Hack for an Autistic TiVo Eye

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Hack for an Autistic TiVo Eye

I flipped on my (Philips DSR6000R01) DirecTiVo the other day and immediately noticed the remote signal was flaking. Commands were received slowly or not at all, and the LED lights on the front of the main unit were blinking like crazy—probably about 6-10 times a second. I figured the remote's batteries had croaked mid-click, causing some kind of fatal IR loop, so I popped in two fresh AAs and rebooted the TiVo twice. No dice; same problems.

After five fruitless phone calls, $19.95 of pay-per-incident support bought me the observation that I "might have a power supply issue," so I should just send the unit in for an official look-see. Based on what I'd heard from friends with similar problems, though, the official Philips "diagnosis" was frequently "Go buy a new unit," so I opted for a more lo-fi solution.

On a lark, I stuck my finger over the main unit's IR eye, and the blinking stopped immediately. Moreover, I noticed that if I covered all but a very tiny corner of the eye, the signal was received flawlessly. So, I taped a piece of paper over most of the eye, and, after a couple small adjustments, the unit worked flawlessly, even on signals from far across the room. A week later, it's still working great (knock wood).

by Merlin March 15, 2004 in How-To

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I had the same thing happen several months ago--inexplicably--with my TiVo Series 2. I just covered most of the main unit's "eye" with part of an index card and all was well again. Eventually, the problem stopped altogether and I threw away the cover--it's been working fine since then. Any idea why this would happen?

Posted by: Max at Mar 15, 2004 6:40:35 PM

Any idea why this would happen?

No idea why, Max, but I am fairly confident that my $20 diagnosis came directly out of the same equipment the CSR was using for sitting purposes. :)

Based on your suggestion, I'll try removing the paper at some point and see if it's healed itself. Eveything else about the unit is still working great as far as I can tell (knock wood, again).

Posted by: Merlin at Mar 15, 2004 6:47:01 PM

We had a Tivo Series 2 that behaved in a very odd fashion, not identical to your description, but close enough. Turns out one of our remotes in the remote bin had a button being pressed, and the Tivo was attempting to interprt the signal. Found the remote, stopped the signal, problem solved.

Posted by: David Glynn at Mar 15, 2004 9:04:51 PM

Have you got any power saving lightbulbs installed in the room? These have been known to emit infrared and intefere with equipment in this way.

Posted by: Jon at Mar 15, 2004 11:28:51 PM

Ditto what David said.

With an 11 month old and a dog in the living room, I often stack remotes up on top of each other and to the back of the end table to scoot them as far away from hands and paws as possible.

On occasion I have found that the weight of one remote on top of another activates the button, even if it is not visibly depressed. This causes the same symptoms.

One thought: You might have a remote with a slightly sticky button somewhere, even if it does not appear so. I'd suggest covering the IR of your remotes with one hand and pressing all of the buttons with the other to try to "unstick" any stuck buttons.

Another "low-tech" solution that has worked in my house.

Posted by: Chris at Mar 16, 2004 10:01:26 AM

I second that. I've had similar problems before, and they could all be traced to some other remote in the bottom of a pile that had a button stuck.

Posted by: rob at Mar 16, 2004 10:34:00 AM

I like both the remote idea and the interfering light idea a lot, although in the former case we are cat-free and store the non-TiVo remotes out of the line of sight (under an opaque coffee table). Still, Occam's Razor and all.

Good news, though: this morning, I took off the hacky paper trick and the flickering was gone. Still, I'll keep an eye out and report back if the problem re-appears (i.e. if I "have a power supply issue").

Thanks to all for the comments.

Posted by: Merlin at Mar 16, 2004 10:48:54 AM

One other thing to try if it happens again -- most camcorders can see infrared well enough for you to be able to spot a remote control's IR LED flashing. In an otherwise-darkened room you may be able to spot the interfering IR source this way.

We had a similar problem when we moved to our apartment, which overlooks a lake. Late in the day the sunlight would reflect off the lake into the room and if the rippling on the surface was just right it would make the TiVo remote completely useless until you closed the curtains.

Posted by: Ernie Longmire at Mar 16, 2004 12:16:22 PM

Digital Still Cameras also see the IR. And the reason you need to darken the room is to reduce the clutter as you search for the interfering source. The illuminated IR LED shows up well on the viewfinder when you know where to look.

Posted by: Mike at Mar 16, 2004 12:52:30 PM

If you look at the TiVo remote with an IR sensitive camera should the signal from that remote be a steady "light" or should it flicker? I looked at some of my other non-TiVo remotes and they seemed really steady while the TiVo's was like strobe. My TiVo remote stopped working reliably in the last couple of weeks and I've tried everything short of a complete wipe of the TiVo and start from scratch.

Posted by: Lorin Rivers at Jul 12, 2004 7:49:53 PM

Solution: I had the same problem. The comments in the thread lead me to the source of my problem. Using a digital camera I found a television remote control stuck between two cushions emitting an IR signal. The signal it was emitting made my Tivo remote inoperable. After I removed the television remote from the sofa cushions, life was grand.

Posted by: Rich Sheridan at Jan 17, 2006 7:48:57 PM

I have just fixed a similar problem. When I would push the channel +/-, or the directional pad Up /Down, it would read even one press as continuous repeated pressing! So if for example I tried to scroll down 1 tick in my "List", the darn cursor would run all the way to the bottom and keep on boinging until I hit another key. It was almost like a shooting gallery to try to hit the right menu item! Needless to say I got tired of that in about 10 seconds.

The little orange signal indicator on the box would also keep flashing like it was still receiving remote signals.

For some reason it only happened with the up/downs, nothing else. I knew it wasn't the remote being stuck, because the red LED on the remote did not stay on. Also tried turning off all the room lights, no luck.

Finally I tried the trick of mostly covering up the box eye with a coaster and it worked! However the problem recurs if I remove the coaster, although not quite as bad (1 or 2 extra commands).

It's almost as if the eye somehow has become oversensitized, and receiving too strong of an IR signal overloads it, sending multiple commands to the computer. My theory anyhow.

Thanks for the solution! Glad I didn't try to call (it's late now anyway!)

Posted by: James D at Mar 3, 2006 1:47:35 AM

Same thing has been happening to me this past week.. a single click of the remote results in multiple click events. No stuck remotes in my living room. The tape over the IR receiver worked like a charm.. but I haven't any idea why. Thanks to the commenters on this page for helping cure my angst if not my TiVo.

Posted by: Rich at Mar 11, 2007 6:46:51 PM

I too have had the problem with pushing up or down on the pad to continuously scroll, also when trying to fast forward through shows, it would progress through all speeds, stop, and then repeat the process. VERY ANNOYING. I was trying to watch a particular show and could not get it to stop where I wanted it. Grrr!

I took a tag off of some clothes were bought and covered the eye on the tivo almost completly and it works fine again.

That's really wierd, i've had this unit for almost 2 years now and never had any problems. What causes this?

Posted by: Rodney C at Jul 29, 2007 5:50:39 PM

Hack for an Autistic TiVo Eye

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