# DISCUSSION OF BUG: Long delay (~10sec) bringing up EPG from OTA



## logray (Apr 8, 2005)

EDIT: Apparently, after you have created several "long delay" events, the box will BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH. My advice, stay AWAY from using the EPG without video preview.

Here were my steps to recreate the long delay bringing up the EPG.

1.) Set 811 to use full display for guide (menu, 6, 7, save).
2.) Tune to digital OTA channel.
3.) Press guide on the remote.
- a long appx. 10 second delay with black screen -
4.) EPG displays.
5.) If you didn't see the delay, try tuning to another OTA channel (using the EPG to avoid the No Info condition), allow the channel to tune, then press guide again. Repeat while varying the time between allowing the receiver to tune into the OTA channel before pressing guide on the remote until you see the issue. At first try pressing guide while it is still tuning, then slowly increase that time - as close as possible after it has tuned, then a few seconds after it has tuned, etc. etc.

After playing around with this "issue", sometimes the delay would be there, other times it would not. If it was 10 seconds every time, I would have told the end users that this is something they have to live with because this is just how fast the processor/memory/way the software is written is in the box, but since it comes up quickly sometimes and other times there is a long delay I would say there is definately a problem here. Since the issue happens sometimes and not others the real magic will be the person that can identify what exactly triggers it i.e. happens every 3rd then 5th time, or every so many minutes, etc. (or is it truley a random issue). Interestingly enough, when I saw this issue, then didn't see it after pressing guide a few times, I pressed menu, then cancel, then the issue happened right after that.

Edit: I timed it to be a 9 second delay with black screen after pressing guide. Also it seemed to be easier to reproduce if you press guide shortly after the channel has tuned when selecting it from the EPG. If you wait more than a few seconds after it has tuned the likelyhood of this issue popping up seems to go down. YMMV. I don't have any long term experience with this issue since I use the guide with video preview.

I would like to add that I've seen this issue once or twice before in the guide with video preview while the receiver was in the "No Info" condition.

ALSO THANKS to hartal for finding this issue.


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## hartal (Jan 30, 2005)

I thought that people would be able to reproduce this once I discovered that the key that it was only happening in the full guide mode.

I don't think the time between selecting the OTA from the guide and then returning to the guide is a trigger.

I have seen the long delay when switching to the EPG after having watched a program on an OTA channel for a long time. I have seen it when switching to an OTA channel and then switching immediately back without letting the channel lock. I have seen it when switching to the OTA channel, letting the channel lock and then switching back to the EPG. Of course I have also seen the EPG come up immediately in all three of these situations.

Fortunately, the problems seems to occur pretty often, so I think the developers will have no trouble reproducing it now so they can figure out how to fix it.

BTW, my approx 10 second time estimate was done by counting slowly to 10. I never actually tried to do a real accurate timing. I figured the approx was enough to establish that something was not right.


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## tonyp56 (Apr 26, 2004)

I've seen this and I don't spend hardly anytime on OTA channels. Here is what I was going to post until I saw this thread.

I don't know if this is a bug, or what. But I've been seeing, with ever increasing occurrence, a black screen with video in the corner when I bring up the EPG (I am using Guide with partial video!). After ten or so seconds my EPG populates, and everything seems to work fine. And related to this (I believe) when I close out of the EPG I've been seeing a black screen with program banners, but no video on several different channels. In other words, it doesn't matter which channel I select, I will receive instead of video for 10 seconds or so a black screen with the program banner displayed (like normal, just no video). 

When I first saw this it didn't happen that often, however, now it is starting to occur more and more often (every other time I bring up the EPG now, enough that it is getting on my nerves). I haven't changed my viewing habits from when I first got 289, and I have done a soft reboot, with no change. I could understand this if I had changed the way I view TV, however, I haven't. This seems to get worse as time goes by, I see it more and more often, and I don't have to be doing anything for it to happen. (Watching HBO for instance, then bring up the EPG and there it is)


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

I just got it to happen several times. on the third try, the 811 froze with the banner and just a black screen! It is repeatable and the fifth try gave me the BSOD, no remote control functions, zip. The 811 rebooted itself plus downloaded the program guide data.

After that it would work OK for the first few tries then would begin to do what I have described. Bad bug!


