# HR34 Genie - SLOW!!!!



## ericmylad (Feb 9, 2009)

Hi,

While I've seen this topic mentioned before, has anyone had a problems with a HR34 Genie go from working great to super slow in the last several months? I'd say over the course of the last 5-6 months, the reaction time after a button is pressed takes 5-8 seconds. Didn't used to be this way.

I've tried all the obvious fixes & even other suggestions from a simple google search but nothing seems to help. It sounds like a HR44 is MUCH better than the 34. Anyone else have this problem & were you able to switch out for a HR44? 

Thanks!


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## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

DIRECTV considers all Genies to be equal so switching is a crap shoot. One course of action you might consider is to purchase a HR44 from Solid Signal and ask DIRECTV for a credit.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

MysteryMan said:


> DIRECTV considers all Genies to be equal so switching is a crap shoot. One course of action you might consider is to purchase a HR44 from Solid Signal and ask DIRECTV for a credit.


At one point reports were that Solid Signal wouldn't process an order for an HR44 on an account that already had a Genie.


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## jclangston (Oct 19, 2010)

Yes the past 4-6 months my HR-34 has been terribly slow. I'm not sure if there is any correlation between all of the on demand stuff that has been added to a lot of channels but it seems like that is about the time mine started slowing down. I'm going to wait a few months until the HR-54 is nationally available and try to talk my way into one through CS or either order one on SS. If you ask for the retention department and threaten to cancel your service if your not in a contract you can get a lot of things that the regular CS folks can't do.


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## rmmccann (Apr 16, 2012)

I have a 44-500 at home and was at my mom's the other night who has a 34. I couldn't believe how terribly slow it was. The slow response after button presses was really annoying and resulted in a few missed button presses.

Used to have a 34 myself before the hard drive failed - glad I was "upgraded" with my replacement receiver.


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## pistolpete52 (Sep 3, 2010)

Same here. My HR34 is the slowest DVR I've ever seen. I've had times when I've changed the channel that It's taken over 10 seconds to change. It ticks me off when I'm pressing buttons and nothing is happening. 

If the HR34's problems are well known, why does DTV still issue them?


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## energyx (Aug 8, 2011)

When I got my 34 in 2013, it was pretty responsive. Not even usable now. It seems like the start over stuff makes it even slower switching channels, but yeah, painful. My HR24 is the same with the last few software updates. I've tried clearmybox on both DVRs to no avail. Also, the other night my 34 froze completely when I went to the to do list and required a red button restart. Crazy that we all keep using these and consider it acceptable.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

pistolpete52 said:


> If the HR34's problems are well known, why does DTV still issue them?


If you were running the company, would you throw away those HR34s? It is understandable why they keep using them, the trick is as a CUSTOMER try not to get stuck with one of them


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## studechip (Apr 16, 2012)

peds48 said:


> If you were running the company, would you throw away those HR34s? It is understandable why they keep using them, the trick is as a CUSTOMER try not to get stuck with one of them


A customer shouldn't have to avoid a particular model of a product in order to get a good one.


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

Lot of the same problems here with my HR34. Especially after not receiving any remote commands for a while. Its an absolute pig getting it to essentially "wake up" from it's slumber and start responding ...

Was "finally" able to get CR to swap it out specifically for an HR44 via a service call later today so I won't have to pay a lease fee or trigger a reset on a two year commitment.

Hope all goes well as the tech. is supposed to be instructed to bring an HR44 as I'll only accept that ...

Sent from my SGH-M819N using Tapatalk


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

HoTat2 said:


> Lot of the same problems here with my HR34. Especially after not receiving any remote commands for a while. Its an absolute pig getting it to essentially "wake up" from it's slumber and start responding ...
> 
> Was "finally" able to get CR to swap it out specifically for an HR44 via a service call later today so I won't have to pay a lease fee or trigger a reset on a two year commitment.
> 
> ...


Hopefully the installer will call before showing up so that you can verify.

Sent from my Z30 using Tapatalk


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## ep1974 (May 22, 2010)

ericmylad said:


> Hi,
> 
> While I've seen this topic mentioned before, has anyone had a problems with a HR34 Genie go from working great to super slow in the last several months? I'd say over the course of the last 5-6 months, the reaction time after a button is pressed takes 5-8 seconds. Didn't used to be this way.
> 
> ...


My 34 was also very slow after being faster early on. On a service call I asked the installer if I could swap it out for a 44. He said no problem, couldn't have been nicer. Hope you have luck getting one.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

studechip said:


> A customer shouldn't have to avoid a particular model of a product in order to get a good one.


