TiVo : Tivo Not Making Any "Suggestions"

[trickytree]

A few of us have been private messaged by Virgin on the official forum and so hoping our responses to this will confirm it is either not fixed or we are not happy with what is happening if they think this current situation is fixed.

Fingers crossed we may finally be getting somewhere with this.

[andy_m]

That's encouraging at least - would be grateful if you could keep us updated. I have 23 recorded suggestions as of today, and I've just realised that they all come from channels available on freeview. Does anybody have suggestions recorded from pay channels?

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by andy_m

Does anybody have suggestions recorded from pay channels?

That's an interesting observation.
One box is exactly as you say - mainly BBC1 and Ch4.
The other has Suggestions from TLC, Disc Home&Health, Sky Arts 1 HD, Discovery HD, Nat Geo HD, BBC1 Scotland(!), ITV2 HD, ITV3 HD, DMAX and Watch HD.

[trickytree]

Sorry first day back on here since posting the message above.

It seems all the people 'complaining' like myself are getting a couple of suggestions a day at best and nearly always from Freeview channels.
I have only ever had 2 film suggestions despite having Sky Movies etc.
1 was The Fugitive on one of the various 5 channels and I can't remember the other.

My suggestions are always from Freeview and then occasionally from the kids channels (including Nick JR and Cartoonito etc). Nothing ever from the channels spiderplant has listed and in particular I really want it to be suggesting movies properly and in the good old days of my S1 Tivo it would record 5 or 6 films a week again when I had Sky Movies. Some I had previously thumbed and others not.

[andy_m]

The thread on the help and support forum now runs to 40 pages! It appears that some are getting limited success with the "suggestion" in this post.

[trickytree]

To back up what andy_m said.
It seems the 'fix' for this is to delete all thumbs and suggestions and start a fresh with the thumbs.

I have had my box since Week 1 of them being rolled out properly.
Others getting no issue seem to be newer boxes. I would be interested on spiderplants age of boxes. I'm wondering if his problem box is older than the box with no problem?
I deleted all my thumbs on Wednesday and then thumbed things on Weds and Thurs and then on Friday the suggestions populated with programmes and channels I would never have had recorded before the reset.
I'm hoping another week of thumbing will help this Friday's suggestion population.

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by trickytree

I would be interested on spiderplants age of boxes. I'm wondering if his problem box is older than the box with no problem?

You may well be onto something. It is 3 years old. The one with diverse Suggestions was installed last autumn.

[trickytree]

That does seem to back up either it's a problem with that batch of initial boxes or software with issues of thumbs of a certain age.

Last thing to rule out - Mine is a 1Tb how about yours?

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by trickytree

That does seem to back up either it's a problem with that batch of initial boxes or software with issues of thumbs of a certain age.

I'm sure it's software. I suspect some kind of incompatibility between the software when the thumb was set and the current software.

Actually both of my boxes were built in early 2011, but the recent install has been refurbished.

[andy_m]

I have one TiVo, it's a three year old Cisco 1tb, so Spiderplant's theory that the old thumbs are the problem makes sense. I've deleted my thumb data and started to re-thumb so I'll see how I get on. Still disappointed with the 50 limit though.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by andy_m

I have one TiVo, it's a three year old Cisco 1tb, so Spiderplant's theory that the old thumbs are the problem makes sense. I've deleted my thumb data and started to re-thumb so I'll see how I get on. Still disappointed with the 50 limit though.

Yes, they should return it to how it was rather than listen to people who don't seem to get the idea and for whom it makes absolutely no difference.

[trickytree]

I agree with the 50 limit but no they should not return it to how it was pre Novemeber. That is exactly why they updated the software.

Original suggestions never recorded films and stuck to only thumbed programmes.
I know I am not on my own here but I see no point in only recording thumbed programmes as I have already seen 90% of them.
Just because they have cropped up on another channel or repeated months or years later does not mean I will revisit them.

Suggestions as far as I am concerned are almost working as they should.
They now seem to be recording films.
They are now selecting non thumbed programmes.
They are recording thumbed programmes (admittedly there could be more).
Suggestions are coming from a lot more channels than before that used to be pretty much Freeview only.
The 50 limit seems pointless. Just work it as before that they use all space available and delete on a loop.
Just a shame it only updates on a Friday as the S1 Tivo would update each day.

[Stuart]

I might need to check out suggestions a bit.. TBH, I stopped looking at them because when I last looked at them, the bulk of what it suggested had no relevance to what I like and was of no interest to me.

Quite staggering as I do make extensive use of the Series link feature and do tend to add thumbs up or thumbs down to programmes.

It seemed to suffer the same problem that the Series 1 suffered. The criteria used are too loose. For instance, the Series 1 used to frequently suggest things because one of the actors in them was in something I liked.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by trickytree

I agree with the 50 limit but no they should not return it to how it was pre Novemeber. That is exactly why they updated the software.

Original suggestions never recorded films and stuck to only thumbed programmes.
I know I am not on my own here but I see no point in only recording thumbed programmes as I have already seen 90% of them.
Just because they have cropped up on another channel or repeated months or years later does not mean I will revisit them.

Suggestions as far as I am concerned are almost working as they should.
They now seem to be recording films.
They are now selecting non thumbed programmes.
They are recording thumbed programmes (admittedly there could be more).
Suggestions are coming from a lot more channels than before that used to be pretty much Freeview only.
The 50 limit seems pointless. Just work it as before that they use all space available and delete on a loop.
Just a shame it only updates on a Friday as the S1 Tivo would update each day.

I thought the idea of the 'thumbed' programmes was that the Suggestions would record similar programmes, not the same programmes!

I simply don't know why they changed it. I don't object to films appearing, but why limit the suggestions to 50? If I want more, why can't I have more? I really don't understand the logic of some people.

I think that perhaps there were those who thought that the more Suggestions there were, the less scope there was for recording, which of course is nonsense. As for those who 'objected' to having the Suggestions, they seemed to be totally oblivious to the fact that they could hide the facility or just not look at them at all!

I am happy that VM are listening to their customers, but the criticisms that come in do have to be properly evaluated and common sense applied. In this case, the vocal few have completely messed up what was a very good innovation. I hope they change it back again in time.

[toady]

Originally Posted by trickytree

Suggestions as far as I am concerned are almost working as they should.
They now seem to be recording films.
They are now selecting non thumbed programmes.
They are recording thumbed programmes (admittedly there could be more).
Suggestions are coming from a lot more channels than before that used to be pretty much Freeview only.
The 50 limit seems pointless. Just work it as before that they use all space available and delete on a loop.
Just a shame it only updates on a Friday as the S1 Tivo would update each day.

They are not working at all now for us, they are ignoring anything we have thumbed, and recording rubbish that we would never watch and none of what are recording have anything that matches what we have recorded or thumbed, i.e none of them have the same actors or are in the same category.

Very close to disabling the suggestions feature considering its been ruined since the update