# So are my problems a (lack of) new software or are they hardware problems?



## audispartan (Sep 26, 2006)

Have an R15-300. Located in Michigan. 
Problems started mid-December. They are the following:

-No live buffer
-No trick plays in live TV
-Failure to record, either series or one-time
-Occasional lock up resulting in inability to change channel (only banner info changes)
-Occasional total lock up

I've been told by CSRs, tech reps, et al that my problems are related to the software release. I have NOT yet received it, despite being told that it would arrive between January 9th and January 14 (was also told that the dates were actually January 11th to January 16th). 
I am still running 104B, updated 9-16-2006.


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

audispartan said:


> Have an R15-300. Located in Michigan.
> Problems started mid-December. They are the following:
> 
> -No live buffer
> ...


Sounds like you may need them to resend the DVR authorization (or what ever it's called). Someone posted a few weeks ago that you can do it yourself on the website. I don't recall the link.


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## audispartan (Sep 26, 2006)

qwerty said:


> Sounds like you may need them to resend the DVR authorization (or what ever it's called). Someone posted a few weeks ago that you can do it yourself on the website. I don't recall the link.


I've actually done that once, although it was weeks ago. I also forgot the website, but I am willing to re-try it if someone could point to it for us. Thanks.


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

If you have not alread done so, try a reformat.

Carl


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## audispartan (Sep 26, 2006)

carl6 said:


> If you have not alread done so, try a reformat.
> 
> Carl


I've been told by half of the reps on the phone and by the majority of posters here that a reformat will NOT solve my problems, or at least will not be necessary until I see the performance after the arrival of the new software. 
However, I am willing to change that train of thought with a convincing line of evidence (not that you have to prove it, but stories of others might help me go down this road). I'm looking to avoid deleting all of my recordings, since that is the ONLY thing that truly works fine right now.


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## babzog (Sep 20, 2006)

Oops.. sorry Mods - please delete this post. Content is in the next post.


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## babzog (Sep 20, 2006)

I'm having the same problem with my r15. Totally locks up, won't boot (the state it's in right now: after the blue startup screen - nothing), won't record, prioritizer doesn't work, no trickplay, no buffer. RBR does nothing. Software is the last known version (104b or something like that)... cannot pull down the latest. Cannot even reformat - when I get the black screen, I hold down rec and down arrow and while holding them down, the screen just flashes briefly (looks like a video out of sync kinda flash) and then nothing. Unit is unresponsive to remote and front panel.

Very annoyed with this box (ditto the wife). I got this as a replacement for a Sony A50 that wouldn't tune in one channel and now there's nothing but headaches.


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## wbmccarty (Apr 28, 2006)

I have the new software. My R15 still can't record for ****. Don't believe DTV's lies, even when potentially innocent CSRs relay them in good faith. This box is the biggest collection of defects since Windows 95.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

Maybe we're just all on DTV's "ignore" list and all they see are those with no R15 problems.....er.....I guess that means they wouldn't be seeing any posts. DUH.


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## wbmccarty (Apr 28, 2006)

I begin to think that they may actually see the posts. But, except for the cool pictures and the smilies, they may have a hard time understanding the content. 

Thing is, even that hypothesis fails. An idiot reading the smilies would figure out there's something wrong with the R15 and its level of customer satisfaction....


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## wbmccarty (Apr 28, 2006)

I suspect that most customers have given up. After three upgrades, none of which has improved my situation, I'm now at that point. When I call, I'm told either:

1. Your problem is hardware we'll send you a new unit that'll work fine (2x).
2. We need to send a tech on site (my other DVRs work fine).
3. No one else is having the problems you cite (unless they're on dbstalk).
4. The new release will fix that problem (3x).

What's the point of calling??? It's clearly time for action of another sort.

The only hypothesis that seems to me to make any sense is that an enormous number of R15s have hardware glitches, and these defective units are being recycled to customers as a result of a flawed QA process. This hypothesis explains why roughly 1/3 - 1/2 members here experience satisfactory performance whereas the rest of us have ongoing problems ranging from annoying to severe. It also explains why failure modes don't fall into a few, standard patterns but tend to be relatively idiosyncratic. 

The next most likely possibility involves memory corruption resulting from software defects. This hypothesis would explain the idiosyncratic failure modes but fails to explain the fact that a minority of users obtain satisfactory performance.


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## PlanetBill (May 8, 2006)

I actually did do the reformat on my -300 before I forced the latest software. It was a real bummer, I lost a lot of programming. However I was told, via email from a source here, that I would continue to have problems due to a change in s/w a couple months ago. Also, if I didn't reformat, I would need to keep the capacity stored on it below 80%(max). Since then, the unit has been working fine.
Although its now the kids, (lots of SpongeBob), but no complaints.


