Thanks! Wondering though if there's any advantage/disadvantage between the two choices? Either plug everything back into ethernet and disable bridging or have a single hopper with ethernet and bridging enabled... ? Either way isn't a problem, just would like to know what the "best" way is....
Hopper has been nothing but a big hot mess
- Thread starter dpinkis
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Get a HIC and forget about it. Don't want to seem too flippant, but it eliminates all the bridging/connectivity issues we've seen to date.
Isn't its purpose to allow those features where plugging directly into a Hopper is not convenient?
Theoretically, if Hopper bridging worked reliably and did not cause problems, yes.
That is not the case though. There have been multiple folks with only one ethernet connection to the system having Joey connection issues with 213 bridging turned on that go away with it off. Dish obviously thinks the problem was serious enough to turn bridging off in 215.
So far, the HIC has been the only reliable plug it and forget it connectivity option.
so I finally have the latest software on the Hoppers/Joeys and after re-enabling bridging (I still only have one ethernet cable plugged into the main Hopper). Everything is working, no black screens of death, etc., except now the Home Media option doesn't work on the Joeys... Either way, last Thursday, I was put in touch with Vivek Khamka the VP of DISH Network and after speaking briefly, he had a HIC shipped out to me, due to arrive tomorrow. Hopefully this resolves everything. Details to follow - again 
Based on the original post and descriptions, I think I can explain the true nature of the problem described at the top of the thread. At least I've experienced similar symptoms and can recreate them at will. Tho I have no desire to do it again. This is a long post but, if you think it's a waste of time, PM me and I'll PayPal you a nickel (USD $0.05). (One nickel per person, non-transferable. Offer may be withdrawn at any time.)
Too. Many. Events.
The limit is 576 events. Not timers but events. I don't know how hard this limit is on the Hopper but creating a lot of events seems to create an increasing level of hosedness as the number of events increases. Since the Hopper doesn't tell me how many evens there are, I can't tell if I'm approaching the limit or exceeding it.
A timer like PTAT creates somewhere between 150 and 200 events. According to the tech who showed up for my third appointment, each PTAT show is an event. You could calculate it by determining exactly how many individual prime time shows are captured but 150-200 is good enough for a ballpark estimate. Roughly a third of the available events are used up by that single timer if you're recording every network every night. Timers like a Seek & Record using a common word will also generate many events. I've also been advised by the same tech that skipped recordings are events even though no recording takes place. So, even if you have The Daily Show and The Colbert Report set to record only new episodes (or pretty much any Comedy Central program since they seem to air them all several times a day), there go another 25 events per show. Throw in something like Storage Wars (60 airings in my current program guide data) and you're using up half the available events in 4 timers.
Unfortunately, the Hopper doesn't provide a way to tell when you're close to the limit on events. It only stops you from creating too many timers.
Of course, this is all theory, but I made enough of a case to get a ticket submitted to "engineering".
The first night I got my hopper, I loaded it up with timers and, towards the end, tried to add a Seek & Record for "COPS". It chugged for a while, then dumped me back at the create/cancel screen. I hit cancel and, while navigating, the video and audio of the live TV window froze. Then the Hopper stopped responding to commands from the remote. I let it sit for a while to see if it would start responding again and, after a minute or two, it rebooted. When it finished booting, I tried adding the S&R for cops again. Same behavior. Chugged a while, returned to the create/cancel screen, video froze, stopped responding, then rebooted.
After that, I gave up on trying to add that timer (I would later notice that two "cops" S&R timers had been created even though the operation never appeared to complete) and tried to clean up the mess by stopping the recordings that had been interrupted and deleting the pieces. The Hopper locked and rebooted several times while I was doing this. It was getting late so I called it quits for the night.
The next morning, I turned on the Hopper and headed for the fridge. While I was browsing for breakfast, I heard the audio quit. Looked at the TV and video was frozen. Then it rebooted. I had to meet a friend so I didn't have time to poke at it. When I got home that afternoon, it again froze and rebooted shortly after I turned it on. When it came back up, I looked at the DVR screen and saw that all of the movies set to record in the early morning hours were broken up into multiple parts with gaps of several minutes between each segment. Just about the length of time it takes the Hopper to reboot and resume recording. Based on that, I determined that the Hopper had locked up and restarted several times during the night.
