Cisco 8640HDC HD-DVR Thread - Page 11

For Diagnostics (Passport Echo firmware):

* Depress and hold in "EXIT" and "SELECT" on the front panel until "DIAG" appears on display. [About 10 seconds.]
* Depress "EXIT" again.
* Note the channel number.

For HDD space available (again, assuming Passport Echo):

* Press "DVR LIST" on remote.
* Press "SAVED SHOWS" (yellow triangle.)
* Press "VIEW DISK INFO".

Thanks for the maintenance mode reply!

The space available indicator does not recognize the external drive. I did receive the 'Format Drive' message when I first plugged it in and the external drive size is recorded in the maintenance pages.

How do I force a reformat?

Thanks.

Every once in a while I will get a black out on my recorded programs off my HDDVR. I have checked with other people with this product but they dont seem to have this problem.
The black out will come for as little as 30 seconds up to 5 minutes. This is hooked up to my cable provider that I have had several times to check for signal levels (which are good) and/or replace the 8640 for another (this has been done 6 times). It seems like it is resolved but after time the black outs come back and happen at random times.
Does anybody else experience this problem with this equipment and if you do, have you resolved it and how. Thanks...

I just had a Cisco 8640HDC installed to replace my dead Moxi which charter says they will no longer supply / support.
While I will miss the ability to program remotely and Moxi Interface I guess there isn't much choice.
The installer wasn't familiar w ext HD storage or even how big my HD is I called Charter "support" Hah!
He (support) said he 'thinks' my HD is 160 GB and doesn't know about ext storage = what & how, I suppose from reading some of
these avsforum comments I can attach eSATA ext HD and will see prompts? I am in a small town w no stores selling such.
I am at my cabin (2nd/vacation home).
I read about this one:
Western Digital My Book AV DVR Expander 1 TB USB 2.0/eSATA External Hard Drive
Before I spend the money does anyone know if that's a good/compatible choice?
I already have an extra OWC Mercury Elite Quad eSATA 500 GB at my other home when I go home -will that work?
Also, how can I find the size of my box using onscreen on the Cisco?
Thanks all. Bill

Question about my 8640HDC :

I've noticed that the record time capacity has been reduced for some reason. Based on my calculations, it looks like I have 13-15 hours of HD recording capacity. Should have 35-40. With all shows erased, I when into the Disk Info screen and it shows 294 GB AVFS capacity, but only 65GB available.

How can this be?

Thanks

Others (including myself) have seen this. Just reboot the box and the correct disk usage should be accurately reflected.

It has been rebooted several times, including remotely by Time Warner (twice). No change...

TWC can't do a cold boot remotely... have any of your local reboots been with power pulled? or just from the menu?

I was pretty sure I had previously done a power pull reboot, but I went ahead and did another power pull just now. Still no difference.

I have one, three hour program recorded and show 22% full.

Anything else to try?

Thanks for your help...

I don't have any ideas besides the cold reboot. My box was doing something similar, but it wasn't as bad as your problem. The issue started with a previous Navigator "upgrade" but it seems to have been fixed with the latest upgrade.

I've tried several cold reboots with no change.

We had a recent Navigator upgrade too (Black backgrounds). My problem definitely started after the upgrade, but not sure how long after. I was hoping it was a new OS problem that would resolve itself. I went by my TWC office today to swap my box for another 8640 but they were all out. Going to give me a call when they come in.

She mentioned that there is a newer Cisco box that is now available. Described it as slightly smaller physically. Does anyone know the model number for that one? They were also out of those at this time. I asked her if it was the one used for whole-house DVR and she said no. Wondering if the newer box may have a larger HD. My 8640 has the 320GB HD.

For me, the issue first occurred with ODN 5.1, was fixed with a reboot, and reoccurred only one other time while still running 5.1. It has not occurred so far with 5.2 (the "black guide"). This was also with an 8640.

