L107 - increased number of lockups/freezes

[steveT]

I've had a large increase in lock-ups on the 721 since the L107 download (I hadn't had time to check dbstalk.com the last few weeks, but had expected to see more people reporting the same, which doesn't seem to be the case...)

The problems: I'll be watching a recording, or live TV, or sometimes using the FF/Rew/skip functions, and all of a sudden it just freezes up, requiring a reboot. I've had timer events scheduled overnight, then checked them in the morning to find the recording in 2 seperate parts, meaning the 721 rebooted itself during the recording.

From Aug 31 to the L107 download, I only had these types of problems very rarely, maybe once a month after it settled down after those first few days. But since the first day of the L107 download, it's been happening several times a week. Yesterday it was 3 times in one day.

Anyone else having these problems?

[rickwyo]

I have also experienced more problems since L 1.07. In my case, I get a lot of gray screens with an X in the middle. It usually reboots itself if I wait a minute or so.

[sampatterson]

I have had just the opposite with 107, only once or twice has it rebooted since I got it and had it happen while I was watching something. Before it happened around once a week.

Sam

[Bill D]

Originally posted by rickwyo
I have also experienced more problems since L 1.07. In my case, I get a lot of gray screens with an X in the middle. It usually reboots itself if I wait a minute or so.

I had this happen the other day, also on Saturday the receiver locked up and I had to do a re-boot
L107 has definetly been more stable though

[MarkA]

"In my case, I get a lot of gray screens with an X in the middle. It usually reboots itself if I wait a minute or so."

I don't have a 721, but I'll assume if you have a mouse you can move the X, right?

That's the X Server with nothing running on it. Your problem is: why is nothing running on it? Echostar's user interface software almost certainly crashed. The fact you have that screen just tells you that neither Linux nor XFree86 (I don't know what X they're using, but I'm assuming XFree86) crashed. Not that they do you much good without the interface software... But it should tell you something about the stability of Linux, that not even Echostar can mess up!

[Bob Haller]

I have had 3 crashes I know of in the last week, and my wife reports shows in pieces. I am using the 508 and recoding all cant miss show on all boxes. Lately its been mostly reruns anyway.

The 721 is more stable than the DP, but thats not a endorsement of quality. The 508 is great right now, I hope frame advance doesnt hose it.

I havent seen a X will ask Jen, she at work right now..

[Bob Haller]

Well my 721 bugged out again tonight. I was taping the news, and paused it after I got the part I wanted. I tried to go to PVR to stop recording. Things got real sluggish, error message said loading data. Locked up a minute or so later it came up, I told it stop recording, I dont think it did. The screen went black except for the window of the stalled image.

I powered it off with the remote waited a few minutes and its ok except for its normal stutter. Supringsly it did stop recording. BTW my wife reports its recording shows all by itself. Could it be a tivo?Guess not.

Maybe it SHOULD BE:(

Edited the rest of the nasty commebnts myself.:(

[Filip1]

Bob
I have read many of your posts and I know you have had many problems with your 721. I own 5 dish pvrs so i certainly have seen my fair share of problems. I have a 721 and it is very stable. Since the first week I had it I have been rebooting it (by holding in the front panel button for 7 seconds) once a day. While this seems like a pain, I believe it helps.
If this doesn't help I think you should call Dish and get a replacement unit. I, like many others, have done this several times(with my 501's) and it has worked out quite well. In my experience Dish really does stand behind their pvrs. They may be buggy on occassion, but they do stand behind them. Why continue to suffer with a defective unit. Good Luck!

[Bob Haller]

Problem is Jen has nearly 70 HOURS of shows on this thing. I mentioned returning it she flipped out saying I should dub it ALL before sending it back. I will be buying a cases of tapes today, and have to babysit the thing while its dubing.

I suggested she quit recording on it and try watching her inventory. That would be OK, the 508 works great. But the DP is hosed as we all know.... So I guess I will be taping to VCRs:( she doesnt like that at all.

Then too the E refurb department is a JOKE:(

Over the last few years they have sent me system warranty receivers MOST of which are WORSE than the one I sent back:( Got 2 which were DOA!

Now I have a problem with getting someone elses recycled castoffs.....

It would be FINE if the refurbs worked.

A couple came in looking beat with scratched cases and one was dirty.

What kind of repair department does that indicate?

[steveT]

I've seen the gray screen as well, maybe on about 10-20% of the lockups requiring reboot. What's strange about this thread though is how some people are experiencing more lockups with L107, while others are experiencing less. And since there doesn't seem to be a pattern to the freezes, I don't know how the Dish S/W people are going to be able to track this down.

You'd also think that every dish employee in their software group would have a 721 at home too, for their own personal use, thereby seeing these kinds of bugs for themselves. Does anyone know if Dish does this?

[Bob Haller]

Originally posted by steveT
I've seen the gray screen as well, maybe on about 10-20% of the lockups requiring reboot. What's strange about this thread though is how some people are experiencing more lockups with L107, while others are experiencing less. And since there doesn't seem to be a pattern to the freezes, I don't know how the Dish S/W people are going to be able to track this down.


Ahh hate to be negative and all but doesnt this comment sound familiar?

WHERE have I heard this before?

