Tablo will not start - SSD really the issue?

Support & Troubleshooting
1

A few days ago, my Tablo 4 Gen will not start. I reached out to Support and they had me

  • Unplug the external hard drive
  • Unplug your router/modem from the power for ~15 seconds and then plug it back in again.
  • Once your router/modem is fully rebooted, do the same with the Tablo.
  • Keep the external hard drive disconnected

This got the Tablo operating again. So I reattached the hard drive and everything worked… for a day or so. Then Tablo would not start… again.

Support wants to blame the hard drive. It’s a solid state drive, so I doubt that’s the problem.

Anyone run into this issue? Any solution? I think it’s a bug in the software?
@TabloEngineering @TabloForumAdmin @TabloEngineering

2

Weak power supplies are often the issue with external drives powered by the Tablo. If the supply is bad enough, even an SSD may cause problems.

2 Likes
3

Even though the drive works, it is possible it could have some internal problem. However, a weak power supply could be the issue as already suggested.

1 Like
4

The power comes directly from the Tablo unit. No other source of power.

@andyross @mbellaire

5

@andyross is referring to the power supply for the Tablo itself.

6

I remember there was speculation in this thread about self-powered drives maybe working better because they didn’t draw power from the Tablo USB. It could be possible that certain USB-powered drives cause issues by drawing more power from the USB than the TabloTV can provide.

7

What’s the bottom line here? My SSD drive has one USB connection. And that goes to the Tablo directly. So this has been my setup for a year now. Why would the drive occasionally cause an issue now? I’m searching for another potential reason for this situation. First thing that I think of is the latest update by Tablo.

8

Just providing hard drive info. Disregard if it doesn’t apply. However, Tablo Support says it’s the hard drive. Did they happen to provide you a reason why the drive isn’t working or a solution? Is the drive on the list of supported devices?

9

SSDs do sometimes go bad, and often with little or no notice. Which SSD are you using? I have this Western Digital and (so far) I have had no problems.

Silly question, but have your tried replacing the cord? Make sure you try a good high-speed cord.

10

Seagate BUP Slim BK0304 1 TB, operating flawlessly for a year.

11

Perhaps this is one of those Dicey Drives as described in #4 of the Tablo blog article shown below. This link to the recommended list of drives taken from the blog doesn’t work.

12

I have been using the San Disk portable USB ssd’s sold by costco. one 4 TB and one 1 TB.
Working OK, but it can take a second or third try to delete items. I don’t know if this is due to the way these ssd’s work, or the tablo app, or both.

13

I have a 3.5 Western Digital Black 4TB (I had one sitting around) with a ghetto Amazon USB adapter with a power plug… and its been chugging along.

14

I have a WD 2TB SSD. I have noticed that sometimes when I delete a program (especially if I am doing a “Delete All Watched”) that it take a moment for the program(s) to disappear from the list. The first few times I tried to delete them again, multiple times. Eventually, I realized it I waited a few seconds, they would disappear, certainly if I exited that menu and went back in to check.

1 Like
15

Yes I’ve seen the same behavior. I’m still not convinced that all this is tied to a hard drive though. In the last day or so I have not been experiencing the problem anymore after talking to support on the phone, which seems to get a little faster help than on the community Forum here

16

Sometimes even go slow is too fast.
Just something to be aware of and live with.