Hopper S212 Feedback and Issues

[kwintsommer]

I was told it is already a "known issue" but since I don't see it in this thread: My Hopper utterly refuses to acknowledge any USB 2.0 EHD's I plug into it.

As of this morning I had a pair of vip211k's both with EHD's in good working order. Neither of those drives are so much as acknowledged by the Hopper.

I wasted far longer than I should have talking to various people in tech support, doing hard resets, testing ports and all that jazz. Fast forward a few hours and "I'm so sorry but it is a known issue and there's nothing we can do." A future update will address it, hopefully. I asked for information about the nature of the issue and ETA and was told they had none and there is quite simply nothing they or I can do.

I'm hoping someone here knows better. After all, I was sold on the idea that I could take my old archive with me and would be seeing more storage space, certainly not less. I filled up my 1TB drives pretty quickly before but there I at least had two to pick between. Now I have a single 1TB drive and apparently no way to expand that....



EDIT: clarified that my prior receivers were vip211k's

 

[sparc]

As of this morning I had a pair of 211k's both with EHD's in good working order. Neither of those drives are so much as acknowledged by the Hopper.

is an EHD from a 211k even compatible with a hopper?

I didn't think it was...maybe an expert can chime in and correct me....

 

[Bobby]

I was told it is already a "known issue" but since I don't see it in this thread: My Hopper utterly refuses to acknowledge any USB 2.0 EHD's I plug into it.

As of this morning I had a pair of 211k's both with EHD's in good working order. Neither of those drives are so much as acknowledged by the Hopper.

I wasted far longer than I should have talking to various people in tech support, doing hard resets, testing ports and all that jazz. Fast forward a few hours and "I'm so sorry but it is a known issue and there's nothing we can do." A future update will address it, hopefully. I asked for information about the nature of the issue and ETA and was told they had none and there is quite simply nothing they or I can do.

I'm hoping someone here knows better. After all, I was sold on the idea that I could take my old archive with me and would be seeing more storage space, certainly not less. I filled up my 1TB drives pretty quickly before but there I at least had two to pick between. Now I have a single 1TB drive and apparently no way to expand that....

Uh oh, the 211 EHDs are not compatible with Hoppers. Hoppers can only use EHDs from VIP DVRs. You will not be able to view anything saved on those EHDs with a Hopper. You can still use them, but you will have to reformat them to work...... Everyone knew this going in, here, on this website.

 

[dangue]

Uh oh, the 211 EHDs are not compatible with Hoppers. Hoppers can only use EHDs from VIP DVRs. You will not be able to view anything saved on those EHDs with a Hopper. You can still use them, but you will have to reformat them to work...... Everyone knew this going in, here, on this website.

To further this post a little bit...

This isn't a Hopper limitation. The 211 EHDs are unique in that they turn a 211 into a DVR. They are not like the EHDs on the VIP line of receivers or the Hopper. Because of this, only a 211 can recognize a 211 EHD; EHDs from the other receivers that are already DVRs are basically interchangeable within an account.

Sorry to say this, but the content you have archived will likely never be viewable on the Hopper (or anything other than a 211).

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[kwintsommer]

Uh oh, the 211 EHDs are not compatible with Hoppers. Hoppers can only use EHDs from VIP DVRs. You will not be able to view anything saved on those EHDs with a Hopper. You can still use them, but you will have to reformat them to work...... Everyone knew this going in, here, on this website.

My apologies, they were vip211k's and I explicitly asked DISH about the issue prior to upgrading. :/

Still, if it comes down to reformatting them, so be it...still, not the installer, nor either of the techs I chatted with online nor anyone I spoke to, at great length, on phone support felt the hard drives were incompatible with the Hopper. The Hopper utterly fails to acknowledge them. It acts as though nothing was plugged in at all.

