H364 is here

[riderj]

354 allows very large buffers - 3 hours or more

 

[Almighty1]

354 allows very large buffers - 3 hours or more

Not surprised as only approximately 1.2TB of the 2TB of the internal HDD is available to the user. 800GB which is reserved for DISH's usage should be able to buffer a lot especially when the signal is compressed since even the Full HD 1080 is not 1920x1080 but 1440x1080.

 

[navychop]

It’s been posted here that the 1440 business is no more.

 

[Josh.M]

I waited 35 hours after your post above as I was busy and gave this a shot on October 15, 2023 12:25AM Pacific Time/3:25AM Eastern Time and this was what happened when I tried to do a force upgrade from H363.

1) It goes into the standby mode for 1/2 a second and then showed the 061 Download Vital screen for 1 second but the status progress bar remained grey and then 2 seconds later, it reboots
2) Shows the Hopper 3 boot screen with the Hopper3 logo and Starting up....
3) It shows the 061 Download Vital Screen for about 1 minute but the status progress bar remained grey and then 2 seconds later, it shows the Hopper 3 boot screen with the Hopper3 logo and Starting up....
4) After a minute or two, it does the 9999 starting up in the lower right corner
5) Shows the Hopper 3 boot screen with the Hopper3 logo and Starting up....
6) System Check 1620 which completes successfully and then a minute later, it shows Live the last channel that was watched

At this point, I checked the software version and it still says H363 so I tried to do a force upgrade and this time it was slightly different:
1) It showed the 061 Download Vital screen for 1 second but the status progress bar remained grey and then 2 seconds later, it reboots
2) Shows the Hopper 3 boot screen with the Hopper3 logo and Starting up....
3) System Check 1620 which completes successfully and then a minute later, then shows Acquiring signal that can take up to 5 minutes which shows for 1/2 second before showing Complete Signal Loss 004 which still remains the same even now which is 20 minutes later. The Acquiring signal that can take up to 5 minutes which shows for 1/2 second before showing Complete Signal Loss 004 which still remains the same even now which is 20 minutes later but this is a known issue I had with H362 and H363 even though someone else said it also happened with H358 but I was not there when the Hopper 3 rebooted with H358 so I can't say whether it did or not. All I know is I will get the signal if I changed the channel by pressing channel up or down which worked but the Complete Signal Loss 004 message was on top of the picture until I pressed the Back button. But anyways, software is still at H363.

So the issue I seem to be having is Upgrade software seems to think that there is something to download after checking to upgrade the software but when it reaches the 061 Download Vital screen, it does not seem to progress and reboots instead. So perhaps, my receiver ID has not made it to the H364 available for download queue yet but Upgrade Software is somehow thinking there is a update available but unable to actually download it.

And 35 hours and 55 minutes after your response above.
I just tried hitting the Red Reset button and this one basically was even faster in the reboot process as all it did was:
Shows the Hopper 3 boot screen with the Hopper3 logo and Starting up....
and then about a minute or two later, it shows the Live the last channel that was watched.
and just to see what happens if I do another Upgrade Software:
1) Screen turned black and then it Shows the Hopper 3 boot screen with the Hopper3 logo and Starting up....
2) After a minute or two, it does the 9999 starting up in the lower right corner
3) Shows the Hopper 3 boot screen with the Hopper3 logo and Starting up....
4) System Check 1620 which completes about half way and then it shows the 061 Warning Downloading screen with the status showing Downloading Information but the status bar remains gray for 3 minutes and then the screen turned completely black for 1 second and then I got back the 061 Warning Dowloading screen where the "Status: Downloading information.." shows and the progress bar actually has green and progresses to completion and then the screen turned black for about 30 seconds and then shows the Warning 303 screen saying the memory is being programmed which completes in approximately 8 minutes.
5) Screen turned black and then it Shows the Hopper 3 boot screen with the Hopper3 logo and Starting up....
6) After a minute or two, it does the 9999 starting up in the lower right corner
7) Shows the Hopper 3 boot screen with the Hopper3 logo and Starting up....
8) System Check 1620 which seems to run at 200% faster as it completed in 1/3rd the time.
9) it does the 9999 starting up in the lower right corner and then the receiver is in standby mode with the Press SAT to watch tv.
so it seems the results are different after each System Check 1620 excluding the one that downloaded the software update.
10) I checked the software and it's at H364

Would be interesting to know why the first two upgrade software attempts failed and the third time is a charm saying worked.

