My parent's Humax Series II (with DVD) TIVO just stopped recording FOX (the Fox feed with the endless sitcoms and Judge Judy ["JJ"] etc.) last week. Nothing at all records. Parents describe it as follows - the program guide indicates the signal is there and the TO DO list is full of JJ episodes, [To Do 'History' shows they've been recorded and will be recorded, etc.] But daily Tivo attempts to record and immediately after starting Play only a black screen appears (no feed) and Tivo passes back the typical "Delete or Save" option. They have no cable box or complicated setup -- just cable directly from the wall coax to the unit. If they bypass TIVO and play FOX from just the TV the signal is there and the picture is perfect. Only when it's passed through TIVO does it behave this way.

I went through every permutation of troubleshooting with them (e.g., checked to see if it was still on their channel list, had them arrow up through all their channels to see if any other channel had the same problem, powered down/up, etc.). Nothing helped. They live in a small town in Oklahoma and I'm in DC so I suggested they call their local cable provider to see if anything on that Fox feed changed on the day they lost service -- nothing had (according to the cable provider). When I had dad put FOX on Live TV there is the Troubleshooting message / Searching for Signal on Basic message. Everything else works great. Unit is about 4 years old with absolutely no other problem whatsoever until last week. Despite their age, my parents run this unit like a pro so (although not completely discounting undiagnosed user error from 2,500 miles away) I don't think it's anything they've inadvertently done.

Any thoughts on why only this channel would be affected in such a way?

Thanks so much.