I get a message at around 85 saying the max # of timers has been reached. With memory cost so low you would think they allow a lot. While on the subject how do you back-up timers to the remote on a 722k?

I get a message at around 85 saying the max # of timers has been reached. With memory cost so low you would think they allow a lot. While on the subject how do you back-up timers to the remote on a 722k?

Not sure why there is a limit but to back up timers on your 722k use the system wizard.As long as You have a 20/21.0 remote.

I believe it's a 96-timer limit. Hold zero for backing up.

I believe it's a 96-timer limit. Hold zero for backing up.

Correct 96 timers or 576 events which ever is reached first. ALL events count even skipped events so it is easy to reach the event limit with just a few timers for shows that air multiple times a day.

You can exceed the 96 limit with the on-line control, although I have not tried in a while. If 96 limit is exceeded you cannot add programs from the remote control until you go below that limit. I do not recommend it as there may be some other problems.

Typically this is used to preprogram shows that happen only once in a long while. I do recommend using another source for find those and add them only when about to happen. IMDb would be good if it had all the Dish channels. I do not use Titan or the other.
-Ken

Correct 96 timers or 576 events which ever is reached first. ALL events count even skipped events so it is easy to reach the event limit with just a few timers for shows that air multiple times a day.

Right. It it is the EVENT limit that most people hit before the timer limit. My word, is not The Real World airing something like 26 times this week (down from the usual 40), and get ready when MTV does their at the half mark or at the end marathon runs, we could looking at Real World airing as often as 40-50 times that week. Modern Marvels used to air around 40 times a week. I hope the OP now gets a better idea of how one can hit the 576 EVENT limit number before the 96 timer limit.

I hit the 96 limit on the 922....

we used to hit the limit until i noticed that the wife had multiple timers for the same program. some were exactly the same, others were OTA vs SAT. after i cleaned it all up we were down around 75. much better.

A few years bad, the limit was even lower, IIRC.

I have to go thru several times a year and clean out timers. I hat the only 96 timers.

Try not to use Dish Pass, it gobbles up timers because it searched all channels for the program or criteria you set.

Set specific timers for a program on a channel.

Nobody really addressed why timer limits are so low. I would think this only takes up a few MB. I wonder if a software update can fix the issue.

Nobody really addressed why timer limits are so low. I would think this only takes up a few MB. I wonder if a software update can fix the issue.
It most likely could be fixed w/ a s/w update. But for some reason they have never changed it from where it is now.

I heard that it became unstable with more than 96 timers / 576 events. Dunno if that's true or not though.

If I had to guess the timer limit was based on the amount of memory in the receivers. There are usually limits on memory and processing time to look through the guide to match timers and rules.

But, that being said the later boxes should have more capacity. I would assume that the base processor in a 922 is faster and that it probably has more memory too. The same should be said for the 722 vs the 622.

There should be at least some adjustments for the box. It could be a good selling point of the 922 for example if it had 2x or 3x the timer limit of the 622.

I agree Mike. I'll send the 'feature request' up the chain, and see if the platform manager knows why the count is not above the other receivers on the VIP922. It does seem odd that a flagship receiver is not more advanced in every way. All that space was a selling point, but to be limited in timers seems to seriously hamper that.

Anyone care to PM me a VIP922 receiver number? Helps tremendously, rather then just saying I want it.

Thanks for providing that, BearHuntr. Mwahahahaha! Just kidding.:D

On its way to the software guys, and I threw it to the platform manager as well.

It is much more likely that the limit is there for performance considerations rather than memory use.
The memory needed to store 96 timers and 576 events shouldn't be much more than a few hundred kilobytes, I'd be surprised if it's more than one megabyte.
When you do get to 96 times or 576 events, you'll notice that skipping events and such is much slower than if you only have a handful.
I would guess that the limit is merely there to control possible complaints about slowness.

What I've noticed (on my 622) is that it works fine if you have 96 timers, however if you get to 576 events then strange things start to happen.
For example, it will stop adding events to certain timers, even if the number of events dropped below 576 again.
What I mean by that is that when you look at the upcoming events for a timer, it will show no events or only a few, while if you do a search, it will clearly show events that should be in the timer but aren't.
Unfortunately, just about the only solution when this happens is to recreate the timer.
If the event list stays below 576, I don't have this problem.
I suspect that this problem has more to do with the way the handling of the limit is programmed, rather than any sort of memory or other resource shortage.

Most of the time I have 96 timers, but I don't get to 576 events very often.
When I do though, it can be nightmare of constantly monitoring that you don't miss anything because the timer stopped working.

well at least it stops you from exceeding the limit and crashing the box.

my wife got into that with cooking shows, she didnt cook, just watched others:(

I think it was our 721? it went into endless reboot, till some timers aged out of the system. What a PIA. E hadnt a clue and sent replacement boxes that refused to download initial software off a quad:(

I ended up with 5 replacement receivers that refused to work, when my original one had some timers expire. By that time I had driven a hour one way to buy a difdferent LNB that would do the software download.

HAVING LIMITS IS FAR BETTER THAN CRASHING BOXES!

I have no idea if TIVO has a limit, at least I have never hit it:)

It is much more likely that the limit is there for performance considerations rather than memory use.
The memory needed to store 96 timers and 576 events shouldn't be much more than a few hundred kilobytes, I'd be surprised if it's more than one megabyte.
When you do get to 96 times or 576 events, you'll notice that skipping events and such is much slower than if you only have a handful.
I would guess that the limit is merely there to control possible complaints about slowness.


Given the way microprocessors are continuously improved, it may be the limit of the 622, but the 722 may have more power. The 922 would still have more processing power. I can see them keeping the limit on the 622, but the 722 and 922 should have the limit adjusted to better reflect their processing power.

Given the way microprocessors are continuously improved, it may be the limit of the 622, but the 722 may have more power. The 922 would still have more processing power. I can see them keeping the limit on the 622, but the 722 and 922 should have the limit adjusted to better reflect their processing power.
I would agree with that if I thought that the slowdown was linear, however from what I can tell the performance degradation is non-linear.
For example if you only have 1 timer and you add 1, you experience some performance loss.
However if you have 95 timers and you add 1, you experience many, many times more performance loss than when you went from 1 to 2 timers.

If that is indeed the case, then you can maybe push the limit somewhat on the 722 and 922, but you probably can't take it too far since the non-linear increase of performance loss on the timers beyond the 96 mark will rapidly make up for any hardware difference.

What would probably be needed to be able to really push the limits is to either rewrite the scheduling portion of the software so that it can handle additional timers / events with near linear effect on performance.
Or rewrite the timer / event management portion of the software so that it behaves asynchronously. What this would mean is that if you press skip on an event, it would still take just as long as it does now, however it would let you do other things while it's in the process of skipping the event.
Both of these things would take a lot of effort to implement I suspect, so I doubt that would happen anytime soon.

When you add the first timer there are no conflict checks but for n timers there will be n*n/2 or so checks, where n is the number of events or events + timers. This means as you get to 96 timers or 500+ events, each addition gets more "expensive" of time.
-Ken