Humax/BT DTR-T1000 - Maintenance Mode software source
So I got my hands on a Humax BT DTR-T1000 and noticed the screen goes blank and it freezes, so I have to do a power cycle. When I did a MM reset and downloaded the software off the internet I wondered who is providing the software the box is downloading, is BT, Humax or Youview providing it?
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The T1000s have rather been left behind by the later T2xxx and T4000 boxes, so I hope you didn’t pay too much, if anything at all, for it.
I’m not clear if you want to know where the software is loading from (a YouView server, I think) or who wrote it (Humax the firmware, YouView the presentation layer, BT the My BT app).
But I don’t knows what difference that would make to you?
A couple of things to know that will make a practical difference:-
There are three ‘skins’ for the UI - Retail, BT and TalkTalk - and which one you get depends whether your ISP is BT, TalkTalk, or somebody else. It does not depend on the box model, nor on whether you are in subscription with BT or TalkTalk or not. Through much of what you are presented by the BT skin does not function unless you subscribe to BT TV, and TalkTalk likewise; though you can easily pick your way round the specific stuff, as I do, having BT as my ISP but not electing to have BT TV.
Updates for your box, if there are any to come, will always be those applicable to the box model, no matter who your ISP is.
You can check your box model as shown at:-
https://support.youview.com/youview-box/box-and-remote/checking-your-box-model/
to see if it is the BT (subscription) or BT Retail variant, as given by:-
https://support.youview.com/youview-box/software-updates/latest-software-versions/
Your T1000 box won’t get Amazon Prime or NowTV, limitations easily over come by buying a Stick from either party, and perhaps one or two other modern apps.
T1000 capacitors deteriorate, making these boxes unreliable over time, quite apart from other issues to do with their age; so I hope the MM stopped your box freezing.
But if not, and you like YouView, preowned T2xxx boxes are readily available, often at quite low prices, on eBay and Amazon.
Thats an informative post. I didnt know the capacitors deteriorate over time any more than others, but I noticed when the box got hot, I got the freezing and blank HDMI screen.
So I took the lid off, saw there was no heatsink on the cpu, just something looking like a plate or adaptor to attach a heatsink too and the temp of the cpu was way too hot for a CPU to operate. The Raspberrypi cpu will slow down the clock cycles when it hits 85Degrees C for example (Raspberry Pi Documentation), Intel automatically slow up the cpu speed when it gets too hot, but AMD didnt/dont. So in the old days when couriers bounced pc boxes around, a newly unboxed intel would work slowly if the heatsink had come off in transit and the amd's would just freeze.
The T1000 is doing the same thing, when it gets hot it freezes, when its kept cold it works.
So I'll try to find out what the cpu in the device is and then see if its got any thermal management to stop it from overheating.
As it happens I've been given a load of old (1st generation) devices, like a Humax Foxsat HD, a Roku, a NowTv device & a TalkTalk box so I'm taking them apart and seeing if I can get them reprogrammed. I found the Hummy.tv website which does its own firmware for a few Humax devices, so I'm hoping to modify this Hummy.tv firmware to work on the Humax devices here. Its got a telnet option and I can see its using a lot of linux to run with, so making changes might not be so difficult compared to flashing chips with FlashRom and modified BLOB's.
The reason I think the T1000 is a firmware setting issue is because it hadnt been updated from its 2016 firmware when I got it and it worked fine here until I upgraded it and then all freezing started. An easy conclusion admittedly but it seems logical.
We are not on BT or TalkTalk so we get the retail skin. Anyway its mainly an exercise to see what can be learnt about these devices in order to modify them.
That will be useful, and I may even be able to get the soldering gun out.
Apropos of it running hot, there is a fan in there that is supposed to run when this happens.
Check that there is, and that it does come on.
There are historic posts in the Community about fans failing due to the heat sensor going, one or both of the 3v and 12v supplies to it failing, bypassing the heat sensor so it is always on, and other catnip to the soldering iron community.....
If you're in it for the software/firmware learning experience you're best off swapping to an RPi now, all you'll learn from a T1000 is how a Linux secure boot system frustrates the hacker/hobbyist.
As an aside it's MIPS not ARM: