[g4jedi]

OK... this is getting ridiculous!!! Software updates are making our HR20 worse and worse!!! I have already posted about the lockups, lost recordings and inconmplete recordings which we NEVER had until last weeks software update. I was hoping it would get better after last night's update. NOPE! The damn thing is totally unresponsive now. We were watching an episode of "30 Rock" that was previously recorded. In the meantime it is recording the season premiere of "Medium". Orange light is still on as I type this. Anyway, after watching our recorded episode of "30 Rock", we deleted it and went back to live TV. Now the HR20 will not respond to the remote or our universal remote. Can't even change channels or anything. I don't want to do a reset because it's recording "Medium" SUPOSEDLY. If it messes up the recording of Medium, not only will the wife be ticked off, but so will I!!! What is the deal D*?????????

 

[g4jedi]

Still unresponsive... it did actually go up one channel on live TV all by itself... to a show we have no interest in watching. We've only got one thing recording right now. Medium is a 2-hour premiere, so we still have 45 minutes left before I try and reset it. FYI: even the buttons on the front don't do anything! Now I'm actually starting to feel the frustration that other have been feeling for quite sometime with this unit.

 

[btmoore]

Still unresponsive... Now I'm actually starting to feel the frustration that other have been feeling for quite sometime with this unit.

If you really want to feel the frustration:

Stop whining

My box work 100 perfect, whats your problem, it actually farts roses and butterfly's

Check your cables

Remove your broad band connectors

If you hate it so much just return it and shut up

You must be a tivo lover

and my personal favorite

Come on you are an early adopter, I know for a fact that D* is working hard to make this the best box ever, golly gee.

Ok, now you can actually feel the frustration

But seriously, I feel you pain. Knock on wood, salt over the shoulder, holding my 4 leaf clover, etc etc etc, so far all has gone well for me on this version, so far, but I don't trust it, I know it is going to get me, it is just a matter of time.

Now I am going to put my tin foil hat back on and watch some more TV.

 

[g4jedi]

Thanks... I needed that LOL

20 minutes until the one finger solute to the red button. Although I think I'll actually unplug it this time for 5 minutes. Maybe it needs an enema???

 

[Tom Robertson]

If you really want to feel the frustration:

Stop whining

My box work 100 perfect, whats your problem, it actually farts roses and butterfly's

Check your cables

Remove your broad band connectors

If you hate it so much just return it and shut up

You must be a tivo lover

and my personal favorite

Come on you are an early adopter, I know for a fact that D* is working hard to make this the best box ever, golly gee.

Ok, now you can actually feel the frustration

But seriously, I feel you pain. Knock on wood, salt over the shoulder, holding my 4 leaf clover, etc etc etc, so far all has gone well for me on this version, so far, but I don't trust it, I know it is going to get me, it is just a matter of time.

Now I am going to put my tin foil hat back on and watch some more TV.

Ah satire and sarcasm. :lol: Very well done. You should just use this as your signature for anything in the HR20 forums...

Cheers,
Tom

 

[jkc120]

If you really want to feel the frustration:

Stop whining

My box work 100 perfect, whats your problem, it actually farts roses and butterfly's

Check your cables

Remove your broad band connectors

If you hate it so much just return it and shut up

You must be a tivo lover

and my personal favorite

Come on you are an early adopter, I know for a fact that D* is working hard to make this the best box ever, golly gee.

Ok, now you can actually feel the frustration

But seriously, I feel you pain. Knock on wood, salt over the shoulder, holding my 4 leaf clover, etc etc etc, so far all has gone well for me on this version, so far, but I don't trust it, I know it is going to get me, it is just a matter of time.

Now I am going to put my tin foil hat back on and watch some more TV.

:lol: It's funny because it's true!

And so far so good for me on this version, too. But I also am not counting my chickens until they hatch, either.

 

[btmoore]

Ah satire and sarcasm. :lol: Very well done. You should just use this as your signature for anything in the HR20 forums...

Cheers,
Tom

Perhaps a tips sheet is appropriate :grin:

We can call it:

"The Unofficial sarcastic guide to why your HR20 is not working"

 

[g4jedi]

I had already thought of creating a thread for the meaning of "HR" in HR20...

Horrifically Retarded
Hilarious Recorder
Hourly Reboots
Horribly Ridiculous

Etc Etc Etc...

Anyway, it's still not responding... 5 minutes until reboot...

 

[btmoore]

I had already thought of creating a thread for the meaning of "HR" in HR20...

