# DISCUSSION: Timers fire on wrong day



## JD Robinson (Nov 13, 2004)

(see http://dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=44093 )

This is becoming a very large problem for me. I originally attributed my problem to the shifting nature of summertime network TV schedules, but I now realize that *all* of my weekly timers fire on the wrong night, usually one day early. I *caught it in the act* last night and wanted to share:


Weekly timer set for Tuesday 9PM-10PM CDT on FX (137)
Timer fired Monday night 9PM; record list showed guide info for Tuesday's show
on Tuesday, timer does not fire at 9PM, but remains in the timer list AT THE TOP of the list sorted by action order
shortly after 11PM, timer moves to its proper place at the bottom of the list

Something is obviously bawled up in the timer logic. I don't want to believe that this is due to these being set in a month that has 30 days; surely they have more on the ball than that at Eldon? I suspect this affects all of my weekly timers because they were all created *before* 215 spooled. I plan to delete them all and re-enter them today.

It's possible, I suppose, that 216 -- which I got last night -- will fix this, in which case I'll never know if deleting the weekly timers made a difference. But HEY! I don't get any of the benefits of being a beta tester, so why should I care about integrity of my testing methodology?


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

Yes, this is starting to get annoying.

Last night my 921 recorded CSI:NY (which is on tonight). Looking in the event list, the program description looks exactly like what's in the guide for tonight. When you actually PLAY the event (and get Rock Star:INXS), hitting Info shows the info for Rock Star. 

This is a very old weekly timer I have set that of course has been working fine until about a week ago.

Basically I'm not sure if any of my timers are firing correctly (thank God it's summer and I'm in catch up mode and don't really care about most of my timers). I'll have to see if L216 fixes this.

...Lance Pickup


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

I strongly suggest a complete rebuild of the timer database....

Delete all timers
Reboot
Recreate timers

Then, please let us know if this solves your problems.


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

I did a power cord reboot to install L216 (even though my receiver was in standby overnight for several nights, it did not appear to automatically reboot and install L216 on its own) and since then it appears that my timers are now firing correctly. It could be either the reboot or L216 (I suspect the former).

...Lance


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Have you guys tried the timer database rebuild? I have specifically set up many weekly timers on my 921 after this started popping up, and every single one of them are recording on the right day at the right time.

Follow the steps that David suggested, please, and report back if it still happens.


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

No. That would probably take me quite a bit of time to rebuild the timer database (not to mention it might be difficult during the summer months when schedules are in flux). I have at least 30 recurring timers in a week. I was only going to do the rebuild as a last resort, which turned out not to be necessary (at least so far).

...Lance


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## JD Robinson (Nov 13, 2004)

Yes, the arduous process of deleting and re-programming 20+ weekly timers seems to have fixed the problem. Either that or it was L216...

BTW, "database rebuild" is a nice euphamism. Sort of like re-installing Windows being called a "registry refresh". :lol:


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## 4joe2c (Jan 17, 2005)

I'm having timer misfire problems wth L216. I have timers set for Washington Week in Review, which is on Friday. The timer goes off on Thursday. I have timer set for 60 Minutes, which is on Sunday; timer goes off on Saturday. Most other timers seem to fire on schedule, so I have no clue what is doing this to a handful of program timer settings.

One timer set yesterday for an evening program at 10 pm did not fire at all.

I deleted all timers and re-did them, but there was no change in the problems above, which started right after L216 downloaded.


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

4joe2c,

Did you reboot the box (power cord pull), before recreating the timers?

If so, this is very disappointing news.


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## 4joe2c (Jan 17, 2005)

Yes, I re-booted before I re-created the timers. Now there is an additional problem. Last night, a program I did not set a timer for recorded itself. Here's what happened: a few minutes before a scheduled timer was set to fire at 7 pm for one hour on a CBS channel (Ch 5), I canceled the timer. The system instead recorded a one hour program in that time slot on the Comedy Channel (Ch 107). Can't figure that one out either.


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

This happened to me for the first time Sunday. I have Mon-Fri timers for Wheel and Jeopardy, but they both fired on Sunday. The listings in the PRV were "Wheel" and "Jeopardy" even though the show recorded was 1/2 hour of Americas Funniest videos and some news show.

This was on the replacement 921. My original had the hard drive fail and the replacement downloaded 216 when it was first connected. The timers were all created under 216.

EDIT: changed 218 to 216


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

My wrong-day timers appear to be coming back. My M-F Daily Show timer fired last night (Sunday night). However, my 921 is in a state where it is running L216 but has L218 downloaded, so I am not current (I have noticed the box is very unreliable anyway when in this state). So, I will try another reboot first to see if the problem goes away.

...Lance


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## TBarclay (Mar 24, 2002)

Having the Same trouble with Letterman. It's set to record M-F but fails to record on Friday and records an hour on Sunday night. This is getting ridiculous.


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## Bismarck (Sep 28, 2004)

I started a thread several weeks ago about timers firing a day early right after L216 spooled. I had to rebuild the entire timer database in order to solve the problem. It didn't seem to come back with L218 (fingers crossed).


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## 4joe2c (Jan 17, 2005)

I decided to try one more time: I deleted all timers, unplugged the unit, spun around three times and whistled, spat, whistled Dixie, then plugged it back in. This time, a message said new software was being downloaded and, indeed, L218-HEED was downloaded. I then re-set all the timers and will see how they perform. I'll post another message telling you all if the problem has resolved. May have to wait until Friday, which is one of the days the timers have misfired before.


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## 4joe2c (Jan 17, 2005)

After doing the steps noted previously, my timers are back to normal...except one new timer that is supposed to fire M-F is firing M-F and Sunday. I can live with that glitch as long as my other timers go off when they should.


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

How long have you given it?

