Known problem - don't call us message

[kwindrem]

I was tweaking my dish the other day and got a strange message. I happened to be on a local channel (Sacramento) when signal was interrupted (common when realigning the dish). A message appeared on the screen indicating that Dish Network was aware of the problem and that service would be restored momentarily. I was asked NOT to call in to report the problem. I had to change channels to clear the message.

It only seemed to happen on local channels. Interrupting signal while watching a movie channel did not produce the same message - just the normal signal lost/acquiring signal alert.

Brief signal interruptions occur for many reasons including rain fade, a dish moving in the wind, etc. There's no way Dish Network could be aware of these interruptions, so why the message?

Also, why does the message persist after the signal returns?

 

[Jim S.]

Since that message is obviously generated by the receiver, not the Dish programmers, it is indeed very stupid.

 

[kwajr]

maybe they actually had an outage

 

[andyin137]

Ive had this happen numerous times with our locals(last time during primetime)received a message instantly not to call them they are aware of problem.One of 2 things are going on,they have planned this outage or this is a software issue.If it continues I would ignore message and still call them,if your a paying Customer you have a right to know what the problem is.Ive been with dish for almost a year and have a year on my contract,at this point Customer service needs to get better or I will be switching services after contract as in my area we now have FIOS,Cable or Satellitte.

 

[kwindrem]

I did some more testing and it's even more odd.

Disconnecting the cable to one of the satellite inputs on my ViP622 causes the Acquiring Satellite dialog to be displayed. It's not until AFTER the signal returns that the "known problem - don't call us" message appears. I also got the Error 004 message a couple of times. You can select Cancel from this dialog and the channel returns.

For non-locals (HD or SD), I get the Acquiring Satellite dialog when signal drops. When I reconnect the coax, the channel comes back within a few seconds.

I thought it might have something to do with map-down but got the same behavior with the 8xxx and 6xxx equivalents.

On one test, I got the known problem message then after a couple of minutes the Error 004 message came up. Then after maybe another minute the channel came back up.

It seems like the message not going away right away (often requiring a satellite change) is a receiver bug.

It's odd they created the pretty "don't call us" message rather than using the standard Error 004 or Acquiring Satellite message, then only use it for locals. Maybe Dish has so many problems with locals they can't take all the calls. Monitoring so many local channels would be difficult (especially considering spot beams) so I'd think they would want to know about outages on locals.

Maybe they DO know about outages at each receiver. It would be possible to log outages on watched channels and report these either via Ethernet or a phone home session.

Anyway, I've submitted a report to Dish Tech Support about this. If they come back with anything interesting I'll post it here.

 

[whatchel1]

It's you don't understand the message

I did some more testing and it's even more odd.

Disconnecting the cable to one of the satellite inputs on my ViP622 causes the Acquiring Satellite dialog to be displayed. It's not until AFTER the signal returns that the "known problem - don't call us" message appears. I also got the Error 004 message a couple of times. You can select Cancel from this dialog and the channel returns.

For non-locals (HD or SD), I get the Acquiring Satellite dialog when signal drops. When I reconnect the coax, the channel comes back within a few seconds.

I thought it might have something to do with map-down but got the same behavior with the 8xxx and 6xxx equivalents.

On one test, I got the known problem message then after a couple of minutes the Error 004 message came up. Then after maybe another minute the channel came back up.

It seems like the message not going away right away (often requiring a satellite change) is a receiver bug.

It's odd they created the pretty "don't call us" message rather than using the standard Error 004 or Acquiring Satellite message, then only use it for locals. Maybe Dish has so many problems with locals they can't take all the calls. Monitoring so many local channels would be difficult (especially considering spot beams) so I'd think they would want to know about outages on locals.

Maybe they DO know about outages at each receiver. It would be possible to log outages on watched channels and report these either via Ethernet or a phone home session.

Anyway, I've submitted a report to Dish Tech Support about this. If they come back with anything interesting I'll post it here.

The thing is you don't understand the message. It isn't a loss of sat signal it is a loss of signal to the satellite cmpany. There are 2 ways that E* or D* get signals for LIL 1 is by fiber & 2 is by OTA pick up. Then these signals are re-modulated and sent to the satellite company either by uplink or fiber. Now if you count this processes there are 3 places that can go down. 1 the TV station has a problem outputting the signal in some form. A the fiber out of building gets cut or the fiber amp goes down. 2 the OTA re-mod goes down due to electronic problems such as lightening takes it out. 3 the fiber to the uplink is lost. The message you are reading is telling you that you still have sat signal because it isn't trying to acquire signal it has one it is generated by the uplink. When the signal from a TV station goes down E* calls them in less than a minute to find out if there are transmission problems. Have taken those calls more than once at the different stations I've work for. In many cases they know as fast or faster than the station knows there is a problem. So really the E* is telling you what they can at the time to let you know that they are trying to get the signal back up and running for you.

