Unknown Record Channel 77? Unable to tune DFW CH 5 tonight

[welchwarlock]

I keep having more and more problems with this device.

Tonight, in the DFW area, I could not get it to tune Channel 5, NBC to watch Las Vegas in HD. I tries several times, during the hour to see if it would magically start working. The screen was always black. All the other OTA HD channels tuned properly, but NO to Channel 5, with its signal strength of 120. I had to switch to my "MyHD" PC tuner card to get the channel tuned so I could watch the show in HD.

After the show, I wanted to watch a show on another channel, and no matter which channel I selected, Over the Air, or Satellite, I got "Unknown Record" for the title, and channel "77" for the channel number.

I have not re-booted, because I have a recording going on at the moment (I hope it store OK, and I don't loose everything) I am sure rebooting it will make it better, but I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DO THAT!

PLEASE GET THIS THING FIXED!

[Rovingbar]

Welchwarlock, you've inspired me to join. I've been browsing this forum since we installed our 921 two weeks ago. On this forum I've read about 0 Sec recordings, and I've found that we have several of them. I also read somewhere that a Dish CSR told a member that a specific channel was to blame. I thought that was just smoke until checking back through a week of recordings.

We had 5 bad programs from DFW affiliate NBC Channel 5 that show up as 0 Sec recordings. We've successfully recorded 11 HD programs on the other channels. I caught it in the act of recording an infamous 0 Sec recording the other night. I was trying to watch a program while it was recording and got a black screen. I didn't notice if it said Channel 77. Anyway, Channel 5 stayed black for several hours. I fixed it by rebooted the unit by holding down the power button.

I've also noticed that FOX HD broadcasts seem to be 4:3 programs zoomed in and cropped. I've been fiddling with settings for a week trying to figure out if the receiver is doing it or if it is the broadcast. The discussion on Fox sending 480p makes me think it is the broadcast, but I don't know how to check it.

Jeff

[erasmu]

I am not sure what the problem is, but I also noticed that tonight it was only on channel 5 NBC. The other OTA stations were working fine.

[alan s]

Apparently, channel 5 made a change in their equipment in the last week and many people have reported problems. This fix has worked for most:
Delete all previously scanned digital channels.....save.....rescan and then save. For some reason, just rescanning without deleting all first, does not work.
Unfortunately, many people are also having problems with channel 11 and rescanning has not worked for it.

[Allen Noland]

Apparently, channel 5 made a change in their equipment in the last week and many people have reported problems. This fix has worked for most:
Delete all previously scanned digital channels.....save.....rescan and then save. For some reason, just rescanning without deleting all first, does not work.
Unfortunately, many people are also having problems with channel 11 and rescanning has not worked for it.

You may also want to Power down the unit after deleting the current channels by unplugging the power for a couple of minutes. After powering backup, rescan your channels.

[rkwak]

I've had many of the same Unkown Record Channel 77 error messages in connection with timer misfires. I live in the LA area, so at least in my case it's not related to channel 5.

[welchwarlock]

An Update:

Well, abut 20 minutes after the Red light went off, I rebooted the system. The recording it was making was not saved, so the wife is pissed at me for losing her show. :( Instead of complaining to Dish network, i get to take the blame. :mad:

Now that it has a fresh reboot, channel 5 tuned properly.

Robert Cook

[dishbacker]

I was having some adventures with FOX and CBS on Sunday just before the football games. I went into the Add Local screen, did a Manual Add, re-entered the ATSC Channel Number (19 for CBS-11 and 35 for FOX-4) after a few seconds it got channel locked and then a few more seconds got it acquired with an 80-90 range signal. On each one I did a save, checked the newly added channel on the summary screen, and selected save. Then, the channels started tuning properly again.

I haven't tried NBC-5 recently (only watch ER on Thursday Nights), but ER from last thursday recorded just fine. I know they recently added 5-2 for weather radar but that was some time back.

[BobMurdoch]

Many have reported these kinds of problems when your local broadcaster tinkers with the OTA HD signal. At the first sign of these problems, do the reboot procedure.

