"Please insert your access card" NIGHTMARE... HELP!

[BrokerDon]

About 10 days ago, I started getting audio & video drop outs every 2 to 10 minutes followed by the following message:

Please insert your access card
Receiver = 0001 7758 XXXX

I removed my access card and reinserted it several times and vacuumed out the slot to no avail. I also checked the signal strength on BOTH my satellite and OTA connections but they checked out just fine (85 to 94 signal strength)

Then I called D* and they said it was probably a problem with my access card so we swapped the card in my HR10-250 with one from my older Philips SD TiVo to see if my HR10-250 access card reader was working... It immediately identified this "swapped" card as correct card so that made the existing card suspect. So D* sent a brand new access card a couple of days later but the problem was unchanged.

Called D* Tech Support AGAIN and got a promise to SPECIFICALLY ship out another HR10-250, NOT the "dreaded" DirecTV HR20-700S, via 2-day shipping for $19.95 since I was a Level A Customer. When the package finally arrived 4 days later, I couldn't believe my eyes... It was NOT a TiVo HR10-250 but a DirecTV HR20-700S !!!

I immediately called D* and was told they did NOT have ANY HR10-250s in their warehouse and didn't expect to have any in the future so the only thing they could do for me was a $200 credit for the "transition". [Is this D* B.S. or are they really completely out of HR10-250s?]

However the D* CSR did think that this could be a HARD DRIVE problem and I should REFORMAT my HR10-250 drive. Could this solve my problem or is there any other suggestions to cure this nightmare? Things like:

- buying a new hard drive and using some software (InstantCake? Zipper?) to put a clean 3.1.5 image on it
- buying/borrowing/renting a used HR10-250 and swapping my existing hard drive to isolate this problem

Needless to say, the LAST thing I want to do is to have to reprogram my Home Theater system (including Logitech 880 remote), learn an completely new, and being a "Guinea Pig" for D*'s new "clone".

Sorry this is so long but I wanted to give you EXPERTS as much info as possible.

Thanks in advance!

Don

HR10-250
v3.1.5 software (NOT 6.3x... I pulled the phone line when I read about problems)
extended warranty from Tweeter
HDMI video to 60" Sony HD TV
optical audio to Denon AVR-3805S
Monster audio & video cables

[temp357]

Don,
Are you having this problem with 6.3a or 3.1.5f?

I've had the same issue since my upgrade to 6.1a. I've also been getting a message #81 that i need to activate my DVR when the system info shows it is already active.

[BrokerDon]

My problems are happening with 3.1.5f, not 6.3a (I disconnected my phone line from this TiVo to prevent it from upgrading when I saw all the problems with 6.3 and then 6.3a)

[Runch Machine]

I had a similar problem. The cause is a switch on the access card reader. It is not closing properly when the access card is inserted. I fixed the problem by taking the top off of the receiver and bending the contacts a little so that when the card is inserted it presses harder on the switch so the card reader will "know" the card is inserted. The switch is two pieces of metal that are pressed together when the access card is inserted all the way. The two pieces of metal were just far enough apart so that when the card is inserted they didn't always touch. Try this, it should fix the problem.

By the way, formating and reloading the drive will have no effect on this problem.

[Karpa]

However the D* CSR did think that this could be a HARD DRIVE problem and I should REFORMAT my HR10-250 drive. Could this solve my problem or is there any other suggestions to cure this nightmare?

I find it interesting that D* would suggest cracking the case, voiding the warranty, cracking your pc case, buying a "3rd party" image, and possibly killing your HR10-250 an option to give customers.

Strange.

[Mark Lopez]

I find it interesting that D* would suggest cracking the case, voiding the warranty, cracking your pc case, buying a "3rd party" image, and possibly killing your HR10-250 an option to give customers.

Strange.

More than likely the CSR was just thinking the HR10 is like the HR20 which you can reformat without cracking the case.

[mattbooty]

For anyone having this issue that doesn't want to open their unit, are you using HDMI to connect your unit to your TV?

I had this same problem about 2 months ago, went through a ton of crap from DirecTV, they even went so far as to send me a new unit which ended up doing the exact same thing!!!!