My receiver is now completely current (L218) and rebooted. Timers were working fine for about 4-5 days and then last night (Sunday) it tried to record my timer for 24 (during the regular season, it's normally on Monday).

So now my strategy is this: I'll wait until tonight when it actually MISSES the timer that was supposed to go off tonight, call up the help desk, complain, ask for yet another rebate of the DVR fee, and see what their suggestion is. Then I'll follow that if it's anything except another reboot, and as a last resort, I'll delete and re-create my entire timer database. But before I go to that significant effort, I would like to hear from someone that has done it and had good results for a week or two that it really does do the trick.

...Lance


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## JD Robinson (Nov 13, 2004)

I am sorry to say that this bug is back with a vengeance. The thing that makes it hard to diagnose for me is that the program information is for the intended show, and the misrecorded event usually doesn't appear until the next day. One thing that does seem consistent is that timers that have gone renegade will appear in the "Action Order" list at the top when they should not. For instance, the timer for Rescue Me on FX that did not fire tonight at 9pm is still there, as if it's next to execute...

And yes, I've deleted all the timers and power-cord rebooted several times.

*Two Questions* for those of you who have this on the long shot chance that it may help the double-domes fix this before the fall prime time season starts and I have to go all primitive on somebody:

1) I have a daily auto-tune timer -- anyone else have an every-day event?
2) I can't draw a direct correlation, but it _seems_ as if what starts things headed South is when the program information doesn't match what the timer thinks it's supposed to record -- as in when it fires at the right time but the show is late, then some busted-ass piece of logic tries to record THAT program the next time. Or something.

This was *ABSOLUTELY* introduced in L215, also, if that's any help.


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

JD Robinson said:


> This was *ABSOLUTELY* introduced in L215, also, if that's any help.


I definitely saw this pre-L215 (L213).

Here is another interesting/new symptom, although this could've been caused by the wife/kids when I wasn't looking, but I don't think they were watching TV at the time:

Last night (Tuesday), my 921 attempted to record CSI:NY and Lost (both on tonight). Each of the recordings was 49 seconds. It's almost as if it knew that it screwed up and stopped recording.

Another strange phenomenon that I haven't verified yet is this: I have a timer set for Overhaulin' on TLC (183) on Tuesday nights. It of course recorded Overhaulin' on TLC on Monday, but it also recorded on Tuesday. Now, maybe the same episode was on both nights, and maybe it was a different timer I had set for Monday on TLC, but Overhaulin' just happened to be in that slot, but according to the TLC web site, Overhaulin' was NOT on on Monday. So the amazing thing is this: the timer fired on Monday night and recorded whatever was on TLC at the time, even though in the DVR list it said Overhaulin'. Then, the timer correctly activated last night, recorded Overhaulin', and also put the proper program in the slot that was recorded on Monday night!

How bizarre!

...Lance


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## Curmudgeon (Jul 15, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Have you guys tried the timer database rebuild? I have specifically set up many weekly timers on my 921 after this started popping up, and every single one of them are recording on the right day at the right time.
> 
> Follow the steps that David suggested, please, and report back if it still happens.


Timers started failing a couple of days ago. Followed all steps given; reboot; clear timer database; create new database.
NOTHING! Cannot get any timer to fire now! Keep entering new ones 10 minutes before a show and I get the popup "5 minute warning", but no red light

Gary.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Gary - delete all timers. Pull power cord to reboot. Then, add back timers and see if they fire. If they don't, email me your 921 receiver information, your name, phone number and what's happening. You may need replacement.


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## Bismarck (Sep 28, 2004)

After I experienced this the first time, I rebooted and rebuilt the timer database per instructions given in my first thread on this issue. The problem went away and did not come back after L218 loaded. Or so I thought. We were out of town last weekend, but unless HBO decided to air all of its primetime Sunday night shows on a different day/time, my Sunday night HBO timers fired a day early. The info was correct, but the saved programs were part of Spider-Man 2 and the beginning of Terminator 3. I suspect my Sunday timers fired Saturday night. Thus, I don't think a reboot/rebuild fully solves the problem.


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## TBarclay (Mar 24, 2002)

After e-mailing the Tech Chat about my 921 "issues" with program timers firing a day early and sluggishness when trying to start recorded programs, I got a call from Dish tech support. After explaining the two problems and getting put on hold, I was told that they were aware of both issues and hoped to fix them with an upcoming software update. I don't think I'll hold my breathe but at least they're aware of the problems.


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## AnubisPrime (Mar 13, 2005)

I had a long discussion with tech support/customer service related to issues not at all to do with the 921. I figured the guy seemed knowlegeable and was nice enough so...

At one point in the conversation, since I had him on the phone, I decided to see what he knew of the status of some of the bugs we experience and discuss here on the board. He was happy to try to answer questions about the 921.

As far as the problems I recall from the conversation:

Misfiring timers/Timers firing on the wrong day was added to the "official" buglist June this year

Audio dropouts/Video pixelation apparently has been on this buglist since (and he *gasped* as he said it) ----2003. I do recall Mark stating somewhere in the forum that they are well aware of this issue

As far as the tech chat went, I asked the question via email:
_
Will the DVR 921 be able to communicate with the PocketDish products?
There is a port on the 921 that has never been activated._

The official email response I received today (minus the person's name):
_
Thank you for your email correspondence. Sorry I do not currently have information as to the DVR 921's compatibility with the pocketdish._

Interesting stuff this week!

Dom


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## Curmudgeon (Jul 15, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Gary - delete all timers. Pull power cord to reboot. Then, add back timers and see if they fire. If they don't, email me your 921 receiver information, your name, phone number and what's happening. You may need replacement.


That order of progression seemed to work. Timers set up for tonite all worked as scheduled.

We'll see if it holds...never had this problem before.

Thanks!!

