Sept 2020 Fios DVR and Guide Update

[Scott804]

This week Fios pushed out interface updates for their TV services. After nearly 3 hours in chats, I was finally told that there is no way to roll back updates once loaded and they base new update options based on posts in the forum. Below are my complaints that they will only fix with enough support on here, if you have the same issues, please mark the post. 

1. They removed the chapter function for recorded programs on the dvr (the up arrow that would allow you to move to any 10 min marker in a program).

2. The new Now and Next function causes latency when switching channels. Even after setting it to 0 seconds. 

3. They removed the ability to view a single channel lineup in the tv guide. In the past I would just hit guide a second time to see the next 5-10 shows on a single channel. 

4. Finally, I just find the prettier guide view harder to actually read and process. Not sure if it is the number of channels,  dark screen, or just that it is too busy.  Turning off the background video helped a little, but not much. 

[WRKPA]

When are they bringing the colors back? I've seen Comcast and Direct TV, both use the colors to differentiate the various shows! Verizon's guide in one word, **bleep**! 

[TruthHurts1]

1st off, this isn’t solved. 

2nd, the lack of color code guide is a disgrace. You stripped us of a feature in exchange for a crap user interface that requires multiple clicks to get to groups that are general and not specific to the content on in real time. ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX aren’t included in sports yet broadcast some of the most major sport events. 

This is a step back. More than one actually. This is a disgrace and the project manager for the user interface should be embarrassed. The whole team should be embarrassed. Please give us this feature back and show us you care. Oh, and by the way, aside from the color coded guide, if this is the best user interface you can put out in 2021... the entire team should be replaced and rebuilt from the ground up with a leader that understands ease of use. 

[peroma]

Tried to get used to this new release now for a couple months, still it is annoying, hard to read, too busy and just plain INEFFICIENT.  For the high price Verizon charges for it services it should maintainbthe option of the -One- Channel Guide, It's easy to read, especially for people with vision problems & seniors.

[dukesmom1]

It is just terrible. A jumble of words. It is worse than inefficient.

[2poodles1]

The upgrade is terrible.  I have had to hard reboot twice in 2 days.  When I go to the DVR, the guide crashes - I just get the PIP and a black screen.  It keeps getting worse and worse with every “improvement.”  

The only light at the end of the tunnel is that we plan to move and where we’re going we will not get FIOS.  

[Psihawk1]

How do you find the Guide version?   Sorry i wasnt able to find that in the forum here.

[clem21]

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@Psihawk wrote:

How do you find the Guide version?   Sorry i wasnt able to find that in the forum here.

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Menu>settings>system information. You'll find an APR version there, that's what we are looking for. By now it should be APR 7.8.

[bristollucy]

This worked for me. Use your remote

GUIDE-->MENU

NENU-->use the UP arrow to SETTINGS

SETTINGS-->to SYSTEM

SETTING-->use the DOWN arrow to SYSTEM INFORMATION

Hope this helps.

[Nilsa_VZ · Accepted solution]

Please disregard that this topic has been marked as solved. This post was marked as the solution in order to float it to the beginning of this thread for increased visibility.

Dear Verizon Customers,

Thank you for bringing these concerns to our attention. We are listening to you and based on your feedback, we have made SOME additional changes to the new Fios TV Interface with the APR 7.8 update. Here are the interface updates:

• User Interface Improvements
  • Guide legibility improvements
  • Free To Me filter renamed to Subscribed
  • Episode font size updated to fit more characters
  • 2 ½ hour guide skipping with prev/next buttons
• Video On Demand updates
• Fixes/Improvements

You will see the above mentioned Fios TV interface changes roll out from 12/09 through 1/13.

Additional responses:

Coloring: Here is another way to navigate to channel groups that used to be colored:

The channel neighborhoods are still organized by the genres you're familiar with.  While in the main Guide, press the Guide button again to apply your filters and move over to the Jump To function.  Now you can jump your guide to specific channel neighborhoods.  If you have Fios TV One with a Voice Remote, while in the guide you can also say “Jump to <channel neighborhood>”.

