Tablo tuners 3 &4 died

Support & Troubleshooting
1
(I submitted a copy of the below to support but while i am waiting for them to reply i was hoping maybe someone on the forum might have some answers to my questions)

My tablo's tuners keep locking up. This started shortly after the .20 firmware update. What is the procedure and timeline to get it swapped? Also as far as my actual recordings on the Harddrive will they show up when I plug it into my replacement tablo? And will I have to setup all recordings again or are these saved in the cloud like other services? 

Basically what happens is I can tune any two stations at first and when I try to tune any third station it immediately fails showing the error "Failed to stream, weak signal". It seems like tuner 3/4 died. the problem is the tuner won't release the stations until I reboot it, so basically I have to reboot the tablo after each two stations are tuned in order to get the tuners to drop those stations and make themselves available again. I have tried everything and nothing fixes this, is there a beta firmware I can try and maybe it will flash that tuner back to life (maybe something got corrupted in the last update) or what is the fastest way to get my hardware swapped? PLEASE HELP!
2

The fastest way to determine if the hardware has failed is to call Tablo 

3

Tablo can actually log in and check a whole lot of stuff for you or give you specific things to do to check things out. They are beyond good support. 

In the meantime, ensure you have a strong antenna signal as that signal must be split and shared internally among multiple tuners. A weak signal from the antenna can be crazy when “split”, it will degrade further.

Also be sure you have a good solid network connection - your Wi-Fi is strong.
You could use a PC and try to run ping -t xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx where the xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of your Tablo device. 
The -t with ping says keeping on pinging until I stop you with Ctrl-C. 
If you see times above 2 or 3 ms or you see any dropped packets you have network troubles. Try to ping the device you are streaming to as well. That’s assuming you have a PC to test with. I don’t know if you even CAN ping using an iPad without a 3rd part app as Apple locks those things down pretty hard. 
Basically ensure that all outside influences are strong and good, antenna signal and network. (do the simple stuff first, I guess)
And give them a call. 
4

@Sleeper We got your ticket! We’ll take a close look to see what’s going on, and we’ll get this sorted out.

5

TabloSupport confirmed the exactly what I feared today. Tuners 3 and 4 have died in my box after just 4 months of usage! For what it is worth mine is one of those that seemed to run very hot, I guess it finally cooked itself.

So again I will ask (since no one has answered yet) 

1. As far as my actual recordings on the Harddrive will they show up when I plug it into my replacement tablo?

2. Will I have to setup all recordings again or are these saved in the cloud like other services?

I hope my replacement arrives soon and I hope it isn't a refurb, since I bought mine new and it only lasted 4 months I don't think it would be fair to be replaced with another unit that already broke and was fixed.

Previously I would have recommended tablo to anyone, now I am not so sure I would.......

6

@Sleeper, as someone who has had a replacement Tablo, you have to start over from scratch.  The new Tablo doesn’t not recognize the old recordings, and you will have to set up all your recordings again. 


If you don’t format the hard drive, that space will just be wasted on the new Tablo.   
7

If it hasn’t totally died, meaning at least it’s on the network and you can access it to see the list of recordings that already exist - the stuff that’s there, you can grab one of the scripts talked about in these threads

http://community.tablotv.com/discussion/257/api-interface-to-pull-recorded-show-listings-metadata-and-files-off-of-the-tablo

and

http://community.tablotv.com/discussion/1411/surlatablo-py-python-program-to-query-and-convert-tablo-recordings

I tried one tonight and experimented - it grabbed a show and converted it to mp4 and saved it to my computer. It was so simple even I could do it. I first had it list the shows on my Tablo, then chose one just to mess with and it took only like 2 minutes for the whole process, it was FAST considering the show was over half a gig 

I plan on trying the other script later this week or weekend but it appears both are simple to use and either do what I was looking for - saving shows in a format usable on a PC.
I’d actually love to be able to save them in a quality that would work for burning to DVD so I could save a whole season of shows onto DVD for my wife to play any time as she knows DVD use inside and out.

