Time Warner Cable Navigator - Page 109

Xnappo's eSATA database of Go/No-Go reports for NAVIGATOR, PASSPORT and SARA:
http://www.baseportal.com/baseportal/xnappo/navigator

Not as many Navigator reports as Passport and SARA.
If a drive doesn't work under Passport or SARA,
it probably won't work under Navigator.

The widely available WD "My Book" does NOT work with Cable HD-DVR....

Whereas the WD "My DVR Expander" was specifically designed for
the 8300 HD-DVR and DOES WORK:
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=334

Here's the more extensive eSATA for HD-DVR thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=516559

========================================
We could be seeing next generation tru2way STB's and DVR's for lease from
cable system "any time now" and (per CES discussions) at retail stores
probably by this summer.....
They also support 1 GHz Tuning, DSG (DOCSIS Channel Bonding) for hi-speed
control link, Multi-Room (e.g. MoCA) & IPTV/MPEG4/VC-1 for 1080p movie/programs .

BTW: COX reported a HD-STB and HD-DVR shortages in three markets
(also Verizon...):
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6529807.html
And our own TWC-San Diego (North) just ran out of Moxi HD-DVRs....

Maybe (Motorola?) is struggling to get next gen (OCAP) units to pass acceptance tests....

just wanted to throw this in here. As you saw from two earlier posts I recieved two 8204HDC from my local cable company. I was very nervous about the navagaitor platform from reading all the horror stories here, I have to have cable as My satellite install just isnt working out (South Trees). I have to say so far, I am very happy with what I have seen, now am I saying that I like navagaitor or time warner boxes over my 722, NO! But so far Channel changing is very responsive, I havent missed a recording or had any random reboots in the middle of viewing a program. I am in the Northeast Ohio area, just in case anyone is wondering.

Mine has been working pretty good since early January, but lately it has had problems recording live TV, i.e. if I hit pause or rewind while watching a show, either it won't pause/rewind at all or, for example, it will rewind but when playing back there is no picture, only sound. Rebooting returns it to normal operation.

The other day while rebooting I noticed some changes:

1 - A new code appears on STB display between "boot" and "L-13". The new code looks like it might say "Ait". I will try to draw it for you:
2 - On the TV screen that says Scientific Atlanta and OCAP there are three logos at the bottom: PowerTV, Sun/Java and "esmertec". I cannot swear to it, but I don't remember seeing "esmertec" before. Didn't that third logo used to be some other company? I could be wrong or just not paying attention.

3 - On the same screen as #2, in the center there are 5 squares that light up (turn from grey to yellow) from left to right as a progress indicator. The thing is, I am fairly certain that in the past, only the first square ever "lit up". Now, I have complete progression from one to all five squares. This occurs while "Ait" is displayed on the STB.

I also started having some digital tiling, pauses and sound dropouts the last couple days. As usual, I blame this on the network rather than the house and/or local wiring.

-Marty

Interesting. I wonder if they changed the JVM software layer...

http://www.sofinnova.fr/esmertec%99-...m-actu-166.php

xnappo

That article is dated 07/04/2004.

Michael

I am sure they are still a JVM vendor, and that that is what TWC is buying from them.

xnappo

More recent info re Emertec's JVM:
http://www.vidiom.com/java_technology_kit.html
http://www.esmertec.com/solutions/home_multimedia/

Things have been quiet on the Navigator front and a user on our Milwaukee forums said that (for our area) he has had experiences with Passport, Sara, and Navigator. He said he put Passport first, than Navigator, than Sara last!

He said hasn't had his box miss any series recordings either. Could we finally be getting out of the woods with Navigator where these problems are getting resolved? I sure hope so! There haven't been many complaints in my division over the last several months either. He said he moved from Wisconsin to Indiana. Areas of Indiana are serviced by TWC offset company Brighthouse Networks. He has Navigator where he lives and experiences with Passport when he was in Milwaukee.

Here is his post:

http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/forums/...4506#post44506

Answers on Demand (AOD) was scheduled to leave our line up at the end of January, but remains as of this date. Users think that it will leave once Navigator goes to the non-C DVR's in my area. (Scheduled before the end of March.) I think, if it stays, they will make it Navigator information, or drop that channel and move the Navigator information as a part of Channel 1. What is the set up like for where you live?

Jack

Jack I read the report.Not sure which version of SARA he had but mine does only new episodes and has the jump back feature.Series management not great.But my version is a lot better than the one he had. SARA 1.89.17.1

I'm so pissed at SA-8300 HDC with Navigator I think I'm about to have a coronary. Before I do, I just want to say what a piece of sh*t I think this box and software is. God, this is light years away from alpha level quality.

