[Fofer]

Thanks for that writeuo, saeba! Seems simple enough. If my box ever gets these pre-roll ads, I'll call TiVo and demand to be opted out. If that's not a permanent fix, I'll certainly go the OpenDNS route. Beyond that, pi-hole sounds like a great solution too, with even more utility.

 

[saeba]

Beyond that, pi-hole sounds like a great solution too, with even more utility.

OpenDNS can do more, this is just the bare requirements for blocking TiVo pre-roll ads. It has daily stats on network activity, unique domains, unique IPs, blocked domains and request types. You can setup filtering based around 55+ categories (gambling, nudity. adware, etc.). There are also paid levels with additional capabilities. You can sign-up for the free level and try it out.

 

[DeltaOne]

Beyond that, pi-hole sounds like a great solution too, with even more utility.

We've been running Pi-hole for about two years. Solved the problem of finding a good ad-blocker for our Macintosh web browsers. An additional benefit is it solves the ad problem for any smart phones and tablets on your home network too.

Occasionally I need to bypass Pi-hole for full functionality on a web site. Easily done via the Macintosh "Location" feature.

I just checked the Pi-hole dashboard...it's blocking 25.9% of the traffic intended for our devices. It's just amazing how much ad traffic is on the web these days.

One tip that wasn't apparent to us at first: We pointed the Pi-hole at a DNS server on the Internet. At the time we were using Google or OpenDNS, but now we use Cloudflare. Then we pointed our devices at Pi-hole. Some posts on a forum we follow pointed out that it's better to leave your router pointed at the DNS of your choice, then point the Pi-hole at your router. Then point your devices at the Pi-hole. I don't remember the technical explanation...but it made sense. So our set up is like this:

Router uses Cloudflare for DNS / Pi-hole uses our router for DNS / Devices (computers/tablets/smartphones) use Pi-hole.

When necessary, by-passing Pi-hole is easy...point the device at the router (as it normally would be).

 

[kdmorse]

One tip that wasn't apparent to us at first: We pointed the Pi-hole at a DNS server on the Internet. At the time we were using Google or OpenDNS, but now we use Cloudflare. Then we pointed our devices at Pi-hole. Some posts on a forum we follow pointed out that it's better to leave your router pointed at the DNS of your choice, then point the Pi-hole at your router. Then point your devices at the Pi-hole. I don't remember the technical explanation...but it made sense.

The main benefit is that if your router does any local dynamic dns (many do, autoregistering the names of DHCP clients), then pointing the PiHole at it preserves that. This may allow the names of the devices on your network to resolve when pointing the Pi around the router wouldn't. Some routers also do magical things with certain fake names, or do intergated traffic monitoring, both of which work better if they're in the chain.

Otherwise, depending on how things are set up, there could be performance benefits to the next dns stratum being in your home, but only if it's a full dns server, or has a better cache than the pi (which is unlikely)

 

[DeltaOne]

The main benefit is...

Thanks!

 

[Saturn]

I would definitely do it over the phone and be very firm and don't take no for an answer. Mention that your TiVo becomes unresponsive and you want the adds removed...

It seems to take two requests. I responded via the e-mail support ticket basically saying they're slow, I know I can skip them but I don't want to have to do that, and can't you disable them from your side, and that seemed to work.

 

[Chuck_IV]

We've been running Pi-hole for about two years. Solved the problem of finding a good ad-blocker for our Macintosh web browsers. An additional benefit is it solves the ad problem for any smart phones and tablets on your home network too.

Occasionally I need to bypass Pi-hole for full functionality on a web site. Easily done via the Macintosh "Location" feature.

I just checked the Pi-hole dashboard...it's blocking 25.9% of the traffic intended for our devices. It's just amazing how much ad traffic is on the web these days.

One tip that wasn't apparent to us at first: We pointed the Pi-hole at a DNS server on the Internet. At the time we were using Google or OpenDNS, but now we use Cloudflare. Then we pointed our devices at Pi-hole. Some posts on a forum we follow pointed out that it's better to leave your router pointed at the DNS of your choice, then point the Pi-hole at your router. Then point your devices at the Pi-hole. I don't remember the technical explanation...but it made sense. So our set up is like this:

Router uses Cloudflare for DNS / Pi-hole uses our router for DNS / Devices (computers/tablets/smartphones) use Pi-hole.

When necessary, by-passing Pi-hole is easy...point the device at the router (as it normally would be).

I thought about doing something like this but then I need to maintain two devices at all times for my network to run(router and Pi-hole device). Just one more thing to worry about.

