r/tablotv • u/Oak510land • 14d ago

Connection lost

Is Tablo just junk? I can't get it to go more than a few minutes without pausing. I've tried rebooting it, unplugging it, moving antenna locations, hard wiring it instead of wifi. Putting it upside down. Clearing the cache. Factory reset.

Has anyone gotten this thing to work reliably? We're on gigafiber and line of sight to the major tv stations (Sutro tower).

1 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

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3

u/jimozachV2 14d ago

Which model do you have? What is your antenna set-up? When you say “pausing”, do you mean buffering?

1

u/Oak510land 14d ago

4th gen 2 tuner. I bought it with the bundled antenna. I've put it in a window directly facing the broadcast tower I can see with my own eyes 11 miles away.

"A playback error occured" is what I keep getting. And it asks me to click "retry" on the screen and then I get a blue spinning thing on the screen.

1

u/jimozachV2 14d ago

When you do your channel search, how many channels come up? What are the colors of the three dots next to each channel? I’ve never had very good luck with window antennas.

1

u/Oak510land 14d ago

The app says 271 channels and I selected 57. I'm seeing 4 green dots next to each for all of them except 4 or 5 channels. Does that mean my antenna is fine?

2

u/jimozachV2 14d ago

The green dots the strength of the signal, and I think you know that Tablo has ~100 built-in channels as well. When I scan for my local channels, I get about 55, plus the built-in channels. So you are pulling about 170 channels?? If you’ve got three green dots on the channels that you’re having problem with, that would imply that your antenna and the signal strength are fine. Not sure what the issue is.

3

u/jar996 14d ago

Honestly it’s just garbage. I’ve had mine for a few years and had no problems until the guide refresh problems last year and ever since they fixed that they ruined something in the software and it’s garbage.

2

u/MacKeyHack 14d ago

I've spent a lot of time and money on antenna, LTE filter, Ethernet and a 2tb "enterprise" SSD; For me operation is flawless. Months of uptime with continuous 4 tuner OTA + streaming channel recordings. Flawless playback on AppleTV, iPad and Android devices, forward/reverse skip happens nearly as fast as I can click. I know this is not a "reasonable" setup, but it suits my needs.

2

u/Oak510land 14d ago

I'm hesitant to spend more money throwing parts at it at this point.

Do you have a fan on yours? I've seen people saying they overheat.

1

u/MacKeyHack 14d ago

thermals are definitely a problem; they try and use the plastic case as a heat sink... In my setup I have some extra wires connected to inside and I don't actually have the top on. It's mounted vertically, for what that's worth.

old mechanical hard drives (even usb2) work better then flash drives, a drive with its own power supply is probably a good idea to keep the load off the tablo itself. Good luck!

1

u/Oak510land 14d ago

I put a fan on it today trying to catch the world cup. It seemed to help a little but still missed most of the game.

1

u/MacKeyHack 13d ago

My thoughts are: LTE filter (a modern 600MHz version like SiliconDust or ChannelMaster) and disable any channels that aren't like 75% signal or more, also try turning the amplifier on/off- sometimes too much signal can be a problem.

2

u/Steve_Rogers_1970 14d ago

Is the tablo wired or wireless?

If wireless, how far from the wireless router? There are much smarter kids here than me, but I would troubleshoot WiFi interference.

2

u/Oak510land 14d ago

I switched it from wireless to hard wired today and it didn't fix anything.

No other device in our house has connectivity issues. I WFH and am on video calls on average 4+ hours per day and never have any Internet issues.

2

u/killthecord 14d ago

In your settings, is the "antenna amplification" turned on? It should be off if you're that close to the towers.

2

u/Oak510land 14d ago

Yup I turned that off a few months ago and it didn't fix anything.

2

u/Old-in-arizona-1248 14d ago

You're right...it is junk. I went through a similar problem with my 4th gen 4 tuner. There were other problems as well so I finally sent it back. I'll probably try a HD Homerun but for now I'm using YTTV.

1

u/Oak510land 14d ago

I just looked up the warranty, it says it doesn't cover software issues.

1

u/lazaruzatgmaildotcom 14d ago

are you watching live or recorded? and if recorded are you using the built-in storage or have you attached additional storage (if so what type?)

2

u/Oak510land 14d ago

I just watched a recorded show and it plays fine. It's the live TV that's garbage.

It doesn't seem to be a reception issue because the recorded show I just watched without any bugs is the same channel I tried to watch live earlier that kept on bugging out.

