PVR Issues (PVR loses recordings) - Canadian TV, Computing and Home Theatre Forums

8th Hussar · 2012-08-09, 07:57 AM

I'm really starting to get aggravated with Bell Aliant's PVRs.

I have already had to replace my PVR back when they originally rolled out the MediaRoom software because the firmware/software update bricked it, at least that's what the technician told me when he came out to swap it out with a new one. He said that they had been replacing a lot of receivers because they wouldn't accept the MediaRoom update.

The new PVR was acting fine up until a couple of months ago. In the past few months I have lost my recordings no less than 3 times, possibly 4 or 5 times, I can't remember for sure. Each time it happened, I would fire up the TV and press the "Recorded TV" button on the remote only to be told that the PVR contained no recorded programs. As you can imagine, this gets pretty goddamn annoying, especially when some of your recordings are one-time live events that aren't available through On-Demand or "other" means. In addition to the recordings randomly disappearing, I've been unhappy with the quality of the recordings lately. Many of them (most recently, the latest episode of Breaking Bad) are so full of digital breakups that I often end up deleting the recording and acquiring the episode through "other" means.

Looking back at it now, I guess that should have been my warning that I was going to need to replace my PVR yet again but, given my track record with Bell Aliant's support team, I figured it would be a waste of time trying to get it replaced until I had some kind of catastrophic failure.

I thought I had my reason to get the PVR replaced today. When I got home last night, I turned on the TV and receiver in the bedroom so the wife and I could watch some tube before bed, only to be greeted with an error message when I pressed the "Recorded TV" button on my remote: "The recordings list is unavailable. Please ensure this TV receiver and the PVR are connected to the network." Well, I knew that this receiver was connected to the network because I could watch live TV so I thought that the PVR downstairs in the living room might have been turned off so I went down to investigate. Sure enough, the PVR was powered up and connected to the network and I could watch live TV with no problem at all. However, when I pressed the "Recorded TV" button on the PVR's remote, I got the same error message as the other receiver was giving me: "The recordings list is unavailable. Please ensure this TV receiver and the PVR are connected to the network." So now my PVR doesn't even know that it's a PVR anymore!

The strange part is that all my scheduled series recordings were still scheduled and I could edit them and even schedule new recordings, but I couldn't pause/rewind live TV and I couldn't launch a manual instant recording. When I hit the record button, I got the message "Will be recorded in HD." but it never actually started recording.

When I got to work this morning, I called tech support and they are now trying to tell me that I don't even have a PVR. They say their system says I have two 1200's and no 1216. Funny, seeing as I've been recording programs for the entire 21 months that I have had FibreOp TV service. When I insisted that I indeed do have a PVR, she told me that they would have to try to register my PVR with the system so it will work properly. Again, my PVR was functioning like a PVR (albeit with some problems) for almost two years! And, if I log into my account through the Bell Aliant website, it plainly shows that I have "Whole Home PVR Service." Kinda hard to have that without a PVR.

The last word I got from tech support was that they will "run some tests" to see what the problem is and will send a tech to my home "between Noon and 5 PM today" if they determine that my PVR needs to be replaced. Great! I can't take the entire afternoon off work so I can sit and wait for a tech who might show up.

This is all just so wrong on so many levels! If Rogers wasn't such a shitty company and if Bell Satellite didn't suck so damn bad in my area (I used to have ExpressVu but got tired of losing my signal every time it rained or snowed or got foggy or got cloudy or...) I would switch in a heartbeat!

