Guys, I've been reading this forum for quite a while trying to decide if I should get a gateway or not, and after this latest code update, I was hopeful but it seems things are getting far worse, not better. I am pretty decided that I will NEVER own a shaw gateway system. You all are starting to talk about demanding money back from shaw, but that will not help the frustration you are having with the system every day. The only thing that is going to make shaw wake up is if you all drop this ridiculous service and get out! For those of you who live in Saskatchewan, I suggest you go with Sasktel. I DO NOT work for Sasktel, and this is not a plug!. I am just a satisfied user. They have a whole home type of system much like the gateway, although it can only record a maximum 3 streams 2 HD and 1 SD at the same time, the system works basically flawlessly all the time. It can be a little slow at times, but nothing like what you are talking about with the shaw gateway!! I'm not sure what other providers are available in other Provinces, but there must be something better! You should NOT be losing parts or all of your programming and having to reboot all the time, even if they give you a discount this is not acceptable! I would not ever put up with a system that does what you all are experiencing. Just my $.02.

I had another spontaneous reboot this afternoon on my main Portal. Then, just now, I had the same Portal lock up while I was reviewing recordings and removing duplicates and repeats.

This code is SO MUCH BETTER since it was so thoroughly tested, isn't it?

Perhaps they should be thinking rollback??? Obviously the update was not ready for prime time!

Gotta love electronics huh?

I have not had any Portal reboots at all since the update. I did have a couple before it though.

It just weird that it's the same hardware and software across the board, yet it's hit and miss as to who seems to have issues.

No problems to report here. Everything is working within spec.

Icann, I understand your opinion, but we are on the cutting edge of technology here, no other system, provided by anyone, can meet all of the specs the gateway and portals can, and will, with time.
With anything like this, there are going to be growing pains.
Shaw is pretty good about refunding your service costs if you are having issues.

Well, colour me *COMPLETELY* underwhelmed by this update.....

I have had no portal reboots or recording issues since the update. This update was all a positive for me. I will report if I run into anything but so far so good.

Another fail by the gateway. I have always had a noon news set to record on a schedule as i don't get home until after 1pm. Today, I go to play the news recording, and it only recorded 1 min and quit. Nice job!

POS +1 vote!

(getting more bitter each day with this system)

Haven't other people had similar issues, then after rebooting, the show has magically appeared?
Still its stupid that you would even have to do that, but that's life with the Gateway for a lot of people.

POG +1 vote for me (Piece Of Greatness, that is).

My Gateway experience has become more pleasing since the update, in particular improved system stability (i.e., fewer times I had to manually reboot things to fix things) and smoother basic PVR functions. I did notice on one occasion that a Portal inexplicably rebooted itself while I was watching live TV, which was the first time that I've ever experienced that, but all-in-all everything seems better than it used to be. Not perfect, of course, but a step in the right direction (personally, at least).

Yeah, it's weird that some people have issues and some don't, even though it's the same hardware and software. This seems to be the tale for all tech stuff in general.

I agree with GamerGuy and MetroVan. "It just weird that it's the same hardware and software across the board, yet it's hit and miss as to who seems to have issues."
I have had the gateway and portals for five months now and have never had to reboot anything, no truncated recordings, or any of the other strange problems people have been having.

The system is made up of five major components, the feed provided by Shaw, the Gateway and Portal hardware, software, extenders, and the internal home wiring/network. It seems to me that the hardware and software would be the two most consistent variables in this equation, everyone has the same stuff. I would think the biggest variable in all of this would be the internal wiring/configuration, it could be vastly different from one installation to another. Maybe we should be focusing some attention here, rather than blaming the hardware and software for everything.

Just my thoughts.

Well designed hardware and software should report bad cabling/networks, signal loss etc., or at the very least survive them, not crash or reboot or lose entire shows because of them.

Well designed hardware and software should report all sorts of problems, not just with cabling or wiring. In my experience, the gateway has never reported (at least to the user) any problem, other than basic stuff like "Can't Connect to Gateway". The messages give no real clue as to the cause of the problem.

Yes, nothing about this system, from its clunky, home-built-looking cases to its awkward user interface to its incomplete feature set to its inadequate remote seems well designed to me.

