Hopper With Sling Software Version S338

[carpexnoctem]

I was under the impression that the limit has been the 96 timers or 576 events, whichever one happens first...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You are correct and it has been that way until this S338 update. It's really easy to confirm yourself. Just keep creating more timers once you are past 96 timers, and you will see that you don't get interrupted by a message about reaching limits. As I said before, it allowed me to add a total of 200 timers. At the moment, I'm currently at 195 since some timers I created were one time events that have since recorded. I could easily get it back to 200.

 

[carpexnoctem]

Also I have observed that sometimes once I stop a recording with the remote, what was showing on screen is instantly replaced by a Dish Network ad. (The ones they insert in between programming during commercial blocks) It's always the "Save 50 dollars by referring a friend to the Hopper from Dish". I've had this happen a few times on Cartoon Network. It took over what was actually being shown on the screen just seconds before. I know it's not an intended commercial insert because it happened at the end of a show as it was segueing into the next and not during a commercial break. Perhaps an even better example to illustrate that it doesn't belong is I had it happen during the end credits of a movie on EPiX. EPiX never has in-house commercial ads from Dish, and it certainly wouldn't disrupt credits with that. The way to return it to normal is to hit recall or enter the channel again. This has happened on both Hoppers since the update.

 

[cosmo_kramer]

You are correct and it has been that way until this S338 update. It's really easy to confirm yourself. Just keep creating more timers once you are past 96 timers, and you will see that you don't get interrupted by a message about reaching limits. As I said before, it allowed me to add a total of 200 timers. At the moment, I'm currently at 195 since some timers I created were one time events that have since recorded. I could easily get it back to 200.

How many events did those 200 timers create?

 

[charlesrshell]

I just ran a test on one Hopper. I loaded timers and got to 105 with 803 events and stopped. WOW, that is cool. Dish has also raised the event limit too. No telling if there is even a limit any more, I guess it has to stop at some point. But I am not going to find out today. Got bunches of timers to delete. Sure is good news. Has been a big headache for us in the past.

 

[budda]

glad i went with directv. i have no problems with ota, not losing end of shows, no yellow screens on directv locals and the hr44 is faster than the HWS got slowed down with software mess and no pixilation ever

I tried to get Direct and glad I did not. The HWS I have is faster then the Genie. IMO. I have only had the 2 Hoppers for about 3 weeks. Got the latest software update about 3 days ago. I have the OTA tuners. I have no Pixilation. fast guide tons of DVR space no yellow screen. Problems that people are having are real but not the norm. Sites like this bring out the geek. Some people not saying anybody specific but look for things to complain about. Is also a way to help others understand what they have and how to use it. The format thing that was added. It's of no use to me. I just keep mine on normal and never watch anything that is not HD. So why was it added. Because they don't love me. I think not. There's a need, it's just not my need. I for one am glad they try to improve rather then just stay the course. Even if it gets screwed up once in a while. It's like the weather, it will change. The friend that got the Genie has nothing but trouble. However he does not visit any forums nor does he want to. Image that.

 

[david_jr]

Got 338 on 3/8 @ 3 am. Having trouble watching recordings from MB Hopper on family room Hopper. Started a recording watched a few minutes then went back to live in family room. When I tried to resume I just got a black screen. I tried a different recording on the MB Hopper which worked, then stopped and went back to the recording I wanted and it worked again. When that episode finished I deleted it and tried to watch the next episode but got black screen again. Tried to go into other recordings on that Hopper but same black screen no matter which ones I tried. Checked MOCA and have full bars. Tried soft reset of MB Hopper but no joy. Tried hard reset on MB Hopper no joy. When the golf tournament I'm watching is finished I will try resetting the FR Hopper.

Sent from my iPhone 5 using SatelliteGuys

 

[david_jr]

Ok after hard rebooting FR Hopper it is working right again. For now.

Sent from my iPhone 5 using SatelliteGuys

 

[navychop]

Feeling lucky, punk?

