Can no longer watch recordings on another V6 box

[John_Co]

I have had two V6 boxes for a little over a year now and until around Christmas could watch recordings from the Bedroom box on the Living Room box and vice versa.

Some time around Christmas this stopped working in either direction and when I tried to look at the recordings on the other box, I got a message saying something like "connecting...this can take up to 30 seconds" then a C423 error, even though each box is connected via Ethernet.

I have a mesh "router" and the boxes are connected to different mesh units, but things worked fine like this for a year or so, apart from the odd glitch when I had to restart both boxes or connect in the opposite direction.

I have tried all the usual things but nothing has worked. I have tried switching to Wi-Fi even though the current help suggests that you have to use Ethernet, and using Wi-Fi made no difference.

When the boxes were connected via Ethernet, going into Network Settings showed an Ethernet connection and the IP address and MAC address for each box matched what my router showed for them. The router showed them both on the main network via a wired connection. The IP address for one box was 192.168.68.120 and the IP address for the other was 192.168.68.121 so they were both on the same subnet.

I can access online content such as Amazon Prive Video without problem on each box.

I even tried saying "I no longer have this box" and after doing that I got a message saying there was no compatible box found.

When I rebooted the boxes after that, going into My Shows does not show the other box.

I am on the Ultimate Oomph bundle and my package shows:

• Virgin TV V6 Box, powered by TiVo
• Additional TV Box

Should it say "Additional TV V6 Box"? I never checked before.

Is there anything else I can try before I call Support?

[John_Co]

Do you mean connect both boxes directly to the VM router even if I am not using the router part of the VM Hub?

I cannot connect both boxes directly but I could use the power line adapters to do that if you think it would be useful to connect them to the VM Hub even though I am not using the router part of the Hub.

[japitts]

The suggestion is to put your VM hub back into router mode, looping your router out. Then connect each of your V6 to the hub - to eliminate the router as a cause.

[Paul_DN]

Hi John_Co,
Thank you for reaching out to us, did you manage to try what was advised by japitts, how have things been since, are you now able to watch the recordings from both of your boxes?

Regards

Paul.

[John_Co]

Hi Paul_DN, I already said that I am not prepared to trash my home network to go back to the Virgin Hub Router.

Neither of my V6 boxes can see the other.

The questions I asked earlier have not been answered.

Let's pretend that I did try the Virgin Hub Router and the boxes could still not see each other - what would the next step be to try and find the problem?

[weematt]

Was having this issue and did succeed after many fails. Was installing a WiFi pod to replace VM PLC Boosters that had failed. In failed attempts the on demand and network apps always worked fine. Presence of network connection does not assure box control over other box. Reboot after box connection setup appears to fix it. 

My setup :

2 x V6 box, hub3, 1 WiFi pod.

Living room box (LRB), Bedroom box (BRB)

LRB ethernet to router port and BRB ethernet cable to pod ethernet port

What worked. 

For one V6 box do the Network setup via Home/Help & Settings/Settings/Network. If necessary follow connection process. Do the 'Connect to Virgin Media Service now' step. Power down and restart V6.

Do this for the other V6 box.

Box reboots appear to be clincher. 

Hope this helps

[John_Co]

I have rebooted both boxes multiple times but I just tried again, after doing the "Connect to Virgin Media Service now" on each box before powering off each box, and then powering the two boxes on at the same time, or as close as I could given that I had to run upstairs to power on the Bedroom box. 🙂

This has not made any difference: neither box can see the other.

I don't know if it is relevant to this issue but I have realised that my Living Room box is rebooting fairly often, but the Bedroom box is not. For a while now I would see the front LED on the Living Room box being white when I was sure that I had put the box into Standby. This is often first thing in the morning. I saw in another thread here that the way to check is to see what channel each tuner is set to and when this happens, all tuners apart from the first one are on channel 998. One time I worked out how long the tuner had been set to that, which I assume will give the time of the reboot, and it was around 04:00 when I was fast asleep.

[japitts]

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@John_Co wrote:

I don't know if it is relevant to this issue but I have realised that my Living Room box is rebooting fairly often, but the Bedroom box is not

---

Please try swapping your 2 boxes around, see if these reboots follow the move,

[John_Co]

I had to completely disconnect the Living Room box a few days ago so I also completely disconnected the Bedroom box. When I reconnected them both, nothing had changed.

This morning, when I got up and turned on the Living Room box, the front light was white so it looked like the box had rebooted or something overnight again.

I went to My Shows, and to my surprise I saw "Other TiVo Boxes"which I had not seen since around Christmas of last year.

When I went to Other Tivo Boxes I saw "Bedroom (TiVo box)" so I clicked on it and got a message saying "trying to connect" or something like that, which may take up to 30 seconds. After a while, I got the error message saying the box could not be connected to, and mentioning the error C423 even though these boxes are still connected by Ethernet.

A couple of hours ago, I tried again to capture the exact error screen but this time it worked! I could see the recordings on the Bedroom box from the Living room box.

On the Bedroom box I still do not see "Other TiVo Boxes" even though the Living Room box has already connected to the Bedroom box.

I have not changed anything on the Boxes or my network.

This whole thing seems very flaky but at least I can see the Bedroom box from the Living Room box for the moment.

[Steven_L]

Thanks for coming back to us with an update on your situation @John_Co and glad to hear that you have some connectivity, has anything changed since your last post with regards to being able to see other boxes from your bedroom?

Regards,

Steven_L

[John_Co]

Hi @Steven_L,

No, and last night I could not see the Bedroom box from the Living Room again, but then first thing this morning I could again.

Last night, on the Living Room box, when I clicked on the Bedroom box I got:

Trying to connect Bedroom

a spinning circle

Please wait while we attempt to connect to this box

(this may take up to 30 seconds)

then I got:

Can't Connect to Bedroom TiVo box

The Bedroom TiVo box could not be found

There may be a problem with your home network or the network connection on your TiVo Boxes, or the TiVo box may have been unplugged. (C423)

I had not touched either of the boxes or my home network since it worked first thing yesterday morning, and it worked again first thing this morning without me touching anything, other than putting the boxes into Standby last night.

I believe the C423 error is to do with Wi-Fi but these boxes are connected to my home network via Ethernet.

Is there no detailed error log or something that will show exactly what these boxes are trying to do to connect to each other? I never did get answers to my previous questions about how the boxes try to connect.

Regards,

John