Stan, I've had the feeling all along (after talking to cheryl numerous times) that she is honestly (should I say was) trying to get the problem solved. She presented herself to me as a knowledgable person on the subject, but not the final person in the chain. I'm sure she has some input, but I wouldn't expect her to take the blame anyway. One thing to consider here, we contacted Gemstar because we were getting U99's on a regular basis, and concluded (ourselves, here in the Forum) that the problem was TVGOS based, we called them, and they worked with US to fix the problem, and it appears to be fixed. ... I haven't had a U99 in better than a month (with the TVGOS as the cause of it). I believe we need to get Panny's appology, and assurance that they are working on a firmware update to make the units a little more user friendly, .... Most of us have seen MS Windows "Blue screen of death"... Some of us, .... maybe 1 or 2 in the forum, can make heads or tails of the data on the blue screen, ... most of the rest of us (me) have no clue, ... just re-boot. This is Panny's approach, ... either boggle there mind with data, or tell them somethin is wrong, time to re-boot. There isn't any middle ground. I'm not saying Panny is at fault with the TVGOS U99's, but they were no help at all. I wouldn't sell a product if I couldn't tell the customer what was the cause of a problem. Uh oh, better getback to work, somebody help me off the top of this soap box (Yes, I'm mad at Panny over all of this,not Gemstar)
RX7Fan: I thought the same thing about the VBI/HBI...that would certainly come under the umbrella of "the equipment that sends the data out." I agree that most anger should be directed at Panasonic and their failure to deal with CUSTOMERS, since it took Gemstar (albeit VIA customers) to get them off their butts. Personally, I'm not holding my breath for any new firmware, since the E85 was discontinued (?), and they didn't even bother with specific firmware AT ALL for those with the HT1500 home theater system. Panasonic seems to be in a class of many companies that basically say "we've moved on, so your product is no longer supported, tough luck."
Companies with that attitude should lose our business, and be so informed. They are not the only company making a dvr. In fact, renting the service from Time Warner will take more than 4 years to cost as much as I paid for the E85, which is now working no better than a fancy VCR, since the TVGOS seems gone forever for me.
Hi, everyone. I've been lurking in this thread for several weeks. I live in Central Maryland, zip 21784, and have the TV Guide downloading from OTA antenna (I have satellite). I had the U99 in the summer and fixed it with the firmware update. Like everyone else, the problem reappeared in September and was intermittent until I did a hard reboot in mid-October. I had no further U99s-until today. Sometime between my wife's soap ending-2PM-and 4:00 when I got home, we had one. It cleared with a power on/off, but now I'm just waiting for further trouble. Note to Drsparc-I've had the DVD-R recording reset twice and only since these U99s cropped up. I had it once in the first two minutes of dubbing something and once when I tried to name the DVD. One was with a Memorex disc in a case and the other with a spindle Sony disc. In both cases, I had either setup to dub or dubbed a playlist of more than one program. I now dub one at a time and reset the playlist. So far, so good.
RX7Fan -- This morning you said….. "I don't think I've had a complete 8 days of listings yet. I haven't been recording at night, .. but I have had a daily going at about 9 am, might be loosing some there, I might try turning that one off, and see what happens." We both live in OKC and use Cox Cable, so we should be getting the same listing feeds. As I said in my 10/26/05 entry, I have seen the eighth day show up either during the daytime or during the nighttime if power is off long enough. When I record during both of these times in a single 24 hour period, I have completely missed a listing update. When I leave the power off except during the evening hours, I may catch up and get two 24 hour updates in a row (one during the day and another one overnight). I have seen promo ads update both times as well.
Thanks Howie14w. My crashes only happen when naming the disks. Although it has been since the whole U99 thing started (and ended), it also happened along with a new batch of disks. Perhaps it was just one bad batch. I donno. Funny that it was selective on what function confused it. I just stopped naming them... no major loss. That said, my TVGOS is still hosed. I did the full up/down unplug thing and it still isn't working right. I get a channel line up and all of the ads... but no channel listings. Anyone else here on Comcast in Mountain View, CA that have things working OK now?
This isn't relevant to this thread, but it's very curious. After the above-mentioned incident, I found the same program repeated later on the same channel (four and a half days later). When that recording kicked off last night, the same PRECISE series of events occurred. (plenty of successful recording before, between and since.) I'd place a call to Panasonic about it, but. . .
Skatter21: I also saw this exact glitch months ago with the E85. You have the E500, and I'm presuming your firmware (0900DU) is the "latest" one Panasonic issued for your unit--BUT, see below. Sounds like another issue to contact Cheryl about, maybe. We can continue this in PMs until anything significant comes of it. I think PANASONIC IS CHANGING THEIR WEBSITE and the DVD recorder firmware downloads are not listed UNLESS you enter the specific model directly on the left, which I don't think is the way it used to be. Correct me if I'm wrong about this. Going via the "drop-down" menus on the right no longer leads to the old "software/driver downloads" page which is now at http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wc...oads?storeId=15001&langId=-1&page=DVDFirmware Perhaps they're in the process of updating it, but with the new ORANGE pages if your access your model via the drop-down menus on the right, the page with FAQ, Operating Instructions, Software and Drivers, etc., under "software and drivers" there are NO listings for DVD ANYTHING..."yet" (hopefully).
