No I'm not kidding. I've been trying to get an HR20 sucessfully for about 3 months!! I'm ready to give up but decided to see if anyone had any ideas. There must be something peculiar about my setup as I cannot believe it's just back luck with 6 boxes.
All of the 6 units end up getting hung up on one of the startup screens, the most frequent one being the "Step 1 or 2...checking for satellite setting...this may take a few minutes". Once it gets stuck there, no amount of hitting the reset button, unplugging, letting it sit overnight, screaming at it, etc. seems to make any difference. Tech support tells me they'll send out another one and I try again.
I do believe that part of the problem has been a bad multiswitch that was installed with the first HR20 attempt. I had two lines (on two different installs) from the dish to the receiver show as dead in the signal strength screens, confirmed by the installer's meter. The installer ran a new coax line from the dish the first time and then the second time (today) he installed a new multswitch and a new slimline 5lnb dish. The HR20 does not seem to deal gracefully with just one good sat in line.
Today, the same poor installer came out for the 4th time - he replaced the dish, the multiswitch and then installed the HR20. All seemed good, two good lines, he setup to record a few things (he bypassed the software download when it was offered) and all seemed well. After he left, the software download started, ran to 100% and the after ther reboot, you get the "Welcome" followed by "Almost there.." and it has been stuck ever since at the "Step 1 or 2...checking for satellite setting...this may take a few minutes" screen.
Browsing through the threads today, I learned about the hard disk re-format options and tried that with no success. It just plows through and ignores my holding down the rec and down arrow buttons. I also thought that maybe the multiswitch was not fixed properly and maybe one of the two lines had gone bad. So I took out the HR20 and reinstalled my trustly H20, alternating each of the two lines in to check the signal strength. Both lines look good.
I have about 3 or 4 hours per box invested in this and hate to give up, but after 6 boxes (this must be some sort of record!) I'm ready to give up. Anyone have any suggestions?
Unbelievable!!! I've been writing this post while going downstairs and rebooting and doing all the things I've described above and decided to try one thing I'd never tried before. For various reasons, I've been using both the HDMI and component video outputs and just unplugged the HDMI cable and it rebooted and is working great!
I debated whether I should still post this but figured if someone ever had a similar problem they might learn from this. If only DirecTv tech support had know this - maybe somebody with connections can pass this along...so long, it's Coors time (I live in CO)
All of the 6 units end up getting hung up on one of the startup screens, the most frequent one being the "Step 1 or 2...checking for satellite setting...this may take a few minutes". Once it gets stuck there, no amount of hitting the reset button, unplugging, letting it sit overnight, screaming at it, etc. seems to make any difference. Tech support tells me they'll send out another one and I try again.
I do believe that part of the problem has been a bad multiswitch that was installed with the first HR20 attempt. I had two lines (on two different installs) from the dish to the receiver show as dead in the signal strength screens, confirmed by the installer's meter. The installer ran a new coax line from the dish the first time and then the second time (today) he installed a new multswitch and a new slimline 5lnb dish. The HR20 does not seem to deal gracefully with just one good sat in line.
Today, the same poor installer came out for the 4th time - he replaced the dish, the multiswitch and then installed the HR20. All seemed good, two good lines, he setup to record a few things (he bypassed the software download when it was offered) and all seemed well. After he left, the software download started, ran to 100% and the after ther reboot, you get the "Welcome" followed by "Almost there.." and it has been stuck ever since at the "Step 1 or 2...checking for satellite setting...this may take a few minutes" screen.
Browsing through the threads today, I learned about the hard disk re-format options and tried that with no success. It just plows through and ignores my holding down the rec and down arrow buttons. I also thought that maybe the multiswitch was not fixed properly and maybe one of the two lines had gone bad. So I took out the HR20 and reinstalled my trustly H20, alternating each of the two lines in to check the signal strength. Both lines look good.
I have about 3 or 4 hours per box invested in this and hate to give up, but after 6 boxes (this must be some sort of record!) I'm ready to give up. Anyone have any suggestions?
Unbelievable!!! I've been writing this post while going downstairs and rebooting and doing all the things I've described above and decided to try one thing I'd never tried before. For various reasons, I've been using both the HDMI and component video outputs and just unplugged the HDMI cable and it rebooted and is working great!
I debated whether I should still post this but figured if someone ever had a similar problem they might learn from this. If only DirecTv tech support had know this - maybe somebody with connections can pass this along...so long, it's Coors time (I live in CO)
