# Ask DBSTalk: Regarding Announcement



## fox200 (Mar 21, 2004)

With a software update 2 or more weeks away, do you think Eldon will 
combine OTA fixes, timer fix, and OTA guide into one release?


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## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

No. Each release is high enough risk without combining multiple new features in at the same time with the fixes. If I had to guess, I would guess that their goal is still to achieve stable "baseline" functionality.

But can you imagine buying the 921 today, not reading these message boards, and simply having all of your timers cease to fire after about a week? And have no idea why, or how to fix it? Imagine how many units must be getting returned to Dish because they're "defective"!


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

fox200 - keep in mind that there have been several beta versions since L184, and that most of the OTA fixes have already been incorporated into the code. I see no reason they would be pulled out of the next release. Don't count on the OTA guide data, though.


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## sgt940 (Jan 9, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> fox200 - keep in mind that there have been several beta versions since L184, and that most of the OTA fixes have already been incorporated into the code. I see no reason they would be pulled out of the next release. Don't count on the OTA guide data, though.


Since I started power cord rebooting once a week for timers I am again loosging OTA's after the reboot and every three or four days. Think this will be fixed with next release?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

I haven't had any OTA problems at all in about 4 weeks now, but YMWV (your mileage WILL vary) depending on if you're in a market that has a troublesome digital station or two. I have no idea how it will work for you.


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## Rodney (Aug 22, 2003)

Have beta testers been recruited or are there any in areas, sush as Atlanta where recordings cannot be made of the digital channel of our ABC affiliate, where OTA problems exist that are known to be software related?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Even if I knew the specific answer to that question, Rodney, I couldn't answer it. That would cross the NDA line.


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## Rodney (Aug 22, 2003)

I will rephrase the question. What methodology does Eldon use to verify that a software fix for reception in troubled cities is correctly applied?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

I don't know where all the testers are located, but my assumption is that there has to be a tester in one of those markets somewhere.


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## kmcnamara (Jan 30, 2004)

sgt940 said:


> Since I started power cord rebooting once a week for timers I am again loosging OTA's after the reboot and every three or four days. Think this will be fixed with next release?


Yes, I've noticed that when I power cord reboot, I lose most of my OTA channels. They also periodically drop off on their own (maybe the unit is crashing causing the channels to disappear).


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## jcord51 (Feb 1, 2003)

Well my timers were not going off so I performed the power cord reboot. After the reboot I was not able to get any channels at all. I then did a check switch and all my three satellites appeared. I then performed a power button off, now nothing appeared not even the menu. Time to call Dish..."one of your cables must be disconnected", "your sw64 must have gone bad", "you did a power cord off reboot, you just erased all your settings"....more unbelievable nonsense from the Advance Tec. people. I fix the unit myself by again doing a poweroff and a check switch test. The problem is that again the darn timers wont fire and that I now have only two hours of information on my guide. I again called Advance Tec. so that they can document the problems I'm having with the unit. This is not fun!


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

I installed an appliance timer today to power down the 921 once per day for 15 minutes at 6AM. I had to install a ground wire bypass on the timer so the grounded power cord would still be valid.


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## jcord51 (Feb 1, 2003)

Just got off the phone with Dish. Ran thru an extensive review of my satellite signals and power off button resets...outcome still no full guide data, at most guide info is only two hours into the future. Told to call back if the quide is still not getting info, may have to replace the unit.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

DonLandis said:


> I installed an appliance timer today to power down the 921 once per day for 15 minutes at 6AM. I had to install a ground wire bypass on the timer so the grounded power cord would still be valid.


That is interesting. Wouldn't work for me though. Everytime I reboot, I need to rescan all of the channels, then manually add KPIX. I guess they need to make the 921 scriptable! Reboot at 6am, rescan channels, manually add KPIX. That would solve my problems...


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Haven't lost OTA channels in quite awhile, except for one and I really don't care about that one anyway. Been doing daily reboots with the powerplug since Sunday and the timers are all firing perfectly. Today the timer should be taking over the task.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Don, you're not going to need that appliance timer after the next version downloads. Can't say anything more than that at this point.


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## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

I'm extremely leary of talking about which fixes are in or out (which was what I was alluding to in my first reply up above to the original poster). It seems that even though a large number of fixes are tested simultaneously in the beta versions, what actually gets released is only ever a handful of those fixes, i.e. only some portion of the fixes get merged back to the mainline for release.

Hence, there have been a number of times where Mark sees a fix, but then when they try to bring the fix over to the mainline with some other fixes, there's a bad merge and the fix breaks (or something else breaks). What we wind up with is thus not as good as what has been being tested; disappointing.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

_"Don, you're not going to need that appliance timer after the next version downloads."_

You don't mind if I just keep it going until I see a lack of reports that all others are no longer having any issues that appear to be caused by a lack of rebooting, or issues that are simply fixed by rebooting do you? 

I suspect that the reason we are seeing these issues pop up now is that the developers have been successful in hiding the appearance of the GSOD or even that they have been successful in preventing the spontaneous reboots, but, have failed to correct 100% of all the causes for memory leaks and thus, problems we see that are corrected by power plug rebooting still works.

