TiVo has begun soliciting early adopters with a new priority request form:
We are preparing to release a software update (20.7.1) for TiVo BOLT, TiVo Roamio, TiVo Mini, and TiVo Premiere boxes. Boxes will be updated in groups. If you would like your TiVo BOLT, TiVo Roamio, TiVo Mini, or TiVo Premiere to be in one of the first groups to be updated, please enter your TiVo Service Number below. Note: Only TiVo boxes purchased directly from TiVo.com or a retailer are eligible for this update.
We suspect this release largely consists bug fixes and plumbing improvements, targeting the more significant cloud DVR and Hydra interface options for later this year.
Yeah, I’ll wait a bit and let others be the beta testers.
Agree with Mike. Gonna wait. Only suffering from one major issue at the moment. They have been doing more harm than good in these updates lately.
I concur with both!! While they are at it, do something about the totally incorrect description of show content, show titles. They need to fire the current content providers!!
Thumbnail pictures of shows and network logos in grid seem to be the most consistently inconsistent since the merger?
They need to fix the Guide problem to where it doesn’t remember the settings. And the descriptions since Rovi took over are awful.
Sounds like TiVos purchased from Weaknees are not eligible for the upgrade. Also those purchased from eBay or used. Can anyone confirm one way or the other?
James, no — what they’re saying is that these updates are for retail-purchased TiVo units vs TiVo rentals from cable providers like RCN and Suddenlink.
@william C: Unfortunately they can’t “fire” the current content providers as the current content providers are Tivo’s new owners!
I agree with others, the content mismanagement has been atrocious since Rovi took over. I have many TV shows that are miscategorized, OnePass recordings that don’t work, and show descriptions that are consistently either incorrect or missing.
My whole point of spending my money on Tivo was to improve over the cable co’s DVR experience. It’s almost tempting to go back to the cable co’s dvr at this point.
Still chugging along on my 3 TivoHD lifetime units.
I’ll wait and see what others say has been fixed or newly broken. Priority Release under Rovi is just asking for trouble.
In the past I would immediately jump on the priority list, but lately TiVo seems to break more than they fix in releases so I’ll sit this one out.
Content provider means those who make the content, eg. Fox, Warner, CBS Studios.
It has nothing to do with Rovi.
Huh… I’ve noticed a few glitches since Rovi but nowhere near as bad as it’s been for some of you, guess I should count my lucky stars.
I did have to manually fix a few Season Passes, once I realized what was going on (new channel designations weren’t recognized or auto linked) it wasn’t that hard to just flip a few to the right channel or to All while the show is off air.
Haven’t seen it miss any primetime shows because of bad guide data, it’s not as detailed or comprehensive as it often was in the past (there’s pretty much never a guest star list now) but it works.
All thumbnails keep getting dumped every few days then reloaded a day later but that might just be a side effect of my unit being on the verge of max capacity.
I did have to complain about a couple channels that were not moved around at the start of the year after my cable co made changes, that took a month to changeover when it used to take a couple weeks max.
“Content provider means those who make the content, eg. Fox, Warner, CBS Studios. It has nothing to do with Rovi.”
Context, as is often the case, is important, MJR.
The “content” that is being referred to here is the guide data. By all definitions of the terms, the guide data is indeed “content”. (We could quibble about “metadata” vs “data”, but I don’t think that’s a meaningful distinction in this context in any way.) Our TiVo boxes recently shifted their content provider of guide data from Tribune to Rovi. As everyone constantly and correctly notes, this has indeed a degradation of the user experience.
So to FACTCHECK the validity of complaints about the shift in the “content provider”: 100% TRUE.
Still having wrong recordings here too. I have a one pass that records all airings of the Rachel Maddow show, even though it’s set for new only. Every single damn day I have to manually delete 7 recordings of it. Getting real old. I reported this to them twice already. Still not fixed. I’m not sitting on hold again.
I’ve never hopped onto a priority list, except for the OnePass introduction, which I really, really wanted ASAP. But the brave souls who do hop onto the priority list help the rest of us, so cheers to them.
