I was going to mention live programs like sports as a way to consume space with a fewer number of episodes. But sounds like Tablo is all over the problem and a fix is coming for Roku folks.
This problem goes back probably 4 years ago when legacy announced support 8TB drives. It was obvious they never tested the max number of recordings. That might be 15K-16K 30 minute recordings broadcast at 480i and recorded at the lowest recording quality.
Using a 4 tuner 24 hours a day how long might that take to actually record that number. When I ask the answer I got was the sound of crickets.
I record movies and Old TV Shows, it took 5 months to record about 4 TB of recorded storage. Some of those OLD TV Shows have a lot of episodes. It sounds like maybe its more of the number of episodes and not the size of the storage. Its funny that one of the TV Shows I recorded was Death Valley Days, About the time all the episodes were recorded I was not able to access them again. Tablo has know about this issue sense 2021, and at that time their reply was, (We know about the issue and a fix will be in an update soon), its been 5 years and Tablo is still saying the same thing. When I had this problem 5 months ago (My first Tablo 4th Gen 4 4- Tuner Tablo, I was told by Customer support this issue was my fault due to not know how to set up the Tablo, and at that time Tablo knew about the issue.
I hope this answers the question about how long it would takes to record 4 TB of storage. This this does not mater, if it takes 2 weeks or 1 year to record 4 - 8TB of recorded storage. The issue is this should not happen at all. OR Tablo needs to change their recommended storage size. And fix the issue with the number of recorded episodes.
Is your understanding that the issue occurs on the Gen4 device only when someone tries to watch an episode in a series with >100 episodes? …but it doesn’t occur on the Legacy devices?
When ? Do you have a release date ?
Thanks
Hi All;
I received an email from Tablo Support about a fix for the over 100 episodes issue, as follows:
" Tablo Support - Hazel (Tablo)
Mar 19, 2026, 9:06 AM EDT
Hi there,
Thank you for your response.
We apologize for the inconvenience caused. Currently, we don’t have a fixed ETA for the upcoming update.
Appreciate your patience.
Let us know if you’ve more questions!
Thanks,
Hazel
Tablo Support
Monday-Sunday 8:30 AM - 2:30 AM ET
www.tablotv.com/support"
So, looks like they have no plans to fix this issue, Tablo acknowledged this issue in 2021, 5 years ago. In this posting Tablo said
“We’re aware of the issue with series that have over 100 episodes. A fix is in the works and will be arriving with an upcoming update.”
It does not take 5+ years to fix a bug, so don’t hold your breath for a fix anytime soon.
Its so simple “Dynamic Table Length”, You check how much storage/memory you have free, and adjust the size of the table, Tables can grow. If you don’t have the storage/memory needed, you provide an error message, NOT A System Crash.
Oh Well …
I said I would post any reply back from Tablo Support, this is it.
Again, Thanks for the comments and Help from everyone
Regards
Steve
I think they’re not in sync on this issue. I would trust what @TabloTV says over Support. Support does say they, “don’t have a FIXED ETA”, which, to me, means it’s not scheduled but they could be working on it as was noted earlier in this thread.
Also, I’ve not been able to find anything from 5 years ago. I recall this being a newly uncovered issue on the Gen4 device within the past 3-6 months. But I could be totally wrong.
Also, if it can’t or won’t be fixed there should be some sort of workaround or issue article created to let users know how to handle such a limitation.
You could be right, Maybe I miss read the date on the posting.
The 4th gen Tablo was first released in late August/early September 2023. It has only been available for roughly 2.5 years, so I find it hard to believe that you’ve had this problem with your 4th gen Tablo for over 5 years.
I have owned two OG Tablo 4 tuners for nearly 11 years and have one series recorded with over 1500 episodes. I use Tablo Ripper to keep the series I like on my Plex server and need many duplicates due to poor reception on this channel to get a good choice for ripping. Even with over 1500 episodes, the legacy Tablo app works just fine to view this program. On the other hand, the 4th gen app still needs to be fixed, but I’m sure it will eventually be fixed.
2 Likes
I never said I had this problem for 5 years. I bought my first Tablo last July 2025, 4th gen 4-tuner. I had this problem after 2-3 of use where the Tablo would crash. I reported the problem to Tabl;o at that time. I Bought a second Tablo in October 2025 4th Gen 4-tuner and started over, then had the same issue again, this month. Where the 5 years comes from is I thought I read a posting from 2021 where someone has reported the issue with the number of episodes and the Tablo would crash. I May Have Been wrong on the posting date.
