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TiVo Series 2 DT with Motorola Set top box

I'm getting really tired of all the problems I've been having since switching to FIOS. The latest one is that between 2 and 3 AM on Monday and Tuesday morning, it appears that my TiVo caught the set top box swtiching to the setup screen while no one was watching, which made us lose the last 4 or 5 minutes of the show we were recording. If it had only happened once, I would have assumed it was a fluke, but it happened two days in a row (we didn't have anything being recorded this morning, apparently, so I can't say if it happened a third time or not).

I've never had so many problems before with any other provider. First,, the installation we had was wrong -- I was told that I didn't need a set top box, but then discovered that without it, we couldnt' get all the channels we were actually paying for. So I had to order two set top boxes. . Next, we had a problem with recording a screen saver instead of a show. So then I disabled the screen saver. Then what happened was that even though the screen saver didn't come up, the set top box, apparently, went into standby mode, which meant that it could no longer respond to commands to change channels that the TiVo sends with an IR blaster. A FIOS tech remotely reset one of our Set top boxes in order to fix that problem -- and now I have a brand new problem on my new set top box.

I've already spent far too much time trying to troubleshoot all of this crap. If FIOS actually doesn't work with TiVo, then they should admit it. If I have to choose to keep only one, it won't be FIOS at this point.

Comments

lasagna

The problem really is the version of theTiVO you're using. The Tivo's that rely onthe IR blaster technology to try to interfact with a set top box and change it's channels, etc. are problematic at best when working with just about any STB scenario. They rely on the box to be in a certain state and able to respond as expected to the remote commands without any ability to verify the results. It can only blindly record what's coming down the wire without knowing if the box is looking at the right thing or not. Walking into the room and simply using a remote to change a channel is proof of this flawed approached -- since you Tivo would have no cle you made that change. Actions such as a power blip or an overnight reset of a box (due to a firmware update or as most recently occurred -- a global reset of all boxes to clear a bug) will screw up this recording process.

The Tivo's that work with setups such as FiOS are those that take a cable card -- the Premier series for instance -- these boxes do not use a STB but instead have you install a cable card which comes from Verizon (for a smaller monthly fee than the STB) and then directly record the channels and selections. As a benefit, you can record multiple channels based on the number of tuners in the box and of course the recording is in HD.

Your best solution may be to trade in your old Tivo and get a current generation one.

Hubrisnxs

you can also try these two things,

So change from serial cable to IR cable. that is one thing. lasagna covered that well.

Also try deselecting the High Definition channels from your TiVO channel list AND have TiVO suggestions turned off.

TiVO Users

Go to:

1. Tivo Central

Messages & Settings

Settings

Channels

Channel List

...Page down and deselect each HD channel

TiVO users may also want to deselect channels that are not on their cable line-up

2. Messages & Settings

Settings

Recording

Tivo Suggestions...change to No

these two suggestions have worked for most of our tivo community members in the past

GrahamZ1

First of all, we never had these problems with either DirecTV's Set top boxes nor with Cablevision prior to that (Cabelvision was horrible in other ways, but it had nothing to do with their set top box). So what you are saying is not accurate at all. IR blaster has always worked fine -- maybe not 100%, but at least 99.99%. Both of the other set top boxes could be prevented from going into standby mode, and if they were ever reset or upgraded remotely, it either was so seamless or so rare that it never ever caused us a problem.

And second, upgrading our TiVo would mean not only losing out on our current lifetime subscription, but having to purchase a new one -- even with the discount they are offering to upgrade, it's $400 per TiVo. I could go month to month, I suppose, but still, it's not cheap.

GrahamZ1

As far as your suggestion to deselect HD channels -- I've always done that anyway, because my mom is the primary viewer in the house, and she's elderly and forgetful and would mistakenly record shows on the wrong channel (she's previously recorded on spanish language channels, so I've disabled those as well).

BTW, recording TiVo suggestions is not a problem. If anything, it helps prevent the STB from going into standby mode. In fact a solution that someone from TiVo suggested was to schedule 5 minute recordings to happen periodically in order to prevent standby mode. I don't see how that can have anything to do with problems I'm experiencing.

