Why the error "no receiver available......."

Support & Troubleshooting
1

I was of the understanding that the tuners were needed to receive a show transmission and record it AND to watch “live TV” just like watching any TV show on a TV without Tablo - you use a tuner in the TV which normally has ONE tuner. If you want to record to an older VCR and watch TV, you use the VCR’s tuner to record, and the TV’s tuner to watch another station. Simple logic - the Tablo needs a tuner to record any given show and to run “live TV” for you.

Record 3, watch 1 live, you need 4 tuners.
I have read here that NO tuner is needed to watch a recorded show.
So, I have a quad.
I set up to record: 
A show from 2:00 to 2:30pm
Another from 2:30 to 3:00pm
another from 3:00 to 3:30pm
My wife had already set a show on another station to record from 1 to 2pm

So the show she set records until 2:05 so tuner 1 is taken until 2:05
the show I set for 2 would use tuner 2 - that one would record until 2:35
The next show to record started at 2:30 but tuner 1 is now free so that could use tuner 1
The 3-3:30 show could use tuner 2 since the 2-2:35 show is done 25 minutes ago.
Technically I should have never gotten into tuners 3 and 4.
And if there are no tuners needed to WATCH a recording, why when I try to VIEW these shows do I get "no receiver available?

What does “no receiver available” mean? Do they mean “tuner” as in receiver tuner?
I have a quad, it was NOT recording a thing when I was trying to watch shows - and even if it was support as said that no tuner is used for watching a recorded show, just for recording or watching live TV. 
3 of the shows we tried to record that afternoon will not play. “no receiver available for this action” or whatever the error is is the result every time I try from any device.

2

After reading your post, I did some tests.  If I had both my tuners in use by recording two shows, and then I tried to watch a third show, I would get “Player error - no tuner available”.  The same error was on Chrome and on my Android phone.


Then I disconnected my phone from my home network and tried it again using Tablo Connect.  The error message this time is "Player error - no tuner / transcoder is available for remote adaptive bitrate playback."

So I believe that “no receiver available” has nothing to do with your tuners.  I wonder if your hard drive is having problems.  It might also be an issue with your network. 
3

I looked at it this way:


My wife had already set a show on another station to record from 1 to 2pm
* 1 Tuner in use
A show from 2:00 to 2:30pm
 2 Tuners in use from 2-2:05
Another from 2:30 to 3:00pm
 2 Tuners in use from 2:30-2:35
another from 3:00 to 3:30pm
* 2 Tuners in use from 3-3:05

Now question is, how many of those were Live shows? You would have to add the time on for that as well. Also if you are using Tablo Connect that is another Tuner in use

But @snowcat has a point, but wouldn’t the shows then fail to record???

4

Network solid. The Tablo is wired to the router, only a few feet away, new cable.

Also have no issues getting to Internet while doing that.
My notebook was Wi-Fi to the router, Tablo cabled to the router, all in the same room. The notebook was fine for everything else. We were just not able to watch those recorded shows. I could access Tablo, go from tab to tab or page to page, however you prefer to refer to it, quick response. I could get to HERE fine. The phone did take a few minutes to sync but then it’s not been used with the Tablo for a week, so that makes some sense. But it did sync without errors and showed the recordings, and the program guide, etc. as it should. 
 I tried several times yesterday to watch those recorded shows. 
Every time it was the same issue - no receiver. They showed as recordings when I went to the recordings tab. I was able to choose them, but when I clicked to play them, and this isn’t even trying to connect to the Chromecast yet - which also worked great or fine with no issues (and the CC device is Wi-Fi only)
They were PBS shows, set timeframes, exact same times each weekend, not live. But even then a quad running out of tuners for consecutive shows like that? I did not get the same errors you two did is the puzzling part. No “tuner” errors.

No Tablo connect - I’ve not set it up for remote use at all yet. Still trying to work out kinks locally and after this past weekend, there’s quite a few yet. 
I was puzzled by the use of “no receiver available” message - receiver?

Jestep you calculated 2 tuners in use worst case, even if there was a live show stuck in there, that’s 3 tuners, I have 4. 

BTW - I rebooted the Tablo 2 times as I thought maybe something was “stuck” and it still gave the same response.
5

If there was a live show in there it could be 3 tuners in use depending on how much time it added it could be 4…


Just to be sure I would ask Tablo support to look at your Tablo
6

Yup - that’s exactly what I plan on doing. My wife is gone for the week to a quilting retreat and I am tasked with recording a bazillion shows for her through the week - 

including (BARF)  Survivor (ugh, to me not worth the wasted bits on a drive but hey, she likes it when people behave like morons and are so full of themselves they get stupid.)
7

@shadowspapa - what device were you using when you got the message “No receiver available for this action”?

Could the shows actually have slightly different show times? Eg 2:01 - 2:34

You can always contact Tablo Support to look at your Tablo’s logs.