I agree that much. However for the majority of customers as long as there is a picture of the screen that is all that matters. Not everyone is a "power user"

Sent from my iPhone 6 using Tapatalk


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## energyx (Aug 8, 2011)

peds48 said:


> I agree that much. However for the majority of customers as long as there is a picture of the screen that is all that matters. Not everyone is a "power user"
> 
> Sent from my iPhone 6 using Tapatalk


I would disagree with that. Changing channels and getting it to respond to a basic remote command is not a power user. These boxes suck. Period.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

I am not saying they don't suck. All I am saying is that for some folks slow channel changes may be consider normal or expected. 


Sent from my iPhone 6 using Tapatalk


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## rmmccann (Apr 16, 2012)

peds48 said:


> I am not saying they don't suck. *All I am saying is that for some folks slow channel changes may be consider normal or expected.*
> 
> Sent from my iPhone 6 using Tapatalk


That's totally true. It's amazing what you can get used to. My mom had no idea her's was slow - for her, it was just normal.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

rmmccann said:


> That's totally true. It's amazing what you can get used to. My mom had no idea her's was slow - for her, it was just normal.


heck I used to think the same as well, that is until I meet its brother the HR44.

If you don't know any better you just think that is how is supposed to work.

Sent from my iPhone 6 using Tapatalk


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

Just like I'm sure there are plenty out there runningon HR21s without complaints. 

But, the other night my wife was using our 34 a bit and picked up on the speed issue immediately. She had been using the newer box so had gotten used to that.

I've seen plenty of cases in computers where someone said it was working fine, I do something and then they see the increase in speed. They weren't missing it so there was no complaint.

Now, the question is, when will we start getting complaints about the 44/54 speed?


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## pistolpete52 (Sep 3, 2010)

peds48 said:


> If you were running the company, would you throw away those HR34s? It is understandable why they keep using them, the trick is as a CUSTOMER try not to get stuck with one of them


If I were running the company, I'd want to make sure that my customers were happy with the equipment. If the problem is known and widespread (and it seems like it has been for a few years), I'd get the manufacturer on the horn and let him know about these problems and to get them corrected. Sometimes a company has to take a loss, and that's exactly what DTV should do with these less than average DVR's.


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## energyx (Aug 8, 2011)

pistolpete52 said:


> If I were running the company, I'd want to make sure that my customers were happy with the equipment. If the problem is known and widespread (and it seems like it has been for a few years), I'd get the manufacturer on the horn and let him know about these problems and to get them corrected. Sometimes a company has to take a loss, and that's exactly what DTV should do with these less than average DVR's.


I think in this case, they have written software and added features that well exceed the hardware's capabilities.


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## usnret (Jan 16, 2009)

Have been with DTV since 95'...Contract is up in Feb....If they won't swap out
my 34 for a 44, then am gona give dish a shot...My opinion is that, with all of
the "under the hood updates" they have ruined the 34...


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## TDK1044 (Apr 8, 2010)

My HR34 was fine when I first got it. It seems to get slower with each software upgrade.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

pistolpete52 said:


> If I were running the company, I'd want to make sure that my customers were happy with the equipment. If the problem is known and widespread (and it seems like it has been for a few years), I'd get the manufacturer on the horn and let him know about these problems and to get them corrected. Sometimes a company has to take a loss, and that's exactly what DTV should do with these less than average DVR's.


Thing is, then do they replace all HR21-23s with 24s, etc? Those are slower than the 24.

Apple certainly didn't replace original iPads even though they dropped support quite quickly.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

usnret said:



> Have been with DTV since 95'...Contract is up in Feb....If they won't swap out
> my 34 for a 44, then am gona give dish a shot...My opinion is that, with all of
> the "under the hood updates" they have ruined the 34...


I do not buy that as the issue for a second. You will never convince me that the weird pixillation issues on some NBC stations across the country is strictly a software issue. And because of that I think you have to throw out all ideas that the software causes all its issues.

It may slow them down for certain things but I just don't buy it being the sole cause. We've not seen anything like that in the hr2xs ever. It's the only unit ever produced that had some of these kinds of issues and the HR21 is woefully underpowered but it still worked. Unless you are Rich.


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## unixguru (Jul 9, 2007)

I too saw the significant slowdown of the HR34 over the ~2 years I had it.

I'd like to know what they are doing to the software that causes this much impact without any significant functionality improvements.

My 34 was just replaced with a HR44. Everybody claims that this is perfection. How long is it going to last given the history? Are we going to be calling it a POS in 2 years after they bloat things even more?

