My Tablo is Possessed!

I don’t know if my Tablo is possessed, dying or something else. Here’s what’s happening on a daily basis, on every channel and when it’s sunny a clear outside.

  1. Tablo takes 30+ seconds to load a channel from the guide. (can’t tell me this is normal because it’s not).
  2. While watching a show after 30 seconds or 5 minutes or even 10 minutes the Tablo will automatically go back to the show description page and then will not allow me to go back to the show.
  3. I have rebooted my Roku and Tablo numerous to solve and nothing works.

I have recently experienced number 2 a couple times. It happened when fast-forwarding.

If it’s possessed, can we form a prayer circle to drive the demons out?

2 Likes

and @ocsurf, If this behavior fits the description of it booting you out to the guide and then rebooting as in the other 2 threads about this behavior then please open a ticket and let them know what TV stations you are watching when this happens. They have identified an unexpected behavior in my logs about this and are investigating why it’s happening. They should also be aware when it happens to others.

We just experienced #2 multiple times last night. I had never seen it before and then during one episode it happened 2 times… Then it behaved for the rest of the evening.

Yes Please! :slight_smile:

@ocsurf When you’ve got a chance, either send us a support ticket referencing this post, or send me a PM. We can set up a remote session to take a look at your Tablo’s logs.

Number 2 happens to us all the time (along with “Loading, please wait…”) on a 720p TV that isn’t used much. No such behaviour on our 1080p TVs. I suspect it is because we are recording the shows at 1080 and the 720p TV isn’t taking the downconversion very well, but I’m not even sure how live TV is impacted by this setting…

This has always been the case for me when trying to view Live TV. The Tablo needs to cache about 20 seconds of video before it can stream to your Roku.

More info on this at this thread given the Tablo’s protocols:

[quote=“luker, post:9, topic:8343”]
This has always been the case for me when trying to view Live TV. The Tablo needs to cache about 20 seconds of video before it can stream to your Roku.
[/quote]Mine doesn’t take a full 30 seconds, but if its the first time I have used it for the day, it can take 15 to maybe as much as 20 seconds. I’m sure it seams longer than it really is.

It also may be in my head but the initial time (again, first time use of the day) to load seemed to increase when I changed hard drives… If Im in the same room as the HDD when I first access it, I can hear the drive spinning up. The fact that some of us report 10 seconds to load while others report 15 to 20 could be due to the time it takes the HDD to spin up and start encoding the stream.

I haven’t noticed it takes any longer at other times during the day though, only when its first use after a long down time and the drive has to wake up.

My Tablo Quad is hardwired.
My hardwired Roku 4, on the same network switch as my Tablo, takes an average of 18 seconds to tune in a Live TV channel.
My wireless-g connected Roku 2 (2015) takes an average of 25 seconds to tune in a Live TV channel.
I’m also not pleased with how long it takes to tune in and display a Live TV channel, but it has been very consistent for me from the beginning.

I’ve timed mine with a stopwatch and have a low number of 22 seconds and a high number of 34 seconds. Average is probably at around 27 seconds. Hardwired Roku 3 and hardwired Tablo on the same switch.

Thanks for the responses everyone. I’ve submitted a ticket to see what can get solved.

My next question: Will Tablo ALWAYS be this painfully slow? I’ve had it for over 2 years now and it’s never gotten better.

Check out the thread in my response above. It explains technically what is going on during the Tablo’s initialization period. It won’t change for the foreseeable future. Which is why some users use their TV for channel hopping and live TV - not the Tablo.

So the prayer chain didn’t work hunh? There must be some faithlessness in this community forum…:japanese_goblin:

Initially, tuning into a Live TV channel was jarring to me.
I couldn’t believe how long it was taking, and was very unhappy.
I still don’t like how long it takes to tune in a Live TV channel.
However, 99% of the time, I don’t watch Live TV.
I watch recordings, which load in 2 seconds for me.
You may want to watch live sports or live news, and I feel for you, eventhough, I don’t care to watch them myself.

Same setup here. Tablo Quad hardwired into the same network switch as the Roku.

Some observations:

  • – We have 4 iterations of the Roku box and the older boxes take a longer time to buffer the stream.
  • – All streaming content needs to buffer before playing to avoid drop outs.
  • – To avoid interference and bandwidth limitations, hardwire is superior to WiFi.
  • – After the Tablo has been dormant, it takes a little longer to begin buffering.