External Hard Drive Archive Bug Thread

[blazeblaze]

What I notice the skipping/stuttering most on is music concerts off of Rave and MHD. I am really fond of the Tom Petty in Gatorville concert, and I was going to proudly play this for my friends after a Sunday football party, and it embarrassed me by skipping badly and we ended up turning it off. Since then, I have done some more testing, and it seems like most regular movies are fine, it is these specific concerts off of Rave and MHD (I have a ton of them now)

Big.burlinski,

I have the WD Mybook 1TB drive for 1-2 weeks now, and have not noticed any skipping yet on playback. I believe I have 1 or more concerts from Rave on the drive already (specifically one of the Soundstage shows with Jewel), so I will try to check that out soon and report back.

Is there any pattern to the frequency at which the skips occur? If so, about how often do they occur?

 

[long_time_DNC]

No skipping here either with my 750gb Cavalry EHD...

 

[big.burlinski]

Big.burlinski,

I have the WD Mybook 1TB drive for 1-2 weeks now, and have not noticed any skipping yet on playback. I believe I have 1 or more concerts from Rave on the drive already (specifically one of the Soundstage shows with Jewel), so I will try to check that out soon and report back.

Is there any pattern to the frequency at which the skips occur? If so, about how often do they occur?

It's pretty consistent, because the first thing I tried was power cycling the drive, and also tried rebooting the DVR (a frustratingly long process)

Going aback to the same show at the same time, it still does the same thing.

I have transferred the same file back to the DVR and of course it plays fine. In fact now I have two copies of it, on the DVR and the hard drive, I re-recorded it when it came on again. I am hopeful that the new drive will shed some light on it, at least I'll have another new USB cable to play with.

 

[mntwister]

It's pretty consistent, because the first thing I tried was power cycling the drive, and also tried rebooting the DVR (a frustratingly long process)

Going aback to the same show at the same time, it still does the same thing.

I have transferred the same file back to the DVR and of course it plays fine. In fact now I have two copies of it, on the DVR and the hard drive, I re-recorded it when it came on again. I am hopeful that the new drive will shed some light on it, at least I'll have another new USB cable to play with.

Maybe you should try returning the drive for another, to definately rule out that's it's not the drive. This sounds very strange to me, havn't read in these threads about such a severe problem before.

 

[blazeblaze]

It's pretty consistent, because the first thing I tried was power cycling the drive, and also tried rebooting the DVR (a frustratingly long process)

Going aback to the same show at the same time, it still does the same thing.

I have transferred the same file back to the DVR and of course it plays fine. In fact now I have two copies of it, on the DVR and the hard drive, I re-recorded it when it came on again. I am hopeful that the new drive will shed some light on it, at least I'll have another new USB cable to play with.

I watched about 20 minutes of the 2 hour Soundstage featuring Jewel. It played flawlessly for me. I hope you figure out what's going on with your setup...because it sounds frustrating.

 

[big.burlinski]

I think I should point out that this seems to be an audio issue. In other words, I don't see any visible skipping or stuttering in the video, the sound just drops out for a second or less periodically, anywhere from every few seconds to once or twice a minute.
So that brings up another possibly key data point, I am using the Optical DD 5.1 output to a Panasonic XR25 receiver. When it skips, it is not usually "bad" enough to make the indicators on the receiver go out, but sometimes it does. (which does happen when a true AC3 stream problem occurs). (I play with computers and htpc a lot too, the receiver and optical inputs work perfectly for this). I might try the analog outputs to see if it still skips. Could be just some weird incompatibility. Of some weird characteristic in the DD stream in these concerts or from these channels aren't "liked" by my receiver.
There are a few settings available for the DD output, but at this point I haven't researched what Line Mode and RF Mode actually do, but I've tried both There's also a choice somewhere else for Audio Sync, you can choose HD or SD, but I would think this is just a delay setting.
Also this morning I watched some more movies, all played flawlessly. The Dane Cook HBO special was over 10 G, so it is very high bandwidth I would think, and it played just flawlessly. The crowd noise was "constant" enough that I think I would have detected a dropout.
Also tried a couple more USB cables, still skipping on the concerts. I happened to have the Jewel one and it was skipping the same way

I had an idea I might record some of the concerts on HDNet (I think they are on Sunday nights?). Seems like the one I have with Boz Skaggs doesn't skip either.

 

[cloudy]

Does this sound normal?
Every time I try to see what's on my Ext, the whole Dish box re-boots.
And even after the re-boot, I can't get into the EXT. Everytime I try, the system re-boots.

