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I hate my TiVo :(

2K views 5 replies 6 participants last post by  Bigg 
#1 ·
This is a rant, plain and simple. I'm annoyed and I want to complain about it. If that's not your thing, kindly move along.

I've been a TiVo user since at least series 2. I remember getting my first one back in the very early 2000s and I adored it. I've had at least three more since then. Then I got this Bolt. I immediately hated the menus compared to the old ones, and I still do two years later. It's harder to get to what I want than it ever was in the past - nothing's easy. There also isn't as much helpful stuff as there used to be - like clips of new fall programming with the option to create a season pass for the ones you liked. That was awesome the couple of years they did it.

But the worst was when my original Bolt died on me last month. I lost tons of shows that my family had recorded and saved, some of which aren't currently streaming anywhere. TiVo customer service advised me that my Bolt only came with a 90-day warranty. What?? When I expressed my extreme frustration with that policy, they agreed to swap my broken one for a refurbished one, which I appreciated. However, the refurb has introduced a host of new issues, none of which is a show-stopper on its own, but together they have managed to make me do what no other issue ever has in over 15 years - they've made me hate my TiVo. For example, I can no longer thumbs-down TiVo suggestions. If there's a way to do it, it's so buried as to be worthless, because I've tried everything remotely obvious. So it just goes ahead and records a ton of stuff I'll never watch. Whatever.

Another niggling problem is that the TiVo Amazon Streaming app is inconsistent about remembering my position in shows I'm watching. On one show, it will remember where I left off and let me pick up from there, consistently, every single time, regardless of what I may have done since the last time I watched it. But on other shows, it makes me start the episode over from the beginning every time without fail. I have an Amazon Fire Stick, which I rarely use because I have access to the same apps on my TiVo, but it doesn't seem to have this problem. Having to write down that I'm 18 minutes and 33 seconds into a show and fast-forward to it the next time seems positively barbaric. Even VHS let me pick up where I left off.

Worse, though, is that the TiVo now goes to "sleep" on me when I'm not using it. Waking it up isn't hard, but it doesn't retain the last half-hour of programming on the "live" channel that it's tuned to. Actually, I think it does - the green bar is there for a moment. It just immediately deletes it and leaves me "caught up" on the current show. This is aggravating to say the least.

But the thing that's annoying me the most is that it cannot seem to find the list of "all" streaming services or remember which ones I've marked as "favorites". This actually just started recently - a few weeks after installing the refurb unit. It will take a while to "load" the list, then either land me on a black/blank screen or it will tell me I don't have any favorites marked. Sometimes if I move back-and-forth between "All" and "Favorites" and "Video" enough I can find what I'm looking for (usually Netflix or Amazon streaming), sometimes rebooting the TiVo helps, but sometimes it doesn't. It's another minor irritant that combines to leave me pretty annoyed.

So there's my rant. I hate this damn thing. I'm seriously considering ditching cable and my TiVo and switching to a Roku. I seriously never thought I wouldn't love my TiVo - all the years of following the development of new features. All those surveys I used to happily take. All the many, many thousands of hours of TV and movies I've watched on them. The excitement at each new model I bought. I was happy. But nothing lasts forever, I suppose. Jeers, TiVo - you had it and you blew it.
 
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#2 · (Edited)
That's certainly frustrating. You can downgrade the TiVo menus to the old version (TE3, as in TiVo Experience 3, see here and here), and that sleep issue is I hope due to a simple option that can be turned off (see here). I turned it off in mine. But yes, overall the Bolt has been a low-quality product, there are many complaints here about that. (My rant about my Bolt is here.) And for streaming, a Fire Stick is far better, no contest. But for a DVR, since all alternatives cost money too, I'd recommend a used or refurbushed TiVo Roamio Pro on TE3 for as long as TiVo will allow us to use that version of the menus. TiVo is still a great service overall, and Rovi hasn't entirely ruined it yet.
 
#3 ·
Please, before writing your TiVo box off, sidegrade back to TE3 first (you'll lose your recordings, but can transfer them to your PC first, using freeware such as easy-to-use pyTivo Desktop, and then back again, should you wish), and turn off your TiVo box's going into standby, all as explained above--that, hopefully, will handle the bulk of your DVR-function issues and you'll come to like your TiVo box again. Alas, the streaming is what it is.
 
#4 · (Edited)
TiVo customer service advised me that my Bolt only came with a 90-day warranty.
It's 90 day parts and labor and then 1 year parts-only (I think "Labor" is $49.). Also, note that if you are paying monthly or annually then you have Continual Care which means $49 replacements as long as you continue to pay for service (not applicable to lifetime/All-in).

https://support.tivo.com/articles/Features_Use/TiVo-Limited-Warranty

For example, I can no longer thumbs-down TiVo suggestions.
If your old Bolt was running TE4 also, this would have been true for it as well with one of the software updates. You could downgrade to TE3 but will lose all shows unless you offload them to another TiVo or PC.

Worse, though, is that the TiVo now goes to "sleep" on me when I'm not using it.
You can turn power-saving off.

Scott
 
#5 ·
This is a rant, plain and simple. I'm annoyed and I want to complain about it. If that's not your thing, kindly move along.
I DO appreciate reading "rants" like yours that are factual and not just emotional venting (and I particularly liked that handy caveat you wrote at the outset to fend off the trolls :rolleyes:). Having said that, I also hope that the mere posting of your complaints will have a certain cathartic effect and that you are now feeling less frustrated.:)

The good news is that you have already gotten several very helpful responses (all of which I second) which should rectify a couple of the issues that are irking you. If it's any consolation, I remain extremely happy with my Roamio Pro and Mini (on TE3 now and forever until Rovi pries it from my cold, dead hands :D), so you can be fairly confident that there are alternatives out there in the TiVo ecosphere--whether you stick with your Bolt and just tweak some settings, revert from TE4 to TE3, or swap the Bolt for a Roamio.
 
#6 ·
That's an Amazon Prime issue with their cloud software, not TiVo, as I use Roku, and it has the same problem. TiVo is a DVR, and it doesn't really do streaming well, but that particular issue is not a TiVo issue. I've switched about 90% of my viewing over to Roku, but only because I've moved my viewing over to streaming from OTA (and cable back when I had a cable TiVo).
 
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