My problems with TiVo Tech Support are beginning to wear me down. I have, currently ongoing, two problems - both of them caused by actions on the TiVo.com end.
Background: I live in an area where we still get analog cable. Much of our cable provider's content is not available in digital format. Probably just as well as the digital signals diminish each evening when everyone is streaming NetFlix and bringing cable Internet to a halt and I get unusable recordings. Thus, even for the digital channels, I use Series 2 and 3 recorders to make a backup of the same show on an analog channel in case the digital recordings are unusable. None of this has anything to do with the problems but simply point out the need I have for Series 2 and 3 DVRs. I rely on them heavily.
All of my DVRs but one are Lifetime subscribed. Some of them were purchased used and the Lifetime status transferred to my account. This was the case a couple of months ago when I bought a Lifetime subscribed TiVo HD used and transferred it to my account to replace one that had died. This is when the trouble started. The addition to my account exceeded the limit of 12 DVRs.
At TiVo.com, their system automatically deactivated one of my Series 2 boxes. It lost its MAK and was no longer permitted to share recordings with other DVRs on my network. Over at TiVo.com, on the "Device Preferences" page, the "Video Sharing" and "Video Downloads" checkboxes for this deactivated DVR changed to "N/A" indicating that sharing is not an option for this DVR any longer. Meanwhile, the DVR continued recording its Season Passes and dialing in each day without problems. I just could not transfer recordings from it. I use this particular DVR as a "record only" device, transferring its recording to the TiVos in the family room where we do all our TV watching. Thus, though still recording as it should, it because essentially useless. It was in the process of trying to fix this that another problem was created.
The first thing we had to do was remove from my account any old, dead DVRs that pushed me over the limit of 12. This they did by creating a second account for me using a different email address and moving the dead boxes to it. Apparently, even the tech and account support folks don't have a way to just tell the system to "forget" a DVR. Once the dead DVRs were removed from my account, leaving 11 active devices, we (me, working with tech support) set out to get the deactivated box's MAK back. There was a lot of back-and-forth but eventually a TiVo engineer found that the two software patches needed to enable transfers - sharing - were missing from the deactivated DVR. He set up the process of adding the patches back in the next time it made its daily connection.
It worked. The DVR got its MAK back and I was able to again transfer its recordings elsewhere. It worked for a day. Then the box made its daily connection and again lost its MAK. The TiVo.com back end still has this box shown as deactivated and when it made its daily connection, it was again rendered invisible to my other DVRs. In the short time (between getting the patches and losing them a day later) when it did work, the Device Preferences page still showed "N/A" in place of the check boxes. This, to me, indicates that TiVo's database(s) still show the device as not permitted to share videos. That is, it is still deactivated on their end. Whatever database is queried when building that Device Preferences page still shows this DVR as deactivated, thus deactivating it each time it dials in. That is, following deactivation, it's never been reactivated. I don't think tech support even knows how to do that.
Now, the engineer who figured out that two software patches were missing determined that this DVR is "unable to retain the patches" and this, he said, was because it has a 1 TB hard drive.
And this is the crux of my current problems with TiVo tech support: Their entire system is based on the premise that problems are always at the customer's end. That their database still shows this DVR as deactivated is beyond them.
Let's go back a bit...
In the process of ridding my account of dead DVRs and getting my account accurate, they created a second second account. That is, they created a second account to hold the dead DVRs but also another account for some unspecified reason, which had to be merged with my original account to accomplish some unstated goal. At that time, two of my Series 3 TiVo HDs disappeared from my Device Preferences page. Yes, they do how up on my list of active devices but, no, they do not show up on the Device Preferences page. This is, to me, another indicator that the problem is on their back end.
Either the account page (showing 11 active devices) and the Device Preferences page (showing only 9 of my devices) query the same database or they query different databases. In any case, they should match. They don't. There is nothing I can do on my end to fix this. Nonetheless, I was required to do all manner of forcing connections, reboots and even repeated Guided Setup as requested. Along the way, it was discovered that these two DVRs and one other still had the old billing information from the previous owner. Shouldn't matter, as the boxes are lifetime subscribed and never billed, but I corrected that as well.
That there were three boxes with old billing info but only two of these were missing from Device Preferences indicates to me that billing info was not the cause of the omissions from Device Preferences. Each of these actions was supposed to correct the missing devices on the preferences page and did not.
