How To Fix A Dropped TiVo TV Remote

A woman called me because she had dropped her remote control for her cable/TV. It was a “TiVo” remote, and some buttons were not working. She couldn’t turn her TV on or off or adjust the volume. It was stuck on Mute.

If she could have used the buttons on the TV to adjust the volume and turn it on or off that would have been enough. But there was a problem. This was an “Insignia” brand TV and I swear there are no control buttons on that TV. If they are there, they are very well hidden. All I could find was an “Input” button to change the device input options.

As for the TiVo remote, I took the batteries out of the remote and put them back in. I also tried new batteries but no luck. She had some older Eastlink remotes. I was able to get one of her older remotes programmed for the TV operations but not the cable box. This meant using two remotes until a replacement could be received.

I went to the Eastlink cable site to find the instructions for programming the older remotes. I also came across the instructions for the TiVo. So I asked myself, would re-programming the remote clear up these problems? There was one way to find out.

So on the TiVo remote, I clicked on the “TiVo” button. Then Menu -> Settings -> Remote CableCard & Devices -> Remote Control Setup -> Remote Control Pairing -> Set TV Power, Volume, and Mute.

Select your TV brand from the list, Insignia in this case. Press OK. You’ll go to a screen with a list of codes to pair up your remote. They are highlighted in blue.

Hold down the “TV Pwr & TiVo” buttons at the same time until the light at the top of the remote remains lit and enter one of the 4-digit remote codes.

Press TV Pwr, if the TV doesn’t turn off return to the previous step and try another 4-digit code. Repeat until you get a working code. I think there were at least 10 or more codes and luckily the first one worked.

Note: You could also try some Universal remotes and hope you can get control of the features that you want or need.

The moral of the story is don’t buy TVs without enough proper control buttons and don’t drop your remote. 🙂

—