Odd, I haven't noticed that issue, mine seems to reconnect on it's own.
Since I got my cable internet setup a week or so ago, and connected the HR44 to wifi, I downloaded all of season one of Ash (Starz ondemand) and Kingdom season 2.
Now if I go to the bedroom HR24 which I have no connected to anything and try to download VOD, I get the "Sorry, we can't connect to DirecTV, please try again later".