# Is it just my R-15 thats working fine ?



## Bobman (Jan 3, 2006)

I see all the problem threads here and that started me thinking that maybe I have one of the only well working R-15's around so I started this thread.

I have 2 R-15's, and have been using one for about 9-10 months, the 2nd I added just a few months ago.

My 1st R-15 is very stable, reliable and besides the SL first run issue, I have very little if any problems with it. In fact this one just replaced my R-10 which I deactivated to keep my gf happy.

The newer R-15 is also very stable and reliable with only 2 resets ( I think) since the last update. Again besides the SL first run issue about the only problem it has is the black pauses when playing back a recording, the time bar during playback sometimes stops, and the 6 second rewind is changeable. It did have a short period where it went bonkers but its been fine since.

None of these issues do I see as overly critical and when compared to how the R-15 was when it first came out, its working like a champ. Sure there are other bugs and things I would like to see added, changed or fixed but I am very satisfied with my R-15's.

Anyone else besides me have a well working R-15 with little problems ?


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## walters (Nov 18, 2005)

I'm sure Earl and Clint will be sending you your welcome packet any day now


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## Rivergoat (Sep 17, 2006)

I'll just whisper here so my R15 desn't hear me. I've been a DVR user/R15 for about a week and a half. Maybe it's too early yet, but so far things are working well. There's only been slight glitches, last night for instance I wanted to put in a bookmark on David Letterman at the point Tony Bennett and Elvis Costello sang. The bookmark placed at 43 minutes according to the timer, yet the timer mark never moved throughout the rest of the show until I stopped the program and restarted it. Then it seems the bookmark was placed a few minutes earlier than I thought. I guess the timer stuck and the bookmark placed itself there?

But for the most part I'm getting what I wanted out of it. It took an extra step to learn that a manual recording places itself in the Prioritizer, and needs to be deleted there in order to clear it from scheduling. I don't recall seeing that in the manual....but we don't need no stinking manual.

Love,

Alfonso Bedoya


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## Bobman (Jan 3, 2006)

walters said:


> I'm sure Earl and Clint will be sending you your welcome packet any day now


Its only an Internet forum.


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## mhayes70 (Mar 21, 2006)

I have 3 R15's (1 500 and 2 300's). They are working pretty good now. I use to have 2 500's but the hard drive bit the dust on one of them and I just got the replacement yesterday and they sent me a 300. On my newer one's the caller id issue is gone and they are working good. The only major issue with them now is the "Black screen of death".


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

I have two R15's, which I got as soon as they first came out, almost a year ago now. They were manufactured in July 05, so the hardware is actually well over a year old now.

Both were very reliable units for a long time. However, both have had problems (but not at the same time) that ended up requiring a reformat (clear and delete reset). After doing that, the units again worked fine.

Something, I do not know what, can really screw up the R15, and when that happens you can have all sorts of problems, and the problems are not necessarily consistent between units. That is why you see so many people here with so many different issues. If you are really lucky, you won't have the "whatever it is" happen that appears to start the problems. 

At the moment (and I am almost afraid to type this out loud:lol: ) both of my R15's are working well. One needed a reformat about a week ago, as it simply would not turn on short of pushing the red button.

If it were not for the fact that a reformat erases everything you have recorded, I would not see this as a huge problem. But if you have a number of unwatched recordings and have to do a reformat, it is aggravating to say the least.

Carl


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

walters said:


> I'm sure Earl and Clint will be sending you your welcome packet any day now


I have issues with mine, I don't like the fact it records far too many episodes of a show, I have had the Progress bar stick (sis it last night while watching Atlantis). All in all it works pretty well. I feel bad for those who have far more problems then I do, but it also makes me wonder at the same time whats different. Is it different components in the machine? Could it be different memory chips, could it be bad memory in it? Could it be bad cables or bad HDs? The list goes on and on, I just look at it the same way I do PC's you take the same software and run it on 100 different machines and some people will have issues and some won't. No rhyme or reason it seems.

