r22-100, jumpy live/recordings

[downrange]

I've had it for 1 yr+ and at least for playback/live tv it was fine until a couple dtv upgrades ago, starting exactly with their botched upgrade I think ~3 months ago. ever since then I can be watching live tv and it does this skipping thing (video only, audio is always fine) which is hard to describe but it's like I'm watching tv at a couple frames/s. the signal meter/full test indicates nothing's wrong.

after that upgrade, this started immediately but iirc it was only live tv - recordings I think were still ok and it didn't do it all the time. now with their last upgrade a couple weeks ago, it's much worse. this problem affects live tv + recordings and it happens 90%+ of the time.

if I watch a recording, often but not always it will start out with this halting/skipping video - if I open the playlist and press "play" again (resume same prog), video displays normally and I can ffwd ok. usually it will go for 35 - 50 minutes then seemingly by itself drops back into this halting/skipping video thing.

it seems if it starts out ok, almost always I can induce this behavior by hitting the fast adv button 2-3x - often using 1x doesn't induce the problem. what seems odd is that if I bring up the channel guide, the "manage recordings" guide, or "my playlist", the picture that gets resized into the little box in the upper-right *always* is unhosed video - i.e., this skippy problem is only full-screen. and sometimes I can fix live skippiness just by having the small pip brought up whereupon returning to full-screen it may run ok. but invariably while it runs ok, if I leave the tv going and come back an hour or so later, it's skipping again.

I unplugged the receiver overnight once and let everything reload - didn't help. I don't like messing with resets because I'm always afraid I'll lose all my recordings but does anyone have links for this or know what's the matter? I don't visit here often but scanned this forum back to july and don't think I saw anything on this which kind of seems hard to believe it's only me.

thanks.

[litzdog911]

Run the Built in Self-test (BIST) to try and repair your hard drive. To run the hard drive checks, please follow these steps:

* Reboot DVR via Menu -> Parental, Fav's & Setup -> System Setup -> Reset -> Restart Receiver
* When they see "Running receiver self-check" press select
* You will see "Entering Diagnostics Mode..."
* Select Advanced Tests Menu -> Hard Drive utilities -> Surface Test
* Warning: This process could take several hours to complete. You may want to run it overnight.

The good news is that every attempt is made to save programming. This is less destructive than a reformat all and could provide you with a more stable system if you are having problems that appear to be related to the hard drive.

[downrange]

thanks, I appreciate it.

but this problem started the instant following the dtv upgrade ~3 months ago - are you inferring their upgrade damaged my hdd somehow? I don't mean physical damage but something in how the dvr is recorded to?

also if it was the hdd, why would the pip video not suffer the same problem, or any of the audio (pip or full-screen)?

I'm a bit reluctant to do this procedure you advise if there's a risk of losing recordings - it's not that I don't trust you but would prefer to be sure there truly is no other option.

[litzdog911]

Yes, software updates can indeed trigger underlying hard drive issues. You've already done the "easy" reset stuff, so this is the next step. And yes, there's a slight risk you'll lose your recordings.

[downrange]

don't know what it means but it doesn't seem this method was required. but I'm still thankful you posted it because that's how I found out :)

after the dtv update a couple weeks ago which made the problem from the update a couple/few months ago much worse, I unplugged the dvr overnight and it went through the "#1/#2 starting up" thing, which fixed nothing. then I posted.

last night the dvr was essentially hosed, gray screen for channels, autonomously cancelling scheduled recordings, nothing at all would play back, etc.

so by then I didn't care if your steps ended up wiping out the entire hdd. but I guess because I use a universal remote, it didn't seem to be responding to my (repeated) "select" at the appropriate time - effectively all I ended up with was another "#1/#2 starting up" just like before.

for whatever reason though, this time my dvr now works 100%, all the post-updates probs are completely gone. I don't know if unplug/your steps cause different things to happen but w/o your very first step I'd prolly still have a piece of crap sitting on my shelf. thank you!

[litzdog911]

Good to hear. Keep us posted. Enjoy!