Last Button: The button labeled "Last" on our remotes for 1100 and 4100's can be configured to operate in one of 2 ways. You can either jump back and forth between your last 2 watched programs, or you can have it bring up the "Last Watched Rail" which contains more of your most recently watched content, including VOD and DVR shows.

Access Menu>Settings>System>Television>Last Watched Rail to enable and disable the Last Watched Rail.

If the "Last Watch Rail" disappears, please use this workaround: Reboot the box or boxes on which the issue is seen to check if that fixes the problem. If it still appears bothersome or comes back, please disable the last watched rail.  Access Menu>Settings>System>Television>Last Watched Rail to enable and disable the Last Watched Rail.

We are aware of the Last Watched Rail issue reported in this Community and we will have a fix in place with the next release.

Guide Banner: You can disable the Guide Ad banner setting via the following:

Main Menu>>settings>>Notification>Guide Banners->Disable

Lagging / Slowness / Sluggishness:

If you are still experiencing lagging, slowness or sluggishness when interacting with the set top box after the latest update (APR 7.8), please elaborate on which specific functionality is exhibiting this behavior (ex. Navigating Menu/Guide/On Demand, channel surfing, DVR etc.)?

Please feel free to provide any additional details which will be useful and assist the development team as they further investigate.

As always, we greatly appreciate and value your feedback.

Thank you.

[LongtimeuserNJ]

For reference, I have VMS 1100 and 2 associated IPC's. ALL of the things I talk about below happen on both the VMS1100 as well as IPC's.

Issues that still exist in APR 7.8: 

1. General sluggishness:  I think it is related to slowness in loading the show posters, which to me are unnecessary especially when they ruin the use experience by making EVERYTHING sluggish...

     - When watching a program hitting "info"  results in a delay before the program info banner shows.

    - Navigating in the guide it takes a while to load the "mini" show posters next to the channel logos. This includes moving around, acknowledging hitting "record" or anything else waits for these mini posters to load... every time.

   - When performing any operation controlling the video such as fast forward, rewind, skip ahead,  skip back, pause or play there is a delay for bringing up the banner, probably related to loading the posters. This happens when watching a recorded program or live TV.

2.  Colors in the guide:  The "neighborhoods" are NOT a replacement!!! Having to do additional button presses to see what used to be just in the guide is not acceptable.

3. Adding back the video window in the guide is appreciated.  However, when watching a recorded show, doing any navigating in the guide when it needs to load more data (e.g. advancing to future days) causes the playback to just end with a message in the video window saying "playback has ended".

4. While watching a recording, hitting "exit" to clear the program banner brings up an unnecessary and annoying dialog box asking if I want to exist the recording.  If I want to exit I will use the other methods available (stop, last channel or entering a channel to tune to).  All I want to do is get rid of the banner that covers almost 1/2 the screen and there is no way to do that without having to also clear this unnecessary dialog box.

5. There is no way to consistently display the timeline when watching a recording to just show how much time has already been viewed and how much time is left without pausing the playback. It appears that this info is shown if "play" is pressed, however, most of the time pressing play ends up pausing the playback. This used to display with the "Info" button in older APR versions before the "major" redo of it. I'm not looking to get to the "chapters" replacement which always pauses the playback.

Overall, the APR 7+ versions are a DOWNGRADE from the old version. The old version worked just fine and these newer versions are AWFUL and do not add to the user experience.  They do, in fact, make the user experience much more frustrating. I still can not understand why Verizon has allowed this crappy, buggy software to be rolled out to paying customers and that it hasn't been fixed for several months. As an IT person, how this software passed any testing is completely baffling to me. 

[2poodles1]

The above is very well stated.  It accurately captures my frustrations.

I will add one other.  Since the latest attempt to fix the upgrade, my guide freezes at least 3x per week, forcing me to reboot to see the guide or programming.  All that I see is the PIP with the rest of the screen black.  I hate sitting there for 5 minutes watching the reboot process, especially if I actually wanted to watch TV at that moment. 

[Joe624]

Since 7.8 i've acquired a new symptom - when opening or flipping pages on the guide, occasionally there'll be a channel slot that doesn't fill in - just the channel # appears, but no further info. Exiting & restarting the guide refills the missing info.