I do have a Question is you don’t mind, I have been looking into a PLEX server, was it hard to set up? It shounds like the Tablo can access the storage on the PLEX server? Where do I find the ripper ?
Thanks for your help …
Regards
Steve
I need to watch my typing, “2-3 months”, “It sounds like the Tablo can access”
Sorry about that …
I’ve never used Plex, but I’ve been interested in it for managing videos. It’s a PVR on which you store and organize ripped video or movie files, separate from the Tablo. The Tablo does not connect to it. The Tablo would be 1 source of video files that you’d load onto the Plex storage/database. Look up a YouTube video on Plex for more info, or check out this link.
The ripper depends on which device you’re using. A link to the Gen4 Tablo Desktop Player info, which can also rip Tablo Gen4 programs, can be found here.
Thank You for the information, very helpful …
Regards
Steve
A Plex Media Server is relatively easy to set up. If you want all the bells and whistles you will need to purchase a Plex Pass. I purchased the lifetime pass many years ago and have been building my library ever since. The lifetime Plex Pass does go on sale from time to time, so if you want to go that direction, you might want to watch the Plex website for a sale. As @wysiwyggin stated, your Tablo does not connect with Plex, you must manually move the recordings. Before I move my recordings, I manually edit out the commercials. Tablo Ripper which I mentioned is for legacy Tablos only. @wysiwyggin gave you a link to an app that should work with the 4th gen Tablo, but since I don’t own a 4th gen I can’t speak to how it works.
Through the years i have added many TV series and movies to my Plex Media Server. Most recently I have ripped my entire collection of DVD’s, Blu-ray’s and 4k UHD Blu-ray’s and added them to my library. I currently have more than 625 TV series with around 55,000 episodes and around 5,500 movies available to watch where ever I am since Plex allows streaming outside of my home network. Plex also is useful for storing music, photos and other videos for easy access. I currently have 4 NAS Servers set up with around 200Tb of Raid 5 storage. With multiple NAS servers running Raid 5 my chance of losing data is greatly reduced.
Wow, nice setup, it puts my 8TB Plex setup to shame but I am happy with what I have. I too have a lifetime pass and have moved thousands of recordings to my Plex server but in my case I have a Legacy Tablo and have used TabloRipper to transfer the recordings. Although your manual commercial editting is probably superior, I use the commercial detection built into Plex and I find it does quite well. The other Plex project I currently have in progress is to convert my entire library to HEVC, shrinking the recordings to about half their original size.
This is way cool, I Want One :^) . Thanks for the info … At one time I had the Tivo Desktop app running on an extra desktop computer. Its a lot like Plex, but Tivo stopped supporting it years ago. So I have been looking for another system and I think Plex will fill that need.
Again, Thanks for the information, very helpful
Regards
Steve
I looked into Plex many years ago but finally settled on a Synology NAS in 2017 along with (2) 4tb WD red drives running in raid. It has worked flawlessly ever since and was very easy to setup. And I like the android app on my onn 4k pro.
Thanks for the info, Sounds like an option …
Regards
Steve
Update: I received a Tablo 4th gen Beta firmware release on Friday 3/20/2026 that said it was to fix the Series issue with recordings (the Tablo Crashing or cant access). I installed the Beta 1 Firmware, still had the same issue, I saw no difference.
So maybe this fix only works with new recordings, I sent an email to Tablo asking this question, have never received a reply back, so I don’t know this to be true.
Workaround for issue with large storage; I think someone else mentioned this, I was able to delete recorded content using the Tablo app on my iPhone (note - The Tablo app on my iPhone has always been able to connect to the Tablo, its the Roku app that has the problem). I Removed/Deleted a lot of recorded content from the HD storage. I was then able to connect to the Tablo via the Roku app (It was working). The more recorded content that I removed the faster the connection to the Tablo via the Roku app was. I now have the connection speed down to seconds. The down side of this workaround is that I lost a lot of recorded content.
I still think this issue is the amount of recorded content, and its the Roku app that is the problem. Like I said I have always been able to connect to the Tablo with my iPhone Tablo app, never an issue.
That’s my update …
Thanks
Regards
Steve
I had a lot of issues with Tablo. My first one was killed by a firmware update. Tablo replaced it and that one was killed by the same update. They replaced it again and that one resides on the top shelf in my closet. Installed a HDHomerun and that fixed all my problems. Sam