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## logray (Apr 8, 2005)

WOW boylehome. 3 times is a charm. On the third long delay my box also locked completely. Black screen of death. Totally non-responsive. No video or audio. Waited several minutes and still nothing. No buttons on the remote work. I'm going to reboot and see if I can reproduce this as well. I'm starting to really feel sorry for the people who channel surf or use the EPG without video preview.  Edit: my 811 did not reboot itself. I had to pull the power plug.


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## logray (Apr 8, 2005)

After rebooting my 811, this time on the third long delay event, after pressing guide the EPG never came up, instead it tuned back to the channel after 9 seconds. I'm hitting the long delay about 1 out of every 4 channel tunes. Now I've gone through about 10 or more long delay events and haven't run into the BSOD again. Edit: go figure, just as I was about to write off the BSOD - it happened again, except this time it took at least a dozen long delay events before the BSOD came back.

Also tonyp, I'm not disagreeing with you that you have seen this with SAT channels, but having played with this for about an hour, I can only reproduce it using OTA channels - perhaps you have been using the 811 with the full screen EPG for long enough to experience this bug. Another case of different usage.


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## logray (Apr 8, 2005)

tonyp56 said:


> ...I haven't changed my viewing habits from when I first got 289, and I have done a soft reboot, with no change. I could understand this if I had changed the way I view TV, however, I haven't. This seems to get worse as time goes by, I see it more and more often...


Well sometimes you stumble accross a lemon and you have to do something about it in order to make lemonade. Me, I couldn't stand the constant calls from my parents about how they are getting very frustrated watching TV. And now they are complaining because they have to remember to use the 811 differently than they have before (and with senility/etc. kicking in), they forget every so often and need little reminders not to channel surf. Good thing they don't use the full guide otherwise the 811 might be out the window on the sidewalk. :grin:


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

logray, I'm keeping my EPG in the partial guide mode. It seems to work a lot better than the full guide mode. 

The full guide mode only gives six rows of channels whereas the partial guide give four rows. 

One would think that since EPG currently gives two extra rows in the full mode, that there would at least be a viewable section for the program information for the channel block that is highlighted. A lot of room is wasted with the current Dish Network/TV Guide banner. 

A little work could make available more rows for channels, but even better than that, would be a area or section for program data from the highlighted block so you don't have to press the Info. button. Heck even with the partial guide, they could change the upper left block and make room for current program information for the data block that is highlighted. 

Oh well, I'm dreaming. They need to get the current bugs fixed first before making other improvements.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

WOW.. gone for a few days and looks like some people have been busy. I tried to reproduce it with the guide turned to full and I could see it with OTA. I could not get it to happen with non-OTA but I did not try hard. I also did not get and BSODs but like I said I did not try hard. Just saw it a few times. Good find Hartel and great support from other folks on getting a confirmation. 

I never have my EPG on full now days. LIke the Picture in Guide way too much.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

OK, when I got tired of doing the drywall work, I tested for this bug again. Only this time, I left it in the partial guide because it didn't fall victim to the bug as did the full guide. I used a regular satellite channel and began switching back and forth from the guide to the picture rapidly. After about the 20th try, the picture froze with the guided frozen over it. Remote functions ceased and the 811 became non-functional. The 811 rebooted automatically about two minutes later and seemed normal after. What I did I consider an OCD to the excessive. I procedure that normally isn't practiced, but it does cause problems.


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## logray (Apr 8, 2005)

Definately sounds like you're on to something boylehome... and it sounds like it might be different from what this thread is about though - I would say someone is much more likely to hit the BSOD or long delay with the full guide - no rapidness involved there. You can leave the OTA channel on as long as you want before you press guide and you still might end up with the long delay or BSOD. I'll fool around today and see if I can replicate what you are talking about.


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## logray (Apr 8, 2005)

This is a different "bug" from the long pause event described in this thread.

boyle- I was able to reproduce what you described. Definately have to work at this one though. The first time it took just a couple minutes and then I saw the video preview in the corner but no EPG. Eventually after pressing guide then select rapidly the unit locked and needed a reboot. Pressing standby caused the unit to reboot. 

The second time I worked at it for about 20 minutes and was unable to reproduce it. I might try later on today, but I would say that this one would be extremely unlikely that anyone would hit it unless maybe someone's children were trying to "break" the box and see what could happen if they pressed the buttons as fast as they could. We're talking video game button mashing pace to get this one to go. Not even sure we should waste the bandwidth? Opinions?


