Tablo Rebooting for weak/broken signal

Support & Troubleshooting
1

Recently we have been having more issues with our Tablo Quad. Pixelation during live tv, broken up recordings, unable to connect, recently I’ve come back to a few the led light being off events where I can’t connect.

I’ve got an open ticket currently with support and they suspect weak/broken signal on a couple of my channels.

I got to testing a bit tonight, and currently when I go to watch live tv on 3 channels, 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. I can watch the show for a few minutes and then the unit will freeze up and reboot. I’ve been able to duplicate the rebooting consistently. When I scan the channels, all three show will green dots.

I’m using a bigger indoor antenna and I’ll have to look to see if I can wire up an outdoor antenna which could take a bit. I have used the same antenna for a HDhomerun I have and it seems to be working fine at least for live tv.

I’m on 2.2.28, but I’m hoping that this isn’t the default behavior of the box when there are signal issues to reboot. My wife isn’t really happy right now with how things are working.

Thank,
Josh

2

A really good outside antenna is key to a happy wife. Go the the antenna man website and get a recommendation for your location.

3

I do have an external antenna, but it isn’t installed, I will have to see if I can get it installed this weekend.

One thing I noticed, when I was moving and testing things around, I added a booster between the antenna and the Tablo. Using the signal meter on a HDHomerun I have connected to the same line I saw this.

TabloSupportprebooster

When I removed the booster, I saw my signal strength go down to 92% but my quality rather than a steady 57% fluctuated between 50% and 98%

So far I’ve been able to watch live tv on this channel for 15 minutes without it rebooting which is good.

Would bad signal quality cause a reboot?

-Josh

4

Yes, bad signal quality will cause reboots.

1 Like
5

It’s often discussed, signal strength is only part of the equation. Signal quality (SNR) can be 100% with far less than 100% strength.

I’ve had issues, adding a signal amp on a long run. One channel (sub channels are the same frequency and the “primary”). Same signal strength on both TVs, but one had the quality randomly drop. Discovered, removing the amp solved my problems. I do have a “power splitter” I guess that’s enough.

Even less than 100 - I get considerably less than 90% (as viewed by the TV “meters”) and have a Signal Quality of 100%. I presume it’s related to SNR, not sure what my Symbol Quality is… it appears to be primarily a HDHomerun information.

6

Outdoor antenna is installed and my channels are looking good, all the ones I care about are green and 98-100%. All was good for about a day or so, unfortunately the rebooting seems to still continue or at least the broken up shows and again the led was out and I was unable to connect.

Still following up with support.

1 Like
7

The next most needed thing is a strong LAN, which requires a new modern modem and a new mesh system. In the last 6 months I have replaced a 5+ yr old modem and my old Apple Exteme network with a Netgear Nighthawk mesh system. Life has been great and the new wifi 6 is wonderful.

8

Is there a correlation with “random” reboots? Weak or no network signal?

Do agree solid network is necessary. Don’t recall it contributing to reboots or recording segmentation.

9

I’m really hoping the LAN has nothing to do with recordings. I don’t understand why there would need to be a network connection for the recording to happen, everything should be contained within the box assuming it has already downloaded the guide. I have an older router Netgear R7000, but it’s still supported by Netgear and the Tablo is the only device that seems to have issues on the network.

I can’t seem to find a correlation to the “random” reboots. I’ve seeing it on multiple channels and shows, the few times I’ve seen it happen, I’ve been watching a show live and didn’t get any weak signal indicators while watching the live feed and the recording segments don’t show any thing other than the show.

I’ll love to be able to dig into the logs or show the logs or anything on the system but it doesn’t seem like we can. I’m not sure what else to do other than try and have a video camera pointed at the Tablo and a TV screen and try and catch what it’s doing.

Case still open with support but it’s challenging with the device rebooting it keeps loosing remote access mode and I’m not willing to run the “RouteThis Helps” app to give them network information. Sorry, but, I can’t see what information the app sends about my network, so I’m not comfortable running it and sending that information to who knows where.

-Josh

10

You can find obscure messages weak signal or something about no drive or drive error. In the beginning I had radon reboots due to alleged “bad drive” (it’s a very old topic can’t find details at the moment).

Disconnecting the drive, if you can watch live TV without reboot vs watching live TV with drive and random reboots - issue could be drive. (I did extensive testing, transferred files re-formatted drive, transferred files back - and my bad drive work just fine for over a year)

that’s how I understand things work. Other than updating/maintenance and guide data (tablo-connect) network is used for streaming content - watching shows.

I don’t know how “old” my Netgear R7000 is (running dd-wrt) but it has a dual core 1GHz, networking technology hasn’t progressed, well my devices haven’t. The majority of devices are IoT aka “smart” devices that generate minimal traffic, so I guess they aren’t much of a strain. Anything with a port is wired!

11

It could be the Tablo’s power adapter.
Although, I believe rarely, they have been know to go bad.

12

I have a HDHOMERUN and use the PC HTMP app to monitor the signal.

What is missing from your picture is network rate. When actually playing the video you will see a snap shot of signal strength, signal quality, and symbol quality. But you might also observed strange wide fluctuations in the network rate. These can be caused by not only poor signal quality but network retries.