 

[Agonizing Fury]

The thing is you don't understand the message. It isn't a loss of sat signal it is a loss of signal to the satellite cmpany. There are 2 ways that E* or D* get signals for LIL 1 is by fiber & 2 is by OTA pick up. Then these signals are re-modulated and sent to the satellite company either by uplink or fiber. Now if you count this processes there are 3 places that can go down. 1 the TV station has a problem outputting the signal in some form. A the fiber out of building gets cut or the fiber amp goes down. 2 the OTA re-mod goes down due to electronic problems such as lightening takes it out. 3 the fiber to the uplink is lost. The message you are reading is telling you that you still have sat signal because it isn't trying to acquire signal it has one it is generated by the uplink. When the signal from a TV station goes down E* calls them in less than a minute to find out if there are transmission problems. Have taken those calls more than once at the different stations I've work for. In many cases they know as fast or faster than the station knows there is a problem. So really the E* is telling you what they can at the time to let you know that they are trying to get the signal back up and running for you.

Although your post is informative, it is wrong. The message in question is generated by the receiver when it has lost lock on the spotbeam for your locals, but upon testing CONUS transponders, it gets a signal. The original intent for this message may have been for it to display only when the spotbeam uplink goes down, unfourtunately it seems to be comming up in other situations. If you re-read the OPs post, he was able to re-create this message by simply un-plugging his SAT line and plugging it back in. Perhaps you intent to imply that the OP has brought down the entire spotbeam for his area by simply unpluging his SAT line?
I have also noticed this issue while working on people's satellite dishes. If they were tuned to a local channel when I disconnect the dish, I have to change to CONUS transponder, or reset the receiver, to get the signal back. I don't why this is. I have the same problem with my dish at home. If I am watching a local channel when rain fade knocks out my signal, it will not come back in until I change channels. If I channel up to a CONUS channel, and then back down, the channel is able to come right back in.

 

[whatchel1]

More than one cause

Although your post is informative, it is wrong. The message in question is generated by the receiver when it has lost lock on the spotbeam for your locals, but upon testing CONUS transponders, it gets a signal. The original intent for this message may have been for it to display only when the spotbeam uplink goes down, unfourtunately it seems to be comming up in other situations. If you re-read the OPs post, he was able to re-create this message by simply un-plugging his SAT line and plugging it back in. Perhaps you intent to imply that the OP has brought down the entire spotbeam for his area by simply unpluging his SAT line?
I have also noticed this issue while working on people's satellite dishes. If they were tuned to a local channel when I disconnect the dish, I have to change to CONUS transponder, or reset the receiver, to get the signal back. I don't why this is. I have the same problem with my dish at home. If I am watching a local channel when rain fade knocks out my signal, it will not come back in until I change channels. If I channel up to a CONUS channel, and then back down, the channel is able to come right back in.

My intent was to let him know that there are multiple possible reasons for the signal loss. You have just brought up 1 that I didn't know. So it shows that the OP needs to look into things before he bitches that E* (or even D*) is the problem. BTW way when I have lost spotbeam when I lived in one in the past it was always the acquiring sat signal slate that would come up. Have not seen the message stated in the years I've been with E*. So I was just giving a bigger picture look as to how the signal really gets to their set.

 

[jvriffel]

Picture of screen and other info I've ran across at
http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/156270-new-eastern-arc-install-problems.html

 

[Remilk]

I, too, have been getting this message for about 3 weeks on one local station WRIC Channel 8, Richmond, VA. This is the only station I get this message.

I spoke with technical support and was informed the problem is in the transmission between the local station and Dish Network; it is not a problem of signal strength or in-home equipment.

I informed several CSRs that if this is not resolved by the end of the week, I would be cancelling out of the contract (still have 15 months left) due to Dish Network unable to meet their contractural obligations of providing locals for which I pay. They have had plenty of time to correct this situation.

 

[kwindrem]

There are certainly cases where uplink or infrastructure failures cause interruption. To be clear, this is NOT what's causing the problem for me. When I first noticed the problem heavy rain was most definitely the cause as most channels dropped out, not just the locals. While aligning the dish and playing around with the system I created the outage! So there's no way this could correlate to a failure Dish Network knew about.