Well, in case I don't have a coronary, does anyone know how to reset the box so programs are erase from internal and external SATA drive?

It seems that if power goes off/on, it'll take me back in time to a program list thats about a week old. Even stuff that I manually delete shows up. And anything I recorded since has disappeared.

The previous box, a SA 8300 HD with Passport, was rock solid in comparison to this thing.

What state are you in? This seems to make a HUGE difference in Navigator's performance. You know, for those with problems, I think there was a recommendation a while back to not hook up an external drive. When people disconnected their external drive, Navigator behaved better. I know it is designed to accept an external drive, but until this thing is stable in all markets, users with issues, see if that makes a difference. Reboot after you disconnect the drive to "start fresh."

The composite information gathered from techs and engineers is that Navigator and these new C-card boxes are very sensitive to external devices in some markets more than others. While you will have less storage by disconnecting the external drive, you might have a more stable DVR in the process.

Jack

Hi Satch Man,

Thanks for the info.... This particular problem occurred while using an external drive so I'll take your suggestion. Strange this is the external drive worked for about two months with it.

However, before I even got an external drive Navigator was so bad in comparison to my previous 8300 HD w/Passport, I considered other options. However, I had to rule out Sat because of trees in my southern sky direction and I had to rule out Tivo because Time Warner is deploying SDV in my area. So I'm stuck with TWC.... :-(

Thanks,

merlintl

Others have mentioned that a recent software push(from 2.4.5_4 to 2.4.8_2) broke the external drive support. Hopefully another push will fix it again. I would harass your local help desk, just for the one in a million chance it bubbles up to the developers.

xnappo

you are in luck! Tivo is getting ready to release a little bit later this year a USB "dongle" That will handle SDV, and ON demand programming, I cant wait for that as I WILL be snatching up a tivo series 3 or tivo HD then!

This past week I found a friend who just got cable, that he had obtained an 8300HDC that contained the new 'mystro' software; at least when your booting up that's what it is saying is running.

I understand that some treads have said they changed the named it 'navigator'.

Anyway, I ran out and exchanged my 'working' 8300HD DVR (two boxes), one of which had a 500 GB external SATA drive which until it crashed worked flawlessly

All of which was possible due to this 'Avsforum' and many thanks to all that had helped me a year ago.

But now, since I decided to join with the group who likes to have the lastest and greatest, I need some help, opinions and advice.

First, am I in the proper forum thread for this kind of discussion?

My first impression of the new software is kinda 'ho-hum', I can see that it's ready for major improvements but in general there is nothing really special about it.

Here are my first few questions:

I need to find out how to get into diagnosic mode on this box now. The 8300 HD with Passport running you held down the 'select' and 'exit' key for a few seconds and then let go. Presto, the diag screen appeared.. There I was able to check the condition of my external drive and that the system did recognized it.

I tried these key stroke combinations and they don't seem to work, does anyone know of the new key combinations that will bring that info up?

I know the box recognizes the external drive because when I did a cold boot it asked me if I wanted to format my drive and of course I said yes.

The other queston is that ever since I attached my external drive, the 'message/mail icon' is displayed on the box until it is fully up and running.

Does anyone know what this 'mail' icon is for?

Also we seemed to have lost some great features (yes, I already know it's slower than the old Passport software), like the ability when in 'fast forward ' mode to advance or jump in 15 minute incriments by doing a key stroke of the right arrow. And of course, this could be done in the reverse mode but this time doing the keystroke of the left arrow.

And the FF in general, only has 3 steps instead of the 4 provided by Passport.

At least they have a hand showing.

Ok, I'll end this here just in case I'm not in the correct forum.


As usual, many thanks for the advice..

Rob


Robert Lanza

Well I can answer the couple of questions above.

I am able to access two sets of diagnostics.
1) Hold Select until the mail icon flashes and then press the down arrow. This basically seems to be the diagnostics for the software and provides version information.
2) On the STB, hold both the Vol+ and Vol- buttons until the mail icon flashes, then press Ch+. This seems to be the hardware diagnostics and can give you information such as signal strength.

For the 15 minute increments. press and hold the fast forward button (or rewind button). After a couple of seconds it will begin to jump in increments.

