# Multiple 921 with problems, horrid customer service



## dawson5 (Feb 1, 2005)

We have a 921...actually this is our third 921 since October. We have been plagued with multiple problems with all three units. This latest one was hooked up on New Years Day.

I have called customer service soooo many times that I actually get people I have talked to before and remember me! Some of them are nice and apologetic and seem very concerned, yet they are still quite clueless. One offered me an extended warranty, since my original one was up (for an additional charge, or course.) Others are downright nasty... I spent 1.5 hours on the phone just last night with multiple people who obviously had no clue what to do. I got the first person, who pulls up my account and asks what's wrong and then immediately shuffles me off to contestant #2, who shuffles me off to #3. I was on hold most of this time and got hung up on when I finally got to someone who seemed to know what she was doing. I called back and asked to be transferred back to her and got someone who had to "follow the rule book" and make me go through the whole thing again, after she said the record stated that "I wasn't there when they picked up." Then, she transferred me to someone else...

</rant>

Okay, here's my problem. Dish sent a tech out 1/7, but they "don't climb on the roof" He came to the conclusion that the switches in the attic weren't wired correctly, the wires should have "come from the dish to one switch and then off the back to the second switch", he fixed that. The dish also wasn't grounded, but "he doesn't climb on the roof." All works actually better for a couple of weeks and then the lost lock screen is back. Called again, and they said they'd send a guy out. 1/24 tech #2 shows up and says that the "LNB quads need to be switched out to DP duals" and that would fix my problem, but "he doesn't climb on the roof." Yesterday, my installer came out and changed the quads to duals and grounded the dish and last night I got the black screen again...this is where I called and got 5 different agents over 1.5 hours and nobody asked me to reboot, or check switch or anything they usually do. I ran the check switch on my own and came up with red X's in the transponder boxes. This morning, I ran another check switch and it works fine. Sooooo...

I have another technician visit scheduled for tomorrow. My installer is going to be here, too, so he can hear what they have to say. The first tech I had out here had never even *seen* a 921 before, so I don't really have a lot of faith in what they might suggest at this point. I've learned more reading this forum than from any of Dish's people. *Can anyone suggest anything that I could tell these people to look for?* I don't know much about the equipment on the roof or in the attic, but I know it's a DishPro 34 and I have software 211 on a HEED-N box. If you need more specifics, I'll find a way to get them.

Thanks in advance,
Kim


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Kim, your nasty dealer experiences aside, please describe the problem that you're having with your 921 in as much detail as you can. It very well may be a 921 software problem.


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## dawson5 (Feb 1, 2005)

921 gets Lost Lock message. I can't determine a pattern for this happening. Sometimes we are watching and a timer tries to execute, sometimes we are just changing channels. I have tried rebooting with the power switch and doing a check switch and neither helps. The check switch comes up with red x's in the transponder boxes for sat 119 and nothing for sat 110. I can leave the unit until morning and do another check switch and it comes up fine.

We also have a 301 and a 510 and neither are plagued with this. I can bring either one in and plug into dish from this location when this is happening and they both work fine.

Installer came out Monday and changed "LNB quads for DP duals" on Monday per Dish local service recommendation and Monday night it happened again.

It did *not* happen last night. My experiences are very similar to this thread:
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=36747

Kim


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## FrequentFlyer (Sep 22, 2004)

Kim/Dawson5,

Please read the first message in this thread and tell me if this is the exact same problem you are having. Try my fix of simply disconnecting (wait five seconds) and reconnecting the satellite cable.

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=38223

Do you think we are having the same problem?

What is your distance from LNB to 921?

Edit: I should add that once my 921 gets into the "lost lock" condition, I can no longer see the switch. If I do a check switch, I will get x's.


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## dawson5 (Feb 1, 2005)

FrequentFlyer said:


> Please read the first message in this thread and tell me if this is the exact same problem you are having. Try my fix of simply disconnecting (wait five seconds) and reconnecting the satellite cable.
> 
> http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=38223
> 
> ...


Hi FF, I read that thread last night, but my dish is only 50-75 feet of cable from my 921. The symptoms are the same and I know we've tried unhooking the satellite cable and rehooking it and it didn't help. It's working at the moment, but I will try it again when it dies.

After my installer changed the quad to twins, he didn't run a check switch and he thinks that's why I lost lock that night. You would think that when I did run it after it lost lock that it would've fixed it, but it didn't. It did come up after a check switch the next morning.

Kim


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## FrequentFlyer (Sep 22, 2004)

dawson5 said:


> Hi FF, I read that thread last night, but my dish is only 50-75 feet of cable from my 921. The symptoms are the same and I know we've tried unhooking the satellite cable and rehooking it and it didn't help. It's working at the moment, but I will try it again when it dies.


