# Losing Receivers



## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

My recent installation consists of a SWIM 16, two HR24's, one HR23 and two HR20-100's. The HR20's are connected using Deca adapters and Band Stop Filters, no BSF on HR23, exactly the same way I have seen in this forum. The HR24's are not using adapters and there is nothing connected to the Ethernet ports. I have studied the wiring configurations here and it appears that everything is connected correctly. I have three green lights on my adapters and everything works perfectly. The only problem I have is I am randomly loosing receivers. By this I mean that one day all my boxes are showing for MRV and the next I will be missing a receiver. If I reboot the missing receiver it will appear and maybe two to three days later I will loose another one somewhere else. I have tried to come up with a pattern with out much luck. It appears to be completely random and happens to all the receivers. This has kept me running around the house resetting receivers . Any help anyone could provide would be appreciated.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

I'd tighten up all those loose receivers and then see if you lose any of them again.

From what you've described, all your receivers are connected correctly.
Do you have a DECA bridging to your router or are these using their own IP addresses?


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

Thanks for the reply VOS. I will check my connections. Yes each has a separate IP address.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

carguy238 said:


> Thanks for the reply VOS. I will check my connections. Yes *each has a separate IP address*.


"but" are they getting them from the router or themselves?


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

Thanks again. I am not all that computer savvy. They acquired their addresses on their own upon installation. I have checked and each is different. I hope I have provided the correct information.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

carguy238 said:


> Thanks again. I am not all that computer savvy. They acquired their addresses on their own upon installation. I have checked and each is different. I hope I have provided the correct information.


Do they start with 169.xxx.xxx.xxx or some other number?


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

VOS, they are all 192.xxx.xxx.xxx addresses. [email protected] 2wire router.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

carguy238 said:


> VOS, they are all 192.xxx.xxx.xxx addresses. [email protected] 2wire router.


OK, then you've got a similar setup to mine, with a DECA & PI connecting you to the 2Wire [I hope] and this is giving all the IPs to the receivers.

Do you have one of these around or near your 2Wire?


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

Yes. Deca and PI to router. Thanks for all your time.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

carguy238 said:


> Yes. Deca and PI to router. Thanks for all your time.


So at this point, I'd look at all the coax connections, since everything else seems like it's good.


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

Thanks VOS, I'll check them.


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## joed32 (Jul 27, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> I'd tighten up all those loose receivers and then see if you lose any of them again.
> 
> From what you've described, all your receivers are connected correctly.
> Do you have a DECA bridging to your router or are these using their own IP addresses?


You're a great help to everyone and I appreciate all that you do. I have MRV on a home network and it works but I don't even know what an IP address is. I thought the idea of a SWM/Deca setup was that everything worked together automatically. Why does the poster have to learn all of this and troubleshoot it himself. I'm planning to get a whole home setup at some time but I read a lot of posts with people having problems with it. Not sure if it's worth the trouble.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

joed32 said:


> You're a great help to everyone and I appreciate all that you do. I have MRV on a home network and it works but I don't even know what an IP address is. I thought the idea of a SWM/Deca setup was that everything worked together automatically. Why does the poster have to learn all of this and troubleshoot it himself. I'm planning to get a whole home setup at some time but I read a lot of posts with people having problems with it. Not sure if it's worth the trouble.


Of course you're going to read more about the problems than those without problems.
Over the last couple of months "I'd say" installation problems have been the dominate problems.
I've had it for a year now and installed it myself. My RF knowledge is good and my ethernet networking knowledge is limited to basically "plug & play".
The connected home has worked very well here. In the year it's been here I haven't needed to do anything more than rebooting receivers.
"For me", this is so plug & play that all my settings are default/auto.
If you were to base your decision on my experience, it would be a no brainer to go with DECA.
I had everything ethernet and simply added the DECAs, so any "network issues" had already been sorted out.


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## azarby (Dec 15, 2006)

carguy238 said:


> My recent installation consists of a SWIM 16, two HR24's, one HR23 and two HR20-100's. The HR20's are connected using Deca adapters and Band Stop Filters, no BSF on HR23, exactly the same way I have seen in this forum. The HR24's are not using adapters and there is nothing connected to the Ethernet ports. I have studied the wiring configurations here and it appears that everything is connected correctly. I have three green lights on my adapters and everything works perfectly. The only problem I have is I am randomly loosing receivers. By this I mean that one day all my boxes are showing for MRV and the next I will be missing a receiver. If I reboot the missing receiver it will appear and maybe two to three days later I will loose another one somewhere else. I have tried to come up with a pattern with out much luck. It appears to be completely random and happens to all the receivers. This has kept me running around the house resetting receivers . Any help anyone could provide would be appreciated.


