I now have a fully populated TVGOS. Not sure what they sent out last week to reset mine, but it seems to be functioning again. Robert Brentwood, TN 37027 Comcast Cable - no box.
We may have gone through this before but please bear with me and let me know if you can help. I hooked my cable directly to my E95 and received the TVGO fine. I really like the convenience of recording from the TVGO. However, when I connect the cable to my cable box (scientific Atlanta 3100) I don't receive the TVGO. I need the cable box to get the higher digital channels. Does anyone know why the cable box would block the TVGO and is there anything I can do to get around this? Does anyone know if Adelphia has a different cable box that would work? I've tried calling Adelphia but they are about as helpful as Panasonic and nobody really knows anything or cares! Thanks for listening.
Katchoo, I have the E95, but an older digital (non HD) Adelphia box. The TVGuide just doesnt pass through and havent found the right person yet. I split the antenna and one input goes to E95, the other to the cable box, and cable box output goes into L1 inputon E95. All analog channels and TV listings work fine on E95. The Adelphia box lets me set it up to program a show, and it will switch to that show and turn on the box. Then I go into the E95 and use the timer to select L1 input at the corresponding time. This is a work around and has worked fine for a couple of weeks. Interesting thing happened a couple of days ago. I went on vacation, and when I came back, my guide completely went away. I mean, nothing happens when I pressed the guide button. I had to unplugged the unit and reprogram the E95. Since I had to do this, I tried again to use the Adelphia box, but after waiting a day, no download. So I switched back to the same configuration above and will check tonight. I expect I should have the analog listings again. This works for me, as 90% of my viewing is with the analog channels. Ira
I receive my listings from OTA antenna at zip 21784 (Maryland) and while I'm still getting the listings, I haven't seen an ad recently. Does anyone know why?
I would first like to thank everyone that has posted what appears to be the only real available support information on this e85h TVGOS issues. I've gone through most (ok many) of the postings here, and am convinced that my situation is related, but am not 100% sure that it is exactly the same, so I figured I post it to see. I have a DMR-E85H that I purchased new in 12/2004, which has a serial number with characters 3-4 of 4C. I had primarily been using the unit without issue since it was I purchased it as a VCR replacement and only started dubbing to DVD-R's within the last few months. During the last month or so, I'd note that the HDD did creep up to a near full condition and that for the shows I was dubbing, I was shortening the titles (to elimate commercials, etc). All was well until yesterday, when I was trying to dub some titles over to a DVD-R using the high speed transfer option, where the dub failed twice. Although I suspected a bad batch of DVD-R's, I later found that the issue appeared to be related to one particular title which had some substantial shortening of small sections. After several additional dubs which excluded the problem title, five titles that had been dubbed were selected and erased as one group to free HDD space. When this was completed, I tried to bring up the TVGOS menu to set up a new entry for recording and found that the machine was not responding to the TVGUIDE button. No errors were observered being displayed, and the obvious things like dead remote batteries and problems with the function of the remote were ruled out through battery swap and excercises of other system functions through the remote. I also confirmed that I was unable to access the TVGOS function or the Manual Timer Record options through the Function menu (the Function and Direct Navigator options did respond however). Finally, I did notice that the channel through which we normally SEE the TVGuide information from our non-digital TimeWarner (Hudson Valley - north of NYC) cable feed had coincidentally been found to not be displaying TVGuide info, but rather sports and infomercials. (Call to TW indicated that this was done outside of their control and through an agreement between TVG and a local sports channel). After reading this forum, I followed the Factory Default (^v combo) reset procedure (to no avail), and finally the Power OFF (hold button 5-10 seconds), unplug (30+ seconds) procedure, and finally got the TVGuide setup to launch. It appears I may be back in business, but of course at this point, I am waiting for the listings to be populated. I think that covers all of the details, and for those still reading, my apologies for the detail and thanks for sticking with me. I'd appreciate any feedback on any of the questions that all of this raised or any other comments on this experience. 1. Has anyone seen this symptom with TVGOS, where the TVGUIDE button functions to not trigger and no error messages or other oddities are observed? 2. Should I upgrade the Firmware or would this be for some other issue? If so, could someone point me to the correct upgrade process? 3. Is the commercial removal title shortening a problem process? 4. Are there any HDD defrag functions that should be performed on any regular basis as titles are added and removed? 5. Is there a recommended HDD utilization threshold that should not be surpassed? 6. The TVGuide listing for my cable feed has never been reflective of our real lineup... is there any hope or mechanism that can be followed to request the correct listing to be added (while we're getting greedy and looking for our purchased products to function as expected). I really like the unit, but must say that the detail here has been on the issues as well as the available support from the three involved companies has been unsettling. Any information I could get would certainly help. Thanks again.