Horrifically Retarded
Hilarious Recorder
Hourly Reboots
Horribly Ridiculous

Etc Etc Etc...

Anyway, it's still not responding... 5 minutes until reboot...

Maybe earl will start a sticky for us?

 

[avatar230]

I had already thought of creating a thread for the meaning of "HR" in HR20...

Horrifically Retarded
Hilarious Recorder
Hourly Reboots
Horribly Ridiculous

Etc Etc Etc...

Anyway, it's still not responding... 5 minutes until reboot...

Not to be super discouraging, but this exact same problem happened to me when EB got released to the West Coast last Wednesday. And then it kept happening. Every day. Until on Friday evening, tired of having lost 4 days worth of recordings, I reformatted my system using the "RESET EVERYTHING" option. The bad news is that this did indeed erase everything out of my machine: recordings, custom lists, series links -- any and all setup info.

The good news is that from 11:00pm Friday through this moment (11:08 on Wednesday), my HR20 has been as well-behaved as it's ever been. I believe this lockups are somehow caused by too many versions of the software being installed one over the other, as they do seem to be becoming more frequent. So take a deep breath, relax, and if the problem happens again, I recommend pulling the trigger on a reformat. Just remember to write all your settings and series links down first; it's really not as bad as it sounds.

 

[jkc120]

I'll be interested to see if Medium recorded successfully and will play back...Because if the unit still records things properly, I may consider waiting to reboot it the next time it locks up if it's recording a show and I don't have anything set to record after it.

 

[g4jedi]

Well, after I unplugged the power cable as well as the coax feeds for about five minutes, I fired it back up. Medium did seem to record and doesn't show a negative (-0:01) time when we opened it. It's too late to try and watch the show. Hopefully it all recorded! Unlike this weeks Heros... which only recorded half. I really hope I don't have to reformat. If that happens we'll have to try and watch all the recordings first. She records WAY too much TV!

 

[cybrsurfer]

Thanks... I needed that LOL

20 minutes until the one finger solute to the red button. Although I think I'll actually unplug it this time for 5 minutes. Maybe it needs an enema???

:lol:

 

[g4jedi]

UPDATE:
We haven't watched that recording of Medium yet, but we recorded both My Name is Earl and Survivor last night at the same time. We were able to watch both without problems. I have been noticing some video stuttering lately though as well as some green pixel lines. The sound doesn't skip a beat, but the video will freeze for a split second or a horizontal green pixel line will show up on the screen. Happens at random but you can rewind and it happens in the exact same point. Was worse on Earl (SD) than it was on Survivor (HD). In fact I only saw it stutter once in Survivor. It might have been because we were watching Earl as it was still recording. I think we'll watch Medium tonight. I'll post a followup report after that...

 

[Doug Brott]

I have been noticing some video stuttering lately though as well as some green pixel lines. The sound doesn't skip a beat, but the video will freeze for a split second or a horizontal green pixel line will show up on the screen. Happens at random but you can rewind and it happens in the exact same point.

If the video is garbled in the same place all of the time, I think that it is fair to say that there is a problem with the video stream rather than a problem with the HR20. Really nothing you can do about this other than complain to the powers that be if the problem is too pervasive.

 

[g4jedi]

Yeah... it was pretty minor... and I was sort of thinking that might be the cause. I know it's not the dish or the cabling since I haven't had this problem before and I get excellent signal strength. Just thought it was odd because I haven't seen this until the last software update. The good news is, the wife LOVES the FF, Pause and RW improvements of this last update. Changing channels is still painfully slow! It's a good five seconds of black screen before the video kicks in. Annoying! happens whether I have native on or off. Hopefully that will get better...

If the video is garbled in the same place all of the time, I think that it is fair to say that there is a problem with the video stream rather than a problem with the HR20. Really nothing you can do about this other than complain to the powers that be if the problem is too pervasive.

 

[MercurialIN]

Was interested to find this thread as since the latest upgrade EF, my HR 20 which had been pretty reliable now becomes totally unresponsive whenever I try to bring it out of standby. It has locked up during recordings thus getting nothing recorded for an entire day. Unplugging it doesn't help. It generally takes three to four red button resets to get it to come back to life.

On pressing the red button, I get a blank screen for about five minutes, during which time the blue power on light comes on for a few seconds, goes off then comes on again. Then nothing for a couple of minutes then on pressing power on with the remote the unit finally comes back, but no welcome screen, no aquiring satellite info, just back to live TV.