The problem was the HDMI connection. When I unplugged the HDMI and used component for the video, the problem went away (and has been gone since). If I plug the HDMI back in, it comes right back. This was a problem pre 6.3a and post 6.3a, the software update didn't affect it.

I'm using the HDMI that came with the tivo, I'm thinking about buying a new HDMI to see if there is actually something wrong with the cable.

Let me know if this helps anyone.

[leesweet]

Er, the *access card* message was from the HDMI issue? I've not seen that one before, and I've seen a lot of posts on HDMI issues, going back to the original crappy HDMI boards in the first HR10s (and I had one of those fail.. .:) ).

The card contact fix sounds more likely, but I'd like to hear more on the HDMI interaction with the 'insert Access Card' message, if this is reproducible by anyone else...! (You can get perfectly good HDMI cables for under $10 if you want to test the bad cable theory...)

[Mark Lopez]

The card contact fix sounds more likely, but I'd like to hear more on the HDMI interaction with the 'insert Access Card' message, if this is reproducible by anyone else...!

The only HDMI related message I ever heard about was the erroneous over temp message when using HDMI with a particular model TV.

[mattbooty]

Er, the *access card* message was from the HDMI issue? I've not seen that one before, and I've seen a lot of posts on HDMI issues, going back to the original crappy HDMI boards in the first HR10s (and I had one of those fail.. .:) ).


Believe me, I thought the CSR was full of #%@^ when he told me to try that too, but in my case its the issue. Like I said, I can change my connection from component to HDMI and IMMEDIATELY see the problem return, then switch back to component and the problem dissappears.

My issue was almost identical to the one listed above. I would get pixelation and audio dropouts on HD stations every 20 to 60 seconds. If I watched a prerecorded HD program, I would get the invalid access card and please insert your access card messages but no dropouts. Occassionally on SD stations I would get a mix of dropouts and access card error messages (but this wasn't as often as the HD dropouts were and sometimes went away for extended periods of time).

I know it sounds crazy that they are related, but like I said, I can reproduce it by simply plugging the HDMI cable back in (if i leave the component in and watch the video through the component and plug the HDMI back in, but still view via the component, the dropouts still occur, and i can watch them appear and dissappear by plugging in and unplugging the HDMI).

[mattbooty]

The card contact fix sounds more likely, but I'd like to hear more on the HDMI interaction with the 'insert Access Card' message, if this is reproducible by anyone else...! (You can get perfectly good HDMI cables for under $10 if you want to test the bad cable theory...)

I too would like to know if this fixes the problem for anyone else, if this works please post. Ideally I would like to switch back to HDMI for the tivo because my upconverting dvd player's picture is better via the component than it is HDMI but I had to switch it to HDMI to make room for the tivo on component.

[leesweet]

Wow. New one. Thanks for the details. I wonder if it's something to do with HDCP handshake over HDMI and the access card verification?! Hm...

[mattbooty]

A little more info on this issue. If I plug in the HDMI to the Tivo, but NOT into the TV, while watching on Component, no issue, but as soon as I plug it into the TV, it starts stuttering again. So it does need to actually be plugged into the TV.

I'd love to find a solution for this that lets me start using HDMI again so if anyone else can replicate this or can shed any light on this, please chime in.

[swartzentruber]

I started having the "invalid access card" error this past Sunday, and after seeing this post, tried out the HDMI "fix". I can confirm the two do seem to be connected, but unfortunately, switching to component seems to cause another problem. If I connect via HDMI, and power up, I get the "invalid access card" error. If I connect via component, its either freezing on the "getting information from sattelite", or simply failing. I've been using HDMI since this spring with no issues, although the box is a refurb. I had mine replaced due to OTA failing, then the refurb had the same issue, but I decide to just live without it. I'm thinking my box is just dead. DirecTv sent me out the new HR20, but I'd really still like to be able to use this one as a backup, but can't seem to get it to work anymore. If I can actually get it to get to DirecTv central, I might try a reformat.