[VG_fios_issues]

I’m still experiencing issues since this update. My remote now lags on all functions:  accessing DVR, loading shows on DVR, pushing to start a show on the DVR, accessing the guide, recording shows.  This list goes on and on. I don’t know why everything is lagging but I wish you’d roll it all back so I don’t have to hit the play button for five minutes to get anything to respond. 

[yellowbeard]

Bring color coding back!

[CLRBP]

My VMS110 DVR lag has gotten really slow. Release APR-8.0 Build 32.08. All advertising and other non essential functions are off. These issues started about 2 months ago (11-2022) and are getting worse. I have done the reset without any improvement.The guide menu takes about 15 to 20 seconds to show on all 3 boxes. The DVR functions lock-up often. When the DVR button is pushed it can take 10-30 seconds to load, (the DVR is about 30% full) sometimes it won't load at all. After watching a recorded show and exiting out, at times it will freeze and then just go to live TV. Trying to do any DVR function like setting up a new recording or deleting an old show is maddening, I have to use the Verizon web site to handle these operations. Trying to use On Demand is next to impossible but when it does open it's very sluggish, will freeze or reset to live.  When watching live TV the basic remote functions are all very sluggish and will sometimes freeze and then reset to channel 2. We have had this DVR for about 5 years so I'm wondering if it just needs to be replaced. Thanks for any help or guidance you can give.

[clem21]

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@CLRBP wrote:

My VMS110 DVR lag has gotten really slow. Release APR-8.0 Build 32.08. All advertising and other non essential functions are off. These issues started about 2 months ago (11-2022) and are getting worse. I have done the reset without any improvement.The guide menu takes about 15 to 20 seconds to show on all 3 boxes. The DVR functions lock-up often. When the DVR button is pushed it can take 10-30 seconds to load, (the DVR is about 30% full) sometimes it won't load at all. After watching a recorded show and exiting out, at times it will freeze and then just go to live TV. Trying to do any DVR function like setting up a new recording or deleting an old show is maddening, I have to use the Verizon web site to handle these operations. Trying to use On Demand is next to impossible but when it does open it's very sluggish, will freeze or reset to live.  When watching live TV the basic remote functions are all very sluggish and will sometimes freeze and then reset to channel 2. We have had this DVR for about 5 years so I'm wondering if it just needs to be replaced. Thanks for any help or guidance you can give.

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The 1100 boxes are old tech, slow processors and far less ram than the 4100 series. As the guide gets more complicated and functions evolve it has become a dinosaur. Time to upgrade to the 4100 series, but remember you will loose any DVR recordings you have on the older unit.

[Nikki0383]

New Fios guide is horrible. All of my station icons are gone. I have no idea which channels are which apart from the channel number. Getting rid of the color coding is also an issue. It is now so hard to read as well. As if 2020 couldn’t be any worse Fios did this. Whoever designed it should be fired. 

[mgklank1]

I’m also having this issue why remove the channel icons?? It’s impossible to remember even channel while strolling through the guides.

[mike1662]

Just wanted to add my extreme disapproval to the upgraded FIOS TV menu.  It is the worst ever.  It is very slow - way too long a latency in changing channels, etc.  It doesn't show the current show in the upper left box,.  Color coding used to be very helpful to ascertain the type of programming that was available.  Now gray scale which supposedly shows the current program behind it is worthless.  

  What do we have to do to get the old menu back.  Other members are all correct - upgrade (if it can be called that) was made by a cretin (and I am being kind!!!) .  Project manager should be fired!     

[Skizzie11]

This post is marked as solved and we all know IT IS NOT SOLVED so it needs to be changed to UNSOLVED! If you chose SOLVED, change it back. If you are Verizon and changed it to solved, change it back. Or stop sending everyone to this post that makes people believe there is an ACTUAL SOLUTION TO THIS UPDATE NIGHTMARE!

[12yrCustomer]

The remote response time is atrocious, it takes me 5 times to enter a channel correctly.  So frustrating!