# HR10-250 Update... 6.3F



## Earl Bonovich

Will begin it's rollout tonight.

Make sure you have your phone lines connected.
It is specifically targetting the stability of the box.


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## gully_foyle

Earl Bonovich said:


> ...specifically targeting the stability of the box.


Is that a good thing?


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## JohnDG

Earl Bonovich said:


> Will begin it's rollout tonight.
> 
> Make sure you have your phone lines connected.
> It is specifically targetting the stability of the box.


Can you be more specific? I've had NO stability problems with the HR10 using 6.3e, but many stability problems on my SD TiVo using 6.3e.

jdg


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## Mike728

Now I'm scared... My HR10-250 has always worked great.


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## Dr_J

Earl Bonovich said:


> Will begin it's rollout tonight.
> 
> Make sure you have your phone lines connected.
> It is specifically targetting the stability of the box.


What about for SD TiVo's?


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## Earl Bonovich

JohnDG said:


> Can you be more specific? I've had NO stability problems with the HR10 using 6.3e, but many stability problems on my SD TiVo using 6.3e.
> 
> jdg


Unfourently... I have nothing else more about the update.

All I have been told by DirecTV that the release is targetting stability issues with the unit.

This is NOT the update to add the originally announced new features.


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## Earl Bonovich

Dr_J said:


> What about for SD TiVo's?


I have not gotten any details about an update for the SD-DTivos


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## Lord Vader

Truthfully, I have had no real stability problems with 6.3e.

6.3a, however, now THAT was a nightmare. Reboots several times a day! Considering my HR10-250s are "modified" anyway, I don't get updates automatically. I apply them in slices usually.


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## Incog-Neato

Earl Bonovich said:


> I have not gotten any details about an update for the SD-DTivos


These boxes will be getting the update according to today's info:

DIRECTV R10
DIRECTV HR10-250
HNS HDVR2
HNS SD-DVR40
HNS SD-DVR80
HNS SD-DVR120
PHILIPS DSR7000/17
PHILIPS DSR704
PHILIPS DSR708
RCA DVR39
RCA DVR40
RCA DVR80
RCA DVR120
SAMSUNG SIR-S4040R
SAMSUNG SIR-S4080R
SAMSUNG SIR-S4120R

Reasons for Download - Below is a summary of the changes in this software release:
- Corrects the random rebooting issue.


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## Lord Vader

And probably deletes HMO/MFV capabilities, too.


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## tfederov

Lord Vader said:


> Truthfully, I have had no real stability problems with 6.3e.
> 
> 6.3a, however, now THAT was a nightmare. Reboots several times a day! Considering my HR10-250s are "modified" anyway, I don't get updates automatically. I apply them in slices usually.


Didn't 6.3a come with the audio dropouts too?


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## Lord Vader

I don't remember. I don't think mine did, though.


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## Dr_J

TBlazer07 said:


> These boxes will be getting the update according to today's info:
> 
> DIRECTV R10
> DIRECTV HR10-250
> HNS HDVR2
> HNS SD-DVR40
> HNS SD-DVR80
> HNS SD-DVR120
> PHILIPS DSR7000/17
> PHILIPS DSR704
> PHILIPS DSR708
> RCA DVR39
> RCA DVR40
> RCA DVR80
> RCA DVR120
> SAMSUNG SIR-S4040R
> SAMSUNG SIR-S4080R
> SAMSUNG SIR-S4120R
> 
> Reasons for Download - Below is a summary of the changes in this software release:
> - Corrects the random rebooting issue.


Alright, then, I'll plug in the phone line.


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## Stuart Sweet

Lord Vader said:


> And probably deletes HMO/MFV capabilities, too.


There's no guarantee that it will preserve any features that the manufacturer didn't intend you to have, that's right.


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## Lord Vader

Dr_J said:


> Alright, then, I'll plug in the phone line.


The update comes via the datastream and not the phone line. You should get the update whether or not your line is connected.


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## pdicamillo

Lord Vader said:


> The update comes via the datastream and not the phone line. You should get the update whether or not your line is connected.


