You should turn off dial tone detection and phone available detection and listen in on the phone line to see what is happening.

Do you have DS or voice over IP?

I tried as you advised: turned off dial tone detection and phone available detection and listened in. I heard the modem dial and the call was answered by another modem. However there was none of the usual modem cross talk that goes on when a modem connection is being negotiated. Eventually there was a single tone and the call was dropped, followed by the "Failed" message appearing on the TV screen. Repeated this several times with same result.

No VOIP
Do have DSL running on that phone line. Also tried the phone in with the DSL modem disconnected, but result was the same.

Are you using a DSL filter?

I'm having this same problem...

I replaced my hard drive and then had to reactivate my service. When trying to dial in for the first time, I keep getting the cannot connect error message. I suspect it is due to using Earthlink for my phone service, although they swear it's not VOIP. I am using dsl filters and I have tried just about everything suggested in the troubleshooting menu and am really hoping I don't have to shell out another $80 for the modem and cable. Any other suggestions?

Have you tried listening in on the line when the TiVo tries to call? Sometimes you can figure out the problem that way.

Yes, I did listen in and I heard the tivo dial up and then the modem try to connect. This went on for about 1-2 minutes and then it hung up saying that it couldn't connect. Both Phone Available and Dial Tone Detection are off. I will say that I tried for a couple of hours last night and I was able to connect and retrieve the local dial-in numbers two times. However, once I selected the local number and tried dialing, it would never connect. Does this tell you anything?

You could try searching TiVo's local number database and enter a different number in the dial prefix area followed by a pair of commas.

for example: 1-212-920-3005,,

http://www3.tivo.com/tivo-misc/popfinder.do

I'm still trying to sort this out and came across the following on the Earthlink support site:

Do I have any hope here? Would it do any good to contact Directv or should I bite the bullet and purchase the external modem?

Thanks for all the help.

I'd say that's your best bet. Either that or dial in the unit elsewhere to get it working and able to record, and after that just ignore the nag screen telling you to dial in.

I also have Earthlink as my phone provider. That is the problem, not the Tivo or Direct TV. My RCA DVR40 DirecTv Tivo was working fine till I changed to Earthlink TruVoice. I verified this by the date of the last successful phone call being the day before TruVoice went into effect. I was never able to make a successful call after that. I even tried disconnecting EVERY phone, DSL modem and computer from my phone lines so the Tivo was the only thing connected and tried with and without a DSL filter and no luck. I spent a couple of hours, late one night, talking to a very helpful DirecTv tech. We tried a bunch of dial prefix's and settings combinations and nothing worked.

This problem continued till the Tivo's main hard drive died several months later. At that time I ran out and bought a DirecTv DVR Plus R15. (Had to record that night and didn't notice this wasn't a Tivo unit). It has no problem making calls. I'm just now adding the Tivo back into the system.

I just replaced my hard drives with a new 400 GB Weakness drive and still have the same problem. Earthlink says that only the series 2 Tivos have broadband capabilities and will work. (Right, just like TruVoice isn't VOIP). They must mean the stand alone Tivos and not the DirecTv ones. (Of course you stand a better chance of getting a date with your favorite movie star than getting a straight answer from Earthlink).

Just ordered the Weakness modem to, hopefully, cure this problem. (Should be delivered tomorrow afternoon). Since the Earthlink package is saving me over $50 a month, I figured the $80 was a small price to pay to get rid of the headache.

Followup

Got the Weakness modem today. After installing it, I still got the Failed To Connect error. I had the phone line connected to a Y connector with the DirecTv DVR connected in the other jack. Disconnected the DirecTv DVR and connected the Tivo directly into the DSL filter. That seemed to work. The unit finally made a complete test call. However, after reconnecting the Y connector with the DirecTV unit, it failed again. Tried two different Y connectors with the same results. Glad it works. Too bad I got to plug and unplug the unit to make it happen.

Thanks Weakness for fixing the problem and a REALLY BIG thanks for the 400 GB hard drive. (383 hours of recording! WOW!!).

What is the purpose of this? Won't entering this information dial that different number, pause, then also dial the local number? How will this help the TiVo connect?

Yes, so the first number will be the one that gets connected. It helps in cases where there's a problem on some numbers, which happens from time to time.

I see. So the extra numbers dialed after the pause won't cause the modem to drop the connection?

So, do you have any suggestions as to which other number to try? There appears to be too many possibilities to simply start trying them in some random walk pattern

BTW, I was able to get my modem to finish its connection with my Comcast Digital Voice by connecting the phone line directly to the back of my Digital Voice modem and trying it a couple of times. Thanks for all the tips you guys have on this site. I installed my weaknees replacement hard drive last night and finally finished updating the software tonight. Everything is working great.

Thanks,
Frank