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## tonyp56 (Apr 26, 2004)

logray said:


> Also tonyp, I'm not disagreeing with you that you have seen this with SAT channels, but having played with this for about an hour, I can only reproduce it using OTA channels - perhaps you have been using the 811 with the full screen menu for long enough to experience this bug. Another case of different usage.


Full screen menu? If you are talking about the EPG then I don't use full guide, I use partial guide with video. So this isn't just full guide and I don't spend any time on OTA, and I've seen this, so it isn't just OTA that causes it, or it doesn't just show up with OTA.

I watch TV, when I want to switch to something else I bring up the EPG, then I scroll through it until I find something I want to watch and then I select it 99.9999% of the time. Simple enough, yet I get the same thing that you all are decribing, without being on or selecting OTA channels! After I bring up the guide and when it decides to do this, I get a black screen with video in the top right corner (and I still have sound), then about ten seconds later my guide pops up and populates with data.

Then lets say 50% (it's kind of random) of the time when my EPG does this when I select a channel or cancel out of my EPG I get a black screen with the program banner at the top, but no audio or video for 5-10 seconds then it pops up video and audio. I've been able to reproduce this, the thing that I've figured out is if I don't go into the guide very often it does this more, however, if I bring up the EPG every hour or so it doesn't do this. It has nothing to do with the EPG not being updated, I can have the guide up to date, but it will do this if I go two or three hours without bringing up the guide. Which means every day when I first start watching TV it does this on me.


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## logray (Apr 8, 2005)

tonyp56 said:


> Full screen menu?


Thanks for being my editor! Now if I could only grant you editing rights to my posts I wouldn't have to correct typographical anomolies myself.  Obviously I mean full screen EPG and the post has been corrected. Thanks! :lol:



tonyp56 said:


> So this isn't just full guide and I don't spend any time on OTA, and I've seen this, so it isn't just OTA that causes it, or it doesn't just show up with OTA.


This sounds like a different issue than the one mentioned in the subject of this thread. In your case, you see black screen with video after launching the EPG w/video preview. In the case described in the first post of this thread, when using the full screen EPG - you will see no EPG or video preview and hear no audio for a full 9 seconds when activating the full screen EPG.

I have seen what you described only once or twice. I saw it a few days ago when I was playing around with the issue that boylehome described where he was able to make the box crash by pressing guide on his remote and then select to tune a channel in very rapid succession. I can only recall seeing the issue of the temporarily missing guide with video preview once however - I can not recall seeing the issue of banner but temporary loss of video/audio while selecting a channel (however may have at some point) - except of course with OTA channels which is normal to see while the unit locks on the signal. On one other occassion with 2.89 I did see exceptionally sluggish video zooming, almost like the processor was chunking on something else or the random access memory was full.

Edit: IIRC, I saw this issue of temporarily missing EPG with video preview when the unit was processing queued remote control button press events. I.e. pressing guide, select, guide, select many times in rapid succession caused the unit to register all the button presses and "queue" them. I saw the "delayed EPG" while it was processing the queue. Also saw other really neat things like EPG overlaid on top of full screen video, same channel displayed for all timeslots on EPG and for only one timeslot, No Info on all channels, etc. - but all of these are only for a split second while the unit "caught up" to my maelstrom of button mashing. 



tonyp56 said:


> I haven't changed my viewing habits from when I first got 289, and I have done a soft reboot, with no change.


Perhaps its time for you to try disconnecting and reconnecting your 811 from the power outlet? A hard reboot would clear anything stored in RAM from the unit.

How about trying for an RMA? Perhaps your processor is fried. Is there adequate ventiliation for your 811? The issue you describe sounds like a memory leak to me. Just throwing out ideas.

If you would like to get visability of this issue and garner the support of other forum participants and 811 owners/lessees, I would suggest that you break this out into a new thread since this certainly a different issue from the one described in post #1. I would entitle it: "DISCUSSION OF BUG: Temporarily missing guide overlay when EPG is launched/Temporary loss of video & audio when channel is selected"


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## wilme2 (Jul 14, 2005)

I have the 10 sec delay problem (no audio/video) when switching to the EPG from OTA HD. Of course on a previous release with the same steps I would get a soft reset complete with a reacquisition of satellite, which took far longer than 10 seconds...


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