I'll do some testing, could be an issue in the stream, could be a drive failing & recovering...lots of potential issues here. Thanks for the detail.

 

[Josh.M]

It seems like after upgrading to H364 from H363 on the Hopper 3, the workaround for transferring to the EHDD successfully without errors no longer works. What I noticed was ever since the first time I got the workaround working with I think H358, even when I forget to do it, instead of the transfer process hanging like before which requires restarting the Hopper 3 before the target EHDD's will be seen again by the Hopper 3, I would get the Transfer process is complete with errors which basically means nothing was moved at the end where the workaround will work simply by doing a playback on the target destination EHDD for a second or more and the transfer will work. So the good thing is I never saw the transfer process hanged again even when I forget to do the workaround.

With H364, after selecting transfer, it will try to do the estimating time for transfer where there are the green bars moving from left to right and then about 10 seconds later, it would say Transfer complete with errors with the progress green bar 100%. And using the workaround does not work whether if it's just playback on the destination EHDD or if it's playback on the Hopper 3 internal HDD and the 3 EHDD's, it will still result in after selecting transfer and it will try to do the estimating time for transfer where there are the green bars moving from left to right and then about 10 seconds later, it would say Transfer complete with errors with the progress green bar 100%. The only workaround that worked is to disconnect the target EHDD which will show the disconnected message and connect the EHDD again which will show the connected message a minute later. And then the transfer will work. Ofcourse one thing I have not confirmed yet is if the same problem exists after a reboot which I will probably do after I no longer have timers recording in the background which will probably be another 11 hours from now.

Also, Josh.M - I noticed on TVB Drama Channel 626-06, the Guide is reporting the wrong names for the programming for the last month or so compared to their printed schedule which is correct here:
http://schedule.tvbusa.com/current/tvb_drama.pdf (The same information is shown in both English and Chinese languages on different pages) so not sure if it is TVB who is providing DISH with the wrong data or not which basically is recording the shows on the DVR with wrong names and sometimes even the same show is recorded with more than one name on different days.

There is another problem that I had experienced once with both H363 and H364 which is basically current video in use will not have a video feed which includes either a DVR recording playback or even watching a live channel. When I hit info, it is showing the correct info and when trying to change channels, it will say switch to live mode and I say yes and it will show live on the screen but without video. Same thing happens even if I try changing the channel and it does show the channel I selected when I hit Info but still no video. At this point, I press Options and then TV Activity and select a tuner that is not in use but basically still no video so I enter a channel and it asks to switch to live mode which I select yes and ofcourse just like before, no video and info confirms I am on the channel I selected. However, when hitting Guide, it seems to think I am on channel 998 as that was where the cursor was which was the same when I tried a different tuner and still had the black screen no video results. The channels I selected were always in the 100-200 range. The only way I have found to fix this is to hit Options, Picture in Picture, Multiview and it shows the 4 things on the screen with the upper left being black without the video so I move the box to any of the other three (upper right, lower left, and lower right) and then hit select and basically restore the video.

Again thank you for the detail - I believe the EPG team is working with the program provider for TVB. As for your other issues we'll test and see if we can duplicate it - should be pretty straight forward and we'll escalate as necessary.

 

[Jon J]

Jump forward and back are both super sluggish today. At least a 3 second pause/delay on both.

 

[thomasjk]

Jump forward and back are both super sluggish today. At least a 3 second pause/delay on both.

Instantaneous for me.

 

[charlesrshell]

Jump forward and back are both super sluggish today. At least a 3 second pause/delay on both.

Working good for me. have you tried pull the cord reboot?

 

[Almighty1]

It’s been posted here that the 1440 business is no more.

