# HR10-250 Rebooting - Going Bad?



## cwpomeroy (Oct 3, 2001)

Tonight unit started rebooting all by it's lonesome. Is this a sign of hard drive failure?

I have an extended warranty thru BB. Anyone had to get a unit serviced by them?


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## SD493 (Aug 16, 2003)

cwpomeroy said:


> Tonight unit started rebooting all by it's lonesome. Is this a sign of hard drive failure?
> 
> I have an extended warranty thru BB. Anyone had to get a unit serviced by them?


Mine is doing the same thing tonight. So far, it has rebooted three times. It's a little over two years old. Like you, I'm wondering if this is an indication of hard drive failure. I unplugged it for a little while and am now waiting for it to boot back up. See if that helps. (I was recording the season premire of House and so
I ended up with two partial recordings-at least one of them is the last 10 minutes).


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## MisterEd (Jun 6, 2001)

What worked for me when I started having just that problem last month (on my 9 month old HR10) was to do a CLEAR & DELETE EVERYTHING command. After I did that my 10 reboots a week completely stopped. I had also pulled the drives and ran SPINRITE on them (it took almost a week because I have 2 x 400gigs) and it found no errors. Others have posted the same results doing the same thing. YMMV as it could be a bad drive as well. Fortunately the CLEAR AND DELETE EVERYRTHING was 2 weeks before the FALL debuts so I didn't lose anything (although I had my S1 DSR6000 around as a backup.


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## phenom (Sep 13, 2006)

Mine did the exact same thing last week at the same time - rebooted with about 10 minutes or so left of House, the season premiere.

Tonight, it did it again, at the exact same spot - about 10 minutes left of House.

Because of some OTA issues last week, I was recording on both the OTA HD channel (2.1) and the Directv FoxE channel (88).


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## Mark Lopez (Jan 1, 2000)

MisterEd said:


> I had also pulled the drives and ran SPINRITE on them (it took almost a week because I have 2 x 400gigs) and it found no errors.


On a related note, a few months ago one of my units was rebooting fairly often. So I cloned the drive to another (which worked fine but it was a noisier drive) and then I ran some diagnostics on the original drive (with a hardware based drive analyzer). It found no errors. I cloned the noisier drive back to it and it's been fine ever since. <shrug>

So the bottom line is I don't think all reboot issues are due to bad drive, but can also be caused by some software glitch.


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## SD493 (Aug 16, 2003)

Last week after I had the repeated rebooting problem I unplugged the unit for about ten minutes and then let it reboot. I've had no problems since then.


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## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

I have two HR10-250's, and one rebooted at 9:52 PM Eastern tonight. I thought at first it was the hard drive, but now it looks like there's an epidemic???? (Well, ok, not an epidemic. Just quite a few coincidental reboots tonight.)


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## LoopinFool (Feb 25, 2005)

Our HR10-250 seems to have gotten its database messed up some time this afternoon. It failed to record anything after that (including House, grrr). The reason given was the same old "because power was lost" message. This evening, we went to look at our Now Playing list, and it got an error and rebooted on its own.
This seems to happen to a lot of our units pretty often. It always seems to be on a Monday or sometimes Tuesday. I do believe there's a software bug related to guide data somehow.
My fingers are crossed that one of the fixes deep in 6.3 takes care of this.

BTW, this episode of house will be on USA in the near future (upcoming episodes). Of course I'll need to get a new D* DVR+ to get USA-HD whenever that's available...and my 500GB upgrade drive is on its way...gotta play now that it's >2yrs old and will be "obsolete" soon.  

- LoopinFool


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## vlayton (Apr 6, 2004)

My box started the rebooting over the weekend. I had 6 OSU vs. Texas games, each 6 seconds long. More rebooting Monday but not yesterday. I went and bought a replacement drive from weaknees but now I'm wondering if this was some glitch. Never seen this in the 3(?) years I've owned the hr10-250. With the fall season starting, I didn't want a dead Tivo but now I'm wondering.


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## JoeTiVo (Jun 25, 2001)

Anybody else still having problems with this? My HR10-250 just started rebooting about 3 nights ago. It's doing it every night since. Tonight, three times. I'm recording (sometimes on both tuners) and watching recorded programs when it seems to happen. It does it at random intervals. I can't seem to find any one particular thing that is happening at the time of each reboot.

The unit seems to run fine all day long. It's on during the day, but nothing is being watched and typically nothing records. But come the night, naturally during prime-time, the reboots start happening.

Could it be a hard drive? I corrupt OS due to a failed 6.x install? Will it help to call D* tech support?

Thanks for any ideas or suggestions.


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## cwpomeroy (Oct 3, 2001)

(Knock on my wooden-scalp.)

Once I did a clear and reset of everything (wiped everything off the machine), I haven't encountered any reboots. I did hear after the fact that the less drastic clear of To-do's can help as well without losing all of your season pass & guide information. I'd start with those and see if it helps.


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## A J Ricaud (Jun 25, 2002)

Mark Lopez said:


> On a related note, a few months ago one of my units was rebooting fairly often. So I cloned the drive to another (which worked fine but it was a noisier drive) and then I ran some diagnostics on the original drive (with a hardware based drive analyzer). It found no errors. I cloned the noisier drive back to it and it's been fine ever since. <shrug>
> 
> So the bottom line is I don't think all reboot issues are due to bad drive, but can also be caused by some software glitch.


