I keep getting "A. Playback error " message. I use a fire stick. I am watching an episode of macgiver. I’ve had the error at least 5 times. It seems like the tablo does a reset. If i hit retry I get the spinning circle.
99% of the time this is a reception issue. Even if you have a strong signal, other interference my be causing the problem also.
I am currently having the same issue and planning to debug tonight. I will post later with any findings.
A few disclaimers first.
I’m not a Tablo expert, and most of my debugging is via empirical observation.
My configuration is a fourth generation, 4 tuner, with an external 4TB Western Digital elements drive .
First off, I was having disconnect issues which was resolved by enabling the 5.4GHz radio on my Wi-Fi router. I’m guessing that this issue was caused by interference on the 2.4 GHz.
Secondly, I was having the playback issues that you described above. This wasn’t the decode error mentioned by the other poster — I have perfect signal strength. The error I was receiving read playback error, and then the Tablo appeared to go off-line for a few minutes. It should be noted that I’ve observed this issue on two different Tablo’s. I had an idea that maybe this was a power problem. With this in mind, I did some quick arithmetic. I assumed that the maximum power consumption of my Tablo was around 15 W and the external hard drive was around 4 W. This shouldn’t exceed the 24 W available from the power supply but when I replaced the power supply with a higher capacity unit, the problem went away. So I’m not sure why but the higher capacity power supply corrected my problem.
That’s my two cents. Overall, I am happy with the Tablo and think that it is a good design, especially considering the price point.