The update does come via the datastream, and my HR10-250 has it now. However, I believe it is through the phone that the new release is activated. Instead of a "succeeded" status after the phone call, there is a different status indicating a pending reboot to install the new release.


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## rminsk

Lord Vader said:


> The update comes via the datastream and not the phone line. You should get the update whether or not your line is connected.


The update comes from the datastream or the phoneline but is only activated by a phone call. You will only get the update installed if you have the phone line connected.


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## markman07

Stuart Sweet said:


> There's no guarantee that it will preserve any features that the manufacturer didn't intend you to have, that's right.


No, actually I think it was Directv that didn't want us to have these nice features.


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## Dr_J

Lord Vader said:


> The update comes via the datastream and not the phone line. You should get the update whether or not your line is connected.





pdicamillo said:


> The update does come via the datastream, and my HR10-250 has it now. However, I believe it is through the phone that the new release is activated. Instead of a "succeeded" status after the phone call, there is a different status indicating a pending reboot to install the new release.





rminsk said:


> The update comes from the datastream or the phoneline but is only activated by a phone call. You will only get the update installed if you have the phone line connected.


OK, thanks!


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## Incog-Neato

Weird, I forced a call on my 1 unhacked HR10-250, got the "Pending Restart" message, did a restart and it's still 6.3E with no more Pending Restart message. Forced call again and again have Pending Restart ... this time I will let it restart on it's own at 2am. Maybe that's what's up?


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## Dr_J

Is this going to be one of those staggered rollouts that reaches the East coast last? I didn't get it last night.

On the flip side, both tuners were still tuned in to the nonexistent channels 0 and 1, so there haven't been any reboots in the past week.


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## dtremain

Dr_J said:


> Is this going to be one of those staggered rollouts that reaches the East coast last? I didn't get it last night.


The rollouts are always staggered, but they are random. When you get it has nothing to do with where you live. It has everything to do with the serial number of your unit.


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## willgetin

I forced a call on my hr10-250 2 nights ago. Last night the 6.3f update was sitting on my box. I used the slicer to install it about 10:30pm last night.

I cannot attest to any stability changes yet, since after I verified that the system came up after install, I went to bed.

I will record Fox HD on 88 tonight between 8-9pm EST as my box always reboots at 8:46pm when recording Fox HD on 88. I went from "c" to "f" as an fyi...


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## Richierich

Will, have you seen any NEW FEATURES/FUNCTIONS with the NEW SOFTWARE?


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## willgetin

Won't know until I get a chance to play with it later tonight when I get home.


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## tim32672

richierich said:


> Will, have you seen any NEW FEATURES/FUNCTIONS with the NEW SOFTWARE?


I have a Hughes SD-DVR80 and just did a connect to DVR service and I now have 6.3f01-2-151... so far everything is stable...I did not get it on my R10... I also have no new features/functions...


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## Earl Bonovich

6.3f is not adding any new features or functions, it is a maintenance release.


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## tim32672

Earl Bonovich said:


> 6.3f is not adding any new features or functions, it is a maintenance release.


Any idea when Directv is going to give us the three new features?


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## litzdog911

tim32672 said:


> Any idea when Directv is going to give us the three new features?


"mid 2008" is the latest I had heard.


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## willgetin

Well, my first night watching with "f" installed. 

Everything worked great. 100%. No reboot, no stuttering, no flaky audio. All of the little things I had an issue with were non-existent tonight. 

However, now I need to re-enable 30 sec skip (which I knew I would have to). 

Also, the only times I can say 100% for sure it would reboot is when recording American Idol Tue and Wed nights at 8:46pm on channel 88. So while I am pretty confident that I see a tremendous improvement in my system, I will hold out final judgment until next Tuesday night.


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## sagle

I got 6.3f last night and this morning had a reboot. Looks like the update may have not fixed my issues.


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## litzdog911

sagle said:


> I got 6.3f last night and this morning had a reboot. Looks like the update may have not fixed my issues.


A dying hard drive will exhibit those same symptoms.


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## Richierich

It's funny how everytime when a DVR gets a corrupted download and the DVR starts randomly rebooting, someone mentions something about a bad hard drive.

