# Partial recordings after 6.3a upgrade



## karolinatx (Oct 5, 2006)

After weeks of forcing calls 6.3a finally hit my HR10-250 today. Yay, right? Sadly, no.

Things were peachy until I went to watch my recording of _Lost_. Only the first seven minutes were recorded. Then _The Nine_. That recorded everything except the last seven minutes.

No one at D*, either in technical support or retention, appears to have heard of this problem before. The last CSR in retention I spoke to was urging me to do a hard reset of the box, which I'm loathe to do without assurance it will indeed fix the problem as I have hours and hours of recordings I still plan to watch.

Could this be an indication of a failing hard drive? Something else completely? Am I truly one of the cursed?


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## newsposter (Nov 13, 2003)

I cant say if you are cursed but dont do the clear and delete until you have more bad recordings (at least). They can't really fix boxes over the phone but always say C/D and that will fix it all. to me, there has to be a breakpoint with X number of recordings not coming in for me to blame the upgrade (which i still dont have wahh)

maybe related or not: monday i had a program that wont play at all. it says 59 minutes but it simply wont play. I"ve heard 6.3 is actually residing on our hard drives and if true, the conspiracy theorist in me says it's its fault. Probably not though lol.


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## mluntz (Jul 13, 2006)

I have 6.3a. Works like a champ so far! Good luck to you.


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## karolinatx (Oct 5, 2006)

Just to make things more interesting, tonight _Grey's Anatomy_ recorded on the standard ABC channel even though the Season Pass is clearly set for the HD ABC channel. 

Looks like I'm screwed any way you slice it. I don't even want to hold off any longer in doing the complete reformatting since the retention CSRs are all telling me the HR10 inventory is realy low so if I need to get my unit replaced I should do it sooner rather than later. That or get "stuck with" an HR20.


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## crendall (Jun 27, 2006)

I have Shark as a Season Pass and tonight it recorded the first 8 minutes and then it stopped recording. Luckily I noticed it wasn't recording anything and I was able to record what is in the buffer for the rest of the show. Version 3.1.5f has been very reliable, and I hope 6.3a isn't going to be less reliable.


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## newsposter (Nov 13, 2003)

greys and 6 degrees are known guide issues not specific to your machine...just dont use those as reasons


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## crendall (Jun 27, 2006)

I also have Numb3rs as a Season Pass and it only recorded the first 16 minutes. That's twice in two days since the upgrade that I've had recordings stop before they were supposed to. I was watching a recorded show and it ended and I deleted it around the time Numb3rs stopped recording. I don't know if the two are related or not...


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## rbpeirce (Feb 24, 2006)

crendall said:


> I also have Numb3rs as a Season Pass and it only recorded the first 16 minutes. That's twice in two days since the upgrade that I've had recordings stop before they were supposed to. I was watching a recorded show and it ended and I deleted it around the time Numb3rs stopped recording. I don't know if the two are related or not...


I just checked and I got NUMB3RS OK. I have 6.3a. This sounds a lot like the problem I, and other people, were having with the R15 after the last two updates. In many cases a C&D was the only way to correct the problem. I bit the bullet and my R15 has been fine since. If this persists (give it a few days) you may have to do the same thing with your HR10.


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## karolinatx (Oct 5, 2006)

*newsposter*, I'm not sure what you mean by "known guide issues." If "known guide issues" means a program records on a different station than it's supposed to, then I guess that was it.

Regardless, I cut my losses Thursday night and did a C&D. So far I haven't seen any problems but we'll see. Since it's the weekend my To-Do List is pretty meager. If it goes a week without any odd behavior, then I'll call the C&D a success. In the meantime, I'm just thankful my _Battlestar Galactica_ recorded without problems. :lol:


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## karolinatx (Oct 5, 2006)

Another update: since doing the C&D of my HR10-250, I'm now experiencing the audio dropouts that others have posted about. There is no audio for 10 or 12 seconds, then a quick bit of pixellation, and audio pops back in. :nono2: Does anyone know if D* is working on a fix for this?


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## pdawg17 (Jul 17, 2006)

Since getting 6.3a, I have had several shows not recorded for the entire length...the few times it has happened, I had increased the "stop time"...they either only record the guide's timed amount or get cut even shorter...NEVER happened with 3.1.5f...


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## naijai (Aug 19, 2006)

well i have the 3.1.5f and i have been getting partial recordings on different types of shows like 30 mins at the end or few minutes at the beginning so i dont think its just linked to the 6.3a


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## karolinatx (Oct 5, 2006)

This audio dropouts things makes shows absolutely unwatchable! I'm 18 minutes into last night's _Mystery!_ and it's happened 4 times already. Dialogue-heavy shows are a mess as a result. I've called D* numerous times today and everyone has sworn up and down that they don't know anything about this, that it's not a known issue, and that the only audio problem they've had is the Dolby setting problem which caused no audio at all on HD stations. I asked how can it be that I'm sitting here at the computer looking at the thread with 200+ responses all about this identical issue, but apparently posts on a message board don't make something a "known issue."

