# 501/508/510 Software Version P4.02



## sismoc

Does anyone have any information as to what changes/fixes are supposed to be in this version?

Has anyone been updated to P4.02? If so, is it stable? Any issues?

TIA


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## SF49ers

i was wondering the same thing

any info would be awesome to this release


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## lnielson1168

I am getting this code but do not know how to do this. "Enable inactivity Standby to ensure proper timer functionality" Can anyone walk me through it?


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## sismoc

lnielson1168 said:


> I am getting this code but do not know how to do this. "Enable inactivity Standby to ensure proper timer functionality" Can anyone walk me through it?


Piece o' cake

Hit the "menu" button on the remote
Select #6 "System Setup"
Select #1 "Installation"
Select #9 "Inactivity Power Off"
Check the box next to "Enable"
Hit "Save"


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## plarkinjr

SF49ers said:


> i was wondering the same thing
> 
> any info would be awesome to this release


I have the new code..... haven't found anything different.


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## sismoc

plarkinjr said:


> I have the new code..... haven't found anything different.


Thanks for the update.

In the past have you had any major issues with P4XX? (Loss of recordings, loss of timers, etc)? If so, does P402 seem to have resolved those issues?

Again, thanks.


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## JackDobiash

I received an update this morning, HOWEVER, mine says it's P4.03, strange. I have had some serious issues with lost recordings with P4.01 so I'll put some things back on it and see how it goes.


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## sismoc

JackDobiash said:


> I received an update this morning, HOWEVER, mine says it's P4.03,...


Thanks for the info.

P4.00, P4.01, P4.02, P4.03

Makes me wonder what bugs they are trying to squash.


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## JackDobiash

I've already lost another recording and had some other weird things happen


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## Boompod

I know that P4.03 fixed the issue with DishPASS not searching all channels.


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## Dax

In spite of all the problems with 4.01, I had been avoiding the update for over a week. Unfortunately, none of my timers were working if the receiver was turned off. It would come on, but not record. Apparently the message prompt to update was interfering with the timers. 

A few days ago the message stopped appearing, but I still had 4.01. This morning the message was back, so I decided to cross my fingers and let it update. Now I've got 4.05 and hoping for the best.


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## JackDobiash

I also received 4.05 this morning, didn't lose any recordings during the update. Like Dax, hoping for the best...

Edit - I noticed that the Signal Strength screen is now updated to match the same values my 622 has (the lower ones).


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## plarkinjr

Well, I posted previously I had 4.02, but I guess I was seeing things....

As it turns out, I'm still on 4.01, and now folks are getting 4.05. Is there any way to force an update? Should I call DiSH?


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## BobaBird

No and no. New software is released to groups of receivers at a time and you can't change the group you're in, see http://ekb.dbstalk.com/software.htm. As of yesterday, there were *4* software versions considered current: P401, P402, P403 and P405.


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## Warbird30

I received the 4.05 update a couple of days ago. The update didn't immediately erase any of my timers like previous versions randomly would do. 

Unfortunately, last night, all of my timers were erased (viewed or not viewed; protected or not protected). 

I will be watching to see if this continues.


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## sismoc

Warbird30 said:


> I received the 4.05 update a couple of days ago. The update didn't immediately erase any of my timers like previous versions randomly would do.
> 
> Unfortunately, last night, all of my timers were erased (viewed or not viewed; protected or not protected).


Did you loose all of your Timers or did you have all of your Recordings deleted?

TIA


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## Warbird30

sismoc said:


> Did you loose all of your Timers or did you have all of your Recordings deleted?
> 
> TIA


Sorry, I meant to say all Recordings were deleted. Even those I had yet to view. My timers were all left intact.


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## CABill

FWIW, the lower signal strength range was present on my 508 before P4.05 which I had thought was P4.04, but from http://ekb.dbstalk.com/software.htm I guess it must have been P4.03.

I do find a difference with P4.05 for selecting a Sports item (that doesn't have an episode number). With the current P4.05, just hitting select shows the 60 End padding immediately (like other NBR receivers). With the previous version, a non-episode Sports program (NBA/NFL game for example) didn't show the 60 minutes pad, but if you selected Options and Cancel out, it would then appear, and when you picked Done, it was always the 1st priority item instead of the last like all other timers.


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## BobaBird

Bill, trying to follow the differences here. Before P405, sports timers did have the 60 Late pad but it just wasn't shown on creation? And new sports events now have lowest priority like any other new timer?


