15 day holiday - mixed results
richard_g_uk
Posts: 1,052 Forum Member
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Just returned from a 15 day holiday (21/9 to 5/10 to be exact) and got back to a non-responsive HDR.
Several weeks before I went on holiday I experimented with the auto on and off timer to help with the power cut bug. After a few days of trial and error I discovered that auto off at 2:58 and auto on at 3:15 allows the HDR to to go into full standby at 2:58 and then boot back up at 3:00 for it to do it's housekeeping and then it remains on in semi-standby before switching itself on at 3:15. I had this running for a couple of weeks at the begining of September with no (apparent) side effects.
While on holiday I set the auto on and off times as above. When I returned the HDR was on and E4 was shown on the display. Swithing the TV on and going to the SCART socket the HDR was connected to I could hear the audio from E4 but there was no picture. Tried pressing the source button, channel up/down buttons and putting it into standby but it was not repsonding to any remote control or front panel buttons.
Cycled the power (via the switch at the back) and pressed schedule. The schedule was up-to-date with all programs correctly scheduled and pulling up a cached EPG showed that it was fully populated (except channel 4 - but that was channel 4's fault). Checking the media section showed that all programs recorded up to and including the 29/9 and the morning of 30/9 the HDR did its 3AM house keeping as normal because the recordings had there thumbnails.
However after recording the first program from E4 on the evening of 30/9 it then did not record anything else that night and after this date. The E4 recording was successful and had no thumbnails which means it must have semi-locked up sometime after this recording and before the next one took the place. The HDR then just stayed on at this point until I returned from holiday. I say it was semi-locked because it was obviously still updating the EPG in the background and the audio was still being heard from E4.
All is not lost however as the recordings I missed I have on my trusty old Freeview PVR which I set up as a backup. It coped remarkably well considering I was not around to rescan it during the the DTT national retune event.
Several weeks before I went on holiday I experimented with the auto on and off timer to help with the power cut bug. After a few days of trial and error I discovered that auto off at 2:58 and auto on at 3:15 allows the HDR to to go into full standby at 2:58 and then boot back up at 3:00 for it to do it's housekeeping and then it remains on in semi-standby before switching itself on at 3:15. I had this running for a couple of weeks at the begining of September with no (apparent) side effects.
While on holiday I set the auto on and off times as above. When I returned the HDR was on and E4 was shown on the display. Swithing the TV on and going to the SCART socket the HDR was connected to I could hear the audio from E4 but there was no picture. Tried pressing the source button, channel up/down buttons and putting it into standby but it was not repsonding to any remote control or front panel buttons.
Cycled the power (via the switch at the back) and pressed schedule. The schedule was up-to-date with all programs correctly scheduled and pulling up a cached EPG showed that it was fully populated (except channel 4 - but that was channel 4's fault). Checking the media section showed that all programs recorded up to and including the 29/9 and the morning of 30/9 the HDR did its 3AM house keeping as normal because the recordings had there thumbnails.
However after recording the first program from E4 on the evening of 30/9 it then did not record anything else that night and after this date. The E4 recording was successful and had no thumbnails which means it must have semi-locked up sometime after this recording and before the next one took the place. The HDR then just stayed on at this point until I returned from holiday. I say it was semi-locked because it was obviously still updating the EPG in the background and the audio was still being heard from E4.
All is not lost however as the recordings I missed I have on my trusty old Freeview PVR which I set up as a backup. It coped remarkably well considering I was not around to rescan it during the the DTT national retune event.
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Comments
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1134172&page=2
My last recording was Doctor Who on 29/9 BBC 3 and I had no recordings after that until my return on 3/10. Find it interesting that your recordings stopped at a similar time and would be interested to find out if the recording failures other people experienced were from the same date.
Seems possible to me that it could be the retune request could be the problem given the timing appears to fit as jonokimber suggested (although this appears to have been dismissed in the previous thread).
Whatever the cause very frustrating if the HDR can't be relied upon and you need to have a back up (I'm relying on iplayer to catch up on some stuff so maybe there is a use for it in a post-HDR world after all).
I wonder if it ended up being parked on BBC 3? As this channel is not active 24/7 it might have an influence.
I'm "on-tour" at the moment and had a big clear out in preparation. Tidied up the hard drive and did a non-freesat scan (to get a new HD channel on Astra 1) which forced me to re-install all my timers. My plan is all fresh series links and no deadwood might help. This was when I noticed that the Channel 4 EPG was not populated for the full eight days, posted elsewhere. A mecanical timer is turning a light on and will also show any significant power cut. No padding. On my last trip I seem to have been luckier than others.
Will post back in due course.
jono
However a bit of planning ahead might just help. I am definitely going to attempt to clear out expired series links and keep "dodgy" stuff such as Click as individual recordings before my next trip which is only a week away. Must confess no ITV HD was scheduled as I couldn't stand the Russian roulette of will it / won't it!
The next problem is finding the time to watch the recordings. Think they will be heading to my trusty external drive whilst watching the F1 later today.:)