7 Am Friday... No U99, but I was getting them mid-morning No listings either I'm keeping my eyes crossed
5am in san francisco, woke up to u99. was the supposed fix just test in certain parts of the country? i guess i will try to call cheryl and find out. if she can be reached at this point. i would suggest that some pressure be put on gemstar by letting them know that word is spreading like wildfire that no one should purchase anything that incorporates tvgos. money talks!
:-( I guess the so-called 10pm fix didn't pan out. Well I'm going to give them up to 2 weeks and then I am calling Panasonic again!
Whoah, Gang, hang on a second, .. If you got a U99 today, try a reset, if the data has changed, the new stuff on top of the old stuff may be causing a problem, if you get a u99, try a CH up/dn, unplug for 30 seconds(MINIMUM) plug it back in, re-setup your TVGOS, and try it from there. RX7 Fan say :"Pouring clear water into a glass that has mud in it doesn't turn that mud into clear water" (Something I tell my students) As to the not buying electronics that uses TVGOS, .... folks, this is going to be the nature of the beast for a while, ... with the mandate that everything must go to HD in a few years, ... heck our brand new 85's 95's 500's are all gonna be dinosaur food in a few years, but enjoy it while it lasts, upgrade when the time comes. Gemstar has to go thru a process of trying there new formats and data out, ... if Panny wants to see stuff that will choke on a problem like this, I think it should be an issue with that particular brand, not "anything" using TVGOS. [bold]Coyote[/bold] I agree, you're right, Paper is much better than E-mail, I'm going to try to e-mail the addresses I found to get a "Hard-Copy" address for Cheryl's Supe. My latest, Did a CH up/dn reset last night about 4CDT, no U99 this AM (5:30CDT) had the channel line-up, no listings yet, and no promos yet, this is a change, usually had the channels and promos together, ...it's looking hopeful.
this may be a stupid question and one that has been discussed, but please be patient with me! when you reset, (up/down channel and then unplug) i won't lose anything off my hard drive, right? again, sorry for my silly question!!
to:RX7Fan. i am confused why you would say that people shouldn't jump the gun and not buy products incorporating tvgos until they prove the problem has been fixed. it is not just panasonic with the u99 issue. the forum has implicated many manufacturers with the problem eminating from the tvgos downloads.
sheltzell. you will have to reset some of the setup and then wait a few days for tvgos to get up to speed with their listings, but you will not lose what is on your hard drive.
You will not lose anything by doing a ChanUp/ChanDn plus power off reset. I've done it a dozen times - no problem. Last night I did a reset, and this morning was asked to choose between two lineups. The TV Guide was populated with today's listings only and did have ads. Looks good so far.
question for those who have reset since last night: [bold]Do your diagnostic screens (key in 753159852 on the Messages panel as previously documented in this thread) show any different values than previously? (I didn't have time to check before leaving the house this morning.)[/bold] Although I didn't get a U99, yesterday around 7 PM EDT I noticed that my D/L date and time values on page 1 of diagnostics had gone to "N/A". Between 8 and 9 my E500 scanned channels 2 - 99, the went back to the "Host Channel" 7 (local ABC). I'm kinda waiting to see if it works itself out or not, but I figure I'll need to reset tonight.
Stan : what I'm saying is, Panny has built the 85,95 ... etc, the U99 is a "generic" error, in this particular case, the cause for the error was the TVGOS data, ... this thread started because of a U99 error dealing with deviding a file on the Panny, this alone should show that Panny hasn't put much into user diagnosable messages. Plus the fact that they have been telling everybody to this point to "Bring it in for service" ... I jokingly refered to it as exploratory surgery, they build the units, and couldn't even there customers creadence, when we said, there's a problem, we think we know what it is. So far the only people working on the problem have been Cheryl, et al. at Gemstar. True the problem probably eminates from Gemstars change in data, but they have taken responsibility for it, and are attempting to fix it! (Even though there disclaimer says they bear no responsibility for errors in data/listings) Gemstar set up an 85 or one of the units to try to replicate our errors, Panny(as far as I know) HASN'T! Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying don't buy Panny, I love this unit, I just wish they would give you more than "Idiot Lights" when something goes wrong. I teach troubleshooting, you don't tell somebody that turning it off and back on again will fix the problem. It will reset the device, but not necessarily fix the cause of the problem. Skatter, I'm in same boat as you, I glanced at them this AM, but didn't get a chance to do the compare,... had to head to work, ... when I get home this afternoon, I'll check it out a little closer.
