# Hopper w/Sling not hanging up phone line!



## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

Forgive me if this topic has been posted before. I did a quick search and didn't see anything:

I've noticed each morning when I get up the my phone line is "in use" meaning that the phone line is active and if anyone were to call me, all they get is a busy signal. The only way I know that our phone line is "in use" is a tiny green light on our answering machine/phone system. It took us about a week to realize that we weren't receiving any phone calls and only when a family member tried to call our home phone and got a busy signal (even though no one was using the phone) that we realized that each day our phone line was busy.

I tried troubleshooting everything to narrow the culprit and have determined that its my new Hopper w/Sling. I did by the way, attach a new phone line filter and phone cable to make sure they weren't causing the problem.

There is only one electronic device in our home that uses the phone line each night and thats our Hopper w/sling. I also determined that it was the Hopper w/sling because in the middle of the day, the Hw/s had a problem/glitch recognizing my external hard drive so I pushed and held the Power button for a moment to reset everything and guess what? When the Hw/s was done resetting and the signal was gained after several tests etc., our phone line was again "in use".

Anyone have any thoughts on this? I also have an ethernet cable running into my Hw/s so is the phone line redundant? Do I have to keep the phone line plugged into my Hw/s? If the only purpose to keep a phone line plugged in is for the Caller ID, then I guess the lesser of the 2 evils is to unplug it since I would rather have a clear phone line than the Caller ID (although its is convenient so see who is call in the TV).

Thank you for any help you can offer!


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## Jhon69 (Mar 28, 2006)

Phone line is only needed if you want Caller ID to display on the TV screen,as long as you have broadband internet connected you will be OK.

Let us know if after you disconnect the phone line if your problem is something else?.:welcome_s


Also if your phone line is connected and someone tries to call you,the modem on the Hopper with Sling is supposed to drop out and let it come through.


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

Thank you for the kind response!

Well I guess I will disconnect the phone line then because its more important to us to receive phone calls than it is to use the Caller ID.

I can tell you that the Hopper Modem isn't dropping out to let calls come through: We just had another relative call today asking who was on the phone all morning! 

Thanks again!


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

The internal modem is probably defective...you should have Dish replace your receiver.


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## 356B (Oct 11, 2008)

Did you unplug the reciever? If not, unplug it for 30 seconds, plug back in, see if that fixes it.


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

I'll give unplugging the Hopper a try as well.

Thank you!


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## charlesrshell (Feb 24, 2008)

I have noticed the same thing too since I had my Hopper install couple of days ago. The phone on my nite stand is an old AT&T hard wired model that has an in use red lite that blinks. Both times has been around 04:00 in the morning. No one there when I listen. Wonder if it could be one of my Hoppers!


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

I tried unplugging the Hopper w/Sling for 30 seconds like I was advised and when it came back on, reset, connected to the satellites etc., my phone line was busy once more. It is definitely my Hopper.

I just unplugged the phone line. I would rather give up the Caller ID (even though its quite handy) rather than miss any important phone calls.

I'm not really interested in calling Dish over a defective modem. This is my 3rd Hopper in 8 months and its a real hassle programming all of our timers/favorites, setting up all Preferences, installing etc. and so much more.


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## charlesrshell (Feb 24, 2008)

Antigreek said:


> I tried unplugging the Hopper w/Sling for 30 seconds like I was advised and when it came back on, reset, connected to the satellites etc., my phone line was busy once more. It is definitely my Hopper.
> 
> I just unplugged the phone line. I would rather give up the Caller ID (even though its quite handy) rather than miss any important phone calls.
> 
> I'm not really interested in calling Dish over a defective modem. This is my 3rd Hopper in 8 months and its a real hassle programming all of our timers/favorites, setting up all Preferences, installing etc. and so much more.


Well, I don't blame you. Do you back up all your settings with the remote wizard? Might help make it more bearable the next time you have to replace a Hopper.


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

Is Remote Wizard used to help setup & control other devices around the entertainment center like a stereo receiver etc? Yes I've used it and it quite handy. My big problem is manually entering ALL of the timers (20+) on the correct channels, setting up Preferences like "how does the Guide scroll" and "size & color" of the pointer etc. Just lots of little things that take a bit of time. Especially setting up a Favorite Channel List! Its can be a bit time-consuming...


