Do you have an HD DirecTiVo? You might want to read this
06-02-05, 12:00 PM
#1
DVD Talk Legend
Thread Starter
Do you have an HD DirecTiVo? You might want to read this
Several months ago, DirecTV updated the HD DirecTiVos with a software update: "3.1.5f". Soon after, many bugs started appearing in my DVR: it would start recording anywhere from 1 to 6 minutes late, it slowed down big time, the "exit" button to go back to viewed programming no longer worked.
All of these were in the "annoying, but tolerable" category.
A few weeks ago, things got worse. The audio and video started stuttering. Then about two weeks ago, the picture would start to completely break up like the satellite signal was being lost. This was on a clear night! Little more than a week ago, the machine would just randomly reboot itself after the picture break-up. After the fourth day in a row of this, I decided to clear and delete everything. It was stuck on the "clear and deleting everything. This will take an hour" mode for 24 hours.
I had to get drastic. I bought the Instantcake .iso download from ptvupgrade.com and hooked the TiVo harddrive up to my computer to reinstall the TiVo OS. After hooking the TiVo up again and spending 2 hours doing an actual "clear and delete", the system started up again with the old 3.1.5 software.
Although I had to redo all of my season passes, it's been working flawlessly for nearly a week now. No late recordings, exit key works, no stutters, and certainly no reboots. I'll be keeping the telephone line disconnected!
A huge number of people at the tivocommunity forum are reporting similar issues. I figure if you're having "early symptoms" of this problem, you might want to take some kind of action now.
I was just out (like 2 weeks) of the warranty and had to fix it myself. I get no impression from the posts I'm reading DirecTV is admitting or even aware of this being a software issue.
All of these were in the "annoying, but tolerable" category.
A few weeks ago, things got worse. The audio and video started stuttering. Then about two weeks ago, the picture would start to completely break up like the satellite signal was being lost. This was on a clear night! Little more than a week ago, the machine would just randomly reboot itself after the picture break-up. After the fourth day in a row of this, I decided to clear and delete everything. It was stuck on the "clear and deleting everything. This will take an hour" mode for 24 hours.
I had to get drastic. I bought the Instantcake .iso download from ptvupgrade.com and hooked the TiVo harddrive up to my computer to reinstall the TiVo OS. After hooking the TiVo up again and spending 2 hours doing an actual "clear and delete", the system started up again with the old 3.1.5 software.
Although I had to redo all of my season passes, it's been working flawlessly for nearly a week now. No late recordings, exit key works, no stutters, and certainly no reboots. I'll be keeping the telephone line disconnected!
A huge number of people at the tivocommunity forum are reporting similar issues. I figure if you're having "early symptoms" of this problem, you might want to take some kind of action now.
I was just out (like 2 weeks) of the warranty and had to fix it myself. I get no impression from the posts I'm reading DirecTV is admitting or even aware of this being a software issue.
