A liitle over four months ago I bought two Humax 9300Ts: one for myself and one for my mother. In that four months each of the PVRs has locked up on seven and nine occasions respectively. The lockups are random: the boxes will work fine for weeks; sometimes they lock up twice in a day. The lockups occur at random times.

By "locked up" I mean that the picture and the time freezes and the box will not respond to the remote control. The only solution is to switch off and on again at the mains. Both boxes have the latest software and loader as I did that from the PC as soon as I got them.

While there's someone at home this is merely annoying as it will be spotted reasonably quickly; but it means that the boxes are entirely unreliable for use as a PVR especially during the holiday season as it's possible that I could return from a two week holiday to find that the box locked up on the first day and hadn't recorded anything since .

The fact that two boxes suffer from the same problem suggests that this is a generic fault. Is it a known problem, and is there a solution?

I have a 9200 and a 9300 and have had occasional lockups on both. To overcome the "lock up while on holiday" problem I have fitted a mains time switch to switch the PVR off for 1/2 hour or so during the night. If the machine happens to be locked up, it is reset and rebooted. The worst that might happen would be recordings during a maximum of 24 hours after a lock up may be missed.

Thanks for that. So it is a generic fault and therefore the Humax PVRs are not fit for purpose. The question is: can I be bothered taking them both back for a refund especially as one of them is 200 miles away?

Funnily enough, as we'll be going on holiday shortly I've just done exactly what you've done . I fitted the timeswitch yesterday and this morning, half an hour after being turned on, it locks up .

The most common cause of lock ups in the past has been the MHEG engine (which provides things like the interactive services). This won't be active when recording from standby. Can you specify the exact circumstances of the most recent lockup (time, channel, whether you were doing anything or just watching etc)?

The most recent lockup was at 06:32 this morning. The box is set by its internal timers to come out of standby at 06:00 onto BBC1. I wasn't doing anything with the PVR (not watching or recording). I didn't notice it had locked up until nearly an hour later.

This is a typical scenario: most often a lockup will occur when the box is on (i.e. not in standby) and isn't being used or even watched. Only once has it locked up while recording, and never while being used/watched.

I've received the usual response from Humax to do a full reset and I'll do that shortly, though I have no expectation that it will make any difference.

And it didn't. It locked up at 02:55 this morning .

Could it be poor signal strength or interference causing the lock-ups - Do you an aerial amplifier. I have found this to be part of the cause in the past. When I fitted a new aerial and recabled part of the system the lockups vanished.

Interesting idea - thanks. I do have an amplifier, partly to split the signal to the other TVs. Signal strength is 65%, quality 100% (on BBC1 from Crystal Palace).

However, my mother doesn't have an amplifier and her 9300 locks up as much as mine does .

This is probably totally irrelevant but do you have any channels in the 800 range?

Thanks for the thought but, no, all channels normal.

Ok thanks. It was just a gut feeling I've had for a while that receiving from 2 transmitters might explain why some people suffer lock-ups and some don't. It must try changing my diet.

Mine's started locking up randomly during the past week or so. I recieve signal from 2 transmitters but haven't really seen a persistent problem until now.

Dunno if that adds anything, thought I'd just say

Mine has locked up at least once on four of the last five days - the worst performance since I bought it four months ago. On one of those days it also returned itself to default settings (thereby throwing away the recording schedule in that incomprehensible way that it does).

I'm aware of other occasions when my box locking up has coincided with other users' boxes locking up - sometimes to the minute. This lends weight to the theory that the problem is triggered by some iffy broadcast data, though I would argue that the Humax shouldn't respond in such a negative way.

Receiving from more than 1 transmitter normally causes epg loading problems and hence recording failures. Solution is simple find the uhf channels used by the 6 mux for your local transmitter, delete all your channels. Manually tune each of the 6 mux in turn.

I've had mine a year and can't remember having a single lockup until last week - had another three since!

I really am coming to the conclusion that this current spate of problems is dodgy broadcast data - it seems very strange that so many Humax users have had problems in the last few days.

Such things may well have been the cause of all the previous lockups as well, which is why I'm not rushing to take the box back - it's probably not a hardware problem.

Mine locked up quite a few times when it was new(ish) but it hasn't been so bad lately (I've had it nearly nine months). However, last weekend it locked up over Friday night/Saturday morning when I was taping The Wire omnibus - I got up to find BBC One showing on the front of the box but it hadn't taped The Wire and it had eaten my recording schedule. This morning when I got up it was still recording (no channel details showing) and it wouldn't turn on. I switched it off and on again at the back of the box, and it had taped The Wire (supposed to finish at 4.20) and left my timers alone.

In my experience, many people install Freeview receivers without replacing the drop-cable and aerial sockets. It's most important to use screened wall plates and double-screened cable - especially for the fly-lead.
See http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/tvplugs.htm

While interference may not necessarily be the prime cause of ALL faults, it's certainly something you should try to eliminate as far as possible.

Also remove sources of interference or at least move the Freeview receiver away from them. The TV itself is a prime source of strong interference (try holding an AM radio near to it). Obviously this is not going to be switched on while you are on holiday but other equipment might be.

I'm not having this, I've said before and I'll say again that any software should reject spurious data as making no sense, and carry on operating, minus the data it has therefore missed, not throw a fit and crash.

Seeing this behaviour in a high-end retail domestic product is not acceptable whatsoever.

It might not be a hardware problem, but Humax also seem to be notoriously bad at updating their software (how long has the wish list been there with not a single item addressed?), so I wouldn't hold out any hope of getting this problem fixed.

No, it looks like yet another in a long line of PVRs that can't actually do the R bit reliably, going back to the shop

Two more lock ups today - one overnight and another at 15:58 on CBeebies.

The only lock up's I've experienced occur when channel surfing and an MHEG screen is loading, although the box usually returns to service within in a minute, I have to say I've only experienced this a couple of times, and the box certainly has fewer issues than other dual tuner PVR's I've used, which is why I'm sticking with the humax.

I had another one last night at 22.17 on BBC Three, during The Killers playing live at T in the Park.

Mine locked up at 21:32 while recording Casualty. That's five lockups in the last seven days - as many as I had in the previous four months.

My mother's 9300 locked up on Friday at 18:12 and yesterday at 15:37.

Getting beyond a joke now....

I am also experiencing frequent lockup in the last week (since Mon 6th) after months of trouble free use.

There seems no reason - can be any channel and any time of day. Completely random - sometimes two or three times a day.

Getting a strong signal from Pontop Pike and no channels in the 800s. The old 9200T which I moved into my bedroom doesn't seem to be experiencing the same thing - very odd - and very annoying - I've already missed recordings because of this locking.

Did a default settings and rescan yesterday so seeing if that makes any difference....

[quote=who10uk;33724585]
Getting a strong signal from Pontop Pike and no channels in the 800s. QUOTE]

I'm on the same transmitter... and since last Thursday the Humax as been playing up.

Lots of reboots and units hangs - which have needed a power recycle. This has ment numerous incomplete recordings.


FM