changing primary vs secondary receivers

[matty8199]

how difficult is it to change these? i've got two receivers on my account, one in the living room and one in the bedroom - directv has the bedroom listed as the primary and the living room as secondary, which isn't necessarily a problem except that i get messages and payment confirmations on the bedroom receiver. how much of a pain is it to flip them? is there any reason i should worry about doing it?

[Pink Fairy]

It is not very hard at all, an odd request I am sure the CSR will think. A momentary disruption and then everything comes back, should be easy as pie to do!

[kaysersoze]

It is not very hard at all, an odd request I am sure the CSR will think. A momentary disruption and then everything comes back, should be easy as pie to do!

Not completely true. The system that authorizes the access cards wants to have the reciever with the lowest access card # to be the primary. Sometimes this can cause frequent ext721 messages. This can be done by swapping the access cards and then re-pairing each to the other recievers.

Aside from that issue the main question may be what is more annoying, the messages on the receiver or the time spent waiting to get to a csr who can figure out how to help. Hope this helps.

[JLucPicard]

Not entirely familiar with the process (I don't work for D* so I could say I'm completely unfamiliar with the process), but I went through this a number of months ago, for what reason is escaping me at the moment.

I think they do some kind of cancelling of this, re-establishing that, etc. What I would be very wary of at this point is if you are grandfathered in with your programming packages that something they need to do to accomplish the switch doesn't automatically land you in the new programming packages scheme.

[AnonomissX]

It's a major pain in the A$$ to do in the software, and can cause problems for all receivers. And, this also can cause a problem with out of date lingering sports subscriptions that were on the account not letting the rep mirror the other receivers, or, turn your programming back on untill a supervisor hits the computer with a VERY big mallet.

Leave well enough ALONE.

[Steve Robertson]

I went through this last night with a replacemebnt receiver she shut down all the programing and brought it back up again it took about 10-15 minutes. I say don't bother

[dodge boy]

If they are both the same receivers IE DVR's, or HD, or Basic switch them, if not upgrade the bed room unit and the older one (lower card number) becomes the main one. (Sometimes the obvious is overlooked)

[jpl]

This may be overly simplistic (someone tell me if this won't work), but can't you just physically swap the receivers? Just move the living room receiver to the bedroom, and vice versa. As long as they're the same type, you shouldn't notice a difference when operating them in both rooms. Yeah it won't match what's on your account (you'll have to remember that the receiver that's listed as your living room receiver is really now in your bedroom - but I think you can even update the description for your receivers without much of a problem - I did it on their website some time ago because they didn't have the descriptions correct). Any reason why anyone would think that this won't work?

[Tom Robertson]

Not completely true. The system that authorizes the access cards wants to have the reciever with the lowest access card # to be the primary. Sometimes this can cause frequent ext721 messages. This can be done by swapping the access cards and then re-pairing each to the other recievers.

Aside from that issue the main question may be what is more annoying, the messages on the receiver or the time spent waiting to get to a csr who can figure out how to help. Hope this helps.

This doesn't fit with my experience at all. In a mixture of HD and Sd only receivers, D* has consistently put an HD receiver as my primary or they couldn't subscribe me to HD. And i've never had a rash of ext721 messages?

To help me reconcile my experience with your statement, can you share how you know what you've said? Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Tom

[jediphish]

This may be overly simplistic (someone tell me if this won't work), but can't you just physically swap the receivers? Just move the living room receiver to the bedroom, and vice versa. As long as they're the same type, you shouldn't notice a difference when operating them in both rooms. Yeah it won't match what's on your account (you'll have to remember that the receiver that's listed as your living room receiver is really now in your bedroom - but I think you can even update the description for your receivers without much of a problem - I did it on their website some time ago because they didn't have the descriptions correct). Any reason why anyone would think that this won't work?

I move receivers around my house all the time, and there's a place on D*'s website where you can update the room locations.

[jpl]

If they are both the same receivers IE DVR's, or HD, or Basic switch them, if not upgrade the bed room unit and the older one (lower card number) becomes the main one. (Sometimes the obvious is overlooked)

Sorry, Dodge Boy, didn't see your posting before I put mine out there...