[mattbooty]

I've been using HDMI since this spring with no issues,

Yup, same here. I had this Tivo since last Christmas and never had any problems with the HDMI until around Sept / Oct. At first i would get stuttering, but a reboot would make it go away for a week or two, now if I use HDMI, its constant, no fix.

I did some research on the internet and found other people having similar issues to this, so it is somewhat documented. I believe I searched for "DirecTV HR10 HDMI Stutter" or something similar to that. A lot of the results were not related, but some were.

[cdharris]

I had a similar problem. The cause is a switch on the access card reader. It is not closing properly when the access card is inserted. I fixed the problem by taking the top off of the receiver and bending the contacts a little so that when the card is inserted it presses harder on the switch so the card reader will "know" the card is inserted. The switch is two pieces of metal that are pressed together when the access card is inserted all the way. The two pieces of metal were just far enough apart so that when the card is inserted they didn't always touch. Try this, it should fix the problem.

By the way, formating and reloading the drive will have no effect on this problem.
I have been having this same problem for almost 2 weeks. I opened my case and am looking at the card reader. It appears to me that the switch is opened when the card is inserted, not closed. Am I looking at the wrong switch? The switch I am talking about is at the forward end, right side of the card, when inserted. Two parallel copper strips that are separated when the card is inserted. Thanks.

[420SMOKEUP]

I have been having this same problem for almost 2 weeks. I opened my case and am looking at the card reader. It appears to me that the switch is opened when the card is inserted, not closed. Am I looking at the wrong switch? The switch I am talking about is at the forward end, right side of the card, when inserted. Two parallel copper strips that are separated when the card is inserted. Thanks.



same here I get the insert card message whether the strips are touching or not.

HDMI did nada.

[Dave47]

I'm not sure if this is the same thing, but mine gave me the "insert card" message last Thursday before it started having other troubles. I saw the "insert card" message and unplugged the box. When I plugged it back in, it got all the way to live TV and then rebooted. It rebooted like this several times. I quickly imaged another drive and installed that. Same problem. I thought it was really broken.

So, I'm looking around inside and I notice that the power supply has a couple of caps with rounded tops like the caps in www.badcaps.net underneath the copper heat sink. I thought to myself, that can't be good. I ordered a new supply from Weaknees. I just installed it tonight and it looks like that fixed it right up. I'll keep you posted if it continues to work like it did before the "incident."

My HR10 was manufactured back in May 2004, so the power supply has been running for 2.5 years straight. I guess some of the electrolytics can't take it.

David

[420SMOKEUP]

I dont see where they are rounded.

Is it the silver center section that has a dome shape on top?

[Dave47]

I dont see where they are rounded.

Is it the silver center section that has a dome shape on top?

Correct. That was what I meant! I should have included pictures of the two caps in my power supply. So, the part on the top with the silver X (the scored marks in the aluminum can) will be dome shaped instead of perfectly flat. Kind of like a bad can of tomatoes :) .

It is interesting that they decided to put these caps in a position to be touching a power transistor/regulator. Heat usually isn't good for an electrolytic and they picked the hottest place.

As for an update, my HR10 is chugging away like nothing ever happened now that I replaced the power supply. Makes me wonder if I should cancel my HR20 install... Nah, it was free, after all.

David

[gsr]

About 10 days ago, I started getting audio & video drop outs every 2 to 10 minutes followed by the following message:

Please insert your access card
Receiver = 0001 7758 XXXX

I started having the same problem last weekend. Today, I finally got around to pulling the HD Tivo out of my rack to look inside. There was very little dust and the mechanical switch the access card pushes to indicate that the card is in was working fine (I used a meter to confirm). I took a quick look at the power supply and the caps didn't look bad. Next step was to call DirecTV.

In addition to this problem, I also had a Hughes HDVR2 that was displaced by this HD Tivo several months back that still needed to be deactivated, so I called DirecTV figuring I wasn't really going to get anywhere other than frustrated. Initially, it looked like that's exactly where I was going to end up - the automated menu system seemed like it might take a few hours to get to a human. Much to my surprise, when I said "customer service" and then "access card problem", it sent me right to a human who actually spoke coherent English, was helpful, a courteous. He had me reboot the receiver (by unplugging it) after sending some code to it (I assume to reset the access key number). After that didn't work, he sent me to the 2nd tier support.

