# Problem with what appears to be polarity on 921 started yesterday



## Skyburn (Nov 30, 2004)

All - an interesting problem has come up for me with my 921. Yesterday, I went to watch something, and nothing with the receiver/remote worked -- I couldn't get anything on the screen. So, I unplugged the receiver and booted back up. At this point, things were working (menus, guide etc.) but I was missing many stations. Most of the stations would display something like "Channel 8201 Lost Lock, Press up/down or wait or cancel" then it would list the sat (always 110 I think) and the transponder (varies).

I'm missing many channels -- the ones I want the most are the Denver locals, and those are missing.

At any rate, I went to do a "check switch" and before I ran the check, I noticed that the switch matrix correctly saw my dp-quad, but I didn't pay any attention to details or signal strengths at the time. So I ran the check, and it came back and put two red "X'd" boxes under each sat input and stated "No switch". So I unplugged, waited, rebooted. Same thing.

I called Dish and they gave me some song and dance about scraping snow off the dish -- and I hadn't actually looked to see if any snow was on it, so I hung up with them and went up on the roof, made sure no snow was on the dish/lnb, checked all the cable connections etc., and also ran a check switch on my DP510 just to make sure it was isolated to the 921, and indeed the 510 switch check worked just fine.

So, I took it upon myself to take a DP301 receiver that I have laying around, and independently connected the two satellite inputs that are currently running to my 921 into the 301, did a check switch with both cables, and both of them work fine with the 301 -- I have no problems viewing all channels on any of my 3 outputs from the LNB, on either the 510 or 301 receivers.

Also, it's interesting (I think) to note that when I hit "Details" after a "check switch" on the 921 it states the following:

Sat Input 1 - Sat 110 - Port 1: ODD : Sat Unknown - Port 1: X
Sat Input 2 - Sat 119 - Port 1: ODD : Sat Unknown - Port 1: X

The guy at tech support, after I told him this, said something like "you're missing 1/2 the signal from both sats".

Anyway, it's still messed up, so I call tech support back. Talk to a woman in "advanced technical support" and she has me to a number of things -- none of which helped the situation, but she put me on hold after a while and came back to say that she was forwarding my phone number on to her supervisor because he wanted to have an engineer call me back to discuss the problem. She made it sound like it's an issue with the 921 that isn't specific to me -- like they are working on a number of cases of this same problem happening.

I'm not looking for support necessarily in this forum, but I thought I'd write it up for the good of the group in case anyone else is having issues.

My 921 is about a month old:
SW Version: L211HEED-N
Boot Version: 150B
Flash Version: F053

- Joe


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

I am having a very similiar issue with my 921 as well. Avd tech sup said it was becasue I was using a Quad with my DPP44 BUT my 508 is seeing everything just fine. 

The work around is to bring a channel 115 always seems to work then swap it out to PIP. Then go tothe channel you really want to watch. It usually works every time unless the channel you want to watch is on the same transponder as the channel you brought up in the PIP


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

Other are having the issue as well:

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=36430

Also what kind of switch are you useing if any?


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## WildBill (Dec 8, 2004)

Paradox-sj said:


> The work around is to bring a channel 115 always seems to work then swap it out to PIP. Then go tothe channel you really want to watch. It usually works every time unless the channel you want to watch is on the same transponder as the channel you brought up in the PIP


I have a similar problem. The lost transponders usually come back within 3-12 hrs., but that is little consolation when you lose a program that you are in the midst of watching. I'd like to try your work around, but I'm not sure I understand it. Say I'm not getting HDNET on transponder 7. Is the work around to go to channel 115, swap 115 to PIP, then go to back to HDNET?


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

So if you are not getting HDNET you would go to say 115. (the style channel always seems to come in for me)

If 115 comes in then hit the PIP button so the PIP window appears. (usually with no channel transponder lock as well)

Then hit the swap button. So you now have the Style channel in the PIP window and a unlocked channel as the main window.

At this point you can usually slect any SD channel to go to. 

Once you have a SD channel in the main window and a PIP channel now you can switich to an HD channel.

The reason for the extra step is becasue you can not have a PIP window running on a HD channel.

I hope that explained it better.


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## wyseguy (Dec 8, 2004)

I just had a similar problem with my 921. I turned the system on, and it was on HNN (202), but the picture was frozen. I could access menus, but couldn't get the picture to move. I tried skip buttons, FF/REW, but nothing worked. Did the hard reset (hold power button down for 7 seconds) and rebooted the unit. When it came back up, it couldn't get a lock on any channel. I did a check switch, and only one tuner found my SW64 and D500 & D300 LNBFs. The 1st tuner said "no switch." I ran the check switch again, and it completed the tests almost instantly, and found everything. That was two days ago. Since then, it has been doing the 0 second recording, and jittervision stuff. Irritating....


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## WildBill (Dec 8, 2004)

Paradox-sj said:


> I hope that explained it better.


That helps. Thanks. I'll give it a try the next time I lose the signal.


