Hi folks,
I got down to about 2hrs left of available time and it appears all my saved recordings have dissapeared. I've tried to record a proggie since but the red light stays on well after the end time which, I believe, indicates a full disk. Is there a way of getting it reset to read the stored programmes again? What are my options?

Cheers
Ian

Did you try powering it off at the mains and back on again?

I powered it off after it stuck for 30mins or so during a delete to clear some space. I then noticed that the prog titles were still in the library but the thumbnails were empty so I did another reset hoping to restore these but lost sight of everything in Library! I've done a few resets in the vain hope of this being just a passing nightmare but no luck yet.

I'm on v2.91 and it says I've 1% free disc space. I can't see any proggies to be able to delete them.

When we have the invisible probs I think at least the titles of recordings show up, as you found, but the rest takes quite a few minutes to recover after resetting, as does the epg data

Agree that it sounds like the last one failed and is corrupt. And note that you don't even have titles now. When you try moving down the list does anything show, or does it crash on entry to library?

If it crashes on entry to library, and once it's working again after a reset, suggest not trying to go to library (to avoid it crashing), but just leave it on for half an hour or so, to recover data, then turn on 'Disable Library Video Window' in engineering (Menu>Settings>Help, then press 1,3,9,7 on the remote) before going to library - hope that it will then come back and you can delete the last recording(s)

Hi Chris6, tried this out but no joy. The library remains empty but the disk is only 1% free. I can't see anything to delete it, bad or not.

Pity.

(I take it that it does not crash on entering library, and that you still have an epg, and the box works ok apart from library and, again, that the box does not crash on entering library) - if those things are like that, then these are the only other things I can think of to try (not very convincing I know) before formatting the drive and losing the recordings

Try deleting even if it looks as if there is nothing there

Turn off the buffer in case that might give a bit more space to allow the box to sort itself out

Channel scan to give the basic 8 day EPG, with: Menu>Setup>Channel Scan, again in case it might just shake up the box

Hope someone else with more knowledge can help, either here or http://www.ukkafka.co.uk/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=58

An hourly on-air software update displaces the previously installed one and takes about 10 minutes to complete, so up to 70 minutes can be needed to catch it and complete. Menu>Setup>Help, @Green, @Blue

Good luck and let us know how it goes

Hi Chris6, Yes the 14day EPG is in tact, and it doesn't crash as such

In Messages there are many of this type "The system removed 'proggie name' because it had become corrupt. It was removed on boot.' Seems like one for each of my stored progs Help still tells me I've only 1% free though, and yet in the 'Programmed' (not in front of my m/c at mo - not Library or Guide but the other) says I've 66hr 14min free!

I'll try what you've suggested this evening, and thanks very much for responding.

In case of having to reformat, is the 'data' on a seperate partition and is it that which gets reformatted only? I don't loose the software (GUI etc) as well? Also, it is still under a year old what's Thompson support (if any) like? Would they have the facility to restore the progs I wonder (though those messages do rather sound ominous)

Cheers
Ian

I'm afraid in this case the best bet is to factory reset and reformat the box. The GUI and software will be unaffected by this. However you will lose the 14 day EPG and series link capability until the next update around midday. Menu>Setup>Green>Red.

Thanks Psionic and Chris6, had another go this lunch having left it on but no joy yet. Chris6 I notice in your Running Repairs section you've got formatting as @Menu>Set-up>Help>@Green>@Blue. Should that be @Red instead of @Blue? Is there any point in contacting Thompson over this?

Cheers
Ian

Thanks very much for bringing that up, but just checked on our box and Menu>Set-up>Help>Green>Blue is for Format Hard Drive, while Menu>Set-up>Help>Green>Red is for Factory Defaults, which is apparently not much different: psionic advised recently to the effect that, in addition to formatting the hard drive, this restores all user settings such as buffer time and aspect ratio to the factory defaults
From your recent post it sounds as if all recordings are already deleted/corrupted and if you decide to do a factory default or format, which seems reasonable, then you will have gone as far as poss. If it still does not work then maybe you could expect TUTV to fix or exchange it, since I gather it is not a year old, but let's hope it will then be ok

It could be you were overdoing things by getting too close to 'full'. Although it obviously should not be like that, I think that people have reported and accepted that it causes the very problems you had , so I would guess this must be high on the list for correction in the awaited software update, but what do I know?

Alas no luck in getting proggies back Tried to remember what steps led up to the 'disaster'. I'd just set a programme to record there and then and seeing there was little space (but some left) thought I'd delete a programme I wasn't too bothered about watching now. The delete process got stuck; I let it carry on for 20-30 mins but decided to reboot to clear it. On return I noticed the empty preview thumbnails next to the titles and the following reboot saw then library empty! So I'll NEVER be deleting while a recording is in progress in future.

Some stats: my reformatted box came back with 35hrs initially, I deactivated the Top Up TV Anytime channels and got to 69hrs 49mins (99%) free. So how do I get to the 120hrs advertised for this box? (heck! I want more proggies to loose) [now I've had a go understand the button colour sequence - and you do get a final option to cancel before you comit]

Despite the loss it's a great step forward from VHS/DVDs for flexible TV watching and despite the glitches others have mentioned is easy and convenient and good value.

The info on these forums is a great help so a big thanks to all who put it up and maintain it. And a big thanks to those of you who've responded to my thread.

I've just done a successful record so everything restored okay.

Just got to do the 14day EPG. Is it just a matter of having C5 available or do I have to do something for that?

Cheers
Ian

Hi,

I've just had something similar, I'll post below the sequence of events as I have on psionet since it may be beneficial to potential/current customers and/or Thomson/TUTV (you never know they may shock us all by starting to give a sh*t).

Firstly it wouldn’t switch on and then after a reboot it said it didn’t have a signal (don’t usually have problems with signal). After another reboot when it looked as though it was working it failed a planned recording.

Re-entered it into the schedule and it failed again so tried to manually record it and that failed, it simply wouldn’t record. Checked to see if the hard-disk was full and it had about 10 hours more free than I would have expected so I decided there was probably a corrupt recording so started deleting things. I noticed that the preview window didn’t work for any of the recordings and that they were instantly deleted instead of the usual delay.

Tried recording again and still nothing so powered it off for about 10 minutes. After powering on the library was completely empty and I had about 9 messages saying corrupt recording removed although there was a least double that amount of programmes previously. Still couldn’t record so I tried the HD and partition tests in the engineer menu, not sure what these are supposed to do but it didn’t appear to do anything. Still couldn’t record so went for a factory reset. At first it still didn’t record but worked on the second attempt.

Not sure what was going on, a real pain though because I’ve lost all my recordings and will have to reschedule everything.

Brian.

Not sure what you mean here chris6. I would just take it back to Argos in my case, but they aren't TUTV boxes in the same sense as a Sky box is Sky's are they? I thought they were just TUTV capable if you wanted it. I gave the trial a go but, well none of the 60+hours I lost were TUTV proggies though I did find some things to watch.

Got the 14day EPG back so fully up and running again.

Know how you feel Brian. Very dissapointing. We'd had a few power cuts a few days before, one whilst the m/c was recording but most likely it was me trying to do too much at once in my case. There isn't a defrag'ing feature somewhere is there?

Cheers
Ian

Yes, agree that 'not fit for purpose' etc. liability is with the seller and don't know why I thought you got the box from TUTV!
- and if you wished to press it I guess bugs might qualify as well as durability

Brianphilipson, if this was because you knew there were only a few hours left, roughly how much space remained please?