Did you clone your drives in a Linux box? I am thinking of doing the same thing but am a Linux newbie. Any help/instructions would be very appreciated.


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## ejasons (Feb 28, 2001)

Just to add a "Me, Too!" to the discussion.

Mine was similarly rebooting all last week. It was funny, as some of the programs that were to be recorded showed up in three parts, as the unit would restart the recording when it came up.

Now, however, when it comes up, it gets stuck on the "Loading Satellite Information -- 58%" screen, and never goes further. The remote still works, and I can go into the menus. I had hacked the unit (removed the hacks to see whether it would help), and there were no errors in the system log.

Last night, I tried "Clear All Program Data and ToDos". It claimed that it would take an hour, but it still wasn't done when I went to bed 2.5 hours later. This morning, it was back at the "58%" screen.

I find it very hard to believe that all of our HTiVos suddenly went bad at the same time. As soon as I write down my season passes, I'll try the "Clear Everything" and see if it helps. Then I'll try to put back the original hard disk. I'm not pleased...

Jason


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## oosik77 (Nov 22, 1999)

One thing you might check. If you have a UPS on your Tivo run it without for a few days. I had a problem that turned out to be my UPS getting flakey and it was causing my Tivo to reboot. Once it ran a few days with no problem I got a new UPS and all was well. Just 1 thing to test if that applies to you.


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## Meathead (Feb 19, 2002)

When I got home last night (very late), my wife told me that our box rebooted as well. I have no idea what time it did it, but she said it did it when she was trying to set something up to record. As far as I can tell, I do not have the new v6 software. I believe i am still running on v3.1.

I do have a UPS on my DTivo so I will try to unplug it from that for a few days & see if that may be the issue as well.


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## JoeTiVo (Jun 25, 2001)

Just an FYI... Uplugging the unit from the UPS was one of the first things I tried. It didn't work. Sorry I didn't mention it in my first post.

I'm going to try the clear data routine tomorrow... when I have some time. I'm going to need it


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## vjd3 (Mar 15, 2002)

Clearing the to-do list, message list, etc., cured mine without the drastic erase everything step ... try that first. It still took forever to do, though, hours and hours.


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## hiker (Nov 29, 2001)

One of my HR10's was rebooting hourly starting a couple of days ago. I did a Clear Program Data & To Do List and it is ok now. This is just as effective as Clear & Delete Everything and you don't lose your recordings.

Another HR10 rebooted today and right after The Welcome Powering Up screen, the Green Severe Error screen came up. Now it's in a reboot loop displaying those 2 screens so I guess the hard drive is bad. I have the protection plan and called D* for a replacement but they said wait a day or two and see if it recovers. I'm afraid they will just send a me and unwanted HR20-700 so I ordered a replacement drive from a guy on eBay and supposedly it's coming preloaded with 6.3, so that's some consolation.


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## bwaldron (Mar 16, 2003)

Tonight my HR10-250 missed its first recording in the 18 months or so I've owned it. I was watching another channel at about 10:20 and nooticed that the record light was not on, when it should have been recording Law and Order on the other tuner (via OTA).

Looking at the To-Do list, Law and Order showed up but nothing happpened when I attempted to select it to see what was up--I was just booted back to the To Do List.

I went back to live TV and switched to the second tuner, and it was indeed tuned to the proper channel and we were able to go back to the start of the buffer and watch the show "live"; it just didn't record.

After the show ended, I attempted to change channels and got a "channel not available" message on all channels, including the one I was just watching. At that point, I restarted the system. After the reboot, when I looked in my recording history, I got the bogus message that the show was not recorded because power had been lost.

I am still on 3.1.5f, unhacked unit, no other indications of drive problems. Unit had been completely trouble-free until today.



LoopinFool said:


> Our HR10-250 seems to have gotten its database messed up some time this afternoon. It failed to record anything after that (including House, grrr). The reason given was the same old "because power was lost" message. This evening, we went to look at our Now Playing list, and it got an error and rebooted on its own.


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## blucas95 (Sep 23, 2006)

JoeTiVo said:


> Anybody else still having problems with this? My HR10-250 just started rebooting about 3 nights ago. It's doing it every night since. Tonight, three times. I'm recording (sometimes on both tuners) and watching recorded programs when it seems to happen. It does it at random intervals. I can't seem to find any one particular thing that is happening at the time of each reboot.
> 
> The unit seems to run fine all day long. It's on during the day, but nothing is being watched and typically nothing records. But come the night, naturally during prime-time, the reboots start happening.
> 
> ...


I've had the occiasional reboot problem in the past but things seems to be getting worse recently.

I've been getting a lot of "Power was lost" messages in the last couple of weeks (causing missed records and the like) and then last night the HR10-250 started rebooting on it's own.

The wife missed at least pieces of the 9:00 and 10:00 shows. Then I was trying to watch the Ryder Cup this morning (all in OTA HD btw...) and it has rebooted twice already in an hour.

On the phone w/ D* TV now and they are suggesting the clear all setting method, but I don't want to loose all my shows. Guess I need to watch them all first.

Great! It just rebooted a third time. Seems to be about every 30 minutes... Piece of junk!!!


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## LoopinFool (Feb 25, 2005)

bwaldron said:


> After the show ended, I attempted to change channels and got a "channel not available" message on all channels, including the one I was just watching. At that point, I restarted the system. After the reboot, when I looked in my recording history, I got the bogus message that the show was not recorded because power had been lost.
> 
> I am still on 3.1.5f, unhacked unit, no other indications of drive problems. Unit had been completely trouble-free until today.


