# 508 problem/question after 3.00 update



## bnewt (Oct 2, 2003)

Tried to access some of the recordings on the hard drive, but could not. They still showed as being available, but I could never get them to play. Also, does the 508 have 60 hours available for recording or 80 hours? Dish's "help" screens say 80 hours, but my 508 says 60 hours available.


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## musicmaker2020 (Apr 19, 2004)

My 508's recordings still work that were from the previous update. Matter of fact I have recorded some shows since and they seem to work normally. I dont play a whole lot with my 508 because its in my office but it seems to work normally for me.

That 80 hour thing I will look up and get back with you. I think the 80 hour time is the 510. My 508 has 60 hours recording. Dish has been known to up hard drives in newer releases though. The 721 orginally had a smaller drive and newer ones have bigger ones. Sounds like a typo in the help screens.


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## DoyleS (Oct 21, 2002)

Two weeks in a row I have set my 508 to record American Idol on Fox. Both times it records the show and then about halfway through playback of the show and it locks up. I have not seen the problem on any other show. When I was initially watching the recorded show, there were a lot of motion artifacts in the recording. I also record 24 on Monday nights and have not had a problem there but am concerned that this might be related to the new release. I have had no problems with my 508 in the 2.5 years that I have owned it. Does this sound like it could be related to the new software release?

..Doyle


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## bnewt (Oct 2, 2003)

The timer I had set for "Lost" prior to the latest update worked ok last night. I was able to watch last night's recording. I did not watch all of it just a few minutes to make sure it was there.


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## Pils (Sep 20, 2004)

Besides missing 4 out of 7 timers in two days with the new release, I have had a timer record 21 minutes of the 30 minutes and stop and I have had DD audio problems where it breaks out for a couple seconds. They managed to mess up good software, congrats! What a horrible software team all across the board. I had no problems with the past software revisions.


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## peano (Feb 1, 2004)

Its incredible they sent this down after they already knew the problems with BEV 5X00 receivers.


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## DoyleS (Oct 21, 2002)

Pils, that is pretty much what happened with mine. The timer recorded what looked like the whole show but in the end if only got half of the show and the rest was a frozen frame and lockup. 
..Doyle


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## Chucky (Jul 21, 2002)

My 501 & 510 randomly miss recordings since the P3.00 update. the 510 also recorded 53 mins. of a 1 hr. program. 

I called Dish tech support last night to see if this was an issue with the new update. Nope. They "said" that they do not know about this.

Kudos to Dish on releasing crappy software to mess up a stable receiver.


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## Pils (Sep 20, 2004)

They are a horrible CSR company, they tend to blame the customer for their problems. And even if it is a widespread problem, they say we know nothing of the problem. Ask Kristen at the execustive office, I told her of it and she said there is not a problem, contact technical help. I am tempted to post their phone numbers so everyone can report their problems but I will not stoop to their level. But....


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## cdoyle (Feb 3, 2005)

I noticed my 508 has done this a couple times now since it got the new software. It's really starting to get annoying.


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## currahee99 (Dec 10, 2004)

I have the opposite problem of you guys. My 510 receiver is set up for a manual recording M-F for 11pm to 12am. The Dvr fires up at 11pm but does not stop recording. It continues to record all night so when i wake up in the morning it is still recording and I have 8+ hours of the same channel. I have to stop the recording manually.


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## Grandude (Oct 21, 2004)

currahee99 said:


> I have the opposite problem of you guys. My 510 receiver is set up for a manual recording M-F for 11pm to 12am. The Dvr fires up at 11pm but does not stop recording. It continues to record all night so when i wake up in the morning it is still recording and I have 8+ hours of the same channel. I have to stop the recording manually.


Could it be that your 510 thinks that 12am is 12 noon and not 12 midnight?
If it were me I would change the timer to record from 11PM to 1201AM and remove this doubt. :sure:


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## MrPete (Apr 8, 2002)

Knock on wood, but I haven't had any problems on my 508 and 510.