Since you have 10 tuners, are two or more of the recivers coming from the second SWiM output. It appears that they are not and tuners are fighting for a spot in the frequency allocation.

Even if they are wired using both outputs, I would reset the system by pulling power from all receivers, SWIM , DECA adpter (if connected) and internet router. Power up the SWiM, then power up your router. Next power up DECA adapter that connects to the router. After that is complete, plug in one receiver and wait for it to fully boot. Then do this to each of the other receivers, again waitnig for it to complete booting before going to the next one.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

azarby said:


> Since you have 10 tuners, are two or more of the recivers coming from the second SWiM output. It appears that they are not and tuners are fighting for a spot in the frequency allocation.


Think you're looking at the wrong problem. This looks to be a MRV sharing issue and not a SAT signal issue, so the SWiM seems to be loaded correctly.
There is no mention of 771 errors.


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## azarby (Dec 15, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> Think you're looking at the wrong problem. This looks to be a MRV sharing issue and not a SAT signal issue, so the SWiM seems to be loaded correctly.
> There is no mention of 771 errors.


I have found the same type of thing with the MRV, where resetting everything cures the problem. I wouldn't hurt to do it, but it could very well help.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

azarby said:


> I have found the same type of thing with the MRV, where resetting everything cures the problem. I wouldn't hurt to do it, but it could very well help.


"Yeah" it wouldn't hurt, but I simply don't do things that have zero relationship to what the problem is.
DECA has nothing to do with the SWiM. They are completely independent of each other. SWiM is there solely to free up the frequencies used by DECA and to have the splitters in place for DECA to pass through.


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## azarby (Dec 15, 2006)

azarby said:


> I have found the same type of thing with the MRV, where resetting everything cures the problem. I wouldn't hurt to do it, but it could very well help.


One more thing for the OP to check is to make sure that his router has enough open slots in his dynamic routing range for IP allocations. If there are too many deviecs being allocated IPs by the router, some of these IPs may be dropping off as unused devices come on line. Then as he goes to use the original device that was just recently dropped, a new device will be dropped because there again, ther are not enough assignable IP's.


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## joed32 (Jul 27, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> Of course you're going to read more about the problems than those without problems.
> Over the last couple of months "I'd say" installation problems have been the dominate problems.
> I've had it for a year now and installed it myself. My RF knowledge is good and my ethernet networking knowledge is limited to basically "plug & play".
> The connected home has worked very well here. In the year it's been here I haven't needed to do anything more than rebooting receivers.
> ...


Thanks for the reply.


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

azarby said:


> One more thing for the OP to check is to make sure that his router has enough open slots in his dynamic routing range for IP allocations. If there are too many deviecs being allocated IPs by the router, some of these IPs may be dropping off as unused devices come on line. Then as he goes to use the original device that was just recently dropped, a new device will be dropped because there again, ther are not enough assignable IP's.


Thanks for the suggestion azarby. I will check that out. I never would have thought of that. Between the kids X Box 360, four desktops, two laptops and networked blu ray player and a sling box. I really do have a lot going on. Any idea how I can figure out what my routers capacity is and if I'm over it.


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## lugnutathome (Apr 13, 2009)

RTFM (Read The {Fine} Manual)

or

"google" on the model number should yield some info for you.

Don "that's my second search after RTFM doesn't work" Bolton



carguy238 said:


> Thanks for the suggestion azarby. I will check that out. I never would have thought of that. Between the kids X Box 360, four desktops, two laptops and networked blu ray player and a sling box. I really do have a lot going on. Any idea how I can figure out what my routers capacity is and if I'm over it.


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## azarby (Dec 15, 2006)

carguy238 said:


> Thanks for the suggestion azarby. I will check that out. I never would have thought of that. Between the kids X Box 360, four desktops, two laptops and networked blu ray player and a sling box. I really do have a lot going on. Any idea how I can figure out what my routers capacity is and if I'm over it.


In your router, there should be a section with DHCP settings. There will also be an entry that shows the beginning and ending address that will be allocated automatically. Some routers set this to 20 addresses other set it to fifty. See if you can find this and as an experiment, add 10 to the upper limit and see what it does. You can also check the IPs of your boxes and see if they are encroaching on this upper limit.


