# My 721 died today:(



## Bob Haller (Mar 24, 2002)

The E gods werent shining on me this morning. I paused 60 minutes and it wouldnt restart. No biggie, power button reboot turned into a hour long struggle culminated by your hard drive has failed...

Brandy a VERY NICE rep is RMAing the box and had to put up with hearing of my E complaints. 

My wifes last comment as she went out the door... DONT LOOSE ANY OF MY RECORDINGS... Gone 70 hours of stuff she wanted to see....

No doubt this was all caused by the latest software download.


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## beejaycee (Nov 1, 2003)

Sorry to hear about your latest problems, Bob. Realistically, why haven't you given up on Dish? I switched* to DirecTV and I had nothing like the amount of problems that you've had. Heck, if I'd been plagued with your problematic receivers, I would have probably gone back to cable.


*I switched due to frustration over the anticipated 522 release.


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## Bob Haller (Mar 24, 2002)

Ahh D line iof site blocked by a huge tree in my yard, compounded by a neighbors pine, that she keeps saying is getting removed.

My rental home is tentaviely sold, home inspection tomorrow. Closing scheduled for the end of the month.

With house gone I will have the bucks for tree removal. 

Right now were brioke I poured everything we had $ into fixing up home for sale., its very nice.


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## finniganps (Jan 23, 2004)

Sorry to hear about the 721 demise. With the bucks from your rental, I'm sure you can remove the tree and get a nice DVD recorder to backup those programs for your wife along with a nice setup on Direct TV. I look forward to your posts on how satisfied you are with TiVo and D*. You can probably sell your E* equipment on this site so that you can be completely done with everything E*. :lol:


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## garypen (Feb 1, 2004)

Bob Haller said:


> The E gods werent shining on me this morning.


Have they ever shined on you?


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## larrystotler (Jun 6, 2004)

Hey Bob, do you think it could have had something to do with the update. Kinda odd that it would decide to die right afterward. And, what if it was out of warrenty? It seems that a few of us have had issues with the update hanging, and if that was the cause, wouldn't they have to replace it at their expense? Of course, good luck getting that through over at E*.....................


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## Bob Haller (Mar 24, 2002)

My box is covered under warranty. They promised delivery thursday, after box died trying to swallow their software upgrade monday. Well it never arrived and the latest is next tuesday.

they really need to have enough in stock to ship out replacements immediately, this delay is way too long..


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Bob Haller said:


> No doubt this was all caused by the latest software download.


Ok... How many 721 users have seen what Bob described. Lets Chime in.  So far I have not had this issue. Anyone else? How many is this Bob.. Last I count 5 721s?

Lets not tag this to the software upgrade until atleast there is more than one report from the field.

From what you describe it, this does not sound like software but a hardware issue more likely. Yes software could have caused some corruption when it got to the end of the pause buffer. Anyone else pause and let the buffer fill up? That might have been the trigger.

I am rather confused though, You indicated that it happend when you tried to pause and then you indicated that it died after trying to swallow the download. Which one is it Bob?

I really think for your case you need to move to D*. You just seem like a lighting rod for E* issues.


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## Bob Haller (Mar 24, 2002)

watch tv
paused show said bye to wife
show wouldnt unpause
tried powering off no response to remote
no response to just pushing front panel power button
did front panel hold power button reboot
reboot ok started downloading new software
hung on downloading
I waited 1/2 had phone call
tried front panel reset, no effect.
tried smart card pull no effect
pulled plug
when it finally came back up your hard drive has failed message
went thru all this again with nice advanced tech who declared box dead

At the time of nearly every upgrade a few report a similiar occurence, I guess this was my time


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## garypen (Feb 1, 2004)

To be fair, WJD, I believe I read a couple of posts, maybe on another forum, where 721 users' boxes appear to have died. Perhaps they just locked up and needed rebooting. I can't say for sure. But, there were a number of people having trouble during or immediately after the download.

OTOH, Bob's issue do smack of "Boy Who Cried Wolf". Even if they're legitimate, it becomes hard to take them seriously after a while.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

garypen said:


> To be fair, WJD, I believe I read a couple of posts, maybe on another forum, where 721 users' boxes appear to have died. Perhaps they just locked up and needed rebooting. I can't say for sure. But, there were a number of people having trouble during or immediately after the download.
> 
> OTOH, Bob's issue do smack of "Boy Who Cried Wolf". Even if they're legitimate, it becomes hard to take them seriously after a while.


Yes I have seen those posts Gary and if i recall all the boxes came back to life with a hard or soft reboot. No hard drive failure or loss of data.

