External Hard Drive use with no signal

[Lamplighter]

Being a newbie to this Forum, bear with me. On Oct 28 I posted a thread stating that we travel in a motorhome using a 722k and a portable dish on a tripod. The External Hard Drive (EHD) feature is enabled. When there is a signal everything works perfectly. The problem occurs when parking the motorhome and plugging into the electric pedestal giving the coach 120 volts. When I turn on the receiver and cannot acquire a signal (usually too many trees and branches in the way) the receiver will not allow me to use the EHD. As an experiment: with power to the receiver and a good signal I disconnected the coax from the dish to the receiver and the EHD worked without a signal. So this problem only occurs when power is removed from the receiver and turned back on with no signal. I spoke to 5 different people at Dish ( supervisors and advanced tech support were involved) in the last 2 days. I was told this would be reported to the Engineering Dept. with no follow up call back to me relating any solutions. They said it could take weeks to months to resolve. I said anyone there with a 722k and an EHD with something on it could see if this is a software problem or maybe it's a bad receiver in about 10 minutes not weeks or months by simulating power up with no signal. So I'm basically screwed with no signal, unable to watch anything from the EHD. As an amusing side note I was told that for my troubles a supervisor noticed that I wasn't signed up for HD For Life and she was going to enabled it for me at no charge. I stated that I could have done this myself as long as I had paperless billing and auto bill pay which I have. So I basically received nothing!

I am wondering if I'm the only one with this problem. Any input would be appreciated.

 

[ZachS@DISH]

Being a newbie to this Forum, bear with me. On Oct 28 I posted a thread stating that we travel in a motorhome using a 722k and a portable dish on a tripod. The External Hard Drive (EHD) feature is enabled. When there is a signal everything works perfectly. The problem occurs when parking the motorhome and plugging into the electric pedestal giving the coach 120 volts. When I turn on the receiver and cannot acquire a signal (usually too many trees and branches in the way) the receiver will not allow me to use the EHD. As an experiment: with power to the receiver and a good signal I disconnected the coax from the dish to the receiver and the EHD worked without a signal. So this problem only occurs when power is removed from the receiver and turned back on with no signal. I spoke to 5 different people at Dish ( supervisors and advanced tech support were involved) in the last 2 days. I was told this would be reported to the Engineering Dept. with no follow up call back to me relating any solutions. They said it could take weeks to months to resolve. I said anyone there with a 722k and an EHD with something on it could see if this is a software problem or maybe it's a bad receiver in about 10 minutes not weeks or months by simulating power up with no signal. So I'm basically screwed with no signal, unable to watch anything from the EHD. As an amusing side note I was told that for my troubles a supervisor noticed that I wasn't signed up for HD For Life and she was going to enabled it for me at no charge. I stated that I could have done this myself as long as I had paperless billing and auto bill pay which I have. So I basically received nothing!

I am wondering if I'm the only one with this problem. Any input would be appreciated.

How long is it going without power? I haven't ran into this before but if it is going weeks at a time with out power it could be missing an authorization signal that is causing it not to recognize the EHD.

 

[Tampa8]

You could have signed up for HD for Life, but didn't, so weren't you paying $10 a month for HD service? Did the CSR save you $10 a month?

When you say the EHD does not work when turning on receiver and no signal present, what exactly does it mean. Does the receiver see the EHD? If so and you pick it, what happens. As the other poster asked, does this happen after a long time of the receiver being off, or everytime no matter how long.

 

[Lamplighter]

Anywhere from a few hours to about a week or so. No longer.

 

[ZachS@DISH]

I will try and test it here today. I will also ask around to see if anyone else has seen this.

 

[Lamplighter]

You could have signed up for HD for Life, but didn't, so weren't you paying $10 a month for HD service? Did the CSR save you $10 a month?

When you say the EHD does not work when turning on receiver and no signal present, what exactly does it mean. Does the receiver see the EHD? If so and you pick it, what happens. As the other poster asked, does this happen after a long time of the receiver being off, or everytime no matter how long.

I was not signed up for HD, we have a built in RCA SD TV with an awesome picture. So I wasn't paying $10. The reason I upgraded to a 722k was because of the EHD feature. I was tired of returning receivers and losing everything on the hard drive. This happened a few times through the years.
When I say the EHD doesn't work I mean when going to menu, multimedia, external device, manage device an attention screen pops up stating this feature has to be enabled with a phone number to call. It appears to be a default attention screen because my account is EHD enabled. The receiver only sees the EHD when there is a signal or no signal with the power never interrupted. This happens every time, even after a few minutes. Hope this helps to clarify and thank you for responding.

 

[Lamplighter]

Thank you, sounds like the proverbial can of worms.

 

[harshness]

Consider leaving the programming you want to watch while out of signal range on the internal drive.

 

[Lamplighter]

Consider leaving the programming you want to watch while out of signal range on the internal drive.

