# VIP 722 Reboot/Not Updating Issue



## somguy (Oct 2, 2006)

*I signed up with DISH on Tuesday 06/17/08. My VIP 722 has already spontaneously rebooted 4 times within 4 days.
My current software version is L449. The dvr has had at least 4 nightly chances to update to L510 or L511 and it has not.
I understand that in L510 it fixed the Reboot Issue which was obviously a known issue.
The DISH tech stated that since my dvr will not update the software after we tried to force it then it may be hardware related.

A tech is scheduled to come to my home on Thursday morning.

Do you guys think that indeed I do need a new Receiver?
Do you think if I force the update on the new dvr it will give me L510 or L511?
After getting at least L510, do you think that my reboot issue will finally be resolved?

Any input will be greatly appreciated and thank you for reading my post.*


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## Ken Green (Oct 6, 2005)

somguy said:


> I signed up with DISH on Tuesday 06/17/08. My VIP 722 has already spontaneously rebooted 4 times within 4 days.
> My current software version is L449. The dvr has had at least 4 nightly chances to update to L510 or L511 and it has not.
> I understand that in L510 it fixed the Reboot Issue which was obviously a known issue.
> The DISH tech stated that since my dvr will not update the software after we tried to force it then it may be hardware related.
> ...


I'm fairly certain it is not possible to "force" a software update. The "four nightly chances" you spoke of, have nothing to do with a software update.
You can "force" a nightly update, but that is different from a software update.
Software updates occur once your receiver is targeted. Once targeted, the next time the receiver is put into stand-by, the server spools the update. Once your receiver has been targeted, all you need to do is, put it into stand-by, to receive the update.

If you haven't already, you may want to try doing a hard-reset. Pull the A/C plug, wait 30 seconds, and plug it back in.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Hmm.. looks like L5.11 was out on the 12th. I am suprised that your box did not take the update and instead took L4.49. Was the box new or a refurbished box? And Ken is right.. No way to force an update.

As for the reboots, one thing I feel needs mentioning. Reboots can happen for a number of reasons ranging from internal hardware, software, and external influences so unless you are certain why something is rebooting I would never make the leap that if a update contains reboot fixes that it will fix my reboot problem.. Yes it might.. but taken that leap is another matter.

If your box has rebooted 4 times in the last 4 days, that is not normal and doing a box swap might be a good thing to do. I would also try and see if there appears to be a trigger that is causing the reboots or are they appear to be totally random in nature. 

Other things I might do is get a UPS for the receiver or a conditioner to rule out power as a possible issues. 

I assume yoru 722 is new.... ANother thing to check.. Look at your sys info and your diagnostic counters and do you see anything that look odd. By odd I mean large number of counters in a particular area.

Well those are a few things I would look at as you try and narrow the root cause of your problem down.


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## somguy (Oct 2, 2006)

Ron Barry said:


> Hmm.. looks like L5.11 was out on the 12th. I am suprised that your box did not take the update and instead took L4.49. Was the box new or a refurbished box? And Ken is right.. No way to force an update.
> 
> As for the reboots, one thing I feel needs mentioning. Reboots can happen for a number of reasons ranging from internal hardware, software, and external influences so unless you are certain why something is rebooting I would never make the leap that if a update contains reboot fixes that it will fix my reboot problem.. Yes it might.. but taken that leap is another matter.
> 
> ...


Thank you guys for posting to my thread.

In regards to my receiver not updating, it sounds to me as if a new dvr may not make a difference; although it sounds like I should have at least L5.10 if not L5.11.
In regards to new software, I have read on this forum that the reboot issue was a nightmare on L4.49. My DVR is already plugged into an APC UPS. It is under an a/c vent out in the open so overheating or power issues should not be the root cause. This DVR should be brand new as far as I know; I did not see a refurbished sticker on it. 
As far as counters are concerned, I don't know what is normal and what is not as I am new to DISH and did not deal with that with Directv. 
Is each line, #, considered a counter?
What is the normal temp. of these hdd's?
My picture does look a bit more pixelated, especially on the SD channels so I guess I'll have the tech come and check the signal and swap the dvr; but so far I did have better reception with Directv.
So do you still think I need a new DVR?
Sounds to me as if the tech didn't know what he was talking about; gee what a shocker!!
If that new dvr does not give me newer software or if it still has a reboot isuue, I am leaving DISH. So far, the box is buggy, features aren't as good as I am used to, the pic quality isn't as good, and the techs are not informative and they are incompetent. I am hoping that things will get better soon!!

