Multi-Room DVR Working Perfectly?

[vinnyv07]

I wanted to start a new thread here to try and narrow down the reason for the "Unable To Locate Hub" nag that I and many others are getting frome the MR DVR when watching a program. The Unable to Locate Hub nag happens only to people who are streaming a recorded program to a Hd receiver (not a Standard Receiver). My questions are simple....

1) Are you getting the nag?

2) What model is your Hd receiver?

3) Do you have new wiring? or did the installer use the coax that already exsisted in your house?

4) Do you have a direct connection to the splitter that Verizon installed?

5) When the nag comes up, does it also come up at the same time in another room?

6) Has anyone received the nag when watching a program on a Std receiver?

Answering any of these questions would be helpful. If you have anything to add that would be helpful also.

I am getting the nag now and again. It could happen in 15 mins or an hour. But it almost always happens in the course of an hours time.

The model HD receiver that verizon sent me is HDQ1P-6200-2.

I have new wiring up until the splitter...to each room the installer used the pre-exsisting wiring that was inside the house already.

I have direct connections to each box from the splitter.

I am testing to see if the nag comes up the same time in another room.

When I had a Std receiver I never received the nag.

I have no idea if answering these questions will help at all. But if we could narrow down the problem or when the nag comes up, maybe it will help fix the problem.

If you MR-Dvr is working and streaming to a HD receiver without getting the nag, please post and provide info about your set-up.

[jake5975]

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@vinnyv07 wrote:
 Please keep us posted squatch1969. You are the first I have read to be having the Hub Nag issue since the new update. I was looking foward to getting the new update so I could say goodbye to the nag forever.

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Nope - others, who have 1.6.1, are now reporting a return of the HUB error over at dslreports.  Saying it was okay for a few days (except, of course, for the FF problem that wasn't fixed at all), but that they are now getting the error on a regular basis again. 

[CSimpson]

Oh boy.  This news is a real bummer.  I'm still puzzled why Verizon has been advertising Multi-room DVR service pretty heavily lately when they know full well it's broken.  IMO, Verizon's QA department as failed at its job.  And whoever decided to say "screw it, let's release it to the public anyways" should be fired.

I may have to ditch the MR-DVR service and just run separate DVRs.  I've been dealing with these hub messages for too long now in hopes that it would be fixed soon.

[CSimpson]

Dear Verizon Corporate,

For a company who is trying to entice people to switch, this is not a good way to leave a good "First Impression" to those who make the jump.  This is also not a great way to grow your customer base by "Word Of Mouth", as many current customers are pretty frustrated and would not have very kind things to say to those thinking of switching.  Please halt whatever extraneous features you are working on (eg. games) and throw all of your powers, developers, and testers into fixing these serious glitches.

V/R,

-Chuck Simpson

[jake5975]

Word now is that the 1.6.1 update is being delayed from further roll-out.  Apparently, the audio issue is the reason, but hopefully they properly address the MR-DVR bug too.  Oh well . . .

[squatch1969]

Update: So last night the wife and I watched 24 and American Idol via the MR DVR without any HUB errors. And we were recording other shows at the same time,too FYI.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

[jake5975]

Both recorded in HD?  Did you FF and/or skip through the commercials?

[squatch1969]

Both in HD and yes I skipped the commercials using only the FF button.

Message Edited by squatch1969 on 01-21-2009 11:52 AM

[SQUIDWARD360]

I think I have made it through one SD show in the past without issue.  Never and HD show.  Everytime I press play coming out of fast forward I realize what a bomb technician must feel like disarming a bomb.

[R_E_L]

Sorry to break the news but it seems I do have the 1.6.1 build 8.32 and its not good. I am new to fios TV and maybe things are better in this build compare to what was before (I have nothing to compare) but in my mind, worse, in my wife mind this is simply broken.

She was watching Housewife of OC (or something like that) last night an in 1 hour session, she run into this issue 4 times.

