# 942 Weird problems last 2 days



## caminatr (Jan 3, 2006)

Hi all.

My 942 has worked almost flawlessly, but since 1/9/06, it's been acting weird.
It has started chopping up recordings. An example would be a 1 hour program which up until now recorded as a 1 hour program, since Monday is now recorded as a 17, 32, and 11 minute programs. The timings of the segments vary.

I can't say for certain that they all do, but so far the breaks have coincided with commercial breaks. Possibly related, but not at all sure, the high def feed for the channel I watch (KTTV FOX 11 in Los Angeles) has taken a huge dump though all other local high channels are fine.

Unfortunately, my 942 is the only high def tuner I have, so I can't test to see if it is the high def feed itself or the tuner having the issue. However, since the timing of these two problems occured together, I suspect solving the one will solve the other too.

Thanks in advance for any help.


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## Cold Irons (Dec 7, 2005)

In my experience, the only time I've had these "chopped-up" recordings is when I'm losing signal during the recording. Either losing the Sat signal when recording with a Sat tuner, or losing the antenna signal when recording OTA stuff.


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

caminatr said:


> Hi all.
> 
> My 942 has worked almost flawlessly, but since 1/9/06, it's been acting weird.
> It has started chopping up recordings. An example would be a 1 hour program which up until now recorded as a 1 hour program, since Monday is now recorded as a 17, 32, and 11 minute programs. The timings of the segments vary.
> ...


Where you watching TV at all when this happened? When I have seen chopped up recordings it's ususally been because of the receiver rebooting during a recording, which it shouldn't do unless there is a problem. Is the receiver well ventilated? It may be overheating. Or, if the receiver is losing reception of the station you are broadcasting it could be causing the problems. Recording + loss of signal = very strange things (at least I've found this to be true). Sometimes the receiver will recover, sometimes it will lock up, sometimes it will reboot. It's normally not pretty.


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## caminatr (Jan 3, 2006)

Cold Irons said:


> In my experience, the only time I've had these "chopped-up" recordings is when I'm losing signal during the recording. Either losing the Sat signal when recording with a Sat tuner, or losing the antenna signal when recording OTA stuff.


Excellent point, I'll have to look at that possibility.


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## caminatr (Jan 3, 2006)

robglasser said:


> Where you watching TV at all when this happened? When I have seen chopped up recordings it's ususally been because of the receiver rebooting during a recording, which it shouldn't do unless there is a problem. Is the receiver well ventilated? It may be overheating. Or, if the receiver is losing reception of the station you are broadcasting it could be causing the problems. Recording + loss of signal = very strange things (at least I've found this to be true). Sometimes the receiver will recover, sometimes it will lock up, sometimes it will reboot. It's normally not pretty.


I can't say that I was watching anything, though I did pause a live show and watch it later. It had no breakup problems. Hmmm...


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

Go into the scheduling menu and page up into the History. What does it say in the info for those split recordings?


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## caminatr (Jan 3, 2006)

LtMunst said:


> Go into the scheduling menu and page up into the History. What does it say in the info for those split recordings?


Stopped due to an STB reboot. Thanks for the awesome tip. Not sure what that is yet, but I'm sure it'll be on here somewhere.


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

caminatr said:


> Stopped due to an STB reboot. Thanks for the awesome tip. Not sure what that is yet, but I'm sure it'll be on here somewhere.


It could be a power problem. The 942 is very sensitive to voltage irregularities. You might want to try an UPS with AVR. It worked for me.


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## caminatr (Jan 3, 2006)

Thanks. It has a power conditioner installed, but as it is now 6 years old, it might not be doing the job adequately anymore. 

Gotta love it. Dish TS hasn't even heard of a STB reboot.


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

caminatr said:


> Thanks. It has a power conditioner installed, but as it is now 6 years old, it might not be doing the job adequately anymore.
> 
> Gotta love it. Dish TS hasn't even heard of a STB reboot.


I'm sure that STB Reboot means Set Top Box Reboot and I'm guessing that it is a generic error message for any recording interupted by a reboot for any reason. In order to figure out why the receiver (STB) rebooted Dish would have to analyze the logs from the receiver.


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## Puumba (Jan 16, 2006)

caminatr said:


> Hi all.
> 
> My 942 has worked almost flawlessly, but since 1/9/06, it's been acting weird.
> It has started chopping up recordings. An example would be a 1 hour program which up until now recorded as a 1 hour program, since Monday is now recorded as a 17, 32, and 11 minute programs. The timings of the segments vary.
> ...


I've been having problems starting with Saturday's football game on FOX (OTA HD). I assumed it was the weather (I'm in SoCal, too), and maybe it was. The reported signal strength was in the 63-68 range for FOX. Previously was always in the 80's and 90's. The video would break up and audio would drop out. The game was almost unwatchable through the 942. But through my TV's OTA tuner, there were no problems and my TV reports a strong signal. All my other channels were fine and the OTA signal strengths were much better than FOX..


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## caminatr (Jan 3, 2006)

Puumba said:


> I've been having problems starting with Saturday's football game on FOX (OTA HD). I assumed it was the weather (I'm in SoCal, too), and maybe it was. The reported signal strength was in the 63-68 range for FOX. Previously was always in the 80's and 90's. The video would break up and audio would drop out. The game was almost unwatchable through the 942. But through my TV's OTA tuner, there were no problems and my TV reports a strong signal. All my other channels were fine and the OTA signal strengths were much better than FOX..


Definitely sounds like we have similar issues going on. Unfortunately, everything is back to working fine at the moment, and I have no good explanation for it. I'm still going to re-cable when the new amp and cable arrives. My goal is to get everything from the 60's up to the 70's since the only thing I've got that's even close to explaining things is the increased signal strength (From low 60's to the low 70's)


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