will i ever get one that works?

[Sniper1]

i currently have an r-10. bought my parents who have had cable for 20 years direct tv for christmas. when we ordered, i ordered the tivo receiver and service. what we got was a non working r-15. called customer serivce, and they agreed to send out the r-10 which is what we had thought we ordered originally. after the r-10 was sent to us, we tried to hook it up. got to the point in installation where it needed to make its first call to get the dvr setup. wouldnt make the call. called tech support. after an hour of trying what they suggested, they sent out another r-10. new r-10 came in, same issue, wouldnt make the initial call. we sent back the original r-10. after another hour on the phone with the second level of tech support, they sent out another r-10. that one came in. same issue, no initial phone out. im now on the phone with tech support for 1.5 hours. tried everything. tech did some type of call from office back to unit, and said problem was not with phone line. but believe it or not. according to the techs, we got 3 bad r-10's with bad modems. to be sure, they sent out a tech on saturday. after 2 hours, and doing a complete reset, he also determined the two at the house had bad modems. tech leaves, with no instructions as to if he is ordering another one. doesnt give us a rma numbers to return the two bad r-10's sitting on the tv. and tells us we have to get them back within 7 days as they will charge us $2,000 for the equiptment. ( nice service) call direct tv again. on line 1 hour again. this time they say that they will make sure the r-10 they send out will be a new one. (we'll see). just got a call today that the fourth unit just got delivered to my parents, so i will be making the 2 hour round trip to hook it up for them. at the techs request we also had the phone company come out to verify phone line working correctly. cost them 65.00. and of course it was. if this one doesnt work, back to cable they go, and i'll get a working tivo from best buy. anyone alse go through 4 units before they got one that worked? :mad:

[Earl Bonovich]

What kind of phone service do you have?

Do you have a traditional land-line POTS system...
Or are you trying to use a VoIP or Digital phone system (something other then traditional Ma-Bell phone lines)

3 straight units that can't dial out... would lead me to beleive that it is something with the phone line.

Have you tried taking the unit to another home? (they don't have to have a SAT Dish)... you can do the initial phone call there.

What was wrong with the R15 that it was "non-working" when you first got it.. (just curious)

[Sniper1]

traditional phone line. they do have internet but it has its own dedicated phone line, with its own phone number and is basic aol 36K dialup. no external caller id boxes. as for the r-15, the caller id worked 1 day, and the season pass would not work at all.

[Mavrick]

The caller id problem on the R15 we all have experienced that one it is a known issue with all R15's as for the season pass there are some issues on that but it is just part of the joys of beta testing a new product it is a 50/50 shot on weather or not it will work

[Earl Bonovich]

traditional phone line. they do have internet but it has its own dedicated phone line, with its own phone number and is basic aol 36K dialup. no external caller id boxes. as for the r-15, the caller id worked 1 day, and the season pass would not work at all.

Have you tried making the call on that 2nd phone line?

It is VERY VERY odd for you to get 3 units in a row that couldn't make the call.
I have activated probably 2 dozen units (accross my family and friends), and I haven't had one that couldn't make the first call.

[Sniper1]

that would be the next step. they also have a dedicated fax line, im thinking of running a seperate direct phone line from the phone hookup outside , to the receiver tommarrow when i get there.

[Sniper1]

well the fourth unit was installed a couple of hours ago, and it gets locked up again just like the other three, when it trys to make its initial call for setup. it says unable to make connection. we tried running a dedicated phone line back to the main telephone connection box supplied by the phone company, and that didnt work. we also went out an purchased a phone line filter, that too did not work. is it possible these units are coming without the phone number properly programmed into them that they are supposed to call? or is direct tv just wearing out my patience so i will eventually just settle for a r15, by sending crappy units. (this one didnt even come in a direct tv box). because thats not going to happen. we will go back to cable and use a tivo unit from best buy or another retailer.

[Mavrick]

Have you tried to choose a different dial number for I know on my old R10 when I initially set it up I had to choose a dial number for my area for it to dial to maybe the one you choose is a bad number and you need to just select a different number for I do not believe that the problem is in the R10 but with the number the R10 is trying to dial.

[Sniper1]

we cant get that far on setup. its trying to make the original setup call on their 800 number. all we can change is the prefix, tone pulse, call id, line detection, and call waiting, which aover the past month, have been tried in every possible combinations. i even had them give me codes to program into the prefix to slow the modem speed down.

[Earl Bonovich]

I am flabergasted by the problems you are having.

My recommendation at this point, is to head over to www.tivocommunity.com

They have 5+ years of posts on problem solving for the TiVo products.
I have never heard of someone one with 4 bad units in wa row.

Is there any chance you could take it to a neighboor's, or your home.
The only thing I can remotely think of now.... is that some how, some way... your parent's phone line can't call the 800 number.

While it is calling, can you pick up the phone and listen for modem tones?

Just for kicks... have you tried a completely different phone cord? I know it sounds stupid, but sometimes the obvious is over looked (like changing batteries in a non-working remote)

[Mavrick]

I see forgot about that one for my mind has gone strickly into R15 mode here lately :eek2: since I no longer have the R10 or any D*TIVO boxes gave them to my brother in law.

Have you done as Earl suggested in an earlier post and taken the box to another house to try and do the initial call for you don't have to have a satellite to do the initial call and see if it works there?

Earl might be able to correct me on this but my fear is if you tried to use cable with a standalone TIVO you are going to experience the same problem for the D*TIVO boxes from my understanding call the TIVO service the same as the standalone boxes do and at my guess probably call the same number. So I would say if that is the case and the D*TIVO is unable to call then I fear the standalone will be unable to call also for I fear there is another problem here that has nothing to do with the D*TIVO and that all of the R10's you have had probably all work fine but due to another issues they cannot dial. That would be the reason to try it at another house and see if it can dial then.

[Earl Bonovich]

I am 95% sure the first call is the same phone number for the different units...

And since your family doesn't have broadband, then you couldn't use the broadband connections for the stand-alone.

As I said over at forums.directv.com

1 unit... okay semi-normal
2 units.... rare but does happen
3 units.... haven't seen that in 5 years of being on these boards
4 units.... that would probably say you are one of the unluckiest person in consumer electronics.

[Sniper1]

and its not that i dont know what im doing either, at my own home i have two units going with the r-10, running through my home theatre, split to 6 differant tv's with picture in picture functioning on all. and talking to ipod owners, im the only one they know of that actually has successfully converted all video and dvd files to play on it. took about 20 minutes. we tried differant cords and outlets, plus we ran directly back to the source and unhooked all lines from the main hookup going into the differant rooms for fear we had a phone casuing interference. that didnt help either.

[Bobman]

Have you ever taken one of the units to your house and tired it using the exact same setup as you use ?

[Sniper1]

i would and have thought about it, but im an hour each way away, and in another area code. i would hate to get it working here only to have to take it back there. if i lived a few blocks away that would have been another story

[Earl Bonovich]

i would and have thought about it, but im an hour each way away, and in another area code. i would hate to get it working here only to have to take it back there. if i lived a few blocks away that would have been another story

Once you get past the initial dialups... you can do with out the phone line.

But once you get past the initial dialups as well, you can then pick from a several different phone numbers.

[Brennok]

Are you using the included splitter? I have run into multiple bad splitters. Also what happens when you try to dial out on a regular phone on that jack or even better when you call the 800 number that the R-10 is trying to connect to using their homephone on that jack? Also you can set the options to disable phone avail detection off so you can pick the line up and listen to see if it is even dialing out.