That was why I asked for people to chime in. If this is the case on the upgrade then this is a serious issue.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Bob Haller said:


> watch tv
> paused show said bye to wife
> show wouldnt unpause
> tried powering off no response to remote
> ...


Hmmm.. Could have been that that pause at the end of the buffer caused some corruption. I would think that would be the case more than the update. Hard to tell and given your past history with the 721, I am not sure what to make of it.

Anyone pause their box for an hour to say goodbye to the wife and have the box freeze? Anyone pause for any hour to fill the buffer up and have it successfully work? I am almost scared to try it.


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## Charise (Jan 25, 2004)

WeeJavaDude said:


> Anyone pause their box for an hour to say goodbye to the wife and have the box freeze? Anyone pause for any hour to fill the buffer up and have it successfully work? I am almost scared to try it.


I paused my 508 for over and hour--long enough that when I went to watch it, I had lost part of the middle of the program. Only had my 721 for about a month, but I've paused it for at least 45 minutes--screensaver came up, causing me to have to hit the pause/resume button twice (once to end the screensaver, and again to re-start the program.

No problems either time. But I have never lost recordings on either box either. :shrug:


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## Bill R (Dec 20, 2002)

garypen said:


> OTOH, Bob's issue do smack of "Boy Who Cried Wolf". Even if they're legitimate, it becomes hard to take them seriously after a while.


Amen to that statement.


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## JBKing (Mar 23, 2002)

I think I see the problem.

You forgot the step I added in red........



Bob Haller said:


> watch tv
> paused show said bye to wife
> show wouldnt unpause
> tried powering off no response to remote
> ...


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## finniganps (Jan 23, 2004)

JBKing said:


> I think I see the problem.
> 
> You forgot the step I added in red........


LMAO :lol: :lol: Now come on, Bob H. really has toned down the thrashing of E* since he was beaten down last month by a decent size group of us...

I REALLY do hope that Bob gets his $$ soon to cut down that tree blocking the line of sight so that he can switch to D*...I want to hear how much better their products and services are than E*. I for one would seriously consider switching if they can satisfy Bob H. 

Let us know as soon as you switch Bob H!


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

I agree with finniganps, if it passes Bob's tests then it would be a very good product. I have had my fair share of problems with their receivers as well but I got the $1.99 warranty as well and make them pay the advanced exchange or threaten to cancel service because I told them that all those $15 fees add up and tha I wasnt going to pay for them.


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## larrystotler (Jun 6, 2004)

Geez, is this Bob Haller bashing 101? Ok, so he's had problems with his 721. A lot of us have as well. I had to switch mine out to an SW64 from a DP Quad to get it to quit having an aquiring signal problem during recordings. And I personally like DP stuff better than legacy, but it seems to be different in this one case. I was also one of the ones that had a problem with the new s/w d/l. My 721 hung for almost 1 1/2 hours before I called dish and got advanced tch on the phone. And the CSR told me that all that was in the update was the olympics showcase, which ended up not being the case. I personally would have been pretty pissed if my box had died since i had recorded about 50 hours during the HBO/Max weekend. And I still had to reboot it several times since the update until it stabilized because it wouldn't respond. I just get a kick out of how much people complain about their DVR not working properly when people with windows have had to deal with that stuff for the last 10 years..................


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## finniganps (Jan 23, 2004)

larrystotler said:


> I just get a kick out of how much people complain about their DVR not working properly when people with windows have had to deal with that stuff for the last 10 years..................


People know that Windows was bug riddled and most of us really appreciate that XP is so stable. People don't expect this with their PVR....it's a pain.

People expect their PVR to function as well as their VCR or DVD player...they don't really care that it has a HD in it - they want it to work EVERY day just like their VCR and DVD do.


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## garypen (Feb 1, 2004)

finniganps said:


> People expect their PVR to function as well as their VCR or DVD player...they don't really care that it has a HD in it - they want it to work EVERY day just like their VCR and DVD do.


And, they'd be right.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

garypen said:


> And, they'd be right.


That's for sure!


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## Bob Haller (Mar 24, 2002)

Good news, my replacement 721 arrived today, just after E cSR told me it wouldnt arrive till next week..Its working fine so far.

On a bad note my house sale fell thru the elderly buyer backed out

On terrible news a relatives girl friend, well wife they were together for over 15 years, she was 30, found dead in the bedroom, autopesy shows it was from kidney troubles, she had a transplant some years ago. still unexpected and tragic at such a young age.

I am bummed today.... Dawn was a nice person


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