This morning ours also had the "channel not available" problem. While checking menus, it spontaneously rebooted. The two missed recordings from earlier this morning (and they don't repeat!) had the "internal error 4" message for why they didn't record.

This is a brand new drive I installed as an upgrade a week ago. We haven't had any problems with it since, including a system update to 3.1.5f after letting the unit call in. The only problem is the new Seagate (quietest drive in the world, my ***) is very loud.

Sure seems like there's a bug in the current software that gets triggered occasionally (every 1-2 weeks) by something coming down the satellite stream. It may also depend on which satellite/transponder it's tuned to.

- LoopinFool


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## Mark Lopez (Jan 1, 2000)

A J Ricaud said:


> Did you clone your drives in a Linux box?


No, it was a hardware based drive duplicator.


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## alwayscool (May 10, 2005)

Mine was doing the same thing last night. It took 5-10 mins between the time i pressed a button and the time it responded. Go figure? I just called D* and they told me the 6.3 software was ent down on Sept 12 to some customers and the rest will receive it on Oct 4 at 2 am local time. I hope that will fix this problem.


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

My receiver did the same reboot thing twice yesterday during the Michigan game on ESPN.


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## qubit (Jul 16, 2002)

I've had my HR10 since they came out with zero issues until 2 weeks ago it started rebooting and now sometimes takes 5 minutes to execute any command. I get my HR20-700 on friday so after that I'll clear and delete this one and upgrade the HDD


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## Avenger (Mar 26, 2002)

Another data point here. I have two HR10-250's, both of which have been rock-stable for a year now, since I bought them. Now, suddenly, I have had to re-boot the upstairs HR10 twice in the last week because items in the Now Playing list were inaccessible (you'd select them, and get dumped right back to the main menu). The downstairs HR10 has been spontaneously rebooting daily -- and it has a nearly new, upgraded 400GB drive in it! It usually seems to happen at about 9 p.m. each evening. 

I don't know whether or not there is any connection to 6.3 (my machines are both still running 3.1), but it is REALLY frustrating, because these machines have been pretty much infallible up until now.


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## A J Ricaud (Jun 25, 2002)

Mark Lopez said:


> No, it was a hardware based drive duplicator.


Thanks for the reply.


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## sdorshan (Jan 17, 2002)

My HR10-250 went bad yesterday. It gets to the "Almost there" screen, and then goes to GSOD (Severe error screen). It just keeps looping, doing this.

It's under warrantee, so I called DTV, got right through to a tech, described the problem, and he's Fedexing a new one to me. (He said it was new, not refurbished, but I won't be surprised if it isn't brand new.) Said I could even keep the old remote.

It was an unmodified unit, so I don't care if it is replaced, but I did have a bunch of unwatched shows on it.

Assuming it arrives as promised, that's the most satisfying call to customer service I've ever had. The call was answered quickly, the rep was knowledgeable and understandable, and the resolution was satisfactory. 

I wish the thing didn't die in under a year. My other two DTivos are running fine after almost 5 years. Maybe I could have recovered the drive, but I just don't have the time to do that.

Scott


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## Robert Simandl (Jan 16, 2004)

I've been having the spontaneous reboot thing happening for a few weeks now. Just tried the "clear program data and to-do list" option, and now it won't get past the "welcome, powering up" screen! 

This unit has had a Weaknees Maxtor Quikview 300 gig drive in it since the original WD drive died about a year and a half ago.

Guess I'll have to pull the plug and IF it gets back to where I can do something with it, THEN I'll do a clear and delete everything.


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## hiker (Nov 29, 2001)

sdorshan said:


> My HR10-250 went bad yesterday. It gets to the "Almost there" screen, and then goes to GSOD (Severe error screen). It just keeps looping, doing this.
> ...


I had the same thing happen, see my post above. I wonder if something was sent that caused this and it is not just a falied hard drive as I was assuming? hmmmm...


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## f0gax (Aug 8, 2002)

Been also having spotaneous reboots of my HR10 over the last few weeks. Today during the Bucs-Panthers game it rebooted twice. Also, a while after the first reboot the recording stopped, but the light stayed on.

Going to try to get off the UPS first. Then clear the ToDo list. And then the Clear and Delete everything as a last resort. I really don't want to take my chances and end up with an HR20 on the replacement plan.


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## Robert Simandl (Jan 16, 2004)

Robert Simandl said:


> I've been having the spontaneous reboot thing happening for a few weeks now. Just tried the "clear program data and to-do list" option, and now it won't get past the "welcome, powering up" screen!
> 
> This unit has had a Weaknees Maxtor Quikview 300 gig drive in it since the original WD drive died about a year and a half ago.
> 
> Guess I'll have to pull the plug and IF it gets back to where I can do something with it, THEN I'll do a clear and delete everything.


The screen says the clear program data and to do list process will take about an hour. Unfortunately this screen has been sitting there for almost TWO hours now.

Do I have cause for concern, or shoud I take that "about an hour" with a grain of salt?

Thanks...


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## hiker (Nov 29, 2001)

Robert Simandl said:


> The screen says the clear program data and to do list process will take about an hour. Unfortunately this screen has been sitting there for almost TWO hours now.
> 
> Do I have cause for concern, or shoud I take that "about an hour" with a grain of salt?
> 
> Thanks...


Don't be concerned yet, it takes a few hours.