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

azarby, thanks again for the help. I will check this out further.


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## azarby (Dec 15, 2006)

azarby said:


> In your router, there should be a section with DHCP settings. There will also be an entry that shows the beginning and ending address that will be allocated automatically. Some routers set this to 20 addresses other set it to fifty. See if you can find this and as an experiment, add 10 to the upper limit and see what it does. You can also check the IPs of your boxes and see if they are encroaching on this upper limit.


One more item to note. If you power off your router, all of the the IPs will be reassigned again as each computer, acccess point, game box, cell phone, DVR comes on line. It will appear as if everythig is working correctly (at least for a while). If there are not enough IPs avaialble to assign, the last box active will displace one of the first assigned devices that is currently not being used. Also, when you power off all of the DVRs and turn them back on, they are now the most recently active so they will work for a while, but one of your other devices will get displaced ( i.e., game box, unused laptop, blue ray, tv, desktop, etc). As soon as you use one of these, one of the DVRs will disappear if it is not currenly in need of an IP. Again the way to fix this is to expand the IP assignable range.


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

Would assigning static IP addresses to all five of my receivers be possible and would there be any benefit. I do realize this may cause another device to get bumped.


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## azarby (Dec 15, 2006)

carguy238 said:


> Would assigning static IP addresses to all five of my receivers be possible and would there be any benefit. I do realize this may cause another device to get bumped.


You could do that, but you must make sure you are outside of the dynamically assignable range. If you don't do this, you could assign an IP and the router could assign the same one, causing all kinds of problems. If you do a manual IP assignment, you should also manually assign the port forwarding for use of the DTV APPS capability. You really need to get to your router setup pages and check the assignable range. What model router do you have. If you are unsure of how to do that, I'm sure there are several users here with the same router that could guide you through the DHCP range assignment process.

Personally I have a Qwest modem/router (Actiontec Q1000). I manually assign all of my IPs, DNS servers and port forwarding. The only open dynamic IP assignments I allow is for an occcasional laptop use by friends/relatives.


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

I know it's a 2 wire brand for AT&T DSL. I am not sure of the model number. I can check when I get home. Thanks for all your time.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

This is what my 2Wire shows:








Doesn't look like the IP pool is the limitation.


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

VOS, thanks for taking the time to Post your 2 wire setup page. I am actually pretty familiar with mine and it is the same. I am at work now but I thought I remembered the range being pretty wide.


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## azarby (Dec 15, 2006)

carguy238 said:


> VOS, thanks for taking the time to Post your 2 wire setup page. I am actually pretty familiar with mine and it is the same. I am at work now but I thought I remembered the range being pretty wide.


Make sure you have the latest router firmware installed. Also check the IPs of the DVR when your problem happens again. It is possible that the router may not be releasing the unused IPs as it should. I had this happen several times with an old Linksys router. The only way out was to power off and reboot.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

azarby said:


> Make sure you have the latest router firmware installed. Also check the IPs of the DVR when your problem happens again. It is possible that the router may not be releasing the unused IPs as it should. I had this happen several times with an old Linksys router. The only way out was to power off and reboot.


There is no update for the firmware.


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## azarby (Dec 15, 2006)

carguy238 said:


> VOS, thanks for taking the time to Post your 2 wire setup page. I am actually pretty familiar with mine and it is the same. I am at work now but I thought I remembered the range being pretty wide.


Do you know what the IPs are for your computers and other gear? I usualy make a chart with each device name, IP address etc, just to make sure there are no conflicts. From what you have posted, it looks like the DVRs are at the bottom of the IP allocation. Where are your other devices? Fixed IPs?


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

When I got home last night I pulled up my 2wire setup page and everything looks in order. My receivers are labeled and are mixed in with my other computers and various devices. It said 22 IP addresses were assigned and I believe 168 available. I counted 13 various devices. If I could see a pattern the 20's seem to disappear the most often. I would say that the 24's and the 23 are more stable than the 20's.

I checked last night and all receivers were showing. When I got up this morning I checked again and one of the 20's was missing. 
I see that some people install the 20's without the BSF. I was wondering what the difference is and I wonder if removing them would have any effect.


