RX7 FAN: You're seeing exactly what I have been seeing for the last few weeks - channels are there, but no listing for the shows, although sometimes if I turn the machine on and off the shows are listed. Regardless, U99 always comes back and the unit won't do a scheduled recording when it's in that state. Firmware upgrades and resets had no impact on the problem at all. Let me know if you can sort out the message data. One thing I'm curious about is whether we know if the TVGuide data is saved to the hard drive or to RAM?
This past week I have been getting the U99 error at least once a day, usually after having the E85H on standby overnight. I bought the E85H in November 2004, with manufacturing date of April 2004. After problems this past March and April and installing the new firmware, I haven't had any problems since May, until about a week ago. I definitely agree that the TVOG is probably the problem since a lot of E85H owners are having the same problem at the same time. It certainly does not appear to be a hardware failure. I'll keep reading this forum in case someone finds or comes up with a solution. I like the E85H when it WORKS, but detest losing recording due to the U99. I live in Alabama and subscribe to Knology cable service.
*Off topic problem* sorry to post this in here guys, but it looks like its where all the DMR-E85H owners hang out. I have been trying to copy straight from my camcorder to DVD, everything goes well and finalize pops up and goes through its finalization, the dvd plays fine on the panny but doesnt get recognised on any other player. The camcorder has a family holiday on it and I wanted to use my comp to burn of several copies, but the disk does not get detected on my computer, or any othe DVD player we have tried it in, have tried this on several different media types, ritek, datawrite etc. any ideas??? Cheers XbrvhrtX
XbrvhrtX, Do other recordings work on the computer etc, just the one from the camcorder giving you problems? if that's the cas, something strange happening there, if all are acting that way, could be the burner in the panny out of whack, then it's time for a new burner, warantee time. That brings up a different question, anybody know what model/manuf burner they use?? (I haven't torn mine open .... YET) O.K., latest update, no change from last night, U99 this morning, "no listing", no "Promotions" either now, I'm offloading my camera picture to computer, and going to take the whole series again in a few minutes, did notice some data on one of the pages changing yesterday (real time) as I was taking the pictures, will have to figure out which page it was. That's all for now, will probalby be back in a few hours with more "Observations" .... BTW , gonna call panny's cust. support in a little while, they open in a few minutes. RX7 Fan
Latest 10/1/05 9:20 CDT Called PAnny, talked to a very polite gentleman, first response was how full is your drive, told him empty, explained it was the tv guide problem, he told me they were aware of it, no fix as of yet, they seem to not know what was wrong, and wanted me to send it in for service, exploratory surgery, I told him no thanks, ... sounded like they wanted mine to use to figure out what the problem was, that was pretty much the end of troubleshooting, he told me that the 970 firmware patch was to fix another TV guide upgrade that shouldn't have been released, (I'm sure that was either b.s. or unofficial on his part) but, end result is, I'm back to square one, or is it minus one, ... nyway, he took my info, and assured me he'd pass it along with my e-mail for any replies. back to the chores I go. RX7 Fan
RX7Fan, all of us U99 victims appreciate your investigations. I had the same problem again this morning - the old U99 on the display. Last night, I thought I would just watch the TV Guide update, but didn't want to stay up that long and watch the cable box change channel displays as the E85H downloaded about 1 channel every 1 to 3 minutes. When I restarted the DVR this morning, after the U99, it started at channel 23 and has now gotten to channel 98 (which I don't actually have access to anything past 76, other than PPV channels in the 200s). Maybe if someone could videotape the process, it might give a clue to the problem, but that's probably just wishful thinking.
XbrvhrtX After you copy to the DVD and it says everything is OK you still have to finalize the disc to play in other machines. To do this switch over to the disc and the light should come on showing the DVD and the blue HDD light should be off. Be sure that you are on the DVD viewing side. To verify this you can push Direct Navigator TOP Menu button. This will show all recordings on the disc. Push RETURN to exit. Push the functions button on the remote and use the arrow down button and go to Setup and then right arrow to DISC SETTINGS and hit enter. FINALIZE will now be one of the options, arrow over and hit enter. I think that you then get a message that asks to verify that you want to close out the disc and that you will not be able to add any more video after you finalize the disc. (this is on page 39 of the manual) I know that this sounds crazy but it is a safety so you can continue to add video to a permanent disc and still be able to view it on this recorder before you have to close (finalize) the disc for viewing on other player. Hope this helps. Keith
kossello Your Instructions where clear and spot on, I had indeed failed to finalise the finalization, can now view on PC and Burn no probs Many Thanks XbrvhrtX
Having the same problem -- U99, TVGOS "no listing", started malfunctioning ten days ago -- with my E500HS. Many thanks for all of the good information in the thread and for those of you who lit a fire under Panny. Let's keep it hot.
