I have had no trouble with my Panasonic DMR-E85H until suddenly my TV screen comes up with a yellow screen saying that a new software upgrade had been received (apparently over the airwaves). It said I needed to unplug my unit for over 10 seconds (I waited 45 seconds to be sure)and the software would be automatically installed. However, when I plugged the unit back in I found that it will not respond to the remote and in fact no longer powers up at all. The display just indicates the time. So anyone have this happen to them? Since you can't prevent the upgrade from coming in if you have the unit hooked to an antenna, maybe all of these units in the USA will crash with this new upgrade. Anyhow I have contacted Panasonic by e-mail and hope to hear something otherwise this one is going back to the retailer - perhaps permanently.
Well after trial and error I discovered the unit remains unresponsive after unpluging it and pluging it back in. It will say PLEASE WAIT, but remains unresponsive after that and it doesn't show the traveling hash marks like it normally does. SO, I tried holding down the power button for about 15 seconds and that has brought it back - relief! Now it functions like it used to, except I had to change the remote channel which was on 2 on the remote back to 1 for it to work with the unit. It kept my hard drive recordings and the recent TV Guide info. So at least it wasn't a major thing after all, but trial and error is not a very good way to have to troubleshoot a spontaneous problem induced without warning.
This is not a Panasonic problem, but a Guide+ problem. I'm on a different discussion list for my RCA 7005 PVR, and others have reported similar problems with theirs--which also use Guide+. My E-85HS gave me that message the moment I hit the TV Guide button yesterday, but after following the link in it to their website, I saw the "fix" did not have to be confirmed immediately, so I'm waiting to see how things go with the more trusing souls before unplugging anything. I'm glad I did. The message deleted itself (to hide the evidence?) instead of being saved in my Messages folder. My DMR-95HS Crashed similarly--except the update came in while it was off, so it locked up on one channel on power up and refused to respond until the LONG-Power-Switch-Hold fix. I haven't unplugged it, either. When I get up the nerve, I'll try Service Mode to see if the firmware was updated again (I installed Panny's upgrade a week or two ago, and wrote the checksums down). bob
