Even with FW update Roku still freezing and rebooting?

I dodged a bullet on that one. When I went to Walmart, the Roku stick was out of stock so I bought the Roku3.

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February Update:
I upgraded to the Roku 3 from the stick. I also bought the Terk Amplified Antenna recommended by Mr Mark. I have a better picture (less pixelation) and all but one channel are at the green dot level daily. However, LPW, continues intermittently. I went 2 weeks without any issues-then it returned. To recap, I have the Roku 3, a new dual-band Router from Trendnet(highly recommended by PC Mag) set to 5 Ghz band, and my modem is well-rated by the cable company and other websites. I am recording a couple of shows that run Mon-Fri., and some days they load and advance fine, other days not so much. One odd thing is both shows are on CBS, and on the same day, one show loads, and allows me to advance quickly, the other will be back to LPW when loading. Iā€™m only recording at the 720 HD 3MBPS level, which gripes me. Also, I do not have enable fast start up checked. So am doing whatā€™s been advisedā€¦canā€™t have a better recording qualityā€¦for no apparent reason. Iā€™m also experiencing intermittent LPW while watching live tv. Any other suggestions? Thanksā€¦sorry for the long post.

Sounds like you are doing a lot of things right, but we could use a little more data on your setup. Trendnet model, what is wired and wireless, software revision on Roku and Tablo, distance and #of walls between router and Tablo and TV and anything else that might be important to your setup. and what do mean by set to 5Ghz? At 720/3 you should be doing great. Cheers

Even though one can have all green dots for the signal quality, that is only an indicator of the signal quality that was happening at the time the Tablo scanned for channels. That is not a continuous indicator of signal quality day in and day out. Signal quality fluctuates from day to day, season by season. On windy days, trees may interfere with reception.

My signal strength is normally from 80 to 100%. But the last few days have been very windy and swaying trees have interrupted reception. When the wind is strong I get LPWs - a sign that the signal is being interrupted from time to time.

The Trendnet is AC1750 Dual Band model # is 812DRU (V2), and is hardwired to Tablo. 5 Ghz is the bandwidth on the router Iā€™m using, as there was a lot of interference when using the 2.4 GHz band. Roku 3 is 4230X, Version 9044-most recent build. Router and Tablo are on my oversized desk, less than 10 feet from TV in Liv. Room-so no walls there. TV in bedroom is less than 20 ft from Tablo (one wall in between bedroom and liv. room). Tablo is V. 2.28. Hope this helps.

I understand-and since I do have one local channel (ABC) thatā€™s temperamental as far as coming in ok-the rest are fine. I re-scan every time thereā€™s been a LPW, and the signal strength hasnā€™t changed for the other channels. But LPW is not related to just the one channelā€¦or it would be just repositioning the antenna. Here weā€™ve been having a mild winter. Today, thereā€™s no wind, swaying trees, rain or anything, but LPW since mid morning. But thanks for the thought.

I am not familiar with the 812 DRU but I did read the review at www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417692,00.asp. I was a little surprised at some of the 42 comments. But that aside UsrTblo has a good pt and I know that my signal varies quite a bit from time to time for unknown reasons. I have a great big old Radio Shack antenna up in the attic and it seem to do a good job for me, but towers are only ~8mi away. When I have problems like you describe - every 1 to 4 mths - I shut down everything and wait about 15 mins, then fire up the router, wait 5 mins, fire up Tablo, wait 5 mins, then fire up Roku. I donā€™t know what is getting ā€œtwisted up in a knotā€ but most times this does the trick and everything works great for another 1 - 4 mths. If that doesnā€™t help I would turn on the 2.4 band ( be SURE they have the SAME NAME i.e. 812 DRU) and then try the same shut down/start up procedure.

I just went back to look at those comments. Although the majority of them are 2 years old and the most recent 7 mos. old, I donā€™t recall there being so many negative comments. My old router was a wireless g-really out of date and I havenā€™t had any connection issues that I can tell since upgrading to the Trendnet. I did try the 2.4 ghz band at first and I had a lot of LPW and other posters suggested that when in an apartment esp., the 2.4 is more prone to interference. I think I will try the shut-down and re-start procedure you describe -at least that may help with the live tv issues. Not sure why the recording issues are happening, and havenā€™t seen any posts from others about it since the latest Roku update. SIgh. Thanks for your input.

