Issues After Updating to 2.2.6

Agree entirely.

There are certainly some serious issues on the table. But, at least I can now see that when it is working it works well.

So, I’ve been involved in product design and development for over 25 years now. And I’ve see products plagued by problems such as are evident here.

What I’ve noticed is that over the decades, as the software has become more prominent, is that the overall product development tends to be driven more by the software team. And for all the magic that the software guys can deliver, I’ve noticed that robust testing at the physical layer isn’t normally their strong suit. This seems to be a good example. It seems fairly clear to me (and I think you) that the Tablo Roku video decoder isn’t “robust”. It doesn’t degrade gracefully in the presence of errored or dropped packets. One suspects that the software team had a nice little test platform in their lab were they had decently clean OTA signals and a wifi network that probably extended for a lab bench or two. It probably never occurred to anyone that you might want to test the product on a somewhat lousy Wifi network (indeed, an intentionally lousy WiFi network) or that maybe you ought to throw some less than ideal OTA signals at the receiver.

If they had done that, I believe they would have discovered that “hey, this works ok with the Android app or in a browser, but it’s not working so well on the Roku”.

And, just looking at the history, it does seem that they need to stop adding features for awhile and focus solely on bug killing.

But, as I said the basic concept of the product seems sound. If they could just work their bug list down I think they’re on to something. They should take some comfort in this as I’ve definitely been around product developments that were never going to be successful even if the engineering had been perfect as it was just a bad product concept.

I saw the same issues described here after updating the firmware and Roku, I have been using the Tablo since January pretty much with exactly the same setup, so I know it works.

As soon as I updated, it now takes approximately 90 seconds for a recording to start up. After fast forwarding, the same thing, over a minute to start back up. Sometimes in the middle of playback it will show the Loading message as well. These problems were not there prior to the update.

I only use the Tablo for recordings, not live TV.

I too only use my Tablo for recordings. When I updated to 2.2.6, the same thing happened to me as is happening to you. What I did was 1) rebooted my wifi and waited a minute, 2) rebooted my Tablo and waited a minute and 3) rebooted my Roku and then I went back and did it again in the same sequence. This worked for me and I wait maybe 10 - 15 sec for recordings to start and about 5 seconds when I FF. Hope this works for you.

My Tablo keeps getting itself into this weird state where live TV and recordings will both pause to buffer constantly. Some shows are worse than others. It makes watching shows nearly impossible. My entire network is hardwired, so slow wifi isn’t the problem.

I’m watching on both a Roku 3 and 4 using the preview app.

Here’s how I’m able to fix this, every time: Reboot the Tablo.

It’s super irritating, but it works.

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My upgrade issue is CC. They are always on during the football game on live TV. I am using through Apple TV with iPad. Tried turning the CC off and then on many times. No joy still shows in the middle of the screen.

I think you may be seeing the same issue my husband discovered on his iPad. If so, this is a known issue that they are working on a fix for, but there is a temporary fix you can use in the meantime. If you start Tablo, then start a show and closed caption is displaying text on the screen, press the CC button exactly one time (doesn’t matter if it is in the on or off state - only matters that you press it only once), then exit completely out of Tablo. Then restart the Tablo app. When you start your program, the CC should no longer display.

Here is the thread where I found the temporary fix to his problem. Hopefully, it will work for you as well.

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Yet another frustrated 2.2.6 update victim here. My Tablo is now unusable with Roku since the update. I’ve had the Tablo for about 10 months and it’s been a beautiful experience, until now. Why on earth did I not read this thread before pulling the trigger on the FW update? Oh, I know, because FW updates are supposed to improve your product, not break it.

My setup: Roku 3 running the latest 6.2 update (I updated this morning and that’s the most recent one available to me). Running wired through a Linksys WRT-1900 AC router. I’m having some of the same issues that others in this thread are having:

Public channel: Says “No Recordings” (in fact I have 1+ TB of recordings), unable to watch live TV, when I try it says “your Tablo needs to be set up before viewing this channel.”

Preview channel: Also says “No Recordings.” The Guide works normally, but when I try to watch something, it quits entirely and dumps me back to the Roku home screen.

I’ve tried deleting and reinstalling both Roku channels. Also tried rebooting the Tablo, the Roku, and the router in every sequence imaginable, and connecting via wifi. No luck. It works normally when running on my wired laptop (Win7/Chrome.) The issue seems to be with the Roku only. Unfortunately that’s the only way I use the Tablo, so at the moment it’s basically a brick.

I logged a ticket with Tablo support. Hopefully they can can help. Is it possible to roll back to the previous firmware version?

Another issue that may be related to the 2.2.6 update. My Tablo, which has been working well for months, is now locking up overnight, inaccessible by the Chrome web browser or any of my Roku devices. I suspect, but don’t know for sure, that it’s related to the issue I have of the program guide not downloading automatically anymore. The only way to access Tablo is to do a reset, which restores it to normal operation. It works normally throughout the entire day, but when I wake up in the morning, I go through the entire exercise again.

Additionally, after I do the reset, I can force a guide update, but Tablo doesn’t go through the sync cycle with Chrome… I have to disconnect Tablo, and then reconnect to force a sync.

Anyone else seeing this?

I have filed for a support request, but have yet to hear back.

My tablo-quad has hangup now after this update. Been once for sure, perhaps more. I’ll watch closer for other hangups.

-Rodger

Im experiencing many of the same issues as RetiredEngineer. I’ve never looked to update my Roku firmware. Would you be so kind to me where I find the firmware update for my Roku’s? Probably a simple issue, but I’ve never done it on the Roku and don’t want to create more issues. Thanks for your time.