RX7Fan. i agree with (almost) all you are saying. i am not trying to fly of the handle, but i, like many others are getting really frustrated. losing scheduled pre-recorded shows, re setups, not being able to use the product as specified when purchased, etc. yes, panasonic did not address the issue soon enough. yesterday for the first ime i got them to admit there was a problem and that bringing the unit in for service was not the answer. a big step. if you look at tvgos website, they say if you have a unit with tvgos and there is a problem with tvgos, call the manufacturer of the physical product. aside from cheryl (and i do hope she can succeed) they really do not want resposibility either. just the nature of business in our country. from my experience with these kinds of issues, most companies will only respond when they feel their bottom line will be hurt. but please continue to be the calming influence in this forum for me (one who sometimes can jump too quickly) and others. i mean that sincerely.
VulcanUSA, I do have a cable box (digital) and an IR blaster. All worked fine until the problem with TVGOS started, and I assumed it was a glitch in my E85, which is why I have reset it to Factory Default. As I said, AutoChannelSetting and AutoClock setting are now greyed out, and I cannot access the Channel Editor. I never got the U99 error, or if I did, I did not see it. All I want is to get back to where I was before I reset the machine, and wait for TVGOS (or whoever screwed us all up) gets their act together. Thanks,
Well, after a reboot on Tuesday, Today, Friday I woke (6:30am) up to a U99. It wasn't like that when I went to be at about 12ish. I never did get the program listings or ads just a channel line up. Faure: I have a digital box with IR blaster and I can't seem to shut off the TVGuide. I sent an email to Panasonic and they responded that I should call the service center to talk me through it. I haven't done that yet because they are terrible to work with and not all that much experienced with the E85 or DVD recorders in general.
I really hate panny's "all customers are techno-idiots" mentality. I also hate there "disable the unit if it's an error we haven't anticipated" error handling in their software. Come on guys, you need better error handling routines. I'd right this all up in a nice, constructive, and critical letter to Panasonic if I could get a simple phone number or address to the right people there. But then again, they would probably ignore my adivce out-of-hand because I'm a "stupid customer". I agree the hardware is nice, but I have reservations about purchasing anything Panasonic in the future for the above reasons. Corporate culture runs deep and changes SLOWLY. It would go a long way if Panasonic would admit they could have handled the situation better.
Sometimes getting onto these manufacturers is the thing to do especialy if you had paid alot of money to get a machine that should work as specified. I don't care if the TVGOS is free, they still have an obligation to make sure that it functioning correctly because it does affect normal operation of the equipment, i.e. timer recordings. That being said, I had to call Panasonic 3 times about this issue and on the 3rd time I was fed up. What happened? Well I finally got a person that could explain coherently and admit to the malfunctioning. So sometimes getting a little heated is the only way to get someone off their butt to do something. My suggestion to everyone here, keep the pressure on Panasonic and Gemstar. Sometimes thats the only way you can get anything done. Trust me, I know because I deal with the public all the time in my job not including manufacturers on a daily basis.
[bold]Re: Proposed TVGOS Update (Skatter21 et al.)[/bold] I don't know where mdqGus got that information; perhaps it's only regional or will take time in deploying, as this morning, there was NO update to my TVGOS (Pittsburgh, PA), same version in diagnostics and everything. I didn't reset, and I won't unless I get another U99 (lucky, 7 days so far...) I think the "major" (or unit-specific?) TVGOS updates are the "unplug your unit for x seconds" ones, and the minor ones just cause the "Select the correct channel lineup" message. If this is the case, about 2 weeks ago I was getting the "select channel lineup" almost daily. I guess you wouldn't be able to tell without the diagnostics screen if you live in a less-populated area with only one provider/lineup in the area.
Had my unit on most of the day Thursday. Did the usual recordings and transfered some to DVD. I set the timer to manually record at 11:30 pm CST. When I got up this morning had the U99 and did not get the show. I put the unit in standby around 11:05 pm after taping a show from 10:30 pm to 11:00 pm and within 25 minutes it got the U99. Looks like I will have to set the recorder not to turn off when finished recording and leave the in the on mode. Insight Cable Bowling Green, KY 42104 Motorola box but set up TVGOS with no box using tuner and basic calbe service. Keith
You know it's amazing. I had read about the Apple Nano, it's that little 3 Gig player that was just released. Well, apparently, they are so thin that the screen cracks very easily. Some guy, not sure of his name, started a blog to complain about the product. Apple addressed the problem and issued a recall I believe of the product. This was only in the past couple of weeks. How long have we been having problems with the E85? Months! Ok, just had to vent.