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## Yog-Sothoth (Jun 14, 2005)

My HR10-250 has been rebooting quite a bit lately, too. Oh wait, it must be all of those "reboot" commands I've been issuing.


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## CountXavier (Apr 3, 2004)

My HR10-250 has been locking up lately (not responding to remote or hard buttons on the unit, freezing on pixelating pictures). I'd have to reboot the machine myself to have it work for an hour or so and then it will lock up again.

For the last 3 days, the unit has been rebooting itself. I figured I'd better try the CLEAR and DELETE everything. So, I did that about 7 hours ago and its stuck on the screen that says "Clearing and Deleting everything....do not unplug the recorder!" So, is it possible its still working? or do I just have a bad hard drive. The unit is 2 1/2 years old and all original. 

I'm also wondering if these reboots have anything to do with 6.3


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## eddieb4me (Jan 16, 2005)

My unit was also rebotting all the time. It started doing it once or twice a month, then a week, then a day, then 3-4 times a day. So back in April I did a "Clear and Delete Everything" and started from scratch, reinput my season passes, and it solved the problem. It also made everything MUCH MUCH faster. For example, it used to take 3-4 minutes from the time I pushed record for a show til the "Please Stand BY" went away and I could punch buttons again. After "Clear and Delete Everything", this time went down to about 5 seconds.

That's the good news. The bad news is over time, as I added more shows to the hard disk, it slowed down again and it's starting to reboot again a couple times a month. I know when it reboots cuz I have to "re-program" the thirty second skip feature.

I think bottom line is as these units' disks get used more and start to fill up and get fragmented, the reboots start to happen more frequently and things just get incredibly slower. I'm guessing in another 3-4 months I'll have to do another "Clear and Delete Everything" again.


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## durl (Dec 1, 2005)

I'll join the list of those who's box has rebooted suddenly. Back on the 9/21, I left the room for a few minutes and when I came back, my HR10 was rebooting. It's the first instance of any problem I've had since I got it 9 months ago. I haven't experienced any other reboots but that unit is used mainly at night so we're not there to monitor it all the time. We have a very small To-Do list and hardly any programs flagged either thumbs-up or down.

Seeing so many others with reboot issues has me a bit concerned.


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## blucas95 (Sep 23, 2006)

durl said:


> I'll join the list of those who's box has rebooted suddenly. Back on the 9/21, I left the room for a few minutes and when I came back, my HR10 was rebooting. It's the first instance of any problem I've had since I got it 9 months ago. I haven't experienced any other reboots but that unit is used mainly at night so we're not there to monitor it all the time. We have a very small To-Do list and hardly any programs flagged either thumbs-up or down.
> 
> Seeing so many others with reboot issues has me a bit concerned.


Try the "Clear Program Data and To Do List". I tried this on Saturday (took a few hours) and all has been well since. The box actually seems to be a little faster too, but that's probably since we cleared out 50+ Season Passes... Hope it helps.


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## JoeTiVo (Jun 25, 2001)

Thanks to all... the "Clear Data and To Do List" worked perfectly on my HR10-250. It took about 1.5 hours to clear the data and all has been well since. An added by-product is that adding new recordings/SPs only takes a few seconds as opposed to a few minutes.


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## Joseph e (Sep 26, 2006)

Afternoon all

This seems to be the problem I am having. So if I try the clear data and clear to do list, it will not wipe out what I have stored for programs?

Joe


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## alexstjo (Sep 26, 2006)

It looks like we are all in trouble.

I called Direct tv and they are sending me a new unit. I have the protection plan for $6.99 per month which will allow you to get a NEW unit. I hope they send me an HR20-700. Becuase I think there are no issues with that unit.

Alex


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## eddieb4me (Jan 16, 2005)

Joseph e said:


> Afternoon all
> 
> This seems to be the problem I am having. So if I try the clear data and clear to do list, it will not wipe out what I have stored for programs?
> 
> Joe


It will wipe out EVERYTHING - season passes, recorded shows, settings, etc. It's as if you just pulled the unit out of the box for the first time.


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## hiker (Nov 29, 2001)

I had a HR10 stuck in reboot loop and bought a hard drive with preloaded 6.3 software on eBay. I like the 6.3 software but my locals have not come in yet. If you need a pre-imaged hard drive at a good price and fast delivery look for eBay seller coolstufast.


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## CountXavier (Apr 3, 2004)

Are we sure this is a hard drive issue? I'll definitely replace my drives (as my unit is 2 1/2 years old) if we're sure about this. Being that I own this unit, but don't have a protection plan, does anyone think DirecTV would help out with this?


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## speedcouch (Oct 23, 2003)

Well I had the same problem with rebooting around 9 last night that I did last Tuesday! This is just so damn frustrating! Thankfully, I'd programmed the SD Tivo in the bedroom for NCIS, the Unit and Smith. 

The unit locked up totally on Sunday around 4:00 when it was getting ready to record the Ravens game and I made the mistake of looking at another HD channel at about 3:58 on one tuner while watching NASCAR on TNT-HD. It just seems to me this always happens when trying to record or watch two things in HD. Like the Tivo gets "overswhelmed" or something. Thankfully on Sunday, it didn't reboot and came back in about 5-10 minutes. 

Anybody else have the same Tuesday "blues" last night? 

Really considering the fix suggested here, but don't want to screw things up further....

