Is the Blue Screen of TiVo fixable?

March 4, 2009 10:56 AM

Does my TiVo Series 1's "Blue Screen of TiVo" mean that it is dead, or do I have my settings messed up?

We have a TiVo Series 1 from October, 2001. It is a beloved member of our home but was relegated to the basement when TiVo HD moved in last year.

For 7 years it worked without complaint, but recently it has stopped being able to show live TV; instead, it kicks out the Blue Screen of TiVo that says something like "We cannot display live TV; check your settings." I did not change anything on my setup, but my kid could perhaps have monkeyed with it when playing with the remote.

I thought maybe the cable box was overloading TiVo, so I went around it and went directly in to the back of the TiVo. No luck. I repeated Guided Setup. No luck.

My TiVo still does everything else, including the setup functions, the playing of already-recorded shows, the programming guides, the clicky clicks, etc. Does anyone have any ideas about what I can do to save TiVo? Is the patient already dead?

posted by AgentRocket to technology (5 comments total)

Have you tried resetting it? I had that problem with my old series 1 Tivos sometimes, and a nice reboot fixed it.
posted by procrastination at 11:01 AM on March 4

Possibly...probably, hard drive is on the way out.
You might try the troubleshooting diagnostics here.
Good luck.
posted by artdrectr at 11:07 AM on March 4

Does this happen on all channels, or just some? If just some, it could be that your cable provider has switched that channel to HD, or added an HD version, and you're getting tuned to that version, instead of the SD one.
posted by nomisxid at 11:10 AM on March 4

You should really go over to the forums at weaknees. They sell (and will perform) all sorts of levels of repair. You might want to start with their Troubleshooting page.
posted by filmgeek at 2:17 PM on March 4

That message doesn't sound like hard drive failure to me. You're not getting the "real" blue screen -- you just need to tell TiVo where it should be looking for the video input:

TiVo button -> Messages & Settings -> Settings -> Video ->

... and from there, it depends on your setup. But something about "Video Input" or "Input" or "Cable" or along those lines.

TiVo will keep looking at different inputs until it finds the right one. It's just looking at the wrong input for some reason.

Good luck!
posted by lexfri at 5:23 PM on March 4