# What does a green light on a GenieGo mean?



## Peapod (Oct 14, 2006)

My GenieGo has been broken since early December. It will occasionally begin preparing shows for a few minutes then reset to waiting to prepare. I have been working with DirecTV support since December, although after about a month they lost my case and I had to start all over.

I can stream shows in home and out of home -- it's only download to device that is broken (sadly that's the one feature I really care about).

Since this effort began I have replaced virtually everything in my entire setup. DirecTV sent out a replacement GenieGo, and eventually recommended upgrading to a SWiM/DECA setup, at which time I finally got a Genie DVR. I have replaced my old D-Link gigabit switch with a Cisco managed gigabit switch. I have switched ISPs (from DSL to business class cable), switched from routing with an Airport Extreme to a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite and replaced every network cable involved in any of this chain -- all gigabit connections are Cat 6 and all 100MB connections are Cat 5e.

Earlier this week, while sending more diagnostic reports to DirecTV, the status light on the GenieGo suddenly changed to green for a few minutes, and I managed to get 3 one hour shows to download, before it stopped again for about 14 hours, then worked for a 2 hour movie before now failing for the last 9-10 hours again. I have yet to see the green light repeat, and cannot find anything anywhere about a green status light -- everything I read suggests that the possible colors for that light are blue, amber and red, but it was definitely green. I also haven't gotten any idea from DirecTV support what that could mean.

Honestly it seems that they have no idea what is going on, and I seem to be doing the same diagnostic checks over and over again for months now at a 30 minute or longer call every few days. It's unbelievably frustrating.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

Yep, according to the manual, there is no green LED status indicator.


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## PK6301 (May 16, 2012)

Of the 3 light on the GenieGo which one had the "Green Color" ? I know there is also a "White Light".

Solid White GenieGO is powering up.
Solid Blue GenieGO is set up properly.
oK Blinking Blue Content downloading from GenieGO to device.
Pulsing Blue GenieGO is preparing DVR content for mobile use.
Blinking Amber Downloading GenieGO device firmware update.
Solid Amber Indicates general problem with GenieGO. (See Amber Status Light 
section on next page for info.)
PRoBLEM Red Critical Error. Unplug power from GenieGO and contact DIRECTV 
customer service.
Off No power. Make sure power cord is plugged in correctly and that 
electricity is working.19

Amber Status Light is oN 
Network Light is oFF
No Internet connection Make sure that the router is connected to 
the Internet and the cable between the 
router and the GenieGO™ device is properly 
secured.

Amber Status Light is oN 
Activity Light is oFF
GenieGO can’t find an HD 
DVR to communicate with
Make sure that the HD DVR is powered on 
(stand-by mode is OK) and that you have 
an active Internet connection.
See the Additional Info section on page 20 
for instructions on checking your HD DVR’s 
connection to the Internet, or visit support.
directv.com.
When the Status light is amber, it indicates two possible problems, both of which are indicated


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## Peapod (Oct 14, 2006)

Status was green. and it was clearly a bright lime green (and I'm not color blind). I was on the phone with DirecTV support at the time, and verified it a few times.


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## PK6301 (May 16, 2012)

Oh I believe you, but that's a new one on me.

But on the Bright Side you upgraded to a bigger better badder DVR, better internet, better cabling, and better router... :hurah: :hurah:

Now if you could just get the GenieGo to act right you would be Golden !!!!! :bang :bang


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## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

I suppose they haven't tried replacing it?


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## Go Beavs (Nov 18, 2008)

I've seen the green light before on my GenieGo. It coincided with sending diagnostic reports to DIRECTV. Based on that, I figured the green light meant it was sending diagnostic data, although I have no way of confirming that.

I'll see if I can duplicate that behavior later when I'm home.


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## Peapod (Oct 14, 2006)

dennisj00 said:


> I suppose they haven't tried replacing it?