Any info. would be much appreciated and thank you for taking your time to read my post


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Counters - Not ever line is the diags is a counter. I will try and build up a list of ones that might provide some clues if I get the time but if you see something that sounds like a counter and see numbers over 100 It might be a clue.

Normal Temp of the drives I would say range from aroun 100 to 140. I believe mine is at 140. 

How many Dish Pass timers do you have? There was an issues with creating a lot of Dish Pass Timers that would cause rebooting. In the past people new to Dish have created Dish Pass thinking they are the same as Season Pass in the Tivo world. This is not the case... Use All or New for your Season Pass timer creation and Dish Pass to watch for that particular Movie to show up or if you are interested in a particular topic. 

As for pic quality... Definitely subjective and the only think I can say on that is make sure your TVs sharpness is not cranked up and no fancy T.V. enhancing is enabled.

As for a new box.. Give what you have described.. Unless you have a lot of Dish Pass timers (30+), I would be thinking of trying a box swap. Should not be box swapping. One thing you might want to rule out.. Take it off the UPS and see if stability is acheived. 

Are you still getting 1 reboot a day?


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## somguy (Oct 2, 2006)

Ron Barry said:


> Counters - Not ever line is the diags is a counter. I will try and build up a list of ones that might provide some clues if I get the time but if you see something that sounds like a counter and see numbers over 100 It might be a clue.
> 
> Normal Temp of the drives I would say range from aroun 100 to 140. I believe mine is at 140.
> 
> ...


Thanks for posting!!.........
The avg. temp. of the hdd is 114 degrees fahrenheit. I have NO DISH Passes set but I did know what they were.
I am not going to take it off of the UPS because my Directv DVR was on their and it never had an issue and in South FLorida we get surges all of the time so this way it will be protected and shouldn't reset when it storms, etc.
Also with Directv the SD picture quality was fine for SD on a HDTV. There is definitely some picture loss with DISH.
I am hoping that when the tech comes he may fix my PQ which maybe will also cause the reboots to stop plus getting a new DVR wouldn't hurt either and maybe I will get the newer software; maybe L5.10 or L5.11.

Earlier today Tuner 2 was recording on NBC at 10am.
I went to change the channel to ABC Fanily, the pic froze, and 3 minutes later the dvr reset.
Needless to say I lost 6 minutes of the show I was recording on NBC!!!

Hopefully this all wil be resolved shortly; one way or the other.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

One thing. My high temperature is now at 138° and at one point it was 140°. That made me rather nervous because of the following information:

From Seagate's web site (covers Seagate and Maxtor hard drives):


> Most high speed hard drives are designed for an operational temperature of between 5 (41°F) and 55°C (131°F). Ambient case temperatures above 55°C (131°F) or below 5°C (41°F) can decrease drive reliability, performance, and product life.


From Western Digital's web site:


> The normal operating range for WD SCSI drives is 41 to 131 degrees Fahrenheit (5 to 55 degrees Celsius). Ensure that your system has adequate cooling to maintain this range. This may require forced air-cooling to meet specified operating temperatures.


Regardless of the average temperature, a couple of continuous hours around 140° is not so good.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

somguy said:


> Thanks for posting!!.........
> The avg. temp. of the hdd is 114 degrees fahrenheit. I have NO DISH Passes set but I did know what they were.
> I am not going to take it off of the UPS because my Directv DVR was on their and it never had an issue and in South FLorida we get surges all of the time so this way it will be protected and shouldn't reset when it storms, etc.
> Also with Directv the SD picture quality was fine for SD on a HDTV. There is definitely some picture loss with DISH.
> ...


If you are having reboots daily.. Definitely something is not right. on the PQ. I am sure you have already checked this but make sure your box is not set to 480p. It defaults to that and has to be changed to 1080i/720p. Is the 722 using the exact same input on your TV. If not... That might explain the differences. There is numerous what DBS has better PQ and the opinions vary and dependin a lot on what channels people watch etc. The best one can do is take care of the external PQ related tweaks and after that it is what it is...

The more I read your posts, the more I lean towards a box swap but there still are external factors that can be causing reboots, but doing a box swap will at least partially rule out the 722's hardware being the cause.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

Ken Green said:


> Once your receiver has been targeted, all you need to do is, put it into stand-by, to receive the update.


Putting your receiver into standby does nothing more than putting your receiver into standby. The updates are received during the nightly maintenance. 
Performing a Check Switch will also trigger updates apart from the nightly maintenance.