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## CABill

The Sports timer thing wasn't known to me until an A.D.E. post (Linda OP of "Timers Going Crazy") where her Hubby's Sports event automatically Locked. She said P4.02 had been automatically downloaded in late Feb and she couldn't change the End late value either. 

Anyhow, I tried to duplicate what Linda described in the thread and found Sports EVENTS (not "programs" as such) didn't get a 60 minute pad unless I selected Options. The Options display would then show 60 minutes End pad, but begin and end were both grey and couldn't be changed. The act of selecting Options, then Done/Cancel would actually pad the event with 60 minutes end time. Without going into Options, it didn't add 60 minutes. I was depending on setting a timer for something else for the block that followed a game and then just selecting the game. If it added 60 minutes, it should have been X'd - "by priority" and it wasn't. But if I just selected Options and canceled, it did add 60 end pad but what had conflicted was what was X'd out. Conflict or not, a sports "event" was Priority 1 by selecting Create Timer (I don't recall actually selecting Priority and "looking"). 

I thought it might have also been causing Linda's events to be Locked as well, but my 508 isn't locked at all. P4.05 fixed all the misbehavior I saw trying to duplicate her problem. I don't think I was still on P4.02 like Linda, but I can't be certain what it was. Someone with P4.02 or .03 could probably duplicate the goofy Sports behavior, but P4.05 certainly cured it.

I bought a 942 from a DBSTalk member and when I connected it in late Feb was when I first noticed the 508 had the new lower signal strength screens. I don't check signal strength much on the 508 to "know" it was new to the software it was using, but it was "new to me".


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## JackDobiash

So far P4.05 is working OK for me. I'm sad to see that someone has already experienced Recording Loss problems, I guess i'd better get my important stuff watched soon in case it happens to me.

BTW, something else i noticed back when I got P4.03, creating/adjusting timers seems to be faster now than it was with P4.01.


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## Warbird30

Another weird thing happened today that I don't remember happening before. I turned on the stereo receiver (as I always do first) and there was sound coming out from some program. The satellite receiver was off, so I turned on the TV and it was completely blank. 

I agree with JackDobiash that the timers do seem to be faster now. 

Oh, one more thing, yesterday I lost my two oldest recordings. There were only 8 recordings and over 50hrs of recording time left. I have all timers set to not delete after # of times recorded. Just to be a smart alek, I set the 'new' oldest timer to be protected and so far no other recordings have vanished.


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## Warbird30

Well setting the recordings to be protected does not actually protect them. My recordings are being systematically erased one at a time. This has happened to me since P4.01 was downloaded. 

Does anyone have a solution or do I have to wait for the next great upgrade to the software?

This stinks since I will be going on vacation for the next two weeks and my recordings only seem to last 4-6 days before they are erased


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## P Smith

See post#21.


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## Warbird30

P Smith said:


> See post#21.


Not very helpful when I won't be able to watch them in 16 days.


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## P Smith

Remove the HDD, make sector-by-sector copy by Ghost to exactly same model... I'm out of suggestions.


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## Warbird30

P Smith said:


> Remove the HDD, make sector-by-sector copy by Ghost to exactly same model... I'm out of suggestions.


Interesting suggestion, but a copy of the HDD to second HDD would still result in same issues on a different HDD. This would preserve old recordings, but I've noticed newer recordings that only last 4-6 days before being deleted by the system.

The only solution I have come up with is a constant transfer to a PC through RCA/S-Video. Problem with that is that I don't have that large of a HD on my computer. Nor would I want to parse the resulting file when I got back.

Thanks anyways. I guess I'll have to hope that by some miracle my recordings remain safe while I'm away on vacation.


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## P Smith

Disconnect it from power line. When you'll return and reconnect it should upgrade to P4.05 and probably your recordings will stay.


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## Warbird30

P Smith said:


> Disconnect it from power line. When you'll return and reconnect it should upgrade to P4.05 and probably your recordings will stay.


Thanks for trying to help, but I've been on P4.05 since March 12th.


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## P Smith

Well. Count all last updates FW of the model after P369 and how many complains posted, I would conclude Dish doesn't care, don't have resources to fix, made decision to phase out the PVR, clueless - select what you want to hear.


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## Frostwolf

P Smith said:


> Well. Count all last updates FW of the model after P369 and how many complains posted, I would conclude Dish doesn't care, don't have resources to fix, made decision to phase out the PVR, clueless - select what you want to hear.