 

[carpexnoctem]

Ok after hard rebooting FR Hopper it is working right again. For now.

Sent from my iPhone 5 using SatelliteGuys

For now is exactly right. This isn't a S338 issue though. I've had this happening still under S335 and whatever other software versions. It's hit or miss whether a recording played back from another Hopper to yours is going to work properly. Often I will find it does not and it just creates a lot of extra work and unnecessary grief just to return yours back to normal.

Ideally I sometimes want to view the contents of the living room Hopper from mine to check on recent recordings without actually getting up and going into the room, or in circumstances where I don't want to disrupt the viewing of others. Usually what results is as you said earlier, a black screen.

I've also had it where instead I was treated to a view of whatever channel the other Hopper happened to be on but the picture is frozen. Also I have had instances where it affects your own picture afterwards since once you exit out of the other Hopper's recording you attempted, you now have a black screen but you can still hear the audio. In the left hand corner it will still show the channel which the played back recording originated from, regardless of what channel you have your own Hopper on. At this point you have effectively confused your Hopper. This is a pain to correct without a reboot (which isn't always the best solution should you have something ready to record in the next few minutes or you are actively recording). What I do is keep pressing the Power to get to screensaver and sometimes the picture will come back and also viewing some of my recordings or shows from other tuners. There have been times when none of this worked and I just had to wait it out until my recording is finished, in the meantime feeling as if I'm listening to an old-timey radio show.

Since the S338 update I have noticed that watching a show on an HD primetime channel in progress almost always results in a black screen or picture with no audio, and this isn't even when trying to view the contents of another Hopper through mine. The workaround seems to be to use the Guide to go to the SD version of the channel and then return to the HD version, again through the Guide. Then you can try to join it in progress through the TV Activity again. For some reason you will usually be confronted by two options of views from the same location (which doesn't make any sense) but you want to choose Live TV anyway. Almost always if you are recording the show it takes a few different views to get to actually display the recording time information, should you want to add extra minutes. It's a mess.

 

[david_jr]

It shouldn't be that hard.

Sent from my iPhone 5 using SatelliteGuys

 

[david_jr]

Feeling lucky, punk?

Definitely NOT "Makin' my day!"

Sent from my iPhone 5 using SatelliteGuys

 

[carpexnoctem]

Resolving conflicts just became unnecessarily more complicated. If you have a timer event and cancel it over another timer event but then you happen to stop or cancel that timer event, the previous timer event which you cancelled will come back with the status of "Conflict: Due to Priority" in the Daily Schedule when you already skipped it because you didn't want it to begin with. Now when you attempt to record what you actually did want you will notice it also has been skipped as "Conflict: Due to Priority" Now if you go to the channel and instant record you will have a conflict and be taken to the resolution screen and sure enough, among the possible choices of the conflict is the show you marked as cancel. It now has a red record status as if it's an active recording when it's really not.

The scenario happened when waiting for a sports event to end to watch the next show afterwards. The Hopper went ahead and recorded a 7-7:30 p.m. show since it was now free, which was fine. Then when the sports event was over and the show began at 7:30, while on the channel, the TV Activity wouldn't allow it to be instant recorded and showed all of the tuners as full. Tuner 1 still was shown as recording, but it was the next show on the channel which had just finished recording. This is not an instance where it was still getting 2 minutes extra either. This next show just so happened to also have a timer event. This is a case where two shows with timers were airing back-to-back but I only wanted the one (the other show was an unwanted repeat, already saved in the DVR and the timer had already been cancelled long before). The timer seems to have reactivated itself since the Tuner wasn't free and the conflict resolution showed a red dot indicating an active recording (when it should have been x'ed out in the Guide). Therefore the show I didn't even want recording was included among the possible solutions to resolve the conflict. Once the unwanted show timer was skipped I was able to instant record the show I wanted in the first place. A quick check in My Recordings not having any partially recorded rejected show either leads me to conclude it was never actually recording to begin with. Timers and recordings never behaved like this before.

