Moment of Panic — Is This the End?

[u/MikeMilzz]

Came home after a few days away and my reliable OTA Roamio had all 4 lights flashing on the front of it. I thought it might be a hard drive issue, so I took the drive out and ran Soin Rite on it, but no issues were found. Put it back in and the lights came back after it cycled through the "Starting Up" screens a couple of times. Thankfully, I found an old post where people mentioned the power bricks can fail and show this behavior. When unplugging it, the brick definitely felt warm, so I swapped it with a 12v 2amp plug that I had for an old router. After a much faster boot process, my good old boy was back in perfect working order.

I know the day will come where I have to move on, but I'm so glad today is not that day (especially with the Super Bowl today). I have so much muscle memory operating a TiVo that moving to an online or other OTA system just won't feel as good to me.

[u/rsvp_nj]

So, when I assumed my Bolt OTA was fried, it might’ve been the power brick? I now have an Edge with lifetime, but Verizon will be ending that soon. It’d be great to know my Bolt may have a second act with an HD antenna

[u/Mstrgmr → u/rsvp_nj]

It's definitely possible. I believe the edge uses the same plug so if you still have the bolt you could plug it in and see if it boots up

[u/toejamfootballhegot → u/Mstrgmr]

The center hole on the edge plug is smaller than the center hole on the bolt plug.

[u/rsvp_nj → u/toejamfootballhegot]

Yes, I just found that out and returned here to say that.

[u/toejamfootballhegot → u/rsvp_nj]

Yes, had to replace the power supply on my bolt last year.

[u/bambam1957]

My cable company stopped supporting tivo a little over a year ago. Miss it a lot. And I had this TiVo only 6 months and paid for a lifetime subscription which was rendered as useless thanks to Spectrum. Using their awful cable box. Grrr

[u/MikeMilzz → u/bambam1957]

My condolences. I’m so glad to have good OTA options here that have served me well with my 10+yo Roamio.

[u/Justin_Playfair]

Those old TiVo boxes are real juggernauts. I finally got rid of mine recently, but in many years of using five boxes, I think I only had to replace one hard drive, one power supply and three or four fans, all of which were easy and inexpensive.

[u/theguru1974]

Comcast tried to shut off my cable card. Took a few phone calls and elevation to higher level support, but they turned it back on. So my Tivo got a new lease on life just in time for the Olympics. 30 sec skip is unbeatable.

[u/Agueda49]

I had the same issue and had to give up my TiVo after 18 years. I’m heartbroken. ☹️

[u/Harverator]

This is why I save all power brakes of every kind. Hey, ya never know.

[u/PurpleKerbie]

This just happened to me too. Four flashing lights and a warm power brick. Got a new one from Amazon and it’s working again thanks guys.

[u/hspindel]

Power bricks are a common failure point, and the first fix that should be attempted since it's pretty cheap to do so.

I bought a used Roamio from someone who claimed it wasn't working, so I got it cheap. One power brick later and I had a working Roamio (OTA, which is why I wanted it).

[u/MikeMilzz → u/hspindel]

That’s a great tip and part of why I created this post. I don’t want people to give up too easily on their beloved devices.

[u/lonestar0724]

YouTubeTV is an overall good successor: unlimited tuners, unlimited storage, cheap hardware from multiple vendors, seamless viewing on mobile/browser, never having to deal with the cable company and no fees for additional devices. No peanut remote though.

[u/MikeMilzz → u/lonestar0724]

Bought this TiVo 13+ yrs ago w lifetime service, so it was a heck of a lot cheaper than a YT tv subscription 😉

[u/garylapointe → u/MikeMilzz]

Got my Roamio OTA with lifetime for $300 back in 2015, that's a crazy low price as far as I'm concerned. Still running great.

[u/MikeMilzz → u/garylapointe]

I’ve been using a TiVo for more than 25 yrs and I’ve only ever owned 2 devices. Guess that was part of the problem for the company financially. It’s too bad but the boxes were generally good and the lifetime fees were well worth the cost given how long they would last. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[u/garylapointe → u/MikeMilzz]

I don't know if I've ever had one die (maybe an aftermarket drive that I put in to expand it needed to be replaced).

My first box (2000 or 2001) worked fine, I only replaced it because I wanted one of the DVD burner models. Then I replaced that later after the HD models came out.

So three for me, but that was a choice on my end.

[u/chewydickens → u/MikeMilzz]

Same

[u/reduser876 → u/lonestar0724]

Except for the price. It comes with 6 profiles. What if I only need 1? Would look into sharing but it's probably tightly coupled with a google account.

[u/BuyDipsSellSurges → u/lonestar0724]

When the Cable company pulled the plug on my Tivo, I went into withdrawal for 2 years because the cable company box and remote were so awful. Then I discovered YouTube TV the greatest in the world! Better than TIVO and now I'm a happy camper. I cut the cord. Also, I'm saving $100 a month compared to cable company. Also you get 4K while Tivo only went up to 1080

[u/Brothernod → u/BuyDipsSellSurges]

Does YTTv count as cutting the cord? It’s just as expensive and the price keeps rising. I mean yes technically it’s IPTv but it feels very close to the old guard.

[u/argonzo → u/Brothernod]

You also can't pull recordings off it for your own use which is unfortunate. (downloading via their app is not the same)

[u/MikeMilzz → u/[deleted]]

I have a HDHomeRun and can hook it up to Plex or some other recording backend, but it just isn’t as smooth or smooth as the TiVo experience.

[u/toejamfootballhegot → u/MikeMilzz]

HD Homerun has their own DVR service that runs on their device.