8

I have used their web site and submitted a trouble “ticket”.


The shows were recorded shows. We were not watching these live. We watched until about 2 and then got tired, I set up the rest of the shows to record. We napped, then that evening about 6pm, over 2 hours after the last show was done, we tried to watch them. The first was a disaster, a ton of pauses, skips and jumps, it was really flaky and impossible to watch. The second and 3rd gave me that error as soon as I tried to play the recordings… 
I was on a Windoze 7 64bit computer, tried with our phones, too - just as bad on first show, same error on others. It was as if Tablo wasn’t able to receive the shows or something. 
I gave them the MAC and other info and told them I’d let them into the computer and router if they thought it might help. I want this thing to succeed. Shoot, I’ll give them a key to the house and they can check it all out first-hand if they want, but I’m not springing for air-fare. :wink:
9

Well I did get a ticket started online - but if they tried to access the Tablo remotely in any way, let’s just say while papa’s away the cats will play and they had unplugged all of the AV equipment, the TV and then on the other wall, pulled the plug on the Tablo of all things! Geesh, kitties  is this a hint you feel ignored?  Never let your cats get bored or let them feel ignored. Bad stuff happens.

10

@ShadowsPapa you must not have tuned it to their station!! LOL

11

@ShadowsPapa Yikes! I never got your note - did you end up sending it along? Let me know if you’d still like us to take a look.

12

@TabloSupport

I got a great response via email a few minutes ago (4451) - I am going to place Tablo in heartbeat mode before I leave for work in the AM, the tech can do whatever, then reboots the Tablo when done and it goes back to normal mode - and my wife’s shows will STILL be recorded while it’s in that mode. That of course is assuming there’s not a problem with my device but that’s what we’re looking into, eh?

So expect my Tablo to be in that heartbeat mode tomorrow, Thursday the 26th assuming this ADD-head REMEMBERS (or the CATS don’t unplug it all again! Maybe I should leave it on a PBS nature show or something for them.)

I don’t want it to be “broken” but on the other hand part of me hopes something concrete is found - if that makes sense. Finding something would be better than saying gee, nothing wrong here and yet having strange things happen. 

Tip for future versions - do like computers, especially servers do - a temp sensor that records the highest temp in a given period and logs it for trouble-shooting purposes. 


13

@TabloSupport

Device is in heartbeat mode. Someone had a neat idea with that and they LED flashing makes it look like a heart monitor on one of the cats. 

I’m a bit baffled by that error message received and how it seemed to be connected with shows recorded using multiple tuners.
Maybe it’s something totally different - and I hope so as I’d rather it be my fault or something flaky with something else. 

At any rate, it’s sitting in heartbeat mode, I’ve told the cats to not mess with it today and to ignore the flashing lights and not mess with the remotes.

It’s freaky when you come home and you walk in the door to hear the TV is on and you KNOW it was off when you left…and you see Punkin sitting in the recliner with the remote next to him and he’s facing the TV. 
14

Unless the 4 tuner produces different error messages than the 2 tuner, it shouldn’t have anything to do with recording multiple shows at once.   I was hoping the Tablo folks would post what that particular error message means.

15

Same here since it was produced when using their web interface - I’d expect it to have some meaning in their code.

I’d have to expect the same error message and for the most part very similar code between the 2 and 4 tuner versions, but then how many of us have not seen the famous Microsoft error message look-ups that say 

“Error 4032 = we have no clue what that means” 
on their web site when you try to find the meaning of an error in the Windows logs.     :wink:


16

The remote session found nothing. They found nothing apparently wrong with the tuners, things looked ok inside. They did pull the logs and are going to review those for any hints but no problems apparent as of yet. 


So, either it was a transient thing, heat related, or related to something outside of the Tablo itself, or - there was a neutrino storm knocking electrons off the wires inside and I need to get some lead shielding around the house and cover Tablo with foil. 
Or, it was a secret plot hatched by that cat gang. 

i knew Tablo support had been into my unit looking around as it had been reset and was no longer in heartbeat mode. 
17

I know this is an old post but I had a similar issue recently and decided to conduct a test.
I have a quadra-tuner tablo and, using multiple devices (phone, tablet, computers, and TV boxes) I was able to see six different channels simultaneously. I could probably see more but I ran out of devices.
Does anyone know what the limit is?
Is there a way to know how many tuners are in use at one time?
Should the recording function warn users when the number of tunnels schedules to record show is exceeded?

18

Six? C’est impossible lol

Six streams is possible but only 4 live channels.

19

Try it out monsieur.
I am still surprised!

20

I don’t think you actually did what you think you did. There’s only four tuners. You could have streams off the four tuners plus duplicates or recorded streams on the other devices.

It’s also possible that you were looking at subchannels. It might only take one tuner for all subchannels of a channel, so 20-1, 20-2, and 20-3 are all using the same tuner. Maybe.