At this point, I hadn't made a proper connection in my mind between timers/events and the lockups. I figured the hard drive was flaky and I needed a new Hopper. I knew I could lock it up by messing with timers but I assumed the guide data or timer data was stored on a bad part of the drive. Just bad luck. So I contacted Dish and they sent an installer out the next day. I didn't really mess with it after that other than to transfer the few programs that had been recorded cleanly onto an EHD.
The tech showed up, I showed him how I could make it lock up by creating a seek-and-record timer, and I got the new hopper. I let it process the guide data overnight, then put in a few timers and let it run another day. Still running fine so I loaded up the Timers again. The next morning, I turned the Hopper on. It quickly locked up and rebooted. When it came back up, I saw that, once again, movies recorded after I went to bed were chopped into multiple segments with gaps, though not as many segments as last time. Got in touch with Dish again and the soonest a tech could get out was three days away. I grumbled, demanded a credit for the time my system was useless, and started moving anything that recorded cleanly to the EHD.
The next morning, my hopper didn't lock up and reset after I turned it on. And all of the night's recordings were intact. All day long, it worked perfectly, not a care in the world. Same thing the next morning. That's when I made the "many timers = lockup, few timers = works great" link. Most of my timers were movies so each time one of those events completed, the timer was deleted and events were freed up. The lower the number of events, the more stable the Hopper is. The higher the number, the less stable it is. Since I'd given up on the second Hopper, I hadn't added any timers since it started locking/rebooting and the number of events was steadily decreasing as movies were recorded and their timers were deleted.
The next day, the tech called and I ran my theory by him. He said he'd seen one other "power user" who had similar symptoms after creating a large number of timers but he still wanted to come by and take a look to see if I could recreate the problem. I tried to create the broadest Seek & Record timer I could think of. "NEWS", new and reruns, all channels. I was created without a hitch. And deleted just as easily. He confirmed that there is a limit to the number of events allowed, told me that turning off PTAT would free up a large number of events, and told me that skipped recordings also count as events so limiting the scope of timers are much as possible is good practice. After the tech left, I added timers to re-record the movies that had been chopped up along with a few new movies, added The Daily Show, and added The Colbert Report. No problems.
I went to the Dish forums to see if I could get a ticket for this bug. They were quick to open a ticket for a much less annoying bug I found so it seemed like a good idea. Since a new software version had been pushed since my last lockup, the rep asked me to attempt to recreate the problem with the current software. After verifying that my sacrifice wouldn't be in vain, I created the very broad "NEWS" seek-and-record event again. Big mistake. DS and CR timers had added around 50 events along with the 10-15 movie timers I'd created. Now the NEWS timer did its job. Did its job a little too well. Locked and rebooted as expected but I couldn't delete the timer. I could remove smaller timers but each removal triggered a lockup and restart. After about 3.5 hours of that, I just did an Edit Action, Delete, Select All, Delete. That cleared out all but a handful and, after another lockup/reboot, I was able to remove the last few, including the NEWS timer.
I rebuilt my timer list (for the third time!) and got my ticket submitted to engineering.
A couple of random observations:
I suspect the early morning reboots are caused by the Hopper processing new guide data. I have nothing but a hunch to back that up but the early morning hours are when it's set to check for updates so I assume it does other housecleaning at the same time. In fact, it just asked to shut down a few minutes ago and I let it. Now I see my EHD access light flashing even though I'm not transferring or playing back any programs. Been going for a while now. Maybe it's doing a fsck.
Also, number of timers allowed seems to be dropping. This afternoon, I was adding some one-time movie timers and hit the limit at 75 (76 counting PTAT). I'm down to 70 timers now, tried to add another movie timer, and got the ol' Attention 041 message. Seems like a bandaid to reduce the number of events created by users.
So why is the original poster's problem gone? He probably has far fewer events. If you expect something to fail you, you're going to use it less. As he noted, many shows go on hiatus during the summer so their timers aren't generating any events. As soon as I stopped adding new timers and a number of one-time movie timers were purged, my system stopped locking up. Apparently I was right on the edge of the event limit. If I'd been able to get a tech out the next day for my second replacement, I probably wouldn't have made that connection because I wouldn't have been stuck with the Hopper an extra couple of days. That was just enough time to see the trend of decreasing timers/events and increasing stability. If the original poster's mostly got recurring events that keep going from week to week, it could sit right on that flaky edge forever. Some days working fine, other days pushed over the edge by a marathon of one of the scheduled shows.