[jake5975]

What I find hilarious is how many of us are catching slack from our wives because of this problem.  There really is no fury quite like a woman scorned.  For the love of married men out there, please fix this Verizon!

[vinnyv07]

I could only go by what I hear in this forum, but it seems to me that Verizon is doing something wrong in testing new builds before they come out. How in the world could they release this without having it tested up and down. I read in this forum that there are only a handful of people testing a new fix. They need proper feedback before they release a new fix. I agree that everything else should be put on hold to fix the huge problem with their MR DVR. The Hub nag is only happening when streaming to an HD receiver. Being that more and more people are going to have HDTV's in their other rooms in their homes, they must find a way to get this fixed. It is a system that is broken....but why not have more people that test a new fix? What is the harm? Very disappointing. It could be a great service, but whoever is calling the shots is really not doing a good job.

1) DVR has limited space....160 gig    What were they thinking?

2) Guide problems all over the place?  What are they thinking? why can't this be fixed?

3) Not increasing the amount of testers of the new fixes?   Why?

Don't get me wrong here. I like the service that Verizon puts forth. But, I never had a dvr before this. So I really have nothing to compare this with. The fact that I have a DVR at this point makes me very happy. Fix the nag already! Find a way to increase the size of the hard drive. Make your customers happy.

[R_E_L]

If I may, let me offer an advise Verizon/Motorola so i wont appear as just complaining ..  

 There is no doubt there is bug and there is no doubt its very flaky which makes it very hard to repro (reproduce) and in reality it probably pop up in very strange and diverse set of setting hence fixing it will be hard.We would all love for Verizon (or most likely its Motorola) to catch this bug, fix it and be done however till then, I think there are few things that can be done to minimize the impact of the bug on the viewers. 

  1)      Error message – The funny thing about this error is that when we get it we see a big error message in the middle of the screen however, while the error is on the screen blocking our view, the actual video is playing in the background.  That means the connection is not really lost, it means the remote set top box believe its lost where its not. That what probably needs the fixing but till then, can we make the error message appear as small icon at the bottom of the screen ? yes, maybe from this point on we can’t do all sorts of video tricks like FF but at least we can watch the show.

  2)      Another thing that we are seeing is the fact that the Media Center doesn’t know the connection was lost as such it believes it continues to broadcast/stream out the video to the remote box. Those of us who tried to press the OK and re-run the show saw error messages saying the show is already streaming and we need to wait few more seconds before we can play it again (this is till the box is being alerted the connection was stopped /dropped).So what if …. At the time we see the error message on the screen or when the user press the “ok” button, the box will send “Stop” command to the media box. This will at least save a stop point so when we restart the show, we don’t need to use FF . think of it like an auto bookmark when error occurred. The stop doesn’t need to come from the remote set top box, it can be done by the home media  machine when it detects a lost connection. I don’t see any scenario where adding a stop point can do harm, it can only do good. Users can always start from the beginning should they choose to do so. 

Btw: the last suggestion is a good one to have regardless of the core bug. There will be cases where the connection might be truly lost for legit reasons but then, why not save the last point where the connection was alive? 

These are two ways I can think of better error handling that can be done by the system. hopefully the error itself will be soon be resolved but till then, make the errors more friendly will be a good progress.    

Message Edited by R_E_L on 01-21-2009 04:41 PM

[SnD]

For the "Unable to locate Hub" Message... 

I am a Fios Tech in NJ and recently a co-worker of mine came across this problem. In the end the one thing that seemed to fix it was to have Tech Support remove the Multi-room DVR service then put it back on the account. Both his and my customer have not had a problem since 1/18/9 . 

Not sure if this is a permanent fix but hopefully it will last until the patch comes out.

Good Luck

[vfg]

It is my understanding that the Multi Room DVR only plays on remote Standard boxes - it doesn't work on HD boxes.

[SQUIDWARD360]

That is not true. Read through this thread.  It just doesn't work very well.

