TiVo becoming unresponsive

[woz_331]

Hi, after a lot of waiting I seem to have resolved the previous problems I was having with my TiVo.

However, another one has come along. It is becoming unresponsive and hanging until I reboot it. It is happening more than every 24 hours, and I am very worried about it.

I am using a SONY SVR-2000 with the original HDD. I have searched a bit, and some things I have read say a new HDD will fix the problem. Is this true or is it something else causing it to hang?

Thanks.

[petestrash]

There are a number of things that can cause a TiVo to lockup.

Just to list a few:
Some of the software hacks are known to be an issue
Excessive use of the remote control
Setting up or deleting a lot of season passes in a short period of time

If you are having hard drive problems, you would normally notice a degradation in picture quality first. When playing back you would see a lot of pixelation or freeze frames.

What image are you running, and have you installed any other hacks yourself.

Peter.

[zollymonsta]

I was having lockups once a week. I've now set a cron job on both my tivos to issue a 'reboot' each morning at 4:10am. So far so good.

[petestrash]

there are less heavy handed ways which have proved successful for some people. See KeepTivoWebResponsive
Even though it is about keeping tivoweb responsive, tivoweb can be responsible for event bugs causing the remote to become unresponsive.

Peter

[woz_331]

What image are you running, and have you installed any other hacks yourself.

When I start it up each time I turn on the following hacks:
-30 Second Skip
-Enable Backdoors
-Turn on 'Now Playing' list sort trick.

I installed TyServer but I believe it was freezing up before then. Also, I changed the boot script to make the OzTiVo screen come uo after the Cachecard (parents were scared of black screen) and the boot mode to remove the intro movie.

I am running the Philips image, downloaded it on Saturday morning. Had the SONY one for a night while I was setting up, and the backgrounds drove me crazy.

If it is just the hard drive failing, I'm not really that concerned. I am planning to put a 250GB Seagate in soon.

Oh, and it's not just the remote that seems to freeze. Last night it had a still image from Alias on the screen after it froze up. I don't remember pausing the show.

[woz_331]

I was having lockups once a week. I've now set a cron job on both my tivos to issue a 'reboot' each morning at 4:10am. So far so good.

Well I could handle it doing that, except I don't want to lose the 30 second skip hack each day.

[petestrash]

When I start it up each time I turn on the following hacks:
-30 Second Skip
-Enable Backdoors
-Turn on 'Now Playing' list sort trick.

30 Second Skip is a known culprit causing freezes and reboots. A TiVo with 30 sec skip enabled will have a lower uptime then one without.

I installed TyServer but I believe it was freezing up before then. Also, I changed the boot script to make the OzTiVo screen come uo after the Cachecard (parents were scared of black screen) and the boot mode to remove the intro movie.

Tyserver adds extra load to the little 50mhz processor when being used, but is not known as a problem.

The blank screen & movie Vs splash screen & no movie makes no difference.

If it is just the hard drive failing, I'm not really that concerned. I am planning to put a 250GB Seagate in soon.

As I said earlier if you are not experiencing any visual problems with playback, it is not likely to be a drive issue. But if you want to be sure pull the drive and run scan on it.

Oh, and it's not just the remote that seems to freeze. Last night it had a still image from Alias on the screen after it froze up. I don't remember pausing the show.

This usually occurs when the rest of tivo realises whats going on and stops live streaming, but before it actually realises it needs to reboot.

You will also get the same when watching a show and the remote stops responding, it will play to the end and freeze on the last frame till rebooted.

Peter

[woz_331]

30 Second Skip is a known culprit causing freezes and reboots. A TiVo with 30 sec skip enabled will have a lower uptime then one without.

Right, I'm giving that a go. It froze up again before at TiVo Central, and the menus continued to animate.

As I said earlier if you are not experiencing any visual problems with playback, it is not likely to be a drive issue. But if you want to be sure pull the drive and run scan on it.

What program is best for this?

[DavidSymons]

Hi,

What program is best for this?

Drive manufacturers usually provide a free utility to do this. For example Seagate provide Seatools:

http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/

Cheers, Dave.

[petestrash]

Right, I'm giving that a go. It froze up again before at TiVo Central, and the menus continued to animate.

Dave is right, it's best using the drive makers program. Though some bad sectors wont mean a bad drive, TiVo wont map around them.

As an aside all the background videos are also streamed from the hard drive, so again anything serious was going on you should see problems.