The 2nd tier person, who had a much better phone (I could hear her much better), had me reboot the Tivo again (through the menus this time) without the access card plugged in, then had me plug in the card after the Tivo was fully booted. Naturally, the problem remained. She then had me plug in the access card from the receiver I had just deactivated and the problem remained. Her conclusion was that the card ready is probably dead, which is certainly a reasonable conclusion.

Since I've had this HD Tivo for less than a year (bought it from NewEgg), they'll be sending me a replacement unit for free. She said it would be a HR10-250 (my preference, at least for now) as the HR20's are back ordered for more than a month. I asked if the replacement would be considered owned or leased and she said owned (so no need for an argument). She said the replacement should arrive with instructions on how to return the defective one on Tuesday or Wednesday of this coming week.

Now for my question.

This HD Tivo has been hacked both to add a 2nd drive (with the Weakness bracket) and with the Zipper to, among other things, disable encryption. I still have the original drive the HD Tivo came with tucked away for just this sort of thing, so I'll swap it back in. Will I be able to put the hacked drives into the new Tivo and watch the existing recordings (which were made with encryption disabled) or am I going to end up losing those recordings?

If an HR20 arrives instead, I guess I can't really complain, but definitely won't be as happy about it.

[gsr]

I opened my case and am looking at the card reader. It appears to me that the switch is opened when the card is inserted, not closed.

I concur - the switch is closed when there is no card present and open when a card is present. I can't see how it would be possible for it to work the other way around.

[mattbooty]

Since I've had this HD Tivo for less than a year (bought it from NewEgg), they'll be sending me a replacement unit for free. She said it would be a HR10-250 (my preference, at least for now) as the HR20's are back ordered for more than a month. I asked if the replacement would be considered owned or leased and she said owned (so no need for an argument). She said the replacement should arrive with instructions on how to return the defective one on Tuesday or Wednesday of this coming week.

Now for my question.

This HD Tivo has been hacked both to add a 2nd drive (with the Weakness bracket) and with the Zipper to, among other things, disable encryption. I still have the original drive the HD Tivo came with tucked away for just this sort of thing, so I'll swap it back in. Will I be able to put the hacked drives into the new Tivo and watch the existing recordings (which were made with encryption disabled) or am I going to end up losing those recordings?

If an HR20 arrives instead, I guess I can't really complain, but definitely won't be as happy about it.

Make sure you test the replacement unit before putting the new drives in. They sent me a replacement unit first as well, but the replacement unit did the exact same thing the original did so I just sent the replacement back to them (rather than lose my already recorded shows and maybe find new problems with the replacement which was surely a refurb). It was talking to support to send back the replacement when the support person deduced the HDMI as the cause of my problems.

[gsr]

Make sure you test the replacement unit before putting the new drives in. They sent me a replacement unit first as well, but the replacement unit did the exact same thing the original did so I just sent the replacement back to them (rather than lose my already recorded shows and maybe find new problems with the replacement which was surely a refurb). It was talking to support to send back the replacement when the support person deduced the HDMI as the cause of my problems.

My replacement HR10-250 arrived via FedEx today. It is a refurbished unit, but the cosmetics aren't bad (I decided to keep the cover from my original unit, but otherwise it's fine).

Before activating it, I got brave and swapped my (Zippered) drives from the bad unit into the good unit.

The access card activation was a pain - the new unit didn't come with an access card and they couldn't get the access card from the bad unit to marry to the new unit. Luckily for me, I had another access card from a HDVR2 that I deactivated recently and they married that to the replacement HR10-250. Once that was taken care of, I had to run the 51killer.tcl script and all of my post hacked recordings (as in since encryption was disabled) are fine. I only lost a handful of suggestion movies that I had saved for a rainy day - they'll come around again sooner or later.

