Black screen of death increasing.

[boylehome]

For the past two days my 921 is experiencing the dreaded BSOD. It generally occurs when I'm scanning between OTA and satellite channels. Upon onset, the View TV Banner is empty and it seems to remain for about 10 seconds. There is no audio or video when this occurs. If I change channels, the banner will reappear with correct channel information but there is still no audio or video, the channel changing becomes very sluggish. Putting the 921 in standby has no effect. Changing from HD to SD has no effect. I can bring up the menu and can select different functions. I can use the DVR and can view recored programming normally. Returning to OTA and/or satellite tuners remains BSOD. A lengthy power cord reboot does return the 921 to normal for a few hours then the BSOD returns.

Does anyone know the cause? Is there a cure? I'm thinking that there is something occurring within the tuners since other functions continue to work.

[Mark Lamutt]

Delete your OTA channels, power cord reboot, and then rescan your OTA channels. The BSOD (as you call it - really not a very accurate description if what's going wrong) is most likely being caused by something getting corrupted in your OTA channel file. By rebooting after you delete your channel list, you completely blow away the file, forcing a new one to be created from scratch when you rescan.

[boylehome]

I'll follow your instructions at this moment. I hope it helps.

[Mark Lamutt]

Let me know! :)

[Rodney]

I am experiencing the exact same problem as described by boylehome. I have deleted locals, power cord reboot and rescanned locals a number of times. The issue still returns. An example of when it is most prevalent is on Sunday afternoon when I am trying to watch two football games (no pip when HD is involved) when one is OTA and the other is a satellite channel. I can count on at least one lock up, and possible two, depending on the number of times a channel change occurs. This problem has existed quite some time for me although the number of channel changes required to produce this issue appears to have been significantly reduced since L188. According to a supervisor at Dish tech support this is a known issue.

[boylehome]

Mark, Having followed your directions, I haven't had any problems that was causing the BSOD. It's been several hours and there has been a lot of channel changing, etc. Thanks for the information.

[Rodney]

UPDATE

During todays round of channel changing I have noticed the following. Numerous channel changes between OTA channels will also cause the same problem. As channel changes increase, OTA to OTA and OTA to satellite, the system becomes more and more sluggish. I found that when this situation occurs if I change between satellite channels a few times the sluggishness experienced with OTA channels subsides. For me this appears to be an effective alternative to rebooting.