A Message from the CEO of Nuvyyo

Dear Tablo Community –

As the CEO of Nuvyyo, I very much appreciate the support you’ve all shown to our company and our product over the last year and a half. We continue to remain committed to maintaining an open dialogue with you on feature requests and issues and want to provide as much insight as we can.

2.2.2 and 2.2.6 firmware status
We have not yet identified a firmware fix for the priority issues we’ve been hearing from our support team and this forum. The entire R&D organization is working to identify the cause(s) and we will keep you posted as to our progress.

We have identified several symptoms that may or may not be related:

  1. Roku recordings menu erroneously returning ‘No recordings’ when there are recordings available for viewing
  2. Applications not syncing with Tablo correctly
  3. Very long loading times for Roku screens (Recordings, Guide…)
  4. On Roku delays in starting playback, delays during playback, or delays with FF/REW all with “loading “ message
  5. Missed Recordings (recordings are stored to disk but do not appear in the Recordings screen)

These symptoms are currently only affecting a small proportion of our customers, but the number of affected customers is growing. Our observations seem to indicate the issues are a result of some process that is degrading the database over an extended period of time. This might explain why these problems were not uncovered during our QA testing nor during a very thorough beta test program with many customers over many weeks.

You can be assured that there is no permanent effect to your Tablo DVR and that a new firmware release will be able to rectify these problems once it is available. As soon as a fix is identified we will distribute it to our beta testers.

If you would like to be temporarily added to the beta testing list, please fill out the form at: http://support.tablotv.com/hc/en-us/requests/new with the title “Firmware Beta Request”.

Please make sure to provide the MAC address of your Tablo unit(s) which is located on the bottom of the device.

I assure you that the team is pushing hard every day to make Tablo the best Over-the-Air DVR on the market and we’re doing everything within our power and current resources to isolate and fix whatever is causing these unexpected behaviors.

We appreciate your input and patience as we work towards a solution together.

Thank you,

Grant Hall
CEO, Nuvyyo Inc.

7 Likes

Have yet to read this, but let me be first to say Thanks! We all have problems in all aspects of our life, some big, some small. But, to not let anyone really know there are problems, very much limits what other can do, think or act in relation to the problems being faced. No different for a company really. Now I will go back to reading what your wrote.

-Rodger

@TabloCEO - thanks for stepping in to communicate with us and acknowledge the issue. in the interim as the issues are being sorted out, is there a way for customers to downgrade to a previous firmware so that we can upgrade again later on when the issues are fixed? If this is not currently possible, in light of these issues, can that be a new feature in the future so that should we encounter something like this again, customers have an option to backout of a change that causes problems?

@Designer - We’re doing some testing internally to make sure a rollback won’t exacerbate any issues you’re already experiencing. Once we’ve confirmed it’s OK we can potentially work with you to make this happen.

@TabloCEO Thank you for this communication and for all of the good efforts by your company with developing and marketing Tablo to this point. I am glad to read that you acknowledge some problems here with the firmware update and pledge to remedy them. I must also tell you that there are indeed bugs beyond those you listed – I am not sure if they are part of the recent firmware update or if they are long-standing – that need to be addressed.

My Tablo specifically has none of the five bugs you list here associated with the firmware update, but my Tablo – since updating firmware on October 24 – gets bit by supposed-“weak signal” problems with subsequent infinite loops and failed recordings every few days or less. My Tablo’s problems are consistently fixed (for 24 hours or so, then the bug strikes back) ONLY by rebooting the Tablo – NOT adjusting the antenna, NOT “returning to Live TV”. I live less than one mile from broadcast towers, and I usually get great reception, but somehow, supposedly, Tablo finds “weak signals.”

Thank you again for this cord-cutting product. I hope your company can resolve these bugs soon.

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@tabloceo Thanks for being responsive to the customer base with this message - and for clearing a lot of fog through giving us a window into what you are addressing and have found so far. This helps in many ways.

I would second @designer’s suggestion of offering a way to roll back to an earlier firmware (if possible now or soon, and if not as a capability in future firmware releases). It may be difficult to permit in current design implementation, but it would give users (like me) a lot more confidence installing new firmware and a lot more tolerance of encountered bugs if we thought there was “insurance” through a way to go back to “what worked” - much as you have provided by keeping the legacy Roku app available while rolling out the preview Roku app. Since I am still on 2.1.30, I know that the old firmware still works just fine (at least for some). I don’t know if the standard router approach to having a firmware local backup and reinstall feature would work, but it would be desirable.

Again, much appreciated. Like everyone else I wish you success in hunting this down. I appreciate how hard your team is working on this and what it means to you.

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Thank you for the suggestion. Yes, I could try that, but I am reluctant from a pragmatic perspective since Tablo reboots faster than my router (absolutely) and faster than my Roku (I believe). Rebooting Tablo fixes my problem, though it is quite annoying.

Indeed, the longer this goes, I will be trying different things.

