What DTV "admits" to knowing

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You should calm down since this too shall pass. It may take a day or two, though.

 

Well, folks, so much for keeping my fingers crossed. Sometime today, probably in the PM, the To Do List magically transformed into the To Don't List. I missed the beginning of the Daily Show- not a big deal since it replays numerous times but then we decided to investigate and discovered that everything was gone, including all the big Thurs night shows. When we looked at the list earlier today, everything was hunky-dory. What the F**k happened in the intervening hours?? I was home for the better part of the day, so I'm quite certain there was no re-boot. The only things that didn't vanish (from the To Do List) are the manual recordings.

 

Last night, I was waiting to manually add time to "The Simpsons" since I noticed it was going to start late due to ball game. The recording NEVER started, even though it was on "To Do" list on Season Pass. Had to record it manually. Did anyone else have this problem?

 

Same thing happened here. Two weeks ago had the problem with certain season passes not being recorded, gave it a couple of days and it fixed itself. Then tonight I saw that the same thing was going on, I specifically checked the to do list and Two and a Half Men was listed to record. I went to check it 5 minutes after it started and it was not recording.

So I came back here and read all of the baloney that Directv was telling everybody, I decided to call to add to the list of disgruntled customers. They bumped me up two levels, the rep said that I could either do a reboot, if that didn't work I could erase all of the SP's and then put them back in. He took down my email address saying Directv was actively trying to fix this and they would email me when they solved the problem.

I'd like to call into retention and get some sort of a credit but I doubt I will considering I am already receiving a credit from another screw up and I don't think they allow 2 credits at once.

At this point I don't know what to do, the bad thing is even shows that say they will record don't record, so you can't even manually put something in to record.

 

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It's word-for-word the same response I got when I emailed telling them I had distorted audio on local networks. So yes, it is quite canned.

 

Really? The jury is out for me, I'll see if it records my manuals that I set up awhile back.

 

I sure the cable companies would love to get the information on DirecTV's problems. Anyone have a good contact?

 

I and my father (2 seperate households, 2 seperate D* accounts, same Tivo glichtes/problems [random reboots, lost to do lists, sluggish menus and remotes, freezing up]) both called tech support and were both told it's a software issue they are aware of and are in process of trying to fix with an eta of 2 days, 2 weeks, or several months. In other words, there's no eta at all. Very helpful. (These were both the most recent calls we made. Prior I had called 3 times each getting the "I've never heard of this" response.)

He was offered $5 off his bill for 3 months for the inconvince, I was told there is no compensation program in place and I won't get any money back for the hassle. I will be calling them back tonight.

The Tech that came out to our house yesturday said he hadn't heard of any issue but another of his customers had similar if not the same symptoms and we should unplug all the phone lines unless we need to use PPV or NFL Ticket and then reformat all of the hard drives since that fixed the other customer's problems. And if that doesn't solve it get the DVR's. He has both DVR's and Tivos and has had no problems with the DVRs. I'm so very, very SICK of them trying to get us to switch to their shoddy DVR's.

 

Is it just me or is dtv perhaps upgrading our Tivo units to give them the same level of reliability their non-Tivo boxes have???

 

PLEASE .. NO!!

The HR20 also serves as a fine boat anchor!

 

Also with holes cut in the sides and placing cheese in it it makes a great electric mouse trap

 

I can't post the link as I do not have enough posts here yet, but there is a recent article on ZDNet about our problem. You can find it by going to Google News and typing in DirecTV and Tivo. Brief excerpt/commentary:
DirecTV spokesman Robert Mercer says that he is aware of the problem and alleges that the problem should be fixed by this evening.
I agree that it *should* be fixed by this evening (it *should* have been fixed a long time ago), but whether it will be is another question as far as I am concerned.

 

Ugh...next time I have a problem i'm checking here first.

We started having this problem on all three of our directivo's last month and because I saw a few momentary power blips I thought it was being caused by low voltage or momentary outages. Our old series 1 units would do weird things when they got a power blip.

Figuring a problem with all three units must be power related, I just blew $250 on three UPS's for the three locations to solve a problem I didnt really have.

Never occurred to me that dtv would have screwed something up that would have persisted for weeks on end.

This problem isnt completely new though. I posted about it months ago after doing some research and finding a number of threads with the same symptoms. A program doesnt record and when you check the recording history it says the program didnt record because someone modified the season pass. Which of course didnt happen. You can see stuff in the 'live tv guide' but you cant look it up in 'pick programs to record' or in 'view upcoming episodes'. Its there, but not indexed.

For those troubleshooting, I've 'cleared and deleted the to do list and guide information' and reentered the season passes on two of them, which actually seemed to make it worse, but that seems coincidental with others reporting an increase in problems in late december. I've redone guided setup. Nothing seems to be a permanent fix.

Called directv and they gave me a $20/mo six month credit and advanced tech support told me they have absolutely no fixes or short term workarounds, but are working on a fix that they hope to complete by the end of this month (january).

I stopped short of asking them to replace the three directivo's with r15's, as I still havent heard a dang good thing about them.

 

We have 3 directivo units, which it looks like we will keep for a while since I refuse to pay 300.00 for a pos new hd box.

Anyhow, none are hooked up to phonelines and its been 225 days. None of us have had an issue. Looks like I'll keep the phone lines off in case its software being downloaded.

Problems with the old boxes, new boxes, I have been a customer since 2000, and am very disappointed in the direction Directv has gone. Very sad.

 

Looks like DirecTV un-did whatever caused the problem (begin reading here) - the issue seems to be corrected for the moment. It is suspected that the reversed whatever they did to the guide data that caused these issues to begin with.

Now we'll have to wait and see if there is some kind of forthcoming software update that will permit the units to be able to handle whatever it is that they were trying to do in the first place.