# Major Major Frustration...



## cschlik (Jan 27, 2003)

:flaiming

I have encountered many of the problems with my 921 that have been posted here. However, this one takes the cake....

I have a timer set up to record LOST on the local digital OTA channel (ABC 30). I manually created a timer to record from 6:55pm to 8:10pm (CST each wednesday), since the show seemed to run long. 

Last night I was sitting down to watch LOST and selected the DVR event. I started it and the screen was blank. I stopped and re-selected the event to notice the following in the listing: Simpsons 5 minutes; Lost 60 Minutes; Alias -65 minutes. Weird eh?

Anyway I selected LOST to watch it directly and received a message saying that the DVR event was blank and to delete it. At this point I canceled out of the event and went back to the DVR menu. This is where it gets crazy.... 

I noticed that all of my recorded events (over 120 hrs of SD) had the padlocks by the the entries for a couple of seconds, then they all disappeared.... My hard drive is empty and now only the timers exist. I thought the hard drive failed... but it passed the test.

Anyone else have this problem. I am going to make an angry call to DISH.


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## Eagles (Dec 31, 2003)

cschlik said:


> :flaiming
> 
> I have encountered many of the problems with my 921 that have been posted here. However, this one takes the cake....
> 
> ...


I've had some 0 second recordings to deal with. Nothing like you described "YET". It is frustrating. I must say though, as someone who is a generally patient person I have become more end more frustrated with Dish's apparent
ineptitude at getting this box fixed. As I noted in a previous thread, the lack of activity from the moderators as compared to the past says it all. I'm not blaming them, I guess there is nothing worth reporting on the fix front from the Dish software team. While I believe Mark is working full tilt behind the scenes to get this right, Dish Network sets the pace. That is what worries me.


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## dishbacker (Jun 15, 2004)

I've had 2 ZSR in the 6 months of having my 921... both have been related to issues with picking up the OTA channel at the time of the recording. Yes, my signal does seem to fluctuate a bit, but the 921 can't be complete blamed for that.

The same channels on other nights will show up with about 100 strength on the meter, so it seems specific to the night, weather conditions, who knows what....


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Eagles said:


> While I believe Mark is working full tilt behind the scenes to get this right, Dish Network sets the pace. That is what worries me.


A truer statement hasn't been made in a very long time...


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## cschlik (Jan 27, 2003)

Why did this rogue recording delete my hard drive? That's what burns me the most. As far as OTA strength.. I get 115-125 on all channels, with no drop outs or other problems. I had to re-scan the networks on one occasion (psip data change?), but other than that no problems.


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## cschlik (Jan 27, 2003)

Also, on a clean Hard drive, how much space can I expect for HD programming? I don't remember and right now it is sitting at 22 hrs (I thought it was closer to 30). I am wondering if I lost some space in this fiasco (like old lost clusters in DOS).


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## ntexasdude (Jan 23, 2005)

The advertised specs are 30 hours HD and 180 SD. Mine always seems to estimate the time remaining on the short side too.

Robert


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

I've seen an OTA channel get lost when they change the PSIP data, or the signal drops out. The channel must be rescanned to get it back. Seems like the 921 could do this automatically if a timer needs to fire. But, it doesn't. So we get a zero second recording.

There have been other reports that messing with (trying to play), a zero-second-recording resulted in a wiped hard drive.

http://www.dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=337260&postcount=12
http://www.dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=352393&postcount=1
http://www.dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=352848&postcount=4

This seems to be a new bug introduced with the latest software. The baby is 15 months old and every new software release still kicks off a whole new series of bug reporting (though total erasure is inexcusable).


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## leemathre (Sep 25, 2003)

Both of my 921's have always reported about 22 hours of HD space available on an empty drive. The first unit was purchased in January of 2004 and showed that amount from day one.


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## ntexasdude (Jan 23, 2005)

Hurry up and make another post Dave. You're sitting on 666! :eek2:


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## Eagles (Dec 31, 2003)

Mark Lamutt said:


> A truer statement hasn't been made in a very long time...


