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DATA COLLECTION: 921 EPG "No Information Available" problem.

12K views 126 replies 50 participants last post by  brmann 
#1 ·
If you are finding the EPG saying "No Information Available" or only going out an hour or two, please arrow forward in the EPG and see if the program information is present again later in the listing. If it is, please post what time in the EPG the "No Information Available" starts and the time the program data is listed again.
 
#27 ·
First time I ever had a recording missfire was this am. I had the 921 set up to record Lewis and Clark from 6am to 8am. I turned on the 921 at about 6:30
and noticed that the red dot was in the header and the header said the current program was American Chopper with 0.00 seconds left but the record light was not on.
It wasn't recording. I deleted the timer, unit locked up. I soft rebooted, no EPG data except for about two hours out I hard rebooted, after reboot unit took forever to get a picture although the power and hd blue light were on. It has been working since.
Since L273 I have had to reboot every am because I would lose satellite 119.
Never had this happen before.
I have had very few problems in the past. Looks like another "good" version.
It may have fixed some but it sure screwed up my 921.

Jim
 
#28 ·
Just lost all guide data for the first time tonight, nothing after 9 PM. Can't reboot now, watching shows but will reboot later. I have no future guide data for the next 9 days.
 
#29 ·
I have complete 9 day guide this morning after auto reboot last night.
 
#31 ·
welchwarlock-

"So are you suggesting that we attempt to fix he problem ourselves before we call Dish? It would seem to me that even if we could fix the problem, we should call them so that the priority of the problem will get the proper attention tha it deserves, and so that they can collect metrics about how freqent the problem occrs. "

Yes! try to fix it yourself first. But in this, I only suggest the stuff that you are / will be instructed to do anyway. If you ever listen to their instructional channels, you would see that they tell you to do certain things before calling. All I'm doing is repeating what they are telling you to do. The card pull fix has been suggested a number of times on their tech chat in the past. You may have had a point about building a history of issues and it's frequency when the 921 was less than 6 months old but you answered your own question as it, indeed has been 2 years with many of these issues remaining flakey during that time period. The updates appear to reduce and increase the frequency with each release. New issues have not really happened in a long time.
Personal example- While I have first noticed my remote having issues for the first time, others have had these problems with earlier release/updates. I attempted to do the reboot to fix on my own first and found it temporarily takes care of it but soon returns again. Did I call the CSR group? No. Did I report the happening? Yes, Not only here, but by sending in an e-mail to an insider contact I know and who has encouraged me to do that along with posting here.
I'm not saying Don't report it. I'm suggesting you do as E* wants you to do first, before calling do the reboots, the power cord reboots and card pull reboot. Then if no results, call adv tech support and advise them what you already did. Also, post your issues and what you did here. Understand?
 
#32 ·
DonLandis said:
I'm not saying Don't report it. I'm suggesting you do as E* wants you to do first, before calling do the reboots, the power cord reboots and card pull reboot. Then if no results, call adv tech support and advise them what you already did. Also, post your issues and what you did here. Understand?
Good advise Don. Doe's E* follow our posts? Sometimes when reporting a specific problem to E*, say a problem that is well documented in these threads, E* is clueless stating that they have no knowledge concerning it. Report the problems to E* and have them make a report. Getting things accomplished through more than one channel is worthwhile.
 
#33 ·
"Sometimes when reporting a specific problem to E*, say a problem that is well documented in these threads, E* is clueless stating that they have no knowledge concerning it."

I don't believe that. Maybe a specific employee will say that but it has been my experience that by the time I advise someone in engineering they not only have full knowledge of the issue but also are well underway to knowing what caused it. That does not mean they are well underway to having it fixed. As we all have seen, being aware, thinking they know what caused the problem and actually fixing something are entirely different situations, especially with the 921.

As for following our posts, according to Mark Lamutt, they do. One engineering person I know told me he does personally. He is not adv tech support but one who is often on the Dish Tech show. Getting to meet these people at CES is one advantage of going there.
 
#34 ·
Just to add to list, we had the problem with no listings this morning. We have seldom seen this problem until L273.