Roku has been pushing out the 7.0 update over time, and expects to have all Rokus in the field updated by the end of November. I don’t believe there is a way to force an update. None of my Rokus have it yet.

will a factory reset bring my Tablo back to the older firmware? would rather have something functional without the new bells and whistles and wait for the update to stabilize…

Hi Pat, from my experience, I can’t access the Tablo from anywhere (Roku, computer, android, ipad).

Just to keep my recordings, I downloaded and ran the Tablo Ripper program last night to get the recordings I haven’t watched yet off.

From what I can see from the Ripper program, it’s not recording any new programs while it is in this limbo state.

Support had me put my Tablo in remote access mode so they could access it. Hopefully they find something before too many people end up like this.

Same here, three Roku 3’s - all still on 6.2 firmware.

I’m pretty certain the answer is no - the factory reset will retain the current firmware (going from memory when I did a factory reset after the 6.2.2 update).

I guess I’m lucky that I can at least use it on Windows. I’m currently going through the remote access thing with support as well.

At risk of stating the obvious but yet unvoiced question:

Why are things which worked properly now broken? The Roku has not suddenly tightened its h.264 playback requirements causing “Loading please wait” nor did received signal quality needed to make uninterrupted playback suddenly require changing antenna signal attenuation.

An obvious answer is programming mistakes introduced in the Tablo 2.2.6. firmware.

Things which worked fine before the update should NOT send users off to re-examine their antennas, routers, etc.

The programmers should be asked to carefully look at what was changed, and why, and how… And their changes should be critically reviewed by OTHER people whose fresh eyes and ego-less reviews find and eliminate bugs.

Far too many wasted hours of user grief, endless typing, and amateur speculations created by new firmware bugs which are the root cause of these problems.

If 5% of the firmware is new code, this is where the corrective action needs to be focused and applied.

All the other effort to explain why previously working code no longer works is, IMHO, a big waste of time.

The loading issue and the inability to connect remotely issue suddenly appeared in 2.2.6., and the Fast Forward reboot started in April right when Tablo
and Roku coincidentally updated their respective firmware. How about either providing a method to downgrade / revert or, better yet, assign people to really concentrate exclusively on fixing these bugs?

As much as I appreciate the value of users trying to find workarounds, I am really hoping that root causes will be revealed by looking at the obvious - what has CHANGED WITHIN THE UPDATE which previously worked properly.

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Might be some things must remain changed to keep pace with other changes either made or come to devices Tablo must interface with. If so, then it might be Tablo has to revamp a bit of what was working code to get along with necessary updated code.

It would be like having to increase the HP on a conveyor because the conveyor belt was change to allow larger items on it as the plant was changing to over sized doodads for the next thingamajig that was coming up. But it wasn’t know until tested that the doodads would stick in the belt unless angle of the dangle was changed. Problem is, that requires different gearbox ratios and to do that, the belt assembly must be lifted about 1 foot higher. Turned into a real nightmare for the engineering group as they had already started the layout change for the assembler and that would have to be altered to allow for the higher lift on the belt assembly – What a mess. And for some reason no one ever thought the doodads could even stick cause they were purposely coat with polytetrafluoroethylene just to avoid such problems.

Who could have known!?!

-Rodger

Rodger,

Your comment presumes that changes must be made in some cases to accomodate future needs, and finishes with a “who could have ever expected this unintended outcome” type of excuse.

My stated position utterly rejects both of these premises, since:

1–adding future growth / expansion or support for new features should only begin AFTER existing problems have been solved, and the lengthy list of known bugs has been resolved. The current approach just adds more confusion to an already confused picture.

And

2–The people who developed this system and present it as a stable entertainment system SHOULD KNOW AND ANTICIPATE outcomes of their design and programming work and cannot claim that things did not work out as expected. The use of testing, verification and validation of new code is a science which can be properly practiced and managed. I realize we are not talking about mission-critical software in a pacemaker, air traffic control console, or X-ray machine, but the techniques of engineering reliable software are well understood but yet not being obeyed here. Weak methods and weak testing are going to lead to unexpected outcomes and “who could know?” excuses.

Maybe having 5 solid playback platforms would better serve the customer base rather than 6 less stable players…Amazon, Chromecast, Android, iOS, computer web browser, Roku…pick any 5…

Your reply was better then my nonsensical one. But both still show that ever changing variables will always exist and have to be sorted out. In the case of Tablo, it is a device initially sold with the understanding of on-going changes. The Tablo folks are a small group of “inventors” and “innovators” that are attempting to fit into an already established, but ever changing media environment hoping they can change with it.

I have been an avid hobbyist in many technical venues. I have also been in business in a few of them. I each and everyone I have seen first hand changes come so swiftly that those not anticipating and preparing for them get left in the dust. I have also seen changes come on so broad a scale there was no reasonable way to address them well enough to keep afloat. I am partners in a business that succumbed to just that.

I think Tablo might have this happen to them, if they cannot get better at their updates. They have a large enough user base now that it can influence others well enough to either a positive or negative outcome. Not everyone wants to be a “beta tester”, most just want to have and enjoy their Tablo for what they presumed they were buying it for.

Personally, I enjoy having it once I got over not having what I was expecting to have, not entirely anyway. I have made and will continue to make good use of it in my little world of home theater entertainment. If I find something better (for me better is Dolby surround sound 5.1 or better 7.2), I will no doubt switch, but until then I will keep pluggin’ away.

-Rodger