Frustrations with new TiVo Bolt

We recently upgraded both our TV to a new Sony 43″ 4K HD and TiVo to a new Bolt that is also 4K capable. There are many options now for watching cable and streaming so in some ways sticking with TiVo is duplicating what we already have in the smart TV, but we are used to the way that TiVo looks for things we might watch based on what we do watch, and has them ready for us. It’s a nice filter for people who do watch a lot of TV.

Setup was easy, called Comcast and they mailed a card right away and that was easy to install but I had to get a new gigabyte switch to use in the living room so that both the TV and TiVo could have fast internet access. Sure, you can use wireless, but you want to use wired where you can, I assure you.  But much to my disappointment the next day I went to see what TiVo had captured for us and it was not there. No signal on the HDMI port. I tried a few things and then gave up and unplugged it and plugged it back in. It was back. This happened again the next day.

I called TiVo support and found it was a tricky situation to describe. What is seen on the the TV is “no signal found on HDMI port.” What the tech hears is “no signal” and wants to blame the cable company. I humored them for a while with that, particularly since I cannot reproduce this on demand. Some days it works, some days it does not. They did offer to replace it but even I agreed with them that would not likely help. It did not seem like that sort of problem.

Eventually on another call with support I got a technician who had experienced the same issue on his own Bolt. He claimed it was the TV shutting itself off, and when it did, it left the HDMI port in a strange state that the Bolt could not deal with. Now mind you, this TV has four HDMI ports, and the Blue Ray player and the cable box on other ports do not have this problem. So I say it’s a TiVo problem. So I looked up the power options for the TV and found there were three:

• Power Save – off
• Idle TV – 24 hr
• Auto Shut Off – on

Heck, I don’t have any issue with being responsible for turning off the TV so let’s go to Auto Shut Off off.

Presto! That’s it! Done!

I still think it is something Tivo should, and may well fix with a software update, but I am good for now.