TiVo Woes

Sigh, TiVo, I love you -- but you're trying my patience.

Our TiVo has started claiming that it hasn't connected to the service for more than 30 days. But it's a complete lie.

TiVo was acting normally until Monday. It was fine as late as Sunday night, when I had no problem setting up recordings for the following week. But all of the shows on my "To Do" list were suddenly nowhere to be found on Monday. And all attempts to record via title, by wishlist, etc. were met with the same "You haven't connected to TiVo in 30 days" message.

Yet TiVo continues to connect with the system. According to my screen data, it most recently successfully connected on Thursday, Sept. 7 at 2:16 p.m. The call "succeeded," the TiVo says, and has downloaded program guide info through Sept. 20. (And when I test the phone connection, it's "fine.") I've shut off the TiVo, manually called in and rebooted several times -- and am still getting the "Has not connected successfully to the TiVo service for more than 30 days" message.

For now, I'm manually recording my shows. And funny, TiVo knows the title of those shows once I input the manual data -- as a matter of fact, it says my recordings conflict with those season passes (yet TiVo is currently not recording those season passes!)

Even stranger, when I look in my "To Do list," shows like "The Simpsons" (which is on my season pass) sit at the bottom of the menu, with the note "none scheduled." Yet if you click on the Simpsons, you'll find that there are 84 upcoming showings of "The Simpsons" on various channels through Sept 20 -- and several are even checked as scheduled to be recorded! (Yet, since they're not on the To Do list, it's all a lie -- TiVo's not actually recording them).

Is this not the most bizarre thing? Why is TiVo lying? It clearly continues to call in and download data, yet it's trying to tell me it hasn't called in for 30 days! Any of you tech geeks or TiVo aficionados have any advice?