Hopper wants to perform diagnostic test on EHD?

[carpexnoctem]

This has been happening for awhile now and I never can get any clear answers. If I happen to have my External Hard Drive attached to my Hopper with Sling, immediately when an early morning update happens I get presented with a screen informing me basically that the Hopper wants to perform a routine diagnostic test on my External Hard Drive. I have a 2TB Seagate. If I wait and allow it to do it, the procedure says it should take about 50 minutes. I also have a button giving me the option to cancel. Either way it says it will reset the receiver afterwards (which it does). There is a long process bar in the message which begins to fill with green as it tests it, but it never finishes the task. Usually the entire message just flashes for a second (which doesn't allow a chance to cancel or give it any time to perform the test) or a sliver of the bar fills green. I have had some rare instances where it actually gets halfway (which takes about 10 minutes or so) -- What I'm getting at is it never finishes.

Ever since the last update this had been happening more frequently and now with S338 it is happening every single night I have the EHD attached. (I sometimes have the EHD attached to the other Hopper in the living room). What is even stranger is I have never seen it ask to test the EHD from that Hopper. It is always when it's connected to mine. It seems harmless enough but I never am certain. It seems as if my Hopper develops some type of problems or recordings start to have issues soon after the Hopper has started asking to perform a diagnostic test, but with so much else going wrong, it could be just coincidence. What bothers me is the process never finishes and it appears to override the update. In fact, the Hopper seems more interested in testing my EHD than it does in giving me it (As if already intruding on my early a.m. recordings and watching habits wasn't enough already to interfere with the update schedule). Signs of it not actually updating are from comparing what the other Hopper has versus mine, usually missing artwork and lack of episode information for certain shows which are all present on the other Hopper.

I bring it up sometimes to Dish advanced tech support but never get a real answer. In fact, the first time it happened I was concerned and on the phone with them in seconds. Of course, I understand that unplugging my EHD before 1 a.m. will help eliminate this from happening but sometimes I forget. Also lately it's been a pain getting my EHD to be seen by my Hopper again so once it does I tend to just leave it plugged in. There are some rare times when it comes up after I reset the Hopper myself. Sometimes I hope it finishes to completion because then it might stop bugging me. Another concern is it might be the Hopper's way of alerting me of something not right with my EHD. Does anyone else's Hopper do this?

 

[dwarren2]

When I had a 722, the diagnostics on the ehd ean automatically and would take close to an hour. I noticed that the HWS does it's reboot very quickly. So, to me it looks like they made the diagnostics optional.

 

[navychop]

Mine never do this. Of course, I usually have my EHDs off. I power them down, and power down the USB hub they are plugged in to.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[carpexnoctem]

My particular model of hard drive cannot exactly be powered down. It doesn't have an on/off switch. It's very basic. You just plug in or unplug the cable. For simplicity I usually plug it into the front port intended for Blockbuster @Home. It appears to function the same as if plugged into the back, or is that not a good idea? After not having any success getting the Hopper to see a drive which I had formatted myself which met all of the requirements, I was directed to the Dish Network site where they offer two brands of DVR Expanders to purchase with a discount. I chose the Seagate because it has 2 TB storage capacity as opposed to the Western Digital My Book AV Expander which only holds 1 TB. I've never had issues with it other than my own trial and error such as learning not to transfer contents saved onto it back onto a Hopper and not to connect it until after your brand new Hopper has been fully updated, etc. It definitely had some unusual side effects I would have never foreseen. If it had a power switch or button I would most likely turn it off more if I could keep it still plugged in. The green light remains lit as long as it is plugged into the power strip even when it isn't plugged into the receiver. I just was thinking of wear on the cable from constant plugging and unplugging which happens enough as it is. With past recordings becoming compromised now on both Hoppers I am in need of a new External Hard Drive or DVR Expander anyway to save them before more are lost. Yeah, from now on I guess I'm just going to try to remember to unplug my EHD before the time when the Hopper will want to do a system update. I've just been wondering about this test again because ever since S338, the Hopper has been asking every single night. I'm not saying it's a result of S338. but before this, it only asked every now and then.

 

[KKlare]

I try to remove power from the EHDs before I leave for the night.
I've never seen an informative diagnostic from Dish so why waste a hour or 2 waiting for it?
I do find that most days the EHD will not transfer in one direction other than after reboot.
Rather than reboot I will un-power the drive and bring it back up. Or...
You can (often) just transfer a show in the other direction and may have it now work for you.
(Likely, you needed to remove some shows anyway.)
Drive reboot does not stop recordings, except when it gets confused and reboots the receiver.
Pulling the USB is likely to cause a full reboot, USB power much less likely. Slowly between pulls.

Why when you do a continuation of the moving does it come up a say it will only take a few second?
It will do the progress bar but take many minutes. One of many interface problems.

