Thread: azbox booting issues...sometimes stuck on booting

I've had this issue for a while but I'll just throw this out in case someone knows a solution

My azbox elite (the original model) with its busted ethernet port has a major glitch when powering up from a power outage/unplugging. If the power goes out (this also means flip the switch on the back), when it comes back on it will sit on "booting" and requires anywhere between one to even 5 switch off and on the back then it finally gets past that stage. I count to 50 and if the booting still shows then its a required reboot. Kinda a pain in the butt if you ask me because sometimes I need to unplug the cable from it to hook up a C-Band setup so I do kinda rule #1 and leave the power on when I swap cables

Its version 5306 or 5307 I've been using. If I do a reboot from the menus it works fine and its not like others have had where the "booting" is permanent on there. This is more of a nag.

So anybody run into it and how do I fix it?

Thanks!

One of my first suspects would be a power supply issue starting to raise it's ugly head.I'd open it up and take a really close look at the electrolytic capacitors.I have an Ultra not an Elite,does the Elite use a separate power supply or is it built in the stb?

built in power supply

I'd go ahead and pop the cover and take a look at the pwr sup.If you see any caps with bulged tops or leakage around the bottom you've found your problem.Between the bad soldering and crap capacitors they put in anything electronic anymore it's amazing this stuff works at all.I just fixed a 47" Vizio for a guy,5 blown caps and a fuse,it's 3 years old.

Ice,

Since it obviously escapes from this "booting" sequence, either on its own with time or sometimes with a little nudging and coaxing, then it is not a total or hard failure as you also indicated.

If I may assume that this problem has been in existence from the start (I remember the conversations regarding the ethernet port being bad right off when you got the unit), then I have a suspicion or a hunch that it may be due to the defective ethernet port. I am thinking that possibly during the reboot process, that the logic is scanning the ethernet port and since there is a problem there, it is getting hung up.

That is just my first SWAG at this problem. I cannot explain why it would apparently make a difference when rebooting by the menus and that leaves me rather uncertain and confused. However, this is the first and most obvious system error or discrepancy that I could site as possibly being the cause.

I don't know how you would prove it, other than having the ethernet port failure repaired. The problem with doing that is obvious to you already. It would likely be expensive and still may not resolve this specific problem.

I have personally not read of anyone else having the identical symptoms as what you have here. All of what I have read have been AZBoxes stuck in the "booting" sequence permanently. I experienced a totally locked up AZBox and I actually went through the whole process of the recovery procedure for such failures at my own expense for time, labor and materials. At a certain point in that recovery process, the instructions stated that if I achieved a specific response at a certain point, that I was basically screwed and could not utilize the procedure to repair my unit. I was required to send it to Portugal for a factory warranty repair. It turned out for that one unit that it was actually a component failure that I could not have repaired myself. That whole story has so many twists and turns that no human could make a pretzel to compare with it! Unless your unit is new enough to still be under warranty, I would not bother. If out of warranty, the only way I would do it again is if someone I knew was traveling to Portugal and would take it with them and deliver it directly to the Opensat repair center and wait for it and bring it back with them. That whole affair for me drew out to nearly a whole year if not more.

Your unit is obviously not under warranty any longer (it has been over two years I am sure). So, unless you can figure out how to repair the ethernet port yourself, I don't know if you will have much luck at fixing this "pain in the BOOT".

The recovery process I mentioned earlier requires you to utilize the ethernet port and it addresses a totally blocked or locked up unit anyway, so that won't assist you. Wrong problem and the back door required (the ethernet port) is known to be toast already.

The only suggestion beyond repairing the ethernet port is to try other firmware image files and se if they help. Unfortunately, you are already up to some of the highest revisions already. That doesn't offer much hope. I guess I could suggest trying image 5308 and 5309 and crossing your fingers, but I think you have a pretty good idea of the results to expect.

The only other suggestion I have at this point is to go online to the AZBox BUG reporting forum and post the problem and see if anyone else responds with more positive information.
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Good luck to you Ice!

Gordy

Follow up since I decided to sell it

opened the top and no capacitors look bad.
Powered it on and it took 3 power off/on with the switch to get past the boot

I've tried it 3 times now (had the unit unplugged then plugged back in after say an hour or two) and all 3 times it took 3 off/on to get past it

gremlins....thats all I can say

Originally Posted by Iceberg

Follow up since I decided to sell it

opened the top and no capacitors look bad.
Powered it on and it took 3 power off/on with the switch to get past the boot

I've tried it 3 times now (had the unit unplugged then plugged back in after say an hour or two) and all 3 times it took 3 off/on to get past it

gremlins....thats all I can say

Yeah! Doggone gremlins! They seem to be everywhere. They are in my PC, too. For your AZBox, I sincerely believe that it is getting hung up in the BOOT process due to the detection of the error with the ethernet port. It scans that function during boot up and detects a problem and they didn't write the program to tell it how to ignore such items and proceed with the reboot cycle, so it locks up or stalls.

Probably a good idea to unload it. Not that anyone else wants a problem box, but maybe they need it for parts or have an idea to fix it. I certainly couldn't repair it as far as I know. I could learn to................ I just thought of something, ICE! Doggone! If someone wanted to make money, if they knew all these boxes, they could go into business for themselves and make a LOT of money repairing them!

Think about all the "bricked" FTA receivers out there. Motors too. If someone was smart enough and had background with a lot of these different boxes and they had the time and the tools.... Whew! They could have a lucrative business here. Why be an installer? Be a repairman!!!

May sound silly, but that is how a lot of great businesses got started. Go for it!

RADAR