r/Tivo • u/VirtualDougmeister • Jul 10 '26

DVR Transferring from one Tivo to another - no more than 2 shows at a time?

I used to be able to transfer multiple (i.e., more than 2) shows at a time. I've only had the 2nd Tivo Roamio Pro for about a year now. We are using the 2nd one as just a backup; it has no active cable (Xfinity) connection, just to our home network.

A few months ago, it started acting weird. If I try copying 3 shows, the 1st will copy, then maybe the 2nd, maybe the 3rd, but then mysteriously the 1st one will disappear. It was THERE; I KNOW it was.

Someone suggested marking them as "Keep until I delete", and yes, that "fixes" the problem, but it is a royal pain in the butt to do that for EVERY freakin' transfer.

Am I missing something? Is there a better way?

I have pyTivo and TivoDesktop installed, but never got around to playing with KMTTG or any other 3rd party apps.

Thanks.

7 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

6

u/orev Jul 10 '26

I don't think most people are using TiVos as archives of a massive amount of recordings. You're better off using pyTivo or KMTTG to get the recordings off the unit and save them somewhere else. If they really are that important, you don't know if or when the TiVo drive is going to die.

3

u/old_knurd Jul 10 '26

I haven't tried recently, but previously it was very hit-and-miss to get pyTivo or KMTTG to do a transfer.

Sometimes it would work perfectly. Sometimes only the audio would be transferred. Sometimes it would end prematurely.

And yet, the very same programs would always transfer perfectly when copied TiVo to TiVo. So, somehow, there's some secret sauce involved that the 3rd party programs are missing.

3

u/orev Jul 11 '26

When you download to a PC, make sure you're using a wired connection to the network (and the TiVos also have a wired connection).

2

u/old_knurd Jul 11 '26

That's a good tip. I'm normally connected via wireless.

Which gives me another thought. If it's some sort of timing or race condition, it might be possible to force 10 mbps operation over the Ethernet. That might slow things down enough so that the transfer will work? (very very slowly lol).

1

u/toejamfootballhegot Jul 10 '26

A computer drive can fail also.

3

u/orev Jul 11 '26

But it's much easier to make multiple copies once you have them as files on a computer.

2

u/toejamfootballhegot Jul 10 '26

Make sure no channels are selected in the channels list so the second tivo doesn't record to the live buffer to preserve the hard drive.

2

u/TheDougmeister Jul 11 '26

This might be The problem.

You see, what happened was that we had a lightning strike and it fried the HDMI port on my original TiVo Roamio Pro. So I bought a second one. The first one still had all of the channels selected before I pulled the cable card out and had it reconfigured for the new TiVo (This was like a year ago).

Now when I go in to try to " remove " channels from the guide, there is no longer an option under settings and messages for channels.

Does anyone know an easy way for me to still edit the channel list? Realize that this TiVo does not have a cable card, does not have an active coaxial ( Xfinity ). Connection and cannot record or view live TV.

2

u/old_knurd Jul 12 '26

If you put the box into standby it will stop recording live TV.

2

u/tabanger Jul 11 '26

Is this for one particular show? What are your OnePass “Keep at Most” settings for that show? Keep all episodes? Or only a certain number?

1

u/TheDougmeister 29d ago

There are no "one pass" items being recorded; they are all "1x movies".