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## charlesrshell (Feb 24, 2008)

Antigreek said:


> Is Remote Wizard used to help setup & control other devices around the entertainment center like a stereo receiver etc? Yes I've used it and it quite handy. My big problem is manually entering ALL of the timers (20+) on the correct channels, setting up Preferences like "how does the Guide scroll" and "size & color" of the pointer etc. Just lots of little things that take a bit of time. Especially setting up a Favorite Channel List! Its can be a bit time-consuming...


I have only used the restore twice for receivers that I had to send back to Dish. I am not sure about all the settings things if it restored them or not. I keep close to the 96 timer limit all the time. So, I am a happy camper if the timers restore and the correct priority, etc. It has done a pretty good job of that. All those other things are minor to me. I just switched over to the Hopper System so I guess I better get some back ups done before it's too late. LOL


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

I guess I wasn't aware that Dish had a restore process for timers. Can you elaborate on where in the menus its located and any other tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!


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## charlesrshell (Feb 24, 2008)

Antigreek said:


> I guess I wasn't aware that Dish had a restore process for timers. Can you elaborate on where in the menus its located and any other tips would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thank you!


Menu, Settings, Diagnostics, System Wizard. I got up close to the Hopper with the remote and selected Backup. Not sure if getting up close is necessary but it was with the 722s. Scroll bar started and it was complete in just a couple of seconds. When it was complete it said Backing up Receiver Success and Backing up Remote Success. I did all four Hoppers this way. Not sure if Joey needs the same procedure. I will check later on when I have a chance.


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

Wow thats great info and I could've used that recently. Thank you! Is this something you had to find on your own? Wouldn't it have been great is a Dish rep told me over the phone: "Before you disconnect your old Hopper and lose all your timers, go to Menu, Settings, Diagnostics, System Wizard?

Nahhh, thats just too much to ask of them. (sarcasm of course).

Thanks again for the info. I like to dig into the menus and options but I guess I missed the wizard.


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## charlesrshell (Feb 24, 2008)

Antigreek said:


> Wow thats great info and I could've used that recently. Thank you! Is this something you had to find on your own? Wouldn't it have been great is a Dish rep told me over the phone: "Before you disconnect your old Hopper and lose all your timers, go to Menu, Settings, Diagnostics, System Wizard?
> 
> Nahhh, thats just too much to ask of them. (sarcasm of course).
> 
> Thanks again for the info. I like to dig into the menus and options but I guess I missed the wizard.


Welcome, I hope it works for you. It did for me with the 722s. I am brand new to the Hopper world.


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

Well now my Hopper w/Sling isn't recognizing my external HDD when I begin to transfer shows & movies...so...in addition to the modem not hanging up I decided to call Dish. My 4th Hopper in 8 months is on its way. Joy.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

you had bad karma or using the H in unusual conditions


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## charlesrshell (Feb 24, 2008)

Antigreek said:


> Well now my Hopper w/Sling isn't recognizing my external HDD when I begin to transfer shows & movies...so...in addition to the modem not hanging up I decided to call Dish. My 4th Hopper in 8 months is on its way. Joy.


What are your temps running? You sure are going thru bunches of Hoppers.


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

P Smith said:


> you had bad karma or using the H in unusual conditions


Maybe the house power is dirty/spiky, frying the Hoppers. OP should try a good power conditioner/UPS.


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

Well my first Hopper in May was having difficulties detecting my external HDD which seemed to be somewhat common. I figured that since I had to pay Dish a $50 fee to use an external HDD, it should work. So they sent me another Hopper. Only this one was a refurb unit that had a myriad of problems so I called Dish.

Dish was kind enough to upgrade me to the Hopper w/Sling and my problems with it are listed above. Funny thing is, when I called Dish 2 days ago to tell them about my current problems, their answer was to just send me a new one. I told the person on the phone at the beginning, "This is what I've done to troubleshoot/correct the problems so let me list them off to you so we're not wasting each other's time"

That included:

Pressing and holding the Power button
Pressing and holding the Reset button
Unplugging the Hopper for 30+ seconds
Unplugging my external HDD
Swapping out a new USB cable on my HDD
Trying one of the other 2 available USB ports for my HDD
Swapping out a new phone line
Changing the phone filters
Jumping up and down on the Hopper w/Sling

Ok, well I didn't do that last one but I was close. The Dish rep told me that she'd never heard of someone going thru so many steps and she didn't have anything else for me to try. I don't know if thats good or bad but my new H w/S will be here tomorrow...


