New TWC.SA8300HDC Issue

[jfelbab]

According the the TWC tech who just left, TWC has begun sending out a new software update over the past few days.  The result of this "update" is to cause the screen to freeze sporadically upon powering on with the SA8300HDC. When this freeze takes place there is a banner showing on the bottom quarter of the screen with the channel number and the time bar. The top 3/4 of the screen remains black.  The fix requires pulling the power plug and rebooting.  It also will miss record things you have scheduled.  While the screen is frozen you have no control of the unit at all.   Guess the only workaround for now is to not shut it off.  The TWC tech came out a couple times today and replaced the hardware boxes again.  Both boxes I own failed repeatedly starting this past Sunday, 5/18.  The boxes he replaced them with have the pre-update software but they will get the update again soon so the problem will return.  The tech could offer no solution and indicated it could probably take quite a while to get the software bug fixed.

Anyone else seeing this issue yet??

[Jack 1000]

It just makes you want to scream:

WHY THE **** AREN'T THESE IDIOTS TESTING THESE UPDATES BEFORE PUSHING THEM OUT ON UNSUSPECTING CUSTOMERS?

Did the tech say what this update is supposed to do?

Jack

[cdnelson]

Not the exact issue...but our box (8300HDC) was freezing up on Tuesday, didn't record scheduled items, and was finally good after a number of re-boots.

When I called they were completely confused when I asked about Navigator and just said that there was an "outage" in our area.  :bang:

It's sad when you know more about the equipment than the people you are calling for "help". :rolleyes:

[jfelbab]

...Did the tech say what this update is supposed to do?

Jack

No.  He was pretty much a clueless dud that I wouldn't have let into my home except that he had new HDC boxes to install. He constantly was telling me how good he was and would hardly shut up long enough to listen to the issues I was having.  Obnoxious creep best sums up my impression of him. He put the first box replacement in and it failed immediately and was rolling through hex numbers and never did boot. He left it like that for a couple hours while he went for additional boxes.  I asked him to put the old one back so I could watch TV while he was gone and he said he couldn't do that. He had to go fetch more boxes to finish the repair call and the second unit I have failed while he was still here.

He said the new boxes he installed were on the older software and would begin to fail again as soon as the new software was uploaded.  He said "You will just have to live with it failing to record your shows and pulling the power repeatedly to get it to unfreeze until they fix the software."  I asked him how long that would take and he said he had no idea.  It could take days, weeks or months.

When he would shut up long enough for me to get a word in, I explained that I would not live with it and would leave TWC quite quickly if this was not remedied. Predictably, he could have cared less.

I've never met a competent TWC tech and this guy even lowered my expectations.

So how good/bad is AT&T?  I'd go back to DTV except that I have no clear path to the satellites from this home.