New Roof & HR54 Wiped Out Most of my Programming!? Any hope?

[Shaun Gupta]

Hey all,

So I've had an HR54/200 for years with no major issues. Been working well. I'm far behind on my programs, though, so had a little over a year of them. Storage was low (~6%) but not so low I was losing anything, and I was finishing off some streaming shows to hopefully get more space freed up soon.

I needed a new roof, so had that done. In the process, they had to remove the dish, which was fine and expected. They put it back and we got partial signal (enough to see most channels, but still getting some 771 errors), but I figured since I had the protection plan, I'd go ahead and get DirecTV to come out and align it so the roofing guys didn't have to worry about it. No problem.

Welp, in the midst of all of this (seeing if I could get rid of the 771 error), I did a restart. (NOTE: I did *not* do a reset; this was the restart that simply reboots the box - figured after messing with the dish, it made sense to do). Worked fine - still inconsistent signal. But while I was on the List screen a few minutes after the reboot, to my horror, I noticed things just start disappearing and my amount free went from 6% to 82%. Most of my programming is just simply gone...

I have no idea why this happened or if it could be some strange glitch being that it can't see the satellite properly. My gut tells me these shows are permanently gone, but I'm still holding out hope that when the tech comes Monday to realign the dish, they might magically repopulate when the receiver can "see" everything again...

Anyone have anything like this happen before? Any chance of the shows coming back? And how can I avoid this in the future? Thanks.

Oh, and if they are truly gone, would it be worth considering a receiver upgrade at this time?

 

[Jimbo]

Hey all,

So I've had an HR54/200 for years with no major issues. Been working well. I'm far behind on my programs, though, so had a little over a year of them. Storage was low (~6%) but not so low I was losing anything, and I was finishing off some streaming shows to hopefully get more space freed up soon.

I needed a new roof, so had that done. In the process, they had to remove the dish, which was fine and expected. They put it back and we got partial signal (enough to see most channels, but still getting some 771 errors), but I figured since I had the protection plan, I'd go ahead and get DirecTV to come out and align it so the roofing guys didn't have to worry about it. No problem.

Welp, in the midst of all of this (seeing if I could get rid of the 771 error), I did a restart. (NOTE: I did *not* do a reset; this was the restart that simply reboots the box - figured after messing with the dish, it made sense to do). Worked fine - still inconsistent signal. But while I was on the List screen a few minutes after the reboot, to my horror, I noticed things just start disappearing and my amount free went from 6% to 82%. Most of my programming is just simply gone...

I have no idea why this happened or if it could be some strange glitch being that it can't see the satellite properly. My gut tells me these shows are permanently gone, but I'm still holding out hope that when the tech comes Monday to realign the dish, they might magically repopulate when the receiver can "see" everything again...

Anyone have anything like this happen before? Any chance of the shows coming back? And how can I avoid this in the future? Thanks.

Oh, and if they are truly gone, would it be worth considering a receiver upgrade at this time?

Try rebooting the recvr again ...
Menu/Settings/Reset Options/Restart THIS Recvr ....
Thats probably what you did the first time ...

See if they come back, if not, do the same after the dish gets repointed.
You wouldn't be getting a recvr upgrade, thers no where to go, the HR54 is the newest recvr available.
If you go to the HS17, you use Clients thru out the home, no longer have recvrs and individual hard drives in them.

How many TV's/recvrs are you talking about in your system ?

 

[Shaun Gupta]

Try rebooting the recvr again ...
Menu/Settings/Reset Options/Restart THIS Recvr ....
Thats probably what you did the first time ...

See if they come back, if not, do the same after the dish gets repointed.
You wouldn't be getting a recvr upgrade, thers no where to go, the HR54 is the newest recvr available.
If you go to the HS17, you use Clients thru out the home, no longer have recvrs and individual hard drives in them.

How many TV's/recvrs are you talking about in your system ?

Thanks for the help! Already tried a reboot, both of the HR54 and the Genie Mini 4K connected to it (and another with the mini completely powered off just in case the mini did something...). Showing the same thing unfortunately. I'll definitely retry when the dish is repointed.

I only have the 1 receiver + client, and the only reason I have the client is 4K (which to be honest I don't use that much - I stream most of the 4K I watch). So the Genie 2 wouldn't really benefit me very much. I also really don't like the look of that HS17, and the reliance on clients seems like it could have issues and be slower... Though if people are truly recommending it, I could try it. If not, I'm fine sticking with what I've got...but I really don't want this to happen again.

I just wish I had an idea of what could have caused this.

 

[Jimbo]

Thanks for the help! Already tried a reboot, both of the HR54 and the Genie Mini 4K connected to it (and another with the mini completely powered off just in case the mini did something...). Showing the same thing unfortunately. I'll definitely retry when the dish is repointed.

