No Guide! Dishplayer owner who has tried it all. What next?

[DBSJedi]

I'm dealing with an annoyance. Over the last 4-5 days my Dishplayer 7100 (upgraded w/ 30GB Maxtor HD) decided to stop downloading the nightly guide, so if I want to schedule recordings, I have to manually do them now (no name-based recording functionality). If I click to search listings I get the 10-minute progress bar screen and the bar barely moves, then it resets back and starts crawling up, then freezes, then comes back to the main menu asking me to check listings to retrieve the updated list. Here's what I have done to try to remedy the problem:

Unplug power, plug in power, wait for green light to stop flashing, power up, try listings -> no good

Turn off power by unit, options 32768, lights blink, wait for green light to stop blinking, remove smart card 30 seconds, reinsert, wait for green light to stop blinking, power on, run through guided setup, check listings => no good

Restore original DP hardrive (8.7GB Seagate) w/ games and all the old software from 2001, power up, new software downloaded to original HD, check listings => no good

So Apparantly my harddrive is fine as the original factory harddrive did the same thing.

Also tried:

Check switch => signal verified
Signal on 119 = 85
Signal on 110 = 85 (same on transponder 29 where the guide is)

Tried the switch from my basic 2700 receiver and got the same behavior. I just cannot get the guide anymore for no good reason. If I press the listings button I have a whole grid of "no information" with just the channel numbers (no abbreviated channel names as before). If I go to the search listings area I get the progress bar download that moves so slowly and eventually just brings me back to the main menu asking me to search listings to download the guide.

I thought I was good last night when I did options 32768, but my scheduled timers are still there (I thought the options code was supposed to reset it to factory default and remove that stuff?). The 3am guide download proceeded with the exact same behavior as me trying to manually do it by going into the search listings area.

I called Dish tech support and the guy said signal is good, switches are good, no reason why I shouldn't be able to get the guide.

Dish wants me to buy a 510 for $99 plus $5/month subscription fee. My Dishplayer has no such monthly fee, so I am being very stubborn about going that route.

I don't have a landline telephone, so I can't even try a webTV 'fix'. Any ideas?

[finniganps]

Call Dish back again......I had problems similar to yours a few years ago with my 7100. It took a couple of calls to CSR's before they came to a solution. I never had another problem. Unfortunately, I don't remember how it was fixed, but you can get it fixed.

Bottom line, you have to find someone who is familiar with this problem - they are at Dish.

[Kerry High]

Did you try 7225000?

[DBSJedi]

I fixed it in an unorthodox way. I saw I still did not have a guide this morning (again). I made a clone of the original harddrive I pulled in 2001 (using the Dishplayer Drive Utility in the Yahoo group Dishplayer_Explorer) onto a smaller 8GB drive. This drive also did not receive the guide last night. Soo.. I play a game of Doom on the cloned drive (my original drive still had all that old stuff since I dusted it out of the closet). After I quit the game I got the last software update that removed all the games and changed the menu a bit. I pressed the listings button and saw I had guide data. I went to search listings and the pesky 10-minute getting info progress bar screen appeared (yet again). I waited seemingly forever and when it finished, searched listings again and boo-yah!! LISTINGS for 8 days!!!

I took this new happy clone and used the Dishplayer Drive Utils again to clone this clone onto the original 30GB Maxtor drive I was using. I put the Maxtor back on the DP and it looked great. Now I just need to see how the 3am guide download takes to the Maxtor and I will be good to go.

Would've thought a game of Doom would initiate the right changes to fix the disk? The receiver said it was getting the software updates yesterday, but the games were still there (although I didn't try to play them).

Glad I kept the original Dishplayer harddrive untouched in the closet all these years. Since I used a clone for the updates I still have that drive in its original 2001 software condition. I better keep it that way in case I need it again.

[DBSJedi]

Did you try 7225000?

Yup and 32768. No dice, until I did a bunch of cloning to coax an old software version to start fresh again. :)

Glad that worked. I don't have a land-based telephone and if I had to do the Jenny code, I wouldn't be able to call WebTV to get it (so I would have to bother a friend with DishNetwork)

[mattyro]

I think it is safe to say if you and I reversed roles, my Dishplayer would still not work. That was an awful lot of work. it was also a lot of creative thinking. It was also a miracle you still had the orig drive!!! I would have kept it but eventually would have said "when will I EVER use this thing again"? At that point it would have made its way back into the earth from whence it came. Congratulations!! Love those Dishplayers!! Really-they look good, perform great and when working as designed are the best PVR ever made. There. I said it.