# 622 totally disabled if no satellite signal is present



## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

Unlike my 721, the 622 seems to be totally nonfunctional if there is no satellite signal present. My 721 would still allow me to view PVR events even if the antenna wasn't hooked up -- deleting PVR events with no signal caused the 721 to reboot.

It is raining here and the signal can't be locked at this time. Due to this problem, I can't view any of my previously recorded events! The unit won't stop going back to the satellite lock screen. 

This is a very poor design if it's not only my unit that acts like this. Anyone else?


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

This should be an easy software modification to fix so it will work when the signal is lost.


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## Bill R (Dec 20, 2002)

We got a LOT of heavy rain storms over the weekend and I was very upset to learn that I couldn't watch anything on the 622 when the satellite signal was out. One time I was watching a HD OTA station when the rains came and the 622 jumped to the "satellite signal out" screen. THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED. We should be able to watch an OTA station (or recorded program) when the signal goes out. I tried every way I could think of but it looks like there is no way to cancel out of the "lost signal"screen when it pops up.


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## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

Bill R said:


> We got a LOT of heavy rain storms over the weekend and I was very upset to learn that I couldn't watch anything on the 622 when the satellite signal was out. One time I was watching a HD OTA station when the rains came and the 622 jumped to the "satellite signal out" screen. THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED. We should be able to watch an OTA station (or recorded program) when the signal goes out. I tried every way I could think of but it looks like there is no way to cancel out of the "lost signal"screen when it pops up.


What's more frustrating is that I spoke with a guy in advanced tech and he's trying to convince me that this is the behavior of all "modern" dual tuner PVRs. No way, my 4-year-old 721 doesn't act like this.

Do the 921 and 942 act this way?


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

I am pretty sure the 921 does not act that way... but being in SoCal, I don't get a lot of signal issues so I cannot say for sure.


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## Skates (Apr 15, 2004)

I can confirm that the 921 will function. I lost all of my sats for close to a week due to a cabling problem, but during that period, I was still able to tune OTA and watch recorded programs.


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## ClaudeR (Dec 7, 2003)

921 works with for OTA or DVR with rainfade. That's the way it's designed, that's whatdish propaganda says when Cable claims Dish has rainfade. I bet that Charlie comes up with a way to charge another $5.99 for people that want view during rainfade. E*, home of fees up the ying-yang.


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## Bill R (Dec 20, 2002)

Bogey,

I also have a 721 and during the rain outages this weekend it allowed me to watch the recorded programs. 

I have no idea as to why DISH has taken that feature away from us with the 622. As others have reported, 921 HD DVRs with an OTA tuner still work, ours should too.


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## Joe Clark (Jan 10, 2006)

Bill R said:


> Bogey,
> 
> I also have a 721 and during the rain outages this weekend it allowed me to watch the recorded programs.
> 
> I have no idea as to why DISH has taken that feature away from us with the 622. As others have reported, 921 HD DVRs with an OTA tuner still work, ours should too.


IIRC, even the 6000 would allow you to watch if the sat signal was down, so long as you were watching when it went down. If you were on sat, then all you could get was the error message. The 921 allows you to watch during sat outages. This is a big step backwards. Does anyone know if it's the same for the 211? I have one, but haven't had the opportunity to test this yet.


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## SMosher (Jan 16, 2006)

To really send the 622 thru a loop just take the coax off of tuner 2. Now its really screwed up. The 622 is still new in my book so I hope this is just a learning curve for the engineers. I'm sure they'll get it fixed.

PS: Reason for me only using Sat1 input cuase the DP44 switch didnt arrive in time.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

None of the two tuner receivers are designed to work with one connection. I don't see this changing in the near future.

Well since the 622 is based on the 942. How does the 942 handle this case?


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

Ron Barry said:


> Well since the 622 is based on the 942. How does the 942 handle this case?


On the 942, if you lose Sat while watching live, it can become non-responsive to attempts at going to DVR or OTA. I have been able to get back to DVR by soft reboot (PIP swap sometimes works as well) followed by hitting the DVR button when the initial acquiring SAT screen pops up. Also, after starting a recording, you can pull up the guide and switch to an OTA.


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## jrfuda (Jan 21, 2005)

Wow, this is not good at all. Fortuneately, it's pretty dry here, so rain fade is pretty rare. But I'd hate to not be able to use the thing when it does happen.