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I always love the reboot the router suggestion. Every device and protocol is working properly through the router except the tablo. Maybe all these routers somehow know that the tablo is communicating and are conspiring against tablo messages.

Rebooting the tablo just forces the TCP/IP virtual circuits to be reset. Maybe both the tablo client and server software aren’t properly setting the various TCP/IP options such as keep_alive and so_linger.

@TabloCEO - Thank you for addressing the growing concerns regarding issues that are affecting some of your user base. I certainly appreciate hearing that you are both aware of the Community’s concerns and that you’re team is working to find solutions.
I know I look forward to having my Tablo behaving as it should again!

I also want to thank you for the response from management!

Regrettably for many of us, the issues will not be resolved solely by a firmware rollback and the list of problems you’ve identified is incomplete and needs to include the following:

  1. Eliminate Roku reboots when fast-forwarding through recordings
  2. Ability to actually use 1080p resolution on all platforms

In my opinion it’s time to divert all your resources away from added features and fix the core functionality immediately.

@TabloCEO Appreciate you giving us this update on issues with the Tablo, and can imagine the activity going on behind the scenes to address these issues. Mine weren’t touched on in your list, so I wanted to highlight them here to make sure they make it to the list. Over the past week or so, I’ve seen where my Tablo is inaccessible by neither the Chrome web browser nor any of my 4 RoKu devices. The additional symptom is that the guide has not been downloaded either. Interesting, a piece of 3rd party software created by a user here called “Tablo Ripper” is able to access the Tablo, pull up a list of recorded contect, and allow me to download any or all of those recordings while the Tablo is in this mode, so it’s not completely out to lunch. The only way to recover normal operation is by doing a reset of the Tablo.

Also, this doesn’t happen every day, just most days. It may be related to the degradation problem described above, or maybe not. I do have a support ticket in, but have yet to hear back, so I’m tempted, after pulling off my recorded content, to do a factory restore of the Tablo to see if that fixes things.

Anyway, I appreciate the communications from the top.

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I sure hope that the quality control issues surrounding these firmware updates gets corrected.

The 2.2.2 firmware update broke all of my scheduled recordings, until I manually edited and saved them.

The 2.2.6 firmware update made Roku viewing unbearable. After rebooting the Tablo and all devices, the Roku shows no recorded content at all (says the Tablo needs setup), and the Fire TV Stick is no longer updating with newly scheduled recordings that I add via a Chrome browser session.

Not good…

Please don"t make us all go back. Perhaps a form where those that want it can enter their mac address or open a ticket. Besides when the time changed, mine has been acceptable,. I think network infrastructure, including both cable modem and router enter into the picture, along with antenna. The Wingard FL500A fixed weak and missing channels issues I had.

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Thank you @TabloCEO for opening this new dialog.

At risk of being flamed, I wanted to very briefly offer you my credentials and my suggestions, not to seek praise or any thanks, but merely to clarify my intentions here. I have no stake in Tablo other than as a user and as a retired engineer and manager who can bring some insights to a problem with hopes of solving it. Such has been mny career of 50+ years.

I also want to establish WHY I think Tablo is at fault, and HOW I think that Tablo can take steps to improve things. I have sold consulting services for thousands of dollars per day, but offer this input with no expectations of any payback other than a truly working Tablo.

In the way of background, I bring 2 degrees in electrical and computer engineering, a Masters in Business Administration, 3 FCC Commercial Broadcasting Licenses including First Class, and 5 amateur ham licenses up to the highest class dating back to the 1950s. I have worked in broadcast engineering, built and put a televsion station on the air, and performed and managed many dozens of software and hardware projects, first as an engineer, and later as a project manager. I eventually managed several hundred engineers and programmers delivering several million lines of code, retiring as a Division Vice President of a Fortune 100 aerospace company most of you have heard of. I have taught at the local university (student population 34,000) and enjoy particularly expertise in systems engineering and RF engineering. To this day my hobbies include electronics design, programming, and especially video, and I have about $55K of current video, editing, 4K UHD, servers, projection, ham, and electronics instrumentation including oscilliscopes, signal generators, etc. to keep me occupied in retirement and educate my grandchildren.

I believe Tablo is responsible here for two basic reasons.

First and foremost, there are now over 2500+ Roku channel apps for the same number of Roku channels, and literally 13 million or more Roku users. The problems we have been seeing on the Tablo DO NOT, and I repeat again, DO NOT show up with any significance on other channels. If you would take the time to look at the Internet and especially the Roku developer forums, the appearance of any topics related to fast forward reboots particularly, are extremely rare. I have seen a total of 3 channels each with one complaint.

The temptation to affiliate this issue as being a Roku problem is patently obvious, since the Roku box, afterall, is the thing which crashes.

The RIGHT question to ask would be, however, why don’t 2497 other channels crash the Roku? And why aren’t Netflix, HBO, and other extremely large consumer populations complaining about their Roku crashes? There are many, many millions of users who are satisfied.