The 8742 is the newer Cisco DVR box. It is a whole house DVR server box with MoCA and 500GB HDD. Some systems reserve it for whole house customers but others have let them out for standard DVR installations as well. Some systems also have the 8642, which is a whole house server version of the 8640, also having the 500GB HDD and MoCA modem as the 8742 does.

That's exactly what my situation was, it started with ODN 5.1 and is seemingly fixed with the black guide. it was happening to me on a regular basis, I had to reboot my box weekly to get back space.

Yeah... I suspect that Lefty might have a bad box or (hopefully not) he is the first to uncover in 5.2 a more serious manifestation of the original bug in 5.1. He is the first I've heard of that was not cured by a reboot. Also the first to report it at all in 5.2

Diagnostics-


I have had the 8640HDC for a few days now, since I swapped out my 8300HDC, in order to watch the Olympics in 3D.

I am able to access subsets of the currently available diagnostic/maintenance screens using any one of the following procedures using the remote-

1. select-key held down until power icon blinks-->momentary press of up-key
[accesses the general diagnostics main menu]

2. power-key held down until power icon blinks-->power-key released-->momentary press of power-key
[accesses the 39-page manufacturer's diagnostic screens]

3. select-key held down until power icon blinks-->select-key released-->-select-key held down until message icon blinks-->momentary press of down-key
[accesses the 23-page ODN diag screens]
----

Update: The following procedure will purge your cache -

4. select-key held down until power icon blinks-->select-key released-->select-key held down until message icon blinks-->momentary press of left-key-->momentary press of channel-up-key to purge (or channel-down-key to abort the purge)

I wonder if this "purge" solves the bogus drive full indication that some are reporting.

Note that the above procedures work independently of the STB's power-on/power-off state.

TWC-NYC, 8640HDC/ODN 5.2.0_7
---

-nony
Edited by nony - 10/4/12 at 10:30pm

I've had an 8640HDC (from Time Warner) for about a year and a half. Last night, thunderstorms in the area caused a brief power outage while I was away. The 8640 is plugged into a surge protector with a few other devices - all of which are fine. The 8640, however, seems to be mostly dead. The front panel display is blank (no picture output to the TV either), and pressing the power button has no effect.

I unplugged it for awhile, and when plugging it back in, I can hear the hard drive spin. However, the front panel remains blank, and the power button still has no effect.

Is there anything I can try that might bring it back to life? Special reset procedures?

My 8640HDC has been having a strange problem that has been reported by LeftyNC. Despite unplugging it countless times it s still telling me the DVR is full when I try to record anything. It's only at 13% full right now! I have tried everything!

I would swap the box, as it looks like it is dead. 

You might want to try the cache purge operation, and see if it helps.

-nony

Will this wipe out any recordings or just clear the cache?


I assume the cache is used for storing info such as the recording log, etc?

I don't know.

Before I posted, I purged a few times, to attempt to figure out what was going on, and thought that it was not reckless to suggest that others try it as well, as my recordings remained intact..

The front panel message was somewhat telling. (channel minus to abort, channel plus to purge) - so I thought that it could be a useful exercise.

-nony
Edited by nony - 8/18/12 at 11:34pm

I have searched this thread but found noting directly relevant - if there is, please let me know.

I just had Charter install the new Cisco 8640 HDC in place of my older Scientific Atlanta they had earlier supplied.

I wanted the greater HD space, but also had been having a minor problem with the old DVR responding sluggishly to the remote or fast scrolling when in the guide even when I just hit the up/down only once.

The Charter tech replaced the DVR, but we found the remote problems WORSE.

I had recently purchased a Samsung PN59 530 plasma, replacing my 46" Samsung LCD. After running some tests, the tech concluded that the new TV was causing the problem, presumably throwing out so much IR that it was confusing the DVR or getting into some sort of loop. We replaced the HDMI cable, used AV in, and bypassed my AV receiver (also Samsung), with no improvement. He hooked up a little LCD test set, bypassing my set, and the remote/DVR behaved normally. He concluded this was an IR conflict,first he'd seen with a Samsung.

