# VIP622 Playback locks up



## bwhall (Apr 6, 2006)

I have had the 622 for less than a week and have been experiencing problems with playback and viewing live TV. While in playback the video will freeze and the audio will begin to skip for a second or 2 and then stop. If I rewind and replay the problem persists. The only way to continue is to fast forward past the defective point and resume play. I record about 4 hours per day and this happens at least once per day. Sometime during watching live TV the audio and video will skip for a brief second, much like it does during the playback problem, but it does not lockup. Is this a problem with the Hard Drive or a software bug?


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

Could be a loss of signal problem. How are your sig strengths?


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## bwhall (Apr 6, 2006)

LtMunst said:


> Could be a loss of signal problem. How are your sig strengths?


Signal strength is very good, besides even if the pictures breaks up it should not affect recording or playback. In playing back you would see the distorted picture but the playback itself should not be affected (ie. lockup)


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

bwhall said:


> Signal strength is very good, besides even if the pictures breaks up it should not affect recording or playback. In playing back you would see the distorted picture but the playback itself should not be affected (ie. lockup)


I have seen cases where bad sig during recording will cause the programs to freeze/lockup on playback.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

The first time I recorded a Nascar race OTA on my 622, the signal evidently had anomalies in it. I could play the recording with no problem, but if I tried to fast forward, it pixelated and locked up the recorder. I had to watch the commercials!!

I haven't had that problem since, except one time I was watching OTA with a weak signal (some pixelation) and it locked up the unit and rebooted it.


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## Bogey62 (Dec 1, 2002)

Jim5506 said:


> The first time I recorded a Nascar race OTA on my 622, the signal evidently had anomalies in it. I could play the recording with no problem, but if I tried to fast forward, it pixelated and locked up the recorder. I had to watch the commercials!!
> 
> I haven't had that problem since, except one time I was watching OTA with a weak signal (some pixelation) and it locked up the unit and rebooted it.


I had the same problem with our OTA Fox recordings. FF would pixelize like crazy.


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## GATER (Mar 17, 2006)

> except one time I was watching OTA with a weak signal (some pixelation) and it locked up the unit and rebooted it.


This has actually happened to me a few times. It has also locked up and rebooted during a channel change as well. I don't know if i should take this as a normal function of the unit or ask for a replacement unit.


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## bwhall (Apr 6, 2006)

LtMunst said:


> I have seen cases where bad sig during recording will cause the programs to freeze/lockup on playback.


So my assumption that a weak signal should not cause the 622 to lockup is incorrect. This being the case, is it a hard drive, software, or system problem? In other word is it correctable or not?


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

bwhall said:


> So my assumption that a weak signal should not cause the 622 to lockup is incorrect. This being the case, is it a hard drive, software, or system problem? In other word is it correctable or not?


First, double check your signal strengths. In the point dish screen, check you #'s for 110/119 TPs 11 & 12. Check 61.5 TP 7 also if you have VOOM. If the problem is a borderline signal, it is correctable.


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## bwhall (Apr 6, 2006)

LtMunst said:


> First, double check your signal strengths. In the point dish screen, check you #'s for 110/119 TPs 11 & 12. Check 61.5 TP 7 also if you have VOOM. If the problem is a borderline signal, it is correctable.


I am also thinking that the problem may be thermal related. This unit seems to get significantly hotter than the 942. I am trying out some cooling techniques to see if that makes a difference.


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

I had a problem once when I tried using the coax ports on my UPS unit. This cause intermittent signal loss on certain channels. If you happen to be running your sat feed through a surge protector, that could be a problem also.


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## madbrain (Dec 10, 2004)

bwhall said:


> I have had the 622 for less than a week and have been experiencing problems with playback and viewing live TV. While in playback the video will freeze and the audio will begin to skip for a second or 2 and then stop. If I rewind and replay the problem persists. The only way to continue is to fast forward past the defective point and resume play. I record about 4 hours per day and this happens at least once per day. Sometime during watching live TV the audio and video will skip for a brief second, much like it does during the playback problem, but it does not lockup. Is this a problem with the Hard Drive or a software bug?


