Tablo drops every hour on the hour

Support & Troubleshooting
1

First, I love my TabloTV and recommend it maniacally.

Lately, when I’m watching live TV (lots of football lately), Tablo drops the connection every hour on the hour. My hard drive is not full. I have a 2-channel tuner, but it’s not dropping because of other things scheduled to record. (There are either one or zero other things scheduled.). I can click back to the menu and revive the connection when this happens.

Love my Tablo, but I’m wondering about this. Thank you!

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Is it happening on a particular device (Roku, tablet, web)?  

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Does the drive have a sleep timer?

And as snowcat asked… because some devices have a setting that allows network interfaces to sleep too… 
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When you say drop the connection does the video just freeze? Sounds like the device doesn’t kick you out of live TV viewing screen or crash and go to the device’s main screen.

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@MarkPekala just a thought, are you assigning static IP or is it via DHCP? If DHCP is it possible the lease time is an hour? I know, far fetched, but had to ask :wink:

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@MarkPekala 


I’m also wondering about the DHCP lease as suggested by @Jestep. We’ve actually seen this crop up more often than you’d think.
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DHCP leases would cause issues if the lease expired and the device did not send a renew request AND there was another device that came onto the network and the DHCP server assigned the IP that had been for the Tablo to the newcomer. Otherwise your lease can expire and renew hundreds of times and unless or until the device drops off the network it will keep and keep using that IP address.

If the lease is up and it doesn’t renew it automatically (something the device should do!) then the DHCP server is free to assign it to the next device to show up and ask for an address. 
I’ve had the same IP address on this notebook I’m using for over a year now - the exact same IP address and it’s NOT static nor is it persistent - it’s just that my notebook wasn’t “off the network” at the same time another device requested an IP address, so it’s free to keep on using this address for all of eternity. It may LOSE this IP address if it should reboot or be off-line when another device needs a new IP address. Most of the time, however, devices that stay “up” or on the network lease or not keep their IP address.
There’s two reasons that would change:
IP conflict for some reason,
Device is off the network and a new device shows up asking for an IP address.
HOWEVER, the device should renew DHCP address when the lease is up, if not it’s an OS or network interface or driver issue. 
The lease length is up to the DHCP server and is normally configurable “Lease duration for DHCP clients” or words to that effect.
SOME DHCP servers allow unlimited leases - it never ends until the device is shut down, then that address is free to be assigned to another device that comes along and asks.
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Actually, dhcp servers will give the same Mac it’s requested ip unless taken/full.

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Hi there. Thanks for these thoughts. I’m using an IPad Air 2 with iOS 8, flipping the stream to my big TV via Apple TV. When the Tablo drops, it kicks me to the Live TV channel menu (it’s not that the image freezes on the screen). Your question about static IP and DHCP leases (far) exceeds my technical knowledge. I’m just a semi-tech-literate guy. I don’t think the drive has a sleep timer; it’s a 1TB Seagate Slim portable drive.

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Which version of iOS 8? Upgrade to 8.1.2. And which Apple TV?

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All the latest updates.

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Actually, dhcp servers will give the same Mac it's requested ip unless taken/full.

Pretty much what I was saying  unless something else comes along while your PC or device is off, you keep the same IP. So that means that on a small network if the Tablo doesn’t go down AND another device request an IP at that time, the Tablo would keep the same IP for days, weeks, months even years. It has to be down, and another device make a request and the DHCP server need the address. Even my home desktop seems to keep the same IP address for months on end while the phones and other  devices that come and go get or may get different addresses each time. 

Of course a lot depends on the DHCP server, too - Is it Cisco, Juniper, Netgear, Windows-based, NCP, SBR, etc. as some behave a bit differently. 
I was using an iPad for some VPN testing today and I’d connect, work a while with it, disconnect, wait a couple of minutes and reconnect and it kept getting a DIFFERENT IP address each time. I can’t recall the code for sure but it was either based on Juniper or Cisco DHCP services that were running on that VPN gateway - kept giving that iPad a new address with each request. Odd, and it really through my testing for a loop. 
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Seagates do have a sleep time and with it dropping every hour, I would bet that is the issue.  Below is a link so Seagates website, one thing to note since you are using a MAC is this line...

Note: Sleep adjustments are only available in Windows. Drives used in Mac OS will follow the settings of the operating system under system preferences.


http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/005888en?language=en_US

 

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Interesting, my Apple TV’s (two of them) do the same thing when watching Live TV but not a recording. I have been having MAJOR problems lately with connecting to the Tablo through the Apple TV app. WHen I turn it on and go to the Tablo app it says there was an error encountered and I can either try again which does not work or cancel. I end up having to reboot Tablo and then it works. Obviously rebooting disrupts scheduled recordings.

The Tablo Support (David) told me that my IP address on the Tablo and the Apple TV should be the same in order to connect. When they do connect they are never the same address. The Support takes a day or more between answering my questions and they are brief and never detailed.

From what I understand they are not supposed to both be the same address because that is not the way DHCP is supposed to work but then again I am no expert.

As far as using an iPad to the Apple TV, I had problem when the iPad screen goes to sleep then Apple TV would loose connection soon after it sleeps and Support has never fixed it but identified it as a known problem.

15

There is definitely a misunderstanding there. You can’t have multiple devices with the same IP address. Maybe he meant that both have to be on the same IP subnet.

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I apparently misunderstood, he said sub. He just told me now that we confirmed they are on the same sub that they do not know why they loose connection

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