Well I took the plunge and did a factory reset to setup the TVGOS. So far, there have been no problems on day 2.
Update from OKC (73034; Cox Cable). As of Sunday morning (11/13), still no U99s or other glitches on my E85H since the "OKC fix" took effect at my house with listing updates starting on 10/16. I currently have 11 promo ads. However, one thing is different: By now, I would have expected to have fully populated listings through next Sunday midnight but I am missing everything after Thursday midnight (except for a few sparse entries for PBS). I received the Thursday update sometime during the past four nights, because I had everything else prior to that. The unit was powered off during every night and a lot of the daytime hours. To RX7Fan or anyone else in OKC: Are you seeing any of the listings beyond Thursday?
Shaolin00, Could you please describe in detail how you did the factory reset? I have done what I think is a factory reset, but it did not revive my TVGOS, so maybe I missed something. I am in NY City, using digital Time-Warner cable service. Thanks,
To Faure I got it somewhere in a earlier post on this same subject. I think it was around page 9 or something. Since I have done the reset, I haven't had any u99's but my wife unplugged the surge protector while cleaning that the recorder is hooked up to and it messed up the tv guide. After I restored it I had to do another tv guide setup because of it since it did something to reset the guide settings. I don't think I will use the tvgos to set my recording because if it is that easy to cause it trouble then I can't trust it. Does anyone else have this problem? If you ask me the TVGOS is still buggy big time.
shaolin00: Power outages do have an adverse effect on the TVGOS a lot of the time. However, about a week or 2 before my first U99, there was a four hour outage and it recovered eventually without resetting/having to re-do setup, but this might be a rarity. UPS systems are great, except for having to unplug for two seconds to get it from the wall to the UPS. You'll lose ads and it will take FOREVER (5 days) to get the listings back up to speed. I think this is due to re-searching for the host channel and dealing with downloading lost ads which takes away from time when it COULD be dowloading listings instead.
I have the E85 connected to an UPS. This weekend I needed to move it to a different room. I was able to unplug the unit for about 5 seconds to get the power cord free from the entertainment center and connect it bck to the UPS. I then transfered the unit to the new room with the UPS unplugged but the unit plugged into it as thought the power was off. I then had to unplug the unit for 10 - 15 seconds to route the power cord. In looking at the TVGOS it does not appear that I lost any information and the listing order stayed the same. This is off topic but I have the unit setup with the UPS system and the outlet in the room is also set up to be powered by the generator in the case of a power outage. It is not automatic but the UPS gives me pleanty of time to start the generator and then switch the breakers over and then the generator supplies the UPS. If I'm not at home the UPS should keep the unit in standyby mode until I return.
OK, maybe I should clarify: Any length of power loss causes the ads to be lost. Depending on the timing of the power interruption, you MAY not download the last (8th) day normally, presumably because the unit is busy re-downloading ads instead of listings for the 8th day. If this is the case, it will correct itself when the "8th" day becomes the "3rd" day later in the week.
I own the DMR-EH50 with the 100 gig HDD, does anyone know how to get into the service mode on this unit. I am trying to upgrade to HDD. Thanks.
[bold]dukebruno, Skatter21[/bold] and anyone else trying to record at "odd" times (shows NOT starting on the hour or half-hour): This seems to be another TVGOS glitch. I'm suspecting that before recording starts ("REC" flashes), the unit looks ONLY at the hour or half-hour nearest the recording time for the program "name." However, if you're recording a program that starts at 12:35 or 8:40, the program name that's starting to record will NOT match the listing that came before it at 12:30 or 8:30, so the mismatch in name causes the unit to "hang." I haven't tried this, but suspect if you manually (timer) program the unit to record on the hour or half-hour BEFORE your off-time program, it should work, as there will be no mismatch between names of "program currently about to record" and "program listed on the hour/half-hour" and TVGOS will just name it as the program listed before, the one you'll be recording the last 5-10 minutes of. I suspect this will NOT work if you just use the "start early/end late by" function. Try it and see if it works OK.
Is ANYONE getting programming information in NYC from Time Warner? I stopped getting it around September, and, unaware of the TVGOS problem have reset my E85 to factory default settings. Since then I get absolutely no programming info, and the machine keeps changing channels, searching for a programming feed. Any information from NYC people will be appreciated.
I've been working on a very similar issue. I have only seen it with one program, but that may be the only program that I've recorded that starts at an "off-time". I'll do some experimenting to see what happens with other "off-time" shows, with early-start, and with just pressing the record button to start the recording. The problem is manifested differently on my E500, though. The scheduled program never starts recording, the <REC> light just keeps blinking. I have had the same thing happen three times with this same program. -- The recovery was MUCH smoother when I used a timer recording vs. a TVGOS scheduled recording. On the other hand - fully loaded listings and no U99 errors is starting to get very boring (not that I'm complaining or anything).
As per recording on "odd" time. I record a 15 minute show that starts on the 45 minute mark and it works OK. It sometimes misses the first minute, but it does get the name right. But that seems to be a "normal" enough time that it shows up correctly in the listings. However, I have found that anything recorded off of TBS in my area gets the name wrong. That is becuase, for some reason, the listing is off by 2-3 hours. I think it is showing the east coast listing rather than west cost times. But it doens't crash or anything.
