Building a Troubleshooting Checklist - Page 2

There are a lot of people on this forum that are not techies. Assuming every one knows (or cares to) do a re-image etc is stretching it a bit. Either make the troubleshooting database for both techies and non-techies, or create one for techies and one for non-techies. Personally, if my replayTV is still under a one year warranty, it is my belief that is not my place to re-image, or do ANYTHING that should be taken care of by DNNA. Out of warranty, then a trouble shooting database is great. That is another reason to have a non-tech database; to be able to do a series of zone commands that may fix the problem without opening the box and making things worse.

Problem: My remote doesn't work, and/or, the Replay is acting like remote buttons are being pushed, but I'm the only one in the house, and I'm not touching the remote!

Solution: Are you using florescent lights? Some florescent lights create infrared noise. This can flood (block) remote commands, or can randomly issue commands to electronics. Try turning off the lights. If it is the problem, replace the florescent lights with different brand of florescent, or if that fails, replace with incandescent lights.

Problem: The Replay in my bedroom doesn't see the Replay in my living room.

Solution: Did you just apply power to either of the Replays? Replays do not immediately see each other on the network. The periodically poll the network for other Replays. This can take 10 or 15 minutes sometimes. If you know that the network is good, leave the Replays on for a half hour and then recheck to see if they see each other.

On the earlier mentioned problem of disk stuttering, I would recommend the user make sure disk spindown is disabled before assuming the HD is busted. spindown enabled on the 4xxx series has been known to cause the video to freeze and/or stutter.

Also, when connecting the Replay for the first time (or after a sustained power-outage) it is best to follow a specific order:

1) Connect telephone or ethernet cord (not both)
2) Connect only one input (coax, s-vid, or RCA)
3) Connect only one output (whatever you are using to TV)
4) Plug unit in
5) Wait till it makes it all the way through the several "wait" screens. Do NOTHING during this period. Don't rewire stuff, don't press buttons on the remote. Just be patient.
6) Go through the setup and get everything the way you want it. Let it do a successful net connect.
7) Now you may connect extra inputs, outputs, etc.

Not following this procedure exactly may work, but you're better off being safe and sticking to it.

If using broadband, disconnect the ethernet cable until the ReplayTV is finished booting. With the ethernet cable connected, it may take as long as 5 minutes to boot, and then still be unable to communicate over ethernet. With the ethernet cable disconnected it boots in about 1 minute.

I've found this also solves DHCP communication problems during initial setup.

If you are using ethernet, try booting up with the network cable disconnected.

Before I send this back ... I got a 5040 refurb from the Ebay Replay thing. Setup was no problem, everything connected to the network, it downloaded the guide. Life is good.

Except ... it worked fine yesterday. Today it says continually that it isn't getting a video signal. I tried using coax and composite outs, I changed the Replay inputs ( a real hassle with the 5xxx since it's a menu command ) , I changed the inputs between coax and composite, I changed the video out from channel 3 to channel 4.

Finally, I hooked up one of my 4xxx machines and it worked fine. So the 5xxx shows nothing ... no cable signal of any kind ... but it connected and everything seemed to work fine for one day. The 4xxx worked great right out of the box ( I bought another one of those from the Replay Ebay thing too ) without any special setup.

Any ideas what is wrong? Or did I finally get a bad one?
Working for a day and then having no video is a concern.

Hank

Hank and other, this is a common problem, although ReplayTV doesn't seem to think so because NO ONE is reporting it. Please call them to report the problem.

This seems to be a problem for those with RF input used. It doesn't matter what imputs you have configured, all inputs will show the "no signal detected" message.

This problem also appears to be connected to software upgrades. A good reason why you don't see it all the time (maybe why no one reports the problem?)

I tried for hours before something dumb just made it work.

MikeyBoy and SFHub answered this question in Hank's thread, the two suggestions for how to fix can be found here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...74#post3071174
SFHub's and CrunchyDoodle's

I just wanted to get think solution into this thread.

Have been trying to send pictures from my computer to my ReplayTV 5508. Loaded the software and both machines are working off the same hub. The machines don't see each other. Tried turning off my Norton Firewall but it didn't help. Any ideas?

I had the same problem. The solution is very simple, go to the back of your Replay and push the IR Blaster cable hard into the Replay. The IR blaster will work properly being "halfway" plugged in, but the remote will be sporadic, especially the channel guide.


