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Post by Chris Miller on Feb 20, 2009 9:38:37 GMT -5
Try unplugging the tuning adapter and waiting about a minute. You must unplug it, turning it off via the power button will not be sufficient. While it's powered off, you should see some message from the TiVo that it can't see the TA anymore, that's normal and expected.
Next, plug the TA back in. It may take a minute of so for the TA to resolve it's status. It should end up with the green idiot light on and not blinking. If it's still blinking, give it a few minutes more. If, after a few minutes it is still blinking, start over.
It takes a few minutes for the TiVo to recognize the TA. I don't know if that is a problem on the TiVo side or the TA side, but you may be able to speed up the process by unplugging the USB cable, waiting 30 seconds, then plugging it back in. You can also restart the TiVo to firece it to go looking for hardware when it boots back up.
You should then call TWC and ask them to check the return signal strength from the TA. If the TA is working, they can easily query the TA for that information. They may need to schedule a technician to come out and clean up some cables or splitters to provide a better signal from the TA.
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Post by Chris Miller on Feb 17, 2009 15:00:46 GMT -5
That is a night and day difference. The guy who came to my house didn't know much about the TA, but he probably knew as much as anyone at TWC Albany.
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Post by Chris Miller on Feb 16, 2009 20:29:17 GMT -5
The TWC tech came and did his thing. Between replacing one splitter, removing another, and replacing some cable connectors, he was able clean up the signal by about 4db.
To see if the Sci-Fi channel was still acting up, I picked some random show to record later tonight The tech had never seen a TiVo go through it's paces, so I basically went into the full tilt demo mode. I brought up shows from another TiVo in the house, displayed upcoming records, played a TiVio cast. I think he wants to get one now. I know I've ruined him for the TWC DVR.
He was under the impression that Tuning Adapter firmware update scheduled for tonight was not going to happen.
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Post by Chris Miller on Feb 15, 2009 22:47:07 GMT -5
This signal too strong issue is starting to sound a little odd. I'm starting to wonder if it's design defect with the tuning adapters. If the TWC guy can't correct it when he comes out tomorrow, I'll just get some signal strength attenuators and do it myself. When FiOs TV started deploying in luckier parts of the country, their signal strength was too high for the TiVo Series 3/HD to handle. From what I read on other forums, the TiVo's were designed to handle crappy signals from the usual suspects. The FiOs signal overloads the TiVo. Some people reported improved reception when they attenuated the signal. The fun part is the amount of attenuation will vary from person to person. Smarthome.com sells a bag of attenuators rated for different db levels. You can mix and match them to get the right level needed to get a clear signal. The product page for that part is here (Attenuator Pad Mix Bag). The fun part is that we don't know how many db to use to bring the level down to where the TA stops having senior moments. I can't reliable get the TA to lose it's connection, it's only happened twice in the last 2 weeks.
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Post by Chris Miller on Feb 15, 2009 12:33:30 GMT -5
I had tried rebooting the TiVo, but not the TA. Once I rebooted the TA like Chris mentioned above, I had all my channels back. BTW, I have a TWC installed signal amplifier in my basement. I wonder what the firmware update will bring? Increasing the delay when switching channels would be nice. Call up TWC support and mention all of this and ask them to check the status of the TA. Apparently they can tell if the return path signal is too strong. It seems too coincidental that we both had our tuning adapters lose their connection to the mothership at roughly the same time and we both have TWC supplied signal amps.
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Post by Chris Miller on Feb 15, 2009 1:26:32 GMT -5
After reading Skaggs's message about losing channels, I decided to take a look at my TiVo. I was having the same problem with accessing any of the SDV channels from my TiVo HD. The Tuning Adapter appears to be normal, just a steady green light. Other channels appear to be OK and I can get the SDV on the cable box.
This is the second time this has happened. The last time it happened, I was able to get the channels back by power cycling the tuning adapter.
I called TWC right after midnight (right after I read Skaggs's message) and the CSR working the late shift was Kevin. He told me that he could not detect the TA from his end. I powered the TA off and waited 30 seconds to plug it in. The TA light just blinked in a steady pattern. After a minute or two, I power cycled it again. This time I got the steady green light. Still no SDV channels, but some progress. The TA was still not showing up on Kevins' side, so he put me on hold to check a few things.
One additional thing that I discovered was that pressing the front power button on the TA is not the same as unplugging it. If you want to reset a TA, you have to Clint Eastwood style and disconnect the power.
After a couple of minutes, my TiVo suddenly discovered that it had a TA connected and I had my SDV channels back. Right after that, Kevin picked up the line again and I asked him to check the TA status from his side. He could now see the TA and was able to determine what happened.
Apparently the return signal from the TA is too hot and the TA is losing it's connection. Kevin scheduled a technician to come out Monday evening to fix that. That should be easy to fix, which is better than some intrinsic design flaw with the tuning adapters.
A few years back, TWC installed a cable amp because the RoadRunner cable modem was not getting a strong enough signal. The signal is probably too hot because of the amp. I haven't had RoadRunner for a few years, they can probably take their amp back or place a signal attenuator on the line going to the TA.
While I have Kevin on the line, I asked about the update being pushed down to the TA's. He confirmed that it's scheduled for Monday night, but it could get pushed back. He couldn't tell me what was being specifically addressed, but he did know that the amount of time it takes to change a channel will be addressed.
I also mentioned the problem that I was having with the Sci-Fi channel and he said that they had been logging a lot of calls about that and it was an open issue for them.