I poked around in the external storage during my transition and saw lots of Linux and Java stuff. No wonder its slow.


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## unixguru (Jul 9, 2007)

dpeters11 said:


> Apple certainly didn't replace original iPads even though they dropped support quite quickly.


They have the smarts to stop upgrading something when it won't perform appropriately with newer software.

And most things continue working as they always did. We have a couple iPhone 4 that are still pretty good even though they won't run iOS 8 or later. Only real issue is that they won't run newer applications. We will probably upgrade them soon mostly because they are only 3G. They are 5 years old.

Its actually a bit surprising that the HR24 is still good considering its age. I suspect its the end of the line for non-Genie. With the HR54 on the verge - and probably a HR64 a year later - I'm not hopeful that the 44 will be as long-lived.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

unixguru said:


> They have the smarts to stop upgrading something when it won't perform appropriately with newer software.
> 
> And most things continue working as they always did. We have a couple iPhone 4 that are still pretty good even though they won't run iOS 8 or later. Only real issue is that they won't run newer applications. We will probably upgrade them soon mostly because they are only 3G. They are 5 years old.
> 
> Its actually a bit surprising that the HR24 is still good considering its age. I suspect its the end of the line for non-Genie. With the HR54 on the verge - and probably a HR64 a year later - I'm not hopeful that the 44 will be as long-lived.


Well, my wife went and got a new iPad because her iPad 2 got so slow after updating to iOS 8.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

unixguru said:


> I too saw the significant slowdown of the HR34 over the ~2 years I had it.
> 
> I'd like to know what they are doing to the software that causes this much impact without any significant functionality improvements.
> 
> ...


Ok, so Linux isn't Unix but there really isn't anything wrong with Linux, particularly stripped down. And where Java gets into trouble is in the browser.


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## Fish_Stick (Apr 8, 2015)

dpeters11 said:


> Thing is, then do they replace all HR21-23s with 24s, etc? Those are slower than the 24.
> 
> Apple certainly didn't replace original iPads even though they dropped support quite quickly.


Why would Apple replace the ipads? They sold what they needed to with planned obsolescence and consumers are all too happy to purchase the newest model with the features you really wanted. Maybe that's part of the "magic." Leased equipment is a totally different story since you don't get a choice (34, 44, 54 all the same).


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

Fish_Stick said:


> Why would Apple replace the ipads? They sold what they needed to with planned obsolescence and consumers are all too happy to purchase the newest model with the features you really wanted. Maybe that's part of the "magic." Leased equipment is a totally different story since you don't get a choice (34, 44, 54 all the same).


The original iPad had a much shorter supported life than the others, and I think shorter than the original iPhone.

But I get your meaning. I had to pay for iOS updates. I didn't like it, but I probably ended up paying them around $35 for updates.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

unixguru said:


> I too saw the significant slowdown of the HR34 over the ~2 years I had it.
> 
> I'd like to know what they are doing to the software that causes this much impact without any significant functionality improvements.
> 
> ...


Well they did add a lot to the genies. Sports records is a huge thing. As is all the arson and episode info. Amount other things...

The sports recording is based on booleans it seems and those slow a hr2x these days to an absolute crawl if they are used. So if someone has sports records set up on a HR34 I have wondered if it's slow down the units.


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## unixguru (Jul 9, 2007)

dpeters11 said:


> Ok, so Linux isn't Unix but there really isn't anything wrong with Linux, particularly stripped down. And where Java gets into trouble is in the browser.


Java performance has always been the epitome of POS. Trojan horse to sell faster hardware.


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## unixguru (Jul 9, 2007)

inkahauts said:


> Well they did add a lot to the genies. Sports records is a huge thing. As is all the arson and episode info. Amount other things...
> 
> The sports recording is based on booleans it seems and those slow a hr2x these days to an absolute crawl if they are used. So if someone has sports records set up on a HR34 I have wondered if it's slow down the units.


The episode info stuff is just more data received/stored/retrieved(as needed for display); shouldn't be a performance impact.

So sports recording is a complex query against the guide database? I can see how that could be nasty in an embedded environment like this. I don't use it so any speed differences I saw are not caused by that.

