# Are the reboots still happening?



## Jon Spackman (Feb 7, 2005)

I have been asked to see if those of you who were experiencing the reboots are still having them.

Are you?


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## hughh (Sep 22, 2006)

It's gotten real bad. As many as three per hour! The DVR is in a well ventilated cabinet, all by itsef. Is there any cure to this?


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## scn101 (Jul 11, 2005)

Yes. No change. Often can't watch OTA. Mostly on NBC but I've seen it once on CBS. I really wish Dish would fix this. The TV's HD OTA receiver has no issues, ever.


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## johnstred (Aug 8, 2005)

scn101 said:


> Yes. No change. Often can't watch OTA. Mostly on NBC but I've seen it once on CBS. I really wish Dish would fix this. The TV's HD OTA receiver has no issues, ever.


I am also in Dallas and keep seeing the reboot but only while watching NBC OTA, either live TV or a recorded show...


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## jsainz (Aug 13, 2005)

I have auto reboot on NBC KXAS OTA recordings. DVR 942 L288


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## Tom in TX (Jan 22, 2004)

I am also having the reboots continuing.
Tom in TX


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## PLHOG (Oct 10, 2006)

Yes, and it's definitely associated with the NBC OTA signal here in Columbus OH. I've taken the NBC OTA feed off my favorites list, and we watch the local NBC channel over the satellite feed. The four or five other OTA feeds we get work fine.

We haven't had a crash for weeks since we started avoiding the NBC OTA feed, but this morning I tried watching the Today show via the OTA feed. Someone somewhere was doing something, as the image popped in and out of widescreen a couple of times, and there was a loud crackle during a couple of the transitions from the NYC studio to the Columbus studio for weather (that stuff is controlled in NYC in the case of our local station). After about 15 mins, the DVR crashed, just like it has been for months.

The Dir of Engineering at the station confirms that the encoders used at the Dallas NBC affiliate and the Columbus NBC affiliate are the same. 

We watched the NBC OTA for quite a while (months) before this problem cropped up. I suspect that NBC changed something that exposes a bug or shortcoming in the DVR software. Why don't the NBC guys talk with the DISH guys and figure out what's going on? One clue -- I think NBC4/WCMH may be the only station in Columbus that broadcasts in 1080i, and I'm not sure when that changed.

My suspicion remains that there is a memory corruption caused by writing outside the limits of some memory structure (e.g. the frame buffer), and the DVR software has no detection or error handling for this. But the DISH engineering guys never return my call...


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## MrDogDad (Nov 20, 2006)

My 942 just started to crash last Friday, (11/10). It corrupted all of the programs I had recorded (error code 07). It only crashed while watching the local ABC affiliate, WLOS 13-1 OTA.
I called DISH and they sent a replacement receiver but of course, it also crashes.
I discovered that the crashes only occur during locally originated programming, which the station upconverts from SD. It doesn't crash when the network feed is on.


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## Thor263 (Mar 5, 2005)

After a while of not having them, it happened to us last night again. Was pretty much watching various OTA all evening and shut off TV1. Came up to our bedroom and turned on TV2 only to find it rebooting. TV1 was tuned to our ABC affiliate in Minneapolis and showing the 10pm news at the time.


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## tferrio (Sep 6, 2006)

I called Dish support about this, I think early in October, when I had a program recorded that would consistently cause a lockup and reboot in the same place when played. The person dutifully took a lot of notes and said she would forward it to "technical support".

I heard nothing back so deleted the program before leaving on vacation to Europe about 4 weeks later. While in Europe we got about 6 phone calls from someone at technical support, not leaving a phone number. She called again after we returned and wanted to get our 942 to look at. But I had deleted the program and told her I would call back if I got another recording to do it.

That happened about a week later (Medium) and I called support and they took all the notes again to forward to tech. It has now been about three weeks and I have heard nothing back. I still have the recording, for now...

I think that has been the only lockup/reboot we have seen in the last month - but we have been watching less of that channel than usual.


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## scn101 (Jul 11, 2005)

NBC (channel 5, signal strength in the high 80s) here in Dallas is basically unwatchable. The 942 will reboot within seconds to a minute or two of watching it. The 942's picture freezes for about 3 seconds and then reboots. The cycle is sometimes so fast that you don't even get a chance to change to another channel before another reboot! Note that the HDTV tuner in my TV set has no issues and works fine with NBC.

I reported this to Dish on Sep 6th via email but other than asking me for this info, Dish has done nothing to remedy the situation.

* Model ID (in box D)
* Software Version (in box D)
* Receiver CA ID (in box E, R00)
* Smart Card CA ID (in box E, S00 or S19) Press the number 3 on your remote:
* The number starting with DNASP
* Bootstrap Version

Does anyone know the status of this? Is Dish actively working on this issue? If they need subscriber assistance, I'll volunteer. This needs to be fixed since you can't get HD networks with the 942 except OTA.


