Signal Has Been Lost Message

[AED55]

I am intermittently receiving the following message after losing picture.

"The satellite signal has been lost. Signal acquistion is in process please wait"

It always indicates satellite 129 is at fault and the transponder displays as either 17, 26, or 27.

This happens on every channel I have tried. I have waited up to 15 minutes and the channel never comes back on, however if I move up or down a channel using the remote, the message goes away and I receive the new channel for about 10 minutes and then get the same error message.

There is no rain, snow or other obstructions to dish and I performed a hard boot using the power switch, and also a regular update, but neither corrected the problem.

I also checked the diagnostics screens and everything is green and the signal strength meter for satellite 129 is indicating a constant strength of 68.

Is there anything else I can try before calling DN customer service?

[Jim5506]

Possibly a bad lnb or cableing problem to the 129 lnb.

[RickDee]

The offending weather doesn't always have to be in your immediate area. If there is storm activity anywhere in your line of sight it can cause problems.

[Mertzen]

Do you have a dish 1000 or two 500s?

[finniganps]

THis happened to me and it was a bad LNB. Check the connections first.

[scoobyxj]

What channel are you looking at when it does this? About 90% of your national channels come off the 119* really the only thing you would be getting off the 129* is Columbus locals. Also unless your viewing a channel on the orbital that looses its lock your receiver will ignore it.

[bobukcat]

Possibly a bad lnb or cableing problem to the 129 lnb.

I agree, check all connections first. If you have diplexers to combine OTA and SAT together try removing them from the system and see if it makes any difference.

[ka8zay]

You didn't say what receiver but if you have a VIP series with an off air antenna hooked up to it, it will do that when ever the OTA signal cuts out also.

[Dave St]

check the signal strength on other transponders listed . if all are around 50 or higher it'sprobably a fitting or other cable issue.

[AED55]

Sorry it took so long to update my OP. This morning, before calling DN CS, I tried a hard boot one more time. It went through the process of finding the signals as usual it found them all, and then I got a screen I had never seen before. A message came up that said it was upgrading the guide and it would take about 5 minutes. After it finished this process I have had no further problem.

Not sure what really solved the problem, just hope it doesn't return.

Thanks for all the replies and advice.

[bobukcat]

Sorry it took so long to update my OP. This morning, before calling DN CS, I tried a hard boot one more time. It went through the process of finding the signals as usual it found them all, and then I got a screen I had never seen before. A message came up that said it was upgrading the guide and it would take about 5 minutes. After it finished this process I have had no further problem.

Not sure what really solved the problem, just hope it doesn't return.

Thanks for all the replies and advice.

The "Downloading Guide Data" screen is expected behavior after a reboot so I wouldn't worry about that, I also wouldn't expect it to fix the problem, especially if you have a VIP receiver because it reboots itself every day (default is 5 AM).

[VacuumToob]

I have had a similar problem the last few days. Clear skies, no trees. When I call up the signal level meter it will be 98 for a while then drop to zero, then up to 70 then 50. I went out and realigned as best I could, listening to the beeping thru the window.

I checked connections. Seem ok. Just the standard definition channels, so the dish is a simple one with one LNb.

Location is VERY close to the ocean. Like 500 feet away.

This all started after a couple days of pretty strong winds.

Can an LNB go bad suddenly?

[jag_man653]

I've been having the same problem for quite some time. We nearly always watch recorded programs rather than live, and in the middle of something the popup will appear. I can make it go away and continue watching the recorded program by a few button clicks... something like looking ad system info or similar then clicking Done. However, sometimes the popup returns so quickly that it's unbearable... just have to turn it off and go read a book or something. I get the feeling that the interruption has nothing to do with what we are watching, but rather somthing that is currently being recorded. If I am correct, I fail to see the logic of this popup business. I would far rather see a ragged picture when I'm later watching it.


It is a VIP 722 system and I do have an OTA antenna attached. There is a single dish on the roof. Installation work order says it's a Dish 1000. My notes from the time say 5LNB.

I'm thinking the DirecTV van may soon return to my house. But since I've got another year on this contract, do you think I can get Dish to fix it? I spent time whith them on the phone several months ago and thought the diagnostics etc they guided me through had fixed it, but now it's back in spades. How can i get them to actually come to my house and fix it?

[jag_man653]

Forgot to mention: I'm getting 61, 105, and 52 on sats 110, 119, & 129 respectively, but 129 seems to get dropped once in a while while I'm doing the test. I think it must be a hardware problem.

[TSR]

I am intermittently receiving the following message after losing picture.

"The satellite signal has been lost. Signal acquistion is in process please wait"

It always indicates satellite 129 is at fault and the transponder displays as either 17, 26, or 27.

This happens on every channel I have tried. I have waited up to 15 minutes and the channel never comes back on, however if I move up or down a channel using the remote, the message goes away and I receive the new channel for about 10 minutes and then get the same error message.

There is no rain, snow or other obstructions to dish and I performed a hard boot using the power switch, and also a regular update, but neither corrected the problem.

I also checked the diagnostics screens and everything is green and the signal strength meter for satellite 129 is indicating a constant strength of 68.

Is there anything else I can try before calling DN customer service?



You could possibly run a checkswitch seeing as how you stated the weather is clear. Menu-6-1-1
takes you to the pointdish screen, select Check or Switch from the righthand side and then Test
at the bottom of the new screen. Let the test finish, exit out of all the menus and let it
re-acquire the satellite signal, possibly do Attention 330 Downloading Program Guide, hopefully
that will fix your problem.

[msalvail]

Mine was doing that as well and it turns out that it only happens when the tuner not being watched is on a local OTA channel. If I change that to a Dish channel, the problem disappears.