Hopper 3 to Hopper 3 migration

[Altitudinous]

I went ahead and bought a Hopper 3 (clean reman sealed in Dish plastic) for $120 due to the monthly price changes for owned equipment. It turns out I've been running a reman myself for 4+ years, according to the back label...all this time I assumed I had started with a "new" box! I've looked at some old threads
about HWS or H3 to H3 transfers, and just want to make sure I do this the best way. I'll simply be replacing my leased H3 and with an owned H3, and have one H3 on my account. The Dish site discusses the ethernet cable transfer which I have looked at. I plan to move as much as possible from the old H3 to my 2TB EHD that I've been running for some time, before any H3-to-H3 transfers.

A couple of questions for anyone who has done this.

1. Does the destination H3 need to be activated with Dish and on my account before any H3-to-H3 transfer? I really don't want to disconnect my old H3 from the coax or anything if it is not necessary, and until the new one is ready to be swapped in.
2. Can my existing recording timers and other settings be transferred over to the new H3?
3. I saw some info somewhere that indicated that someone that had problems with the normal ethernet cable menu-driven method ended up using a method inside the diagnostics screens.
Is there a cleaner method inside the diagnostics that would have any advantages?

Thanks for any insights.

 

[SandFarmer]

When I had to replace a defective new H3, soon to be two, and used the "Ethernet Transfer" method to move programming, it was a dream. I originally had to move from an H2/HWS and that took days and was severely buggy. Although it was a while ago and don't remember exactly, which I will have to refresh myself here soon. It worked very well and for once I had no question if anything was missed or corrupted in the transfer. (It's kinda in what I wrote below.)

I had to Activate the new unit and was given plenty of time to return the defective unit to transfer everything.

The Timers and Remote Settings are stored in the H3 and the Remote. You need to make sure the Remote is up to date with your Timers by syncing it a final time before dealing with the new H3. I had both boxes identical until it was time to ship the one back and I wiped it prior to shipping. To Sync the Remote: Press the "Home/House" Button Three Times; Select "Tools" where you will see the option to "Restore Recordings" for later when you need to move your recordings to the new H3; then Select to the right "Technician Settings", in there you will find several options to Backup and Restore Settings and Timers. They have it broken out more now than when I did it was only Backup and Restore. Not the separate "Restores". That should take care of you for the two main migration actions, Timers/Remote Settings and Migrating Recordings that you'll have to do. This might be considered your "other" inside the "Diagnostics" area option.

If I missed anything, anyone please chime in and correct or add to what I have written.

Good Luck. I'll be joining you soon.

. . . sf

 

[Altitudinous]

SandFarmer,

Many thanks for your post. I got the new H3 activated and have the Ethernet recordings transfer in progress. I was concerned a little as the progress indicator said ZERO transferred for quite some time, as in a few hours. Then I thought that maybe the first recording was taking a while, because it was a 4K recording of an NFL game. So now, about 18 hours later, it's at 134 of 418 events transferred, estimated 3 days to complete.
My attempt to transfer timers via the remote to receiver and remote to remote was partially successful, but I decided I don't really care. I'll recreate timers, and it's an opportunity to get rid of many old timers. One thing that was a little weird to me was the selection process of the events to be transferred. The menu seemed to say that anything NOT selected would be lost, i.e., deleted. So I just took the Select All option, resulting in the 3 day estimate to complete the transfer. My OTA adapter is up and running. I haven't connected my EHD to the new unit yet. 4K Joey connection to new H3 was no problem.
Thanks again for your input and good luck with your next one.

 

[HipKat]

Anything that would be lost only goes to the Trash folder and can be restored on the original Hopper, then you can try and transfer those

 

[Altitudinous]

Anything that would be lost only goes to the Trash folder and can be restored on the original Hopper, then you can try and transfer those

Yes, thanks for that, I do remember now seeing that somewhere...maybe it was you who posted it originally.

I wonder if the estimated time remaining will be one of those things that sits forever saying 3 days, and then suddenly says 10 minutes left.

 

[TheKrell]

I wonder if the estimated time remaining will be one of those things that sits forever saying 3 days, and then suddenly says 10 minutes left.

Probably so. That's to give you ultimate confidence that all the programs transferred. <-- sarcastic remark

 

[SandFarmer]

All, on everything, "Progress Meters" are made by Herb, the guy back in the dark corner cubi. He either has it out for those that use them or . . .

So like installing software or moving files when it says, "About One Minute", it's gonna be forever!!!!! On a more realistic note, I noticed the progress thingy wasn't as accurate as I would have liked it to be. But! from what you experienced with moving the first files, D¡SHs' way of doing things seems to be "more". More time, more larger sized files, more to get certain things to work, more . . . just more!

