I feel silly asking this, but please be gentle. I’m a new user. How can you tell if something is currently recording? It’s hard for me to know when it’s safe to do a firmware update. There is the scheduled recording section but it puts the shows you’re recording in alphabet order, not in the order of upcoming recordings. The only way I’ve been able to tell is if you go into a new recording, it will say stop recording. I wish it had a currently recording section. Gen 4.
I completely feel you on this one. It’s a feature request I’ve recently placed.
As far as I can tell, the quickest way to find out if you’re recording is to check your live guide. Yes, it’s a very lengthy process, and one I wish they would change.
Also, in the Android app, there is a section in the Library called Coming Soon, and that can often be helpful.
A simple “Recording Now” or grid where you can easily see your future recordings would be a great option. Or… if the pretty blue and white LED in the front could change color so we could tell at a glance! (As it stands now, it’s really only useful to check if it’s powered on or has a connection!)
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The gen 4 is a gateway product. Lots of users place the unit in the room where they keep their router and other devices. And who really wants to run up the stars to check their LED’s just to see if anything is recording.
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As others have mentioned elsewhere, we can never be sure if the Tablo is communicating with the app. Since there is no simple way to see what is recording at a glance from within the app, if I’m already at the point of needing to reboot the machine, I’m a foot away staring at a blue light. Any change in the color/pattern would at least warn me that something’s going on and to wait or try again.
Rebooting my Tablo every day or two is annoying and I’ll take any simple solution they’ll offer. Scrolling through 90+ channels to find one scheduled item is a bit of a pain, but I do it, because as @Stacychad1996 said, upcoming recordings in most of the apps are shown alphabetically and not chronologically.
The light isn’t even the real point here. If these devices were reliable, I would turn the LED off. But for now, it’s the only way I know that the Tablo is on when I need to enter the room to check on it. There’s such an opposition to adding a reboot command that pressing the reset button or doing a full power cycle are our only options to taking care of the glitches.
It would be so great to power up the app and see something somewhere saying, “This is what Tablo is going to record for you today.” THAT would be a better option on the home screen than something that looks like an ad!
My legacy 4-tuner tablo has started requiring a reboot about once or twice a week. I can tell it needs it when I click on any menu item and get a never ending spinning circle. I would love to have a “reboot” button in the app, but we know there isn’t one.
So I finally took a smart plug that was laying around the house and now have the Tablo plugged in to it. Now I can just turn it off, wait a minute, then turn it back on from my Amazon Echo.
P.S. I agree it would be a nice enhancement to have an easy display of what is currently recording. Even if all tablo did was have a little red dot in the “Recordings” menu on any recording tile that is actively recording, that would be really helpful.
Using external drive, light blinks, internal u wouldnt know
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That’s a really good point!
I did a similar thing to the one 4th gen that needs to be rebooted constantly. It is in an awkward place to get to, so I put it on an RF “dumb plug” so I can power cycle it as needed.
It’s likely I wouldn’t need to power cycle the other, mostly-working 4th gen, but if I need reboot the modem and router as well, I figure a fresh boot of the Tablo wouldn’t hurt.
Don’t confuse the legacy units with the gen 4. I have multiple legacy units that only get rebooted on a firmware update. Other issues are outside the actual unit.
the gen 4 on the other hand appears to have some resource issues that require a unit to be rebooted.
Just for clarity: “reboot” means unplugging the Tablo and then plugging back in?
That type of reboot would be a a full power cycle. On the 4th gen white Tablo there is also a reboot button on the bottom.
Great tip! Thanks 
Thanks!
You’re welcome.
Ask as many questions as you need from us to keep you up and running.