Of course, I did make sure to reset the DVR after the download by pressing(and holding) the power button on the DVR (not remote) for 5 secs.


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## Pils (Sep 20, 2004)

I have reset it that way about 20 times since download. Luckily someone made it thru without problems.


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## geobernd (Nov 4, 2004)

Pils said:


> I have reset it that way about 20 times since download. Luckily someone made it thru without problems.


Me too... It seems that at least every other night it's somehow locked up - two or three times I had to pull the plug to get it back to live... It magically always recorded what it was supposed to and I was able to play the recordings back with no problem.... But the lockups where definately not there before 3.00....
I want my old Firmware back...

Edit:
Maybe the lockups have to do with the flix for 'blank screen'. I used to get the black screen pretty often (about every other day) - now I get lockups... So I guess they fixed the blank screen issue by locking up the receiver before the screen goes blank :eek2:


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## Pils (Sep 20, 2004)

I never had the blackout problem. I would almost choose the black screen over lockup.


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## geobernd (Nov 4, 2004)

Pils said:


> I never had the blackout problem. I would almost choose the black screen over lockup.


Me too - if I had a choice... I suspect the blackout problem is a result of a very short loss of signal... I only used to get it when I am tuned to one of the international channels on 121. Never got it on a channel on 110 or 119....
The fix for the blackout was quicker too, hit menu, hit live and you are back in business...


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## Turbohawk (Jan 5, 2003)

Damnit Echostar! My 508 is buggy now with the latest software!!! It takes 3 times longer to tune to stations, it is not recording when it's supposed to, and now it's saying I have 60+ hours of free space yet I JUST had 2 hours free last night! 

DAMNIT TO HELL!!!!! None of my saved programs are playable! WTf????????????????????????

Gonna call RIGHT NOW...


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

I am glad to see I am not alone. My 508 was solid until the 3.00 download. Now it locks up, fails to play a recored event when I select it and the screen goes black. 


Such quality...NOT!


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## Turbohawk (Jan 5, 2003)

It's official. ALL of my saved programs are gone! GONE! Why? Who the hell knows, cause Dishnet is NOT being helpful. 

The unit itself (a 508) seems to be working fine now...just I lost many hours of cool shows and a few Races that I was going to watch this coming week and now it's all inexplicably gone. 

This is official notice to Dishnet: If anything happens like this again, YOU'RE FIRED!


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## purwater (Mar 24, 2005)

Chucky - I just saw on dishdepot.com that they have the 522s for sale. The price was $349. I'm not sure if this is old news but thought I'd pass it along.


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## Turbohawk (Jan 5, 2003)

Just got off the phone with Dishnet and they are sending a new receiver (replacement, not necessarily new) even though it seems the unit is working perfectly now, sans all my previously recording programs. This was probably a good place to switch to the 522. I really don't think there is anything wrong with the receiver, I think it's the software that's the culprit.


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## Pils (Sep 20, 2004)

I would say the software, not the box. Its almost like they want to F- it up so you get frustrated and buy another type of DVR.


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## Turbohawk (Jan 5, 2003)

Anybody with a 508 and software 3.00 NOT replace their receiver and have it behave normally after you lost all your "old" recordings?


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## Jon Spackman (Feb 7, 2005)

If this is a sign of things to come, then Dish please send us the old software and forget about NBR. If this preliminary step toward NBR killed us this bad, i dont want to have a worthless box for a year while they figure NBR out on us. Just undo whatever changes you made to our rock solid stable software, call it 3.01 and spool it!


Jon


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## kstuart (Apr 25, 2002)

Turbohawk said:


> Anybody with a 508 and software 3.00 NOT replace their receiver and have it behave normally after you lost all your "old" recordings?


A few years ago, the exact same thing used to happen to a small percentage of 501 receivers.

Then when the more stable 2.xx software versions arrived, it stopped happening.

