# My 721 is a jerk!



## rathergood (Jul 29, 2003)

I'm serious folks. Last night my POS 721 decided that it didn't fill like storing my 10-20 hours worth of programming and deleted them right before my eyes. In detail, I had just erased a recording which brought me back to the PVR list, on the top of the list is see the title "Unknown Recorded Event". I proceeded to view what the recording contains but 721 locks up. I pressed the Dish Home button, nothing happens, after 2 mins the pvr list disappears but I cannot change the channel. I turned the 721 off & on, still can't change channel. Brought up the pvr list and to my surprising disappointment every show but Amazing Race had disappeared. Panicked, I did a hard reset/reboot in hopes that it would bring the rest of the shows back. After the full reboot I brought up the pvr list and all recorded shows are still gone including AR. My heart dropped when I saw that. I know it's "just TV" but there are two shows that I can't get back (Big Brother and Trading Spouses.). The good news is that the majority of the shows are being re-aired or can be downloaded. 

So now you guys can welcome me to the club of people who lost recordings. I will forever be calling my 721 a P.O.S., even if this awful event doesn't happen again.

Can you guys please tell me of a for sure source were I can download last night episode of Fox's Trading Spouses and NBC's The Restaurant? Can you also tell me who's being nominated on BB5(Due to storm, missed the last 7mins of Saturdays show) and what happened on last nights BB episode?


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## mainedish (Mar 25, 2003)

Hmm. That's a surprise.


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## garypen (Feb 1, 2004)

rathergood said:


> (Big Brother and Trading Spouses.). The good news is that the majority of the shows are being re-aired or can be downloaded.


The good news is that there are two less copies of Big Brother and Trading Spaces in the world. 

But, my wife feels your pain. She lost a Clay Aiken appearance on GMA which out-of-the-blue says "0 Seconds Recorded", after watching it several times!

Now, I don't personally give a crap about losing one of a bazillion Clay recordings. But, I'm pissed on general principle, and upset that my wife was upset. These things simply _should not happen_.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Did you try holding the power button on for a count of 15 and then release. This is a soft Reboot and it might clear things up.


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## boba (May 23, 2003)

When will people listen that a HARD DRIVE IS NOT, NOT, NOT, a permanent storage media, especially on buggy DISH software.


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## Bob Haller (Mar 24, 2002)

I feel your pain My 721 spazed on the survivor finale..... bad bad bad 721 I ended up watching it out of order and missed some of it entirely....

Please note I am NOT the only one whos 721 left him down............. bill r trys to say its just me...........on a good note my other house sold yesterday, with closing in a month..


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

Even if the hard drive is not used for a permanent storage area, some still dont even get to see the show the first time if it is used for a temporary storage area. I have missed part of my recordings this past week but it may have been due to bad weather or something.


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## Bill R (Dec 20, 2002)

Bob Haller said:


> Please note I am NOT the only one whos 721 left him down............. bill r trys to say its just me.


Bob,

I have NEVER said that you are the only one that has had problems with your 721. I read these forums just like you do so I know that other people have problems too. However, for everyone of the 721 owners that are having problems there are hundreds of us who are not. It IS people like you that REPEATELY complain about your past 721 problems that makes it seem a lot more problematic than it really is.


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## garypen (Feb 1, 2004)

boba said:


> When will people listen that a HARD DRIVE IS NOT, NOT, NOT, a permanent storage media, especially on buggy DISH software.


Sure it is. Perhaps not on a Dish device. But, hard drives are most definitely a permanent storage medium. At the very least, they are a temporarly medium that should be able to store data safely for a few months.

You have a PC, don't you? It's the same kind of hard drive!


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## larrystotler (Jun 6, 2004)

Sorry guys, but what amuses me most is that while you guys are complaining about this stuff, how many people in the world use WinDoZe and lose data everyday? I'm not trying to start a flame war because I really just don't care, but as a former computer professional: BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP!!! At least you are not having problems in the middle of surgery or driving down the road. Just watching "I,Robot" scares me to that that people are willing to trust their lives to tech more and more. People are bad enough, and heck, they design this stuff.....

Anyway, I'm sorry to hear that you had such a problem. I guess I have been lucky and only had to deal with the aquring signal crap during recordings.....Hopefully, they will get us an update that will help fix things.....Does anyone know if Dish actually has a bug reporting system? And if not, who do we complain to to get one going? I mean, the 721 is based on Linux, so unless they've screwed up the kernel, it has to be their code that is buggy......


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## rathergood (Jul 29, 2003)

larrystotler said:


> ....and only had to deal with the acquiring signal crap during recordings...


You mean that's a bug? That's was the reason I missed the last 7 mins of Saturday's Big Brother. The recording keep flashing "Acquiring Satellite Signal" over and over again. I thought it was doing that because there may have been a storm going on causing the receiver to act a fool.

Well more bad news. Tonight the pos 721 did it's job of recording the shows BUT after I finished watching two shows I noticed that one unwatched recording had disappeared. What should I do? Should I make Dish replace the receiver? Or should I force the receiver to reformat the hard drive?


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## rathergood (Jul 29, 2003)

boba said:


> When will people listen that a HARD DRIVE IS NOT, NOT, NOT, a permanent storage media, especially on buggy DISH software.