So let this serve as a warning to fellow FibreOp TV customers. If you come home some day to ind that all of your recordings are gone, call Bell Aliant immediately and request a new PVR because the problem will only get worse.

habfan777 · 2012-08-09, 08:15 AM

Ditto!!!My PVR died on Monday morning. Got the dreaded RED "X" on the screen. Tech support replaced it the next morning. This is now my 4th. or 5th. PVR since signing up for Fibre Op in late January 2012. I've had numerous issues with my network wifi connecting with my Sony Bravia Internet TV that they claimed were PVR related. So thus started the merry go round of tech support visits. I even had one guy's cell number. He was in my house five straight days. Seems that Aliant initially bit off more than they could chew, regarding tech support for fibre op installs. The tech who was in on Tuesday said they had to hire 100 new staff to keep up with the demand. I would liberally interpret "demand" as "problems", not necessarilly new business.

Testo · 2012-08-09, 10:58 AM

8th,

If they didn't have your account programmed for PVR then your PVR wouldn't be able to record afaik. The mother in law had a PVR installed and it did nothing until they programmed it up on the account side of things. It seems @ss backwards to have a system that won't work without some type of confirmation from the server allowing it to.

Aliant's front line service can be horrible, no question about that.

8th Hussar · 2012-08-09, 07:38 PM

Tech arrived at 4:30 and left at 6:45. Problem solved, I hope.

As soon as he walked in the door, I told him that I believed that the issue was caused by a dead/dying hard drive in the PVR. He looked at my setup and said that the more likely cause was the fact that my STBs are connected via coax (RG6) rather than ethernet (CAT5-E). I told him that the coax hasn't been an issue for the 21 months that I have had FibreOp TV service and that I just needed a new PVR unit, but that he was more than welcome to replace the coax with CAT5-E if he wanted to. He said tat the bedroom (non-PVR) STB would be fine with coax but that the living room STB (PVR) really needed CAT5-E because of all the new apps they have and will have. I told him to go ahead and replace it.

He replaced the coax run to the PVR in the living room with CAT5-E and ran a completely new line to the STB in the bedroom (because the original install tech had put a splitter on the coax and hadn't used outdoor-rated connectors). He also fixed a few other minor things that he didn't like about the original install and gave me a Netgear network switch because I was already using all of my Ethernet ports on the modem/router.

When we fired up the PVR, it wouldn't even boot up, even after trying the "disaster recovery" reset (Hold the Power button, the Select button and the down button until all three lights come on, then let go of the power button, wait for the lights to flash three times, then let go of the other buttons). Looks like I was right after all. I think it wouldn't boot because the faulty hard drive was causing its POST or boot sequence to hang.

After using his laptop to de-register my PVR from the system (which was indeed registered. Obviously the tech support rep I spoke to this morning didn't have a clue what she was talking about) he installed and registered a new PVR unit. Unfortunately, the unit is another VIP-1216 and not one of the newer, faster, smaller black units (unsure of the model number of the new ones) and, also unfortunately, that means I lost yet another batch of recordings; but at least this one seems to be working and my scheduled recordings are still scheduled so I don't have to reprogram all of them again.

I'll have to record as much as possible over the next couple days and play as much back as I can. I'm hoping I experience a lot less digital breakup on the recordings than I have been. If not, they've pretty much run out of excuses, with a new PVR and a whole new CAT5-E run. Maybe that will finally get me one of the new PVRs they are using in new installs.

I do have to say, although I have had my share of issues with the support people on the phone, my experiences with the onsite installation/repair techs have all been nothing less than stellar.

FuzzFace · 2012-08-09, 08:26 PM

The new pvr/stbs they are using are the vip-2262/vip-2202, if you got a vip-1216 you more than likely got a referb unit as these are the oldest stbs, the intermediate ones being the vip-1232

8th Hussar · 2012-08-09, 10:29 PM

Yeah, I was really hoping for a "new" PVR, rather than a "new-to-me" PVR. Oh well. If this one's anything like the old one, I'll get a new one soon enough because, the very first time this one loses a single recording, I'll be demanding one of the newer models. I pay too damn much money for the service to keep losing all of my recordings every few weeks!