Back then, the same receiver would be fine after all the recordings were wiped.


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## Pils (Sep 20, 2004)

j5races said:


> If this is a sign of things to come, then Dish please send us the old software and forget about NBR. If this preliminary step toward NBR killed us this bad, i dont want to have a worthless box for a year while they figure NBR out on us. Just undo whatever changes you made to our rock solid stable software, call it 3.01 and spool it!
> 
> Jon


Agreed, except now they may use this as an excuse to add a $5 additional fee to have working stable software. Always looking for the green!


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## Turbohawk (Jan 5, 2003)

The remanufactured receiver I got has a Maxtor drive instead of the Seagate that was in my "brand spanking new" unit. I still don't think that it's the hardware that is foobard. My bet says its the software. We'll see. If it happens again, Hasta La Vista Dishnet.


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## bnewt (Oct 2, 2003)

I had another problem with my 508 Sunday morning. Had to reboot before I could watch anything.


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## geobernd (Nov 4, 2004)

bnewt said:


> I had another problem with my 508 Sunday morning. Had to reboot before I could watch anything.


I have to reboot every 2-4 days since the upgrade. If I power off the 508 when I am done watching it's usually fine the next time I use it - but if I need to leave it running (often it's recording something while I am watching) and it's not close to the night time when the screen saver kicks in it is dead in the water until a reboot. Somehow so far (knock on wood) it still magically recorded everything it was supposed to...


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## Hemway (Aug 14, 2003)

I went to set an event last night and noticed my program guide was not updated. Left the unit off all night and checked this morning and it still wasn't updated. When I bring up the guide, it tells me that it's out of date and asks if I want to update it. I say yes, and the download runs, and runs, and runs. After about 10 minutes the picture returns. When I pull up the guide again, I get the same message that the guide is out of date.

Is anyone else having this problem?


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## Turbohawk (Jan 5, 2003)

UPDATE

The remanufactured unit, sent at no cost to me (kudos to Dishnet), works better than my previous 508. It seems that there were some issues with the COAX output on my old unit that I always chocked to older tv's that were connected in other rooms via this output...the new unit has a MUCH better picture via COAX than the old one.

Time will tell if indeed the 3.00 is the culprit or not...

Looks like I might have to change my previous diagnosis...it could have been hardware afterall...

Which, is troublesome since I've only used the DVR for approx <18 months as I had gone back and forth to cable/dish twice since I originally received the 508. I would hope that the life of these units is triple what it was of this one...

I do have to say that the customer service aspect of this whole ordeal was handled very courteously and expeditiously. A thank you to the professional people that I talked to is in order. Cable could learn A LOT from these people.


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## Pils (Sep 20, 2004)

I just had another ZSR last night.


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## Turbohawk (Jan 5, 2003)

WTF is a ZSR?


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

"Zero Second Record" event.


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## kstuart (Apr 25, 2002)

Turbohawk said:


> We'll see. If it happens again, Hasta La Vista Dishnet.


In 2005, I don't think it is possible to get reliability by changing providers - of any sort of service whatsoever.

For that matter, our convection oven blew out yesterday (the only device in our house not on a surge protector during a series of power fluctuations yesterday - I don't tend to associate the kitchen with "electronics" although clearly I should). Today, I researched convection ovens on Amazon, and every one of the dozen brands without exception has at least one customer comment " I'll never buy this brand again! ".

The idea that there is a difference between brands implies that there is a difference between any group of randomly chosen 1,000 human beings - and, of course, there isn't.

It's not that companies aren't trying to produce quality products, it's just that there is insufficient engineering resources for the number of products that include electronics these days.

PS I did bring this thread to the attention of a manager in Echostar DVR engineering, and they are indeed researching the timer issues.


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## Pils (Sep 20, 2004)

I have tried bringing this to the attention of the Supervisor of the Executive Office. He said that is not his department and could not do anything to bring this to anyone's attention. He even said it is not an issue and I am trying to stir problems. Anyways, hope you can bring it to their attention because my word means nothing.


