Darwin to Darwin Recording Copier - Beta Testers Wanted!

[jeallen01]

Thanks

Have just replied on the ph-mb forums to the effect that:
In the end, somewhat in desparation, I reloaded the O/S on the DRX-890 by applying the power with the box "power switch" depressed and allowing enough time for the O/S to reload - after a couple of system power off/power on-resets, that seems to have rectified the problem (or at least for the moment).

Regards

John

Good job I said "(or at least for the moment)" - well, everything worked for two weeks.

However, until about an hour ago, the situation was the disk (in an external enclosure, if you remember) was about 75% full, and seemed to be recording/deleting pretty much OK - although the occasional sequence of "mains power off", followed by "mains power on" again was required when a system lock-up occurred. The only exception to this was that a recording of the cartoon "Rango" was (still is!) showing twice in the Planner as a "series recorded" programme- but I could not delete either copy.

Then, when trying to briefly pausing a programme (to talk to my wife), it would not pause, and so I did another sequence as above, and so the trouble started!

After that it would not record at all, and the contents disappeared from the Planner (did sometimes happen after a power sequence if you did not wait long enough before powering it up again).

So I disconnected the disk and did a power sequence and Full system reset, then powered it off, reconnected the disk and powered it up again.

Went to the Planner - all the recordings still showing and accessible BUT (BIG BUT!):
- Planner was showing 100% disk space availability, with the "space filled bar" almost completely empty.
- Cannot delete anything already recorded (pressing the Yellow button results in a brief Deleting message and then back to "Recorded".
- Cannot delete any programmes set to record in the future in the Planner (although I was able to delete one Reminder for this evening that was in the Planner)

Went through all the following steps with no sucess:
- Planner Rebuilds (several times)
- Full system reset with disk disconnected (several times)
- Full operating system download (as previous post) with disk disconnected.

Ergo - BIG problem - which I kinda think is probably on the disk, rather than in the HD box because I think the box is getting an erroneous free capacity message from the disk.

Immediate problem is that I think the Planner will now record to the disk as if the disk is empty - resulting in either overwritten existing recordings (and/but which ones?) and/or corrupted new recordings!

Any suggestions?

John

PS - will also post this on ph-mb forum.

[jeallen01]

Thanks

Have just replied on the ph-mb forums to the effect that:
In the end, somewhat in desparation, I reloaded the O/S on the DRX-890 by applying the power with the box "power switch" depressed and allowing enough time for the O/S to reload - after a couple of system power off/power on-resets, that seems to have rectified the problem (or at least for the moment).

Regards

John

Good job I said "(or at least for the moment)" - well, everything worked for two weeks.

However, until about an hour ago, the situation was the disk (in an external enclosure, if you remember) was showing about 75% free disk space, and seemed to be recording/deleting pretty much OK - although the occasional sequence of "mains power off", followed by "mains power on" again was required when a system lock-up occurred. The only exception to this was that a recording of the cartoon "Rango" was (still is!) showing twice in the Planner as a "series recorded" programme- but I could not delete either copy.

Then, when trying to briefly pausing a programme (to talk to my wife), it would not pause, and so I did another sequence as above, and so the trouble started!

After that it would not record at all, and the contents disappeared from the Planner (did sometimes happen after a power sequence if you did not wait long enough before powering it up again).

So I disconnected the disk and did a power sequence and Full system reset, then powered it off, reconnected the disk and powered it up again.

Went to the Planner - all the recordings still showing and accessible BUT (BIG BUT!):
- Planner was showing 100% disk space availability, with the "space filled bar" almost completely empty.
- Cannot delete anything already recorded (pressing the Yellow button results in a brief Deleting message and then back to "Recorded".
- Cannot delete any programmes set to record in the future in the Planner (although I was able to delete one Reminder for this evening that was in the Planner)

Went through all the following steps with no sucess:
- Planner Rebuilds (several times)
- Full system reset with disk disconnected (several times)
- Full operating system download (as previous post) with disk disconnected.

Ergo - BIG problem - which I kinda think is probably on the disk, rather than in the HD box because I think the box is getting an erroneous free capacity message from the disk.

Immediate problem is that I think the Planner will now record to the disk as if the disk is empty - resulting in either overwritten existing recordings (and/but which ones?) and/or corrupted new recordings!