Interesting. Distance is only one theory that I have. It may not be a factor. If we have the same problem, it's a matter of waiting for it to occur and then trying to troubleshoot.


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## dawson5 (Feb 1, 2005)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Kim, your nasty dealer experiences aside, please describe the problem that you're having with your 921 in as much detail as you can. It very well may be a 921 software problem.


Okay. (FF, you watching?) It died again. This morning, I had two installers and a Dish service guy here and it worked fine, but tonight, it died. I had a timer ask me to execute at 6PM and I verified by hitting the select button, then I was surfing channels. I just hooked an OTA tuner today and was showing DH the local HD feeds. It could have been when timer was actually trying to launch and I was surfing, not exactly sure, but I lost lock again.

Since then I have tried:

Tried the PIP trick from this thread:
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=36747
and I got a message that says PIP not available with HD

unhooking the satellite feed and rehooking after 3 minutes - nothing (sorry, FF)

unplug for 3 mins and replug - nothing.

We paused for dinner.
Came back at 6:58 and had an HD satellite channel very briefly.

All my OTA locals work fine through the 921.

I have not done a check switch or anything else at this point.

Kim


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Kim, please email me your contact information (phone number), 921 receiver CAID, softcard ID #, boot and flash versions of your receiver, and a summary of everything that you've had changed, switched and done to try to fix this problem, including who the dealers were that did all of the work. I'll send all of that to the 921 team who will get back to you and try to help you through this mess. I think that you're running up against a couple of different problems, but the support team will probably be able to work up the details of what's wrong here.


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## FrequentFlyer (Sep 22, 2004)

dawson5 said:


> (FF, you watching?)


Yes. It does seem like our problems are not identical, though many of the symptoms are the same. Still, I will be watching for your note on resolution to see if the same fix does anything for me. Good luck and thanks.


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## dawson5 (Feb 1, 2005)

FrequentFlyer said:


> Yes. It does seem like our problems are not identical, though many of the symptoms are the same. Still, I will be watching for your note on resolution to see if the same fix does anything for me. Good luck and thanks.


It was working fine this morning. I never did a check switch last night, so I didn't have to do one this morning. Weird. I'll post if I get any enlightenment from elsewhere.

Kim


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## dawson5 (Feb 1, 2005)

FrequentFlyer said:


> Yes. It does seem like our problems are not identical, though many of the symptoms are the same. Still, I will be watching for your note on resolution to see if the same fix does anything for me. Good luck and thanks.


Hey, FF, did you ever replace your connectors like was discussed in your original posting? I had another Dish service guy here today and he said we needed RG6 cable and the compression connectors (the cable was right, but connectors weren't and he fixed). I haven't crashed since then, but it's early, LOL!

Kim


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## FrequentFlyer (Sep 22, 2004)

dawson5 said:


> Hey, FF, did you ever replace your connectors like was discussed in your original posting? I had another Dish service guy here today and he said we needed RG6 cable and the compression connectors (the cable was right, but connectors weren't and he fixed). I haven't crashed since then, but it's early, LOL!
> 
> Kim


I have ordered some connectors and compression tool. When they arrive I will try it. There are actually quite a few connectors if you count the short cables that run from the separator to the receiver. However, the connectors I have now are Digicon compression connectors and the cable is brand new 2200 GHz RG6 so I'm not extremely optimistic. Of course I know I have an extra long run.

I have run for several days in the past without a lost lock. Once I get the lost lock, I can usually cure it with one of these methods (recapping):

* disconnect and reconnect cable

* if that does not work, then reset receiver (now using a power reset to avoid wear/tear on the card)

* if neither of those works just wait a little while; it will sometimes heal itself

* if it still does not work, power down the switch and the receiver, then bring the switch back up and then the receiver. I think that has always worked.

As an aside, if you ever have a DPP44 switch, be sure to use ports 1 & 4 for 921s. While I can see no reason why it should make a difference, it was posted on this board and I think my reliability has been greater in that configuration.


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## dawson5 (Feb 1, 2005)

Weeeeelllll, we lost lock again last night. It was 10PM CST here. As a matter of fact, it was exactly 10PM and timer was winding up and my DH was trying to tune off an OTA HD station. At one point, I was trying the PIP trick and got a message that said "PIP not supported in HD," which was interesting, since I wasn't on an HD channel at that point. I tried minimal recovery, since it was so late, but sure enough, it worked this AM just fine.

We had a timer firing right about the same time it lost lock the *last* time, too. Not sure if an HD channel was involved in the channel change, though. I do know I got the same PIP message, though.

