I still don't have any listings. See my post on 11/15. I contacted TWC-SA and they have said they pass through any signals a network ads in . Supposedly, my local PBS station is the signal source. Therefore, I should contact them. Hmmm....
More on my attempts to fire ABC: About 9 hours after my soft reset with ABC disabled in the channel list, I powered up the unit and found ABC back as the host channel! At that point I thought, “All right, that’s it, I going to turn off TVGO and get on with my life.” This is because ABC as a host channel, in my humble opinion, does nothing but hang up downloads and I wind up missing rather than recording shows. If I have to be home to turn the DMR on just before the show, to un-hang ABC, I may as well just hit the damn record button. TVGO is nice, but not worth all the drama. I didn’t want to deal with disabling TVGO right then, so I enabled ABC in the channel lineup. All the TVGO listings for ABC were gone, so disabling ABC had changed the internal database, if nothing else. Note that ABC still came up as my host channel even though it was disabled in my channel lineup! The only way I had been able to get the unit off of ABC was to disable ABC, yet it was back! Clearly, the channel on/off state does not control the host channel availability. The order does seem to have an effect, however. Anyway, this morning I found that the unit was back to PBS as the host! My plan for now is to keep TVGO turned on; but it’s on intensive probation from now on. I’m willing to see if my new channel lineup can keep the system working and off ABC. Jim wrote: Hi Jim, You can’t change it directly. (At least I don’t know how to and have not seen any mention of being able to do so.) What you can do is this: 1. Rearrange you channel lineup to put “good” host channels (PBS) at the top of the list and “bad” host channels (ABC) towards the bottom. 2. Set your tuner to your favorite host channel every time you shut down. 3. Perform a soft reset (as described by VideoBob). 4. Leave the machine in standby as much as possible for the next 24 hours. You can check your host channel from page one of the 753159825 screens. drsparc worte: Every time I see this, it’s been because my host channel was messed up, and it’s always been ABC that was at fault. Try doing what I just suggested for Jim and see if that helps. I would recommend checking to see what your host channel is right now using page one of the 753159825 screens. I would make sure that channel is at the bottom of the list (if there is one). Please let us know what network it turns out to be. After you do the soft reset, check the 753159825 screens about every 6 hours until it shows a host channel and next download time. Again, make sure you leave the tuner on a good host channel (PBS) when you go into standby. TForce1 wrote: What does 753159825 screen 1 list for host ID, host channel and next download? Cal
i too have had no listings or ads for about a week. has tvg stopped uploading? san francisco comcast e85
Hey, Seeing that other bay area Comcast users had problems, I called Comcast's tech support and they said they don't control the TV Guide+ signal/data. I bounced around the net looking for who does control this. From the Tv Guilde On Screen web site, I found the Panasonic tech support number (1 800 211 7262) which they said we should contact if there were any problems. I was told to reset my system. I let the support person know that it wasn't just me, that several others of us were not receiving updates, so I assumed the problem was most likely that the data was not being sent. They said all they could do was to escallate it to tvgos and have their support call me back. They said that could take 7-10 days. I'll let you know if/when I hear from them. We have seen this kind of thing before. They don't seem to have a good point of contact to let them know of server problems. I assume they are also going to suggest a reset. Has anyone else who is not getting listings in the last few weeks tried a reset to fix the problem? BTW, is anyone getting updates lately?