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## subeluvr (Jan 14, 2007)

wbmccarty said:


> The only hypothesis that seems to me to make any sense is that an enormous number of R15s have hardware glitches, and these defective units are being recycled to customers as a result of a flawed QA process. This hypothesis explains why roughly 1/3 - 1/2 members here experience satisfactory performance whereas the rest of us have ongoing problems ranging from annoying to severe. It also explains why failure modes don't fall into a few, standard patterns but tend to be relatively idiosyncratic.


I'm having a problem with an R15-100 pretty much right out ofthe box. Reformatted the HD and then the new software showed up. Then I reformatted the HD and the random spontaneous reboots continue.

I have some experience in the "refurb" side of the electronics biz and here's what I've know...

The returning "failed" units are rarely "married" to the complaints of the customer so the techs simply run a "refurb" script on the bench much like the phone CSRs recite a CS script on the phone.

If the "failed" unit has an obvious problem like a power supply (won't turn on), a dead HD (also obvious), or fails the "smoke test" at power on then those problems are found and corrected. Then they run the bench script and the unit gets boxed and inventoried as a "refurb" for field replacement.

If the problem is random and intermittent then *unless it fails when it's on the bench the problem is not found* and the unit is recycled as a "refurb" to another unlucky customer.

In many cases a "refurb" is simply an OS reload and a HD reformat. The phone CSRs telling customers that "a refurb is really better than a new unit" is pure bull.

In all cases at one point the company does know exactly what the problem is and the actual cost per unit to resolve the problem. They make a decision whether to continue to try to _treat the symptom or actually cure the disease_. The problem is, the customer endures the grief until the company makes that decision and if the company decides to simply continue to treat the symptom life with that product can get real frustrating.

My personal belief is that in today's penny-wise and penny-foolish electronics industry there are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday units. If you are fortunate to get a Wednesday one then life is good BUT, if you get a Monday or Friday one then you are in for a roller coaster ride you will not enjoy.

The bottom line is that we want to watch TV and are willing to pay for specific features that make watching TV more enjoyable to us. We have the right to expect that any provider will supply hardware that reliably does what it is advertised to do and programming to watch. Less than that and the provider is not holding up their part of the deal.

I was a Dish Network "paying Beta Tester" for over eight years and was hoping that DirecTV would be better, or failing that at least different... what was I thinkng?


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

wbmccarty said:


> I suspect that most customers have given up. After three upgrades, none of which has improved my situation, I'm now at that point. When I call, I'm told either:
> 
> 1. Your problem is hardware we'll send you a new unit that'll work fine (2x).
> 2. We need to send a tech on site (my other DVRs work fine).
> ...


It would seem to me that, while a limited quantity of users are having a variety of problems which don't appear to be corrected by the "book answer", there are probably well over one million R15's out there, and most of them are working to the users satisfaction. The "limited quantity of users" with problems are those that are represented here, on the DirecTV forums, and elswhere.

I also believe that DirecTV is taking action to try and identify and resolve the problems - and that they have done so successfully for the most part. However, there appear to be some problems which are not resolved by the combination of a reformat and a software download. It is entirely possible that these are the result of a possible manufacturing defect, after all even using the best (cost effective) QC processes there will be some quantity of failures leave the manufacturing line.

If one percent of the manufactured product was defective, that would represent at least 10,000 units in customers hands - certainly enough to account for the the complaints that are seen on the various forums. While I fully agree that a 1% defect rate is not acceptable in a manufacturing process, it certainly is possible, especially when you are trying to minimize the cost of production.

Let's further suggest that there may be other issues involved. What if one batch of units where to be produced with a software error of some type, or with perhaps a hardware problem that could be corrected via software (for example possibly an improperly formatted hard drive). This could result in a very large quantity of problem units, all of which are correctable.

Now I'm just speculating on possibilities and different scenarios that could account for a large number of complaints that are being resolved over time. I don't know how many R15's are really out there, and I have no idea of what actual problems might exist other than for one unit I had with an overheating problem (which I would consider to be a bad design within the manufacturing engineering process). But my numbers and hypotheses are certainly not any less possible than yours.

So the end result is that yes, there WERE a lot of problem R15's, and that they ARE getting better. Based on the comments by the one person who identified himself as a tier 2 support person, and that they problem calls have fallen off dramatically, I think DirecTV is not only trying to resolve the issues, but is doing so successfully.