BTW it's not an exclusive club you're MORE then welcomes to join Walters


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

carl6 said:


> I have two R15's, which I got as soon as they first came out, almost a year ago now. They were manufactured in July 05, so the hardware is actually well over a year old now.
> 
> Both were very reliable units for a long time. However, both have had problems (but not at the same time) that ended up requiring a reformat (clear and delete reset). After doing that, the units again worked fine.
> 
> ...


It really seems to me like something gets corrupted or stepped on and then from that point forward things just go downhill. Would be nice if we could see what was going on in these machines, memory trends, cpu usage and things of that nature. Might clue us all into whats going wrong. Would probably even venture to guess there are some log files in there with some good information in them.


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## MarkGreiner (Sep 27, 2006)

I think you folks are way too kind with your observation that your R-15 is working fine--oh, except for the hard disk reformats, blank screens, and general quirky nature of the R-15.

I've had my two R15-300s for about a week, and I have many of the non-lethal problems that others report. These two units replace two UltimateTVs that had none of these problems. [One eventually lost one of its tuners after several years, so I thought I'd upgrade--this has hardly been an upgrade].

"The newer R-15 is also very stable and reliable with only 2 resets ( I think) since the last update." That's like saying "my brand new car runs great except for the two times that it completely died on me."

You folks are a credit for your positive outlook, but "working fine" should mean "virtually flawlessly." That's not what you are reporting and not what the rest of us are experiencing. Still, you gotta love your attitude. Nice thread.


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

Both mine are OK other than the problems that are common to all units (black screens, FR vs Repeats, etc.). I don't experience any of the more extreem problems that seem to affect random boxes. I think that's where you were going with this thread, isn't it?

On a side note, some have posted about having the same serious problems with several boxes, yet those problems don't seem to happen to everyone. That kind of indicates an environmental link. Either something like temps, or the way they use them. Just a thought.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

I am not experiencing any of the "black screens of death", sticky time bars, loss of trick play functionality or freezes/hangs. Sure, there are still problems with FR/Repeats, the limits and other known issues, but mine doesn't have the problems others seem to have with not being able to record or play most shows correctly. Then again, I still do a RESET once a week.


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

Wolffpack said:


> I am not experiencing any of the "black screens of death", sticky time bars, loss of trick play functionality or freezes/hangs. Sure, there are still problems with FR/Repeats, the limits and other known issues, but mine doesn't have the problems others seem to have with not being able to record or play most shows correctly. Then again, I still do a RESET once a week.


The stuck progress bar has only happened to me maybe 2 or 3 times now and one time I had a glitched recording and the other time was while watching atlantis and all of the sudden it just caught up on its own. Never had the Black screen or any of the other things you just described.


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## rlambert7 (Feb 7, 2006)

Clint Lamor said:


> ...I have had the Progress bar stick (sis it last night while watching Atlantis)...


Pressing the jumpback-6-seconds button with untick the progress bar


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

Clint Lamor said:


> It really seems to me like something gets corrupted or stepped on and then from that point forward things just go downhill. Would be nice if we could see what was going on in these machines, memory trends, cpu usage and things of that nature. Might clue us all into whats going wrong. Would probably even venture to guess there are some log files in there with some good information in them.


The experiences mentioned all over this forum support the fact that if one's R15 freezes and needs RESETs frequently something gets real munged up internally (my guess is filesystem). The more RESETs/freezes you have, the more munged it gets. Eventually it becomes almost non-operational and/or requires a reformat to "un-mung" it.

I like the idea of logs but given the fact that recordings are lost if the unit freezes/RESETs while recording, my guess would be any log files it may have would also be lost during a freeze/RESET. Making those log files pretty much useless. It's almost as if the R15 is writing data to the HD but doesn't update the clusters/directory links until it's done writing. If the unit reboots the data is there, but no pointers or directory entries to get to it.


