Shaw Gateway: Issues & fixes
 

PLEASE NOTE — The original list in this post has been superseded by a code fix.
See updates in Post #15 of this thread.
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/show....php?p=1324303

• • •

This list is a compilation of issues culled from the main Shaw Gateway discussion thread.
They apply to the ORIGINAL iS1 CODE, which has since been updated.
(With thanks for some help from forum member Jetranger.)

Limitations
• User guide included with the installation is not as useful as the downloadable guide from Shaw's website.
• Ethernet ports are currently disabled.
• Content sharing with non-portal devices disabled.
• Expanders will work but only Shaw ones are supported. Others work up to 6TB.
• Remote controls cannot be paired with portals.
• No IR repeater system. IR blaster system disabled.
• No option to set up reminders.
• No video zoom options available.
• No exit button on remote.

Glitches
• Recordings sort alphabetically only.
• User interface doesn't always respond immediately to commands.
• Gateway and/or portals requires occasional reboot.
• Occasional error that causes Gateway to show "Not authorized" even on subscribed channels.
• Issue with timer recording priority, when scheduled recordings overlap.
• Spontaneous/random deletion of programs in folders — sometimes entire folders.
• Recordings sometime delete themselves after viewing, when you reach the end.
• Mass deletion not possible above a certain number of episodes.
• Deleting a TV show you are watching will not always stop playback.
• Occasional issues with ordering VOD and/or PPV programs.
• Screen will occasionally go grey or suffer from severe macroblocking.
• TVs connected with component cables will sometimes experience "green screen"
• Video may freeze occasionally, as often as once every half-hour.
• Occasional audio sync issues.
• Resuming paused program in another room not smooth when watching live TV.
• Skip FWD button doesn't always work as intended.

Other
• The gateway has been reported to generate a significant amount of noise, due to hard drive and cooling mechanism. However, such reports are inconsistent.
• Some portals have been known to overheat.
• Portals generate significant interference to reception of AM radio within about 1 metre.
• The gateway will randomly allocate recordings to internal hard drive and external hard drive when both are installed.
• Difficult to see only subscribed channels in guide.
• Galaxie music channels only show song titles
• Gateway is probably capable of call display for Shaw Phones but this feature hasn't been programmed yet.
• All outputs on portals are active and available for concurrent use.

Previous roundup of bugs/interface issues
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/show...&postcount=913

This is not meant to be a discussion thread — just a list of issues for quick consultation. If you have an issue that you think needs to be added to the list, please leave a quick reply here. I'll amend the main list with your replies from time to time. If you wish to discuss a problem, please see one of the links below.
Cheers!

WHERE TO DISCUSS

Main discussion thread (after April 2012 firmware update)
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=153175

Adding external drives
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=142528

Gateway promotions (new subs only)
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=144468

Wait times for Gateway support
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=145274

If these threads do not cover your topic, you are welcome to start a new thread within the Shaw HDPVR forum.

Unable to change the front panel to show the channel number.

Here's another one I've seen a few times in the last few days. Total lost of audio on the portal, fixed by a reboot.

Portals crash at least one while watching a recorded show.

I wouldn't suggest adding this to the list as I've seen no one else complain about it.

Incorrect clock
 

Clock is 1-2 minutes behind "real time" (such as Rogers cell phone time, or internet time clock, university's atomic clocks, etc.).
Causes recorded shows to miss first 1-2 minutes.
Can't see any way to manually adjust the clock.
Reboots only set clock back to incorrect time (maybe shaw time server incorrect and not a gateway problem?)

I would say this is fair to add as I have had it happen more than once, even once in the last week and I supposedly recieved the new code a week ago so it may still be a current 'bug'.

Well then maybe re-written... as written is states that the portal will crash at least once every time you watch a recording, and personally I've never had it happen to me.

That hardly describes the problem!!

When you edit the channel list, entire blocks of selected channels are missing from guide. Also, sometimes guide will not refresh leaving the guide entirely blank!!

Channels getting closed due to "inactivity"?
 

After listening to a Galaxie music channel for a few (3+??) hours the channel seems to be dropped - no music. As I don't have my TV on (since I'm only listening to the Galaxie audio) I don't know if there's a explanatory message on screen. Perhaps this is related to earlier complaint from someone who tried to watch a golf channel all day only to have the Gateway drop the channel after a few hours because of "lack of activity"?

