HDR freezing up regularly

cdmackay

Active Member
Would appreciate any advice for friend, please...

His HDR T2 has started freezing up regularly, in the last week or so, and it's getting worse.

Symptoms are a total freeze; nothing on TV screen, not contactable via network, front panel text frozen, no response to anything other than a power cycle.

I looked at his disk SMART data - didn't look any worse than mine, which is fine.

Seems to be getting worse, box now won't stay up for more than a few hours, if that.

I recommended putting the fan package on, set to 48%, and monitoring disk temp with sysmon.

Is there anything work checking on the PSU capacitor front? i.e any voltages inside it's worth checking to see if the capacitors are going? He is electrically handy.

He's running same versions as mine:

Web interface version: 1.2.2-3
Custom firmware version: 3.00 (build 2137)
Humax Version: 1.03.12 (kernel HDR_CFW_3.00)

thanks much for any suggestions as to how to troubleshoot.
 
Also, he tried fix disk from maintenance mode, all fine.

and never anything in the crash log.
 
Symptoms are a total freeze; nothing on TV screen, not contactable via network, front panel text frozen, no response to anything other than a power cycle.
This exact same has been on all my machines from time to time, not very frequently, and mostly when left on for long periods. I suspect many other users see the same thing. I have put it down to "one of those things", but it is worrying if it occurs or could occur as frequently as you say.

I am not aware that any particular cause has been found, but for peace of mind you might like to run through the Steps for Resolving HDR-FOX Crash/Reboot Issues (click) checklist. Hypothesising (with a career in electronics design behind me), this kind of system freeze is typically due to data corruption or a misoperation due to a signal's timing requirements not being met, or a disturbance on the power supply. It is not likely you would find anything with a multimeter.

never anything in the crash log.
There wouldn't be. The system just stops without warning, therefore cannot write anything to a log.
 
That's a great article of yours, thanks.

Agreed, were it happening rarely, I'd have advised very little - but it's now getting to the stage where it's doing it many times a day, it seems - very bad.

Will go through that post, thanks again.
 
It is not likely you would find anything with a multimeter.

OK. It's just that, in the Toppy world which I inhabited before coming here, the PSU caps were well-known for going off. I believe the original fittings were rather too temperature sensitive. Replacing them with better quality capacitors cured problems for many, including me.

The key point, there, was that one could identify whether the PSU capacitor problem was being seen, by checking voltages at a few key points, e.g. on the power board.

I had wondered whether something similar might apply here, too.

thanks...
 
There are suspicions that capacitors can go "dry", if all else fails there is nothing to be lost by checking them out.

You are in a position where you could try swapping subsystems. If exchanging PSUs fails to cure the problem, or if the problem migrates with the PSU, you have a clue.
 
I am not sure if this is related to the problems here but there are similarities.
My 1tb
HDR Fox T2 has been slow responding when starting or stopping recordings. I have just run Fix-Disk for almost 18 hrs but stopped it because I thought I saw the same sector being refered to in the log window. I have looked at the hard disk data in CF 3.00 and "Atributes" says
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct PO--CK 8 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always -
197 Current_Pending_Sector -O--C- 7 100 100 000 Old_age Always -
198 Offline_Uncorrectable ----C- 7 100 100 000 Old_age Offline -
5 is amber and 197, 198 are red.
Access time to recordings are slightly quicker but recordings since the problem started are "scrambled or unavailable"
My question is should I contemplate a new, larger hard drive whilst my existing recordings are available and transferable.
 
Not sure I can advise much, other than that I would try to backup the existing recordings asap.

As to the original post: it turned out the device was still in warranty (hah) and Humax were very helpful about replacing it. The replacement is working perfectly, of course.

thanks for the help...
 
@Mike Somers. Take a look at this thread here. If you do try the security erase procedure, back up your recordings first! The procedure is described in post #16 of the referenced thread. There are more notes on this procedure here.

Mods: move thread to CFW section?
 
Mods: move thread to CFW section?

Well, my original post wasn't CFW related, hence why I posted it here...

However, I now realise that wasn't obvious - I had neglected to say that he went back to stock firmware, and the problems continued - which is why I didn't post it in the CFW section. Apols for not stating that...
 
Well, my original post wasn't CFW related, hence why I posted it here...

However, I now realise that wasn't obvious - I had neglected to say that he went back to stock firmware, and the problems continued - which is why I didn't post it in the CFW section. Apols for not stating that...
No need to apologise. I hadn't read back to the start of the thread when I replied to Mike Somers. Either section is probably OK in any case. That issue needed the CFW to diagnose and needs the CFW for the possible fix, but is not related to the CFW.:frantic:
 
...but as the actual problem was unrelated to custom firmware I would have prompted the mods to move the topic if it had been posted in the CF section!
 
Thanks to you all for the links posted. I have decided to copy any recordings I value and replace the Hard Drive with the Seagate 2tb model. I believe that I can format the new disk with one of the partitioning programs in windows if neccessary. I will be ordering from Amazon as my wife is running a Prime 30 day trial which is due to end soon. Changing the drive will have to wait as we will be seeking some sunshine soon and I do have other Humax recorders. The information on aligning looks interesting and I will look into that when I have more time (possibly carrying that out before fitting the new Hard Drive?). This will be the third Humax that has failed (same machine i.e. 1tb) and has been replaced twice. The other 2 Humax are 500gb and seem to be trouble free so it would seem the 1tb machines are jinxed, perhaps the 2 tb upgrade will cope better!.
 
With the 1.03.xx firmware you should be able to format the drive in-box, then hook the old drive up through a USB-SATA adapter and copy the existing recordings from it.
 
With the 1.03.xx firmware you should be able to format the drive in-box, then hook the old drive up through a USB-SATA adapter and copy the existing recordings from it.
I had realised that I could format in the box but had thought it would be easier from a computer. I must read about the 4K alignment issue whilst I am away as the apartment we are in has wi-fi. I do have a SATA docking station so I may well be able to transfer via that although I may start to copy off the Humax to a couple of 64gb flash drives which I have (assuming compatibilty). There are not many recordings which I will want to keep so the flash drives may well be sufficient as a fall-back in case of any other problems.
 
I had realised that I could format in the box but had thought it would be easier from a computer.
Not really, you would have to recreate the partition structure etc etc. Just do it in-box unless it refuses. The alignment issue doesn't seem to be a problem.
 
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