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## Steve H (May 15, 2006)

I'm still getting them. They seem to be when I watch NBC, don't know why it would be tied into what channel you are watching.............I don't have OTA so reboots are on sat. feed only.


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## jurrie (Jan 2, 2004)

Glad to see I'm not the only one!
Dallas/Fort Worth area NBC (KXAS-DT) problems here as well.
Had them this Spring, then the went away. Started back up again a month ago or so.

*Only* affects the NBC digital OTA signal. Can happen to both live programs as well as recorded programs. I've had several cases of recorded programs which were chopped into 6 parts due to STB reboots.

After it happened at the start of Saturday Night Live this past weekend I decided to call it in. The tech claims that *this is not a known problem*. Now I come here and see that I'm not the only one. Hopefully others have called it in as well. I ended up watching SNL in another room on another set using its own ATSC tuner.... no problems there, of course.

I'm not sure if a 622 would help the problem. It would allow me to watch the signal via the dish instead of OTA thereby avoiding the issue... but I'm not willing to pay $199 for that privilege.


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## cracka (Feb 6, 2004)

Reboots are definitely still happening for me, pretty much exclusively while watching KXAS-DT here in Dallas. I had to watch the Cowboys-Saints Sunday night game on the 811, as the 942 would freeze & restart every 2 or 3 minutes. Luckily, there wasn't much I really wanted to see in that game. 

Interestingly, I happened to leave it tuned to KXAS-DT when I turned it off yesterday, and a scheduled DVR recording on a separate satellite channel that fired while it was in stand-by mode ended up chopped into 15 or 16 2-4 minute chunks. Ayayay.


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## dhchaney (Jun 26, 2003)

PLHOG said:


> Yes, and it's definitely associated with the NBC OTA signal here in Columbus OH. I've taken the NBC OTA feed off my favorites list, and we watch the local NBC channel over the satellite feed. The four or five other OTA feeds we get work fine.
> 
> We haven't had a crash for weeks since we started avoiding the NBC OTA feed, but this morning I tried watching the Today show via the OTA feed. Someone somewhere was doing something, as the image popped in and out of widescreen a couple of times, and there was a loud crackle during a couple of the transitions from the NYC studio to the Columbus studio for weather (that stuff is controlled in NYC in the case of our local station). After about 15 mins, the DVR crashed, just like it has been for months.
> 
> ...


I live in columbus and just a couple weeks ago signal dropouts started occurring on wcmh-dt making the channel unwatchable. I have a strong signal in the high 80's and no problems with any other columbus dt stations. My 811 is unaffected while my 622 has dropouts every 10 seconds or so. My 911 is still watchable, with just a few pixelations and few dropouts. I called dish and they insisted on replacing my 622. I knew it wouldn't fix it. Dish needs to call wcmh and figure this out. They are losing money replacing dvrs and will soon be losing customers who depend on the dish dvr for their NBC HD viewing. By the way, my built in hd tuners in 2 of my tvs pull in wcmh-dt perfectly. Anybody got any ideas?


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## PLHOG (Oct 10, 2006)

dhchaney said:


> I live in columbus and just a couple weeks ago signal dropouts started occurring on wcmh-dt making the channel unwatchable. I have a strong signal in the high 80's and no problems with any other columbus dt stations. My 811 is unaffected while my 622 has dropouts every 10 seconds or so. My 911 is still watchable, with just a few pixelations and few dropouts. I called dish and they insisted on replacing my 622. I knew it wouldn't fix it. Dish needs to call wcmh and figure this out. They are losing money replacing dvrs and will soon be losing customers who depend on the dish dvr for their NBC HD viewing. By the way, my built in hd tuners in 2 of my tvs pull in wcmh-dt perfectly. Anybody got any ideas?


I'm quite sure this is a software problem associated with something unique about the WCMH-DT feed. Guys in the Dallas area complain about the same thing with their NBC station, and the Director of Engineering at WCMH has confirmed to me that both stations use the same encoders. It might be an encoder bug (eg the actual MPEG packet length is different than what the header says) or a decoder bug (eg the frame size is bigger than the software can handle). The fact that you have a receiver that decodes the WCMH-DT okay points the finger at the DVR. Nonetheless, there is something different about the WCMH datastream vs the other Columbus stations.

That being said, I have LOTS of problems with WOSU-DT, with drop outs and pixelation.

Prior to them going bust, I had a VOOM receiver, and had no problems whatsoever with the local digital stations. I'm using exactly the same external OTA antenna with DISH that I did with VOOM, and I can see all the local antennas from my home.

WHY won't the DISH engineering guys return my calls? WHY won't DISH engineers and the NBC engineers talk? This is NOT a hardware problem with the DVRs.


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## Tom in TX (Jan 22, 2004)

PLHOG said:


> This is NOT a hardware problem with the DVRs.


I have not seen it happen on my 622, even though it continues on my 942. Maybe there is a difference (hardware) between the two?