Now they want me to "Clear & delete everything" on the two devices that are missing from the Device Preferences page. It is beyond me how a reasoning human being could think that this would restore the devices to the device preferences page. Everything that these boxes know about my account, they get from TiVo.com. I enter only my zip code and choose a cable provider. These I already did when, as requested, I repeated Guided Setup.
And, of course, the subject of hard drive sizes came up numerous times. The reason my Series 2 box cannot retain the two patches is "because it does not have the original hard drive." This is nonsense but an "out" for them. To prove it, I put the original 80 GB hard drive back in. This drive was so original that it still had the videos from the factory explaining how to use a TiVo. The software version was 7.something. I let it connect and it downloaded an update to 9.3, I think. Thereafter, with the new software, it dialed in again and got program info and came back with its MAK -- which lasted for just one day, until it made its daily connection, whereupon the back end at TiVo.com told it to deactivate and it did. The database it queries when "getting account data" still shows the device as deactivated, not permitted to share.
When I related this to tech support, explaining that it now has the original hard drive and it is still being deactivated when it calls in, the answer was: "Once you've changed the hard drive, it will never be the same." As if the 1 TB drive somehow affected the motherboard.
I was told yesterday to Clear & delete everything on the two boxes missing from Device Preferences. I was speaking with a "supervisor." When I asked how that could possibly straighten out their database / back end, she replied, "It's the only thing we haven't tried yet."
See? The system assumes that the problem is always at the customer's end. That they may have corrupted data about my account is unfathomable to them.
It's simple really:
I have eleven active TiVo devices. They should all show up on my Device Preferences page at TiVo.com and should all have checkboxes for the options. That they do not is a clear indicator that this needs to be referred to someone in the IT department -- someone who understands how the back end works. No amount of fiddling at my end can possible fix it.
Yes, I'll probably put the original 160 GB drive back into one of my missing-from-preferences DVRs and then do a Clear & delete as they requested but it's not going to fix their back end.
The deactivated DVR was doing fine, with its 1 TB drive, until they deactivated it. It's never been reactivated. Needs to be.
The two THDs with their 1 TB drives were doing fine and appeared on my Device Preferences page as they should until tech support "merged" accounts.
Blaming the non-original hard drives is a contractual answer, it is not a technical answer. It's a cop-out that allows them to stop investigating the problem.
If anyone has insights or suggestions, let's hear them.
Background: I live in an area where we still get analog cable. Much of our cable provider's content is not available in digital format. Probably just as well as the digital signals diminish each evening when everyone is streaming NetFlix and bringing cable Internet to a halt and I get unusable recordings. Thus, even for the digital channels, I use Series 2 and 3 recorders to make a backup of the same show on an analog channel in case the digital recordings are unusable. None of this has anything to do with the problems but simply point out the need I have for Series 2 and 3 DVRs. I rely on them heavily.
All of my DVRs but one are Lifetime subscribed. Some of them were purchased used and the Lifetime status transferred to my account. This was the case a couple of months ago when I bought a Lifetime subscribed TiVo HD used and transferred it to my account to replace one that had died. This is when the trouble started. The addition to my account exceeded the limit of 12 DVRs.
At TiVo.com, their system automatically deactivated one of my Series 2 boxes. It lost its MAK and was no longer permitted to share recordings with other DVRs on my network. Over at TiVo.com, on the "Device Preferences" page, the "Video Sharing" and "Video Downloads" checkboxes for this deactivated DVR changed to "N/A" indicating that sharing is not an option for this DVR any longer. Meanwhile, the DVR continued recording its Season Passes and dialing in each day without problems. I just could not transfer recordings from it. I use this particular DVR as a "record only" device, transferring its recording to the TiVos in the family room where we do all our TV watching. Thus, though still recording as it should, it because essentially useless. It was in the process of trying to fix this that another problem was created.
The first thing we had to do was remove from my account any old, dead DVRs that pushed me over the limit of 12. This they did by creating a second account for me using a different email address and moving the dead boxes to it. Apparently, even the tech and account support folks don't have a way to just tell the system to "forget" a DVR. Once the dead DVRs were removed from my account, leaving 11 active devices, we (me, working with tech support) set out to get the deactivated box's MAK back. There was a lot of back-and-forth but eventually a TiVo engineer found that the two software patches needed to enable transfers - sharing - were missing from the deactivated DVR. He set up the process of adding the patches back in the next time it made its daily connection.
