# Remote responding slow/not at all



## Sundance (Mar 6, 2004)

I have been having trouble the last few days with poor response from the remote. sometimes I have to jam to button 3 or 4 times to get the 921 to respond to the command. Anyone else having this problem, know of a fix. Have replaced the batt.

Also does anyone else have the edges of the picture cut off (HD 16:9) when viewing dish sat. HD content. I have three HD TV's and they all are the same. Also every HD TV I see in stores seems to have the picture cropped when dish is viewed. I have looked for adjustment but have only found where I can choose between 16:9 and 4:3 and that is it.

Thanks


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## KKlare (Sep 24, 2004)

There seem a few reports where an IR remote will work when the RF will not. Usually the failure to respond is a symptom of a need for a reboot. The next time your schedule has 5 free minutes, turn off the receiver and hold the front-panel power button for long enough for the picture to come up and go away, about 5-10 seconds.

Sounds like your set and most factory delivered sets have too much overscan. They do it to ensure there is not a black band around the picture. Google your set's model and find how to get to the service menu. With care, preparation, and patience you can reduce the Width and Height and do a multipoint convergence to a prepared grid. This is several hours work and you may like the result or you may just get frustrated. Confirm with a Tuesday morning recording of HDNet Test Patterns, when on again. Try for 3-4% top and bottom, 8% or less left and right. This is not the receiver's responsibility but yours or your TV's. Luck,
-Ken


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## socceteer (Apr 22, 2005)

Sundance said:


> I have been having trouble the last few days with poor response from the remote. sometimes I have to jam to button 3 or 4 times to get the 921 to respond to the command. Anyone else having this problem, know of a fix. Have replaced the batt.
> 
> Thanks


I have had problems with my remote since day one 9 months ago. They ave replaced the remote and that was not the solution. soft boot will fix it and that is "Mikey Mouse" I had to softboot 3 to 4 times a day or wait until it cleared up. the solution is to request a IR/RF remote and use it as IR. it works all the time


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## Sundance (Mar 6, 2004)

KKlare,

So you are saying it's the TV (all TV's) and not dish. How is that , if it's basically all TV's then it sounds to me like dish is not sending out the standard the TV requires that dish is the problem not the TV. 

Socceter,

The soft boot was no help, any other ideas. I have the remote the 921 came with, does't it send Uhf and IR commands?

Thanks


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Sundance, there's posted information about an obscure UHF fix that I'm really not supposed to talk about here in the 921 forum, or you could email me your information, and I can get a 921 support team member to give you a call about it.


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## TBarclay (Mar 24, 2002)

This may be a completely different problem, but I've noticed several times in the last several months when trying to play back a recorded program, that the 921 "locks up" for as long as 20 seconds when "Start" is selected. No other button works. I simply have to wait until the program decides to start. It can be very frustrating.


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## Sundance (Mar 6, 2004)

TBarclay said:


> This may be a completely different problem, but I've noticed several times in the last several months when trying to play back a recorded program, that the 921 "locks up" for as long as 20 seconds when "Start" is selected. No other button works. I simply have to wait until the program decides to start. It can be very frustrating.


I have also experienced this as well and have always attributed it to the 921 having inadequate memory. :nono2:

It acts just like a PC when you are low on or have problems with video memory.


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## AnubisPrime (Mar 13, 2005)

I also have that exact problem...

Select a pre-recorded item and it's like pot-luck. Many times it works fine, but sometimes. Nothing happens and I have to wait 20-30 sec. for the recorded program to start.


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## cleblanc (Dec 18, 2003)

I also had the same problem. The remote would not operate the 921 the way it should. It was extremely sluggish. I started using an MX500 universal remote that worked perfectly. Since then I've hooked up an 811 receiver and am using the 921 remote for the 911 and that also works perfectly. As a matter of fact, I can't believe how fast the guide is on the 811.


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## welchwarlock (Jan 5, 2005)

I started having this problem last night. I use a Pronto Pro, which is sending IR codes. The commands are getting queued up inside the receiver sometimes, and sometimes just ignored. Often one to press a button 3-4 times before it responds. 

I am guessing this bug was introduced in 2.16 or 2.18.

