I've had my 710 for about 9 months now, and it is a superb piece of kit - however several times over the past couple of months it has completely locked up - it continues to show whatever channel I'm watching, but does not respond to any key presses (either on the remote or on the front of the unit). The only way to kick it back to life is to unplug and replug the power lead, at which point it says 'recovering' and then starts working again. The first time it happened, I shrugged it off as 'one of those things' - but it is starting to happen every few weeks now!
Has anyone else seen this problem? I guess it'll have to go back for repair under warranty - I've no idea how long I'll be without it...

Hello apg,

I have a 910 and have had a similar problem. Mine did this a few times in the spring. All has been fine since then (except once last week). With mine at least, this problem generally seems to come in waves. I think it probably is 'just one of those things.' However, there was speculation on the long thread on here that leaving the machine on an external source when putting it into standby can cause it to crash, or not come out of standby properly. If you have your 710 connected to a Sky or cable box, I would advise you to put it back onto a FreeView channel from the internal tuner when you put it into standby.

By the way, you do not need to remove the power cable to reset the machine, if you press and hold down the standby button on the recorder it will reboot. You will need to hold the button down for about 15 seconds for it to do this.

Good luck, I hope this helps.

Masteriser

Thanks Masteriser,
I also find it happens in waves - one evening it happened 5 times! I don't have any external inputs going into it though.
If it happens again, I'll get serious with Sony...
Cheers for the tip about the standby button!

Common issue - mine can work fine for weeks then it happens several times in a row - last mon/tue it locked up 3 or 4 times but a reboot always fixes the problem.

Not sure if it locks or just responds really slowly to commands - still trying to get a definitive answer on that.

Also it may be dependant on MUX - had one funny when cbeebies finished and BBC4 took over - so I tend to leave it on a non-BBC MUX if I can.

Yep- it's happened to me on a number of occassions on my 710 and on my dads 910 as well, normally at the same time!! I think it happens (or seems to anyway) when theres a channel/radio added.
Last time it happened on both my 710 & my dads 910 was when film 4 channel listing came up.
Looks like a BUG IN SONYS HARDWARE ME THINKS!!
Any body else noticed this after a new channel has been listed?

I have the 910HD (i.e. the version without the Freeview tuner) and it's never done that, so the problem could well be related to the Freeview side of things.

My 910 did it several times in the first month of use. I ended up reformatting the disk and it's never done it since.

My 710 did it 3 times in the first month of buying it. but it has not done it in the last 3 month or so.

Did it Again last night!! & surprise surprise a new listing came up!!
tvtv DIGITAL what ever that is!!
Last time was Film-four
any body else had a lock up?

ive had one of these 710 dvdrs today installed n its locked up a few times allready hope its just cause im not using it propperly n not a fault. I allso have this tv tv channel whatever that is not seen it b4. Could those peeps who have this dvdr answer this ? i have plz, Is it possible to record say sky off line 3 and watch a freeview channel off it at the same time?

Thanks Mick
Last edited by bekko2006 : 05-08-2006 at 17:38

Its locked up twice again since my last post think ill phone the shop on monday n they can have it back this is naff thought this was supposed to be a good dvdr.

Hello,

My RDRHX710 DVD recorder freezes. I would be very interesting to hear from others who are still getting this and progress in resolving it.

I bought a Sony RDRHX710 (with free view) about 6 weeks ago.

It worked fine up until 2 days ago but since then it has frozen or locked up 3 times.

As for why this didn’t happen in the first 6 weeks and then happened 3 times in 3 days - - - just before this I had reprogrammed the remote so that it can control my TV and Amplifier. *(see detail below.)

I bought mine already chipped so that it can play DVDs from all regions. I wondered whether this could have an effect.

I think Mick put the question very well “hope its just cause I’m not using it propperly n not a fault”

These are very expensive machines, and though I’m willing to pay £400+ for a machine like this if it is working problem, I have no intention of accepting goods with a problem like this. I plan to ring the shop on Monday and see if they can offer any explanation.

I’d be very interested to hear how your machine has worked since you put your posting on this discussion group.


Best wishes,
Charles.



* (I did this by following the section in the instructions which involved holding the standby but and pressing the 38 so that it can control the volume and on/off for my Toshiba TV, and holding the standby button down whilst pressing 97 to get the remote to control the volume on my amplifier.)

Hi phoned the shop today from where i brought it from at first he thought it was my freeview side of things that was causing it to freeze cause when its happened most of the time i have been watching freeview on it, but i told him my old fv box hardly ever locked up and im getting a signal quality of 95 to 100% on the 710 so sales are phoning me later to arrange a date to collect the dvdr n bring me another one.
When you all use yours do you notice it locking up just on freeview or is it doing it at other times to like when watching a dvd or recording etc ? What signal quality are you all getting through the freeview channels ?

Mick

Just when im watching freeview it locks up, it maybe because i watch a lot more live tv rather than DVDs or recordings. It seems to happen when a new channel comes up, the last time it locked up tvtv DIGITAL came up and the time before that Film-four!
Ive watched lots of dvd movies without any problem though.
Last edited by It's only me : 07-08-2006 at 19:24

Anyone had an over the air software upgrade for it yet ? says in my manual that they happen automatically if you leave it on a bbc station been doing that but nothing happens. and touch wood i have had no lock ups today yet.

I've had a few lockups recently on my 710 after about 5 weeks from new ... I'm not aware of any software updates being applied, but I doubt it's been left on BBC1 like you others are saying it should be.