Hi Rob,

robotron answered the questions I was going to reply to, but now that you have the navigator diag key sequences, can you report which firmware version your system is running? I am interested in the one where you hold select on the box until the mail icon appears, and then hit the down key on the remote.
I am running 2.4.8_2 and along with several others on this forum with this same firmware, we have had the same unfortunate experience with external SATA drives where it will work right after a reboot, but after the box is idle for a certain amount of time (~2.5hrs) the whole system becomes unresponsive and locks up, requiring a reboot to regain full function. Some posters theorize that the unit goes into a sleep mode and has difficulty with getting out of sleep mode with the external drive connected. I believe someone that used to have the previous firmware reported that their system was fine in that version and only suffered a few seconds delay when recovering from sleep mode. For now, my external drive is switched off and the cable box behaves fine.

Get a UPS. In general, if a computer suddenly loses power, you may have some data corruption, and here you are talking about two hard drives. Also, the external one should be up and running before the internal one starts to boot, and if they get power at the same time, who knows what happens?

Pedjar,

Thanks, so that's what's happening. Yes, I too am getting the freeze up and have to reboot the system.

I'm going to print out the sequence to get the box into diag mode. Someone here said they got 58 pages of diag info, I only got 9 pages and none of them listed the external drive as the old Passport software did.

So is this the correct forum and thread to talk about the new Mystro software.

I have two boxes, one in my bedroom and one in the living room. I upgraded both boxes after thinking everything was OK.

However, I only have the external drive on one box. So I can compare the both boxes.

And thanks for the 15 jump stuff, I'm going to try it out now.

I'll report back with version numbers.

Thanks again

Rob

Ok I'm getting it as well, as I said in my previous message.

What about this idea to try and attempt to fix it.

I noticed on my hard drive (WD Caviar 500GB) that jumpers 3 & 4 are for Power Up in Standy. At least that is what is listed on the drive and also when I go to the WD web site and look in the knowledge base.

I would like to try placing the jumper on this setting, my only problem, I can't find a jump pin to use. Can you believe that!

And thanks to Robotron, I managed to get into all the diag screens.

One thing that I still can't see, unlike the old Passport software, I can see where it lists the external drive. Does anyone know what page that is listed on.

Here is what I found as far as software versions:

Bootstrapper ver 2.4.3
Network ver 2.4.8_2
Monitor ver 2.4.8_2

For the hardware versions:

ROM Software ver PTV 1.2

Cablecard Model 0802 ver 0012

OS Ver 1.01.1 op 3.2

Man I hope I wrote that down correcty.

I did take pictures of a few screens but I'm not sure I can attach a photo to these messages.

If interested in seeing the diag screens, I'd be more than happy to post them (if someone can tell me now to do that).

I'm going to try the jump if I can find one, or steal one from some other hard drive that I have.

Rob

And if that doesn't work, how do we contact Time Warner or Scientifc Atlanta about the issue. Remember, the cable company is not really push us to put external drives on their boxes. So who can we report this to? Has anyone tried to report the problem?

Thanks

I think I will give this a shot tonight as well. I have the WD5000AAKS 500GB drive. I also have a defunct HD from my old desktop that I bet has a spare jumper. It was an IDE drive so there's likely one for the master/slave pins. Nothing to lose since I have not been using the external drive since encountering this issue with 2.4.8_2.

I'll also compare the rest of your diag with mine, but they likely match since I got my 8300HDC box in January in Manhattan. What we need is someone with 2.4.8_2+ that has no issue with external HD to report in.

One poster is using a workaround whereby he has the TV guide channel recording 24/7 so as to avoid the unit going into sleep mode. I actually thought about doing the same, although I'd have to reenter all my scheduled programming since I want this workaround to be lowest priority for conflicts, but then noticed that on my unit, the TV guide program isn't the same name listing. Tried some other random channel that seemed to have the same name listing playing 24/7, in 4 or 6hr blocks, but doing a series record with all new and repeats only triggered the very next occurrence to record.

WX27,

I tried it and it didn't work. Upon boot up it is saying the drive is BAD.

So that jump does something that the 8300HDC does not like.

If you have different results let me know.

So you said the work around is just to prevent the box from going into sleep mode or standby.

Does anyone know who we can contact to file a bug report?

Thanks

Rob

Thank you! I was wondering if it was possible.

hey guys, im new here and new to the whole hd box scene. Well today i went to TWC and got one of those "wonderful"8300hdc boxes ive been reading about. my problem is that it gets stuck at E-13. I have unplugged it for periods of time, left it sit for a while to see if the things went away but no luck. Is there anything I can do or try that i might have not tried. Thanks!

Unfortunately I read your post after I had put the jumper on my HD and found out it did not work. Just got done reversing that surgery. I have now set up a series recording/keep only 3 episodes for ch 801/NY1N, which has the same program name all day long in 4hr chunks. I think another channel option is 199 (DTV freeviews & previews), also 4hr segments. I'll see if the box is still functional in the morning.