I am getting updates in Nashville TN. I do have one day not populated, Thursday of this week. This may be my fault for staying up so late with the unit powered on. Robert
Haven't posted here in a while because everything was working fine with my DMR-E85H once the TVGOS got their act together and started sending out correct info last year. Until two nights ago... Was watching The DaVinci Code when the disk started to stutter. Not uncommon with rented movies, I thought it was probably just a scratched disk. Then the disk stopped playing entirely and I couldn't control it with the remote. I got a disk error message. Tried to eject the disk and the tray came out about halfway. Tried to grab the disk, but it closed on me before I could get it. All attempts to remove the disk, including the power, stop, and channel up combo failed. The machine kept trying to self check itself and ended up in an ERROR state. I tried all of Video Bob's tricks and I could not reset the machine in any way. I disassembled the machine to get the disk out. After leaving the machine unpowered overnight, I was able to reset back to factory defaults. DVD drive was still locked down. (Yes, I toggled the LOCK and UNLOCK, but it didn't make a difference.) Left it overnight to download settings, but it didn't get anything. I was able to turn on the machine and get to the TV Guide screen. Any command to get off that screen resulted in the dreaded green TV Guide screen. Reset it again this evening and was able to get to the Navigator screen again. All my recorded shows appear to be intact. I'll leave it overnight to see if it downloads the TV Guide settings. In the mean time, the DVD drive is locked up. Has anybody else experienced this kind of behavior with a Panasonic DVR? Any ideas what could be wrong or how to fix it? Is the DVD drive toast?
My TV Guide listings stopped downloading a few months ago and NOTHING I have done has corrected the problem. Resetting everything multiple times, changing to the "Host" channel before shutting down and also rebooting my Time Warner box has not helped. I always get the message Data has failed. I'm guessing it has to do with the new digital channels being loaded and the TV Guide download has been shut off by somebody somewhere. Anyone else have ideas how to geth the downloads started again?
i think we have suffered enough with tvgos. it is time to give it up. get a tivo and hook it up to your e85 and move on. sfstan comcast san francisco
"My TV Guide listings stopped downloading a few months ago and NOTHING" Try another zip code? Try mine 93950. It gets data.
After not getting listings with my zip code, I looked up the address of my PBS station and used that zip code. Listings populated last night and everything on the HDD side of the machine seems to work. Those of you who are having trouble getting your TVGOS downloads may want to give that a try. Maybe the zip code map has been disrupted somehow. The DVD is still toast, however. Can't get it open. Anybody have any ideas or will it have to go in for repair? I rarely use the DVD, so I'm a bit frustrated it failed so early.
Interesting idea on the PBS zip code. I had TWC at my home today because I've been getting some strange video artifacts on my TV(s), VCR and DMR-E85H. They seem digital in nature and only appear in a single frame, but are driving me nuts. (appears on all channels) While replacing the line from the tap to my house, he said something that caught my attention: "We just finished converting the lower channels to digital." Now I don't have digital cable, but appartently the digital part of even the lower channels comes almost all the way down the pipe, which started recently, which is when my TVG listings stopped. Hmmm... Of course, I wonder about these strange video aritfacts and how any data being transmitted could be corrupted too.
In San Antonio with basic cable (i.e. $15/mo) since Aug 2004. For many months now I've been noticing pixilation on several channels. It is extremely annoying. I would say it lasts longer than single frames, though. It is most noticable at quick scene cuts or quick motion that is/was a classic problem with digital broadcasts. It has been confusing me because I have no digital service. Pixilation should only be noticeable on digital broadcasts. My service is analog only. I have no cable box of any kind. So, I figured the pixilation was occurring on digital signals somewhere before they are converted to analog and transmitted throughout the local neighborhood (i.e. either in a satellite uplink/downlink or transport to TWC). Your comment persuades me to believe that TWC has purposely sacrificed the quality of the signal to their low end customers. It didn't occur for over half of the lifetime of my subscription. It's almost to the point where I am considering just going back to the roof mounted TV antenna. If TWC has done this on purpose or made a change that degrades the prior signal quality to low-end (i.e. analog) customers, that really sucks! Why would the affect be limited to analog customers (cheap D/A conversion)? Could this only affect analog customers? Let me know if running a new cable fixes your problem (although - why would it?).
Running a new cable did not, of course, fix the problem. It was just that the cable has been exposed to the elements (older neighborhood, utitlity pole hung wire) for 10+ years and looked pretty bad. He said that they would have someone come out and start checking taps or something. If I get a solution to either the video artifacts or the TVG issue, I'll post it here. I've seen the pixel/blocky thing for more than on frame, occasionally. But this is a wierd ghost image of the previous frame, made up of very thin alternating vertical lines with the new frame. This artifact never appears for more than one frame.