I did some searching online for IR conflicts and the "fixes" ranged from putting auto window tint over the DVR to lowering the brightness on the TV a great deal, to using an RF remote (if that's possible).

I tried covering the face of the DVR with cardboard, first in part and then totallu, to see if I could locate the IR sensor on the DVR and then put some sort of tint over that, but the DVR still picked up a signal from the remote even with the face loosely blocked!

Anybody have any ideas short of going back to my old TV and/or DVR?

Tom

I have the exact same problem with my 46" Panasonic plasma and my DVR is tucked underneath the TV inside a media cabinet with tinted glass doors. I never found a solution but I have noticed the severity of the issue changes day to day.


An update on my 8640 and the strange DVR full message. I tried the purge feature and it is working great for now!
Edited by therealjustin - 8/22/12 at 6:32pm

In doing ,ore searching, there are numerous posts under the "remotes" thread, many relating to people who bought a repeater to try to solve this type of problem, with limited success.

here's a sample:

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1421069/getting-around-plasma-ir-interference

What's odd is that many people found that the problem was due to the fact that their AV equipment faced their TVs, and placing the units under the TV out of direct line=of-sight greatly reduced the problem. For me, as it seems with you, my equipment is on a wood shelf under the TV, and I can even push the cable box deep into the shelf so in theory random IR can only reach it from a narrow angle, but in my case this doesn't seem to matter. It's as if the room is flooded with invisible IR bouncing everywhere (there is a alrge window behind my couch and facing the TV which could be reflecting the noise back at the cable box).

Is the problem better at night? Even indirect sunlight can overload an IR sensor. Fluorescent lighting, too.

I usually only watch at night...I'll have to check that - no fluorescents, though.

I can't find exactly where on the DVR front panel the IR sensor is, so I can try masking it with something.

I never had this problem until I changed from a 46" samsung LCD to a 59" Samsung plasma a month ago; it cropped up at times after that, and became much worse when Charter installed the new Cisco DVR last week.

From what you have reported it may very well be interference from the plasma display reflected off of surfaces in the room. If that is the case, you may have to treat the reflecting surfaces (even if only temporarily to determine if that is actually what is happening), or introduce an IR repeater system with a plasma-proof sensor and an emitter attached directly to the box with a shield over it to keep out stray IR sources.

I'm having the above mentioned issue regarding the misutilization of hard drive space. 6 hours of HD shows was reported as taking up 34% of the drive. Although I did take the time and erase everything saved and it correctly reports 0%, but as soon as you start recording again shows take up an excessive % of the drive (I believe its the 320GB, TWC in South Carolina)

TWC resets didn't help, and cold boots didn't help. I saw the post here regarding the purge instructions and thought I would give it a try. I will repost the results, but I can't believe there isn't a format HDD or reintialize option somewhere.

Purge didn't fix it, <1 hour of shows is showing 6% used.

Oh well, worth a try, guess I'll have to swap box out.

On the "shrinking" DVR disk space problem, I also experienced this. Using the diagnostic screen on my 8640HDC with TWC ODN 5.2.0_9 I had ~60GB showing available out of a 295 GB AVFS file system with no shows recorded. The TWC tech., although friendly enough could only suggest that I turn off "AUTOHD". Multiple cold reboots did not improve the situation. I even took the drive out and put it in my Linux box, but I couldn't find anything that would recognize the file system to attempt a repair.
I was able to correct the problem using a tool CISCO builds into the box's firmware. There is a Hard disk Diagnostic Tool (HDT), that scans the whole disk and attempts to repair any problems it finds. The official CISCO document 4030720 Rev B, is available on the web (use your favorite search engine). NOTE: this tool WILL ERASE all your recordings! In this respect you may be no better off than exchanging your box. For me, I wanted to figure out how to fix this problem.
Hope this helps!