Gary


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## KKlare (Sep 24, 2004)

lpickup said:


> ...Last night (Tuesday), my 921 attempted to record CSI:NY and Lost (both on tonight). Each of the recordings was 49 seconds. It's almost as if it knew that it screwed up and stopped recording.
> ...How bizarre!
> 
> ...Lance


 Sounds like you were trying to record 2 shows having the same start time. I never do this as I have been bitten by it many versions ago. Offset them by a minute using the start early if there is not a prior show. Check with the timer list (menu-7) as it shows the start times and the "adjusted" offsets. Simultaneous starts use to produce ZSRs.
-Ken


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

KKlare said:


> Sounds like you were trying to record 2 shows having the same start time. I never do this as I have been bitten by it many versions ago. Offset them by a minute using the start early if there is not a prior show. Check with the timer list (menu-7) as it shows the start times and the "adjusted" offsets. Simultaneous starts use to produce ZSRs.
> -Ken


Unnecesary or a Serious bug.

I have bunches of timers set each day to go off at the same time.


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

I have another thought on mis-firing timers. This especially applies if you see recurring timers out of order in the timer list.

I've seen out of order timers. I've also seen problems with out of order timers. A reboot corrects this.

For those having problems, do you have anything that might be interfering with the automatic nightly reoot? The box must be in stand-by mode between around 3-6 am (no timers during the window).

Mark may have a better idea of the reboot time. I'm not sure if it varies depending on your time zone.


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

David_Levin said:


> I have another thought on mis-firing timers. This especially applies if you see recurring timers out of order in the timer list.
> 
> I've seen out of order timers. I've also seen problems with out of order timers. A reboot corrects this.


I've seen out of order timers pretty much since I got the box, but it never caused issues like this before. I'm not saying it's not related of course.

Yes, after a reboot the "problem" does go away temporarily, but the problem has always come back within about 4-5 days. I just rebooted this morning to install L219. I'll let you know within a week if the problem returns.



David_Levin said:


> For those having problems, do you have anything that might be interfering with the automatic nightly reoot? The box must be in stand-by mode between around 3-6 am (no timers during the window).
> 
> Mark may have a better idea of the reboot time. I'm not sure if it varies depending on your time zone.


My last timer of the evening (usually) is from 11-11:30, although I'll do a double check later. I'm in the Eastern time zone. However, if I do have a middle of the night timer, I would presumably want to keep it. Point is, even though a reboot "solves" the problem, it shouldn't be required.

Regarding the suggestion to offset my timers: the 921 with it's two tuners should be able to correctly handle this, and usually does. Knock on wood, but I've never had a ZSR. It's difficult enough to set up a timer in the first place (it should be a single button press like the original Dishplayer). I'm not about to go through the arduous task of reviewing and editing my timers when there is no guarantee that that's the problem in the first place.

...Lance


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

lpickup said:


> I'm not about to go through the arduous task of reviewing and editing my timers when there is no guarantee that that's the problem in the first place.


Well, I have to be able to trust my timers. All of us 921 owners are apparently willing to jump through some number of hoops to maintain reliable operation. How Many? Everyone has a different tolerance.

I've not seen a problem with simultaneous firing timers in a LONG time.

In the past, MANY people have reported problems if the 921 is not rebooted within 2-3 days. Should we have to? No, of course not - it's rediculous. But, it's just another one of those hoops.

If you dont' think yor 921 is auto-rebooting I'd recommend you hit it with a power button reboot once a day when you know it will not be needed for 10 minutes. I've put mine into standby with the aspect ration locked up and it's always back to normal the next morning (due to the auto-reboot, I assume).

Some people have resorted to an auto-matic power plug pull using a 24 hour appliance timer. Most have found this unnecessary since the auto-reboot was added (around version 213).


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

The auto-reboot may very well be why I haven't been seeing this show up with mine. I'm pretty sure that my 921 reboots just about every night like it's supposed to. 

But, I'm happy to say (or not happy in this case), that for the first time this week, one of my weekly timers did record on the wrong day. Unfortunately, I can't determine a pattern to it with only one timer failing, but I'm working on it.


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## JD Robinson (Nov 13, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> But, I'm happy to say (or not happy in this case), that for the first time this week, one of my weekly timers did record on the wrong day.


You don't know how happy this makes me, Mark. In an ashamed, selfish sort of way...


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Anything I can do to make you guys feel better...


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## Bismarck (Sep 28, 2004)

I too am strangely relieved that it happened to you, Mark. Given your extensive knowledge and testing experience with the 921, I hope you'll be able to determine a pattern to or source for the problem.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Working on it, although it's only happened to me once.


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

I noticed a timer scheduled to fire Sunday at 9PM (weekly) actually started on Saturday at 9PM instead. I looked at the timer list at the timer in question appearred at the end of the list instead of being grouped the in the same section as the other Sunday timer were. I simply deleted that time and manually re-created a new one. Didn't reboot or anything. Everthings appears to fine now as it did fire on Sunday night. Will let you know next week if problem reappears.


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

Alright, I stand corrected. I do have two timers that fire overnight: one at 2:00am and the other at 5:00am. These are both M-F timers. So that would at least explain why I don't get an auto-reboot.

So what am I to do? 

I don't consider the nightly auto-reboot a solution (it's really a band-aid), especially now that I realize there is a good reason it is not taking place. And even so, how do we know that NIGHTLY is often enough without knowing what the true cause of the problem is? Once the fall season starts, like others, my timers had better be working properly ALL the time!

Other suggestions have been a manual reboot. This would be one thing if the box was just sitting next to my TV, but it's not. It's in the basement in an equipment closet, out of sight, out of mind. Going downstairs to perform a reboot operation, particularly when the reboot takes many minutes is not a very attractive solution (i.e. I'm not going to do it when I sit down to watch TV since I usually want to watch immediately, and I'm not going to feel like doing it before bed, usually because I am recording stuff at that time).

