Has anyone who has nearly intolerable problems since the new updates tried to re-initialize their hard drive yet? I realize this will cause you to lose what you have recorded but if the receiver is rebooting and screaming constantly, I'd try it to see if that will eliminate the problem. If it does, it tells us something about the problems.
4.01 thru 4.05. How many chances does Dish need to fix what they broke?
- Thread starter waltinvt
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BEHIND comcast??? ha ha ha ha---
Comcast has NO---NONE---ZIP---ZERO--NADA High def channels in my area!!!!
You've got the remember that they may be behind comcast in YOUR area--but that does NOT necessarily mean its true for Comcast as a whole----
Comcast has high def locals in SOME--SOME areas
The same can be said for dish--they have hd locals in SOME areas
While here comcast has no hd--locals or otherwise
It all depends on where you live.
You have a right to be angry, but you don't have a right to mischaracterize the situation in a public forum.
Regarding your other points:
- I've never heard of announcements by E* of specific future DMAs being available at any point in the last 10 years, whether SD or HD. They are almost always only announced after availability. Can you provide a link to the press release ? Perhaps you are referring to a rumor by a forum poster...
- FF/RW/skip_ahead/etc seems to have been fixed in 4.05, btw.
- "Screaming reboots" seems to be very unlikely to be the result of a bug in the software. 99.99% of 622 users do not have reboots, this is very likely to either be a hardware problem (bad drive, insufficient ventilation for the 622, etc.) or a corruption of the drive that occurred due to the upgrade process (I've seen this for many years prior even to the first HD DVR). Sometimes an unplug and a switch check will help, more often a receiver swap is needed.
As a software engineer for 25 years, I've never heard of a software release by any technology company that was not pushed out the door before it was ready...
For example, I have a Toshiba SD4990 upconverting DVD player that has excellent picture quality (probably unequalled for a player below $100). It also has some sort of software memory leak that causes problems .... unless you reboot (the DVD player!) after each use.... you do this by unplugging it, so instead I plugged it into a power strip with a switch, and just switch off its power after using it - now it works fine every time.
Well after severeal nice email exchanges with a female E* engineer, that dates back to the group test of L4.01, and an USB stick exchange with log read-outs taken from my Vi,Reboot 622, she suspected a hardware failure. She contacted a friend at the CSD, who called me and asked me about the trouble. I told him that I have several screeching reboots on a almost daily basis, some days it's fine without reboots and on bad days as much as four times in 20 minutes. He asked me if this occurs on OTA channels and also accompanied with loss of OTA alltogether, and I confirmed this. Notice here that HE asked the OTA question! I didn't mention OTA before he asked about it. So he went ahead and RA'd my receiver and sends me a new 622 at no charge, and free shipping and return. HOWEVER, my 622 will NOT go back to El Paso to the manufacturing site, instead it will go STRAIGHT to the engineering department for dissection and analysys. UPS will come and pick it up at my door to return it. I also mentioned the membership at SATELLITEGUYS.US! The female engineer already knew about it from L4.01 testing. SOO...this will probably the first 622 from a member of this board that has it's ill receiver going back to engineering for analysys and future improvements on upcoming software releases. Hopefully this will give ALL of us here an advantage with new releases, as my 622 probably represents alot of other 622's with the same troubles from a bunch of people on this board.
Just thought I'd share this little story with the rest of you guys.
Just thought I'd share this little story with the rest of you guys.
Well according to certain "E" disciples here you & I must be the ONLY 2 people in the world to ever experience REAL 622 problems. My screeching reboots are very similar to what you posted except without the connection to OTA. I only get a couple OTA channels anyway and they don't seem to be a factor. It's happened while watching live, buffered and from DVR.Well after severeal nice email exchanges with a female E* engineer, that dates back to the group test of L4.01, and an USB stick exchange with log read-outs taken from my Vi,Reboot 622, she suspected a hardware failure. She contacted a friend at the CSD, who called me and asked me about the trouble. I told him that I have several screeching reboots on a almost daily basis, some days it's fine without reboots and on bad days as much as four times in 20 minutes. He asked me if this occurs on OTA channels and also accompanied with loss of OTA alltogether, and I confirmed this. Notice here that HE asked the OTA question! I didn't mention OTA before he asked about it. So he went ahead and RA'd my receiver and sends me a new 622 at no charge, and free shipping and return. HOWEVER, my 622 will NOT go back to El Paso to the manufacturing site, instead it will go STRAIGHT to the engineering department for dissection and analysys. UPS will come and pick it up at my door to return it. I also mentioned the membership at SATELLITEGUYS.US! The female engineer already knew about it from L4.01 testing. SOO...this will probably the first 622 from a member of this board that has it's ill receiver going back to engineering for analysys and future improvements on upcoming software releases. Hopefully this will give ALL of us here an advantage with new releases, as my 622 probably represents alot of other 622's with the same troubles from a bunch of people on this board.