Cheryl


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## Sir_winealot (Nov 18, 2000)

alexstjo said:


> I hope they send me an HR20-700. Becuase I think there are no issues with that unit.
> 
> Alex


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## JoeTiVo (Jun 25, 2001)

eddieb4me said:


> It will wipe out EVERYTHING - season passes, recorded shows, settings, etc. It's as if you just pulled the unit out of the box for the first time.


That's wrong. I didn't loose my recorded shows by choosing "Clear data and To Do List". There is another option, that I can't remember the name of exactly (I'm not at my Tivo), that will indeed wipe everything. I think it's 'Clear all data' or something to that effect.


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## Sir_winealot (Nov 18, 2000)

JoeTiVo said:


> That's wrong. I didn't loose my recorded shows by choosing "Clear data and To Do List". There is another option, that I can't remember the name of exactly (I'm not at my Tivo), that will indeed wipe everything. I think it's 'Clear all data' or something to that effect.


"Clear and Delete Everything" will wipe out ...'Everything.' You _will_ lose your recordings.

"Clear Data and To Do List" will _not_ affect your recorded programs in Now Playing ...but you will have to enter all your SP's again (so write them down!).


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## Scott44 (Jul 7, 2004)

Mine rebooted at least twice that I now of this week at almost the same time each time (8:30 a.m.). Further, at the same time as the reboot, the red recording light came on but no program was being recorded. Anyone else experience that?


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## McTivo (Mar 20, 2003)

It's suspicious that so many of us are experiencing reboot problems after our units have worked great for 2+ years. 

I have a theory. These units have been working hard for 2+ years and the hard drives are very fragmented or some other memory function inside the box is bogged down and gets overwhelmed from time to time. The reason the rebooting is happening to so many of us NOW is that the new fall season is underway and our TO DO lists are much longer than they have been all summer. 

Just a theory, but I like it. 

In any event, after having my HR10-250 reboot at least 6 times over the past 2 weeks, I ran the "Clear & Delete Program Data" last night. This morning, the guides and other functions were significantly faster. I'll cross my fingers that this will do the trick and eliminate my spontaneous reboots.


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## alexstjo (Sep 26, 2006)

I deleted the to do list and data last night. It took about 3 hours. BUT it works much faster now and no reboots.


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## Rick Sass (Feb 29, 2004)

Well my original HR10-250 locked up about 6 weeks ago and DTV has since sent me 3 replacement units - 1 new and 2 refurb. All three of the replacements has frozen with 24 hours of operation. Unplugging the power cord for 30 seconds resets the unit, however the units will lock up again within 24 hours. I did do a clear and delete but the unit still locked up after 24 hours.


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## cwpomeroy (Oct 3, 2001)

/sarcasm on

maybe the latest release has 

enable_randomlockuporreboot_toforcetransitiontoDTVDVRboxes = True

/sarcasm off


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## BillyT2002 (Oct 19, 2002)

That doesn't make since cwpomeroy because I had my HR20-700 installed on 9/18 along with my HR10-250 and HDVR2 and my HR10-250 (11 months old) is now experience random freeazing of frames during play back and during menu navigation and it has reboot itself once. So, something weird is afoot with all of these units failing at the same time, of that there is no doubt. However, I can't see DirecTV doing something to cause them all to fail to get us to the NDS-based DVRs as in my casr I already had one.  I'm going to try to watch all of my programming as quickly as possible with the wife, get as much new programming on the HR20 as fast as I can and then clear and delete everything and set it all up from scratch. If that doesn't work, then I will replace the hard drive.

However, so many people are complaining about the same things recently that I find it really hard to buy the problem is the hard drive.


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## CountXavier (Apr 3, 2004)

So, my unit has been stuck in a Clear and Delete all startup screen for 4 days now. I phoned DirecTV and they are going to replace the unit for me with the HR20. As I'm unhappy about this, they said they could not under any circumstances replace the unit with an HR10. I'm waiting for the unit to arrive to check it out, but I've already got it in my head to send it back and just install new hard drives in my broken unit. I was happy though that at least they're helping me out with the old unit. I just wish the Clear and Delete All strategy had worked for me....


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## finaldiet (May 10, 2004)

Mine re-booted twice while watching CSI:NY last night. Sounds like a problem with DTV since a lot of us having same problem. It also would not record. It would just make a loud BONG.


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## ejasons (Feb 28, 2001)

To follow up on my original post...

My unit had been zippered, so I put the original HD back in the unit, and it came up no problem (was previously stuck at "Updating -- 58%"). I had saved the original image when I zippered, so I attempted to put the original image back on the current drive. The restore got to about 70%, then stuck, and there were a bunch of errors in the Linux system log ("dmesg"). 

So, the hard drive was indeed bad. A quick trip to Fry's, and I replaced it with a $105 400GB drive, and all is well...

Jason


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## Rick Sass (Feb 29, 2004)

Well after 4 replacement HR10-250's, three new and one refurb in the last 5 weeks, I'm now going on 72 hours with the new HR10-250 and no rebooting or pix freeze up.


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## MoInSTL (Jan 25, 2006)

I have had mine replaced and even with the other unit I never had a random re-boot until last night. Last night was the first time this happened. Still with non-updated software although I received the message 6.3 would soon arrive.


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

reboot on stock 6 month old unit 2 minutes into survivor last night....


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## jvrobert (Mar 7, 2003)

Data point: "Me too"

Mine has started rebooting and generally being flaky over the last few weeks. I'll try clearing SP list if it persists.


