Directv issues?

[Neutron]

I tell the automated prompts that I'm a current customer needing tech support.

I called the 1-800-Directv number.


They picked the absolute worst time to mess with their system. The tech I'm talking to now told me that they have to take their entire system down to do what they are wanting to do with the merging their individual systems. Why they don't have a backup system is beyond me. At least the tech support guy felt really bad (that, and he had been there since 8am) and offered us 3 free months of Cinemax once their system came back up. He put it in our account notes.

This is going to really look bad on me because my co-worker just switched from DISH to Directv and is set to be installed tomorrow.

 

[jimmyvegas]

I finally was able to get to a person at 2am ET. She told me that 95% of the problems are fixed. My problem is in the 5% that isn't. She told me all receivers that were activated on Thursday before the problems occurred were blown out of the water on Thursday night and they haven't been able to figure out how to re-activate them. She advised me to call back in the morning but has no idea when or if this problem will be fixed.

My biggest problem is I have 9 people coming over to watch the playoff games in HD, drink beer and eat food that's bad for you.

 

[Neutron]

I'm in the same 5% then. I just got off the phone with a tech support rep that was pretty cool about the situation and when I said that this was getting very rediculous he said that I was justified to say more than that.

 

[Gandalf]

Me too, I installed a new Hr10-250 Thursday and tried to activate it (and add HD-Pack) as a replacement for my Sony T60. They managed to deactivate the T60 but have not been able to activate the new box - all I get is channel 100.

On Thur they told me that they would manually process my activation and call me; when I EVENTUALLY got through to CSR last night around 9pm EST, Ashley told me that they had my request info but would not action the request and that I had to keep calling back - I said that was unacceptable and insisted on talking to a Supervisor or Manager and was put through to Alan who apologized and said that they WOULD manually process the activation.

It's now 7:20am Sat and still no activation!

Gandalf

 

[korsjs]

kind of embarrisning for direct. you would think you guys are talking about dish network. however, i would have more faith in direct over dish getting this corrected. hopefully you guys won't miss the playoff in HD. you can always go to dish and the spectacular SD locals.

 

[Gandalf]

Update

Since making my last posting on this forum i HAVE BEEN CONTINUOUSLY ON HOLD WITH DIRECTV - 57 MINUTES AND COUNTING.

I've been a DTV customer for several years now but this is really starting to make me ANGRY

Gandalf

 

[Gandalf]

Update

I've now been on hold listening to the banal, irritating messages for 1:23, gonna give up at 1:30 but DTV are gonna have to do something special to keep me as a customer.

Gandalf

 

[jimmyvegas]

I cant evn get thru to technical support. I've tried for the last hour, only get busy signals. I am so annoyed. I have to start calling people to try to make other plans for this football party I was planning. Not gonna happen here without access to the games.
I just did something I never thought I would do. I called Comcast and asked if it would be possible to get digital cable with HD installed today. I'd even go to their office to pick up the equipment (house is wired). They told me they need to send a person to my house to do an HD install and the earliest was Tues or Wed.

I've been a D* customer since 1995. I spent over $2000 with them last year. I'm not making that number up. I just went thru my bills for last year. I've had more problems with them in the last year than the previous 9 years combined. All relating to the Samsung T360 that they sold me which I was finally able to get them to replace and now this. Great service D*. My programming committment that I got when I bought the Samsung ends at the end of Jan. It seems that they leave me no choice but to consider other providers.

 

[Neutron]

Now my HTL-HD has "Call ext 721" on every channel now. The only working receiver is our standard RCA receiver.

Man, and I have 2 people who I got to switch from DISH to Directv switching today.

 

[handler]

Well, crap.

I finally got fed up with Dish's lame PVR offerings -- why buy a HD PVR for $500 that will never have name-based recordings when I can buy an HD DVR 250 and switch to DirecTV and get NBR and a PVR that Just Works, and the new subscriber discounts will cover the difference -- and bought DirecTV equipment. I used my neighbor's roof hatch to get onto my roof and replace my E* dish with my new D* 3LNB dish, came downstairs -- and was suddenly faced with constant busy signals.

Boy, I wish I had read this thread first. Ugh.

 

[Neutron]

I just got off the phone with a tech support CSR. He said that it's only certain accounts. New accounts shouldn't be affected. He had me switch out the access cards from my HD receiver and my Hughes DVR receiver. That at least got my HD receiver back up and running. He said their 2 systems merging into one has screwed up some access cards.

He said they should be done soon, but he doesn't know when. This is going on day 3 with no working DVR.

 

[handler]

New accounts shouldn't be affected.

