TWC 8300HD DVR's freezing A LOT lately

[Mark Strube]

Has there been a software update within the past few weeks? Both of my HD-DVR's (one has the 300gb external drive on it) have been freezing up like crazy. When you hit play, it just shows the gray screen... then when you try to change to a live channel or a different recording on the list - the box completely freezes, becoming non-responsive... eventually rebooting itself within a few minutes. It always happens when I try to play a recorded show... and most (if not all) of the time it's with an HD recording. I was just talking to a friend tonight who lives in New Berlin... he was about to return his DVR because it's been doing the EXACT SAME THING lately, happening to him exactly how I've described it - when he's trying to play a recording.

Not to mention the late-night outages of HDNet and HDNet Movies haven't been corrected yet... boy I wish I still had Dish.

[klwillis45]

I've had no issues at all.

[Mark Strube]

Do you record from HDNet or HDNet Movies often? It seems to happen with those a lot. But, I've also had it happen with plenty of HD recordings from other channels.

[klwillis45]

I almost never record from those 2 but I did just watch several HD shows last night with no issues at all. The only recent problem I can even recall is last week when the audio dropped out during Las Vegas for ~ 5 minutes. I'm still on the old software btw.

[LoadStar]

I had mine completely crash recently, losing some previously recorded programs.

(With a TiVo, there are actually two root partitions, and the TiVo alternates between the two. This looks sort of like what happened to me... the SA 8300 crashed, then rebooted to an "offline" root partition with an older version of my database. Programs from around the 1/2 and before were there, but nothing after that point; also, all the "series record" options that I had set after 1/2 were gone as well.)

I've also had weird glitches recently... PIP turning itself on, the DVR wanting to tune to channel 0, then failing miserably... that sort of thing.

[Mark Strube]

Just an hour ago I tried to play the recording of Nothing But Trailers... nothing but gray screen... I bring the list up and try to start a different recording, whole box freezes, and then reboots itself after a few minutes. Once it rebooted, I tried again and it played without a problem. This is on the box without the extra hard drive, but that one does the exact same thing, and I just replaced it with a new one a few days ago. (It did the exact same thing before I replaced it too... so this isn't an issue with only a few boxes.)

Software update time!

[davezen2]

Mark, I've been having the exact same problem here within the past week or two... No problems while watching live TV, but when I try to watch a DVR'd show I get the blank gray screen and end up having to unplug the box and reboot it (I can't say that I've had the patience to wait more than 2 minutes, but my cable box has never rebooted on its own) 9 times out of 10 after the reboot I can watch the recorded program, otherwise I have to reboot again...

edit: FYI: for me it doesn't seem to matter what channel was recorded, I've had this problem with programs recorded on NBC, FOX, and HD Net.  Just happened again trying to view "the office" recorded on NBC on Thursday night.

[davidrab]

I had mine completely crash recently, losing some previously recorded programs.

(With a TiVo, there are actually two root partitions, and the TiVo alternates between the two. This looks sort of like what happened to me... the SA 8300 crashed, then rebooted to an "offline" root partition with an older version of my database. Programs from around the 1/2 and before were there, but nothing after that point; also, all the "series record" options that I had set after 1/2 were gone as well.)

I've also had weird glitches recently... PIP turning itself on, the DVR wanting to tune to channel 0, then failing miserably... that sort of thing.

Yup, same thing happened to me Thursday. I went to watch a recorded show, it
locked up, and when it rebooted, shows that I recorded the night before weren't
there (including the one I wanted to watch) and shows that I deleted the day
before were there.

I've been carrying TW and D* for a couple of months (thinking about getting
rid of D*) and was set to drop D*, but now I don't know. Was really (and still
am) impressed by TW SD picture (compared to my Samsung T160 D* receiver),
but these 8300 glitches and occasional HD channel "problems" make me waffle.

Dave

[BMO]

Yup.  Same thing is happening to me.  I have an external HD, but have removed it for testing and it does happen with the external drive plugged in or unplugged.

Seem to happen on any HD program that I record.  Unplug the box and reboot and it plays just fine.  It seems to have started about a week ago for me.

--------------
BMO

[LoadStar]

My DVR did a complete power cycle just now, at 12:30 a.m. Monday morning. Not sure why... it was "off" and not recording at the time, though it had just finished recording a program.

[LoadStar]

This is starting to get annoying... the DVR keeps trying, desperately, to tune to channel 0, but instead of showing the generic "Subscription Service" box over black screen, it just shows a grey screen, then almost always locking up then crashing the box.

Happened tonight after I finished watching a recorded program, but I noticed it trying to tune in channel 0 and quickly hit the channel up button. After a very nerve-wracking moment or two where it wouldn't respond, it finally jumped up to channel 1 and started responding again.

[Mark Strube]

I've never seen the channel 0 thing happen, but it looks like I'm definitely not the only one having this issue. I started this thread when I was quite sure it's an overall software problem - when I saw it happen on 3 different HD-DVR's, and then a friend in a different city confirmed the same issue.

[FiberOptic]

Had this happen yesterday during the Bears Game, I taped the game and while watching the replay, the DVR locked up and I had to unplug the device to reboot it

[Dan the Man]

I have had problems just recently with my TWC SA8300 DVR. I was watching a recorded HD program. The DVR froze up at a specific spot (picture froze on screen). I rebooted, resumed playback and it locked up again at the same spot. Rebooted and did it a third time. Finally after the 4th reboot, I fast forwarded past the spot and played back the remaining part.

It has once or twice rebooted spontaneously, although this hasn't happened to me in a while.

The DVR has been glitchy lately. No specific pattern.

Note: No external hard drive, but thinking about getting one. My G/F will be ticked when the chase buffer stops working on the DVR once I get the drive....:eek:

[LoadStar]

New unique glitch. Turned on the box, it turned on to solid grey screen. UI still responded - I was able to pause, bring up channel guide, go to the DVR menu, but nothing but grey for the actual program in progress. Went into the recording in progress in the DVR menu and tried playing from beginning - grey screen. Hrm.

Ok, stop the current recording. It stopped. Grey screen still. Flipped the channels. Grey. Turned the box off, then back on again. Picture returned. Went back into the recording I just stopped - there was a picture there where it was grey before. Started recording again, and it worked fine.

The glitches are getting a little annoying.