Hi,

I've been away for a week. I had several programmes set to record but nothing has. No "failed recording" warnings or ANYTHING.

This is the third time it's happened when I go away. Usually everything records daily no problem. When I came home today, the Freesat+ was in stand-by, as expected (Foxsat HDR).

I've no idea what to do about it.

Make sure you open the window first!

Is there any evidence that you had a power cut during your absence?

How many recordings failed?

This must be unusual. I've probably made around 20 trips of > 5 days since I've had the box and the only failure in all that time was one of the episodes of Lewis that failed for everyone else on HD.

I would also suspect power failure as the cause. One of our old clock radios is incredibly sensitive to the slightest power glitch so helps indicate if there has been a mains problem.

Because the power here in rural Belgium is pretty dodgy and we often go away for a couple of weeks at a time I have installed a UPS just for the Humax. It can keep the Humax in standby for about 12 hours and will even keep it recording for over an hour.

If anyone is interested I use this APC UPS – it is quite neat and allows the use of standard 13 A mains plugs.


Overkill I know but it really does work ………

Thanks for all your replies. Well I live in Munich and I don't think I've ever had a power cut here in ten years. My friend also has Freesat+ and lives on the other side of the city. All his recordings have been "ignored" as well

I'm quite stuck as to what to do..

So is it just those living in Germany who are having problems?

You didn't say how many recordings you missed. Obviously if it was ten it would be a lot more puzzling than one or two.

What was the weather like when the recordings failed?

The signal is presumably weaker where you are so any bad weather would be more likely to cause you to lose signal although I would have thought that if that were the case you'd be suffering break-up quite frequently.

If you have a friend who suffered the same problems at the same time in the same location it would seem likely that it was a propagation thing since no one else has reported mass recording failures.

I had scheduled recordings for Dynasty, Coronation St, Eurovision Song Contest, Waterloo Road, Question Time, Countryfile, Casualty and Glee.

Not one single thing recorded from the day I left (last Wednesday) until the day I returned (yesterday). I didn't leave it in non-Freesat mode and I only lose my signal every now and then in very heavy rain (this has happened probably 3 times in the last year with my 90cm dish). Even so, I would have expected the symbol showing failed recordings.

It's most annoying.

There is a known bug where if the broadcaster screws up certain flags the box does not do anything intelligent (it manages to display the name of the programme it's supposed to be recording and the red 'record' symbol but does not do a sanity check and start recording a sensible interval after the scheduled start time if no 'start transmission' flag is detected), but just silently moves the schedule on to the next episode (if using series link - presumably it just forgets the recording if it's a one-shot).

If you are certain that you did not have a power-cut and someone else in the same locality had the same problems at the same time then some signal propagation anomaly is the only likely logical explanation (that I can think of).

I've had few reasons to complain about my HDR, although I typically record one or two programmes a week, and have so far rarely had any missed recordings. The one thing that does seem to mess up recordings that I've noticed is the routine scan for updates, that seem to happen when the unit powers up, which is the most annoying feature of the box, I wish I could turn it off and only perform manual updates, that way I'll never come home to find the box waiting for some acknowledgement of a scan being done..

My last HDR update was last January that I preformed via USB.

My box has never done any updating since then (other than channel updates) and AFAIK there have been no new updates since January.

If you keep getting auto updates perhaps one of the previous updates is corrupt ?.

My one failed last night to record both episodes of Reg Perrin on BBC HD
"Reason Unknown"

My box does do updates relatively frequently although it does seem rather random.

So would it be better to set my record buffer to something like 2 minutes instead of automatic?

Presumably, by updates, you mean a rescan (i.e. where it talks about adding and removing channels).

If it's done a software update more than twice there's something wrong with it. It would certainly explain your failed recordings but, again, the fact that you had a friend in the same location who suffered the same problem at the same time would be an extraordinary coincidence if this were the reason.

Apologies. I do mean a re-scan. I can only think of one actual software update.

Your problem points to the fact that your making edits to the non-freesat channel list. It's a known issue that adding, deleting, moving and renaming channels in non-freesat mode causes the box to prompt a rescan in freesat mode the next time the box is rebooted.

Issue == Bug?

And the prize for this months most pedantic post goes to ^^^

I did mention that I was pedantic.

But there is a serious point in that referring to bugs as 'issues' rather tends to play them down.

Rubbish!!

I just added the STV HD test to non-freesat. No rescan has happened (so far )

I think I may have been a bit hasty in regard to the adding aspect, but if you move or rename and then do a reboot the scan prompt does appear. Try it, if the channel still comes up with the 3855 id change this to STV HD.

Is there not a valid argument for getting Freesat via Sky on a Sky+ box? I know it is a tenner a month or thereabouts but I can hardly ever recall having a failed recording in years. The other week I forgot to set some recordings for my wife and simply did it over the internet.

If you like throwing your money away and burning electricity unnecessarily, certainly; go ahead.


Not the experience of people I know with Sky+.

It's pretty reliable but then so is Freesat+.

If you live in an area prone to power cuts and are so desperate not to miss anything that you don't mind chucking £120 a year away it might be a solution.

But a UPS would almost certainly work out cheaper in the long run and is a 'greener' solution.


What has that got to do with it?

No problem here

Although to be fair I probably have a better signal being a tad north west of Frankfurt and an 85cms dish! It is almost unheard of to have a power cut here, but I have had a few glitches during a thunderstorm.