Hopper 3 keeps starting up with black screen/no sound.

[jdvaughn]

So, as the title says, the past 3 days, when I turn my TV on (LG), the screen goes black, I have no sound. I can get into the TV interface, so I know it's not the TV. I can bring the dish guide up and see it, but no channel will come in until I reboot the my Hopper 3. Once I reboot (push red button in for 10 seconds) it will then go through the whole acquiring signal thing and will run a systems check.

After that, it works fine. I left it on last night because I've been sick and just do not want to call dish at all. I did start moving the most important things to my external drive because I'm pretty sure when I do call dish, they're going to say "your receiver is bad". This is the 4th hopper I've had in the past 3 years (at 2 different houses).

Anyway, wondering if anyone know of a fix for this problem or is my hopper indeed toast?

Also, I still have the entire series of "Dexter" in the hopper, but not sure how much space that would use if I start moving to the external drive. Anyone know? I would hate to lose the whole series.

 

[HipKat]

So, as the title says, the past 3 days, when I turn my TV on (LG), the screen goes black, I have no sound. I can get into the TV interface, so I know it's not the TV. I can bring the dish guide up and see it, but no channel will come in until I reboot the my Hopper 3. Once I reboot (push red button in for 10 seconds) it will then go through the whole acquiring signal thing and will run a systems check.

After that, it works fine. I left it on last night because I've been sick and just do not want to call dish at all. I did start moving the most important things to my external drive because I'm pretty sure when I do call dish, they're going to say "your receiver is bad". This is the 4th hopper I've had in the past 3 years (at 2 different houses).

Anyway, wondering if anyone know of a fix for this problem or is my hopper indeed toast?

Also, I still have the entire series of "Dexter" in the hopper, but not sure how much space that would use if I start moving to the external drive. Anyone know? I would hate to lose the whole series.

We call that the black screen glitch. The only fix I know of is to replace the Hopper

 

[lgb0250]

We call that the black screen glitch. The only fix I know of is to replace the Hopper

Would this be the same if it eventually comes on?

in my situation for the last couple of months when I start up in the morning the screen is black but the sound bar is working. Eventually the screen comes on and everything is fine. Today it didn’t come on at all. I turned it off and back on and it Worked normally again. Thought it might be the HDMI cable but the problem is the same with a new cable.

 

[HipKat]

Would this be the same if it eventually comes on?

in my situation for the last couple of months when I start up in the morning the screen is black but the sound bar is working. Eventually the screen comes on and everything is fine. Today it didn’t come on at all. I turned it off and back on and it Worked normally again. Thought it might be the HDMI cable but the problem is the same with a new cable.

I think it's the same

 

[DISH Support]

So, as the title says, the past 3 days, when I turn my TV on (LG), the screen goes black, I have no sound. I can get into the TV interface, so I know it's not the TV. I can bring the dish guide up and see it, but no channel will come in until I reboot the my Hopper 3. Once I reboot (push red button in for 10 seconds) it will then go through the whole acquiring signal thing and will run a systems check.

After that, it works fine. I left it on last night because I've been sick and just do not want to call dish at all. I did start moving the most important things to my external drive because I'm pretty sure when I do call dish, they're going to say "your receiver is bad". This is the 4th hopper I've had in the past 3 years (at 2 different houses).

Anyway, wondering if anyone know of a fix for this problem or is my hopper indeed toast?

Also, I still have the entire series of "Dexter" in the hopper, but not sure how much space that would use if I start moving to the external drive. Anyone know? I would hate to lose the whole series.

Hey jdvaughn,

Do you have the Hopper set to shut off and do the nightly updates? Also, the current software for the Hopper 3 is H3.16. Does your Hopper's software version match the current version?

Thanks!

