Brick Bug finally got me

[mcbeevee]

After 6+ months of almost flawless performance, my HR20 finally bricked last night. :eek2: Tried to watch some recordings, but the same frame would display and none of the skip/forward keys would work. Tried a couple of RBR's, but it would always get stuck on "Step 1 of 2...checking satellite settings". Rolled back from 0x13d to 0x134, and tried a few more RBR's and power-downs, but it never gets past "Step 1". Do I have any options other than reformatting the hard drive? :nono:

[LameLefty]

During your trouble-shooting did you unplug the box and unscrew the coax connections and just let it sit for 10 minutes before reconnecting and trying again?

[Clint Lamor]

This post will be moved to the normal HR20 forum.

My suggestion would be to exit out of that section ( you can hit exit or menu) and go to the signal meters and see if you have any signal strength. Sounds like what happened to me over the weekend. Had to swap out my switch to fix the issue.

[veryoldschool]

I would add that this isn't a "brick" condition.
Since this will power up, it isn't a brick.

[mcbeevee]

During your trouble-shooting did you unplug the box and unscrew the coax connections and just let it sit for 10 minutes before reconnecting and trying again?
I unplugged it before I left for work this am. Will unhook the coax connections when I get home. After hooking back up, I will cross my fingers and power up. :)

[veryoldschool]

I unplugged it before I left for work this am. Will unhook the coax connections when I get home. After hooking back up, I will cross my fingers and power up. :)
I have no idea what removing the coax would do to affect this. Pulling the power cord is one thing, but the coax makes no sense.

[mcbeevee]

Since I'm not using a multiswitch, that can't be the problem. My H20 is still getting good signals, but I will double-check the HR20 signals.

[LameLefty]

I have no idea what removing the coax would do to affect this. Pulling the power cord is one thing, but the coax makes no sense.

Static charges can build up in the cabling (especially if the lines aren't properly grounded). Voltage conditions at the connectors have been known to prevent some receivers from properly resetting. I had an old RCA receiver circa '97 or so that would have that issue from time to time. Merely pulling power wasn't enough.

[veryoldschool]

Since I'm not using a multiswitch, that can't be the problem. My H20 is still getting good signals, but I will double-check the HR20 signals.
If you have a good signal coming in for the 101 SAT, it shouldn't be a "feed" problem [which would be the most likely cause].
If the receiver "hangs" where you say, it can be a hard drive problem. This isn't what you want to hear, but this is the reason for being able to do a front panel reformat.
If you can exit out with the front panel [new to me but hey I like it], you might try to get into the setup menu & go to the reset. If you select "reset defaults" you should be able to save your recordings, if it works. If it doesn't work, you might as well go for the reset everything, as it will also clear out the memory chip along with the drive.
If I had to go through all of this, I would also afterwords, do a front panel reformat, since it wouldn't hurt & could ensure the disk is clean. Then I would have the best change of all the "glitches" being cleared out. FWIW

[veryoldschool]

Static charges can build up in the cabling (especially if the lines aren't properly grounded). Voltage conditions at the connectors have been known to prevent some receivers from properly resetting. I had an old RCA receiver circa '97 or so that would have that issue from time to time. Merely pulling power wasn't enough.
Thank you. "I see said the blind man, who picked up his hammer & saw". I couldn't see where the voltage came from, but my dish is on a pole mount. :)

[LameLefty]

Thank you. "I see said the blind man, who picked up his hammer & saw". I couldn't see where the voltage came from, but my dish is on a pole mount. :)

Yeah, grounding is fun. :) For better or worse, my dishes have always been mounted to masonry. At my current house it's a brick wall and at a previous house (when I had that old RCA receiver) my old 18" dual-LNB was mounted to a masonry column that supported the end of my wrap-around front porch. The land sloped, so the dish was mounted at the top of a 7 or 8 foot column, yet still just below the level of the porch floor. I grounded the cabling with a heavy-gauge grounding rod, but the soil in this area is very rocky and topsoil isn't deep - you hit bedrock in about 18" - 36" most places. We got the rod several feet in, as I recall, but certainly not to the recommended depth. Up on that hill, we also got some pretty steady winds sometimes, and when it was dry there was always a chance of static charges building up on the dish. The problem I had with the old RCA box was that occasionally one of the 700's channels wouldn't tune in and it would interfere with NFL ST. I'd try to unplug the box to reset it (back before receivers had reset buttons) but that never worked. Someone somewhere suggested the possibility of static so I disconnected the RG6, unplugged the box for a few minutes and then reconnected. Bingo. :) Fortunately I never had to do that more than a few times but still, it's stuck in my head as a last-ditch troubleshooting kind of thing.

[veryoldschool]

Yeah, grounding is fun. :).
It's alway the last thing you think of. :D

[Tom Robertson]

Let see, will boot to the software loader. Can force a software download. and is booting the release software too, based on where you indicated its getting to. But gets stuck as it checks the satellites.

So we know that tuner 1 is working, or a d/l can't happen.
So maybe if you swapped satellite inputs or take out #2? BBCs?

Cheers,
Tom

[Ken S]

If you have a network cable plugged in..unplug it and try a reboot.

[mcbeevee]

I could not access the menus from the locked screen, so I gave up and tried the reformat. The red light never came on, but after about 10 minutes, it started working! :D All of my recordings & settings were cleared, but I'm just happy it is alive again!! Would be nice to bootup with some diagnostics on the screen, so that you can tell if anything is happening. Thanks for all the suggestions...I'm sure one of them brought it back to life. :)

[veryoldschool]

I could not access the menus from the locked screen, so I gave up and tried the reformat. The red light never came on, but after about 10 minutes, it started working! :D All of my recordings & settings were cleared, but I'm just happy it is alive again!! Would be nice to bootup with some diagnostics on the screen, so that you can tell if anything is happening. Thanks for all the suggestions...I'm sure one of them brought it back to life. :)
Since you've "bitten the bullet", you might as well go in and do a "reset everything". It can help the long term, & can't hurt you any more than you've gone through.

[bret4]

About 2 months ago I couldn't get my HR20 to start up. Tried everything, reset, and unpluging it and all. Kept trying and it came back to life after unpluging it and pluging it back in for about the 4th time. It has worked fine from then on. I have reformated it too after that time.

Not a good feeling when that happens. Just wanted to give you some hope that you may get lucky and not have any more problems like that. Reset everything like veryoldschool said.