There Are No TiVo DVRs Available on the Network

While TiVoToGo (TTG) is not the most reliable piece of software out there, and often just being able to transfer shows from one TiVo to another is much more useful, there are times when being able to save shows to a computer for later retrieval is a nice feature.

Unfortunately it seems that more and more often, this error message comes up and getting it to go away is a royal pain. So what do you do when you get the message “there are no tivo dvrs available on the network”? Other than panic, I mean?

The first, and simplest, solution is to restart your TiVo Desktop. Unfortunately, it almost never works. So naturally the next step would be to restart the computer running the TiVo Desktop. But this too rarely works. Still, there are times that it will help.

I have found that I often get the error message after connecting to another network (usually via VPN), and by rebooting the computer, this resets the network adapter to the point that it can detect the TiVo devices correctly. It is also possible, depending on your network card, that you actually have to shut down your computer for a few seconds – so that the card actually loses power – in order to achieve this state. Rebooting will not accomplish this since it never removes power from the device.

The final solution I have found is definitely the most painful solution, but it does seem to work every time. It involves logging into your tivo.com account, disabling transfers for the device in question, running an update from that TiVo unit, re-enabling transfers and running another update. You do need to make sure that the updates run after the settings are completed on the web site. This is because the update actually processes those settings each time it connects, so by setting them on the site, you are reconfiguring the device during the update.

Because the update does load scheduling data, however, this can take a while to complete, so you may want to hold off on this as a last resort – but it does seem to take care of the problem every time that I have tried it.


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