Just thought I'd share this little story with the rest of you guys.
I recorded a 3 hr race a couple weeks ago and it came out in 4 segments due to reboots. I recorded a movie last night and it came out as 3 separate DVR events that of course are missing 2 segments of whatever amount of time the receiver takes to go through the reboot. It's gotten so now it's every day and multiple times a day.
Now within the last week the 942 in the family room has started acting up too. No reboots (although it sometimes takes a couple manual reboots to get rid of the problems) but numerous "acquiring signal" errors and some failed switch checks.
Neither of these receivers had any problems prior to the 622s 4.01 DL. The 622 was installed, 942 relocated, DP34 removed and new DPP LNBs added by Dish installer 13 months ago. Both units use a DP separator with one coax to the Dish.
I talked to Dish a month ago (about 622 only) and was assured they were working on it and would be fixed soon. Between the 2 receivers we have many, many hours of recordings that we do not want to and should not have to loose.
I honestly don't know what you mean. If I "mischaracterized" anything, I'm sorry but just so there's no confusion, will you please elaborate on what it is you think I said that was not true.
They released a list of 50 DMAs earlier in 2006 that they implied would get HD LiLs during the year. It was significant in one respect because some of the DMAs were not in accordance with relative size as some larger were omitted and some smaller ones (like Burlington / Plattsburg) were on the list. I don't know if I can find a copy of the announcement but I'm sure others here remember it. The list was also acknowledged to me by Mark Cicero but he said it was never guaranteed that all on the list would get them.kstuart said:
you may be right on that - I honestly don't know.kstuart said:
kstuart said:
Look, I have no idea whether the screaming reboots are a bug in the software or not. I DO know they didn't start until right after 4.01, so whether a "bug" or like you suggest, a corruption of my 622 by the download itself, it's still something Dish caused to happen and there have been others reporting it both here and on other forums.
Oh and in further defense of my alleged "mischaracterization" of the 622 I offer a few posts from others in the last few days:
05-17-2007, 04:10 PM
elwaylite
Got 4.05 today, still have random pixelation on local OTA NBC in Charleston Sc. Channel 2.1(UHF 50), SigStr 100.
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05-17-2007, 05:00 PM
Another OTA issue that has stayed since 4.05(verified by oljim) is that when we schedule a ota recording on our local fox
station(24.1 in Charleston Sc) it is completely removed like it never existed.
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Yesterday, 08:14 PM
Warren
622 Didn't record "Heroes" or "24" finale: Argggh!!!
What is with this piece of @#$% ! I suppose a new software "update" has turned this thing into a devious monster! They were
both scheduled to record, one on OTA, the other on satellite, and since I can't stay up that late I don't even know it until I get
home tonight full of anticipation to watch both of these shows!
I have to say, with the problems this thing has had lately (lip-sync, OTA disappearing, pixelization on recordings) I think the 942
was a far better piece of equipment.
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05-21-2007, 04:44 PM
Brussam
622 Satellite reception freezing
I just received a replacement 622 for a disk problem. The new unit came with L405 software.
This new unit freezes receiving satellite signal. It stops for about 15 seconds and thens starts up at the current reception point.
The stoppages are random as short as 20 seconds to much longer.
E* Tech support says this is a known software problem.
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05-21-2007, 03:33 PM
KKlare
Loss of guide causes disk overrun.
Three times in the last week I have found the VIP622 recording undesired things.
It seems to happen when the guide is not loaded so pass/all/new recordings do not know whether to be recorded. Even
programs marked as "user skip" are recorded. Several reboots do not get the guide but reboot and wait 15 minutes in the off
state does work.
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05-21-2007, 04:57 PM
jayn_j
Hey, my box has lost guide twice in the last month and each time it took multiple check switches/ unplug reboots to force a
guide download. It seems to be less robust these days.
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Yesterday, 04:00 PM
Brussam
I talked to Customer Support again today and they are standing on this being a software problem and another new unit would
probably have the same problem.
The interesting thing today was the CS rep offered to do an equipment upgrade. I said fine, what is the upgrade to a VPI 622?
That offer fell apart there.
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I'm not sure what you're zealous defense of Dish is attributed to but if it's just that you're a happy customer, that's fine. I'm happy that you're happy but please don't make a fool of yourself by insinuating I'd lie (that's what deliberate "mischaracterizing" is btw) - that's something I don't do.
Walt it does sound coincidental that both receivers are having problems, with the 942 having problems with checkswitch I would be leaning towards a non receiver problem such as a switch or coax or connection issue but it is possible that the 622 could be backfeeding into the system. Its rare for a receiver thats failing to affect the system but I have seen it two times in the past, try disconnecting the 622 and see what goes on with the 942.
