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TiVo Response to 2.0.1 Upgrade Issues

Posted by michael on from the flack-attack dept.

Keeper writes: "Richard Bullwinkle wrote an official response to issues raised in the TiVo Upgrade Isn't article. The gist of it is that the changes made were only supposed to affect new units, not units upgraded from 1.3. Revision 2.5 of the software (due out in September) will reenable all of the functionality found in unsubscribed 1.3 units."

4 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What about new Customers by Keeper · · Score: 5

    The new boxes have the phrase "TiVo Service Required" plastered all over the box. The old box said something along the lines that the box was still functional without the service.

    That's how this whole mess started. They didn't want to remove the functionality of the old boxes, but did from new boxes. Just so happens that they missed some things in testing because they wern't paying a whole lot of attention to it in the first place.

  2. Re:They were just testing the waters... by dingbat_hp · · Score: 5

    My cellphone does work without a service - It's a clock, and I can play Space Invaders on it. My 6 year old's cell phone works without a service too - it lights up, and he can play at making calls with it.

    If the limited functionality without a service is all that you need, then why buy the service ?

    If a contract offers a particular set of functions without buying the service, then it's a clear breach of that contract to withdraw those service later. AFAIK, the TiVo contract stated that these services might not be available on later boxes, but that they were available on boxes of that generation.

    Your "stupidity explains most perceived malice" comment is probably true here, but that doesn't excuse TiVo's behaviour, nor does it remove the loss suffered by existing TiVo owners.

    What's the financial status of TiVo ? I'm not implying anything by this, other than caution, but this sort of low-rent money-grabbing trick has been the action of last-resort by an awful lot of cash-strapped dot-coms lately.

  3. Re:TiVo thinks... by InsaneGeek · · Score: 5

    No, Tivo thinks that anyone calling up to their SUBSCRIBER line should be a subscriber. To make sure things run smooth they want all their subscribers to be at the SAME software level. You call up as a subscriber the system sees that you are on a different level which could cause problems with the next release so they upgrade you. It's not their fault that you called in as a subscriber instead of just:

    1) Setting the date manually using the serial port on back

    or

    2) Used the "test call" option from the menu to just sync your time

    with either option Tivo would not have touched the software, in fact with #1, you never ever had to call Tivo to begin with, ever.

    If you aren't a subscriber you SHOULDN'T BE CALLING IN AS A SUBSCRIBER.

  4. Re:They were just testing the waters... by Ereth · · Score: 5
    Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity.

    C'mon guys, why do you HAVE to have a conspiracy EVERYWHERE? Are you really that paranoid? It's not like this is the first software release in the history of computing that bugs or unintended side effects, is it?

    Tivos are nearly useless without the service anyway. There are less than 200,000 total sold. There's a small handful of people not using them with the service. They have ALWAYS said that they were going to eliminate the functionality of new units without the service, just as your cell phone won't work without a service, or your beeper. This isn't a change. So they started adding those things into 2.01 that would make the newer units more reliant on the service and nobody noticed that they would also affect the un-subscribed. Inadequate testing? Perhaps. Malicious intent? Not when they are doing now exactly what they told us they would do all along. Six months ago we were told that "new machines that ship with 2.01 will be more limited in what they can do without the service, but those machines that shipped with 1.3 will keep the abilities they have now" and guess what? That's exactly what they are doing. It's not hidden, it's not a conspiracy, they TOLD us what the plan was. They have a few bugs in the new software that make it less usable for those without the service, but they are going to fix those. Show me any significant program without bugs. We've been running Sendmail on the net for 20 years, is it bug free yet? Is it even security hole free yet? How about BIND? Apache? Linux? FreeBSD? Any of them 100% free of bugs?

    Of course not. And now that we make consumer electronics with computers, we are likely to see similar bugs throughout their existence as well.