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## geobernd (Nov 4, 2004)

Yesterday I watched one of my freeze->reboot situations 'live' on my 508:
I was recording two shows back to back - and watching something else. I erased what I watched and switched to live mode. The second recording was running, but the guide info in the title bar was screwed up: It shows 23 hours and 30something minutes remaining. After the show finished recording I was able to see live mode. I clicked to see the DVR event list, saw the events and about 32 hours free. I went back to live mode and the box started freezing up - telling me it needs to stop recording - I confirmed with yes and didn't get any more responses. This morning it was still frozen - I did the 5 second power button reboot and it came back: but: I only had 24 hours free... The recording from last night looks ok with 1:05 duration - but I lost 8 hours of free space..... I was not able to watch that 1:05 show yet (didn't have time) - I hope that my 8 hours come back once I watch it but I am not so sure... This is certainly crappy software galore.... I'll report back to see if I can recover the 8 hours without erasing everything (I don't want to watch 10 hours TV in a row for two days to get this thing empty....)


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## Pils (Sep 20, 2004)

I have had the similar thing where it says it needs to stop recording and you select ok and it still won't stop. But yesterday I had my first. I was searching programs and picked a about 5 to record. The first 2 it said create timer, worked fine. The last 3 it said create timer. I clicked ok and it just stayed on the same screen. Then I clicked it again and nothing. I then went down to other options to confirm it wasn't locked up and had no problems doing so. So I went back to the create timer option and this time it went to my future timers list and it was already created. All 3 timers did this where I selected "create timer" until it showed the future timers. Should have gone to the normal screen like the original 2 did. Hate this software.


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## geobernd (Nov 4, 2004)

geobernd said:


> I'll report back to see if I can recover the 8 hours without erasing everything (I don't want to watch 10 hours TV in a row for two days to get this thing empty....)


Good news: When I erased the one hour show that got stuck recording (after watching it) I got 9hours 30 minutes of free time back - so the lost space was attached to that recording....


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## Pils (Sep 20, 2004)

Thats good to hear. When I thought I witnessed all my flaws on this software, last night I had another. This time I was recording and went to stop, confirmed stop and then went to the dvr list to delete that recording. It sat at my dvr list at sat there saying it please wait. After several minutes of that, I became suspicious and found it was licked up. Nothing would respond. I was afraid that I would reboot and find all recording missing since nothing showed up in the list when it froze. Luckily all were there still but why does this lock up so often on the littlest functions. Is this bootstrap related, switch related, etc?


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## geobernd (Nov 4, 2004)

It seems the issue is reproduceable:
It happens every Wendesday on the second recording of the Evening - regardless of when I last rebooted:
I record 7:58-9:35pm Ch 726
I record 9:35pm-10:40pm Ch726
The second recording 'finishes' and then the receiver hangs, the recording light goes off but the picture is frozen and when I try to do anything I get the 'need to stop recording' warning window and it's completely locked up.
The second timeslot I record in actually covers three shows (one partial in the beginning, one full in the middle and one partil in the end) in the guide - maybe that's too much for the 508 to figure out what name to give the recording when it's done??? Or there is something 'weird' in the guide data for Ch 726.....
If anyone has a direct line to level 2 or higher technical support I'll be happy to walk them through the details - but I don't think it makes any sense trying to convince the script reading support staff of this issue....



geobernd said:


> Good news: When I erased the one hour show that got stuck recording (after watching it) I got 9hours 30 minutes of free time back - so the lost space was attached to that recording....


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## Pils (Sep 20, 2004)

I had yet another problem today, just flipping thru channels and getting the Black screen on everything. Simple reboot again, but sick of rebooting this daily. Called up the CSRs and stated my displeasure and told them to direct this to the engineering department. She said she would so if I ever hear back from them, I will give you their number. I have 4 #'s to the Executive Office you can have, just pm me for info.


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