FF, is there any correlation between your LL's and timers starting or ending?

Daughter's playing PS2 right now, but I will see if I can re-create later.

Kim


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## FrequentFlyer (Sep 22, 2004)

dawson5 said:


> FF, is there any correlation between your LL's and timers starting or ending?


I have believed for some time that the lost lock (or just black screen as is sometimes the case) is the result of channel changing, and perhaps due to changing from a 119 to a 110 channel or vice versa. Of course the firing of a timer event could trigger a channel change and thus the problem.

Next time you lose lock, try:

* Menu 6, 5 - last time I lost lock I did this and got "no tuners"; I will check it again next time.

* Menu 6, 2 (point dish) - when I have lost lock I get either no signal at all, or no signal on one tuner, or no signal on one satellite

Also, when I have the lost lock situation, the Point Dish screen is extremely sluggish, taking up to 15 seconds to process each press of the remote.


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## dawson5 (Feb 1, 2005)

We lost lock again last night at 7PM. Is there something that the 921 does on the hour that might cause this? We've lost lock on the hour the last three times, and this time there was no timer involved.

We were watching OTA and it was unaffected by this, but I did go and grab my 301 and immediately plug it into the same satellite feed as a backup and it worked right away. I didn't have a chance to work on the 921 until 10:15, when I unplugged both the power and sat feeds for 15 mins. When it came back up, it was still LL. So, I went to Menu-6-2 and both tuners could "see" both satellites when I manually changed the settings. I didn't do a check switch. This morning, it works fine again.

I am supposed to have a tech coming out this morning to ground the dish and the switches *correctly* and change out the 34 that the 921 is hooked to. If that doesn't work, they want to trade out my 921 again. (#4!!)

Kim


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## dawson5 (Feb 1, 2005)

Update...

This week, I had a Dish service guy out here on Monday. He grounded the dish properly and gave my another new 921 (my fourth.) I was told the LNB Twin that my installer put up wasn't compatible with the 34 switches and it needed to be switched out for DP Duals.

Wednesday. Installer changes out LNB's. So far so good, but we haven't done any hard-core TV watching this week, either.

If this doesn't work, he left me another dish (minus LNB) and we're going to spin off the 921 to it's own dish with the twin LNB and get rid of a couple more variables.

But...last night my 501 couldn't find the satellite signal. ROFLOL! It just doesn't get any better than this!

I do want to say that things have gone much better now that I am direct contact with the right people.


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## FrequentFlyer (Sep 22, 2004)

dawson5 said:


> Update...


Yesterday I changed all the connectors between the 921 and the switch to the Snap-n-Seal. Everything was done slowly and carefully to make sure each strip was perfect and the connector properly seated.

Initially all was working well. Then as a stress test, I changed channels over and over again. Eventually after about 30-50 changes, the receiver lost lock. Disconnecting and reconnecting the satellite cable did not fix it. A power cycle reset did not fix it. A multi-switch power cycle reset did not fix it. The solution was just to leave it alone for a few hours and it healed itself. Dawson5, I think this is the same symptom/fix you have, right?


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## dawson5 (Feb 1, 2005)

FrequentFlyer said:


> The solution was just to leave it alone for a few hours and it healed itself. Dawson5, I think this is the same symptom/fix you have, right?


Yes, it seemed like whatever it was got fixed by the middle of the night auto-reboot. You are just having this problem with one unit, right? Which LNB are you running?


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## FrequentFlyer (Sep 22, 2004)

dawson5 said:


> Yes, it seemed like whatever it was got fixed by the middle of the night auto-reboot. You are just having this problem with one unit, right? Which LNB are you running?


Just one of two 921s is currently having this problem (the one with the longer cable run). I have a DishPro LNB and am using DPP44 switch with separators.

Did you ever solve this or just live with it (like I have been doing)?


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## dawson5 (Feb 1, 2005)

FrequentFlyer said:


> Just one of two 921s is currently having this problem (the one with the longer cable run). I have a DishPro LNB and am using DPP44 switch with separators.
> 
> Did you ever solve this or just live with it (like I have been doing)?


Is it the twin, or the quad, or the dual LNB? One of the local technicians here suggested the quad and the twin will conflict with the other switches and could cause problems. Of course, if you only have one unit with the problem, that wouldn't make any sense.

I still have trouble, even with another new box. Last night, we could only get the HD channels on the satellite. No OTA or regular channels. I tried a check switch and it started on the round of 28 tests, but I cancelled out of it. Once again, it's fine this morning. I didn't even try to call tech support, since I know they leave at 9:30PMish. I think I might get my installer to spin the 921 off onto it's own dish alone with a twin LNB and see if that helps.


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