Dish hired the windows 95/98 team since microsoft went with 2000/xp system


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## Warbird30

Well, I got some interesting news from the person watching my house. He knows I have a lot of timers set and happened to check when the next one was set to fire. Well, to his surprise all the timers (yes timers, not recordings) were completely gone. 

Needless to say this pissed me off as several timers I had were for programs currently not running. Now, not only will I not have programs recorded that I normally watch, I'm going to have to attempt to recreate them from memory.

I'm beginning to think that Dish is doing this on purpose in an attempt to force people with DVR free recorders to upgrade to ones with a DVR fee. I don't believe that they can not fix this issue (it works on several other DVR fee based Dish recorders). This is simply a money issue... unless their technicians are completely incompetent morons. In that case they need to fire them and obtain people with brains to create working software that several other companies had working over 5-10 years ago. The excuse it's older hardware is bogus, they simply want to fleece customers. 

It's incompetence/fleecing like this that drives people to their competitors. I'm currently on a monthly pay schedule and am getting very close to moving to Direct or cable.


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## Warbird30

Well, I got some interesting news from the person watching my house. He knows I have a lot of timers set and happened to check when the next one was set to fire. Well, to his surprise all the timers (yes timers, not recordings) were completely gone. 

Needless to say this pissed me off as several timers I had were for programs currently not running. Now, not only will I not have programs recorded that I normally watch, I'm going to have to attempt to recreate them from memory.

I'm beginning to think that Dish is doing this on purpose in an attempt to force people with DVR free recorders to upgrade to ones with a DVR fee. I don't believe that they can not fix this issue (it works on several other DVR fee based Dish recorders). This is simply a money issue... unless their technicians are completely incompetent morons. In that case they need to fire them and obtain people with brains to create working software that several other companies had working over 5-10 years ago. The excuse it's older hardware is bogus, they simply want to fleece customers. 

It's incompetence/fleecing like this that drives people to their competitors. I'm currently on a monthly pay schedule and am getting very close to moving to Direct or cable.


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## Frostwolf

Warbird30 said:


> It's incompetence/fleecing like this that drives people to their competitors. I'm currently on a monthly pay schedule and am getting very close to moving to Direct or cable.


I have two 508's I'd like to sell on ebay, but with the bad software I'll get a negative report  one is near perfect condition.

I jumped ship with dish about 8 months ago, I was willing to upgrade to the 625 box, but dish wasn't willing to replace two boxes with two 625's, they wanted me to use the second tuner option for the bedroom. I didn't want to downgrade the picture in the bedroom (rf signal). We fought over that for three months, no we won't do it dish says.

I researched around, found directv was having problems with the r15 box's, same issues with timers not firing, but not deleting stuff. Directv would not issue out a Tivo powered box (older models) but weaknees would send me two of them for $1.00 (and I got a $100 rebate on top of that ), Dish tech support pissed me off one to many times. And now have two Tivo's with 300hr's each with multi room viewing, and directv's dvr fee is per house not per box, also each box has dual tuner so we can record 4 things at once (still not enough for my wife)

Now when I went to cancel dish after installing Directv, they offered the two 625's I wanted and a year without fees to keep Dish, Too late now!

My switch to directv wasn't painless either. One of my NEW cards was supposedly in use by a VIP for directv and directv accused me of trying to steal there service??!
Anyways weaknees overnighted me a new card.

But for dish not to have this problem solved now in what two years? They could have rewritten the entire software from the ground up if they wanted to fix the issue. Of course though, according to dish I was the only one having the issues:nono:


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## sismoc

Warbird30 said:


> I'm beginning to think that Dish is doing this on purpose in an attempt to force people with DVR free recorders to upgrade to ones with a DVR fee. I don't believe that they can not fix this issue (it works on several other DVR fee based Dish recorders). This is simply a money issue... unless their technicians are completely incompetent morons. In that case they need to fire them and obtain people with brains to create working software that several other companies had working over 5-10 years ago. The excuse it's older hardware is bogus, they simply want to fleece customers.


I have been a programmer for nearly 25 years. I can usually tell malicious intent from plain old idiocy. This is incompetence, not malice.

Dish has made significant changes to the code to try to achieve at least 3 things:

1) Name Based Recording
2) Avoidance of patent violations
3) Copy Protection (DRM)

Of those three, the first one would have been done in an attempt to make customers happy, not make them upset. Adding functionality to a device is not typically done if your goal is to make people stop using it.

