Hello,
Just setup a 4 channel Tablo yesterday with a 1TB Seagate HDD, and only one Roku 3. Watching TV last night was without issue. This morning I tried to watch live TV and could not because of “loading please wait” buffering was non-stop. Happens on various channels. Not sure why live TV would be recorded and queued, but the same thing is looped? The only other work the Tablo is doing is recording a movie from a 480 channel.
It did record a few shows last night and playback has fewer loading, please wait issues, maybe once every 2 minutes. What is the deal?
Apart from network issues, the LPW can also occur when signals get weakened. Different times of the day may have different signal strengths. What works at 9 PM may not work at 2 PM. Recording in the evening may be more successful than watching during the day since signals are strongest in the evening. Depends on your antenna setup.
However others may take a look at your networking.
Thanks. I’m 4 miles from the antenna farm of the broadcast stations and can use a paper clip for an antenna. Still using a small yagi beam though. I did turn off Live TV fast startup and changed the Tablo from wifi to hardwired. The tablo has the latest firmware. The Roku 3 is about 2 years old and hasn’t had a firmware update in a while. Haven’t had streaming problems with the Roku 3 for Netflix. Have 25/25MB internet speed.
Is it possible that the signal is too strong? That it may be overdriving the Tablo? Try sticking an inexpensive $2 splitter in front of the Tablo as a test. The splitter will lessen the signal going to the Tablo. Then also the second line from the splitter can go directly into the TV for channel hopping (Tablo not that great for channel cruising).
Possible, I’try anything. The antenna is indoors in an interior room that must do through 3 interior walls and the exterior wall. this is where the switch resides. Splitter is on and we’ll see. There is one set of channels that have an iffy signal, and hopefully they survive the splitter.
Make sure you have latest Roku firmware update.
There was a version of the Roku firmware that was atrocious for LPW, but Roku fixed that in the late autumn last year. You should update the firmware.
I have a roku 3 4200 connected via 5g. While some people reported LPW from earlier releases others rarely had a problem. But once roku released roku 3 software 6.2.3332 in April 2015 almost all Roku 3 users had LPW or roku crash and burn until the lastest roku 3 release.
Checked and its up to date with v7.1.0 It was set to 720p and I changed to 1080p, if it makes any difference since the Tablo is recroding at 720p 5MBs
I dumbed down the recording quality from 720 5MB to 720 3MB and live TV seems to be behaving.while recording, at least for this morning. Scratching my head at how recording quality would affect the feed of live TV to the Roku. Wouldn’t think a potential network performance issue would be exasperated by a higher quality recording in progress…Want to hard wire the Roku but will take some work. Also plan on adding 1 maybe 2 more TVs once (if) i get the bugs out.
The video format coming in through your TV antenna is not suitable for storing on hard drive nor for transmitting via your home network between Tablo and your TV/Roku/PC/tablet. Tablo processes it using the recording settings (which determine compression, resolution, etc) to create video snippets several seconds long that, when transmitted in a series, can be reassembled at your device into watchable video content. The snippets are several seconds long to minimize overhead and generally to keep the process efficient. The higher the quality (based on recording setting), the greater the amount of data that must be transmitted through your network from Tablo to the device.
When you watch a live stream, all of the same process described above must still occur to get the video into a format that can be transmitted from the Tablo to the device you’re watching. This means
a) there is a delay of several seconds after you select a channel for live stream while Tablo prepares the first snippet of several seconds’ video
b) the recording quality setting is still pertinent, even for watching live TV
c) depending on conditions, a hard drive may be required even to watch live TV since the snippet (and snippets from a potential additional viewer) must be stored somewhere as they’re assembled for transmission to your device.
d) higher quality recording settings put an increasing load on your home network. If the network’s capability isn’t sufficient for the load, delivery of snippets can be delayed / lost and the device playing the stream can run out of content. This results in a ‘Loading Please Wait’- one of the possible causes of that message.
Ah, thank you StuTomato, that would explain a lot. I’m using an old G wifi router that is busy with a family of 5. The house has around 15 wireless devices that are routinely used. Thinking It’ll need an upgrade along with wiring the video side as much as possible. My main TV’s tuner died so instead of repairing/replacing the TV, I was thinking the Tablo would resolve that issue, making it more cost effective.
‘Recording quality’ is also ‘streaming quality’ - it affects both recordings and live TV.
I’ve reduced the quality to 720 3MB and things are a bit better. However, while watching live TV last night, all was good until the clock struck 10pm and a recording began, the LPW loop started and we missed the last 2 minutes of a show. Doesn’t this situation rule out the network? It’s like the HDD and Tablo can only perform one function at a time.