"The remote -- it is very sporadic and slow. It requires multiple presses, and since you don't know if each input took or not, sometimes it advances further than you intended. I noticed after a reboot it sometimes seems to operate fine during the setup phase. Thereafter it always bogs down. Oddly, so does the remote for my cable box. In checking the info page for the box I notice it's set to IR blaster -- no. I don't know if this is the correct setting for the box, but I can't change it. I've replaced batteries with fresh ones for the remote. I've covered the settop box's ir sensor with opaque material. Seems to be no difference in replay remote performance."

When calling tech support, if you hear "Welcome to the ReplayTV technical support line..." hang up and hit redial. That is the India office where this troubleshooting guide will be sent. BUt since they don't have it yet, you don't want to talk to them if you actually have a problem you want resolved. Keep dialing until you hear, "You have reached the technical support queue...". This is the Texas office.

For the following:

People with no local number for replaytv access
& only dialup internet


You can setup your computer to give replaytv internet connection sharing privilages. I came home from a 2 day trip and my computer was on, waiting for me to log in. This freaked me out because I forgot I had wake-on-lan enabled and ReplayTV woke up my computer at night to connect to the services.

jot89679o68you

I didn't see this mentioned before...

My IR Blaster has stopped working (was working, now isn't)

There have been some issues with the IR blasters no longer working like it did.

This can be caused by a few things...
1) replay is confused
Best bet... reboot the replay.

I've had a replayTV completely lose track of what it should be sending the following fixed my problem:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...60#post2318360

2) Box controlled by IR blaster is confused
Reset your dss/cable receiver, this problem happens a lot.

3) IR blaster cable can fail
There are two ends of the IR blaster, try both ends to be sure this isn't working. This is the thing I'd suspect would the most common problem.

4) IR blaster port on replay has failed
The only way to check this is to make a test cable with a regular LED on one end and the mini-jack on the other end. The regular LED will let you see the data the IR port is sending. Sorry, I know of no cables manufactured like this. You can make one for less than $5 with little skills.

Guys my 2 year old Replay 5040 remote stopped working suddenly a couple weeks ago. I tried to reboot warm and cold several times with no luck. I also tried to reset the remote.

I opened my Replay up and pulled out the IR circuit board. After looking closely at the solder joints specifically of the IR receiver element, I saw there were some poor solder joints. After heating up my little 20 watt soldering iron and putting a little solder on, I plugged it back in and it worked! I would recommend those with some soldering skills to give this a try as well if your warranty is gone (like mine) before calling the manufacturer boys in.

I'm so happy to have my remote back. In the meantime I discovered the RTVrc-0.2 program and that was awesome... but the remote I just can't live without. Still will use RTVrc from far away lands when I need to set up those same-day recordings. Thanks for all the other tips!

How about :

Replay does not record the channel you choose.

1. Replay chooses a totally different channel, can be intermittent.

2. Replay drops a digit off the channel you programmed.

3. Replay doesn't change channel at all and records wherever it is.

While it seems that the serial connection is more reliable through the posts I've read, most receivers will need to use the IR blaster. When I followed the advice listed here to pull the blaster off the front of the receiver and using a clear plastic battery box to tape it so it is inside the box and held steady, but about 1" away from the front of the receiver all my wrong channel problems ceased with my Hughes GAEBO receiver(I found this post in archives looking up ir blaster and GAEBO). Other posts had luck just laying the blaster on the shelf in front of the receiver and different approaches including gluing it to the right or left. My remote responds much better now too. I never would have thought of this myself and I'm really grateful to this forum!!

Worked for a long time, but now gets stuck at the please wait a few moments screen, any ideas?

As always with any stuck on "Please Wait" messages it's a hard disk problem most likley. The please wait image is ROM based so it's not loaded from the disk, and will show up every time. After that the disk is used to load the rest of the software. The loading is the normal reason for waiting... in your case it seems like the drive has failed all together.

Go back a few pages and read up on trouble shooting your hard drive.

There is one important thing regarding the IR stuff that's often overlooked...
You need to try to locate the IR Receiver and place the IR blaster in a way that would allow the IR transmission to get to the receiver. Many different ideas on this, but the blaster on a shelf in front of the unit is a great one. Another handy hint... IR will bounce off almost anything. I bounce it off the glass door in the cabinet of my 36" TV. (That's the only IR blaster I'm using, all other boxes are serial).