I like the appliance timer idea, but still don't know if I can trust it, and it too is frought with difficulties (i.e. power outages disrupt the time on the timer, and it's possible I may end up missing a real show).

...Lance


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

My Jeopardy M-F timer fired on Sunday. Last week both the Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune fired on Sunday. I deteted all of the timers, rebooted and put the timers back.

The PVR list shows the title as Jeopardy, but when viewing the program, the info button lists it as the news show.

I don't think this 921 reboots every night. When I do a manual reboot, it starts up showing channel 4. Most mornings it is on the channel I left it on the night before, maybe once a week it is on 4.


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

Make sure you don't have any auto-tune timers activated. I did this to make sure it is always on Cartoon Network when it turns on in the morning for my kids (don't want any SHO-W movies at 7 am giving them an early education), but now it is preventing the autorebooting, I hear.....


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

I don't have any autotunes on the 921 - but I do have a cd player in my truck.


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

lpickup said:


> So what am I to do?
> 
> ...Lance


Do not reboot unless you have to. Since I have been leaving my unit on 24/7 I had far less bugs then when it was in standby mode. In standby mode the CPU, hard drive and fan is always running anyway so it's the same as far as electricity is concerned.

When a new software update arrives you'll probably find out thru these forums else you can check every Thursday evening using menu 6-7 and then decide if you want to reboot to install the new software. When one of the infamous 921 bugs surfaces then you'll have no choice but to go down in your basement and perform a push button reset regardless if it reboots on a daily basis or not.


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

jergenf said:


> Do not reboot unless you have to


I don't. However, if the "solution" to getting my timers to fire on the right day is to reboot, I guess I have to!

Also, just about every time there is new software downloaded but not yet installed, my 921 has seriously misbehaved (starting endless recordings, giving me "channel blocked" error messages, etc.) Calls to tech support do no good because they find that I am back-level, have me reboot, and of course the problem goes away so they close the call without ever investigating the real issue. So, I don't usually wait too long before rebooting to install updates software. Risky yes, but most of the recent updates have centered around OTA and we don't have any OTA here.

...Lance


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

lpickup said:


> I don't. However, if the "solution" to getting my timers to fire on the right day is to reboot!
> 
> ...Lance


I had only one problem where a timer fired a day earlier versus the day it stated. I think this occurred after L218 (which I still have at the moment). I deleted that timer and recreated it again without rebooting. The tipoff was that the timer in question appeared in the wrong order in the timer list and after recreating it, it then appeared with the other Sunday events. It seemed to work for me.

When bugs occur there seems to be no reason for it that I can think of, unless just using the unit is the cause. When software downloads occur I try to refrain from rebooting until I hear from the guinea pigs first, this sure paid off with L216 at least.


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

Happened to me Friday 8/19. While watching a PVR event and recording an SD channel (weekly event) and OTA HD (one time) I got a pop-up that I quickly accepted because it looked like the usual "put the recording on main" message. This was at 1 before the hour. The new recording was for the time of a Saturday weekly SD channel and the recorded event bore that title rather than what was actually recorded. This caused me to miss the late showing of Stargate:Atlantis (fortunately it gets replayed mid-week). Re-booted the 921 because of the "HD squeeze" error it was also exhibiting at the same time. The Saturday timer did also fire when it was supposed to.


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## Bismarck (Sep 28, 2004)

I have tried the reboot/rebuild timer database 'fix' twice with no results. All my Sunday night timers (HBOHD, ABC, SHOHD) fired on Saturday night. I cannot seem to find any pattern to this problem, although this is the second time my Sunday timers have gone off the day before. 

Is there anyone else who has tried the reboot/rebuild fix and still had problems?


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## FarNorth (Nov 27, 2003)

I know this doesn't help but I have Letterman and Kimmel set for M-F; all the rest of my timers are weekly. Letterman fires every night, M-F and also fires in the same time slot on Sunday - but not Saturday. Kimmel fires M-F as scheduled. Why? I have no idea and I have removed and replaced it and it still happens. I reboot once a week or so, usually to deal with a stuck aspect ratio issue. I just delete the extra program and move on.


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

Bismarck said:


> Is there anyone else who has tried the reboot/rebuild fix and still had problems?


I deleted my timers and rebooted. The next Sunday, two M-F timers fired, but they did not on Sunday the 21st.


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## bpauld (May 8, 2004)

Last night two timers fired at the right time, but one day early.
They were set to fire at 8:00pm on FX and at 10:00pm on TNT(HD). The timers are still set for tonight. We'll see if they fire.


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## TBarclay (Mar 24, 2002)

I am having a continuing problem with Letterman NOT recording on Friday but trying to record on Friday night. I have tried removing and rebuiding timers but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Now the weird part. Last night, the 921 started recording Letterman at 11:35 as usual but never stopped. It was still recording at 3:45am when I woke up and manually stopped it!


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## bpauld (May 8, 2004)

bpauld said:


> Last night two timers fired at the right time, but one day early.
> They were set to fire at 8:00pm on FX and at 10:00pm on TNT(HD). The timers are still set for tonight. We'll see if they fire.


Well, neither one fired. Guess I'll delete, reboot and re-enter all timers to see if this solves problem. Any other ideas?


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

lpickup said:


> Alright, I stand corrected. I do have two timers that fire overnight: one at 2:00am and the other at 5:00am. These are both M-F timers. So that would at least explain why I don't get an auto-reboot.
> 
> So what am I to do?
> 
> ../


Of course its not a solutioin. Its a "local remedy" to avoid some of the very serious bugs they never figured out.

