Live Blogging Tivo Support
20:13
I've been pretty happy with my Tivo boxes over the past few years. Tonight, however, the Humax box barfed and what an ordeal it was.
The Humax version has a DVD burner built in, but mostly it gets used to play DVDs. I slipped a disc into the drive but it never loaded, I couldn't get it to eject or the remote to respond in any way. Then the machine rebooted. And rebooted. And rebooted some more. Unplug, let it rest for a few minutes, plug back in. Reboots again. Arg.
Found the Humax support number. You have to call the box maker for support on anything besides signging up for service. After navigating the phone menu, getting the typical "please wait" message, they have a very annoying practice of actually ringing once, then going back into the hold queue! So, you think a person will answer only to get the music again. Eventually my call went into Perdition never to return.
20:26
Call back, same routine, only this time a couple of times when the phone rings somebody is talking on the other end for a word or two before tossing me back in the pool. Interesting, the "please wait" messages are not coming around every 30 seconds. I might have found another black hole in their system. Hanging up.
20:31
Call number 3. I'm starting to memorize the menu sequence. Got through pretty quickly and complained about getting dropped twice.
So it turns out there is a paper-clip hole that will release the drive tray, but you have to get the cover flap out of the way to find it. A bit tricky to do but finally the system is getting back on its feet. Hope I haven't missed recording anything.