This problem started Thu. right after it downloaded version EF. Before that the only time the unit had ever locked up was once after the last upgrade but a single red button reset resolved that. Also the temp on the unit which since I've had the unit (first week of Oct) has averaged between 120-124 now seems to stay around 124 and 125 and even up to 127 after it rebooted.

The unit has become totally unreliable and frustrating. First I was told by D* it might be a corrupted download but was not told what if anything I could do to fix that, can you force a download with the remote like with the R 15? Second time I called I was told to reformat. I have several movies including a few pay per view that I will lose if I do that. I was told if I lose the ppv that's my tough luck basically. Anyway, I'm considering the reformat (it didn't help my R 15 at all) is it worth it?

 

[g4jedi]

UPDATE 2:
Medium recorded fine. We just watched it. Although it had the video glitches I mentioned previously. In fact, this is heppening on pretty much all the channels. Live and recorded. The sound doesn't skip a beat, but the video has these hiccups. Any ideas? I sure don't want to reformat. I think that is a [email protected] way to fix this unit if you ask me. Especially since it's no gaurantee.

 

[Halsey101]

Was interested to find this thread as since the latest upgrade EF, my HR 20 which had been pretty reliable now becomes totally unresponsive whenever I try to bring it out of standby. It has locked up during recordings thus getting nothing recorded for an entire day. Unplugging it doesn't help. It generally takes three to four red button resets to get it to come back to life.

On pressing the red button, I get a blank screen for about five minutes, during which time the blue power on light comes on for a few seconds, goes off then comes on again. Then nothing for a couple of minutes then on pressing power on with the remote the unit finally comes back, but no welcome screen, no aquiring satellite info, just back to live TV.

This problem started Thu. right after it downloaded version EF. Before that the only time the unit had ever locked up was once after the last upgrade but a single red button reset resolved that. Also the temp on the unit which since I've had the unit (first week of Oct) has averaged between 120-124 now seems to stay around 124 and 125 and even up to 127 after it rebooted.

The unit has become totally unreliable and frustrating. First I was told by D* it might be a corrupted download but was not told what if anything I could do to fix that, can you force a download with the remote like with the R 15? Second time I called I was told to reformat. I have several movies including a few pay per view that I will lose if I do that. I was told if I lose the ppv that's my tough luck basically. Anyway, I'm considering the reformat (it didn't help my R 15 at all) is it worth it?

Mine is doing EXACTLY the same thing as yours.. They are shipping me a new one as I type.. No wonder why they have run out of HR20's, this will be my 3rd receiver in about 2 months...

 

[MercurialIN]

Just an update to my original post on this thread. I decided to try a reformat since on the rare occasions when I could get it to boot up at all with a red button reset, the welcome screen was not showing so I couldn't try a rec/down arrow reset so I went through the menu and did a reset everything. Of course I lost all my movies, recordings etc. But the reset seemed to solve the problem. I spent hours resetting up my series links, auto records, settings etc.

Again things seemed fine for almost 20 hours then the bottom dropped out. I tried to bring the unit out of stand by and it was locked tight. Totally unresponsive. I tried a red button reset, nothing, another, still nothing, a third reset, nothing. I finally called tech support, by this point I was extremely upset. First I was told a tech needed to come out and check my set up, I reminded them that more then one tech to include a senior tech had been out in recent months and everything at this end checked out just fine. I truly believe it IS the software version EF (endlessly failing, as I've dubbed it). I admit I didn't want another unit sent out this is my second in two months and again I truly believe it is the software. I was told it's not their policy at this point to send out replacements as they believe it is not the hardware. That tells me that it IS the software.

Anyway the problem remains unresolved. The HR 20 that until this past week had only locked up ONE time and that was after the previous software upgrade is now totally unreliable, basically unuseable at this point, it locks up frequently, takes three to four resets to come back up and about fifteen minutes before it goes to live TV, no welcome screen, etc. I'd try a record/down arrow reset at this point but how do I do that? Would someone please let me know. After one last try at a red button reset I finally got the welcome screen, I waited until the "almost there" screen appeared then went blank, upon a blank screen I pushed rec and down arrow on the front of the unit at the same time. Nothing, the unit booted up anyway. So no reformat that way, what did I do wrong? Even though my R 15 locked up twice in five minutes earlier this morning it's actually beginning to look good to me at this point, I never thought I'd say that. D* I've recommended you to others for years, not anymore. I'm greatly disappointed in you.

A side note: if I am going to have to reformat the hard drive and lose all recordings, PPV etc, each time a software upgrade is sent that is totally, unacceptable!! Period. To quote Twisted Sister, "If that's your best, your best won't do."