# My 921 just ate all my recording



## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

On Friday night I recoreded Numbers and Law and order: Trial by Jury. This is a weekly timer (with 0,0 min padding) that has been going just fine for weeks.

Last night when we go to watch Numbers it showed as Yes Dear! So I selected Yes Dear and it showed three event:

Yes Dear! -3 SEC
Numbers 60 min
11 O'clock news 0 sec

We were able to watch Numbers just fine and at the end I deleted it. I didnt think that much of it as it has done this twice before without any issue.

Then we watch Law and Order: Trial by jury...no problem and delete it.

Then we go to watch Law and Order: SVU (recorded on Tues) and we get nothing but a blank screen. I switch to the guide and select a channel and still nothing but a blank screen. Its done this before after after it freezes and a hard reset usually fixes it.

So I go do a hard reset, wait 3 min plug it back in go to the DVR recorded events screen and LOW AND BEHOLOD all the recorded events AND Timers are gone but instead of showing 180hr SD and 24HD left (or what ever it show as it NEVER showed 25) it says 152 SD and 21HD recording time left.

I go and do another hard reset wait 3 min but this time it boots up to a gray sceen with an X in the middle and nothing.

I do another hard reset and now its back to showing the 152SD and 21HD time left.


So, what do I do now?


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

Paradox-sj said:


> So, what do I do now?


http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=39612
Go to this post which is basically about the exact same problem and read through it. Never try to view a ZSR = zero second recording. If you do, you see the blank or black screen and you have to force a reset which causes the data on the hard drive to act in such a manner so you lose all your DVR events. No one yet can tell us how to make them reappear. This is a serious bug/defect that was supposed to be a fix in L213.


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## invaliduser88 (Apr 23, 2002)

Otherwised called the "ZSR of Death"!


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Paradox-SJ:

You won't be able to get any timers to fire successfully until you have accumulated as many ZSRs in your DVR list as you had recordings there previously. Once you hit that number of ZSRs, your 921 will resume timer recording normally again. I'd set up a lot of consecutive timers to get that process going, and then send me an email with your contact information, receiver information, and what happened here. I'll send it along to the 921 support team, who will give you some kind of credit for the problem.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

AAARRGH! I just joined this club. 

Saturday night (4/2 the night we lose an hour to DST) I had ~2 hrs. SD and ~40 min. HD left. 95% of the recordings were protected. I just unprotected several recordings to be sure there would be room for the overnight timers I had previouisly set. Went to bed. Woke up to a cold house - the power went out at 1:38 AM standard time thanks to a snow storm. No problem, I thought, the last event ended at 1:30 AM. Power comes back on around sunrise. Go to check the recordings. The first recording played back fine. The second one OTOH had a blank screen. Note: I had no reason to suspect this was a blank "ZSR" recording - there was a time stamp of 31 minutes for this recording. This recording was from an OTA source, an SD subchannel, I had recorded successfully for many weeks prior to this. I could not stop the "playback" of this blank recording. I tried to delete it and that is when I joined the hosed HD club.

I called Tech. Suport who had me do several things including a factory settings reset. Prior to doing the factory setings reset I could not record (trick play did still work however). They had me setup several timers. The timers fired in the tuners, but the red LED never came on ("REC" did show up in the browse banner). I got several "Unknown recorded events", all ZSR, when I clicked on one of them I got one of those 3-choice menus of recorded events with negitive times (-436900 :eek2: ) the titles shown were some of the lost recordings.

When I called Tech Support, I asked if there was a "rescue disk" proceedure that they could try. Unfortunately not. 100 hours of lost recordings. I guess it was bound to happen, I was having better than average luck with my 921 up till this SNAFU. My only problem was with the EPG messing up when tuning to an OTA with weak or no signal. I had just been contacted by Advanced Tech Support about that problem earlier this week.

FYI: This is with s/w ver. 2.13. I never had a ZSR with 2.11 or 2.12
DNASP103
150B
F053
L213 HEED


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

Will Tech support authurize an exchange for this as it has rendered my 921 USELESS as a DVR?

I didnt even bother to call them yet as I am trying to calm down over this first...if I call them now I will just cancel my service.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Read my reply to you Paradox - it explains how to make your 921 operational again.


