Losing freeview channels intermittently
Steve Allen
Member Posts: 47
Hi, I have found some related posts but most relatively old - hope ok to add as new post. Over last three months or so, my Humax DTR1000 loses all freeview channels. Sky1 becomes channel 1 etc. Machine is in high eco mode. Powered up this morning and all OK, put back to standby, couple of hours later& powered up again and all freeview channels lost. To be clear by power up, I mean switching on from high-eco mode. Great picture of Hawaii 5 0 instead of BBC1 :-)
It is a Humax retail DRT1000 and I have a tiscali basic tv add on.
Man sw: 21.50.40
Component sw: 2.9.34
Platform config: 1393
Isp config: 1401011
Re-tune has worked fine each time but lost all scheduled recordings during this 'un-tuned' period.
Any scheduled are listed as failed.
I have two aerial feeds from a loftbox .one to the tv and one to the youview box. I have swapped these over previously and the issue has remained with the youview. I am in an area that I can choose London or South/Hampshire (Can't remember the actual text).
This happens once every couple of weeks or so. The box s a couple of years old, I am on my second box, first replaced under warranty. The only other fault I have is as recorded in other posts; the display will go purple/green, no actual picture that I can actually see but sound perfect. Can change channel and hear sound appropriate to new channel etc. Beleive overheating, full power off for a couple of hours and then apparently ok. Not saying related just trying to give all info that may be relevant. I do not recall an example where the corrupt display was followed by lost of channels etc.
Hoping that this may be a software/firmware issue :-)
It is a Humax retail DRT1000 and I have a tiscali basic tv add on.
Man sw: 21.50.40
Component sw: 2.9.34
Platform config: 1393
Isp config: 1401011
Re-tune has worked fine each time but lost all scheduled recordings during this 'un-tuned' period.
Any scheduled are listed as failed.
I have two aerial feeds from a loftbox .one to the tv and one to the youview box. I have swapped these over previously and the issue has remained with the youview. I am in an area that I can choose London or South/Hampshire (Can't remember the actual text).
This happens once every couple of weeks or so. The box s a couple of years old, I am on my second box, first replaced under warranty. The only other fault I have is as recorded in other posts; the display will go purple/green, no actual picture that I can actually see but sound perfect. Can change channel and hear sound appropriate to new channel etc. Beleive overheating, full power off for a couple of hours and then apparently ok. Not saying related just trying to give all info that may be relevant. I do not recall an example where the corrupt display was followed by lost of channels etc.
Hoping that this may be a software/firmware issue :-)
0
Comments
Through TalkTalk boost, got it 'free' when signing up for one of these combined phone/broadband/mobile/tv deals (I just get the 'free' 6 or so internet channels - Funnily enough it was for the mobile side of things that we took this deal - not the TV ). Back to my prob, I lose all the freeview channels in the EPG. They are completely missing, the first channel listed is '301 Sky1'. When it happens again I will take more notes but I am pretty sure that when I press '1' on the keypad 'Sky1 is displayed'. You bring up a good point 'Visionman', I now question whether I experienced this issue prior to enabling the TalkTalk boost. My best recollection is that I did, in our household we just 'work around' these things. My kids just rescan if they switch on and it has lost channels etc. It is the lost recordings that are the pain.
These are the channels we typically record. The Signal Strength would fluctuate by approx 1% while I actually viewed the setting.
Channel Signal Strength Signal Quality
===========================================
BBC1 52% 100%
BBC2 52% 100%
ITV1 49% 100%
Ch4 49% 100%
Ch5 49% 100%
Film4 49% 100%
We had a new aerial installation 3 years or so ago and took the advise of a local professional installer. We have 2 aerials (one pointing to Crystal Palace & one to 'Southern'), they are combined ( in a way that they do not interfere with each other? - that is roughly what I remember being told) this then feeds into a Loftbox. This I definitely remember as a slightly cheaper brand was offered. Finally we have a number of tv feeds from the Loftbox into various rooms. Two separate feeds from the Loftbox go to our front room, one for the TV and one for the YouView box.
The installer fitted new coax throughout and new wall boxes etc.
So, could I have views on trying the following:
1 - Again swap between the 2 YouView aerial feeds and see if the signal strength changes?
2 - re-tune but select 'Southern' not 'London' and again review signal strength?
I can see how your aerial installer might well combine the signals from two transmitters such that there were no channel,conflicts - adjacent transmitters maintain such arrangements so they don't fight, even accidentally, for any given channel.
But your YouView box, tuning up through the channels you have, is going to hit each mux twice, maybe, on different channels, and it will be a crapshoot whether it can assemble a coherent set from the same transmitter source, or get a pick and mix which means that the 'other muxes' AR signals on the channel you are watching may not in fact relate to the other muxes you have, if they are cross-regional.
So no wonder, perhaps, that it decides its channel handling must be in a mess, and throws it all away, hoping for a retune to restore order.
Which it won't :-(
Quite why YouView boxes are so bad at handling multiple transmitters is still a mystery; we know there are some acknowledged bugs there, and we may even get a fix for these in an upcoming release, after which these issues may be relieved, if not completely eliminated.
But the only fix at the moment is to attenuate all channels till the weaker ones from the further transmitter drop below the threshold.
Which with your setup, where they are equal, you have no chance.
Is it possible that you could disconnect one of these two aerials at source, and then retune and see if you can retain the tunings?
I would expect that to work, assuming your box has no deeper malaise. And if you don't really, really, need both transmitters, it might be OK going forward, at least until the 'trophytr5' fixes are released.
I will continue to monitor the situation. It is not possible for my to disconnect one of the two aerials at source The connection is on the roof, actually quite close to the aerials, I believe.
Occurred again 21.09.15 . OK first thing in morning, initial use at approx 06:00. Put into standby approx 08:30. Switched out on standby approx 09:30 and all OTA channels disappeared. Re-tune and working again.
( And then let's hope I am wrong about the two aerials :-) )
Or at least that the issue with High versus Low Eco is that High causes the box to have a rethink when it starts up, which in a multi-transmitter situation makes it throw away a bunch of channels, while a Low Eco box in Standby is practically On anyway, so does not have a rethink, and so leaves the channels how you set them :-)