Can the DIRT team help with Dish Online issues?

[bortery]

Now that I can no longer get to DRA, is there any way to get some of these issues I'm experiencing fixed? I am often remote and used DRA to watch most of my TV. If Dish Online keeps these issues up, then I'm in essence paying for TV that I can't watch and will start looking elsewhere.

1. At this very moment, I click on DVR -> My Timers, and it's completely empty. I have tons of timers set up (one even recorded tonight). No matter how many times I click "refresh" on refresh the browser, it comes up empty. I just saw my timers yesterday. Why can't I access my recorded episodes?
2. I clicked on "Guide," and clicked on a show and set it to record. When I clicked the show to start watching it (I was only going to be able to watch it for 10 minutes and wanted to record the rest), the player came up and the spinny icon just kept spinning. I refreshed the page, I closed the browser, all I am getting is the spinny icon.

I feel like this application wasn't even tested before it was released. Is there any way these issues can be fixed?

 

[TG2]

Much of what you're experiencing could be connection related. Some of it you can control, other parts you can't.

Also did you create a login at the DRA site before dish's relaunched website made it hard to get to? (dish.sling.com)

You can try to create a copy of your username, email address, and password at SlingBox .com ... make them a direct copy of what you have setup for DishNetwork .. if you've never been directly in through that back door, you may not be able to get it to register your receiver ... or you might ..

of the connection problems.. if you haven't set it up before, Sling recommends UPnP for the adapter to request the ports it wants .. 5101 / 5102.

If you had service before .... fairly reliably ... but now not .. then you could be in the growing group of people that have this "off line" issue ... and until Dish fixes their back end .. it either won't change, or won't change without changes above and beyond normal (one specific router seemed to work for one user)

If you want to go the full range of options.. need to know

• ISP & connection type
• Modem & Router brands & model numbers
• which DVR
• how is the DVR connected to your network

 

[Tony S]

DIRT, is there any way that Dish can allow access to DRA again. With the new Dish web site, I can not get to DRA anymore. The Dishonline site sort of works, but it has a lot of issues and is very unreliable. It frequently lists channels that I do not subscribe to, and it frequently lists conflicts and shows on my DVR that do not really exist. The DRA site always worked much better for me and did not have these problems. Please, please urge Dish to bring back access to DRA.

With the old Dish web site I could access DRA or Dishonline using the exact same email address and password. Now, when I try to use the DRA site, after I log in I get the following error message on screen: "The system is currently unavailable, please try again later".

TG2, I have tried all of your suggestions and there is no way that I can get in to the old DRA site. When I try to log in using the alternate links that were posted in the other thread (yesterday) it keeps telling me that my password is invalid. I have never used a different password for Dish so I am at a loss here. This is the other thread with the alternate links:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/277088-cant-log-dra-dra-still-supported.html

 

[TheKrell]

Agree. Bring back DRA! Deep-six DO!

Or at minimum bring back DRA for the old/original purposes (programming/deleting timers and recordings), and Sling. Leave the steaming content aggregator (DO) to stew in it's own juices.

 

[TG2]

TG2, I have tried all of your suggestions and there is no way that I can get in to the old DRA site. When I try to log in using the alternate links that were posted in the other thread (yesterday) it keeps telling me that my password is invalid. I have never used a different password for Dish so I am at a loss here.

What about trying to setup the sling through Watch.Slingbox ? it may not identify it as a sling adapter until after you attempt to give it the Admin user's password and at that time may do enough to update what ever else it does.. to skip over that "registration" for web enabling ... etc.. was also thinking maybe theres redirection happening ... hence the SQL server it wants to get is using the old URL, maybe that can be futzed with. The problem... since I'm already registered I'm not seeing the SQL errors, so can't play with any html code or really try to mess with it from my locale...



EDIT: And I've been thinking on the whole issues with respect to DRA, DO, SlingAdapter, Receiver not online ... and it amazes me that Dish still acts ignorant of it ... and doesn't give the weight it deserves, coming from those that have registered at SatGuys & DishSupport, specifically because we're having problems ... as if the 1000 or so are "all" that there is ... given the installed base of Dish ... not realizing that those that *are* registering, have a higher level of competency, etc..