I've emailed Sony support for their view on the lockups (maybe others know that this is a waste of time?), and meantime formatted the HDD to see if that helps.

Wow i went a day without any lock ups lets see if i can do it again today sales never phoned me back yesterday suprise suprise lol so ill give it till the end of the week n see how it goes. im beginning to think its the freeview side of things though maybe the signal dipped n weakened at the time of the lock ups that caused it? Ill phone my local aerial engineer today n get some advice but i did this not so long ago n was told that the aerial i have is good enough for my area maybe its cause of its mounting its only on a 10 ft pole on a ground floor extention i should imagine there are alot of obstructions on the way between the transmitter n the aerial (buildings,trees,hills) etc. If it is the freeview though im a bit suprised why this dvdrs freeview has froze so many times in 2 days but my old box only crashed twice in 2 months of use weird huh lol.

Mick

Since this lock-up problem seems to be fairly widespread, I assume it's a design fault - so is there any point in trying to send the box back for repair? (I guess not...).
I'm surprised that there has been no firmware upgrade since the product launched last autumn - does anyone know if is this normal for freeview kit?

Ye seems to be a long time for a software update my old set top box had an update the other week and about a month b4 that i think.

The thing about getting lockups while watching freeview on your PVR is sometimes these thingscan just come around out of the blue and effect lots of owners of the same machine. They all have the same MHEG engine (which deals with the interactive content being broadcast). It may be that the broadcasters have written something in the MHEG code being broadcast from a certain date that can trip up this machine at the moment.

It might be a good idea to make note of what channel the machine was tuned to when it locked up and if possible what time or thereabouts. Sooner or later it might become evident whether its certain channels and then contact the broadcasters to let them know - in case its something they can change - or Sony, who can patch the MHEG engine if the broadcaster gives them a stear on that. Its happen many times before with Topfield and Humax an example of PVRs having gone through a similar process.

Just had a tv aerial bloke look at my aerial n he said i wont improve things with a new aerial its as good as ill get around here if i put an amp to it it will make things worse, i told him i had a new dvdr with freeview over the weekend and it keeps freezing on freeview he said to unplug it for ten mins n back in and do that every month or so to stop static electric building up. i unpluged it yesterday for an hour whilst i was out and its not locked up since so thats prolly solved the problem.

I've had the 710 for about 8 months now and it locked up after about 3 months 3 times in as many days then ok for another 2 months then twice in a day and again yesterday and today. It’s not been used for anything other than tuner input and I don’t think you’ll find out what causes it until either sony upgrade the firmware or the operating system becomes open source and I can’t see the latter happening. I just pull the lead out of the back and put it back after 2 seconds delay. The funny thing is that I bought the 710 because I had the liteon 5045 and having to upgrade the firmware every month was a bit of a joke but eventually with version 204 installed it’s not hung since, the dvd has stopped working but that’s another thing (does anyone know if another dvdr will work in it and what the jumper settings are?, and has anyone tried a 300gig or bigger hd with any success?). I thought the liteon firmware was a bit basic until I saw the 710 rubbish, now going back to the liteon it’s so much better, but still not as it should be. I’ve got to the point where I’ll probably buy a dell duo core laptop with an external freeview tuner and use that instead at least I know it’ll work, it’s difficult to type with your fingers crossed isn’t it.
Last edited by FLITBIT : 09-08-2006 at 17:11

I am getting really cheesed off now. I have 2x RDR-HXD710's and 1x RDR-HXD910. All 3 have suffered with occasional lockups. These tend to coincide with recordings of channel '0' where the machine just records a blank screen.

It was bad enough enough coming home every so often to find the machine had locked up, but now it's happened 4 or 5 times just in the last week. I tried doing a complete retune and even reformatted one - but lockups still happening.

Contacted Sony customer service, who were unable to give any solutions other than repair. He said they had no knowledge of these faults, so I asked if he could contact someone in the technical/repair depts - he said no. The only option was contacting my local Sony Auth repair shop.

When I called the repair place, they didn't even seem familar with these models - doesn't inspire confidence! I asked if they could contact Sony to see if there was a proper fix for this. He said he would get back to me tomorrow. I won't hold my breath.

If I take the recorders in for repair, I think all they'll do is replace the hard drive, which won't solve the problem - and I'll lose all my recordings!

These issues have been reported in this forum for some time now - the "lock-ups" tend to happen in waves; OK for a couple of weeks then, like today, three times so far.

I had a few occurances of the zero length channel 0 recordings but not since I found out my wife used the on/off button to stop playbacks and not "stop" button.

The general lock-ups are more of a mystery, in fact I would suggest they are a "go-slow" rather that a "lock-up" as I have seen it slowly progress through all the buffered commands if you leave it long enough.

I suspect it has something to do with MUX strength, this evenings lockup occured as I stepped up the freeview channel from 1 to 4, got to 3 and it locked.

The signal strength bar appears to be next to useless - all or nothing.

Sony telephone support are dismissive of any known issues - I have raised two calls - why aren't our comments recorded. Maybe we should all request call references and share then on-line so we can see the true number of incidents.

<rant>
For a premium box we are getting very poor service - it desperately needs a software update. I generally avoid Sony products like the plague because they tend to be all image and little substance - I fear this is the same.
</rant>

I'm going to see what my local Sony Centre say about it. It's certainly happening more often at the moment.