Another sometimes helpful suggestion is to use both of the IR blasters in tandem. One on each side of the tuner. (I've never seen any problems with multiple blaster heads being used)

Thanks for this. I just lost remote control of one of my replays, and while I was checking all the connections internally, I didn't think to check the solder points. I was doing a search to find out if anyone had found a replacement IR Receiver when I saw this post and had that "Aha!" moment. I hit all the solder points and it's working again.

Strange that it didn't occur to me sooner, as I have a '90 Mazda RX-7 and they are infamous for cold solder joints. I've had to resolder just about everything on that car, and that should have been one of the first things that crossed my mind.

Thanks for saving me a lot of time!

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...postid=3651209

This thread had a problem (and eventual solution) that could be added to this list.

I just had my first ReplayTV problem.

Was recording the Masters when the picture started stuttering. Even when I unplug it and reboot the unit, once a channel is displayed my ReplayTV 3060 just locks up.

Just seemed to stop working all of a sudden.

Could this be a bad drive? The drive has started to make higher pitched sounds lately but no thrashing.

doggiedog, this could be, well most likely is a drive issue. There are several things you can do.

1) Pull the drive and run the PC diagnostics (manufacturer's diagnostics) and see if the are "real" drive problems.
2) If the diagnostics show no problems then the issue would most likely be either heat, or bad sectors.
You can check heat, by running your replay for hours with the cover off to see if that help, if so you know the cause.
If the problem is bad sectors the only way I know to remove those is with the manufacturer's low level format, this will wipe the drive so you'll need to back up stuff first.

There is one other issue, but I don't really think it would be the cause and that would be a power supply that's going bad... but, I hightly doubt this is the cause as the disk would be the #1 culprit of the symptoms you describe

Of course, if this sort of hardware play isn't your cup of tea you can always ask for help. There are several of us who could help out.

Thanks for the help.

After the machine locked up and I tried several times to unpower and power it, I left it on overnight.

Somehow it resurrected itself. I don't know how long it will last though. I've had the unit for several years and I don't think it was a heat issue. I suspect it must be a bad sector issue because of the skipping.

Regardless, my family and I never realized how critical the Replay is to our home. I've got 2 young kids who like to watch their shows and it would have been difficult not to have the Replay.

I'm seriously thinking of buying another one as an emergency backup now.

There are four (4) different drive images just for the 50xx series at ftp.kdhnews.com labeled:

5040_530510190.zip -- 67.7 mb
replay5040.rtv.gz -- 26.3 mb
replaytv5k_5072.zip -- 81.7 mb
rtv5040_110.zip -- 73.4 mb

They all have the same date. Many thanks to the kind person(s) whe put up the images for all to use, but it would sure be nice if there were a text file in the folder explaining the differences between the different versions of files.

OK, enough people have bugged the crap out of me on this issue it's time to address it.

The replayTV picuture it TOO BRIGHT, TOO DARK, BLURRY, FLAT or WASHED OUT COLOR why is this and what can be done about it?

Short answer... the replay CAN have and affect on your picture brightness and color, but generally not much.

Standard disclaimer... the replayTV hardware is all the same and configured the same. The chips inside are configured to work for a "general" state. I'd say somewhere in the high 90% this problem is USER error.

That's right I said USER ERROR.

Let me give you this sample...



This is a shot of my Widescreen TV split screen with two replayTVs connected to two different inputs Notice how the color looks different on each side? Well... sure it is. Is this a problem of the replayTV? NO.

Some wise guy may say... but the TV is the same and the only thing different is the replayTV. Well wise guy is really dumb guy. If I swap the inputs the replayTVs are using guess what.... the exact same results!

Now this isn't true of all TVs but a lot of tv's with different inputs do have different settings for each of the inputs. Almost all HDTVs do, and many of the others that aren't HDTVs do this too.

More importantly this very basic feature your TV has is the key to fixing most of these problems. Your TV has these adjustments, color, hue, brightness, contrast, sharpness. It sounds like most of you never looked at them. Even if you do you may not understand what hue, saturation, brightness, contrast or sharpness do to an image.

