[jmccull78]

Hi All,

My dad and I have been working tirelessly with a problem which we thought was specific to his 722, but after a receiver replacement, the symptoms are the exact same with a 922. He has been a dish customer for 15 years, and I have been for 12 years. When this got to the point where we couldn't figure it out, FIVE separate techs have been to their house over the last eighteen months at which time they have replaced the dish, lnb's, and cables. They moved the physical location of the dish (even though the property is on a flat area in the middle of nowhere). The techs have tried three different 722's. ....finally putting in a 922.

The 722's and 922 both work fine all day and evening, but upon attempting to turn on the receiver in the morning, there is a black screen with absolutely no response. The reset button has to be utilized EVERY morning, and the receiver has to go through its entire boot sequence before the channels can be viewed...this is exceptionally annoying because no timers will work on their own until the receiver is rebooted.

I have never seen or heard of anything like this...especially since the 922 is doing the same thing. I have had a 722 for years with no such issues, but their issue appears every day without fail.

I have exhausted my brain trying to guess what else could be the issue.

 

[Stewart Vernon]

Two things to check:

1. Is the receiver in an area that is well ventilated? These receivers do generate heat, and if you put them in an enclosed spot, they can develop problems. Also, don't block the vents.

2. Have you checked the electrical wiring of the home? If there are power issues, that would explain things too.

 

[jmccull78]

Ok..your first point needs to be checked on. The unit is mounted on a wall tree in a home theater set up.

The wiring in the house is fine, I can say that for sure. My dad is in his 43rd year as an electrician.

 

[jmccull78]

I am going to have him move it to a table by itself....the internal HDD temp averages 107f, with a high of 129f. The average seems to be about par or a little below par.

 

[Stewart Vernon]

I haven't looked at mine in a while, but I think my high was in the 130 range, with averages of 100-120 maybe. I can't remember. I'm in a well ventilated area with mine BUT don't have working A/C so this summer was kind of hot in the house but I still had no overheating problems with mine.

Electrical or ventilation issues are usually the common point in situations like this where you've replaced the other wiring and replaced the receiver a couple of times.

You could have a properly wired home, but problems with the electrical service itself. These receivers can sometimes be temperamental so might require a power line conditioner/UPS of some sort to ensure consistent power "quality" (for lack of a better word) that might not show up in other equipment.

Does he have the receiver connected to broadband internet? There have been some situations when the receivers would freeze with internet connections. Not sure all of these problems were fixed, though I haven't experienced that particular problem in a while.

 

[jmccull78]

He had unhooked the broadband connection on the back for several days to no avail with the 722. He has now unhooked it on the 922 as of earlier this evening....I will post the results of this tomorrow morning.

Also, he brought in a commercial Fluke power quality analyzer which he attached for 72 hours. The results were good, however, each day the receiver experienced the same problems.

I think the options are running out here!

 

[SandyG3]

Just a thought; is he running the HDMI directly to the TV or through another component in the media rack? I know some newer TVs and even media equipment (receivers) have the ability to send control signals back to the receiver and I'm thinking it could be causing issues.

Any way to plug the HDMI on the dish receiver directly to the TV or maybe to another TV for a few days for testing?

Good Luck.

 

[Stewart Vernon]

Actually, that raises an interesting point.

How do you know the receiver is locked up? By which I mean... what is it doing (or not doing)?

IF, for example, it is displaying a black screen without audio... it might not actually be locked up... it might just have lost HDMI sync and thus no audio or video... but otherwise could be running fine.

 

[Jhon69]

DISH's VIP 922 can lockup because it's overheating,it's not being turned off at night(put in Standby) so it can do it's housekeeping when it's in Standby.If you have the MT2 installed(Dual Over The Air Tuners Module) the 922 will run hotter.

Normally the lockup/overheating point was 140 degrees.But my 1st 922 was in a cubbyhole in my entertainment center and the temperature was only averaging 128 degrees when the Hard Drive went out.Now I have it in the open on top of my entertainment center and the average temp has dropped to 120 degrees.

Also internet connectivity(which Stewart already covered) plus if for some reason your Hard Drive is going bad or almost full that can cause lockups.
Hope these ideas help with your troubleshooting.Good Luck!

 

[Stewart Vernon]

I always wondered if having a mostly full hard drive might be an issue... I tend to keep a LOT of recordings that I never get around to watching... and I mentioned that to Dish a time or two, that I suspected some issues might be because I had a lot of stuff on the hard drive for it to manage.