“I have a one pass that records all airings of the Rachel Maddow show, even though it’s set for new only.”
This all happened with the Rovi guide data switchover. The curious thing to me is that stuff like this is correctly marked in the visible guide as “new” or not.
So, unlike the multitude of other problems with the Rovi guide data that will simply never get solved, this one theoretically could get solved by a TiVo software update.
I can’t sign up since I still experience signal issue on every single update that comes through. When it occurs, I get very low signal strength reported on the TiVo, but Optimum shows great strength it off the cable. So I have to unplug (for about an hour) and reboot multiple times to get it back to acceptable levels. Not cool and TiVo ignores it for over a year now.
I sure hope this fixes the remote issues with their minis. I’m so sick of rebooting my mini every time the remotes no longer connects to it.
WE NEED RELEASE NOTES PLEASE, How else would we know what to test.
If they would post the release notes so I would know what is fixed I might do it. For example the MINIs connected to a BOLT can not play most HULU Shows when your using the Commercial free account, HULU works on the BOLT. If in the release notes they say they fixed Networking on the MINI software I would do it.
Is there a way we can roll back? Some secret remote code? That would make it safe.
Would hate to have the rest of the family yelling at me if this release has bad bad bugs.
In addition to other listing problems noted, they’ve also eliminated episode numbers so if you record entire seasons to binge later there’s no easy way to tell order. That began the day after the major update. Update terribly downgraded quality and convenience. I won’t be “upgrading” from series 2’s and 3 anytime soon.
Really hoping it finally corrects the three column default error I’ve been experiencing for months.
Eliminated Episode numbers? I just checked the first five shows in my list. They all still have Season and Episode numbers.
“Eliminated Episode numbers? I just checked the first five shows in my list. They all still have Season and Episode numbers.”
Yup. I didn’t bother responding since the commenter said she had S2 & S3 boxes, so perhaps the guide data switchover screwed up something for them.
It’s possible he’s confused, if you sort your show folders by date I think the episode #s are hidden and only the record date is shown… If you sort by newest or by season it goes back to showing episode numbers… In the general list that is, within the showis description they’re always shown. Or maybe it’s broken on older TiVos.
I’ve been experiencing many broken daytime episode descriptions. The episode title is loading as Season and Episode (SSEE/SS-EEE) number
Hey TivoOwner:
I had that problem with one of my mini’s, and I think I fixed it the other night. Unfortunately, by opening my mouth, I’m going to jinx it and it won’t work tonight, so thanks a lot for that!
Anyway, the other day, in a fit of frustration, I whacked my mini on the TV stand (as in, picked it straight up and moderately slammed it down). Since then, no remote issues.
I’m starting to wonder if it’s a bad solder or a loose plug that’s causing this. Originally I thought it was the mini itself going capput. Then, just goofing around, I tried controlling it via the phone app and it worked flawlessly. That clued me in that it’s just the radio receiver for the remote. The slamming it down was completely unplanned – just my growing rage against Tivo.
Anyway, previously the remote would stop working anywhere from 15 minutes to a few hours after a reboot. I’ve been about a week or two now sans reboot, and it’s still working.
People with Mini issues – is this the first gen unit that uses line-of-site IR remote or the second gen unit that uses RF? I only have 2nd gen Minis at this point and haven’t had any issues or any sort.
My Mini/Remote issues – I’m on Gen2, with the RF remote.
Out of 5 minis that I “have experience with” (2 mine; 3 at a family member’s house on their Bolt), there are 2 that have remote issues. The next time I get over to their house, I’ll be trying the whack-a-fix(tm) that has so far fixed mine.
After my Premier S3 died, I contacted Tivo to purchase a new unit. Having 2 S2 and my S3 all with life time I thought they should offer better than retail pricing. In an effort to hold out I started renting a unit from Xfinity. Then ROVI bought Tivo. So glad to be where I am with all this. I’ve cut the cord on cable and everything I want is still available without Xfinity or Tivo. Good luck Tivo loyal with Rovi.
