# Dead 921 after 2.70 update



## zyberfix (Aug 21, 2004)

Well once i notice 2.70 was avaliable I did a reboot of the reciever. It start the installed then reboot and gave me a black screen with pink text saying
Restarting system...
restarting system initializing installation stage 2
keysize for gpg key sized to big..... 
image failed..
please wait..

After a minute or two I get a pink screen with someting about disk failed and some blank reciever info (flash up to quick to read)...

Edit: The message that pops up(for about 2 sec)and sayswording my not be exact)
Hard Disk Failure
You have limit functionality press up/down
Call Dish network

reciever model: 921
reciever id: not avaliable
card id: not avaliable


Well time to call Dish... 

Later Zyb

P.S. sorry for the quick and dirty message I'm not in a great mood at the moment..  

Edit:
Well just got off the phone with Dish. After telling the tech what I was see and being put ong hold for a bit for het to talk to the supervisor.. She came back and said they had not idea what the problem was.. Dish is sending me a replacement.


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## James_Bruce (Jan 8, 2004)

Mine did the EXACT same thing, working great and it said installing software and now I get the same message you described above.

My other 921 is fine, did the upgrade fine, different rom though.

Calling dish.


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## McSporfut (Aug 12, 2005)

Dish's way of thinning out the herd


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## AVJohnnie (Jul 27, 2004)

McSporfut said:


> Dish's way of thinning out the herd


Ah! As in Cliff Clavin's (on Cheers) explanation of "The Buffalo Theory" -- Got it! :rolling:


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## James_Bruce (Jan 8, 2004)

This is some BS, From my post above I called at 9:30 Friday morning, and I have called 6 times since, I get to advanced tech support, and they can't do anything, all the 921/942 problems are handled by a different department, and there is no way to transfer you to them, they have to email them and then they call you. This is now sunday night and I just got off the phone again with a supervisor and they said that they would "definately get the message" 

I am quite angry


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

While it is true that you may have an out of warranty 921, when a company initiates a change to your receiver without your approval, they again must assume responsibility for anything that will go wrong with that 921 if it fails as a result of their modifications without your written approval to do so. You should be compensated by Dish Network for all of your losses and paid a damage for your lost service as well. If you are angry, do something constructive for yourself that will placate that anger!

A few years ago, I ran into this with DirecTV and my HD Receiver. They sent a software upgrade without warning that was received during some signal blackouts due to weather. I won't go into the technical explanation as to why that happened. With that receiver it would go brain dead if the download got interrupted. After several attempts to get DirecTV to replace the receiver which was out of warranty, I paid for a letter written to the President of DirecTV from my attorney. The result was a new Receiver and 18 months of free DirecTV service with a letter of apology from the President of DirecTV.


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## Kagato (Jul 1, 2002)

Mine died as well. Same message. Promised a callback in "24-48" hours later. We're comming up on 72 hours with no call now.

I'm not in quite the same spot as some other people as I have a 721 which does most of my recording. If there is something I "need" to have recorded, the 721 does it. It's it's something I can live with out in the very likely event that the timmer doesn't fire, I'll set things up on the 921.

If anyone is tracking, mine was one of the original models, complete with Firewire. I got it at a very discounted price directly from Dish as part of the Dish5000 HD Modulator "settlement".


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## zyberfix (Aug 21, 2004)

Well I just got off the for with callback Dish tech support. Wow I'm glad I have an 811 to watch TV with... 

On thursday when I call the lady I spoke to said she would send out a new reciever but that I would get a call for the tech support... Well after 3 or 4 missed call I finally spoke with tonight.. After me telling him exactly what popped up on the screen , he had me repeat the exact trouble shooting at as the first tech and of course with the exact smae results. The guy I spoke with had very little to say (seem to be a bit lacking in tech skills)... Well then he informs thet my reciever was out of warrenty and that I should get the extended warranty .. He said he would extend my warrenty this time and send me be sending out a refurb 921 (not a big deal) and it would be there shipped second day which was the same thing the first lady I spoke to on Thurday said.. (This really put me in a bad mood). 

So basicly I had to sit and wait 3 day to speak to some one with no clue and now I have to wait another 2 day to get a reciever.. dish is really starting to get on my nerves... Time to send a polite but nasty message to the CEO.. 

Im glad to know that when Dish forces a software update on me and it frag's the hardware I paid alot of my good money for that I am responsible for it.

End RANT.....

Later Zyb.


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## 4apex (Nov 13, 2003)

This is interesting... last Friday I noticed that my receiver was making some very loud noises - I'm an IT consultant so I know a dying hard drive when I hear one, it sounds like a wailing cat. 

I had NO idea that there was a recent software update, and since last Friday was the 16th, this coincides. I'm wondering though, is this purely coincidental, or is it really possible that their software upgrade somehow damaged the hard drive (I've never seen that, but I also never say never).

On that note, I called Dish tech support this morning and they had me go through the pull the card yadda yadda... I was like, dude, I KNOW what a dying hard drive sounds like. What annoyed me though was that he said that he was not authorized to do an RA and he would send the ticket to the "advanced team" as only they can authorize a return - and they would call me back within 24-48 hours. NOW, what if my receiver was completely dead (it has rebooted several times recently - I attribute this to a faulty hard drive given my past experiences with the 7100 and several 721s.)? Would I be stuck without a receiver until they decided to call me back???

Last time my 721 died the girl on the phone RMA'd it on the spot, no questions asked. So i wonder if I need to speak with a supervisor, or is there some othe trick?