Carl


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## subeluvr (Jan 14, 2007)

Carl,

I agree for the most part but there are other factors to consider.

I do believe that a great number of R15s are out there and working properly. I do beleive that a small (percentage) number of R15s are problematic.

Where the problem really lies is that DTV made a fundamental error in sourcing the R15 from more than one manufacturer and those manufacturers are in China and Mexico. There can be no consistency of product with a corporate and geographical spread like that. Different parts and components from different parts and component manufacturers from different locations going to different R15 manufacturing plants with three different hardware platforms is a production nightmare and even worse for troubleshooting problems in the field.

By having three different designs and parts sent to three different manufacturers DTV has introduced variables that at best make it almost impossible to identify and isolate a bad production run or worse yet, a bad component on an internal board.

If there was a bad batch of chips on a board, that can not be corrected by a software download.

The case of my R15-100 randomly and spontaneously rebooting is indicative of bad OS code, bad CMOS, memory corruption or a bad chip design or a heat problem and there are many other possible causes least of them a software problem.

Fixing problems with a software download is dependent on having a solid hardware platform to receive that upgraded software. Having three different hardware platforms all called R15s makes resolving problems VERY difficult.

I truly believe that DTV knows what the problems are and that they are trying to fix them in the most cost effective way, which they are entitled to do, but customers using the problem R15s are paying the price and when these problem R15s are replaced with refurbs there is no expectation that they will work properly and that is just plain WRONG.

As I said in my previous post, if you get a Wednesday R15 then life can be good but a Monday or a Friday R15 problem may never be resolved, but I sure hope they can.


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

I fully agree that sourcing the R15 from three manufacturers, and letting each of them develop their own hardware design, was not the brightest idea, and thoroughly complicates any problem resolution process. The fact that they need to develop and support three different software versions, each specific to the hardware platform, seems absurd.

I also agree that the return/refurb process probably has it's weaknesses. Early on (close to a year ago now) there were repeated reports of getting a refurb that had recordings on it and calls in the caller ID log. What a great refurb process, change the label on the outside of the box to ship it to someone new! I haven't seen any recent posts of that happening.

Carl


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## subeluvr (Jan 14, 2007)

carl6 said:


> Early on (close to a year ago now) there were repeated reports of getting a refurb that had recordings on it and calls in the caller ID log. What a great refurb process, change the label on the outside of the box to ship it to someone new! I haven't seen any recent posts of that happening.


Apparently "hard drive reformatting 101" is now included in the refurb tech training along with "how to generate a shipping label".


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## evcomp (Nov 19, 2006)

I am also on my second r15-300 and this one behaves like the first. Works great for a few weeks and then gradually the issues return. Not sure if they used bad hard drives, software is buggy, or they are just having some bad luck with the 300 series. What I do know is that I am a paying customer who has issues, they have been great by sending me a replacement and trying to tell me all will be fixed when the new version is finally downloaded. Stil have 104b, and have done a forced download. Bottom line is that DTV should rethink the whole Tivo relationship. Even though there were issues with TIVO, they were nothing like this. I am ready to send mine back and pay the blood money to get out of the 2 year commit, my time and frsutration is worth more. Just my .02 cents.


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## subeluvr (Jan 14, 2007)

evcomp said:


> I am ready to send mine back and pay the blood money to get out of the 2 year commit, my time and frsutration is worth more. Just my .02 cents.


FWIW, after 8 years with Dish they can be and are just as ineffective at resolving hardware and software issues.

The devil you know might be better than the devil you don't know.


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## Spring Rubber (Dec 9, 2006)

Topic creator, your problems sound EXACTLY like the problems my R15-500 had after it received a software update in late August. RBRs and unplugging it were able to correct the problems for an hour or two, but the problems started right back up after that. Forcing a redownload of the software also didn't do a thing. Since I had so many recordings I wanted to keep, reformatting was out of the question for me, so I decided to stick it out and hope that the next update would fix it.

Finally, the next update came in October, and instantly I noticed that the R15 wasn't freezing or anything else anymore, although the buffer was still broken. A quick RBR fixed that, and almost everything is good now, but while I'm watching the buffer and I perform a lot of quick rewinds and fast forwards, the time indicator on the timeline will freeze in place or completely disappear, which makes skipping around the buffer a little unpleasant. This problem with the buffer is only corrected when a new program starts or if the buffer is cleared. While my R15 isn't prefect as it was when it came out of the box, it's almost perfect, and I can live with it.

What could explain why an R15 would react so horribly to one specific version of software?