What makes ours interesting this morning is that we had a power outage last night in the middle of the night. Everything but the guide is working today. The guide seems to catch the program that is on, or the next program to immediately follow it, but that is inconsistent. There is one channel that shows guide info for 3 programs and then is "no description".

We will be doing a reset tonight. We'll turn it off by the remote before we go to bed. Then we'll see what happens tomorrow.
 
#35 ·
I just got back from being out of town for four days. It is now Tuesday Dec. 20th. I have a power-line timer on my 921, which means it power-plug reboots everynight (I started it in the older days, just left it for now). Right now I only get an hour out for today. Then I get "No Information" for Wednesday and Thursday, then random half-hour and hour shows show up on random channels after that. There isn't any case I can find where there is more then one show back to back listed, and it almost seems there is only one show listed per day, per channel. I will let the overnight power down occur and check in the morning. If it doesn't work, I'll do a physical power-plug reset for a half-hour or more, which has usually fixed this problem in the past. I have probably experienced this issue randomly for six to nine months.
 
#36 ·
pbrown said:
I just got back from being out of town for four days. It is now Tuesday Dec. 20th. I have a power-line timer on my 921, which means it power-plug reboots everynight (I started it in the older days, just left it for now). Right now I only get an hour out for today. Then I get "No Information" for Wednesday and Thursday, then random half-hour and hour shows show up on random channels after that. There isn't any case I can find where there is more then one show back to back listed, and it almost seems there is only one show listed per day, per channel. I will let the overnight power down occur and check in the morning. If it doesn't work, I'll do a physical power-plug reset for a half-hour or more, which has usually fixed this problem in the past. I have probably experienced this issue randomly for six to nine months.
Everything was back in the morning after the overnight timer reset.
 
#38 ·
Yesterday, at about 9:55 a.m. CST I did a pre-emptive power cord reboot. Later, I noticed that I had only two hours of guide data for all channels. I did a check switch, but that didn't help. I haven't checked today yet to see whether or not the guide data was downloaded overnight.
 
#39 ·
skassan said:
Yesterday, at about 9:55 a.m. CST I did a pre-emptive power cord reboot. Later, I noticed that I had only two hours of guide data for all channels. I did a check switch, but that didn't help. I haven't checked today yet to see whether or not the guide data was downloaded overnight.
Yesterday I also lost all guide data beyond a couple of hours. I wonder if something in the guide data stream doesn't trigger this since a couple of other times when I lost guide data I saw that others did as well. A power cord reboot, smart card reboot, and check switch all failed to bring back the guide. It did repopulate overnight. My 501 and 508 never have this problem. Sometimes they indicate that guide data is out of date and ask if I want to reload the guide data. Then there is a progress bar as the download takes place. It would be great if the 921 would do the same thing.
 
#40 ·
I don't understand how Dish Network/Echostar can in good conscience charge the five buck DVR fee for a receiver like the 921 which most of the time cannot remember or display what is going to be on two hours from now, and on top of that they charge another five bucks to get the same lack of information for the local channels.
There have been times when I have felt that I have been ripped off, but after spending close to $1000 for a 'top of the line' receiver and then allowing Dish to continue to rip me off month after month is amazing.
I just want the d*** thing to work............................period.
 
#41 ·
This morning I found that both my 921's had auto-rebooted. The HEED model had 2 days of EPG data and would not go past Friday. The HECD model showed, "No Information" for all nine days (except for the current time programming). Doing the power cord/reboot with a 10 minutes later smart card pull/reboot brought back all available EGP data for the nine days on on the HEED model only.
 
#42 ·
I too have an HECD model and I have had this No Info problem crop up all day today. It was fine this morning, then around 1pm I went to watch something and boom, No Info on guide. Then at 8pm it was all back up and now at 1am it's all gone again. What is up? Re-boots hard/soft aren't doing the trick. Is Dish up to something?
 
#44 ·
I just noticed this bug for the first time on my HEED. A few channels have data out a few hours (the Sirius Radio channels for example), however it's the channels that have the same program name for hours on end. ALso those channels drop into "No Info" mode 12 hours out and act strangly at the point where the No Info begins. I'm currently looking at Sirius 6006 Jan 8 1:00PM, when I move a half hour ahead the entile listing reads "No Info" despite seeing "Sirius 60's Vibrations" from 1:00 through 2:00 Pm when I was set to 1:00 PM.

