Hi
Just found this forum so hoping someone knows if there is a solution or even if Humax monitor these questions

If you set the timer to record programs and there is a mains interuption, it does not recover the timer/program info when the mains comes back - which makes a nonsense of trying to record stuff if you are away !!

Last year Humax confirmed the timer/program info is only restored when the box is turned on, ie not in standby and said there would be a software fix - 'soon'

Today, Humax say a software fix is not possible and there is no timeline for a hardware fix, which implies there won't be a fix

Surely 'timer recordings' are an obvious and expected PVR feature AND mains interruptions are a fact of life ?

Therefore, it must be reasonable to expect a machine, intended to be left in 'standby', to recover from a mains interuption without loss of performance

If so, surely Humax should provide a fix - their current view seems to be, "we don't specify timer/program data recovery after mains interruption" - in other words, hard luck !

Doesn't seem like a responsible or customer friendly attitude from one of the 'better' manufacturers

Geof

Yes, it's a major bug but Humax seem unable to do anything about it.

If there was a hardware solution it would, presumably, involve everyone sending their boxes back for modification which seem an unlikely exercise, to say the least.

I wasn't aware of the part underlined in the text quoted above. Presumably something they said before they realised that it would require a hardware mod to sort it out.

Just a thought....and Royalties and patent if I'm right..
Possibly..perhaps.. in the Stand-by..power save 'Economy' mode,,
the Humax enters the PC equivalent of Hybernation and the settings are then OK after all power cuts??

Stan

Last year Humax told me the clock wasn't backed up by a battery in the usual way, apparently it gets the time from the satelite and it can't do this in standby, hence box has to be turned on manually

If they won't offer a fix, I'm thinking about making up an external circuit that will turn the box on when mains is restored - if box can be turned on without using the remote control

Geof

I don't believe them. All it needs is for the firmware to force the box to full on mode when power is restored rather than standby. OK, this may mean the box is full on for a few hours (if the owner is at work or asleep) or a few days (if away on holiday) when normally it should be in standby but the Auto-Power Off feature should take care of that so limiting any undue on-time to 24 hours or less.

Or would setting an Auto-Power on time be a way of forcing it to do a time-check as that does not need to be date sensitive? Set for 00:001 for example?

Auto power on doesn't work as the clock doesn't advance from 00:00 after booting from a power interupt.

I presume that the problem is that there simply isn't any way for the box to force itself on at power on that can be handled via a software update.

Clearly it was something that wasn't even considered when the box was designed (it may seem daft but if the design team live in an area where you don't get power cuts from one decade to the next (as I do) it's just about forgivable).

I'll bet that their next model doesn't have a hint of the problem.

One would think once the box was powered the clock would start from 00:00 and three hours later it would be at 03:00.
This is the time the box would normally wake up to check for firmware updates and generate thumbnails.
At this time it should be able to set the clock/date and assuming the future recordings are stored in flash memory or on the hard drive normal operation from this point should be possible.

Yikes - only came across your thread/topic by accident - the title struck a chord as we had a powercut at 1:10am a couple of days ago that certainly lasted for half an hour. I live in suburbia yet we have at least one power interruption a year I'd have thought (two in the last year).

That is one VICIOUS bug that VERY adversely affects the purpose of a PVR - ie ANY home mains power interruption during a period away from home means NO timer recordings until/unless a human powers the HDR back on = nonsensical!

Someone at Humax ought to be publicly flogged for that oversight in their analysis/design - maybe two of them if the failure to include it in the software meant that hardware design COULDNT support it when they realised - ie as you report!

At least now I know after a KNOWN power cut to manually cycle the HDR ASAP - so thanks for at least alerting me to that need to compensate for their incompetence

Will certainly look less favourably upon Humax branded products in the future as that shows a MAJOR lack of knowledge & concern about the purpose & use of their product and their fitness for purpose.

MKD

I know I have mentioned this in several threads when the power cut bug is mentioned but Bob_Cat stated in a thread many months ago in response to me asking if it was a hardware fault and he stated there was no hardware fault or design problem and it was purely a firmware fault that could be fixed. I must admit that if I knew about this problem before I purchased I wouldn't have brought one.

I still also cannot believe how Humax could release a PVR without checking for such a basic thing as does it recover after a power cut. I also find it hard to believe that its current behaviour of not recovering was a conscious design decision.

In my days at the BSI...Decades ago..
Power cuts were a daily discussion point with the implications of the failure of emergency calling from the newer phones..
I live 20 miles from London and have had over 7 power cuts this year already.. and I am fed underground..
Does not this lack of fundamental foresight mean that the sets should always be left in the ON mode?..
What an abysmal failure to set against the much vaunted concept of Energy Saving Standby

s

This problem is not unique to Humax, I had a Daewoo Freeview+ box and that also would never set the clock after a power cut and thus would not record anything till someone got home and powered it up.

Of course, my 20 year old VCR could do it just picking the date and time up from the BBC1 teletext data as soon as it was connected to the mains.

How things have improved NOT

Even if you leave the box on, after a mains interuption it comes back in standby - that's why I want try to find a way of turning it on by an external method other than the remote.

Certain features should be a design mandate so I find it hard to understand Humax didn't find this problem before release.
Were they late bringing this box to market ?

If so, maybe Humax skipped verification testing, which would, (or should), have found this problem - or maybe Humax don't do verification testing ..... Either way it's a terrible enditement on Humax.

Geof

I agree and whilst I am happy with the box in general, I will not buy a Humax product again because of it.

Either it is not possible to fix this bug due to hardware limitation - Humax should acknowledge this limitation but I take the point earlier in the thread where the box should power on fully after a power cut, that would seem a logical fix.

Or it is possible to fix but Humax do not want to - Humax should acknowledge this too.

Whatever the reason, I'm unhappy with the lack of information from Humax on this issue.

I was looking for the thread were Bob_Cat said it was not a hardware fault however I found this one from Nov 2009 in which it states the power cut issue requires an update to the boot loader (i.e. not an OTA update) and it was being looked into to:-

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...=#post36573643

What is really annoying is the fact that they will not publicly acknowledge the fault. The Humax Facebook page (which seems the easiest way of contacting UK support) says that this feature has been requested - I hardly call it a feature - definitely a bug!

Agreed. I was all set to buy their Freeview HD PVR when it is released (I like being an early adopter) but I am now going to hang on and see what the other manufacturers produce.

I suspect that they'll have learned from this mistake and not propagated it to the Freeview model. I'd certainly hold fire until that is confirmed before I bought one, though.

That makes sense as it is the boot loader which decides what to do next.

I have spent an awful lot of my IT career designing, coding and testing, testing, testing recoverability of banking systems including from full power outages. If it is possible on that scale it is a PoP to do it on a standalone box. Did I mention that I spent a lot of time testing, testing testing?

Does the boot loader ever get entered from power on?

My guess would be that the box sets itself into a quiescent state when power appears where it is doing nothing but waiting to be turned on. Rather like most computers come up with some power applied to the m/board but don't boot until something else happens (power button/keyboard/mouse/etc).

I'd further guess that when they realised they'd cocked it up monumentally they initially thought they could make a change to the boot loader to correct it but on further examination discovered that they couldn't because it simply wasn't activated.

Naturally, they've been to embarrassed to admit that.


I've been responsible for managing large scale testing in the past and one thing I learned very early on is that if no one even thinks of a problem then there won't be a test to show it up.

On more than one occasion a project team has delivered a system ready for final acceptance testing and the internal customer has discovered a non trivial omission from the system. The sort of thing that no one could deny would be essential for a working system.

It's all very well offering a counsel of perfection but these things do happen, even with the most conscientious teams.

conscientious teams...
no one doubts that for a moment..BUT..in normal everyday living..
What wife/partner has not pulled out the plug to test a dicky vacuum cleaner perhaps.. That's a power failure!..
Equally the FAVS are beyond normal comprehension to me.. and decades ago I was writing BSI Standards.
Secrecy comes into it as well .. and the idealistic boffins' ideas are not floated before wives in an ordinary household..
The old GPO maybe was slow and methodical to a degree ..but they maintained the stuff they sanctioned and the world knew it and looked for PO acceptance before they would touch anything as an export to them..Privatisation has drawbacks.

Just checked the handbook and you can turn it on from standby by a button on the front panel as well as using the remote (last resort, read the manual)

So back to my original idea - a relay across the mains which will blip on, then off, when mains returns and connect a volt free, normally open contact to the 'on' button on the front panel

It means getting inside the box but mine is out of warranty so shouldn't be an issue

Anyone see as problem with this ?

Higher cost alternative would be to run the box from a small UPS then it shouldn't see a mains interuption, but might need to be a sine wave output ie more expensive

As Humax are so reticent on this problem, I wonder if they would advise if a cheapo square wave UPS would be ok - seems the least they could do !

Geof

I have a Phillips universal remote(SBC RU 885) that has 4 timer programmeable options. When away I use it to send the following commands daily

Timer 1 sends 000 at 07:00 (zero turns on the hdr from sby 3 of em makes sure )
Timer 2 sends power on/off toggle at 07:05

Timer 3 & 4 repeats above at 00:10 and 00:15

FYI, most computers have a BIOS (aka boot loader) setting that tells them what to do when power is restored - stay off, turn on, or return to previous state (i.e. if was off stay off, if was on, turn on).

Of course they do.

And they also have a means for the user to change that setting.

Notice what's absent from the Humax in this regard.

What is absent is only so because Humax either have not the wit or the willingness to provide it.