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Empty Discovery Bar == very slow menus

7K views 70 replies 26 participants last post by  crxssi 
Sorry if that's a bit exhaustive and repetitive but I wasted hours dealing with this and it seems like this is an issue so thought I would share everything I did.
Probably 75% of the time when users are having problems with TiVo network connectivity or network performance/reliability, it is because of wireless. I would HATE to be a TiVo support rep when the customer is trying wireless. I would tell them the very first thing to do is to run an ethernet cable and test it without wireless involved.

Glad you got it working!
 
Well, I've been on the SD menus for a couple of days now (since having the empty discovery bar issue posted earlier) and I am now getting the occasional soft reboot when hitting the TiVo buttom. By soft reboot I mean I get the THX banner and then the short Tivo animation which lasts about 20-30 seconds and then it goes to TiVo central.

Can anyone shed some light on this?
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=471010

It is not a soft reboot, it is just another well-known, long-standing, still not fixed bug. You can interrupt the playback of the intro animation clip at any time by pressing left or TiVo.
 
off topic, but those surveys continue. May just need to sign up again.
Yep, I still get them monthly. And I am brutally honest in answering them. I have no problem with rating good things good, but I am always more than willing to mark bad things bad. And when they have "free type" areas, I paste in a bunch of stuff.

Granted, about half those surveys are more like targeted marketing junk than really wanting to know about the technical operation of their boxes.
 
IMHO, the Premiere relies too much on an internet connection. If the Premiere senses a lost internet connection, anything shared on the local network, by way of TiVo Desktop, is not accessible either. I can't believe it would be that difficult for the Premieres to be able to download all the icons and program banner icons and store them on the internal HD for recall instead of the Premiere having to go out to the web for content that should be cached locally. I think if the Premiers didn't rely so heavily on a net connection, the HD menus could almost be just as fast as the SD menus. I personally hate the SD menus because of the lack of PIG, otherwise I would probably be using them myself.
You are 100% correct that the design is insane. Especially for things that are ALREADY RECORDED- those things should have all their info downloaded and ready from time of recording, when the user doesn't have to interact. That could be extended to all the information in the guide, too, although it would be a lot of data, there is plenty of time to do it when not interacting (just like downloading the guide stuff). Internet connections are MUCH faster than they were years ago, so it should not be a big deal. Plus, being non-live, it wouldn't matter the speed or latency. Almost EVERYTHING should be cached.

The only time it should have to do anything "live" would be when searching extensive on-line collections out of Netflix's control, like Netflix/Amazon. And that should be both optional, and sub-menu based.

However, I still don't think the HDUI would be as fast as the SDUI, not with the current programming/environment. The HDUI would be much faster, for sure, and a whole lot less annoying. But it still has a lot more to draw, and I don't think they do it efficiently.
 
but it only takes a few seconds to start the restart when I am done watching TV. I normally end up watching TV at fairly odd times so no issues with something being record.
If I did that, it would simply get stuck in an endless reboot, due to the Slide remote dongle. Yet another issue they have not fixed.
 
I send all of my TiVos through a software restart (versus pulling the plug) on a regular bases (every week or 2).

Regardless of what anyone wants or wants to believe, TiVos are computers running on complex software and pretty much all continuously running computers have software and/or hardware glitches that cause either partial or full crashes sooner or later.

Routine restarts helps prevent the inconvenience of such crashes.
That is a fairly accurate generalization of most MS-Windows computers (especially pre-7). However, my Linux machines (desktops and servers) almost never need rebooting and run complex software 24/7 for many, many months or even years without ever being rebooted. Some support hundreds of users. Typically the only time I have to reboot is due to a hardware failure, hardware upgrade, or OS upgrade (not update).

Yes, the TiVos are, indeed, computers. Full computers at that. And it might be true that rebooting the Linux-based TiVo regularly is useful, but only due to hardware flaws or software & config flaws that have not been corrected.
 
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