Invisible Hopper Folders

Toggle sidebar
vulcanccit

vulcanccit

Well-Known SatelliteGuys Member
Original poster
Aug 3, 2014
34
40
We have had the Hopper for about a month now. Love it except for this folder issue.

We have a Daddy, Mommy, Christopher and Brandon folders created.

If you go to DVR then My Folders, we see all 4 folders. However, if you click on a recording, then edit.. then go to change the folder from No Folder or whatever folder was specified, you only see Christopher, Mommy, Daddy, or No Folder. The Brandon folder does not show up.

It will show:
Christopher
(then a blank space)
Daddy
Mommy
No Folder

I created a new folder called Test... moved all items out of Brandon to Test the deleted Brandon. Test does not show up... its like it only wants to show 3 folders... this is only on the screen where you move an existing recording. Is this a known issue? Fixed with an update? If the latter, how do you update? Any solution you folks know of??
 
Yep, known issue by Dish (for OVER a YEAR!) and they refuse to a. fix the issue or b. acknowledge that their coding is bad. I've documented this more than once here, with images, as well as the actual Dish (so-called) support forums. All we ever get is "we've passed this information along to our engineers...". Thinking 'engineers' is code for 'trash basket'.

Drives me crazy, but learned to hobble along and which folder slot is which. And be cautious if you have PTAT enabled and set a timer to record a series and save to a folder. I've done that a dozen times and the recordings never get saved in the folder I declare (always goes to "no folder"). My gut thinks it's due to the messed up and missing folder that the software barfs when saving because it thinks the folder does not exist. To see what I mean, set a timer then edit it. In the edit mode go to the part where you can set where you want to save it. You see the list of "my folders" you created, right? In perfect order and no "phantom" slot. So that coding works there but they fail to fix it when trying to edit a recording after the fact.

Dish also refuses to include the ability for their customers to rename, delete or create sub-folders. They don't fully understand how a lot of their customers interact with their technology (even though they claim they do). Shame.
 
That's a shame. I do some software development and this seems like it would be something simple to fix. If they have it working for 3 folders it should work for the 5. sounds like they contracted out the coding, launched the product, and do not want to hire the coders back. Oh well, we can hope. Thank you all for the fast reply!
 
This issue has been driving me crazy for a long time. The un-asked question is: why only a measly 5 folders (much less why only 3 or 4 of them work)? That's not even on a binary boundary, I'd expect 8, 16, 32, whatever. And since I'm whining, I hope when they finally get folks who understand linux file systems and know how to program, that they add the ability to allow EHD drives to be organized into user folders. Geesh!
 
Yeah, +1 on the folders option being INFERIOR to the old ViP's and with bugs not in the ViP's. The time I've spent trying to get them to work and understand them on the Hopper!!!! One would think with the huge capacity of the Hopper HDD's that Dish would want Folders (especially for the way the OP is using folders) would WORK to a high degree so family members can use them or others use folders as they wish. Especially annoying is that Hopper Custom Folder does not have folders within in it. Frustrating folders.
 
ChadT41 said:
The last page tells you how to rename or delete folders. That's been an option since day one.
Click to expand...

When I'm wrong I will admit. I was wrong. Didn't even realize this was there. Now, truthfully it is not that intuitive to have to do that when they should have an option to edit my folders in a more logical place. But, it is there. I tried taking a folder and renaming it thinking *maybe* that the "phantom" folder problem may go away, but no such luck.
 
Although I don't like admitting it, the phantom folder has also been there since day one. Not sure what part of the code they wrote "weird"(not wrong cause it sometimes works), but there is a definite issue. Still waiting on the latest update to software to see what changes.
 
Guess what floors me is that they can't take back a Hopper that has all these strange happenings (assuming they have not since this has been around for a long time) and send the customer a replacement. I have to think that at Dish's level they could easily copy the user's recordings and put on a new Hopper and send back to them. So that the customer at least gets a new Hopper (for their inconvenience) with all their recordings back on it. Compared to bad publicity, this is a cheap solution.

