I'm sorry to ask this question which I know has most likely been asked before - I have looked back through previous postings but couldn't see anything pertinent.

We have two Foxsat Freesat+ PVRs in two separate geographic locations. But, they both suffer from the same occasional problem.

We return to the box having been away perhaps for a few days, or a longer holiday, only find a mesaage on the screen to the effect that the box is looking for a software update - but clearly hasn't found anything, and has remained in this state for quite some time and as a result no recordings appear to have been made after this message first appears. The box is totally unresponsive and only a mains off/on restores normal operation. This happens on both boxes.

I should point out we leave the boxes permanently 'on' i.e not in standby, to avoid the long 'boot up' period which results.

If this has been raised before please just point me to the thread as I suspect this is an 'old chestnut' with these boxes.

Put them in sby so the overnight housekeeping can run. If the 30 second boot bothers you simply set a daily power on about 15 mins or so before you normally use the box.

Or what I do is switch the HDR on before the TV so by the time the TV is on the HDR has booted up.

Roland

So putting the box in standby when we finish watching for the evening is the answer? Do we know why?

I'd be interested to know what the 'overnight housekeeping' duties are performed - just out of interest.

Thanks for your replies.

Probably due to that common ailment that afflicts much (most / all?) software: Memory leakage leading to memory corruption that so often only becomes apparent if left running for a long, long time..

At 3am the box wakes up to do various jobs (not sure if the list is exhaustive).

This assumes you have the latest firmware upgrades (you may not have the latest as a result of leaving the box on 24/7 )


The epg is rebuilt from the freesat home transponder

A check is made to see if new firmware is available if so it's downloaded.

A check is made to see if the channel line up is changed or existing channels move to a different transponder (probably the main cause of your problems)

In any case the Foxsat-hdr is designed to meet the EEC power requirement of less than 1W in sby. By leaving two always on (booted) you are probably costing yourself around £40.00 per annum in extra electricity consumption. (ignoring the environmental impact)

Basically the box is designed to be put in sby overnight, leaving it on 24 hrs to avoid a boot time of around 30 seconds makes no sense at at all.

I suspect you are comparing this with a sky box which boots nearly instantly. Problem is it's not really in sby it's using
nearly as much power as fully booted (only the video and audio output is turned off)

To meet the EEC requirements of less rhan 1W in sby Sky boxes now have a low power setting, problem is a Sky pvr can't wake up to record in this mode (pretty useless). Time that the real intention of the of the EEC regulations was enforced.

Trouble is there are now so many sky boxes using 22W or so in sby that older less efficient plant ie required to meet the demand is adding to the UK's CO2 emissions.

Big problem with the green lobby is that they simply do not understand the science.


Why they picketed Ratcliffe On Soar power station defies logic, As one of the most efficient power stations we have, closing it down would result in more CO2 as it's output would be replaced with older less efficient plant (Own goal )

The 3amhousekeeping also creates the thumbnails for recordings.

Roland