Scratch that, it seems to still restart regardless. I guess I'll try it without the cable card.

My TiVo is pausing and pixelating. It is hard to tell if it a my cable provider or TiVo. When I am live, and current up to the second, I do not see the same pixelation. I have had the Cable company come out several times. How do I differentiate the prognosis? Is it cable or is my TiVo finally dying? Last night it rebooted on its own, after I did a reboot hours before.

Series 2

Even live TV is always buffered through the hard drive.

But the rebooting issue probably means you have a bad hard drive, so that's the obvious place to start.

Series 3 HD Rebooting

I've read the thread, but I'll explain my issue and let the experts point me in the right direction and save me a lot of time and frustration.

My S3 HD TiVo was bought 11/2007. I added and WD DVR expander in 2008 and up to now have had absolutely no problems. Comcast is my provider and I have 2 cable cards in the unit.

The problems started with shows that were recorded last Thursday. When I started watching these shows on the weekend, the reboot problem reared it's ugly head.

The show appears to have been recorded. It shows up in the list, the program info is listed and it says 1 hour was recorded. When the program starts it shows a full hour of green bar available. At some point in the show, the picture freezes, the unit waits for several minutes (the unit responds to nothing from the remote) then reboots. On several shows this has happened at about the two minute mark, but on another it was 15 to 20 minutes into the show. There is no pixallation, no stuttering, no warnings up to the second it freezes.

Upon reboot, the show is still in the list, I can go back and the exact same thing will happen at the exact same point. This happens whether I am watching the show at regular speed or fast forwarding the show.

I can watch shows that were recorded before last Thursday, but it seems everything from that point forward is affected. I don't think my HD is near full but just in case I deleted about 10 hours of HD programming. Unfortunately, last night the exact same thing happened to "House" when I tried to watch it.

I've seen suggestions about the eSata cable, disconnecting the external expander, running kickstart diagnostics, and more. What would be the most logical thing to do and in what order?

I'd love to keep my shows so options that allow that are appreciated but I have also begun the grieving process in anticipation of their deletion.

Since your problems sound like hard drive failure, I'd recommend disconnecting the external and divorcing it from the internal. This can all be done on-screen. You'll lose any show that was at least partially recorded on the external drive.

Then, if you have no problems, you've got a bad external. I'm a bit surprised by how often we're seeing that external WD fail. It's not a drive we've carried, so we don't have a ton of experience with it.

Of course, if you still have problems, that points to your internal drive, a we have replacement internal hard drives for the Series3 TiVo. Just note that any drive larger than the 250 won't see your external without some work by us with both drives.

Thanks Michael. If you had to guess, how many of my old programs are even partially on the external? It seems I have a choice - I either try to watch the old stuff or risk losing it all. In general, does the TiVo use the internal HD first and only move to the external when all the space on the internal is gone?

Does the TiVo store all the information about the programs in some sort of file table on the internal?

If it is a bad HD, why is there not an error during the recording of the show? Why does the TiVo have all the information about a complete show yet freeze after only two minutes?

If there is a chance the TiVo will operate fine without the external, I might be able to make it through the time it takes to exchange the external but I have to risk losing all the programs on the external to find out, right?

Basically, you should assume that anything recorded after you connected your external will be lost when you disconnect it.

Yes, if your external is bad, then the unit should work fine after you disconnect it.

Series 3, early model

Got it late 2006, series 3HD and had good luck with comcast S cards in Mtn View. Moved to Santa Clara and had to have M cards installed. Since then, everything described here has happened. Freezing, lagging, stuck, rebooting, chattering, losing HD channels, etc.

Can always get it back with an unplug, reseating cards, rebooting system - so far. May take a few times, but it works.

But latest issue is downloading HD video on demand from Amazon. Used to do it just fine, but IF it is recording HD channels, and I send a download to it from Amazon (on the computer) it acts up in various ways mentioned above. Now it won't even download.

Last call to TiVo support lasted 114 minutes!!!! And they said they ran out of troubleshooting to help with. This was the 4th call in two months and each person says something different.

The first person said they would swap out the machine because there was a software conflict in the early Series 3 models with the M cards.

Next person said signal was too high to get a splitter. Third person said splitter not necessary and to reseat cards.

4th person tried all kinds of things but was pretty new and had to get lots of support (translated means I was on hold a lot). Last thing was that they have done everything they can.

And I would have to buy a new or refrub unit and pay $199 to transfer my lifetime to the new unit. Or I could send it to Weaknees for repair. Repair of what? And then he told me that since I've had the lifetime subscription since 2000 I should be grateful for having it for so long......

That just made me annoyed beyond belief. If it is a software conflict between the early 3 units and the M cards, that is not my fault. And comcast does not give out S cards in our area anymore.

Honestly, how long should a unit last? And why, now, during such a bad economic time, would TiVo not want to keep long time customers happy? Just because I was savvy enough to buy each new unit when they had a special to keep rolling my lifetime script forward does not mean I should be grateful I had it for so long! ACK.

Suggestions? Is it a hard drive issue? Is it an M card/unit incompatibility? Why won't the HD downloads from Amazon work like the regular downloads?

In TiVo's defense, it is not easy to diagnose problems of this sort by phone, email, etc. It is definitely frustrating to get different answers and I'm not sure why there aren't notes of the prior diagnoses in your TiVo records, but as we do, TiVo is trying to help (in at least some cases) without you having to pay to send in the box.

I was not aware of the problem with M cards, and in fact I don't think we have run across that one before. If you have two M cards, it should work fine.

As part of the troubleshooting, is it possibly confined to just one tuner? Can you try running your TiVo without any CableCARDs (go thru setup again without cards) and then see what happens when you stream from Amazon? Do you get any HD stations (or any stations at all) without the cards? How does the TiVo function then?

Missing Channels (Searching for signal on: Cable In.)

I've read the thread. My S3 with expansion drive had been working fine for over two years. We have Comcast cable with "old" cable cards. Recently we are missing most HD channels. It displays, "Searching for signal on: Cable In. See 'Messages & Settings'/'Troubleshooting' for info. Doing that says contact the cable company. The cable company wants to swap the cable cards, but they don't have the "old" style, but we can order them.

Before we do that, does it make sense that we're missing the channels on both tuners? Other people in this thread didn't have success with new cable cards. I am not experiencing reboots, but do sometimes see pixelation, but only from cable. When I transfer a program from the computer to TiVo and watch it, it is always good.

Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks.

Replying to my own post. After further testing, I'm not getting most channels above 200. I get about five in the 200's, and five in the 300's, and the same for the 800's. I also don't get channel 56, but get the rest below 100.

Why do you need "old style" cards? That probably just means single-stream cards, but you can use multi-stream cards in that unit - they just act as single-stream because that's all the unit supports. But the cards will work.

Sounds like either an authorization issue, or a signal amplification issue.

Thank you for the fast response. The cable guy said my old Tivo unit doesn't support the new cards. He's probably wrong. So do you think we should replace the cards? I just can't see both cards failing at the same time with the same symptoms.

Well, in a way, he's right. Your TiVo doesn't support a feature of the new cards, but it definitely supports them.

But, yes, I think you should start with new cards, which require new authorization by them, which covers two potential issues in one shot.

OK, thanks again. I'll let you know what happens.