My Panny EH55 is cursed!

It's already been to the Panny service center and when I got it back it's stil doing the same thing as before.

Each day between 5pm and 5:30pm, the unit turns itself on, the display flashes "PLEASE WAIT", then it turns itself off.

After this, the TVGOS is gone, and any timer recordings I had set using TVGOS are gone as well.

I need to go through the TVGOS setup again, so the listings info doesn't become available until the following day.

Then, sometime around 5pm again, the process repeats itself and I lose the TVGOS again.

I called Panny again about this and they said it might have something to do with the "QUICKSTART" feature which is supposed to turn on the unit around 4am to make recording on a disc faster, but she wasn't sure so I have to send it back to the service center again.

Anyone ever have their unit do this mystery reset every day, or anything like it?

I called Panny again about this and they said it might have something to do with the "QUICKSTART" feature which is supposed to turn on the unit around 4am to make recording on a disc faster, but she wasn't sure so I have to send it back to the service center again.


I've heard some real gems from confused and incompetent tech support people in the past, but this one must be the prizewinner for 2006. It's like saying "we believe your vehicle's engine failure was caused by the fact that you have plaid seat covers".

TVGOS has been an ongoing nightmare for many users (which is why Pioneer was smart enough to drop the whole mess in the current models). If you can disable TVGOS (check past posts in this forum on the subject), you might get some relief until the real problem is diagnosed or a firmware correction is issued.

I've heard some real gems from confused and incompetent tech support people in the past, but this one must be the prizewinner for 2006. It's like saying "we believe your vehicle's engine failure was caused by the fact that you have plaid seat covers".

TVGOS has been an ongoing nightmare for many users (which is why Pioneer was smart enough to drop the whole mess in the current models). If you can disable TVGOS (check past posts in this forum on the subject), you might get some relief until the real problem is diagnosed or a firmware correction is issued.

I know. I have several other Panny recorders including an E500, a T6070 and an EH50. While I know I and many others have had trouble with the TVGOS, they usually revolve around missed recordings of timer-set programs.

None of my other units just turn themselves on and off in the middle of the day and lose all the TVGOS settings!

I periodically get the following error message as well:

"Press ENTER". The last recorded title might have partially been lost because of the problem with the disc. For successful recording, please try another disc".

Since I'm recording to the hard drive, it makes me wonder whether there's some issue with THAT. In fact, one of the Panny cs people told me that's what he thought it was, so I sort of expected when I sent the unit to the repair center that's what they would do.

Instead, all they did was record a couple of shows over a period of a couple of hours, then reset the unit and sent it back.

Broken.

I've been having the same exact problem with my unit starting about a month ago. Although it doesn't always reset at 5:00, sometimes it will reset when I turn the unit on for a little bit then turn it off. Ten minutes latter it will turn itself on and do the reset thing. It seems when it has more then one day of TVGOS info is when it goes haywire. My guess is the memory that holds the TVGOS has been corrupted. I haven't sent my unit in for repairs yet hoping that panny would figure out what was going on as other peoples units started showing the same symptoms.

I've been having the same exact problem with my unit starting about a month ago. Although it doesn't always reset at 5:00, sometimes it will reset when I turn the unit on for a little bit then turn it off. Ten minutes latter it will turn itself on and do the reset thing. It seems when it has more then one day of TVGOS info is when it goes haywire. My guess is the memory that holds the TVGOS has been corrupted. I haven't sent my unit in for repairs yet hoping that panny would figure out what was going on as other peoples units started showing the same symptoms.

You should at least call Panny and tell them about the issue, so they can get some feedback that the problem even exists.

The more of us that complain about it the better the chances that they will try to find a fix.

Thanks for posting - I thought I was the only one with this problem and was going nuts!

BTW, have you ever gotten the error message on your unit that I posted in my earlier post?

I am sticking with my E80 until it dies on me. If Panasonic wants to sell me another DVD recorder, they will have to produce a new model with no TVGOS.

John

Just for the record, on Monday the unit reset at 5:32pm. Lost all TVGOS settings and scheduled recordings, as usual.

I suspect that you have a bad piece of memory in the TVGOS part of the recorder, as was suggested earlier by grymtr8. Your best bet for continued use of the the machine is to turn off the TVGOS and use the machine without it. An alternate explanation would be that the station transmitting the data to you has bad information and their download is causing your problem. The weakness in that possibility is that everyone using that download would be affected (effected?) in the same way. I doubt it is just a local corruption of a memory location because a hard reset should clear that. As a last resort, or if you really need the TVGOS, have Panasonic service replace the board with the bad memory. You might loose all the content on your hard drive that way though.

I suspect that you have a bad piece of memory in the TVGOS part of the recorder, as was suggested earlier by grymtr8. Your best bet for continued use of the the machine is to turn off the TVGOS and use the machine without it. An alternate explanation would be that the station transmitting the data to you has bad information and their download is causing your problem. The weakness in that possibility is that everyone using that download would be affected (effected?) in the same way. I doubt it is just a local corruption of a memory location because a hard reset should clear that. As a last resort, or if you really need the TVGOS, have Panasonic service replace the board with the bad memory. You might loose all the content on your hard drive that way though.

Thanks. Yes, none of my other Panny recorders have ever had this problem, so I'm thinking it's either particular to this unit OR to the newer TVGOS software that it runs.

I have no content of this unit since I've never gotten it to work, plus Panny had me reformat the drive before I sent it in to them the first time.

I've called Panny on this issue and received their legendary "Tech Support" treatment. That's what prompted me to take a wait and see attitude.

Last night I had my machine play a movie between 4:30-6:30 to keep it busy so it couldn't turn itself on and do a reset. I was able to keep the data. If I can get it to keep data for a couple of days I would start to rule out bad memory.

My machine worked flawlessly for the first five months and I loved the TVGOS. Wouldn't want to own it without it.

Ironically, it turns out the other poster on this thread who is having this same issue with his EH55 lives in my city, using the same cable company with the RF feed to the unit.

From his last post, it also seems his reset problem occurs at the same time as mine, so now I'm wondering if the cable system is not interacting well with the newer TVGOS software in the newer EH55 as compared with my older units.

I received the eh55 for xmas and it is exhibiting the same behavior I read about here...it downloads the TVGOS fine (cable, no box, rf in), but loses it all a day or so later (all the way back to the setup screen). It seems to happen around the same time, 4pm to 5:30pm. I haven't noticed if the unit turns on and off when this happens. Tech Support keeps claiming it must be the cable signal, that it couldn't possibly be the unit.

Any solutions or words of wisdom? I like the TV guide for the short while it is available.