# Slow remote response time



## gregftlaud (Nov 20, 2005)

Got the new HD GUI 2nd week of December and initially response time to remote vastly improved over old software. But now 6 weeks into using the new software the remote response time is painfully slow once again. Tried changing batteries in remote. Tried a new remote. Also cleaned remote sensor on front of receiver. Also tried that trick thing where u go to the customer channel and press the colored buttons to clear the VRAM/cache or whatever u call it. No help. My living room receiver is a HR20-700 i thought it was just my receiver so i used my bedroom's HR20-100 for an evening and it was also really slow.

At times it all works very well but other times....man it's really frustrating. I'll press buttons on the remote and the light on the receiver where u can see if it accepts remote commands doesnt even blink.......then keep hitting buttons nothing happens at times then like 20-30 seconds later the receiver remote light starts blinking without touching the remote accepting all the commands u earlier pushed. Oh and using fast forward and rewind has become really bad too.

Anyone else experiencing this? This is worse than the old software as much as I like the new HD GUI the remote response time it just killing the nice new interface for me.


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## sigma1914 (Sep 5, 2006)

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=201095


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

It's a known issue with HR20 and I know they are working toward a resolution. In the meantime there's a small possibility this could help:


Go to channel 1. 
Wait 5-10 seconds
On remote, press RED / RED / BLUE / BLUE / YELLOW / GREEN.
See message, "Observe NVRAM/Flash is cleared" on bottom of screen. It may be hard to read.
*note - This process may take more than one time through before the customer sees the text on the screen.


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## billsharpe (Jan 25, 2007)

Stuart Sweet said:


> It's a known issue with HR20 and I know they are working toward a resolution. In the meantime there's a small possibility this could help:
> 
> 
> Go to channel 1.
> ...


That approach helped me but only for a few days. That slow remote response and a savings of $40 per month were the main reasons for my switching to FiOS TV.


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## gregftlaud (Nov 20, 2005)

Yah Stuart thanks for the respose but in my original post i stated i cleared the NVRAM/cache. Saw the other thread i was pointed to and restarted twice in 30minutes and flushed the guide and seems to be helping. I guess that will be the resolution until they come out with another software update to fix the glitch.


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

Weekly reboots and clearing the nvram are still the best options.


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## allenn (Nov 19, 2005)

I have two HR24-100s which are affected with slow remote response. There are times when the receivers will not respond. In my case, I think it is my wireless network which is interfering with the RF remote. I have not figured out how to clear NVRAM on the 24s.


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## Caromsoft (Jul 17, 2010)

I just installed an HR34 as my only receiver after 10 years with a DirecTivo. The HR34 is hooked to an HDMI distribution system that goes out to three televisions, Family Room where the HR34 is, Bedroom upstairs and Sunroom downstairs. I control the system with IR repeaters.

After getting everything hooked up and running I noticed that the HR34 was slow to respond to button pushes as has been described here, but I was aware of the issue from reading other threads. I too would not see the light flash on the box when a button was pushed.

Now here is the interesting part.

The problem was only in the Family Room where the HR34 resides. From the Bedroom and Sunroom it responded to virtually every button push instantly. I happen to have an extra transmitter so I put that on top of the HR34, so at that point what was happening was on every button push a signal would go directly to the HR34 as well as the transmitter. The transmitter would then resend the signal to a receiver on the other side of the room, which would resend the command to the 34. On my setup at least this seems to have solved the problem.

I have a theory on why this seems to be working. I actually have two receivers in the Family Room, one under a couch the other under a love seat. Both are about the same distance from the HR34. I did this because when I set the system up many years ago I really only needed one receiver and a bunch of transmitters, but they come in pairs, so I had several extra receivers. Two receivers means one can be blocked and the system would still work.

So my theory is that from the bedroom when I push a button, one receiver "wakes up" the system and the second sends the command as well, which the 34 is then ready to receive. By putting a transmitter on top of the 34, it is now getting three signals of the same command when I am in the Family Room.

I am using a combination of old RCA pyramid IR transmitter/receivers, and a new pair from Monoprice. I was lucky, they work on the same frequency.

At some point, because I like to know for sure if something is actually working or if something else is going on, I will unplug the Family Room transmitter and see if the problem returns.


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## JonW (Dec 21, 2006)

In my experience with slow remote response, the light on the front of the receiver does blink ... but it just takes its sweet time getting around to processing the push.

If the push is being dropped that tends to indicate some sort of an IR/RF issue, but if it's just being accepted slowly, that's the DVR.

Back in the early days we used to do stuff like tune to non-HD channels to ease the load on the DVR and boost the response time.


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## bobcamp1 (Nov 8, 2007)

allenn said:


> I have two HR24-100s which are affected with slow remote response. There are times when the receivers will not respond. In my case, I think it is my wireless network which is interfering with the RF remote. I have not figured out how to clear NVRAM on the 24s.


I have the same problem with my HR24-200, and it's using an IR remote five feet away from the box. The box will become completely unresponsive to the remote for 20 - 40 seconds. The remote commands are not queued, simply ignored. This happens once or twice a week. The batteries are fresh. This never happened before the HD GUI was downloaded.


