[PeterDC]

I am Tivo's biggest fan and booster. I had a Series 1, a Series 2, and at the beginning of this year I bought a Series 3 to which I transferred my lifetime membership. It has worked fine (with occasional audio dropouts, but I guess that is just the S3) until about a week ago, when it started to slow down -- both in terms of the speed of, e.g., putting a list of shows up on the screen and the time it was taking to respond to commands from the remote. I rebooted it a couple of times. The problem got worse, the Tivo began rebooting itself from time to time, and last night the response time to a remote command had grown to several minutes.

So today I called customer service for the first time.

1) After a very nice cusotmer service person named Matt took a "report," he told me I had to talk with an HD specialist.

2) I was put on hold for over 20 minutes!

3) I then got to speak to an unapologetic tech support person named Mark. Though I did not say so, after reading the forum it is clear to me that this is a problem with the hard drive, the tech suggested that I (a) disconnect the (Tivo brand) wireless adapter and (b) -- I am not kidding -- stop using an extension cord because the Tivo might "not be getting enough power."

I have taken these steps which have, of course, not improved the situation. If anyone has any suggestions, I could really use them.

Thanks,
Peter

 

[cjhrph]

OMG - you just made laugh so hard over the extension cord fix. "Mark" is apparently an idiot and should be fired for even suggesting that was your problem. You get what you pay for...

 

[Dr_Diablo]

Unfortunately this is a problem when calling Tivo... Sitting on hold for over 5 minutes is a problem as well...

To have a Tivo rep suggest that an extension cord is the cause for your prolem is unacceptable...

Were it me, I would have called Tivo back until I had someone that actually knew what they were talking about...

Sad to say, that the problems are at both ends, not only with Tivo, but the cable companies are at fault as well..

Then there is the Tivo DVR/DMR...

 

[BradSS]

PeterDC - I just got on to the forums to see if anyone else was having this problem. Reading your description of your S3 behavior is EXACTLY what mine is doing. And the problem started about a week ago for me as well.

I have other S2 TiVos and a failing hard drive on my S2 resulted in stuttering show playback in addition to menu and navigation issues. But on my S3, the shows play back just fine, after I get them to play, which can take 4+ minutes, even after a fresh reboot. Also, the Tivo reboots itself when navigating around the menus.

This just does not seem like a hard drive failure to me. The only thing I can think of is about a week ago I used the Unbox service for the first time to download a few Fall previews. I wouldn't think it is related, but who knows.

So, are there any other theories besides the failing hard drive?

 

[ZeoTiVo]

have you recently added a bunch of season passes /wishlists for the new fall season? How many are in season pass manager?

if it is not the hard drive then some corruption could be present in the files the Tivo uses to do its work. A clear and delete could get the speed back to normal though of course you will have to re-enter things to configure the TiVo again

 

[Revolutionary]

PeterDC - I just got on to the forums to see if anyone else was having this problem. Reading your description of your S3 behavior is EXACTLY what mine is doing. And the problem started about a week ago for me as well.

I have other S2 TiVos and a failing hard drive on my S2 resulted in stuttering show playback in addition to menu and navigation issues. But on my S3, the shows play back just fine, after I get them to play, which can take 4+ minutes, even after a fresh reboot. Also, the Tivo reboots itself when navigating around the menus.

This just does not seem like a hard drive failure to me. The only thing I can think of is about a week ago I used the Unbox service for the first time to download a few Fall previews. I wouldn't think it is related, but who knows.

So, are there any other theories besides the failing hard drive?

Can't say for sure that it was the drive, but this behavior is what cooked my first S3. The level 2 Tivo tech said it was the drive -- and he said it so quickly and confidently that it made me think they've seen a lot of them. FWIW: even though I was out of the "no cost warranty replacement" window, they still shipped first and it didn't cost me a cent.

 

[dig_duggler]

crap, I'm starting to see this slow behavior (but no reboots to my knowledge). that's a pretty quick hard drive failure

 

[d_anders]

crap, I'm starting to see this slow behavior (but no reboots to my knowledge). that's a pretty quick hard drive failure

Double check your current software version. Some folks were getting the Fall update early for the initial rollout. Sometimes reindexing, etc., occurs on some of the software updates, so some of the sluggishness could come from that and it should go away within a day or so.

 

[dig_duggler]

Double check your current software version. Some folks were getting the Fall update early for the initial rollout. Sometimes reindexing, etc., occurs on some of the software updates, so some of the sluggishness could come from that and it should go away within a day or so.

Thanks, will check on that. Slow UI started yesterday, so that's very feasible. However, the Tivo hasn't rebooted itself yet (30 s skip still there). Does the reindexing/etc occur before reboot?

 

[StEvEY5036]

I'm having the same problems.. there is a one second delay whenever I hit a button on the remote and the UI is extremely sluggish. The thing is brand new!!

 

[bw_alabama]

I had the same problems. my issues (slow menu reboots etc.) started on 9/16 called tech support 9/18. Don't remember the techs name but he directed me to disconnect the wireless adapter and reboot had the same problems then he wanted me to remove the cable cards and reboot had the same problems.

Tech thought is was the cable cards, wanted me to call cable company to swap out the cards, I disagreed. He said even though I was out of warranty he would do a free replacement if I wanted. The TiVo tech was seemed very knowledgeable with the S3 not the usual TiVo tech support. He checked several things from his side and sounded a little surprised when he looked at the software rev on this unit I have no idea if it had took the new software release.

I chose to get a replacement shipped to me. Got the new S3 on 9/21 cable company swapped the cards to the replacement 9/24 everything is working as it should now.

2 S3's with 4 cable cards
1 S2

 

[dig_duggler]

No new sw version, Still slow as mud. No reboots (yet). I've rebooted, anything else worth a shot?

edit: nevermind, I rebooted and it is significantly more responsive.

 

[Joe-user21]

BradSS - you might be onto something. My saga condensed:
- Ran a stock S3 for about 6 months.
- Did kickstart 62 and added a 750 GB external.
- Worked fine for about another month.
- Started with the slowdown, freeze, etc. I could get a couple commands (button presses) in before it just locked up.
- I figured it was the eSata. Divorced that, same problem. Did "Clear and Delete Everything", same problem.
- Called Tivo, disconnected the wireless and surge protector (sigh), and with just a couple minutes discussion got an RMA # and a replacement for $49.

I've posted this on other threads.
One thing occurred to me the other day, and I forgot to post it until I saw your post - I used Unbox a couple days before it went south. Longshot, but could be significant..

BTW, on the new Tivo I did a full WinMFS copy to the 750 and swapped it as the internal. So now I have the 250 as a backup, and a cleaner setup with one less external gizmo.