FYI - Dish is phasing out the "Disable Automatic Update" option on all boxes

[sic0048]

I have a VIP-211k and use a third party DVR software to record my dish shows. (I use SageTV and the Hauppauge HD-PVR to record my HD only package with Dish). Dish in their infinite wisdom automatically puts the STB to sleep after updating the box. In the past, I had my box set to "Disable Automatic Updates" to prevent this sleeping. (Because otherwise I would only get the screen saver recorded - not the show I wanted. This is because the box will not respond to channel changes until the screen saver is removed by pressing "select").

However, after a recent power failure, my box started updating itself automatically, and there was no longer a setting to disable the updates.

I email Dish network support to see what happened. Here is a copy of my email to Dish.

I have a Dish VIP-211k box and I would like to disable the automatic updates. I thought this use to be possible, but I do not see it in the menus anymore. I know I can customize the time that the update occurs, but there does not appear to be a way to turn the update off. Was there a recent firmware that changed this? Now my box updates itself everyday and puts itself to sleep. I don't want the box to put itself to sleep, so in the past I have disabled the automatic updates.
Thanks,

Here is the reponse that I got back from Dish.

Thank you for your email. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. The menu option to disable daily Updates has been removed from the models 211 and 211k. Future software releases will remove the option from all receivers that currently have it. If the receiver also turns itself off after a certain period of inactivity, you may disable this by pressing Menu on the Dish Network remote. Then select Preferences, Inactivity Standby, and adjust the settings to your liking.


Your business is greatly appreciated and we thank you for allowing us to be of assistance to you. If you have further questions you can respond to this e-mail or access our online technical support at the following link:
http://tech.dishnetwork.com/departmental_content/techportal/index.shtml
A Technical Service Representative is available via live chat 24 hours a day, 7 days per week regarding your concerns. Please click the following link to use this option.
http://tech.dishnetwork.com/departmental_content/techportal/content/tech/techchatadvcustformrf23.shtml

Thank you,
Lucas S.
DISH Network Technical E-care

As you can read, they apparently are going to take away the option to disable automatic updates on ALL their STBs in the future.

If you use a third party DRV software, this probably will affect you. I "fixed" it on my system by creating a timer on the 211k. It is set to automatically tune to a channel shortly after the automatic update occurs. The idea is that the update will occur and the box will go to sleep. But shortly after that, the box wakes up and tunes to a specific channel. Since I also have the Inactivity Period set to Never, the box will not go to sleep again until tomorrows updates. This allows my software to change the channel and record all the shows for that day without any problems.

So just a warning to those people that rely on the "Disable Automatic Updates" setting. It might not always be there for you in the future.

 

[tnsprin]

Not new news. They disabled it on most HD receivers awhile ago. Probably are doing it to Sd receivers as well especially on DVR's.