What the hell is wrong with 4:30 AM?

[Lyle_JP]

Okay, I am just sick of this bug. I own a 721, and I have been trying (unsuccessfully) to get this thing to record a show every weekday morning at 4:30. First, I tried the logical thing: a M-F timer. But I can count on it to fire less than once a week (out of ten days it fired one time). So, I deleted that one and set up five weekly timers for each day. Only one out of those five fired. So then I tried all one-time timers for a week. None of them recorded. :flaiming

I have rebooted this machine numerous times. It makes no difference. But what really confuses me is that, other than this one show, my 721 faithfully records everything else I ask it to record. It hasn't missed a timer in Primetime in over a year.

So, what is going on at 4:30 in the morning that makes my 721 not want to do its job? Is it lazy? Sleeping in? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[leemathre]

I don't know about 4:30, but I do know that my 721 gets an EPG update every morning at 4:00 A.M. I am up and watching television every morning at that time and I always make sure that my 721 is in standby at 4:00. At that time, I see the green and red lights flash a few times. Is it possilbe that E* staggers the times for the updates? Maybe in your area the update comes at 4:30 and interferes with recordings scheduled to start at the same time. Just a thought.

[Jacob S]

I agree thats usually when my EPG data downloads as well. I wish we could select when the EPG or other data downloads to the receiver just like you can with the 522.

[Chukee]

I had the exact same problem but at 12:30am. Called Dish and she put me through to the Advanced Tech support. We go through the software version and all the resets including unplugging the 721 for about 2 minutes and plugging it back in. I dont know what did it but it will hit the 12:30 timer everytime now.

She did ask me if anything had changed since it started missing the timer. I said no. But I forgot that I did plug it into a phone jack. Dont know if that caused the problem or not. But It works fine now.

[nuts4scuba]

I have a 4:30 M-F EST auto-tune that fires fine all the time. My 721 is on 24/7. I also have a 5:00 am auto-tune and then a 7:00 auto-tune all work fine.

[navy8ball]

try padding time up to 30 minutes and see what happens by starting time at 4am until 5am.

[garypen]

I have a 9am M-F auto-tune on my 721. About 1 in 5 times it will attempt to change the channel at 5 minutes before 9am. Normally, no big deal. But this is for the free period on TVJapan. If it tries to tune TVJ before the free period begins at 9am, it gives an error message that it is an unsubscribed channel, and fails.

I have no idea why it does this.

[Lyle_JP]

Well, I tried leaving my machine on all night last night and this morning I had my recording. It's lame, but it appears to be a successful workaround. I'll need to see if it works more than once to know for sure.