WW


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

TBarclay said:


> This may be a completely different problem, but I've noticed several times in the last several months when trying to play back a recorded program, that the 921 "locks up" for as long as 20 seconds when "Start" is selected. No other button works. I simply have to wait until the program decides to start. It can be very frustrating.


Ditto here.


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## socceteer (Apr 22, 2005)

AnubisPrime said:


> I also have that exact problem...
> 
> Select a pre-recorded item and it's like pot-luck. Many times it works fine, but sometimes. Nothing happens and I have to wait 20-30 sec. for the recorded program to start.


I have experienced this problems too.

I also notice that I can control the unit with my IR remote when this happens, I called Dish support and they sent me a UHF/IR remote control, I use it as IR and I have not experienced the problem yet

This may be a different problem, but it solved my problem with Freezing remote control.


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## madbrain (Dec 10, 2004)

I have had problems with the remote not responding even in IR mode only. I use a Sony universal remote which is IR only - I never use the Dish 921 remote.

On several occasions, my 921 stopped responding to the IR commands completely. I entered a series of commands that included channels changes, power on, power off , pause, play, etc ... The 921 didn't respond to any of them. But it kept playing the live program . About 5 minutes later, it responded to*all* the IR commands at once - ie. it powered itself up/down multiple times, etc ... As if the IR commands were in an event queue that wasn't being serviced ...

FYI, when this happened, I had the closed captions on because I happened to be listening to a CD, rather than to the program's audio track.


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## gboot (Oct 11, 2004)

A few months ago I had remote problems and Dish eventually replaced my reciever which cured the problem. I've had problems with the 921 responding slowly to commands in the past but with the advent of 216/218, I'm experiencing "sluggishness" with the reciever responding much more frequently. I don't think it has anything to do with the remote, it happens with both the UHF and IR remote. Someone earlier described it as a like a PC with not enough memory, eventually it will respond. 
I had a different problem recently with my 921 , and over the weekend I installed the third replacement 921 from Dish, the sluggishness was still there. Which leads me to believe it is software related and the changes in 216/218 has aggravated the problem.


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

The lack of response is not the fault of remote because during these times even some front panel buttons may not repond. It also not due to insufficent memory, unless memory leaks are occuring. Some scheduled process is taking control of the CPU. It a bug that's been reported numerious times and fairly safe to say the cause is still unknown.


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## Scooters (Mar 15, 2003)

I've had a (relatively) stable 921 until this software upgrade. I am now having problems where the box does not respond to the remote control commands for several (probably 5 to 30) seconds. 

I'm also having a major problem with decreased sensitivity on my local OTA channels.

Again, all was working until the last software update.


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## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

I actually replaced the batteries in my remote because I thought something must be wrong with the remote itself. I also kept wondering if maybe I just wasn't firmly pressing the button when I thought I had. But no, it certainly seems to be the 921 itself, since the new batteries make no difference; there definitely seem to be periods of time when the 921 is slow to respond to commands.


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## pwherr (Jul 14, 2004)

If I keep mine in SD mode never a problem but if I have it in HD mode for more than a couple of hours the remote stops working and I have to reboot.I have had two different recievers and they both have done this.So I'm thinking software not hardware problem.


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## KKlare (Sep 24, 2004)

Sundance said:


> KKlare,
> 
> So you are saying it's the TV (all TV's) and not dish. How is that , if it's basically all TV's then it sounds to me like dish is not sending out the standard the TV requires that dish is the problem not the TV.
> 
> ...


Old CRT tube TVs were set to overscan because the the drive circuits were not very stable and noone likes to see the ragged edges.

With fixed displays (LCD, DLP, plasma) and most CRT RP the drive is stable enough to use very little overscan and the data is removed. The overscan also compensated for any banging around, magnetic fields, trapezoidal and pincushion distortions, and the data lines above the picture.

Studio monitors were/are set with underscan so the engineers can check the entire picture.

Re UHF vs IR, the 921 remote uses IR for all but the Sat commands, where it sends only UHF. Older models send IR and a different UHF frequency. The new dual turners have a turn over tab to select IR or UHF.

FWIW IMHO.
-Ken


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