I had a problem yesterday - my first day my the 622.
I recorded "The visitors" on Universal HD.
The unit rebooted itself after only 5 minutes of playing back.
I called Dish and they said to power off and call back if it happened again. 
At least I was able to proceed through the movie when the unit came back, without skipping, and it did not reboot itself the 2nd time ...


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

madbrain said:


> I had a problem yesterday - my first day my the 622.
> I recorded "The visitors" on Universal HD.
> The unit rebooted itself after only 5 minutes of playing back.
> I called Dish and they said to power off and call back if it happened again.
> At least I was able to proceed through the movie when the unit came back, without skipping, and it did not reboot itself the 2nd time ...


Was this via the 129 or the 61.5 sat? If it was the 129 and one of the signal drops happen I've see the loss of signal in a DVR event cause the 622 to lockup and then reboot. During live content it usually recovers, but if the signal loss is in the DVR event it doesn't recover.


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## bwhall (Apr 6, 2006)

Rob Glasser said:


> Was this via the 129 or the 61.5 sat? If it was the 129 and one of the signal drops happen I've see the loss of signal in a DVR event cause the 622 to lockup and then reboot. During live content it usually recovers, but if the signal loss is in the DVR event it doesn't recover.


My issues are with the 61.5 sat.I have not had a circumstance where the 622 reboots. Just locks up during playback. I am going to try and adjst the antenna to get a stronger signal (>93) on the weaker HD transponders. Most are >100.


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## madbrain (Dec 10, 2004)

Rob,



Rob Glasser said:


> Was this via the 129 or the 61.5 sat? If it was the 129 and one of the signal drops happen I've see the loss of signal in a DVR event cause the 622 to lockup and then reboot. During live content it usually recovers, but if the signal loss is in the DVR event it doesn't recover.


Not from 61.5 for sure since I haven't had a dish pointed at that in 5 years.
I have Dish 1000 and 148 . I believe I get Universal HD from 129, but not certain about that.
There was no signal loss in the DVR event, however. After the unit rebooted, I started the playback again - from the beginning - since it forgot where I was at - and was able to play from the time of the interruption, without further issues.

In the case of the TV5 news, I get it from 148 . Again, no visible signal issue in the recording, after the reboot I was able to play the remainder of the event without any problem.


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## madbrain (Dec 10, 2004)

bwhall said:


> My issues are with the 61.5 sat.I have not had a circumstance where the 622 reboots. Just locks up during playback. I am going to try and adjst the antenna to get a stronger signal (>93) on the weaker HD transponders. Most are >100.


In my case the unit stutters first (machine gun sound), then my cats go crazy  , then the screen goes black very shortly after the sound stops. It stays that way for about 2 minutes, not answering any remote or front panel command. Then the unit reboots itself. Perhaps you didn't wait long enough to see it self-reboot ?

Both times that I called, the Dish CSRs just said to power it off (unplug it) after that reboot, even though that had appeared to get it back to normal state. Last night after that power cord reboot, while on the phone, my 622 came up with a critical error about the hard drive, and there was an error code that I gave to the CSR.
I never watch live TV, so if I can't watch recorded events, the 622 is useless to me ...


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## bwhall (Apr 6, 2006)

madbrain said:


> In my case the unit stutters first (machine gun sound), then my cats go crazy  , then the screen goes black very shortly after the sound stops. It stays that way for about 2 minutes, not answering any remote or front panel command. Then the unit reboots itself. Perhaps you didn't wait long enough to see it self-reboot ?
> 
> Both times that I called, the Dish CSRs just said to power it off (unplug it) after that reboot, even though that had appeared to get it back to normal state. Last night after that power cord reboot, while on the phone, my 622 came up with a critical error about the hard drive, and there was an error code that I gave to the CSR.
> I never watch live TV, so if I can't watch recorded events, the 622 is useless to me ...


The symptoms you describe are the exact same I experience, and you are right, I do not wait. As soon as the picture freezes I skip back then forward past the point of defect and continue viewing. So does everybody believe that this is still a signal strenth issue?