If you cannot get the automatic reboot, for reasons you mentioned, you will have to force one on a regular basis. Try holding the power on button on the main unit for about 7-10 seconds just as you are planning to not use the unit for awhile. This will force a reboot and the 921 should be working much better when your timers start to fire or you start to watch live again. A suggest at least once a day.


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

I'd certainly be curious to know if the people having problems see an improvment if they force a reboot once a day (just in case the auto reboot isn't functioning).


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

All 4 of my Saturday evening timers again fired on Friday. Again it caused a Friday timer (Stargate Atlantis late showing) to not fire. I was able to manually start Atlantis (record to end, confirmed in Timers list). Even though I was watching/recording "live," when I tried to watch any DVR event I got the message "Do you want to stop the recording and switch to live?".


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

tnsprin said:


> If you cannot get the automatic reboot, for reasons you mentioned, you will have to force one on a regular basis. Try holding the power on button on the main unit for about 7-10 seconds just as you are planning to not use the unit for awhile. This will force a reboot and the 921 should be working much better when your timers start to fire or you start to watch live again. A suggest at least once a day.


I hate to be a complainer, but my unit is located in an equipment closet in the basement and not only is it a hassle to go reboot it, not actually seeing it doesn't help my memory. Plus, as I've said before, at the times that may make sense to perform such a reboot (i.e. when I'm thinking about it and yet not watching TV--usually just after I've finished watching something and ready to head to bed), something is recording. And I'm not going to do it BEFORE I watch TV because it takes about 5-10 minutes to do a reboot.

My solution thus far is to call customer support and demand a refund of my DVR fee. I will do this every month that it's not working. In the meantime I will have to babysit the unit and make sure it's recording what I want it to record.

One new bit of news, however. Without elaborating, when I called the CSR last time, she did ask if I had back-to-back timers. I've also seen reports here of back-to-back timers being a possible culprit. I have been trying to watch this a bit more closely, and it does appear that there is some kind of correlation between back to back timers and the day early problem. I would say that back-to-back timers are more suspectible. However, I can think of some exceptions. My M-F 11:00pm Daily show timer fires S-Th. I do however, usually have a 10-11 timer on different channels. Battlestar Galactica at 10:00pm (I think--that's the great thing about DVR's, I have no idea what time the show really does air!) on SciFi frequently fires on Th instead of F. I do have some timers on F at around that time, but on different channels. However, I tape a second Battlestar Galactica Saturday at 1:00am (I think this is just the Pacific time slot airing of it) and thankfully that timer never fails. As I've mentioned I have a 2:00am daily timer on a different channel. I have a morning weekly timer, however, with absolutely no other recordings anywhere near it that fires a day early.

...Lance


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## Gazoo (Jul 5, 2005)

"Battlestar Galactica at 10:00pm (I think--that's the great thing about DVR's, I have no idea what time the show really does air!) on SciFi frequently fires on Th instead of F."

I have the same problem and it is the only day I have a timer activated. Sucks 

It airs Fridays at 10PM EST and my timer fires on Thurs. at 10PM EST. It seems to be an intermittent problem and that makes matters worse.


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

I've started recording both three hour blocks on Friday night (The east coast 8-11 block and the west coast 11-2 block) to try and fight off this bug). I REALLY hope they kill this bug before the fall season gets here......


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

Saturday timers did not fire yesterday (Friday). The 921 had been power-button booted within a couple days prior and I verified Friday morning that the top event in the timer list (menu, 7) really was the next to fire.


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## Skates (Apr 15, 2004)

No matter what I do, my 921 continues to record Nightline every Sunday night. It's the single "timer-firing-early" that I can't seem to get rid of...

The weirdest part is, that's a 5-day-in-a-row timer, yet it only fires early on Sunday nights :scratch:

(I know what you're thinking - it could be firing early the other four nights, e.g. Monday's timer is actually Tuesday's timer firing early, etc., but it also fires properly Friday nights and there's no Saturday timer to fire early).

Man, I just gave myself a headache... :nono2:


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## Rovingbar (Jan 25, 2005)

Speaking of headaches... if you change the M-F timer to a Daily timer, will today's timer fire yesterday?


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

Has anyone with the wrong day timer firing problem performed the procedure where you; remove every timer, perform a Factory Defaults (MENU>6>6), then perform a Check Switch (MENU>6>2), then rebuild the timers? 

The Factory Defaults will also erase all favorites lists and may erase the OTA channels. 

It may also truncate the EPG guide. If the guide is missing then place the 921 into the standby/off mode and unplug the power cord for 30 seconds, then plug it back in, leave the 921 alone for at least 10 minutes then the 9 day guide should be refreshed so to remake timers.


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## TBarclay (Mar 24, 2002)

It seems ridiculous that we have to jump through hoops just to get a basic function of the 921 to operate properly. I still have problems with my Letterman timer firing on Sunday night and not on Friday. This has continued even after removing the old timer and making a new one to record the HD version of the show. I have several weekday morning timers that don't have this difficulty. It only seems to affect late night weekday timers. I also have a problem with my weekly recording of HBO's Entourage trying to record on Saturday rather than Sunday. This has been going on long enough that there should be a fix. What's the problem? Will this ever work properly without nightly reboots, eye of newts and turning around and touching our noses???????


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## saylorman (Jan 24, 2005)

I have had it with these, and now I have missed a very important part 2episode. I have deleted, and rebuilt timers for the last 3 updates, and it continues to happen. I wish that dish would just cut their losses, and replace the 921 with the new box. WIll this ever happen?
Very annoyed 
Ken


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## Dithermaster (Jan 27, 2004)

I just had this happen to me, and here's the data, in case it helps solving this:

1. I have timers for Friday night, SciFi channel (122): SG-1 at 7pm, Atlantis at 8 pm and Battlestar at 9 pm.

2. I also have a timer at 9 pm on an SD sat. local (3 WISC). I also have the HD (03-01 and 03-02) mapped, in case that matters, but the basic channel (3) is fed from the sat. and not antenna.