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## BrewerBob (Feb 12, 2002)

I have had problems with my unit for the first time this week too. I am wondering if it has something to do with the upgrade currently underway. I did not have a single problem with this unit until I got the message indicating the upgrade is coming soon.

BrewerBob


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## stalemate (Aug 21, 2005)

alwayscool said:


> Mine was doing the same thing last night. It took 5-10 mins between the time i pressed a button and the time it responded. Go figure? I just called D* and they told me the 6.3 software was ent down on Sept 12 to some customers and the rest will receive it on Oct 4 at 2 am local time. I hope that will fix this problem.


Slightly off-topic, but I had no idea this was going on. Does this mean that as-of Oct 4, I'll be able to use folders? If so, I will love that, but not if it means my tivo will start acting strange 

I'm on pins and needles here!


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## IOTP (Aug 7, 2001)

Well, the wife was watching the season premier of the bachelor, boom -- rebooted. Intermiddently I get a reboot out of the blue about 2-4x a week.

CLEAR and DELETE won't work for me because I get the "you better save those shows".. 

So it got me to thinking.... 

Fry's Electronics has 500GB hitachi drives for $129 after a $40 rebate. 

Newegg has a Seagate Barracuda 500gb (Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3500641A 500GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM ) for $249.

What about just replacing the A+B drive combination with a new "A" drive?

Has anyone used Hitachi drives in their DVR? Should I use one brand of drive over another? What's the general idea, on manufactures over others?

I am looking for some ideas here....

Anyone got any, please chime in.

Also, what's the syntax to copy "A"+"B" drive to new "A" drive?? It would save me some digging around...


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## eddieb4me (Jan 16, 2005)

IOTP said:


> Well, the wife was watching the season premier of the bachelor, boom -- rebooted. Intermiddently I get a reboot out of the blue about 2-4x a week.
> 
> CLEAR and DELETE won't work for me because I get the "you better save those shows"..
> 
> ...


This is just my opinion, but I don't feel that the hard disk is the problem. I think it's the unit itself and the way it uses the disk.

In my experience, and I think this is others experience as well, when I first got the unit, it didn't reboot and was relatively fast. As the disk got fuller and more season passes were put on it, etc., things gradually got much slower and the rebooting started to happen. First a few times a month until, eventually it got up to 3-4 times a day. That's when I did the clean and delete everything. Then things were instantly back to like it was the day I bought it. But after about 6 months, it's rebooted a few times and gotten much slower again. Again it was gradual and not sudden. I'm assuming that these reboots will again get more frequent as time goes by.

My point here is if it was a disk problem, once you hit that part of the disk with something, reboots, etc. would start happening suddenly and often. I don't think it would be a gradual thing.

On a computer, you do defrags and other maintenance chores on your hard drive to keep it in good shape and running well. I don't believe (I could be wrong) these Tivo units do any kind of maintenance on the disk themselves and I know no way of doing one ourselves other than a clear and delete everything.

A Tivo's hard drive takes way more of a beating than your average computer hard drive because you are constantly adding and deleting to it. In a period of a month, upwards of 80%-90% of your Tivo's disk's contents probably have changed. But your average computer's hard drive probably has at least 50% of the contents that almost never change, and the rest doesn't change that much, but you still have to do disk maintenance on it. Imagine how fragmented your Tivo hard drive gets with all that abuse and no maintenance on top of it.

You can replace your hard drive, but my money says that won't correct your problem. Anybody agree/disagree?


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## Sir_winealot (Nov 18, 2000)

IOTP said:


> CLEAR and DELETE won't work for me because I get the "you better save those shows"..


You can do a 'Clear program data and To Do list' w/o losing any of your shows, you'll just have to re enter your SP's.


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

iotp

with my T60 i have successfully saved some shows on a failing disk (if that's your problem). I took the 2 80 gigs, got an advanced replacement on the one and copied the failing disk to a new disk and it worked with the old disk (good one) just fine. I did lose some programs though so my guess is since it copies the exact thing from old to new, if the program is corrupt on the bad drive, it will be bad on the new of course. 

also note that a listing in NP does not mean it copied over correctly. I had almost all titles but some wouldn't even play at all.


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## f0gax (Aug 8, 2002)

f0gax said:


> Been also having spotaneous reboots of my HR10 over the last few weeks. Today during the Bucs-Panthers game it rebooted twice. Also, a while after the first reboot the recording stopped, but the light stayed on.
> 
> Going to try to get off the UPS first. Then clear the ToDo list. And then the Clear and Delete everything as a last resort. I really don't want to take my chances and end up with an HR20 on the replacement plan.


Well, it went a week without a reboot after taking off the UPS. Rebooted Monday night during Heroes and Vanished. I notice the problem for me occurs only when recording or playing back HD content.

DirecTV will be out to the house today to trouble shootrecurring "Channel Not Available" problems. They suspect a cabling/dish/multiswitch issue. Which brings me to this question: does anyone think that a glitch in the signal could be responsible for these reboots?


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

if you find a solution to channels not available, post it as many people have that problem. I weekly reboot to avoid it and so far it's worked. But now i worry rebooting so much is torturing my tivos


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## hhh222 (Jul 28, 2005)

Well......I've got 2 HR10's and one just loaded 6.3a yesterday or Monday and has started to reboot and otherwise act odd.


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## hiker (Nov 29, 2001)

The Channel Not Available/Internal Error 4 problem, that many of us have experienced, I believe is a software bug. It has the classic symptoms of a memory leak software bug. 