Barkerb, I see you have come around to the right technique the long way, but you found it. If you read through the last 40 pages or so, you will see one consistent theme running through this thread: There are many causes for problems and several solutions for various symptoms, but the [bold]ONE[/bold] single procedure that is [bold]ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY[/bold] for full completion of [bold]ANY[/bold] reset is the [bold]removal of AC power from the unit for at least 30 seconds. [/bold] Until power is removed long enough to allow the power supply capacitors to bleed down, unstable circuit conditions may remain latched into the logic circuits. Removing AC power appears to fix this--until the next crash. Also, any failure with DVDs or any mass-deletion of files should also be accompanied with AC removal. A soft reset (holding power switch down until Stand-by light goes out) before doing so will allow you to maintain your volatile settings (Personal information, listings, and schedule). Leaving the DVD empty except when you are using it minimizes crashes. Do *NOT* leave a DVD in when you are about to do any reset or other maintenance--that is asking for trouble. The AC-removal appears to defrag the Drive TABLE OF CONTENTS, which appears to get all messed up when the drive gets full and/or when a lot of files are deleted. I know that after dubbing off a couple of dozen programs and then deleting them, if I power-cycle, all is well. If I don't, both my E85 and E95 crash within a day or two ("An error has occurred"). Barkerb, your unit is almost certain to have the original "Green-Screen Crash" version of firmware, well known for causing U99 errors and losing the TV Guide screen. Firmware update is essential for those units. How to do this and where to find the resources have been mentioned in this thread several times before, so I won't repeat it here--but probably should look into creating a "Sticky" about them. I completely filled my HDD at least once, and I usually have 120-150 titles on the HDD before I declare a "Dubbing Day" and fill another couple of dozen DVDs. I cut the commercials out of about 25% of what I save, and crop the front/back off of most of the others. I edit virtually every file name to include Episode Number for TV shows or to shorten movie titles. I also change the thumbnails on most shows before dubbing. I use most of the editing tools, including editing chapters and Dividing titles (I record a four-hour block of "24" for instance, use the chapter editor to crop the front/back commercials and set chapter marks between shows, and then use those chapter marks as bookmarks for quickly dividing the title into four separate shows). As long as I follow my "Anti-crash Protocol" (detailed much earlier in the thread) I have no problems with any of this--unless the TVGOS download gets flaky on me. Yep. That's a known bug with old firmware. Upgrading should fix it. It is the single most important thing to do for your unit. Search this thread for "Firmware" for details, but you might start by reading and printing out this page from our member, Roger Amidon (K2SMN): http://www.dxcc.com/dmr-e85h.htm It's for the E85, but except for the actual upgrade file, everything else is the same for the E95. Make sure you get a copy of the full Panasonic instructions. No. Yes. Soft reset and unplug for 30 seconds after deleting over 20 files (cumulative) or a dozen or so at once. The self-test process of booting back up seems to reset the HDD table of contents, providing what I think of as a "logical defrag." Yes. Quit when the disk is full. Seriously, Panny engineers have told customers never to use more than half of their disk. This is just plain crazy. It came from before the firmware upgrade when problems showed up more on fuller disks. Remember, to edit you need *two* edit buffers, each at least the size of the file you are editing. When you finish, one is trashed along with the original copy and the other is renamed as your file. If you are editing a 2500 MB file, you will use another 5000+ MB of disk space as scratch pad for your editing. That's also the probable reason why editing the title of a full DVD_R can cause crashes--no buffer space left. Absolutely! I have just gone through that with my local cable provider by locating the responsible engineer for liaison with Gemstar, and then walking him through the mistakes in their listings. Are you aware that if you go to http://tvguide.com and create you own local listing that what they list there *IS* what you are being downloaded in most cases? Anyway, the hard part is finding the right local guy to work with. After three days, mine expressed intense frustration with Gemstar not returning *HIS* calls--and he was using the "Priority" Commercial vendor line. What hope do most of *US* poor consumers have in getting a call returned? ;P He finally did get through and they gave him an e-mail address for changes. He just cc:'d me his letter to them, updating them on the correct listings today. Lets see how long it will take them to respond and implement the changes. Meanwhile, you might try what I did: I found a neighboring zip code that had most of my line-up and edited the few changes needed--deleting the several dozen premium channels that my system doesn't have. Bob