We never know when moving the motorhome to a new location whether we'll be getting a signal or not. Usually we do get a signal therefore it doesn't make sense to keep a bunch of recordings on the internal drive which would be lost if the receiver failed.

 

[Tampa8]

Your results are the same as mine as I just tried on the VIP612. With receiver on, then disconnect the satellite connection, you can still see the EHD. But plug the receiver in with no satellite signal and it says the EHD must be authorized. It would appear the best advice was given, put some things you would like to watch on the internal hard drive. They don't have to be things you want to keep for a long time.
It would appear the receiver gets an authorization each time after losing power.

Is it possible to leave it on power via an inverter?

 

[ZachS@DISH]

Your results are the same as mine as I just tried on the VIP612. With receiver on, then disconnect the satellite connection, you can still see the EHD. But plug the receiver in with no satellite signal and it says the EHD must be authorized. It would appear the best advice was given, put some things you would like to watch on the internal hard drive. They don't have to be things you want to keep for a long time.
It would appear the receiver gets an authorization each time after losing power.

Is it possible to leave it on power via an inverter?

Tested it here and same thing. After asking around this is how it will normally function.

 

[TheKrell]

This is probably a leftover feature deliberately built into the firmware to enforce the $40 fee. The fee is gone now (thank you Dish!), but the firmware still enforces the authorization check. Dish could, if they so chose, remove the authorization check since the fee is no longer required. But who knows when or if they will ever do that?

 

[Lamplighter]

Your results are the same as mine as I just tried on the VIP612. With receiver on, then disconnect the satellite connection, you can still see the EHD. But plug the receiver in with no satellite signal and it says the EHD must be authorized. It would appear the best advice was given, put some things you would like to watch on the internal hard drive. They don't have to be things you want to keep for a long time.
It would appear the receiver gets an authorization each time after losing power.

Is it possible to leave it on power via an inverter?

I never thought of this. Yes there is an inverter that feeds the entertainment center of the motorhome. It's rated to supply 120 volts from the coach batteries for about 2 hours to "possibly finish watching a movie" per the manufacturer. There's a lot of variables though; usually we travel more than 2 hours to reach a destination which would drain the batteries unless the engine alternator charges the coach batteries while driving, this I don't know. It's worth a try.

 

[TG2]

Keep in mind ... on or "off" the receiver pulls about 50 watts. And with a motor home, you might be able to put solar on top to provide the power you need during day time travel ... quick check round suggests 500 to 1000 for 100 to 200 watts of power.

 

[dare2be]

How about a Battery Backup UPS? You can get a relatively inexpensive one that should be able to supply power to the receiver for a few hours. The beauty of it is you can just unplug the UPS from the wall in your house, transport both it and the receiver together, and plug it back in at your destination, all while keeping the receiver on and powered. Just another idea.

 

[TG2]

most UPS's beep when not receiving input power... you'd have to pay more for one that is silence-able or have to go mid-evil on the buzzer.. ...although that means never knowing when a real failure happens or that the unit is low on battery (usually faster beeps when X minutes are left) and of course the warning wouldn't occur when someone trips over the 125v Input line to the motorhome ... etc..

 

[dwarren2]

Next time try this. Menu - Multimedia(4), My Media(2) to try to access the ehd. The problem you posted has been brought up before, only referring to signal loss with snow covering the dish.

 

[Tampa8]

Next time try this. Menu - Multimedia(4), My Media(2) to try to access the ehd. The problem you posted has been brought up before, only referring to signal loss with snow covering the dish.

Nope, not the same thing. He (and I) can access the menu for the EHD just fine, but you get the message it isn't authorized. This is not the same as accessing the internal hard drive, which can be done. And it' not the same as snow on the dish, because in that case you have not turned off power to the receiver, which would still allow use of the EHD.

 

[Tampa8]

This is probably a leftover feature deliberately built into the firmware to enforce the $40 fee. The fee is gone now (thank you Dish!), but the firmware still enforces the authorization check. Dish could, if they so chose, remove the authorization check since the fee is no longer required. But who knows when or if they will ever do that?

I don't think it is the fee that is being authorized. Remember, you can't use your EHD on someone else's receiver, I'm thinking the authorization is actually making sure the EHD is on your own receiver(s) (Or both - left over fee authorization and matching authorization)

 

[TG2]

Next time try this. Menu - Multimedia(4), My Media(2) to try to access the ehd. The problem you posted has been brought up before, only referring to signal loss with snow covering the dish.

Highlighted below ... this is how OP is accessing .. so ...

When I say the EHD doesn't work I mean when going to menu, multimedia, external device (#2 "External USB Devices"/My Media), manage device an attention screen pops up stating this feature has to be enabled with a phone number to call. It appears to be a default attention screen because my account is EHD enabled. The receiver only sees the EHD when there is a signal or no signal with the power never interrupted. This happens every time, even after a few minutes. Hope this helps to clarify and thank you for responding.