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

Antigreek said:


> That included:
> 
> Jumping up and down on the Hopper w/Sling
> 
> Ok, well I didn't do that last one but I was close.


Maybe this would have worked. :lol:


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

Antigreek said:


> I figured that since I had to pay Dish a $50 fee to use an external HDD, ...


There is no fee to add an EHD to a DVR.


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

You're absolutely wrong. There may not be a fee now but several years ago there was a $50.00 Activation Fee to enable an external hard drive with Dish.


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

"This feature is free ..."
http://www.mydish.com/support/use-ehd

Years ago, yes, but it was dropped for DVRs before the Hopper was introduced.


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

FYI: Got my 4th Hopper (second Hopper w/Sling) and its all hooked up. Cheers to charlesrshell for informing me about the Wizard! That made things so much easier. Thank you!

However, when I went to record a movie on HBO, I was given Dish "error" 890 which states:

"The receiver has detected that the HD television or the digital connection to the TV does not support High-Bandwith Digital Content Protection (HDCP). Because this event follows HDCP, this event is not available to order on this TV."

I'm doing my research now and will try a new HDMI cable to see if that helps. Anyone else seen this? My old Hopper w/Sling (the one sitting in my kitchen waiting to shop back to Dish) didn't have that problem as of 24 hours ago.

I did go into Settings/Diagnostics/System Info/Page 2 and HDCP has a YES next to it. I'm confused how my old Hopper w/Sling had no restrictions but this one does? Same tv, same HDMI cable, same everything!

PS: I used to have a full head of hair before all my Hopper problems...


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

Bobabird:

"This feature is free ..."
http://www.mydish.com/support/use-ehd

Years ago, yes, but it was dropped for DVRs before the Hopper was introduced.

True. But I did pay $50.00 so it would be nice to use it.
__________________


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

Sorry to add more drama to my problems. I did a quick reset of the Hopper and it looks like things are back to normal and I can record HBO and other Premium channels.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Antigreek said:


> Bobabird:
> 
> "This feature is free ..."
> http://www.mydish.com/support/use-ehd
> ...


Did you pay $39.99 ? Or the $50 ?


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

I paid $50.00 several years ago. I had no idea Dish had reduced the price and then gotten rid of the "activation fee" altogether. Oh well. I can't get too worked up about it but I do want it to work properly.


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## n0qcu (Mar 23, 2002)

Dish did NOT lower the EHD activation fee to $40 from $50. It NEVER was $50.
*The fee always was $40 until they eliminated it*


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

Well I don't know why this has become such a point of discussion. $39.99/$50.00? who cares? I paid an activation fee and I'd like to use it is what it boils down to.

Anyway, I'm moving on. Thank you!


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

You are only one such "lucky" customer who accidentally pay $50 instead of $40. 

If you could go back in that threads where we discuss the fee before it has been posed, and read official press release about the fee, perhaps charlie chat has the numbers too. Don't hesitate to wonder us with real facts.


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## patmurphey (Dec 21, 2006)

Back to the topic, one of my Hoppers didn't hang up last night. A simple front panel reset fixed it.


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## charlesrshell (Feb 24, 2008)

patmurphey said:


> Back to the topic, one of my Hoppers didn't hang up last night. A simple front panel reset fixed it.


How can you tell that your Hopper did not hang up?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

charlesrshell said:


> How can you tell that your Hopper did not hang up?


Try to call from the line.


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## charlesrshell (Feb 24, 2008)

P Smith said:


> Try to call from the line.


Well it has only happened to me twice and last time was about ten days ago. When I saw the "In Use" line indicator lite blinking I just picked up the handset, listened to hear if someone is on the line, and then hang up the handset. The "In Use" line indicator lite goes out. I picked up the handset again and heard the dial tone and then hung up. I did not do a front panel reset of the Hopper. Do you think I should do that too if it happens again?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Follow your description, you got the H doing repeatable process of establish a connection. I would check how many attempts it's doing and if after certain tries it would stop using your line.


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## charlesrshell (Feb 24, 2008)

P Smith said:


> Follow your description, you got the H doing repeatable process of establish a connection. I would check how many attempts it's doing and if after certain tries it would stop using your line.


I went into the View Counters section and checked the numbers for all four Hoppers. The Call Out Failures, Local Errors, Remote Errors, Call Outs Aborted all read 0. Is that what I should check or is there something else?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

That would be strange if counters are zeros but the line taken for connection by the Hs.
I mean you'll monitor your line, perhaps get a list of calls from your phone company.