TForce1, Haven't noticed the problem you described. Is it because you recorded a program and then were stepping through a frame at a time? Or was it noticable at normal speed? With regard to the pixilation problem, sometimes I'll notice that the TV program I'm watching is pixilating, but the commercials are not - or vice versa. I am not sure I've ever noticed pixilation on locally produced broadcasts (i.e. local ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX news broadcasts). That is why I suspected it was a problem in a satellite uplink or downlink in transporting the signal to the TWC distribution hub. If anyone else in the San Antonio area lurking on this board has observed this problem since at least the summer, chime on in. I've also noticed that the CW broadcast really sucks. It is from a Kerrville station. I wrote the station manager and they said the problem was due to a DS-1 connection from their studios to TWC and that they are upgrading to a DS-3, but I didn't think that explanation held any water. Their broadcast was fine for the first year or so over cable, then they made a change and it began to suck. Their over-the-air broadcast has always sucked. That was one of the main reasons I got cable in the first place. Most other stations in the SA area came in fine, but UPN (now CW) was terrible due to the antenna being in Kerrville. They also said I should be glad that I'm getting CW at all, because none of those shows - as crappy as the transmission quality is - would be available in San Antonio were it not for them. Sorry, I guess this is off topic and not related to the DMR-E85H nor the U99 errors that are the primary subject of this list. But I've found there are quite a number of techies on this thread who might have some valuable input.
I agree with dgs7 and handyguy that you may be able to resolve your TVGOS download problems by choosing a different zip code. My listings come from the PBS channel, but I have never been able to use my actual home zip code. Instead, I use the zip code for the office of my local cable company (Cox Cable at 73034 in Oklahoma City), even though it is only 3 miles away. The only problem I still have is that I must leave the power on if I have programmed a PBS entry for the same time as a TVGOS download. If I leave the power off, I get the download but do not get the PBS program recorded. With power on, I miss the download but get the PBS program recorded; this isn’t a problem unless I do it frequently, because there are repeat downloads during the next week. My wife also frequently records overnight TCM movies, but the unit is powered down during weekdays so we almost always catch up on the downloads. The TVGOS has worked without error and I have not seen any more U99s on my E85H since the fix was rolled out in Oct 2005. I have dubbed hundreds of 4x and 8x DVDs. I am careful to follow the guidelines from this forum, including the very important one of having a UPS. I have been very pleased with the E85H performance during the past year, but had lots of problems prior to that as I described in earlier forum entries. To the people who are still working through problems, I would say that the members of this forum have been extremely helpful to me and to others, so don’t give up until you have tried all the suggestions listed here. There are a lot of success stories.
Question: Is it possible to access the HDD of the DMR-E85H outside of the machine? A coworker of mine has killed hers. When it is plugged in all it does is flash "Please Wait" endlessly. She is not worried about fixing the machine she just wants many of the videos off of the drive. I tried the obvious and plugged it into my computer as a slave drive but Windows does not recognize the file system that Panasonic has used. Any help is greatly appreciated. ~Neumann
I changed the zip code and it worked!?!! I don't get it. I'm glad it worked and all, but I don't understand why it worked. Thanks for the pointer. BTW, the tech support person from TVGOS never called... at least not yet. If they do I'll be sure to tell them about this solution.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and have Comcast for cable. My TV Guide stopped a week or so ago. After a few days of not having any listings I reset my E85H. The next day my recorder picked up the TV Guide signal and told me that I had 3 channel listings to choose from. The TV Guide choices had changed fron the last time I had to make the choice. I figure either Comcast, the PBS station or TV Guide or a combination of all 3 had sent a bad signal that confused my recorder. Thomas
Looking back through this thread, I tried the (with unit on) press channel up and down at the same time until unit says bye, unplug for 30 seconds, got the please wait for a while, then unit flashing 12:00, turn it on and it goes through the full TVG setup. Well it's been six hours with the unit off and it is still flashing 12:00. I don't remember what it did when it was new, but shouldn't it have at least picked up the time by now? Vulcanusa -> those single frame video artifacts are quite noticable to me just watching TV full speed.
"I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and have Comcast for cable." Try another zip code. Mine works for me, 93950. You area should have the same programming as mine.
