# HwS Dying?



## FarmerBob (Nov 28, 2002)

I've been up all night looking for answers and this is my last resort. Late this afternoon we turned on one of two HwS and it started acting very strange all of the sudden. The other HwS is just fine, some wonkiness since v523, but for the most part, OK.

The excerpt below was post in another forum but is identical to what is happening to me. My additions will be in *Red*.

I noticed today, that on the guide, normal on the left where it shows all the channel numbers, names, and logos, that the logos had disappeared. I didn't think too much of it.

I then noticed that all my DVR recordings (although still present) no longer showed the TV show logo....rather just the generic "dish" logo for every recorded program. I also noticed that all my timers were gone. Tried to back up the remote and only remote to HwS would work. So we're losing timers too. If there are there I couldn't see mine. Just tried to go back and look again and the unit's in a reboot loop. IT jsut stopped. I can browse recordings, can't watch any, no PTAT, no Timers, No nothing. No it's locked up on the Daily Schedule.

I thought maybe the system just needed a restart, so red button reset I did.

Reboot seemed to take a long time. Showed the "starting up screen" 3-4 times with black screens in between. It took about 4-5 minutes for the boot to reach the "this should take no more than 5 minutes to complete" progress bar screen. That process took another 10 minutes. When it was done, on the bottom middle of the screen, in a shaded box, it showed the message: "Your program guide and DVR are being updated. Please wait to create timers or access DVR events." This progress bar progressed quite slow.

After reboot and the above mentioned progress bar went away, and you can "Gingerly" use the machine to a point before locking it up.

I started digging to if I had signal and such......discovered i seemed to have lost my internet. I tried different hard line ports (that I new worked as I was using on a different device all with no luck. I also noticed that when I put the hopper in standby mode, it keeps trying to update my guide. The other HwS sees the failing HwS, but MoCA says it's there and Good but not connected. It all seems to be centered around the Internet connection and MoCA. Every time I go into Internet/MoCA settings and try something the unit locks up. I have it connected directly with Bridging turned off. The Joey has since reconnected to the HwS that says it's working, but won't work at the moment and we were getting a full page of errors, but just now it started working off the other HwS. Also trying to hook up an EHD and all the failing HwS is saying is that it's formatting it, but nothing is happening and the only way to get out of it is it power cycle the HwS. We'll lose a whole lot of recordings. Grandma is really not happy about that. 

Another thing I noticed is that this unit is on an open rack so it gets 360 degree air flow and the bottom on the right side is really hot. But cools quickly once unplugged. Now it's lock in a reboot loop.

This is the first real problem, no replacements since initial install two year or so ago, I have had other than annoying software bugs. So any ideas if there is anything to resurrect this or is it a goner.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.


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## david_jr (Dec 10, 2006)

Sounds like a goner. I would contact a DIRT member ASAP


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

Sorry to hear that. If you are curious what is on the right side of the Hopper that is getting hot:










It's the power supply, which takes up the entire right side of the chassis.


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## FarmerBob (Nov 28, 2002)

I left it unplugged over night and all it does now is go through a repeated restart cycle that ends with the "acquiring signal" sequence that takes a long time. It looks as though everything is intact on the hard drive, of which we'll lose with a replacement. Now it's up and running. We can surf channels with a two hour guide. All our recordings and PTAT are there, with no icons, but can be watched. No timers or Daily Schedule. Can navigate all around except to Internet related things. This whole thing seems to be more Internet/MoCA related than anything. And I now have the unit hooked up directly to the modem and neither the Joey or failing HwS show up in the device list. I got an EHD to format on my other HwS and will try to archive the programming. No Joy. It sees me unplug it, but not plug it in and does not acknowledge it as an EHD. So All our stuff is there, just can't archive it. This make matters even worse, than if it were just gone.

Just tried to reset the Internet connection and it's saying it's connected to the main HwS that is also hardwired, but is doing the "can't get an IPA, so I'm doing the internal thing" address. And when it's all done it reverts to Live TV. Just tried to look at the MoCA status and all I get is a blank screen with the inset TV pic in the upper corner. The main HwS now sees the other unit and the Joey. It shows the failing HwS MoCA as Overall Quality: Good; Discovered: Yes; Linked: No.

It's all boiling down to MoCA/Internet and all our content and the hard drive is just fine. This is nutz!


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

Don't try this, even if it might work.

Turn off and unplug both Hoppers. Place the bad Hopper next to the good Hopper. Take the cover off of both Hoppers. Remove both SATA hard drive cables from the end of the cable that is attached to their respective hard drive controllers. Connect the SATA cable from the bad Hopper's hard drive to the good Hopper's controller. Turn on both Hoppers. Then use the good Hopper to copy data from the bad Hopper's internal hard drive to the external hard drive plugged into the good Hopper's USB port.

When finished, turn off and unplug both Hoppers. Reconnect all cables back to the way they were originally. Put the covers back on. Power on and test the Hoppers to see if anything has changed.

Again, even if this might work don't try this as you may void things that you shouldn't be voiding. Or lose everything on the bad and good Hopper hard drives or worse. Seriously, I have no idea if this will work or what the consequences might be. Even just reading this might cause pain. Avoid direct eye contact.


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## FarmerBob (Nov 28, 2002)

Hmm, Blowgun, interesting. No actual pain, but I feel a little brain stretching. Although I did look directly at your posting.

So far I have tracked it to MoCA. It looks like MoCA on the bad one isn't working all the way. And when I try to go in and look at settings the unit restarts or I get the blank page with the mini pic in the upper left corner. As a whole the hard drive is fine and it's looking like there are things that depend on MoCA that are binding up the machine. A really strange thing is that it keeps showing up on my router, then disappearing and it changes the name of the good HwS in the attached devices list, then the Joey comes and then goes.