Keri, After three days of no new listings, I started getting updates again witout any further effort on my part. I attribute this to TVGOS changing the data stream again and then "fixing" it a couple of days later. Hopefully, you emembered to unplug during the reset. The visible link would be the same. The flakiness is locked in until you power-cycle-and-wait-30-seconds. You can save some time by moving the Host channel to the top of your lisings. The set starts there and moves down looking for data streams. With multiple possibilities, it gets confused and distracted if the wrong ones precede the correct one. Simply repositioning your host system to the top of the lineup seems to fix that. bob
That's what I refer to as a "Hard Reset." It forces a setup, and loses all of your user-specific data. You can usually accomplish the same thing by doing a soft reset *IF* you include the power-off part, and then go through setup from scratch. However there are times you need the Hard Reset--and even times that you need the "Factory Reset"--but beware! Personal preferences (such as enabling "High-Speed Dubbing" will go away, and a Factory Reset also blows out any firmware updates--so keep that Update CD handy! You'll need it after a Factory Reset. bob
Tim, I'm not doubting you--but I must say that this is quite bizzare! Are you sure that you are using the power button on the unit itself and NOT the remote? It doesn't work with the remote. Also make sure that you hold it down long enough for the timer light to go out. This could be as long as ten seconds. There is no such thing as holding it too long, so when in doubt, wait it out. Finally, what I was referring to was after a power failure or a timer cutting power, so once it is off, unplug it for 30 seconds and then plug it back in. Does the timer come back on automatically? And, although it *should* go without saying--I'll say it...All of this stuff should be done during a time that a timer recording *isn't* scheduled for that moment. If you crash when a recording is scheduled, as soon as you power up, it will record. Oh, and after a power reset, it takes SEVERAL SECONDS for the full screen to populate and the recordin to start--sometimes 15-30 seconds. Be patient. bob
This is almost always a firmware-revision problem. Even if you've updated, if you (or the machine itself) have done a factory reset (i.e. had to start all over from the welcome screen), then you've lost your update and need to install it again. If you use high-speed dubbing, it has to be turned on again, too. bob
rtjoby is a geneious., the trick with the hard drive power remove works great!!! i have a dmr-85h and i wanted to see if i could put in a bigger hard drive, thinking just remove the old one and install the new one and i still have my stuff on the old hd., then everything should be right, they when i read in this forum you lose all your data if you remove the hd cause its index system is stored in the ram and not the hd, i kicked my self, but then i said hey, why don't i try this way that rtjoby did, and yes i tryed it and i recovered my old hard drive, and i want to say everything is stored on the hd, and not in the ram on board. files and index is in the hd, also my ver is the last version made in dec 04, so if it worked on my dmr, then im sure it will work for the others, p.s. the first time i tryed it didnt work, but i said give it another shot incase i did it in the wrong order, and yep, it worked and i got all my old files back from 6mth ago on my old hd. so me is happy thank you rtjoby, also the best way to remove the power plug is not from the hd but from the main board, as its a easy plug to remove while on,... its a pitty that no one knows of a way to let these things support more storage. i tryed to download the higher model firmware and tryed to install. but no hope. it just rejected it. ah well i got my old files back!!!! YEY
Just a quick note, (Got a calss starting in a few minutes, got a call from Cheryl (can't remember yesterday or day before), she says they are rolling out a test in OKC again,.... I'll try to give ya'll updates as I see or hear them. this may be the update from back in sept/oct time frame, with a fix for the problems us Panny users saw.