@MaryM - you said you see LPW on ABC. Is it all shows on ABC or just one that has the LPW? I ask because I seem to remember some people complaining how they would regularly see the LPW on the evening news.

@MaryM, as the king of long posts, I am happy to forgive you for your ā€œlong postā€.

From your description, there just may not be a whole lot more you can do with your current antenna location. Sure, you could enable both 5Ghz and 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi bands, but if you have line of sight between your router and your Roku 3, Iā€™d be surprised if 2.4 was ā€œbetterā€. But listen, since you now have the Roku 3, you can completely eliminate Wi-Fi as the problem by hard-wiring your Roku to the router. I understand that it might not be practical for you on a everyday basis, but you just canā€™t beat a wired connection for reliability and speed. So give it a tryā€¦see what happens. If all of the LPW issues suddenly disappear, you can then work on whatever it would take to make the Wi-Fi work betterā€¦

My instinct is that you will eventually come to the conclusion that the main problem is your actual TV reception. This kind of goes back to (any number of) my original posts, in that the tools that Tablo provides make it exceedingly difficult to troubleshoot problems of any kind, but most especially TV signal problems, because as @UsrTblo observed, RF signal quality is a dynamic variable - it changes with the seasons, the time of day, weather and any number of other factors.

Back in the analog TV days, it was super-easy to get visual feedback on TV signal quality - one could just look at the screen and easily see ghosts (multi-path), noise and interference, and then instantly see the effect of moving the antenna around. And since all viewing was in real time, watchers with rabbit ears could easily see the effect of people walking around in the room, turning electrical devices on and off, what happened when it started raining or the wind started blowing outsideā€¦I can even remember seeing visible artifacts when an airplane would fly over. I can remember noticing when the TV station would reduce output power at sundown, as was common practice in those days. Cause and effect was easy to observe. It was all very in your face and visceral.

Very little TV watching is done in real time anymore, so even if it was analog, it would still be hard to connect artifacts to the events that caused them. And with digital TV, itā€™s perfect right up to the point that its notā€¦ Iā€™ve heard it referred to as ā€œcliff effectā€. And that characteristic makes it even harder to observe cause and effect. And sadly, most devices that receive TV signals these days donā€™t offer a very good way to tune an antenna. With devices like the Tablo, even ā€œreal timeā€ isnā€™t really real time. Itā€™s always delayed by some amount, even if itā€™s just a few seconds. And those that do often offer only signal strength read-outs, which do not necessarily relate directly to signal quality.

When trying to understand whatā€™s going on with signal quality, one needs real-time readouts on signal strength, signal quality, and noise, and Tablo just doesnā€™t give us that. To be fair, it is the trend, these days, to hide technical details from users, in everything from TVs to computer and mobile operating systems. There is an almost insane assumption that stuff should ā€œjust workā€, but when it comes to all things RF, and in particular, 8VSB TV reception, thatā€™s just not not a realistic assumption. Maybe if one lived in a tent with line-of-sight to the TV transmitter antenna, then ā€œindoorā€ antennas would work perfectly, but not for a great many people in the real-world.

And that is why I went on and on in my earlier posts about trying to figure out how to get your antenna as close to outdoors as you reasonably can. Iā€™m sure the directional antenna is better, but itā€™s still indoors, and I assume that it still isnā€™t in a window that faces the transmitters, and as long as that remains true, your chances of getting perfect reception are not as good as they could be.

Iā€™ll throw just one more thing in here, which is that I have noticed that both my Roku 3 and my Roku 4 can get hung up in an LPW loop if there was a reception glitch while recording. At least, thatā€™s what I believe to be the cause. Usually there is no way to get out of the loop short of skipping ahead just before it starts to loop again. This is something that the @TabloTV guys may be able to solve via an app update. Tablo and/or Roku doesnā€™t need to get hung up in a loop every time the signal glitches while recording. Because there will be glitches. I have a very good antenna outdoors, and mine glitches. Itā€™s rare, but trees blowing in the wind are mortal enemies of 8VSB. And I think itā€™s fair to say that my Tablo has the best 8VSB receiver of any device that I currently own, so Tabloā€™s only fault in this is that it doesnā€™t have good tools for antenna tuning, and it doesnā€™t recover from glitches when they inevitably do occur.