I only have the 1 receiver + client, and the only reason I have the client is 4K (which to be honest I don't use that much - I stream most of the 4K I watch). So the Genie 2 wouldn't really benefit me very much. I also really don't like the look of that HS17, and the reliance on clients seems like it could have issues and be slower... Though if people are truly recommending it, I could try it. If not, I'm fine sticking with what I've got...but I really don't want this to happen again.

I just wish I had an idea of what could have caused this.

It could be a fluke ...
It could be a hard drive going bad ...
It could be a software issue ...
Could be a number of things .

Personally (others will disagree and others will agree) I'd much rather have the HR54 than the HS17 as your not tied down to one unit ...
If you have any needs for a recvr elsewhere ... you can't do that with the HS17 ... such as an RV (without taking the HS 17 system with you each time) or a tail gate.

If you have multiple recvrs that is ... if your only talking one recvr, its not as much an issue, but the HS17 seems cumbersome to be taking with you when you do need it.

If you have multiple recvrs, and one goes bad, your not out of service, you watch the other one, with a HS 17, it goes down and your done till you get another one.

Let us know the outcome when your tech is done ... I'm thinking your shows will come back.

 

[Shaun Gupta]

Will do and thanks. I'd be more confident about the shows coming back if the space free didn't increase, but let's hope you're right. If not, I've already gone through and made a rough list of what I lost so hopefully I can find a way to stream them. But ugh... At any rate, I really do appreciate the help, and yeah - it sounds like I'll stick with the HR54 for now.

 

[Jimbo]

Will do and thanks. I'd be more confident about the shows coming back if the space free didn't increase, but let's hope you're right. If not, I've already gone through and made a rough list of what I lost so hopefully I can find a way to stream them. But ugh... At any rate, I really do appreciate the help, and yeah - it sounds like I'll stick with the HR54 for now.

On the positive side, its MUCH easier to re-coop shows now with streaming available than it use to be without.

 

[navychop]

Be sure to let us know the end result.


Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys App. For now.

 

[Shaun Gupta]

Just as a followup, I checked the history of the box (I had looked before, but hadn't scrolled far enough) and see "This episode was deleted by .(1001)" Some just have the ".", others say "LR1" (Living Room 1), and there doesn't seem much of a rhyme or reason to which say which or even which recordings were deleted vs. kept (it's NOT oldest and seems completely random). But at any rate, I'm the only one here, and they were not deleted by me. So not looking good.

We'll see if they come back when full signal is restored, but I can't say that's feeling likely to me. If not, I'm wondering if I should replace the DVR just in case.

As pointed out, though, I think I can stream just about everything one way or another (though if that ends up being the case, I really question how long I'll want to stick with a provider like DirecTV - DVR is one of the features that has made it worthwhile, and while I know things can fail, this one seems pretty odd).

I'll let you know what happens once the dish gets aligned.

 

[Jimbo]

Just as a followup, I checked the history of the box (I had looked before, but hadn't scrolled far enough) and see "This episode was deleted by .(1001)" Some just have the ".", others say "LR1" (Living Room 1), and there doesn't seem much of a rhyme or reason to which say which or even which recordings were deleted vs. kept (it's NOT oldest and seems completely random). But at any rate, I'm the only one here, and they were not deleted by me. So not looking good.

We'll see if they come back when full signal is restored, but I can't say that's feeling likely to me. If not, I'm wondering if I should replace the DVR just in case.

As pointed out, though, I think I can stream just about everything one way or another (though if that ends up being the case, I really question how long I'll want to stick with a provider like DirecTV - DVR is one of the features that has made it worthwhile, and while I know things can fail, this one seems pretty odd).

I'll let you know what happens once the dish gets aligned.

I'll let you know, your situation is a real oddity and is no way a common issue with the D* DVR's.

I'm wondering if a Clearmybox might help in this case ...
What do you guys think ?

It would be at least something to try, as just repointing the dish isn't the solution.

 

[Shaun Gupta]

Welp I got into the diagnostic modes via a post I found. Ran a HDD SMART short test and it Passed. Doing the Long Test now. Yeah. I'm at a loss as to what could have happened. It's certainly possible the signal loss was a coincidence, though it certainly *seems* like the triggering event. We'll see if the test sees anything wrong with the HDD. Open to any other suggestions. I've kind of come to terms with my programming being likely gone, but I'd certainly like to avoid it in the future. Thinking of talking to the person about a HS-17 tomorrow to at least consider it.

 

[Shaun Gupta]

Welp, tried the only 3 options available to me in the menu:
- Clear Cache
- Short SMART Test
- Long SMART Test

Status of all was PASSED.

