Problems with DVR?

[Hi Ho]

I have had a VIP722 receiver for a little over a year and it has been trouble free until now. I haven't been able to use it at all for the past hour as it just keeps "Acquiring satellite signal" and then "Downloading program guide".

It started a few days ago when I was watching a RECORDED program it bumped me out of the recorded program to say it had lost satellite signal on channel 5 (local NBC station). I hit channel up/down and it came back instantly. After that it started doing that frequently regardless of what I was watching and changing the channel would fix it right away. I have rebooted the DVR several times to no avail. When I check the point dish menu sats 110 and 119 are at around 75 while 129 is around 43 which is where they have always been.

I have a VIP522 DVR in another room and it has been working fine. Is my DVR toast?

 

[HobbyTalk]

In single mode press Swap and then change that channel to a channel other then channel 5. Seems your OTA antenna is not picking up channel 5 very well.

 

[TheKrell]

I'd guess the internal disk is toast.

 

[Mr Zulu]

I have had a VIP722 receiver for a little over a year and it has been trouble free until now. I haven't been able to use it at all for the past hour as it just keeps "Acquiring satellite signal" and then "Downloading program guide".

It started a few days ago when I was watching a RECORDED program it bumped me out of the recorded program to say it had lost satellite signal on channel 5 (local NBC station). I hit channel up/down and it came back instantly. After that it started doing that frequently regardless of what I was watching and changing the channel would fix it right away. I have rebooted the DVR several times to no avail. When I check the point dish menu sats 110 and 119 are at around 75 while 129 is around 43 which is where they have always been.

I have a VIP522 DVR in another room and it has been working fine. Is my DVR toast?

I'm in the same boat. I've had my vip622 for about a year and a half with out ANY issues. It's been rock solid... until last night. Our local ABC OTA dropped signal. It's our strongrest signal and has shown 100% strenghth since they boosted their transmission last August. I switched over to the TV tuner and I was getting the signal. Switched back to DVR and no signal. Changed channel to other OTA and cable channels and all worked except our local ABC. Rebooted the DVR and the local ABC started working again on the DVR with 100% signal. Problem fixed but I thought it was odd. I then checked to see what version of software it had and it was L6.16... first time I've noticed that but I don't check it often.

Later that night I selected a recording that had been on the DVR for 3 or 4 weeks and initially just got a black screen. Fastforwarding/rewinding and skipping couldn't find a location wiht picture. I pressed stop and then selected restart (without leaving the DVR event) and I then got a picture but no sound and the picture was jumpy. Then I left the DVR event by selecting a channel and then returned the propper picture and sound from the channel. I then selected the DVR event again and it played the video and sound appropriately except for palying an odd 1 or 2 sec clip of video about 5 minutes into the movie that obviously did not belong there. This was repeatable.

After that everything was fine.

I'm most bothered by losing signal on my local OTA though as it removes the primary reason I like having a DVR if I can't depend on the signal that I don't have to babysit to make work. The other stuff is anoying but it didn't take me more than a minute or two to sort it out.

 

[boba]

Have you tried a hard reboot? After a new software download some DISH receivers need a kick in the a** to get them working again.

 

[Laddyboy]

Have you tried a hard reboot? After a new software download some DISH receivers need a kick in the a** to get them working again.

My 722 went belly up when it first tried to record after it got the 616 update. Unplug and wait 30 minutes and then try again. That's the only way I could get mine to work again.

 

[Hi Ho]

Hmmmm.... so there was a software update? That could explain it. I will try unplugging it. I do not receive my local NBC station OTA. The only two that I can get OTA are ABC (KOMO) and Fox (KCPQ). Fox has always had a very strong signal but I have noticed lately that it has dropped by about 10 from 80 to 70. It hasn't dropped out though. KOMO, which I'm glad to have OTA since it doesn't come through the Dish at the moment, is very spotty all of the sudden. It is unwatchable now. I used to get signal strength from 60-65 with occassional dropouts but now it's only 55 and it drops out every couple of minutes. Rebooting the DVR makes it come back for a little bit but then it goes back to what it was doing.

I'm guessing the software upgrade has changed something with the OTA tuner? I'll report back later this evening after I do a hard reset and watch it for a while.

 

[Hi Ho]

So far so good. I left it unplugged for about 40 minutes yesterday and it worked fine last night and it seems to be working fine tonight. KOMO is working fine OTA with stronger signal. Weird how a software problem would cause that.

 

[Mr Zulu]

So far so good. I left it unplugged for about 40 minutes yesterday and it worked fine last night and it seems to be working fine tonight. KOMO is working fine OTA with stronger signal. Weird how a software problem would cause that.

Yeah, I did the hard reset thing yeserday but tonight was the first time we sat down to watch any TV, including the channel we lost a few days ago, and eveything was fine excep that I discovered that our timer for 'Big Love' had dissapeared. Luckely I noticed that about 20 minutes before the show began.