Bob, Thanks for the detailed reply. One comment... My host system (PBS - Channel 10 (hex A) *is* at the top of my list. That's the first thing I set during a set-up. (well, ALMOST the first thing). That's why this behavior after a 'soft reset' is puzzling. I watch the 'page 1' host-id value go from its initial (null) setting, to thinking it is Channel 7 (staying there over a couple of downloads), and finally settling on Channel 10. I had thought that, by putting PBS/10 at the top of the list, I was giving the download a nudge in the right direction. <sigh> So, this week, thinking that it would help (and that perhaps Channel 7 *is* some kind of 'host' in this market -- its listings do seem to populate before the other network channels), I have just now moved Channel 7 up so that it immediately FOLLOWS the entry for PBS/Channel 10 in my channel setup. None of this appears to be any particular problem (per se) -- just a curiosity I'm observing while I try to read the mind of my Panny. ~ Keri PS - Yes, I *always, always* unplug for 30-60 seconds after a reset.
VideoBob: Your doing a great job here, with your detailed replies. Thanks. I've often wanted to comment on some of the issues here, but I have been pretty busy lately. I just wanted to correct you on one thing. If you have done a "Firmware Upgrade", nothing should cause that to go away, even a "Factory Reset". I have never observed that happening here, and it doesn't even make sense. In fact, during one of my discussions with Panasonic, they had given a firmware upgrade CD to their warehouse people, and had them perform the upgrade on all the machines in the warehouse. In order for the firmware upgrade to be "lost", it would mean they would have to have double the flashrom in order to hold the "original" version of the firmware along with the new version. Trust me, they don't. On another point, I also believe that there is no "File Directory" maintained in flashrom. It is maintained in RAM, but will be lost during a complete powerdown. It is rebuilt from the hard drive on the next power-up. It is kept in RAM for quicker access. There IS a "Hard Drive Serial Number" kept in flashrom, and that's what has been causing some issues with changing hard drives - although it appears that it can be "fooled" with the method outlined by rtjoby. I did try that here, and couldn't get it to work - but maybe I should try again (the next time I have an empty hard drive!) Oh, one more observation - I have filled my hard drive on many occasions, and then divided and burned to DVD-R to recover some space, and nothing bad has ever happened. Also, I have put titles on a full DVD-R with out any trouble - although one time it did act up - but it was an el-cheapo DVD-R (Office Max I think) - I've had 6 bad DVD-R's out of a stack of 50 from them. I don't use them anymore! I use Sony's DVD-R's and have had one fail after about 300. So, quality of the blank DVD-R's is important. And again, as you well know, but in case someone missed it: ALWAYS use a UPS with these machines! Keep up the good work Bob! Roger.
barkerb, If you still have that title that won't dub (and are curious about the possible cause), you can try this. Create a dubbing list where it is the only item and then watch to see the point where the dubbing fails. For simplicity, let's say it is a 60 minute title and the failure occurs at 25%. Play/watch the title (in your regular viewing mode) around that failure point (in this example, around 15 minutes into the 60 minute item). Watch carefully to see if you spot a place where, for a very brief time (couple of seconds), you see a segment from some other recorded title. If you find this, you can cut out ('shorten') the bad piece, although it will require going a bit before and after the 'bad' spot. After that, you should be able to dub the flawed title. The only cases of dubbing failure that I have had have all been due to this. And they have all been corrected by this 'surgery' around the bad spot in the recorded source. ~ Keri
K2SMN said: Thanks, Roger. I always try to put back into a system at least as much as I take out of it. Your DMR-E85 page was the first major breakthrough I got on my E85 problems, and I feel that I owe the community my own input for the next few souls with problems. I want to thank you for that great "Starter" page. I, too, get busy--hense the long silences between long, sequential posts. Thankfully, there are others like you who have also gon through the grueling hassles of finding the optimum parameters for tweaking these tempermental beasts. Put that way, it makes sense. I forget where I originally heard this--it was long ago. Perhaps they were wrong. Its easy to be deceived by the term "Factory." I agree, but I believe there is a copy in volitile RAM (probably CMOS) that stays there in Stand-by (and maybe even in OFF), but goes away with the removal of AC power. That would also explain why unplugging clears out so much. I think itis replaced only when the bars are going back and forth, like in the "Self Test" mode. I accept that. However, I have had too many "Phantom Record" and "An Error Occurred" instances right after deleting massive numbers of files (sometimes over a hundred at a time), that I have added the power-cycle as a preventative measure and it does work for me. I