And now I must apologize for MY long post. To close on a more positive note, try my hard-wired Roku idea and see what happens. If it solves your problem, then you probably wonā€™t care about anything else that I wrote!

Hi John Luther. Itā€™s all ABC shows- I should qualify that to say ABC and itā€™s affiliate-that runs ME TV-classic tv shows. Itā€™s lower power than the other ABC channel, but both have the issue. According to the channel listing in Tablo, ABC is 720 P and ME Tv is 480I, so I get itā€™s lesser reception. But NBC/CBS/PBS donā€™t have that problem with either of their channels. It could be a distance thing too-the tower for ABC might be further awayā€¦canā€™t really recall.

Hi Mr. Mark. The LPW while watching live tv was really getting to me. One night I missed most of Downton Abbey due to LPW and thank heavens our PBS station runs the previous weeksā€™ episode before the new one, so I could catch up this week. Network tv rarely does that.
I did forget about hardwiring the Roku suggestion after I upgraded. And now that I have several network cords of varying lengths, I can do itā€¦and did tonight.Tthere really isnā€™t a good option regarding windowsā€¦since the slider is metal, and though I tried the antenna there for a couple of weeks, I also couldnā€™t move my treadmill or exercise bike-more metal. It would never work in warmer weather when I go out to the balcony garden either. The worst part was the reception was no better, and the ABC channels did not improve. I gave up an found the place where the picture is best most of the time. The amplified Terk is better overall for the picture quality, though the OnebyOne didnā€™t call as much attention to itself. My nephew said ā€˜nice decorationā€™ because he thought it was ugly. Agreed, but picture quality matters. I wish it had the 10 foot cord the OnebyOne has, though. 4 feet makes a difference. I do appreciate your help, and hopefully down the line I can say the problem has finally been solved, and mental energy can go to something else.

@MaryM might be helpful to see your TVFool report.

When I miss a Downton over the air, I go to the PBS channel on Roku to catch the episode. PBS has an Internet streaming site with current and past episodes freely available.

Well, sorry the alternate antenna placement didnā€™t helpā€¦but at least you know that now. And decorating with antennae is an acquired tasteā€¦as with all sculpture, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I never imagined that I would ever say anything like this, but Iā€™d be a little miffed if I missed a Downton Abbey episode myself. But there it is. But you can get the PBS channel/app for your Roku, so there is always that to fall back on. For me, the broadcast quality is better than the stream quality, but as they say, desperate timesā€¦

Good luckā€¦I am curious to know if cabling the Roku makes any difference for you.

If you missed a show because the LPW issue on the Roku made it unwatchable, you should be able to watch it just fine on another device such as an iPad or Android tablet or even a computer, IF the reason for the LPW is a networking issue (aka too slow WiFi). That is a Big IF.

However, the LPW issue can also occur on the Roku when there are errors in the recorded stream, and these errors are generally caused by poor OTA signal. The Roku video player does not handle the errors well and cause the video to reload which results in the LPW issue. These errors will also be evident on an iPad or Android tablet with pixelation in the video and possible issues with the audio cutting out.

The question for you is do you see issues with the recorded stream on multiple devices?

Thanks for that tip, Usr Tblo. I havenā€™t tried using the PBS channel on Roku yet. :)smile:

Will check that out. Thanks.:smiley:

Well saidā€¦it took me an awful lot more verbiage to convey essentially the same thought. Assuming of course that @MaryM has an alternate device with which to testā€¦

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Typically, the LPW issues were not online. But not having a tablet and having a Desktop, it isnā€™t comfortable to do much watching on the computer. However, the Downton Abbey episode was having the same issue on my computer as on the tv. I gave up and watched Netflix instead. Now that I know about the PBS Roku channel, will use that method if it happens again. Thanks.