Maybe it will be fixed with 6.3a. I've had 6.3 on one HR10 and it hasn't rebooted and the Channel Not Available problem has not occurred. Only time will tell. With 3.1.5f, after about one week, the problem would invariably show up.


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## f0gax (Aug 8, 2002)

Joy.
If they figure anything out, I'll let you all know.


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## rmassey (Sep 5, 2002)

I just received 6.3a on my HR10 last night and it rebooted within a few hours. Prior to 6.3a I have not had any issues on my stock, unhacked HR10-250. 

I may try C&D and/or get InstantCake and bake a 400 gb drive that I have in house.

What a PITA. I was perfectly happy with my stock 250 gb drive, now I have to go thru hoops to fix a DVR.


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## Duke (May 6, 2000)

bwaldron said:


> Tonight my HR10-250 missed its first recording in the 18 months or so I've owned it. I was watching another channel at about 10:20 and nooticed that the record light was not on, when it should have been recording Law and Order on the other tuner (via OTA).
> 
> Looking at the To-Do list, Law and Order showed up but nothing happpened when I attempted to select it to see what was up--I was just booted back to the To Do List.
> 
> ...


The exact same thing happend to me last week when my Tivo should have been recording Survivor (I'm still on 3.1.5f as well).


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

Mine is doing it a ton now...  I wonder if I should format this puppy. Its been working great for 2.5 years. I hate having to setup the SP's again but I can't go on like this with it rebooting every 5 minutes..


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## helmdawg (Oct 6, 2006)

I too been having rebooting problems. I originally thought it was the hard drive but this is my second box and less then a year old. Its seems to happen when recording HD content during prime time mostly, especially in this past week.

I called D-TV and they told me if I want to replace the box AGAIN, I would have to get their new box. I told them no, just send me the damm 6.3 update and hopefully its a software issue, as it seems to be since most of us are all in the same boat.


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## GDN (Dec 3, 2002)

My HR10-250 started the reboots a couple of weeks ago as well. It is very sporadic. I've lost two HDVR2's to failed hard drives and I don't think the randomness and infrequent reboots of the HR10-250 is mimicking what the HDVR2's did. Once they started rebooting - it got bad quickly.

The HR10-250 has only done it 4 or 5 times in the last 3 weeks. Each time it had done it - I checked hoping I had the new software - but I still don't have that - they were all random and it has only done it once while I was actually watching.

To say the least - I'm not willing to do the Delete and clear Everything yet - don't want to go through the whole reformat and lose a few of the shows I haven't had time to watch. Just hoping they'll release the software to the rest of us soon - I'm tired of waiting on it (I just want the speed increase) and guess I hope inside that it might stop the reboots as well.


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## JoeTiVo (Jun 25, 2001)

C'mon folks... you don't have to "Clear and Delete Everything" to fix this issue. Just choose "Clear program data and To Do list". You'll just have to re-enter your SPs, so be sure to write them down before hand. It's well worth the trouble.

If you're still experiencing reboots, I don't know how you can not have tried this already. After f*in' up about 4 of my shows, I decided I couldn't stand by and wait any longer. I've been running smoothly since and wish I would have done it sooner.


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## Kamakzie (Jan 8, 2004)

Thanks for the tip Joe I will try that if this starts up again...


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## f0gax (Aug 8, 2002)

f0gax said:


> Well, it went a week without a reboot after taking off the UPS. Rebooted Monday night during Heroes and Vanished. I notice the problem for me occurs only when recording or playing back HD content.
> 
> DirecTV will be out to the house today to trouble shootrecurring "Channel Not Available" problems. They suspect a cabling/dish/multiswitch issue. Which brings me to this question: does anyone think that a glitch in the signal could be responsible for these reboots?


The results of the service call were less than promising...
First, they screwed up the service call and forgot to send it out to the company that does the service. So I sat around last Wednesday for nothing. The guy did come out on Friday though.
Without looking at anything he wanted to replace the HR10. I mean the guy litteraly, actually, for real had been in my house for 15 seconds before saying that. He sighed when I declined and told him that the folks at the call center sent him out to check the physical layer stuff (dish, cable, multiswitch). So he went into the menus and checked signal strength. All good of course. He then tried to sell me the HR20 and a new dish for $99. When I objected again, citing the lack of OTA* and no dual buffers, he told me a story that Tivo had sued "everybody" and that all DVRs are really just Tivos with each cable or satellite company's name on it. I decided to just say "okay". He then told me the AT-9 was "junk" and they had a new dish. I don't know if that's true or not.

After a few more minutes he finally did what he was sent out to do. He found four bad ends on the cables at the multiswitch (all pro-install or store bought cables mind you**), and tightened down the rest.

Since then, no problems whatsoever. Well, as long as I keep DD turned off. But the channel not available hasn't popped up again and it's been nearly two weeks I think since the last time. The unit hasn't rebooted. And all recordings are working as expected. But, you know, I needed that HR20 to fix the problem.

*I told him that I record a fair amount of things not on the Big-4 via OTA. Well okay, one thing, but he was already deep into his lies (I like rationalizing...). He then goes on to tell me that D* carries ALL of the Tampa/St. Pete stations in HD via the new sats. I asked, "So you have 44, 38, 32, and all the rest then?" He replied in the positive. http://www.dbstalk.com/hr20/html/DIRECTV_lil_list.html says otherwise.

**Which isn't to say that they cables and ends couldn't be bad. Just that I'm disappointed that the previous installers put bad ends on the cables. And also that I must have a bad run of store boughts.