Are you suggesting that if I were to hook up one of the EHD's to my computer and do say a generic fat32 reformatting or whatever would be appropriate, the Hopper will suddenly start acknowledging it? If so, I'll transfer the data off and do just that. I can worry about salvaging my movies later. At the moment I'd be quite happy just to get the Hopper to acknowledge it.

EDIT: Typos

 

[sparc]

My apologies, they were vip211k's and I explicitly asked DISH about the issue prior to upgrading. :/

yeah, there's still a lot of misinformation out there. Even on this forum, the information on the EHDs has become fairly buried. It was discussed a lot more when the system first launched in March.

Are you suggesting that if I were to hook up one of the EHD's to my computer and do say a generic fat32 reformatting or whatever would be appropriate, the Hopper will suddenly start acknowledging it?

quite possibly. I would just try it with one and see what happens. No guarantees.

Apparently Dish is allowing people to purchase 211/k with say a tailgater and allowing it to stack on hopper accounts. Not sure what the limitations/restrictions/loopholes are, but it might be a way to view the content on the drives again. (link)
___________________________________

 

[randyoh]

I just set up a new timer for Oddities on Science Channel for tonight. I looked at next Saturday and the new episode for that day is not flagged to record. I will keep an eye on it to see if the status changes. I did figure a work around for the 2 new episode in a row & only the 1st flagged to record bug. I just went to the 1st timer & set it to record an extra 30 minutes so I get both episodes.

 

[ArkansasBen]

Here's a question... For those of us that have upgraded to the Hopper/Joey system, are we able to recoup some sort of monthly discount because of all the bugs of it not doing as advertised? Such as not recording new episodes of of shows you've DVR'd, having playback issues on ones that have been recorded, etc.

 

[356B]

Here's a question... For those of us that have upgraded to the Hopper/Joey system, are we able to recoup some sort of monthly discount because of all the bugs of it not doing as advertised? Such as not recording new episodes of of shows you've DVR'd, having playback issues on ones that have been recorded, etc.

You can always ask, and if you would, post the answer you get.

 

[sparc]

Here's a question... For those of us that have upgraded to the Hopper/Joey system, are we able to recoup some sort of monthly discount because of all the bugs of it not doing as advertised? Such as not recording new episodes of of shows you've DVR'd, having playback issues on ones that have been recorded, etc.

Before you worry about credits, I hope you at least messaged someone at DIRT with all your issues so that they get sent to engineering to get fixed.

 

[ArkansasBen]

Before you worry about credits, I hope you at least messaged someone at DIRT with all your issues so that they get sent to engineering to get fixed.

Forgive me but I'm new here. How would I go about doing that?

 

[sparc]

Forgive me but I'm new here. How would I go about doing that?

On the bottom of the main forum page, you'll see the usernames in red with @DISH Network at the end. Those are official reps from Dish that are active on the forum right now. Just send them a private message with your account or phone number.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/forum.php (scroll down to the bottom)

 

[randyoh]

Has anyone else noticed that on playback of all events the glitch in audio & video that occurs 3 minutes before the end of the recording?

 

[3HaloODST]

yes that's related to this issue :-

http://www.satelliteguys.us/hopper-zone/284922-still-having-issues-29-59-past.html

 

[patmurphey]

On the bottom of the main forum page, you'll see the usernames in red with @DISH Network at the end. Those are official reps from Dish that are active on the forum right now. Just send them a private message with your account or phone number.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/forum.php (scroll down to the bottom)

He also has to get by 5 posts to be able to PM.

 

[ArkansasBen]

On the bottom of the main forum page, you'll see the usernames in red with @DISH Network at the end. Those are official reps from Dish that are active on the forum right now. Just send them a private message with your account or phone number.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/forum.php (scroll down to the bottom)

Thank you kindly.

 

[dontpanic]

He also has to get by 5 posts to be able to PM.

All I needed was to make one post in order to PM.

 

[kwintsommer]

My Hopper continues to refuse to acknowledge either of the EHD's from my VIP211k's. Forget about legacy files, despite verifying their integrity with my PC it refuses to recognize that either have been so much as plugged in. A FAT32 reformat did not improve the situation.