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## azarby (Dec 15, 2006)

carguy238 said:


> When I got home last night I pulled up my 2wire setup page and everything looks in order. My receivers are labeled and are mixed in with my other computers and various devices. It said 22 IP addresses were assigned and I believe 168 available. I counted 13 various devices. If I could see a pattern the 20's seem to disappear the most often. I would say that the 24's and the 23 are more stable than the 20's.
> 
> I checked last night and all receivers were showing. When I got up this morning I checked again and one of the 20's was missing.
> I see that some people install the 20's without the BSF. I was wondering what the difference is and I wonder if removing them would have any effect.


By any chance are you getting two different IPs assigned to the same device (same MAC ID)?


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

I don't believe so. I did check and I didn't see any repeat IP's. Been doing a little more research and it doesn't sound like removing the BSF is a good idea. I'm probably reaching here but the HR20 that is most prone to come up missing is in a cabinet and even though I have ventilated the back I think it's running pretty hot. I wonder if this could be the problem. If that was the only problem receiver I could understand it but I wonder if that would cause the other receivers to drop off.


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## azarby (Dec 15, 2006)

carguy238 said:


> I don't believe so. I did check and I didn't see any repeat IP's. Been doing a little more research and it doesn't sound like removing the BSF is a good idea. I'm probably reaching here but the HR20 that is most prone to come up missing is in a cabinet and even though I have ventilated the back I think it's running pretty hot. I wonder if this could be the problem. If that was the only problem receiver I could understand it but I wonder if that would cause the other receivers to drop off.


It is possible that the HR20 is causing some problems. I was just trying to eliminate any router problems. Have you recently reset the routter by powering off for a minute or so? If not, gvie it a try. Once you do that, re-run the network connection routine on each reciever/dvr.


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

That was one of the first things I tried. I think I will remove the receiver from the cabinet and see if it makes a difference. If not I will call DirecTV and have them come back out although I'm not sure what they can do. I had to give the installer the wiring diagrams from this forum to show him how to wire the 20's in the first place. He was in favor of them giving me two additional 24's but you can see how that worked out.


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## azarby (Dec 15, 2006)

carguy238 said:


> That was one of the first things I tried. I think I will remove the receiver from the cabinet and see if it makes a difference. If not I will call DirecTV and have them come back out although I'm not sure what they can do. I had to give the installer the wiring diagrams from this forum to show him how to wire the 20's in the first place. He was in favor of them giving me two additional 24's but you can see how that worked out.


I would try to see if DTV can swap out the HR20-100s, Several other accounts have listed that once they did that, their MRV problems cleared up.


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Doesn't hurt to ask.
Thanks again for all your help.


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

I just left a message with the original installer making him aware of the problem. Still trying to eliminate everything I can think of. I was surprised when the installer used my existing dish. I was expecting to get a new one. I am not really sure what dish I have. I can say that it is approximately 5 years old, tripple LNB I questioned him about this and he said that since I got the SWIM 16 it would be fine.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

carguy238 said:


> I just left a message with the original installer making him aware of the problem. Still trying to eliminate everything I can think of. I was surprised when the installer used my existing dish. I was expecting to get a new one. I am not really sure what dish I have. I can say that it is approximately 5 years old, tripple LNB I questioned him about this and he said that since I got the SWIM 16 it would be fine.


Since the issues are with MRV and you have a SWiM-16, unless you're also having 771 errors and searching for signal, the dish isn't anything involved with your problems.


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

No signal problems or error messages. Just trying to rule out everything . 
Thanks for the help.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

carguy238 said:


> No signal problems or error messages. Just trying to rule out everything .
> Thanks for the help.


Basically everything "from" the SWiM-16 to your receivers is where to look.
The DECA passes through the SWiM-16, but doesn't have any interaction within it.


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## armchair (Jul 27, 2009)

carguy238 said:


> I'm probably reaching here but the HR20 that is most prone to come up missing is in a cabinet and even though I have ventilated the back I think it's running pretty hot. I wonder if this could be the problem. If that was the only problem receiver I could understand it but I wonder if that would cause the other receivers to drop off.


I had a HR22-100 in a ventilated cabinet with no issues until the DECA was placed in there with it. Since the exhaust fan was positioned to facilitate removal of heat from left side of the DVR, the DECA module was higher and further away getting hot.

It seems the pig-tail could be made longer to place the DECA module outside of the cabinet rather than in the cabinet.


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

Thanks for the reply. This HR20 replaced an older Tivo unit that we never had any problems with. Even if it doesn't fix the problem i am uncomfortable with the heat. I am going try and move it.


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## carguy238 (Jun 19, 2010)

Thanks again for all the help. I tightened up all the connections, some needed it, and so far everything has been good for the last few days.


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