Any suggestions?

John

PS - will also post this on ph-mb forum.

[mrmt32]

Would you be able to run the diagnostic tool on the drive and send me the zip file? Hopefully there will be some indication as to what is causing all the problems, it is a strange collection of issues though; I have not seen anything like that happen before.

[Scubbie]

Do you have the new EPG?

Some people on the Beta forum have had issues with some of the Beta versions which caused the planner contents to vanish temporarily. Another hard reset (i.e. disconnect the mains) should help i this is the case.

[jeallen01]

Do you have the new EPG?

Some people on the Beta forum have had issues with some of the Beta versions which caused the planner contents to vanish temporarily. Another hard reset (i.e. disconnect the mains) should help i this is the case.

Scubbie

Thanks - but that is what I was actually doing with the power sequence described above by switching the box off at the wall socket (the disk enclosure is powered from another socket), but, obviously, it did not do the trick.

John

[jeallen01]

Would you be able to run the diagnostic tool on the drive and send me the zip file? Hopefully there will be some indication as to what is causing all the problems, it is a strange collection of issues though; I have not seen anything like that happen before.

As I posted on your forum (as a PS which was not posted here) I have just disconnected the 2TB disk and reconnected the original 500GB disk from the HD box. Almost everything seems normal with that one and I can delete old recordings (Except the duplicated versions of Rango, which were recorded on it before I copied the files to the 2TB disk with ExPVR!) and make new ones. The "Almost" bit is that if I pause a new recording and then restart it, the video track plays but the audio track does not - might be cured with another Full System Reset/OS download (or at least I hope so!)

Have now got the 2TB disk in our office where the computers are, and will aim to run the diagnostics as you ask (but probably tomorrow or Tuesday due to other issues - like the accounts for my new job!).

Regards

John

[jeallen01]

Update

I think the HD box has somehow been knocked out in respect of the disk interface, as there is no change from the above situation, and it won't even see the old disk from that box when in an external enclosure - multiple full system reset, OS downloads etc., don't have any effect! :-(

Probably going to have to look at getting it exchanged (out of warrantee, of course) by Sky, or even buying a brand new one (maybe even a genuine DRX895 1TB box :-()

OTOH, any suggestions for getting it repaired by a reputable company for somewhat less?

PS: Tried to run the ExPVR Diagnostics on the disk this afternoon, but that ran for many minutes without completion :-( :-(

John

[jeallen01]

Probably going to have to look at getting it exchanged (out of warrantee, of course) by Sky, or even buying a brand new one (maybe even a genuine DRX895 1TB box :-()

OTOH, any suggestions for getting it repaired by a reputable company for somewhat less?John

Now have the box apart and tried to connect the 2TB disk direct to the SATA interface - no joy!

Again - any suggestions for getting it repaired because I have just been quote £149 for a 1TB box - fair enough - but then another compulsory £60 for installation with no self-install option! Rip-off as the "engineer" will just be standing there watching me do it myself!!
OTOH, may just getting a replacement std HD box from Sky and going around the loop again with the 2TB disk might be a better option?

John

[Skymate]

I am unable to use the ExPVr repair tool. When I open the program I get this message:

Unhandled exception has occurred in a component in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue.
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

The program then crashes.

[jeallen01]

Sorry that I have not been on the forum for the last few weeks, but life in general has been very busy (contracting, long hours, starting own company, = accountants, HMRC paperwork etc. - Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

To be honest, in the end, I gave up with the existing HD box as I really had not got the time to do anything else with it to try to fix the problems.

Took a chance and bought a ready converted 2TB "ex-demo" from an Ebay supplier near Banbury (after reading his feedback) for £159 delivered (1 yr warranty) - and I have been very pleasantly surprised: it did actually look virtually brand new and arrived in genuine box with new R/C and HDMI cable!

Been installed for nearly 2 months now and has worked perfectly - so I could not really ask for more (except a way to tranfer the recordings from the original HD box 2TB disk!)

If anyone wants details of the supplier, then please PM me as I think I can recommend him (also, his correspondence before and during the sale was excellent)

Maybe one day (soon?) I will find time to do something about the old HD box - which, unfortunately, is still sitting in bits behind me as I write this post! :-(