Hello all,
I have a Luxor PVR 320-690 which is cheap and cheerful but has up until now been very reliable and served my needs.
However it is now playing up a bit. It seems that when the HDD has finished doing something, i.e. recording or deleting, when it has done what it was doing the whole machine reboots. This is especially annoying if there are two programmes recording at once as it ruins the second recording.
My first suspicion was the power supply but trying another one makes no difference and the original looks to be good anyway, putting out a steady 11.98 volts and no suspect caps.
Mainboard all looks fine, again no suspect caps or any obvious signs of problems.
Could it be the Hard drive? It is a WD Green, 320gb made in 2011. It is still (just) within its guarantee period if it is.
I can't think of anything else it could be (except maybe overheating in the current hot weather) and wondered if anyone else had experienced this.

Software is version 3.5 by the way.

Cheers,

Ian.

This may seem like an odd question, but do you have any timers set to record any programmes on PickTV?

Thanks for your reply.

Funnily enough I do. Two programmes for tomorrow. BUT the machine started doing this a couple of days back and they weren't there then.

This afternoon I have done a first time installation with no difference. I clear any channels which I don't watch so that I don't clog up the channels list. The hard drive does seem to run hot so I took it out and popped it into the fridge for 10 minutes (I know but I'm nothing but thorough!) and I currently have it with the lid off to keep it cooler. I even put new batteries in the remote!

After doing the FTI the machine rebooted immediately after setting the first timer and did it with every additional timer set. It also does it after EVERY deletion which is a pain because programmes are recording in two or three chunks because of the rebooting and it reboots after deleting every chunk.

If I just use it as a digibox it works fine. It is only when I delete a recording or set a new recording that it reboots and it also reboots during recording. Playing back existing recordings is fine. The hard drive is about 40% full and I am reluctant to do a factory reset as there are things on there I would like to keep. I'd rather pop a new HDD in there first or test the hard drive in another machine but my PC's are all so old that they are EIDE (but they work fine and do everything I need from them).

I'm pretty certain it is the hard drive giving up but because I have no way to test it I am wary of splashing out £50 on a new one unless someone convinces me otherwise.

I will recap the mainboard although the caps look fine. I have them all apart from the 220uf 25v one which I will get later in the week. There's only 6 on there in total I think so is no great hardship to do.

Cheers,

Ian.

By the way, I have set up my old Aldi Technosonic PVR 101 as a backup. Never thought that would happen as they were notoriously awful machines. Actually, that's not true, good machine but terrible software and there were threads on here running into 1000+ posts. I have three of them and one is still in semi regular use in the spare room. Probaly the last one still in use!

I wouldn't worry about the caps on this model - it was the older models with internal PSU that had problems in that area. I've not come across one of these models with dodgy caps yet. Oh, and the HDD is exempt from WD's usual guarantees.

A first time installation is about the best way to reset the unit. You could format the disk, but a FTI will erase everything important on the data partition anyway (the recording library is held on a separate partition), so a format is usually completely unnecessary.

I'm not convinced that you are experiencing a hardware issue, because there have already been three separate reports describing symptoms just like yours today. The problem appears to be with Sky's channels, including Challenge and Pick TV - their EIT/EPG data is corrupt/malformed. I would suggest deleting all timers involving Pick TV and Challenge to see if that helps. When you delete an item from the library, the internal timer data is updated, which would explain why you get crashes at this point too. This issue is causing different problems for PVRs made by other manufacturers too.

I found your other posts about this and amazingly it does indeed seem to be Pick TV related.

Firstly, I had set a series link for The Biggest Loser tomorrow afternoon which then seemed to remove itself.

I had also set to record The Biggest loser early in the morning which was a single timer, not part of the series link (presume because it was a repeat it did not pick up on the series timer). Deleted all these and box back to working perfectly (so far).

Bit of a bummer but hopefully it will get sorted soon and in the meantime I will record Pick TV on the Technotsosonic.

Guess I should also confess to having Glee set to series link on Pick. I know, I know, at 55 I'm way to old to watch Glee but I am kind of addicted to it and have been looking forward to series 3 for a while. Oh the shame!

Strangely, the Technosonic is also a Vestel based machine I think but doesn't seem to be affected.

Cheers,
Ian.

I don't think the Technosonic is Vestel based, IIRC - or is the software on it the same as the Luxor? It will look the same if it is a Vestel.