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## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

SMosher said:


> The 622 is still new in my book so I hope this is just a learning curve for the engineers. I'm sure they'll get it fixed.


It's not like this is the first DVR Dish has designed. There's no excuse for going backwards with the flagship unit. USB keyboard non-support in the 622 is another piece of evidence for this backward trend.


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## Tom_P (May 8, 2002)

Yep... Happened to me last night.. Actually to my wife. I have a sw-64 why?? I have 2 4900 that I won't gave up because I consider those unit to be better that any other non-dvr unit but the 6000 ans still the guide is better. I'll get a dpp-44 as soon as I can. ) Well I unplugged the 622 of time without luck and finally I decided to do the same with the sw-64 power inserter, that what finally fixed it, just in time to catch 24....:eek2: but I missed Prision Break..


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## DP1 (Sep 16, 2002)

Wait a minute here... I dont get it.

It seems like whenever DBS vs cable is brought up in regards to outages, the DBS camp always claim rainfade is no biggy.. "I've only lost my signal for a few minutes at a time, a few times a year ".. yada yada.

If thats the case what difference does this issue really make.. just go make a sandwich or surf DBSTalk for a couple minutes and by the time you sit back down you should be good to go again!


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

DP1 said:


> Wait a minute here... I dont get it.
> 
> It seems like whenever DBS vs cable is brought up in regards to outages, the DBS camp always claim rainfade is no biggy.. "I've only lost my signal for a few minutes at a time, a few times a year ".. yada yada.
> 
> If thats the case what difference does this issue really make.. just go make a sandwich or surf DBSTalk for a couple minutes and by the time you sit back down you should be good to go again!


Let's see. Five minutes times maybe 3-4 episodes per year. That's up to 20 minutes extra I might have to "Talk" to my wife. :nono2: :lol:


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Bogey62 said:


> It's not like this is the first DVR Dish has designed. There's no excuse for going backwards with the flagship unit. USB keyboard non-support in the 622 is another piece of evidence for this backward trend.


I believe the lack of USB keyboard support is based on the number of users that actually would use it. Once again Bogey I would think you fall in to the minority here and my guess is Dish decided not to provide this in the 942 and 622 based on there feeling of how many users actualy use that feture over the remote.

We might see it in the future if some web based functionality is added, but I would not expect to see it until something like that happend.

Well as for going backwards.... Feature get dropped all the time as products evolve. I am not suprised with the USB keyboard feature. As to the not being able to watch OTA or a recorded DVR, I would consider this one a bug and hopefully they will fix it. However, I would also consider the impact of this issue to be moderate at best from my perspective (Ofcourse others will differ). If you are hitting this one with ever rain storm, well might be time to look at alternative technologies or tweak the dish.

I am not sure of the technology or the archetecture of the 622, it is also possible that there might have been a trade off here between this functionality and having the ability to record 3 streams at once. Maybe the OTA somehow requires that the DBS tuner 1 be funcitonal. Just throwing out a possibility and I have not evidence to support the above guess. (Thinking off top of my head)

Anyway.... Excellent find and difference.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

The only time I get "rain fade" is during storms where I should be in the southwest corner of the basement - hiding. Thick electrical storms. Even that nasty line that went through on Sunday didn't bother my signal.


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## JimD (Apr 8, 2005)

Ron Barry said:


> None of the two tuner receivers are designed to work with one connection. I don't see this changing in the near future.
> 
> Well since the 622 is based on the 942. How does the 942 handle this case?


Last night we lost signal on our 942 due to the nasty thunderstorms coursing through our area. It was no problem at all for me to press the DVR button and select a recording.

Note that it is possible that the signal, being intermittent, popped up enough at just the right moment so as to permit me to do so. A better test would be to disconnect both inputs whi8le watching live sat, and then try to access a recording. Perhaps I will try this tonight...


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## mwgiii (Jul 19, 2002)

Ron Barry said:


> As to the not being able to watch OTA or a recorded DVR, I would consider this one a bug and hopefully they will fix it.


I hope you are correct because there is a safety issue in my mind. Large thunderstorm, tornado warning, lose sat signal due to heavy downpour, lose ability to watch OTA news/weather would not be good.


