DISH Has Made it Impossible to be a VIP211k Owner

[telstar_1]

Plus a box at every set

 

[zippyfrog]

So...yesterday my 9/28/2025 recordings worked. Today, it does not work. In fact, all my recordings no longer work except for today's recordings. The oldest made it 126 days. My recordings from Friday are the newest ones that no longer work...

And yes, what tipped me off was that I could see the amount of the hard drive space was reclaimed...

 

[Anony55]

So...yesterday my 9/28/2025 recordings worked. Today, it does not work. In fact, all my recordings no longer work except for today's recordings. The oldest made it 126 days. My recordings from Friday are the newest ones that no longer work...

And yes, what tipped me off was that I could see the amount of the hard drive space was reclaimed...

I was surprised to see that your recordings were still working before they quit. Your recordings were a lot older than I've been able to get work on my 211k... for quite a while now.

None of my recordings still work. In fact, the NCAA national championship football game recording worked for less than 10 days.

I'll be proving one way or the other if the HDD is at fault. I'm fixin' to reformat it with a PC and hook it to an old OTA (ATSC) DVR. Wanna make any bets about whether or not that cheapo DVR has any trouble with the HDD? lol

It is an old HDD. But it's been reliable. It's an old 1tb 3.5" SATA drive that I put in an external enclosure that has it's own power supply and a cooling fan. I've actually never had a HDD that I put in an external case like this to fail... no matter how old.

Testing the drive on that OTA DVR will tell the tale. I'll report back one way or the other.

 

[telstar_1]

Class action.

 

[navychop]

Fat Chance.

 

[Anony55]

I ended up letting the OTA DVR format the HDD (instead of my PC). Everything went fine. It reports the correct amount of space on the drive. The DVR formatted to fat32.

I let the OTA DVR record all kinds of stuff throughout the night. Everything is working. All the recordings play just fine with no glitches.

I guess time will tell. But it certainly looks like the HDD itself doesn't have any flaws or issues. Of course, this is the exact result that I expected. I will keep giving the HDD a pretty good workout, and will report if anything changes... but it won't.

 

[navychop]

You sure about that being formatted to FAT32?

 

[Anony55]

You sure about that being formatted to FAT32?

Yep. It gave me two options for formatting... fat32 and exFat (or ext or similar, I'm not home right now, so I can't check for sure). I chose FAT32 and assume that that's what it did.

I really wanted NTFS. I read where it can use an NTFS drive, but it didn't offer that as a formatting option... and I didn't want NTFS bad enough to crawl behind and untangle the power cord so that I could take it to my PC, lol.

 

[zippyfrog]

I ended up letting the OTA DVR format the HDD (instead of my PC). Everything went fine. It reports the correct amount of space on the drive. The DVR formatted to fat32.

I let the OTA DVR record all kinds of stuff throughout the night. Everything is working. All the recordings play just fine with no glitches.

I guess time will tell. But it certainly looks like the HDD itself doesn't have any flaws or issues. Of course, this is the exact result that I expected. I will keep giving the HDD a pretty good workout, and will report if anything changes... but it won't.

That has been my thing all along - I don't think it is the hard drive. The fact that I had two different hard drives on two different VIP 211k's fail at the same time, then trying a second hard drive on my main VIP211k and having it fail, and having a handful of people on this forum post the exact same error, points to something else.

 

[Anony55]

That has been my thing all along - I don't think it is the hard drive. The fact that I had two different hard drives on two different VIP 211k's fail at the same time, then trying a second hard drive on my main VIP211k and having it fail, and having a handful of people on this forum post the exact same error, points to something else.

The problem definitely wasn't the HDD itself, which really only leads to one conclusion. The only thing left to settle is the intent... and frankly, I'm willing to live with the mystery (mystery, lol).

Since my last post, I've recorded all kinds of stuff on that same HDD with a different DVR device... everything works perfect. I've recorded a bunch of stuff that I don't even need, just for testing purposes. I've really been putting that ole drive through its paces... perfect every time.