But if we want a whole-house solution with Shaw we're stick with it. So we wait, both eagerly and anxiously, for the next update. And we complain.
Oh my, I'm getting a sense of déjà vu of my not-so-long-ago Pace Aspen/Summit "experience".;)

With the update, I can hit the skip 7 or 8 times in rapid succession; that used to bog down the unit, now it works trouble free.

I continue to record and watch programs with no problem - I love this system, the only thing I do differently is use a Harmony One remote as I have the projector, receiver, lights, and the portal to control...

tornado6975; Wiring has been discussed already. If you would care to read through the threads you will see that some installations with the worst wiring have some of the fewest problems while some of those with all new wiring experience problems.

There is a 6th component you are not considering: ARRIS. The system has a connection to them and 'logs' are sent to them and/or Shaw, daily, I believe. My guess would be they are seeing no more than about 10% of installed systems having problems and therefore are considered 'acceptable' for release. Given there are people here reporting fewer problems and even no problems, it should give those of us who are having troubles some hope that we just might get to that state, eventually.

There is also some kind of 'authorization' that goes through ARRIS so there may actually be more 'components' to the system than we know about so, really, there are an awful lot of areas that could be problematic. Encryption would be another one, for example. HDMI would be yet another.

All of this being said, I am still not at all happy that I seem to have gained more problems than were solved with this latest update.

Guys, I have a slingbox on one portal, and on another my portal is in a different room than my TV, and am using an RF Extender on my remote.

I find when the portals are in "sleep" (or what I think of as "screensaver" mode) the only way to awaken them is by direct with the remote only. It seems as if my RF or my slingbox are not "powerful" enough to start scrolling screens, etc.

Once activated by the direct remote, and a few commands given, the RF and/or the slingbox have no issue controlling the portal.

Has anyone else experienced this? Any suggestions?

Also, when "skipping" :30 sec. forward (as we do on commercial breaks) it appears to work 4-5 times then will "jump" aheade 2 min. When trying to skip commercials in a recording, very frustrating to get near the end of the commercial break and then be "skipped" right into the program. Reverse skip is :30 sec so we have to fool around several times to get to the start of the program after the commercial break. Anyone else experincing this?

Thanks,

Jason.

Jason, as I mentioned earlier, I can hit my remote unlimited times now without it getting "stuck" to catch up. The reaction is instantaneous and so far I haven't found the magic number where it overloads... Also, if memory serves me correct, reverse skip is only 15 seconds...

For some unknown reason, I am getting most one hour recordings showing up as 60 minutes long even though I have the overall default recording settings at +1 minutes at the beginning and the end. The shows would all be 62 minutes in length. Fortunately, the Gateway gives me the yellow exclamation mark to indicate that it did not do what I told it to do!

Second, I am beginning to see the Gateway randomly deleting shows on its own that were recorded several months ago. Note that the default settings are that ALL programs are to be deleted ONLY with my authorization.

An alarming number of one hour shows are turning up with only the last 50 minutes viewable. There were no other recordings scheduled that would cause system conflicts.

The last item is frustration at being unable to choose to record a specific channel at a specific time rather than being forced to choose only program titles. Case in point, my wife closely follows a particular exercise program and has selected to record the program everyday so she can partake later in the day. However, the other week, a special episode she was waiting for was NOT recorded, even though it was on the same channel and at the same time as usual. The problem, the channel guide, in an effort to be helpful in indicating it was a special episode, slightly changed the name of the program episode in the listing. End result, the Gateway did NOT recognize it as the show that was programmed and DID NOT record it! Now, my dear wife feels she must check the channel guide listings every day to make sure the Gateway will recognize the programs that were set up to be recorded automatically. We should not have to second guess if this equipment will do what we want. So much for convenience.

I must say the WAF is getting lower and my satisfaction level is dropping.

Jason, as I mentioned earlier, I can hit my remote unlimited times now without it getting "stuck" to catch up. The reaction is instantaneous and so far I haven't found the magic number where it overloads... Also, if memory serves me correct, reverse skip is only 15 seconds...
Rooster, thanks, it is not that the system gets stuck, it's that I hit the skip, and I get :30, :30, :30, :30, then...2:00.
Not sure why it would not keep doing :30 and give me the step change.

Thanks for the heads up on the reverse :15 though.