Hopper acting weird

sabre170

Well-Known SatelliteGuys Member
Original poster
Oct 24, 2013
25
6
Dallas, TX
Ok, my hopper started acting very strange all of the sudden.

I noticed today, that on the guide, normal on the left where it shows all the channel numbers, names, and logos, that the logos had disappeared. I didn't think too much of it.

I then noticed that all my DVR recordings (although still present) no longer showed the TV show logo....rather just the generic "dish" logo for every recorded program. I also noticed that all my timers were gone, and my prime time anytime wasn't recording (it was 8pm and should have been).

Also, the commercial skipping feature to the hopper seemed to be gone.

I thought maybe the system just needed a restart, so red button reset I did.

Reboot seemed to take a long time. Showed the "starting up screen" 3-4 times with black screens in between. It took about 4-5 minutes for the boot to reach the "this should take no more than 5 minutes to complete" progress bar screen. That process took another 3 minutes making my boot a total of about 7 min. When it was done, on the bottom middle of the screen it showed the message: "your program guide and dvr are being updated. Please wait to create timers or access DVR events." This progress bar progressed quite slow.

After reboot and the above mentioned progress bar went away, all the previously mentioned issues were still there.

I started digging to if I had signal and such......discovered i seemed to have lost my internet. I have it wired directly to my ATT uverse modem. I tried different hard line ports (that I new worked as I was using on a different device all with no luck. I also noticed that when I put the hopper in standby mode, it keeps trying to update my guide.

So.......is the original issues I noticed (no guide logos, no DVR logos, no timers, no hopper skipping commercials) all a result of no internet? In other words, are those features all dependent on Internet? I'm thinking yes, and this I really only have one problem on my hands.....right?

If that is the case, any suggestions as to how to fix all my issues here???
 
One thing to note, the hopper never really seems like it finishes the guide updates. It slowly progresses, and then it will just hang.....the last time I was watching it it hung on 70% for a few minutes, and then it just disappeared.....as if the hopper gave up trying.
 
No luck with the unplug and restart method.

I also had it setting in standby mode all night hoping it may fix itself.....nope.
 
Last edited:
Oh NO!!!!

Just did another restart. After reboot, got the message: "your timers have been saved but any recordings have been lost. Select OK to reformat........."

Crap! Oddly enough, I'm this same reboot, I seem to have reconnected to the Internet with the hopper as I can now "connect" to my hopper with my ipad using dish anywhere.

Oddly enough, on the dish anywhere app, I DO see all my DVR recordings, however, I can't play them. Just a black screen. More so, my dish anywhere app shows no timers.

Is there any way to salvage this or am I just SOL?
 
Bet your hard drive is going bad. I had all kinds of crazy symptoms before my hard drive finally died.
 
Great......grrrrrr.

I'm able to bypass the screen and view the TV normally. No recordings are showing up on the DVR menu.

I go to try to see if I can do an external hard drive back up, but when I plug in a hard drive, the hopper just restarts itself.
 
After reboot, got the message: "your timers have been saved but any recordings have been lost. Select OK to reformat........."
It sounded to me like your hard drive was being corrupted but I didn't want to suggest that just yet. With what you're seeing now, I believe it's confirmed that the issue is HDD-related.

There are no recordings to back up to an external HDD. What you saw through Dish Anywhere was cached information, I'm afraid.
 
Well....now the damn thing won't even boot up. It will show the "start up screen 2x, then gets stuck on a black screen. Dish is sending me a new box.

However, until then I without TV.....anyone know a trick to get the darn thing booted up? (I currently have my power strip to it turned off. Going to give it a good break and try again)
 
Looks like something similar just happened to me tonight. Guide very sluggish. DVR'd show started freezing. Hopper rebooted. Tried to continue with DVR'd show...freeze....reboot. Unlugged & restarted. Live TV seemed OK....went to recorded shows and noticed it said "0% full with 351 Recordings." Uh-oh. Tried to watch a recording....nothing...after a few seconds got the message that recording was complete. Selected Live TV...nothing....hopper rebooted. Oh crap. Bye-bye 351 recordings (most unimportant). I KNEW I should have moved the important ones to the EHD.
 
Looks like something similar just happened to me tonight. Guide very sluggish. DVR'd show started freezing. Hopper rebooted. Tried to continue with DVR'd show...freeze....reboot. Unlugged & restarted. Live TV seemed OK....went to recorded shows and noticed it said "0% full with 351 Recordings." Uh-oh. Tried to watch a recording....nothing...after a few seconds got the message that recording was complete. Selected Live TV...nothing....hopper rebooted. Oh crap. Bye-bye 351 recordings (most unimportant). I KNEW I should have moved the important ones to the EHD.

Is it easy to move to EHD?
 
Yesterday my hopper stopped recording everything after I left for work at 12:30pm. I came home around 9:00pm and nothing was recorded, even prime time anytime wasn't recording and no ota was recording either. I did a reboot and it all started again ,but I missed out on most of the primetime schedule. I also had to reset up my primetime folder and what days I wanted it to record all over again. I hope this doesn't mean my hopper is crapping out.
 
My Hopper with sling was replaced in January, and I just go my replacement Hopper 2000, yesterday. Two Hoppers in 7 months does not give me a good feeling about their reliability.
 
My Hopper with sling was replaced in January, and I just go my replacement Hopper 2000, yesterday. Two Hoppers in 7 months does not give me a good feeling about their reliability.
Reliability is often relevant to environment....ie, ventilation, power conditions.
 
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