Just to update the U99 error here. This morning I AGAIN got the U99 error and of course no TV Guide listing. The E85H works fine on manual recording (when a program starts, press record and then twice again for an hour recording). However, I still haven't figured out how to get the automatic channel search, and disable the TVOG. I tried all the suggestions, plus the one in the manual (surprise!!-it didn't work), but to no avail. The U99 problem MUST be due to some unknown changes in the download from TGOS. And, from what I read, most of you agree and/or have the same problem. I'll try to call both the TVG and Panasonic numbers tomorrow. Hopefully????
hi, i was just wondering if it is possible to do timer recordings without the TV Guide On Screen? or can you only do manual recordings without it?
Manual timer recording on the Panasonic DMR-E85H is somewhat like on-screen programming a timer setting on a typical VCR. Hit the remote's Return button to exit from any menu you might presently be in. Hit the Prog/Check button on the remote. Left button in the row of buttons just under the Enter button. This opens up the TV Guide window, but you'll have no listings if you've previously disabled the TV Guide. The on-screen instructions should now have a dialog open with a small green circle and "Set Timer" next to it. This is telling you to hit the green labeled button on the remote. See the bottom row of buttons on the remote. The green and blue labeled buttons are dual use buttons. Hit the green button and the display should change to one where you can use the arrow and number fields to move between parameters for the program you are setting up to record (i.e. date, on time, off time, channel, quality mode - XP/SP/...). Simply follow the on-screen instructions using the number keys, arrow keys, and the green and blue remote buttons on the bottom row. When you're done, hit Enter. You cannot re-edit a timer program once you hit enter (which is quite UNLIKE any VCR I've used), but you may change a few of a program's parameters. You may now specify the frequency (once, weekly, disable). You may enter a screen where you may specify offsets to the start and stop time. What you lose without the downloadable TV Guide is apparently the ability to automatically overwrite a show on the HDD with another broadcast of the same show. For example, with the TV Guide downloaded, you could have set up to record Night Stalker on Thursday at 8:00 pm CST for one hour on a weekly basis. The DVR would record over the prior episode of Night Stalker from the earlier week. And the instance of the show would be labeled with the correct name and date. With the manual program you only get the date, time, and recording mode. If you plan to record multiple shows on the same channel, say ABC on Thursday from 7:00 - 10:00, set it up record from 6:59 to 10:01 consecutively in one program. In this way you avoid the crazy "by design" "feature" where you lose the first 30 seconds and last 30 seconds of consecutive programs. If you'd like to save individual shows on a DVD, use the Divide Title function to split up the 3 consecutive hours into however many separate titles you'd like. All of this is in the manual.
Could someone give me a good way to disable the TVGO feature so I can manually set up recordings? I tried the procedure from the manual but it didn't work for me.
Wow, this forum is still going. I feel old. As an early poster, I've been using the panny without any problems until last week. I'm getting random lock ups and reboots. I did notice a few days worth of tv guide being empty. I've fallen asleep with the unit on for a couple of nights so it hasn't been able to download the guide info, and as in the early days, there's been a few bugs pop up. No u99 errors to date just the annoying bug of when my wife shuts it off with a dvd playing then when I turn it on I cannot scroll up or down on the tv guide screen. If, before I shut the unit off, I switch to HDD then shut off - no problems.
Morning gang, .... Gosh, this feels familliar, well, it's monday, my last update was saturday around noon, ... Sunday saw no change on the 85, (almost forgot this, had to go in and re-edit this message, [bold]no U99 on Sunday morning [/bold]except I had tried a "Soft reset" (my version of soft reset it to tell the TVGOS that the channel lineup was wrong) figured it might try to re-download, ... did that on saturday night, sunday show'd a list of channel lineups, I picked on, ... imagine my suprise that everything still said "No Listing", so I left it alone sunday night, .... no U99 this morning, but still same No Listing, ...when I get home from work tonight, I'm going to take pics again, and compare, .... I'd be willing to bet a paycheck at this point that the reason the U99's have gone away for me, is that it is not performing downloads any more, ... one of the screens looked like it was saying the next download was scheduled for sometime in [bold] 1990 [/bold] weird?!?! Anyway, I'm looking at the data from the screens, so far, first glance looks like the data screens are not the actual data, but parameters for the data, (size of database, time and date of download, time and date of next download, etc.) there must be a way to get to the actual data, and probably even manipulate it, ... but I'm sure it's a guarded secret. Got an E-mail from Panny today ... they recomended the firware update, .... sounds like a great idea, shame I already did it. back in a few hours. RX7Fan
Same old thing this morning -- U99 on the display, with no guide info. Yesterday morning, there was no U99 early, but by noon it was U99 again. Of course, it only happens when the unit is in standby and downloading TVG. It was nice while it lasted (May through 7-10 days ago with NO problems) and now cannot use the E85H to time record at all. It works fine when turned on, and I can play old HDD recordings, and DVDs just fine. If this continues, I'll have to reconnect some cables and use automatic channel setting with NO TVG. I tried that yesterday, but got nothing with my current hookup. After that I reset it to download TVG, but as I said before, no luck on that.
