# The slippery slope



## 4apex (Nov 13, 2003)

These bugs are all documented, but I just wanted to make some observations.

Well, my 921 WAS doing great until the most recent release. While I appreciate the OTA guide, the other bugs that were injected suck.

I've been experiencing some Zero Second Recordings (and negative time indicators - not sure if that's the same thing) and a few failed timers. 
Starting on Sunday, my timers started failing, then on Monday I noticed that when I tried to record something, I got the warning message about the program being blacked out in my area and me not being authorized to view it. Acknowledging the message started the recording. THEN, a manual record of a program (NBC HD OTA), since the timer failed, never stopped even though I selected to "Stop Recording at end of Event." When I realized this hours later, no matter what I tried I couldn't get the recording to stop. Finally, I had to just yank the smart card out to reboot the 921 and get the recording to stop. naturally I lost that one recording, but all else seems OK. The timers fired fine today.

Now, I'm guessing that my receiver hasn't done its 2am reboot in a couple of weeks - I'm certain of this because I have had the TV and 921 on well past 3am for the past couple of weeks. So I'm guessing that the longer the 921 goes without a reboot, the more prone you are to getting such errors. And it seems once the errors come, they come in spades. A reboot always seems to set things right, at least for a while.

One question though, does the 921 really reboot at 2am? Or was that just someone's suspicion that spread quickly and became fact? Also, if there is a reboot, is it at 2am local time, or 2am CST, EST???


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

It does reboot, but it has to be in standby mode with no timers firing. The reboot is supposed to take place on the hour in whatever time zone you're in.


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## RVRambler (Dec 5, 2004)

That 'degradation if left un-rebooted for a long time' is the typical crappy memory management of C or C++!! )

Actually, not the language but the programmers. I wonder if the 921 is patched togather code with some buggy code base, which this begets more and more buggy crappy code, that begets ......

I worked on the world's largest non military real-time system with over 35 million lines of code and it was the buggiest thing around.
(we used to kid that we should give it to the competition and let them fix some/all the bugs and then steal it back)

Add a line of code, and add a function, introduce 3 bugs, no kidding!!

I referred to its coding as 'Polishing a Turd', no matter how much polish/polishing is used its still a turd!!

So far, seems the 921 code might have the same 'category', but MUCH less code I suspect!! ie- no excuse for the buggyness!!!!!!!


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## HailScroob (Aug 3, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> It does reboot, but it has to be in standby mode with no timers firing. The reboot is supposed to take place on the hour in whatever time zone you're in.


Mine does not reboot automatically since L211. And I always turn it off with the TV (ok, I put it in Standby), and I haven't had a timer set to go off in the middle of the night for quite some time.

Consequently, I have found that if I do a power button reboot every other morning or so as I pass by the thing on my way out the door, 95% of the L211 weirdness disappears.

Which kinda has me wondering just how many of the post-L211 pains are actually programming mistakes and how many are just manifestations of built-up memory leaks because the box doesn't automatically reboot anymore. That might explain why some people, like me, are mad as hell about L211 and some people think it works great. Maybe this failure to reboot is related to hardware/firmware differences - so some 921s still do, and others don't?


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## pweezil (Oct 11, 2002)

Mark Lamutt said:


> It does reboot, but it has to be in standby mode with no timers firing. The reboot is supposed to take place on the hour in whatever time zone you're in.


My 921 has *never* re-booted automatically. But that really isn't much of a problem because the only real problem I have is the video jitters. I can fix that with a Menu,6,9 then changing video mode without exiting and then changing it back. The only time I ever get the jitters is when I delete an HD program. Mr. Blinky and caller ID will stop working after a while but I've never had a timer misfire or a ZSR.


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## sleepy hollow (Aug 25, 2003)

Okay, while we're on the topic of buggy code and related performance issues, I do not see any discussion of the slow response to commands from the remote that happens every so often. It seems to happen if you punch in a bunch of commands in sequence, like switching to guide, then to DVR, etc., for several iterations. Eventually the 921 acts like it is hung, but most times if eventually responds after 20 seconds or so. 

Seems like the command buffer processing is screwy. It should be able to discard commands and stop processing them as soon as another one comes in that is of a different unrelated type. 

Anyway, I will quit trying to debug here. It's been quite awhile since I wrote code. 

The point is that this is rather annoying and seems to have gotten worse with L211. It has also crashed the box at times. Some of us he-men get pretty agile with the clicker buttons and this is a drag and an affront to our manhood besides. 

Anyone else experiencing this?


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## Mike123abc (Jul 19, 2002)

I think the automatic reboot gets bugged in the current version. I have mine in standby all the time. It will work fine for a week or so then it gets a bit buggy. A power button hold for 10 second reboot will fix it. One of the symtoms is commands that take a long time to execute as described above by sleepy hollow.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

RVRambler said:


> Add a line of code, and add a function, introduce 3 bugs, no kidding!!
> 
> I referred to its coding as 'Polishing a Turd', no matter how much polish/polishing is used its still a turd!!
> 
> So far, seems the 921 code might have the same 'category', but MUCH less code I suspect!! ie- no excuse for the buggyness!!!!!!!


I learn quite a lot just by reading these posts. Maybe they could solve the bug problems if they just dry it out and shellac it.


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## pdlittle (Jan 25, 2004)

boylehome said:


> I learn quite a lot just by reading these posts. Maybe they could solve the bug problems if they just dry it out and shellac it.


 :grin:  LOL


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

RVRambler said:


> That 'degradation if left un-rebooted for a long time' is the typical crappy memory management of C or C++!! )
> 
> Actually, not the language but the programmers. I wonder if the 921 is patched togather code with some buggy code base, which this begets more and more buggy crappy code, that begets ......
> 
> ...


Don't know what C/C++ compiler they use on their platform, but some version never have memory loses. Even for those programs that don't terminate. In cases such as a DVR, which with out a reboot would run for months on end, it is more likely simply poor memory management on the part of programmer.


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