katchoo, O.K., your U99's sound like the rest of ours (about the same time frame), ... you say you did the ch up/dn reset right? this should reset your TVGOS system, .... do you feed cable directly to the E95? .... wait, just thought of something, you say you'r hooked up to digital cable? ... they may have switched your channel that you recev data over to digital, ... I've heard that some are doing that,... if that is the case, it may be something with that, .... I'm grabbing at straws here. First thing I'd try would be a full reset of the E95, ... you'll have to wait a few days to see if that works, .. a good sign is when it asks you to pick your channel line-up. After that I would try running a splitter and seeing if the E95 picks up the data without the Cable box in place. ... the cable box may be looking at the guide data via the digital channel (I'm not sure if they ... the E85's and 95's use the same chanel/data as the cable boxes do, ... gonna have to figure that out!) .. I've got a scientific atlanta 8300HD from cox. Does this get you started in the right direction, or am I re-hashing stuff you've already tried?
Well after a weekend of fingers crossed, I still can't record my wife's soap. Thursday night I looked over the TVGOS diag screens and I think I have the 07/06/11 version, need to see my notes again. Went into Service mode, but watched the machine go through self-check first, which means my guide data was whiped. My firmware is 0850DL, not the newest, but I'm not gonna update till someone tells me it will definately fix my recording problem. Went ahead and did a full reboot (chn up/ chn dwn), pulled the plug, and started over. Had guid data Friday morning, so I entered the soap entry into the schedule, and low and behold it recorded it without me having to turn it on. Also recorded 2 shows that night, but come Monday, no dice on the soap!! On the TVGOS screens, I noticed my host channel was 0xf, which from what I read here is where the guide download starts. I thought it was the PBS station, which would be channel 8 for me, not 15. When you guys say PBS, do you really mean PBS, as in Sesame street and Mr. Rodgers nieghborhood??? I find it interesting that the one channel that's acting up is channel 15, for the soap and Lost, and it's also my host channel! Anyone else with recording problems restricted to one problem channel? Is it your host channel??
Katchoo, Did you try hooking up your E95H directly to the cable antenna, bypassing the cable box? Where do you live? I live in Yorba Linda (orange County). I can get it to work if I bypass the box, but not through the box. I had same problem as you, same time frame that TVguide quit working. Note that at the same time, Adelphia implemented their new menu system. Panasonic thinks at the same time Adelphia put in other firmware patches, and thats whats messing up the TV guide. The issue is between TV guide and Adelphia, not panasonic. Dont know if there is enough people complaining to make it a priority. TVguide wont even talk to panasonic, let alone us. I havent had time yet to chase down Adelphia and see if they have a technical person who knows anything about this. I may try to swap my box, but probably wont work. Rx7Fan, I did all the resets. Im pretty sure the problem is not Panasonic at this point, since I get it to work bypassing the cable box. Adelphia is taking the cable signal and doing some processing on it before passing it on, and that processing is messing up the TVguide signal. Something they did in the latest implementation of the new menus.
ifeldman, I agree with everything you said. And yes it works when I bypass the box. I also agree it is a TV Guide and Adelphia problem, but we consumers have no clout with the big boys and since Panasonic sold the DVR to me with the sales pitch that it had the TV Guide in the unit, they bear the responsibility to clear up the problem. If not, that is deceptive sales. A large company like Panasonic can and should get this resolved. And like I said before, I have tried calling TV Guide and have now left a gazillion messages and they ingore my pleas. If I had someone to talk to at Adelphia, I would do that also. Anyone have a telephone number and contact person for me to call?
katchoo, IFeldman, .... Yeah, sounds exactly like what I said when this all started, katch, ... I agree, it should be Panny's responsibility, sort of, .... they sold us the units saying they would work as is, (again, sort of), they built them to work with the TVGOS system, as it worked at the time of sale, ... when gemstar started changing things, ... or Adelphia for that matter, Panny, if they feel like it can produce a firmware upgrade, or make the unit upgradeable by gemstar (this is actually the case) Panny, although horrible for tech support in my opinion, isn't really the bad guy as far as the tvgos problems, .... if you noticed the previous (huge amount of) posts, in the TVGOS data screens of the Panny, there is a TV Guide firmware version, ... Gemstar maintains that firmware, ... that is what caused the onslaught of U99's @ 3 or 4 months ago. Panny's response at that time was to try and fix any hardware problems that were interfering with the TVGOS, ... they tried, but really for the most of us, they couldn't help. (sorry, for the history lesson here) I'd say for you 2, the best direction to head would be to jump on adelphia, ... checking there web site, the number I see there is 1-888-683-1000, or Like Ira (I believe it was) said, try swapping to another converter box (different brand, or model), see if that helps it.