Get yerself a copy of a video calibration DVD and sit down and play with it. This won't really work with the replayTV because you want the device that is connected to the input to be feeding the signal for calibration. But... my hope here is to help people understand it isn't always the ReplayTV that's causing the issues, but it may just be the way the user has the TV configured. The majority of people out there never calibrate the TV, and it's the most important thing to do for a great picture.

But we're on AVSForum everyone here should know this!

Leaving my 5504 on for an extended period of time, causes the screen to go completely white or green. Soft rebooting (power button off, then back on) doesn't clear the problem. Hard reboot (unplug unit, wait 10 seconds, replug back in) DOES clear the problem. Is this some pending hardware issue? I've got adequate room behind and ontop of the unit for cooling (it's in an entertainment system, and there's nothing sitting on top of it).

My set-up:
Coax -> 10db signal amp
Amp coax -> Replay
Replay S-Video -> Video Switch box
Replay Digital Audio -> Audio Switch box
Switch box S-Video -> TV
Switch box Digital Audio -> Stereo Reciever
Broadband hookup

We had two problems with this yesterday after several hours of TV time (3 or so hours), and I got the green screen when I left it on overnight.

Suggestions/recomendations?

Chlamydia, no idea, but if you want suggestions, I'd say you should start a new thread about this. That will get a lot more traffic and talk.

Two new ones...

Replay get stuck in infinite reboot loop.

In some cases the following will help to fix the problem. The replayTV will sometimes get into a situation where it can't complete the boot because of a filled MPEG partition, this will cause the replayTV to constantly reboot.

The fix is simple...
Disconnect any inputs you have on the replayTV. This will result in a "No Signal Detected" message after the replay boots up. (If it boots up) If your restart is successful go into your guide and delete some shows before reconnecting your inputs.



ReplayTV 5k hang or is unresponsive on the ReplayTV logo with three menu choices (guide replay guide or menu)
The hang with this logo screen with three choices is very common when there are network issues. Generally the replayTV can't make a connection and will sit there for up to 15 minutes before it times out. I've see it go longer than an hour.

Simple for DHCP users, static configuration folks you'll have to experiment with something like what I describe...

Before trying anything else try resetting your DHCP server (router) and see if that helps. You can do this while the replay is stuck on that screen. Another good option is try another ethernet cable between the replayTV and the router.

If those ideas don't help the following works well for me.

Disconnect the LAN cable and restart the replayTV. The replay should boot to the same screen and power off, sometimes it stays on. Once the replay is up and running:
Go into the menu
Select network and input settings
Select change network settings
Plug the LAN cable back in
Now do a release and renew (the first option)

Will a Win '98 computer work to mirror a replay hard drive? What image should I use for a MAXTOR hard drive from a Replay 5160?




[quote]Originally posted by Jeff D
[b]Please wait is a tough one...

Generally a problem with the disk, either bad file, bad sector or bad software from an upgrade. The solutions, there are not many. Generally you have no control at this point, the system won't get far enough in the boot process for user input...

First this is the best way to "reset" the replay.
1) unplug the replay power from the jack.
2) unplug all connections from the replay
3) press power button a couple of times.

Steps 2 and 3 are very important, electricity coming in over the coax, RCA or ethernet connections can be enough to keep parts of the replay "live" you can't get a true reset until all juice is gone. Pressing the power button helps to ensure the stored energy in the caps and such is discharged.

After that these questions are important:
Is the replay in reboot loop? On the SS series there was a problem where the system partition was having files corrupted. The only solution was to reimage the drive. This could very easily be the cause on the other replayTVs too.

If the replayTV is still covered by DNNA and you haven't opened it up and upgraded the drive. RMA might be the best option, sucks for DNNA, but if the unit is a refurb it might be the best option. There could be more problems further down the road. Sucks cuz it costs the DNNA money...

If you opened the replay, it's not under warranty or you've upgraded the drive....
Open it up, take the disk out, run maxtor's diagnostic software PowerMax
Check for errors, Maxtor drives generally have a 3 year warranty, use it if you need to!

If no errors were reported in diagnostic scan LLF (low level format) is a good option. Disk problems LLF is always a good idea, LLF maps out bad sectors on the disk. Bad sectors can cause all sorts of problems on PVRs because PVRs don't generally write verify (with good reason). It's assumed the write worked without problems. On system files this could be fatal.

QUOTE]