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BellTV 9242: Firmware V183 Discussion (EHD fixes)

98K views 272 replies 96 participants last post by  jumpy27 
#1 ·
My 9242 just upgraded from V182 to V183! Can't find any changes yet though. Perhaps they've addressed the EHD issues?

-Mike
 
#90 ·
9200 Failing and needing to be replaced

Hello Everyone,

I'm a brand new member to this board and if I am posting this in the wrong thread, please direct me to the right one and I appologize in advance.

Here's the deal. I've got a 9200 that's been replaced a number of times, usually shortly after the warranty is up on it.

It starts out giving problems where it needs to search for sats to aquire signal (even though a number of other recievers are connected to the same dish and functioning properly), Once it get's signal and re-starts tv broad cast, it will last for a period of time, then go through the process again. Each cycle gets subsequently shorter until it won't grab signal at all. It eventually gets to the point where it will only light the 3rd green light from the left for a short period of time and then re-boots.

And yes, I have done all the trouble shooting per Bell's instructions. Many times over.

The only solution seems to be to replace the reciever, at a cost of $149.00. If you whine and cry loud enough they will give you some programming to offset the cost.

The latest episode started yesterday with the reciever finally giving it up today. It seems pretty coincidental when they just did a firmware upgrade that my reciever pukes. I was on the phone an hour tonight with them and they finally agreed to offset the entire price of the replacement that they are sending for my 4 mo old 9200. But it came with a stern warning that this would be the last out of warranty credit they would give me.

It must be pretty nice when you can sell product that fails over and over again and only back it with a 3 mo warranty. I'll bet statistics show they generally fail somwhere after the 3mo+ mark.

Can anyone shed any light on this? Do you think it was firmware that caused it? Has it happens to lots of people? Is there a possibility that we could launch a class action suit?

Any and all opinions or info will be greatly appreciated.

A satisfied Bell customer (NOT!).
 
#91 ·
Can you subscribe to dishcare, $6/month?

FWIW, every time they update firmware, a new set of problems seems to be introduced. Some of these issues are experienced by many, some by few people.

My 9200/9242 has been replaced roughly 15 times since new, and I have never had to pay for any of these replacements. Every time there is a problem and the receiver does not function as it should, we walk through the fixes. If it does not resolve the issue, they replace it, as per the dishcare warranty--and before I had dishcare the replacements were done within the one year standard warranties. As far as I am concerned, the warranty should apply to the receiver you have, and should begin from the date you start using it. If they can't make their equipment work (even the one year seems inadequate for a $600 box) for the warranty period, then they should have to replace it--and guarantee the new box for a year. I know that's what they honored for me, originally.
 
#95 ·
Has anyone been able to resolve the full EHD bug? My EHD is full, and everytime I try to access it, the 9242 hangs, then reboots. I've disconnected, reconnected, even spent an hour talking to andy in India trying to convince him that it is not my 'satellite wires' that are the problem, and that perhaps a level three tech may be able to help me more effectively. Andy is a PITA.

Anyhoo, I've been able to use an identical drive to archive and recover now that one drive is full and inaccessible, and the full drive was flawless to this point. Anyone?
 
#96 ·
Hi jb1,

I had the same problem your experiencing, my external drive was full and when I tried to access it the 9242 would hang and reboot. I am pleased to report I have been able to fix the problem. I warn you that the solution is not pretty but it works and does not require you to format the external HD and lose all your recordings.

The receiver formats the external HD using a Linux ext3 filesystem. The drive can be mounted by any recent Linux distribution - Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop is what I used. Once the drive is mounted in Linux it shows up as three separate partitions: disk - one small 1GB partition (seems to be a swap and/or control partition), disk-1 and disk-2 two larger partitions where the video files are stored. Inside the disk-1 and disk-2 mounts you will find a folder called DishArc. This is the folder where the video archive folders can be found. On my drive they were named both alphanumerically and just numerically. Inside each video archive folder you will find four files bm, cat, tsp, wtt. If you open the cat file with a text editor you can see the name of the video recording this file holds along with the description that shows up in the PVR info window. If your not concerned about what video your are deleting you can just inspect each folder to see how large it is and choose one for deletion. I choose a large archive of about 7GB to delete and I also chose to delete the archive from the partition that was most full.

