# Be Very Careful With Dish Smartcard Replacements!



## Mark Lamutt

This message serves as a warning!

Today I received one of the new yellow smartcards to replace the blue one in one of my 508s. The replacement went fine and dandy, with the programming tuned back on within the stated time.

However, (and stupid me, I didn't even think to check), the smartcard replacement blew away all of the timers that I had set on that 508, so nothing recorded tonight. When I pull up the timers screen on the 508, I have 7 timers listed there, 6 of which are for the same event on the same channel. The other 12 timers that I had set are now gone.

So, if and when you are instructed to replace your smartcard, make absolutely sure that you know what timers you have set, and CHECK THEM AFTER THE REPLACEMENT!


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## Jacob S

I hope they get this fixed becase I will not replace the smart cards if this is the bull I will have to deal with unless they want to make up for my time and aggervation. 

I didnt know they were replacing them in the newer receivers now, are they replacing them only in the DVR and higher priced receivers right now or in the 301's as well?


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## Mark Lamutt

I have no idea. My 921 already has a yellow smartcard, but I also have 2 508s on my account. Both had the blue smartcards, but I received 1 new yellow one today in the mail for one of the 508s.

I've reported the problem to everyone I can think of from the beta team all the way up to the CEOs office.


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## Randy_B

Why just the 508? I have 501 and 510, both with blue cards, is the intention to eventually roll these out to all exiting blue cards or is there some special issue with the 508(???)?


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## David_Levin

Wow you have a 510 with a blue card? In the users group where people are trying to figure out how to put a bigger hard drive in the 50x they thought that a 120 gig hard drive required a yellow card.


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## Mark Lamutt

I suspect that all 5xx receivers that have the blue cards will get swapped out for yellow cards. I doubt it's a special issue with the 508, as it's exactly the same software as in the 501 and 510.


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## BobMurdoch

How about the Dishplayers? These units are the most popular with the pirates based on EBay prices.... Are there plans to upgrade them as well?


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## Mark Lamutt

I have no idea - I knew that smart card replacements were coming for some receivers, but hadn't had any confirmation until I got one yesterday in the mail.


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## Nick

Thanks for the heads-up, Chris.

Now that the much-maligned Dishplayer has morphed into one of the most stable Dish PVR/DVR platforms (except for a couple of unresolved minor quirks), I hope E* doesn't screw things up if they send a new card for it.


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## BobMurdoch

Nick said:


> Now that the much-maligned Dishplayer has morphed into one of the most stable Dish PVR/DVR platforms


This just in......

Hell HAS frozen over.

Film at 11.


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## rvd420

BobMurdoch said:


> This just in......
> 
> Hell HAS frozen over.
> 
> Film at 11.


My Dishplayer 7200 has been very stable with the last software release.
Only Major bug has been if I unplug the 7200 to move it. (re-arrange furniture)
the 10 min download chrases and the 7200 hangs. But if as soon as the 10 min d/l starts if I power down...then after power light stops blinking I power up.
It will bring me to the 7200 home. Then from there do a switch check , then the 7200 does a 15 min d/l and everything is good to go.


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## aaronp

Yeah, those new smartcards lost my Pay-per-view info too! Darn, now I won't have to pay for that movie I watched on the old card.


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## Mike Richardson

Our 501 came with a yellow card when we got it added to our DHP in August 2003. Seems to work fine.


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## normang

Was it a fluke that the timers were trashed with the replacement of the smart card, or is timer info stored on that card?


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## BarryO

Here's another one: I got a replacement smartcard for my 6000, which sat in the mailbox for a while. In the mean time, I got a 921 (which already had one of the newer, yellow, cards), and had it activated. A couple of weeks after that, 'finally got around to setting the 6000 up in another room, which must have been the same day they de-activated the 6000's old blue card. I replaced the 6000's card, and got it verified no problem. But guess what? The 921 had lost its authorization!! It seems that, at the same time Dish cancelled the 6000's blue card, they nuked my 921, too! I called the CSR, and she had no record of the 921! She had to re-authorize it from scratch. Weird.


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## Mark Lamutt

Well this one gets stranger and stranger. All but one of my timers were back tonight - and I didn't do anything to get them back. They were not there this morning when I checked. So, 24 hours after the card swap, all but one came back. 

I have no idea...


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## wcswett

Mark Lamutt said:


> This message serves as a warning!
> Today I received one of the new yellow smartcards to replace the blue one in one of my 508s. The replacement went fine and dandy, with the programming tuned back on within the stated time. However, (and stupid me, I didn't even think to check), the smartcard replacement blew away all of the timers that I had set on that 508, so nothing recorded tonight.


Oooo... thanks for the warning! My 921 and 510 both have yellow cards but my 721 has a blue card and a LOT of timers on it.

--- WCS


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## P Smith

Mark Lamutt said:


> Well this one gets stranger and stranger. All but one of my timers were back tonight - and I didn't do anything to get them back. They were not there this morning when I checked. So, 24 hours after the card swap, all but one came back.
> 
> I have no idea...


May be after next 24 hours the last timer will reappear ?


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## Jacob S

I have seen some pretty strange things such as this happen before. When these timers reappear and you already had other timers programmed in you would end up having two timers for the same event firing at the same time wouldn't you? This would cause a LOT of confustion. It would be nice to have the timers stored on an internal chip in case the hard drive or software fails, although I think that is what it is stored on now, put perhaps a seperate one just for specific things such as that.