Daughn, You can still do VCR+ code recordings, if you have access to them (newspapaer TV Guide listings, or a websire like Tv Guide.com) I've used it a couple of times this weekend, a little frustrating, there is no title (show title in the navigator), but it works. RX7 Fan
Will the VCR+ codes work while in the U99 state? Also on my unit everything seems to hold as long as I leave the unit turned on, is this because it can't update the TVG?
RX7fan, "PD" Stands for "Production Date." I don't have it in front of me, but it's an 8-digit number that breaks apart into YYYYMMDD (if I have the order right from memory). Well, I've been quiet for a while--not due to lack of problems, but due to lack of time to deal with them. I set up my DMR-E85HS and my DMR-E95HS to record a series of programs while I was off to Cancun for a week. I first deleted most of my programs from the hard drives of each--reformatting the '85. I left on the 17th and returned late on the 24th. The E85 had worked fine, but the '95 had the old "An Error Has Occurred" message on it, and the last recording was 11 pm on the 19th (I have several shows a day I record directly from cable--no box). I reset the '95 and after 24 hours had incorrect cable information and only a partial listing. [See note below]. I fixed the cable information, deleted the unwanted channels, and moved the three PBS stations to the top (this appears to improve download reliability. Another overnight in standby with no scheduled recordings from midnight to 9 a.m. No new listings downloaded (then or ever again). Since then I have tried resetting to factory (Up/Down), reloading the firmware upgrade (although I have my doubts, since I have firmware 0530DR/0020DJ/J131 in my E95, both after factory reset *and* after update. I follow the instructions on the update CD (which worked before) and it does *exactly* as the instructions say. However, the firmware versions don't change, nor does it give me the "This update is not required" message I used to get when I tried to update twice in a row (instead, it simply goes through the whole update process again--with the same lack of results). Meanwhile, I've now stopped getting even the universal "No Listings" blocks and cannot enter the "Manual Channel Configuration" mode. If I say "Yes the data is correct, but the lineup is wrong" (there is none) it only takes me to the "Turn it off for 24 hours" screen--and doing so has no effect. Like others, I noticed that, this week (about the time that the "No Listings" channel display went away, I have started getting Ads for the first time since I bought it a year ago. I am almost certain that the problem we are seeing is directly related to TVGOS updating their download to increase advertising revenue--and that we are victims of collateral damage from their failure to do so seamlessly. The fact that they deny all responsibility tends to reinforce the probability that this is, indeed, a problem they created and are clueless how to fix. Finally, I think I've mentioned before, that if I forget to turn off my unit in time, it will get great holes in my listings several days out--and they will not be repaired trough normal updates--although the listings after them come in fine. I believe this was also experienced by at least one other on this list. [A side note: A couple of months ago, I noticed that resetting the guide brought up a listing of my local provider where about 25% of the 90+ channels were on the *WRONG* channel and a few channels we don't get were active. I assumed this was because my local provider changed and sent in the wrong information to Gemstar. This was further supported by TVGuide.com having the same bogus info. I used the "Work around" of reprogramming the channels and moving the PBS ones to the top of the list for faster access. This seemed to work for a while--but took over an hour of my time each time I had to do it.] So, there is my two cents worth. Bob
DavieDave, hmmmm deja vu, deja vu , just kidding, had to do that, .... anyway, the VCR+ stuff, ... hmm, if it's in U99, it won't let you do anything. if you punch in the codes (VCR+) and the U99 hits, say before the program time, it won't work, if it is recording, you probably won't get the u99 till after the recording, ... maybe. I believe if there is something active during the download, it won't do the download (Postponing the U99). (see where I'm going?) Now bear in mind, I'm just educated guessing.