Up to this point everything I have described was done using the Ubuntu Desktop GUI. To make the deletions, however, I used the terminal. In terminal change directories down (cd ..) until you are in the user directory and change to the directory called media (cd media). Then call a list (ls). Then change directory to disk-1 or disk-2 (cd disk-1) - choose the directory where the folder you want to delete is. Then (cd DishArc) - remember Linux is case sensitive. Then list screen (ls). Now you will see the list of folders. Now to delete the folder you want to remove do the following: sudo rm xxxxxxxx/* (enter password when prompted) and when this has finished do this: sudo rmdir xxxxxxxx - remember that xxxxxxxx is to be replaced with the name of the directory to be removed.

Presto the video archive has been deleted. Try deleting just one directory and reconnecting to the 9242. If all is well it will be able to connect - if not remove another one and be sure to delete them from the partition that is most full.

Now if you have a way to mount Linux partitions from within your own operating system (Windows, Mac) then this could all be much easier. I choose to use Linux for this and it worked well - your milage may vary with Linux or any other OS - I make no warranties. The one question that remains, however, is how the software for the 9242 could be written to allow a drive to fill up in the first place. A simple script could keep this from happening by stopping the archiving process and telling the user the drive is full.

Cheers,

thegiant
 
#101 ·
Now to delete the folder you want to remove do the following: sudo rm xxxxxxxx/* (enter password when prompted) and when this has finished do this: sudo rmdir xxxxxxxx - remember that xxxxxxxx is to be replaced with the name of the directory to be removed.
I'm curious as to why "sudo" would be required. I would think "rm" on its own would be fine.

FYI - You should be able to combine "rm" and "rmdir" into "rm -R" assuming it conforms to typical linux conventions :)

If a person isn't familiar with "ls" and "cd" then I would suggest they don't even bother trying this :)
 
#97 ·
Also, if you don't want to lose any recordings, you can copy the directories to another drive that was previously formatted on the same 9242. Test the destination drive to make sure your shows work and then proceed to delete them from your full drive. Just copy the whole (numbered name ) directories to the other drive.
 
#98 ·
By the way, anybody have any updates from bell for those of us who still have the disconnect problem ? I tried two different drives this weekend and I still have the disconnect problem but with the second drive the show just froze requiring a hard reboot. I do have V183 of the firmware.
 
#99 ·
thegiant, thanks for your reply, I'll give 'er a go tonight.

As for the reason that Bell didn't pre-empt this with a simple bit of script--just like the rest of their firmware there was clearly not enough beta testing. Let's just hope their track record for fixing these newly created bugs doesn't hold true for this, or it could be a year or more before we see it corrected.

Let's hope they are paying attention and instead of being 'unaware of this issue' they take the opportunity to inform themselves via this very valuable website. They have a very dinstinct issue identified and should be able to come up with a fix without much trouble. I'm not aware of the costs and risks involved with what would seem to be such a simple fix, but it would be nice if they had a bit more flexibility, or willingness, to roll out firmware fixes on items like these promptly.
 
#102 ·
I guess I am a masochist of some sort....I called Bell again to follow up on the disconnect issue and they checked into the situation and the guy spoke to his technical supervisor and came back on the line and said they know its a software problem and they are working on it. Again, I asked if they had a target date for a new firmware release , and again they said they have no idea could be weeks or months. :mad:

Well you can be sure that I will not be paying $20 a month to rent a machine that is not working as advertised .....
 
#108 ·
Bell claims they don't support drives that have a sleep mode. See if you can disable that mode (maybe with software that came with the drive). Yes you can unplug the power from the back of the drive or from wall or power bar. If you have an old unused cheap power bar with a switch, you could use that to switch the drive on an off without unplugging any wires at all.
 
#109 ·
USB Switch or Hub

I am presently using a 1TB Lacie with my 9242 Pvr. Works great but is getting full. I want to add a second drive. Should I use a formal USB switch or would a straight forward hub do. I think the hub might screw up the pvr as it may not which drive to read. Can it read more than one drive?
 
#110 ·
I've never tried it, but I think it can only see one drive at a time, or at least one that appears as one drive to the USB interface (which can sometimes be two physical drives). Your only choice is to try a bigger single disk. I might be facing the same problem too as I have over 80 hours of HD stored on my 1 TB disk.

-Mike
 
#111 ·
Noisy LaCie EHD ?