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

Wolffpack said:


> The experiences mentioned all over this forum support the fact that if one's R15 freezes and needs RESETs frequently something gets real munged up internally (my guess is filesystem). The more RESETs/freezes you have, the more munged it gets. Eventually it becomes almost non-operational and/or requires a reformat to "un-mung" it.
> 
> I like the idea of logs but given the fact that recordings are lost if the unit freezes/RESETs while recording, my guess would be any log files it may have would also be lost during a freeze/RESET. Making those log files pretty much useless. It's almost as if the R15 is writing data to the HD but doesn't update the clusters/directory links until it's done writing. If the unit reboots the data is there, but no pointers or directory entries to get to it.


Thats actually something I just brought up, writing to temp files then doing updates after the fact. If this is the way it's done it could explain why some of the things we see actually happen.


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## skaeight (Jan 15, 2004)

Wolffpack said:


> I like the idea of logs but given the fact that recordings are lost if the unit freezes/RESETs while recording, my guess would be any log files it may have would also be lost during a freeze/RESET. Making those log files pretty much useless. It's almost as if the R15 is writing data to the HD but doesn't update the clusters/directory links until it's done writing. If the unit reboots the data is there, but no pointers or directory entries to get to it.


It uses FAT32/64 or something like that right? There's no journaling in FAT file systems, so that would explain that behavior. It's completely assenine that they picked a filesystem without journaling for an appliance box without an actual way to properly shut it down (have to pull the plug).


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## RenHoek (May 25, 2006)

Bought my R15-500 in December '05. The only real annoyance I've had with mine is that the Caller ID has never really worked correctly. It will log at most 2 calls and even when those calls come in, there is no display on the screen when the call comes in, even though I have the notifications turned on.

Other than that, no real problems here. Here's knocking on simulated woodgrain vinyl that it stays that way...


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## Dave from Kazoo (Nov 28, 2004)

My wife loves the R15. She perfers it over the Tivo (R10) which was moved to the living room. I haven't seen any problems with the R15. I do recall having problems with my Tivo's when they first came out. With any luck I am past the big trouble stage with the R15.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

skaeight said:


> It uses FAT32/64 or something like that right? There's no journaling in FAT file systems, so that would explain that behavior. It's completely assenine that they picked a filesystem without journaling for an appliance box without an actual way to properly shut it down (have to pull the plug).


If the R15 is using the filesystem that I think it does, that does support journaling according to the vendor. Now, if it was or was not implemented could be a different issue.


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## skaeight (Jan 15, 2004)

Wolffpack said:


> If the R15 is using the filesystem that I think it does, that does support journaling according to the vendor. Now, if it was or was not implemented could be a different issue.


Ok, I was not aware that filesystem was capable of journaling. I knew it was something that resembled FAT32 + custom extensions, but didn't know that was included. Thanks.


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

I know this is a little OT but what file system did the UTV have? If it had the same one that the R15 does I know that it is possible for that OS to be stable.


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## cybok0 (Jan 5, 2006)

had to reset the machine everyday for a week untill i decided to reformat it, now its working ok but its not used as much as my DTIVO, probably if i used it as much it would probably crash alot more.

the one in my daughters room only has a couple of recordings on it(the cheetah girls)but works fine.


now the R15 is noway a capable dvr that i can trust with my shows,I dont think i ever can,maybe im spoiled by TIVO but thats the bar every dvr should try to reach.if i had to trust the R15 to record my football,hockey and baseball games i watched,Id probably be pissed if they didnt record,because i know my DTIVO will. 

reasons why the R15 will never be as good as DTIVO.

1)no dual buffers
2)records repeats
3)no skip to tick(HR20 has it)
4)doesnt record the same show on different channels
5)reliability


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## Bobman (Jan 3, 2006)

MarkGreiner said:


> I think you folks are way too kind with your observation that your R-15 is working fine--oh, except


I guess you missed the below part"  Its fine to point out the flaws but you seemed to miss this one very important statement. 