[NYSmoker]

This doesn't fit with my experience at all. In a mixture of HD and Sd only receivers, D* has consistently put an HD receiver as my primary or they couldn't subscribe me to HD. And i've never had a rash of ext721 messages?

To help me reconcile my experience with your statement, can you share how you know what you've said? Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Tom

I have the opposite an SD receiver is my primary and the HR20 is my secondary. The SD is a Tivo that is owned so maybe that has something to do with it but still it is primary and I have no problems getting HD.

[JeffBowser]

I've always wondered what difference it makes. I've moved receivers around, and my room location names make no sense, so I look at what's what on DirecTV's site, and I have no idea. Programming still comes and works as expected, so does it make any difference at all what's primary, and what's secondary, and if DirecTV knows the correct room location ? I can't for the life of me fathom why they need to know the room location, either.

[matty8199]

This may be overly simplistic (someone tell me if this won't work), but can't you just physically swap the receivers? Just move the living room receiver to the bedroom, and vice versa. As long as they're the same type, you shouldn't notice a difference when operating them in both rooms. Yeah it won't match what's on your account (you'll have to remember that the receiver that's listed as your living room receiver is really now in your bedroom - but I think you can even update the description for your receivers without much of a problem - I did it on their website some time ago because they didn't have the descriptions correct). Any reason why anyone would think that this won't work?

Ordinarily that would be the way to go, but I can't in this case because the one in the living room is an R15 and I want to keep the DVR there. The one in the bedroom is just a standard receiver that I plan on using my Media Center PC to control as a DVR...

[Tom Robertson]

I have the opposite an SD receiver is my primary and the HR20 is my secondary. The SD is a Tivo that is owned so maybe that has something to do with it but still it is primary and I have no problems getting HD.

I'm happy to believe they've fixed that restriction. :) It was very early in their HD support, 2001.

Cheers,
Tom

[jpl]

Ordinarily that would be the way to go, but I can't in this case because the one in the living room is an R15 and I want to keep the DVR there. The one in the bedroom is just a standard receiver that I plan on using my Media Center PC to control as a DVR...

I know this may be over-complicating it, but have you considered upgrading the receiver in the bedroom to an R15? Especially considering the fact that you're thinking of using the bedroom receiver as a DVR. When they did the free dvr offer (dvr4u2 promo code) I jumped on it - replacing a second, standard receiver, for an R15 (the second in my house). You pay no additional fees - since the DVR fee covers everything in your house, and you're already paying the second receiver fee, and installation is included. The only downside is that it extends your commitment period - it didn't bug me because I had just gotten my first R15 about 1 - 2 months before and extending it out by 2 months at that point didn't make much difference to me. I believe the promo code is still in effect (or you can give it a shot). Which means that you would get the DVR and full installation for free - you would have DVRs in both rooms, and your bill would be exactly the same as it is today.

Just a thought.

[jpl]

Actually, I just realized something. The reason you're not getting notifications on your R15 isn't because it's your second receiver (we started out with two standard receivers and we used to get notifications on both - not for payment or anything, but any messages that came down regarding my account would go to both). I THINK it's due to the fact that your living room receiver is an R15. I got my first R15 last June and I've yet to get ANY notifications on it. I don't think that service has been activated on that box yet. Just food for thought.

[kaysersoze]

This doesn't fit with my experience at all. In a mixture of HD and Sd only receivers, D* has consistently put an HD receiver as my primary or they couldn't subscribe me to HD. And i've never had a rash of ext721 messages?

To help me reconcile my experience with your statement, can you share how you know what you've said? Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Tom

I know this because I have to deal with it everyday. I am not saying this is a universal problem, just like all H20's don't have HDMI conflicts with every tv, this is not true for every situation.

I wish I could tell you why this is, but I'm not sure anyone knows. Also, there should not be any conflict with having a non-HD reciever as your primary. The only reason I can come up with for your issue is that a number of the troubleshooting steps for ext721 are the same as the actions used to change the primary reciever. I hope some of this makes sense.

[finaldiet]

I don't think it makes any difference. You can change room location on DTV web-site. I believe all info comes from sat. I had my R10 not connected for 450+ days and never had a problem.