 

[Rey]

I tried to get Direct and glad I did not. The HWS I have is faster then the Genie. IMO. I have only had the 2 Hoppers for about 3 weeks. Got the latest software update about 3 days ago. I have the OTA tuners. I have no Pixilation. fast guide tons of DVR space no yellow screen. Problems that people are having are real but not the norm. Sites like this bring out the geek. Some people not saying anybody specific but look for things to complain about. Is also a way to help others understand what they have and how to use it. The format thing that was added. It's of no use to me. I just keep mine on normal and never watch anything that is not HD. So why was it added. Because they don't love me. I think not. There's a need, it's just not my need. I for one am glad they try to improve rather then just stay the course. Even if it gets screwed up once in a while. It's like the weather, it will change. The friend that got the Genie has nothing but trouble. However he does not visit any forums nor does he want to. Image that.

The Genie is what finally pushed me to comeback to Dish. I'll take these minor issues any day instead of having to deal with Directv's snail dvr's. The hardware side is good but their software engineers always find a way to screw it up. I think five years of my time was more than enough time to get these things straightened out.

 

[carpexnoctem]

I just ran a test on one Hopper. I loaded timers and got to 105 with 803 events and stopped. WOW, that is cool. Dish has also raised the event limit too. No telling if there is even a limit any more, I guess it has to stop at some point. But I am not going to find out today. Got bunches of timers to delete. Sure is good news. Has been a big headache for us in the past.

I posted earlier that the timer limit with S338 is now 200, but perhaps it was overlooked. I can confirm this because the familiar pop-up message: "The Maximum number of event timers has been reached. No more can be created at this time without deleting one previously created" appears once you try to go over that number. I have been sitting comfortably with around 200 timers almost since the day my Hopper received the new software. The other Hopper in the living room didn't get the update until a few days later, but now can have a maximum of 200 timers as well. What is strange is I've brought up the new timer limit to Dish's advanced tech support a few times in passing while speaking about other critical issues I've since encountered. I always get the same response: They have no information about it and as far as they know the timer limit is 96 timers. Obviously this is no longer the case.

 

[charlesrshell]

I posted earlier that the timer limit with S338 is now 200, but perhaps it was overlooked. I can confirm this because the familiar pop-up message: "The Maximum number of event timers has been reached. No more can be created at this time without deleting one previously created" appears once you try to go over that number. I have been sitting comfortably with around 200 timers almost since the day my Hopper received the new software. The other Hopper in the living room didn't get the update until a few days later, but now can have a maximum of 200 timers as well. What is strange is I've brought up the new timer limit to Dish's advanced tech support a few times in passing while speaking about other critical issues I've since encountered. I always get the same response: They have no information about it and as far as they know the timer limit is 96 timers. Obviously this is no longer the case.

I saw your post earlier. Good discovery carpexnoctem and thanks for posting, I had no clue the limit was raised. That 96 timer and 576 events limit has been a real sore point for us. I would keep an eye on the timers and start looking for things to delete when it got around 90 so it wouldn't cause issues for the Mrs if she started to set timers. Really good news. What is your events number now? I bet it is up there with 200 timers.

 

[carpexnoctem]

I saw your post earlier. Good discovery carpexnoctem and thanks for posting, I had no clue the limit was raised. That 96 timer and 576 events limit has been a real sore point for us. I would keep an eye on the timers and start looking for things to delete when it got around 90 so it wouldn't cause issues for the Mrs if she started to set timers. Really good news. What is your events number now? I bet it is up there with 200 timers.

358 Events. 200 Timers.

I agree with the timer limit being a sore spot. I would always find myself creating additional timers on the second Hopper just to catch everything I wanted. The timers get filled easily once you factor in weekly and daily series timers along with movies and single run shows. I like to plan ahead and create timers for shows and movies which don't air until later into next week so I'd always hit limits. Even though it's a one-time recording, it still takes up a timer event until it has recorded. I would often find myself having to delete those timers in order to free my Hopper up to record something current. Sometimes I would forget to put those timers back.

