[Kenkong586]

It all started a few weeks ago. I was watching DVR'd programming and the program would freeze during playback and the system would crawl to the tune of taking up to 5 minutes to complete a command. I finally got it to do a restart and that seemed to solve the problem. Since the HD channels have been mirrored, ESPNHD has been breaking up and freezing. Yesterday when it did it, it brought up broken up frames of The Two Corey's which I had watched earlier. I'm thinking this could be just buffer junk showing up but I'm not so sure. Changing down to the next channel (204) and then back to 206 would clear up the freeze, only to have it happen again in a little bit. I didn't see any reports of issues with ESPNHD. My signal strength on 99(c) range in the 80's, nothing below 82 on either tuner. I have 0x254. With the frames from an old show appearing while watching a live program (where no trickplay was used) after that program has froze and broken up with the signal strength in the 80's, is it possible that my hard drive is going bad? I have 29% available on the drive. I just find this a strange happening. Any thoughts or advice? It's only happened on the mirrored ESPNHD so far. Any and all help is appreciated.

 

[Mike Bertelson]

It all started a few weeks ago. I was watching DVR'd programming and the program would freeze during playback and the system would crawl to the tune of taking up to 5 minutes to complete a command. I finally got it to do a restart and that seemed to solve the problem. Since the HD channels have been mirrored, ESPNHD has been breaking up and freezing. Yesterday when it did it, it brought up broken up frames of The Two Corey's which I had watched earlier. I'm thinking this could be just buffer junk showing up but I'm not so sure. Changing down to the next channel (204) and then back to 206 would clear up the freeze, only to have it happen again in a little bit. I didn't see any reports of issues with ESPNHD. My signal strength on 99(c) range in the 80's, nothing below 82 on either tuner. I have 0x254. With the frames from an old show appearing while watching a live program (where no trickplay was used) after that program has froze and broken up with the signal strength in the 80's, is it possible that my hard drive is going bad? I have 29% available on the drive. I just find this a strange happening. Any thoughts or advice? It's only happened on the mirrored ESPNHD so far. Any and all help is appreciated.

That definitly is strange.

As what to do about it...there really is no easy answer.

You can try to force a download of the firmware. Yes, I mean the same version you currently have. That can sometimes(though rarely) fix some problems.

If the problems continue or even get worse you might have to do a "Reset Everything".

Menu->Parental, Fav's & Setup->System Setup->Reset->Reset Everything

I don't usually recommend this because it wipes out everything on your drive including all your settings and recordings (basically a reformat).

I had a similar problem with the drive on my HR21 and after several reboots/restarts/and getting the latest NR the problem didn't go away. I wound up trying a "Reset Everything" and the problem didn't go away.

I installed an eSATA drive and everything it good again.

Mike

 

[Richierich]

Sounds like a bad drive indeed or corrupt software. The software may be written to a sector that is going bad so it takes a long time to try to get a good read and while it does that everything else is frozen until it can decide what to do next and it can't do that because it can't get the OS data to determine what to do.

 

[K4SMX]

As has been said, I think I have yet to read of more than a couple of folks, if any, who found that a "last resort Reset Everything" fixed anything, although it's obviously high up in the DirecTV CSR playbook. There have, however, been quite a number of otherwise intractable problems that were fixed by a lengthy time period with the receiver unplugged from the AC.

Before you go to work or to sleep, do a Menu > ...... > Reset > Restart Recorder and pull the plug at either end during the brief (~5 Sec's) time when the front panel lights go out. Then plug it back in when you get home or wake up.

 

[rudeney]

Also, if you have the HR2x networked, try disconnecting it. Someone recently discovered that they sometimes get “confused” and start spewing UPnP requests and that can cause lock-ups.

 

[schneid]

It may help and shouldn't hurt your settings. Do a Menu Reset and at the first flicker of the bluelights or a a screen press 0 2 4 6 8 slowly and deliberately.. If a downloading software bar doesn't come up, try again.

 

[Kenkong586]

Well another problem just popped up. I started recording the olympics and all of the sudden, none of the D11 channels would tune in, grey screen only. I checked the signal strength from 99 and everything was in the low 80's. After I exited that, i went back and everything was fine again. Started to record the olympics again, again the same problem. I gave up at the point and went and watched my R-15 in the bedroom so I could just get the recording I wanted.