What a coincidence!!! The DVR's hard drive just seem to die when the new SOFTWARE was DOWNLOADED!!! What are the chances???


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## litzdog911

richierich said:


> It's funny how everytime when a DVR gets a corrupted download and the DVR starts randomly rebooting, someone mentions something about a bad hard drive.
> 
> What a coincidence!!! The DVR's hard drive just seem to die when the new SOFTWARE was DOWNLOADED!!! What are the chances???


But he was having reset problems _before _the 6.3f upgrade.

And it's quite common for software updates to trigger previously unknown hard drive problems. That's because Tivo's swap between two different software boot image partitions .... a new software update switches to a previously unused partition that might have defects on it.


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## Richierich

Yes Litzdog I agree if Directv downloads a new version of software it installs it on the backup partition and if that partition has a bad sector in it then the DVR will have problems reading the system info to determine what to do and then will reboot.

However, how many times have DVRs failed after using both partitions many times with no problems and then VOILA bad software or a bad write of the software without having a bad sector involved.

It has happened too many times to be hard drive failure all the time. I have run SpinRite several times after this has happened and there was no bad software but I reloaded the software and was back in business.


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## BruceS

My HR10-250 has been rebooting every night since I upgraded it to 6.3e.

It shouldn't reboot at all, since it has been hacked with InstantCake and PTVNet, which sets a flag to prevent the upgrade from happening by itself and changes the status back to indicate that the upgrade was successful.

However, it appears that it tried to install 6.3f anyway. Now after displaying the Powering Up screen, it turns off the power and goes no further, whenever I try to boot.

I hope I don't need to replace the power supply.

Does anyone remember the buttons you need to press on the front panel at boot to force a chkdisk and the ones to force it to try to install the software on the other primary partition.

If I can find the sequence to force the other partition, I will probably try that first. I realize that if I do that, I will need to pull the drives again to re-install PTVNet.


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## BruceS

False alarm.

Even though no screens were displayed after Powering Up and all the power lights went out, eventually it booted successfully.

It is still on 6.3e. Now to see whether I can find the article again about upgrading using the slicer.


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## BruceS

No 6.3f slices yet anyway.


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## sagle

I have not had a reboot for over a day. I am crossing my fingers that the 1 reboot after the upgrade to 6.3f was just a isolated incident. I have been waiting on the MRV and CIR to replace this (my main TV reciever) with an HR2X. If the reboots continue, I may have to replace my tivo earlier than I wanted.


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## BruceS

Slices received last night and 6.3f installed correctly.

Hopefully this will correct the nightly reboots. At least I wasn't getting any during normal viewing hours, but it was still a pain to have to re-enable 30 Second Skip each day.


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## sagle

I just had a reboot a few minutes ago while on 6.3f. This is very disapointing. Unless I do have a failing hard drive or other faulty hardware, the software update did not fix my issue.


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## Dr_J

sagle said:


> I just had a reboot a few minutes ago while on 6.3f. This is very disapointing. Unless I do have a failing hard drive or other faulty hardware, the software update did not fix my issue.


I'm sorry to hear this. I haven't gotten 6.3f yet, but now I'm less optimistic about my fix.


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## Richierich

Sometimes rebooting can be caused by a bad or marginal Power Supply that occasionally supplies power outside of it's marginal window which can cause a reboot!!! Everyone always seems to blame it immediately on a bad hard drive or a bad sector on a bad drive but it also could be that the software didn't get fully downloaded and was corrupted during the download.


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## willgetin

Update:

After rebooting for the last several weeks at the exact same time and the exact same days, I am pleased to say:

with 6.3f on my box, it did NOT reboot last night while watching American Idol. Since I installed f, it has not rebooted once.

From TivoWebPlus 2.0 Uptime:	6d 11h 38m 04s

Also, there were audio issues on the HD channels (primarily OTA), where audio would stutter. That is no longer happening either. It did stutter once last night, but if you see my location, we under a tornado warning until 11pm, so it was raining cats and dogs..