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## Bobham (Jan 26, 2008)

I have two 722 units, both of which were in an enclosed cabinet with ventilation. They both experienced the reboot you described on several occasions. I even had one replaced, and the new one rebooted. I moved the cabinet and placed the units on an open shelf, and have not had any repeat incidents. I firmly believe that ambient temperature has a negative effect on these units, causing the reboot. Not sure if your situation is similar to mine, but for others having the trouble... try giving them air.


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## Ken Green (Oct 6, 2005)

TulsaOK said:


> Putting your receiver into standby does nothing more than putting your receiver into standby. The updates are received during the nightly maintenance.
> Performing a Check Switch will also trigger updates apart from the nightly maintenance.


Again, once your receiver has been targeted to be spooled a software update, if you place the receiver into stand-by, as soon as the server recognizes the targeted receiver is in the stand-by mode, that too, will trigger the update.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

This is how I understand it to work.... Infact there was a while back where Dish Spooled a software update during some season finals and due to the east cost time difference a lot of receivers started updating themselves and parts of shows were missed and there was a lot of upset Dish customers...


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## somguy (Oct 2, 2006)

Ron Barry said:


> If you are having reboots daily.. Definitely something is not right. on the PQ. I am sure you have already checked this but make sure your box is not set to 480p. It defaults to that and has to be changed to 1080i/720p. Is the 722 using the exact same input on your TV. If not... That might explain the differences. There is numerous what DBS has better PQ and the opinions vary and dependin a lot on what channels people watch etc. The best one can do is take care of the external PQ related tweaks and after that it is what it is...
> 
> The more I read your posts, the more I lean towards a box swap but there still are external factors that can be causing reboots, but doing a box swap will at least partially rule out the 722's hardware being the cause.


Thanks for posting!!

The DVR is set to 1080i 16x9 which is what my tv is.
I use a HDMI cable; same as what I used for Directv. In fact, all the same cables/wires except for the dvr plug.
There should be no need to change my tv settings.
I even notice the ghosting, etc. when watching HD in a 4x3 pic; the full screen HD pics seem fine I gather.
Maybe it is my dvr causing the signal issues which is deteriorating my PQ and causing the reboots; we shall see on Thursday morning!!


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## somguy (Oct 2, 2006)

TulsaOK said:


> Putting your receiver into standby does nothing more than putting your receiver into standby. The updates are received during the nightly maintenance.
> Performing a Check Switch will also trigger updates apart from the nightly maintenance.


Thanks for the heads up.
I just ran a check switch.
Satellite Input 1 - All seems fine.
Satellite Input 2 - T[0] Invalid DishPro Switch Detected, Code 18,F9.

Any idea what this could mean??

Thanks for all of your input!!


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## somguy (Oct 2, 2006)

Ken Green said:


> Again, once your receiver has been targeted to be spooled a software update, if you place the receiver into stand-by, as soon as the server recognizes the targeted receiver is in the stand-by mode, that too, will trigger the update.


What am I at the bottom of hte list since I'm new??!!

It's been 6 days now and I should have a later version than L449.
Hopefully a new dvr should do the trick!!


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## somguy (Oct 2, 2006)

Ron Barry said:


> This is how I understand it to work.... Infact there was a while back where Dish Spooled a software update during some season finals and due to the east cost time difference a lot of receivers started updating themselves and parts of shows were missed and there was a lot of upset Dish customers...


When there is a new release scheduled, they should be done in the middle of the night or when you have your dvr set to do the daily update; not during primetime shows of course!!

If my dvr ever did that, DISH would never hear the end of me!!!!!!!!

Maybe I should go back to Directv; at least thier updates are in the middle of the night!!


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## somguy (Oct 2, 2006)

Bobham said:


> I have two 722 units, both of which were in an enclosed cabinet with ventilation. They both experienced the reboot you described on several occasions. I even had one replaced, and the new one rebooted. I moved the cabinet and placed the units on an open shelf, and have not had any repeat incidents. I firmly believe that ambient temperature has a negative effect on these units, causing the reboot. Not sure if your situation is similar to mine, but for others having the trouble... try giving them air.


My avg. temp. of the 722 was 114 degrees fahrenheit which is well within acceptable parameters.
Also there is no where else for me to keep my dvr; it's in the same place as i had my Directv dvr and it's also under an a/c vent since I have central a/c.

By the way, my dvr resetted once again while I was sleeping @ 12:12am today Monday 06/23/08. The dvr was in standby before I went to bed and the daily update was not performed yet.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

Ken Green said:


> Again, once your receiver has been targeted to be spooled a software update, if you place the receiver into stand-by, as soon as the server recognizes the targeted receiver is in the stand-by mode, that too, will trigger the update.