2012-08-09, 07:57 AM	#1
8th Hussar Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Nerepis, NB Posts: 46	PVR Issues (PVR loses recordings) I'm really starting to get aggravated with Bell Aliant's PVRs. I have already had to replace my PVR back when they originally rolled out the MediaRoom software because the firmware/software update bricked it, at least that's what the technician told me when he came out to swap it out with a new one. He said that they had been replacing a lot of receivers because they wouldn't accept the MediaRoom update. The new PVR was acting fine up until a couple of months ago. In the past few months I have lost my recordings no less than 3 times, possibly 4 or 5 times, I can't remember for sure. Each time it happened, I would fire up the TV and press the "Recorded TV" button on the remote only to be told that the PVR contained no recorded programs. As you can imagine, this gets pretty goddamn annoying, especially when some of your recordings are one-time live events that aren't available through On-Demand or "other" means. In addition to the recordings randomly disappearing, I've been unhappy with the quality of the recordings lately. Many of them (most recently, the latest episode of Breaking Bad) are so full of digital breakups that I often end up deleting the recording and acquiring the episode through "other" means. Looking back at it now, I guess that should have been my warning that I was going to need to replace my PVR yet again but, given my track record with Bell Aliant's support team, I figured it would be a waste of time trying to get it replaced until I had some kind of catastrophic failure. I thought I had my reason to get the PVR replaced today. When I got home last night, I turned on the TV and receiver in the bedroom so the wife and I could watch some tube before bed, only to be greeted with an error message when I pressed the "Recorded TV" button on my remote: "The recordings list is unavailable. Please ensure this TV receiver and the PVR are connected to the network." Well, I knew that this receiver was connected to the network because I could watch live TV so I thought that the PVR downstairs in the living room might have been turned off so I went down to investigate. Sure enough, the PVR was powered up and connected to the network and I could watch live TV with no problem at all. However, when I pressed the "Recorded TV" button on the PVR's remote, I got the same error message as the other receiver was giving me: "The recordings list is unavailable. Please ensure this TV receiver and the PVR are connected to the network." So now my PVR doesn't even know that it's a PVR anymore! The strange part is that all my scheduled series recordings were still scheduled and I could edit them and even schedule new recordings, but I couldn't pause/rewind live TV and I couldn't launch a manual instant recording. When I hit the record button, I got the message "Will be recorded in HD." but it never actually started recording. When I got to work this morning, I called tech support and they are now trying to tell me that I don't even have a PVR. They say their system says I have two 1200's and no 1216. Funny, seeing as I've been recording programs for the entire 21 months that I have had FibreOp TV service. When I insisted that I indeed do have a PVR, she told me that they would have to try to register my PVR with the system so it will work properly. Again, my PVR was functioning like a PVR (albeit with some problems) for almost two years! And, if I log into my account through the Bell Aliant website, it plainly shows that I have "Whole Home PVR Service." Kinda hard to have that without a PVR. The last word I got from tech support was that they will "run some tests" to see what the problem is and will send a tech to my home "between Noon and 5 PM today" if they determine that my PVR needs to be replaced. Great! I can't take the entire afternoon off work so I can sit and wait for a tech who might show up. This is all just so wrong on so many levels! If Rogers wasn't such a shitty company and if Bell Satellite didn't suck so damn bad in my area (I used to have ExpressVu but got tired of losing my signal every time it rained or snowed or got foggy or got cloudy or...) I would switch in a heartbeat! So let this serve as a warning to fellow FibreOp TV customers. If you come home some day to ind that all of your recordings are gone, call Bell Aliant immediately and request a new PVR because the problem will only get worse.