 

[cloudy]

Never Mind. I just decided to hook the EXT back up to a computer, delete the partitions, and start over from scratch.
Now I can actually delete items from the EXT with Dish.
I think I had so much corrrupted data on the drive from cancelled Archiving that it was just too much of a mess for the 622 to handle.

 

[GGE]

Need help diagnosing Ext HD problem

Greetings,
I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out what's going on with my external HD. It is a Western DIgital 500 GB Essential Edition MyBook. I added it a couple of months ago, and everything was fine until about 10 days. I was watching live TV and decided to look at my archived recordings, but the VIP 622 said I had no USB device attached, even though I had just looked at it a littel while previously.

So I checked my USB connection and did a front panel reboot and the HD was back. Then a little later, gone again. This went on for a few days--sometimes it's there, sometimes not. But for four days straight now, it hasn't been recognized. I have never moved it to another receiver (I have only the one DVR).

I can't tell whether the problem is with the HD or the 622. I know that I've read that the HDMI port on the 622 can be very flaky; could the same be true for the USB port? Could it be a problem with a recent firmware change? I have also tried the USB port on the front, but no luck.

Thanks for listening; just trying to decide if I have a bad HD or a problem with the 622.

 

[retorq]

You should be able to plug it into your home PC and get the PC to see the device .. I'm betting your drive is no good.

 

[Ronald_Jeremy]

I seem to remember there is something about some of these drives going to sleep after a while and doesn't like to wake up until it is rebooted. The sleep mode needs to be turned off. Wait for someone to answer who is positive.

 

[dfergie]

Merged like threads...

 

[iamme3]

I haven't seen this reported anywhere else. I came home last night to find the directory list on my 622 for my external drive showning zero programs, but still the same space remaining as when the 50+ movies and programs were there. I connected another drive I had and it seems to work ok.

I contacted Tech Support. Tech support reported the issue and said that they may address it in the next software update.

Has anyone else seen this issue? I don't think it's a drive failure as the drive is new out of the box 2 months ago, though I purchased it about a year ago. I've been using two other of the same drives purchased at the same time for about a year without issue. I realize that it's possible that the drive's gone bad, but it seems more likely to be some kind of directory coruption. It would suck to loose those recordings.

Any thoughts?

 

[mntwister]

I have had alot of the problems described here, they always go away after rebooting the drive, or the dvr(I have the 622). As for the drive showing no -programs on it and 0gb, I have had that too, and it caused some severe panic until I rebooted.

Seems like it's going to take some time for Dish to have this all working properly.

 

[iamme3]

I have had alot of the problems described here, they always go away after rebooting the drive, or the dvr(I have the 622). As for the drive showing no -programs on it and 0gb, I have had that too, and it caused some severe panic until I rebooted.

Seems like it's going to take some time for Dish to have this all working properly.

If you were responding to my message:
A - rebooting did nothing (yes, I unpluged the 622)
B - it's just the programs in the list are gone (not 0gb) the space available shows exactly the same as when the programs showed up in the list.
C- I haven't had any issues, until now

frustrated...
-Lance

 

[120inna55]

Greetings,
I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out what's going on with my external HD. It is a Western DIgital 500 GB Essential Edition MyBook. I added it a couple of months ago, and everything was fine until about 10 days. I was watching live TV and decided to look at my archived recordings, but the VIP 622 said I had no USB device attached, even though I had just looked at it a littel while previously.

So I checked my USB connection and did a front panel reboot and the HD was back. Then a little later, gone again. This went on for a few days--sometimes it's there, sometimes not. But for four days straight now, it hasn't been recognized. I have never moved it to another receiver (I have only the one DVR).

I can't tell whether the problem is with the HD or the 622. I know that I've read that the HDMI port on the 622 can be very flaky; could the same be true for the USB port? Could it be a problem with a recent firmware change? I have also tried the USB port on the front, but no luck.

Thanks for listening; just trying to decide if I have a bad HD or a problem with the 622.

I think front panel reboot of the 622 is overkill. You probably just need to power cycle the HDD (unplug power and plug back in). Mine loses communication if I go more than a week without accessing it. Doing the aforementioned wakes it up.

 

[KAB]

Mine loses communication if I go more than a week without accessing it.

The simple things seem to be the hardest for some to understand. Turn the darn thing off when not in use, least of all for prolonging the drive's life expectancy, especially the name brand, plastic housing models.

 

[120inna55]

The simple things seem to be the hardest for some to understand. Turn the darn thing off when not in use, least of all for prolonging the drive's life expectancy, especially the name brand, plastic housing models.