Never got a response to that... but I still always wondered if I moved a lot of stuff off if it might start working better.

 

[P Smith]

If you coud try that method, we would be happy to read your report here. From the horse's mouth . Real one.

 

[jmccull78]

A quick update......

The HDMI cable was removed to no avail, the DVR is only 50% full, and this is the fourth unit to experience these issues (three 722's and the current 922).

Again, each morning the receiver does not respond to either remote. Both TV1 and TV2 just show a black screen, and until a hard reset is done and the unit boots back up, the receiver is useless.

 

[P Smith]

Same house ( air, temperature, dish, cables, a switch, F-connectors) and same owner has same problem with different replaced devices.
Question, who or what is wrong ?

 

[Stewart Vernon]

A quick update......

The HDMI cable was removed to no avail, the DVR is only 50% full, and this is the fourth unit to experience these issues (three 722's and the current 922).

Again, each morning the receiver does not respond to either remote. Both TV1 and TV2 just show a black screen, and until a hard reset is done and the unit boots back up, the receiver is useless.

When you removed the HDMI cable, what did you replace it with?

Not trying to beat the horse... but IF there is an HDMI issue, the receiver could be working fine and you wouldn't see or hear anything via HDMI.

Have you tried not just another HDMI but using component cables instead?

 

[jmccull78]

Yes.....component out used for TV1 as an alternate to HDMI...RG6 run to TV2.

P Smith, I am not sure I understand what you are writing.....

 

[KurtG]

Is your 922 hooked up to a Logitech Revue (aka GoogleTV)?

 

[JeffN9]

Just spotted this thread.

I think the problem you are describing is related to the black screen issue that has been documented before in other threads. I have to re-boot mine just about everyday also. This issue seemed to start about the time Blockbuster At Home was sent out to the 922's.

Once I get mine re-booted and back to normal operation it is just fine until the next morning. I have surmised that for whatever reason the nightly update messes it up. Others have speculated that it does not re-boot all the way after the update or something like that.

One way to check if the problem you are describing is related or not is to go into the dvr while it is displaying a black screen, start playing a recording, stop it and then see if you can view live programming. I can usually get mine back to an operational state by doing this but beware that it is still somewhat unstable at that point and your timers may not work. I always know when mine is in this state because I have the curser even though it's supposed to be hidden.

 

[pjazz]

My problem is similar . Every time I turn the dvr off and turn it back on I get a black screen. After I reboot everything is ok. After a few tests I noticed accessing the help menu and exiting got me a screen again. I'm going to call support and see if it allows me a fix instead of a replacement of the dvr.

 

[lonewolf41]

I have a similar, but maybe not 100% the same type, issue. About 2-3 times a week...not always in the morning, but mostly, I have no picture or sound from live TV. I can pick the guide or the DVR menus and can see those, but I cannot pick anything. It is like it ignores my commands. I can see the banner up top that tells me what channel I am on and what is playing, but there is no picture or sound. I am now on my 3rd receiver since August (just showed up today).

A hard reset always fixes it so I am thinking about putting it on a timer so that it shuts off for a little while every night. I figure I am not the only one having this issue, but Dish seems to know almost nothing about it. I do have an external drive and it is connected to the internet. I think I will start disconnecting those one by one to see if one of those things is causing it. I think I have made it 10 days (some record )without it acting up before so a couple of weeks should tell me which item is the culprit.

Hopefully someone comes up with a fix. If so, please post it. I like the receiver, but having to reset it every 3-4 days is the pits...especially when it misses recordings.

Thanks,
-Keith

 

[JeffN9]

There has been so many strange issues with mine that I've lost count.

I decided to record the Badgers game on Saturday. About halfway through the first qtr. the picture froze. It remained that way for the rest of the recording. Fortunately I was able to start watching in the 2nd qtr. so I didn't miss the whole thing. Turned out I wouldn't have missed much

I read in another thread that someone believed it was having EHD's connected that caused at least some of the problems. I have noticed that sometimes when I re-boot a dialogue box comes up that tells me I have an external device connected. It prompts you to click ok. If I didn't click ok could that cause an issue? I'm usually not awake at 4am to click ok after the nightly update/re-boot. Since day one I've also had problems sometimes with the 922 not seeing one or both of my EHD's when I turn it on in the morning.

I've been experimenting with this by disconnecting the EHD's. Time will tell but I've had no problems the last three days. Obviously I wouldn't want to leave the EHD's disconnected forever though.