For those of you that have a LaCie (750GB) , do you find it noisy ?

I picked one up on the weekend hoping it will resolve my EHD disconnect issues and I find the drive has a mild whirring sound like a fan running. This is constant. Also, when the drive is read from and written to , you can hear a mild clicking sound. Most of the time I don't hear it but in quiet scenes you can hear it working and it distracts from the movie.

I thought these things were supposed to be virtually silent. My other two (different brand) EHDs are totally silent.
 
#113 ·
I have 2 1TB Lacie drives plugged into a simple USB hub I picked up at Wal-Mart of all place for $10 or so .. . . just turn one off and the other on and switching drives is that simple. . . I keep one 'on' all the time. I have tried to keep one drive for movies, one for TV shows. . . . .

Problem: Last nite I just tried to archive my latest batch of movies and woke up this morning to what must be a 'full' HD. . . . won't read the drive and reboots every time I try. I didn't think I was that close to filling it but guess so. . . here's a question?? Do you think the drive is really full, or is it maxed at the advertised 750GB ceiling?? I was sure I had lots of hours left. . .

As for the 'fix' mentioned above in Linux. . . .yikes. . . I'll have to find someone more savy than myself to try it. . . .or 'wait' for Bell to fix it. . .
 
#144 ·
I have 2 1TB Lacie drives plugged into a simple USB hub I picked up at Wal-Mart of all place for $10 or so .. . . just turn one off and the other on and switching drives is that simple. . . I keep one 'on' all the time. I have tried to keep one drive for movies, one for TV shows.
That's a very good and inexpensive (if low-tech) solution to the problem. You just saved me the trouble of coming up with it on my own. ;)

Problem: Last nite I just tried to archive my latest batch of movies and woke up this morning to what must be a 'full' HD. . . . won't read the drive and reboots every time I try. I didn't think I was that close to filling it but guess so. . . here's a question?? Do you think the drive is really full, or is it maxed at the advertised 750GB ceiling?? I was sure I had lots of hours left...
That's a very good question, and I think from the experience of many people we could maybe progress towards a solution (perhaps by being able to provide detailed and accurate info to Bell, or at least coming up with guidelines that would work across the board).

In my case, I have a 1TB LaCie. It got partitioned like this (type df -k in Linux for this info):

Code:
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1              1043548     32828   1010720   4% /media/disk
/dev/sdc3            451359056 299837064 151521992  67% /media/disk-1
/dev/sdc2            524246952 513901340  10345612  99% /media/disk-2
I believe this was taken just after I started transferring some recordings (more on that later), so I think disk-1 was only 65% full when I started. In any case, the total is something like 813M 1K-blocks, i.e. more than 750GB any way you slice it. Disk-2 was just about full, however, which made me think it might have been the source of the problem.

So what I decided to try, in order to not lose anything unless I had to, was to move some of the shows from disk-2 to disk-1. I rebalanced the split from 67%/99% to 78%/89%, so there would be wiggle room on both partitions. Plugged everything back in, same story. Whenever I access the EHD, the PVR shuts down.

So my next step is to delete one or two shows, as suggested by others here.

As for the 'fix' mentioned above in Linux. . . .yikes. . . I'll have to find someone more savy than myself to try it. . . .or 'wait' for Bell to fix it...
As others pointed out, it really sounds more difficult than it is. However, if you're not confident I'm sure you can find someone to help you around you.
 
#114 ·
Thanks to the existence of this thread, I saw the light and managed to transfer all my recordings from my first LaCie - which was in the "three strikes and you are out" purgatory - to my second LaCie.

Personally I find Bell's policy perfectly reasonably in light of copyright restrictions. However, because the 9242 is so unreliable this rule is nothing else than adding insult to injury for those who had to go through several receiver replacements like me.

I had zero exposure to Linux but managed to run Ubuntu from a CD without the need to install it on my computer (impressive) and followed the explanations in this message. It took me less than half an hour from downloading and burning an Ubuntu CD to starting the EHD to EHD transfer.
 
#115 ·
After much fiddling with ubuntu, I was able to remove a few files, and resurrect my full drive.

Even a newbie completely illiterate in the ways of the command line can do it. Just takes a bit of reading, patience, logic, hammer and foot.

Further to giant's instructions, you may have to change file permissions before deleting files, I used the 'sudo chown' command.
 
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