I don't use the receiver as a storage device. The oldest show on the receiver was about a week old. I watch the shows when I fell like it. There are other things in life that I like to do, TV has to wait. I've always known better to archive special programming to VHS.


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## Unthinkable (Sep 13, 2002)

rathergood said:


> You mean that's a bug? That's was the reason I missed the last 7 mins of Saturday's Big Brother. The recording keep flashing "Acquiring Satellite Signal" over and over again. I thought it was doing that because there may have been a storm going on causing the receiver to act a fool.


I think everyone with Dish on the east coast missed the last part of that episode due to the storm activity over the uplink center in Colorado.


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## Bob Haller (Mar 24, 2002)

Wonder why there are so few reports Of D Tivos flaking out? They partition the programminmg seperate from the OS, so a reformat OS rarely wipes the hard drive..

In any case theres no way to easily archieve stuff on a short term basis I would like to see a way to dump the hard drive from one box directly to another. The TIVO hame media thing would be excellent for that.


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## Bill R (Dec 20, 2002)

Bob Haller said:


> Wonder why there are so few reports Of D Tivos flaking out?


Maybe not completely flaking out but some DirecTV TiVos are suffering from a major software bug right now - freezing playback of stored shows -, see http://news.com.com/Glitch+hits+DirecTV+TiVo+boxes/2100-1041_3-5287815.html



Bob Haller said:


> They partition the programminmg seperate from the OS, so a reformat OS rarely wipes the hard drive.


I believe that DISH's DVRs are set up the same way.

I do know people that have lost ALL their recorded programs on their DirecTV TiVos too, so what's your point? ANYTHING stored on ANY hard drive is never 100 percent safe from erasure.

Bob, as usual, you have such HATE for DISH you are no longer looking at things objectively or realistically and you continue to post half truths and some outright lies. Give it a rest. We all know how much you hate DISH and what your objective is. No need to repeat it on everyone of your posts.


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## Bob Haller (Mar 24, 2002)

Bill by all accounts and dan collins postings E DVRs have many more times the bugs than D Tivos....

Rarely do D Tivo user report lost all recordings, yet historically these reports occur frequently here.

anyone who doubts that look back here and you be the judge.......

dont depend on posters like me and bill everyone go look for themselves......


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## Bill R (Dec 20, 2002)

Bob Haller said:


> Bill by all accounts and dan collins postings E DVRs have many more times the bugs than D Tivos....


Why do you quote someone that doesn't own any DISH equipment?


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## Bob Haller (Mar 24, 2002)

dan is certinally knowledgable.... oh well

Lets move onto another bug which I just stumbled accross. please put the word amish in your 721 search. my box reports endless showings 

friday december 30th 1994 at 12:16 AM AUX if I had a way to caputure it I woulld, I took a digital picture but dont have time to put it up. if someone wants to I will e mail it to them. what a wierd bug


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## larrystotler (Jun 6, 2004)

rathergood said:


> You mean that's a bug? That's was the reason I missed the last 7 mins of Saturday's Big Brother. The recording keep flashing "Acquiring Satellite Signal" over and over again. I thought it was doing that because there may have been a storm going on causing the receiver to act a fool.
> 
> Well more bad news. Tonight the pos 721 did it's job of recording the shows BUT after I finished watching two shows I noticed that one unwatched recording had disappeared. What should I do? Should I make Dish replace the receiver? Or should I force the receiver to reformat the hard drive?


If it's not, I'll be amazed. I can watch tuner 1 with no problems, but with tuner 2 I will get an aquiring signal problem. Heck, even when I am watching it I see problems with the signal, and when I go to the point screen it is fine. I have 2 30" dishes that I am going to mount to try to minimize the rain fade. This will require a legacy setup since one of the dishes uses a rectangular LNG, so I won't be able to tell if it is due to the DP Quad conclusively or not. I did a post a while back that discussed an issue with a troubleshooting screen showing 66 power failures, but never got a got idea if it's the house voltage or not. I am also going to run it off my UPS to see if that helps.


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## Bob Haller (Mar 24, 2002)

Larry you have a classic tuner 2 failure and you will need to RMA your box. 

the power failure # is line voltage failure, I checked by pulling the plug

Theres a chance the tuner failure is DP pro related, at least advanced tech said there was some evidence of that. The ONLY valid test for sat lines is another 721, I had a dp pro that failed on numerous 721s while working perfectly oin a pair of 508s

I think you should RMA your box, do you have the system warranty?


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## larrystotler (Jun 6, 2004)

Bob Haller said:


> Larry you have a classic tuner 2 failure and you will need to RMA your box.
> 
> the power failure # is line voltage failure, I checked by pulling the plug
> 
> ...


It doesn't always fail though. I have the 1 year warranty that came with it, but I hesitate to RA it because I originally had problems with my 501, and now it seems to be fine. Dish wanted to RA that one, and I never did. Thanx for the info on the power failure. What about the other counter? Did it change as well? So advance tech actually said it might be an issue with DP? I guess I will go ahead and change out the 721 to the SW 64 and see what happens. I've been playing with a P* dish on it to get the 105, and I have had some success with the bigger dish I just set up. It's a 39.5" by 29.5" dish, and I get about 80-100 on most trans now. I couldn't even get 80 with the 35.5" by 26.5" dish. I gues siez DOES matter! :lol:


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