The one thing I noticed that are now the same between the tablo roku app and the hdhomerun app is that when the problem starts there is a weird out of sync sound coming out.
Since for hdhomerun I’m not using their DVR software but playing directly from the app. But all of a sudden a strange sound occurs, no remote control buttons work, and then after 20+ seconds roku reboots.
For tablo this only happens during fast forward and the sound is very faint.
Zippy,
I also hear a weird sound during the freeze before the crashes, but way less often now with the latest Tablo app for Roku.
I have spent quite a few hours testing the latest Tablo app with the Roku player, and wanted to update my status.
The recently released Tablo software version 3 is a significant improvement. Although it is not yet reliable like the Apple or Amazon versions running on Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV, it is much less likely to crash. Additionally, freezing, most of the time, eventually recovers, allowing further scrubbing of the timeline, or resuming playback.
Also, the bug which continues to prevent the consistent smooth fast forward and reverse scrubbing seems to be more prevalent and noticeable when the Tablo hardware is heavily loaded. Program guide updates in the background as well as multiple channels being recorded seems to add enough CPU load on the Tablo hardware that the bug shows up more frequently.
I would not consider the bug “fixed”, but it is less noticeable and aggravating.
My thanks to Tablo for achieving this improvement.
Larry
I will try and give an answer to this problem. Reboot the tablo depending on which one you have. I have the 2 tuner. make sure the hard drive is at least 1 tb or more. Unplug the internet and reboot it. If there is a blue button on your table click it. Also , try and disconnect the cable ethernet and power off for about a minute. Make sure as well the router is over 6 ft away from the table. scan the channels as well. antenna make sure that is in a good spot too.
Welcome to the Tablo forum, Solution73!
Did you previously experience Roku freezing then crashing, and then eliminated both by the “solution” which you just posted above?
Larry
Nearly 4 months after my original creation of this thread, in early May, now late August:
I used the Roku last night to watch Tablo, and it is still a hot stinking pile.
Had 2 Roku reboots/crashes within 45 minutes.
Scrubbing the time line by fast forward caused freezes over and over again.
Since it took eight months to fix this problem, with exactly the same crashes and freezes, when it previously occurred in 2016, I have no reason to believe that Tablo will act more aggressively to fix it this time.
Very glad I purchased extra Amazon fire cubes to use instead.
Tablo, shame on you!
I agree with RetiredEngineer, after 4 months Tablo should have corrected the problem.
Tablo: any news regarding this problem?
Here it is October and still the same issue. On fast forward, I will sometimes get the spinning circle that never clears. If I exit and return, I can then fast forward. Something in the Tablo must conflict with Roku. I have this happen on Roku boxes, Roku TV’s and Roku soundbar. C’mon, someone should be able to fix this!
So, I was among the very first Tablo customers, nine years ago, and have lived with every software release ever since. I own three Tablo boxes, along with a total of 14 player boxes, seven of which are Roku.
The Ottawa company has demonstrated to me that they will never ever really"get it".
They continue to repeatedly offer extremely shoddy, amateur software for the Roku. After literally eight years of frustration, I switched all of my reception to Amazon fire boxes, where the software bugs are less horrendous.
The last time a software upgrade produced Crashes and stalling and rebooting on the Roku boxes, it took over eight months for the company to admit they had a problem. They never actually admitted “owning” the problem, but it suddenly disappeared when the new release of the app for Roku was released.
Much the same way now, several years later, they consistently deny/overlook consumer reports of this issue, and will not even offer any evidence of remediation.
The software for the other players, Apple TV, fire TV/android, and iOS also have many small, problematic issues never addressed in these nine years. I have personally posted over many hundreds of messages on this forum dealing with these various issues, and I am entirely disinterested in trying to encourage them to do the right thing and fix their problems. It is entirely clear that they have no intention or desire to make good software that works reliably. There is a reason why the ratings they receive are marginally acceptable.
I have seen many cases where things which work properly suddenly break when a new release of their firmware and their player apps are released. I am currently seeing problems that were solved years ago which have now reemerged as they supposedly improve their products and supposedly fix software bugs. The process they observe for beta testing and software quality assurance is pathetic and comical, clearly reflecting chaos and a lack of proper software engineering and management.
I spent several decades of my professional engineering career overseeing engineering groups developing complex software, far beyond the scope of Tablo, and consider the outcomes which I experience when using Tablo to be inexcusable, especially after so many years of “product improvements”…
To this very day, it is not unusual for my Roku boxes to literally reboot when I attempt to load the Tablo app.
They generally will start up on the first launch, but still crash either during the launch or when I do vigorous fast forward or rewind.
All I can say is, shame on them.
Larry
Sorry to hear your experiences have been so frustrating. I used to use the Tablo Roku app more when we had a TCL TV running RokuOS but never seemed to have quite the issues you encounter. We ended up moving to Chromecast with Google TV since we prefer the UI and it sounds like the Android TV app doesn’t have near the issues as the Roku.
It doesn’t explain all your issues, but in my experience in software development the more variables you have and the more frequently they are changing the more likelihood of issues. Sadly the OS updates for the Chromecast with Google TV have been few and far between but I wonder how much the Roku issues may have to do with the fact RokuOS does it’s fair share of “breaking” things, or at least making them more complicated each time it has a major release as well.
