Intermittent DM800HD external hdd recording error/message

Hello all, I have a very intermittent (yet very annoying) problem when recording to my external 2tb harddrive connected via usb to my dm800hd. The prolem is after a day or two of being idle (not recording), I get a message that pops up the next time i want to record saying 'In order to record a timer, the tv was switched to the recording service'....and it wont record. What the hell does this error message mean?? There are no timer listings in my timer menu and the only thing that gets the record capabilities back again is to do a hard reset of my dm800hd which takes over 5mins to do (and my clients are none too pleased with me going offline in that time).
Does anyone know how to stop this error message from popping up? Do i need to configure my tuner in a special way (there is only one tuner in my dm800)? Do I need to set some special read/write permissions to directories on my harddrive via DCC??

 

Any help with this guys............it is getting very annoying. i am running dreamelite blackhole v1.33 image

 

this is not an error message. you have one tuner in the dm800 so when you want to record then your system is telling you that it must switch to the appropriate channel to record whatever you wish to record. it is an information message, nothing else. i ould suggest that you buy a hauppauge usb tuner in the back of your dm800, loop the signal from the primary tuner to this tuner and then you can record and watch as you wish

 

hi fintannl, is it straight forward enough to loop the signal m8 ??

 

option should be there in tuner config for loopthru. it is there in my image. just go thru your tuner config options. may be the case that since the dm800 is by nature a single tuner solution it may not have been thought to allow loopthru on a usb tuner. would be interested to know if the option is there

 

Had a quick look fint, but didn't see anything, but thats not to say it aint here, maybe I'm blind lol

 

doubt it friend. if you cant spot it probably aint there. as said dm800 image is based on single tuner solution so likely loopthru is not an option and indeed never considered in image development

 

Looks like I have to live with this error and do a reboot everytime I wanna record a program because I dont have the loopthru feature on my tuner config/image either.

 

Menace,
I am having identical problem with my 2 TB HDD (seagate model .. bought in Harvey Normans).
In fact now it wont record at all .. and wont initialise with msg: 'eror: mount failed'.

I am hoping Fintan has a solution !

j90

 

Hi, go to the devices manager in your image and there should be a feature in there to mount the hard drive. Make sure you format the drive....the 2tb can take all night to format (it did for me anyway). Unfortunatley, i still havent solved the problem of having to reboot everytime i wanna record.

 

Menace,

Got this from Fintan:

quote ......
problem is never the drive but always the interface card. I dismantled an external drive that was cuasing me untold problems and connected it directly into dm800 using the spare red cable in the box and have never had an issue since ... unquote.

Is it worth trying do you think ?

Brgds,
j90

 

m,

PS: What is the difference between mounting a HDD and initialising it ?

J90

 

Mounting is just letting the dm800 detect a hdd device connected to the USB port where as initialising will get the HDD to run on the linux platform....or maybe its the other way around, anyway one means one thing and the other means the other thing. Part of the initialisation for HDDs on a DM800 is to manually put the 'movie' folder into the root directory after initialisation (generally done using the DCC tool)

 

Ta M,

How do I put movie folder into root directory ?

Could u pls talk me through this process.

Thanks.

J90

 

After you have mounted the HDD via the devices manager in your setup meny in your image, Open DreamBoxControlCentre (DCC) and connect to your DM800 via the IP address etc etc. Then go to the FTP tab on the left hand side and in the main window pane browse to var/media/hdd. And in here right click and create a new folder called movie. Refresh and job done.

 

M,

Do all recordings then automatically go into this folder?

And finally do I then Initalise HDD to complete job ?

Thanks a mill ... fingers crossed !!

J90

 

by default all movies go in /media/hdd/movie. The image creates this folder. As a user it is not required to do anything other than press the record button

 

Thks Fintan,
Still not operational !!
Cannot mount the HDD correctly.
I go into Image / Devices Manager
System shows:
USB: Desktop
Size 2000 GB
Device:/dev/sda1
Mount: NOT MOUNTED

I then press YELLOW button for 'Mountpoints' and get following:
Header: Black Hole Devices Mountpoints Setup

HDD 200 GB /dev/sda1 NOT MAPPED

Using the R/L arrow keys I get foll options:

/media/hdd
/media/cf
/media/card
/media/usb
/media/usb2
/media/usb3

I've tried a few of these and then gone back to initialise HDD ... each time HDD will not initialise ... with msg MOUNT FAILED !!

After a few efforts I started getting foll msg on green screen when I go to save a new MOUNT:
We are really Sorry. Your Dreambox has encountered a software problem.
Your Dreambox restarts in 30 secs.

Any help appreciated.
Brgds,
J90.

 

as said in the past, open the drive, remove it from the plastics, disconnect the interface card from the hard drive, open the dreambox up (make sure it is powered off), disconnect the red internal esata cable and connect the extra red cable that came with the dreambox. plug this cable into the hard drive and then power up dreambox. Now see if you can initialize. The system should have automatically detected and mounted the drive correctly. If this works then the interface card is shagged and I would return the drive to the shop

 

Thanks F,
I'll try that - was hoping to avoid that route - due waranty issue !
Hopefully no complications.
I suspect that I will be back to you looking for more help !
Brgds
J90