Moving past that, I've run into an issue with VOD. Should I mistakenly press "1" or "0" on the Hopper or Joey the system will bring up a message with exactly one option: "Rent"

The absence of "Cancel" both as an onscreen button and as an option (despite the dedicated function on the remote) is annoying but if I was watching a network at least I can hit recall and get back to it. (minus the buffered content....)

The real problem arises from watching a recording when this happens. You can access both the Guide and DVR. "Press [PLAY] to Resume" is reassuringly displayed over your recording but alas, clicking [PLAY] reveals that your position in the recording has been reset to the beginning. Hopper or Joey, testing reveals this problem consistently presents itself.

To summarize, toss your remote in the treadmill's cup holder while watching a recording and thus press the "0" or "1" key and you'll be presented only with a "Rent" option that you can navigate around but can't cancel and doing so will invariably force you to restart your recording.


To those more experienced with the Hopper, might I work around this by disabling the VOD channels? I've searched and yet to find a way to do so but welcome your wisdom.


In other news, I am completely failing at calling up multiple live channels. Lets take the case where I am recording nothing leaving all three tuners available. Lets say I'd really like news so I want to flip back and forth between CNN, FXNWS and CNBC using the buffer to skip commercials and boring content. Alas, I've yet to find anyway to watch more than one live channel on one receiver. Turning on my Joey lets me bring up to two live feeds and setting a third to record gets me to the sweet spot but having to set a series of recordings then go back and delete them on top of using my Joey is a ridiculous workaround to what should be a few smooth clicks.

And speaking of a few smooth clicks, what happens if I just hit [RED]? With zero things recording, only using my Hopper or only using my Joey: it will simply flash back to what I am already watching. The other tuners are simply unavailable. Hopping on the Joey when the Hopper has one going gets a second tuner going but fails to access the third. I can record with all three but live is limited to one per box.

So, once more, oh learned members, am I missing some feature or is this a failing of s212?

 

[JM42]

On the EHD - there was a known issue with not recognizing some EHDs - not sure if this was fixed yet or not.

The "0" or "1" issue should be no different than changing to any channel 2-9999 while watching the recording - the recording playback stops. But it doesn't - the play back appears to continue going on in the background unseen and unheard as long as the "rent" screen is up. Easiest workaround is to just hit recall to get back to live tv and your "resume" option will be available when you go back to the DVR.

For switching tuners, on the Hopper you have swap to switch between two live tuners. The only way to swap between all three is to start recording each and use the viewing status page to swap around as you have discovered. I can't really consider this a bug. Joey was not meant to have swap/pip. Hopper works fine with two tuners swapping. Generally you would want a free tuner to show as free and not have a single user monopolizing all three - unless it was very intentional (like forcing the recording). Before it was released, I wondered if it would be a three-way swap on the Hoppers and hoped it wouldn't. From a support perspective folks have enough issues understanding two live tuners with swap.

 

[kwintsommer]

The "0" or "1" issue should be no different than changing to any channel 2-9999 while watching the recording - the recording playback stops. But it doesn't - the play back appears to continue going on in the background unseen and unheard as long as the "rent" screen is up. Easiest workaround is to just hit recall to get back to live tv and your "resume" option will be available when you go back to the DVR.

That is how it works in theory. In reality, it presents the option of resuming but from the very beginning with a time-stamp to match (in this case 1:50). Out of curiosity, I just tried and it once more reset my movie but failed to do so with a shorter TV episode. Actually a bit more testing shows only the Joey resetting the timer, the Hopper functions as one would expect.

Alright, final bit of testing before bed: I did a hard reset on the Joey and ran the same test. This time it correctly maintained its place. Now I can't help but look at the event and note one difference, there is a timer from playing it back on the Hopper. So now I'm wondering if that affected the glitch or if the Joey needed the hard reset. Bah...I will pursue this further tomorrow.