Tuner issues on startup

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videoade

New Member
Hello folks

I have an issue that's started in the last couple of weeks where on startup the tuner/s are not able to show any channels for the first couple of minutes, displaying a message 'the channel is missing or scrambled'. I realised we had a retune event in our area and thought that would be the issue but after retuning the problem still persists. I suspect the tuner modules or something related to them are on the way out, after all these units are all getting on a bit now.

I'm running a fixdisk as I write but there's no indication of HD issues from day to day operation prior to this tuner problem, the secret menu tuner test shows a good signal and 100% quality on both tuners even while no tv channels are available and the pass through to the direct to the TV works fine at all times.

A couple of observations which seem a bit strange; when the channel info in the grey bar first comes up on start up it shows the program info and normal signal levels but then the broadcast doesn't display (message 'the channel is missing or scrambled') and the signal level and quality both drop to zero (tuner test shows good signal during this time). Also the date displayed in the grey bar at this point goes back to April 2016 too and then corrects once a signal is restored. I have had the date come up correctly once in this situation and I wondered if this maybe because it was on standby for a short period of time on (>1day) this occasion.

The date issue made me wonder if there was 'motherboard' battery for maintaining such things as is found on some computers, but the unit is powered all the time and in standby when not viewing or recording. It does seem like scheduled recordings are being missed too if from standby, which could be because the date is wrong until the unit has picked up a channel and self corrected.

If anyone has any experience or thoughts on a fix I'd appreciated it. Worst case I can swap the HD into a spare T2 and look out for a new spare. Am I right in thinking as long as any existing recordings on the disk are decrypted then they will play on the replacement T2 and any new recordings will be tied to the new T2s encryption key and so basically I will carry on as before with no further interventions?

I have read a kind of similar post which didn't really seem to come to any conclusion other than possible bad solder joints or track issues on the board due to heat/age.

Thanks in advance, Adrian
 
It certainly sounds like things are going dicky, and not in a way we are familiar with. There are several systems involved: the front panel handles wake-up timing, but has nothing to do with the tuners. There are no batteries.

The only thing you might try is a system flush, but I don't honestly hold much hope.

Steps for Resolving HDR-FOX Crash/Reboot Issues (click)

videoade said:
Am I right in thinking as long as any existing recordings on the disk are decrypted then they will play on the replacement T2 and any new recordings will be tied to the new T2s encryption key and so basically I will carry on as before with no further interventions?
Click to expand...
Yes, or you can use CF to force the new unit to operate the same key as the old unit.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the suggestion.

The fixdisk appears to have modified the file system on all three partitions so maybe that will help. I'll test it out and if it's not better try the flush and see where we go from there.

It's the clock changing thing I find odd and why change to 2016? It could be around the time I first did the CFW but it's hard to remember now.

Sadly I suspect this T2 may have reached it's end of service.
 
videoade said:
I have an issue that's started in the last couple of weeks where on startup the tuner/s are not able to show any channels for the first couple of minutes, displaying a message 'the channel is missing or scrambled'.
Click to expand...
Snap, but for me it started a few months ago and has got worse. I now also occasionally have drop outs after the first few minutes , and the drop outs at the start can now last more than a couple of minutes.

While it is in that state the Signal Detection screen shows Strength and Signal as exactly what I would previously have expect them compared to when the unit was fully working.
Pressing instant record with the no signal message displayed (to occupy the first tuner), then allows watching of any channel from a different mux.

I already have a spare and will use that instead but use the best looking cover of the two, keep the old fan as a spare, but in my case not the old front display as that it is close to being on its last green legs.
 
@Luke Yes mine too can be a bit on/off for a few minutes after the initial not tuning phase, have you noticed any of the clock changing issues?

That's also interesting with the instant record... Last night (and we hardly ever do this) because the box had been on for a while I was able run back to the start of the Cricket when I put the TV on in the middle of it and realised I'd not set a record. My wife then had a work call so I hit record so we could come back to it later. I would expect the program to be saved and it was only when we came to watch it later all we had was the black screen with the no channel or scrambled message (iplayer to the rescue). It's most bizarre as I was able to scroll back and forth in the 2 hours of live broadcast but when it saved it became unwatchable. I wonder if this points more to a software glitch rather than hardware, something to do with the encrytion perhaps as I guess the when the program was saved it would have been encrypted (or is the live broadcast encrypted in someway too?)? I might try watching the recording via the second machine tonight and see what happens...
 
videoade said:
I wonder if this points more to a software glitch rather than hardware, something to do with the encrytion perhaps as I guess the when the program was saved it would have been encrypted (or is the live broadcast encrypted in someway too?)?
Click to expand...
Could this be a different manifestation of the bug where the box gets confused about its recording keys?
 