My MINI issues are on brand new RF Minis.
They can not play most of the HULU Shows, they get error 5003 network error.
I am on 100 MBPS Internet with now switches in the mix (they always ask that).
Tried MOCA and Ethernet. HULU confirms there is an issue but give no ETA.
HULU even gave a free month.
It seems to only be with the Commercial free Hulu accounts. The 5003 error comes up after the 2nd or 3rd transition video like “This show is rated TVMA” or Made for Hulu show, always before the show starts to play
The only issue I have with my Minis (2nd gen) is when there is an emergency test pushed out, which the TiVo Mini Remote won’t clear. It won’t do anything unless/until I reboot the Mini by unplugging power. This happens several times a month during hurricane season, unfortunately. On the Roamio, the only thing to do is press clear, but nothing I can find (and have read others with the same issue) for Minis is a reboot.
That doesn’t sound like the issue mentioned, but it does basically lock you out of the Mini until the message is cleared. It is said that the message will clear itself after the main TiVo is cleared, but that never happens in my experience.
@Bricketh
That’s one helluva a weird bug.
FWIW, I get an emergency test every week on my Roamio, and it doesn’t come too late after midnight, so I often suffer through it. But my experience on the Roamio is a bit different than yours. I’m locked out for the duration of the emergency test, and then it immediately throws me from what I was watching into Live TV. But I don’t need to hit ‘clear’ or do anything else but navigate back to where I was.
Beyond the weirdness of the Mini bug you’re seeing, it’s weird that you have a different experience on your Roamio too. I wonder if your local MSO is sending some kind of buggy emergency test signal, or if it’s a universal problem for folks with a Roamio that have with a Mini hooked up. (I don’t do MRV.)
I have 3 Minis, and all do the same thing. The message is a blue banner with red letters, and matches the Roamio, but just won’t clear on the Minis. Not sure why it happens like that, but I read others on the TiVo forums saying the same, but no solution found (other than power cycle).
I was feeling brave and signed up for it. Fingers crossed.
I was feeling brave and signed up for it. Fingers crossed.
need to fix the Netflix app! several series have audio issues where audio cuts out briefly every few minutes. not all shows do it but many do. if I use my Sony bluesy to watch Netflix those shows play fine.
@Bricketh Issues with emergency alerts are a known issue which goes back to the build out of your cable provider before everything was merged/combined. In my are certain Cablivision/Optimum customer will get this error while others won’t. After the emergency broadcast is over they are supposed to send a clear signal for the message, if they don’t the box will stay locked. You can reboot it or pull the cable line out of the back and reconnect. You should let the cable company know about this issue and also advise the FCC of the problem as it is something your provider needs to fix in there system
I signed up four of my TiVos for this. Although I usually sign up all my TiVos.
“@Bricketh Issues with emergency alerts are a known issue which goes back to the build out of your cable provider before everything was merged/combined … After the emergency broadcast is over they are supposed to send a clear signal for the message, if they don’t the box will stay locked.”
I guessed correctly!
I assume the MSO-supplied DVR’s / cable boxes have some workaround to avoid the problem, and thus TiVo’s are the only thing affected cuz they’re they’re strictly following the proper specs?
I just don’t understand why it only affects the Minis, though. That said, I appreciate the feedback, and I will reach out to my MSO for assistance. Luckily, it’s a municipal service, so everything is local.
Saw some reviews of this release. So far so good so I just signed up
I talked to my MSO, and they said they’d talk to their ESA provider and to TiVo to try to figure out my issue with the Minis, as they saw the same thing with their test Minis.
Also, I guess I never mentioned, but I signed up for the early release, too.
I’ve received the upgrade. I haven’t observed any changes, though.
Anyone else get the update and noticed any differences?
I’ll need to check when I get home tonight.
I’m out of town for work and assume I got the update. I lost out of home streaming and downloading..
Looks like the update makes Netflix better. If you hit info during stream it shows bitrate. Mine gets up to 5.9 M.