Don't be condescending, KAB.

I clearly understand why it loses communication. I don't have a problem with it. I was simply suggesting (to GGE) a method for re-establishing communication without doing a front panel 622 reboot or the extreme of connecting it to a PC.

I would venture to say that most of us don't need lecturing on how to utilize the all-in-one HDD enclosures or how to maximize longevity. (especially after perusing this thread) I, for one, don't put anything on the HDD that I would consider devastating if lost. The convenience of it being there when I want it is worth the trade-off for any truncating of it's lifespan. My MyBook's light goes off after about 4 hours of non-use. However, it wakes up when I start to access it. It takes approximately 30 seconds to respond, then all is well. There is no power-button. The user must unplug the drive to turn it off. Given the location of my HDD, that's somewhat inconvenient to unplug and plug in the HDD every time I want to use it. But as I said, if I go a week or more without accessing it, it won't wake up without a power cycle (of the MyBook---not the 622).

Again, the aforementioned is nothing that hasn't been exhaustively poured over in the preceding posts. I was just attempting to give a quick concise response to a simple question. Thanks for your input, though.

 

[geekboy2000]

I have a problem that is really bugging me. First of all, I do not have any of the problems most people are talking about here, involving failed transfers, USB not connected, drive wake-up problems, etc.

I do have a problem with HD material skipping and stuttering on playback.

My current setup is:

1-"homemade" ext. USB drive, 250G IDE in a newegg special USB enclosure
1-WD Mybook Essentials 750G
1-VIP722

What I notice the skipping/stuttering most on is music concerts off of Rave and MHD. I am really fond of the Tom Petty in Gatorville concert, and I was going to proudly play this for my friends after a Sunday football party, and it embarrassed me by skipping badly and we ended up turning it off. Since then, I have done some more testing, and it seems like most regular movies are fine, it is these specific concerts off of Rave and MHD (I have a ton of them now)

<snip>

I've got:
VIP-722 w/447 firmware

I had a WD My Book 500GB drive and found exactly the same issue you report, most noticeable on Soundstage recordings played from the external drive. No video issues, just periodic half second or so audio dropouts.

I switched to a Maxtor One Touch 4 Plus (500GB) drive, and it almost completely eliminated the problem. There are still a few audio dropouts here and there, but there are far, far fewer. Still, it's not perfect.

I have not noticed it during playback of HDNet's airings of Torchwood, but have noticed it in a few HD movies. It probably exists in all, or most all recordings, but it's just more noticeable with concerts/music.

I have to believe we've hit some kind of "wall" with respect to the data transfer, but I'm hoping it's something a future receiver update will fix. I'm not planning to try yet another drive. It is frustrating, but I'm far happier with the Maxtor drive.

Mark

 

[big.burlinski]

<snip>

I've got:
VIP-722 w/447 firmware

I had a WD My Book 500GB drive and found exactly the same issue you report, most noticeable on Soundstage recordings played from the external drive. No video issues, just periodic half second or so audio dropouts.

I switched to a Maxtor One Touch 4 Plus (500GB) drive, and it almost completely eliminated the problem. There are still a few audio dropouts here and there, but there are far, far fewer. Still, it's not perfect.

I have not noticed it during playback of HDNet's airings of Torchwood, but have noticed it in a few HD movies. It probably exists in all, or most all recordings, but it's just more noticeable with concerts/music.

I have to believe we've hit some kind of "wall" with respect to the data transfer, but I'm hoping it's something a future receiver update will fix. I'm not planning to try yet another drive. It is frustrating, but I'm far happier with the Maxtor drive.

Mark

Well, I did add another drive, it is one highly recommended HERE

It is a very nice drive, supposed to be an "A/V" class drive, meaning it should have better sustained output bandwidth and also should be able to run 24/7.

It didn't help, the problem is just as noticeable with this drive. In fact, it is quite interesting, this particular drive has a blue power light, and a reddish drive activity light, so you can tell accurately when the VIP722 has to access the drive to pull more data. These skips occur like clockwork on these accesses. Not every single time the drive is accessed, but when it does skip, it coincides with a drive access.

I'm pretty much not going to try to worry about it as much, because I have pretty good success watching other material. (Even music concerts off of HDNET )

I'm using the external drives to move off other stuff and leave enough room on the internal drive to hold 4 or 5 concerts at a time for weekends.

And of course hope for a firmware update that may help someday.

Shouldn't say this, but I'm glad somebody else is having the problem, misery loves company