[RoyGBiv]

I have a new problem which started last week. I have an HR20-700 with a Seagate 750 mg FAP eSATA HDD, which has worked (nearly) flawlessly for a year. Last week while watching a recording of the US Open Men's finals, the picture and audio suddenly froze. None of the transport controls worked. The DVR was not frozen. It responded to commands other than the transport ones. I could use the menus. List brought up my recordings, etc. Finally after not being able to restart the recording, I used "stop" followed by "resume." The recording started again but from the beginning not where I was watching. I FFd to the point it had stopped and kept watching. This happened twice more while my increasingly impatient wife muttered about "this damn machine," or something similar. Finally I did menu reset. That stopped a different recording I was making. We restarted the US Open recording, and it played the rest of the way through. At the time I was using the latest CE software, so I forced a return to the latest NR, 0254.

I had no further problems until watching Jeopardy 3 days later. It stopped once during the recording and the same thing happened. I was able to restart from the beginning by pressing "resume." This time it played the rest of the way through. Again, I had no problems until yesterday watching football. The recording froze 3 times, and each time I had to start from the beginning until I finally caught up with live action and stopped the recording. There were no problems watching "live."

Then in the evening we watched one recording for an hour with no problems but then a few minutes into a second, the same freezing happened. Again, "resume" had me start from the beginning. It happened again just two minutes later. This time when I pressed "resume" the only options were the dreaded "delete/not delete." I got that same "delete/not delete" option for every recording I tried to watch. Again I did a menu reset, and all those recordings were now there. I tried several just for a few minutes to make sure, and they were all fine.

Every time this has happened I believe (though I'm not certain) something else was recording. Each reset solved the problem, but obviously each reset would have stopped any recording. OTOH, there were lots of times I was recording one thing while watching a previous recording with no problems.

So, has anyone else had this problem? A quick search did not turn up anything. Also, is this likely the eSATA HDD, or is it likely a problem with the DVR?

I am trying now to shift things I really want to save from the DVR to my DVD recorder. I have about 60 hours of things I'd like to keep, so I'm not sure how much I will be able to save, but is there anything people would recommend before trying a system reset or having to replace the HDD? Is there any way to test the drive to see if it is a problem there? I can say that every recording this happened on has actually been flawless, and there is no glitch at all that I can detect where the recordings stop. In fact on several occasions when resuming and FFding to the point where the stop was, I have played the recording at normal speed through the exact stopping point without problems. Does this suggest it is not a HDD issue?

Any help is appreciated before my wife throws the DVR through the living room window.

SMK

 

[romulox]

Kind of the same thing...

A week ago I had an hr20-700 with pretty much the same problems you are having. The box had been rock solid until the x254 upgrade and the one before that (x236 ???). It finally got to the point where I could not watch one single recording because my machine would continually freeze the programming and the remote became unresponsive. Here are 2 postings I made on the subject:

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=1765967#post1765967
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=138037

My solution - D* came out, observed my freezing, and only re-aligned my dish. The only thing that did was make my signal strengths worse! Two hours later the tech came out again with a brand new HR21-200. Freezes are completely gone and the box works as well as I have ever seen (fast menus, quick guide, etc). KNOCK ON WOOD - hopefully it is just not the effects of a new machine with very little usage. It also runs 20 degrees cooler.

However, I decided I needed a plan B for the future - I had the tech put an additional dish (old 3lnb dish) on the roof and run dedicated cabling to my standard def H10. Between my 2 DVRs, the series links are identical, and any future technical problems that happen with the HR21 (or with any components utilized by it) will not affect my watchability of any programming with the H10 - which is now my backup machine.

Good luck

 

[RoyGBiv]

I appreciate the help, but what you describe is not what's happening to me. I have had a few (luckily until now) rare episodes where the box completely froze. That is not the case now. I can do everything except use any of the transport controls. The box responds to other controls via both the remote and the front panel, and I am even able to restart the program without resorting to rebooting. It is just the picture/audio that is frozen.

Any others who may have seen this?

SMK

 

[RoyGBiv]

Bump--

Anyone with any thoughts????

SMK

 

[bootsy]

I have a new problem which started last week. I have an HR20-700 with a Seagate 750 mg FAP eSATA HDD, which has worked (nearly) flawlessly for a year. Last week while watching a recording of the US Open Men's finals, the picture and audio suddenly froze. None of the transport controls worked. The DVR was not frozen. It responded to commands other than the transport ones. I could use the menus. List brought up my recordings, etc. Finally after not being able to restart the recording, I used "stop" followed by "resume." The recording started again but from the beginning not where I was watching. I FFd to the point it had stopped and kept watching. This happened twice more while my increasingly impatient wife muttered about "this damn machine," or something similar. Finally I did menu reset. That stopped a different recording I was making. We restarted the US Open recording, and it played the rest of the way through. At the time I was using the latest CE software, so I forced a return to the latest NR, 0254.