Hubrisnxs

well, sorry to hear that. These came from the Tivo Forums and worked for all their users with FiOS so I am not sure what is different with their set up compared to yours. Maybe try reaching out on their forums and see if they have additional selections? we've seen a lot of tivo users come here and in working together, these were the fixes that worked for everyone else.

http://forums.tivo.com/pe/action/forums/displaypost?postID=10467302
I was having this problem on both of my series 2 units using these STBs. My HD with the cable card was obviously not. Let me add that not only will will this happen if the TiVo is programmed to change to a channel for which you are not subscribed or authorized, it will also happen if the STB is directed by theTiVo to change to a HD channel. This model STB cannot process HD information, therefore when it is directed to go to an HD channel by the TiVo it will go into the "standby" mode that Cornermac mentioned for exactly 20 minutes. If it doesn't get a command to change to a supported channel by that time it will go into an "error" mode and turn itself off. This drove me nuts for a while till I happened to be looking at a file that I had downloaded to my laptop. It had the black screen with an error message that the STB didn't support this HD channel. When I scanned through it to see if anything useful was recorded I noticed that at the 20 min mark the error message had changed as the STD box had turned itself off. When I described what happened to the FIOS tech support guy he told me about this "feature" of this model of STB. The fix was simple, go through the TiVo channel list and uncheck any HD channels. I've been ok now for over a month. No more missed programs due to the STBs turning themselves off.
http://forums.tivo.com/pe/action/forums/displaypost?postID=10273964
Yes, I sucessfully set up my Motorola QIP2500-3 box with my series 2 Tivo. You have to go into the settings and basically start over. Use the Tivo guided setup, and tell it to use the serial cable. You can also tell the Tivo that you use FIOS service and it will go out and get the programming.

just a couple examples. there are more

Hubrisnxs

The Verizon Community Forums are where customers help other customers. If you need assistance for specific Verizon account issues, please contact us.

Just a reminder, these are peer to peer forums, VZ employee's designate themselves with VZ in the username, and a special avatar I believe. a lot of tivo users use the same set up as you, you might have a bad stb if you can't get it to work as the others have. Try an auto fix, and then set it up the way the other tivo users have it, if that doesn't work, try replacing it through the in home agent

both features are found in the in home agent.

Menu > customer support > in home agent > set top box auto correct

and

Menu > customer support > in home agent > Exchange Set top box if you want to try a new one.

Keep in mind the suggestions above do work for other TivO users.,

The solution of turning off the TiVo recommendations did the trick for us. The box no longer turns off. Thanks so much.
I was having this problem on both of my series 2 units using these STBs. My HD with the cable card was obviously not. Let me add that not only will will this happen if the TiVo is programmed to change to a channel for which you are not subscribed or authorized, it will also happen if the STB is directed by theTiVo to change to a HD channel. This model STB cannot process HD information, therefore when it is directed to go to an HD channel by the TiVo it will go into the "standby" mode that Cornermac mentioned for exactly 20 minutes. If it doesn't get a command to change to a supported channel by that time it will go into an "error" mode and turn itself off. This drove me nuts for a while till I happened to be looking at a file that I had downloaded to my laptop. It had the black screen with an error message that the STB didn't support this HD channel. When I scanned through it to see if anything useful was recorded I noticed that at the 20 min mark the error message had changed as the STD box had turned itself off. When I described what happened to the FIOS tech support guy he told me about this "feature" of this model of STB. The fix was simple, go through the TiVo channel list and uncheck any HD channels. I've been ok now for over a month. No more missed programs due to the STBs turning themselves off.
Barry
There are workarounds for set top boxes automatically turning off.
I have Scientific Atlanta set top boxes that go to sleep if they do not receive a channel change every so many hours. I was able to go into the Scientific Atlanta box and set it to turn back on when it received a channel change command. Since Tivo sends a channel change command at the start of recordings, the box turns itself back on when the Tivo starts a scheduled recording.
If your FIOS set top box does not support a turn on on a channel change, you can try an alternative method. Most boxes are going to sleep if they do not receive a channel change command every X hours. Once you find out what the sleep time is, you can set a recording on the Tivo every X hours minus an hour to record something. Set up a season pass, record 5 minutes, and set keep at most to 1. I set one of my Tivos to record the weather channel every morning for a couple of minutes to capture the local forecast.This keeps the box from shutting down.
First off-- thanks for posting that solution. I just got FIOS and I've been tearing my hair out over all the recordings of the Verizon screen saver
I think I've figured it out! If the TIVO changes the box to a channel that you are not subscribed to, then the box will put itself on 'standby' (turns off). I changed the TIVO channel list to NOT include those channels, and the problem seems to have gone away.
Hope this works for everyone!
.

It's definetely compatible. You just have a glitch in the matrix somewhere

brickman

I tried unchecking all HD channels, that didn't work. My set top box (QIP 7100 1) does not have serial input. So after trying everything I called Verizon. On your Verizon remote, go into Menu/Settings/Set Top Box/Sleep Timer and check what the setting is. Mine was set to four hours from a recent upgrade. Change this to "Never". Not sure this will work for all, but it may be another option for some.

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