So that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
This is a long post but, if you think it's a waste of time, PM me and I'll PayPal you a nickel (USD $0.05). (One nickel per person, non-transferable. Offer may be withdrawn at any time.)Too. Many. Events.
The limit is 576 events. Not timers but events. I don't know how hard this limit is on the Hopper but creating a lot of events seems to create an increasing level of hosedness as the number of events increases. Since the Hopper doesn't tell me how many evens there are, I can't tell if I'm approaching the limit or exceeding it.
A timer like PTAT creates somewhere between 150 and 200 events. According to the tech who showed up for my third appointment, each PTAT show is an event. You could calculate it by determining exactly how many individual prime time shows are captured but 150-200 is good enough for a ballpark estimate. Roughly a third of the available events are used up by that single timer if you're recording every network every night. Timers like a Seek & Record using a common word will also generate many events. I've also been advised by the same tech that skipped recordings are events even though no recording takes place. So, even if you have The Daily Show and The Colbert Report set to record only new episodes (or pretty much any Comedy Central program since they seem to air them all several times a day), there go another 25 events per show. Throw in something like Storage Wars (60 airings in my current program guide data) and you're using up half the available events in 4 timers.
Unfortunately, the Hopper doesn't provide a way to tell when you're close to the limit on events. It only stops you from creating too many timers.
Of course, this is all theory, but I made enough of a case to get a ticket submitted to "engineering".
The first night I got my hopper, I loaded it up with timers and, towards the end, tried to add a Seek & Record for "COPS". It chugged for a while, then dumped me back at the create/cancel screen. I hit cancel and, while navigating, the video and audio of the live TV window froze. Then the Hopper stopped responding to commands from the remote. I let it sit for a while to see if it would start responding again and, after a minute or two, it rebooted. When it finished booting, I tried adding the S&R for cops again. Same behavior. Chugged a while, returned to the create/cancel screen, video froze, stopped responding, then rebooted.
After that, I gave up on trying to add that timer (I would later notice that two "cops" S&R timers had been created even though the operation never appeared to complete) and tried to clean up the mess by stopping the recordings that had been interrupted and deleting the pieces. The Hopper locked and rebooted several times while I was doing this. It was getting late so I called it quits for the night.
The next morning, I turned on the Hopper and headed for the fridge. While I was browsing for breakfast, I heard the audio quit. Looked at the TV and video was frozen. Then it rebooted. I had to meet a friend so I didn't have time to poke at it. When I got home that afternoon, it again froze and rebooted shortly after I turned it on. When it came back up, I looked at the DVR screen and saw that all of the movies set to record in the early morning hours were broken up into multiple parts with gaps of several minutes between each segment. Just about the length of time it takes the Hopper to reboot and resume recording. Based on that, I determined that the Hopper had locked up and restarted several times during the night.
At this point, I hadn't made a proper connection in my mind between timers/events and the lockups. I figured the hard drive was flaky and I needed a new Hopper. I knew I could lock it up by messing with timers but I assumed the guide data or timer data was stored on a bad part of the drive. Just bad luck. So I contacted Dish and they sent an installer out the next day. I didn't really mess with it after that other than to transfer the few programs that had been recorded cleanly onto an EHD.
The tech showed up, I showed him how I could make it lock up by creating a seek-and-record timer, and I got the new hopper. I let it process the guide data overnight, then put in a few timers and let it run another day. Still running fine so I loaded up the Timers again. The next morning, I turned the Hopper on. It quickly locked up and rebooted. When it came back up, I saw that, once again, movies recorded after I went to bed were chopped into multiple segments with gaps, though not as many segments as last time. Got in touch with Dish again and the soonest a tech could get out was three days away. I grumbled, demanded a credit for the time my system was useless, and started moving anything that recorded cleanly to the EHD.
The next morning, my hopper didn't lock up and reset after I turned it on. And all of the night's recordings were intact. All day long, it worked perfectly, not a care in the world. Same thing the next morning. That's when I made the "many timers = lockup, few timers = works great" link. Most of my timers were movies so each time one of those events completed, the timer was deleted and events were freed up. The lower the number of events, the more stable the Hopper is. The higher the number, the less stable it is. Since I'd given up on the second Hopper, I hadn't added any timers since it started locking/rebooting and the number of events was steadily decreasing as movies were recorded and their timers were deleted.
