Quirky issues with my 508

[peallen]

I have been having some strange problems with my 508 recently. They are as follows:

1. Sometimes I will be changing channels and in the middle it will just stop and my remote will not do anything, if I hit the power button on the receiver nothing happens, I have to hold in the button for a second and I guess it goes through a rebooting process and after that it will work. This happens pretty frequently.

2. The other day while I was changing channels the picture quit on me but I could still hear sound, the guide would come up and the display of the channel and the title of the program would show but nothing else, just sound. I had to "reboot" the reciever again.

3. Just yesterday on my remote the "TV/Video" button would not work, I could change channels and everything worked just not the TV/Video Button. I fixed this by just turning off the receiver from the remote.

Does this sound normal? My 508 is only a few months old and there have been no problems up until recently. I even switched the remotes thinking this was the issue, but it doesn't seem to matter. Thanks for your help!

[Steve Mehs]

Hey Peallen welcome to DBSTalk :hi:

I was just about to post a new thread explaining my 501 problems of late, but your first two points happened to me this very afternoon. I experienced the remote freeze for the first time 2 days ago, it happened again today when I was channel surfing in between Fox News and KTLA. For those of you who haven't had this problem (yet), no, it's not bad remote battaries, I tried 3 different remotes, the platinum, the blue button and my universal remote for my A/V receiver.

I experienced the no video problem also this morning. At first I thought some how my one of my svhs cables worked its's way out of either the TV, 501 or A/V receiver, but I was able to see the browse and title banners.

I must confess, for the past few weeks I have not been very happy at all with my 501. It crashes quite a bit when accessing Open TV apps, and sometimes when I'm just flipping the when it gets to 9500 it just shuts it self off. Now that Dish Home is available, (which also crashes a lot) there is no need for channel 9500. I wish E* would just get rid of it!

And on top of it all, for the first time ever, something happened to one of my recordings, it either deleted itself or the timer never went off (I went to bed early so I don't know which). Yesterday afternoon I was talking to my uncle and he told me about a show called Boomtoon. Immediately I went to the EPG and set a weekly timer for later day at 10:00PM on ch2. I know it was set because I remember seeing the clock in the EPG. I turn it on this morning and no Boomtown :mad: When I go into the Timer Management menu sure enough theres a 'Sun Weekly 9:59 PM WGRZ PVR' entry.

On top of that I've been having some other problems. Initial problems started a few days BEFORE my unit got 167. My 501, which ever since I got it has been flawless, and now... I haven't experienced the third problem you list, but I never use the TV/video button

[peallen]

Hey thanks for the follow up, the only reason I use the TV/Video button is so I can get my local stations off my antenna. I sure wish they would add Memphis locals!! The local cable company is making it very attractive to switch once my contract is up with Dish, if the locals were added I would not switch.

[gcutler]

Originally posted by Steve Mehs
I must confess, for the past few weeks I have not been very happy at all with my 501. It crashes quite a bit when accessing Open TV apps, and sometimes when I'm just flipping the when it gets to 9500 it just shuts it self off. Now that Dish Home is available, (which also crashes a lot) there is no need for channel 9500. I wish E* would just get rid of it!

I've pretty much gone into the favorites and created one that has everything BUT the OpenTV Apps, Music and Shopping Channels. That will at least be a workaround for accidentally hitting the openTV channels. I'm in the habit of pressing 100 to Start from the beginning, but that now brings me to Dish Home :(. I'm training myself to press 000 to start from the beginning and it brings me to my Atlanta Channel 2 (much better than Dish Home)

[navy8ball]

the same things are happening to me especially the tv/video button.

[timr21]

I've had similar problems with my 508 over the weekend. I would try to change channels, and I would get audio but no video. Then, I would press the guide button and the video would pop-up in the window. After hitting "cancel" from the guide, the channel would display properly. I'd have to go through the same excercise every time I changed the channel!

However, the problem seems to have cleared itself up in the last couple of days. Strange.

Maybe it's a bug in the 167 software? Do any of you software experts have any ideas?

Thanks,
TimR><>

[DarrellP]

Now that you mention it, I have my cable passing through the 501 and the last few times I've tried hitting the TV/Video button, it did not switch to the cable feed, I has to go over and manually flip the coax switch box from my VCR. I'll have to investigate this further. Could this be a 167 bug?

[SandyG3]

Same problems here over the past few days with the picture cutting out and the sound still playing. Also I have had the same problems with the remote not working to the reciever since I have had dish net and my 508 for about a month now. The installer is coming out this afternoon to replace my 508 with a new one. But this sounds as if it may be a 167 upgrade issue and not just my reciever issue. We will see; and I want my slow mo!!!!!!!!. Strange now our 301 recievers are 2x as fast scrolling through the guide as my 508. With the older software mine was faster. Oh well at least mine loads the preview tv picture instantly in the guide unlike the 301's that take almost a min or more :D

[Karl Foster]

Originally posted by peallen
Hey thanks for the follow up, the only reason I use the TV/Video button is so I can get my local stations off my antenna. I sure wish they would add Memphis locals!! The local cable company is making it very attractive to switch once my contract is up with Dish, if the locals were added I would not switch.

The other DBS company has Memphis locals available now. I had so many problems with my two 501's that I switched. You are lucky to have a good cable company near you. In our area, we have AT&T and they are expensive with no digital service (tv or modem) available.

[DarrellP]

Tried my TV/Video button this morning and it no longer works.

[J.W.]

I have had quirky issues with my 508 as well... Sometimes it records and sometimes it doesn't. I have a weekly timer for Friends and one week it will work and the next it won't. I have no idea how to reproduce the problem either. It sometimes even happens for one-time recordings. Hit or miss.

Just recently switched to using RCA connections to the TV and I just assumed the TV/Video button didn't work because I switched. If I use the RF out the button works.

J.W.

[llunken777]

My 501 is skipping mon-fri daily recordings. Some record some don't. An advanced Tech from dish did a memory core dump and promise it would fix the problem. But it didn't. So they are now will RA it. I think it is the P167 maintance upgrade that is the problem. I didn't have skipped recordings before.

[Robert F. O'Connor]

The TV/Video button problem has persisted through many software releases. I think it is a bug that they have just never addressed.

-Robert

[timr21]

FYI, gang, I have not had any of the problems that I listed in my previous post for well over a week, now. I don't understand how these things can just come and go like that?!?!

TimR><>