I was away last week and none of my recordings happened. There is no evidence of even an attempt (e.g. the first one showing up partially recorded, or something like that). Just wondered what might cause it not to wake up and do its duty. All of the recordings were weekly and have not been missed before.

I tried a recording this mornig from standby and it worked fine. Unfortunately I was not first to use the Topfield when we got back so I am don't know if it was in standby or not when we got home.

That happened to me in April, Ang. I put it down to a power cut. Once the power has gone off the box sometimes doesn't come back into standby.

Power goes off here every time a cow f*rts.

I don't think we had a power cut because the alarm clock blinks the time after a power cut until you set the time again, and that wasn't happening.

I'm not upset about it, nothing could spoil my day after the holiday I just had. I'm so far behind with West Wing that missing one is not a big deal... I'll just have to watch out for Line of Beauty being rebroadcast since I missed the last episode. Luckily hadn't watched the first two yet, so I'll just delete them. There were a few other things I wanted to record, but not a big deal to miss.

That worries me. I don't know that we had a power cut, either. But if not that, what on earth?

Does the Toppy think, "S*d it. You're on holiday, I'll take one, too?"

Ang; did you not have the four dot problem once. I certainly remember you having to do a power off reboot for some kind of lockup. Perhaps something similar happened again only this time you where not around to sort it out.

Richard

Edit if it was that lets hope the expected firmware update sorts it.

Yes, and in fact, I had that four dot problem a day or two before leaving on holiday, and I did a power off reboot. I can't remember what causes the four dot problem... I think the first time I had been messing around with a lot of new TAPs at once and put it down to that, but I haven't installed any TAPs in quite a while now...

That sounds like it then. The 4 dot problem certainly can stop the box coming out of standby. I think leaving the power off for 30 minutes or so rather than a quick switch can help the Toppy to forget whatever it was remembering that was giving it nightmares

Richard

My wife had the four dot problem last week when she wanted the box to come out of standby to watch the French Open. She solved the problem by telephoning me and shouting at me. It seems to work every time.

Hang on a minute! That's MY wife you're talking about!

(gave me a good laugh though!)

I haven't had the 4-dots since switching away from JAGs and using MyStuff instead

....

K

I switched away from Jag's and MyStuff to EPG Navigator.... so I don't think it's the EPG....

....

We've currently got noTAPs running at all, so it isn't a TAP.

I'm also still running 1.12.09

Maybe it's Bomb Hexa that causes it! That would ge great, a reason to get him to stop playing it...

Never played any of the games.....

There actually was one good recording, on the night we went away, so it got the first one. I think it suffered on the second one to be recorded which was on the second night...

I was able to recreate a four dot problem. I have a weekly recording set up for Curb Your Enthusiasm on Sunday nights More4. The schedule changes around so I always check if it is correct. I went in to EPG navigator, More4, and used the blue button to get up to tonight's Curb Your Enthusiasm, and it got completely stuck - no key worked except power off, giving 4 dots. I was able to duplicate this after power reboot. I removed the weekly recording, and then it did not get stuck any more. I added the recording back in using EPG navigator, and it also does not get stuck anymore.

The recording on the second night of our holiday was:
Curb Your Enthusiasm!

So I think there may have been some corrupted data. I don't know if the data problem was the Toppy recording list or something within EPG navigator though.

FYI, interactive service was and is disabled.

The OK button has now fallen out of our remote. This is because it is used to pause Bomb Hexa so has been overused and the game is now banned!. At the moment it's being held in with tape. I guess I'll have to replace the remote.

Just saw something on toppy.org that gave me a hint to what may have caused my problem - I manually scanned for channels a few weeks ago and I think that could have caused problems for recordings set for More4. I will check the rest of my recurring schedule and remove and recreate them I think...

Ang, I too was concerned about the possibility of a power cut whilst I was away on holiday, so I have installed Firebird's Power Restore unofficial firmware. It works excellently by restoring the time display after a power cut.

Also, eit2mei automatically puts the Toppy back into standby after its overnight scan.

And finally... For a 'Belt & Braces' solution, I have my Toppy powered through a timer which is set to be 'On' for 23hrs 55mins every day. Thus, at 03:10 every morning the timer creates a 5 minute artificial power cut, which should minimise any '4-Dot' issues.

This system worked near perfectly whilst I was on holiday for 2 weeks, and MyStuff's lovely Control Timers ensured I had 35 recordings to watch on my return. Never did find out what happened to the last episode of 'Ultimate Force' which should have been broadcast on Saturday 13th May!

Mind you, even Control Timers with 10mins end padding can't cope with an over-running FA Cup Final which left me with truncated versions of Doctor Who and Doctor Who Confidential. However, I had the foresight to set up my old VCR for Doctor Who and, thanks to the magic of PDC, I was able to watch the missing bit!

Ah yes... remember to add PDC to my wish list of Freeview improvements...

Sounds exciting. Tell us more...


Nuclear accident; Vinnick loses ground; China vs. Russia - US troops to play "piggy in the middle"; Danny has got something to ask of CJ; has Santos really got an illegitimate child?; will Josh and Donna get it together after their illicit kiss; ...

Hay on Wye Festival of Literature...

Sorry you asked?

Just about to book up for Edinburgh Book Festival in August...

If I read less books I wouldn't have a full Toppy though...

Not at all. Hay's great!


Sounds good too.


Get your priorities straight!