Shows on EHD are erased after watching! Known problem?

[Tony S]

If I modified my programs so that they lost some data, I would told to revert to the last working version and get it fixed the next day. If it was still bad after a couple of days, I'd have been called in for a talk and any more problems there would be a notice in my evaluation. Although if there was a problem for more than an hour it was because nobody had even hinted at one. You just do not allow data loss if you have 10 customers or 10 million.
-Ken

I worked at a medical design/manufacturing facility as a hardware/software engineer designing medical diagnostic equipment. If my software ever caused data loss, I would have been expected to have it fixed and fully tested by the next day. However, we never had serious problems like that because we had good software validation procedures and a good quality control department. The software would never have been released and would never have passed the QA department!

I don't think that Dish considers this to be an urgent problem, otherwise it would have been fixed by now. There is no way that it would take 3 months to find and fix this problem, but that is how long this problem has been with us! Maybe they are not getting enough complaints? Or... maybe the problem has been fixed but Dish is waiting for more fixes/features to be added before uploading a new software release (not worth it for them to release new software with only this one problem fixed).

 

[long_time_DNC]

Like Ken said, whether you have 10 customers or 10 million, this bug should've been fixed days (not months and months) after it was identified/verified. Who knows how long this problem will plague us...we're in our 4th month and counting (since it first started in late December on my 622).

If Dish has it fixed and is holding up release for more fixes/features, I have to ask, why? This is what I consider to be a critical problem (data loss is a critical issue) and if it were my program that were causing this, I'd have been called on the carpet well before now and asked "why isn't this fixed"?, and probably a disciplinary letter would end up in my personnel file for not doing my job!

It's inexcusable that this problem has gone on this long...

 

[David_Levin]

How about the DVR Button Instead ?

I was experimenting on my 722 with a drive I'm about to reformat.

Insted of Stop, I was exiting the event in progress by pressing "DVR" twice then starting playback of a show from the internal HDD (then hitting stop). I never lost a recording.

I did notice that when I went back to the Ext HDD and restarted the same show that the show did not resume where I left off. I can live with this (for now). I wonder if the bug could be releated to the resume logic.

Another thought. The drive is a 500GB. Could the bug have something to do with drive size? A 500 gig drive has only 1 storage partition. A 1.5tb has 3. A 2tb ends up with some primary partitions and an Extended with 2 logical partitions). L625 messed with the partitiong to add the Extended partitions.

Has anyone experienced the bug with a 500GB HDD (I don't have many this "small" still in use)?

 

[David_Levin]

It's inexcusable that this problem has gone on this long...

Can't argue with that.

Is Scott reading here? Hopefully his new job gives him better access to the E* tech guys. There are clues here. Are they even looking ?

 

[long_time_DNC]

Is Scott reading here? Hopefully his new job gives him better access to the E* tech guys. There are clues here. Are they even looking ?

Good question. Scott, are you lurking around here? If so, is Dish tech even looking into this issue?

 

[bigblock468]

Happened to me and I can't get the show back as it was something I saved off of Voom.

BB468

 

[langlin]

I was experimenting on my 722 with a drive I'm about to reformat.

Has anyone experienced the bug with a 500GB HDD (I don't have many this "small" still in use)?

Yes, 500GB and 722k

 

[Tony S]

Has anyone experienced the bug with a 500GB HDD (I don't have many this "small" still in use)?

Yes, I also have had this happen with a 500GB drive...so it is does not seem to be related to drive size.

 

[fredp]

Yes, 500GB and 722k

500 with 622 here. I'm pretty particular with what I save. Mostly movies that either I can't get in DVD form(ie; 1941's Rebecca). The problem occurred once for me back in January. I thought it was dumb me at first. I can wait.

 

[Koilvr]

I lost bout 8 shows when I was downloading them from my 722 to my 750gb harddrive so I cn get them to my new 922. I am upset cause I lost a few shows just to transfer to the 922.

 

[long_time_DNC]

Received this from Dish Tech today in reply to my query on the status of their progress on this issue. Needless to say, it ticked me off!

I do see that we sent in the technical problem report, I am really sorry if your external hard drive is still deleting your events. There is no way to retrieve already deleted events. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. The following troubleshooting steps were provided for the issue with the external hard drive that you encountered:
1. Connect and power on a multimedia device of a supported size (40GB to 1TB).
2. Verify the hard drive is plugged in and powered on.
3. Verify the USB cable is connected.
4. Exit the menu then reenter. Press and hold the Power button on the front panel of the receiver for five seconds.
5. Perform Front Panel Reset: press and hold the Power button on the front panel of the receiver for five seconds; then wait for the receiver to reset and power on by itself.
6. Verify the issue is fixed; if not, perform a Hard Reset: Place the receiver in standby mode by turning the receiver off from the front panel power button. Remove electrical power from the receiver by unplugging the receiver from the AC electrical outlet. Wait 15 seconds. Plug the receiver back into the AC electrical outlet and power on.
The following stipulations were also reported by our engineering department:
• Customers may connect the external hard drive to three different receivers. Upon the fourth connection, the receiver will prompt to format the hard drive error 866. DISH Network recommends not relocating the external hard drive.
• DISH Network does not support hybrid external hard drives. Hybrid hard drives employ non-volatile flash memory in addition to traditional hard disks. Windows Vista is currently the only known software product to support hybrid hard drives.
• Dual drives, RAIDs, or other drives that contain more than one physical hard drive are also not supported.
(For more information concerning hard drive connectivity select the following link: http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/our_products/dish_hd/external_hd/index.shtml. )

If your external hard continues to delete events, I would contact the manufacturer of the hard drive and see if there is any reason or causes that the hard drive would delete the information or if there is any troubleshooting steps that can be performed on that end. I would recommend trying another external hard drive as well.

