I have a problem that I have been troubleshooting for about a year and have learned how to resolve it quickly when it happens, but not how to prevent it from happening again and again: about 3-5 times per week (so about half the times watching on the Joey), watching Streaming services (Netflix, Paramount+, Hulu, the Dish OnDemand programming that uses Internet, etc.) the streaming service will stop responding. At that point, everything that requires Internet access stops working on all 3 Joey's we have in our house, but not directly on the Hopper 3 -- still works there. Regular TV (live and DVR) still works fine. After a few minutes, the Joeys will pop up a gear icon and message in the upper right of the screen saying something along the lines of "Ethernet connection lost" or "Internet disconnected" (can't recall the exact wording, but it's something like one of those).
Resetting the Joey that started the problem or even all 3 Joeys has no effect.
Resetting the Hopper 3 does fix this, but that takes several minutes to complete the restart cycle and if anything was recording at the time, it will lose the recording while it restarts (usually happens during Primetime Anytime recording, so it would lose a lot). A faster fix that doesn't interfere with active recording is just to go to Settings -> Diagnostics -> Network -> Reset Network. That only resets the Ethernet, which fixes the problem and only takes about 1.5 - 2 minutes. But, that's still a hassle, especially if it's in the middle of a movie or a show and requires going into the other room with the Hopper to properly navigate the screen to do it (I've tried to just use the remote in the other room, but it's tough to get it right when you can't see the selection changes on the screen). Frankly, at this point, I'm just as likely to just switch to streaming over the Xbox, because that's a faster fix, but has the downside that switching back to watching TV or Dish DVR content is then a bit of a hassle.
Also, if I do nothing, it will be working again the next day. Presumably, that's because of the nightly Hopper reset, but not certain that's the source of the fix.
I've never noticed it happen when I'm not actively streaming, but it's possible that happens too and I just don't notice. It seems that the act of having the Hopper route significant Internet data over the MOCA connection causes it to sometimes fail. That is, it seems more likely to happen when pushing its routing capabilities by streaming 4K content rather than the low-level 720p HD content of Dish OnDemand. Not certain that's a factor, but seems like it. It also MIGHT be more likely to occur for some streaming services, like Hulu or Paramount+, than others like Netflix or Amazon Prime (maybe).
My first diagnosis was that the problem must be the Hopper 3, it's routing capabilities from Ethernet In to MOCA Out must be buggy -- problem occurs on all Joeys at the same time, but network access still works on the Hopper (and no Internet issues with any other devices like the Xbox, phones, or laptops), and resetting the Hopper immediately fixes. HOWEVER, Dish replaced the Hopper 3 for us with a brand new one and it had no effect on the problem. Same exact intermittent MOCA disconnects that are only fixable by resetting the Hopper or Hopper Networking. So, unless both Hoppers had this same bizarre problem, it's not the Hopper.
So maybe the coax wiring, but it occurs on all Joeys at the same time and why would resetting the Hopper's networking always fix it if there were a break or similar problem with the wiring?
I assume not everyone has this problem with the Joey 4, right? (Note: NOT the older Joey or Joey 4K -- only aware of this problem with the newest Joey 4 that supports 4K TV in HDR and runs Android TV to support downloading streaming apps like Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock, Disney+, etc.)? If your Joey doesn't show Android TV at launch and include Google Play access to download all the various streaming apps, it's not the Joey 4. This has been a common point of confusion with Dish tech support who mostly don't seem to know the difference between the Joey 4 and the Joey 4K, which are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT devices (ironically, only the Joey 4 can do modern 4K due to HDR, where the older Joey 4K does not support HDR and so can only do a small subset of Dish's 4K content because now most 4K content also requires HDR, including the Super Bowl, which is how I first learned about this distinction). This is why I'm giving up on them and posting here.
Any ideas or even thoughts of other things I can try to stop the Hopper 3 from losing the Ethernet connection routing when streaming?