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## Kagato (Jul 1, 2002)

On my 921 if you look closely at the boot sequence, the actual error is flashes is "gpg key too large". Which indicates something went wrong with an encrypted proccess. Then I get the drive failure screen.

By the way, we past 72 hours since a call back was promised and are now fast on our way to 96 hours of subpar support.


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## Rodney (Aug 22, 2003)

Could the delay be due to so many 921s dying that the special group set up to handle returns is swamped with work? For me there is, and has been, an ominous message associated with the lack of timely response from Dish on 921 issues.


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## Kagato (Jul 1, 2002)

What's there to work on? A unit that says the drive is bad, the call from dish should require about 5 minutes of work to verify my address. I can see OTA issues and other stuff taking a while to diagnose, but a bad drive error is obviously not something you can fix over the phone. When I've run into this type of issue in the past on my 721 it took about 5 minutes on the phone to get a replacement sent. I highly doubt I will ever get the promised call back unless I pester them.


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## murphy43 (Dec 4, 2004)

Mine also failed after the software update. I happen to walk past it as it was updating. I turned it on after the update and received the 'disk failure' message. My phone call to DISH went so smooth (no transfers) I hung up and told me wife they must have several people calling in. I believe it was the update that crashed it. I did receive the replacement two days later. It still had the factory software so I had to sit through 30 updates.


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## zyberfix (Aug 21, 2004)

Ya that what I thought on thursday it was done 15min. on the phone and they would send me a replacement unit... We I finally spoke to Advanced Tech support (ya right) last night and they have to validate the fail before a unit is sent out. it will be atleast 2 day more to get a replacemnt (so they said). The guy I spoke with did say that they where extremely busy ( that all he would say).. 

Later Zyb


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## BarryO (Dec 16, 2003)

This exact same thing happened to me last year. Apparently their software upgrade process isn't completely robust. It's possible that something can get corrupted during the process, and leave you without a function software image on the disk (one would think they wouldn't wipe the old image off the disk until the new one was confirmed good!). This happened ot me right as they put the hardware on engineering hold for the infamous "blue line" problem. They didn't ship me a new one for weeks.

What really pissed me off was the outright lying CS would do, even supervisors, on a repeated basis:

"It's being shipped out today, call back tommorrow for the tracking number". 
[the next day]: "tracking number? The shipping dep't isn't answering the phone, I'll call you when I can get through to them" 
[the next day; after never receiving a call back]: "Oh, that never shipped, but it'll ship out today, call back tommorrow for the tracking number"
[repeat above steps continually]

I came to the conclusion that Dish CS is trained to say anything to just get the customer off the phone as soon as possible, whether it's true or not. It's stupid, because all it does is royally piss people off. I'm a reasonable guy, if they had just told me up front that the unit is under a quick hardware spin to fix a problem, there are no units available, and I'd get one of the first of the new ones when they were available, I'd understand.

After enough ranting on the internet, someone from the executive office finally contacted me and essentially said that. But they burned up several tons of goodwill with the lying that CS did before that.

Lesson: never believe anything a Dish Network CS person tells you.


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## zyberfix (Aug 21, 2004)

Ya I havent called to get a tracking number yet... I did send a email to Dish.. I have heard back yet... Maybe I will get a replacement one of these days...

Dish has really put me in a bad mood.


Later Zyb


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## James_Bruce (Jan 8, 2004)

I got my replacement today, brand new unit, it has SW version 055 on it and we are at 270?
I turned it on and check swiched and activated and the screen went black and nothing works, all the lights off on the front except power, hit the power and it starts flashing, must be updating... 

I also sent a very strongly worded email to dish, nothing back yet..


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## Rodney (Aug 22, 2003)

I would be surprised if it is a brand new unit usually they are refurbished. Don't publish the entire number but I would be curious to know what are the third and fourth numbers of your receiver ID. ie, R00XX................


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## zyberfix (Aug 21, 2004)

I recieved mine as well. I hooked it up, activated, and it updated ok.. I seems to be functioning fine.. The packing slip says refurb (service) on it.. Well see how it goes...

Later Zyb


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## Trebornmel (May 19, 2005)

The L270 update has also killed my 921 (failed drive etc...). This is getting really old really fast. I am able to get the 921 functional again my pulling the power cord and having it load the OS from the satellite from scratch (I have done this 3 times in the last 2 days), but of course after that I have to recheck my switches to get programming back, re-add my local OTA channels, reconfigure my preferences, and if I'm lucky I may still have my saved programs (It has deleted them 2 out of 3 times). The problem seems to occur when I am recording a program, or watching a past recorded program. It appears to be random, but sooner or later the 921 locks up. Upon restart I get the failed drive error.... and the dance starts all over again.

I have a call into CS and I am still waiting for the 921 group to call me back (usual window - 24 - 72 hours. This is my second 921 to fail and it took a week to get a replacement last time. I can deal with the fact the hardware has a problem, but I can't deal with the crappy CS. I am seriously contemplating switching to Direct.


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## Eyespy (Dec 20, 2004)

I had the same hard drive failure on my 921 a few days ago. I was unaware of the software update. I called Dish, they took the information and indicated advanced tech support was emailed and they will call back. They called back stating they would send me a new replacement 921. I received it on Thursday (along with a return shipping label and RA for the broken receiver) and installed it Thursday evening. It seems to work fine.


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

My hard drive went down today so I called dish they said it can take 24-72 hours before I get a call back. Obviously they know it the hard drive because I described the crunching noise it makes, the fact that is states "hard drive failed" message and the fact it doesn't boot. Can't understand why they can't simply send another unit out right away but insist waiting up to 3 more days for another tech to call and have me reconfirm what already known.


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