Second Time This Has Happened

speedcouch · 03-23-2006, 08:55 AM

on a Wednesday night at 10 p.m. (eastern). My HR 10-250 rebooted right in the middle of recording two shows! Very frustrating and I'm not sure why it always happens on Wednesdays. Maybe it's the only time I'm trying to record two HD shows at the same time. Here's what happened...

I had forgotten that besides CSI NY on channel 80, I had set a SP for the Driven to Win show on Bio channel. When that new Evidence show came on our local ABC channel (after Lost), we decided to record it. I hit record and the Tivo went into it's "please wait" mode, while still showing Evidence on the screen. I went out of the room to feed the cat and when I came back (about 8 minutes into the show), I finally got a message that there was a recording conflict with the Bio channel. So I chose to cancel that recording and stay with Evidence. So my husband and I got interested in the show and continued watching it. About 20 minutes into it, all of a sudden the Tivo crashes and goes into reboot. Thankfully, we could go into the bedroom and continue watching on the other Tivo. Unfortunately, we now have gaps in CSI NY, because of the 5-10 minutes it took to reboot the machine. Can anybody explain to me what happened here? As I said, I've had this crash and reboot issue once before at exactly the same time on a Wednesday night.

Also, an interesting question I had at the time was if I was on the local (OTA) ABC channel and the other tuner was recording CSI NY on channel 80, what was the Tivo doing with the Bio channel for the 8 minutes it took it to figure out there was a conflict? I didn't miss any of Evidence, so it was obviously buffering that instead while searching the hard drive to find the SP for Bio channel. Is this what caused it later to crash? And is this where the "four tuners" thing might have come into play? Since supposedly two are for satellite and two are for OTA?

Just very frustrated when this kind of thing happens and wondered if any of the experts here can explain what happened.

Cheryl

Maik · 03-23-2006, 10:10 AM

Same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. Rebooted while recording 2 shows while I was watching a third that was recorded. No problems since then.

Lee L · 03-23-2006, 10:32 AM

Mine died on me at about 10:20 while I was watching Lost, which had recorded previously. IT turns out that there were several places in teh Lost recording that were left out, totally 6-7 minutes. Luckily, it was not recording anythign at that time.

JohnTivo · 03-23-2006, 11:49 AM

My unit also does this a couple of times a month. I'm fairly positive that there are bad sectors on the drive that cause this...

speedcouch · 03-23-2006, 12:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maik

Same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. Rebooted while recording 2 shows while I was watching a third that was recorded. No problems since then.

Thanks for everyone's responses. Glad to know I'm not the only one having this type of issue. Another thought my husband had (that I forgot to mention earlier) is that this was one of the few times we were attempting to record two HD shows at the same time. So I'm wondering if it's just a case of the "memory" might have a problem doing two HD shows at once. I know that sounds crazy as this is what it's suppose to do, but still, you gotta wonder...We also have always had a problem when pausing a live HD show and flipping between tuners. Many times when you do this, the HD show will have unpaused itself and gone back to live (even after just a couple minutes). This is where I got the idea the "memory" for HD content may be limited. Am I crazy to wonder this?

Cheryl

codespy · 03-23-2006, 01:10 PM

Mine rebooted 3/21 at 9:30pm sharp for no reason and I was not recording anything, none of my other SD DVR's rebooted.

Lee L · 03-23-2006, 03:57 PM

We record 2 things in HD multiple time per week so it is capable of doing it. They just seem to have glitches that crop up from time to time.

MikeE. · 03-23-2006, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by codespy

Mine rebooted 3/21 at 9:30pm sharp for no reason and I was not recording anything, none of my other SD DVR's rebooted.

Just remember that, in reality, the HR10-250 is *always* recording 2 shows at once since it maintains 30 min. buffers on 2 separate channels.

I also believe the rebooting is due to either corrupted software and/or bad sectors on the hard disk. Mine started doing that for the first time in early February. The solution for me was a "CLEAR AND DELETE EVERYTHING" which I believe reformats the hard drive (and marks bad sectors as bad so it doesn't try to use them again).

Sadly this solution means you lose everything - all your recordings, all your season passes, all your thumbs up and thumbs down ratings - everything. When it's done with the clear and delete (which takes many hours) you have to go through guided setup again just as if you just took it out of the box for the first time.

Mike

jaypb · 03-31-2006, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lee L

Mine died on me at about 10:20 while I was watching Lost, which had recorded previously. IT turns out that there were several places in teh Lost recording that were left out, totally 6-7 minutes. Luckily, it was not recording anythign at that time.

Sorry if I'm chiming in a bit late on this one, but I JUST came upon this thread and noticed your commentary above....about several places in a recording that were left out---TOTALLY. I've had this happen TWICE in the last 2 months....just this Thursday with LOST and a month or so ago when recoding THE GHOST WHISPERER....both OTA programs. Each time I noticed that 2-3 minutes of show was missing at a time...preceeded by a glitching of the picture/audio.....but IIRC, the show progress bar was a full hour in both instances....meaning that it recorded SOMETHING....just didn't play it back properly for whatever reason. At first I thought it was a signal strength/antenna issue, but I have NO ISSUES with other recordings made during the same time frame on different OTA channels.

My other HDTIVO hasn't exhibited this behavior yet.....but THAT ONE has started mucking up the ffwd/jump back intervals....AND pausing after I hit the fwd button twice or a third time. Now THAT is annoying......

