I know I should post this on the Tivo forums, but I don't always get an answer, or a good answer, like I do over here.

My Tivo isn't near a phone jack, so every once and a while I have to drag out a loooong phone chord and manually do the daily call. This has worked fine so far this year. All of a sudden it has stopped connecting on the call. It's really frustrating. It'll do all the setting up for the calling, then say "dialing..." then the yellow light will go off and it'll say "failed to connect". Why?!? I wish it would provide more info than that. What do I do? I've tried the daily call about 15 times now, and it simply will not go through! ARGH!

TiVo uses the Worldcom network to connect to the outside world. Try calling the phone number your TiVo dials and see if it's still a valid number. When you dial people, do you have to dial the area code? Many areas around me are now forced to do that. Perhaps you have to update your TiVo with that info?

You can also try adding ,#034 prefix to your config. That will force the TiVo to connect at a speed slower than 56k to see if your line conditions are suspect.

You can also try using Worldcom's PoP Finder to check for new dial-ups in your area and possibly find that the number you dial now has been put out of service.

Of course, you could always get a TurboNet. I highly recommend it. If your TiVo modem is fried, 'electriclegs' on the TiVoCommunity forums can replace the modem chip. It is also possible to use an external serial modem with the TiVo.

Try a different phone cable. If that doesn't work, either examine very carefully or better yet replace the wall jack you plug the cable into.

Sounds like you may have a mechanical rather than a software problem.

tanstaafl.

I was having troubles after installing my TurboNet card, where it would not download updates when it would connect. I tried this on both the modem and the network. What I gathered from the tivo forums was to go through the "Setup" process again. That cured my problems. They were slightly different, but it may work.

Thanks, guys. I feel really dumb, though. It turns out that we cancelled our long-distance phone service, and little did I know, but my dial-out number was long distance. I changed it, and what do you know? it worked! dumb me