The next day, the tech called and I ran my theory by him. He said he'd seen one other "power user" who had similar symptoms after creating a large number of timers but he still wanted to come by and take a look to see if I could recreate the problem. I tried to create the broadest Seek & Record timer I could think of. "NEWS", new and reruns, all channels. I was created without a hitch. And deleted just as easily. He confirmed that there is a limit to the number of events allowed, told me that turning off PTAT would free up a large number of events, and told me that skipped recordings also count as events so limiting the scope of timers are much as possible is good practice. After the tech left, I added timers to re-record the movies that had been chopped up along with a few new movies, added The Daily Show, and added The Colbert Report. No problems.
I went to the Dish forums to see if I could get a ticket for this bug. They were quick to open a ticket for a much less annoying bug I found so it seemed like a good idea. Since a new software version had been pushed since my last lockup, the rep asked me to attempt to recreate the problem with the current software. After verifying that my sacrifice wouldn't be in vain, I created the very broad "NEWS" seek-and-record event again. Big mistake. DS and CR timers had added around 50 events along with the 10-15 movie timers I'd created. Now the NEWS timer did its job. Did its job a little too well. Locked and rebooted as expected but I couldn't delete the timer. I could remove smaller timers but each removal triggered a lockup and restart. After about 3.5 hours of that, I just did an Edit Action, Delete, Select All, Delete. That cleared out all but a handful and, after another lockup/reboot, I was able to remove the last few, including the NEWS timer.
I rebuilt my timer list (for the third time!) and got my ticket submitted to engineering.
A couple of random observations:
I suspect the early morning reboots are caused by the Hopper processing new guide data. I have nothing but a hunch to back that up but the early morning hours are when it's set to check for updates so I assume it does other housecleaning at the same time. In fact, it just asked to shut down a few minutes ago and I let it. Now I see my EHD access light flashing even though I'm not transferring or playing back any programs. Been going for a while now. Maybe it's doing a fsck.
Also, number of timers allowed seems to be dropping. This afternoon, I was adding some one-time movie timers and hit the limit at 75 (76 counting PTAT). I'm down to 70 timers now, tried to add another movie timer, and got the ol' Attention 041 message. Seems like a bandaid to reduce the number of events created by users.
So why is the original poster's problem gone? He probably has far fewer events. If you expect something to fail you, you're going to use it less. As he noted, many shows go on hiatus during the summer so their timers aren't generating any events. As soon as I stopped adding new timers and a number of one-time movie timers were purged, my system stopped locking up. Apparently I was right on the edge of the event limit. If I'd been able to get a tech out the next day for my second replacement, I probably wouldn't have made that connection because I wouldn't have been stuck with the Hopper an extra couple of days. That was just enough time to see the trend of decreasing timers/events and increasing stability. If the original poster's mostly got recurring events that keep going from week to week, it could sit right on that flaky edge forever. Some days working fine, other days pushed over the edge by a marathon of one of the scheduled shows.
So that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Sounds like the best way around the limit is to have two hoppers and you could have twice the amount of timers as one hopper ,without conflicts.
I don't like workarounds. I want Dish to fix the problem.
Seriously, tho, the quickest workaround is to turn of PTAT and set up individual timers for Prime Time shows. Also, limit the scope of your timers are much as possible. Don't do seek-and-records unless absolutely necessary and limit them to as tight a search string as you can and one channel if possible.
Seriously, tho, the quickest workaround is to turn of PTAT and set up individual timers for Prime Time shows. Also, limit the scope of your timers are much as possible. Don't do seek-and-records unless absolutely necessary and limit them to as tight a search string as you can and one channel if possible.
3HaloODST said:
I don't recall seeing that on my ViP722s. I'll have to go look.
Yep, that's convenient. Most of our timers are one offs so that's not a problem.
I've got 45 pages of events (9events/page) = ~405. That does not included all of the individual PTAT shows, so I have to be close the the limit. This is all with only 41 timers. Once new seasons start in the Fall, this is going to be a disaster.
