# 70hrs of recordings GONE!



## mgs24 (Dec 7, 2002)

Came home tonight to watch Survivor that should have recorded on the 721. Guess what all 70hrs or so that I had recorded where gone. I have had very few if any problems with the 721 now this! Anyone else have something like this happen? Should I expect more problems in the future? Did I have too much stuff recorded. I know that I have been down to as little as 6hrs left with no problems. I was ready to shell out big bucks for the 921 should I re-think that decision. Well anyway I will have more time on my hands now. Mike


----------



## Big D (Aug 19, 2002)

We need more information here. Is your box still working, all features seem okay and it is just that your recordings are missing? Or has the HD crashed and you can't record anything now. Did you try to reboot with the power key or pull the smart card. What have you tried?

This type of problem is not common and recording up to the 90 hours capacity is not an issue, many folks do that. I have seen others that lost their recordings and got them back by rebooting or other troubleshooting methods. Not sure if zapping the NVM RAM would help or hurt, maybe someone can answer that.

Good luck and let us know how that turns out.


----------



## Scott Greczkowski (Mar 21, 2002)

Mgs sorry to hear about your problem, its the first time I have heard of such a thing. Wish I had an answer for you, I would call Dish and ask for Advanced Support and ask for an answer.


----------



## mgs24 (Dec 7, 2002)

The box seems to still be working fine. Here is what happened now that I had all night to think about it and realized it is just tv. Before I left the house last night I had about 88 hours of recording so I cleaned it to about 70 or so. I then set a few new timers for the Help I am a Celebrity show(or whatever its called). I get home just before 10 and see that there is no red light on, indicating to me that nothing was recording. I had 2 things scheduled at 8 one at 9 and one at 10. So I turn the unit on and enter the PVR screen. All my timers were there and one show that had a lock on it. Everything else was gone. At 10 a timer did fire off and start recording. I called Advanced tech. They said it was most likely a power surge or some other BS. I have the 721 plugged into a APC power conditioner, so I doubt that it has anything to do with power. Thats about it. Mike


----------



## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

Did you have more than 65 timers? I hear that there is a serious bug related to hitting that number. I don't know if this could have been a cause.


----------



## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

Sometimes this is a sign of a hard drive going bad.


----------



## mgs24 (Dec 7, 2002)

It is strange that if it was some kind of hard drive failure why would it have save the one recorded show that had a lock on it?


----------



## raj2001 (Nov 2, 2002)

Can't you use the APC guarantee (or whatever its called) to cover it if it was the result of a power spike?


----------



## Bill D (May 11, 2002)

I had this happen months ago on two seperate occasions on my old 721 (it got RA'd for a bad tuner). Dish had no answers..


----------



## bfennema (Jul 21, 2002)

I had this happen several months ago as well. Did you have any protected recordings, and did they exist afterwards? Every one of my non protected recordings went away, but all the protected ones stayed... When it happened to me, I was having some strange problems with time remaining showing up as absurd values... 1521 hours remaining, and such... What I think happened, at least for me, is the time remaining got so screwwed up, it went negative, which caused the PVR to purge shows till it got to a positive time remaining (or ran out of shows to delete). Since then, I set all my shows to be protected =]


----------



## the_beaver (Feb 15, 2003)

i had the same experience---twice. however, both times i had a disc failure error message superimposed on the screen and the channel automatically changed to dish's 101 help channel...
the first time (with approximately 50 hours recorded), i pulled the smart card, to no avail and then was instructed to do the power button approach, to no avail---no recording capability (a dead hard drive) the unit was returned for another. 
the second time (with approximately 50 hours recorded), i did an AC power cycle and lost all my preferences and recordings but the recording capabilities were re-established...
i'm getting nervous now because i am soon approaching the 50 hour recorded mark...
dish said this kind of problem was 'a known issue' yet they had no fix for it at that time---*i'm rolling my eyes, here*


----------



## krlauver (Nov 29, 2002)

My receiver lost 50+ hours of recordings on Thursday. When I came home from work the hard drive was clonking every two seconds. This is the second time it has done this. What I did last time and on Thursday was to unplug the unit and plug it back in. It reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled the software.


----------



## Guest (Feb 22, 2003)

ha, it sounds like they used dishplayer parts to build these things


----------



## DarrellP (Apr 24, 2002)

..or 501 parts. On 4 different occassions my 501 lost 30+ hours of recordings. Dish finally replaced it and it's worked fine.


----------



## the_beaver (Feb 15, 2003)

this question is for people who have had their disc fail at least once with lost recordings/timers/preferences:

is your system grounded?