Man, now I'm really worried.
I just got a good laugh to myself. For some funny reason the pace which Dish seems to be moving brought back a high school memory. When I played baseball we had a kid who could flat out hit the ball. The coach always used him as a DH. He wasn't fat or out of shape or anything but he could not run. I mean this kid was slow. (Although he didn't think so) He would always complain to and question the coach as to why he couldn't play the field. At some point the coach didn't want to hear him complain and told him, "because you move like a dam glacier". Dish seems to be moving like a dam glacier on this SW situation.


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## markcollins (Jan 27, 2004)

cschlik--I too had the exact blank recording and saved recording padlocked freaky thing happen about a month ago.Also lost all recorded programs.Then my preset timers wouldn't fire.I did a reboot and removed and entered timers again and it has been working ever since.I hadn't had any bad weather or any other excuses for it other than just being the 921.I live in the DFW area as I know others on this forum do too.I would think if it were an external caused problem there would be other posts supporting that.


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## HailScroob (Aug 3, 2004)

ntexasdude said:


> Hurry up and make another post Dave. You're sitting on 666! :eek2:


Wait'll you see what happens to the poor guy when he hits "921"...


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## Jason Kragt (Dec 20, 2002)

The icing on the cake is that with the 921, we pay an extra $5 per month for this recording privilege that is somewhat unreliable.


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## sledhead 700 (Apr 27, 2004)

markcollins said:


> cschlik--I too had the exact blank recording and saved recording padlocked freaky thing happen about a month ago.Also lost all recorded programs.Then my preset timers wouldn't fire.I did a reboot and removed and entered timers again and it has been working ever since.I hadn't had any bad weather or any other excuses for it other than just being the 921.I live in the DFW area as I know others on this forum do too.I would think if it were an external caused problem there would be other posts supporting that.


Same here....Lost all my recordings, cleared timers has been working OK. I'm gun-shy now I keep thinking "I better watch that show now before Its gone!". Good thing we have to pay for VOD maybe we should call it "Use it or lose it".

Dave


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## Grandude (Oct 21, 2004)

cschlik said:


> :flaiming
> I noticed that all of my recorded events (over 120 hrs of SD) had the padlocks by the the entries for a couple of seconds, then they all disappeared.... My hard drive is empty and now only the timers exist. I thought the hard drive failed... but it passed the test.
> 
> Anyone else have this problem. I am going to make an angry call to DISH.


I was one of the first to report this problem just shortly after L211 was released. Lost everything on the hard drive and my 921 became very unstable for a while after that. Many 0sec recordings.
Talked to the advanced techs at Dish and they convinced me that changing out my 921 would not fix the problem as it was caused by it not handling the data stream from a particular station that I tried to record. Dish knows about this problem and it MUST be fixed.

My 921 is now very stable after running the hard drive test a couple of times and doing a power plug reboot a couple of times. BUT, I do not ever try to record OTA anymore. Instead, I now have added basic cable from Comcast and a HD receiver to see how reliable cable is where I live now. As a bonus I get all locals in HD. Dish can only give me CBS for some reason.


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## cschlik (Jan 27, 2003)

To add to my frustration... Last night a grey fuzzy box filled the screen with a small X in the center and the system rebooted.

I called Dish and after talking to a couple of people it was determined that I have a bad hard drive (whatever... I think it is fine) and I am now waiting on a call from someone in the 921 team.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

If you don't hear from them today or tomorrow cschlik, send me an email.


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## ebaltz (Nov 23, 2004)

cschlik,
I got the MAC style X in the middle of the screen once. Haven't had it since and haven't had any major problems, other than the usuals reported here. Waiting patiently, or not so patiently now for 3 months on the next release.


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## dishbacker (Jun 15, 2004)

The 'MAC style X' is actually an X-Windows/Linux artifact and usually is referred to the 'Gray Screen of Death' similar to the 'Blue Screen of Death' on a Windows system. Something bad happened for that to occur (used to happen more frequently in early 2004 and has been quite less frequent since mid-late summer 2004).


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