2012-08-09, 08:15 AM	#2
habfan777 Rookie Join Date: Dec 2011 Posts: 5	Bell Aliant PVR's Ditto!!!My PVR died on Monday morning. Got the dreaded RED "X" on the screen. Tech support replaced it the next morning. This is now my 4th. or 5th. PVR since signing up for Fibre Op in late January 2012. I've had numerous issues with my network wifi connecting with my Sony Bravia Internet TV that they claimed were PVR related. So thus started the merry go round of tech support visits. I even had one guy's cell number. He was in my house five straight days. Seems that Aliant initially bit off more than they could chew, regarding tech support for fibre op installs. The tech who was in on Tuesday said they had to hire 100 new staff to keep up with the demand. I would liberally interpret "demand" as "problems", not necessarilly new business.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search
Display Modes
Switch to Linear Mode Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

2012-08-09, 10:58 AM	#3
Testo Join Date: Feb 2012 Posts: 44	8th, If they didn't have your account programmed for PVR then your PVR wouldn't be able to record afaik. The mother in law had a PVR installed and it did nothing until they programmed it up on the account side of things. It seems @ss backwards to have a system that won't work without some type of confirmation from the server allowing it to. Aliant's front line service can be horrible, no question about that.

2012-08-09, 07:38 PM	#4
8th Hussar Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Nerepis, NB Posts: 46	Tech arrived at 4:30 and left at 6:45. Problem solved, I hope. As soon as he walked in the door, I told him that I believed that the issue was caused by a dead/dying hard drive in the PVR. He looked at my setup and said that the more likely cause was the fact that my STBs are connected via coax (RG6) rather than ethernet (CAT5-E). I told him that the coax hasn't been an issue for the 21 months that I have had FibreOp TV service and that I just needed a new PVR unit, but that he was more than welcome to replace the coax with CAT5-E if he wanted to. He said tat the bedroom (non-PVR) STB would be fine with coax but that the living room STB (PVR) really needed CAT5-E because of all the new apps they have and will have. I told him to go ahead and replace it. He replaced the coax run to the PVR in the living room with CAT5-E and ran a completely new line to the STB in the bedroom (because the original install tech had put a splitter on the coax and hadn't used outdoor-rated connectors). He also fixed a few other minor things that he didn't like about the original install and gave me a Netgear network switch because I was already using all of my Ethernet ports on the modem/router. When we fired up the PVR, it wouldn't even boot up, even after trying the "disaster recovery" reset (Hold the Power button, the Select button and the down button until all three lights come on, then let go of the power button, wait for the lights to flash three times, then let go of the other buttons). Looks like I was right after all. I think it wouldn't boot because the faulty hard drive was causing its POST or boot sequence to hang. After using his laptop to de-register my PVR from the system (which was indeed registered. Obviously the tech support rep I spoke to this morning didn't have a clue what she was talking about) he installed and registered a new PVR unit. Unfortunately, the unit is another VIP-1216 and not one of the newer, faster, smaller black units (unsure of the model number of the new ones) and, also unfortunately, that means I lost yet another batch of recordings; but at least this one seems to be working and my scheduled recordings are still scheduled so I don't have to reprogram all of them again. I'll have to record as much as possible over the next couple days and play as much back as I can. I'm hoping I experience a lot less digital breakup on the recordings than I have been. If not, they've pretty much run out of excuses, with a new PVR and a whole new CAT5-E run. Maybe that will finally get me one of the new PVRs they are using in new installs. I do have to say, although I have had my share of issues with the support people on the phone, my experiences with the onsite installation/repair techs have all been nothing less than stellar.

2012-08-09, 08:26 PM	#5
FuzzFace Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: New Maryland, NB Posts: 292	The new pvr/stbs they are using are the vip-2262/vip-2202, if you got a vip-1216 you more than likely got a referb unit as these are the oldest stbs, the intermediate ones being the vip-1232

2012-08-09, 10:29 PM	#6
8th Hussar Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Nerepis, NB Posts: 46	Yeah, I was really hoping for a "new" PVR, rather than a "new-to-me" PVR. Oh well. If this one's anything like the old one, I'll get a new one soon enough because, the very first time this one loses a single recording, I'll be demanding one of the newer models. I pay too damn much money for the service to keep losing all of my recordings every few weeks!