Like for every one user that registers at Dish Support .. I would wager there at atlest 10 to 15 others that *would* register if they knew they could put their voice behind the same problems ... they just don't because they aren't web savvy or something..

 

[bortery]

Much of what you're experiencing could be connection related. Some of it you can control, other parts you can't.

Also did you create a login at the DRA site before dish's relaunched website made it hard to get to? (dish.sling.com)

You can try to create a copy of your username, email address, and password at SlingBox .com ... make them a direct copy of what you have setup for DishNetwork .. if you've never been directly in through that back door, you may not be able to get it to register your receiver ... or you might ..

of the connection problems.. if you haven't set it up before, Sling recommends UPnP for the adapter to request the ports it wants .. 5101 / 5102.

If you had service before .... fairly reliably ... but now not .. then you could be in the growing group of people that have this "off line" issue ... and until Dish fixes their back end .. it either won't change, or won't change without changes above and beyond normal (one specific router seemed to work for one user)

If you want to go the full range of options.. need to know

• ISP & connection type
• Modem & Router brands & model numbers
• which DVR
• how is the DVR connected to your network

Thank you very much for the reply!

The reason I don't believe it's a connection issue, is that I *never* had any of these problems with DRA. I literally just started using Dish Online this week when they shut DRA down, and I'm aready experiencing these problems that I never had before.

I have not tried registering at slingbox.com, so I can do that. Regardless though, Dish won't keep DRA up forever, so they really should fix these issues with Dish Online. If I can't reliably watch TV remotely, there's really no point in me paying Dish money (their sling adapter was the reason I went with them), so I'm going to be looking elsewhere.

 

[steve4810]

I had troubles too but the online chat tool on the Dish support pages worked for me to get my problem narrowed down to "a known issue we are attempting to solve" and by golly after a month or so I checked and it WAS solved. There was a bug somewhere so that I couldn't perform a "reboot receiver" from their web site and that told the rep there was "a known issue" happening.

 

[Tony S]

TG2. I have to agree with you wrote in your edit.

I can't believe that Dish is getting rid of the DRA web site (that worked pretty well), in favor of Dishonline which is very problematic and unreliable. Why can't Dish give us access to either site, the way it was up until a few days ago?

 

[dfergie]

DIRT takes care of customer equipment/programming issues, they can't do everything...

 

[Tony S]

I realize that there are some things that the DIRT team can not do, but even though they might not officially be able to comment here, I am hoping that possibly they at least might voice our concerns to the right people.

 

[Nominal]

Well, I WILL say this, when I went to Dish Online to try to get used to the inevitable I was prompted to update my Sling plugin for Mac OS X to 3.3.12.232 and that seems to have fixed the "playback on TV 1 instead of the web" issue for me. DVR contents are still slow to load sometimes though. If they could just implement the "resume" OR "start over" on DVR playback ike DRA had instead of only starting at the beginning. It's frustrating because if an item is previously played it shows you how much time is left, but still starts back at the beginning. So close to usability and yet so far...

 

[3HaloODST]

I'm just glad my rebate for the Sling Adapter is going through (thanks again Mary!) VERY glad I didn't blow $99 on this paperweight!! Don't get me wrong, it's great, WHEN IT WORKS, but DRA was the only one that would reliably be able to access my DVR recordings from my 722K with Sling Adapter. Now that Dish screwed that up, DO NEVER sees my 722K as "online" when I try to access DVR recordings, until I get IN FRONT of the DVR, MENU-6-1-8-2-RESET CONNECTION, then it FINALLY WORKS. Kinda DEFEATS THE PURPOSE OF SLING if I have to be in front of my DVR every time I want it to work!!

Definitely not a connection issue on my end, as watching Live TV from the same 722K that is "offline" always works!!

 

[steve4810]

Definitely not a connection issue on my end, as watching Live TV from the same 722K that is "offline" always works!!