So I'm happy with the result. I got courteous, helpful customer service, a replacement unit sent via overnight service, and didn't lose any important recordings. All at no cost to me. Just have to drop the bad unit off at FedEx (prepaid label was included) sometime in the next few days and I'm all done with this.

[Dave47]

My drive was just fine in my old HR10 after I replaced the power supply. I was suspicious that the drive may have been corrupted by some of the reboots, but it wasn't. All of my recordings have been just fine and I have had no spurious reboots that might indicate drive corruption.

GSR, it seems you old unit might also be repaired with a power supply?

David

[420SMOKEUP]

it didn;t work for me, and the drive seems ok too.

[gsr]

GSR, it seems you old unit might also be repaired with a power supply?

It's hard to say especially now that the defective unit has been sent back to DTV (at their cost). It cost me nothing to get the unit replaced, so I have no complaints. In my case, the drives and access card from the defective unit were ok. The problem was either the access card reader or something else (power supply being one possibility), but I guess we'll never know for sure. If mine hadn't been covered by warranty, I would have been willing to try a power supply replacement as it's at least a known failure point and isn't expensive to try.

[cstelter]

I'm not sure if this is the same thing, but mine gave me the "insert card" message last Thursday before it started having other troubles. I saw the "insert card" message and unplugged the box. When I plugged it back in, it got all the way to live TV and then rebooted. It rebooted like this several times. I quickly imaged another drive and installed that. Same problem. I thought it was really broken.

So, I'm looking around inside and I notice that the power supply has a couple of caps with rounded tops like the caps in www.badcaps.net underneath the copper heat sink. I thought to myself, that can't be good. I ordered a new supply from Weaknees. I just installed it tonight and it looks like that fixed it right up. I'll keep you posted if it continues to work like it did before the "incident."

My HR10 was manufactured back in May 2004, so the power supply has been running for 2.5 years straight. I guess some of the electrolytics can't take it.

David

Your story sounds consistent with mine. I was getting this access card message for about a week (I would just back out of the recording if it occurred and restarted and it would continue with nor problems so it was only mildly annoying).

Well after a week or so of this message I turned the TV on to a blue screen of death. After much ado to attempt to fix it, I wound up replacing the power supply and voilla, no more problems with blue screen or the access card. It's been running stable (well as stable as 6.3a allows) since Labor day with the same access card and same HDD as when I was getting the Access card messages. I've been running component outputs, not HDMI for what that's worth.

[Dave47]

cstelter

Cool! It appears that this isn't a cure all either since 420SMOKEUP didn't have any success. However, it might help some people. Anyway, Weaknees only charges $50 for the power supply so it is worth a shot for some of us who can rule a failing drive out as the root cause.

David

[Matt L]

I've had my hacked HR10-250 for 3 years with out a problem. Still on 3.xx software. I've been getting random DD 5.1 dropouts for the last month or so. This is from the box, if I jump back I can hear the audio that had previously dropped out.

Anyway last night things progressed to a point where I though I had serious problems. I had 4 episodes of "Journeyman" saved and decided on a marathon last night. Went to playback and the audio dropouts would steadily increase then the "Insert Card" warning would come on the screen for 20 seconds(I timed it...). After that the sound would return to normal and all would be fine for about 5 minutes, then the scenario would repeat. Thinking my unit was dying I struggled through all four shows. Did some research here and found the problems I'm having could be the result of a bad power supply. I went looking for a parts machine or a cheap replacement on eBay, did not find any bargains.

Today all seems well. Still getting the occasional dropout, but much less frequent, and everything played back fine. I even checked the shows that were acting up last night and they playback without a problem. So... Was it a random occurrence, or a sign of things to come?

Is there a failure prone component on the power supply that can easily be replaced - bad cap's? Or should I just look for a cheap HR10-250 to cannibalize?

[jaobrien6]

I'm having the access card issue also. I'm trying to decide if it's worth fixing or just try to move to an HR20 now, since I'm going to move by the fall anyway for NFL ST in HD. If you find a cheap parts source (cheaper than the $70 at weaknees, at least) I'd love a heads up. I haven't come across anything yet, and HR10's on ebay are still going for more than that.