You may find that the Technosonic fails to record from Pick TV - depends if it uses the CRID information or not. If it doesn't have series record, then it'll just be recording based on the timeslot, so will work fine (just as the older Vestel T810 and T816 models do). I'm sure Challenge is affected too, as I notice the EIT data for that channel has the same trouble. Probably Sky News too.

Yes the software is very similar in appearance but works on timeslots on the Technosonic. I usually add a couple of minutes at either end to be sure. No series record on the Techno so fingers crossed it will be okay.

Cheers,
Ian.

I don't think the Technosonic was made by Vestel, from the look of photos I have seen. Could be that they did use Cabot's middleware, like Daewoo also did at one stage.

Anyway, the problem with the EPG has been fixed as of a couple of hours ago, so should be safe to set up your timers again .

You were right actually, the Technosonic didn't record the programmes either. Didn't matter as it turned out as it is a repeat of a series which has already been shown. Easy money for Sky that as the series has about 26 two hour episodes each shown twice a week. That's 104 hours of free programmes for them.

Thank goodness the problem is solved. I spent about three hours messing with it yesterday and also had to break open the power supply plug top to check the caps. Thanks Sky!

Thanks Futaura for your help and interest.


Ian.

Just wondering if there is another problem similar to the rebooting issue last year. This morning my Luxor PVR 320 is just doing a constant reboot cycle. I have tried unplugging from the wall for 10 mins or so but no improvement. I know it is tuned into BBC3 as it reaches that far but then just switches off and reboots over and over. I don't want to needlessly take it all apart like last time so just wondered if anyone else is having this issue today.

Cheers,

Ian.

I have restarted the PVR with the aerial disconnected. This enabled the machine to boot up so I could change channels. Reconnect the aerial and all works well until going back to BBC3 when the whole recycle thing starts again. It goes into the "loading interactive services" mode before simply rebooting. I have no programmes set to record from BBC3 so I'll avoid that channel for now and see what happens.

Ian.

Could it have something to do with BBC3 being off air at this time of day? What happens on BBC4 as that too is off air now?

If you get the same reaction try CBBC and cbeebies which time share with BBC3/4. If they are OK chances are BBC3/4 will be OK after 7PM when they start broadcasting.

I tried CBBC and CBeebies and they are both fine. In fact all channels are fine except BBC3 which causes the PVR to reboot. It was set to BBC3 when I turned it on this morning but I am pretty certian it was not on BBC3 when I turned it off last night. Also, I have had this box a couple of years now and this has never happened before. It recorded a programme off BBC4 late last night with no problem.

The symptoms seem very similar to the Sky problem last July so I am hoping that it is something which will be corrected in the next day or so.

Thanks for the input,

Ian.

Try BBC 3 after 7 and see if it is OK. That will point to it being the caption they display when it's off air. After 7 LCN7 points to the same audio and video streams CBBC are using at the minute. So if CBBC is currently OK chances are BBC3 will be as well.

Well, last night the box worked correctly on all channels. Recorded 4 programmes I had set timers for. Turn it on this morning and back to rebooting. It's definitely something to do with BBC3, all other channels are fine but as soon as I tune to BBC3 I get the reboot cycle and the only way to get the box working again is to reboot without the aerial connected then change channels before reconnecting the aerial. The box has never done this before in over 2 years of owning it. Very strange indeed.

I'm going to switch off auto update as I'm wondering if it is something to do with that.

Maybe the box is just on its last legs. lol.

ian.

Certainly looks like an MHEG issue on BBC3 - does your box still have v3.5 software?

For me, with v5.2 it doesn't reboot - instead the information screen does not appear at all. The loading interactive services blurb pops up for a second or two and then changes to a blank screen. If your box is running v3.5 then the reboot issue may have been addressed in newer version.

That said, it's strange that it doesn't appear at all, as the BBC4 information screen loads up fine. Even weirder is that I've tried BBC3 on several devices and there are big differences (all the same on BBC4). In summary:

• Vestel T835 - blank screen
• Vestel T7650 - screen appears with a two tone red background
• Sony 40CX523 - screen appears with a two tone dark grey background
• Sony 40W4000 and 2013 Samsung - screen appears with a solid black background

From the look of the BBC3 logo on this screen, presumably the screen should have a solid black background. Checking BBC3 HD on my T7650, the information screen appears with a solid black background - unlike the bright red one on BBC3.

