What's happening to my OTA timers??

[smokey982]

Is anyone having any issues with OTA timers disappearing on their 622's? Now these are not weekly automatic timers or anything. But at the beginning of each week I go through the guide for the entire week and set timers to record shows I want to watch. I never have any problems with timers I set on the Satellite channels, but when I set timers on my OTA channels, they tend to disappear before they ever get recorded for some reason. I always look to see if they have been skipped for some reason but they have not. They appear as if the timers were never set in the first place.

For example, last Saturday I was flipping through the guide and noticed a new show, "Vampire Diaries", was starting this Thursday on CW and also the season premiere of "Supernatural". So I set timers to record both shows. Well then on Tuesday, I was flipping through the guide again making sure I didn't skip anything for this week and noticed the timers for these shows were gone. So I set the timers once again. And today (Thursday), I flipped through the guide, and once again the timers are gone.

Why is this happening?? Now that most of my locals are in HD through Dish (except CW & ABC), I don't use the timers for OTA very much anymore. But for these 2 channels I have too if I want to watch the shows in HD. Anyone else having this issue??

 

[8bitbytes]

I noticed on my 622 when my OTA signal dropped below a certain signal strength for a long enough period on certain channels, the timers set for those channels disappeared.

 

[smokey982]

That shouldn't be an issue for me. My signal on all channels is well above 85% and up to 98% on some.

 

[pabeader]

but what if the station experiences signal troubles?

 

[smokey982]

I guess it's possible, but it has also happened on other OTA stations in the past. It seems I've had this same problem trying to record Survivor in the past. Set the timer early in the week and check it again the day of the show and there's no timer there. Surely I'm not the only person having this problem?

 

[StanUbankit]

Is anyone having any issues with OTA timers disappearing on their 622's? Now these are not weekly automatic timers or anything. But at the beginning of each week I go through the guide for the entire week and set timers to record shows I want to watch. I never have any problems with timers I set on the Satellite channels, but when I set timers on my OTA channels, they tend to disappear before they ever get recorded for some reason. I always look to see if they have been skipped for some reason but they have not. They appear as if the timers were never set in the first place.

For example, last Saturday I was flipping through the guide and noticed a new show, "Vampire Diaries", was starting this Thursday on CW and also the season premiere of "Supernatural". So I set timers to record both shows. Well then on Tuesday, I was flipping through the guide again making sure I didn't skip anything for this week and noticed the timers for these shows were gone. So I set the timers once again. And today (Thursday), I flipped through the guide, and once again the timers are gone.

Why is this happening?? Now that most of my locals are in HD through Dish (except CW & ABC), I don't use the timers for OTA very much anymore. But for these 2 channels I have too if I want to watch the shows in HD. Anyone else having this issue??

I've been having this issue with my 622 since around March of 2009, I suspect it was an earlier software update. I think when you set a "record all new episode" ota timer, it gets deleted with the daily guide update. I had the same problem with several ota timers I set this past Monday, they weren't there Tuesday. The only workaround I can suggest is to set up the ota timers as "weekly" instead of "new episodes". This works most of the time, it's not perfect but when you need to use all three timers on a 622 that's the only solution I've seen. You can do a search for "622 ota timers" and see what that brings up. I'm kinda surprised more 622 users aren't affected & complaining, I guess most subs record off the sat timers and/or don't have ota hooked up. I had contacted Dish tech support but they weren't any help, they suggested (IIRC) that the problem was probably with my antenna.


http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-ne.../176227-ota-timer-scheduling-disappeared.html

Check out this thread from earlier in the year.

 

[ncted]

I have this problem. I have stopped using name-based recording for OTA. Using weekly or similar types of timers, seems to work fine.

Ted

 

[smokey982]

Sorry I haven't responded back yet. But I fixed my problem. I don't know the technical reason of why it happened, but I'm just glad it's fixed. But back when all the analog OTA channels were shut off, I think some of the locals changed around some how. I was still getting the channels but could not set timers. Actually, I could set the timers but they would disappear by the next day. So I went and deleted ALL my locals I had saved and did a rescan. Now it works perfectly.

 

[ncted]

Sorry I haven't responded back yet. But I fixed my problem. I don't know the technical reason of why it happened, but I'm just glad it's fixed. But back when all the analog OTA channels were shut off, I think some of the locals changed around some how. I was still getting the channels but could not set timers. Actually, I could set the timers but they would disappear by the next day. So I went and deleted ALL my locals I had saved and did a rescan. Now it works perfectly.

That works for me temporarily, but I don't like having to do that every few days. Please let us know if the problem returns.

Ted

 

[2D Bob]

Failure of OTA timers to remain fixed on the 622 has been an issue for me and others since a software upgrade happened in the summer of 2008. Others here have told you about work arounds, such as setting programs to "weekly" but that still isn't how it is supposed to work, and with "once" and "new" failing, OTA timers have become a poor feature.

In my case, I have even had two new (refurbished) 622s since the original failure, and the problem instantly appeared on them too. In spite of this, Dish officially still denies it ever being reported, probably because it's not a universal problem for all 622 users.

I have conjectured that possibly two factors might be at play here: 1) Most DVR users never use OTA timers, and get all their content off the satellites. 2) The problem is somehow limited only to specific areas, and not then entire country, perhaps being related to a software problem in how the region of the local receiver is set.

I do know that OTA timers worked exactly like satellite timers at one time and then it all stopped for some of us. I'm in the Atlanta area.

 

[Teran]

Is anyone having any issues with OTA timers disappearing on their 622's?

I have been having this problem since the 6.22 software update. It could have happened earlier, but I really only use OTA timers during football season.

I also have a problem where searches often don't show the OTA channels in the results, which is possibly where the problem stems from. St. Louis PBS OTA works (there is no corresponding SAT channels for these), but other networks don't.

 

[JohnC]

I found the reason for the problem on a similiar thread in the Technical Discussions area:

"This to me is the cause of all the ota timer problems. In DISH's zeal to cover all different line of sight issues and all possible sat configurations , they didn't know that having multiple sats for hd locals would cause ota timer problems.

My name based recording features were gone on my ota timers when I had both 61.5 and 129 hooked up together for my locals, that could be had off of either 61.5 or 129 sats. Funny this doesn't affect the national sat channels in hd that can be had from either 129 or 61.5 sats. The name based recording still works on them regardless."

I had been searching for the answer to the problem for about a year. I receive the 61.5, 110, 119, and 129 satellites. Apparently the problem started when Dish duplicated the Atlanta HD locals on 61.5. Now I have to decide if I want to implement the solution. I will loose some sports networks from the multi-sport package and loose some ability to avoid rain fade - but that is not a big issue for me.