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Series 3 HD Freezes when I use remote while watching a program

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  • Series 3 HD Freezes when I use remote while watching a program

    When I'm watching a recorded program and send a remote command (Pause, FF, or try to return to Tivo Central), my Tivo will sometimes execute the command and then 'freeze' or it will not recognize the command I sent at all.

    For example, I'm watching a program, I press fast forward, the program fast forwards, but then I can't stop it. Can't do anything. No remote commands will work and the buttons on the front of the Tivo will also not respond. After 1-5 mins, the Tivo will come out of this and then it will respond to the commands sent from the remote.

    This will also happen if I pause. Sometimes I can't pause and TiVo won't let me do anything. Program will continue playing, and then 1-5 mins later, Tivo will 'catch-up' on the commands sent.

    This seems to happen mostly while watching a recorded program, but at least once it 'froze' on the Tivo Central screen. Wouldn't let me go to 'Now Playing' or anything.

    This has occurred about 30-40 times in the past two days. I have rebooted numerous times and have forced the Tivo to Connect to the Service.

    I also know it's not a remote issue. I've used the remote to my other Tivo to no avail and also the buttons on the front do not respond when it's 'frozen', and when it's 'frozen' and I use the remote the light on the Tivo will illuminate indicating it received the signal.

    Latest development. As I was typing the above, Tivo reached the end of the program and asked to Keep or Delete. I didn't respond. Normally Tivo would go to Live TV after a few minutes. Currently, instead of going to Live TV, it showed the Green Tivo Background only, with the moving lights. There was nothing else on the screen, just the background and the lights were moving. Remote commands not going through, then after sitting on the background for a few moments, it went to Live TV.

    I have search for similar symptoms on the forums and haven't found anything.
    Most issues seem to be playback freezing. My Playback has never froze, only the commands.


    Please Help, it seems to be happening more and more frequently.


    Thanks!

  • #2
    You might want to try the TiVo in another room to rule out interference, but it sounds like you might have a bad drive or possibly a motherboard problem. One other thing to try is a 'clear and delete everything' in the system reset menu.

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    • #3
      Happened to me last night, but then the unit rebooted itself. You may also see interrupted/corrupted recordings. Consensus seems to be a bad (external?) hard drive exposed by the recent s/w upgrade:
      http://www.wkforums.com/forums/showt...p?t=390&page=3
      http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...73#post6900173
      http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=413308
      http://www.wkforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2371

      Comment


      • #4
        I don't know that this necessarily points to a bad external specifically, but likely it's a bad drive.
        Been here a long time . . .

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by shanbaco View Post
          When I'm watching a recorded program and send a remote command (Pause, FF, or try to return to Tivo Central), my Tivo will sometimes execute the command and then 'freeze' or it will not recognize the command I sent at all.

          For example, I'm watching a program, I press fast forward, the program fast forwards, but then I can't stop it. Can't do anything. No remote commands will work and the buttons on the front of the Tivo will also not respond. After 1-5 mins, the Tivo will come out of this and then it will respond to the commands sent from the remote.

          This will also happen if I pause. Sometimes I can't pause and TiVo won't let me do anything. Program will continue playing, and then 1-5 mins later, Tivo will 'catch-up' on the commands sent.

          This seems to happen mostly while watching a recorded program, but at least once it 'froze' on the Tivo Central screen. Wouldn't let me go to 'Now Playing' or anything.

          This has occurred about 30-40 times in the past two days. I have rebooted numerous times and have forced the Tivo to Connect to the Service.

          I also know it's not a remote issue. I've used the remote to my other Tivo to no avail and also the buttons on the front do not respond when it's 'frozen', and when it's 'frozen' and I use the remote the light on the Tivo will illuminate indicating it received the signal.

          Latest development. As I was typing the above, Tivo reached the end of the program and asked to Keep or Delete. I didn't respond. Normally Tivo would go to Live TV after a few minutes. Currently, instead of going to Live TV, it showed the Green Tivo Background only, with the moving lights. There was nothing else on the screen, just the background and the lights were moving. Remote commands not going through, then after sitting on the background for a few moments, it went to Live TV.

          I have search for similar symptoms on the forums and haven't found anything.
          Most issues seem to be playback freezing. My Playback has never froze, only the commands.


          Please Help, it seems to be happening more and more frequently.


          Thanks!
          UPDATE

          Thanks Jeff for your quick reply. It was not very feasible for me to move my Series 3 to another room (would have been a nightmare), but I didn't unplug everything else (DVD, Sound System, and LCD TV) and used a smaller 13" to view the Tivo. Didn't see any improvement. In my opinion I don't think it was Interference (since it has not had any issues at all in almost 1 year and nothing has changed in the entertainment center and also when it 'freezes' the buttons on the actual Tivo do not operate).

          I did plan on doing a 'clear and delete' from the system menu. I had quite a few shows that I wanted to keep for myself and my roommate. So I wanted to transfer them to my desktop. There was over 100 programs (HD and SD) so to simplify finding which programs to transfer I went through the Tivo and deleted everything that I didn't want to save and transfer and got down to around 10 programs. We never have been ones to delete anything from the Tivo (My roommate and I never know if the other one has watched the show or not), so the HD is always full and we let the Tivo delete programs when needed.

          So after I deleted most everything on the Tivo and started transferring programs, I noticed right away that the menu was much more responsive. The transferring took 5+ hours, and throughout the day I noticed there was no 'freezing' or slowing of any kind with any of the menu options. My plan was to wait until it freezes up again and then run the 'Clear and Delete'.

          Well, it's been almost 24hours(with a lot of use between my roommate and I) and we have not had any issues at all.

          Recap: For 2 to 3 days, Tivo was 'stalling/freezing' nearly every 1/2 hour and Menu would move slow. Rebooting would help, but it would quickly return. Since deleting all those programs, my Tivo has been running like new, no issues at all !!! I've even tried moving around the menus quickly from YouTube to Recorded Program to NetFlix etc., and it performed very well.

          So, my conclusion at this point: Perhaps the full HD was creating issues for the Tivo (maybe it wasn't able to delete programs quick enough) or 1 of the programs deleted was corrupt or saved to a bad sector? I'm no expert, these are just my best guesses.

          Since then I've run the Kickstand 57, so if there were any Bad Sector on the HD, hopefully they will be isolated.

          I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!! I'm going to let the Tivo HD fill up again, just to see if the symptoms return.

          Thank You for your help!

          For those of you also having issues, keep in mind, I think my situation's a little different than what others are reporting. Seems most people report their Tivo's are rebooting on its own. Mine has never done this. It only stalls and slows way down and after a min or 2 it resumes. Also the actual picture never 'freezes' or even pixalates, only the menu options and functions (Play, Pause, FF) slow down. I can either wait for normal operation to resume or unplug Tivo to restart.

          Hope this Helps!

          Shane

          Comment


          • #6
            Good information. We've seen anecdotal reports of people who free up some space on their drives, and problems go away. But we've never really understood the mechanism behind that, and frankly, the theories we've come up with just don't prove themselves to be true. The TiVo OS is really capable of dealing with a full drive just fine.

            But we also only hear of this fairly rarely, so we just don't have the ability to test on it too hard.
            Been here a long time . . .

            Comment


            • #7
              I have replaced my internal drive and all problems have gone away.
              An expensive solution to a problem caused/uncovered by a s/w upgrade...

              Comment


              • #8
                If it's any consolation, we firmly believe that the previously isolated corruption on the hard drive would have widened over time, so changing out the drive was inevitable.
                Been here a long time . . .

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