ifeldman: The source of your problems might be the Motorola Cable Box. Apparently the newer Motorolas do not pass the EPG data. Here are some links to posts indicating the above. http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/2/173911.html http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=5376450&&#post5376450 http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=5202609&&#post5202609 http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6389519&&#post6389519
Katchoo, psigp, I read those other posts. I have the Motorola DCT2224, which should work according to those posts, but I bet the latest firmware tweaks for the new menus with Adlephia messed it up. Sounds like we need to talk to Motorola. (or Moxie, if I change to their box, maybe theirs will work - its the one Adelphia would send out if I switch to HDTV and their digital recording. I want to do the splitter trick, which would allow me (and you too Katchoo) to use the tvguide menus for analog programming, and use the L1 input fed from the cable box to record digital programming, setting up the cable box to the channel needed. (maybe I dont need it with ON-demand). But it wont work if you want to record different digital signals on different channels. However, my signal is not strong enough at the box to split, as I did once before and got pixelated HBO. Adelphia said I needed to go straight through. I will look at other options to amplify the signal. Since I use the E95H 90% of the time for regular TV, maybe this is the best for now until Motorola fixes the problem (once I fix my splitter issue). I will pursue tracking down who to talk to there and see what they say. Sounds like they know about the problem, at least for the new boxes. But maybe not for the old and the recent firmware change for the new Adelphia menus. The problem with Adelphia's digital recorder and HD is you only can record 15 hours of HD, 30 hrs of Digital, and 60 hrs of analog (which the panasonic can take care of). But you can record on one channel and watch on another. But you cant download the signal (but you can play it to the panasonic and record it. Ira
Now that I know how to find the "Next Download" start time (via the MESSAGES panel), I have been able to put my machine into standby more reliably (i.e., in time to catch more downloads). As mentioned early in this thread, there is an 'early morning' DL that I discovered my recording of the a.m. news was blocking. I have been trying to leave the machine off (on standby) for extended daytime periods (say, early morning until 7pm) but this, of course, means that the recorder is running my life, rather than serving me as the good little device it should be. (!!) It would help to be able to further fine-tune my attention to these download periods. 1) Does anyone know if there is a pattern to how long a download runs? (Once I have the 'start' time, should I leave it in standby for 2 hours, 4 hours, 8 hours, the rest of my life?) 2) Is there a predictable pattern for the DL start/stop? E.g., I've begun to observe that, here in Hawaii, the a.m. download *usually* begins at 5:55am, local time. But I think there were some days when the start time was an hour or so later. thanks! Keri
New Panny firmwares if you dare: http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/vDownloads Download it to find the date of the new FW.
I've been using the latest download from the Big P on my DMR-500 for 3 weeks. It didn't break anything and didn't seem to fix anything either. The size of the file was exactly the same as the previous one and the date was a couple of weeks newer. It says the update is for the compatability with the latest DVD formats.
Keri, I know many, or most, people posting on this thread bought their DVR's based on the ease-of-use promise of the over-the-air TV Guide. You could choose to take back control of your life by disabling the TV Guide download and programming the shows you'd like to record manually in the same manner I presume you programmed your VCR before TV Guides were broadcast over-the-air. That's what I do and I never have to worry about it. I have 3 DMR-E85Hs and approximately 13 shows manually programmed across them that I record on a weekly basis. I rarely have to manipulate the programming set up. I have cable, but no cable box. There are some posts on this board that claim you cannot disable the TV Guide download if you inform the unit you have both cable AND a cable box. Even if you can't disable the download, you may still set up programs manually without using the downloaded schedule. The only functionality you sacrifice is not having the show title for each recording when viewing the recorded shows with the Navigator menu. You still get the weekday and date of the show (e.g. Tue 1/3) and you can display the properties to find the channel and recorded length. Just a thought.
I decided to try calling Cheryl about the "no record" issue, and was prompted with voice messages saying something like "If you are a consumer, please contact the product manufacturer". To those of you who have called Cheryl in the past, is this a new message or did it always say that? I left a message but haven't heard back in over a week. Does this mean the only resource for help has gone away???
You know, that's right -- and that is actually how I generally use my system, having come to not be able to rely on the TV Guide downloads. So, even when I have a populated listing, I use my manually-set programming (and it does add the nice touch of adding in the name, if there is one). I 'get' all that. I suppose it has become a 'dance' that I've been sucked into, now that I know how to check on the "next DL" info. Today, for example, I have an unpopulated "Tuesday" list and I would have worked hard to get that list populated before tonight. Let's call it the poor man's "Panny Chase" game. ;-{ Still, I'd like to puzzle out those DL periods. From making several checks during the day it does look like they are a 'couple' of hours long (say, between 2 and 4?). So far I've compiled something of a pattern of: 5:55am, 10:05am, 1:45pm, 5:45pm, and 11pm. The specific times do vary by day (with the 10:05am and 11pm being, so far, constant). But now I'm finding that, even when left on standby over one of the listed periods, on some days the 'empty' part of the list isn't refreshed (e.g., my empty Tuesday never populated, in spite of MANY periods of downtime). So are these several periods in a day simply sending the same info on a day, at multiple times during the day? If that's the case, how could the "leave it off for 25 hrs." rule possibly work to get a fully-populated list. Or am I just 'lucky' and always missing the one that does the Tuesday bits? It's still a mystery (but one I'm going to try to be less of a 'slave' to).