While it may not be 1440 which appears to be what is also used back in the day with Sony MiniDV camcorders as that's what the HDV formats resolution is, the picture is still compressed even if it was 1920x1080 and if it was 1440 then the 800GB reserved will provide more time in buffering than it will at 1920. The other thing is the human eye is better at seeing vertically than horizontally when it comes to pixels so it's really 480 pixels less per line. Back when HDTV was first available, Fujitsu Plasma displays 1920x1024 was really 1920x512 as the 512 lines alternate in displaying to show 1024 lines:

FUJITSU DOUBLES PDP RESOLUTION, BRIGHTNESS - Tech Monitor

Fujitsu Ltd has developed a new technology for high resolution PDP plasma display panels called ALiS (Alternate lighting of Surfaces)…

techmonitor.ai

So regardless, 1440x1080 at a higher bit rate will still be superior to 1920x1080 at lower than the 1440x1080 bit rate.

 

[Almighty1]

I'll do some testing, could be an issue in the stream, could be a drive failing & recovering...lots of potential issues here. Thanks for the detail.

If I had to guess, it might be related to the Complete Signal Loss that shows up a few seconds after the Acquire signal which is supposed to take up to 5 minutes in H358, H362, H363 and H364 as sometimes it shows the Live video on the reboot without even showing Acquire Signal as even with the reboot process of updating which did include 4 reboots, 2 showed live TV without acquire signal, 1 showed standby without acquire signal but live tv was also shown once any button was hit on the remote immediately after the standby screen showed. The complete signal loss scenario was only shown once. Also, it seems the successful software upgrade came when it did not do the 061 Vital downloading screen for 1 second before the reboot as it did in the previous two attempts.

 

[Almighty1]

Again thank you for the detail - I believe the EPG team is working with the program provider for TVB. As for your other issues we'll test and see if we can duplicate it - should be pretty straight forward and we'll escalate as necessary.

Many thanks to you as well. I didn't know where to report the TVB issue as I didn't want to waste a entire new dedicated thread when no one else here even watches that programming and it's only that specific TVB channel in the TVB Jade package with the issue. I wanted to also report that there was a EHDD I emptied out which was the current selected HD and ofcourse for whatever reason, there was no way to get the red selector box to show on the screen so I can change to Hopper 3 internal HD or other EHDDs. Unplugging and plugging the same EHDD in didn't work either. Same with going into standby and out of standby. The only remedy without rebooting was to connect a different EHDD so it detects as the same Device # and then the selector box came back and then I was able to put the EHDD with 0 recordings back in being currently selected and the red selector box would show when I hit the down arrow to get down there so it appears to only happened once. The EHDD issue with errors is also with all the other EHDD's connected which with H364 can only be fixed by disconnecting and reconnecting the EHDD with the errors so it seems outbound transfers meaning Hopper 3 transfers to any EHDD's has the problem but inbound transfers meaning from any of the EHDD's transferring to the Hopper 3 appears to be fine without any errors. The previous workaround was if there were errors, all one has to do is play any recording on the EHDD where the transfer was going and then the transfers will work again.

 

[Josh.M]

If I had to guess, it might be related to the Complete Signal Loss that shows up a few seconds after the Acquire signal which is supposed to take up to 5 minutes in H358, H362, H363 and H364 as sometimes it shows the Live video on the reboot without even showing Acquire Signal as even with the reboot process of updating which did include 4 reboots, 2 showed live TV without acquire signal, 1 showed standby without acquire signal but live tv was also shown once any button was hit on the remote immediately after the standby screen showed. The complete signal loss scenario was only shown once. Also, it seems the successful software upgrade came when it did not do the 061 Vital downloading screen for 1 second before the reboot as it did in the previous two attempts.

Lots of investigation around that behavior is ongoing.

