TiVo Box Freezing

[Stampy56]

Help! 

My box keeps getting really hot and freezing. It also jumps and struggles to keep up with itself, stuttering. If we restart the box it will work again for a short time and then freeze again. We are restarting daily, although we have now given up using it.  So it normally freezes in the middle of the kids films. Sometimes when we select programs/films we can hear the sound with no picture, sometimes picture no sound and sometimes neither just a black screen. 

My 4 year old is Autistic and every time it freezes in the middle of his favourite films, we have to deal with a meltdown. This is very distressing for us. 

I have called customer support but it’s really hard to spend that amount of time on the phone with two little ones 2 & 4. The last person I spoke to ran lots of tests and said the box was too far from the internet. However we have been watching the apps on our smart TV with no issues with the internet. We also had WiFi extending plug sockets fitted all round out house and we were lucky enough to be able to have our hub in the centre of the house. (House was gutted before we moved in). He said he sent us out a software update to fix the issue. It pretty much happened again straight after. 

The box is well ventilated and on top of a normal TV cabinet. 

Can anyone help at all? Is there a direct email for someone that I can get in touch with? 

thank you in advance! 

A very tired Mummy! 

[japitts]

There's a few bits in here. Firstly do you definitely have a TiVo and not a V6? Check here if you're not sure.

If you do.... the TiVo's internet connection is in-built so all your WiFi tests etc, are - unfortunately for you - irrelevant

The TiVo isn't the most capable box by current standards but if it's freezing or locking up, it's probably faulty. As a long-term solution, and if you have VM broadband, you could do a lot worse than consider swapping to a V6. Same software as you're used to, but much newer hardware.

As an immediate answer though, you should at least have any faulty equipment replaced. There's no direct email for VM Faults, but if you can confirm the box type you have, VM staff should respond on here. Ordinarily that'll take a couple of days, but there are sometimes ways of giving that a gentle prod...

[Stampy56 · Accepted solution]

Hey

Thank you for taking the time to help me. 

I have investigated further as I realised I wasn’t 100% sure what our box was called. 

On my bill is says V6 powered by TIVO. I’ve checked the actual box and is has no name printed on it 😂 This is the level of my technical knowledge! 

So should this box be behaving this way? 

Thanks, really appreciate your help! 

[japitts]

Check the link in the first paragraph of my previous post for pictures of all the boxes, but it sounds like you have a V6. That does open up a few more variables, sadly.

Your V6 gets live TV channels via the co-ax connection, but OnDemand & streaming uses the internet, which comes via your home-hub. I'm assuming, but can you confirm, that it's the OnDemand bit that's the problem?

If so.... you've mentioned your V6 being connected by WiFi, so let's check the signal strength. Follow (on your V6 remote) Home > Help & Settings > Settings > Network and look in the top-right.

This will help identify the cause of any connection drops but.... If your box is freezing, locking up per restarting, that's a fault without needing to test anything.

If you can confirm these bits, that'll help in deciding where the advice needs to go next.

[Stampy56]

Yeah it’s mainly on demand etc yes. 

Right so it says signal 35% (marginal). Am I right to assume that the box is getting poor WiFi signal? 

Any advice on how I can fix this?  

thanks 😊 

[japitts]

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@Stampy56 wrote:

Right so it says signal 35% (marginal). Am I right to assume that the box is getting poor WiFi signal? 

---

Ah-ha... so the underlying problem here is exactly as you have surmised - your V6 isn't getting strong enough WiFi to reliably use the internet.

How to get better wireless? The obvious answer is to move the router closer to your V6, but I appreciate that's not overly helpful.

This isn't a V6 fault per-se, but one of "the WiFi in parts of my home is poor, how do I improve it", where the V6 is a device that's suffering from poor WiFi. Do other devices in the same location have similar problems? Some may be more sensitive than others, but I'd expect all of them to suffer.

[Stampy56]

Joyyyy! Haha! 

I will have a play around and see if I can make it any better. Now I know where to look for signal strength, it helps a lot. 

Thank you so much for your time and help. I really appreciate it. 

Ta 🙂