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Read my reply to you Paradox - it explains how to make your 921 operational again.


So what do I do with all the accumulated ZSR's once I have an equal amount to how many programs I lost?

</Rant>
How can E* find this acceptable? I purchased a DVR and pay them an extra 5.00 a month for it and it flat out doesnt work.

Say they offer to replace my DVR because this 'work around' doesnt work...well the problem isnt in the hardware its in the software and I will just be back in the same boat in a matter of time.

How can they say the 921 is feature complete and stable when it can't even do its basic funtions?
</Close Rant>


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Once your 921 starts recording again normally, you can delete all of the ZSRs. 

And no, it's not acceptable, but the workaround is the best that I could come up with to make the 921 start recording things again. It's purely from me, not Dish.


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Once your 921 starts recording again normally, you can delete all of the ZSRs.
> 
> And no, it's not acceptable, but the workaround is the best that I could come up with to make the 921 start recording things again. It's purely from me, not Dish.


Whats strange is that some of the ZSR's have a program name and program description and other say unknown recording or something of that nature.

Any guess on what the diffeence is and why?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

I have no idea...


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## jrbdmb (Sep 5, 2002)

I wonder if this will come up as a topic of discussion on the next Charlie Chat?


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## richarda (Mar 20, 2005)

I just lost over 100 hrs of recordings also. I have had recordings freeze up almost everyday since I got the new software update 213 around the beginning of April. Tried to delete a blank OTA recording of 23 seconds. It kept giving me an error screen saying I was still watching it. Pushed the power off button a couple times to reboot, but still the same message. Then in a matter of seconds it deleted everything on the HD. Tech support says that I must of pulled the plug or turned off power to the unit. But I didn't. It had power the whole time. Now I wait to be called back by someone higher up. Just great!


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## sledhead 700 (Apr 27, 2004)

This was there with 211 I had all my recordings deleted in back in Jan 

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=38085

Dave


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Once your 921 starts recording again normally, you can delete all of the ZSRs.
> 
> And no, it's not acceptable, but the workaround is the best that I could come up with to make the 921 start recording things again. It's purely from me, not Dish.


Mark,

I tried your work around and it did not work for me as I am still getting ZSR's. Not unless I had more shows then I thought... as of this morning I have betwean 25-30 ZSR's and still more are being generated.

One of the give aways that a recording is going to be a ZSR is that it doesnt show up as being recoreded when it is being recorded but the red dot is still shown for it in the guide.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Keep going with it. Eventually, you will start recording normally again (at least that's been my experience the 3 times it's happened to me).


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## Rodney (Aug 22, 2003)

Mark,

Did you ever try a NVM dump as a work around in lieu of setting additional timers?


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

Rodney said:


> Mark,
> 
> Did you ever try a NVM dump as a work around in lieu of setting additional timers?


Rodney, do you know how to do an NVM on the 921?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Rodney - no.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

After several calls to/from advance tech support my 921 is now recording new timers that I set, but is having problems with the daily & weekly timers that were set prior to the "ZSR of death".

I was watching TV when one of the old timers tried to fire. I got a message stating that the program was blacked out (not true) or the channel was no longer available (also not true). The message also had the name of the program that the timer was set for (an incorrect title for a program that I did not ask for). I tuned into the channel that the timer was set for and was able to watch live. At the time that the desired program began the red llght came on!

I set up a one-time timer for the same program at a different time (IIRC 5:30-6:00 AM). When I woke up this morning the red light was lit (I don't recall having a timer set for 7:30 AM) I could not check it as I had to get to work. When I get home I'll check out what was recorded.

I should probably just delete and recreate all the timers.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

Michael P said:


> After several calls to/from advance tech support my 921 is now recording new timers that I set, but is having problems with the daily & weekly timers that were set prior to the "ZSR of death".
> 
> I should probably just delete and recreate all the timers.


Michael P, After my last ZSR problem, where I lost all data, I made it a point to try and redo all the times. This worked well after following the 921 teams advise, and then deleting and remaking the timers. Here are the steps that the team gave me (perhaps this is what advanced tech. had you perform?)if you wish to pefrom the procedure which does require some time and rebuilding. Once I followed all their procedures, deleted and redid the timers, I did another power cord reboot. The procedure did cause me to loose my EPG guide data but it returned within 24 hours.