The second one also was an attempt to keep customers happy. Without the removal of the patent violating code, Dish might have been forced (by injunction) to disable the DVR functions of the offending devices.

The third change was an attempt to make content providers happy, not customers.

Bottom line - if you look at it logically, Dish is just incompetent, not malicious.

That conclusion is actually more disheartening than the "Evil, Greedy, Dish" theory. If Dish wanted to move their customers off of the old DVRs and was sabotaging them then the only people who would have to worry would be the people using old DVRs. But, with a group of incompetent programmers, everyone has to worry.


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## Frostwolf

sismoc said:


> I have been a programmer for nearly 25 years. I can usually tell malicious intent from plain old idiocy. This is incompetence, not malice.
> 
> Dish has made significant changes to the code to try to achieve at least 3 things:
> 
> 1) Name Based Recording
> 2) Avoidance of patent violations
> 3) Copy Protection (DRM)
> 
> Of those three, the first one would have been done in an attempt to make customers happy, not make them upset. Adding functionality to a device is not typically done if your goal is to make people stop using it.
> 
> Bottom line - if you look at it logically, Dish is just incompetence, not malicious.


I can agree with that one, it took like 4 years to add NBR :lol: 
2 was confirmed 1.5 yrs ago with top tier tech supports call to me after a complaint put into customer relations at their Executive Offices
3 is useless. People who are going to want to do this will find ways around that, or just download the data strem directly.

If I was still a dish customer I'd tell everyone to call this number *1-866-319-4564* and complain as loud as you can.


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## cj9788

Well I must be the exception because my 508 and 2 510's all have 4.05 and there has been no issues. In fact I have never had any problems those units since I bought them from E*. Now my 625 was another story it died after 5 months. Was a hassel to replace.


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## Frostwolf

cj9788 said:


> Well I must be the exception because my 508 and 2 510's all have 4.05 and there has been no issues. In fact I have never had any problems those units since I bought them from E*. Now my 625 was another story it died after 5 months. Was a hassel to replace.


Maybe when tech support said I was the only one having the problems, he actually meant to say, there is one person out there not having problems


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## Warbird30

Frostwolf said:


> But for dish not to have this problem solved now in what two years? They could have rewritten the entire software from the ground up if they wanted to fix the issue. Of course though, according to dish I was the only one having the issues:nono:


Funny, I called them yesterday and they told me I was the only one reporting the issue as well... very interesting.



sismoc said:


> I have been a programmer for nearly 25 years. I can usually tell malicious intent from plain old idiocy. This is incompetence, not malice.
> 
> Dish has made significant changes to the code to try to achieve at least 3 things:
> 
> 1) Name Based Recording
> 2) Avoidance of patent violations
> 3) Copy Protection (DRM)
> 
> Of those three, the first one would have been done in an attempt to make customers happy, not make them upset. Adding functionality to a device is not typically done if your goal is to make people stop using it.
> 
> The second one also was an attempt to keep customers happy. Without the removal of the patent violating code, Dish might have been forced (by injunction) to disable the DVR functions of the offending devices.
> 
> The third change was an attempt to make content providers happy, not customers.
> 
> Bottom line - if you look at it logically, Dish is just incompetent, not malicious.


I've only been programming for about 8 years (12 if you include Computer Science in College), I agree that it is incompetence and not necessarily malice. My displeasure came out at 2am, not exactly prime awake time.



Frostwolf said:


> I have two 508's I'd like to sell on ebay, but with the bad software I'll get a negative report  one is near perfect condition.
> 
> I jumped ship with dish about 8 months ago, I was willing to upgrade to the 625 box, but dish wasn't willing to replace two boxes with two 625's...
> 
> Now when I went to cancel dish after installing Directv, they offered the two 625's I wanted and a year without fees to keep Dish, Too late now!


Believe it or not, I might be interested in the 508s you have. I like to experiment and this might be fun.

Personally, I have called Dish Tech Support several times and haven't had a bad experience yet (crosses fingers and toes). The tech I spoke with actually offered to replace the box I currently have if the issue continues. So far since unplugging, rebooting and recreating a couple of the timers I could remember (always fun over the phone) both recordings and timers have remained (according to person watching house) (crosses fingers and toes once again).


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## kev0381

sismoc said:


> Does anyone have any information as to what changes/fixes are supposed to be in this version?
> 
> Has anyone been updated to P4.02? If so, is it stable? Any issues?
> 
> TIA


With all to information I have p402 is good software. There are fewer roblems with it hten there is with p401.


