721 L1.15 Bug Reports

[makman]

Your message implies that you agree that other info hasn't been true.

Also, I don't care how many people at DISH say something. I trust them NOT.

Mitch

 

[Stargazer]

I have noticed that on the PVR Events that they have a loss in audio part of the time while other times it will not happen. It does not do it in Fast Forward mode after it resumes the show after Play is pressed.

 

[JimW396]

I have noticed the lost audio on recorded events also. This DID NOT happen to me prior to the new software.

Jim

 

[cmaier]

I've been getting lost audio too. Bring back the old software. I don't give a crap about the weather nonsense.

 

[Stargazer]

In the past there was an issue with the loss of audio with some of this functionality that resulted from a new software download to the 721's.

 

[BobMurdoch]

What triggers the lost audio? I haven't hit THAT bug yet.... And I've watched about 24 shows both pre and post upgrade.

Thnak God they gave us the weather on the 721. My wiofe started ripping about losing the weather on the Dishplayer in our bedroom....... (Since the Weather Channel is pulling an MTV and getting away from the constant weather updates that made them popular in the first place... I just want to know the weather tomorrow.... I don't need to learn about the Storm of 62', etc.)

 

[DmitriA]

With this software I've started to get horribly slow fast forwards (even 30 second skipforward and skipback take more than 5 seconds to start playing after pressing the button) on DD 5.1 shows on HBO. Other channels are generally fine. Is anyone else experiencing this? It worked just fine last week with the older software version, so I KNOW it's not a hardware problem

 

[aperry]

I've been getting lost audio too. Bring back the old software. I don't give a crap about the weather nonsense.

Well, if you give cmaier the old version, please leave me at the new one. My system is much more stable with this software than it ever was before! I know that this version has some problems, just send me the fixes when they come out. PLEASE don't take my L115 away!!!

 

[blackjackmark]

Timers didn't fire

On Thursday night, with timer set for NBC (Friends/Scrubs/Will and Grace) and CBS (Survivor and CSI), I left the house. Came back shortly after 8pm CDT and found that the 7-8pm shows had recorderd, but the 8-9pm shows were not showing up in the PVR list as being currently recorded, and the "recording" light was not lit. Surfed to the NBC channel, the banner indicated "record", went to the CBS channel, its banner indicated "record", yet nothing in the PVR listing as showing that it was being recorded.

Since both tuners are supposedly in use, I tried to go to a third channel....sure enough it allowed it, which meant that both tuners were NOT in use recording. I then tried to set a timer for a third channel. The triple timer conflict prompt came up, and the system insisted that since the timers were already active for the other programs I would need to manually cancel them...but wait, there AREN'T currently running programs being recorded...it just THINKS they are!

I then rebooted the machine and both timers (for the NBC and CBS programs) launched. Of course, I missed the first 20 minutes of the shows!

EAch event was an independent timer (one for Friends, one for Scrubs, etc) with the 1 minute prior to and 3 minutes after the schedule buffer...is that what freaked it out? If that was it then it should not have taped Scrubs.

Is this a new glitch (I do have the L1.15 software) or something from previous releases?



.

 

[Sean Mota]

Here is another minor problem that I want to report.

 

[Kagato]

Re: Timers didn't fire

On Thursday night, with timer set for NBC (Friends/Scrubs/Will and Grace) and CBS (Survivor and CSI), I left the house. Came back shortly after 8pm CDT and found that the 7-8pm shows had recorderd, but the 8-9pm shows were not showing up in the PVR list as being currently recorded, and the "recording" light was not lit. Surfed to the NBC channel, the banner indicated "record", went to the CBS channel, its banner indicated "record", yet nothing in the PVR listing as showing that it was being recorded.

Since both tuners are supposedly in use, I tried to go to a third channel....sure enough it allowed it, which meant that both tuners were NOT in use recording. I then tried to set a timer for a third channel. The triple timer conflict prompt came up, and the system insisted that since the timers were already active for the other programs I would need to manually cancel them...but wait, there AREN'T currently running programs being recorded...it just THINKS they are!

...snip...

Is this a new glitch (I do have the L1.15 software) or something from previous releases?

.

No, not new, I've seen this in the old firmware, although it happens rarely.

What I have noticed is the 721 is generally slugish. I notieced that day one, indicating that it's "processing more". I'm guessing they need some code optimization really. I've done enough code work to know how bloated and slow things can get when you are under a deadline.

On the audio, it's not that you are actually "loosing it" per se. The PVR is recording the whole stream. It's that something is causing the audio to not play for some reason. I've found if I rev back, then play the audio returns to normal. I mostly get audio stoping when I'm switching between things or navagating the programming. I'm guessing there was some sort of kludge to fix the slow audio pickup after pausing, and it created more issues.

I'd be harder on Dish/Eldon/Whoever, but I really have no idea what was corrected and updated in the latest patch. Dish operates a lot like Microsoft in this respect. You get patches and fixes and most of the things patched and fixed aren't documented. Even to the level that I'm sure support and "advanced support" (which by the way just means internal E* support, while not taking your calls they do desktop support for Windows PCs) has only a general idea what's going on.

Maybe it's slow because dish is no bypassing the hardware based timers built into the onboard chipsets, and they just need to optimize how it polls, maybe they included some Tivo like button capture stuff, maybe they are slowing adding changes that would allow name based timers. Or, maybe none of the above.

Dish should take a notes from IBM and Hewlet Packard if they want to continue to be a player in software driven markets like DVRs. When you release a patch, document what's fixed. Let the customer know what's going on. The more open you make your processes, the better word of mouth will be on the product.