Funny thing is, if Dish hadn't poked the bear by messing with our recordings, I would probably still be paying $103 a month for a service for which there are so many more affordable alternatives.

It's kinda "business 101"... when your customers are happily paying you for something that they don't really need... don't give them any reasons to reassess their relationship with you.

They wanted a two-year agreement. Well, they didn't get that, and now they have $5 a month (paused account) until I get up the courage to make it $0 a month.

 

[navychop]

Can you watch internal DVR recordings on a paused account? For sure?

 

[telstar_1]

Just not a closed one

 

[arlo]

So. Has anyone actually contacted a Dish rep. and asked "When I record something, can I replay it forever?"
Better yet. Aren't there Dish reps. here on this site who can answer that?
Seems like a lot of hemming and hawing going on still about a supposedly obsoleted receiver.
"Is it the HDD?". "Did they whammy me and delete it?". "My acct. is on hold but I still can (or can't....) play my stuff back." "I do the musical drives thing."

Of course you do realize that the Dish equipped internal HDD spins down when not used. Right? Power up in standby...PUIS. Nothing to do in the box. It's a bit set in the HDD controller that looks for a command to turn the platter motor on. And is why you can't readily yank a roadside DVR drive and slap it in a pc and use it.
W/O using an application like HDAT to "flip the bit" to turn the motor on when powered up. Yeah.

Rant. I'm old enough to remember pay toilets. Old enough to remember things like chain gangs and the water fountain and bathroom thing. Everyone can agree that you only rent food....and beer! Having to pay to get it and then having to pay to get rid of it. Makes great sense, right? About as much as paying sales tax for something you found at a pawn shop that already had tax paid.

What's your budget? Search YouTube for the HDMI recorder du-jour. It'll cost you a few, maybe a couple hundred.
Problem solved. No more scratching your heads, perhaps much, much lower wondering "what's up??" "Wheres my ball game?" "Where's my Taylor Swift (cringing) concert!?"

Use to be. Let's use a COPO GM vehicle from days gone by for instance. Want cruise control? Power windows and seats? Rear window defogger? An aluminum 427 with dual 4's and a 4 on the floor? You order it. Pay for it. And use it until it breaks and get it fixed to use forever.
Now? Everything comes in your dream ride. Want more juice? Pay for it. Want your butt nice and toasty in the ice and snow? Pay for it. Name it. Pay once to have it forever? Pay for a 6 month sub? Or have it activated and the mfgr. suddenly decides....Nope, no more.
Your e-bike. Nice! Warranty expires, the battery gets old. Can't even swap it out because it's married to the damned thing. And phones? Don't EVEN get me riled up on that.

Do I support DCMA? Yup. Support your entertainers. Would I appreciate having someone dangling a tasty carrot in front of me until I could grab it for a bite and have them yank it away? Not unless I was told I could have one single bite before having to chase it all over hell and gone again.
And don't EVEN slip a nice cold pint of Sammy Adams Lager in front of me and charge me $8.95 long enough to grab a few sips before pulling it away and telling me it will be 75 cents for another slug! And the "when it's time", charging me a quarter to pay the rent to get rid of it....you know!

Solve the problem. If someone told me I could have my heated seats and power windows and 150 extra ponies under the hood....forever.....for one price (or free!). Count me in. Ska-rew 'em.

 

[zippyfrog]

So. Has anyone actually contacted a Dish rep. and asked "When I record something, can I replay it forever?"
Better yet. Aren't there Dish reps. here on this site who can answer that?
Seems like a lot of hemming and hawing going on still about a supposedly obsoleted receiver.
"Is it the HDD?". "Did they whammy me and delete it?". "My acct. is on hold but I still can (or can't....) play my stuff back." "I do the musical drives thing."

Dish's rep, which posted on this board back in November 2024, said that the 05 error code is a corrupted file on the hard drive and there was no way to get the recordings back. It had to be re-recorded. We never asked if it lasts forever - or at least as long as the account is active.