"Recorder cannot display Live TV."

[Mike Sugar]

For the past few weeks, on almost a (7) day cycle, my Tivo comes up with a blue screen - unable to display live tv. It has just returned again - in the past hour.

The previous occasion was last Saturday morning. I spent all weekend working to find a solution. I first of all followed the five itemised points on the relevant screen.

Item 1. Changing channels several times had no impact. I did check, and found that the IR blaster
was functioning ok.

Item 2. Where my satellite receiver is an Amstrad DX550, I replaced it with a spare unit.

Item 3. Using a spare scart cable, I removed, in turn, the (3) scart leads, to ensure that they were
all fuctioning/seating correctly - they were.

Item 4. I verified the video source by bypassing the Tivo unit.

Item 5. Using System Restart did not rectify the problem.

In addition:

I invoked a "GSOD" - no change.

I changed the PSU - no change.

Bringing down my spare Tivo, (no HDDs fitted), I fitted the HDD from my working Tivo - booted up -had the same problem - no live tv display.

Changed the PSU in this spare Tivo - no change.

Working through most of Saturday and Sunday morning, I was ready to scrap my Tivos - a
heartbreaking decision. Picking/clearing up all the pieces of Tivo on Sunday afternoon, I re-built
my working Tivo back to how it was prior to loosing live tv the previous morning.

On booting up, no live tv. On switching it off, I made one final gesture of checking all connections, found nothing amiss - switched on - I had live tv. I do not know how and why live tv restored itself.

It has continued to work without problems until this morning - once again I have no live tv.

I have gone through all the checks once again - all to no avail.

At this juncture, I must point out that I do not keep the unit on stand-by. I switch it off each night
at 23:00, and switch it on again at approx. midday next day for recording purposes. I have followed this procedure for over (5) years.

The Tivo invariably has always had problems with automatically dialling the daily programme guide - this I do myself "manually" on a daily basis using the 0161 number - this action rarely fails.

I am using the original Tivo EPG on a 500Gb HDD which I produced myself (Hooch) 2 years ago.

So, I am now at my wits end.

I feel that unless some-one can give me a solution, I will have no option but offer the (2) units, plus spare PSUs and (4) or (5) remote controls for "working parts" - this will break my heart.

Searching the Forum and internet in general has failed to come up with a "fix."

The only suspect now can be my HDD - but I would have thought the "GSOD" would have found and corrected any corruption.

Can anyone assist me please.

Thank you.

Mike.

[mrtickle]

I had similar symptoms once, a few reboots and waggling of scart sockets fixed it but I was never really sure what the fix was unfortunately. I know that sinking feeling though as I had it that day!

TiVo really is supposed to be running 24/7. It does housekeeping and garbage collection in its database twice a day, once at the daily call time and again 17 hours later. You're preventing it from ever completing that cycle. You mention that your routine of turning it off for half the time results in you having to force the data calls, but I fear there could be other consequences too - hardware wise extra strain on and shortened life of the PSU/HD/motherboard components with continuous heating and cooling cycles; software wise with the background tasks mentioned above; and last and not least you'll never get the lovely surprise of a Wishlist match at an odd time for a brilliant programme you didn't know was on. By using it like a dumb VCR surely you've been missing out on what's best and unique about TiVo. Obviously, this isn't a direct cause of your current issue, but the shortening of the life of the hardware might be

[dsbowskill]

Given that you got a live feed working again after going through all the connections, I'm willing to bet that one of your cables from your STB to the Tivo is dodgy.

Can you explain in detail how your Tivo is wired. ie. from what output on your tv receiver and what kind of plug, to where on your tivo.

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DSB