 

[Altitudinous]

After another 4 hours, it's up to 143 events transferred, with...ta-da...3 days remaining.

Before starting this process, I opened up my purchased H3 to see what HDD it had in it. It is the Seagate ST2000VM003 with a manufacture date of Mar 2019. Since my leased H3 has been trouble-free, I'd like to open that one before sending it back to see if the HDD is that same model. But I probably won't just in case the leased ones are booby-trapped. I might get a spare 2TB drive. I've seen pretty dated posts saying that if you swapped in an unformatted bare drive in case of failure, the Hopper has the NVRAM or other storage to be able to boot and format the new drive. Anyone know that for sure on an H3?
I ask because if I do this, I'd like to know if I need to clone the existing HDD before putting the spare on the shelf. Also, has anyone found a reason or possibility of using something other than the ST2000VM003?

 

[HipKat]

After another 4 hours, it's up to 143 events transferred, with...ta-da...3 days remaining.

Before starting this process, I opened up my purchased H3 to see what HDD it had in it. It is the Seagate ST2000VM003 with a manufacture date of Mar 2019. Since my leased H3 has been trouble-free, I'd like to open that one before sending it back to see if the HDD is that same model. But I probably won't just in case the leased ones are booby-trapped. I might get a spare 2TB drive. I've seen pretty dated posts saying that if you swapped in an unformatted bare drive in case of failure, the Hopper has the NVRAM or other storage to be able to boot and format the new drive. Anyone know that for sure on an H3?
I ask because if I do this, I'd like to know if I need to clone the existing HDD before putting the spare on the shelf. Also, has anyone found a reason or possibility of using something other than the ST2000VM003?

As long as the number of events is going up, you're good. Mine was 50% full and took about 24 hours, although it said it would take 48

 

[Altitudinous]

Now it looks like she went into the Netflix app on the H3 and it's frozen there on the NF welcome screen. No response to anything on the remote or front panel buttons. The ethernet port is still flashing, so maybe the transfer is still going on behind the frozen screen. I really wanted to see if it managed to transfer another event or two in the last 17 hours. 4K Joey still working. Am I looking at a hard reboot? How about an Easter egg to force the H3 back to the Home screen?

 

[Altitudinous]

Pretty much crickets in terms of interest in this, but in case this helps anyone at some point.

The Ethernet transfer was finally completed. During the process, these things occurred:

1. a situation of no increase in the number of events transferred for some 16 hours, until:
2. a complete hang of the H3, presumably caused by someone going into the Netflix app. Restarting the H3 from the menus of a still-connected 4K Joey resolved that.
3. a restart of transfers by breaking them up into smaller chunks, say, 40 events or so, resulting in the need to continue to restore from trash on the sending H3 with:
4. some progress, until hours after accepting the option to go Watch TV, a completely unexpected reboot of the H3, causing me to:
5. copy even more events to the external drive before resuming the Ethernet "transfer"
6. eventually resulting in a Complete message including the helpful "116 of 38 events transferred".

It makes one shake one's head somewhat ruefully.

It makes one ask, I wonder if a USB-to-USB H3-toH3 transfer would work. But mostly, if makes one say, next time, transfer everything to an external drive, adding drives if necessary, instead of wasting time with the half-baked Ethernet method.

I think the transfer software was designed to cause the user to just give up and decide that that crap on there wasn't needed anyway.

I still have the question posed earlier about whether I need to clone my new H3's drive or simply have a bare unformatted ST2000VM003 on hand if I have a hard drive failure.

 

[TheKrell]

Pretty much crickets in terms of interest in this, but in case this helps anyone at some point.

I am interested! I want to get $10/mo back as well. So, do I understand that the source Hopper was no longer authorized on your account? If not, and it's off the satellite, then you wouldn't be able to use the EHD.

It makes one shake one's head somewhat ruefully.

You said it. EHD for me.

 

[Altitudinous]

do I understand that the source Hopper was no longer authorized on your account? If not, and it's off the satellite, then you wouldn't be able to use the EHD.

I called Dish to activate the new H3 and told them I'd be sending back the leased H3. They processed this. I kept the EHD connected to the old H3 while trying to do the Ethernet transfer, but the EHD was not powered on. I knew that I had too much stuff on the old H3 for it all to fit on the EHD. After trying to transfer via Ethernet, I went back and restored various items moved to Trash that I did not select when trying to break the transfer up into smaller chunks. Without satellite connected to the old H3, I was able to just press Home to get out out of the Acquiring Signal screen to go to DVR and External devices. I powered on the EHD and could see it. Proceeded to copy as much as possible to the EHD while the Ethernet transfer was supposedly continuing.