# Warning 981



## MadScientist

Started my receiver (722K) this morning and have the warning 981 on the screen. It does not progress in the downloading of anything. Did I lose my hard drive? Has anyone else seen this message before? And what was the out come


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## epokopac

MadScientist said:


> Started my receiver (722K) this morning and have the warning 981 on the screen. It does not progress in the downloading of anything. Did I lose my hard drive? Has anyone else seen this message before? And what was the out come


Symptom
Warning 981

Cause
This message is seen when the software download is interrupted, disturbed, or corrupted prior to completion and the receiver enters Boot Recovery. This is caused if the satellite signal is blocked during the download process or by unplugging the receiver at a critical time.

Prevention
Do not unplug the receiver during software downloads and verify locked signal strength before downloading software.

Troubleshooting
This process generally can take 1-2 hours, but can last up to 4 hours. The receiver should not be disturbed in the process. If you are experiencing bad weather, wait for the weather to clear and allow the full time for the boot recovery.

This worked for a 612 customer:

Thanks all. I finally figured this out. I have claimed all along that the boot recovery firmware is stupid, and it is. I flipped my separator over so that it's now face down, and that fixed the problem. Downloaded new firmware in about 20 mins and came back fine. Obviously the boot recovery firmware can only look at one tuner, and it can only tune in one band (most likely the lowest). It can handle an EA dish. Don't know how I was supposed to figure this out since the 612 doesn't label the sat tuners.

I'd give Dish a call asap. If after 4 hours, it's still "hung", unplug it, let it sit for 15 minutes, plug it back in and see what happens. Worst case scenario is a corrupt internal hard drive. Best of luck!


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## P Smith

The corruption happened inside flash chip (NVM) not with the drive.


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## MadScientist

Dish said they have to send me a new 722K so I guess its the unit that went bad?


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## P Smith

MadScientist said:


> Dish said they have to send me a new 722K so I guess its the unit that went bad?


That's mean recovery in bootstrap failed, could be bad tuner(s).
I would try restart the DVR with only one coax cable (no diplexor) connected to Sat#1; if it will not help - reconnect it to Sat#2 and reboot again.
One pre-request - the cable should have good signal from 119W tp 19 !

You have plenty of time to try the method.


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## MadScientist

Well, I went out today and left it pluged in and its working again just fine now. Should I still replace it? I have the replacment coming on Friday. Dish is giving me four PPV and a $20 credit on my bill for my problems. Or should I just refuse it when UPS comes?


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## P Smith

If you has many hours of recordings, then you should keep old one.

I'm pretty sure the problem was with a signal, what did lead to receive corrupted FW.
If boot recovery got correct image of current FW recently and wrote it into flash with no errors (without that your DVR will not come back), then no reason to worry.


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