3. We sat down to watch TV Thurday night, and when we turned it on, it was recording SciFi channel. It said it was Atlantis, and there was already an SG-1 in the PVR list. Both had descriptions from Friday's guide data, but contents were something else (Tremors 3 I think). I let them finish and I deleted them. I don't recall, but ch. 3 might have recorded too. If it did, I erased that recording too.

4. Paranoid that I might miss my Friday recordings, I turned on the TV Friday night shortly after 7 pm and SG-1 *WAS* recording, as did Atlantis and Battlestar and I'm pretty sure ch. 3 (it's a timer for a show that's not currently on, so I probably deleted it).

///[email protected]


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

Well, knock on wood, but with L270, I believe that all my timers (at least the ones I really care about) have fired correctly for the past 5 days. This is significant--I think the previous record was 2 days. Still, there was nothing in the release notes that says they addressed this problem (okay, maybe it was enough to say there was nothing in the release notes!), so I'm not really in "trust" mode, but it is encouraging.

...Lance


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## TBarclay (Mar 24, 2002)

2.70 didn't change a thing with my timers. Still had a problem with Letterman "trying" to record on Sunday night. Of course, just before 2.70 installed, I had a timer start and then not end until I caught it the next day. The 14-hour HD recording wiped out all of the HD shows I had saved (including last year's Olympics and the Rose Parade). I'm really not happy with my 921 these days.


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## Skates (Apr 15, 2004)

My problem has actually gotten worse. I used to be plagued only by the Monday "Nightline" timer firing on Sunday, but last night (Thursday), all my Friday night timers attempted to fire.

I did a manual reboot as I determined my box had not rebooted itself in the past few days (I check the PIP window position daily).


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

lpickup said:


> Well, knock on wood, but with L270, I believe that all my timers (at least the ones I really care about) have fired correctly for the past 5 days.


Started getting some early timers firing on Sunday (for Monday). I guess that makes it about 8 days that it actually worked. And it's actually only a few timers that are firing early (as opposed to most).

...Listen to me...I've stooped to the point of being somewhat satisfied with a slight improvement in this really nasty bug!

...Lance


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## revenson (Feb 1, 2003)

This is one problem I never had now with 270 Monday timers tried to fire and were canceling my sunday timers due to overlap on ota. Luckily I was watching at the time but this is horrible!


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## Alpaca Bill (Jun 17, 2005)

I too never had this issue until last night. 3 of my timers set for Mon night fired and recorded on Sun night. I also noticed that while watching one of these shows live, that when I press the "stop" button it displays "LIVE" but when you look in the DVR menu it is still recording. I had to highlight that show in the DVR menu, select it, and then hit "stop" to actually make it stop recording.

I also had the stuck ascpect ratio problem last night. All my HD channels where being displayed as 4:3 "crunched" images. A smart card reboot fixed that issue and we'll see if it fixed the timers issues.

I am on L270.


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

Just to add to the fun....

When the Giants game started I tried switching from 1080i output to 720p to see if that had any beneficial effect vs. the 1080i (ESPN orginally feeds out a 720p signal).

Now it looks like the picture has zoomed into the upper left quarter of the screen (The Grey HD bar on the left side now takes up 1/4 of the screen on the left side)

I then noticed that the stuck aspect ratio was back as well. Not wanting to wait for the 8 minute reboot, I went back to 1080i and watched the rest of the game. I did a hard reboot when I went to bed. I'll check to see if the problem is still occurring.

Also, switching the HD output has sometimes gone to the other extreme and shrank the picture down to 1/10th actual size until it looks like it belongs in PIP window at the upperleft hand corner.

Sigh. When do those Mpeg4 receivers come out? If they are based on the 942 architecture they may be more stable. I can hear the D* trolls cackling already at that statement.


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

Alpaca Bill said:


> I also noticed that while watching one of these shows live, that when I press the "stop" button it displays "LIVE" but when you look in the DVR menu it is still recording. I had to highlight that show in the DVR menu, select it, and then hit "stop" to actually make it stop recording.


Has your receiver every behaved any differently than this? This is "normal" behavior as far as I can tell, and I don't like it. This is one of the few times when I WANT to see a pop-up asking me if I want to stop recording. But alas, all the Stop button appears to do is send you to Live.

...Lance


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## Alpaca Bill (Jun 17, 2005)

Lance,

Yes, in the past when watching a show live but also recording it I could press the "stop" button on the remote and it would stop recording without any pop-up warning like on my 508. It always used to bother me that it did this (no pop-up second chance) on the 921 but now it won't stop the recording. I have 4 kids that have a bedtime of 8pm. Unfortunately several of the shows I like to watch are on during primetime (7-10 pm CST) so I set timers for the shows but I frequently am able to get back to the show before it is over. I start the show over but can usually catch up to live since I can zap the commercials. In the past I then just hit the "stop" button and watch the show live. But I can no longer do this as I have noted. I don't know which way is the "right" or default programming on teh 921 but I know which way I would like it to be...like it is on my 508!


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## lpickup (Jul 12, 2005)

Alpaca Bill said:


> I don't know which way is the "right" or default programming on teh 921 but I know which way I would like it to be...like it is on my 508!


I'll second that.