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## wbmccarty (Apr 28, 2006)

adbs2007 said:


> I admit that's a possibility, but I am curious as to why that would happen to coincide with the release of a new software version for the three versions of the r15.


Doh! The frequency of calls has nothing to do with problems being fixed. People get tired of calling. So they stop. A new release occurs and they lose their channel -set selection and the box acts funky so they have to do a reboot. Then they get pissed off about the problems that weren't really fixed as a result of their most recent call and call again.

I stopped calling in May and began calling again In January. If we called every time there was a problem we'd lose our jobs!

And, _of course_ the problem goes away during or after the intervention. For maybe a day. Mine has always done that. The problems are intermittent--look it up in the dictionary if you have to.


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## Greyshadow2007 (Aug 23, 2006)

wbmccarty said:


> Doh! The frequency of calls has nothing to do with problems being fixed. People get tired of calling. So they stop. A new release occurs and they lose their channel -set selection and the box acts funky so they have to do a reboot. Then they get pissed off about the problems that weren't really fixed as a result of their most recent call and call again.
> 
> I stopped calling in May and began calling again In January. If we called every time there was a problem we'd lose our jobs!
> 
> ...


I'm aware the problems are intermittent... Granted, there are still problems, and there may be further issues that won't show up on any wide scale until a month or two down the road...

By the way, what's a "troll"?


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

adbs2007 said:


> I'm aware the problems are intermittent... however i had more call with problems after the last round of releases for the r15 than I have now. Granted, there are still problems, and there may be further issues that won't show up on any wide scale until a month or two down the road... All I was commenting upon is that the number of calls that I have received over software problems is drastically less than I received at this point after the last round.
> 
> By the way, what's a "troll"?


Keep in mind the last national release was back in August. One reason (I'm sure not the only reason) for this lower call volume is due to customers deactivating their units out of frustration. My R15 is now sitting in the closet and an old DTivo is sitting in it's place.


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## evcomp (Nov 19, 2006)

I gave up calling because I got sick of explaining the issues over and over. Even after I would say, there should be some notes on the account, they would ask me what the problem was. Then after I explained they would transfer me to someone else! No thanks, I quit playing the DTV calling game awhile back, others probably felt the same frustration and quit calling as well. People are only staying because of the 2 yr commitment, if they offered an out, it would be a mass exodus.


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

wbmccarty said:


> Doh! The frequency of calls has nothing to do with problems being fixed. People get tired of calling. So they stop. A new release occurs and they lose their channel -set selection and the box acts funky so they have to do a reboot. Then they get pissed off about the problems that weren't really fixed as a result of their most recent call and call again.
> 
> I stopped calling in May and began calling again In January. If we called every time there was a problem we'd lose our jobs!
> 
> ...


Would you care to take back the troll comment? NOT acceptable.


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## Greyshadow2007 (Aug 23, 2006)

Wolffpack said:


> Keep in mind the last national release was back in August. One reason (I'm sure not the only reason) for this lower call volume is due to customers deactivating their units out of frustration. My R15 is now sitting in the closet and an old DTivo is sitting in it's place.


Makes sense. I gues we'll just have to wait and see


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## wbmccarty (Apr 28, 2006)

Clint Lamor said:


> Would you care to take back the troll comment? NOT acceptable.


Clint, I'm pleased to retract the term "troll" if that term is inappropriately loaded. However, I do question whether the poster in question has represented himself sincerely. I suspect that he's attempting to amuse himself at my expense. I can't see any other explanation for the inability of a 2nd-level CSR to grasp the concept of an intermittent failure. What's the this board's socially acceptable way of expressing that thought? Or, is the issue the thought rather than merely the word?


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

wbmccarty said:


> Clint, I'm pleased to retract the term "troll" if that term is inappropriately loaded. However, I do question whether the poster in question has represented himself sincerely. I suspect that he's attempting to amuse himself at my expense. I can't see any other explanation for the inability of a 2nd-level CSR to grasp the concept of an intermittent failure. What's the this board's socially acceptable way of expressing that thought? Or, is the issue the thought rather than merely the word?


It's name calling in the open forum, thats not acceptable. You're a very well spoken perbson I am sure you can make your point without resorting to methods of tht nature.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

Wow, I never understood the term "troll" was "name calling" or any type of personal attack. We've had trolls around here many times and when other members view their comments as being "trollish" they have made that comment. Particularly when a member claims to be a CSR or a 2nd teir CSR.

I guess this is new to me.


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

Used in the context it was used it most certainly is such. It's over it's done. Lets move on. Back to topic.


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