Some 721 bugs I have noticed lately

[WeeJavaDude]

I have had a few things happen recently on my 721. Wondering if anyone has seen these.

1) I missed my first recording last week. What was strange about it was that it showed it was recording channel 4 on the EPG, but when you went to the PVR menu it showed channel 7. Instead of getting the apprentece I got an hour of Saving Pt Ryan. I looked at the Timer and it showed it showed channel 7. Very strange one.

2) I also had a incident where the 721 stopped responding to the remote. It would respond for certain buttons but not others. For exampled the guide button worked but I could not navigate in it.

Soft reboot cleared both of these issues up.

 

[GaryPen]

I've seen reports of #2 quite a bit lately. I had almost the same thing happen in #1, but it happened on my 811! (It auto-tuned to 005-1, instead of 007-1.)

I haven't had any issues at all with my 721 other than on or about the time of the recent download, when the guide and remote were both acting nutty, plus it kept opening the transparent "program info" screen by itself. But, it corrected itself after the download, apparently. (Knock on woodgrain vinyl veneer.)

 

[WeeJavaDude]

I have also ran into a bug where you try and hit the guide or some other keys after it has been idle for a while and it powers itself off. THe work around is go go to the PVR screen and select a recorded show. after that you can then navigate as before.

 

[WeeJavaDude]

I have had a few things happen recently on my 721. Wondering if anyone has seen these.
1) I missed my first recording last week. What was strange about it was that it showed it was recording channel 4 on the EPG, but when you went to the PVR menu it showed channel 7. Instead of getting the apprentece I got an hour of Saving Pt Ryan. I looked at the Timer and it showed it showed channel 7. Very strange one.

So am I the only one that is seeing this one. THe wife also tells me that another timer is not firing. Starting to think a possible corruption in the timer list. Thinking about deleting my current timers and adding them back in.

 

[Stargazer]

I had problem #2 a good while back then no issues with it and then a little while back it happened again. How annoying. Its been a while since I have seen this issue though. I would have to reboot the receiver to get it to work correctly again.

 

[tbenning]

My 721 had been basically flawless for a long time. But in the last 2 weeks I have seen 2 new issues.

1) The Skip Back button has not been working well. It often refuses to back-up. Repeatedly hitting the button will keep the jumping to the same frame of video. This is different than the long known and well-documented skip back bug that occurs on the 6 Dolby Digital Movie stations, That bug makes the skip back take many seconds, but at least it still works...

2) It twice now got into a state where I could not bring up the guide. The Guide button did not work. Nor did selecting guide from the menu. Every other function like Browse, themes and search all still worked. Only the guide was impossible to get to. This issues goes away after a reboot.

 

[Unthinkable]

My 721 had been basically flawless for a long time. But in the last 2 weeks I have seen 2 new issues.

1) The Skip Back button has not been working well. It often refuses to back-up. Repeatedly hitting the button will keep the jumping to the same frame of video. This is different than the long known and well-documented skip back bug that occurs on the 6 Dolby Digital Movie stations, That bug makes the skip back take many seconds, but at least it still works...

2) It twice now got into a state where I could not bring up the guide. The Guide button did not work. Nor did selecting guide from the menu. Every other function like Browse, themes and search all still worked. Only the guide was impossible to get to. This issues goes away after a reboot.

Those aren't new problems. I've noticed both those idiosynchracies in previous software revisions.

 

[GaryPen]

Those aren't new problems. I've noticed both those idiosynchracies in previous software revisions.

They are not "idiosyncracies". They are BUGS. Defects. Problems. Quality issues. (That, but for the grace of something, I have not suffered from.)

 

[WeeJavaDude]

I am actually thinking that my 721 might be going down. It seems to have gotten a bit unstable over the last couple of weeks. Not sure though. Last night I seem to have to fight it to change channels and some where coming up blank. Might be time for a power pull.

I am seeing some slowdown in operation.

I think I need to knock on wood whenever posting Dish software Posts.

 

[blackarrow]

I have had a few things happen recently on my 721. Wondering if anyone has seen these.

1) I missed my first recording last week. What was strange about it was that it showed it was recording channel 4 on the EPG, but when you went to the PVR menu it showed channel 7. Instead of getting the apprentece I got an hour of Saving Pt Ryan. I looked at the Timer and it showed it showed channel 7. Very strange one.

2) I also had a incident where the 721 stopped responding to the remote. It would respond for certain buttons but not others. For exampled the guide button worked but I could not navigate in it.

Soft reboot cleared both of these issues up.