From skimming though past posts on this forum and one other, I had seen some evidence that too many timers might be encouraging random STB Reboots and potentially making the Hopper unstable. Both Hoppers had been having those issues so for this reason, I kept my timer events below the 96 limit (more around 90-94). However, I've had them at 200 since I got the update March 5th and I haven't had any STB Reboots since.

 

[charlesrshell]

358 Events. 200 Timers.

I agree with the timer limit being a sore spot. I would always need to create additional timers on the second Hopper just to catch everything I wanted. The timers get filled easily once you factor in weekly and daily series timers along with movies and single run shows. I like to plan ahead and create timers for shows and movies which don't air until later in the week but I'd always hit limits. Even though it's a one-time recording, it still takes up a timer event until it has recorded.

From skimming though past posts on this forum and one other, I had seen some evidence that too many timers might be encouraging random STB Reboots and potentially make the Hopper unstable. Both Hoppers had been having these issues so for this reason, I kept my timer events below the 96 limit (more around 90-94). However, I've had them at 200 since I got the update March 5th and I haven't had any STB Reboots since.

I do the planning ahead too. Every Sunday morning I print the next seven days TV schedule from a favorite list I have in titantv.com. I go over it and circle our programs we watch all the time and any new ones. Then I go thru two Hoppers to check/add timers, etc. These two Hoppers are set up with identical timers. My backup system to keep the Mrs. happy happy.

 

[carpexnoctem]

I do the planning ahead too. Every Sunday morning I print the next seven days TV schedule from a favorite list I have in titantv.com. I go over it and circle our programs we watch all the time and any new ones. Then I go thru two Hoppers to check/add timers, etc. These two Hoppers are set up with identical timers. My backup system to keep the Mrs. happy happy.

Yeah, I set up the second Hopper with many of the same timers for backup purposes too. Otherwise I wouldn't have had much to show just a week ago when both Hoppers were experiencing random STB Reboots. Already Friday evening, the second season premiere of Hannibal was split up into three recordings from an STB Reboot on the living room Hopper, but mine recorded it intact.

It still is a good idea because one negative effect I'm experiencing since S338 is sometimes recordings get stuck "...About to begin recording" in TV Activity and never actually record. Sometimes after the time has elapsed, the Tuner is freed but just this morning it was still stuck with a show scheduled from 2-2:30 a.m. The other Hopper got it but mine obviously did not.

For this reason though I can verify that as hard as it seems to believe, it really isn't required for the Hopper to reset and reboot to perform a system update. (I still don't appreciate it going into screensaver mode while I'm watching and recording a show if I should tell it 'Yes' to the update prompt) If the Hopper had reset for the update though, the TV Activity wouldn't still have been stuck with this show which had ended hours ago when I checked this morning. I had to fix the tied up Tuner by resetting the Hopper myself.

 

[charlesrshell]

Yeah, I set up the second Hopper with many of the same timers for backup too. Otherwise I wouldn't have had much to show just a week ago when both Hoppers were experiencing random STB Reboots.

It still is a good idea because one negative effect I'm experiencing since S338 is sometimes recordings get stuck "...About to begin recording" in TV Activity and never actually record. Sometimes after the time has elapsed, the Tuner is freed but just this morning it was still stuck with a show scheduled from 2-2:30 a.m. The other Hopper got it but mine obviously did not.

For this reason though I can verify that the Hopper no longer needs to reset and reboot to perform a system update. I still don't appreciate it going into screensaver mode while I'm watching and recording. If the Hopper did reset for the update though, it wouldn't still have been stuck with this show which had ended hours ago when I checked this morning. I had to fix the tied up Tuner by resetting the Hopper myself.

WOW, haven't had any of them issues. Good luck to you.

 

[sethwell]

No one has noticed the obnoxiously huge banner that comes up when you hit the format(*) button yet.

Seems like the old view was more elegant and a lot less noticeable.