----------



## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

> _Originally posted by krlauver _
> *My receiver lost 50+ hours of recordings on Thursday. When I came home from work the hard drive was clonking every two seconds. This is the second time it has done this. What I did last time and on Thursday was to unplug the unit and plug it back in. It reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled the software. *


Sounds like your hard drive is on the way out. I'd watch everything you have and call dish ASAP (especially if you under warranty).

My biggest gripe with the current Dish PVRs (which keeps me with my DishPlayers) is the inability for the user to replace a hard drive. Hard Drives fail. It's by far the most unreliable component in your PVR. They should be easy to replace (and upgrade).


----------



## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

The recordings messing up is another sign that the hard drive is going bad.


----------



## mgs24 (Dec 7, 2002)

Everything seems to running fine since it happened. The one show I had protected was still there so I am protecting everything now. My systems is grounded, so I don't think that is an issue. Mike


----------



## mwhitted (Jun 26, 2002)

> _Originally posted by mgs24 _
> *... Did I have too much stuff recorded. I know that I have been down to as little as 6hrs left with no problems....*


*IRRELEVANT!* Same for the "number of timers" theory. Under NO circumstances should your PVR just delete all of your recordings.


----------



## krlauver (Nov 29, 2002)

> _Originally posted by the_beaver _
> *this question is for people who have had their disc fail at least once with lost recordings/timers/preferences:
> 
> is your system grounded? *


It is in a grounded outlet and I have the coaxial wires going to a block connector outside my house that is grounded. Or are you asking if the receiver has a ground wire connected directly to it?


----------



## Karl Foster (Mar 23, 2002)

> _Originally posted by the_beaver _
> *this question is for people who have had their disc fail at least once with lost recordings/timers/preferences:
> 
> is your system grounded? *


I thought ALL 721's were sold with professional installation. Wouldn't a professional installer make sure that everything is set up properly?


----------



## dbronstein (Oct 21, 2002)

> _Originally posted by karl_f _
> *I thought ALL 721's were sold with professional installation. Wouldn't a professional installer make sure that everything is set up properly?  *


I didn't get installation with mine, although maybe I just didn't know I was supposed to ask for it.

Dennis


----------



## kyoo (Apr 4, 2002)

the problem mgs24 had is a software bug.. happened on my 721, too.. something to do with the "clean up" and then recording more programs.. dish is aware of the issue, thanks to mgs24 posting here..

keep posting bugs.. but with the greatest detail that you can imagine, so your reports can lead to the bugs being found.


----------



## Adrian_R (Jul 5, 2002)

> _Originally posted by kyoo _
> *the problem mgs24 had is a software bug.. happened on my 721, too.. something to do with the "clean up" and then recording more programs.. dish is aware of the issue, thanks to mgs24 posting here.. *


Care to elaborate on the steps involved in causing the problem, so others can avoid them? Are they known?


----------



## kyoo (Apr 4, 2002)

You wanted to see what I experienced? Well, here it is.. "tonight" refers to Thursday, Feb 13th... The similarities between mgs24 and me are the "clean up".. I SUSPECT that the cleanup process has a bug in it.. I'd suggest rebooting after doing a clean up.. Especially if you had very little recording time left before you started the clean up, like I did.

_Here's the chain of events that I can remember tonight. In order.

7pm, shows started taping. I noticed it said I had about 1 hour 27 minutes of recording time remaining.

I sorted by name and went to CLEAN UP mode and selected a ton of stuff to delete. I didn't look to see how much recording time was left after the clean up, but I'd guess at least 20 hours would have shown (if it did it properly).

I watched some shows delayed while they were recording this evening. I caught up to live on CSI towards the end and watched the remaining 30 minutes live. At 9:58 or 9:59pm (CST), CSI was over, so I hit STOP to stop the recording.

I hit PVR and it showed an "Unknown event" with a description of something like "Unknown recorded event". It was 0 minutes, and it was at recorded at 10pm. (probably 9:59pm). This was supposed to be "Are You Hot?" on 8000, which was set to record.

Since it wasn't recorded, I switched to 8000 and hit RECORD, and selected OK to have it record until the end of that event.

I then went back into PVR and selected Survivor which had recorded earlier in the evening.

About 12 minutes into the show (10:12pm-ish), a pop up box came up saying something to the effect of "The hard drive is full, the recording event(s) have stopped. You must delete shows to make space. Would you like to delete shows now?" I selected CANCEL.

