[buzzinhornets]

Lazy Man's Forced Reboot (without unplugging unit). From the remote, press pause (also pauses your program) and hold until the mail light comes on (similar to the diagnostics screen). Press page down (opposite of page up for diagnostics) and then press the stop key 3 times and wait a few seconds and you should see a "b00t" message on the front of the box. If the box has hung you may need to try the forced reboot from the front or unplug the unit.

ahh, finally got this to work. but I should clarify that you...
-pause until the mail icon shows up.
-press page down, r-1 shows up
press stop three times, r-1, r-2, r-2 shows up.
THEN WAIT... A LONG TIME...
after 30 seconds, the machine reboot.
30 seconds is long.

 

[rfielder]

Lazy Man's Forced Reboot (without unplugging unit)

Interesting - just did a search of this discussion for "Lazy Man's Forced Reboot (without unplugging unit)". In fact, I did a cut and paste of this from the message previous to this one.

The system told me the seach found nothing! No wonder I have so much trouble finding things here! That was a direct cut and paste of something in a message, and it was still nto found!

However - my real question is - is the "Lazy Man's Forced Reboot (without unplugging unit)" as good as actually unplugging the unit?

 

[buzzinhornets]

It seemed to be identical to the unplug method or three button on the actual box reboot method... BOOT appeared, screen went blank, blue explorer screen came up, note about my External HDD came up, blue screen went away and tv started working.

...also, i have frequent probs with my external losing the handshake with the box (despite the fact that i have a UPS power supply). This lazy man's reboot fixes that, so I'm happy. I guess i'll do this like once a week to make sure the external is still connected.

 

[Mole]

Pressing volume up, volume down and info on the front of the box, all at the same time also works for a reboot. None of these methods work if the box is tuned to a music service in the 800s or 900s though.

 

[Flycaster1]

Setup for SA8300HDTV and components/coax out?

The setup when I get my new Panny p50v10 will be SA 8300HDTV (Comcast)components to my TV and coax cable from 8300 to Yamaha rxv-800...this will be for 5.1 surround sound and no sound from TV. Question is when setting up the 8300, what sound and video settings should I use? And, are there any settings that should be used for the AVR?

 

[57]

For sound use dolby digital in the settings. For Video see the following FAQ:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=17719

If you want the TV to stretch the SD channels, then you'll need to send 480i to the TV for SD (and 720P/1080i for the HD channels) and set the TV to stretch the incoming SD signals (this is usually the default for most plasmas. The TV will remember the stretch modes for the HD channels separately and leave them unstretched. The 4:3 upconverts on the HD channels will remain 4:3, but I suggest you leave them that way, or watch the equivalent SD channel if you don't want black bars. If you stretch the upconverts, you may forget to unstretch and miss 33% of the true HD programming. If you don't want to stretch the SD channels, then you can just set 1080i and the borders to "dark", but remember to keep the SD viewing to less than 20% of your time or you may end up with burn in. Or you can simply not stretch SD (480i signals), whatever you prefer.

See also:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=57741

 

[Flycaster1]

Thanks, 57. Your advice is well taken and certainly will make my setting things up a lot easier.

 

[worth]

Is there a way to have standard-def material upscaled to 720p while allowing 1080i signals to pass-through unmolested?

SD channels default to 1080 upscaling when both 720 and 1080 are selected in the set-up menu and I haven't found a way to change it.

 

[Jake]

Steps for those wishing to view recorded content on their PVR after it has been deactivated by your Cable company.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=1088131

This may not work with all providers. It seems to be functionality built into the OS.

1. Unplug PVR from cable line.
2. Cold boot the PVR.
3. Press SELECT for 5 seconds (envelope will light up).
4. Press LIST until message "this unit is now authorized to play back recordings when disconnected".

 

[scotta]

Getting rid of the bar graph Hit the exit key. If you are doing the frame advance trick, you can get rid of the bar graph by hitting the exit key immediately after hitting FF key. The bar will stay away until you're finished with the frame advance.

I believe that this was mentioned somewhere in the New Firmware - SARA 1.92.15.2 for 8300HD thread and I've confirmed it myself:
The bar will no longer stay away until you're finished with the frame advance. It comes back each time you press FF, so you have to press exit again.

This is too bad, since the bar sometimes covers up something I'm trying to see using frame advance and I now have to keep pressing exit for each frame.

 

[ANDYA]

Last Resort

If for some reason you can't get the STB to do what you want and you've rebooted it by unplugging it, etc. This is a "last resort" item. You can reformat the HDD (courtesy of websurferdude).

The Explorer 8X00 has a fairly simple procedure to erase the drive (start clean). Note that this process will erase all scheduled programming and will cause the unit to reload all programming data from your cable provider. On the plus side, it will repair any fragmenting problems.

