I've never had a reboot and my 1st box did die from a failed PSU (under warranty).

Most failed recordings are broadcasting marking errors - I've recently had a spate of Home and Aways on Channel 5 where the last minute or so of the programme was lost due to the recording finishing earlier on programmes that were on time with buffering set to "Auto". Manually setting 5 mins cured it suggesting broadcast errors.

The power fluctuation theory sounds very likely to me also.

It would be interesting to see what happened if one of the people who has the problem regularly got his box on a UPS unit and if this cured it.

In my case the reboots have been so infrequent that I'd never really know if the problem had gone away.

I had one reboot about a month back and, IIRC, all the others were in the first four months after purchase. (i.e. around two years ago.)

I tend to discount power problems in my case because I have two pieces of equipment - a microwave and clock that are on hair triggers and reset at the smallest outage and neither of these were affected when the reboots occurred.

I really don't think the PSU in the Foxsat is so poor that it would not handle micro fluctuations that did not affect anything else.

The only other possibility I can think of is that it's some rare coincidence of circumstances relating to background EPG handling.

Panasonic BS850 Has been on since I bought it! however I just wish the heater in my Citroen was as reliable.

Recordings do cancel themselves if you let the disk space go very low.

Mine rebooted exactly as Primeval started too (I was recording & watching live)....
first time for many months.
Then it did it again while trying to use the new red button feature to watch Becoming Human.
(I will forgive that one, as it is a bit more complex - and I was also recording at the time)

I have HDR, etc attached to a large permanent UPS, so it was not power fluctuation.... (the UPS beeps when correcting for under/over voltage, etc, and does this often)

Don't you find all that beeping distracting from your enjoyment of the TV?

LOL. Just what I wondered.

I think gomezz has the same view as me (and WikppediA- I loved the Dec 20) - but Middleware describes anything (in my mind) that provides multiple appications with resources, such as as DBMS, or other functions that could well be included in an OS.

My wife has the midsomer murder failed recording loads of times. Always on the daytime episodes. Makes me like this box even more than I did already that it manages to filter this guff out! though she does get rather annoyed!

Sorry, but I'm confused buy this.

Are you suggesting that Wikipedia agrees that the Humax software is firmware?

If so, I'd have to disagree as nowhere does it suggest that a device as complicated as a PVR and where the software runs on top of Linux could be considered 'firmware'.

As I said, if you do use the term in that sense then you've effectively destroyed it as anything other than a synonym for 'software'. Many people run complete Windows systems where the software does not change from year to year.

Also, what do you mean by 'Dec 20'?

The DEC System 20 computer - I can find no mention of that in the Wikipedia article.

A date? I can't find anything in the edit history for that date.

(I have the feeling that the answer is obvious and I'm just in 'thickie' mode. )

Only in that we have moved onto to discussing what is meant by middleware and you haven't.

That is what I was trying to confirm.

I'm still at a loss as to what 'Dec 20' referred to. (I'm quite interested as I used to be a big fan of the Dec System 10).

I've never really paid much attention to the term 'middleware' as it seems to be very much 'company cultural'.

And I suspect that you may well be correct in your view of where the meaning of 'firmware' is heading.

It is a quiet beep in the hallway behind a closed door... so only just audible.
I think I should not have said "often"!
It is about once per evening... which is really too much for the electricity to be out of spec.

For info on the DEC SYSTEM-20.
I was indeed talking about middleware - which I agree the definition is a bit fluid - the work middleware itself just implies it is something in between the operating system and applications

Ahh, good old Tops 10/20!

You never got blue screens of death on a teletype.

You did get the long pink stain of paper-roll-running-out-itis though.

Does anyone here remeber the DEC PDP-8 micro-computer
I am not sure where the the firmware was, but you had to enter it with what looks like morris minor windscreen wiper switches.
First day I arrived I managed to type del *.* which also caused rather a lot of paper to come out.

Were you also a fan of of ADVENT?

Corr..

Not personally but others played it.

Macro-10 was fine for me.