I am going on holiday in a few weeks time so there will be no one at home. Due to the bug in the firmware that means the HDR has to be brought out of standby following the restoration of power before it will record I wondered if anyone has found a workaround for this problem?

It would be annoying to get back after nearly 3 weeks away to find a power cut had occurred and nothing recorded.

Other than connect the HDR to a UPS obviously

Without any deep thought .....

Mains Timer Switch to cut the power after the 3am housekeeping, and bring it back on later in the morning; then set Auto On/Off at appropriate times?
Say, Auto Off 4am, Timed Power Off 5am, Timed Power on 7am, Auto On 8am (or whenever your first recordings start with a margin)?

Just a suggestion, I'm sure there will be others.

Rgds.


Les.

I have never used the Auto On/Off feature but following power restoration at 7am how does the HDR know what the time is without someone around to bring the HDR out of standby?

Apologies if I am misunderstanding how the whole Auto On/Off feature works

Edit: I haven't misunderstood the whole thing with the power restoration and it not recording until brought out of standby have I? I thought the recordings did not happen because the HDR had to be brought out of standby in order for it to get the current date and time so how does the Auto feature know when to switch on following power restoration if the HDR doesn't know the current date and time?

Actually, I think it was a rubbish idea, I did say I hadn't given it much thought.

The only other thing I can think of is to leave it on full time, but that is a dangerous strategy, as it needs to do housekeeping at 3am, and I don't think anyone has probably left it on for 2 weeks to see any detrimental effects.

Rgds.


Les.

Silly question, but just how often is there a power cut? I can't remember when it last happened - maybe during Ted Heath's 3-day week in the 70's.

I suffer them much more frequently than that.

Just in the last twenty years there was one in 1992, another in 1998 and yet another in 2003.

Well, I didn't keep a diary, but I wonder what the odds are against one happening in any 3-week time span?

Taking your example, let's say one every 290 weeks on average, that's odds of 97 to 1 against one happening in any 3-week period.

Not something I would get too worried about Mind you, by your reckoning we are overdue for another one

Richard,

I don't use Auto On/Off, so take that into account in some further thoughts/observations, which others may like to answer/comment on :-

1. If the box loses power for more time than is left in the PSU, when the power comes back on, does it come back On, or in Standby? You could test this yourself by switching off at the mains when the box isn't doing anything.

2. If you leave it On, and you get a power cut whilst it is doing any disk write activity, you will be susceptible to disk filesystem corruption, but this is the same risk as disk writing whilst recording in Active Standby.

To reduce the odds of getting a power cut whilst in Standby even further, you could leave it on most of the day, set Auto Off for 02:45, let it do its Housekeeping, and Auto On at 03:30. Implications of extra electricty consumption by leaving on for 23hrs.

It will be susceptible during this period if a power cut occurs.

If the box, having been On, comes back from a power cut, in Standby (not On), but with the clock correct, it should come back out of Standby at the next Auto On. It should record OK during this period, but be susceptible to a power cut whilst in standby during this extended period.

No solid answers here, but maybe some thoughts/stimulation for you?

Rgds.


Les.

Hi,

Well, I've just come back from a two weeks holiday and there WAS a power cut whilst I was away. Fortunately, I'd plugged the HDR into a PC non-interruptable power supply that I'd bought when they were ridiculously cheap from Ebuyer.

This really is the kind of bug that should have been fixed by a firmware update long before now. It should not be necessary to have to use these kind of measures for a consumer item.

Cheers, Alan.

My mate used to leave his on all time and got loads of lockups, it would be worse leaving it on rather than leaving it switched off knowing 99 in 100 times it will be ok.

My UPS shows this, thats only when the computer is switched on. I get lots for a second or two, enough to make the clocks need re-seting but theres several there that would knock out the humax.

2007/11/14 10:27:32 AM AC Failure
2007/11/14 10:30:20 AM AC Power Restored
2007/11/18 06:27:06 PM AC Failure
2007/11/18 06:27:08 PM AC Power Restored
2007/11/19 12:07:52 AM AC Failure
2007/11/19 12:09:56 AM System shutdown.
2007/12/11 08:32:46 AM AC Failure
2007/12/11 08:32:48 AM AC Power Restored
2007/12/17 12:38:03 PM AC Failure
2007/12/17 12:38:31 PM AC Power Restored
2007/12/17 12:38:45 PM AC Failure
2007/12/17 12:39:05 PM AC Power Restored
2008/02/22 09:51:34 PM AC Failure
2008/02/22 09:51:38 PM AC Power Restored
2008/04/30 06:16:02 PM AC Failure
2008/04/30 06:16:06 PM AC Power Restored
2008/04/30 06:57:06 PM AC Failure
2008/04/30 06:57:10 PM AC Power Restored
2008/07/24 06:07:41 AM AC Failure
2008/07/24 06:07:45 AM AC Power Restored
2008/09/25 12:36:04 PM AC Failure
2008/09/25 12:36:08 PM AC Power Restored
2008/09/25 01:34:16 PM AC Failure
2008/09/25 01:34:18 PM AC Power Restored
2009/02/15 11:23:31 PM AC Failure
2009/02/15 11:23:39 PM AC Power Restored
2009/07/24 09:59:13 AM AC Failure
2009/07/24 09:59:17 AM AC Power Restored

Les I did some experimentation with this. If the power is restored before the red led goes out then the hdr survives. From memory on my stb it was about 25sec. On a 11Kv line fitted with a high speed recloser then a succesfull reclose would probably be OK.

Hi Graham,

Yes I remember you doing this, but I was uncertain on the >25sec outage, whether it came back ON & Booted, or back in Standby but with the Clock OK. Hence my comments on Auto On/Off, and the scenario if it only comes back in Standby but clock OK.

@Off Topic - You back from France now? How was your dabble with SL whilst you were away?

Rgds.


Les.

Still In France, back from a day at the beach. The stb recovers from a very short power outage, it remains in sby bit the clock is OK and scheduled recording continue normally.

Thanks for confirming Graham.

In that case, I think the points below, are probably the best Richard could do, if he wants to do anything, without the bug being fixed, or investing in a good quality UPS. The cheaper PC UPS kit, will only keep it going for 10-25 mins (good for most "events"), any significant outage would drain the batteries.

Of course as a sort of "double-safe", you could leave the box on with a short Auto On/Off, as detailed below, but in conjunction with a UPS. Then presumably, if the UPS ran out, under a large outage, whilst the box was On, when it recovered, the scenario should be the same as below. But, how far do you go .....?

Rgds.

Les.

Not too sure about that, I agree with a PC but they use hundreds of watts.

Surely the Humax which only uses 1 watt in standby should last a hell of a lot longer.

savvy is right if the box is recording at the time I've got mine on a UPS and it lasted about 30 mins into a recording. But yes under standby conditions no problem

No power cuts since Ted Heath? What a comedian. Had one on the 16th of this month, lasted 17 hours from 22:30 on Thurs to 15:30 on Friday. North Kent had one last week, for some almost the whole week off. That was vandals, our most recent was storms. We have them fairly regularly.
Anyway my Humax did not need resetting, it missed Law And Order completely on the Thursday but the series link did continue somehow with no intervention from me. My Comag (ext HDD PVR) shut down at the first pre-major cut for 5 mins but when the power came on carried on recording where it left off. The recording was finished before the big one.