It worked. The DVR got its MAK back and I was able to again transfer its recordings elsewhere. It worked for a day. Then the box made its daily connection and again lost its MAK. The TiVo.com back end still has this box shown as deactivated and when it made its daily connection, it was again rendered invisible to my other DVRs. In the short time (between getting the patches and losing them a day later) when it did work, the Device Preferences page still showed "N/A" in place of the check boxes. This, to me, indicates that TiVo's database(s) still show the device as not permitted to share videos. That is, it is still deactivated on their end. Whatever database is queried when building that Device Preferences page still shows this DVR as deactivated, thus deactivating it each time it dials in. That is, following deactivation, it's never been reactivated. I don't think tech support even knows how to do that.
Now, the engineer who figured out that two software patches were missing determined that this DVR is "unable to retain the patches" and this, he said, was because it has a 1 TB hard drive.
And this is the crux of my current problems with TiVo tech support: Their entire system is based on the premise that problems are always at the customer's end. That their database still shows this DVR as deactivated is beyond them.
Let's go back a bit...
In the process of ridding my account of dead DVRs and getting my account accurate, they created a second second account. That is, they created a second account to hold the dead DVRs but also another account for some unspecified reason, which had to be merged with my original account to accomplish some unstated goal. At that time, two of my Series 3 TiVo HDs disappeared from my Device Preferences page. Yes, they do how up on my list of active devices but, no, they do not show up on the Device Preferences page. This is, to me, another indicator that the problem is on their back end.
Either the account page (showing 11 active devices) and the Device Preferences page (showing only 9 of my devices) query the same database or they query different databases. In any case, they should match. They don't. There is nothing I can do on my end to fix this. Nonetheless, I was required to do all manner of forcing connections, reboots and even repeated Guided Setup as requested. Along the way, it was discovered that these two DVRs and one other still had the old billing information from the previous owner. Shouldn't matter, as the boxes are lifetime subscribed and never billed, but I corrected that as well.
That there were three boxes with old billing info but only two of these were missing from Device Preferences indicates to me that billing info was not the cause of the omissions from Device Preferences. Each of these actions was supposed to correct the missing devices on the preferences page and did not.
Now they want me to "Clear & delete everything" on the two devices that are missing from the Device Preferences page. It is beyond me how a reasoning human being could think that this would restore the devices to the device preferences page. Everything that these boxes know about my account, they get from TiVo.com. I enter only my zip code and choose a cable provider. These I already did when, as requested, I repeated Guided Setup.
And, of course, the subject of hard drive sizes came up numerous times. The reason my Series 2 box cannot retain the two patches is "because it does not have the original hard drive." This is nonsense but an "out" for them. To prove it, I put the original 80 GB hard drive back in. This drive was so original that it still had the videos from the factory explaining how to use a TiVo. The software version was 7.something. I let it connect and it downloaded an update to 9.3, I think. Thereafter, with the new software, it dialed in again and got program info and came back with its MAK -- which lasted for just one day, until it made its daily connection, whereupon the back end at TiVo.com told it to deactivate and it did. The database it queries when "getting account data" still shows the device as deactivated, not permitted to share.
When I related this to tech support, explaining that it now has the original hard drive and it is still being deactivated when it calls in, the answer was: "Once you've changed the hard drive, it will never be the same." As if the 1 TB drive somehow affected the motherboard.
I was told yesterday to Clear & delete everything on the two boxes missing from Device Preferences. I was speaking with a "supervisor." When I asked how that could possibly straighten out their database / back end, she replied, "It's the only thing we haven't tried yet."
See? The system assumes that the problem is always at the customer's end. That they may have corrupted data about my account is unfathomable to them.
It's simple really:
I have eleven active TiVo devices. They should all show up on my Device Preferences page at TiVo.com and should all have checkboxes for the options. That they do not is a clear indicator that this needs to be referred to someone in the IT department -- someone who understands how the back end works. No amount of fiddling at my end can possible fix it.
Yes, I'll probably put the original 160 GB drive back into one of my missing-from-preferences DVRs and then do a Clear & delete as they requested but it's not going to fix their back end.
The deactivated DVR was doing fine, with its 1 TB drive, until they deactivated it. It's never been reactivated. Needs to be.
The two THDs with their 1 TB drives were doing fine and appeared on my Device Preferences page as they should until tech support "merged" accounts.
Blaming the non-original hard drives is a contractual answer, it is not a technical answer. It's a cop-out that allows them to stop investigating the problem.
If anyone has insights or suggestions, let's hear them.
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