[xlawdog]

Was the service changed recently to allow HD STBs to play recorded HD programs from the Multi-Room DVR? I'm quite sure that when we got FIOS TV about a year ago that capability was not there.

I'd like to upgrade one of my standard STBs to an HD box, but now after reading this thread I'm wondering whether it's more trouble than it's worth.

[Yaco]

Hi,

   It is very roblesome. They seem to break more than they fix. To their credit the where working on in for 2 weeks until I decided to get a TIVO D. I unfortunatly ws too late to get one for a decent price. SO I cancelled it before they could fix it. It is still broken with no time table to fix (Thats been stated).

   Good luck

    Lee

[uatuma]

I have also had the same problem, usually happening about 45 minutes into an hour show.  I reset the router, MRDVR, set-top box, but no help.  Finally called them, they did something from their end, and was told it should be fixed now.  Was also told there will be a firmware update this weekend that should resolve it for everyone.  We'll see.

[Jeff1512]

I believe ALL these issues have been FIXed in settop code 1.6.2.  Anyone here have 1.6.2 settop code (just pushed out receintly) and STILL have these "Cannot locate network hub" or "the FF issue where it skips back to the beginning of the show" issue still????

[wagnerism]

I have the "Unable to locate Hub" message on my Release 1.6.0 DVR.

I called Verizon to see about the update to v1.6.2.

My particular pull from the tech support pool had never heard of this message or this problem.  I wouldn't expect all of them to know everything, so I told him what I have found out about the problem.  He still stuck with the "firmware won't help your problem" statement that he gave when I asked for it.  I cut those guys a lot of slack because they have all types of miscreants calling them demanding stuff that doesn't make sense.

I went along with the "init" resetting the boxes and such.  I had reset everything myself beforehand just to be sure that these problems weren't self-inflicted.  If he did what every caller asked without checking, he'd be helping them cause more problems..

After being persistent, the tech put me on hold and talked to his supervisor.  I think the key was me telling him that the problem was random and that I couldn't reliably reproduce it - so let me get a ticket number so I can pick up where I left off if it happens again.  In other words, I'll go away but will be back as soon as it happens again - and we

He came back and told me his supervisor told him it was a known issue and that 1.6.2 will fix it.  He was also kind enough to tell me that the software roll-out will reach my area (northern Virginia) on March 31st.  (My thoroughness probably helped him predict that I would be asking that exact question - It was nice to see proactive support.)

So the summary:

-Verizon knows about the issue and claims that version 1.6.2 will correct it.

-The software update is being rolled out on a schedule.  If you're nice and persistent, you might get an ETA from Verizon support.

-You cannot get an update to v1.6.2 by calling support and asking for it.

-The internet is AWESOME.  If not for the internet, I probably would have been told to go pound sand.

[R_E_L]

Ok folks,

I have bad news to report.

I did get the 1.6.2 version and I have the report this is bad update. Indeed I haven't seen the hub error message but the current behavior is by far, far worse then it used to be.

Main issue I am seeing is bad streaming. Playing FF, I many time get screen full of pixels and frozen pictures or blank picture. Sometime it 100% stuck and all I can do is press stop and guess what .... FF to the place I was.

Other times the picture is frozen but voice/sound continues.

I am also seeing more on-deman errors (error 51 is I recall) ...

all in all, if what I see is inductive of what others will be seeing I will have to recommend to Verizon to stop the rollout as this is by far worse experience then it used to be.

In case Verizon doesn't listen, I really hope for your sake that you are not next inline to get this update.

I am located in WA state in the Redmond area where the wife is starting to get really annoyed (she doesn't know there was a fix for the old problem she just told that "it seems to get worse and worse")

btw: we got the update in the past 3-5 days and it was very noticeable when we got the update and things are getting from bad to worse

best of luck and sorry for being the bad messenger. will be good for other to check their version and let us know if you see similar issues

Verizon folks: feel free to contact me with more information should you read this thread and need more info.