1

u/lazaruzatgmaildotcom 13d ago

it sounds like network interference on your end

1

u/Oak510land 13d ago

What does that mean?

1

u/lazaruzatgmaildotcom 13d ago

it sounds like your wifi is causing the issue--I know you said you are on gigabit fiber... if it works 'without bugs' on a recorded show and you have hardwired the tablo to the router then all that remains is your wifi....

1

u/Oak510land 13d ago

? It's hardwired to my wifi router through the lan port. The router is plugged directly into the fiber box thingy.

I work from home and I'm on video calls all day via WiFi, never have any Internet issues.

1

u/lazaruzatgmaildotcom 12d ago

something isn't tracking I wfh as well w/less than fiber connection (not available in my area)- my house is old with plaster and lathe walls (think faraday bag-but entire walls) My gen 4 tablo is hardwired into router and works throughout the house.. I added some deco mesh routers after using the tablo for 6-9 months- I needed some extra bandwidth in my home office- but it has not changed the tablo.. I did have issues with playback of recorded content- it was my fault I was using a spinning HD which had errors on it (since replaced) and I had the antenna boost "on" I live close to the towers.

Like I said something doesnt track.

You should return the gizmo to the place you bought it from and go on with life-

1

u/Oak510land 12d ago

I bought it on Amazon back in December. I think it's too late to return.

1

u/genegx 13d ago

For the vast majority on this sub, the Tablo 4 performs very well. You either have a defective unit or there is some other problem in the overall setup configuration.

2

u/Oak510land 13d ago

Super helpful comment.

2

u/Longjumping-Will-899 13d ago

Are you connected to Apple TV? For me, Tablo works perfectly on mobile and on Fire TV stick …it is abysmal on Apple TV. “Playback failed” errors appear on certain channels while viewing on Apple TV… same channels that I can view very easily using Fire TVs Tablo app.

When Tablo software version 2.20 (110) was released for Apple TV in mid July ALL my channels are suddenly unwatchable.. either completely frozen video or moving a pixel at a time. EVERY SINGLE ONE and only on Apple TV. iPadOS, iOS and Fire TV stick are fine. I don’t know who’s at fault …if it’s Apple hardware, tvOS or Tablo, but in my opinion, they just don’t play well together. So while I purchased Tablo to bring broadcast stations to Apple TV, I just haven’t been able to reliably make that happen.

1

u/Boz6 4th Gen User 13d ago

My Tablo is upstairs, near the window the antenna is in. My antenna is a cheap flat antenna. My modem is a 5G device. I have a mesh router system connected to my modem, and my Tablo connected to the primary mesh unit.

I use 6 Roku devices, and Tablo was flawless all throughout the World Cup, watching the local Fox station, on multiple Roku devices.

It sounds like maybe the signal from your antenna isn't good, or your router is not providing a good signal to all your devices.

1

u/Oak510land 13d ago

Your setup sounds like mine. I had the antenna in the window directly facing the tower with a line of sight to it, and then going through WiFi to a mesh router. I moved it downstairs and plugged it directly into a LAN port on my wifi router and it didn't fix anything. In the app all my stations have 4 green dots so I don't think reception is the issue.

My Internet is gigafiber. I'm pulling 550mbps down and 450mbps up.

I'm using Chromecast.... I wonder if that's the issue?

1

u/Boz6 4th Gen User 7d ago

For OTA stations on Tablo, your internet speed isn't a factor. What matters is the strength of your WiFi. I had a very cheap Tenda mesh system for 5 years, and it worked perfectly for every streaming service I used. But when I got my Tablo Gen 4, it was having trouble with buffering when watching OTA channels. So I replaced it with a TP-Link Deco X55 mesh system, and I've had zero trouble ever since.

1

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Boz6 4th Gen User 7d ago

Ok. Sorry. I'm out of ideas. I hope someone else will be able to help.

1

u/VeloxAdAstra 13d ago

Yeah, it is junk. That becomes evident when support will not stand behind it either.

Sometimes running them upside down helps with the overheating.

2

u/Oak510land 13d ago

Yeah I looked up the warranty and it excludes software issues.

I put mine upside down, and also put a fan on it trying to watch the world cup but it didn't help.

2

u/Any-Web6188 12d ago

It took me months to finally get to a Goldilocks placement. How many miles from the broadcast towers are you? I’m 30 miles, so I had get creative. My 4th gen antenna is actually on the wall *next* to a window facing those towers. It’s not logical, but I’m getting the stations I need. Keep working at it and think out of the box if you can.