It turned out to be a malfunctioning TA. I found that the symptom resulted from the loss of cable signal. I first thought it was was a cabling or splitter issue and repLaced all. As I was doing this I noticed that when plugging the usb into the TA it triggered the issue- loss of cable signal. I swapped TAs from another TiVo to make sure, and it was. I blew the dust and crap out of the bad TA and put it where the replacement was and it has worked fine. Fingers crossed.Working fine for me. Could it be the remote?