 

[njack11]

jdvaughn, see if this thread sounds familiar to you: Unusual H3 Problem

In it you will see that another user and I describe a problem like yours. I tried chatting with support and they kept saying that it was because it wasn't doing the nightly updates, that there was a wiring problem, or a dish alignment problem. Mine was doing the updates. All of the time that the H3 was in that funky state, the Joey (J3) would work just fine. How could it be wiring, or dish alignment if the J3 was working? Through my own troubleshooting, I determined that what was causing it was... the H3 going into standby mode. This problem would show itself when the H3 would come out of standby. That is why you see it when you first turn it on and then it is fine after you reboot it or if you wait it out, it will sometimes come out of it (was faster to reboot though). I found that sometimes going to an OTA channel or a streaming channel might get it out of that state. Sometimes that just got it back to a picture with no sound. Armed with this information, I attempted another chat. I told them about the problem that I was having and said that I would like to troubleshoot it with them. They asked if the problem was happening at the moment. I told them no, but I could make it happen. Once I said that it wasn't happening at the moment they said they would not troubleshoot it and that a technician would have to come out for $95. I asked them to just send me an H3 and they refused. I called Retentions and before I could even finish the explanation, the nice lady said if you are sure that a different H3 will fix the problem, I'll send you one free of charge. She did and after I swapped it out, I no longer had the problem. That was about 4 months ago, so it's pretty obvious that it wasn't anything other than a faulty H3. Until you can get your H3 replaced, set it to never go into standby mode. When you are done watching TV for the night, turn it "off", which actually puts it into standby after a few minutes. It will then do it's nightly update/reboot. Unfortunately, it goes back into standby after the nightly reboot, so you will still have to reboot it again first thing in the morning, but it should be good the rest of the day.

 

[jdvaughn]

I'm not clear on when you say "set to never go into standby mode". I don't understand what that means. Please bear with me, I recently had a "mini-stroke", so my brain is not working that great.

The hopper has started up find for the last 4 days in a row. I checked for an update today and it did indeed do something. So I don't know. Meanwhile I'm slowly moving stuff to my external drive cause I'm pretty sure I'm living on borrowed time.

 

[jdvaughn]

Hey jdvaughn,

Do you have the Hopper set to shut off and do the nightly updates? Also, the current software for the Hopper 3 is H3.16. Does your Hopper's software version match the current version?

Thanks!

It's set to update at 2am. I manually updated it this morning. I can't find where to see what the version number is..

 

[Bobby]

It's set to update at 2am. I manually updated it this morning. I can't find where to see what the version number is..

To see your version number press home on your remote 3 times to get to the diagnostics page. Look down to where it says Software Version and it should say H316.

 

[jdvaughn]

To see your version number press home on your remote 3 times to get to the diagnostics page. Look down to where it says Software Version and it should say H316.

It does say H316

 

[Bobby]

It does say H316

That's a good thing. Now to answer the Dish person's last question, do you actually shut your Hopper off overnight. Mind you that just puts your Hoppet in standby.

 

[lgb0250]

I think it's the same

Called tech support a couple of days ago and they rebooted my H3 and naturally it worked just fine, because it was already warmed up IMO. But it’s now back to the same problem. Tech told me to call back again if it keeps happening but that’s just a waste of my time because it will of course be warmed up again and not be reproducible. Guess I will just get everything moved over to my external drive and let it die a slow death. Trying to be proactive just doesn’t seem to work with DISH. Thanks for the help..

 

[jdvaughn]

That's a good thing. Now to answer the Dish person's last question, do you actually shut your Hopper off overnight. Mind you that just puts your Hoppet in standby.

I shut the TV off, but not the hopper. Although in the settings it's set to do a 2am reset every night

 

[Bobby]

I shut the TV off, but not the hopper. Although in the settings it's set to do a 2am reset every night

As long as you are turned on you will not get the reset as scheduled. The receiver will nag you from time to time to let it do its updates. That said, you still may have a starting to fail receiver. But, it is best to turn both the TV and the Hopper off when not in use. Try turning the Hopper off as well as the TV for some time to see if your issues go away.

 

[njack11]

I shut the TV off, but not the hopper. Although in the settings it's set to do a 2am reset every night

Turning the Hopper off will put it into standby. Turning only the TV off will not. There is an inactivity timer that will also put it into standby. That is what I meant by setting it to never go into standby mode. The default is 4 hours. To get to the setting, hit the Home button twice and go to Settings, then Power. It is called Inactivity Timeout. One of the choices is Off. It is actually right in the same spot where you choose the time to do the nightly reset.