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## Skyburn (Nov 30, 2004)

Paradox-sj said:


> Other are having the issue as well:
> 
> http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=36430
> 
> Also what kind of switch are you useing if any?


Sorry for not posting about switching -- I actually have 3 feeds coming of my DPQuad, 1 goes directly to the DP510, the other 2 go directly to the 921 -- no switches external to the LNB.

To the others who posted about having similar problems -- do you have any problems in the check switch screen? I feel like there is something obviously wrong if the check switch fails, and that's what it seems Dish thinks as well.

By the way, they told me they would have an engineer call me within 48 hours of yesterday at about 4:30PM MST; I'm not holding out much hope considering the timing of this around Christmas, but I'll post back here with what they come up with.


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## Skyburn (Nov 30, 2004)

Hmmm...playing with PIP seems to reveal more problems, or some exacerbation of the problem I originally described.

It appears that if I am watching one of the channels that will lock, then hit PIP and SWAP to make the thing I was watching be placed into the small PIP window, then GUIDE to select another channel for the larger window, even if I select another lockable channel, it won't tune to it -- I just get a black screen. It's almost like the 921 will only tune to one channel at once. This is very disconcerting....


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

Okay...Dish came out and it seem my problem is now fixed. They replaced my DP Quad with a DP Twin, did a switich check and everything is working as it should now.

The issue for what ever reason seems to be with the Quad. Go figure.


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## Skyburn (Nov 30, 2004)

Well, that would be annoying if that's the fix considering I purchased my DPQuad just for the arrival of my 921, and if I have to use a Twin, then some sort of switch external to the LNBF has to come into the mix. Still waiting for Dish to call me back...


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## RobbyG (Dec 28, 2004)

I'm having the same interment "Lost Lock" on my 921, as well as a short guide. I just installed my 921 with a DP Plus LNB on the 24th. I'm not using a quad or any Ext switches. Just the DP+ with single to a DP+ separator to the 921. I'm not sure if the two problems are related or not. Did a 10 Sec button reboot then a power off last nite, but this AM the guide only goes to tomorrow afternoon, and I had to go to "dish pointing" and tinker with the sat settings before I found one that would lock, then the signal at least worked, but the guide was still short. Since I'm new, any help/guidance is appreciated.


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

RobbyG said:


> I'm having the same interment "Lost Lock" on my 921, as well as a short guide. I just installed my 921 with a DP Plus LNB on the 24th. I'm not using a quad or any Ext switches. Just the DP+ with single to a DP+ separator to the 921. I'm not sure if the two problems are related or not. Did a 10 Sec button reboot then a power off last nite, but this AM the guide only goes to tomorrow afternoon, and I had to go to "dish pointing" and tinker with the sat settings before I found one that would lock, then the signal at least worked, but the guide was still short. Since I'm new, any help/guidance is appreciated.


So you are saying that you have a DP Single connected to the input on a DP+ Twin with one lined off your DP+ Twin going to you 921?

Is the other line off the DP+ Twin going to another STB and is it having the same issues as well?


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

Skyburn said:


> Hmmm...playing with PIP seems to reveal more problems, or some exacerbation of the problem I originally described.
> 
> It appears that if I am watching one of the channels that will lock, then hit PIP and SWAP to make the thing I was watching be placed into the small PIP window, then GUIDE to select another channel for the larger window, even if I select another lockable channel, it won't tune to it -- I just get a black screen. It's almost like the 921 will only tune to one channel at once. This is very disconcerting....


At first we thought it may have been the seperator but we took it out and ran my second line from my 508 to the second input on the 921. So basicly what you have 2 lines from a DPP 44 to the two inputs on the 921 and the issue still existed.

Adv tech supp may have gotten it right this time when they said the DP Quad to a DPP44 to the 921 isnt supported.

Curious did you get your 921 at the discounted price (549.00 or less) if so Dish will pick up the tab for the install switches/lnbs whatever. I didnt know this either so I have an extra DPP44 and seperator still in the box.


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## Skyburn (Nov 30, 2004)

Well, got off the phone with Dish today and spoke to somebody in Virginia -- he didn't tell me what dept. he was with, but the guy knew his stuff, had no problems understanding exactly what the problem was, had me do a couple of things first-line support can't even spell, and he determined the only thing left to do is to replace the 921, so that's what they are going to do -- send me a replacement unit, and I'll ship back the 921 I have.

I guess this is acceptable -- although, I'm going to have to cram in 4 hours of Earthsea that I recorded last week on it...

Considering a DP301 does a check switch just fine and finds all that it expects to find, and does so independently with either of the inputs currently going to my 921, he said something must be wrong with the unit itself.

Time will tell; should be here in a couple of days.


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## Skyburn (Nov 30, 2004)

Paradox-sj said:


> At first we thought it may have been the seperator but we took it out and ran my second line from my 508 to the second input on the 921. So basicly what you have 2 lines from a DPP 44 to the two inputs on the 921 and the issue still existed.
> 
> Adv tech supp may have gotten it right this time when they said the DP Quad to a DPP44 to the 921 isnt supported.
> 
> Curious did you get your 921 at the discounted price (549.00 or less) if so Dish will pick up the tab for the install switches/lnbs whatever. I didnt know this either so I have an extra DPP44 and seperator still in the box.