Hey, offtopic question I guess. I have read most of the posts, not sure if this was covered or not. Everytime I turn my unit on, I get a U99 error. I mean every single time. It turns on into dvd mode, displays whatever is on the channel and goes to tvguide where I see "no listing." two seconds later, before I can do anything at all, it says U99 and freezes up, still playing tv. My problem is not tv guide not showing up because that has never failed me. I can't do anything at all. I can't update the firmware, I can't go into service mode, nothing (i read roger's page.) I have done complete restarts of the machine, unplugged an dplugged it in umteen times, etc. In fact, the last thing I did to it was try to "initialize ALL parameters to factory defaults" based on Roger's webpage. It tried to do its first scan and gives me a U99 in that! Now everytime I turn it on it tries to do the same scan but errors. I don't know what it is that is wrong... I'm thinking about letting it sit for several days before I try and turn it on again, in the event that it is indeed a tv guide caused error and just needs to update the channel listings. Any ideas?
Keriah: That's really odd about never getting Tuesday listings. As RX7Fan worked out and confirmed with TVGOS months ago, the listings tend to download on a "1-2-3-7 (or is it 8)" schedule. For example, Sunday late night (in the early AM hours of Monday) it will download data for Monday (1st day), Tuesday (2nd day), Wednesday (3rd day) and the following Sunday or Monday (the 7th or 8th day). I do late-night timer recordings so I sometimes miss the "7th or 8th" day listing, but that will come in a day or two before that day actually arrives. So, it would seem you have a problem with the download mostly on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, all days which should download Tuesday data. VERY odd. You stated that you juggled things around to try to get full listings, but perhaps you're recording more on Saturday and Sunday than during the week, which is causing the Tuesday problem? I also presume you're watching what you've recorded mostly on Saturday and Sunday, preventing potential downloads. However, if you are not recording or watching recordings any more on Mondays than other weekdays, the Tuesday listings SHOULD be "grabbed" sometime on Monday, in theory, regardless of what you do on the weekend. Just a guess. As you basically stated, beyond this pattern, there are no "hard and fast" rules about download times and lengths. There are other factors to consider as well, like it also downloads the ads which pay for TVOGS, so I assume they take priority in the download. This means the listings data may not be complete if a new advertisement has taken priority in the download time span allotted. Haven't noticed any "disappearing scheduled recordings" lately, but haven't been doing much due to the holidays and all. FYI, Panasonic has re-done their website (in November, as I remember), and now the DATE of the firmware version is listed, but at least for the E85, it still says "4/2005." This is the firmware date Panny lists on the download page, NOT the actual date on the download, so who knows if they keep it updated/if it is correct? Kind of disheartening, but par for the course after our interactions with this company.
Mornin' Gang, Keriah, Coyote, If I remember right, from one of my talks with Cheryl, the downloads last about 2 1/2 to 3 hours each, ... I believe (this is my sort of educated guess on the rest) that it starts during standby, and the runs, if a scheduled recording starts up during it's download, ... I believe (this is the guess part) it will continue to download. I've seen several posts , and think I remember seeing it myself that the download in my area is about 2:30 AM (one of the downloads), and I've had recordings start early morning hours (4 or 5AM). I am about 95% positive on the 2.5 to 3 hour download part, the rest was guess work. I did notice a glitch last week, where a hand full of the listings were messed up (No Listing), ... educated guess again, ... they may have found the origional problem, and started a new "fix Roll out", or it may have been un-related to anything. I saw it Tuesday of last week Dec. 27th. Other than that, everything's been pretty status quo for me. Side note, anybody watch "Threshold"??? is it coming back, or is it dead??
Has anyone gotten an update from Panasonic or TVGuide on whether they are working on fixing the transmission problems? I still can not get any downloads and nobody will talk to me.
I have been manually setting all my recordings and all seems well now as far as that goes. I don't even look at the TV Guide anymore. There is no title on the recording but that is easy to add. The worst problem I have now is that the machine very frequently goes into a "self check" two times when I dub. I also found out that NOT naming the disc during this process helps to prevent it from going into self check so often. The machine also seems to have a hard time if the disc is quite full. I record in LP mode and put 4 one-hour shows on. When it is really close to the total of 4 hrs., my E95 seems to have a hard time dubbing. What can I say, at least it is recording again!
The first time I "named" a disk, my E85 went through selfcheck twice and lost all the guide data. I simply don't ever name a disk anymore, there's no real reason to anyway. I've done dozens of dubs since then with no errors, but I never have the hard drive more then 50% full either.
dksmall, soju, I've dubbed many XP recordings from HDD to DVD-R on my firmware updated E85 when the HDD is over 50% full. Since I manually record, I edit the title of the program being dubbed as well as giving a title to the DVD-R. I think I sometimes title the DVD-R before dubbing and sometimes afterward before finalizing. I've probably dubbed 40 or so DVD-R's over the last 3 months and never encountered a self-check. I have not had a self-check for months since disabling TV Guide download.