The answer is that those Roku channel app developers who screw up create crashing apps. Those who write code correctly have apps which run without FFReboots.

The second reason is even more basic than the first. If Roku truly has the bug which causes these crashes, isn’t there still an obligation for Tablo to understand how to circumvent this with recoding to the revised update which avoids this crash? Clearly (2497) other channels have figured it out. Should Tablo sit back as they did for over 5 months saying, we are waiting for Roku to fix this? Absolutely not !!! This is terrible, non customer focused head in the sand. It disrespects the investments and risks all of us were willing to take to try an untested product like Tablo. It shows an utter lack of taking some leadership in making this problem disappear.

The two reasons above are not the only reasons I believe Tablo is responsible.

Since the day I plugged in my new Tablo a year ago up until just a few minutes ago, the list of recordings on my Tablo and my iPhone have never agreed. The connections have never been solid remotely. The Roku returns to the Home desktop when I hit the Tablo button some of the time, starting Tablo app but then quitting. I could go on and on. The current Roku code is badly flawed and shows it in many ways.

The number of threads in this forum with issues very clearly shows a software development project in trouble. More bugs are being created than being fixed.

And finally, I have to really wonder why the offical Tablo channel app for the Roku has been untouched since February 2015. Are we saying that it is finished and working properly? Hardly! It did not work properly in February 2015 and it does not work properly now. Some of my earlier complaints and observationws go back to bugs discovered a year ago, still unfixed, unacknowledged,and most annoying in total. The Preview channel solves none of them,

Finally, I feel that Tablo has done a very poor job of communicating. As anyone in management or especially in publuic relations will tell you, the worst thing to do in any crisis or problem is to stay silent. I personally have been astonished at the 5 month denial, followed by the 2 month offer to send crash reports to Roku follwed by the fairly recent acknowledgement of issues with a nebulous claim this problem is being worked.

Eight months is far too long to be passive.

I suggest that:

Tablo postpones / stops all new feature work on the Roku to focus exclusively on getting the current version fixed.

Tablo hires an independent software verification and validation company to do code walk-throughs, validation of designs, verification of code compliance, and define software quality assurance standards.

Tablo hires a Software Quality Assurance Manager reporting directly to the VP of Engineering or CEO with full responsibility for software testing and delivered software quality.

For the above, staffing should be provided which is ‘egoless’, a term used to ensure that a person does not get to review or test code which they have had any prior involvement in. Needless to say, those with very strong credentials in Brightscript and recent Roku channel app development should be sought out and hired.

I appreciate that Roku is but one of several supported players, but it is, by a huge margin, the largest present plus potential customer base, and is clearly a very weak area for Tablo currently.

A status report should be developed and distributed to all parties, on a periodic basis, with completion time and manpower tracking. An abridged version of this repoprt should be made available online to interested users to indicate work in progress and status.

Optionally, an employee incentive program which rewards bug discovery and bug elimination should be established and administered through the Software Quality Assurance Manager office / budget.

Further considerations:

Diagnostic code visible to the user, the Tablo support group, or both to better instrument what is actually going on. The current Tablo offers absolutely no visibility into its working paramaters and failure modes.

A more open architecture allowing the wealth of expertise in the user base to complement the Tablo team, rather than wasting enormous time discussing mostly irrelevant topics like cooling/thermal, router and network confounding problems, RF / EMI, etc.

Perhaps a dedicated Tablo player at a relatively low price which allows HDMI output and remote control, putting the entire end-to-emd Tablo code base under your company control, and avoiding altogether the reliance on 3rd party updates and changes.

This is just a start, issued with good intentions, with hope of some implementation.

Larry

13 Likes

Instead of stopping development on the preview channel, add the missing pieces that that the official channel have that the preview version doesn’t, and then let the Preview version replace the aging official channel. A time estimate should be given.

Larry (RetiredEngineer) absolutely nails it above. As someone who oversees outsourced software development projects for a living, I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment of Tablo’s troubled development initiative, and with the required fixes.

That said, I appreciate the update from the CEO and wholeheartedly hope that Tablo is more communicative going forward.

1 Like

I just do not understand how my system is working perfectly while so many are having these serious problems. I have about 1TB of shows recorded and my load times are 2-5 secs on Preview and a little longer on the old Tablo 3-8 secs. After FF the restart is just about the same, maybe a little longer on the old app. And the Apple TV on airplay is even better. We watch 2 - 4 hrs of time shifted TV almost everyday on 2 different TVs and 2 Roku 3s. I record on the recommended 720 and have over a 400 shows on a 2Tb Seagate portable drive. Tablo finds 62 stations, all 5 green dots, but I only record from about 20.

I sit here and read about these problems, which I will agree are not good at all, but I do not understand how/why my system is performing just fine with the same Tablo and software. Pls explain.

2 Likes

Not everyone is unfortunate. My Tablo has been working fine as well.

What recording quality are you using though? Some issues have been centred around the higher bitrate 1080p 10 Mbps setting.