And now Dish has a true problem unit they can explore. Look at memory, registers, current variable values, everything. It has all the original user's timers, all their recordings, and settings. Maybe it's a combination of things that only crop up after certain conditions are met. If the user was to move all their recordings to an EHD before they sent then it wouldn't be a complete representation of the system that is a problem since the recordings then would not be on the DVR they return and actually may be part of the cause.
 
I don't think there are many customers willing to just give up their hoppers for a couple days, which would actually probably be a few weeks. As for the recordings, they may be part of the problem, but with the variety of people that have the issue, it doesn't appear to have anything to do with specific recordings or corruptions. So that wouldn't make a bit if a difference.
 
Question is, do you really think it is honestly worth their time. Is it so large an issue, that a mass drone of people will quit dish, to justify them to go through all of that, compared to what they are doing already. I don't see it being fiscally responsible on their part, to start using new methods, on such a minor bug.
 
ChadT41 said:
Question is, do you really think it is honestly worth their time. Is it so large an issue, that a mass drone of people will quit dish, to justify them to go through all of that, compared to what they are doing already. I don't see it being fiscally responsible on their part, to start using new methods, on such a minor bug.
Click to expand...
It's not worth the time or expense, and not practical for the vast majority of the user base. Probably 99% of users don't have the bandwidth to back up a terabyte of video, or even half that, to the net. The only possible workable way would be some contrived process where the returned Hopper is backed up to the net after Dish receives it. Imagine the bitching when it doesn't happen fast enough, or god forbid they couldn't get the data back and folks complain they were told they wouldn't lose anything. Or even if they did and users then exceed their monthly data caps it would somehow be Dish's fault.

If someone has a flaky Hopper, get an EHD, move anything you can't live without to it, then escalate with Dish until they replace the unit.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ChadT41
Didn't mean to start a debate but I for one would be willing to do this (didn't say it before, but was assuming it was a mutually agreed upon take back, known risks and all). I'd take the hit if it would solve my problems as well as others. It's just TV shows, I personally wouldn't lose sleep if I lost them. Happened before with HD failures and I'm still here. ;-) And I did state that the unit gets sent back whole and Dish replicates the recordings onto a new unit and sends that to the user. No Internet backups or messy stuff like that.

Being in technology my whole career I find it extremely difficult to believe that recordings are so engrained to a specific device ID that not even Dish or Echostar can't replicate recordings and timers to a new unit if need be. Customers, yes. But not the darn designers of the system!

And who knows, if they did this, rebooted the second device before they sent to the customer and found it exhibited the same behavior then there is something related to the timers, recordings or both. Troubleshooting requires many forms of "what if..." thinking. And doing.
 
Last edited:
Debates are the best things about these forums. I, for one, love reading the debates. Even the dumb ones, because you can get a feel for all the ways of thinking, you would not get otherwise. It's just a way to not only learn new info, but also why someone would think another way.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tron2012
My mom is just running into this issue now, were any solutions found? It's only one show and folder that isn't working. She can move the recordings into the folder after it's recorded, but it won't save the folder preference in the timing schedule.
 
J

Need to record from one channel dropped by Dish

  • judyintexas
  • Replies: 50
Tvland1

Courtesy Credit $5

  • Tvland1
  • Replies: 9

Similar threads

Y
Dish Anywhere and Folders
Replies
3
Views
849
Chuck Summers
C
Almighty1
    • Like
Hopper 1 Software H183, Hopper 2 Software H283, Hopper 3 Software H383, Hopper Duo Software H483 and Hopper Plus Software P13106 released & available
Replies
35
Views
2K
TheKrell
TheKrell
jannah
    • Like
Hopper 382
Replies
43
Views
3K
Almighty1
Almighty1
gpguitarman1
    • Like
Hopper 381
Replies
16
Views
1K
Pepper
Pepper
E
Folders in a external HD
Replies
3
Views
786
jpmarto
jpmarto

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 0, Members: 0, Guests: 0)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)

Share this page

Share this page
Top
Back