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## gregftlaud (Nov 20, 2005)

Didnt they thoroughly beta test this??? Or did they rush it out? I mean didnt anyone put the software on their DVR and wait a couple of weeks and notice sluggishness? I find it hard to believe they knew nothing of this obvious software glitch before they released it.

I mean come on in the General Discussion thread there is a poll and overall only 39percent say that the new software is working fine for them.


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## NaperDan (Jun 9, 2009)

Has anyone considered the possibility that since the UI is now HD it must download much more data during times when it is receiving info from the satellites? This, in turn, does slow down the HR20 that I have for short periods. The example I'll use is when tuning to a sports channel and the extra info begins to become available. If I hit exit to stop that info from downloading, I have no delay in remote response. If I continue to allow the message to display and then try to change the channel or do other commands, there can sometimes be a lengthy delay in response time. Seems to me that any channel that has extra data available through other commands causes this.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

gregftlaud said:


> Yah Stuart thanks for the respose but in my original post i stated i cleared the NVRAM/cache. Saw the other thread i was pointed to and restarted twice in 30minutes and flushed the guide and seems to be helping. I guess that will be the resolution until they come out with another software update to fix the glitch.


With this new GUI, flushing the Guide data as you did is the only thing that has solved the slowness problem for me. I know that future NRs will solve this problem, just have to be patient.

Rich


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## JonW (Dec 21, 2006)

Oh, I will point out that when I'm tuned to NBA TV for any length of time, the DVR would become completely unresponsive to most IR commands; but I learned long ago in that situation to push EXIT 3x or GUIDE and for whatever reason those keys would go through and bring the DVR out of the state. 

I always assumed it had something to do with the active content on the channel.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

gregftlaud said:


> Didnt they thoroughly beta test this??? Or did they rush it out? I mean didnt anyone put the software on their DVR and wait a couple of weeks and notice sluggishness? I find it hard to believe they knew nothing of this obvious software glitch before they released it.
> 
> I mean come on in the General Discussion thread there is a poll and overall only 39percent say that the new software is working fine for them.


I don't understand why anyone's surprised this is happening. Major upgrades never seem to work correctly at first. Takes a few NRs and some patience. I know it's annoying, but that's what we live with. Just yesterday, I had two 20-700s lock up on me. Two 20-700s that I know are fine. Just reset them (by pulling the plug, I rarely use the Red Button) and they were fine. In a few months all these problems should be resolved.

Rich


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## allenn (Nov 19, 2005)

Rich said:


> With this new GUI, flushing the Guide data as you did is the only thing that has solved the slowness problem for me.....


How do you flush the NVRAM on a HR24-100? The NVRAM flush method described for the HR20 does not work for me.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

allenn said:


> How do you flush the NVRAM on a HR24-100? The NVRAM flush method described for the HR20 does not work for me.


Should be the same way as Stuart described. Your post is a bit confusing. Are you having problems with a 24-100 or one of the 20s?

Rich


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## allenn (Nov 19, 2005)

Rich said:


> Should be the same way as Stuart described. Your post is a bit confusing. Are you having problems with a 24-100 or one of the 20s?Rich


I apologize for the confusion. I have two HR24-100s and very slow remote response times. I have tried the NVRAM flushing method on both DVR's which I hoped would speed the remote response. I have not been successful using the NVRAM flushing method described for the HR20 DVR. If this method works for the HR24, then it must be an operator error. Thanks for the reply and best wishes.


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## acostapimps (Nov 6, 2011)

i have a hr22-100 and i find it best way to fix remote response is to channel surf browsing quickly (basically waking up dvr responses a bit) which is huge improvement temporarly and also open the guide and scroll faster and would notice the difference but opening the playlist remains the same taking awhile but usually happens when there is alot of programs recorded (especially on external hd with 2tb because internal drive doesn't act that way and sd gui either.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

acostapimps said:


> i have a hr22-100 and i find it best way to fix remote response is to channel surf browsing quickly (basically waking up dvr responses a bit) which is huge improvement temporarly and also open the guide and scroll faster and would notice the difference but opening the playlist remains the same taking awhile but usually happens when there is alot of programs recorded (especially on external hd with 2tb because internal drive doesn't act that way and sd gui either.


How full is that external 2TB HDD?

Rich


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

Remember to give this procedure a shot too, thankfully submitted by a DIRECTV company tech. "beforesixbeers."

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=2935266#post2935266

This one worked very well for my slow HR22-100.


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## acostapimps (Nov 6, 2011)

Rich said:


> How full is that external 2TB HDD?
> 
> Rich


About 60 percent full which is alot of recording on 2TB external HDD which is like a computer with lots of files come to think of it IT IS.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

acostapimps said:


> About 60 percent full which is alot of recording on 2TB external HDD which is like a computer with lots of files come to think of it IT IS.


As you fill it up, the HR will get slower. I try to keep my 2TB drives at around 50% full. That's the biggest benefit of a 2TB drive, I think.

Rich


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