It does sound similar to a problem I had with one of my boxes, see this thread https://hummy.tv/forum/threads/power-supply-issue.8313/

I never did find the exact problem as I got a replacement box and so stopped trying to find the exact cause, but it did start off as an annoyance and the problem got worse with time. I initially wondered if it was a PSU problem (hence the title of the thread) but this was ruled out fairly quickly.
 
Yes agreed, it does seem a similar problem.

I've switched the HD over into my spare machine and we are fully operational again, also the spare seems noticeably more responsive. Judging by the serial numbers its slightly older than the failing one but the original HD in the spare had much lower hours on it.

Very interestingly... The time shift recording from a few days that wouldn't play on the old machine (showing the black screen and scramble/unavailable message) plays fine on the replacement from the same HD... Go figure... At the time we returned to watch it on the old machine it would have been 2-3 hours after the recording so I presume it would have decrypted by that point.

One other obsveration after switching to the spare is the HD space available shows incorrectly. The little graphic is about about right for usage but the text is at least double the actual space remaining
 
Reading the post in isolation, it is not immediately obvious what
videoade said:
HD
Click to expand...
means in this context - especially as this forum is about HDR-FOX and HD-FOX, where "HD" means "High Definitition". HDD is standard for "Hard Disk Drive".
 
I see your point there Black Hole but in context I hope it did make some sense. Noted for the future though, unlike my old box which appears to have no future other than possible spares!
 
videoade said:
@Luke Yes mine too can be a bit on/off for a few minutes after the initial not tuning phase, have you noticed any of the clock changing issues?
Click to expand...
It did occasionally have the wrong date at start up but I didn't take much notice of it. I don't thing it was 2016 as I hope I would have noticed that. Normally when it loses the date it goes back to 1971.

videoade said:
That's also interesting with the instant record... Last night (and we hardly ever do this) because the box had been on for a while I was able run back to the start of the Cricket when I put the TV on in the middle of it ...
Click to expand...
That surprised me a little as I haven't experienced that. It may just have been a separate glitch.
When yours is playing up if you occupy the 1st tuner, by starting a recording, can you then watch a channel on a different mux?
 
I have a HDR-FOX T2 with a very similar issue, it is a 1TB version, and obviously a few years old.
It has the fault where the channels are all lost - and the signal levels and quality still show as before.
It is as if the tuner is still seeing the muxes, but is unable to decode any of the services.
A full rescan, and they all reappear - and after a while they are all missing again.
I have forced a downgrade and then an upgrade back to the most up to date version, but the fault persists.
I've opened it up, hoping to find a small internal battery, but nothing there.
I doubt it is anything other than a hardware fault to do with storing the service tables, but I can't think what to try next.
I might try the custom firmware, although I don't imagine that will be able to solve this fault!

(For the record I also have a 500GB one, almost a decade of perfect service, and still going strong in daily use - a really good purchase back in the day)
 
Andy H said:
(For the record I also have a 500GB one, almost a decade of perfect service, and still going strong in daily use - a really good purchase back in the day)
Click to expand...

Me too, 10 years to this week. :) And you're a new member? Shame on you! :rolleyes:
 
It has been doing it intermittently, and now seems to be doing it daily.
I have loaded the custom firmware on both boxes for the first time, and will use that to try to see if that offers any clues or solutions.
When I added it to the faulty box, it suddenly started decoding BBC One HD that it wasn't before the upload..... very odd!
 
Yes I have been meaning to post on here before, but life got in the way, and with a box working flawlessly, I didn't really have it as a priority.
I am ashamed!
 
Andy H said:
When I added it to the faulty box, it suddenly started decoding BBC One HD that it wasn't before the upload..... very odd!
Click to expand...
Beware coincidences. Correlation does not prove causation. The only reason those events might be connected is if the operational firmware in flash memory had somehow degraded and was refreshed by the re-installation (not impossible, but not previously reported, and anything like that should affect all HiDef services not just one).
 
Yes, it is too good to be true, and I agree that it may just be a coincidence.
By the way it was all channels on all muxes that it wouldn't decode, I had just left it set to BBC One HD.
 
The faulty box was showing the message "scrambled or unavailable", but it was still still showing that the muxes were still present on the signal indication.
I have no reason to doubt that the muxes were still being present at the input of the tuner, as the same aerial is feeding the other Humax, and the telly, and all is fine with those.
When I installed the custom software the picture and sound started decoding after a short period.
First it appeared with break up on it, and after about 30 seconds all came good, when I checked all channels, every one was decoding fine.
 
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