Analogy- Windows 98 had lots of memory leaks, eventually- BSOD
Windows2000 still had these but was more stable and would simply slow down and some features would be lost.
Win XP continues to suffer memory leaks eventhough the appearance of this only surfaces with strange behaviors like the clip board and mouse functions beginning to break down. A reboot still corrects these things.

Consequently- A reboot each work day keeps my systems running _almost_ all day long.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Of course...  And, you're dead on what's causing the problems these days. I've been saying that exactly for the last week.  Random crashes are gone now, but the memory leaks aren't, and this one is causing the feature failure rather than a crash and reboot.


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## ocnier (May 8, 2003)

But with regards to Linux though I thought that OS was more bullet proof than that. I mean, I look at the software update curve, and my gut just tells me that it is also a hardware problem, i.e. unstable chipset etc..... I just don't know now six months if it is salvageable.


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## jcord51 (Feb 1, 2003)

jcord51 said:


> Just got off the phone with Dish. Ran thru an extensive review of my satellite signals and power off button resets...outcome still no full guide data, at most guide info is only two hours into the future. Told to call back if the quide is still not getting info, may have to replace the unit.


Well I did recover my guide info and the timers are correctly in place for firing. The problem is that they will not fire, you actually have to be viewing the showing and manually hit record. Then after the recording you have to manually have to stop the recording (This is not OTA recordings but all guide recordings). I called Dish again to document this and they stated that there is nothing at this point that they can do until the next SW revision. They have credited my account $15 for the month.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

ocnier said:


> But with regards to Linux though I thought that OS was more bullet proof than that. I mean, I look at the software update curve, and my gut just tells me that it is also a hardware problem, i.e. unstable chipset etc..... I just don't know now six months if it is salvageable.


It doesn't matter how "bullet proof" Linux is. The application has the memory leaks, not the OS. Even give the application it's own protected memory map, it can still leak in its own world. Regardless, the application has to write to hardware, and this can be the cause of lots of reboots, regardless of how stable the OS is. It doesn't mean the hardware is at fault. It just means the software has to interface to it correctly. The OS can be inherently stable, and the application can still try to de-reference a null pointer and wind up in neverland.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

jcord51 said:


> Well I did recover my guide info and the timers are correctly in place for firing. The problem is that they will not fire, you actually have to be viewing the showing and manually hit record. Then after the recording you have to manually have to stop the recording (This is not OTA recordings but all guide recordings). I called Dish again to document this and they stated that there is nothing at this point that they can do until the next SW revision. They have credited my account $15 for the month.


Have you tried deleting ALL timers and doing a power-cord reboot? That seems to reset any corruption that may be in the timer database.

Before doing that, do a Menu-7 and see if the Action Order looks OK or not. If it's not, this is a must-try fix.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Simon- Can you educate me why the importance of "action order" ?

I never bother with the lengthy list of timer record events. They aren't in any special order at all. So far this week all my timers have fired, probably as a result of 15-20 minute power plug rebooting each morning. My simple timer is doing it now automatically.


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## ocnier (May 8, 2003)

It doesn't matter how "bullet proof" Linux is. The application has the memory leaks, not the OS. Even give the application it's own protected memory map, it can still leak in its own world. Regardless, the application has to write to hardware, and this can be the cause of lots of reboots, regardless of how stable the OS is. It doesn't mean the hardware is at fault. It just means the software has to interface to it correctly. The OS can be inherently stable, and the application can still try to de-reference a null pointer and wind up in neverland.


::::Okay I can buy off on that, but then explain to me why the HD tivo is so much more stable in comparison to posted bug rates. Is Fat32 with its accompanying OS really that much better to use for theses types of devices or is it simply a chipset feature? My gut tells me that it is stability of chipset (if had to guess).


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

ocnier said:


> ::::Okay I can buy off on that, but then explain to me why the HD tivo is so much more stable in comparison to posted bug rates. Is Fat32 with its accompanying OS really that much better to use for theses types of devices or is it simply a chipset feature? My gut tells me that it is stability of chipset (if had to guess).


Nothing to explain. The HD TiVo and the 921 are running two different applications on two different OSs. Your question is similar to asking why word perfect on Linux doesn't work as well as MS Word on Windows XP. They are different programs developed by different people.

Let me ask you this: As new updates come, do you think they are changing the OS, or the 921 application software? If they are doing OS updates, wouldn't you expect to see these updates being released to the whole linux world as well as the 921? If you think that the OS is updated, and not the application, then why aren't the updates coming from the open source linux community instead of Eldon? Eldon writes the application, and the open source community writes Linux (the OS). Conversely, what OS do you think the HD TiVo runs on? I don't think it is Microsoft. Let's say for argument's sake that it is. With that assumption, who wrote the software for it? Microsoft? I think not. If that was the case, there would be no need for a company called "TiVo". They make the software for the TiVo. If you go and buy a copy of Adobe photoshop, and it has a bug in it, do you blame Microsoft for writing the buggy OS? What if Photoshop has the exact same bug while running on Mac OS? Are both OSs at fault, or is it a bug with Adobe?


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## ocnier (May 8, 2003)

I see your logic now, I guess all we can do is wait and hope something more permanent/stable materializes in the way of bugs the 921 is facing


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

ocnier said:


> I see your logic now, I guess all we can do is wait and hope something more permanent/stable materializes in the way of bugs the 921 is facing


I sure can't wait!!!


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