Yes, they have replaced the GenieGo, and I have replaced everything else in the chain of communication between the GenieGo and DVRs.


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## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

Peapod said:


> Yes, they have replaced the GenieGo, and I have replaced everything else in the chain of communication between the GenieGo and DVRs.


So give us some more info about your network. . . modem / router, layout of DVRs and GG.


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## Peapod (Oct 14, 2006)

Motorola SB6121 cable modem
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite router
Cisco SG300-20 gigabit managed switch
Everything is plugged into the Cisco switch. As these are all 100M connections, I am using Cat-5e on all of them. From the switch GUI:

11 GE11 Ooma 1000M-copper Up Enabled 100M Full Unprotected 
12 GE12 DirecTV HR24-100 1000M-copper Up Enabled 100M Full Unprotected 
13 GE13 DirecTV HR44-700 1000M-copper Up Enabled 100M Full Unprotected









I'm not doing anything special on the switch relating to these ports. The switch is about two weeks old and the router is 5 days old. Prior to that I was using an Airport Extreme for routing and a few 5 port D-Link gigabit switches. The DVRs and GenieGo were all hooked into one of the switches.


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## NR4P (Jan 16, 2007)

Peapod, try this. If you can.

Connect the GenieGO via Cat5 cable to your Router.
Connect your Genie via Cat 5 cable directly to your Router.
-If that is not possible, connect your DECA network to the Router directly with a CCK or BB DECA.
-Or if your Genie is an HR44, try wireless to the router. If your router supports it.

Just yesterday I was communicating with someone with a Layer 3 Gigabit switch and once we took that out of the equation, some problems were solved.

In other words, don't have any Directv devices or traffic through additional switches after the router unless its something like a $29 low cost switch.

Reboot everything after the changes of course


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## Peapod (Oct 14, 2006)

I don't currently have a CCK or BB DECA, but I do have a DCA2SR0, that was used for an HR22 before I decommissioned it. I'm more than willing to try it though if it might help. I should add that in-home and out-of-home streaming work perfectly though, as does downloading to devices -- it is only preparation that fails.

My switch is currently configured in Layer 2 mode on purpose to keep it simpler, but I had also tried this with an unmanaged D-Link 5 port switch for months without success.

My router does not do wireless. It's a dedicated purpose router. It has two ports after the WAN is used, and I would be actually routing between two subnets if I hooked it up that way. I have been considering putting my wireless access point on another subnet and on the other router port, but have not specifically because not everything may route correctly across the two and I don't want to have to mess with forwarding things like broadcast across the two subnets.

I definitely could try wireless to the access point that connects to the switch. Is there a reason you suggest Cat5? I'll have to find some I can borrow, as I don't even keep any Cat5 laying around anymore -- just Cat5e and Cat6.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

when we say cat 5 we generally mean Ethernet cable. 


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## NR4P (Jan 16, 2007)

Assuming you cannot connect an ETHERNET cable to your Genie that goes directly to the router, try the DCA2SR0 as a broadband DECA. Connect it to the router and an open port on a splitter. I assume its Green Labeled Directv approved splitter. Any splitter has to be for DECA.

Then move the GenieGO if necessary and connect it to another port on the Router.

Reboot everything. You should get blue lights on the GG after 2 mins.

I'd be curious if you still cannot prepare.


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## Peapod (Oct 14, 2006)

It's the connection directly to the router that would cause problems. Two connections on the router would be on two different subnets, whether it's direct via ethernet or through the DCASR0. I would have to configure routing between the two subnets and probably have issues with things like broadcast. Worse, I would not be able to connect my wireless access point to the router then, as all ports would be in use, so I would have no way of seeing if anything worked.

Even if I setup everything to route correctly with direct connections only to the router, I suspect that the software running on the devices wouldn't even understand one device on a 192.168.2.0/24 network and another device on a 192.168.3.0/24 network. I think it would treat them as 'outside the home'.