I then hit PVR, and I found all my shows were deleted except my "protected" recordings, and Survivor which I was currently viewing, and Are You Hot? which WAS currently recording until that box popped up. And it says I have 70 hours of recording time left.
_


----------



## Bill D (May 11, 2002)

Maybe I should start protecting everything, excpet maybe the kids shows..


----------



## Adrian_R (Jul 5, 2002)

> _Originally posted by kyoo _
> *You wanted to see what I experienced? Well, here it is..
> ...
> I then hit PVR, and I found all my shows were deleted except my "protected" recordings, and Survivor which I was currently viewing, and Are You Hot? which WAS currently recording until that box popped up. And it says I have 70 hours of recording time left.
> [/I] *


Damn! Sorry i asked! 

Seriously, thanks for the info. I guess I'm going to just stay clear of the "Clean Up" button until I hear this isn't a problem anymore.


----------



## the_beaver (Feb 15, 2003)

> _Originally posted by karl_f _
> *
> 
> I thought ALL 721's were sold with professional installation. Wouldn't a professional installer make sure that everything is set up properly?  *


in a perfect world all professionally installed systems would be grounded...i live in a condominium and had my system professionally
installed but it is not grounded...i have returned two 721s and according to advanced tech---the cause of my disc failures is likely because my system is not grounded...DISH is sending one of their installers out to check the installation in a couple days...:shrug:


----------



## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

It would not have been professionaly installed if you are a current customer that just wanted a better receiver.


----------



## Bill D (May 11, 2002)

I just lost 70 hours sometime yesterday, that and the guide problem and I think it's going to be a DVD night


----------



## EagleID (Nov 13, 2002)

> _Originally posted by mgs24 _
> *Came home tonight to watch Survivor that should have recorded on the 721. Guess what all 70hrs or so that I had recorded where gone. I have had very few if any problems with the 721 now this! Anyone else have something like this happen? Should I expect more problems in the future? Did I have too much stuff recorded. I know that I have been down to as little as 6hrs left with no problems. I was ready to shell out big bucks for the 921 should I re-think that decision. Well anyway I will have more time on my hands now. Mike *





> _Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski _
> *Mgs sorry to hear about your problem, its the first time I have heard of such a thing. Wish I had an answer for you, I would call Dish and ask for Advanced Support and ask for an answer. *





> _Originally posted by Bill D _
> *I had this happen months ago on two seperate occasions on my old 721 (it got RA'd for a bad tuner). Dish had no answers.. *





> _Originally posted by bfennema _
> 
> *I had this happen several months ago as well. Did you have any protected recordings, and did they exist afterwards? Every one of my non protected recordings went away, but all the protected ones stayed... When it happened to me, I was having some strange problems with time remaining showing up as absurd values... 1521 hours remaining, and such... What I think happened, at least for me, is the time remaining got so screwwed up, it went negative, which caused the PVR to purge shows till it got to a positive time remaining (or ran out of shows to delete). Since then, I set all my shows to be protected =] *





> _Originally posted by the_beaver _
> *i had the same experience---twice. however, both times i had a disc failure error message superimposed on the screen and the channel automatically changed to dish's 101 help channel...
> the first time (with approximately 50 hours recorded), i pulled the smart card, to no avail and then was instructed to do the power button approach, to no avail---no recording capability (a dead hard drive) the unit was returned for another.
> the second time (with approximately 50 hours recorded), i did an AC power cycle and lost all my preferences and recordings but the recording capabilities were re-established...
> ...





> _Originally posted by krlauver _
> *My receiver lost 50+ hours of recordings on Thursday. When I came home from work the hard drive was clonking every two seconds. This is the second time it has done this. What I did last time and on Thursday was to unplug the unit and plug it back in. It reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled the software. *





> _Originally posted by kyoo _
> *the problem mgs24 had is a software bug.. happened on my 721, too.. something to do with the "clean up" and then recording more programs.. dish is aware of the issue, thanks to mgs24 posting here..
> 
> keep posting bugs.. but with the greatest detail that you can imagine, so your reports can lead to the bugs being found. *


Its time for a permanent BUG LIST by equipment type and software version. Pin it down so it stays at the top of the Message List. These things aren't getting fixed like they should because they aren't being taken seriously like they should.


----------



## Bill D (May 11, 2002)

The lost recordings (very seldom for 721 users) and the fact that it locks up whenever it wants and goes to the big X on the screen, and does a reboot, need to be fixed. The latter is new to ver 108/109, the one they sent in december with slo motion. It happened twice last night. Between the prez speech and the lock ups, I had survivor in 3 different places, since after the reboot it started another recording. Same deal for when CSI came around to airing.


----------

