If you have connected your TiVo to the network, then there is a good chance you have seen this message. Unfortunately, there is not much help from TiVo desktop in resolving this message, which can often be the case with errors, and can make your enjoyment of TiVo, well, much less enjoyable. Luckily it is usually fairly simple to resolve.
Typically the answer falls into one of two categories.
The first is a little more difficult to cover here – it has to do with your network itself. For that, you need to make sure that your TiVo (or TiVos, as the case may be) can be found on the network, as well as the device that you are using to connect to them – that is, wherever you are running the desktop software.
Assuming that you are running your browser from that location, at least half of that problem is solved already. You can check the status of your TiVo by going into the settings to verify that it has an IP address, and that it is able to connect over the network to get its settings. If so, you should be able to connect to it as well – provided the two devices are on the same network. Anything more than that is probably beyond the scope of this article.
If you have managed to get both devices on the same network, and even if you have previously been able to see the TiVo before, however, you will sometimes lose connectivity. For that, there is actually a simple fix. Log into your account at tivo.com and go to Device Preferences.
From there, you want to see if the column labeled Enable video downloads is checked (turned on). Even if it is, turn it off. That’s right, disable it. Once you do, either wait for your TiVo to connect to the service (usually once a day) or force the connection by going into the settings. This will update that settings – yes, you are disabling it. Then go back in and turn it back on, then let the connection update again to re-enable the setting. While all this is happening, you may even want to restart your computer to make sure that nothing is hung up in the desktop software.
This process, while annoying, seems to reset whatever it is in the software and the next time you try it out should allow you to download from your TiVo.