TiVo Dial Fails

GFV67Ross said:

I purchased a Lifetime subscription to TiVo many years ago. Starting on September 12, my TiVo unit fails to dial in. I get a Call Failed message. I have tried all the troubleshooting tips, tried changing the dial-in number, etc., but nothing works. Nothing has changed on my end. I have a DSL line with a filter in place for the land line phone to use. We even tried changing the DSL filter, to no avail. I have hooked a phone to the line and used "telephone gear" to check the line, polarity, etc. The line checks out fine. There is no line noise, or other problem.

Did TiVo change something in their system on or near September 12? How can I get the "daily calls" feature to work again? My Guide is out of date now and I get daily messages from TiVo telling me to call. My Manual record selections are recording fine but, obviously, have no program data showing.

I look forward to your help in solving this issue.

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You have a Series 1.

The first thing you need to do is check whether you bought lifetime for it on or before January 20, 2000. If so, that lifetime sub can be transferred one time only to another TiVo and you should check back with us for further advice.

Assuming the sub was bought after that date:

The internal modems on the Series 1 are notorious for going bad.

Sometimes they go partially bad, and you can trick them into working by telling it not to check for a dial tone and not to check to see if the line's busy and then plugging in the phone line after you tell it to call in.

Google and/or search this forum for stuff like "TiVo modem", "TiVo external modem", "TiVo kills phone line" to learn the whole sorry saga.

Complicating your troubleshooting is that at various times people with TiVos whose internal modems are just fine still can't get through. The past couple of years it seems to have started around November or December and you can find considerable discussion of this on this site if you search those 10 month old posts.

If your internal modem actually is bad, there are the two options lpwcomp provided links about, and there is a third option that involves the same serial cable an external modem does, but you use a program called PilotNet (originally intended to allow Palm Pilot owners to use their computer's modems) to connect the TiVo via it's serial port (not a USB port) to the computer's modem to use it.

This involves having a computer with a serial port and an installed modem, which is a lot less likely these days than it used to be, and you have to instigate the daily call manually, but it is an option.

There's also something the name of which I can't remember that involves that same serial cable running from TiVo to computer that let's you use the computer's internet connection, but I never got around to trying that.