I have received a response to my trouble report to E* and engineers are "looking into the problem". We'll see.

 

[jdmacor]

I saw this message last night, during NBC's Sunday night football. I did as the TV told me, and switched to a non-local channel. Then, being cripplingly impatient, I switched back after about 1.2 seconds... I was watching football again.

 

[kwindrem]

I saw this message last night, during NBC's Sunday night football. I did as the TV told me, and switched to a non-local channel. Then, being cripplingly impatient, I switched back after about 1.2 seconds... I was watching football again.

That's the really frustrating part. You MUST switch away then back to the channel even though the signal as returned!!! I created a interruption last night and waited to see if the message to go away by itself - it didn't after 30 minutes. The Error 004 dialog also remains until dismissed manually (usually), but it at least has a Cancel button.

 

[msticker]

I wrote the below post about this message recently on another thread. I would really like to know what causes this and how many people it is affecting. I wonder if it is a switch problem or a software problem. Every time it happens my wife looks at me and asks me why I am spending so much money "for something that doesn't work". I usually just mumble that cable was even worse.

"I have been getting that same message a lot for the past few weeks. It happens at random times and several times it has happened on one of TV1 or TV2 but not the other, so I know there isn't really an outage of the local channels. And, I don't believe they are "working on it." I have also found that you can sometimes get the channel you were watching back by going to the guide and then going back to live tv. I also noticed, but it could be a coincidence, that this seems to happen more often when I am recording a show.

This drives my wife crazy. She asked about getting rid of Dish and going back to cable but I reminded her how crappy our little local cable service was."

 

[kwindrem]

I wrote the below post about this message recently on another thread. I would really like to know what causes this and how many people it is affecting.

What starts this all off is some form of signal interruption. But the real issue is the message appears when the signal returns. That's obviously a software problem.

I wonder if it is a switch problem ...

A switch, marginal LNB, misaligned dish, partial line of sight blockage, heavy rain or snow may all contribute to loss of signal. If you've seen an increase in outages, check your signal levels. If they are close to the dropout threshold (about 10 on my ViP622), then have your system checked. Realigning the dish could reduce the number of outages significantly.

The other oddity is the message only seems to appear when local channels are being viewed.

The message is also worded to give the impression that E* knows about the signal outage implying that it is an uplink problem, at the point of off-air reception or at the E* distribution facility. Those are unmistakably causes of signal interruption, but so are equipment and atmospheric issues at the home. From the message, it's not possible to determine the point of failure.

 

[msticker]

What starts this all off is some form of signal interruption. But the real issue is the message appears when the signal returns. That's obviously a software problem.

A switch, marginal LNB, misaligned dish, partial line of sight blockage, heavy rain or snow may all contribute to loss of signal. If you've seen an increase in outages, check your signal levels. If they are close to the dropout threshold (about 10 on my ViP622), then have your system checked. Realigning the dish could reduce the number of outages significantly.

The other oddity is the message only seems to appear when local channels are being viewed.

The message is also worded to give the impression that E* knows about the signal outage implying that it is an uplink problem, at the point of off-air reception or at the E* distribution facility. Those are unmistakably causes of signal interruption, but so are equipment and atmospheric issues at the home. From the message, it's not possible to determine the point of failure.

I've checked the signal levels and they all seem good. Running "Check Switch" doesn't return any errors. I wouldn't think it is an uplink problem as the same channel will still be showing on one TV when the MESSAGE appears on the other. The other day, I had a local channel on TV1 and TV2 was on a different channel. As soon as I switched TV2 to the same channel, TV1 lost signal to that channel yet TV2 didn't even flicker.

 

[kwindrem]

... The other day, I had a local channel on TV1 and TV2 was on a different channel. As soon as I switched TV2 to the same channel, TV1 lost signal to that channel yet TV2 didn't even flicker.

That sounds like equipment problems - some kind of interaction between the commands sent to the switch and/or LNBs from the two tuners. Could be a defective/intermittent switch or LNB (the DP LNBs have internal switches).

An intermittent LNB or switch could also explain signal interruptions that can cause the picture to freeze but are short enough to not be seen on the signal strength meters, check switch or system info.

You might want to talk this over with your local installer or E* tech support if you haven't done so already. Be patient as intermittent problems are extremely difficult to diagnose.

 

[eacalhoun]

When I've had problems with my DISH locals, I get better results or answers by calling the local TV station. Typically, they will get a problem resolved quicker either at the local level or by calling someone directly at DISH Network. The local TV stations are also more likely concerned if there's a problem with a large chunk of their viewers having problems viewing their station.