"My 1st R-15 is very stable, reliable and besides the SL first run issue, I have very little if any problems with it. In fact this one just replaced my R-10 which I deactivated to keep my gf happy".

For me, a multiple DirecTiVo owner and been using them for many years, to replace my last activated DirecTiVo with an R-15, shows to me at least that its working well enough. I am very pleased with the R-15.


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## walters (Nov 18, 2005)

And three months ago you were talking class action. I hope you kept that R10 to be reactivated after the next update


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## anopro (Sep 13, 2006)

Well working fine no

Working yes

Has not missed/shorted a program since a reset 4 weeks ago. Only have had it for 5 weeks

But still glitchy playback/frozen time bar/random black screens.

Don't know what OS Ultimate TV had but 4.5 years of rock solid performance right out of the box and only 1 software update in 4.5 years and mostly to add caller id “worked every time” and stream line the UI. As you can tell we still miss our UTV box in fact we used it with one tuner for 8 months after we bought the R-10 wife simply would not give it up.


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## cybok0 (Jan 5, 2006)

anopro said:


> Well working fine no
> 
> Working yes
> 
> ...


The PIP would be nice to have like UTV:grin:


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## octopusm (Sep 28, 2006)

MarkGreiner said:


> I think you folks are way too kind with your observation that your R-15 is working fine--oh, except for the hard disk reformats, blank screens, and general quirky nature of the R-15.
> 
> I've had my two R15-300s for about a week, and I have many of the non-lethal problems that others report. These two units replace two UltimateTVs that had none of these problems. [One eventually lost one of its tuners after several years, so I thought I'd upgrade--this has hardly been an upgrade].
> 
> ...


I have a R15 500 that's being working good since I got it on July 2006. Aside from the usual black screens on playbacks, I've been happy with my unit. That is until Saturday 9/23. I was going to watch some previously recorde programs and the DVR functions didn't work.

Reset the box several times and things went from bad to worse. I calll D* tech supoort and they transfer me to 3rd level support, I suspected at this time that they did something. Sure thing, the tech person confirmed that a firmware upgrade was pushed on 9/22 and the've being experiencing a tremondous amount of calls. She had me reformat the HD (down arrow, rec at the same time after the reset) and things started working again, but I lost everything I had recorded.

But on Tuesday I started seeing the same odd behaviour. Well D* is sending me a new box for free. They royally screw my R15 with the latest firmware. Once I get the box and test I will post my observation....... Stay tuned......
I am having a lot of issues with my R15 as well since 9/23.

Tks,


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

anopro said:


> Don't know what OS Ultimate TV had but 4.5 years of rock solid performance right out of the box and only 1 software update in 4.5 years and mostly to add caller id "worked every time" and stream line the UI. As you can tell we still miss our UTV box in fact we used it with one tuner for 8 months after we bought the R-10 wife simply would not give it up.


The only reason that I jumped to the R15 was my UTV was over heating and wouldn't stay on. I still miss it but I do like the R15 it just needs some more tweaking and improving before it is anywhere near the UTV and Tivo's. Hopefully by the end of this year we will have a better box.


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## marksrader (Sep 14, 2006)

I have three R15s working fine so far... 

My mother-in-law has one R15 that had problems about a month ago, reformatted and problem cleared. Seems to be ok now.

Form time-to-time I have weird problems with my DTivo box. It will lock-up... It will sometimes decide to reboot it's self... and a few times it has deleted a show while I was watching it cause it needed disk space. Sometimes it even misses shows.

Essentially these things are PCs and anyone who deals with PCs can attest to the fact that they act-up and need to be rebooted or reformatted from time to time. I am just holding my breath and hopeful that I do not get the really bad problems folks share here. :nono2:


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## Gary Toma (Mar 23, 2006)

Sorry to disappoint, but I've had the R15 for four months now. It's great. And a nice improvement over the former D-TIVO unit I had.

Bigtime problems have only been FirstRun/ReRun kinds of problems.

I am really convinced that the folks with the most problems are those who just can't stop 'playing' with it. For instance I've never found the need to get in the prioritizer and change the recording hierarchy.


