[Marty B]

Hey Earl,
Do you know if DirecTv has a bug report form or some way of easily notifying DirecTV of a problem? For example, a list of questions a developer would ask a customer in order to isolate an issue, such as system type, channel, time, screen state, were you watching a recorded show or live TV, etc. I would be glad to fill this out everytime my system locks up.

 

[matto]

In my many interactions with several levels of support, i have never gotten the impression that there is any formalized channel of communication from them to anyone near to the engineering or development staff.

See, the problem with that idea is that it would be effective at resolving customer issues.

 

[Earl Bonovich]

I don't think they have a "formal" method as such.

 

[matto]

that is so broken, and so sad, and so indicitive of the zero interest d* has in anything but taking our money.

 

[Marty B]

I am sure they do their own testing, it just seems to me that having a way to input data such as that would be pretty helpful. In the applications that I develope, often the users are completely oblivious to what they should be looking for before during or after a problem arises. When I ask for details, they say "I dont know, I wasnt looking at that." Another option would be a crash log file that could record the state of the system and report back the next time the system phones home. Heck, they could be doing that now for all we know.

 

[mcl]

I am sure they do their own testing

Really? What evidence do you have to support this claim? I've got plenty to the contrary.

 

[matto]

Another option would be a crash log file that could record the state of the system and report back the next time the system phones home. Heck, they could be doing that now for all we know.

If they had any brains in the holes in their skulls currently filled with dog poop, they'd have networking enabled and have the units sending back all sorts of metrics and event reports.

But these are the poop-for-brains that can't even get both fast forward, play, and record working at the same time, so cest la vie.

A direct method of getting problem reports from the devices, without going through nontechnical users and dimwit CSRs, sitting there idle and wasted.

Sort of like the ATSC antenna port.

 

[paulman182]

" they'd have networking enabled and have the units sending back all sorts of metrics and event reports."

That'll be great, especially since they'd have to supply me with two-way satellite Internet for it to work at my location.

 

[matto]

how much money do you want to bet that the majority of hr20 users have working broadband at their residence?

 

[PoitNarf]

I am actually quite surprised that the HR20 doesn't have some sort of error logging and reporting capability. Seems to make complete sense to turn the ethernet port on just for this function alone. Who knows how much quicker bug fixing would go if they could see memory dumps and other tidbits of info when something goes wrong. However, now that I think about it, their inhouse test units may do this.

 

[matto]

and we've seen the value of their in-house testing proven repeatedly

 

[paulman182]

how much money do you want to bet that the majority of hr20 users have working broadband at their residence?

Probably the majority do, no question.

However, if so many folks can complain about the technical requirement of connection to a landline phone (even though landline service is available to almost everyone,) I feel that I can complain (in advance) about the requirement of broadband, especially since it is available at my house only through satellite.

 

[matto]

i'm not saying it needs to be a requirement. i'm just saying it should use the connection if it is available. sending an HTTP POST containing diagnostic information isn't rocket science.

 

[Marty B]

Really? What evidence do you have to support this claim? I've got plenty to the contrary.

Wow, you have evidence that DirecTV performs absolutely no testing? Man I gotta say, to have the first version of the HR20 software released, boot up and work fairly well, with zero testing is pretty impressive.

 

[walters]

Yep, the field collection of diagnostics is another item that falls into the category of WWTD. Seriously, haven't they been paying any attention at all for the last six years?