The problem is that I'm not activated AT ALL, I haven't spoken with a CSR to activate the unit yet, and I can't get past the wall of busy signals to do so.

 

[Stustu]

I found this forum looking for answers to this very question. I have three SD and one HD receivers, which were installed in August. All four went out on Thursday. Two of the SD receivers came back this morning, but as luck would have it they're not on the two primary televisions we usually watch.

I tried swapping one of the cards from a functioning SD receiver to my HD, but that didn't work.

Like others, I haven't been able to get anyone on the phone today. I was pretty sympathetic at first, since problems can occur. But my patience is running very thin.

 

[DTV-T2-Tech]

The problem is that they are trying to merge the old nrtc accounts. Whiched used a diff. billing system then our system. that's what caused a system wide crash. As of now it's just minute to minute on when it's back up. Trust me the i.t. guys are running around with there heads cut off tring to get this fixed.

 

[jimmyvegas]

The problem is that they are trying to merge the old nrtc accounts. Whiched used a diff. billing system then our system. that's what caused a system wide crash. As of now it's just minute to minute on when it's back up. Trust me the i.t. guys are running around with there heads cut off tring to get this fixed.

Well, its good to hear that they are at least working on the problem. Your heads cut off trying to get this fixed quote is a great quote because heads should roll due to this. I'm an old systems guy and I usually understand and accept system problems because they just happen but in this day and age it is inexcusable and unacceptable to have a multiple day problem of this nature.

Anyway, I was able to get my football viewing party switched to a friend's house who has D* but not HD. I'll take some abuse for this but at least the game will be on. Hopefully by the time I get home tonite the problems will be fixed.

Go Eagles---next week

 

[dgordo]

Try calling extended support directly, 1-888-713-7772

 

[rdlink]

Wow!!

I just got back from Best Buy with my three DirecTV DVRs and a dish. After reading posts over the last couple of weeks, and researching functionality of the D* DVR vs my 721s, I decided to jump ship from DISH.

What have I gotten myself into? In over 5 years with DISH I've never experienced an outage over 10 minutes, much less 3 days!!

How can D* hold themselves out as the slick, reliable alternative when their IT dept. plans an upgrade without previously testing, or having a quick action contingency plan in place?

 

[DirecTVTechCSR]

Generally we don't have outages like this, don't let it fool you... our systems are for the most part very stable. This was completely unexpected, and is driving everyone crazy, both customers and employees alike. They have been doing these system merges over the last month, and everything has been fine except for a few hiccups causing slowing of the system occasionally very late at night. During the final steps, the system crashed. This is something that just happens with technology sometimes. WHen dealing with electronics, computers, and software, you can't expect everything to always be perfect. We are working on the problem, and things are getting taken care of to establish full functionality again. We have never had a crash this big before either. Everything came back up again last night, and many of us stayed after hours getting things processed manually. I was there till 4am last night, and I am going in today on my day off to process downtime forms all day, and will stay as late as they keep the building open again. We are doing everything we can to get things back in order.

Expect long hold times if you are calling in because a lot of people are calling in every 30 minutes to ask if the system is up yet. Just relax, you will be taken care of if you have already called in.

If they told you a form was filled out, or that someone would call you, calling in again is not going to get it done any quicker, its only going to cause a higher call volume and more stress on the system, and on other customers who have not gotten through yet to get a form filled out.

Believe me, we are all frustrated with the problem too, and we are doing what we can to get it fixed.

Please don't let this system fluke be the base of your opinion of DirecTV. Its a one time freak occurence, and as I said our systems are usually very stable.

 

[wobbie]

Good old reliable DirecTV. Compalin all you want about E* but I've been with them for 3 years and I can honestly say I have never knowingly lost my service, whether it be a storm or a "system" failure. I'll keep my 522 and 508 over anything direcTV offers me.

 

[DirecTVTechCSR]

Customers did not lose service due to this issue. We were just unable to activate new accounts, change programming packages, order ppv over the phone, or fix a few common things that occur with any satellite service.

THe system problem is an internal thing with the commands we are able to send to our camc. The link was down, so we couldn't send it commands. It did not cause everyone to lose thier service.

When I had Dishnetwork a few years back, I lost my signal almost daily. With Directv I have never lost my signal, even in freezing rain.

Im not saying you dont have good service. Just that what works for one may not necessarily work for everyone. This "outage" was in our main computers, not in people's service. The ones who were experiencing problems are typical problems as I said you will encounter with any service provider. THey are usually simple to fix. The system was unable to perform those commands though. It isnt as if everyone in the country suddenly lost service.

The biggest issue that has been encountered is customers wanting to activate a new receiver, additional one or replacement, and we were unable to do so for the time being.