Offline refers to whether the receiver is online via the internet to the Dish internet center. It has nothing to do with the unit receiving a signal.

As I've posted elsewhere, I found the online chat function on the support pages to be very helpful at running down problems with my Sling connection. The tech you are chatting with is able to bring up the status of your Sling connection and can chase the problem to the malfunction.

Although I admit most of the time when I first try to access my receiver from my Droid the initial report is "offline". But I've found that if you reload the page a few times it eventually works fine. Not perfect but better than it was six months ago.

 

[TG2]

Definitely not a connection issue on my end, as watching Live TV from the same 722K that is "offline" always works!!

Offline refers to whether the receiver is online via the internet to the Dish internet center. It has nothing to do with the unit receiving a signal.

actually you're mis-reading ... 3HaloODST means, that going to DishOnline, and using the Live TV/My Live TV function allows him to see Live TV from his sling adapter. If the receiver were truely off line, then even the Live TV should fail.

 

[steve4810]

actually you're mis-reading ... 3HaloODST means, that going to DishOnline, and using the Live TV/My Live TV function allows him to see Live TV from his sling adapter. If the receiver were truely off line, then even the Live TV should fail.

Well that's completely different issue.


Never mind.

But 3HaloODST, still try the online chat on the Dish site support pages. They are quite knowledgeable folk.

 

[bortery]

Now that I can no longer get to DRA, is there any way to get some of these issues I'm experiencing fixed? I am often remote and used DRA to watch most of my TV. If Dish Online keeps these issues up, then I'm in essence paying for TV that I can't watch and will start looking elsewhere.

1. At this very moment, I click on DVR -> My Timers, and it's completely empty. I have tons of timers set up (one even recorded tonight). No matter how many times I click "refresh" on refresh the browser, it comes up empty. I just saw my timers yesterday. Why can't I access my recorded episodes?
2. I clicked on "Guide," and clicked on a show and set it to record. When I clicked the show to start watching it (I was only going to be able to watch it for 10 minutes and wanted to record the rest), the player came up and the spinny icon just kept spinning. I refreshed the page, I closed the browser, all I am getting is the spinny icon.

I feel like this application wasn't even tested before it was released. Is there any way these issues can be fixed?

Two more recent issues with Dish Online. I realize DIRT won't be able to help, but I want to see if anyone else is experiencing these issues?

1. I went to "guide" and went to thursday and clicked "record this episode" yesterday. Today when I go to "My timers," I don't see the recording. If I go to the guide, I see that there is a little red "rec" next to the episode. It's a sporting event, and I want to extend the record time, but I can't do it because the timer isn't showing up anywhere. I don't even know if it will actually record or not??

2. About an hour ago, all of my timers were blank again. I clicked on "refresh" and suddenly it said my receiver was no longer connected. I clicked "Reconnect" about 10 times, and it said the same thing. I now can't access anything. This has happened to me multiple times when using Dish Online, and never happened when using Dish Remote Access.

Why doesn't basic functionality work???

 

[TG2]

Bortery ... I would ask you to try this...

Call dish. Tell them you need broadband support for a sling adapter problem. Explain the systems of the off line .. etc.. and that it never happened with DRA ... and see if they are able to help. Try to be insistent that you get the Broadband Support 'people' or 'dept' what ever they want to classify themselves as.

See if someone in broadband support has answers ... if they do.. share them...

I've had the "playback on tv1" issue since may .. and they, just this past sunday, fixed the issue for me (by telling the system to "swap" primary receivers on the account ... a move which probably ripples out and through the rest of the backend of Dish / Sling ... maybe refreshing back end system settings it new for "my" receivers, etc) not that the fix they used for my issue will fix yours.. but it seems from the conversation I had with both the tech and the supervisor, that they are the proper place to go for issues with DO/DRA/Sling in a dish context.

 

[steve4810]

Bortery,

I second what TG2 said. There are smart people at Dish. You just have to preserver until you get a hold of one of them. TG2 suggests the phone. I've had great experiences with online chat. I'm willing to bet in something as far out as broadband sling issues that the same specialized folk who work the phones work the chat lines as well.