...Lance


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## Bradtothebone (Aug 11, 2003)

OK, I guess it's time for me to join "the club." I'm not sure my problem is the same one all you guys are having, but here goes:

AFAIK, I've never had a timer fire on the wrong day (day before). However, since L270 strange things have been happening with timers. Here is an example:

Monday night, the 921 was set to record "Prison Break" at 8:00 and "Medium" at 9:00 (both OTA), and "Weeds" on Showtime at 9:00. (These are all weekly timers, BTW.) "Prison Break" started at 8:00 on schedule, and the red light stayed on during the 9:00 hour, so I figured everything was fine. We were watching "MNF" on the 6000, so I wasn't paying much attention. Sometime after 10:00, I noticed that the red light was still on, so I checked the DVR menu on the 921 and found out that it was still recording FOX from 8:00, and had totally skipped the other two shows. We were tired and went to bed - I thought I'd look into it on Tuesday night.

On Tuesday night, "House" was supposed to record at 8:00, and "Boston Public" at 9:00 (OTA), in addtion to "Nip/Tuck" on F/X at 9:00. When we went downstairs at about 8:10, we noticed the red light was not on to record "House." I went into the DVR menu, and found that the two missed weekly timers from the previous night were at the top of the timer list, as if the 921 were going to wait until NEXT week to record anything else.

I went ahead and deleted those two timers, and rebooted, and the two 9:00 timers (actually one started at 8:59 and the other at 9:00) worked fine.

Is this what I have to look forward to every week? L270 has been an absolute disaster for me, and my wife, who is really pretty patient, is starting to get irritated. :eek2: 

Brad


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## ayalbaram (Aug 4, 2003)

My timer for family guy on sunday keeps firing on sat. I've tried deleting and re buliding the db but it has not helped. my soloution has been to get a dvr from my cable company and use that to record anything i really want to see.


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## koralis (Aug 10, 2005)

My timer for Lost just didn't fire last night (Wednesday)... my wife is very ticked. Instead it was recording Thursday's item at that time slot.

If for some reason you can't find the bug (best guess... memory overrun that screws up the current timer value) and you insist that a reboot is neccessary every day to keep it from happening, then have the DVR reboot itself every day. Here's the logic:


```
if(CurrentTimeSec - LastRebootTimeSec > 24*60*60)
{
  if(DVR_is_off  && !WillTimerHappenWithin30Minutes(CurrentTimeSec))
  {
     RebootDVR();
  }

}
```


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## 4apex (Nov 13, 2003)

Alpaca Bill said:


> I too never had this issue until last night. 3 of my timers set for Mon night fired and recorded on Sun night. I also noticed that while watching one of these shows live, that when I press the "stop" button it displays "LIVE" but when you look in the DVR menu it is still recording. I had to highlight that show in the DVR menu, select it, and then hit "stop" to actually make it stop recording.
> 
> I also had the stuck ascpect ratio problem last night. All my HD channels where being displayed as 4:3 "crunched" images. A smart card reboot fixed that issue and we'll see if it fixed the timers issues.
> 
> I am on L270.


The same exact thing happened to me on the 25th (Sunday). All of my Monday timers were going off, either overwriting the Sunday timers or the Sunday timers were just ignored. Wife was royally P'd off as we didn't record Desperate Housewives in Hi-Def (fortunately I've learned to always have a backup for important stuff so my 721 caught it - this unit has been amazingly stable for the past year, by the way).

Anyway, I've never experience this until this past Sunday, so I can only attribute it to something in 270. Oh, and another thing... I called Dish Network over a week ago because my hard drive is whining like it's about to die. i was told I'd be called back by the "higher level" tech support within 48 hours. I guess they meant within 48 hours of Christmas.


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## SummitAdvantageRetailer (Feb 20, 2005)

Yeah, can someone post this in a poll? I don't have timers firing one day late, but rather one day early. So if today's Friday, Saturday's timers are firing AND the DVR list the title of the Saturday timer event even though the recorded event is Friday's material and the title is different in the Program Guide. Some setting or programming is flawed. I hope they fix it soon on the next release because recording wrong programming is a NO-NO on a DVR.


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## KKlare (Sep 24, 2004)

Bradtothebone said:


> On Tuesday night, "House" was supposed to record at 8:00, and "Boston Public" at 9:00 (OTA), in addtion to "Nip/Tuck" on F/X at 9:00. When we went downstairs at about 8:10, we noticed the red light was not on to record "House." I went into the DVR menu, and found that the two missed weekly timers from the previous night were at the top of the timer list, as if the 921 were going to wait until NEXT week to record anything else.
> 
> I went ahead and deleted those two timers, and rebooted, and the two 9:00 timers (actually one started at 8:59 and the other at 9:00) worked fine.
> Brad


Starting two timers at the same minute is a problem usually resulting in the loss of one program but sometimes, I think, it may get confused about stopping. Not stopping can quickly eat all your disk space -- of course, I/you may have confused AM/PM and really asked for a 13 hour recording. That's giving the machine the benefit of the doubt -- it would be nice if it asked whether you really want to record more than 12 hours.
Stagger start times by a minute and there will be no problem.
Missed timers remain at the top of the list until nightly/forced reboot -- nice to find what you won't see.
My recent problem is getting a manual recording started when the 921 fails the timer. It says conflict with the timer and you cannot delete the timer because it is "running." Catch 22. And when you start a manual, you cannot go to the DVR list and watch something else.
-Ken


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

KKlare said:


> -- it would be nice if it asked whether you really want to record more than 12 hours.


It would really be nice if their 921 recalculated the record duration after you leave the start/stop fields and before you hit Create like their 501 does.


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

Bradtothebone said:


> I went into the DVR menu, and found that the two missed weekly timers from the previous night were at the top of the timer list, as if the 921 were going to wait until NEXT week to record anything else.
> 
> I went ahead and deleted those two timers, and rebooted, and the two 9:00 timers (actually one started at 8:59 and the other at 9:00) worked fine.


Out of order timers are always a STRONG sign of problems. This happens to me a lot, but generally the nightly reboot corrects them before the next day timers need to fire.

Do you think your 921 is doing it's nightly reboot? Might have also been interesting if you had tried rebooting without first deleting the timers.