DAS37 · 04-01-2006, 01:24 PM

Happened to me on Wednesday also while simultaneously recording Lost and Law & Order (both OTA). I was watching Lost while it recorded (I started watching around 9:10) when suddenly it jumped ahead a few minutes. I switched tuners and it had done the same thing on that channel too. I tried to go into the List and bring them both up but when I selected Resume Playing, it would just go back to the menu and I could not play them even though it said it was still recording both. So I said fine, I'll just watch them both on the fly, pausing and switching at each commercial break. This was going along smoothly until the reboot hit and I lost a good chunk of both shows. Fortunately, they are repeating this week's Lost on Sunday at 10pm so I can get the 10 minutes or so I missed the first time. Law & Order is not a serial type show so I can catch that ep in repeats this summer. I'm just wondering if ABC knows about what happened because suddenly they make a last-minute switch to show Lost again or is it pure coincidence?

jaypb · 04-01-2006, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DAS37

Happened to me on Wednesday also while simultaneously recording Lost and Law & Order (both OTA). I was watching Lost while it recorded (I started watching around 9:10) when suddenly it jumped ahead a few minutes. I switched tuners and it had done the same thing on that channel too. I tried to go into the List and bring them both up but when I selected Resume Playing, it would just go back to the menu and I could not play them even though it said it was still recording both. So I said fine, I'll just watch them both on the fly, pausing and switching at each commercial break. This was going along smoothly until the reboot hit and I lost a good chunk of both shows. Fortunately, they are repeating this week's Lost on Sunday at 10pm so I can get the 10 minutes or so I missed the first time. Law & Order is not a serial type show so I can catch that ep in repeats this summer. I'm just wondering if ABC knows about what happened because suddenly they make a last-minute switch to show Lost again or is it pure coincidence?

FWIW, abc.com is showing LOST airing tonight (4/1) at 10pm

chewie26 · 04-01-2006, 02:03 PM

I also have had mine reboot while recording two HD shows at once. Use to do it 1-3 times a month. I don't know how or why this works, but ever since I started doing the "reset thumb ratings and suggestions" once every 1-2 weeks, I haven't had the reboot problem. Stange thing is, I have the thumb suggesions option turned off, but this seems to help the reboot problem anyway.

hope that helps

bajajack · 04-01-2006, 02:50 PM

I hate to sound paranoid but, could DTV be generating these reboots in an effort to get everyone who own's their box to replace them with refurbished units and get on their new lease program??? I have had the reboot problem for about a month, and when I called DTV tech rep. that was her suggestion. Replace the unit I own with a refurbished one. No charge except for $14.95 shipping. No monthly lease fee as long as this is the primary unit. Any thoughts??

PJO1966 · 04-01-2006, 03:34 PM

My reboots have been getting out of control. Most recently when it reboots it gets stuck on the "Powering Up" screen. The only way to get around that is to unplug it then plug it back in. It defeats the purpose of having a DVR if I have to continue to babysit it.

sdchrgrboy · 04-01-2006, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnTivo

My unit also does this a couple of times a month. I'm fairly positive that there are bad sectors on the drive that cause this...

This has never happened to me

DAS37 · 04-02-2006, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaypb

FWIW, abc.com is showing LOST airing tonight (4/1) at 10pm

Sorry, meant to say Saturday in my post. It did apparently record but I have yet to watch it.

I probably need to do a C&D soon. It's my 2nd unit, after the first one crashed in late '04. Most of the stuff I record is HD and most of that is OTA. I delete TV shows after they are watched but have about 12-15 hours of movies I have not watched yet and need to burn to DVDs. I notice that when you are viewing HD content, especially OTA, especially on both tuners, that it really bogs down. After a while, the unit just can't handle it all and shuts down I suppose.

speedcouch · 04-03-2006, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DAS37

I notice that when you are viewing HD content, especially OTA,
especially on both tuners, that it really bogs down. After a while, the unit just can't handle it all and shuts down I suppose.

Now this is what I was getting at with my original post! I understand the unit always buffering stuff on two channels, but it's rare that we have both our tuners on HD channels at the same time. Based on the fact, I lose the ability to pause on an HD channel quite often, it seemed to me the hard drive (or something) gets overwhelmed when you're saving a lot of HD content.

Last night, when I realized Huff was coming back on, I actually starting expecting this same glitch to occur - since I had it set up to record both Huff from SHO and Big Love from HBO at the same time. We ended up watching half of Huff live (didn't realize it was a 2-hour premiere) and everything seemed to be fine. Of course, with my luck the Tivo probably crashed as soon as we went to bed at 11:10.

Cheryl

DAS37 · 04-03-2006, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by speedcouch

Based on the fact, I lose the ability to pause on an HD channel quite often, it seemed to me the hard drive (or something) gets overwhelmed when you're saving a lot of HD content.Cheryl

That's another thing I have noticed lately: the pauses don't always "take". You pause one tuner, switch to the other, come back to the first tuner and find it is back playing live. Sometimes you have to try it 3 or 4 times to get the pause working.

IOTP · 04-03-2006, 09:44 PM

Hey -- here's one for you..

I decided to flip on the ole ESPN SC (Sport Center), turn to 73, get sorry program not available in your area.

Appears 8:00PM local Arizona time last night, I lost all my 110 sat feeds. Look again today, all is good.

Wierd.