I did get mine off eBay for around $500 -- and the only thing I bought was my DP Quad LNBF -- and that was only $30 new in the box; I didn't know about any Dish installation of said receiver, but frankly, I'm glad they didn't come out; mine is a pretty vanilla install with no switches external to the LNBF anyway, so it isn't really a big deal.


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## RobbyG (Dec 28, 2004)

Sorry Paradox-sj, by "single" I meant a single (one of the two coax's) from the twin to the DPP Seperator then to the 2 921 tuners. The second coax is unused for now.


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

RobbyG said:


> Sorry Paradox-sj, by "single" I meant a single (one of the two coax's) from the twin to the DPP Seperator then to the 2 921 tuners. The second coax is unused for now.


So if I understand you have a DP+ Twin lnb. You have one line of the DP+Twin connected to your 921 with a DP+ Seperator. Correct?


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## Paradox-sj (Dec 15, 2004)

Skyburn said:


> Well, got off the phone with Dish today and spoke to somebody in Virginia -- he didn't tell me what dept. he was with, but the guy knew his stuff, had no problems understanding exactly what the problem was, had me do a couple of things first-line support can't even spell, and he determined the only thing left to do is to replace the 921, so that's what they are going to do -- send me a replacement unit, and I'll ship back the 921 I have.
> 
> I guess this is acceptable -- although, I'm going to have to cram in 4 hours of Earthsea that I recorded last week on it...
> 
> ...


My 508 was able to do a check switch and see everything just fine as well so I hope the new recievers solves the issue...so keep us posted.


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## jrick (Dec 29, 2004)

I have been plagued by the same problem to a tee except I was missing all channels on 119. Same x's on the switch check screen. same everything. The tech people said that the unit was going through (or trying) a legacy switch check for older equipment (1 out of 34 I think) instead of a dishpro switch check. (1 0f 3?) Whenever I did a switch check the x's would come up and when I would leave the point dish screen I would get an error message asking if I really wanted to exit point dish because I hadn't performed a switch check; even though I had performed one. 

Not only did 1 receiver act in this fashion, the replacement did the exact same thing. Our regional Service provider sent out their best troubleshooter who went through the system and claims it's the receiver because the receiver is only backloading 13 volts. I had the same problem on the first receiver which had 188 software and 2nd which had 211 software. (I hope I have the right numbers) The only difference was that an advance tech person was able to have me change satellites and settings in the point dish screen to the extent that the unit came back to life on the first unit. The only problem was it didn't turn on the next morning and the only picture the unit produced after that was the Dish medallion after each reset (Front panel, smart card, unplug over and over.) 

The second unit never produced the 119 Sat channels and Dish SAID they were sending a third receiver after the Dish technician called them. Found out today they never sent it and tech is scheduled to come tomorrow for install. AAARGH!!! OH WELL. I've had a working 921 for about 3 weeks since Oct. 23rd install.


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## jrick (Dec 29, 2004)

Skyburn:
My 921 has exactly the same symptoms. I wrote earlier today about my similar trials. I noticed on this thread that everyone seems to have a DP44 switch. I did a switch check on the TV's that work and they say I have a DP34 switch. Do you have a DP34 switch too? If so could this be the problem? Is it possible to run a 301, 522 and 921 on a DP34? Is the 921 compatible with the DP34 switch? Did I finally figure out why the second 921 still acts the same? Please? Anyone?


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Yes 301/522/921 IS possible - using trickery. The 301 has to be attached via a DP21 on the cascade outputs of the DP34, and will NOT see the third bird (if any).

Yes, 921 works with DP34.


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## jrick (Dec 29, 2004)

I stated that I had a 521 and 301. I really have a 501 and 311 hooked up to my super dish system. (Along with 921) Dish sent a new receiver to AEI (installer) and they came today. Hooked it up and voila! Unit sees all sats and does a good check switch. Then he downloads the software and the screen said download successful and then nothing. Can't bring it back to life any which way. All types of resets etc. So i'm still sitting with my old 921 with a couple channels (At least I have an OTA tuner) and the DOA unit is going back for another. This will be the fourth. I think one other guy is on his 4th. Maybe the fourth is the charm!!!! (I wonder how skyburn fared.) At least I know it's not the signal path because of the good switch check. It HAS to be the receivers. 501 and 311 operate superbly.

JR


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## Skyburn (Nov 30, 2004)

I have no switches connected to my configuration whatsoever outside of the LNBF (in response to a question above).

At any rate -- I received my replacement 921, and all is well again -- so it really must have been something that went wrong with the 921. I'd suggest if others are having this same type of problem to thoroughly explain it to tech support, and if you have the ability to do so, hook up another reciever (3xx or 5xx etc.) independently to both of the 921 inputs, do a check switch and if those check switches all work, it's a good indication the 921 is faulty.

Good luck all.
- Joe


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