However, if those people are right that most of these issues are caused by a bad sector, maybe I will see these problems again if another update comes down and I go back to using the other partition. Until then, I am HAPPY!


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## Drew2k

Still on 6.3e here ... no love yet on the staggered rollout.


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## Richierich

REBOOTING PROBLEMS can be caused by the following:

(1) Power Fluctuating because of a Power Supply unit starting to fail.
(2) Corruped Software (software that didn't get fully downloaded or may be on a bad sector and can't be fully read). If it is corrupted software because of a partial download then a new download will correct that in the future if it is not put on a bad sector.
(3) Code Errors that can be corrected by a future download.


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## The Merg

litzdog911 said:


> "mid 2008" is the latest I had heard.


That's funny since the letter I received from them last year stated the new features would begin to be implemented in January.

FWIW, I have 6.3f on my R10 and it's been running without issue. Prior to 6.3f I had maybe two or three freeze-ups in the latter half of 2007 (the first time I ever had an issue with this receiver), but no unexpected reboots or other major issues.

- Merg


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## LI-SVT

I got 6.3f two days ago on my HR10, I'll have to check my R10. I never had reboot issues with 6.3e and have not had any problems with 6.3f.


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## Dr_J

willgetin said:


> Update:
> 
> After rebooting for the last several weeks at the exact same time and the exact same days, I am pleased to say:
> 
> with 6.3f on my box, it did NOT reboot last night while watching American Idol. Since I installed f, it has not rebooted once.
> 
> From TivoWebPlus 2.0 Uptime:	6d 11h 38m 04s
> 
> Also, there were audio issues on the HD channels (primarily OTA), where audio would stutter. That is no longer happening either. It did stutter once last night, but if you see my location, we under a tornado warning until 11pm, so it was raining cats and dogs..
> 
> However, if those people are right that most of these issues are caused by a bad sector, maybe I will see these problems again if another update comes down and I go back to using the other partition. Until then, I am HAPPY!


This is encouraging.


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## Dr_J

Got 6.3f last night on my DirecTiVo Series 2. We'll see what happens.


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## litzdog911

Got 6.3f on my HR10-250 yesterday. No issues so far. Both my R10 and HR10-250 now have 6.3f.


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## willgetin

So far I've been up

Uptime:	10d 18h 31m 51s

Still an occasional audio glitch, but nowhere near as bad as before. Still extremely happy.


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## Matt L

Got it the other day, but I wasn't having problems to begin with so I don't know it it did anything.....


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## captain_video

I no longer have DirecTV but I do have a bunch of S2 DTivos sitting around not being used. I decided to load up AlphaWolf's 62small.mfs image on an old 40GB hard drive and see if I could get the update to install. I ran it through guided setup last night and forced a few calls with no luck. Today at lunchtime it showed "Pending restart" in the phone status menu. I rebooted and a short time later it had 6.3f in the system information screen.


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## willgetin

I did encounter a strange occurrence with 6.3f on Monday...

My local CBS station OTA wasn't coming in. No signal. I went to check signal strength in Settings. It showed zero. I then checked the other OTA (ABC) that I watch. It also showed zero. I thought that was odd, so I exited changed the channel to the OTA ABC station. No problem, picture came up, looked sharp, perfect. Went back into Settings and checked signal strength again for the ABC channel... Zero. I checked the other OTA channel signals, NADA.

I thought to myself, that can't be right since I can watch some of the channels that show no signal strength. So I restarted the box. After the box restarted, I could then see signal strength for the OTA channels...

So my uptime has been reset, but by me, kind of...


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## gosforth

I don't leave my HR10-250 phone line plugged in and as soon as I did the call today I got the pending restart message. I'm located in South Florida.

After reboot the software version showed 6.3f.

I wasn't having problem before so I wasn't looking for it to fix anything, but I don't see any noticeable changes so far. Is there any kind of list of what fixes this update was providing?

I did replace the power supply last month after near 3 years with the box due to an overheat message. 

I would tend to think anyone with a HR10-250 that's 3+ years old would be well advised to replace the power supply if they intend to the keep the box for an extended period of time.


