# MRV - No DECA - Standard Ethernet Question



## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2009)

If one has MRV on their home wired ethernet and the connection to the SWM was disconnected, the unit reboots, obviously gives a warning it cannot communicate with the SWM/5LNB - can the unit still be used normally with the wired MRV features - or does the unit not know it is MRV enabled as it cannot receive info from the dish?


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> If one has MRV on their home wired ethernet and the connection to the SWM was disconnected, the unit reboots, obviously gives a warning it cannot communicate with the SWM/5LNB - can the unit still be used normally with the wired MRV features - or does the unit not know it is MRV enabled as it cannot receive info from the dish?


Good question. I don't think this would be specific to just ethernet connected receivers though, but would be the same with DECA MRV as well. I don't know the answer though. If I get a chance, I'll unplug my SWM PI and see what happens.

I think it will depend on when and how often the receiver checks to see if it is enabled for MRV.

- Merg


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

I just tried it on my receiver which is hard wired with ethernet. I removed the cable and I was able to do MRV via ethernet. this was done WITHOUT rebooting the receiver.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2009)

peds48 said:


> I just tried it on my receiver which is hard wired with ethernet. I removed the cable and I was able to do MRV via ethernet. this was done WITHOUT rebooting the receiver.


I expected it would work without a reboot - as the IRD gets its configuration info at reboot in Step 1 of 2. Just disconnecting the connection to the lnb would do nothing to change the MRV authorization.

I am wondering what would happen with a reboot and no dish connection.


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## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> I expected it would work without a reboot - as the IRD gets its configuration info at reboot in Step 1 of 2. Just disconnecting the connection to the lnb would do nothing to change the MRV authorization.
> 
> I am wondering what would happen with a reboot and no dish connection.


I'm pretty sure you will lose authorization for MRV on your boxes. I believe it will also happen if the receiver goes without guide data/authorization for too long.

I was having an issue with intermittent 771A errors a couple weeks ago. Along with that every now and then I would get and error about the guide not receiving data for so many hours, and whenever that happened I would also start to have issues using MRV with it giving me errors that I wasn't authorized for MRV. This was without resetting any receivers. MRV would work fine as long as I wasn't getting errors about the guide data being too old.

A tech came out and replaced my LNB with a new one and I haven't had any issues since.

Oh, I guess I should mention just to clarify I am running unsupported MRV over my home gigabit ethernet network.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2009)

Beerstalker said:


> Oh, I guess I should mention just to clarify I am running unsupported MRV over my home gigabit ethernet network.


Could you pull the Coax from the back of one of the remote IRDs, reboot it and see for certain when that remote IRD comes up, can it view programs off the MRV DVR?

Like you, I expect the answer to be no, but want to find out for certain.

Thanks.


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

"SomeRandomIdiot" said:


> Could you pull the Coax from the back of one of the remote IRDs, reboot it and see for certain when that remote IRD comes up, can it view programs off the MRV DVR?
> 
> Like you, I expect the answer to be no, but want to find out for certain.
> 
> Thanks.


Well, if you pull the coax, it definitely will not work as the coax is needed for the receivers to see each other (unless you have an unsupported Ethernet setup). For a DECA setup, you need to unplug the SWM PI to test this out or disconnect the coax from the first spitter to the dish.

- Merg


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## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

The Merg said:


> Well, if you pull the coax, it definitely will not work as the coax is needed for the receivers to see each other (unless you have an unsupported Ethernet setup). For a DECA setup, you need to unplug the SWM PI to test this out or disconnect the coax from the first spitter to the dish.
> 
> - Merg


Unsupported ethernet is what this is all about.



SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Could you pull the Coax from the back of one of the remote IRDs, reboot it and see for certain when that remote IRD comes up, can it view programs off the MRV DVR?
> 
> Like you, I expect the answer to be no, but want to find out for certain.
> 
> Thanks.


I'll try tonight if I remember. I've got an H21 in the basement that doesn't get used much so it shouldn't be a big deal to unhook it for a while to see.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Could you pull the Coax from the back of one of the remote IRDs, reboot it and see for certain when that remote IRD comes up, can it view programs off the MRV DVR?
> 
> Like you, I expect the answer to be no, but want to find out for certain.
> 
> Thanks.


I did this right after my post, and all I got was "can't find the SWM. 771a" error message. and was not available for MRV


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> If one has MRV on their home wired ethernet and the connection to the SWM was disconnected, the unit reboots, obviously gives a warning it cannot communicate with the SWM/5LNB - can the unit still be used normally with the wired MRV features - or does the unit not know it is MRV enabled as it cannot receive info from the dish?


Um, why?


