I have a Tablo Quad that I ordered the day they were released. I am having an issue that seems hardware-related, but wanted to see if anyone has the same problem.
About once a week or so, when trying to watch a live show or watch a recording, I will get “Error: Weak Signal.” When this happens, it’s on every channel. It seems like the entire tuner goes down and loses signal on all channels. Simpy hitting the reset button on the back of the unit fixes the problem, for a while, which is a hassle because I never know when it’s going to happen and usually end up missing a night or two of recordings before I try to catch up on shows that I missed while traveling or busy.
A weak signal error can reboot the Tablo and that might be interpreted as happening on every channel. You should review your antenna/cabling setup as this is key to a successful Tablo experience. Search the forum for reception and/or weak signal for similar issues and tips or visit the Tablo website or other sites on the internet for helpful tips to improve your reception. Good luck and welcome to the community!
I would first make sure that all the coax connections are properly seated. And that the coax pins are not too short. I once bought a short coax cable that caused some issues and appeared to be properly seated. But the male-to-female pin was strangely too short allowing partial signals.
Thanks for the quick reply. I am not sure I understand your comment that a “weak signal can reboot the Tablo and that might be interpreted as happening on every channel.” It’s not a temporary thing. Once I get the error on one channel, I cannot tune to any channel without getting the “Error: Weak Signal” message.
All of the connections are fine, best I can tell. The system will work great for a week or two, all channels tuning and recording just fine, then it all just stops working until I manually reboot the system myself.
Search for reboot in the forum and you will find several entries related to a weak signal. Perhaps this is related to your problem. Your cabling/antenna setup can make a big difference. I was using an attic mounted ClearStream 4V antenna and I had extremely infrequent weak signal / reboot issues but I only had about 70% commercial skip success. I changed over to an old yagi antenna and I have had a couple weak signal issues recently but I get a much better commercial skip success rate. Go figure - it’s sometimes tough to get the setup right. Some on the forum are lucky and have it work perfectly from the get go. Others struggle to get to an acceptable level as there are many variables to success. I consider myself very lucky as I chase the elusive perfect reception setup.
Weak signal is definitely a prime suspect, but overheating could also be your problem. Is your Tablo in a well ventilated location or is it buried inside of a media cabinet? Tablos can become overheated and basically just lock up.
I don’t have the new quad, but I do own 2 of the original 4 tuner models. Shortly after purchasing the first unit, I was having occasional lock ups and I determined that it usually occurred when several tuners were in use and thus generating more heat than usual. The Tablo was sitting on top of a media cabinet, but apparently it wasn’t receiving enough air circulation. I purchased a laptop cooling pad and haven’t had a problem with overheating since. I currently have both of my Tablos sitting on the laptop cooler and they continue to operate properly.
HI, I just had the exact problem one day this week. I rebooted tablo, then apple tv,then router, still did not work.The fix was rescan the channels on tv connecting directly to tv, not thru tablo. then it worked.Not sure why this happened. I also have the quad.
This is definitely different than a reboot caused by poor reception; we’d really like the opportunity to take a look. If you haven’t already, can you send our support team a ticket?
Tablo Support… thank you for your reply. I am going to be traveling with work quite a bit the next two weeks, but will definitely submit a ticket as soon as I get an opportunity and will be able to be near the unit for troubleshooting.
Also, I presume it will be helpful (probably required) for the unit to be in the failed state when we start the support process, so I will keep any eye on that as well.
Just a quick update on this topic… it did appear to be a hardware problem. Tablo sent me a new one and things seem to be behaving better now, at least for the first couple of days, so hopeful a new Quad has fixed my problems… No “Error: weak signal” on all channels so far!