I have not yet done a reboot. this is the first time I've seen the problem. My 921 has been behaving itself lately, I havn't had an aspect ratio stick in some time. I guess it's time to pull the plug :p
 
#46 ·
My EPG today had two hours, or at most two entries, followed by No Information. Had normal operation yesterday.

Power switch reboot. No help.
Power cord reboot. No help.
Smart card reboot. Restored Normal operation.

Last time this happened, a Smart card reboot was also required to restore normal operation.

DVR921: - Jan 12, 2005
Boot 150B
Flash F054
SW L273HEED-N
 
#47 ·
DonLandis said:
I can't wait for the day I see a thread "PSIP is on it's way"!

Why? so you will have something else to complain about? :) I predict the most common complaint will be, It's not the same from station to station. Some are 8 hours while others are 14 days.
Some OTA program guide data is better than none! But I refuse to pay for the overcompressed SD LIL's that E* is trying to make us 921 and 942 owners subscribe to just to get an incomplete (i.e. no PBS or stations not carried in the LIL's, subchannels etc.).

My back yard is lit by the tower lights, so I prefer to get my locals OTA. As an E* sub since the days before LIL's, I never needed the locals delivered via outer space. If they included any distant signals that I cannot receive, I might consider subbing to LIL's. However the only station in my DMA that I cannot receive is not a part of E* LIL's (however D* has recently added this station ;) ).

Oh I wold not complain to E* about a short guide form the PSIP data, for I know that the source would be my local broadcaster.
 
#49 ·
Michael P said:
... an incomplete (i.e. no PBS or stations not carried in the LIL's, subchannels etc.).
I don't have the PBS or subchannel guides either. Also missing is the digital SD channel of KTVA (channel 11 CBS) and the digital SD channel of KTUU (channel 2 NBC). The only guide I do have is for the HD channel of KTUU. I was not sure if it was unique to Anchorage or was a nation wide issue.

I put up the rooftop antenna about 6 months ago, only to find out that the 921 pixelates badly on channel 2 HD.

So, I have 2 HD channels, one digital SD channel and 7 subchannels with no guild and one with a guide but an unwatchable picture. The entire 921 OTA has been a total waste of time and money. :mad:
 
#50 ·
I got back from CES to find my 921 was locked up. Rebooted and it returned functional but I lost my Favorite channel lists (4 of them). In addition, I lost my guide data for all channels beyond 2 days. I lost all ability to receive OTA channels. It's like the OTA tuner is non-functional yet diagnostics indicate it works and scan channels brings them up but since they don't appear in the all channels guide, I can't seem to tune them. Now the strange part- I now get some of the news channels that normally are with the base SD program package that I don't subscribe to. My timers failed to record anything while I was away. All recorded programs I had in archives are still there and my timers I did have set are still functional, including the OTA timers which fired tonight on schedule for the OTA channel that I can't tune with the guide. What a screwed up mess this is. L273 is still my version but obviously, someone must have been experimenting with my 921 via satellite while I was away. The 921 has been in standby while I was away.
Maybe Dish is slowly attempting to break my 921 so I will just go to their competition completely.
 
#51 ·
Jim Parker said:
I don't have the PBS or subchannel guides either. Also missing is the digital SD channel of KTVA (channel 11 CBS) and the digital SD channel of KTUU (channel 2 NBC). The only guide I do have is for the HD channel of KTUU. I was not sure if it was unique to Anchorage or was a nation wide issue.

I put up the rooftop antenna about 6 months ago, only to find out that the 921 pixelates badly on channel 2 HD.

So, I have 2 HD channels, one digital SD channel and 7 subchannels with no guild and one with a guide but an unwatchable picture. The entire 921 OTA has been a total waste of time and money. :mad:
OK, I give up. How is it the 921's fault that your local OTA station pixelates (it's your antenna...not the 921's) local channels with no guide (it's their responsibility...not the 921's) not to mention the fact that PBS stations do NOT follow any national schedule...every local sets their own...and there is no requirement for them to advise any guide service of that schedule.

You may have OTA problems...but they're not the 921's fault.
 
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