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## Kagato (Jul 1, 2002)

It's more likely that some product manager decided that they wanted the 622 to be totally non-functional when disconnected from the sat. You could make comparisons to Tivo after series 2 becomming highly limited once the subscription ended. However, Tivo doesn't have to deal with rain fade. Dish network subs do. I'd demand my DVR/VOD/BS fee back if I couldn't get to the programs I've lawfully paid for the right to timeshift.

As far as the USB keyboard jabs, stop defending dish. It's a trivial feature to enable and disable. It's built into the OS the DVR runs on. It's most likely that Dish took time to disable it, rather than didn't have time to enable it.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Kagato said:


> As far as the USB keyboard jabs, stop defending dish. It's a trivial feature to enable and disable. It's built into the OS the DVR runs on. It's most likely that Dish took time to disable it, rather than didn't have time to enable it.


Never saw them as jabs but as feature requests and I offered what to me seem like a rational reason for not providing this support. You may disagree with me, but it is my opinion and I personally don't equate it has defending Dish.

Though it may be built into the OS (since I don't know the details of the software drivers etc I personally don't know if this is the case). but Dish would still have to provide some type of interface to configure it as they did with the 921 & 721. From my experience, sometimes things are not as trivial as someone looking from the outside in my think. I have seen this happen all too many times, so unless I am intimate with code and hardware I tend not to jump to conclusions on the scope of work to add such a feature.


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## dfergie (Feb 28, 2003)

I had a LOS this morning, all I had to do was go to menu> program guide(info was still there)>Dvr button...worked fine.


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## Kagato (Jul 1, 2002)

Ron Barry said:


> Never saw them as jabs but as feature requests and I offered what to me seem like a rational reason for not providing this support. You may disagree with me, but it is my opinion and I personally don't equate it has defending Dish.
> 
> Though it may be built into the OS (since I don't know the details of the software drivers etc I personally don't know if this is the case). but Dish would still have to provide some type of interface to configure it as they did with the 921 & 721. From my experience, sometimes things are not as trivial as someone looking from the outside in my think. I have seen this happen all too many times, so unless I am intimate with code and hardware I tend not to jump to conclusions on the scope of work to add such a feature.


I don't have a 622, and based on the feedback in this forum I'm still on the fence if I'll upgrade. However, there's a easy way to see who's wrong and right.

The DISH 322, DISH 411, DISH Player-DVR 522, DISH Player-DVR 625, DISH Player-DVR 942, ViP211, and ViP622 DVR are all based on the same base OS Kernel. Linux 2.4.31

Dish published the kernel code and their modications to said code here: 
http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/products/receivers/dvr/Sourcecode/index.shtml
The default behavior of the kernel make is to compile USB support.

If an USB HID device like a keyboard doesn't initialize correctly upon connection 
then Dish specifically removed support at the OS level at compile. Plain and simple. If it does initialize (things like caps lock should toggle) then Dish mearly hasn't implimented HID support in their GUI.

I'm ignoring the X-Window factor at this point because we have no way of validating it. I'm not sure if the 622 runs X-Window like the 721/921. If at some point durning boot or shut down you see a grey screen with an "X" in the middle, that's X-Window running. The configuration screens are more or less change a couple lines in the XFree config files to enable support for a keyboard. X-Window does all the heavy lifting as far as getting input from the keyboard and popping it into the input boxes. If it is indeed running X-Window then only reason I can come up with for not implimenting keyboard support is poor security. (i.e. Keeping people away from a command line prompt, but that's conjecture, not fact).


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

OK ... I just pulled the sat cable off of the back of my 622 (L356). OTA is working fine - EPG is working fine. DVR events play back fine.

Is my 622 broken?


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## JimD (Apr 8, 2005)

James Long said:


> OK ... I just pulled *the sat cable* off of the back of my 622 (L356). OTA is working fine - EPG is working fine. DVR events play back fine.
> 
> Is my 622 broken?


You have only one sat cable into your 622?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

I have one cable into the DPP separator. That's the one I disconnected.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

So you disconnected both tuners and it worked. Hmm plot thickens.


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## bthessel (Oct 26, 2004)

On sunday night when the tornado sirens went off I got out of bed to check what was going on. When the TV came on the Sat was out due to the electricity in the air I guess since it wasn't yet raining at my house. I could not figure out how to get to OTA since I was stuck at the screen trying to get a signal. If there is a work around to getting there Dish needs to make it known. Instead I had to unhook my OTA antenae and hook it directly to the tv so I could check the news. 