13

I’ve been out of town since Friday. Looking at my recordings over the weekend. I had one failed recording due to weak signal (friday night), but I had 9 other shows that recorded without error including some shows and times I’ve had issues with. I did reboot Friday morning and set remote access mode. Tonight, it’s back to solid led so it rebooted at least once this weekend.

I know I have been doing most of my monitoring via web browser (edge). I’m pretty sure I purposely disconnected from the tablo rather than just closing my tab, but I wouldn’t think that would cause issues.

Power supply is a possibility, I know I’ve measured low amps on the power supply when the network isn’t working, but I’ve attributed that to the network components not working and not drawing power.

I’ve thought about disconnecting the drive but it’s an internal drive, so I’d would have rig something to stick the drive in. I don’t have an external usb drive for the drive I’m using. WD Blue 2TB.

BTW, thanks for all the ideas and comments.

-Josh

14

Now, support is saying with the external antenna my signal strength is too strong. I had a two-way splitter installed before I’m going to try a four-way splitter I have to see if it makes any difference. I need to see if I can find some terminators as two of the runs would not be terminated. I took out my booster when I installed the external antenna so that it’s in the mix.

-Josh

15

Can’t connect again and LED light is off, again.

Maybe someone can help me with this part. I split the wires on my power supply being careful not to nick or expose the copper and below is what I’m seeing when I measure the dc current with a clamp on ammeter. I currently have a USB powered fan plugged in to the unit.

-0.56 A / +0.80 A : This was when the unit was locked up
-1.03 A / +1.24 A : This was after the reboot the unit idle not recording with USB fan connected.
-0.76 A / + 1.06 A : This was after the reboot, unit idle, without the fan.

I know the power supply on these is only 2A. Is it just the + number I need to worry about or is the addition of the fan adding too much current draw?

16

I have two Tablo 4-tuner (one is the “new unit” and one older one), and the two biggest issues I have come across was heat (placing them on an open shelf with plenty of air space around the units help better than a fan in my opinion), and signal strength.

I have several stations that were over-amped, and it did cause a problem. I thought it was a signal strength problem with several stations that would pixelate and go to “weak signal” at night (especially in the summer time).

I purchased a cheap “WalMart” digital convert box for about $35 that the “antenna man” uses to show signal strength, and would run rescans when the “weak signal” problems were happening. I live about 45 miles from Austin, and about 120 miles from San Antonio. The problem was with atmospheric conditions that allowed the signals from San Antonio to interfere with the signals from Austin. The actual RF signals were on the same frequency, and it was causing the problem.

It was probably driving the DVR crazy during those periods…With the last few firmware updates, it has gotten much better (few times the channel drops), but it still happens (in fact, right now I am trying to watch Star Trek Voyager (channel 14-3 H&I) and the San Antonio station is causing it to pixelate.

If I were to run a rescan on my cheap converter box, I would see the San Antonio channels, but it wouldn’t lock in H&I…I can watch the San Antonio stations clear, but not the Austin channels.

Anyway - I spent over a year trying pre-amps, amplified splitters, different antennas, 4G LTE filters, replacing cabling, re-aiming the antenna, moving it around, etc… I spent countless hours on discussion boards asking for “expert help”.

If I had one of those $5,000 signal analyzers - I could have figured it out in seconds…

My suggestion for you - remove all the amps, splitters, filters, and run the antenna directly to the Tablo only. Also - remove the USB fan (or power it with another device - maybe a power strip with USB in it), and give it a try. With your HDHomerun, you can see signal quality - do rescans when you see issues.

For the most part, if signal strength is between 70% and 90%, you usually have the best quality you need…100% doesn’t get you a better picture, it is only showing you that it is at max strength (which it can be over 100% and distorting because of it). Look for channels near your area that may be causing interference - that could be another problem.

1 Like
17

Two straight days with no broken recordings, not sure if it was the additional splitter that I added or unplugging the fan from the USB port. I may do some more testing after a few days of adding the fan to see if the issue comes back.

2 Likes
18

Update after a couple of days. I’d say about 2/3 of my recordings recorded fine with no problems, unfortunately others still were broke up. Different channels, different shows. Setup still the same splitter and no fan.

I’m in Boise, ID and all my stations are in one direction, I’m not too far from the towers, I’d guess 20 miles or so but no other stations further out it may be pulling in.

Funny thing about it, its the wife that watches all the TV so she’s the one complaining to me about all these issues. Unhappy wife, unhappy life.

-Josh

19

Atmospheric conditions will have an effect on reception. There could be problems with electronics, light bulbs, neighbor’s wifi, and a lot more. Even the stations may be using lower power towers on a temporary basis.

Create a log - include the date/time and channel # where the problem occurred. Try to find a pattern (i.e. it happens often at 9:00PM - 1:00AM). I had a flaked out LED bulb that was causing problems a while back…It can be frustrating.

20

yes! and then some. As you’re mentioned - amps! I had issues with just one channel, it was kind of screwy how I decided I didn’t need that amp… then that last channel finally came it “flicker” free.

On a rare occasion, low flying air planes (prop planes). But that’s only for a moment. There are more than just phone towers. In rural community’s, where the wires don’t run there’s different technology for wireless internet. The position of the sun, around the time of the equinoxes seem to an affect on RF signals, or just a screwy phenomenon… maybe not particularly TV.

Keeping a log is an excellent suggestion!