When you factory reset the Tablo though, you lose all your recordings. You’ve already recorded new shows?
Misleading error: "Player Error Unable to tune to channel. This is usually caused by poor reception"
Bear in mind that I started the thread on April 5, when I first encountered this problem, which at that point was one month after I got the Tablo. On April 6 or so, I power toggled and Reset to try to fix the problem, to no avail. As a last resort, I did a Factory Reset which did fix the problem. The Tablo’s been working fine since then until today, May 9, about a month later.
This time I’m going to wait and see what Tablo support says.
I’m not interesting in keeping the device if it can only run for a month between Factory Resets.
jb
I have had mine since May 2014 with no issues. I’m sure they can help you figure it out.
Big News: I power toggled the USB HDD dock that serves as the HDD for my Tablo and that fixed my Live TV. 
(I also Reset the Tablo after the HDD spun back up, not sure if that was a critical step or not.)
I didn’t think the HDD was the cause of the problem w/ my Live TV b/c I could watch recorded shows just fine. So that’s something to consider if you run into the “Unable to tune channel” error.
It’s likely that the firmware on my HDD dock can only run about a month before it needs to be rebooted. Here’s the model i have if anyone’s curious:
…and now I’m right back to where I was last weekend: “Error: Weak Signal” from the Roku Preview app, perfect reception indicated by a Channel Scan, only this time power toggling the HDD and Resetting the Tablo didn’t help at all. Very frustrating.
Trolling thru the Failed Recordings section of the web UI, I see a bunch of failed recordings w/ this message:
Recording failed because the hard drive was full.
Isn’t the Tablo supposed to manage disk space for me?
By default, automatic deletion of shows is off. You have to turn it on.
How much free space is on your HDD?
Your issues could be caused by one of two things:
- Your HDD is too full.
- The USB dock you have is causing problems as Tablo Support pointed out earlier where some drives go offline and you get a weak signal error.
The other reason for “weak signal” was fixed with the .30 firmware. Users who were reporting frequent weak signal issues are no longer having issues.
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I am having this problem. I have had my Tablo 2 tuner model for just about 2 weeks now. This happens randomly when I try to watch Live TV after not using Tablo at all for a few hours. This has happened 4 times in those 14 days. The fix has been to power cycle the Tablo. I have not reported this problem yet but will the next time it happens and work with Tablo support on it. To be honest, I am in a 30 day trial on the Tablo and was working on setup and Tablo Connect problems and this problem was not my highest priority at the time.
My hard drive is a brand new Western Digital Element 500 Gbyte drive. I have absolutely no recordings on it and there is over 490 Gbytes free. I am at the “30” firmware release and it seems the problem occurred when I upgraded to the “30” release. What would be really helpful is if there was a way to power cycle/reboot the Tablo remotely from the “Settings” menu. It isn’t possible for me to reboot or power cycle the Tablo when I am 100 miles away and Tablo is dead in the water at that point… This functionality is available in my router and modem and Tablo does reboot on firmware updates so I don’t think adding this feature should be a hard thing to do.
FYI - I plan to keep the Tablo and subscribe to the Guide service. Tablo has done everything it advertises it can do which is quite a bit of things that make it worth it to me. It was a little touch and go for the first week to 10 days and I would like this problem resolved but overall I am happy with it.
@Joec, that has been a requested feature for a while, though I would not expect it to be implemented anytime soon. However, you might want to invest in a product like this: http://www.belkin.com/us/F7C027-Belkin/p/P-F7C027;jsessionid=38A4C98A59BC7FCBD2B8AA152B1CDB02/
If you plugged the Tablo into that, you could reboot it from anywhere.
Thank You. I will definately consider that device if this problem continues after I have followed up with Tablo Support.
Had to power cycle Tablo twice today. Opened a ticket with support at 2:44PM today and have not heard back yet. I hope this can be resolved before I have to make a decision about returning the box.
Did you check and see if your hard drive was/is full? Did you power cycle your hard drive?
My hard drive doesn’t have any recordings on it and it has 491 Gbytes free of a 500 Gbyte drive.
Tablo support directed me to update my WD Element firmware. I did that which required disconnecting the disk from Tablo, updating firmware with my laptop and connecting the disk back to Tablo. I did all that and am now able to tune OTA stations and did NOT power cycle Tablo. So the short answer is I did both update the WD Element firmware and power cycle the WD disk.
If I can make a week without this problem happening I think I can assume the firmware was the fix. Time will tell.
Thanks
Joe
Keep us updated.
What is the model number of your Elements drive? I am looking to upgrade my HDD.
Thanks!
I’ll definately keep all in the loop on the outcome I have with this problem. I’ll respond back to this thread and Tablo support by Tuesday at the latest. Hopefully it will be Tuesday and my response will be that the problem is solved. My Elements drive is a 500 Gbyte model and I bought it along with the Tablo just over 2 weeks ago. The model number is: WDBUZG5000ABK-NESN.