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## NR4P (Jan 16, 2007)

I am not following your concern.
Connection 1 is the DECA network
Connection 2 is the GG

Data will pass through the router for the DVRs to communicate with the GG.

Don't the ports on the router follow some 192.168.2.x where anything on the ports is in the same DHCP pool and subnet?

That is how GG is designed to function.


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## Peapod (Oct 14, 2006)

Not on a real router. That would work fine on a switch, but a router routes between subnets. Most home 'routers' are really very simple downstream/upstream routers with a switch built in. This is not what I am using.

I can connect everything back into the D-Link regular switch, but I wouldn't expect it to work since I had exactly this configuration until two weeks ago.


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## NR4P (Jan 16, 2007)

According to your posts, you've changed just about everything in your system and still have the issues. And since you don't have a real router (your words), that might be the root cause.
As I mentioned earlier the GG product was designed to plug into the same router as your DECA internet. 

Sophisticated business like systems will mess it up, as you experienced.


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## Peapod (Oct 14, 2006)

You misunderstand me. I used to have just an airport extreme that acted as a minimal router (WAN to everything else), 3 port switch and wireless access point. I tried plugging the DVRs and GenieGo into both the airport extreme and also through a separate D-Link gigabit switch. The GenieGo did not work.

I now have a dedicated router that just does routing, a managed switch (in layer 2 mode and with everything fancy disabled except link aggregation to NAS) and am still using the airport extreme as a wireless access point for now.

Essentially the starting configuration when this problem began is what you are asking me to try, and it did not work. I can pretty much rule out a malfunctioning device because I have swapped everything out except one of the DVRs and the WAP.

When you say plug everything into the same router, I believe you really mean a combo router/switch, as on a dedicated router every port is usually a different segment. I'm sure some routers can be configured to share a network segment among multiple ports, but this is not the default behavior of a router, and it's not an option on mine in any case.


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## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

Just put a small switch directly behind the single port on your router. Then plug the GG and Deca module into it. You don't want them on separate subnets. Keep it simple . . .


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## Peapod (Oct 14, 2006)

Plugged both DVRs and the GG into a D-Link gigabit switch, and no improvement. Also tried a much older Netgear 100Mbps switch, and still nothing.


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## NR4P (Jan 16, 2007)

How about something very basic? Such as a Netgear WNDR3700 aka N600. Or their R6300
Something that most homes would have as a router off an ISP's modem.

That's the kind of product the GenieGO was targeted to operate with and if you had anything similar, you could at least verify basic operation and troubleshoot from there.


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## Peapod (Oct 14, 2006)

I'm not sure how that would be any different than my initial configuration which was an Apple Airport Extreme.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

Peapod said:


> I'm not sure how that would be any different than my initial configuration which was an Apple Airport Extreme.


if you go back the AE, I can try to help. I also have an AE extreme, the latest model and GG works flawlessly!


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## Peapod (Oct 14, 2006)

Success! When the installer was out here to upgrade everything, he did not touch the HR24, which probably should have been rebooted and had the ethernet cable disconnected to use DECA. It just occurred to me to switch that up, and suddenly the Genie works perfectly. The HR24 has internet through DECA, but I still cannot prepare anything from it.

I suspect that the HR24 is malfunctioning in a way that causes all prepares to reset every few minutes, but running it through DECA has somehow filtered that out for other DVRs.

The DirecTV representative will get back to me Friday about replacing the HR24.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

there should not be a DECA on the HR24 as it has one built in 


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## Peapod (Oct 14, 2006)

There isn't one. Maybe my bad terminology, but it's using coax to get out to the internet now, with nothing else special connected.


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## litzdog911 (Jun 23, 2004)

Is your HR24 an HR24-500? There's an issue with that model that can affect its discovery by GenieGo. Supposedly DirecTV is working on a fix.


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## Peapod (Oct 14, 2006)

HR24-100


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