Given the different interpretations, this most likely confirms that there is a error in the BBC3 MHEG code.

However, you could always perform a FTI on your Luxor just in case .

Thanks for the reply.

Yes I do have the 3.5 software. Funnily enough I've been reading on your website this morning about changing it to the later one. I don't seem to have a PC with the correct socket though.

Seems very strange that this should happen overnight. I'm pretty certain that the box was not tuned to BBC3 on Wednesday evening when it was switched off but it was going straight to it yesterday morning. That is why I was wondering if it had been scanning for a software upgrade in the night.

Ii will try a FTI. It's a while since I did a retune as I have several series set to record and a retune loses them all. I'll have to write them down and go for it.

I had a similar problem recently when setting series record for The Hotel Inspector on Channel 5. If I set to series record it made the machine rebbot over and over. Remove the series link and it was fine. I had to remember to set it to record manually every week which gave no problems.

How I look back fondly to the days of Analogue signal and VCR!!

Ian.

Not sure if update scans would have changed channels or not, but if you using low power standby mode you can safely turn the update checks off - I highly doubt there will ever be another OAD for the Luxor. If you had two recordings in progress, this might possibly have caused the channel to change even if not recording BBC3.

Updating the software via a serial link is certainly not for the fainthearted - it is quite easy to do, but only if you already have the necessary equipment. I wonder how long the MHEG has been broken - obviously if you never tune to BBC3 before 7pm, you won't know. Obviously, even if the MHEG is broken that is no excuse for software crashing because of it. I think I'll try contacting the BBC about this as I'm sure the visual differences are not intentional, and would bet that whatever is causing that is also responsible for the reboots on your box.

FTI makes no difference although I do now have a few more shopping and porn channels

The background colour on BBC4 is black if that helps.

I have turned off the automatic updates. Probably make no difference but, as you say, there will be no more updates anyway.

I suspect it happened sometime over Wednesday night. I usually put the TV on in the early morning to watch the news but I'm a bit of a channel flicker and usually end up going through all the channels at some point during the morning if I'm not at work. I think I would have come across it if it had been there earlier.

When I tune to BBC3 it changes the red LCD display on the front of the box to show the channel as 0 where it would normally be a 7.

Is there a technical dept at the BBC for reporting this type of thing to? I guess they do need informing of this but if I am the only person being affected I doubt a repair would be high priority.

Ian.

It seems www.radioandtvhelp.co.uk is the place for reporting (problem assistant at bottom-right of page) which is run by the BBC - linked at via www.bbc.co.uk/reception/ also.

Slightly concerned that you don't get 0007 on the front panel, whilst loading interactive services is displayed on screen, even for a split second before it reboots. But, as it doesn't happen after 7pm then it has got to be that MHEG info screen that is the issue I think.

You're right, the BBC are not just going to fix it because your box happens to crash, but I'm sure it affects others too - most people do not report such things or may assume their box has broke and buy a new, etc. Although the display differences issue is in itself pretty minor, there is probably more chance that they will fix that as it is likely the MHEG screen is not looking as intended on many devices. I suspect fixing that may in turn fix the reboot issue.

I have submitted a report via the link you posted. Bit disappointing that they don't respond to reports but hopefully it will prompt an investigation.

My front panel does display the 0007 but, as you suggest, it is only for a split second (blink and you miss it) before showing 0 then rebooting a couple of seconds later.

Thanks for the interest,

Ian.

I tested my boxes for the BBC 3 rebooting problem.

when I switch to ch 7 before 7pm

Hitachi T835 (3.4) - reboots - same as you describe
Luxor T835 (alt 3.4) - reboots - same as you describe

Bush T835 (5.2) - happens to be in a different house but is ok - i.e doesn't reboot just blank screen as Futaura describes.

So looks like Futaura is correct in that the 5.2 version of software can handle it.

That's interesting. Thank you. I was beginning to feel I was the only one with this problem (even if it is only a minor problem).
Looks like I'll be getting the soldering iron out then! My daughters elderly desktop PC has the correct socket for the software update so I'll have a go one day. Probably be after Easter though.

Cheers,

Ian.

Thanks tweenie - saves me digging my T835 out and downgrading it, as you've confirmed my suspicion. Even though v5.2 doesn't crash, clearly something is wrong somewhere as the MHEG page isn't showing when it should. I shall also report this to the BBC tonight.