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## Rych6896 (Nov 26, 2002)

drew2k said:


> I have two HR10-250's, and one rebooted at 9:52 PM Eastern tonight. I thought at first it was the hard drive, but now it looks like there's an epidemic???? (Well, ok, not an epidemic. Just quite a few coincidental reboots tonight.)


I'm having this issue also... Mine reboots around 9:50Pm once or twice a week.
Also I've noticed this box as well as my older t60 have been starting their recordings 1 to 3 minutes late.


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## kanderna (Nov 26, 2003)

Sorry to bring this thread back to life, but are people still having this issue? I haven't noticed any reboots (I don't watch normal TV on this unit, but it does the majority of my recording), but I've noticed 14 missed recordings because "the power was out" since Oct. 15. I have 6.3, but not sure when I received it. It appears as though the "Clear program data" option will fix it, but has anyone heard of a root cause? I mean, for all of us to be having this problem it must have been a faulty download or something right?


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## gcavallo (Jan 3, 2004)

My HR10-250 suddenly started rebooting non-stop on Thursday afternoon and gets into a death loop. It starts with the "Powering Ups" screen and then advances to the DirecTV "Almost there" screen and then starts a never ending reboot cycle. I had no problem at all with this unit until this happened.

I called DirctV service and they immediately stated that they would ship me a new replacement unit by FedEx. The problem seemed to occur just as many users started to post about the rebooting issue.


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## ravedog (Apr 23, 2003)

gcavallo said:


> I called DirctV service and they immediately stated that they would ship me a new replacement unit by FedEx. The problem seemed to occur just as many users started to post about the rebooting issue.


Whoa! They said they'd send u out a new 10-250??? I was told that they would only give us the new DirectTV branded HD DVR.


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## henryld (Aug 16, 2005)

Mine just rebooted again. This is the 4th or 5th time in the 3 weeks I have had 6.3a. It never did this before the upgrade. Seems to happen mostly on the weekends while watching sports OTA on both tunners. I also have the audio dropout problem, mainly on Fox OTA, and a few other minor issues. My unit is only about 14 months old, with moderate use, so I hope it is not a HDD problem.


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## lynesjc (Feb 10, 2005)

Mine spontaneously rebooted for the first time Thurs. night and did it again on Sat. evening. It's possibly it could've been doing it before during the day when I'm not home.

Weird and extremely annoying.


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## SkersR1 (Jan 2, 2005)

I just received my replacement HR10-250. I haven't been home to set it up yet though. Just wondering if you think it might have the 6.3 on it or would it have the 3.1 on it. Also, if it has the 3.1 on it, when it calls in to activate the DVR service will that trigger it to download the 6.3?


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## majones (Sep 6, 2001)

There's a good chance it will have 3.1.5 on it.

The initial call made to activate the unit won't get it to 6.3. After the initial activation, however, you can disconnect the phone line to keep it from installing 6.3. After a couple of weeks you'll start getting the nag messages, but that's it.


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## SkersR1 (Jan 2, 2005)

Thank You - Got home and hooked it up & it has 3.1 on it


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## BobDarrow (Oct 9, 2002)

My TiVo began freezing and stuttering during playback of hi-def recorded programs within a couple days of the software update that gave me folders. Last night - Tues 11/7 - it froze for 10 seconds, then began an endless series of re-boots.

After unplugging, the unit behaved until tonight. It began the same behavior, except that it would not behave at all even after a several minute unplug.

Anyone think this is related to the software upgrade? Or is it just premature failure. My unit is less than 1 year old.

(I rent from DirecTV, so am getting a replacement FedEx for free.)


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## helmdawg (Oct 6, 2006)

JoeTiVo said:


> C'mon folks... you don't have to "Clear and Delete Everything" to fix this issue. Just choose "Clear program data and To Do list". You'll just have to re-enter your SPs, so be sure to write them down before hand. It's well worth the trouble.
> 
> If you're still experiencing reboots, I don't know how you can not have tried this already. After f*in' up about 4 of my shows, I decided I couldn't stand by and wait any longer. I've been running smoothly since and wish I would have done it sooner.


I agree with Joe Tivo. I now have 6.3a and did a clear data and to do and I haven't had one reboot. I used to reboot a few times a week.


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## ravedog (Apr 23, 2003)

I totally wiped out the unit (about 8 weeks ago)... and now the rebooting is back. Took a while but it's definately back.


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## Pilot20 (Mar 5, 2005)

I've had my HR10-250 for a little over two years, and it has worked without issues. I received the 6.3a update 3 weeks ago, and the unit has still performed well, until yesterday. 

The video and audio went out for a few seconds and a banner came on the screen that said "poor signal". I was using a sat tuner at the time. I had never seen that message before and the weather was perfect. I checked the sat signal strength and everything was above 90%. 

Then this morning at 8:15, the unit spontaneously rebooted. That is the first time in two years of usage that I am aware of any reboot that wasn't initiated by me.

It is frustrating trying to troubleshoot these issues since you don't know if it's hardware or software related.

I guess I will do the "clear program data and to do list" and see if that helps.


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## Budget_HT (Jan 2, 2001)

My HR10-250 that has 6.3a loaded went through one (and only one) reboot about 3 weeks ago, and no problems since except the audio dropouts. 

Pilot20, perhaps before you jump to a clear and delete, you may want to wait a while and see if there are any more problems.


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