 

[Randy_B]

I found a new bug today. If you go in to edit an existing timer for a day later in the week (i.e. not one for today) and only change something on the first screen, in this case I changed the pad times, and then select done the event changes the day to today, decrements the start time by 4 minutes and changes the pad to 0/3. After I found this on the event I changed, I went in and tested on 6 other timers for this week and everyone did the same thing. The day changed to Sun (but the red dot does not show up on the Sun time) everytime. It is consistent. Happens regardless of which screen you use to get to the timer list. It only happens if you hit "done" button on the first screen. If you select "set time", and then hit "create", it doesn't make the changes.

Someone else want to try this and see if it happens?

I called this in to adv tech support. The CSR said he was putting in report to the engineering team.

 

[Tom488]

Yet another bug that's left over from at least the last version: I keep losing some of my local channels in the guide. Specifically, I'm in the NY DMA, and have lost 2, 4, 5, and 7. A reboot of the 721 brings them back.

A minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but pretty annoying nonetheless.

 

[dbronstein]

I found a new bug today. If you go in to edit an existing timer for a day later in the week (i.e. not one for today) and only change something on the first screen, in this case I changed the pad times, and then select done the event changes the day to today, decrements the start time by 4 minutes and changes the pad to 0/3. After I found this on the event I changed, I went in and tested on 6 other timers for this week and everyone did the same thing. The day changed to Sun (but the red dot does not show up on the Sun time) everytime. It is consistent. Happens regardless of which screen you use to get to the timer list. It only happens if you hit "done" button on the first screen. If you select "set time", and then hit "create", it doesn't make the changes.

Someone else want to try this and see if it happens?

I called this in to adv tech support. The CSR said he was putting in report to the engineering team.

Yup, I get this as well. I end up deleting the timers and readding them.

Dennis

 

[wstef721]

I found a new bug today. If you go in to edit an existing timer for a day later in the week (i.e. not one for today) and only change something on the first screen, in this case I changed the pad times, and then select done the event changes the day to today, decrements the start time by 4 minutes and changes the pad to 0/3. After I found this on the event I changed, I went in and tested on 6 other timers for this week and everyone did the same thing. The day changed to Sun (but the red dot does not show up on the Sun time) everytime. It is consistent. Happens regardless of which screen you use to get to the timer list. It only happens if you hit "done" button on the first screen. If you select "set time", and then hit "create", it doesn't make the changes.

Someone else want to try this and see if it happens?

I called this in to adv tech support. The CSR said he was putting in report to the engineering team.

Yup, I get this as well. I end up deleting the timers and readding them.

Dennis

Same here. Found it last night. Very frustrating.

Gregg

 

[Randy_B]

If you have already found this one or verify it on your box, call advanced tech support for the 721 and add your voice to mine. In the for what it is worth dept: 'sposedly the "pause back to beginning" bug has been so prevalent and receiving so many complaints that an update with a bug fix to address this one problem is in the works for delivery, soonest.

 

[md_paul]

General performance / responce issues post 115 update.

Is anyone else experiencing a much slower channel change on the new release? I'm not sure if it's just my 721, but since the update, the time it takes the receiver to tune another channel (either up/down, or from the guide) has greatly increased from the last release. The delays improve after a reboot, but slowly (through a week's time) get worse. Sometimes (usually just before I decide to reboot) I'll pick a channel from the guide, or even select "START OVER" to begin watching a PVR recorded show from the PVR menu, and the receiver will go black for about 5 seconds and then return to the show I was watching instead of going to the channel I selected or starting the recorded show. I've even ended up with a PVR recorded show that I've watched till the end until it drops back to the menu with the words "OVER" on the screen, and been stuck in the final menu not able to change channels, select a new PVR event, or even restart the current PVR event. I could bring up the guide or PVR menu, but selecting anything brought be right back to the ended PVR program. When this happened, I was able to bring up the PIP, swap to the PIP and change channels, but the other tuner remained stuck until I rebooted.

I'm not sure if this is a problem with 115, or it's just coincidence that it started the day after the update.

 

[smammon]

Re: General performance / responce issues post 115 update.

Is anyone else experiencing a much slower channel change on the new release?... snip ...

Sometimes (usually just before I decide to reboot) I'll pick a channel from the guide, or even select "START OVER" to begin watching a PVR recorded show from the PVR menu, and the receiver will go black for about 5 seconds and then return to the show I was watching instead of going to the channel I selected or starting the recorded show. I've even ended up with a PVR recorded show that I've watched till the end until it drops back to the menu with the words "OVER" on the screen, and been stuck in the final menu not able to change channels, select a new PVR event, or even restart the current PVR event. ...Snip....

Yes to both bugs. Thank God someone else is having these same issues. Thought I was crazy. The "stuck at the stopped show" bug has shown it's head several times since the upgrade. This is something I'd expect in a pre-alpha version... VERY bad form. (I'm an IT guy sorry) Also, I'm assuming that it's somehow related to the time change but one of my timers on Sunday decided to run for 1313 minutes. (I believe until I stopped it upon returning to town Monday).

Need to mention a bug that has been around since I first got the box almost a year ago - when listening to the CD Audio channels and using the digital audio feed - there are dropouts at a normal regular frequency i.e. every 2 minutes or so. If I use the analog feed I can hear a click at the same interval but it is much less noticeable. It's enough that it interrupts the digital feed for ~1second. Keep hoping that will go away with an update as well.

At this point I'd be happy with the software from two releases ago - at least the screen saver worked then...

 

[John Corn]

I've been experiencing these channel changing bugs as well. I must admit I haven't had to many problems with my 721 in the past, but the L115 is by far the most frustrating upgrade I've gotten. :x

 

[Stargazer]

The dang 721 rebooted by itself on me when I chose the skip ahead functionality towards the end of a PVR Event. BUG! Yes, it bugs the heck out of me to have this happen.