 

[dreddick]

Received this from Dish Tech today in reply to my query on the status of their progress on this issue. Needless to say, it ticked me off!

For crying out loud...well, all I know is since I first read about this happening months ago I have stopped watching anything from the EHD as I don't want to risk what I have stored there.

 

[gdarwin]

Here is my reply from 3/31/2010:
Getting ticked off also...

Also getting ticked off on my options to upgrade to 922... My rant on this must have put me at the bottom of the upgrade process...


I do apologize for the amount of time this is taking to get resolved. I did email our Software Engineering Team today and asked for an update. They let me know that they are currently working on the fix for this problem but do not have a date. Again I do apologize for the inconvenience.

EchoStar Broadcasting Corporation
Quality Assurance Department
dishquality@echostar.com

-----Original Message-----
From: gdarwin
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 7:06 PM
To: Audio-Video-Quality
Subject: Re: FW: EHD Erasing programs

Thread started 1/29/10... No response to the problem... More people
reporting lost programs... People asking for a resolution to this
problem... Check the thread again.

G.

 

[yaz96]

If your external hard continues to delete events, I would contact the manufacturer of the hard drive and see if there is any reason or causes that the hard drive would delete the information or if there is any troubleshooting steps that can be performed on that end. I would recommend trying another external hard drive as well.

What complete and utter BS!

Are they denying it's their problem now?

 

[DishSubLA]

I thought I would just add to the number of people experiencing this horrible bug. I watched something on my external HDD to its completion for the first time in months and it most surly did erase the program/recording. It didn't erase after the numerous times I would stop in the middle of the program that took me a few days to complete watching, but as soon as the playback ended on its own, and I returned to the list of recordings, my just watched TV show was GONE, GONE, GONE!

The replies from Dish posted on this board are abhorrent. Either clueless ninnies at Dish addressing this problem or engineers who know this is a real bug, but who pretend it doesn't exist and hope it goes away, as if by magic, like our precious recordings we just finished watching. Charlie, get some control and FIX this, please!

 

[KKlare]

Yes, that response from Dish Tech #211 quoted by long_time_DNC is full of it.

The 3 device/move problem is from before they got the household code to work allowing swaps and multiple drives, one at a time.

The 1 TB limit has been surpassed on the VIP receivers for a quite some time. I use a 1.5 TB drive as well as other 750GB and 1TB ones.

Doing a hard or soft reset on each viewing is totally unacceptable.

There is an added problem of holding up the reboot process by 20 minutes or more if a USB is plugged in. It was not there before the current software.

There MUST be a REVERSION of the software for a "quick" fix and adequate debugging done before re-distribution of this software. Since we can no longer block updates it is Dish's responsibility to not force less functional software on us.

-Ken

 

[ripnbigc]

I wonder if dish would be more concerned if we were paying a monthly fee?:rant:

 

[snowboardernh]

Can someone here write up a clean english summary of the problem so that we can all read off the same script and bombard the tech department with an exact scripted problem, how long etc? on the same day and maybe it will just get fixed..... Just a thought

obviosly my writing skills are not the best to do this...

 

[Tony S]

Wow!! I can't believe the response that long_time_DNC received (in post#211). That 'tech' gave him an answer that was total BS and was also full of incorrect information. You can be sure that he/she did not forward the complaint on to anyone at Dish.

long_time_DNC, try sending your complaint again and hopefully you will at least get an acknowlegement that 'it is being worked on'... like gdarwin posted in #213 above.

All of us should continue to complain to Dish so that they will make fixing this problem a priority. Let's face it...if this was a priority they would have fixed it by now. It does not take months to find and fix this type of problem!

 

[long_time_DNC]

Wow!! I can't believe the response that long_time_DNC received (in post#211). That 'tech' gave him an answer that was total BS and was also full of incorrect information. You can be sure that he/she did not forward the complaint on to anyone at Dish.

long_time_DNC, try sending your complaint again and hopefully you will at least get an acknowlegement that 'it is being worked on'... like gdarwin posted in #213 above.

All of us should continue to complain to Dish so that they will make fixing this problem a priority. Let's face it...if this was a priority they would have fixed it by now. It does not take months to find and fix this type of problem!

Oh, I replied and this time included DishQuality and CEO in the conversation so they could see the entire email thread. I was polite, but let them know that I (and those of us discussing it here) was tired of being patient and getting lame replies from them. Politely, they now know I'm pissed. I told them I wasn't looking for PPV coupons or credit on my bill...that I just want the bug fixed!

It'll be interesting to see what kind of reply I get, if any, but I've certainly escalated the issue up the food chain. I'm ticked and they know it now.