Yes, E* is to blame for not dealing with the change well, but they are not totally at fault as the broadcasters make changes.

[Mark Lamutt]

One way you'll see the Unknown Record problem is if you have your 921 tuned to an OTA channel and in standby mode when an OTA timer fires. At that point until the end of the event recording, if you turn your 921 on, you'll get a black screen with only the 77 UKN Record banner. The way around this is to make sure your 921 is tuned to a satellite channel before putting it into standby.

[dishbacker]

There used to be an old, old bug of leaving a channel on OTA-HD before standby at night and it causing problems after the nightly reboot (can't remember if it caused all of the OTA-HD channels to go away, or timers not to fire correctly, or something). It was a while back... anyway, always got in the practice of not leaving my 921 on an OTA-HD channel when not using it (especially, getting out of the way of OTA-HD timers).

[markcollins]

Warlock,I'm also in DFW area and had this problem.Just a Delete of OTA channels and rescan didn't help.It was suggested to me to:
1. Delete the OTA channels (all of them not just NBC)
2. Do a power cord reboot(wait the 3 min before plugging back in)
3. Rescan the DT OTA channels and save them

It worked for me and also I was having a reception problem with CBS all of a sudden and it seems to have cleared that too.(Fingers crossed as always with 921).

[zer0cool]

I solved my problem with NBC (5) last week with the method markcollins posted above, except I only deleted the NBC channels. Of course, it won't hurt to delete them all to be on the safe side.

[dishbacker]

Just a note on things to try the next time you see this issue. There used to be a requirement (This was like august/sept I think) that when you added a new OTA-HD channel, and when you got back to the summary screen, you needed to put a check next to the newly added channel(s) and then select save. This is what I did last week to fix my 2 channel problems... didn't have to do any reboots or deletions or rescanning of all my channels.

I think someone actually noted that in the manual it says something about putting a check next to the newly added station. Not sure what pile of worthless documentation my manual got put in though to very that.

Its much better than the past... as soon as a channel would come up with a not found or acquiring signal screen, the OTA-HD database entry for that channel would get corrupted and you would have to delete and re-add it. That got really old. At least now it will keep trying to tune that channel... and try again when you come back to that channel.

[Rovingbar]

One way you'll see the Unknown Record problem is if you have your 921 tuned to an OTA channel and in standby mode when an OTA timer fires. At that point until the end of the event recording, if you turn your 921 on, you'll get a black screen with only the 77 UKN Record banner. The way around this is to make sure your 921 is tuned to a satellite channel before putting it into standby.

That's an argument for leaving it on 24/7 if I ever heard one.

I'll bet that's what happened to me. I seem to remember turning on the 921 and getting a black screen. Changing channels seemed to work fine, but I just couldn't get channel 5.

[dishbacker]

Just an update on this. I was over at my dad's house tonight and he couldn't get 5-1 to tune... strength was showing 103-106. I came home 45 minutes later and was able to tune it just fine. Called him, and he was still not able to tune it, however, this time he was able to tune 5-2 and see the weather radar.

I haven't gone back in and done a rescan on ATSC 41 (NBC 5-1) to pickup the weather channel, just being lazy to have to go to antennaweb.org to find the ATSC channel number (sure wish the local channel's page would show both the ATSC and NTSC channel numbers!).

Think maybe NBC-5 (www.nbc5i.com) made a change to their PSIP info and any 921 revalidating that info is getting messed up?

Mark, does the 921 re-read the PSIP info? well, I guess it doesn't re-read it all since it is not automatically adding 5-2 to my system when it was added a month or 2 ago.

One other note, my Dad's box is from december, so it would be what seems to be the 3rd version of the hardware (Boot 150B, forgot the rest of the numbers). The issue could be specific to that set of boxes. If everyone would post their Boot/Flash/Version info we could see if there is a trend or not.

[Mark Lamutt]

Yes, I think that this was caused by the station changing their PSIP info, and probably changing it incorrectly. We're dealing with a lot of stations right now with the 811 on this issue, and in a little while here, I have an announcement to post concerning the issue in the 811 forum. The announcement doesn't completely apply to the 921, but the root cause of the problem does.