> I got a call from a 921 team member. This is what they had me do:
> 1. Menu - 6 System Setup - Factory Defaults - Yes
> After the 921 reset
> 
> ...


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

Yes, that sounds like what they had me do. Thanks for documenting the steps.

After deleting and redoing all my timers, I still had a couple that did not fire. This morning's timer did fire, so there is hope. I just wonder why the others failed. If the 921 had NBR I would have chalked those missed timer up to last-minute schedule changes.


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

So I did everything that was sugested to work around this issue and nothing worked for me. 

I have a DVR list full of ZSR...close to double the actual recording I had before my HD was wiped clean and the ZSRs started and the ZSR's just keep on coming. 

I tried the default reset etc etc and the ZSRs still keep coming.

I called Dishs support and they said they would send me out a new machine to repalce my 12 week old machine (HEED) as it was a known issue and there was no fix for it until L215 due out at the end of the 2nd QTR. Great I said...

So I recieved the NEW box...set it up...take the 213 download and guess what...Its not a NEW box its a used box (HECD) WITH THE SAME PROBLEM!!! How do I know this becaued when I go to the DVR screen it only has 152 SD hour and 21 HD hours available JUST LIKE MINE DOES NOW!

If that isnt bad enough the componet output is dead on the 'new' machine they sent. So now I have to pack up the crap they sent me and send it back.

I am still with out a functioning DRV...have never recieved a call from ANYONE as they said I would and now I understand why people bad mouth E*


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## GravelChan (Jan 30, 2005)

My 921 ate everything last night, including all settings. When I turned the TV on this morning I was greeted with the HDTV logo. Most any key I pressed brought up a screen that said the hard drive was bad. A power cord reset didn't help. Called tech support, they had me reset it a couple more times. 
Finally, after what appeared to be similar to what it did the first time it was turned on, 101 came up but nothing else. A check switch restored the programming but all recordings, including a couple of protected ones were gone.
All settings were returned to factory defaults. Tech support said if it happens again I should call and they will send a different one. Maybe I should have insisted on a new one right then......


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

Paradox-sj, that really sucks. My HECD has little if any problems. It is my HEED that does the ZSR'S, screen stretch, etc. Too bad they sent you a piece of cr*p. Hopefully someone with some horsepower can help you out.

John


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## Parp (Jun 19, 2004)

It does suck that they won't admit that the 921 is such a failure. I went thru the whole replacement Hell a month or so ago. I wound up keeping my original and sending the replacement back, cuz it was worse.

I have given up, and given in. I ordered a 942 from dishdepot.com. I know, it's like rewarding the rotten thieves, but I'm getting a $250 trade-in and hopefully things will be better and I will be able to just enjoy my TV again. (I just hope I don't get screwed on the MPEG4 upgrade whenever that happens...)

So we'll see....


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Paradox-sj said:


> I am still with out a functioning DRV...have never recieved a call from ANYONE as they said I would and now I understand why people bad mouth E*


And, did you ever send me all of your information and let me help you out, or have you been trying to only work through the standard CSR lines?


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## Rodney (Aug 22, 2003)

GravelChan said:


> Finally, after what appeared to be similar to what it did the first time it was turned on, 101 came up but nothing else. A check switch restored the programming but all recordings, including a couple of protected ones were gone.
> All settings were returned to factory defaults.


Don't feel like you are the only one experiencing this problem. I had exactly the same issue, except my recordings were not erased, with my previous 921. Periodically it would return itself to factory defaults requiring a switch check to receive anything other than the 119 satellite. All user menu selections were erased.


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## alfbinet (May 19, 2002)

Should I consider getting a HD PVR from Dish? I have been a subscriber since 1999 and have a Dish 6000 receiver. I have noticed it is getting a bit slow on the upload of programming and quite a bit of it is Information Not available. Looking to upgrade, but after a few years on this forum am wondering if I should just keep my 6000 and hope for the best as far as new receivers. The 6000 is a bit clunky but seems to be somewhat reliable.


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