Tonight, I was fighting the inability to have enough icons/tiles on screen in selecting those late in the alphabet.
You can see the inaccessible "thumb" on the right side go only part way down. Often less than 1/4 of the way.
They could proved a reverse alphabetic or DVR date to allow access to more.
This is where some want a list without tiles. How about just boxes with show names and no tiles?
The number you can access changes with time of day even as little as 15 minutes. Weird?
-Ken

 

[carpexnoctem]

I try to remove power from the EHDs before I leave for the night.I've never seen an informative diagnostic from Dish so why waste a hour or 2 waiting for it?I do find that most days the EHD will not transfer in one direction other than after reboot.Rather than reboot I will un-power the drive and bring it back up. Or...You can (often) just transfer a show in the other direction and may have it now work for you.(Likely, you needed to remove some shows anyway.)Drive reboot does not stop recordings, except when it gets confused and reboots the receiver.Pulling the USB is likely to cause a full reboot, USB power much less likely. Slowly between pulls.Why when you do a continuation of the moving does it come up a say it will only take a few second?It will do the progress bar but take many minutes. One of many interface problems.Tonight, I was fighting the inability to have enough icons/tiles on screen in selecting those late in the alphabet.You can see the inaccessible "thumb" on the right side go only part way down. Often less than 1/4 of the way.They could proved a reverse alphabetic or DVR date to allow access to more.This is where some want a list without tiles. How about just boxes with show names and no tiles?The number you can access changes with time of day even as little as 15 minutes. Weird?-Ken

Well, the first few times the message concerning wanting to perform the routine diagnostic test appeared, I thought it might be something serious or important. After seeing how the test always fails and never even finishes I began to take it less seriously. As I said, I haven't even been bothered with it until the update.I definitely agree about the program tiles and how the scroll bar sometimes doesn't allow you to go past a certain point in the alphabetical listing. You know there is more but it won't move down so you can get to it. If Hopper must have images, perhaps an alternate smaller tile view could be an option. I used the EHD with my ViP 722K so I was used to working with the entire contents as a list. I have often had times when I needed to transfer some shows and I could only get to A-D. If I changed the view from A-Z to DVR Date I could get to some others. It was kind of an emergency though so what I did to get to them was I began selecting and temporarily deleting shows on the Hopper ahead of what I wanted so when I went to transfer again to the EHD it was further down so I could now get to them. As soon as I was finished I restored the shows on the Hopper. They will reside in Deleted Recordings for 48 hours unless you Empty Folder. I have also used this trick to move only specific episodes of a show since I can only select the show and not pick and choose individual episodes. Again, as soon as I'm done I restore what I deleted.

 

[KKlare]

Why does the EHD transfer stop as seen by the drive's indicator and then when you go back to Transfer page and select it, it comes alive again. There is no need for this head fake. It just causes worries that something went wrong.

The limited number of tiles on the selection page sure is annoying. While switching between date and name helps some, it gets worse if you select No Folders. I can see some limit but why does it vary from time to time? Thanks for the Trash selection idea. I may be trying that and need to empty the trash before starting to keep it clear what is to be restored. I thought of using the User folders but they are not available on Transfer selection, so no help there. Would have been a great idea. BTW I cannot transfer some shows, they just don't go--some seem to go up until the last 0-5 seconds (yes, zero they just don't finish) and a few others fail much earlier. So until I get a good copy of them, I'll have to set them aside from the transfer.

These failures were transferred in but they won't go out. That may be why some have warned to use them from the drive not to restore.

Dish, please fix the External Device number cited in the error messages--it is NOT the last one looked at--you used the wrong variable, it's confusing. Why not put both to and from in the error message as I am often running 4 streams so set-top box is unclear.

A major annoyance is the 'Events successfully transferred to you "".' which comes up if you abort the transfer, note null string. It is like it is doing from 0 to 0 in steps of 0. It blocks further selection and is so fast you are hard pressed to get past it.

-Ken

 

[navychop]

Front, back - makes no difference.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[navychop]

".... For simplicity I usually plug it into the front port intended for Blockbuster @Home...."

What do you mean by this? BB@H is online over the Internet, not a USB connection.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[KKlare]

Yes, you can also use a USB hub on each of the 3 spigots--wish there were more.
Adding an unpowered 4-way hub works for me. I need another one.
This is much better than the 722 limit of 1. Used a hub with power off on all but 1, there.
-Ken

 

[carpexnoctem]

".... For simplicity I usually plug it into the front port intended for Blockbuster @Home...."What do you mean by this? BB@H is online over the Internet, not a USB connection.Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

I just mean I plug my EHD into the USB port located next to the BLOCKBUSTER logo on the front of the Hopper. It's easy and doesn't require getting to the back all the time. I assumed a USB port was a USB port but I thought I'd bring it up just in case. You understood it right in your post just a few minutes earlier when you replied, "front, back - makes no difference"

 

[KKlare]

Well, I tested it and the Hopper does not load a 5th EHD. I can routinely use 4 EHDs to get nearly 4X throughput. I do have something like 30 shows that will not transfer back to the EHD from the Hopper even though the were on an EHD. To put it in perspective, this is while transferring 1000s of shows, with a like number more to go--my reorganizing project. So percentage-wise that is not bad but they clog up the internal list and space and I need to get them to their "home" drives. Most of these are ones that stop with 0 to 6 seconds left on the transfer after you spend 5 to 10 minutes before the stop.

Works best after reboot, drive power on/off, reversing transfer direction for 1 or more, or restarting the transfer, in that order. Total job is over 8TB so that is a lot of possible errors. I just made trouble for myself but need to finish the project, now.

And yes, the show list varies from 1/4 to all tiles depending on time of day and which menu is used?
-Ken