Recording failures on HD-FOX T2 with external hard drive

ChrisB

ChrisB

New Member
I've been using the HD-FOX T2 with an external hard drive as a recorder for some time. Occasionally, I have experienced "null" recordings, that is recordings that are zero bytes long. This seems to be happening more frequently recently. Has anyone else encountered this problem?
 
To add to the above, there are two faults: both seem to be related to retunes. One fault (discussed in the link posted in BH's message) causes a flag to be set incorrectly in the HMT file. This affects both SD and HD channels and gives a 'channel scrambled' message on playback. If you have custom firmware this is easily fixed by running the 'fixencflags' diagnostic.
The other fault (mentioned in the same thread as above; useful link here) affects the newer HD channels, e.g. BBC Three HD and BBC Four HD, with recordings appearing to be zero length and not playing. This fault is caused by corruption of the NTS file and can be fixed automatically on the HDR-FOX with custom firmware. On the HD-FOX it is not so easy. I have not tried this entire procedure myself, but if you have custom firmware, install the BootHDR package and boot into HDR mode. Then if you copy an affected recording from the simulated 'HDR' folder to a different destination on 'drive1' (the contents of the 'Video' folder of 'drive1' will also appear in the 'My Video' folder of 'HDR') using the remote control of the HD-FOX, the programme will be decrypted on copy. If you then delete the sidecar files (NTS, HTM and THM) from the copy it should now play, but with limited transport controls.
I have read on this forum that if you manually record from the affected HD channels then subsequent timer recordings work OK until you do another retune, but I can't find the post at the moment.
 
There is another type of problem with recording using a HD-FOX T2, if the external HDD does not wake up for some reason, the recording will not take place but may be listed as a broken or failed recording. I seem to recall this happening to me some time ago, but can't remember the exact details.
 
I have had this problem on BBC1HD and BBC4HD. I am using a custom modified version 1.02.31, but used to suffer the same fault when using 1.02.29. However, it appears to be happening more frequently now. On trying to play the recording, it warns that the recording is less than 30 seconds and may not be stored. I have recently (3rd September) performed a re-tune, but this made no difference. The fact that it is an intermittent fault makes it all the more difficult to solve. I watched the light on the hard drive whilst the last failed recording took place, and it was flashing so there was no indication at the time that anything was going wrong. It could be something to do with the fact that I am using an external hard drive, unless someone with a HDR-FOX T2 has experienced the same thing. But I am puzzled.
 
It sounds like the second fault I mentioned in post #3, though this has not been reported on BBC One HD before AFAIK. Typically this fault manifests after a retune. I can't find the post but I have read that doing a manual recording on each problem channel can help with subsequent timer recordings.
 
I manually re-tuned both my HD Fox and my HDR Fox. The HDR Fox, with the latest standard software, successfully recorded BBC4HD last night whereas the HD Fox (v1.02.28) failed to record the same programme/channel. This is after successful HD Fox BBC3/4HD recordings prior to the re-tune.

The workaround procedure - see link below - worked for me last time. I will try it again.

http://hummy.tv/forum/threads/have-...ng-the-new-hd-channels.4419/page-5#post-56760

Martin
 
Yes. The workaround procedure - short instant recordings on both channels - has worked again. Two nights of correct recording on BBC3HD and BBC4 HD.

Hopefully any software upgrade for the HD Fox will included a fix for this problem.

Martin
 
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