TiVo : TiVo Multiroom Streaming Problem

[heavyside]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

No, it's just part of the process of identifying the cause. If we can prove it is caused by IR interference, we can then work on eliminating the source of that interference (often it's an energy-saving bulb in the room, or the TV screen itself)

OK. I'll try it over the weekend. Thanks for your help with this, it's appreciated.

[heavyside]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

Try covering the IR receiver at the receiving end too

After a trouble-free week of multi-room streaming the 'Network too slow' problem returned over the weekend - or Saturday evening, to be precise. The IR receptor is covered on the sending TiVo and I tried also covering the corresponding IR receptor on the receiving TiVo. I was about 30 minutes into a film when I got my first 'Network too slow' blip. I started again, fast-forwarded to the point where it had stopped and within 5 minutes the same thing happened again. I uncovered the IR receptor on the receiving TiVo and was able to watch the remainder of the film without problems. I tried the same thing on Sunday evening (receiving IR receptor uncovered) and there were no blips.

So, to sum up, weekday evenings no blips, Saturday evening multiple blips.

I am considering replacing my Cat 5e TiVo to TiVo directly connected cable with a Cat 6 cable to see if this helps. Any thoughts?

[spiderplant]

Cat 5e ought to be plenty good enough, but I suppose there's a slight chance it is faulty. But I'm starting to think it's more likely to be a fault with one of your TiVos. Not going to be easy to work out which, though.

[heavyside]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

Cat 5e ought to be plenty good enough, but I suppose there's a slight chance it is faulty. But I'm starting to think it's more likely to be a fault with one of your TiVos. Not going to be easy to work out which, though.

Thanks again. I have tried two different cat 5e cables without improvement. I've just ordered a cat 6 and will try that.

I have two 1TB Cisco TiVos. I have not had the software update yet - I live in London (21). I don't know if the update includes networking improvements. If the new cable does not improve things it might very well be a faulty TiVo. I suspect the older of the two (the sending TiVo in the majority of problems) which is noticeably more sluggish that the newer one although it does have more recordings.

[heavyside]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

Cat 5e ought to be plenty good enough, but I suppose there's a slight chance it is faulty. But I'm starting to think it's more likely to be a fault with one of your TiVos. Not going to be easy to work out which, though.

Not good news. I swapped my cat 5e cable for cat 6 and was interrupted twice within a two-hour period of multi-room streaming by the now familiar 'Network too slow (v69)' message forcing me to start again and fast-forward to the point where I was interrupted each time.

So, it seems it's not a cable problem, not a weekend-only problem, unlikely to be an IR problem, which leaves...???

This is driving me crazy. Where do I go from here?

[spiderplant]

I'm out of ideas. You'll have to ring the VM Faults team to progress it, though be aware they will probably want to replace the boxes so you'll lose your recordings.

[trickytree]

That's it replace the boxes so you have nothing to stream anyway.
Problem solved

[heavyside]

Originally Posted by trickytree

That's it replace the boxes so you have nothing to stream anyway.
Problem solved

It looks like a classic Catch-22 problem.

[GrimUpNorth]

Same problems for us. Not sure which make but using a 500GB and a 1TB box.

The 1TB is the sending unit using the VM supplied Netgear powerline adaptors, via a Linksys 8500 router and cat6 cable to the 500GB

Doesn't seem to happen as often as it does for Heavyside but definitely 2 or 3 times per week. What we do seem to get more often is 20/30 seconds of spinning circle (buffering?) at the start of the playback but not all the time?? I would say >90% of use is HD.

I've not seen the link on the powerline drop below 250Mb (normally much higher) and speed tests always exceed 100Mb so plenty of bandwidth.

As the 500GB box is in the loft it's not easy to swap them around but what I will do is try them on their own dedicated router to see if that has any impact.

Cheers

Grim

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by trickytree

That's it replace the boxes so you have nothing to stream anyway.
Problem solved

You heard it here first!

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by trickytree

That's it replace the boxes so you have nothing to stream anyway.
Problem solved

That's what you get when you think out-of-the-box. I'll see myself out.

[arcimedes]

I think that the only thing you havent done is to put a router in and run the Superhub in modem mode. I have the upstairs tivo connected to the router and the downstairs connected to the router via 5G wifi. If if does fail I have found that it only goes back a few minutes when I restart the stream.

---------- Post added at 17:30 ---------- Previous post was at 17:28 ----------

I should say there are only two people living in the house so there is not a lot of activity happening on the network most of the time.

[heavyside]

Originally Posted by arcimedes

I think that the only thing you havent done is to put a router in and run the Superhub in modem mode. I have the upstairs tivo connected to the router and the downstairs connected to the router via 5G wifi. If if does fail I have found that it only goes back a few minutes when I restart the stream.

---------- Post added at 17:30 ---------- Previous post was at 17:28 ----------

I should say there are only two people living in the house so there is not a lot of activity happening on the network most of the time.

My 'Network too slow' problem was happening even with a direct cat 6 TiVo to TiVo connection with no router in between. The problem is there with a router and without a router, with homeplugs and with three different cables, with the IR ports covered and uncovered. Having eliminated everything else the fault must lie with one (or both) of my TiVos.

[GrimUpNorth]

Originally Posted by heavyside

My 'Network too slow' problem was happening even with a direct cat 6 TiVo to TiVo connection with no router in between. The problem is there with a router and without a router, with homeplugs and with three different cables, with the IR ports covered and uncovered. Having eliminated everything else the fault must lie with one (or both) of my TiVos.

Think I'm inclined to agree, issue last night while using a router just for the TiVos. I don't know if its a hardware or software fault though. Wouldn't be so bad if it remembered where playback had got to so you could just restart with no messing about.

Cheers

Grim

[arcimedes]

I wonder if the problem lies in the way they do error recovery and because its a TCP/IP connection it tries to retransmit the non received packet whereas with normal video you see all the warts displayed on the screen.

I havent seen the failure recently but when it did I dont recall having to fast forward from the beginning. It seemed to get within a few minutes of the right place.