When I first bring my HDR out of standby although it can show me the EPG I can't mark anything for record and sometimes it can't show programme information. I have to leave it for a minute or so showing the guide in order for it to update.

It seems unable to update the EPG 'in the background' which is annoying. I don't mind if the EPG needs to be refreshed - makes sense considering the low power consumption of Standby - but why does the damn' thing need to be left showing the guide?

Last night for instance I brought it out of standby and immediately started watching a film. Nearly two hours later I bring the guide up and it still needs to update before it'll let me mark something for recording. That's nigh-on two hours during which both its tuners were idle and yet it couldn't be 'bothered' to update the EPG.

Is there some trick I can use to make it populate the EPG in advance? It's obviously storing something to disk but apparently not enough to give it the 'confidence' to let me mark a recording. I've tried the old 'Schedule then red' trick but that doesn't seem to make any difference.

There's something wrong. The guide is fully refreshed overnight when the box wakes from standby at 3am with a full data update from the Freesat home transponder..

It's also continously refreshed from data transmitted along with the actual programming.

Menu/System/Diagnostics should report software version 1.00.17


The last firmware stopped you making reservations after pressing guide until the whole epg was downloaded. You should have had a new firmware version automatically that lets you set a series recording during the download by pausing the download temporarily


When you boot the hdr if you press the schedule button followed by red (this displays the cached epg) you should get a full epg read from the hard disc.

If you then press guide you should lose the background video for about 40 seconds as the cached epg is replaced by a new one.

If the receiving data message is on a lot longer than 40 sec try running an autotune, after this exit and do not save the results.

Now press guide and time how long it takes for the background programme to appear. If it's now about 40 seconds or so then use the box normally and the following morning check the epg using schedule red

If you still have problems try a factory reset (note your recording schedule).

Schedule red lets you set a reservation instantly without loss of your background programming or during replay of an existing recording.

Even worse is that you cant set a recording while watching a program, you have to stop, press guide and then find it and then resume what you where watching.

No you do not, schedule and red works in this situation.

Are you disconnecting the mains power?

Yup. That's pretty much the scenario I experience all the time because of the way I use the HDR.

As I wrote in my post - it does not.

Nope. The HDR is in fact the only one of my A/V boxes that doesn't get powered off.

Something else I've tried is telling it to power on for half an hour an hour before we get home. That didn't make any difference either. It is certainly puzzling. Because it's only my secondary PVR I have on occasion left it in standby for over a week and when next used the EPG is populated so clearly it is updating some of it in the background. It's just when I try to record something it'll keep throwing up a dialog box saying 'Please wait for receiving information' and the only way to get past that is to leave it sat showing the guide for a minute. You know when it's ready because the sound comes back.

Well considering it's always worked on mine on every firmware since the box was new in November 2008, either your box is faulty or you aren't doing it right.

I will try and make it simple

Press the button on the remote one up from the bottom left (It says schedule on it). You should see a list of your next scheduled recordings.

Now press the red one, it's 5 buttons above and strangely enough it's coloured red.

You ignored the most important question what firmware does your box have installed ?

If by not powered off you mean left on and not put in sby then that's the cause of all your problems. No update from ota upgrades, no auto updates to channel line up changes etc.

Oh grow up.

The firmware version is whatever was sent OTA last. I think it was the update that fixed the power interruption issue.
Are you being deliberately arrogant and pig headed? Read my posts again. I very clearly stated that the machine was being brought out of standby.

Do you really have anything better to do than post useless antagonising crap to public forums?

Just got home, so here's the exact sequence I used.

First-off, HDR is sitting quietly with no time displayed, just the red bar showing. Not been used since early yesterday evening.

1.Power on.
2.After booting the box is sat on BBC One Oxford.
3.Press 'Media'
4.Select recording of 'Grand Designs'
5.Skip to start of programme.
6.Choose 'Schedule'.
7.Press 'Red'
8.Navigate to 'The Manor Reborn' at 2100, on BBC 1.
9.Press 'Ok'.
10.Dialog box appears: 'Please wait for receiving broadcast information...'.
11.Watch first 15 minutes of recording.
12.Try again. Same dialog appears.

Edit:Forgot to add:
Software version:HPRSFCI 1.00.17
Loader version:U 7.53

Update date: 20 Sep 2011

Although that last date looks a bit weird. I'd have remembered if it was that recent.

The date is the date the firmware was written not the update.

Mine has the same date, the OTA was more recent than that.


Watching a live transmission at the moment. I will repeat the sequence, I may owe you an apology. I have set dozens of recordings while viewing an existing recording, it may be the latest update has broken this.

I had no idea there'd been a recent update. I was under the impression the HDR had been 'end of lifed' in spring. I'm sure I'd remember if I'd been prompted to update it that recently. All credit to Humax - the box has otherwise been so reliable that I just take it for granted.