I assume you mean the Dish server that downloads the software. And, that server recognizes the fact that you've put your receiver into standby. Are you suggesting that the receiver notifies the server that it's now in standby?


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

somguy said:


> When there is a new release scheduled, they should be done in the middle of the night or when you have your dvr set to do the daily update; not during primetime shows of course!!
> 
> If my dvr ever did that, DISH would never hear the end of me!!!!!!!!
> 
> Maybe I should go back to Directv; at least thier updates are in the middle of the night!!


Updates are performed during the nightly update or manually by running a check switch.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

somguy said:


> What am I at the bottom of hte list since I'm new??!!
> 
> It's been 6 days now and I should have a later version than L449.
> Hopefully a new dvr should do the trick!!


My ViP722 is still at L4.49. I am thankful for that.


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

TulsaOK said:


> Updates are performed during the nightly update or manually by running a check switch.


Actually your Dish receiver does the update when it detects an update and is otherwise idle. Normally that means when it off (in dual mode you must have TV1 and TV2 outputs off) and its not recording something. This update has nothing to do with the overnight Maintenance. It regularly checks (at least every few minutes) for an update and if it sees one that matches it will start the download. They even made a mistake with L4.49 a few months back that made it see L4.49 as updating L4.49, and people reported their machines downloading the update repeatedly.

So once they put up an update and mark it as for your receiver, and its idle, you will get the update. Updates are usually marked for machine type, hardware version, release being replaced, and serial number ranges.

OP, From the numbers other have posted, I would have thought your receiver would have been updated. The bit about
"I just ran a check switch.
Satellite Input 1 - All seems fine.
Satellite Input 2 - T[0] Invalid DishPro Switch Detected, Code 18,F9."
sounds like a bad install. Couldn't find the error codes. Perhaps a DPP seperator connected to dp NOT DPP switch. Could you identify your setup of dishes and switches?


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## somguy (Oct 2, 2006)

tnsprin said:


> Actually your Dish receiver does the update when it detects an update and is otherwise idle. Normally that means when it off (in dual mode you must have TV1 and TV2 outputs off) and its not recording something. This update has nothing to do with the overnight Maintenance. It regularly checks (at least every few minutes) for an update and if it sees one that matches it will start the download. They even made a mistake with L4.49 a few months back that made it see L4.49 as updating L4.49, and people reported their machines downloading the update repeatedly.
> 
> So once they put up an update and mark it as for your receiver, and its idle, you will get the update. Updates are usually marked for machine type, hardware version, release being replaced, and serial number ranges.
> 
> ...


I re-ran the update and both Sat's came back fine. I ran it also on the 625 in my liv. room and it came back fine as well. Maybe that error was just a fluke?!


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## somguy (Oct 2, 2006)

TulsaOK said:


> Updates are performed during the nightly update or manually by running a check switch.


I ran a check switch and I still have L449. Although they're referred to as nightly updates, of course you can set the daily update to whatever time you please. I wouldn't believe that doing it in the day light would make a difference?!


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## somguy (Oct 2, 2006)

TulsaOK said:


> My ViP722 is still at L4.49. I am thankful for that.


Please let me know specifically why you are thankful that you don't have L510 or L511.

Were there any issues with these updates?

Any info. that you have would be very helpful!!

Thank you for your post.


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## Ken Green (Oct 6, 2005)

somguy said:


> I ran a check switch and I still have L449. Although they're referred to as nightly updates, of course you can set the daily update to whatever time you please. I wouldn't believe that doing it in the day light would make a difference?!


They are actually referred to only as Updates. They have taken on the the nightly part, one, because most people have them set to run at night, and two, because the default time is set to 3AM.
Technically, they would really be considered to be a "daily update," with "daily" not being time sensitive, rather, that they occur once every day.


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## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

somguy said:


> Please let me know specifically why you are thankful that you don't have L510 or L511.
> 
> Were there any issues with these updates?
> 
> ...


Read through the threads about L5.11 at the top of this forum. It outlines the problems.


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## Ken Green (Oct 6, 2005)

somguy said:


> Please let me know specifically why you are thankful that you don't have L510 or L511.
> 
> Were there any issues with these updates?
> 
> ...


It is all documented in this forum. Briefly, 5.10 had a playback issue, it was fixed in a few days, and 5.11 was spooled out to replace it.
There are a few reports of trick-play issues in 5.11, this is also documented here in the forum.


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