Self re-booting?

M

Mark1

New Member
Hi all - i am a new memeber, re-directed from the old Hummy site, and was searching threads for any indication of someone else having experienced the same issues as i have...

My 9300T is a couple of years old now and has been trouble free up until about 6-8 months ago. It has developed a habit of periodically doing a re-boot overnight of its own accord so that when it is next turned on all the recording reservations have been wiped and the preferences (aspect, display etc) have re-set as if I had performed a default settings routine.

This seems to follow no discernable pattern - it may happen once and be fine for weeks on end, or as has happened this week, twice in 48hrs!!!!!! It is a real pain having to reset all recordings each time, despite missing those that have not recorded before I find out out that there has been a problem.

The unit is left on standby EVERY night and has the most recent OTA upgrade (~July sometime, think it was v.26 but am not at home to check at present)- am I doing something wrong or is the unit faulty in some way (which would be annoying as it is way outside any warranty period)?

Many thanks for any assistance I can get!!!!
 
This problem has been reported by a number of different people but I don't think anybody has come up with a convincing explanation or solution. Soory to be of no help but at least you are not doing anything wrong.
 
MartinLiddle said:
This problem has been reported by a number of different people but I don't think anybody has come up with a convincing explanation or solution. Soory to be of no help but at least you are not doing anything wrong.
Click to expand...

Thanks Martin,
Good to know. There is some strange comfort in knowing that it is a "recognised" issue even if there is no actual solution... as yet at least.
If my machine was the only one to do this it is more likely to be a fault - I am working on the basis that the more common the problem the greater chance of a solution, software fix, work-around!
I will keep checking the forums for any clues
 
Don't count on a solution. As you will have probably noted, anyone getting a response from Humax on the matter gets recited some mantra about resetting and whatnot. It allays the problems for a few weeks, people think it's fixed, then it returns with avengeance. This is the #1 deal-breaker for us - we've got a 9300 on long term loan and mostly love it, but it fails on the most important issue for any recorder: dependability. The only saving grace is that so far for us as far as we are aware it has only ever done its reboot immediately after bringing out of standby to watch live TV, so we are there at the time to see it glitch and the widescreen settings get defaulted - and can reprogramme in the schedule as required.
 
Agreed DTEG
I am aware of the cop-out responses Humax use to avoid any costly R&D input into software fixes on all but the most serious of problems (those that would potentially breach the requirements of the freeview+ contract and hence cost them sales)
Problems such as the one in this thread that are encountered by only a few customers are of course of little concern to a company this size. We can only hope that free discussion of issues will bring more occurrences to light to expose the true scale of each issue.
As you rightly note the result of all these minor issues is loss of confidence in reliability - a factor that once out in the open could easily cost Humax sales!
My problem is that I am not convinced that there is a better subscription free alternative out there?
 
Hi guys. My 9300 has recently decided that I can't rewind live broadcasts, or at least only by a few seconds, then it crashes back to live broadcasting of half an hour ago. When I then wind forward, it gets to the same point and then immediately crashes forward to the present time so I even miss the few seconds that I spent trying to rewind. Recorded sessions are fine so it would seem that the hardware is OK. I have updated the software to the July 2010 version but that has not cleared the problem. I have also cleaned lots off stuff of the drive to make sure available space had nothing to do with it. Any ideas?
 
doublebond said:
Hi guys. My 9300 has recently decided that I can't rewind live broadcasts, or at least only by a few seconds
Click to expand...
Known problem. The buffer used for holding live TV is corrupt. The easiest fix is to Format the hard drive from the HDD control menu but this will delete all recordings. Alternatively you can open the box and connect the hard drive to a PC and use humaxrw with the undocumented -D option that will delete the buffers and the Humax will create new buffers when next powered up.
 
Regarding the self re-booting, I had the same problem, and may have solved it. Not my solution, but one I read on another site (can't remember exactly which one at the moment). The self re-booting was gradually becoming more and more frequent, even a couple of times a week. So, following this advice I obtained a 'repair/reliability kit' from Satcure (not allowed to put a link to the website in case I'm a spammer, but easy to find via a search) which essentially includes replacement capacitors plus some heat shielding card (you could obtain the capacitors elsewhere, presumably for less money, but you'd need to know what to order, and you may not be able to get the heat shielding card). I installed this early November and haven't had the re-boot since, though as its only a month, time will tell. This is the third electronic gadget that has been fixed, assuming it has, by changing capacitors. The others were a Sony VCR and a Panasonic DVD-recorder, who you'd think would fit higher quality components than the budget brands.
 
Unfortunately, replacing the capacitors may not be the solution after all. The box did get through all of November and December, including lots of Xmas recording, but re-booted itself on the 3rd Jan. However, it could have been that my soldering wasn't up to the job (especially around one fairly large capacitor), so I will open up again at the weekend and have a look. Haven't given up on this approach yet, as I'm fairly sure it wouldn't otherwise have survived 2 months without a re-boot, based on how it was behaving prior to the component swap.
 