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

bwhall said:


> The symptoms you describe are the exact same I experience, and you are right, I do not wait. As soon as the picture freezes I skip back then forward past the point of defect and continue viewing. So does everybody believe that this is still a signal strenth issue?


I too have seen these symptons but in my case I am 99.9% sure it's signal strength issues. It only happens to me on DVR events from the 129 Sat channels, which have issues for me. It's completely repeatable after a reboot, and I can get around it by skipping over that section of the recording. If I have a loss of signal event like this during live TV the 622 will self recover when the signal returns, however in a DVR event it crashes and reboots.


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## madbrain (Dec 10, 2004)

bwhall said:


> The symptoms you describe are the exact same I experience, and you are right, I do not wait. As soon as the picture freezes I skip back then forward past the point of defect and continue viewing. So does everybody believe that this is still a signal strenth issue?


It's not a signal issue for me, because after the reboot, I could go back to where I was in the recorded event when the DVR crashed, and view it just fine. There is nothing odd in the recording then.

Last night, I was watching a movie time delayed on Showtime HD, "it's my party". I don't think that was from 129. The 622 crashed not once, but twice, during that movie ! 
Which means the movie got chopped in multiple pieces, and I lost about 4 minutes of it.
I was too upset and unable to finish watching it. I stayed for over an hour with dish on the phone - from about 2 to 3am - trying to convince them to give me a new unit and credits for the programming, since I'm paying for premium movie channels but can't watch a single movie uninterrupted on the 622.

They finally agreed to give me a weeks credit, and send a replacement unit that I should get monday hopefully ... I really really hope this one will work !

Since I was watching time delayed last night, it's possible that last night I had a signal issue, but I doubt it. My 921 and 508 (now disconnected) don't have signal issues for dish, only some OTA signal issues on the 921. I usually don't watch time delayed though, I watch fully pre-recorded events, which is what I did every other day, and the 622 still crashed. Anyway, signal issues should not result in the unit rebooting itself - merely the program being recorded being interrupted. If that happened, I would know there is an installation problem and could get it fixed. But that's not what happened.


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## liferules (Aug 14, 2005)

Rob Glasser said:


> I too have seen these symptons but in my case I am 99.9% sure it's signal strength issues.


Rob, I think you're correct. I have signal problems with my OTA and I've been getting lots of terrible stuttering since the 356 upgrade. I had originally thought the broadcast strength had taken a hit, but now am thinking it is the way the 622 is handling the poor signal...


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## whatchel1 (Jan 11, 2006)

Jim5506 said:


> The first time I recorded a Nascar race OTA on my 622, the signal evidently had anomalies in it. I could play the recording with no problem, but if I tried to fast forward, it pixelated and locked up the recorder. I had to watch the commercials!!
> 
> I haven't had that problem since, except one time I was watching OTA with a weak signal (some pixelation) and it locked up the unit and rebooted it.


I see that someone besides me has a 622 in Lubb., TX. I'm seeing lock ups and have to reboot the unit. There is also lipsync problems that are also cured by soft reboot. I have had to hard reboot the unit as well. 1 of the big problems we have in this area is that 2 of the stations (ABC & CBS) we have here are running under 1 k/watt transmitters.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

whatchel1 said:


> I see that someone besides me has a 622 in Lubb., TX. I'm seeing lock ups and have to reboot the unit. There is also lipsync problems that are also cured by soft reboot. I have had to hard reboot the unit as well. 1 of the big problems we have in this area is that 2 of the stations (ABC & CBS) we have here are running under 1 k/watt transmitters.


My unit hs been working pretty smooth. I haven't had a lock up in several weeks. I did get signal loss during the thunder storms last week.

I had my 622 installed Feb 15th. The installer said I was the first 622 he had installed in Lubbock, but he seemed to know what he was doing and every thing went well.

I moved up from a 510 DVR. I love it, and I'll love it more when Dish enables external USB HD archiving. MY HD is full of HD recordings that I'd Like to keep but they are going to start being bumped off here pretty soon. I have been copying them in SD to my TiVo then moving them to my computer, but I'd like to be able to save them in HD.

I have seen some lipsync problems, but I even see lipsync problems on SD programs on my 301's.

All in all I am really pleased with my 622.


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