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## kev0381

What software version do you have and are there any other issues you have found?


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## P Smith

P4.05 wide spreading for *ALL* 501, 508 and 510 PVR.


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## plarkinjr

I went from 4.01 to 4.05 a couple days ago.... no observed glitches.


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## led

I do have 405 and I have not lost any recordings. When did the signal strength meter change? The bar graph goes from 0 to 125, but now both satellites and all transponders have signal strengths of 25-45. What possile use is this new meter? My old legacy 4900 receiver didn't change the meter. 
I think I will change the download software option from automatic to notify me when updates are available.
To avoid losing some very old recordings, I can connect a VCR to the receiver and tape them.


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## mattfast1

P401, P402, P403, P405 are all valid for the 501, 508, 510 receivers. P405 seems to have most of the bugs squished, personally I'd like to see it rolled out to a larger audience, which they seem to be doing by and by.


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## P Smith

It's temporary disposition - all good working PVR501+ can accepts new P4.05 any time.


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## mattfast1

That's if they've been authorized for P405. Not all 5xx single tuners have been authorized yet.


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## P Smith

Not true - the current batch FW P4.05 spooling for ALL PVRs [501, 508, 510], no special authorization required ! Check stream at 119W tp19 in PIDs 861h or 867h you will see what in SW/HW filters.


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## JackDobiash

Well, knock on wood, but I haven't had any recordings get deleted yet since this latest firmware update.


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## CPR

I have had every problem listed on this and other forums and still have them with 4.05 (plus some I haven't seen mentioned).

The search function works correctly only half of the time. Even searching for the program that is currently showing will return no results. I had to power off & unplug the receiver several times today to get the search working again. In fact, I have to "reboot" the receiver about half of the time when I want to use the search.

Events randomly don't record.

Timer is set up, guide shows the program that I expect to record, but there is nothing for it in the schedule. Opening up the timer screen shows no events for that timer. The only solution is to set another timer for "once" to get the show.

Setting up a timer for ALL or NEW programs sometimes only records ONE program.

Manual timers are skipped with a message that the event is "incorrect" (or something to that effect). How can a manual timer be incorrect?

Being a programmer myself, I agree that it is total incompetence. Any decent programmer could have these things fixed in a week at the outside. This junk has been going on since the first 4.xx update. :nono2:


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## P Smith

I'm totally agree with your last phrases.

And I see only one reason to the buggy SW - no resources/time devoting to the model, what the company should phase out as soon as possible. 
Pushing ppl to replace them to new ViP models by 'torturing' usability.


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## JackDobiash

If they'd get rid of the 5.98 DVR fee per receiver I'd be more than happy to replace my 501/508's with a 522/625 or even another 622. That's the main reason I'm hanging onto all these old receivers and I suspect it's probably a sentiment shared among others.


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## ebaltz

JackDobiash said:


> If they'd get rid of the 5.98 DVR fee per receiver I'd be more than happy to replace my 501/508's with a 522/625 or even another 622. That's the main reason I'm hanging onto all these old receivers and I suspect it's probably a sentiment shared among others.


Yeah that is the only reason I am hanging on to my 8 year 501. But it records stuff and keeps them for about a day or less then mysteriously erases everything. Won't keep anything for longer than that. Very frustrating, even though this is just a secondary machine I don't use for recording very often. BUt still, no reason for it to be doing this. I suppose if I complain about it they might replace it?? Don't know with what though and if that would then include a fee.


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## mattfast1

Probably would be able to get it replaced.

It would probably get you another 501, maybe a 508. The CSR can find out before it's sent.

If you have a warranty, it's free. If it's leased without a waranty, it's $14.95. If it's owned without warranty, its going be be $34.94-$64.94. The DHPP warranty can be added ($5.99/mo, can be canceled anytime) to make it free.


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## Warbird30

JackDobiash said:


> If they'd get rid of the 5.98 DVR fee per receiver I'd be more than happy to replace my 501/508's with a 522/625 or even another 622. That's the main reason I'm hanging onto all these old receivers and I suspect it's probably a sentiment shared among others.


I completely agree with this statement.

Also, my 508 started deleting recordings again. Keeps them for anywhere from 6-9 days then sends them to electronic heaven. At least my timers are all intact. Crazy thing is, every since the 4.xx 'upgrades', I have to force reboot my 508 about every 2 weeks when it decides to lock up for no other reason than it hates me.


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