Hi! First time here and needing advice badly!

Last Thursday set machine up to record:-

Ch 5 6 to 630 Home & Away
1 7 730 The One Show
1 730 8 Eastenders

What I found after 8pm, according to the Recodings list was:-

Missing completely Home & Away
The One Show, under the name of (Place in the Sun, 4 Channel 4) but recorded Four times
Eastenders (correct)

Similar result were found the previous night and having spoken to Humax Support today
I rebooted and also went through the Default Setting procedure.

I have emailed the Humax Support but alas they are having their Easter Holiday until tomorrow.

I suspect that the true recordings are on the hard drive but the labeling is haywire because, on Wednesday, after deleting one of the many unwanted "Place in the Sun"s, one correct recording reappeared.

The machine was bought from Comet 11.5 months ago and I have an extended warranty.

Is it advisable to let Comet near the machine if, as they say, they suspect the processer requires resetting. Their diagnosis was made on the information above.

All advice will be appreciated as I struggle with this sort of problem.

Neil 1940 (says it all)

These are classic signs of a corrupt file system. You need to reformat the disk which will lose your recordings but will fix the problem.

Certainly not!

To reset the processor, switch off using remote, then switch off at the mains - either switch at the back or mains socket.

Leave for 10 mins,

Switch back on again.

If this doesn't work, reset to default settings (in the SYSTEM menu) however you will lose all your schedules and other preferences.

Sorry - I missed the fact that you've already tried 1 and 2!


If this still doesn't cure the problem, you're probably looking at a hard drive reformat, but this will delete all your recorded programmes.

As a last resort, return it to Humax rather than Comet for repair/replacement.

Hope this helps

Sorry - I missed the fact that you've already tried 1 and 2!
Last edited by Me : 24-03-2008 at 13:17

If this still doesn't cure the problem, you're probably looking at a hard drive reformat, but this will delete all your recorded programmes.

As a last resort, return it to Humax rather than Comet for repair/replacement.

Hope this helps

[/quote]


Thanks to you both I do appreciate the quick response.

I was thinking along these lines but ????

First. How do I reformat the hard drive, I appreciate that all reccordings will be lost, or where can I find info on reformatting.

Will I have to get an order number from Humax if I have to return machine to them.

Martin Liddle is correct a reformat is necessary and will fix it - wiping all the recordings you currently have.
Menu/Recordings/HDD Control - Format.
If you wish to watch any of the existing recordings you must prevent further recordings/empty the schedule, and not give in to deleting each as item as it's watched, otherwise the corruption will continue and may render existing recordings inaccessible.
Possibly even playback may do the same.
Many items may be incorrectly named in the recordings list.

A bit of a formality really but could you confirm that your PVR upgraded to firmware version 1.00.21 earlier this year and that you subsequently did the requested defaults reset ?

Reading the manual is always an option; in this case the procedure is:

Menu
Record
HDD Control
Reformat

You will be prompted for password; the default is 0000. The reformat is very quick (less than two seconds) as it simply writes a blank file system to the disk.

I am confident that you do not need to return the box but yes the procedure is to ring them up. They will offer a choice of an exchange box or repair of your box.

Thanks Nvingo

You are right "Many items may be incorrectly named in the recordings list " is exactly what I suspect.

Yes, I see the way now. I had missed that section in the HDD Control sction on reformatting.

We will catch up with those recordings that are important tonight and reformat tomorrow.

I have now updated my profile to indicate that the upgrade .21 was done.

After first finding the problem I did the "default reset" but found it had not solved the problem as shown at the start of this thread.

I will come back on tomorrow and let you, Martin and ME know how it went.
Hopefully any one else that has this sort of problem in the future will find this thread and be equally gratful for your collective help.

Thanks

A "senior moment", Martin - not seeing the reformatting section in the manual.

My other half will not let me refomat before she watches some of her programmes.

I would have thought she would have been as glad as I am of a possible chance of not having to return the machine for repair.

Anyway, thanks again

It's been a fairly common problem since the early days, and was documented as the chaos bug. Since it's still around, there's no point in seeking a "repair". Martin's advise will solve the problem.

Thanks gtg

The more I read and try things the more I understand. Martin's advice to read the manual is the best advice going.

Having re read and re read the doc on the .21 modifications along with manual over the Easter weekend I now know a lot more alas I also realise that the use of AR & SR(showing off) is very complex and so dependant on the broadcasters that I see where "clashes" can cause chaos especially to the unsuspecting.

I have re booted and reformatted the machine and will see how it manages over the next day or so.

Thanks to you, Martin, ME & Navingo I am confident that you all have saved me from sending it back to Humax or, dare I say it, to the dreaded Comet.

No reply to my email from the Support Team but I imagine that they will have been swamped today after the holiday period.

I will report back with my results.