"Lack of activity" seems an odd reason for closing a channel.

Yes, that's the ~3hour lack of activity message that's shutting down the tuner if you don't use the remote for a period of time. You have to hit "ok" or something to keep the channel/tuner active or it frees it up after 15 minutes.

Forgot to mention that when you try and edit the channel list, the portal will reboot. Every time!.

Here's the exact text of the message (I caught it last night):

Quote:

No activity has been detected on this TV. Channel will be stopped in 15 minutes. Please select OK if you wish to continue watching.

Shaw Gateway: Code iS2 update — fixes and issues
 

First of all thank you Gateway owners for your valued feedback here at Digital Home. It is really appreciated!
The Shaw and Arris folks have been hard at work and here we have the first of many updates in improving functionality and adding new features that the hardware is capable of.

Schedule iS2:

• Vancouver Shaw Gateway & Portal September 20, 2011
• National Shaw Gateway & Portal September 22, 2011

Hardware and Client Version (Current -> Target)
Gateway MG5225G - 7.0.0.17G5BR-P.337093 > 7.0.1.32G5BR-P.340684
Total Home Portal - 7.0.0.17X5R-P.337093 > 7.0.1.32X5R-P.340684

The update should be deployed roughly between 2AM and 6AM local time.

Fixes and Enhancements

• Customers should no longer see error message "5102 - An error occured..." when using the channel up or channel down keys.
• Customers will now have the option to "buy" or, alternatively, to "cancel purchase" a future Pay-Per-View program from the PPV menu.
• When a customer purchases a PPV event, the purchase decoration (play symbol) is now updated on all Portals.
• When a customer has 6 recordings in progress and they attempt to change the channel, they will now see a conflict screen asking them to cancel a recording, or to not change.
• When the customer is presented with a conflict note and after selecting "don't change" and dismissing the conflict note, playback of the recorded program should no longer stop. A previously tuned live TV channel is no longer displayed, nor a should a black screen appear with flip bar showing the last attempted channel's information.
• When the customer selects to stop one of the recordings on the "change channel" conflict note, the Portal will now correctly display the screensaver instead of a black screen.
• When a customer has 6 tuners active with PVR recordings and then navigates to VOD, the flip bar information for the most recent recording will no longer show the information from the VOD title ordered.
• The program guide will now correctly display guide data if a customer uses the channel list to hide a channel that exists in their favorites. Previously, all favorites would appear with no guide data present.
• Customers will no longer see error message "3406 - The requested operation timed..." when attempting to delete recordings from more than one Portal at the same time.
• When a customer selects "keep" at the end of playback of a recorded program, the center focus should now go to the recorded TV menu.
• The Portal will no longer display a transparent filter menu overtop of a channel when a customer presses the menu button, navigates to a filter (i.e. movies) and then enters a channel number followed by pressing "OK".
• Customers will now see the content expiration time on currently rented VOD titles.
• Customers will now see the power indicator on the front panel illuminate without having to toggle the LED brightness from within the settings menu.
• Customers will no longer see malformed text in the "my orders" section of the VOD menu when they do not have any presently active orders.
• Customers should no longer experience a 4-5 second delay when opening the grid guide. Additonally, customers should no longer experience a 1-2 second delay when pressing live TV from within the grid guide.
• Customers should no longer recieve a "not subscribed" or "no signal detected" message after purchasing a PPV event.
• Customers should no longer see error message "5102 - An error occured..." when trying to order VOD titles.
• When a customer presses the info button followed by menu during playback of a VOD title, the program information should no longer appear transparent or overlaping the main menu.
• Customers should no longer recieve a "you do not subscribe" message when playing VOD titles on multiple Portals at the same time.
• Customers should no longer experience slowdown when attempting to use transport controls during playback of VOD titles from the remote. (i.e. skip, replay, back, next)
• When ordering of a VOD title fails for any reason, customers should no longer receive a generic "We apologize..." error message.
• Customers should no longer experience a black screen when attempting to resume playback of a recording after having stopped playback.
• Customer should have have access to all levels of rewind speed if the action is attempted while watching playback of a recording, where previously only 1x speed was available.
• Customers will no longer receive the tuner conflict prompt on a Portal which is currently playing back a VOD title. Instead, this conflict screen will only be displayed on a Portal playing back live TV.
• Customers should no longer see error message "5102 - An error occured..." when attempting to change channels using the channel up/down buttons, or when selecting a channel from the channel filter card.
• Customers should no longer experience issues where the PVR has recorded the wrong program or portion of a program.