I actually have Pi-hole running on two devices, an old raspberry pi 3 and in a container on my QNAP file server. I use the raspberry as my first dns and the QNAP as my second dns and cloudfare as my third in my router settings. This makes it so if anything isn't caught by the first Pi-hole dns, it will be caught by the second one(and I do see things hit the QNAP one).

This also works better for me after a power failure since the QNAP servers take a good 10-15 minutes to boot and start all the services while the raspberry takes barely a minute.

This whole setup works very well to prevent the ads on TiVo(and other things).

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jcliff]

It seems to take two requests. I responded via the e-mail support ticket basically saying they're slow, I know I can skip them but I don't want to have to do that, and can't you disable them from your side, and that seemed to work.

For what it's worth, I called in multiple times last week to try and get this resolved.

The second agent was helpful and put in the requests, I could even see them in my account.

They said to give it a few days, and I don't know what they did but now it's worse.

I get a pre-roll ad on every recording and now the TiVo sometimes hard crashes even without accidentally launching TiVo+.

Some of my recordings are starting to fail, too.They'll be so blocky and stutter-y they're unwatchable. This is on three different Bolts one of which I only just received via the deal last week. Two on lifetime, one annual. I was definitely surprised at how little time it took the new TiVo Vox to hard crash/reset. As in literally within a few minutes of finishing the setup. Before TiVo+ that was definitely a rare occurrence for the 2 years I had a white bolt.

So basically I have no idea what's going on. Waiting until Monday just to make sure I can say I waited more than a few days, but if everything is still a mess after another week gonna just start over and wipe both and downgrade to TE3.

 

[jcliff]

In OpenDNS, set the following domains for Web Content Filtering:
ALWAYS BLOCK:

1. adgwy.tivo.com
2. api.segment.com
3. cdn.segment.com
4. prod.adgwy.tivo.com
5. search.spotxchange.com

Pre-roll ads disappear and I haven't seen side effects on the TiVo side (apps still work, guide icons still appear, etc.).

Giving this a try. The only tricky part is I don't use Windows or a Mac, so I'll need to keep an eye on when my IP changes. But I like how straightforward it is compared to setting up Pi-Hole.

I actually have Pi-hole running on two devices, an old raspberry pi 3 and in a container on my QNAP file server. I use the raspberry as my first dns and the QNAP as my second dns and cloudfare as my third in my router settings. This makes it so if anything isn't caught by the first Pi-hole dns, it will be caught by the second one(and I do see things hit the QNAP one).

Are you using Container Station for the QNAP setup?

 

[saeba]

Giving this a try. The only tricky part is I don't use Windows or a Mac, so I'll need to keep an eye on when my IP changes. But I like how straightforward it is compared to setting up Pi-Hole.

Doing a google search on "OpenDNS updater", it appears there also a version for Linux. Are you running any desktop system?

 

[Chuck_IV]

Are you using Container Station for the QNAP setup?

Yes. Look further back in this thread for a post I made(post 1737). I linked the guide on the QNAP forums that I followed.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jcliff]

So far the OpenDNS thing is working great.

Setup the OpenDNS account. Blocked those domains. Entered the OpenDNS IPs via:

Settings->Network Settings->Change Network Settings->IP Address->Specify a static IP address (If you use this option you'll need to assign your device a static IP via your router).

The only oddity I've noticed is that the Apps page has a weird delay sometimes, where it will appear to be blank. Maybe before you access it the box tries to call home for some analytics reasons?

Similarly, I wasn't able to see my other TiVo device on the network initially.

The ribbons in the guide are gone too. You still lose a menu shortcut to TiVo+, but that seems negligible to have a more stable device.

Doing a google search on "OpenDNS updater", it appears there also a version for Linux. Are you running any desktop system?

I've been using a Chromebook as my main device, but I bet I can fire that up via a Linux container. Thanks!

Yes. Look further back in this thread for a post I made(post 1737). I linked the guide on the QNAP forums that I followed.

Much appreciated!

 

[Podchain]

Blocking out the pre-roll ads was simple for me. Signed up for a free OpenDNS Home account (opendns.com). Setup my home router to point to OpenDNS servers (IPv4 addresses 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220). As the router obtains its WAN address via DHCP, download and install OpenDNS updater on my PC to automatically keep this in sync on the OpenDNS side.

In OpenDNS, set the following domains for Web Content Filtering:
ALWAYS BLOCK:

1. adgwy.tivo.com
2. api.segment.com
3. cdn.segment.com
4. prod.adgwy.tivo.com
5. search.spotxchange.com

Pre-roll ads disappear and I haven't seen side effects on the TiVo side (apps still work, guide icons still appear, etc.).

