# 501 Bug - Error 457/458



## Adrian_R (Jul 5, 2002)

Could not remember if the error number was 457 or 458, but it was one of them.

I was trying to summon the Guide at the same time that a timer was firing off.

The 501 became sluggish. If I hit the Info button, it would take several seconds for the info display to show. Hitting Cancel also took several seconds.

When I hit the PVR button, my list of recordings were gone, and I was informed that I had an error code 45(7/8), and that I shoud call Dish.

Tried the power button reboot, but the same error message came up. My recordings list was still empty.

I called Dish, and I was told that my box was bad, but the good news was that since I had the extended warranty, that I would not have to pay to fix it. However, I'd have to pay $14 if I wanted a box sent to me first, instead of me just sending in my box and waiting for a replacement. I told them that they waved the fee before, and the support lady said yes, but we only do that once. Ugh.

I asked for advanced support, and the lady got semi-rude with me, saying that she could only connect me after a lengthly process of checking things outl, and at the end of it all, I would still have to send the box in.

I told her, lets go through the motions., since I want to talk to the adv. tech dept. (report the problem for posterity's sake). She was impatient but polite, had me do the smart card removal. Same error message. Then I pulled the plug, waited 30 seconds, and plugged the 501 back in.

I immediately go the downloading guide message, waited two minutes, and then my 501 came up just fine. I checked my recordings list, and everything was there. I tried the first, middle, and last recordings at 300x, and they all played fine. The Guide displayed fine.

To her credit, the lady then asked me if I wanted to talk to the adv. tech. department, and I said YES. After being on hold for a while, I talked to a adv. tech. guy, why said "yep" after every single one of my sentences describing the problem. I stopped half way through the explanation, and asked him if he heard of this problem before, and if this was a hardware problem that I need to send the 501 back, or just a software (pointer) type of problem. He confirmed its software only, happens allot, and that I should never fool around with the 501 when a timer is firiing off. He also told me that I was VERY lucky that I still had my recordings, and asked me if I turned the box off every night. I told him not only do I turn it off, but I reboot it every night first. He was surprised by that and asked me why. I explained that if I don't, sooner or later I'll get weird stuff happening, like a 45(7/8) error! 

Anyways, here are the morals of the story:

1) Don't believe the first level techs. Make them work the problem, even if they don't want to, and escalate it to the second/advanced level techs.

2) Don't use your 501 in those first few moments when the timer is starting. Definately bad mojo, and its not going to go away anytime soon (per the adv. tech. person). Not that I knew the timer was firing off anyways. My son answered the blinking clock and then left the room, and I came in and brought up the Guide to watch something.

3) When all else fails, pull the plug (typing that just made me think about a old Star Trek episode and a line similar to what I just typed that Kirk says to Spock, about a computer that ran amock).

4) $14 fee for having them send you a refurb box when you already pay a monthly fee for an extended warranty is lousy business. More lousy is not doing that and being nice JUST once. Sheesh.

For what its worth people. Thanks for your reading time.

Adrian


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## rbonzer (May 13, 2002)

Thanks for the story. Guess we need to be careful when timers fire off.


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## Adrian_R (Jul 5, 2002)

> _Originally posted by rbonzer _
> *Thanks for the story. Guess we need to be careful when timers fire off. *


My sincere hope is that this is something related to the latest build (166?) that I had downloaded the night before, and not a general flaw with the 501.

Otherwise, don't touch your 501 from :59 to :00 and :029 to :030 inclusive (unless you know/remember that a timer isn't about to fire off on the hour you are using the 501!).


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## MrPete (Apr 8, 2002)

I've had problems BEFORE 166 that were related to timers firing while I was using my remote. 
Like Pavlov's Dog, I have learned NOT to go into the menus within a couple of minutes of a timer firing. I have also had weird problems before when I was watching a prerecorded event and had it paused for around more than 5 minutes and a timer event fired while I was paused.


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