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## RobertB

So, once you replace the blue card with the yellow card, what do you do with it? Does Dish want it back?


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## Mark Lamutt

Nope - the letter said to pitch it.


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## speedy882001

I have two 508's both with blue cards. I currently only have one hooked up. A year from now when I go to connect the second one and activate it will it not work or will I have to order up a yellow card?


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## Mark Lamutt

I don't know speedy.


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## Jacob S

Upon activation they will probably have to send out a new yellow card to get it to work. It sure would suck if they tried to charge you for it just like DirecTv does.


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## Forceten

What happens if you don't swap out for the yellow card?

I have 4 recievers at my house, a 508 I think it is a 6000 and two regular old units. They sent me 4 new Yellow smart cards to swap out my entire system.

Will they yank my blue cards service if I don't upgrade? I pay for the entire year in advance from dish.


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## Mike123abc

Forceten said:


> What happens if you don't swap out for the yellow card?
> 
> I have 4 recievers at my house, a 508 I think it is a 6000 and two regular old units. They sent me 4 new Yellow smart cards to swap out my entire system.
> 
> Will they yank my blue cards service if I don't upgrade? I pay for the entire year in advance from dish.


They will simply turn off your blue cards forcing you to put in your yellow cards. Paying the entire year in advance has no bearing on this... they sent you the cards it is up to you to put them in.


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## normang

This is assuming of course that replacing the cards will actually cause a problem, installing them may do nothing more than what they are supposed to do and have no other affect on the reciever..


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## Forceten

Well did the entire 4 cards last night. Of course the ones that aren't pvr went with no problems.

But tonight looking at our 508 and yup some timers are there all fine but some are changed and some just went poof!!

I told my wife best way to do it is erase ALl of the timers and start from scratch to make sure. She is grumbling at me though


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## jimmy

Forceten said:


> Well did the entire 4 cards last night. Of course the ones that aren't pvr went with no problems.
> 
> But tonight looking at our 508 and yup some timers are there all fine but some are changed and some just went poof!!
> 
> I told my wife best way to do it is erase ALl of the timers and start from scratch to make sure. She is grumbling at me though


I just swapped out cards on my 501 and 3000 and can count myself as fortunate.

The 501 initially just showed a only couple of timers and no local channel mapping but after waiting a few minutes and cycling the power from the remote all my existing timers and local mapping reappeared.


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## Jacob S

I never had any issues with a 721 I done a card swap with.


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## Deacon Earp

Speedy 

run a check switch and get new software version upon reactivation of the receiver


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## Zevon

BobMurdoch said:


> How about the Dishplayers? These units are the most popular with the pirates based on EBay prices.... Are there plans to upgrade them as well?


I received and replaced my blue card with the new yellow one on my Dishplayer unit. Have had nothing but trouble with it ever since. Almost every time we turn it on, it has trouble acquiring a signal, and as a result, there are audio and video problems and the list isn't updating overnight. My other unit is a 921 that works great.


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## BobMurdoch

Ditto here Zevon.

Audio often sounds like the TV characters are gargling. Pixilation issues and my usual stellar signal strength keeps fluctuating. The new cards didn't carry over my personal TV (PVR functions) and the new cards are refusing to take the corrected codes to activate it (it is supposed to have 7F at the end of the service string on the system info page at the end of the line of zeroes in the last entry.... mine keeps saying nothing but zeroes). The CSR had me swap back in my old blue card and the personal TV came back, but now it won't let me tune to any channels but 101 (and the unit isn't taking the codes to reauthorize the card). I'm checking on it tonight. They say that they will send me replacement yellow smart cards. I think this is a waste of time because these new yellow cards aren't getting along with either of my receivers (one was new and has been fairly solid, while the other was remanufactured and has been much flakier..... both are on light duty in my kids rooms, but I wan't them to have functional PVRs eventually). It's obvious that these cards have introduced a bunch of bugs all by themselves due to the fact that BOTH receivers are showing the same symptoms after installing the new cards. The old blue cards were rock solid the last year or so with only the occasional corrupted EPG causing me to reboot.

Also, with the recent effective ECMs by E*, the used Dishplayer market has crashed. They are fetching less than $100 on EBay now. I'm going to keep badgering E* until they either get this to work or they replace my receivers (I'm on the entended warranty plan). I'm hoping they will upgrade me to the 5xx series instead of trying to get me another Dishplayer, but we'll see.


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## sampatterson

FWIW, I had to do a blue to yellow swap on my 721 and I didn't lose any timers.


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## Doug E

I have two 721's and have not received any yellow cards yet. When I do receive them, can I put them into either of them, or will they specify which unit by a serial number?


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## JohnL

Doug E said:


> I have two 721's and have not received any yellow cards yet. When I do receive them, can I put them into either of them, or will they specify which unit by a serial number?


Doug,

The letter will have any and all smart cards you need to replace. Yes, each new smart card will specify which Receiver it is to be used in.

John


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## mindwarp

Ok, there are people still asking.

The yellow card swap is going to be in effect for every receiver that is in the streets that came from the factory with a blue card. The blue cards doesn't have the space to carry the extra programming needed to decode nagravision 2 streams that are being put up by E*. After the swap of cards is complete or almost complete they are going to pull the plug on the streams with nagra1. So if you have a blue card after that you wont be able to receive nothing, not even if you have prepaid a zillion years in advance. All of this to kill the pirate business of fixing the boxes to receive signals for free. And it seems that they might be having success in this, even if that means leaving a few customers in the dark.


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