Hopper "dies" … then resurrects itself 14 hours later

[BnT.atl]

Dish customer for over 10 years, current Hopper since Nov 2014 ...

Friday 6am – turn on the tv and find the Hopper showing the “starting up” screen (arbitrarily - no bad weather or known cause)… this screen remains for longer than it ever has and finally clears. It remains on 1 station and whenever I try switching channels it hesitates, the picture freezes then after very lengthly delay the picture returns and eventually switches channel. Joeys are equally unresponsive and the “guide” only appears intermittently. Changing channels appears to be a lost cause.

I go through all of the typical Dish reset jiggery-pokery… (I know ’em all from using various Dish items over the years.) But the problem remains…

I attempt to transfer recordings to the attached hard drive --- but --- though the screen comes up, and the recordings are selected, it just sits there… nothing happens or transfer.

So I call Dish around 3pm (EST) and they agree to ship out a replacement Hopper right away …

The day goes on and I keep an eye on the hopper situation …

Around 9 pm-ish, I decide to switch the channel and the hopper perks up with the message about how it needs to reformat itself but it will erase all recordings and timers… at this point I realize all the recordings will be gone one way or the other so I press yes and it goes throughout the reformatting process…

[Goodbye recent season of ‘The Americans’ slated for July viewing]

Now, its been all weekend and no problems. I’ve got a replacement hopper coming but I suspect those are “refurbished” as well … do you folks think it will work any better than the current one that reformatted itself?

thanks…

 

[Skytrooper]

I have two Hoppers with Sling. Had them for a few years. My Living Room one never broke. My Bedroom one has been replaced twice, losing all my wife's recordings. The replacement I received a few weeks ago already froze and had to be rebooted. It is a refurbished unit. I think Dish should make sure these things are working properly before sending them out. But on the other flip of the coin, a intermittent problem can be very difficult to diagnose.

 

[oldengineer]

I had a problem with the HDMI output on a Hopper a few months ago. RGB and Component worked fine, HDMI output black. Swapped cables with the other Hopper to make sure there was no problem there, called Dish and had a replacement sent, 24 hours later the HDMI started working again. Since my hard drive was 60% full with 300+ shows I returned the replacement and have had no problems since.

 

[BnT.atl]

I appreciate the input of both responders …

it really does seem like these hopper units could be built a bit more sturdily…

 

[Hall]

Mine did the same thing around Friday/Saturday. It lost all of the channel logos in the guide and there was only guide data for the next 1-1/2 to 2 hours. It also had no network connectivity and the Joey couldn't link to it. I contacted Dish and they're sending a replacement. As of Saturday afternoon or so, everything looks fine.... All of the problems are gone.

 

[BnT.atl]

Hall - - - Thanks for the reply
I did read your thread previously … it is very odd to me how these things act up.

 

[BnT.atl]

It’s been 3 days or so … and now the hopper has launched itself into an endless circle of “reformatting the drive” … so yeah, I will be using the new unit they sent out. (At least they send it fast.)

 

[oldengineer]

Mine did the same thing around Friday/Saturday. It lost all of the channel logos in the guide and there was only guide data for the next 1-1/2 to 2 hours. It also had no network connectivity and the Joey couldn't link to it. I contacted Dish and they're sending a replacement. As of Saturday afternoon or so, everything looks fine.... All of the problems are gone.

My wife's Hopper did that same thing about 6 months ago and it never self recovered. The replacement had no icons on recordings for several days and gradually started displaying them but never back filled any that were missing.