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## litzdog911

gosforth said:


> I don't leave my HR10-250 phone line plugged in and as soon as I did the call today I got the pending restart message. I'm located in South Florida.
> 
> After reboot the software version showed 6.3f.
> 
> I wasn't having problem before so I wasn't looking for it to fix anything, but I don't see any noticeable changes so far. Is there any kind of list of what fixes this update was providing?
> 
> I did replace the power supply last month after near 3 years with the box due to an overheat message.
> 
> I would tend to think anyone with a HR10-250 that's 3+ years old would be well advised to replace the power supply if they intend to the keep the box for an extended period of time.


Welcome to DBSTalk!

The only fix in 6.3f is for some DVRs that were randomly rebooting.


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## gosforth

Ha, thanks.

I've been reading the forums for years but for some reason never posted I guess.

I'm just disappointed to hear and see that 6.3f doesn't have the improved features we were promised previously. I hope I still want to use my HR10-250 by the time the features are released.


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## Dr_J

I turned on the DirecTiVo today and noticed that both tuners were tuned to the same station. (I had left them on two different XM stations.) Also, the channel banner was back at full-screen default. That suggests a spontaneous reboot sometime within the last 24 hours with 6.3f.


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## Lord Vader

One way to tell if your unit rebooted: set the clock and timer on it, then if it's not there, it means the thing rebooted in the interim.

To set the clock timer: Select - Play - Select - 9 - Select

Three little dings (if you're not tuned to an HD channel) tell you you're successful. Then you'll see it in the lower right corner.


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## Drew2k

Lord Vader said:


> One way to tell if your unit rebooted: set the clock and timer on it, then if it's not there, it means the thing rebooted in the interim.
> 
> To set the clock timer: Select - Play - Select - 9 - Select
> 
> Three little dings (if you're not tuned to an HD channel) tell you you're successful. Then you'll see it in the lower right corner.


I can tell if my TiVos rebooted in two ways:

1) Set the 30 second skip. If it no longer works, it rebooted.

2) Go to the Settings menu and leave the selector on a menu option in the middle, like Phone/Connect to DVR service. If the selector is not on that position, it rebooted.


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## Dr_J

Does this clock/timer thing work if it's not an HD TiVo? Does it interfere with viewing? If set, how would you get rid of it without rebooting?

I've never set a 30-second skip. How do you do that? I've always just pressed fast-forward until the commercial was over and then pressed play.


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## Lord Vader

It works on all DirecTV/TIVO units, both SD and HD, and I believe on standalone ones as well. No, it doesn't interfere with viewing at all. Try it and you'll see. It's in the lower right corner, pretty small. I use it for the timer function more than anything else, meaning when I watch a recorded show, the timer tells me where I am in the recording and how much time is left in that show before it ends.

You turn it off the same way you turn it on.

To set 30-second skip, you press: Select - Play - Select - 3 then 0 - Select. You deactivate that the same way you activate it.

There IS a way to have 30-second skip on by default, but that requires modifying one's receiver software a little.


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## Dr_J

Lord Vader said:


> It works on all DirecTV/TIVO units, both SD and HD, and I believe on standalone ones as well. No, it doesn't interfere with viewing at all. Try it and you'll see. It's in the lower right corner, pretty small. I use it for the timer function more than anything else, meaning when I watch a recorded show, the timer tells me where I am in the recording and how much time is left in that show before it ends.
> 
> You turn it off the same way you turn it on.
> 
> To set 30-second skip, you press: Select - Play - Select - 3 then 0 - Select. You deactivate that the same way you activate it.
> 
> There IS a way to have 30-second skip on by default, but that requires modifying one's receiver software a little.


These are so cool!!!!!!!!!! Thanks! 

I've had a DirecTiVo since the summer of 2003 (I'm on my second), and I never knew about these things. Well, now I'm well-equipped to see if there's a reboot.


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## Lord Vader

There are a lot more cool backdoor things one could do with the DTIVOs, so check out the TIVO Community Forums for more info.


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## jdspencer

Try Select-Play-Select-Pause-Select.
That one makes the green status bar go away quickly.
The Select-Play-Select-9-Select mentioned is a toggle.


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