If you need to buy a dock anyway, then you might as well consider buying a toaster style dual cloning dock (USB3.0+).
If it is the drive I would say it's not. 99.9% of the time no issue. It's only in primetime typically when I have 4-5 shows recording at once and it only started once the drive reached 85%. So that's why I thought possible free space issue, especially after last night when one show lost 5 minute and another lost 8. The fact it's only happening in the evening too makes me wonder if it's a heat issue. Failing drives don't only crash at the same time consistently. That's why I'm so unsure if it's the drive.
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You don't need to be sure - if you care about your recordings, you should act NOW to try and save them. If you want to wait and be "sure", you are liable to be just sweeping up the ashes. You have nothing to loose by replacing the drive now, but possibly much to loose by waiting.
If it's a Plus there is no brick. I don't think they mentioned how old the drive is. You are absolutely right, just get a new drive and attempt a copy with MFSTools. Also run diagnostics on current drive. If the drive is going bad could try downloading some shows to computer. Not something to wait around for sure, drives are cheap. They did not mention TE3 or TE4 I think, if TE4 I guess transferring back from computer if saving shows that way won't work I guess. A MFSTools copy will save cable card setting too.
I don't really care about what's on the drive. It's just a bunch of old movies that will be on again. It's on TE4. I assume it's the original drive. I didn't buy the unit new. I got it used off Amazon. I'll run the S.M.A.R.T. diagnosis that the TiVo itself can run see if it comes up with anything. I'm also gonna clean out the fan vent with air then see what happens. If the drive does fail I know I can get a new one quite cheaply. Would you guys recommend the WD red or purple? If I don't use MFST will I lose my cable card pairing? I'd ideally rather avoid that. I've got frontier FiOS. I suppose it could be that the drive is overloading the power supply if it's on the fritz. Is that just as easily replaced in the roamio plus?
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Its all Torx screws. T15 on the HD.
Good idea. Can also try kickstart 58 which cleans things up. Most will recommend the red but I'd recommend the purple if those are your two choices. Because of something I read in the NAS forums, it was said using a NAS drive as a standalone drive is not recommended. As the NAS firmware assumes there are other drives available so will give up quicker on a tough read/write. Don't know if true, just something I read, kind of makes sense. To be honest any good PMR drive should be fine. The difficulty is finding a drive you KNOW is PMR (not SMR), hard or impossible to figure out just from specs. I've been using desktop types myself for years, but I have a list of which are PMR. Most CURRENT model desktop drives are SMR (over 2TB) so if unsure best to go with one of the premium specific application type drives, NAS, Video, Enterprise etc. NOT Archive.
To keep cable card settings I think you do have to do some copy/clone of your current drive as the cable card pairing setting is on the drive. Does not have to be a full copy if you don't care about recordings.
By desktop drive I mean desktop model, for WD, Blue, Seagate I think called desktop and/or Barracuda. It is getting weird, Barracudas used to all be PMR, now the current Barracudas are SMR, the Barracuda PRO is PMR. At least last time I was checking...........
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I never used a T15, T10 works fine enough.
If it turns out to be the drive, I welcome any specific drive you would recommend. What's Kickstart 58? The reason I want to be as certain as possible about all this is because I'm disabled and on a fixed income. So I don't have the option of throwing around money to do trial and error to figure out the issue. If I'd lose pairing without no copy that stinks. I know I could call frontier or use their direct forum at dslreports to get it paired again but it's one hassle I'd rather avoid if it's the drive.
Bummer
That behavior is not a bad thing for a DVR. If the DVR is writing video or even meta data, you'd rather it just give up quickly on a bad spot and move on to the next than keep retrying for seconds or even minutes on end locking things up. For that reason, random reboots do not really sound much like a dying drive so much as just flaky TiVo firmware, cooling issue, dying power supply, etc.
Alas, scrambled video can also indicate problem with the feed from the provider or the network.
The key is whether the behavior has changed. Did the unit go from no-reboots to once per week?
For my Roamio Plus, a reboot every week or two is about par for the course but I did expand my drive to 6TB and then to 10TB.
I've always had random reboots with it but the once a week started maybe during or just after the ALCS when the drive usage was consistently getting just shy of full capacity. I had been keeping it in the low 80s but added a few more movies that brought it up to 85 consistently. Not sure if that could have anything to do with it or not.
Check Weaknees (or here) for info on the kickstart commands. I've had good success with 58 on Roamios. Yeah, the only way I know of to keep your cable card pairing with a new drive is to copy/clone the old one on to it (though can do the copy without the recordings.) Read up on MFSTools. Also the drive itself is "paired" to the specific Tivo. So a copy/clone will "match" the drive to the Tivo also. If not have to do clear and delete everything, when you do that you definitely lose cable card info, recordings etc. By the way if you do a clear and delete everything on your CURRENT drive you will lose everything too, including your cable card pairing. One more thing, when doing kickstart commands I believe your remote has to be in IR mode, not RF. You are probably using RF mode (light on remote flashes yellow when you push a button). In IR mode the light on the remote will flash red when you push a button. So you will have to set the remote to IR mode temporarily when doing kickstart commands.
I'd try the kickstart 58 (and the Tivo SMART check, that is a kickstart command also I think, maybe do the SMART test first?) I hear you on saving money
In your case if the KS58 does not work and/or the smart check shows problems maybe buy a drive locally, maybe a Black Friday deal? That way if it does not solve the problem if bought locally you could return it................ Remember what I mentioned about PMR vs SMR drives though, good chance a sales person in an electronics store will not know the difference. Pretty much most of the specialty drives are PMR (NAS, video/surveillance, enterprise). Most regular desktop and archive type drives are SMR. For sure don't buy a WD Blue or a Seagate desktop or regular Barracuda, Barracuda PRO is PMR, regular Barracuda is not (last time I checked).
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When I purchased a WD 3TB purple drive, it looked to be identical to the Red drive but with different firmware. It was also about $20.00 cheaper.
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