Had another freeze last night - screen all green, no sound, no response to IR - needed power cycle (box was left on ITV4 for quite a while - probably since the previous night watching Arsenal - I wasn't the last to bed so didn't shut it down as I usually would).
After reading on here a hint on how to get the guide running quickly, i.e. press Schedule followed by Red rather than the Guide button, I am now in the habit of always doing this.
I'm now wondering if this is a factor in the increased number of freezes I've been getting - any thoughts?
(P.S. Last factory reset was only about a week ago to get ITV HD back!)

I think your stb is faulty, I can understand an odd glitch but this often sounds like an intermittent hardware fault.

Pressing scheduke and red all the time will mean that your epg is out of date.

I have had a "lock up" 5 or 6 times since I have had the HDR - about 5 weeks now.

Its always after pressing something on the remote whilst in some part of the menu system or EPG, however if on a broadcasting channel the sound is still there. A quick on/off fixes it but if anything is recording it breaks that.

I do believe its not hardwardware but a software bug.

I Still have a 9200T as well with its occasional disk corruption, disappearing scheduled recordings and slow response to the Remote and that Humax haven't managed to sort out which again is software related (at least in the first two instances).

I have had mine 5 months, had to power it off once about 2 wks after getting it to recover from remote lock up. Since then no problems at all. So what do you different to me to try and force the bug to surface ?

Yes, I get this too, it reliably crashes if left switched on for a full day or two.

I've also seen it crash, and as it did, the system started to slow down (i.e. the programme I was watching slowed to 2 or 3 FPS), I remember that I was in the EPG at the time and requests to navigate or exit the EPG worked, but took several minutes to complete, I didn't reboot straight away, as I was recording a programme and didn't want to risk losing it, however several minutes later, I got lots of pretty artifacts all over the screen, accompanied by some loud tones, then box just completely locked up.

I don't seem to have the problem when I set the box to auto power on & off each day, which made me wonder if the software had a memory leak. Of course, it could also be temperature related.

BTW: Has anyone else noticed that auto power on doesn't seem to work if you have the box set to auto-sleep when not used for a period of time?

There is no output from the stereo RCA connectors when the box is hung totally. Removing/replacing the HDMI cable does nothing.

I haven't worked out exactly what causes it , but it's never locked up apart from immediately after pressing a few remote buttons. Mabe somehow the remote signal is getting corrupted and the box doesn't know what to do?

If I work out what is causing it I'll post back.

If you can that would be great. Assuming it's a firmware bug, without a repeatable sequence of actions to replicate it's going to be very hard for Humax to find the problem.

I wondered if there was more than one type of lock-up.

Some members, including me, find it occasionally locked-up when switched on, after a night in standby.

Others are now talking of it being on & then freezing after pressing a few buttons.

Has anyone suffered both types, on one HDR ? If not then it would suggest that 2 types might be occurring.

Also nigelbb said.
"There is no output from the stereo RCA connectors when the box is hung totally. Removing/replacing the HDMI cable does nothing."
I have not tried pulling the HDMI cable, a simple off/on has worked always for me. I will try it.
Others have recovered with an HDMI out/in.
This also suggests more than one type of freeze.

David
Last edited by SWIZZ? : 10-04-2009 at 16:52

Given the ever increasing complexity of this type of device and the many varied use patterns, it always surprises me that they do not build in some kind of debug capability so end-users can send core dumps to Humax to assist in the diagnosis of problems, or maybe something along the lines of Microsoft's error reporting.
(The facility may actually even be there, just hidden away so we can't see it - or is that just wishful thinking )

So you want a black box for a black box !
Good luck on the first test flight !!

More seriously I think I am reading about more than one failure mode.

1--Those, like me that get a freeze on first switch on after a night in stand by.
2--Some of these like mine are temporarily cured by “off/on”
3--Others are temporarily cured by HMDI cable out/in.
4-- Those not cured temporarily by HMDI cable out/in.
5-- Those started by several button pushes.
6-- 5s cured by ??

I think that to make progress we have to report
a-- What starts it
b--What cures it (temporarily)
c—What does NOT cure it even temporarily

Some feedback from Bob_Cat would cut the cackle.

Sorry to be blunt but we are not really getting anywhere.

David

Well, having got fed up with random lock ups (some in the middle of recording and some not) and slowdowns/pauses on my HDR, I eventually took the plunge and did a full factory reset Wednesday of this week. At the same time, I took the opportunity of reformatting the HDD and reduced the photo section to its minimum 1Gb. I also got one of those nice IOMEGA Prestige 320Gb USB drives from Comet for £69.99 and re-formatted it to EXT3 and used it to back up stuff we wanted to keep before the reset.

