I am a new Tablo user, and am looking to the wider community of Tablo users to see if I can eliminate a problem I am having. It seems like a common problem, yet I haven’t seen an exact match in my searches here so far. I greatly appreciate any advice you can provide!
The problem: I have recently noticed periodic re-loading through OTA broadcasts on nearly every channel. The channel will go to the reloading progress bar, or worse yet, will sometimes do the “Reconnecting to Tablo” screen instead, which will crash exit the channel and kick me back to the guide. This didn’t happen the first week or so of my set up, but started recently during some windy weather, and hasn’t improved now that the weather has cleared.
Here are the details of my setup:
Tablo four-tuner hard-wired through ethernet to dual-band Linksys WRT 1200AC router with high-gain antennae (signal strength is good). TV is about 50 feet from Tablo and router, though there are three interior walls between them. Hard drive is brand new Western Digital 2 TB.
TV uses brand new Roku Ultlra and Tablo Roku app. Roku connects to Tablo over wi-fi network. Signal is strong.
Antenna is roof-mounted Antennas Direct Clearstream 4V with Winegard Boost XT pre-amp. We live about 23 miles due-west of Chicago’s Loop (where most of our channels broadcast from), and have enjoyed strong signal strength. Signal strength was often good before with just an indoor antenna.
Tablo settings: Recommended 720p recording, fast live TV start up turned off.
So where do I start? Has anyone had similar issues with the “Reconnecting to Tablo” and getting booted from channels? I have double checked all of the connections and cords, and now wonder if I should concentrate first on the antenna signal or the wifi signal… or perhaps Spring’s new leaves are part of the problem? I’m not sure I can do much to boost antenna signal… I have a highly-rated antenna mounted on the roof and using an amplifier, and am in a major metropolitan area at a higher elevation.
Thank you for your time and help! Let me know if any other information is helpful.
Is overloading the tuner a possibility here (since I am using an amplifier with my antenna)?
The perplexing thing is the “Reconnecting to Tablo” issue. The buffering isn’t a huge deal… the show eventually continues, but when it does the disconnection it boots me back to the Live TV guide, and I have to navigate back to the channel and load it up again.
Welcome to the Community. I had similar problems and found that switching the Roku units to assigned IP addresses (in the router) AND having them connect ONLY on the 5gHz band significantly helped. In most neighborhoods, the 2.4gHz band WiFi is clobbered by too many other signals (ie: microwave ovens, residential wireless phones and other wifi users) to be totally reliable to stream TV.
I set up several access points in the house as well, parking them near the Roku units. I used TP-line Powerline adapters to extend the network without running cables. If you go this route, be sure to get the ones rated for at least 1200 mbs. These units also use the grounding cable in your home wiring and have worked well for me. (I just returned 6 of the 500 mbs units as their performance was inconsistent in my house.)
Lastly, since you noticed that the signal deteriorated on a windy day, you may want to check the the cable connection to the antenna is still solid and that water has not found its way in to the connector, and temporarily jump around the amplifier, especially if it is mounted outdoors. As close as you are to the Loop, you may not need it, as the stations in Chicago are authorized alot of power.
I also took this to Tablo Support, and they thought that the new software beta may help. They gave no explanation about what the new software would change, but I had it pushed to my account and installed it last night.
Additionally, I bolstered Roku-Tablo connection by bringing a wifi extender in to the TV area and connecting an ethernet cable to the Roku from the wifi extender (I can’t really run a cable from the Roku to the Tablo, but the Tablo is connected to the main router with an ethernet cable).
One or both of these things seems to be working so far… We shall see over time. My cord-cutting cred suffered with my family over the weekend when we kept losing the Cubs broadcast!