• When a customer presses the info button during playback of a VOD title, the text should no longer overlap the flip bar.
• When a customer resumes playback of a paused recording, the time indicator should no longer incorrectly jump or skip ahead.
• The system time on the Portal should now correctly report the current system time. Previously this may at times appear to have jumped back by one hour.
• Customers should no longer see the "play" icon on Pay-Per-View titles where the purchase window has passed and the purchase failed.
• Customers will now be able to attempt purchasing of a VOD title again after the inital attempt failed. Previously all subsequent purchase attempts would also fail.
• Customers should no longer notice a time difference when comparing the front panel to the menu time. Additionally, this shoud no longer impact starting and stopping of recordings.
• Customers should now experience significantly less video glitches (pixelation or macro blocking) than previously. In the past, a power cycle of the Gateway was required to resolve this
• When a VOD title is purchased after resolving the conflict note while all 6 tuners are active, the title should now correctly play. Previously this would result in a black screen.
• Customers should no longer experience the transport bar showing the wrong start and end times of a program.
• Customers who attempt to navgive through live TV using the channel up/down buttons within 3 seconds of tuning into a channel should no longer experience video stutter or freezing.
• Customers should no longer experience video display unexpectedly changing to playback of live TV during the playback of VOD titles.
• Customers should no longer experience a black or frozen screen when ordering a VOD title. Previously customers may have also seen the progress bar diplay but not move when controls were attempted.
• Customers should no longer see weird lines when watching playback of HD channels.
• A Portal should no longer become unresponsive to remote commands and have no audio or video displayed after being left idle for a few hours.
• Customers should no longer experience video stutter or freezing when searching for titles using the keyword search functionality.
• Customers should no longer experience video freezing when using the FFW and REW buttons to navigate through live TV or recordings.
• An issue which caused customers to experience video freezing followed by error "5102 - An error occured..." has been resolved. As a result, customers should not experience this treatment as often.
• An issue which caused customers to experience unexpected video freezing while watching live TV has been resolved. As a result, customers should not experience this threatment as often.
• The "keep" or "delete" note will now correctly display at the end of a recording playback. Previously this note may not have displayed, though the program would be deleted anyway.
• An issue which caused a recording to become unrecoverable if a power cycle of the Gateway was performed during the recording has been resolved. Customers will now see two recordings for the same program; one from before, and one from after the power cycle was performed.
• An issue which caused VOD title playback to end with a generic error "We apologize...please try again..." has been resolved. Previously any attempt to resume playback of this title would result in a failure.
• Customers should now correctly experience the FFW and REW buttons navigating through recordings. Previously there was an issue that would cause this to not work as expected.
• An issue which would cause live TV to freeze and skip ahead has been resolved.
• An issue which caused playback of live TV not to pause even through the buffer bar indicated that playback had paused has been fixed. Live TV should now correctly pause when the customer presses the pause button.
• An issue which caused the REW button not to work during playback of live TV has been resolved. Previously it may have acted as if there was no buffer (yellow bar).
• An issue which caused several one minute recordings to appear in the "My PVR Recordings" menu has been resolved. Previously these recorded items would appear even if they were not scheduled to record.
• When customers use the pause, replay, skip, ffwd & rewind buttons on the remote, the control bar should now display the correct beginning and end times, as well as more accurately display location of the playhead marker.
• When a customer moves from a previously recorded program to a currently recording program, the transport control (buffer) times should now more accurately display their start and end times.

Customer Impact - Updating

• The Gateway will download the code in the background.
• While the Gateway is downloading there is no impact on the functionality of the Gateway.
• Upon completion of the download, a message will be displayed to the customer stating that there is new code available and the unit must reset.
  • At this time, the customer has the ability to delay the reboot. If the prompt is not acknowledged the unit will reboot, provided no current recordings are in progress.
  • If Video is not restored within a few minutes of the reboot, a Power Cycle may be required to restore playback functionality.

*Note

The best way to tell if the update is activate on your hardware is to pause Live TV and press Fast Forward. With this update "Slow Motion FFW" was activated. Therefore one would see the ability to step forward now.