# Screen going black!



## lgb0250 (Jan 24, 2010)

Happened twice today. Latest is going on while I type this. Watching Food Network and everything just went black with no audio! Switched to DIY and the same thing. Switched to USA and everything is fine. Now Food Network just came back on after being off for at least five minutes! Was this a national problem or just confined to my box?


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## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

Some channels were interrupted by solar activity which occurs in the Spring and Fall.


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## lgb0250 (Jan 24, 2010)

MysteryMan said:


> Some channels were interrupted by solar activity which occurs in the Spring and Fall.


Interesting! Thanks for the info.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Not Hopper related... but I was watching ESPN2 this afternoon and at some point around 4:15pm EDT that channel went black for a few minutes. I assumed it was a source/uplink issue. Not sure if it would have been solar activity or something else.


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## lgb0250 (Jan 24, 2010)

Are the Food Network, DIY and ESPN2 on a different satellite than USA Network?


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

FYI... same thing today... 4:14-4:16pm EDT lost ESPN2HD and also lost ESPNHD for that same time. I didn't check any other channels since it was only a couple of minutes... but same as yesterday... screen broke up a little then went black... then came back the same way a couple of minutes later. No loss of signal from my perspective so it was a source problem... either the Dish uplink was interrupted OR the ESPN transmission to Dish was interrupted for those couple of minutes.


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

Stewart Vernon said:


> FYI... same thing today... 4:14-4:16pm EDT lost ESPN2HD and also lost ESPNHD for that same time.


My experience with this started two days ago when we lost Discover HD, but the screen didn't go black. Instead the receiver switched to the SD version. At the time I checked signal level on 129 and it was down to 19 from 39, which seems low to begin with. Today around the same time you mentioned, adjusted for time zone, we lost all satellites. Over the black screen was a pop-up that mentioned the usual suspects (ie: trees, whether, etc) and to unplug the receiver. Didn't do that, just switched between a few things until the acquiring satellite screen appeared. After the picture returned the receiver was stuck on SD, but eventually switched to HD. Seems okay for now.


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## thomasjk (Jan 10, 2006)

Saw the same issue yesterday and today on HGTV.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

In my case, no signal issues or at least no popup on the screen for acquiring signal. I didn't check other channels since it was only a couple of minutes. Had it lasted much longer I would have looked to see if other channels were a problem. If it happens again tomorrow I'll have to try a few channels out and see how many I can find out at the same time.


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## lgb0250 (Jan 24, 2010)

Had it happen again last night. No pop ups here either. The sound goes out and the screen just goes black! This is getting annoying. Surprised a DIRT rep hasn't chimed in? Not that they could do anything but it would be nice to know if it's widespread or isolated to a specific geographical area or that it's a known issue they are working on.


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## thomasjk (Jan 10, 2006)

In the cases I saw it was channels on the sat at 72.7.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

No problems that I've noticed today... I was especially ready to take notice at the 4:15pm EDT time where it happened the last two days.


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

Stewart Vernon said:


> No problems that I've noticed today... I was especially ready to take notice at the 4:15pm EDT time where it happened the last two days.


While watching a 1:30pm recorded event from Wednesday, about 3 minutes into playback there was severe video corruption. Eventually the pop-up, "Part of the recorded event has been lost due to signal loss" was displayed on the screen for about two seconds before automatically disappearing. The video corruption continued until the video jumped to a clean spot. Measured in playback time, the corruption lasted for about 36 seconds, but in real-time several minutes were lost. The recording was from satellite 129. The screen never went black.

FWIW, compared to the 508, I prefer the way the Hopper handles video corruption. At the slightest hint of corruption the 508 would display the signal loss popup and jump -- usually jumping too far and displaying the popup unnecessarily too long making matters worse. The Hopper gives the corruption a chance to correct itself before taking any action.


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