The last OTA began just over a month ago and would have installed 1.00.17 during housekeeping while you were sleeping.

The receive programme info can appear in rare conditions (so a well informed source at myhumax.org says).

Do you have good signal quality on channel 999?

Well you live and learn. That does roughly fit in with when I started to become aware of this.

Seems to be all the time for me these days but the nature of my usage means I could fail to notice it for a week or so if there's not much I'm recording FTA

For what it's worth I tried it again at the end of the recording and it wouldn't work. I brought the guide up and after a minute of silence the sound came back and I was able to set up the recording.
S:85%, Q:70%. That's fairly typical for both tuners. A bit higher than my Sky box usually reports for what that's worth. I don't normally have reception problems except in really heavy rain storms or snow. Even my Sky box rarely glitches

What you describe seems to be must more like what 1.00.15 did (OTA early this year) this gave a popup please wait message if you tried to set a recording before the EPG was downloaded. 1.00.17 on mybox allows you to set a recording and then recommences the EPG download - with no popup message.
[All of the software versions show initialy "receiving programme info ..." on the page header.]

Think I would download 1.00.17 and reflash it (instructions on Humax's site).

Odd that since my box claims to now be on 1.00.17. I assume Humax will use a checksum on updates so it's a bit hard to accept that my firmware has become corrupt. It's also hard to accept that because I'm an experienced software developer and corruption doesn't generally just modify functionality. It causes crashes and instability.
I might try that at the weekend but I don't hold up much hope.

Woke the box this morning, selected a recording and started playback. Pressed the schedule button and then red to display the epg. Selected a programme in the epg, pressed OK, offered a choice of series or one off, selected series and OK. My schedule now has a new series entry.

The only way to get the receiving programme info is to press the guide button.

It's not me that's being arrogant and pig headed, the box has always worked that way.

Most curious then. I'll try a proper power cycle tonight and then perhaps re-apply the firmware update if that doesn't fix it.

Indeed not, that was a helpful and informative response. Your other post, however, talking me through pressing buttons on the remote as if I was a retarded rat with only half a brain most certainly was. My box does not behave as you describe and treating me like something you found on the bottom of your shoe is offensive and unwarranted.

They for sure use a checksum - I have seen a report of one checksum failure but I don't know how secure their checksum is.
While I agree with you about instability what you describe occures with 1.00.15 - so perhaps the flash failed.

Could be. I could believe a bug whereby the box 'optimistically' changes the version number. But as I've just replied to Graham - I'll give it a proper power cycle and see if that helps. It's not had one of those in many months so perhaps that might 'shake something loose'.

One curious thing to note about this is that although the box is clearly not prepared to let me record it does have all the information. At least for the recording I was attempting to set last night it had the full synopsis. I vaguely recall in distant times that wasn't the case. That previously back before I switched to using schedule+red it was noticeable that a lot programmes didn't have synopsis information.

In fact thinking about it even 1.00.15 shouldn't do this when using schedule+red as Graham so charmingly asserts. It does suggest that my box has a genuine problem for some reason. Rather a curious one though. Another thing I could do actually is a complete reset. There's so little FTA stuff I actually watch that I'm pretty sure the disk is empty or has at most a couple of hours of stuff on it. Should be easy enough to clear it all down.

I don't think that doing a Factory Reset wipes the HDD of content as it only wipes all the settings that you have setup and the recording Schedule as they are kept in Flash, you ould also copy all your recordings off of the HDD using an external HDD and the front or rear USB port to be on the safe side, then re import them after doing a Factory Reset.

Roland

Factory reset does not affect your existing recordings. It will delete any non-freesat channels you may have stored and your recording schedule. It will also reset any changes made to default settings. It's a good idea to do one after a firmware upgrade anyway.



Off the cuff

Restore epg genre display

Reset volume to 50%

Undo any customised channels

Remove crid display if it was turned on.

TV display and vformat

Believe it or not, another poster also insisted that schedule-red did not work just like yourself. Turned out he was pressing guide choosing the schedule option and then pressing red. He had no idea the remote control had a schedule button.

Had you followed my advice in post 2, I suspect that none of the rest of this thread would have been required.

I only said to export recording just in case the HDR spazes out and deletes everything, you can never be too careful with things like that, I've learnt that through using Linux on PC's and Laptops before.

Roland

Done dozens since 2008, never had a problem. The latest firmware actually displays a message saying this will not delete your recordings (The question has been asked hundreds of times in forums like this one)

My guess is that the popup message is generated when the EPG is populated below a certain level, which is why I asked about the channel 999 quality level - it should be OK at Q:70% but mine is way up from that.

No s/w version did that with schedule and red (normally) - possible interfearence ? (perhaps only from time to time) ?

Anyway power cycle followed by factory reset if not fixed seems good first steps.

That shows that I've never done a factory reset since setting up my HDR.

Roland