When it comes time to do the nightly reset, in your case, at 2am, if it is not in standby, it will prompt that it is going to reset and if you were actually watching TV at that time, you could choose to let it do it or tell it not to. If you don't respond, it will go ahead and do the reset anyway. In my experience, after that automatic reset, it will be in standby. So even setting the inactivity timer to Off won't prevent it from doing the nightly reset and ending up in standby mode, which will lead to your black screen issue when you turn it on in the morning. There really is no such thing as it never going into standby. You would have to really work at it to keep it from ever going into standby and that would be by preventing the nightly resets, which could lead to other issues. That's why the first thing support will go after when you have strange issues is that it isn't doing the nightly reset. If it misses the nightly reset, it will try to do it some other time during the day.

If you want to verify that it is the same problem that I had, try turning off only the Hopper and leave the TV on so you can see what it is doing. When you turn the Hopper "Off", you will notice that the sound mutes, but the picture is still there. There is a message in the lower right corner that says "Press any button to watch TV, otherwise the Hopper will go into standby". Don't press anything and wait about 1 minute. The green power LED on the front of the Hopper should turn off and you will see a screen saver on the screen. It is in standby at that point. Press the Select button on the remote to "wake it up" and you will likely have your black screen issue.

Moving recordings to an external drive is a wise move at this point. Don't forget to make a note of your timers too. I tried backing them up to the remote so that they could be restored on the replacement Hopper 3 and it even attempted to restore them in the setup wizard that runs when you hook it up and turn it on, but it didn't work.

 

[jdvaughn]

As long as you are turned on you will not get the reset as scheduled. The receiver will nag you from time to time to let it do its updates. That said, you still may have a starting to fail receiver. But, it is best to turn both the TV and the Hopper off when not in use. Try turning the Hopper off as well as the TV for some time to see if your issues go away.

I'll be damned, in all the years I've had dish, I've never heard to turn the hopper off along with TV when I'm done with it. I will start doing that. Thank you!

 

[jdvaughn]

While I have all you smart people here, could you perhaps tell me what kind of other external hard drive I could buy to transfer all my stuff over to & perhaps not have to use with dish in the future. I have just about every single great movie and series on my external drive but it's got to be at least 10 years old so I worry about losing all that stuff. It's a WD 2TB. I have about 350GB free currently. Still I would love to move all my stuff to a device that would be more versatile.

Any advice would greatly appreciated!

 

[Bobby]

Everything that is recorded from a DISH receiver is, first, encrypted, and second, is account driven. So, there is no way for you to play those recordings on anything that is not a DISH receiver that is attached to your account. You could leave DISH and return and if you don't get lucky enough to get the original account number you lose everything on that EHD. I know that isn't what you want to hear but it is the reality of the situation.

 

[TheKrell]

While I have all you smart people here, could you perhaps tell me what kind of other external hard drive I could buy to transfer all my stuff over to & perhaps not have to use with dish in the future. I have just about every single great movie and series on my external drive but it's got to be at least 10 years old so I worry about losing all that stuff. It's a WD 2TB. I have about 350GB free currently. Still I would love to move all my stuff to a device that would be more versatile.

As Bobby said, all the programs on your current EHD will be lost if you leave Dish. The only way around that is to play them one by one with your Dish receiver and record them elsewhere.

If all you are worried about is losing that old disk, then you could just copy it onto a newer disk with any of a number of tools that copy sectors, regardless of the format residing on the disk. This makes an exact copy and you could keep it in a closet somewhere and bring it out if/when the original stops working.

 

[jackson85]

So, as the title says, the past 3 days, when I turn my TV on (LG), the screen goes black, I have no sound. I can get into the TV interface, so I know it's not the TV. I can bring the dish guide up and see it, but no channel will come in until I reboot the my Hopper 3. Once I reboot (push red button in for 10 seconds) it will then go through the whole acquiring signal thing and will run a systems check.

After that, it works fine. I left it on last night because I've been sick and just do not want to call dish at all. I did start moving the most important things to my external drive because I'm pretty sure when I do call dish, they're going to say "your receiver is bad". This is the 4th hopper I've had in the past 3 years (at 2 different houses).

Anyway, wondering if anyone know of a fix for this problem or is my hopper indeed toast?

Also, I still have the entire series of "Dexter" in the hopper, but not sure how much space that would use if I start moving to the external drive. Anyone know? I would hate to lose the whole series.

That does it on my Vizio, also. Not all the time, but it happens. The audio also goes off with the Vizio and the Hopper3.