"Press and hold PAUSE until Mail led is lit. Press PAGE down or (-),
and then press LIST three times. Turn box off. When turned-on,
formatting will begin."

If an eHDD remains attached will it also be re formatted?

 

[57]

Doesn't matter since the index for all the programming is on the iHDD and will be gone. Upon reboot the eHDD will be "recognized" and perhaps formatted (although as mentioned in the eHDD thread), there is no real formatting that takes place, simply a recognition of the eHDD.

 

[ANDYA]

DUH I knew that. Thanks
BTW Do you have any estimate as to the time to reload the IPG? Also have you ever heard of anyone losing access to programs on the eHDD and then some or all of the programs becoming accessible again?
Did you notice my post in the SARA thread? I am extremely annoyed at myself I should have left well enough alone. The last time I lost all programs was after a reboot to try to correct "flakey" behaviour.

 

[57]

People have lost access to the programming on the eHDD. Sometimes it's a poor SATA connection. Usually a reboot or two fixes it (I always do a soft reboot via the QSG). This was the case for a couple of my clients. On occasion the index becomes corrupt, but you should be able to tell if that's the problem by seeing if the issue is with programmes on the eHDD, iHDD or both.

As for the IPG, it usually takes under 10 minutes for 1 day at midnight for me, so I'd guess an hour for all of it.

 

[ANDYA]

Prior to the reboot that caused all of the programs to become unavailable there would have been no programs on the iHDD since the eHDD is 1TB and space used was 43%,
I have subsquently tested recording both with and without the eHDD attached and all new recordings can be played so it shuoldn't be a wiring problem.

 

[wprager]

I couldn't resist and tried the "Reset Digital Box" function (on the web). No-one was watching and I wanted to see how it worked. Well, the prompt came up and said the box would be reset within a half hour. A half hour later still nothing. So I forgot about it. That was around 5:30 PM.

I was recording DWTS and Terra Nova at 8PM. At 8:17 the box reset and took 12 minutes to come back up. I had a 17 minute recording of DWTS, followed by a second one that started at 8:29. Terra Nova never re-started (but the first 17 minutes had baseball playoffs anyway). The second part of the DWTS recording doesn't play. Both channels were black live. Checked, and almost all channels were gone, except for West feeds and a couple other ones. Half hour later, still the same, so I called 1-888. After navigating the IVR I finally got a recorded message that my box had been re-initialized, and that it should be back to normal soon (haven't checked since then).

Did this happen because of me clicking the "Reset Digital Box" button? If so, what the hell does this do? It took close to 4 hours to happen, took 12 minutes to reset versus the usual 3 minutes reboot, and wiped out most of my channels for at least a half hour.

Unless there is some other outage.

Edit: Also the QuickStart menu is no-longer available. It's been nearly 2 hours and still almost no channels.

 

[alebowgm]

Just came across this information online, may be worth adding to the Tips and Tricks...

As excerpted from the doc - http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/video/at_home/Set-Tops/8000_STTs/4030720_B.pdf
There are two phases of testing in HDD Diagnostics:
 Phase 1 tests the ITFS area and is expected to run less than 10 minutes.
 Phase 2 tests the AVFS area and is expected to run from 1 hour to 3 hours and 40 minutes.
The time required for each phase is dependent on disk size. Larger disks and drives with many correctable errors can take more time.

Works on my 8300. Tried on my failed 8642 and couldn't get to the main screen...

 

[robinwood]

format on old crt tv changed

recently purchased refurb 8300 for my mother (I now Have 8642s) mostly fine and she actually has decided pause is a good thing- a week or so ago she dropped the remote and picture on the 1996 Sears/JVC tv now has bars around most channels - all the picture is there but slightly reduced -guide menus are full screen -tried guide & info and set to standard tv - no change -also in settings no obvious changes - she is getting picture on most HD channels as well (obviously not HD) but I seem to recall that did not even work with CRT tv in the past - but I am getting old - there is no aspect or zoom function on the TV - any thoughts appreciated - (except buy flat screen) picture within the letterboxing is fine but she keeps thinking she broke something and would like full screen back- input is video in (yellow rca) -maybe I missed something real simple here

 

[JamesK]

^^^^
There is HD/Zoom button on the remote. Have you tried that?

 

[57]

It is, of course, normal to have black bars around the HD channels on an SDTV. See the following FAQ on the topic of black bars.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=76089 (post 3 for SDTVs)

I'm not sure if the STB stretches the SD output or not, but it may have been that she was stretching/zooming the image before (using the aspect/zoom button) on the Rogers remote - to the right of the zero button. If you zoom/stretch the image, you may end up missing some of the image, depending on what you're watching. Repeated presses of the Aspect/Zoom button will cycle you through the various modes. It's been a long time since I worked with an SDTV.