I came home this evening and turned the UTV on only to get "Searching for satellite signal." It was raining a little bit, but not much, so that seemed a little strange. Tried the other, non-UTV set and it worked fine. All evening, couldn't get the UTV to tune in. I was able to watch recorded stuff, though.

Finally decided to try rebooting. Now, it seems to have completely freaked out. When I plugged it back in, it started flashing the green light but then a yellow and red light started randomly blinking as well. I can't get it to come back up at all.

Any idea what might be going on?

Thanks.

(The ironic part of this is that it only needed to last two more weeks. On 4/8, they're coming to install my new 5 lnb dish and HR-20. As much as I've hated the idea of giving up my UTV, I couldn't wait any longer for HD.)

dukescotts,

Sorry to hear of the trouble with the UTV.

Sounds like by rebooting (unplugging) the UTV has decided to "Reformat" the hard drive. That is what "flashing the green light but then a yellow and red light started randomly blinking as well." means. If that is the case then you've probably lost your MY SHOWS and recording settings (along with the UTV OS).

If you allow the Hard Drive to finish formatting (it may take some time say maybe 1min per GB) it will likely request to connect to MSNTV/WebTV for the UTV OS software.

If you have a phone line nearby plug it in and let it download the software. This will hopefully resolve the problem after the software downloads and you setup your UTV again.

If you haven't already done this... Get yourself a UPS (Battery Backup) for the UTV (and or your future HR-20)... DVRs are computers and computers don't like power outages. Protect them from unneeded power outages and they will behave much nicer.

Not sure if your UTV is getting relegated to a bedroom or the basement for storage... but for anyone wanting to "reset" the UTV... While rebooting the UTV by pulling the plug works... a less "harsh" method that may tend to reduce unexpected "system loss"... may be to use a reset code like 12357 or using the power button reset (pressing it three times, kind of tricky but it is suppose to works).

Personally if I must "pull the plug"... I prefer pulling it out of the wall (not the back of the UTV) after I've set both tuners to channel 1020 (and disable any current recording shows)... Powered "off" using the front panel power button and given the hard drive a moment to "settle down".

Thanks for the lengthy reply. After I posted my original message, I unplugged the UTV and left it that way overnight. In the morning, I plugged it back in and everything seemed to be OK. All my recorded stuff was still there. I figured out, though, that only one of the tuners was working.

All seemed to be going well until last evening when I turned it on and got the searching for signal message again. Repeated the routine - unplugged, left off overnight, and tried again this morning. Today, it's back up and I've even got both tuners working again.

It's definitely seeming like it's on its last legs. Hopefully, it'll make it two more weeks. At one point, I thought about keeping it as a secondary receiver, but can't justify spending the extra $ each months for the UTV service just for that.

Thanks for the advice on the UPS. I'll definitely look into one before the HR-20 arrives. Also, if I have to reset again, I'll try the 12357 thing.

Well, it has officially died. RIP. :(

Yesterday, when I turned it on, it came up trying to call webTV. Looks like it literally lost it's mind (OS). Since I've got VoIP, it won't connect. With my new HR20 install only a week away, I think it's time to just put it out of it's misery.

I'll miss you old buddy. You served me well. :D

yes

I couldn't decide whether to make a new thread or add to this one. I chose the easy way.

I was helping my mother-in-law with her UTV yesterday. Currently it powers up, shows programming for 20 minutes or so, then comes sound loss, screen freeze, "searching for satellite", and we start over. After that the breakups come every couple of minutes or so.

I called DTV and they had me check signal strength and swap cables. Only one tuner had signal stength initially and neither had any after the cable swap. I replaced the unit with her other single sat receiver and signal comes through for either cable.

DTV thinks its a multi-switch and wants to make a service call, but it sure seems like the UTV unit is fried to me.

Any help will be appreciated, as I have had Cband, Bell, and E* over the years, but have never worked with a Direct unit.

A multi switch problem is easy to verify. Simply plug the cables that were going to the multi switch to the utv directly and see if the problem goes away.

As to the utv, it's does sound dead, if you tried some other receiver in its place. The problem you describe is the symptom on finds when the tuner chips begin to fail.

There is a history page you can look at to see if there are any tuner lost error messages.

And, you could try to see if it's overheating, a very common cause of problems with utvs. You could just take a table fan and put it next to the utvs for a while to see if that helps.

Thanks.

I have a UTV receiver that did the same thing. I did a System Test and noticed that both tuners failed. Like you, I still can watch previously recorded shows though. Have to send unit away to get tuners replaced and would cost about $135 w/o shipping costs. Enjoy the HD tuner.
Mike

I couldn't decide whether to make a new thread or add to this one. I chose the easy way.

I called DTV and they had me check signal strength and swap cables. Only one tuner had signal stength initially and neither had any after the cable swap. I replaced the unit with her other single sat receiver and signal comes through for either cable.

DTV thinks its a multi-switch and wants to make a service call, but it sure seems like the UTV unit is fried to me.


I wanted to bring up a similar issue I had just recently. Had a UTV with a bad tuner that showed the "Good" Tuner as "dead" after power loss (UPS Battery was dead) OR after a cable "swap" (checking status of the "bad" tuner). In one instance I was able to use the advanced menu option under Dish Pointing (when the Signal Strength screen is up) to test the Multi-Switch. I was running this UTV on an old Sony Single Feed LNB (from my old Sony B2 setup 10 years ago) without a multi-switch but by testing the "Multi-Switch" it did revive my "dead" Tuner (it auto-detected the signals that moments earlier it said weren't there) when resets/power offs didn't do the trick.

This option worked for the Cable Swap but not the power loss. Installing this UTV back onto my Dual feed LNB/Multi-Switch feed and the UTV was happy again.

Just a lesser known option for people with Tuner issues to attempt before deciding their tuner/tuners are really dead.