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## charlesrshell (Feb 24, 2008)

P Smith said:


> That would be strange if counters are zeros but the line taken for connection by the Hs.
> I mean you'll monitor your line, perhaps get a list of calls from your phone company.


Well both times it happened it was around 04:00 in the morning. We never get any calls on the land line, all our calls are on the cell phone. I will try to pin it down if it happens again. Maybe it is the home security trying to phone home or something. Could be just a fluke, no telling.


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

Quick update on my "new" Hopper w/Sling that arrived within 2 days of calling Dish last Friday:

Same problems as the one before it.

Every morning I wake up and my Answering Machine/Telephone is lit up with a green light saying its "In Use". I know its the Hopper because I unplugged the phone line and when I get up in the morning, the phone is fine. I even plugged it in last night to see if it would happen again and guess what? It did. Oh well, I'd rather lose the on-screen Caller ID than miss a call.

My second problem is a bit more serious in that I can't transfer any recorded programs from the Hopper w/Sling to my external WD 500gb HDD. Here's the routine:

1.) I select the programs to transfer with the check mark and indicate that I want to transfer from Hopper to EHD.
2.) I'm given several screens that the process is about to happen, calculating approximate time, like to watch live TV etc.
3.) The transfer begins and then after 20 second or so a message appears that "I've unplugged the EHD" when I clearly have not. At that point, the transfer stops and now I don't even have access to the EHD unless I turn off the Hopper w/Sling.

Again, the above happened on my 3rd Hopper w/Sling (which was sent back to Dish yesterday) and is now happening to my current Hopper w/Sling.

I called Dish and spoke to their Tech Department and informed them of all of the above. He had no suggestions for me but offered to have a Tech come out to make sure I had everything set up the way it should be. Tory was his name and he actually arrived about 2 hours after my call (very impressive). As I relayed all of the troubleshooting I've gone through to save us both time in addition to the exact same problems I'm having with the replacement Hopper w/Sling, he had no idea what to do to correct it.

I wasn't upset of course since he was just being honest and he clearly was mad at himself in that he couldn't solve my problem. Tory told me that the Hopper w/Sling is so new and that most Techs don't have the knowledge/troubleshooting necessary to help (exact quote). He called several people on his cell and they couldn't off any assistance either. Tory was very concerned (which was nice to see) that he couldn't be of better service. He did offer one suggestion to possibly cure the EHD problem of not transferring properly: Buy a new EHD. 

That didn't sound too unreasonable to me and I can certainly put my 3 year old WD 500gb HDD to use somewhere in the home. He also gave me his card and repeatedly asked that I call him to tell him if it worked which was nice.

Funny thing is, in preparation for getting my new EHD, I didn't want to lose any of the recorded programs on my current EHD so I tried to transfer them all to the Hopper w/Sling. And it went perfectly. How can I transfer programs one-way without a problem but not the other?

Anyway, I don't really care about on-screen Caller ID and the EHD problem is a little annoying but hopefully the new EHD will take care of it.


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## jerry downing (Mar 7, 2004)

Try a new cable. If that fails to fix it, try a new EHD.


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## bobukcat (Dec 20, 2005)

Your EHD is powered from a power supply and not just off the USB, correct?


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

Yes it has its own power supply.
I've changed USB cables on the EHD and it made no difference. In fact, I've changed every single cable possible to resolve the EHD & Caller ID/Modem not hang in up problems.

I should receive my new EHD in a week or so and I'll get back to everyone if that solves the transfer problems.

Thank you!


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

perhaps EHD power supply connected to other phase then the H ?


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

Hmm...well they're both plugged into a very expensive power surge protector/outlet if thats what you mean? I have tried plugging the EHD USB cable into all 3 USB ports on the Hooper w/Sling and that doesn't help.

I really think its my Western Digital EHD thats being picky here...


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## Antigreek (Feb 7, 2008)

*UPDATE 3/30/13:* I just wanted to let everyone know that I have my new 2TB EHD hooked up now for about 1 week and have had no issues recording or transferring back and forth. That makes me believe that the problem was my older WD 500GB EHD and it was simply its time.

I still am unable to connect my phone line to the Hopper w/Sling due to it not hanging up each morning but its a pretty insignificant problem at this point.

Thank you for the help & suggestions!


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