Here is a very tiny peek at the log data I collected from my HR34 before it left:

Jan 1 00:02:27 kernel: Linux version 2.6.18.8-Pace-1.318.2.x ([email protected]) (gcc version 4.2.0 20070124 (prerelease) - Timesys/Broadcom) #1 SMP Tue May 26 16:15:14 PDT 2015
Jan 1 00:02:27 kernel: CPU frequency 405 MHz
Jan 1 00:02:27 kernel: Memory: 284928k/524288k available (2380k kernel code, 239232k reserved, 532k data, 148k init, 0k highmem)
Jan 1 00:02:27 kernel: Brought up 2 CPUs

2 core cpu @ 405 Mhz(!) with 512MB memory. No doubt a good part of that memory is only for stream buffers making perhaps 256MB available to run Linux and all the application code.

Now I suppose what everyone wants to know (myself included) is what is the HR44. My mistake for making this post I guess - I'll have to find the time to go pluck the info out of my 44


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

HoTat2 said:


> Lot of the same problems here with my HR34. Especially after not receiving any remote commands for a while. Its an absolute pig getting it to essentially "wake up" from it's slumber and start responding ...
> 
> Was "finally" able to get CR to swap it out specifically for an HR44 via a service call later today so I won't have to pay a lease fee or trigger a reset on a two year commitment.
> 
> ...


Follow-up: Installer arrived yesterday and swapped out the HR34 (said he's had lots of problems and complaints about them, and never recommends them) for an HR54.

Wow!, what a speed difference. Its as fast as my TIVO Roamio now ... I had gotten so used the the HR34's sluggishness over the last two and a half years that it was such a shock to the senses to see the HR54 whip through the various menus.

Even channels changes are faster, though I will miss the on screen caller ID feature.

Tech. was also nice enough to change out two slow-as-molasses receivers, an HR21 and HR22, for HR24s. Though unfortunately he couldn't swap out the last remaining pig here, an old R22, due to it's official classification as an SD box.

That will officially require an "upgrade."

Sent from my SGH-M819N using Tapatalk


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## unixguru (Jul 9, 2007)

unixguru said:


> Now I suppose what everyone wants to know (myself included) is what is the HR44.


Foiled again! They have removed some of the normal Linux boot info. This is all I could find:

*HR44*
Jan 1 00:00:56 kernel: scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA ST1000VM002-1ET1 SC12 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
Jan 1 00:01:36 CoreRunner - os.name: Linux 
Jan 1 00:01:36 CoreRunner - os.arch: mips 
Jan 1 00:01:36 CoreRunner - os.version: 2.6.37-2.9 
Jan 1 00:01:48 TD[4974]: StbConfig:createStbConfig Model:HR44 Mfr:HUMAX

For completeness, here is the HR34 again with a couple more lines:

*HR34*
Jan 1 00:02:27 kernel: Linux version 2.6.18.8-Pace-1.318.2.x ([email protected]) (gcc version 4.2.0 20070124 (prerelease) - Timesys/Broadcom) #1 SMP Tue May 26 16:15:14 PDT 2015
Jan 1 00:02:27 kernel: CPU frequency 405 MHz
Jan 1 00:02:27 kernel: Memory: 284928k/524288k available (2380k kernel code, 239232k reserved, 532k data, 148k init, 0k highmem)
Jan 1 00:02:27 kernel: Brought up 2 CPUs
Jan 1 00:02:27 kernel: Vendor: ATA Model: WDC WD10EURS-630 Rev: 80.0
Jan 1 00:03:27 TD[5348]: StbConfig:createStbConfig Model:HR34 MfrACE

So this doesn't really answer anything. The 44 could have 4 cores running at a Ghz and 1GB of memory for all we know.

BTW, the logs are *huge*. Over 5 days I have 225MB of logs (from 1 box)! So no, don't ask me to send them to you.


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## stvcmty (Oct 24, 2014)

Is a given client on a HR34 slower/less responsive than that same model client on a HR44?


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

stvcmty said:


> Is a given client on a HR34 slower/less responsive than that same model client on a HR44?


I have my client deactivated so haven't checked for myself, but that is the general consensus I've seen.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

stvcmty said:


> Is a given client on a HR34 slower/less responsive than that same model client on a HR44?


depends. The C41 tends to be a lot better with HR44 but I allude that has to do with the fact that the C41 can use newer RF protocol. The C31 paired with an HR44 may still not see that much difference because it must use IR remote controls.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

You must not have tested any lately. The c31 is much much faster on a hr44 than a h34. Same with c41 and c41w for me. Granted my HR34 is long in the tooth.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

I did say the C31 paired with 44 was better, although not by a mile. But I blamed that not on the 44 but rather on RF since even a C41 on a 44 lags a little bit on IR. IF a C31 had the RF that the C41 uses, there would be a dramatic change.


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