TiVo Community Forums Archives - Bad channel changes

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Bad channel changes
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Posted by: ILoveMyTiVo

For some reason, the IR control of my cable box has become much less reliable recently. I don't remember the exact timing, but it seems like it was about the time I upgraded to 108 hours. (30 hour + 60gig Maxtor)

In the first few months I think it changed the channel wrong once on a recording. Recently it has been messing up several times a week. Today it changed the channel wrong on 2 out of 6 recordings.

Does anyone think this could be related to the upgrade? I used the 60gig from Staples, and the cable that came with the TiVo. I did not set anything special on the drive. I haven't seen any problems in the video.

Posted by: BitbyBlit

My IR transmitter has been working fine on my upgraded box. I'd try running your IR setup again and changing to a different IR code. Something could have happened when you added the other drive, but I think it's more likely to be a transmitter problem or perhaps the IR code got screwed up during the 1.2-1.3 upgrade.

Posted by: J-Man

I noticed that between 1.21 and 1.3 there are more IR codes. Specifically, for my box there are now three where there was only one - each labeled Slow, Med, and Fast. I'm assuming this allows you to slow down (lengthen) the button sequence when there are problems like you describe... it might be worth a look anyway (re-run Guided Setup).

Posted by: BitbyBlit

You don't need to re-run the Guided Setup to just change the IR codes. You can just go to "Messages & Setup"-->"Cable/Satellite Box"-->"Cable Box Setup". From there you can select your cable box brand, then proceed to choose the IR code.

Posted by: Clark

I had this same problem, but mine happened before the upgrade. I found that picking a slower speed for the remote fixed the problem. Good luck.

Posted by: MC

I also had the problem after adding a b drive. Set the ir code to a medium setting from high and had no problem afterwards.

Posted by: ILoveMyTiVo

Thanks for all the responses. I know all the standard advice for getting reliable channel changes, but I wanted to post here to ask if anybody thought is was related to the upgrade. It seems unlikely to me, but my channel changing was much better before. I did try all the codes for my box, and none of them seemed as reliable as it was before, but maybe it was just bad luck recently. I eventually did find one under another brand that seems to work well so far, but I am sure the previous code was for the correct brand. (Meanwhile I set the VCR too for tonight just in case)

The only reason I could think of related to the upgrade was that somehow the writing to the new drive was taking slightly longer than it should, and messing up the timing on sending the IR just enough for the cable box to miss digits. But that doesn't really sound like the problem either. Probably unrelated.

[This message has been edited by ILoveMyTiVo (edited 09-26-2000).]

Posted by: Kleever

Twice I've had a problem where I was flipping through the channels too fast and locked up the live t.v. on tivo. The tivo player still fucntioned, and I could view recorded video, but the live video was locked.

After a reboot the system worked fine. I called customer service about an unrelated issued and while we were waiting on tivo's computers to update I asked about the problem. Apparently the "flipping through channels too fast lockup" is something they are aware of, and the phone rep even went as far as to call it a "glitch."

Everytime you change channels Tivo needs to buffer about .25 seconds of video before it starts playing. I'm guessing that adding a very large second hard drive would increase the time it takes for the buffering. If you change the channels too fast you end of flooding the buffering process with data, and the system locks up.

What was Tivo's answer? When you need to make a large channel change, hit the channel number and then "enter" http://www.avsforum.com/ubbtivo/wink.gif

Makes sense to me.

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Kleever
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