 

[Jimbo]

Welp I got into the diagnostic modes via a post I found. Ran a HDD SMART short test and it Passed. Doing the Long Test now. Yeah. I'm at a loss as to what could have happened. It's certainly possible the signal loss was a coincidence, though it certainly *seems* like the triggering event. We'll see if the test sees anything wrong with the HDD. Open to any other suggestions. I've kind of come to terms with my programming being likely gone, but I'd certainly like to avoid it in the future. Thinking of talking to the person about a HS-17 tomorrow to at least consider it.

Why would you do that ?

Btw, you do know that the Long HD test can take up to 24 hrs, right ?

 

[Jimbo]

Have you tried a Clear my Box yet, and it takes 24-48 hrs to repopulate some items.

 

[Shaun Gupta]

Jimbo, long test already passed okay. Took maybe 3-4 hours, nowhere near 24.

Trying the Clear My Box now (another thing new I learned). Thanks for the suggestion! Can't hurt! [Finished and still showing the same at boot, but I'll give it some time to see if that changes.]

Re the HS17, I don't know...I suppose I could go HR54 if they still have 'em available. I feel like they're really pushing the HS-17's for the future so if I really *need* to upgrade, it might make sense. But in all honesty I still like my HR54 just fine, except for *this* issue... I'll talk to the tech tomorrow.

 

[Jimbo]

Jimbo, long test already passed okay. Took maybe 3-4 hours, nowhere near 24.

Trying the Clear My Box now (another thing new I learned). Thanks for the suggestion! Can't hurt! [Finished and still showing the same at boot, but I'll give it some time to see if that changes.]

Re the HS17, I don't know...I suppose I could go HR54 if they still have 'em available. I feel like they're really pushing the HS-17's for the future so if I really *need* to upgrade, it might make sense. But in all honesty I still like my HR54 just fine, except for *this* issue... I'll talk to the tech tomorrow.

Clear my box will take 24-48 hours to do everything ...

 

[Claude Greiner]

Unplug the box for a few hours and reboot later.

If it’s gone it’s likely not coming back

 

[Shaun Gupta]

Welp, no luck getting the stuff back. But the guy was very nice and greatly improved my cable issue outside the house (which he didn't have to do). He basically told me to stay away from the HS-17 for my setup (didn't add anything and still had some bugs) and ran some additional tests on the HR54. I'm really starting to think it might have been some sort of really weird and rare software bug triggered by a reboot due to lack of signal/the dish partially but not fully working, and I'm sort of wondering if the mini-Genie was somehow involved since that's what I was trying to get signal on for the 4K channels when it happened. I did nudge towards replacing the HR54 now, but I'm willing to give this one one more shot for what it does still have on it. It's not like my recordings aren't already destroyed to the point where I'm going to need to stream most of my content anyways for a while. If it is a hard drive issue, it'll probably show up sooner than later. I do realize I'm taking a risk.

Oh, he did mention they *might* be considering a new standard-type DVR to replace the HR54 eventually, but it's still early days and that's not confirmed yet. If it does happen, I'll probably upgrade then.

Thanks for all the help here!

 

[Jimbo]

Welp, no luck getting the stuff back. But the guy was very nice and greatly improved my cable issue outside the house (which he didn't have to do). He basically told me to stay away from the HS-17 for my setup (didn't add anything and still had some bugs) and ran some additional tests on the HR54. I'm really starting to think it might have been some sort of really weird and rare software bug triggered by a reboot due to lack of signal/the dish partially but not fully working, and I'm sort of wondering if the mini-Genie was somehow involved since that's what I was trying to get signal on for the 4K channels when it happened. I did nudge towards replacing the HR54 now, but I'm willing to give this one one more shot for what it does still have on it. It's not like my recordings aren't already destroyed to the point where I'm going to need to stream most of my content anyways for a while. If it is a hard drive issue, it'll probably show up sooner than later. I do realize I'm taking a risk.

Oh, he did mention they *might* be considering a new standard-type DVR to replace the HR54 eventually, but it's still early days and that's not confirmed yet. If it does happen, I'll probably upgrade then.

Thanks for all the help here!

You'll have to expand on that statement ...

Is he talking a new recvr that has a DVR and does 4k ?
If not, why would they bother ?

 

[Shaun Gupta]

Honestly, he didn't elaborate. Just said a new standalone receiver *may* be coming, but who knows how reliable that is.

I too would assume 4K would be the primary reason. Could be additional storage or features as well...maybe a speed upgrade. We won't know unless it happens.

 

[Jimbo]

Honestly, he didn't elaborate. Just said a new standalone receiver *may* be coming, but who knows how reliable that is.

I too would assume 4K would be the primary reason. Could be additional storage or features as well...maybe a speed upgrade. We won't know unless it happens.

We would be hearing about it if its coming at all.
We have heard just the opposite so far ... with streaming all the rage.