[Bill D]

Originally posted by Bill D


I had this happen the other day, also on Saturday the receiver locked up and I had to do a re-boot
L107 has definetly been more stable though

This happened again this morning, I went to go turn on my receiver on the front panel, and before I touched it the record light went out (may have been the end of the show not sure) and I turned the receiver on and notcied the grey screen with X in the center..
Maybe this is some sort of new game, and the X is the crosshair:)

[rickwyo]

Originally posted by steveT
I've seen the gray screen as well, maybe on about 10-20% of the lockups requiring reboot. What's strange about this thread though is how some people are experiencing more lockups with L107, while others are experiencing less. And since there doesn't seem to be a pattern to the freezes, I don't know how the Dish S/W people are going to be able to track this down.


For me, there is a pattern. Every time I have seen the gray screen crash, I had erased a recorded program in the last 60 seconds. It doesn't happen every time I erase a program, but I haven't seen it in any non-erase scenario. My 721 may be a little unusual in that I have a large number of short recording (5 to 20 minutes) stored on it. My free space is usually between 50 and 65 hours.

[Bill Sanders]

I have experienced PVR problems too.

My 501 has been replaced 5 times. 2 of the 5 were dead on arrival. The others all have the same problem. I will be channel surfing and they just lock up. IT's mostly during a channel change and never happens if I am doing nothing with the remote.

I just bought a 508 and it does the same thing, though less often!

Can it be my dish? I get over 100 signal strength on both sats.

Bill

[mkovacs]

I find the 721 crash/lockup very interesting since I am not having any problems after the download of 1.07.
I wonder if the problems folks are having is related to bit errors occuring during the download of a new software version? Unless the unit uses the telephone connection ack/nak packets there is no way for the unit to request a retransmit of packet with errors. (except maybe abort the download and restart).
Someone who has more experince with the one-way SAT downloading may be able to answer this.

BTW I really do like the PVR features, changed the way I watch TV.

Marty

[steveT]

I thought that the when the unit rebooted, there was some kind of check done to make sure that the version of S/W that's loaded is correct, and if not, it would download it again. There must be some kind of check done to make sure that the s/w that's loaded is exactly the right size (some kind of bit checking?)

On the other hand, when I downloaded L107, it only took about 10 minutes to download and then start itself up, while from reading the posts here, it sounds like it took some people more like 30-40 minutes.

[Bob Haller]

Mine went fast too. Is that a symptom?

[steveT]

Not sure; this thread started me wondering whether I missed some bits! (If that's even possible...)

[Big D]

There must be something to this X screen reboot, mine did it yesterday for the first time ever. The TV and the 721 were being ignored at the time when it happened, however a timer had just fired off two minutes earlier. After the auto-initiated reboot, the recording started again and all was well. The PVR menu showed two entries for the program that was interrupted, one 2 minutes and the other with the rest of the program.

To me, this X screen crash reminds me of a kernel panic crash in a Mac, could it be that the operating system itself is crashing and the firmware is causing it to reboot?

[Bob Haller]

We got another 2 part show yesterday. Now my pvrs are on UPS, we back up record most suff these days. My DP, recorded the show fine in one piece. The 721 had 2 pieces with a bit missing. Both are on the SAME SW64, same UPS, so whatever is happenng isnt power or signal related.

Boith of these sit side by side at my primary tv.

I notice the fairly long reboot time. The manual says a futuire upgrade will shorten this. Has this occured? Or is this length going to get trimmed someday?

[steveT]

I had this "X" screen crash again yesterday. I was watching a previously recorded show. I also had timer PVR events set up. The first event was a half hour, scheduled to end exactly at the half hour. Then two more timers were to fire, at exactly the half hour (no minutes early or late on either timer start). At exactly the half hour mark, when the transitions between timers should occur, and while watching a 3rd PVR event, it just crashed and went to the grey "X" screen.

Bob, what advantage do you get from having a UPS on the system? I've thought about it before; is it just protection from power glitches or outages? Do you think there could be an issue with 721 stability related to minor fluctuations in household power?

[Big D]

I don't believe power has anything to do with this issue, however good power is always a wise thing to have with any electronics, not just a 721. UPS systems smooth out the power somewhat, but mostly they provide a battery float to allow a manual shutdown of your electronics in case of a power failure instead of having the box abruptly shut off as if the power cord was pulled from the wall. I personally use a Monster Power power conditioner on my electronics that provide the cleanest possible power, yet I still got a X screen crash, so power fluctuations is not a part of this.

[Bob Haller]

I added the UPS because we get tons of short outages and the reboot time of 4 minutes is tough to take. It doesnt appear to help this issue but it did for awhile help the DP, till the latest software hosed it.

I figure good solid power cant hurt and might help. They really should try to shorten the reboot time. Nothing worse than not seeing your program while green bars creep across the screen or your pvr does its self setup.

[Scott Greczkowski]

Just for the record, I just had one of the lockups and reboots.

Last night the only thing set to record was WWE RAW on TNN, As it was recording I was watching it, all went fine. After Raw was done I turned off my TV and went to bed.

Today after visiting family and having other family visit us to see the new baby I went to watch my 721. The picture on the screen was frozen video from TNN yet the sound from TNN was playing fine.

I tried channeling up and down to change channels and I got black screens (although the info for the channels showed up fine) I selected various channels from the guide and still no sound or video from any channel. I even went into the menu and checked my receivers tempature it was at 102 degrees.

I then went and kept flipping through channels when the 721 rebooted, the Grey X Windows Boot screen popped up and then went to the regular 721 boot screen.

All has been running fine since then.

This is my first known lockup of the 721 with the new software.

[Bob Haller]

Apparently this isnt so rare as originally believed. At one point folks here thought I was the only one. Thats not a good feeling... Although I am sorry you have the problem, wish no one did...