Anyway, the last retention CSR I spoke to this evening was very kind and offered to send me a replacement unit. She also gave me four months of the DH programming for free, which was nice. I guess the new HR10-250 will be another roll of the dice as to whether or not the audio dropout will occur. If they do, I'm going to seriously rethink getting an HR20. Sure, I won't be able to watch _Veronica Mars_ in HD for a few months and I lose my sweet, sweet TiVo, but if my audio is crapping out every few minutes anyway, my tv-viewing experience isn't exactly what I'd call "good."


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

folks - check out www.tivocommunity.com... D* knows all about the audio problems.


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## scottp461 (Sep 7, 2006)

pdawg17 said:


> Since getting 6.3a, I have had several shows not recorded for the entire length...the few times it has happened, I had increased the "stop time"...they either only record the guide's timed amount or get cut even shorter...NEVER happened with 3.1.5f...


I have had these problems with 3.1.5f on 2 different HR10's, in my case the problems occured when I was watching a previously recorded HD program at the same time as the unit was recording another HD program, somewhat worse when recording 2 HD programs at the same time and MUCH worse when both the program being watched and the recording(s) were long HD programs. I think that it might have something to do with just adequate processor speeds on the HR10-250 and the additional time required to "handle" big HD files. Other demands on the processor may also cause this problem. This is all conjecture, but when I treat the TiVo's as over taxed computers they behave better. They have NEVER had these recording problems when in standby mode.

One of my units is now upgraded to 6.3a and so far I haven't had any recordings cut short or start late.


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## newsposter (Nov 13, 2003)

karolinatx said:


> *newsposter*, I'm not sure what you mean by "known guide issues." If "known guide issues" means a program records on a different station than it's supposed to, then I guess that was it.
> 
> Regardless, I cut my losses Thursday night and did a C&D. So far I haven't seen any problems but we'll see. Since it's the weekend my To-Do List is pretty meager. If it goes a week without any odd behavior, then I'll call the C&D a success. In the meantime, I'm just thankful my _Battlestar Galactica_ recorded without problems. :lol:


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=319241

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=319557

programs not recording right even with the right guide data. I just didnt want someone doing a CD solely because of some bad recordings when others had the same problems.


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## evanr76 (Oct 14, 2006)

I am in the exact same boat as the original poster: partial recordings after the 6.3a upgrade on my HR10-250.

I have noticed an interesting phenomenon though.

A given movie may have multiple partial recordings, and each shows up in Now Playing.

It is as if the HR10 is stopping a recording only to restart it moments later, but under a new file.

Truly hope I don't have to do a reset. I am wondering if it is a problem that might be resolved by "jostling" my season passes, or some other activity that would force a "recalculation" of the To-Do list.

I hope a non-destructive fix is discovered soon.


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## MarkJones (Jul 17, 2006)

evanr76 said:


> I hope a non-destructive fix is discovered soon.


This was happening to me also and I called DirecTV and spoke to a second-level tech. Besides temporarily turning off DD to get rid of the audio dropouts until they provide a fix, he suggested I try unplugging the unit for a few minutes then start it up again. I've had no problems so far since doing this.


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## karolinatx (Oct 5, 2006)

I am apparently the unluckiest HR10-250 owner in the world. I got the replacement refurb last week, forced calls daily until it finally upgraded the software. Surprise, surprise, another partial recording, just as before. So I'm sitting here like a chump doing the C&D again, losing all my recorded shows _again_. If I have the audio dropouts again once it's rebooted I may just throw in the towel and get them to replace it with an HR20, because this is just ridiculous.

As a note to the previous poster, turning off Dolby Digital did not solve the audio dropouts for me.


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## evanr76 (Oct 14, 2006)

The partial recordings seem to be the result of spontaneous reboots during the day.

I had not noticed before because, not surprisingly, most of the time when my TiVo is recording, I'm not watching the TV.

I caught it in a reboot and sure enough, two partial recordings of the same show.


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## karolinatx (Oct 5, 2006)

evanr76 said:


> The partial recordings seem to be the result of spontaneous reboots during the day.


This was not the case for me. The first time it happened was on a Wednesday, and I was watching something else when it only recorded the first seven minutes of _Lost_. Then I started _The Nine_ 20 minutes in or so, and eventually found it had not recorded the final seven minutes.


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