So far, touch wood, it has performed flawlessly since and I have to say that the IOMEGA drive is excellent and its performance (even for HD recordings) seems no different from the internal HDD so I am quite pleased with my new double capacity Foxsat HDR.

I'll let you all know if/when it starts anything spurious again.

I was experiencing "Those, like me that get a freeze on first switch on after a night in stand by."

After a bit of digging I read a suggestion that it was putting it into the deeper power save standby during the colder weather (when the heating goes off at night) that caused a problem with some components.

Anyways. I took it off deep sleep mode and it has worked flawlessly ever since. When the warmer weather appears I will put it back on deep sleep mode to see how it fares and to 'test the theory'

Had mine for four months and no lockups at all. It's on most days and turns itself to standby every night.

I don't know whether it's significant, but the HDR is connected to my (CRT) TV only with a Scart connection - no HDMI.

The apparent lack of responsiveness of the IR sensor (sluggishness) seems potentially to cause remote commands to be buffered. Could over enthusiastic use of the remote control consequently contribute to these lockups?

Me and my big mouth!!

Well, that didn't last long...

(but the Iomega drive is still superb though! )

Buy online & collect in store & it's just 54.99 pounds. http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/pro...BLE-HARD-DRIVE

CPN, I hope you don't mind me commenting on this bit of your post for the benefit of new owners, or future new owners, that may come across this thread.

An external USB drive is a useful companion in certain circumstances for backup, as you say in your post, but the combo does not make a "double capacity Foxsat HDR" with seamless full functionality.

There are a few limitations :-[LIST=1][*]Cannot record directly to the USB drive[*]Need to move content manually between the HDD & USB drive[*]Can only move unencrypted HD content (currently only from non-freesat mode) to the USB drive[/LIST]Anyway, don't want to take the thread too far off topic, but the drive has been referred to a few times now, and I'd hate newcomers to think they can effectively get a double size HDR, just with the addition of a USB drive, and then be disappointed.

Rgds.

Les.

I have to ask

Have you removed the near invisible protective film from the display under the flap. Leaving it on comprimises the remote control performance.

Not at all and you are absolutely right of course. I often forget that there are loads of users out there who are not "techie" users like myself and it would be better if I were to remember that more often when I post.

Since I am in the Computer Industry professionally on a daily basis (sorry again Bob_Cat but so are you!), I would also do well to remember more often that computer software in general, is only ever as good as the humans that originally authored it...

Hence I tend to put up with all these kind of "foibles" without giving them a second thought; knowing (or hoping anyway) that somewhere down the line, it'll probably be sorted by an update at some point.

Colin

Yes, both films removed on day one. I've used the original remote, a Logitech Harmony and a OneForAll. The IR sensor has an angle of reception issue (perhaps 30 deg either side) but that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about a delay AFTER the HDR's sensor has detected the IR signal, e.g. Hit up once, nothing, maybe less than a second later hit up a second time and the display jumps up twice. That's why I have the impression that it is buffering IR signals. It probably has nothing to do with the lock ups at all, but it just seemed a slight (remote ) possibility that over enthusiastic use of the remote control might confuse the box.

My lack of HDMI connection may perhaps be a more likely explanation for the total lack of lockups in four months of using my HDR... or maybe I've just been lucky.

Mine is 5 months old and solely connected by hdmi. Mine has also been troublefree. The moderator Barry over at hummy.org reports the same so there's at least 3 lucky owners

Just for completeness, I have mine connected directly by Scart, and through an Amp via HDMI, and I get no Remote IR lag on either.

Rgds.

Les.

Make that 4! I've had mine 4.5 months and no lockups to-date. also connected via HDMI to Sony 40V3000

Hi All,

I have had my box since early Feb and didn't suffer any lock-ups until about 3 weeks ago. Most if not all of mine have been at start-up. Box shows the channel that it was on at previous switch-off, but device doesn't answer any remote input at all - reboot is the only cure, really irritating. I sometimes think I have tried to input from the remote before it has fully booted, even though the channel is shown on the display.

I have had at least one freeze while in the media explorer. I find at all times that "double" presses are far too easy to input. - even Microsoft allow you to fine tune this sort of thing in Windoze.

Perhaps the two problems are related with the box becoming confused by too rapid an input, however accidental.