And from this list I can tell my wife had figured out series recording, but she hasn’t figured out playback yet - that’s more complex with chromecast…  ;-)

[Jan 15 21:47:15 2015] - Starting TabloToGo Version 2.0.55
[Jan 15 21:47:15 2015] - Loading download history
[Jan 15 21:47:15 2015] - 1 shows and movies have already been downloaded
[Jan 15 21:47:16 2015] [192.168.0.100] - Found Tablo named Manually Entered
[Jan 15 21:47:16 2015] [192.168.0.100] - Loading meta-data for 10 recordings
[Jan 15 21:47:16 2015] [192.168.0.100] - 9 new TV, 0 movies, and 0 sports
[Jan 15 21:47:16 2015] [192.168.0.100] - 9 matching videos have been queued
EP019222940013 Madam Secretary - S01E13 - Chains of Command
EP011583610125 NCIS Los Angeles - S06E02 - Inelegant Heart
EP014198470080 Person of Interest - S04E12 - Control-Alt-Delete
EP011729911109 The Dr. Oz Show - S06E79 - Total 10 Rapid Weight Loss Plan Halfway Point
EP011729911110 The Dr. Oz Show - S06E80 - 3 Rules to Know Before You Take a Statin
EP011729911111 The Dr. Oz Show - S06E81 - How Glenn Close Saved Her Sisters Life
EP011729911112 The Dr. Oz Show - S06E82 - 3 Things Doctors Are Worried About Now
EP000020800098 The High Chaparral - S03E23 - Too Many Chiefs
EP000020800078 The High Chaparral - S03E24 - Auld Lang Syne

To grab and convert a show and save it locally on my notebook was a simple command:

c:\python27\python tablo2.py EP018598200005 -tablo:192.168.0.100

Your settings will be gone and any future recording settings will be gone, but you can save shows anyway… as long as Tablo is alive and the drive accessible through the Tablo and shows still list in the recordings page.
8

@sleeper - any electronic device can have a component failure, it’s not necessarily indicative of anything bad.


There is a simple way to migrate your recordings from your current Tablo to the new one.  TabloSupport can help you out with that.
9

@Sleeper


I’m echo’ing at this point, and we’re chatting via e-mail, but yes - there’s an easy way to migrate data from your original Tablo to your replacement. 

While component failures are common in electronics, this is the first time I’ve personally seen a tuner failure - we’ll be investigating this closely as soon as we get your original Tablo in the office.
10

Good to know that there is a way to migrate the data.

11
@Sleeper

I'm echo'ing at this point, and we're chatting via e-mail, but yes - there's an easy way to migrate data from your original Tablo to your replacement. 

While component failures are common in electronics, this is the first time I've personally seen a tuner failure - we'll be investigating this closely as soon as we get your original Tablo in the office.

@TabloSupport I am curious what this easy way is, as I recall, many people have asked this spcifically changing hard drives and have been told no…

12

Yes please let us all in on this secret :slight_smile:

13

@Jestep @theuser86 


The method I’m referring to is migrating a DB from one Tablo to the other - not one drive to the other. I know, it sounds like more or less ‘the same’ but the process exists only for new Tablo’s at the moment.
14

@TabloSupport, well you know the request now :stuck_out_tongue:

15

Ok so it’s to transfer the database to the new Tablo to use the same old hard drive - makes sense.

I want to upgrade my HDD and keep my recordings so please add this feature soon! :stuck_out_tongue:

16
@Sleeper

I'm echo'ing at this point, and we're chatting via e-mail, but yes - there's an easy way to migrate data from your original Tablo to your replacement. 

While component failures are common in electronics, this is the first time I've personally seen a tuner failure - we'll be investigating this closely as soon as we get your original Tablo in the office.

@TabloSupport I am curious what this easy way is, as I recall, many people have asked this spcifically changing hard drives and have been told no…

I was among those asking and wondering as I was using a temp drive and wanted to replace it with the new permanent drive and was told more than once - no can do - you lose settings and recorded shows when you replace a drive or swap Tablos out and use the SAME drive.

17

@TabloSupport - Glad to hear this can be done, everyone else’s responses had me worried. So will these directions be included with my replacement unit or are they somewhere online or where do I find this info? Also is the replacement unit going to be a refurb or a new unit (mine was only 4 months old) and it concerns me to get stuck with a refurb box that probably already broke once and was repaired.

18

Tuners 1 & 2 have now also failed, I can watch recordings but cannot tune any stations or record anything. And no my antenna has not been moved or anything like that.

Son of a *>*!@*, wondering where my replacement tablo is or if it has even been shipped yet!

19

@tablosupport - Can you please share the migration method with me? I bought a new tablo today from Amazon to use until you send me my replacement unit for my broken one and would like to start using it but it doesn’t just automatically migrate my DB when I connect the HD.

20

@sleeper - This requires the team to access your Tablo remotely so we’ll need to set a session up with you.


I’ll have @TabloSupport get in touch.