Guys

After the reformat this morning, I set up a schedule of programs to test the recording

1 1100-1130 Homes under
1 1130-1215 Cash in the attic
2 1200-1230 Daily Politics
3 1230-1330 Loose Women

All went well until 1230

At 1144 (whilst on BBC1) I noticed that there was no indication that recording was active - changed to Ch 3 to see what was being broadcast and it was Loose Women; at that moment it started to record Ch 3 Loose Women but it was 15 minutes into the program. Had I not changed channel, I believe that the program would have been missed.

At first glance it would appear that I still have a problem.

Then, I set it up to record Ch 3 at 1330 (at the end of Loose Women and returned to Ch 1.
I see now that it has correctly stopped Loose Women (45 mins of 60) and is recording the News as it should be.

Is it a coincidence, a glitch by the broadcasters or what????

Any ideas anyone?????

Do you have any channels in the range 800 or above? This would indicate you are receiving from more than one transmitter and would explain the problem. A manual retune would be required to fix the problem.

Hi Martin,

Thanks for coming back to me

I have not seen any channels in the 800s
Into 300s TV & 700s Radio.
I had a reply from Humax Support and they asked for my postcode to see if that could be the problem.

They indicated that they were leading up to suggesting a reformat. I have replied saying that I had done the reformat and given them them my last posting info.

I have also advised them that since the "glitch" and I have successfully recorded seven programs during the afternoon and all have recorded correct and the program is correct as per the title on the list !!!!!

I have gone on to record during this evening programs as normal and will see if anything untoward happens.

I am away all day tomorrow but will report tomorrow evening, one way or the other.

I have learnt a lot this past few days from you guys and ofcourse from reading the instuctions as you suggested.

Many thanks

Neil

There were situations like this picked up on earlier versions of .21 that caused recordings not to start until some intervention by the user. They should have been fixed, I would be tempted to post this one on hummy.org.uk if you can get it to re-occur.

Hi gtg

Thanks for your reply

I typed a reply to you yesterday but it has vanished.

As you know I have been emailling Humax. In the last, I advised them of my postcode and that I had the glitch after the reformat.

They came back with detailed instructions to do a manual search of the Blackhill, TX's six MUXs. I quote, you will need Signal Strength of 20%, Signal Quality of 70% to receive Chs. I already have SS of 60%, SQ of 100% on all Chs that I have checked.

I have made many test recording yesterday and today without any problems so I do not know whether to leave well alone or to do as they say. I think I will advise them that I have had no more problems but will do as they say if a problem occurs and then advise them.

I wish to thank all of you that have helped me on this post.

I will reply to anyone that wish any info that Humax has provided.

Neil

Neil,

I've posted maual tuning instructions in post #8 HERE that you can compare with what you've got from Humax. Just select your transmitter from the linked DTG web-site to obtain the 6 UHF channels to search on.

Yes indeed Big-les, thanks.

Having followed your post on transmitters was the reason I knew what Humax was trying to suggest to me as they only gave instructions, no explanation.

Humax did not instruct to delete all channels before the manual search but I can see the sense in doing that as you then start with a clean sheet and it certainly can do no harm.

I cannot thank you and the others enough, who have taken the time to post the help that has guided me through my problems.

I do hope that anyone reading our posts does not get the wrong impression of the Humax 9200T. I think it is great and the backup from this website and the Humax email support takes care of the minor problems.

Neil

When you do a tuning search of any type most old channels are overwritten with new so cause no problem, but old channels that aren’t re-used get left in the list and can cause confusion at least. This is the reason for deleting all old channels first, as you say, to start with a clean sheet. When you do a Default Settings all old channels are deleted during the process before the channel search is started.

I second your last paragraph, I was nearly put off buying the 9200 because of many misleading posts on another forum about the EPG load time, it turned out that the person doing the complaining was doing something wrong!!!

Spot-on Big-Les

Humax told me to do a default setting before the manual search for channels thus taking care of the osolete channels. (did not explain why though.

I see we are heading into the 'clock change' settings discussions. The twice yearly arguements.

I have set mine up using the EPG and intend to do nothing to see what happens. I have noted that the EPG times are all 1 hour earlier than the TV listings next week and if the clock changes one hour forward they should SHOULD be correct.

I will watch carefully and make changes if the Humax does not adjust as it should.

Default Settings clears out memory and stuff like that so there's a bit more happening than there is in a channel search.

The clock thing will sort itself out, I don't worry about it. A couple of years ago when my 8000T was the main box the hour changed at 2:00 in the afternoon, I think the broadcaster got his am and pm mixed up.

As I said left, my wife's, machine to do its own thing for the clock change.

It came up trumps, I had nothing to do when I checked prior to leaving at 6am BST. All the program record settings had changed correctly.

On the the other hand my Sky+ box got the lot wrong and I had to reset the lot.