Somebody make this person a saint because this worked amazingly. Even though I opted out, I set this up anyway. Switched over my DNS, blocked these domains, and BOOM...gone. I don't even see the Tivo+ guide garbage. Now to set this up at my parents.

 

[jcliff]

Somebody make this person a saint because this worked amazingly. Even though I opted out, I set this up anyway. Switched over my DNS, blocked these domains, and BOOM...gone. I don't even see the Tivo+ guide garbage. Now to set this up at my parents.

I spoke too soon. On my Bolt Vox the TiVo+ stuff is gone, but I rebooted my regular Bolt and the guide ribbons are back. But at least the prerolls seem to be blocked.

Maybe it gets cached somehow? Tempted to reset the device.

Is there a way to opt out if you accidentally opted in already?

 

[Podchain]

I spoke too soon. On my Bolt Vox the TiVo+ stuff is gone, but I rebooted my regular Bolt and the guide ribbons are back. But at least the prerolls seem to be blocked.

Maybe it gets cached somehow? Tempted to reset the device.

Is there a way to opt out if you accidentally opted in already?

Could your Bolt be connecting via IPV6? I noticed that this method only works on IPV4. Also, while my Bolt Vox just worked, my Mini Vox did require a reboot. After two reboots, the TiVo+ did disappear on the Mini.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tony_T]

I don't get ads, but do get the "Arrow" for less than a sec before each recording (If I blink I miss it )

I called (chatted) TiVo and requested the opt-out (even though I never got any pre-roll ads, just the "Arrow" ).
Three days later, no more ➡

 

[jcliff]

Could your Bolt be connecting via IPV6? I noticed that this method only works on IPV4. Also, while my Bolt Vox just worked, my Mini Vox did require a reboot. After two reboots, the TiVo+ did disappear on the Mini.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I disabled IPV6 via my router, but I double-checked it to be sure.

Interestingly, the ribbons are still there but the art is gone. The home menu "what to watch" ribbon and apps are also now missing their art.

Kind of interesting since the Bolt Vox isn't behaving the same way.

 

[Chuck_IV]

I spoke too soon. On my Bolt Vox the TiVo+ stuff is gone, but I rebooted my regular Bolt and the guide ribbons are back. But at least the prerolls seem to be blocked.

Maybe it gets cached somehow? Tempted to reset the device.

Is there a way to opt out if you accidentally opted in already?

You have to block mm1.tivoservice.com then reboot your TiVo's. Once they have rebooted, unblock that site to get your guide logos back.

Every time you reboot you TiVo's, if mm1.tivoservice.com isn't in the block list, it will put the ad intrusions back into the guide.

I just have it blocked all the time in PiHole. I know TiVo will keep trying to access that site every 10 seconds or so, but it's easier to leaving it blocked in case of an overnight reboot. If I don't see guide logos I just unblock the site for about a minute to get the logos back and reblock it. Otherwise, I'd have to reboot the box a second time to get everything straight.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jcliff]

So, fun stuff.

Even blocking the mm1, the ribbons stayed in my guide.

However, I did discover that blocking this stuff can interfere with your TTG functionality, if you like to transfer/download/use a program like KMTTG to transfer non-DRMed shows.

I spent hours trying to figure out why suddenly KMTTG was claiming ALL my OTA stuff was DRMed. Turns out that if your boxes can't connect to TiVo, they disable that functionality. So you have to unblock everything and go back into your account and re-enable downloading/sharing:

Login Template Title

Which means you may also have to adjust your TiVo privacy settings:

Login Template Title

Because your preferences can't be updated if you've "opted out" of tracking/advertising.

I made the mistake of initially accepting the TiVo+ ToS, so maybe that has an effect of why it seems more persistent on one device compared to the other.

I'm going to call TiVo back and try and ask that the ads be removed again, since they never went away as stated. Humorously the last time I was trying to describe how TiVo+ crashes the device it happened while I was on the phone with the agent (they apparently can't see any logs though, since I was hoping that would prove the trouble I'm having).

If the next call doesn't resolve anything, I'll go back to TE3. It was fun for a brief moment to mess around with this stuff, but it's definitely entering more trouble than it's worth territory now.

One thing I did discover is that the TiVo+ content is provided by Xumo, so blocking the xumo.com domain at least keeps TiVo+ from launching, although it doesn't affect the ads or guide. But if you're like me and accidentally starting the TiVo+ channels from the guide leads to a hard reset, it may be worth avoiding that, at least.

 

[exdishguy]

"If the next call doesn't resolve anything, I'll go back to TE3."

Two words: Serenity. Now.