TiVo Bug Shuts Out Many Series 1 TiVo Owners?

Didion Sprague writes "A bug in recently released DirecTv/TiVo software is allegedly causing major chaos with many TiVo users -- forcing many users over the past few days to upgrade their Series 1 Tivo boxes to newer, Series 2 models (which retail for $79). Apparently lots of folks on the TiVo Community forum and DBS forums are frustrated and angry. The bug has apparently been reproduced and causes the video stream to freeze when a combination of factors are met. DirecTv has been offering users who complain a $79 credit -- but hasn't admitted the problem, let alone offered up a timetable for a fix. The problem only occurs with the DirecTv TiVo boxes -- not the standalone models."

Comments

Details on how to reproduce:

[Otto]

First, get the 3.1.0c software.

Then Dan Collins posts this tidbit of info that might help somebody figure this one out:

I spent some time this morning trying to force the problem to occur, and finally was successful. The ONLY scenario that reproduced the problem on one of my Hughes Series 1 was as follows:

-A recording must be executing on at least one tuner
-Signal quality must degrade to the point of causing severe digital artifacts WITHOUT a loss of signal lock
-The poor signal quality must persist for at LEAST 15 seconds
-The signal must then cut out completely on BOTH tuners
-The recording must STILL be going on when signal is restored

I was NOT able to reproduce the problem when any one of these factors were missing. For example, if the recording ended before signal was restored - no problem. Or, if I just pulled the coax out of the receiver jacks and then reconnected - no problem.

The result was that, after meeting all of these conditions, on at least one of the tuners, after channel acquisition, the A/V would play normally for a second or three, then the video would freeze, while audio continues. Invoking the OSG, or pressing info would "unfreeze" the video for a second or two. This leads me to believe that it is NOT a problem with the state of the MPEG decoders, but rather a problem confined to the software itself.

So, this seems to be a rather specific set of conditions that must come together to cause this problem.

BTW: I reproduced the problem by installing variable resistors in the coax feeds and gradually increasing the resistance until signal lock was lost.

Re:Not as big a deal as story suggests

[hawkbug]

Ok, in this case Sony SAT-T60 (and other DTV gen 1 tivos) needed this new upgrade to resolve guide issues about acuiring data, and some other closed captioning issues. I have the Sony SAT-T60, and I know a lot of other people who also have it, and are having this problem. You said:

"This appears to be an isolated issue that has only affected a small number of owners of much older Tivos (and in reality, ones that probably have a bunch of weird hacks). I'm sure Tivo is going to fix it, and the bug seems to be so obscure, it's probably wise of them to wait before even acknowledging it, especially when there's a chance the bug isn't related to a standard Tivo setup."

I guess if you call rain an isolated issue, you don't live in Seattle or any other place where it rains a lot. For the majority of people who own these boxes, this is an annoying issue that I hope they resolve quickly. And for the record, it has NOTHING to do with "weird hacks" as you put it. The problem 100% does exist with a standard Tivo set up, so don't minimize the effects of the problem for all of us who actually have to deal with it until Tivo fixes the issue.