Off topic: Tornado sirens should be for tornado's, not Thunderstorm warning with a tornado watch at the same time.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Kagato said:


> I don't have a 622, and based on the feedback in this forum I'm still on the fence if I'll upgrade. However, there's a easy way to see who's wrong and right.


From the 622 that I saw, I did not notice anything that would resemble x-windows as I know it. As for removing support rom the OS, well since my exprience with Linux as been only a moderate amount and I am definitely not savvy with its inner workings I will take you word on the validity of the test. I have my 622 on order and maybe I will give it a try to see what happens.

I think we are wondering off my point here. My point is that I do believe that there would have been work to add this feature. It would at least be in the UI and also in testing of such a feature. I am not sure how the remote and keyboard ties in but there would also be work there I would suspect. I have been in too many meetings where a feature is trivialized by the folks that don't actually do the work and that is the reason I pipped in. It almost always seem easier from the outside looking in, but unless someone as intimate knowledge with the code or hardware at best these guesses based on similar experiences.

My guess is this was a business decision based on how many customers they feel would use the feature. As I would think, it would be a minimual subset so they left it out.

Bogy... Might be a good time for a poll to see how many users would like to see this feature and how many used it with the 721 and 921.


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

bthessel said:


> I could not figure out how to get to OTA since I was stuck at the screen trying to get a signal. If there is a work around to getting there Dish needs to make it known.


Once again, the workaround is to #1 try PIP swap then DVR, or #2 Soft Reboot then hit DVR on aquire SAT screen. OTA can then be accessed by pulling up the guide.

There really is no "Conspiracy" by Dish to disable to DVR/OTA functions. Chalk this up to a software glitch with an easy workaround.


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## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

Kagato said:


> I'm ignoring the X-Window factor at this point because we have no way of validating it. I'm not sure if the 622 runs X-Window like the 721/921. If at some point durning boot or shut down you see a grey screen with an "X" in the middle, that's X-Window running.


I have never seen this on my 622, as I do on my 721.


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## waltinvt (Feb 9, 2004)

My 622 basically replaced my 942, so I just removed the 2 sat feeds and DVI connection from the 942 but left it connected to my dvd recorder with composite. I was able to access and record everything from the 942's HDD over a period of 3 days without any problems. When I'd first turn the 942 on, it showed the aquiring sat signal message but just pressing the PRV button took me right to the DVR menu where all the functions were usuable.

I've also done this with the 501 and 508. In fact I ended up replacing my 508 with the above mentioned 942 but the 508 is still hooked up to that TV via S-Vid and all it's HDD recordings are accessable. Been that way for 16 days now. I think as long as you disconnect the sat lines before deactivating you're ok. Not sure how long it will work but that's the way it is now.


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## redbird (May 9, 2005)

Pressing the Menu button should break you out of the lost signal screens. Then you can select My Recordings from the Preferences menu.


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## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

redbird said:


> Pressing the Menu button should break you out of the lost signal screens. Then you can select My Recordings from the Preferences menu.


Not the night I was having all the rain problems. Nothing would allow me to watch a PVR event unless I was already watching one when the signal went out.


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## hankmack (Feb 8, 2006)

redbird said:


> Pressing the Menu button should break you out of the lost signal screens. Then you can select My Recordings from the Preferences menu.


When I lost the Sat due to snow on the dish I was able to view my recordings my using the menu screen and selecting my recordings. Since we have no OTA signal I can't coment on that.


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## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

Ron Barry said:


> Bogy... Might be a good time for a poll to see how many users would like to see this feature and how many used it with the 721 and 921.


Let me see if I can figure out how to do that.


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## blue (Jan 23, 2003)

I recall this working for me one rainy evening when my 622 lost its satellite signal. Pressing the DVR button didn't work from the 'lost the signal' screen, but it did work once I pressed 'help'. Once I was in the 'help' screen for lost signal, I was able to pull up my recordings using the DVR button, and I also found I could get to the guide from the help screen as well.


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## liferules (Aug 14, 2005)

I lost OTA signal last night during CSI taping. It gave me the YSOD (my new term!) but I got out of it by clicking the DVR button...


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