You're doing the right thing, knut. You're pretty much helpless at this point. It sits on L-13 trying to load whatever L-13 represents from the host. If it cannot get what it needs, presumably due to signal quality, you end up with E-13. I believe that if you leave it plugged in, it will periodically try to reload. The first day I had my 8300HDC, I left it plugged in and checked on it every hour or so. I saw it go from E-13 back to an L-13. My point is that it will retry on its own and you can see this if, for example, you have an E-13 at 1 AM and then an L-13 at 2 AM.

The first load on the new box will extra-slow. I think mine took about 45 minutes. This was after several hours of L-13 / E-13, unpug, wait, plug in, etc. There's just not that much you can do besides making sure your connections are tight. Subsequent reboots, assuming good signal, only take about 10 minutes.

Note: I am not a cable guy. These are just my observations as a poor, pitiful TWC customer, so please forgive any technical inaccuracies.

Oh, of course you do need to call TWC customer service so you can schedule a service call. Make sure you have plenty of time because they will want you to sit on the phone and try the reboot, even though you've been doing it for hours already.

Good luck. After the initial month or so of my service with the HDC box being so bad it was virtually unwatchable, mine has actually been working pretty well for about a month, knock on wood. Nothing changed with the box or house wiring, so the problem was out in their network somewhere, but they never want to admit that.

-Marty

10:30am, box is still functional with external drive attached. channel 801 works fine. Thinking maybe channel 199 would be slightly better as it seems that most of the time it just has a TWC graphic on, so mpeg compression should do really well on it.

*Just changed my setup to record channel 199. You just have to check the recording schedule every now and then to make sure you don't have any conflicts should you have two regular shows you want recorded at the same time.

Unfortunately, with 4-hour segments, it seems that you could still hit a situation where you enter the sleep mode if you cancel a segment recording that conflicts with another program that is scheduled at the beginning or end of the segment. If you're recording a half-hour program, you'll have 3 1/2 hours if idle time; thus, triggering the sleep mode.

Also, doesn't this technique severly clutter your "Scheduled Recordings" list?

[quote=martinmarty;13126427]You're doing the right thing, knut. You're pretty much helpless at this point. It sits on L-13 trying to load whatever L-13 represents from the host. If it cannot get what it needs, presumably due to signal quality, you end up with E-13/QUOTE]

Hey, I had the same problem and I found a way around the E-13. First, you need to call the cable company and make sure they programmed your account for that box as an 8300HDC not the 8300HD.

In my case, they didn't set the parameters at their end for the newer 8300HDC.

Most of the time the box will reboot correctly if you wait a full 24 hours or at least till the server send out the update signal.

But my work around was to do the following. Reboot the box (unplug it) and keep the cable off the box. Do not have anything attached to the 'cable in' on the box.

Let the reboot happen and the box will get hung just before it goes into Mystro with an error message 'Please wait, trying to connnect to service', (I forgot the exact wordage but it's something to that effect).

Wait a few minutes with that message, then without rebooting, attach the cable to the 'cable in' on the box.

The box will then be able to get the service, and for some reason will manage to get rebooted correctly. It will pass the the L-13.

Give it a try, it worked for me.

Rob

[quote=wx27;13127783]10:30am, box is still functional with external drive attached. channel 801 works fine. Thinking maybe channel 199 would be slightly better as it seems that most of the time it just has a TWC graphic on, so mpeg compression should do really well on it.
[quote]

WX27, ok I give up. Yesterday I broke my external enclosure and had to purchase a new one. I broke it when I was taking out the jumper. The box fell and broke the on/off switch. And to make matters worse, I think I crashed the hard drive. Luckly I had a brand new one on hand. (I''ve already done an RMA on the damaged drive).

Oh yes, I wanted to tell everyone, I wrote a message to both Scientific Atlanta and Time Warner reporting the bug with the external drive causing the cable box to freeze up.

Maybe someone will really look at my message and get it to the right departments. I only had an email address for customer service.

Anyway, I was going to ask everyone, if the best thing to do is to return the 8300HDC and go back to the 8300HD, till things get fixed.

Or should I wait a bit and just try doing this record thing that you are trying?

So let me be sure, I should set up to record something all the time, or just every few hours? You said channel 199?

Thanks

Rob

PS Did anyone else try and report the bug to Scientific Atlanta or Time Warner. I would like to stay with the new box and software. Although, I don't see anything that special in the new software, just yet!