Odd DVR playback problem on the H3

[docdaddy]

Have had the H3 for about a week or two, love it, but in the last week have had a weird/frustrating problem occur twice. Wondering if anyone else has seen this?

Very simply - go to the DVR section, select a show to play, hit Play from Start, and it flickers something like "Delayed Start" and then the screen goes black and a progress bar at the top of the screen moves pretty quickly forward, while nothing is actually playing. I can stop, pick another recording, same thing.

And at this point none of my recordings will play. I had recorded some things to an external drive, so I switched to that, and recordings on there do the same thing (so I assume it's not a hard drive issue.)

The only thing that fixes this is rebooting the H3 - that puts everything back to normal.

Anyone familiar with this problem? Anything I can do to avoid it? Would hate to have to reboot while recording something.

 

[patmurphey]

Not normal, never seen that. Maybe you have a bad box.

 

[docdaddy]

OK, if it does it again I'll call tech support. Fortunately new install comes with the Service Protection Plan free for 6 months.

If they do need to replace the box, other than move all my current recordings to my external EHD (love that the EHD will work with any H3 vs. the Directv mode where the external drive will only work with the receiver it is married to!) what else would I need to do to migrate to a new H3?

 

[thomasjk]

All of your timers and settings that are stored in the 40.0 Remote you currently use. Press and hold the System Wizard button to see the date of the last backup. You will have to unpair the old remote from your original Hopper and pair it to the H3 to do this. Then press the System Wizard button and choose restore.

 

[kwindrem]

Have had the H3 for about a week or two, love it, but in the last week have had a weird/frustrating problem occur twice. Wondering if anyone else has seen this?

Very simply - go to the DVR section, select a show to play, hit Play from Start, and it flickers something like "Delayed Start" and then the screen goes black and a progress bar at the top of the screen moves pretty quickly forward, while nothing is actually playing. I can stop, pick another recording, same thing.

And at this point none of my recordings will play. I had recorded some things to an external drive, so I switched to that, and recordings on there do the same thing (so I assume it's not a hard drive issue.)

The only thing that fixes this is rebooting the H3 - that puts everything back to normal.

Anyone familiar with this problem? Anything I can do to avoid it? Would hate to have to reboot while recording something.

This happens to me almost every time I attempt to play from the EHD. It also takes quite a while for all the icons to populate.

Fortunately, in my case, switching back to live TV usually resolved the problem. If not, a channel change brings back picture. Then, I can go back to the DVR menu, select the EHD, scroll down to the program I want to watch (all this should be unnecessary), then select the program and it'll play properly.

This never happens for programs on the internal drive.

 

[docdaddy]

For me it happened on the internal drive, and also the external drive, at the same time. That's why I eliminated it being an internal drive problem.

 

[patmurphey]

docdaddy, It's a malfunction if it happens with the internal drive recordings. With an EHD with a lot of recordings it takes a bit of time for the drive to get "ready". On the original Hoppers and try to play too soon, you would get a window warning that it wasn't ready, and when it was ready the window went away and the recording played. The Hopper3 flashes the warning and goes black screen if you try to play too soon. Changing channels or live TV fixes it and when you go back to the EHD it will be ready to play. It's a minor bug that needs fixing.

 

[docdaddy]

docdaddy, It's a malfunction if it happens with the internal drive recordings. With an EHD with a lot of recordings it takes a bit of time for the drive to get "ready". On the original Hoppers and try to play too soon, you would get a window warning that it wasn't ready, and when it was ready the window went away and the recording played. The Hopper3 flashes the warning and goes black screen if you try to play too soon. Changing channels or live TV fixes it and when you go back to the EHD it will be ready to play. It's a minor bug that needs fixing.

So what would cause it to flash the screen and go black on both the internal and the EHD at the same time? On recordings that are days old? Actually, once it happens it happens on all recordings, internal and external. A reboot seems to be the only thing that fixes it - going to Live TV didn't have an effect.

 

[patmurphey]

It's a malfunction if it happens on an internal recording!

The minor EHD bug should not require a reboot.