I promised I would keep people in the loop on my problem by Tuesday and will albeit just barely.
There is somewhat good news and bad news to report. The good news is that the firmware update has helped quite a bit but the problem just happened again after 5 days of error free operation. I got the poor signal error on a strong channel, I backed out of the Roku application and tried again with no other intervention and it worked the second time. It’s still a little flakey but a lot better.
The bad news is that I was away for 5 days over the Memorial holiday. I paired my laptop to Tablo just before leaving, tuned in and watched a channel just to be sure. When I arrived at my remote location, I tried to watch TV and got a “No Tablo Found” message in Chrome. That was the last straw for Tablo. This worked the weekend prior and does not work now. At this point, I am not interested in troubleshooting another problem. I requested a return to Amazon and tomorrow, I’ll print the labels, box it up and send it back.
It’s too bad. I had high hopes for Tablo but have run out of patience and trial time.
I am not going to recap the litany of problems I had with Tablo but I have three suggestions for Tablo that I hope do not offend and are taken as constructive criticism.
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Work with a disk drive manufacturer and package Tablo with a disk that has been fully tested and is reliable and can be supported. I believe there are a lot of problems with disk integration based on what I see on support threads and the customer should not have to deal with these problems. Some would argue that Tablo does not package a disk so the customer has the choice of what disk to buy. That argument does not pass the smell test with me. Why would Tablo sell a “Tablo Metro” with an integrated antenna? Antennas are a lot simpler technology and have a lot more variations than a disk. Packaging Tablo with a known, reliable disk and firmware would minimize lots of problems and headaches for the customer.
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Re-architect Tablo Connect. The architecture is pathetic. “Pairing” and “Re-pairing” when you update Tablo or lose power to Tablo or get a new IP DHCP IP address? This is extemely unreliable. There are lots of unhappy customers and there are outstanding requests to fix this. The way Tablo Connect should work is on first power up, you create a name and password, Tablo “calls home” with name, password, mac address, public and private IP address and ports. Every subsequent time Tablo powers up or on interval, Tablo does an “upsert” of the same information. When you connect to my.tablotv.com using your name and password, you are matched with all this information and a connection is made. If I can do online banking and investments this way, it should be secure enough for watching TV. I managed database groups for 20 years and I could hand this task off a developer on a Friday afternoon and the database code and tables would be done well before the end of the day.
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Beef up support. There is one person working 9:30-5:30. Tablo support needs more people and more hours. I had a problem with Tablo Connect configuration and played email tag once a day for almost a week until I finally asked for a time to troubleshoot. I was given a time at Tablo’s convenience and they stood me up. I don’t get upset with the person that stood me up. This is a management problem to solve. I am retired now and could deal with support hours, How is a working person going to resolve problems with those support hours never mind that fact there is not enough support technicians? By the way, if Tablo fixed #1 and #2 above, there would be less of a need for support.
For those of you that are happy with Tablo, That’s great. When it works it is is really neat technology. My experience wasn’t so good. I wish you all good luck.
Sorry to see you go.
- Was your Tablo Connect working prior to you leaving? Aka had you ever used it successfully out of the house before?
- Yes the pairing issue can get annoying. They say they will fix this eventually.
- Are you just giving up on OTA? Or are you going to purchase another DVR?
Thanks. I’m sorry Tablo didn’t work out for me. I had high hopes it would and there are people that are really happy with Tablo.
Tablo Connect was working prior to this past weekend. When I first configured Tablo Connect, I tested at a local library with their wifi. Tablo Connect also worked the weekend prior at the same remote location. I was really surprised it failed me this past weekend. Tablo Connect is inherently unreliable due to it’s design.
I am committed to OTA. I was a former customer with Comcast cable TV and consider Comcast to be the evil empire of all media, cable TV and Internet. I have no choice but to continue with Comcast internet. I am not missing anything by cutting cable TV and am saving over $70/month even after being wacked by Comcast for dropping cable TV and losing their “multi-product discount”.
I may look at another OTA DVR more for the purpose of slinging the signal to my remote location. The guide, recording, and wifi connectivity to other TVs are great features and I considered them to be pluses. There are lots of unhappy Slingbox customers since they injected ads in their applications and Tivo has expensive hardware, some copyright restrictions, and high subscriptions fees so for the time being, I am going to take a break with this technology.
I am having a similar problem (Weak Signal) on a quad tuner with a Antennas Direct’s DB8e Extreme Range while 10 miles away from a few towers (clearly not weak signal with 70+ mile antenna when 10 miles away). After spending a few days debugging (reboot, reset, etc.) I realized that it was related to the USB HD and not the signal. I started unplugging the HD and replugging it in - that fixes it for a day or so. It seems to go offline (It’s a WD 500GB thin drive). I am not sure if this is firmware related or the Tablo doesn’t end up “waking it back up”, but it’s very frustrating because I miss things as thing happens every night. Can someone confirm that on a quad tuner there are USB drives that do not cause these problems at all?