Tom in TX


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## scn101 (Jul 11, 2005)

I live in Dallas and have had the reboots since Sept. I gave up on NBC channel 5 OTA but last Sunday I tuned to NBC by accident and the reboots started (signal strength 83-85). I figured I needed to escalate the issue. With the help of a DBSTalk moderator I've been put in contact with Dish engineering. They really want to fix this issue. They've known about it since Sept but have not been able to get anyone to send them their 942. I asked if the hard drive was all that was really needed and they said yes. So I volunteered to send them my drive. They sent me a new HD and it is sitting, waiting to be installed. I'll then send them the old drive.

I didn't record the reboot issue last week since I didn't know I'd need it and have been trying to catch a NBC reboot yesterday and today. Figures, none have occurred. I really think that a reboot program on the HD would be beneficial to DISH. So I am going to wait until I capture a program that reboots the 942 then its HD is off to DISH. 

I'll keep you posted on any progress.


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## tferrio (Sep 6, 2006)

scn101 said:


> I didn't record the reboot issue last week since I didn't know I'd need it and have been trying to catch a NBC reboot yesterday and today. Figures, none have occurred. I really think that a reboot program on the HD would be beneficial to DISH. So I am going to wait until I capture a program that reboots the 942 then its HD is off to DISH.
> 
> I'll keep you posted on any progress.


I have several recorded programs that consistently cause reboots. My attempt to tell Dish seemed to have no effect but I hear they will contact me, after I complained here. Hurrah for this forum!


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## tferrio (Sep 6, 2006)

An update:
I got a call from someone at Dish a few days ago and she sent me a replacement 942.
I sent back my 942, today, with three programs recorded on it that lock up the software.
I hope this helps them diagnise the problem.
Tom


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## scn101 (Jul 11, 2005)

Update: I just received this response from Dish:

"We did receive your drive and we got some great information from it, we expect to have the issue fixed in the next release, thanks again for your help."



scn101 said:


> I live in Dallas and have had the reboots since Sept. I gave up on NBC channel 5 OTA but last Sunday I tuned to NBC by accident and the reboots started (signal strength 83-85). I figured I needed to escalate the issue. With the help of a DBSTalk moderator I've been put in contact with Dish engineering. They really want to fix this issue. They've known about it since Sept but have not been able to get anyone to send them their 942. I asked if the hard drive was all that was really needed and they said yes. So I volunteered to send them my drive. They sent me a new HD and it is sitting, waiting to be installed. I'll then send them the old drive.
> 
> I didn't record the reboot issue last week since I didn't know I'd need it and have been trying to catch a NBC reboot yesterday and today. Figures, none have occurred. I really think that a reboot program on the HD would be beneficial to DISH. So I am going to wait until I capture a program that reboots the 942 then its HD is off to DISH.
> 
> I'll keep you posted on any progress.


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## Sauron99 (Jul 28, 2005)

The past two days my receiver has rebooted 3 to 5 times a night while waching and recording on over the air HD locals. 

On one recording I could see the picture pixelize and corrupt, freeze and reboot. Every time I tried to go back to that point of the recording it would freeze and reboot.

The other time mine seems to freeze is when I am watching a recording and another recording starts to record.


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## PLHOG (Oct 10, 2006)

scn101 said:


> "They really want to fix this issue. They've known about it since Sept but have not been able to get anyone to send them their 942"


While I'm thrilled that they say a fix is coming, Dish Engineering has prolonged this problem by failing to answer numerous attempts I made to call them (there was another early on bug in the 942 and I still had their number from then).

The only response I got was from a variety of first level reps who said things like "it couldn't be software problem or everyone would be complaining about it." The next rep I talked to said he would dispatch a tech, but that it would cost me $50 or something. I escalated to a supervisor, who at least sent the tech out for free. The tech said there were software problems with the 942, but when he called it in, they once again told him to swap it out.

So Dish has, for many months now, been in possession of two of my previous DVRs with programs recorded that would cause the crash. I would have been happy to send them the HD from any of them had they responded to my call.


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## Daviesma (Jan 9, 2007)

I live in Plano, TX and have had the same channel 5 OTA issue for some time. Happened a lot earlier in 2006 and then disappeared until about 2 months ago when back it came. Reboots about every 3-4 minutes.

I fix would be great. Definitely a SW bug; memory leak, etc.


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## PLHOG (Oct 10, 2006)

I noticed that I have a new software version, L289, so tried tuning to the NBC OTA station to see what happens. So far no crashes!! Does anyone know for sure that L289 is supposed to fix this?


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## scn101 (Jul 11, 2005)

Dish engineering, the people that used my harddrive to analyze the issue, sent me an email stating that this is supposed to be the fix. If reboots still occur then they want to know.



PLHOG said:


> I noticed that I have a new software version, L289, so tried tuning to the NBC OTA station to see what happens. So far no crashes!! Does anyone know for sure that L289 is supposed to fix this?


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## Jerry T (Jun 27, 2006)

My 942 was fine for about 4 months. Since Monday's L289 update, the picture pixlates and the screen will go black about 4 times a day.
I am just south of Chicago, IL


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