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

gct said:


> I am really convinced that the folks with the most problems are those who just can't stop 'playing' with it. For instance I've never found the need to get in the prioritizer and change the recording hierarchy.


Well, wouldn't you agree that if they gave us that capability it shouldn't cause problems? BTW - I don't think it causes the problems it used to.


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## Bobman (Jan 3, 2006)

walters said:


> And three months ago you were talking class action.


I know, I also stopped using it completly twice over the last 10 months. Maybe the R-15 fairy  dusted my R-15's with magic dust or something but besides what I said in the posts above, mine are working well.

I HAVE been there with major problems like you stated, but its just working better now.


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## bv1187 (Dec 29, 2005)

walters said:


> I'm sure Earl and Clint will be sending you your welcome packet any day now


I here ya:hurah: :hurah: :hurah:


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## ApK (Mar 6, 2006)

gct said:


> Sorry to disappoint, but I've had the R15 for four months now. It's great. And a nice improvement over the former D-TIVO unit I had.


I'm always curious:
1. What exactly do you see as an improvement?
2. How much do you want for your DTivo?



> I am really convinced that the folks with the most problems are those who just can't stop 'playing' with it. For instance I've never found the need to get in the prioritizer and change the recording hierarchy.


Yeah, that must be it. We actually USE our DVRs...what were we thinking. :nono2:


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

ApK said:


> I'm always curious:
> 1. What exactly do you see as an improvement?


PIG and Single button records.


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## ApK (Mar 6, 2006)

cabanaboy1977 said:


> PIG and Single button records.


Hrmmm....Maybe I'd agree on the second one...if it would just actually record the thing. ;-)


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

ApK said:


> Hrmmm....Maybe I'd agree on the second one...if it would just actually record the thing. ;-)


I can agree with you on that. It's always nice when it records stuff


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## sheridan1952 (Mar 16, 2006)

gct said:


> .......I am really convinced that the folks with the most problems are those who just can't stop 'playing' with it. For instance I've never found the need to get in the prioritizer and change the recording hierarchy.


I beg to differ. I am not one these so-called "power-users" that are present here. I just use it record programs and watch later. I do not screw around with the prioritizer, I do not have more a couple SLs, I probably have the same on the TDL. My drive has never been more than 50% full at any time.

Yet, the box is unreliable. Right now, it is behaving itself, but I cannot depend on it. I have ranted in other threads about the problems I have experienced.

Bottom line, I am probably an average user. Yet I have problems, so I suggest you rethink that statement.


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## raott (Nov 23, 2005)

gct said:


> I am really convinced that the folks with the most problems are those who just can't stop 'playing' with it. For instance I've never found the need to get in the prioritizer and change the recording hierarchy.


Wrong. I use the R15 very litte, 4 or 5 series links and that is it. Still get black screen of death, caller ID still does not work and the time bar is still flakey.


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## d0ug (Mar 22, 2006)

Here's an issue I had a week ago. I have survivor set as a series link, and it was recording. I decided to watch it while it was recording. I was trailing behind live TV by about 5 minutes or so. About half way though survivor, I paused it so I could go out for about 45min. I get back with a friend, survivor is still paused, we decide to start watching it from the beginning, so I pressed stop, went to MyVOD to restart playing it from the beginning. I selected the episode and pressed play, the box did nothing. I exited VOD, reentered it, and tried to play it again, nothing. I did this a few times, then punched the reset button. Box rebooted, went to MyVOD and the episode was gone.


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## Tgrim1 (Aug 18, 2006)

I had an issue after the last update with the R15 (frozen recordings, not recording when it was supposed to, etc) but after a reformat and forcing the update it has been rock solid. It has 29 SL's and while it occasionally records repeats, it hasnt missed anything.
I've only been with D* a few months and when the issues appeared with the R15 I went and got an R10. I have them both hooked up now and think they each have their upsides and downsides.