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2009)

peds48 said:


> I did this right after my post, and all I got was "can't find the SWM. 771a" error message. and was not available for MRV


Thanks.....that blows that plan.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2009)

inkahauts said:


> Um, why?


Does it matter? But if you must know, its the first step that has to work before a bigger plan of action - not worth pursuing if the Hxx unit will not work as a remote MRV unit without being connected to the Dish.


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Does it matter? But if you must know, its the first step that has to work before a bigger plan of action - not worth pursuing if the Hxx unit will not work as a remote MRV unit without being connected to the Dish.


They will not function without a connection to the dish. The 771a is a cannot find SWM but you would get a 771 even without a SWM setup. They cannot be used as just a remote MRV client.


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## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

I tried this out last night. I disconnected the coax cable and I was able to bring up the playlist and start a recording without any issues. I left the coax unplugged and came down again and checked it a couple hours later, and again this morning and I was still able to view the recordings using MRV, even though the receiver was complaining that it had not received guide data for a few hours. The receiver was put into standby between attempts and that did not seem to make any difference.

I then did a menu restart with the coax unplugged. I waited unti it went through everything and then complained about not being able to see the dish, and then brought up the menu. Once the menu came up I checked under the whole home settings screen and it said it was not authorized. I then tried bringing up the playlist and it wouldn't.

So it looks like it will work fine over ethernet only as long as you don't unplug or reset the receiver after the coax is unplugged. It may also time out eventually, as I only waited around 10 hours between attempts and it was still working before I reset it. I'm betting it will eventually time out after a few days, just like the HD-DVRs do (an HD-DVR will allow you to continue watching your recordings for a few days after it is unhooked from the dish as long as you don't restart it).


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

"SomeRandomIdiot" said:


> Does it matter? But if you must know, its the first step that has to work before a bigger plan of action - not worth pursuing if the Hxx unit will not work as a remote MRV unit without being connected to the Dish.


Actually it does a little bit. You are obviously trying to do something that requires some creative thinking, and there's a lot of creative people around here that might be able to come up with other ideas to get around whatever it is your trying to get around. I can think of something coming in the future that might work for you if your issue is that your trying to get tv in a location you can't run coax to but have Internet at.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2009)

inkahauts said:


> Actually it does a little bit. You are obviously trying to do something that requires some creative thinking, and there's a lot of creative people around here that might be able to come up with other ideas to get around whatever it is your trying to get around. I can think of something coming in the future that might work for you if your issue is that your trying to get tv in a location you can't run coax to but have Internet at.


That is essentially what I am trying to do with a bit of a twist. No reason to get into the bigger idea and confuse the issue if the basic idea didn't work.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2009)

Beerstalker said:


> I tried this out last night. I disconnected the coax cable and I was able to bring up the playlist and start a recording without any issues. I left the coax unplugged and came down again and checked it a couple hours later, and again this morning and I was still able to view the recordings using MRV, even though the receiver was complaining that it had not received guide data for a few hours. The receiver was put into standby between attempts and that did not seem to make any difference.
> 
> I then did a menu restart with the coax unplugged. I waited unti it went through everything and then complained about not being able to see the dish, and then brought up the menu. Once the menu came up I checked under the whole home settings screen and it said it was not authorized. I then tried bringing up the playlist and it wouldn't.
> 
> So it looks like it will work fine over ethernet only as long as you don't unplug or reset the receiver after the coax is unplugged. It may also time out eventually, as I only waited around 10 hours between attempts and it was still working before I reset it. I'm betting it will eventually time out after a few days, just like the HD-DVRs do (an HD-DVR will allow you to continue watching your recordings for a few days after it is unhooked from the dish as long as you don't restart it).


Again, I need it to work from a cold start with no coax connected. Connecting to a coax, booting and then disconnecting the coax wouldn't make a lot of sense anyway.


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## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

Yeah I figured it might not be a big help, but thought I would report my findings anyway.

Like the others said though, if you gave us more info we might be able to suggest something that would work.

For example if it's just a room that doesn't have coax run to it, but it does have ethernet you might be able to do something like this. Buy a long run of coax and run it down the hallway from a room that does have a coax connection. Hook it and the ethernet up to the reciever and then plug the receiver in and let it boot up, get the guide data, get MRV working. Once all of that is working you could disconnect the coax, roll it up, and store it in the garage. The receiver would continue to work with MRV for a while, but when it loses authorization you could just run the temporary coax again, hook it up and let it get reauthorized, disconnect again, etc.

You would probably have to do this every week or two, which seems like a bit of a pain, but it should work.

If that's not the exact situation we may be able to figure something else out. HDMI over Cat 5/6, wireless HDMI, seperate dish, etc. The guys here are pretty resourceful and chances are somebody has already thought of/tried whatever you are wanting to try.


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