I have seen post in the past that briefly mention this but can we confirm what does happen?

I ask as yesterday I had the power off for a while and checking this morning it would seem that all items set to record after the power cut never recorded but new series link items do now exist for the next episodes e.g. Medium BBC2.

Is it the case that the box has no battery or capacitor backed up real time clock system or does not power up to check the guide and thus records nothing till it is brought out of standby by the user?

Any thoughts?

Automan.

Correct.

The PS caps will keep it alive for a few moments (long enough to change the socket it's plugged into for example) but beyond that it just dies until manually turned on again.

You probably had it in Standby, in which case it won't recover without manually bringing it back out again.

If you suffer a power cut whilst the box is on, not in standby, it will recover the clock/timer OK.

Posted this info, just for completeness.

Rgds.


Les.

So are you saying that if you have a power cut, and it's in standby at the time, then if you manually bring it back out it will record scheduled programmes but otherwise not? Or do you have to re-enter the scheduled programmes no matter what?

(We do get power cuts here but I don't think we've had one since I got the Foxsat at the start of June.)

You just need to reboot the box as this triggers the clock to reset, all schedules should remain intact.

So if you went on holiday and the next day a power cut happens for say ten minutes...

That afterwards the box will then not record anything till you get home and power it up?

Automan.

If you left it in Standby, yes.

This has been covered extensively before if you do a search.

Rgds.

Les.

I just got back from holiday yesterday and that is exactly what happened to me. Very annoying. Grrr

I hope the firmware upgrade fixes it........

Patrick

I have done some pre-holiday testing on this the past couple of weeks and come up with the following.

Using the auto power on and off feature I found that the time between auto power off and auto power on must be 16 minutes or greater for the box to power down so it will perform its 3 AM house keeping.

Based on this I have set the auto power off time to 2:58 and auto power on time to 3:15. This setting powers the box fully down at 2:58 and then a minute or so later it wakes up to do its 3AM house keeping.

This is how I am going to have it set up whilst away on holiday as It would be extremely unlucky to get a power cut in this small window between 2:58 and 3:15.

I hadn't realised this "feature" existed until I read this - must have missed it in earlier threads. It might explain one or two unexplained non-records over the months.

We had two power outages in an hour yesterday morning, BUT luckily I switched on at lunch-time to watch the news, otherwise the progs I had setup for last night wouldn't have recorded.

Surely this power failure problem isn't rocket science. It didn't occur on my SKY+ box, or on the BTVision box I still have to record Freeview (mind you the BTV has more other problems than you could shake a stick at!!)

It is obviously a big issue if you go away on hols - is it sensible to leave it ON?

BUT also an issue for those of us who don't watch much TV.

Yes lets hope it is firmware fixable? (Bob_Cat)

Bob_Cat has confirmed in another thread that it is "firmware fixable" however he said something along the lines that it is quite complex to fix and the possible knock-on effect had to be fully understood. I took it to mean that the long awaited firmware update does not fix this issue but another one later on would.

As I have said (in another thread), I test safety critical and relatime hardware and software applications and I am absolutely dumb founded that such an obvious thing managed to slip through the Humax testing process

So one day we can have iplayer but not the ability to handle a power cut

Humax priorities seems a little mixed up to me...

And of course the box should have been designed from the start to handle a power cut and to always wake up and set the clock after one (if a built in battery backed real time clock is too expensive).

Automan.

And as I've posted in another thread this issue - which as has been pointed out simply does not occur with Sky + or Sky HD - is a deal-breaker for me in terms of acquiring a Freesat HD PVR.

The alternative Freesat HD PVRs made by Sagem etc and advertised by Argos were supposed to be available from this month, which of course will be over within nine days.

Does anyone know anywhere they have been reviewed? And do they have a similar killer fault?

The reason Sky boxes don't suffer from this problem is that they never really turn off and use similar amounts of power at all times.

If you live in an area where power cuts are common then it may be worth the extra expense in electricity to run a Sky box (although a very cheap UPS should sort the Foxsat out).

For those of us who don't have a power cut for years on end it really isn't an issue although as it does affect people it is certainly something that needs to be fixed, assuming Humax have not designed themselves into a hole.

Since the box has a network socket I wonder if it supports WOL ? If it does that might provide a way of restarting it after a power cut.