This thread it really scaring me. I'm out of town and wiped away almost all of my recorded movies to make space for many of my favorite season premieres. I Wonder what I'll come home to?

Maybe we should all be awarded some kind of "Darwin" award for putting up with this for so long (that's not a good thing).


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## sledhead 700 (Apr 27, 2004)

Had some of my timers for tonight fire last night. The first time this has happened. Is there a fix? Called dish...no clue. Had me reboot said they will work now. I bet it wont fix it. So I will have to sit by the TV tonight to make sure they fire  . The thing is after all the issues I have had in the past I was just starting to trust the 921 again...shame on me :nono2: 

Dave


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

I just realized that my 921 choked and didn't record Desperate Housewives this past Sunday (grrrrrrrrr.)

An admittedly heavy recording night as ESPN HD and Desperate Housewives were recording right after Charmed recorded (and ESPN HD kept recording). Two back to back timers, one of them HD.... usually a recipe for hiccups. I'm screwed when a decent show comes back on HBO at that time as well (will have to ditch the HD recording for the HBO-W repeat viewing).


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## lapplegate (Jan 17, 2003)

Guess I'm the latest club member. I am now getting timers firing a day early.

They show up in the DRV list with the name that they are suppose to be, only they are the shows from the previous night.

Has there been any action on this bug?


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## dogface99 (Oct 13, 2005)

I've had both of my 921's recording a day in advance of the timer (e.g., "Saturday Night Live" records Friday at 11:30pm.)

I called Dish last night. They said that it was a problem with THEIR software, in that the satellite was telling the DVR's that it was the wrong date. They are "working on it" but promise no resolution date.

The best part was that the service person offered a credit, since I've lost about 3 weeks of programming, but had to check with her supervisor. When she came back on the line, she said, "My supervisor, Jim, said that I can't give you a credit because this is a new technology and you have to be patient, and you shouldn't have bought something as cutting-edge as HDTV if you weren't prepared to run into glitches." When I asked to be transferred to "Jim", I was mysteriously disconnected.

I despise this company and would switch to another company had I not spent $1,100 on HDTV receivers that won't work on DirecTV.


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## debpasc (Oct 20, 2005)

I have been dealing with timers firing a day early and the receiver trying to record two days at once. On my third tech support call I dealt with Chris in Product Support. I was advised that the "patch" to repair this glitch would be transmitted by year-end and the work-around until then is: delete all timers, unplug box, plug in again and re-enter all timers with the following -- record early and record late fields set to zero, check protect event field. I did it and so far everything is working fine. I occassionally miss the first few seconds or last few seconds of some things with the record early and record late timers set to zero but it is so much better than what was happening, I am (so far) tolerant of that problem.


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

debpasc said:


> I occassionally miss the first few seconds or last few seconds of some things with the record early and record late timers set to zero but it is so much better than what was happening, I am (so far) tolerant of that problem.


Even if you set the pads to 0, you can still go into the timer and change the start/end times to add the padding there. Note that changing start/end will sometimes revert the pads back to defaults (if there's no back-2-back timers). So, adjust start/end then go back in and set the pads to 0.

Interesting. I've usually adjust start/end and set pads to 0 anyway. Don't like the pads. They have a tendancy to revert to 0 when it's not really necessary and for today's programming I don't consider the pads optional.

But, I've had very few problems with messed up timers. I have seen weekly timers not move to the bottom of the event list, but the auto-reboot takes care of it (I've seen problems the next day when the list is out of order).


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## Ken Green (Oct 6, 2005)

A dish HD tech told me a few weeks ago this same work-around. I think I posted about it earlier. Since I've used 0/0 timer pads for all recordings, I've yet to have any miscue. I guess its been about 3 weeks now, and used to get different timer issues all the time.


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## Dithermaster (Jan 27, 2004)

I've gotten into the habit of checking the record queue (Menu, 7) daily to make sure things look "in order". The "day early" problems seem to occur when this list is not in order. If they are not in order, I delete the top events until the remainder of the list is in order, and then re-create the ones I deleted. So far, no problems.

///[email protected]


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## GFloyd (Jun 3, 2003)

I've noticed that when I view the guide and the "Red Dot" is not present for a timer then I've got a problem. I then select the event, through the guide, and the timer conflict warning box appears. I delete the old timer and use the new replacement one, and it seems to work fine. I've not had a "replacement" timer misfire yet ... *fingers crossed*


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

It's just amazing what the 921 has trained us to do to achieve semi-reliable operation. Makes me think of the movie where the Aliens assumed the dogs where the higher beings because the humans were picking up their poop.


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

Made it just about 2 months since the last time the problem occurred. I usually got bit with Saturday timers firing on Friday. This time my Monday timers fired on Sunday, causing on OTA event to not fire.


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## Notorious (Aug 18, 2005)

Add me to the List of people where the timer is Firing one day early.

WHAT A PIECE OF GARBAGE this 921.

If it wasnt bad enough all the other problems, now my timers are firing 1 day early.

Is there a solution to this? If I reset the timers will that fix it?

F'ing ABSURD! And they have the balls to have Charlie Chats and show their faces nationally.


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

But not the balls to take questions from any of us. (They only take softball questions from newbies nowadays)


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

Notorious said:


> Is there a solution to this?
> If I reset the timers will that fix it?


Maybe it worked for me anyway, but I only had that happen on one particular timer.

The tipoff was when you look at the timer list, the timer in question would appear in the wrong sequence in the list (example Sunday timer was with the Saturday events) even though it seemed to have the correct data.


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## Kagato (Jul 1, 2002)

I hope they do actually get this fixed. It's been an issue (and still is) for the 721. Although it seems to happen less on the 721 than with the 921. But we're basically looking at a bug that Dish has been trying to fix for YEARS.


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