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## Rivergoat (Sep 17, 2006)

Well, there's been a lot of posts to this thread since I made my newbie comment. Now I've had the unit 2 weeks and I can see 2 glitches. One, as others reported, the progress bar sticks from time to time. I'll try the 6 second jump back to fix that.

The other is that if I fast forward in multiple 30 second jumps through commercials (say on the David Letterman Show for example) I use the stop button to instantly come into play mode. That works much of the time, but then pressing stop will stop the playback entirely and put me in real time to whatever channel the unit is tuned to. If I go back into My VOD none of the left side menu functions work. I have found I need to unplug the machine and reboot then it is cleared. I don't think it likes me pressing stop during fast forward this way. If I press play during a fast forward it will jump into play mode and does not seem to cause this crippled menu glitch. At least after reboot functions work and no programs or settings are lost.

As for Scheduler, I set a new episode command for "Smallville" and noticed that it wants to record the Saturday showing as well, which is a past episode, not just a rerun of the previous Thursday night's first run. Probably the unit can't be faulted here as it sees a different episode title on a different day and interprets it as first run? Like a little kid the unit just needs to be watched and spanked if it does something wrong


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## jpl (Jul 9, 2006)

For what it's worth, here's my take. I had a DTivo for 2 1/2 years before it died on me. For what I'd heard about the R15 (including from a co-worker who had just gotten one, replacing his Tivo), I was less than thrilles at the thought of making the switch. At first I really missed my Tivo, and then the R15 grew on me. Many of the short-comings of the Tivo started to come to light. I've been one of those lucky ones - in my experiences (and I got my first R15 about 3 months ago), I've only had minor glitches - nothing major. No black screens of death. No freezes. About the most annoying is the first run/repeat issue. In particular, here's what I like about the R15 over the Tivo:

- PIG - as has been mentioned by others.
- Speed of the guide - in fact, I like the guide alot. It's MUCH more functional than the Tivo guide (e.g. the 1-touch series link option on the guide, and the fact that the the guide tells me what's slated to record).
- The seemlessness between the DVR and TV functionality. I really HATED having to switch between live tv and DTV Central. And I like that I can access my menus, and do my housekeeping while watching stuff. There are times when I just put on one of the recorded shows, and then I surf, keeping that show on in the background.

Yeah, I would like to see the dual buffers, and I would love to see them fix the first run/repeat issue, and I would like them to get rid of the limits on the todo list and series links. But overall, I'm very happy with it. I have since gotten a second one. And if I had a choice between keeping the R15 or going back to Tivo, I know this may be considered sacrilege here, but I would stick with the R15.


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## klwillis (Apr 11, 2006)

Bob once I reformated my R15 using the REC arrow down button
I haven't had many issues other than the sticky time bar but it hasn't crashed.

But once someone has an unstable R15 I believe it stays that way until something drastic is done like the reformat of the hard drive.

Keith



Bobman said:


> I see all the problem threads here and that started me thinking that maybe I have one of the only well working R-15's around so I started this thread.
> 
> I have 2 R-15's, and have been using one for about 9-10 months, the 2nd I added just a few months ago.
> 
> ...


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## Bobman (Jan 3, 2006)

klwillis said:


> Bob once I reformated my R15 using the REC arrow down button
> I haven't had many issues other than the sticky time bar but it hasn't crashed.


I wonder if that is the answer.  

I forgot about it but on my well working R-15, I too did a complete wipe and reformat before, and its working great.

My R-15 with the occasional problem, I never wiped and reformattted.

Hmmmmmmmm...... Anyone else ???


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## sheridan1952 (Mar 16, 2006)

I'll let you know. My R15 which had been behaving itself for a few days has decided to give me lots of trouble again. Freezing live tv, no response to the remote, not producing the list when asked, ending recordings early, etc.

I am dumping the contents onto DVDs and as soon I am done, it will be reformatted.


