Play symbol with line through it?

I set my first scheduled recording, Seagate slim backup plus, and when the recording is over I cannot play it. The recording in the browser and in android app show the recording but there is the play symbol with a line through it. What up with that? My simpletv recorded the same show just fine. I can tune to that channel. So…?

I can tune to the same channel. I can use the android app to tell it to record the current show on the same channel as the scheduled recording (just an hour ago). So why did my scheduled recording(s) end up not being playable?


SimpleTV is a joke but at least it recorded the first show I tried to schedule to record almost a year ago.

And now the browser and android app cannot connect to the Tablo device. I put up with simpletv long enough…I wont put up with this kind of nonsense again. 

So I unplugged the tablo and everything could connect to it again but…I set up a new scheduled recording and…the recording “should” be happening right now but I cannot connect to the table again. Hurray. 


You guys are making it easy for me to decide to RMA the silly thing

@Eves, I am sorry you are having these problems.  The circle with a line through it means that the recording failed for some reason.   I have had it happen to me, but very very rarely (maybe twice out of 50 or so recordings)


Is your Tablo connected wirelessely to your router?  Your issue sounds like the network is having a hard time keeping connected to the Tablo, and that could definitely cause the problems you are having.   Can you try connecting it directly to the router or at least move the Tablo closer to it?   

If it is wired directly already, then I don’t really know what is happening.  But you can contact Tablo Support either way, and they will respond back the same day.

+1 on @snowcat s suggestions

Wired connection. Green lights on the router and TabloTV for that connection.


I’ve been working with support. They do seem to agree that there is a connection issue. We tried a number of different things to address the issue (new cable, using wifi, rebooting router…). Nothing has done the trick yet.

I think my particular issue has them stumped…for now. Sounds like they are going to talk it over and come back with suggestions. And if necessary talk replacement.

Shame too…until I tried to do a scheduled recording I was really impressed with TabloTV. Of course the commitment their support is showing me right now is pretty impressive. Hopefully it all works out

i wonder if it is a HDD issue.  Seems unlikely being that you can watch Live TV when you are able to connect, but maybe just maybe there is a difference in the way the Record to HDD works vs loading the buffer for LiveTV into temp storage on the unit/hdd…

@Eves good luck. I feel your pain and (I personally) suspect this may be related to the live tv feature in Tablo. I’ve experienced the same non-playable files for all recordings after “some” triggering event. [disclaimer] I don’t offer my time to troubleshoot and replicate issues but I am alert too and am paying attention to my particular situation… currently, I suspect accessing the live tv feature (in some manner) could be my triggering event. I do it so irregularly but recently noticed this issue after I did so on a Roku.


System reboots resolve future non-playable recording failures… until the next triggering event.

If everyone’s stumped and you can do without live tv for a while… reboot your Tablo and use it sans live tv. Let us (me) know if things work out in this configuration and/or if a fix is found. Again good luck. It really is great when it works!

@Eves In particular I suspect the following…


1) When one or more tuners are in use (recording stuff) I guess it would have to be both
2) and live TV is initiated… causing Tablo to prioritize tuner utilization for live playback
3) this then causes live TV viewing to fail, leading to either a connection failure message or necessitate a re-initialization of a live TV attempt (I seem to recall both happening to me over the last month)
4) this seems to cause all tuners to record “blocky” (unviewable) files
5) which (just possibly) is the cause of “crossed out play” icons for all shows after the triggering event

Again, this is more my experience than yours, but since you’ve just started recording shows and also play live TV… there may be some overlap in our experiences. The outcome is certainly similar.

Seems silly to ask, but did you verify that all connections to the tablo and antenna are secure?

Well, it seems silly to respond without a photo :)

Haha awesome. Not intended for u but awesome nonetheless? Lol

Tablo Support, David, got back to me after discussing things with the engineers. I am probably going to butcher the explanation so keep that in mind when you read my interpretation of what they said…


My firmwarre got corrupted, the MAC address the unit should have got lost, and now my router wont accept the MAC address as is (has zeros when it shouldn’t). Support believes the firmware got corrupted either because of all of the unplugging of the unit or simply due to a defective unit. 

I didn’t quite get what they were saying, apart from the MAC address getting messed up. So, again, I could have misinterpretted things.

Anyways, they are sending me a new unit and I will RMA the old one.

Well…I am confused. I got my new tablo. Set up seemed fine. My tablet, browser, and roku all connected fine. I set up my first scheduled recording via the browser and…I do not see any recordings in the browser or roku (recording still in progress). 


Is this normal? Do I have to wait for the recording to finish to be able to find the recording?

@Eves, no that is not normal.  As soon as the recording begins, you should see it in your recordings section on your devices and be able to play it.



The recording I supposedly set up is on my list of scheduled recordings. So my first thinking was that maybe I picked the wrong day. But when I clicked on the scheduled recording in the Android app I got the popup with the show info but the time for the show was…last night at 10pm (I set up the reording probably at 9:50 or so from my browser). Very strange…I have another scheduled recording at 5:30 this morning (set it up at 5:05). So we’ll see if it works or not. Scheduled recordings is a must for me. So far it looks like the last piece in the puzzel for me. Everything else is working as expected.


edit: well that worked this morning. I wonder what happened to last night’s scheduled recording. Perhaps because I used the browser to schedule it too close to the start time? I will test this further

You can schedule a show even while it is playing (and it will record the rest of it).  Just click on the show on live tv, and that option comes up.   So there shouldn’t be any limitation on when you schedule a show.

Its been working without issues since that first night. Live tv, scheduled recordings, viewing recordings…its all good now

@Eves - Glad to hear it!