Since my original post the unit has been left on permanently and inexplicably, in those 2 months has not had one recurrence of the re-boot bug! I know that had probably jinxed it but for the time being at least seems to offer a temporary solution. Not sure how much extra it costs in electricity compared to the standby mode but am sure it is a small price to pay for not needing to keep resetting recordings and missing programs. I have a good couple of inches of air space around the unit and after 2 months and even after some very heavy hard-drive use over Xmas the unit never seems to over heat.
The fact that the fault only seems to happen (for my unit at least) whilst in standby may be significant to any readers more electronically gifted than me perhaps?
If I get a recurrence I will post again but for now seems stable
 
Maximum power usage is quoted as 26 W, with standard (including power saver with no display) as 0.9 W. So depending how long it would be on rather in standby each day, a rough estimate seems to be approximately £20 a year for the extra electricity. Potentially a price worth paying. As there won't be any software updates at this stage, there is no reason it needs to be left in standby. Incidentally, I did once notice the timer icon was on before I brought it out of standby, and that when booted up it had reset and lost the settings. Suggests to me that it may be that coming out of standby, when there will probably be some self-testing and spinning up the hard-drive may be the time when the greatest current loading is experienced, and this may be just enough to trigger a fault in the PSU and cause the re-set.
As it's only happened the once since the 2 months of operation without a reset, I will probably wait for another episode before opening the box again. There's always the possibility I will do more harm than good. I may opt for the 'always-on' approach, even if it's only when there will be no-one in the house for a while, e.g. holidays, as otherwise we would most likely only lose one day of recording, as irritating as that and the need to change the settings would be.
 
Have come across this forum while searching for a solution to the problem of the PVR300T auto updating.
We bought a second PVR300T for another room, just last November. (Very happy with the original box).
We had repeated problems with the new box updating overnight (in Standby) and losing the recording schedule.
Eventually found the option to 'Disable' auto update, and all stayed quiet for 2 months.
But last week (1st April would you believe), the Disable auto-update option had reset itself to Enable, and all schedules lost yet again.
Getting a bit pi***d off with it now.
 
. . . . update. Have now emailed Humax tech support as I've noticed that the faulty box is on software version 1.00.27 and not 1.00.26. Maybe something dodgy about that software version?
 
Hi Sophie,
Very sorry to hear the problems you are having but at the sane time strangely pleased that there are others out there who are having the same frustrations as I did. As I said soon after this thread was started I have left the unit permanently on... now 5 months in and not a single recurrence! Perhaps as one respondent suggested it may be the process of coming out if standby that causes the issue. I had convinced that the recent BST hour change was going to kick off some sort of issue but all went without a hitch.
Please keep adding to this thread if any others of you come across this problem - if it ever gets to the stage where an update is needed it is the evidence of the scale of the problem that will be needed!

Perhaps for another thread I know, but my gripe over the last few weeks has been the lack of or inconsistency of the start/stop signals on channel 5 broadcasts. In particular the CSI and Law & Order series seem to only record 10mins if anything at all, regardless of how the humax is set. If on series record it misses the start and/or end if the program, if on time-setting to extend recording by a few minutes each end it still does the same? It is as if the C5 signal is very poorly timed and over-rides any settings on humax. Very odd indeed!!!!
 
I have had my Humax for several years without too many faults but it has now rebooted twice in the last month even though I leave it permanently on even using it to watch the odd bit of live TV. It did it while I was in hospital which was a nuisance when I got home as we had to watch the one ITV program we like via ITVHub, yes I know, first world problem. It did it again last night, scrubbing the schedule, and the only thing I can link to is that I have an HDMi hub which I used last night to switch between DVD and Humax.

Well, the point of this is, has there been a solution?
 
As there didn't seem to be a solution I've decided to buy a new box. After much dithering I decided on the Panasonic HDD Recorder DMR-HWT250 which has dual tuners and most everything else that the Humax had, except for the search facility in the guide.

However, the major advantage is that it can receive HD channels and has other stuff I haven't worked out yet. The other advantage, which works but I haven't had to use in anger, is that there is an App which allows you to schedule programmes via your 'phone or tablet. It's connected to my broadband by wifi so I can manage the box from anywhere and even watch recorded programmes and access shared drives on my home network.
 
Born cynic said:
Maximum power usage is quoted as 26 W, with standard (including power saver with no display) as 0.9 W. So depending how long it would be on rather in standby each day, a rough estimate seems to be approximately £20 a year for the extra electricity. Potentially a price worth paying. As there won't be any software updates at this stage, there is no reason it needs to be left in standby. Incidentally, I did once notice the timer icon was on before I brought it out of standby, and that when booted up it had reset and lost the settings. Suggests to me that it may be that coming out of standby, when there will probably be some self-testing and spinning up the hard-drive may be the time when the greatest current loading is experienced, and this may be just enough to trigger a fault in the PSU and cause the re-set..
Click to expand...

I'm having the same problem of loss of schedule with a newly acquired 9300T, and noted the timer icon disappearing when coming out of standby. Have been testing various options and note that the schedule stays intact if I switch off via the power switch at the back. Still there if I switch on some hours or days later.

Paddy
 
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