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Post by Chris Miller on Feb 10, 2009 12:49:07 GMT -5
The S3 needs two cablecards to be able to use both tuners. It does not matter whether they are single-stream or multi-stream cards. Is the Tuning Adapter supposed to work with two cards? When TWC authorizes the Tuning Adapter, is it authorized to your cable card or to your account?
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Post by Chris Miller on Feb 9, 2009 15:36:16 GMT -5
The TWC guy that just left said they are getting a barrage of calls with the pixelization problems and they can't figure it out. That figures, I just got the email that my replacement TiVo was shipped today. I may end up sending the replacement back and keeping the original if the problem is entirely on the TW end. At least I can run the TiVo check disk. If it works, then I'll keep the original. If it fails, I'll already have the replacement. Did the TWC guy say if the pixelization problems were only happening to tuning adapter users?
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Post by Chris Miller on Feb 9, 2009 9:30:22 GMT -5
This morning my TiVo was unable to pick up any channels. This affected SDV and non-SDV channels. I unplugged the tuning adapter, waited 30 seconds, and plugged it back in. The TA displayed a steady blinking light for a couple of minutes, until the TiVo saw the TA gain. At that point,the TA displayed a steady green light and the TiVo could access the channels again.
Something is definitely not completely baked between the TiVo and the TA. I was on hold with a TW CSR and he conferred with a HD technician over the problem with the "Tivo adapter", as he calls it. I then spoke with that woman, who was more knowledgeable about the setup.
She was unaware of any problems with the Tuning Adapter but she did say that if I knew anyone having pixelization problems for them to call and report the problem. Based on my description of the problem, there may be an issue with the Sci-Fi channel.
Has anyone else had a problem with the pixelization? I have had it happen twice, and in both cases it was recording the BSG on Sci Fi channel. That's seems to be too much of a coincidence to be a hardware error with TiVo or the tuning adapter. I've been recording other shows (HD and non-HD) without any problems.
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Post by Chris Miller on Feb 8, 2009 12:54:39 GMT -5
Chris, I'm getting pixelation on the Sci-Fi for BSG last night as well. Perhaps it is the TA or TW? I'm still not ruling out the TA, but my drive came up as failed under the TiVo diagnostics. I'm still under warranty so I should have a replacement in a few days. I just know that callign TW, they will blame TiVo first. It does seem that multiple people are reporting pixeliztion with the same show, the HD stuff records without any problems If you are out of warranty, you might as well get a larger drive form some place like weaknees.
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Post by Chris Miller on Feb 7, 2009 10:29:10 GMT -5
Well, it's not the Tuning Adapter. Or at the very least, the problem with my TiVo HD outweighs any possible problem with the Tuning Adapter. I called TiVo support and the first thing we did was run through the CableCard diagnostics. We learned that I have an older version of the card, but it should still work and teh card was not reporting any problems.
We then ran the kickstart 54 TiVo diagnostics and the S.M.A.R.T. test for the /dev/hdb drive reported "TEST FAILED". The CSR suggested that I run the their check disk on the drive. The TiVo check disk has a "fun" feature where if it detects a sector that it can't repair, it marks the entire drive as defective. This effectively turns the TiVo into a Cablecard-equipped door stop.
Since my TiVo is still marginally useful, I opted for the advanced exchange and the replacement will ship on Monday. The TiVo is still under warranty, but I have to pay the shipping charges for the return.
If anyone else is seeing pixelization, I would suggest that you run the TiVo diagnostics on the drives before calling Time Warner.
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Post by Chris Miller on Feb 7, 2009 9:27:07 GMT -5
I'm getting pixelization on shows recorded on the SciFi channel, that shouldn't be SDV. I've had the TiVo reboot twice in the last week while I was trying to use it. I'm fairly sure that it's rebooted at least once more on it's own (the 30 seconds skip "feature" had to be renabled).
I've haven't had any issues with the TA itself, so I my guess that the problem is on the TiVo end. At first I thought it was my Tivo, but too many people here are reporting issues.
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Post by Chris Miller on Jan 19, 2009 11:20:42 GMT -5
Cool, I didn't realize that you could do that. I've just added my request for the Sci-Fi HD channel. Sci-Fi HD is coming to TWC. Read this post. I saw that post, but the automated response that I received after requesting that channel stated that TWC has no plans on adding that channel. Must be a canned message that goes out for each request.
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Post by Chris Miller on Jan 19, 2009 11:18:44 GMT -5
....Apparently, they miscounted the number of people on the mailing list, because they ran out of them less than halfway through the day.... My guess is that TWC assumed that each person would want just one. I'm guessing that people with multiple TiVo HD's and/or Series 3 were able to get TA's for each TiVo. That would have sucked for the last people to show up for one. I could be wrong on that one though, they should have been able to cross-reference the TA request list with the subscriber records and allocate a TA for each CableCard that you were renting.
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Post by Chris Miller on Jan 18, 2009 16:49:09 GMT -5
In my case, the channels that went out were the digital simulcast ones that were mapped to analog. Rebooting the Tivo "fixed" the problem both times it happened. The techs came and claimed it was due to my powered amplifier (funny, it's been working fine for 6+ years). They said, "oh you don't need that for only 6 TV's". ..... Then they say, "oh, it's dropping ONLY those 3 channels because the amplifier is putting out a strong reverse signal". If you want to rule the possibility that the signal is too hot for the TiVo, Smarthome.com sells signal attenuators that filter dpwn thje signal. FiOs TV users end up getting them becuase the signal coming out the ONT can be too hot for the TiVo HD/Series 3. You can get a mixed bag of attenuators and mix them up to get the the level of filtering. If you do a search on dslreports.com for "tivo fios attenuator", you'll find plenty of links that describe what to do.
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