I don’t intend to minimize your frustrations, just point out that on a different playback device I don’t have near as many issues. This is sorta supported by the fact you are having fewer issues since moving to FireTV devices since they use the same Tablo app as the Chromecast devices.
Thank you for your comments, Nilex.
My overall impression of Tablo is very favorable, and I recommend it to others who have gone on to purchase and enjoy their Tablo devices. My complaints really center mostly on the continuing Roku issues, some of which show up on the other platforms, but not nearly as often.
The Roku has never been a good platform for Tablo in my opinion. Although I use it very extensively for other apps such as Amazon prime TV, Hulu, YouTube, and several others without issues, Roku and Tablo just do not seem to get along.
When scrolling through the program guide/EPG, it is common for me to jump out of the Tablo app abruptly, and wind up back at the Roku desktop. When deleting files of programs which are being recorded that I have no interest in watching, it is not uncommon for me to leave ghost/phantom icons on the desktop of Tablo which cannot be deleted. When I scroll/scrub the timeline in playing back previously recorded Tablo episodes, I crash the Roku entirely with a reboot, or more frequently wait endlessly with a dead remote control. This happens on all seven Roku boxes and two Tablo servers currently running here. Quite ironically, none of these issues have persisted since the features were originally introduced years ago, and only showed up with firmware or software updates. The biggest problem, the scrubbing fast forward/rewind crashes lasted for about eight months somewhere around 2016, and was finally solved by Tablo. For the last five months it has reoccurred, again, suddenly, with Tablo software update.
Tablo made a fundamental business decision to support many different players, all the way from iOS and web browsers to Roku, Apple, Amazon, nexus set top boxes. I would personally have preferred seeing fewer platforms supported and more reliable code. I personally attribute the quality assurance and reliability problems to overly ambitious and overworked software efforts with far less than high quality outcomes.
I keep hoping they will get their act together, but nine years has proven otherwise.
The latest Roku OS update was a major release, and registered developers, myself included, were warned and advised way before the release with beta test opportunities and certification. The only other app I use which encountered new bugs was an obscure, very poorly supported, limited distribution program which has no player crashes or hangs, but other relatively minor issues.
Hope this gets resolved, but I recommend switching to another set top box to avoid daily aggravation.a
Larry
This is why I use Google Chromecast with Google TV.
Life’s too short to stress about entertainment issues.
You are absolutely right! There are many other much more serious worries and aggravation for all of us to deal with.
Switching to a different player helps a lot.
Larry
I have a tablo quad I purchased about two or three years ago running firmware 2.2.42 on a Roku 3820 X running channel version 3.0.0 software version 11.5.0 build 4235. You absolutely cannot fast forward tablo recordings on this model/version of Roku without the screen freezing. The combination of the Roku with our current tablo is a disaster. Please let me know if there is going to be a tablo firmware update that fixes this problem! I think the prospect of future problems is imminent when people start upgrading their Roku devices. Thank you.
Steve,
Welcome to the user forum.
The last time the Roku freezing problem occurred a few years ago, it took over eight months for the company to fix the issue. There never was a formal admission of responsibility. The fix just showed up one day in an update to the app for Roku from Tablo.
Given the track record, I don’t expect any likely correction here. Maybe after a few more months, the problem will then suddenly disappear. Maybe not!
After nearly 9 years of Tablo ownership, my strong advice to you would be to buy an Amazon fire stick or cube, and use that as your player.
Several unfixed bugs have been chronic issues for the Roku player when using the Tablo app, including freezing, sudden crashing when scrolling through the program guide, freezing when using fast forward or reverse playback, and incomplete deletion of program icons from the desktop after attempting to delete a recording. These specific issues have come and gone for many years, and the company is clueless.
Thankfully the Amazon fire players are very inexpensive, and work very well with Tablo. Save yourself a lot of aggravation and switch.
Larry
Just to throw out other options, we’ve had minimal problems with Chromecast with Google TV as well, which makes sense since the FireTV and Android TV Tablo apps use the same code base.
Question here: The Fire TV must be not the same as Fire Tablet and they do not use the same code. On My Fire Tablet, the tablo app is useless. Dont currently use an Amazon Fire Stick or have a Fire TV. Also, the Android TV ( I have a Tivo 4K stream stick) the application is great, but on my Android Tablet, the tablo app is almost just as useless (ota2go works great though) so would it be correct to say it is a complete re-write for each device?
My personal, and very favorable experience watching the recordings made on the Tablo, has only been with the Amazon fire TV products, specifically the cube second generation (the current model).
I have no knowledge of the internal code base for either product, and can only speak for my very satisfactory use of the fire TV, which may be irrelevant for the tablet from Amazon.
Although others have made comments on this forum that the Linux based development for the various Tablo players like Roku, fire TV, Nexus, etc. are similar, it is my understanding that the hardware processor and architectural differences from one set top box to another are distinctive and different, and that code is not portable from one player to the other. Moreover, using and owning every player available over the nine years of ownership of Tablo is made the very significant differences in user interface and user interaction extremely apparent. Thus, the Roku app released by Tablo looks and works quite differently when compared to the Amazon fire TV version, for example. (The Apple TV version also looks quite different from the others.)
my only recommendation here would be that unhappy Roku users will find that switching to the Amazon fire TV platform will eliminate the major remaining objections to bugs which exist in the Roku version of the app.
Larry
hey there. I have to get my antenna outdoors replacing the satellite piece.
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