I've noticed two issues:

1. This one may have been there all along but I sure don't remember it. When I first turn on the 721 Blinky comes up in the corner for a split second. Something else does too but Blinky always gets my attention. I turned Blinky off through the menus. Being able to do that is one of the things I like about the 721 over the 5xx series.

2. Yet another timer issue. I set a weekly timer Sunday night for PBS at 10:30 pm. For some unknown reason the timer fires off randomly during the week at 10:30 pm rather than restricting itself to 10:30 pm on Sunday only.

Reboots have not cured this pecuiarity. Neither has it been solved by deleting the timer and then setting the timer once again. 'Tried that twice. Most odd.

Best regards,
Charles

 

[Big Bob]

1. This one may have been there all along but I sure don't remember it. When I first turn on the 721 Blinky comes up in the corner for a split second. Something else does too but Blinky always gets my attention.

It has done this for a long time. Maybe since the begining

 

[JoeM]

721 Problems

Haven't really experienced those problems, but was wondering if anyone has had their hard drive reimage? Last week in early morning hours while watching satellite the local channels went down, at the same time both of my receivers required resetting and the message on the hard drive screen read Creating new image for HD, at that point I knew my HD was being reformatted and all programming info, saved programs etc were wiped clean. Of course technical says there was no relation to loosing the local channels and data on HD. Was just wondering if anyone els had experienced similar problems. I'm a newbie here, thanks.

 

[Unthinkable]

They are not "idiosyncracies". They are BUGS. Defects. Problems. Quality issues. (That, but for the grace of something, I have not suffered from.)

All the same thing at the end of the day. I call them idiosynchracies since they are very minor issues in the grand scheme of things and I've only had the program guide problem happen to me a few times. Quick reboot and it was as good as new. Slow motion, frame advance, skip forward, and skip backwards have always seemingly had issues from a smooth video standpoint. I still get black screens with no video at times when I change channels and still hear audio dropouts a few seconds in at times when I playback recorded events. Some of these bugs have been around for a long, long time.

 

[maokh]

My personal favorite bug is when I scheduled a particular primetime show, and it never stopped recording. I got home the next day and found an 18 hour recording -- still going of course.

Or the times when shows don't ever record, the wrong one is recorded, etc.

Or how about when I try to record "The Biggest Loser", an hour and a half show, and it never will record longer than an hour. I have yet to see the ending of that show over the last 3 weeks.

Although its ok for my second TV, its certainly not a trustworthy product. I'd expect this from a beta product, but not a production device where i'm actually charged a service fee.

If any programming was very important to record, id likely go out and buy a VCR and connect it to my 811 -- at least the auto-tune works for me.

 

[bcshields]

I've been having remote-guide issues as well. I've found I've had more problems when i drop below 45 hours remaining on my PVR. A couple reboots and some clearing of the hard drive and the little 'temper tantrums' as the lil missus calls them, are gone.

 

[mrplow]

My 721 started taping the same show twice, at the same time, when it only has one timer. This happens on Sundays. This thing seems to have trouble with that day. It tapes shows that have Sunday timers on other days of the week also.

 

[blackarrow]

My 721 started taping the same show twice, at the same time, when it only has one timer. This happens on Sundays. This thing seems to have trouble with that day. It tapes shows that have Sunday timers on other days of the week also.

Same here. I have three timers Sunday evening on PBS for 10:30, 11, & 11:30. These represent my weekly Britcom fix.

The 10:30 timer is particularly pesky; being completely unpredictable and seemingly random on when it will fire during weeknights.

I have troubles with the other two timers as well but not nearly as much.

What I have done so far:

1. Completely deleted and reset those timers.
2. Did a reboot (actually several for other reasons like yellow card swap)
3. Deleted and reset Sunday timers again.

Still the problem persists.

Good luck,
Charles

 

[blakjak]

I also noticed that when you get below 45 hours remaining on the PVR that the 721 becomes more flakey than usual! Clear up some space and the problems appear to go away.

I have experienced the guide not responding/appearing problem as well. The skip back problem is fairly new also (always skips back to the same frame, however, I can rewind further back than the skip back allows me to). For me, both only started after a recent software update (and I use the term update very loosely).

 

[mrplow]

Our PVR can't handle anything under 50 hours. It becomes very sluggish. The remote stops working. It is especially bad if you are listening to a Sirius channel and a timer executes.

 

[Big Bob]

I haven't had more than 30 hours or so in over a year. I have had it under 10 hours remaining many times. Haven't had any problems that I can relate to recording space.