Summary for your diagnostic support:
Resetting the Joey that started the problem or even all 3 Joeys has no effect.
Resetting the Hopper 3 does fix this, but that takes several minutes to complete the restart cycle and if anything was recording at the time, it will lose the recording while it restarts (usually happens during Primetime Anytime recording, so it would lose a lot). A faster fix that doesn't interfere with active recording is just to go to Settings -> Diagnostics -> Network -> Reset Network. That only resets the Ethernet, which fixes the problem and only takes about 1.5 - 2 minutes. But, that's still a hassle, especially if it's in the middle of a movie or a show and requires going into the other room with the Hopper to properly navigate the screen to do it (I've tried to just use the remote in the other room, but it's tough to get it right when you can't see the selection changes on the screen). Frankly, at this point, I'm just as likely to just switch to streaming over the Xbox, because that's a faster fix, but has the downside that switching back to watching TV or Dish DVR content is then a bit of a hassle.
Also, if I do nothing, it will be working again the next day. Presumably, that's because of the nightly Hopper reset, but not certain that's the source of the fix.
I've never noticed it happen when I'm not actively streaming, but it's possible that happens too and I just don't notice. It seems that the act of having the Hopper route significant Internet data over the MOCA connection causes it to sometimes fail. That is, it seems more likely to happen when pushing its routing capabilities by streaming 4K content rather than the low-level 720p HD content of Dish OnDemand. Not certain that's a factor, but seems like it. It also MIGHT be more likely to occur for some streaming services, like Hulu or Paramount+, than others like Netflix or Amazon Prime (maybe).
My first diagnosis was that the problem must be the Hopper 3, it's routing capabilities from Ethernet In to MOCA Out must be buggy -- problem occurs on all Joeys at the same time, but network access still works on the Hopper (and no Internet issues with any other devices like the Xbox, phones, or laptops), and resetting the Hopper immediately fixes. HOWEVER, Dish replaced the Hopper 3 for us with a brand new one and it had no effect on the problem. Same exact intermittent MOCA disconnects that are only fixable by resetting the Hopper or Hopper Networking. So, unless both Hoppers had this same bizarre problem, it's not the Hopper.
So maybe the coax wiring, but it occurs on all Joeys at the same time and why would resetting the Hopper's networking always fix it if there were a break or similar problem with the wiring?
I assume not everyone has this problem with the Joey 4, right? (Note: NOT the older Joey or Joey 4K -- only aware of this problem with the newest Joey 4 that supports 4K TV in HDR and runs Android TV to support downloading streaming apps like Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock, Disney+, etc.)? If your Joey doesn't show Android TV at launch and include Google Play access to download all the various streaming apps, it's not the Joey 4. This has been a common point of confusion with Dish tech support who mostly don't seem to know the difference between the Joey 4 and the Joey 4K, which are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT devices (ironically, only the Joey 4 can do modern 4K due to HDR, where the older Joey 4K does not support HDR and so can only do a small subset of Dish's 4K content because now most 4K content also requires HDR, including the Super Bowl, which is how I first learned about this distinction). This is why I'm giving up on them and posting here.
Any ideas or even thoughts of other things I can try to stop the Hopper 3 from losing the Ethernet connection routing when streaming?
Summary for your diagnostic support:
- Internet always works fine to the Hopper 3 and to other unrelated devices using the same Internet connection
- TV and DVR always work fine on the Hopper and Joeys
- Only MOCA Ethernet fails, leaving the Joeys without access to anything that requires Internet (streaming services and Dish's streaming On Demand). When it fails to 1 Joey, it fails to all 3 of our Joey 4 units.
- Seems to fail only while streaming content (and maybe only content that uses more bandwidth, like 4K HDR, but not sure the type of streaming content matters)
- Resetting Networking on Hopper 3 always fixes all Joeys and they can resume streaming, without even restarting the Hopper.
- Dish replaced Hopper 3 with a new Hopper 3 - no effect
- On average, probably happens about once per every 3 hours of streaming, but varies