At this point I'm thinking a factory reset? OH! the System Status page says everything is fine except Box "B" Broadband is red. Box "F" Hard Drive and all the rest are green.

_Wouldn't that be great if they had a transfer process for occasions like this. It would be such excellent customer service and make a lot of people happy._


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## FarmerBob (Nov 28, 2002)

So where's the list of DIRT Members? All the ones that I have talked to are no longer responding.

Thanks . . .
. . . fb


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## FarmerBob (Nov 28, 2002)

As of a couple of minutes ago, everything is there and the only problem is anything linked to MoCA or the Internet. All programming, with no icons and it can be watched, same with PTAT. Only the EPG (with two hours of programming), Timers and Daily Schedule are gone and they lock it up too when you try to view them.

I'm wondering if it's not the Duo Node?

Hmmmm.


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## FarmerBob (Nov 28, 2002)

Was looking around and when I went into the Network area I got in big red letters Error Code 3. Now what is that? Everything is still there and it's usable for short periods of time.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.


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## FarmerBob (Nov 28, 2002)

The situation is in great hands now. We'll see what happens. Thanks all for your input.

I will report back as to what finally happens.


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## FarmerBob (Nov 28, 2002)

_*"OMG!"*_

After a 10 minute outage, the unit came back up as if nothing ever happened. I went to check some things and get some numbers and was told that the unit went down for about 10 minutes and then came back on. I checked it out and now it's as if nothing ever happened. It works great. All Recordings have icons; PATA, Rentals and Timers are back; the Guide has more than 2 hours of listings; no pages that involve or refer to networking cause the machine to lock up. Was able to backup to the remote with no problem. Before, the process wouldn't work. But the main thing is that it's getting an appropriate IPA. Which it wasn't all during all the "issues".

This is the strangest thing I have yet to encounter, other than when I first installed and the HwS tried to eat my network, which I was able to fix with Static IPA's. But it looks like you lose the Internet connection and a good portion of the box and its stability goes with it. Ya think maybe a "bug"?

So it's been back up for about an hour and now we're still back to where we were when things were good. And my brain feels 20 pounds lighter.

More if it happens. Fingers crossed that this thread is dead!


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## SeaBeagle (May 7, 2006)

Always good to unplug and reboot a receiver to restore to working condition. 


Sent from my iPad 4 128GB using DBSTalk mobile application.


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

As mentioned earlier, it was unplugged overnight and was in worse condition than before. This is not to say unplugging is bad, just that was already tried.

Glad to hear things are smooth again. Now ask yourself, do you trust that receiver?


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## FarmerBob (Nov 28, 2002)

SeaBeagle said:


> Always good to unplug and reboot a receiver to restore to working condition.
> 
> Sent from my iPad 4 128GB using DBSTalk mobile application.


As in this case, they don't always "restore to working condition".


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## FarmerBob (Nov 28, 2002)

Blowgun said:


> As mentioned earlier, it was unplugged overnight and was in worse condition than before. This is not to say unplugging is bad, just that was already tried.
> 
> Glad to hear things are smooth again. Now ask yourself, do you trust that receiver?


Thanks Blowgun, you are so right and it's a bit creepy in you saying that last part, which I was thinking the exact same thing the whole time since the unit came back up, "do I trust that it is truly 'fixed'?", or "how long before it does this again". BUT it's still working. Thanking the Cat5 gods and Xanax. Been checking the LAN listings and they, the Main HwS and Joey have always, kept their static IPAs and are playing nice. This whole episode was based on networking, as it took me several days when they were first installed to figure out why all of a sudden my network was a mess and traced it back to the "neediness" of the new HwS systems when left unchecked. It took isolation to get things to settle down and operate as they should, each unit being assigned a static IPA. As I have said before, it seems that DISH has ignored the rules of basic networking and how their units perform with networking. It's also unfortunate, as I just experienced, that when you lose the Internet connection, for whatever reason, how everything just caves in. The older unnetworked boxes worked just fine when only connected to the dish. Why not these just saying, "I can't see the rest of your system, but will operate as a standalone unit"? I truly think this is a bug and what with these units being DISH's first real go at full blown networking, there are things to be learned. There seems to be so much mix and match going on. Fingers crossed that they do get learned. ALSO all the problems I had with the DUO Nodes when first installed and trying to keep my two dish set up, which during every recent storm we've had rain fade, whereas with the two dish set up we had good solid service all the time. The Duo Nodes just kept frying and no one knew why other than I had to have a 1k2, wished it was a 1k4, dish to fix it. If a box loses its real world IPA, why can't they still communicate with what they must have as in their own "language" through the Nodes not being dependent on that IPA to work properly? These aren't Roku's.

All this device interaction is in its infancy and we've got a ways to go. Not just DISH, but everybody. Especially when the rules, protocols and formats are new, many, with new ones popping up everyday and everyone thinking theirs is the best and bypassing the set standards. It would save us all a lot of headaches in situations like this. Grandma, who just got out of the hospital, is so happy that all her stuff, that is being archived as I type, is still there, even though she may never watch it. That made this even more trying. And the bigger problem is that she is an actual "Rocket Scientist" so situations like this "perturb" her and that hurts my brain adding to the mix of maladies. AND why does it take so long to BU recordings? I have cloned a jerry-rigged multi-TB HD in a fraction of the time it takes to backup DISH stuff.

Everything is still good. And in saying this, I pray that I don't jinx things.

Thanks all, Take Care . . .
. . . fb

P.S.
Thanks Matt for holding my hand in the final hours. If it wasn't for getting you info off the unit, I probably wouldn't have noticed it working as soon as I did. That moment of realization was profound and liberating.


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