# Bug L180: Dish 921 doesn't function correctly anymore! - RESOLVED, Works again



## Steven Miller (Feb 10, 2004)

Hi,

I've used the 921 a few times since the download w/o doing a reboot myself. It seems to work but tonight it crashed. I did a soft reboot and it wouldn't show any video. After some playing around with switching output to SD on the TV I was able to get sysinfo and the guide, but whenever I selected a show nothing would display.

I then pulled the plug for a hard reboot, same problem, I can only get video during menu, sys-info, and channel guide. The preview works but when I play a live show or a pre-recorded program I can't get anything regardless of the output mode or the display setup option. Then the unit quickly hangs and becomes unresponsive from either the remote or the front panel.

This sucks because with the previous software I, unlike many other apparently, haven't had any crashes for over a month. The only problem I had was some occasional sound dropouts on OTA recordings.

My system has been rendered useless... time to call Dish?

- Steven


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Sounds like it Steven. Pull the plug and leave it unplugged for a few minutes. Then, after plugging it back in and it reboots, see if you can use the remote to change the channel. You didn't say what you were doing or watching when it crashed (or describe how it crashed), but I suspect that you are stuck on an OTA channel that can no longer be tuned, and that if you try to change the channel with the remote, it might work. 

If that's not the case, you're going to need to provide a lot more detailed information.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> I suspect that you are stuck on an OTA channel that can no longer be tuned, and that if you try to change the channel with the remote, it might work.


I have had it happen where the 921 wouldn't respond properly at all, and it was that exact thing. The HD/SD selector didn't even work, and I couldn't even get the menu or info button on the front panel to respond. Had to switch my TV to SD to see it was stuck on a channel that needed to be re-scanned. I changed the channel to a satellite channel, and the 921 came back to life. All of this happened after a reboot by the way....


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## Steven Miller (Feb 10, 2004)

jsanders said:


> I have had it happen where the 921 wouldn't respond properly at all, and it was that exact thing.... I changed the channel to a satellite channel, and the 921 came back to life. All of this happened after a reboot by the way....


I tried this and it didn't work. I pulled the plug for several minutes for a full reboot and the Dish logo comes up, then a "rebooting ... in stand-by" message, then a "Acquiring satellite signal.... " message "Downloading satellite data..." message. Then it allows me to turn it on and off, but it never displays anything no matter what I do (remote or from front panel). I can sometimes get it to switch output mode (SD to HD) but then it eventually becomes totally unresponsive.

Time for a call....

- Steven


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Another thing to try - when it gets into this state, try pressing and holding the SYSINFO button on the front of the 921. If the sysinfo screen appears on your screen (and it may be completely garbled if it does), you may then be able to recover operation by power cycling with the remote. Or, at this point, you may be able to recover operations by pulling the power plug *again* for 30 seconds or so. I've had both of those options work for me at times in the past when I've been in a similar situation in testing.


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## Steven Miller (Feb 10, 2004)

Now I'm trying a reboot w/o smart card. It booted with sysinfo. I do have L180 FW. I couldn't go into menu or do anything else. I turned it off and on (from front panel) and it came up with sysinfo and a message to insert smartcard.

I inserted the card and it's rebooting... acquiring data from satellite.... got a beer.... still acquiring data from satellite.... checked the stitches in my finger from basketball injury, looking good.... still acquiring data from satellite.... tucked kids into bed.... still acquiring... checked ebay items.... acquiring.... 

ok, screen went blank, unit is on and yellow (SD) light is on... sysinfo comes up (L180 firmware).

Menu comes up and so does channel guide and PVR recorded list. However, when I play live or prerecorded shows, the screen is blank except for a very thin strip of content down each side of the TV.

I cycle through the stretch modes and some produce a 1/2 brightness very raster looking display (half the scanlines?) with thin strips of full brightness down each side (about 1" wide on a 57" TV).

However, in guide mode the picture-in-picture preview is correct! It's clearly not a problem with the general connect to my TV or the content because this display is fine. It's having problems displaying full resolution content.

I've now been playing for awhile and can't get it to work correctly no matter what output mode, stretch mode, or source of content.... wierd!

I'll keep working and then call dish and report back.

- Steven


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## Steven Miller (Feb 10, 2004)

:lol: OK,

It's back to working. During the last reboot, I also played with cables in the back to ensure they were seated and in doing so accidently swapped one of the satellite feed inputs with the antenna input. Swapping these back fixed it (don't know why it made the display screwy only on the full screen content but not on menus).

:sure: 

If I discount this last mishap, then it appears the smart card reboot did the trick as this is what got control back even if movies didn't play. I think it's not unreasonable to attribute this last problem to my reconnecting the inputs incorrectly near the later stages of this whole event.

- Steven


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Glad it's worked out. I'm going to edit the title of this thread now to indicate resolution.


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