Many thanks to you as well. I didn't know where to report the TVB issue as I didn't want to waste a entire new dedicated thread when no one else here even watches that programming and it's only that specific TVB channel in the TVB Jade package with the issue. I wanted to also report that there was a EHDD I emptied out which was the current selected HD and ofcourse for whatever reason, there was no way to get the red selector box to show on the screen so I can change to Hopper 3 internal HD or other EHDDs. Unplugging and plugging the same EHDD in didn't work either. Same with going into standby and out of standby. The only remedy without rebooting was to connect a different EHDD so it detects as the same Device # and then the selector box came back and then I was able to put the EHDD with 0 recordings back in being currently selected and the red selector box would show when I hit the down arrow to get down there so it appears to only happened once. The EHDD issue with errors is also with all the other EHDD's connected which with H364 can only be fixed by disconnecting and reconnecting the EHDD with the errors so it seems outbound transfers meaning Hopper 3 transfers to any EHDD's has the problem but inbound transfers meaning from any of the EHDD's transferring to the Hopper 3 appears to be fine without any errors. The previous workaround was if there were errors, all one has to do is play any recording on the EHDD where the transfer was going and then the transfers will work again.

We're still doing some testing around this.

 

[dweber]

Last night I had my first issue with H364.
I was watching a movie recorded Sunday night on channel 188 on my Living Room Hopper3 on my Family Room Hopper3. Approximately 30 minutes into the movie I was doing multiple skips through some commercials on my Family room hopper3 when suddenly the Living Room Hopper3 rebooted. After the reboot I had to fast forward through the movie since Resume started at the beginning.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Josh.M]

Last night I had my first issue with H364.
I was watching a movie recorded Sunday night on channel 188 on my Living Room Hopper3 on my Family Room Hopper3. Approximately 30 minutes into the movie I was doing multiple skips through some commercials on my Family room hopper3 when suddenly the Living Room Hopper3 rebooted. After the reboot I had to fast forward through the movie since Resume started at the beginning.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There are a couple of issues with the "resume" feature for DVR events (especially events that are still recording) that should fixed in 365. 365 is expected next week if all goes well and should also include some stability fixes for joeys that are experiencing black screen.

 

[scoob83]

My H3 updated last night to the 364 version. Have never had issues with my H3 before. Well tonight multiple channels had pixelated pictures and freeze frames. I rebooted the receiver and now I have no signal. I rebooted it a second time, same thing. There is no weather or clouds anywhere near me. I had a solid signal before the first reboot. Thoughts?

**update: I did a restore to previous settings. I still have 364 but I have signal and picture again. The receiver is very slow, even channel changing. It’s like how it used to be in the 90s and early 2000s where when you change a channel it hesitates and takes 10+ seconds before the picture and audio displays. Previously it was nearly instantaneous.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[RTCDude]

My H3 updated to 364 the other day. Everything seems to be running OK “except” skip forward and back. A single skip takes about 1 1/2 seconds, which I use a lot. Very annoying!

 

[Josh.M]

My H3 updated last night to the 364 version. Have never had issues with my H3 before. Well tonight multiple channels had pixelated pictures and freeze frames. I rebooted the receiver and now I have no signal. I rebooted it a second time, same thing. There is no weather or clouds anywhere near me. I had a solid signal before the first reboot. Thoughts?

**update: I did a restore to previous settings. I still have 364 but I have signal and picture again. The receiver is very slow, even channel changing. It’s like how it used to be in the 90s and early 2000s where when you change a channel it hesitates and takes 10+ seconds before the picture and audio displays. Previously it was nearly instantaneous.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Interesting...can you send me your receiver ID in a DM? I can take a look (as long as it's IP connected) and see if I can identify any issues.

 

[ekilgus]

MY H3 upgraded last night from 358 to 363. I wonder why it didn't upgrade to 364? Are they still testing 364 for any bugs?

 

[charlesrshell]

MY H3 upgraded last night from 358 to 363. I wonder why it didn't upgrade to 364? Are they still testing 364 for any bugs?

Maybe Dish is waiting for H365 to come out. Read post #34.

 

[Jim5506]

Maybe Dish is waiting for H365 to come out. Read post #34.

Dish should stop issuing piecemeal updates until they figure out how to fix bugs.
Do better beta testing.
Issue updates on a specified day of the week or month.
Chrome, Firefox and other software developers don't have customers slobbering over their keyboards with every update.
Perhaps we should stop fixating on every little update that comes out and just watch TV.
My Hopper3 has been performing well almost from the day it was installed several years ago.
My biggest argument is with the removal of functionality like dropping the 4X fast forward.
If I had anxiety over minute upgrades I'd be miserable, too.