I had no further problems until watching Jeopardy 3 days later. It stopped once during the recording and the same thing happened. I was able to restart from the beginning by pressing "resume." This time it played the rest of the way through. Again, I had no problems until yesterday watching football. The recording froze 3 times, and each time I had to start from the beginning until I finally caught up with live action and stopped the recording. There were no problems watching "live."

Then in the evening we watched one recording for an hour with no problems but then a few minutes into a second, the same freezing happened. Again, "resume" had me start from the beginning. It happened again just two minutes later. This time when I pressed "resume" the only options were the dreaded "delete/not delete." I got that same "delete/not delete" option for every recording I tried to watch. Again I did a menu reset, and all those recordings were now there. I tried several just for a few minutes to make sure, and they were all fine.

Every time this has happened I believe (though I'm not certain) something else was recording. Each reset solved the problem, but obviously each reset would have stopped any recording. OTOH, there were lots of times I was recording one thing while watching a previous recording with no problems.

So, has anyone else had this problem? A quick search did not turn up anything. Also, is this likely the eSATA HDD, or is it likely a problem with the DVR?

I am trying now to shift things I really want to save from the DVR to my DVD recorder. I have about 60 hours of things I'd like to keep, so I'm not sure how much I will be able to save, but is there anything people would recommend before trying a system reset or having to replace the HDD? Is there any way to test the drive to see if it is a problem there? I can say that every recording this happened on has actually been flawless, and there is no glitch at all that I can detect where the recordings stop. In fact on several occasions when resuming and FFding to the point where the stop was, I have played the recording at normal speed through the exact stopping point without problems. Does this suggest it is not a HDD issue?

Any help is appreciated before my wife throws the DVR through the living room window.

SMK

I've had the same kind of issue also. I was watching Prison Break and it kept freezing up 1/2 way through. I'm also having problems with my season passes. I checked out my prioritizer and it showed 3 shows at #1.

 

[RoyGBiv]

Well, it's nice to see I'm not alone. Now any idea what the problem is?

SMK

 

[studdad]

Well, it's nice to see I'm not alone. Now any idea what the problem is?

SMK

I have no idea what it is, but I have had the same problems. I thought it was a bad spot on the disk,,,,,,maybe not.

 

[RoyGBiv]

A brief update:

So far since resetting the receiver Sunday evening, it has not happened again. I have watched (actually recorded to my DVD recorder) 5 shows including 3 movies trying to save them should everything crash, and the past two evenings my wife and I have watched multiple shows without problems even while the DVR was recording something else. Hopefully it was just a transient problem with the HDD and things are OK at this time, but it makes me wonder if it will recur and when. Can I rely on my DVR?

SMK

 

[RoyGBiv]

I am resurrecting this thread because it happened again now on a new HR22. The previous was on an HR20. Because of the upcoming hockey season and the seeming unreliability of the HR20, I bought a new HR22 two weeks ago. Last Sunday watching a football game I had recorded, the exact same thing happened. Last night watching a recorded hockey game, I had the same problem.

Again, the recording will suddenly freeze, but the DVR is responsive to all commands other than the transport keys. It does not seem to be a bad spot in the recording, because I can get to the same spot, and the second time it will play fine. Last night, I started watching again from the beginning, and it stopped at a point it had played perfectly the first time. Finally after 2 resets, the recording played perfectly all the way through. Can anyone explain this?

Also, now that it's a second receiver, it seems it has to be something in my setup. What can it be? I am watching a recording, so I can't see how it could relate to some reception/multiswitch/SWM issue. When it happened initially on the HR20, I was using a WB68 multiswitch. When I activated the HR22, I also changed the multiswitch to a SWM8. It has happened on recordings from both the satellite and OTA, including OTA stations where the signal strength is 100%.

Any help is appreciated.

SMK

 

[David MacLeod]

not sure if this will help, but do a keyword search for 30SKIP using all. it will not find anything, but it changes the slip/skip settings. this helped my hr21 using am21 unit, may not help but its no damage to try.

 

[RoyGBiv]

I think the slip/skip change has been touted to help the momentary freezing of the screen as well as the poor response to the remote, especially for OTA programs. This is not that. When I say it freezes, it doesn't move at all. It will stay frozen at the same spot forever until you do something else such as pushing stop or one of the other menu buttons. The machine doesn't think it's in pause because the screensaver never comes on. I have left it as long as 25 minutes before finally doing something else.

I much prefer slip to skip, but I guess it can't hurt to try the change. I will see what happens with tonight's game.

Any other ideas?

SMK

 

[David MacLeod]

before this weekends ce release my hr21 with am21 was doing exactly that with 30slip enabled.
I ahd to get up to mess with front panel buttons to get it to go, would be ok a bit then do it again.
on mine, 30skip fixed immediately.
this weekends ce release allows my hr21 to use 30slip (which I prefer) and it works well.
your findings may be different of course.

 

[RoyGBiv]

Thanks. I will definitely give it a try.

SMK