[jaobrien6]

Update on my problem: I decided to spend some time with DTV support today troubleshooting, and one of the things that they did was deactivate and reactivate the receiver. After doing that, and rebooting the receiver, it's working again for now. I wonder if sometimes the access card message is just a software glitch, or if my power supply's in the process of dying but not dead yet.

[Matt L]

jaobrien, interesting that we both had problems on the 4th that are gone now. My unit is back to normal after a very frustrating night earlier in the week. wonder if there was a corrupt data stream or something that scrambled the HR10-250's brains.

[jaobrien6]

Very interesting, that's a good point. I hadn't checked it for a couple of days since I assumed it was that the power supply was toast, actually. It might have been fixed with a reboot on the 4th also. It's been solid all day today since I got it running again. It definitely is possible that there could have been data corruption, something that confused the receiver and kept if from knowing that it had the correct access card? I do wonder why it was an isolated incident, though. It only affected one of my HR10's and I haven't seen many posts at all here with the same problem. (just the 2 of us, from what i can recall from my searches).

[Matt L]

What version of software are you using? I'm still on 3.xx.

Who knows there may be many others out there, we just a select handful here.

[jaobrien6]

Yup, 3.xx for me, also.

[Matt L]

Well , it's back again tonight 1-13-8. My audio dropouts kept increasing and then the "Insert card" screen pops up again.

Anyone else?

[DrBunsen]

One of my two HR10's started doing it about a week ago. I'm not going to panic over it too much since I've got 2 TiVoHD's that I'm replacing them with as soon as my 2 year mandatory hitch with DirecTV is up in 6 days. :)

I was messing with the HDMI cables when I first got the TiVoHD's so I'm going to mess with them a bit more to see if that makes a difference like one of the early posters experienced.

<edit>
Just remembered that the first time I noticed it was during our New Year's Eve party. I know I did a few hours of watching the day before, so the 31st is definitely when it started for me.
</edit>


Bunsen

[izzy223]

I have my the access card problem the other way. It was hooked up to the HDMI for almost 3 yrs now, but I had to move it to component video since I just got my PS3 (! Yahoo ! and my HR20 is on the other HDMI).

Since component hookup, now I get the access card "missing" message while I'm watching a Tivo show, intermittently. No audio drops though. I'm not totally annoyed........yet

[izzy223]

Update...my machine shut down, something about being overheated. I checked the box, but it did not feel all that hot. I left off for a couple of days, then rebooted. It's back to working now, but I am still getting the intermittent "access card missing" message. Any other suggestions?

:eek::eek::eek:

[Matt L]

I've discovered these are all symptoms of a bad power supply. I pulled my unit apart, unfortunately I blew the fuse, pain to replace but it's back up and working. I haven't resolved the problem yet. I can see the bad CAP, it's exactly in the center of a nice copper heatsink cage, impossible to get to. I picked up a defective HR10-250 on eBay, plan on pulling it's power supply. I've been toying with the idea of remotely locating the CAP, just unsolder it and pick up a new one and add 3 or 4 inches of lead to it so I can resolder it. Might give it a try at some point after I get the replacement.

BTW Weaknees does sell the power supply for $69 + shipping. If you go to their site they indicate all the symptoms we are experiencing are power supply related.

[kkluba]

BrokerDan,

I'd bet money your problem is a bad power supply. I had this problem 6 months ago. D* sent me a new card which didn't help. I cleaned contact and that didn't help. Ordering a new power supply from Weaknees took care of it.

[Matt L]

I pulled the power supply from my eBay unit I got today and all is well. Got the unit for $35 and a 250G hard drive to boot. It's filled with kids shows so I guess it was someone in Kansas second D HDTiVo. The seller claimed no audio and no SATs. Audio did work via optical and for some reason it could only find SAT C.

[DrBunsen]

I've gotten the overheated message a couple times as well, and both times that it happened were shortly after it had been off for a while, so it should've been pretty cold (and I did check to make sure that the fan was running OK). I'm just about changed over to my TiVoHD so it's not a big deal at this point, but I thought I'd throw my experiences into the mix.


Bunsen