Hey - I'm the OP on this thread - just saw your post and wanted to reply to you. My problems went away (for the most part) after removing all but one Ethernet cable from one Hopper (I have 2/H, 2/J) and putting everything into bridging mode. No more freezing, no more weird audio synch issues. As I'm not 100% happy with the way it's behaving still (Joey functionality - minor problems) I have a HIC due to be installed this Saturday. I wimped out and decided not to do this myself as I'd like just be done with this and not have Dish come back to me after-the-fact and tell me it's due to something I did... covering my bases. I empathize with your plight as I've had to rebuild my timers 3 times now and the backup functionality did not work for me. On the latest timer rebuilt I believe I have well over 60 separate ones set up and would have more, but Summer kicked in and most of the shows I'd like to set are off-air now. Dish really needs to give us the option to archive our timers online or perhaps to a flash drive... but I digress. I spoke to the VP on Dish Networking about a week ago - he connected with me based on this thread (these things apparently workBased on the original post and descriptions, I think I can explain the true nature of the problem described at the top of the thread. At least I've experienced similar symptoms and can recreate them at will. Tho I have no desire to do it again.
) and he's the one that sent out the HIC. From what I've read here and in other threads, a HIC "should" negate any bridging/non-bridging issues and eliminate further firmware conflicts. In theory - and famous last words... but worth a try.So I had the Dish install tech arrive (late) yesterday to install the HIC. He insisted that the HIC would not fix my problems and to plug Ethernet cables only into just the 2x Hoppers... Asked me to call him this Wednesday if I had any further issues... I will defer to his judgement, and simply want the features I pay for to work reliably and not need to reconfigure every time there's a new firmware release....a consistent message from Dish too much to ask for?
Call him and tell him to get back and install the HIC like he was supposed to the first time. Two Ethernet cables will cause errors. One Ethernet cable to one Hopper is all you need - with bridging enabled - if no HIC installed. The HIC is the most reliable connection based on reports on this and other forums.
Wait...so a VeeP sent the installer out to perform a specific task and the installer didn't do it. That's a good way to become an ex-installer. 
I've got no problem arguing with VPs, Ps, CEOs, owners, etc. but, if I can't convince them of the error of their ways, I do whatever they told me to do and let them see for themselves why it won't work. They're much more likely to listen the next time around.
I'm still convinced that the problem is event-related since every time I add "too many" events, my Hopper starts locking up and restarting. I reduce the number of events and it works properly.
I've got no problem arguing with VPs, Ps, CEOs, owners, etc. but, if I can't convince them of the error of their ways, I do whatever they told me to do and let them see for themselves why it won't work. They're much more likely to listen the next time around. I'm still convinced that the problem is event-related since every time I add "too many" events, my Hopper starts locking up and restarting. I reduce the number of events and it works properly.
Scherrman it seems you are knowledgeable about the Hopper. So if I could I would like to throw out a hypothetical situation for you and hopefully you could tell me the true answer. I know that the Hopper is advertised to record prime time of your local big three or four. for a scheduled time each night. I know I can remove that feature as well.
So, What I want to know is. IF I have a Hopper and three joeys. How many channels can I record on AT THE SAME TIME. On each joey and the hopper.
For instance my daughter wanted to record a show at 9pm and we wanted to record 3 other(all on other Joeys) channels at 9pm on the same day(all of them being outside of the big three or four primetime) What will the system do and what will the system not do ? I have been calling DN and calling DN and none of the sales team has a straight answer. I just want the facts. Before I sign away my first born for back charges and regret for not having all the answers beforehand. Is there a table that would explain the DVR abilities and inabilities ? I.E. you can watch X while you record Z and you can record on X while watching Z that was recorded previously.
I just hope that this all makes some sort of since to you. These are real questions from someone that just wants to be well informed beforehand.
Thank You.
So, What I want to know is. IF I have a Hopper and three joeys. How many channels can I record on AT THE SAME TIME. On each joey and the hopper.
For instance my daughter wanted to record a show at 9pm and we wanted to record 3 other(all on other Joeys) channels at 9pm on the same day(all of them being outside of the big three or four primetime) What will the system do and what will the system not do ? I have been calling DN and calling DN and none of the sales team has a straight answer. I just want the facts. Before I sign away my first born for back charges and regret for not having all the answers beforehand. Is there a table that would explain the DVR abilities and inabilities ? I.E. you can watch X while you record Z and you can record on X while watching Z that was recorded previously.
I just hope that this all makes some sort of since to you. These are real questions from someone that just wants to be well informed beforehand.
Thank You.
