New DISH Customer - 522 Recording problem?

[wordsontour]

Hey, I'm new to DISH and new to these forums. Recently we gave up Adelphia DVRs (which, with the few bugs were alright), but the quality was crap. DISH quality is much better, especially with the HD channels on our other receiver. Currently the problem I am having is with the 522 receiver. It has only happened once, but it seems reading over these forums, you guys know what you're talking about and maybe can answer this for me.

This morning I was leaving the house for two hours and there was a show I wanted to tape (Judge Mathis). I set the DVR to record, no problems. Tonight I go to watch the show, and I have three instances of Judge Mathis.
Judge Mathis 0:48
Judge Mathis 0:02
Judge Mathis 0:09

The description for the show, date and times are all around the correct show. Why did the DVR not tape the entire show in one instance, but chop it up into three pieces?? I haven't had this happen to any other show I've recorded (which, in the four days I have had DISH, have been tons of Law & Orders, West Wing, etc.) Thanks in advance if anyone can answer this for me!

Megan

 

[Pepper]

Were there any blinking clocks in your house? Maybe there were a couple of power outages and the box rebooted, and the recording resumed.

It's a good idea to invest in a UPS (battery backup device) for all your home electronics.

 

[GetMeABeer]

Were there any blinking clocks in your house? Maybe there were a couple of power outages and the box rebooted, and the recording resumed.

While a reboot is the most likely reason this happened to her, I wouldn't make the leap just yet that it was the result of a power outage.

Megan, I don't want to scare you, but since you are new to the 522, you should prepare yourself for some pretty strange behavior from it.

Many people (myself included) experience random reboots, missed timers, recording problems, and various other eccentricities that happen for no apparent reason.

What probably happened was 9 minutes into the show, the 522 rebooted (who knows why). Then after it came back on and acquired the sat. signal, it started the recording back up (it's designed that way, it remembers that it's supposed to be recording something for you). Then a couple of minutes later, it rebooted again (again, who knows why) and when it came back online, it finished recording the show for you.

It might never happen to you again, or it might happen semi-often. There's really no way to tell, sorry.

P.S. I love Judge Mathis...and Doyle rules! :up

 

[wordsontour]

Thanks a bunch to both of you! Reading through the forums, I noticed the 522 has alot of strange behavior attributed to it, and I'm sure I'm in for a long haul. Any tips on how to keep problems from occuring? (ie: periodical reboots, maybe weekly, hard drive checks weekly, turning it off at night, etc.?) Thanks again for your help, there were no blinking clocks, but things do tend to get funny with weather up here in the mountains, and I wasn't sure if anything happened. Maybe it rebooted on its own, we did have problems with signal aquiring the day after we were installed. We had a tech out and it was fixed, but who knows. Thanks again!

Megan

 

[jpezz]

Thanks a bunch to both of you! Reading through the forums, I noticed the 522 has alot of strange behavior attributed to it, and I'm sure I'm in for a long haul. Any tips on how to keep problems from occuring? (ie: periodical reboots, maybe weekly, hard drive checks weekly, turning it off at night, etc.?)

Megan

Yeah! Periodically make contributions to the "Keep 522 Holy fund". Send small bills (10s and 20s) to my PO Box number.

JohnP

 

[GetMeABeer]

Any tips on how to keep problems from occuring? (ie: periodical reboots, maybe weekly, hard drive checks weekly, turning it off at night, etc.?)

Megan, I do manual reboot usually twice a day. Once a day might be good for you. If you want you could read my long message on the following page about how/why I like to reboot/update my 522 (522 losing recorded events). I've found it really helps to avoid some of the problems people complain about with their receiver, but I still have some problems sometimes, too. And it might not matter/apply to you because I do a LOT of recording and watching with my 522 and often refer to myself as like a "power user." So I probably use my 522 in 2 or 3 days what an "average" person uses theirs in a week. So you might not care or be motivated enough to take the few extra steps that I like to do.

As for the drive checks, I have my "daily update" turned off (I believe that's when most people see a daily drive check, right? It used to be that way.) so the only time I see drive checking is when the 522 search bug kicks in or at some other time when the 522 is acting retarded (no offence to anyone). If you want my advice, I would say to do whatever you can to avoid drive checks. It is my experience that whenever I have had serious problems with the 522 (like it erases all my recording for me), it was the result of a drive check.

Here's a secret about the 522 and drive diagnostic...it's all bogus. When the 522 starts running low on memory or having some other bug or problem, that's when the drive check could pop up on you out of the blue. Now, sometimes after the check is done, the 522 thinks there's a problem and says, "Hey, I think there's a problem, you have 7 days to erase your recordings and timers and if you don't do it after 7 days, I will do it for you." But then, MAGICALLY, the 522 works PERFECTLY FINE for (at least) 7 more days. So, then, WHY, WHY, WHY can't it just go on working that way forever? Why does it, after 7 days of working fine, go and erase your hard drive? So basically, just try to avoid the drive check. If you ever come upon one running, cancel it from the remote or pull the plug.

About leaving it on or off at night, I don't know how much it really matters, but lately I like to just leave both tuners on all the time 24/7. I update and reboot on my own term so I get the guide and software updates anyway, and in my past experience the 522 acts especially goofy when turning on and off the tuners sometimes. I don't think leaving them on 24/7 will hurt anything (the drive spins 24/7 anyway) and I don't think turning them off will help anything...so I just leave them on.

there were no blinking clocks, but things do tend to get funny with weather up here in the mountains...we did have problems with signal aquiring the day after we were installed.

Yeah, it was not a problem of losing the signal, it was a reboot. If you lose the signal while it is recording, it will keep the recording in one solid piece, and at the point when the signal got lost it will give you pop up message on playback that says, "part of the signal was lost" (or some message like that). When it gets broken up into two or more like you had, something made the receiver reboot and pick up the recording where it left off after it comes back on. Good luck.