Two notes:
Rebooting while recording seems to be related to signal lock/loss with a satellite and or OTA - I have seen it myself. It stopped doing it as soon as I cut the tree down.
If I had a SCREAMING REBOOTER, I would stay on the phone until a replacement receiver was arranged - period. I know you may have recordings that you will lose but how much are you enjoying them now anyway?
Rebooting while recording seems to be related to signal lock/loss with a satellite and or OTA - I have seen it myself. It stopped doing it as soon as I cut the tree down.
If I had a SCREAMING REBOOTER, I would stay on the phone until a replacement receiver was arranged - period. I know you may have recordings that you will lose but how much are you enjoying them now anyway?
Well my reboots are probably not related to a low signal strength on the sat channels. I posted my signal strengths a while back in a different post, with topping out at 112 on 119, around 105 at 110, and almost 100 on 129. And there's no trees in front of my dish. If it's related to low signal strengths on the OTA side, and this causes the receiver to reboot, then IMHO the whole machine is WORTHLESS! It should just show "Loss Of Signal" and nothing else. TV sets with ATSC tuners don't act up either, because of low signal strengths. I have a old VOOM box that doesn't f***ing reboot either being hooked to the same antenna setup! I had not much troubles before the latest software releases. If that's what it is, then FORGET ABOUT IT trying to design a machine like that, if you can't pull it off!! Then just go home and sit on the couch!!!
First I want to restate - you have every right to be angry about the product not working.
And no I don't think you are deliberately mischaracterizing.
You stated:
I own a 7100 Dishplayer and followed the whole situation closely. The software for that DVR was created and maintained by a separate company. The guy who was responsible for the maintenance used to post on the Internet. The company never invested sufficient resources into maintenance, and it was difficult for E* and the company to track down problems that were half due to software and half due to Dish aspects like the EPG file format. All of this inspired E* to start their own DVR production, so that the developers and the sat engineers could work together. This was why E* offered to replace Dishplayers with 501 receivers - because they simply did not have sufficient leverage to get the other company to fix the problems.
As a brand new product by a new development team, the 501 had plenty of problems early on, but at a certain point, E* was able to fix all the recording and reliability problems, and the receiver (I still own one) has worked reliably for many years.
These statements are simply taking isolated incidents with a minority of products and declaring that these are a "history".
And the "not admitting it" is entirely wrong. There have been more than one case of significant problems being discussed on either the Charlie Chat or the Tech Forum on Channel 101. In fact, if you look at the whole spectrum of technology companies, E* is near the top in terms of frank customer interaction, especially with regards to the Engineering Department.
Despite the claims of Marketing Departments, DVRs are a cutting edge technology that always has some problems, due to the pressures of keeping up with the competition. All the other DVR companies have Forums with extensive complaints about problems. Continually pushing the envelope with multiple tuners, HD, OTA, and dual output with PIP means that the software is increasingly complicated.
I always try to record important events using two different model receivers. Despite this, 99.9% of recordings have worked fine.
That won't show us anything because my 622 is not having any problems. If it was screaming and dropping my timers and rebooting every 15 minutes I would have done it already.
Having a DVR is really one of the greatest inventions after the VCR. Now I can have instant access to over 200 hours of shows in SD and HD, and in the near future probably thousands. The problem is I will probably never watch 95% of them, just as I have several thousand hours of VHS tapes that I do not have enought time left to watch. I doubt that my grandchildren are anticipating inheriting all the episodes of the Lone Ranger and the Cisco Kid, or are interested in watching the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics from the last century. Life is too short to worry about saving TV programs as I have found out too late.
Good news, and thanks for sharing it. Certainly shows E* is trying to fix the problem.
BTW, I miss your old avatar. Who was that, and what movie? I have the nagging feeling I've seen it but can't place it.
AT&TDishman- "...as I have found out too late..." Are you telling us something?
navychop, that was no movie, that was my beautiful 47 year-old wife, in one of her favourite outfits. Can't blame me that I married her EH?
: : :
I have the same situation - stacks of VHS tapes with stuff recorded on them that I want to watch, but will never have the time for.
And, in fact, with the upgrade to HD, I now look for movies to come to HD-Movies channel or Voom movie channels.
So, the "too late", means "too late to have not bothered wasting my time recording those show I'll never have a chance to watch".
navychop, that was no movie, that was my beautiful 47 year-old wife, in one of her favourite outfits. Can't blame me that I married her EH?
:haha :haha :haha
And here I was, picturing James Arness as Matt Dillon and wondering if she worked for "Miss Kitty!"
You are a lucky guy. And I suppose that means she's lucky too!.
