For the past month or two, many DIRECTV TiVo R10 users have found their TiVos rebooting and freezing randomly. We have notified DIRECTV about the problem and they tell us that TiVo is working on the issue. Based on feedback from some very astute customers, we have come to learn that BBC America (channel 264) will cause your R10 to freeze or reboot very quickly, so you might want to cancel your BBCA season passes (sorry, Orphan Black fans) until the problem is resolved.
UPDATE, 7/15: Discovery Channel and possibly History Channel are also being impacted by this problem. DIRECTV engineers have verified the problem and are pushing TiVo engineers to help get the issue resolved. We are cautiously optimistic.
15 replies on “DIRECTV R10 Units Rebooting”
We recently found that the same thing happened on the do it yourself network (DIY network). After taking off BBC recordings we had no reboots until we tried to schedule a DIY network show — R10 froze.
I have 2 R10s doing the same thing. Add the Weather Channel to the list. Reboots occur at 23 and 53 past the top of the hour like clockwork. I have a 30 day old case # with DTV tech support which was re-escalated three times. No results yet.
For the past month we have seen our RCA DIRECTV TiVo both restart for no reason and hang at a black screen it seems random when it happens.
To clear we have to power off and back on the unit.
We do not record any of the channels listed but we do schedule recording of many other channels.
I really don’t think this is related to the R10 problems.
I think you just have a failing hard drive. See this page for replacements:
http://www.weaknees.com/dv40.php
I was having this same issue. After speaking to WeaKnees, I called DirecTV. They told me they had no knowledge of this issue and no longer supported the R10. When I refused to upgrade to a higher priced and newer box, the guy put me on hold about the length of time for them to upload something to my R10. He then told me to have a nice day and disconnected. I went 5 days without a freeze/reboot. It had been happening 3-5 times a day. Now 7 days later and the issue is back. Coincidence that calling DirecTV temporarily fixed the issue?
Same issue. Tuning to BBC America causes random freezes and reboots. Usually after around 15 minutes. Issue started a couple of months ago but with the Science Channel. Replaced the drive and copied contents old drive using WinMFS. Old drive was a Western Digital Blue 320GB that was around 3 years old, so it was time to change it. New (current) drive is a 320GB Hitachi. Both drives check out fine with respective manufacturers’ drive check software.
My R10 has been freezing and/or rebooting numerous times daily for a couple of months. Replaced the hard drive but its no better. It doesn’t seem to matter what channel it is on. Leaving it paused for any length of time seems to guarantee it will freeze. It seems that once it malfuctions it is likely to do so another 2 or 3 times in short order, than might work OK for the better part of a day.
I been testing all day and found if I watch Science, H2 History, and AHCH cause a reboot 2 to three times an hour. If I watch channel 2 thru 15 no reboots and no freezing.
I’m not sure this is limited to the R10, or perhaps mine is a different problem… Our THR22 started doing random reboots about a month ago. 2-3 times a week it seems. Most of the time it’s not a big deal (I noticed it as I usually leave it on all day listing to music), but a couple of times it’s done it when watching it in the evening and while recording shows we care about.
We do happen to heavily record the Science and Discovery channels.
I think it’s unlikely to be a HDD failure. It’s an unmodified unit and it’s only been in service for a couple of months.
Frankly I was originally thinking it was software updates, but I’d hope they’d be smarter than trying to apply/reboot when we’re actually watching a recorded show!
My r10 is freezing and rebooting when recording vh1. When I stopped season pass no more freezing and rebooting.
I replaced both the hard drive and power supply in my R10. It started rebooting over and over tonight.
Turns out there is a Dr. Who Marathon on BBC America.
This shouldn’t be that hard to fix.
Dr who marathon bbc recording got me sat night too freezing and rebooting when I stopped the marathon and changed the channel it stopped . I guess there are not enough r10 s out there to complain and get it fixed like last time when it was all the sd tivo s.
My DVR seems to only reboot while recording VH1.
R10 shutting down and reboot probs for the past few months. Called dtv to inform and ask for an update as they did a few years ago was told to “upgrade” prob is in the unit not them. Had them activate my backup r10, same issues with that one within a few days. I concur… problem happens while recording BBCA and Discovery channel.
– unit R10
– software 6.4a01-2-521
About 6-10 months ago noticed freezing & reboots. Easily 12 times a day. Notably on ch 264 BBC. Avoided the channel like the plague. Then it was a little better. But now it’s starting to freeze & reboot again on various channels. 6-8 times a day.
Not a engineer, but it’s easy to surmise that it’s some form of data packet that the unit can not process which causes freezing which in turns activate a certain protocol to reset itself.
Don’t know why DTV won’t fix it? Since they are aware of this.