ususually purge the drive before a long trip and so the failures always occured the first day I was gone, losing up to 2 weeks of recordings. I also noticed that my E95 is much more sensitive to this, so that may be why your E85 isn't hiccoughing. I won't claim it's necessary, but for me it's a cheap insurance policy. I agree that DVD blank quality is paramount to proper operation. My own failures were on less-that-top-of-the-line media, a long time ago. They didn't fail a lot, like the earlier GC media did, but still failed on writing the Disk Name--which was a pain in the ass, because O was arciving movies on Genre-based DVDs and by the time added the title, the original files for the first few movies were gone. BTW, I am recording in 6-hour EP mode and using High-Speed dubbing to create my DVDs. I've noticed that the amount of recording time left in the status display is often considerably less that the playback time of the last dubbed recording. I also noticed that If I have, say 40 minutes left and dub a 30-minute show, it may show 0:00 left afterwards, but the dubbing menu may still show a couple of hundred mb left. That leads me to believe that 1) the "estimates" are not very accurate, and 2) the two available-space reporting systems are not completely in synch. AMEN!!! Thanks for your great feedback, Roger! bob
Keri, Your fix for undubbable titles is spot-on! I discovered this myself last summer, and "Fixed" several bad titles this way--only losing a fes seconds of each. On one, the Chapter Editor wouldn't get close enough, so I used Divided it at the break and used "Shorten" to crop the damaged frames. Shorten will delete a single frame. I then patched the pieces back together using a dubbing list. When doing this, the bad section is often easier to see in reverse, as the playback feature seems to be programmed to buffer out minor glitches. BTW, it's ceaper to do these experiments on DVD-Ram. bob
Bob, Thanks. It's good to get confirmation that I'm not the only one having this kind of 'bad spot' problem. Any ideas on what causes it? Or, better yet, how to prevent it? Interesting. I did have one pesky title that was hard to get the Editor to crop out. It didn't occur to me to Divide (& Conquer!). I'm a bit puzzled by this (depending on what you mean by "easier to see"). My experience with these 'bad spots' is that playing in reverse does NOT show anything of the segment that a forward playing jumps to. I only see the content of the title. In fact, I was going to add that 'clue' into my original set of tips. Are you saying that you also "see" the jumped-to segment when you play in reverse? Hmmm... I have never had this dubbing error harm the DVD-R that I'm burning onto. In fact (iknock on DVD), I have never had a DVD-R burn go bad (on either machine). Maybe it's because I only use the CHEAPEST media (<g> in this case, the one place where I don't follow your advice). Right now, I'm working my way through a 100-pack from Office Depot ($14.99 for 100). Of course, now that I've written this I have probably jinxed my next burn! ~ Keri
You're right, Bob - I tried it again late last night - I wasn't holding the power button down long enough for it go "OFF". It first acts as if it is coming "ON" (the disk starts to wind up) before it turns "OFF". Odd behavior. And it comes back to OFF state when power is restored. One thing I may try tonight: After a power interruption, will it come back to STANDBY state when it was in STANDBY when the power was cut? This would be the desired behavior in case of a power outage while on vacation - you would want it power up in standby so it could continue to record programs.
Hello, New member here. First, thanks for all the great information here and all the time the some of you have put in here, very informative! I have read the first few pages of the thread and about the last two months worth of messages. I have a DMR-E85H that I bought open box from Circuit City a few months ago. TVGO is working pretty well and I find it very handy. The only real problems that I am having are: 1) the DMR sometimes sleeps through shows, if I power it up it starts recording (as others have recorded). I will try a power down and unplug for 30sec and hope that fixes things. 2) Shows get dropped from the schedule without me doing anything. I have this problem most often with "Lost" and note that one or two other have mentioned "Lost" by name with similar problems. It's not just that "Lost" does not get recorded, the "Record Regularly" status gets deleted and it no longer appears on the schedule. I've seen this happen within a few hours of verifying that it is there. Perhaps a power down and upplug will fix that as well? I see reference to the problem, but noone indicating that the problem was resolved. A couple of things that I was not able to find as I read through the posts: 1) How do I determine my firmware level? 2) If I'm not having a U99 problem, should I worry about updating firmware? 3) How do I find the host channel for TVGO? 4) I saw reference to the TVGO download time(s) showing up in the messages panel, but I can't find it. All I have in messages is a single message with my ID number; that's all I've ever seen there. I'm using Cox cable, no cable box. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Cal 8571x