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## cybok0 (Jan 5, 2006)

Rivergoat said:


> Well, there's been a lot of posts to this thread since I made my newbie comment. Now I've had the unit 2 weeks and I can see 2 glitches. One, as others reported, the progress bar sticks from time to time. I'll try the 6 second jump back to fix that.
> 
> The other is that if I fast forward in multiple 30 second jumps through commercials (say on the David Letterman Show for example) I use the stop button to instantly come into play mode. That works much of the time, but then pressing stop will stop the playback entirely and put me in real time to whatever channel the unit is tuned to. If I go back into My VOD none of the left side menu functions work. I have found I need to unplug the machine and reboot then it is cleared. I don't think it likes me pressing stop during fast forward this way. If I press play during a fast forward it will jump into play mode and does not seem to cause this crippled menu glitch.


instead of hitting play or stop after ff try hitting pause then jump back. that shouldn't freeze it.


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## klwillis (Apr 11, 2006)

My question is if all the problems I was having were cured by a reformat.
How long will it take before the file system on hard drive degrades again to the point I will have to do another reformat. The reset everything did not work for me. But the REC arrow down button on the reset worked.
Even when I tried to get it to lock up or crash it kept running when before I could also get it to exhibit some ill behavor even after a reset.

Maybe we are on to something. If it is a file system problem they need to get rid of FAT32. All the NDS application can also work on Linux and most of their apps a java based. I hope the upgrade they have coming out is an OS upgrade to Linux or BDS or some proven Open Source OS.

By the way I been going 3 weeks now without issues since the reformat.
I never went an entire day without an issue before.

Keith



Bobman said:


> I wonder if that is the answer.
> 
> I forgot about it but on my well working R-15, I too did a complete wipe and reformat before, and its working great.
> 
> ...


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## Mountain_Goat (Sep 22, 2006)

I have seen several folsk mention a "reformat" to correct the issues with the R15 hanging. etc. Just how exactly do you reformat it? Mine seems to need a reboot now to cure the hung and refuses to function problems every couple of days now and it's really annoying.


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## Mountain_Goat (Sep 22, 2006)

I found the instructions for a reformat on the directv forums:

If that does not correct your problems, a more drastic reset, which will erase everything you have recorded and essentially set the unit back to a "new out of box" condition can be done. This is a clear and delete reset, or reformat (it has been referred to by both terms). To do this, start with a regular reset. When the unit starts back up, and the blue screen goes away (turns to black), push and hold the down arrow and the record button on the front of the dvr (not on the remote). Hold them for at least 6 to 8 seconds. When the unit finishes starting back up, it will be like new.


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## ApK (Mar 6, 2006)

Yes, it's described in the FAQ at the top of this forum as well.
While this is the most comprehensive reset, apparently, and it did solve some problems for us after the last update, be advised that it doesn't REALLY return the unit to "out of box" condition. Some settings persist.


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

That information is also in the FAQ which is a sticky in this forum.

Carl


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## cdworkin (Jul 26, 2006)

qwerty said:


> Well, wouldn't you agree that if they gave us that capability it shouldn't cause problems? BTW - I don't think it causes the problems it used to.


Right! If reprioritizing causes issues then don't have it as a feature. I refuse to take the blame for this thing not working because I am pushing too many buttons. That is ridiculous.

If you shouldn't try to do too many things at once then it should lock it up and say 'this will take a minute' just like it says on any computer program when it is doing something.

And the other features, reprioritizing, first run, time bar... all that crap. I don't care about any of it. I want the thing to RECORD my shows that I ask it to and not make me have to DELETE all my RECORDINGS to make it work every once in a while.

I'm on my third R15 box and I am just scratching my head as to how this thing could work for anyone. And in an effort to keep mine working for as long as possible I have stopped 'playing' with it... my husband and I actually yell at each other, 'no, don't push that button!' We record, watch and that is it. Every once in a while I attempt to add an SL and cross my fingers. But in reality I don't try to add any SLs, it has to be a pretty fantastic show for me to add an SL. It shouldn't be this way.

CDM


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