DirecTV confirms HD DVR / receiver glitch, apologizes profusely

So it's true -- hordes of DirecTV users weren't just dreaming about a glitch that required a painstaking reboot to start the week off. DirecTV has sent out e-mails to loads of affected users which were unexpectedly forced to mash the red "Reset" button located within a door on the front panel of their HD DVR / receiver in order to get things going again. Of course, even the mighty satcaster can't replace any missed recordings that were scheduled, but it is "sincerely" sorry for the inconvenience. You'll still be paying your full bill, though, so it's not that sorry.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 8th 2008 11:38AM]

Is it "Late 2009" yet?!

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 8th 2008 9:53AM]

Hey, My SD R-10 DirecTIVO still works flawlessly even if it's only 480i. I'm holding my breath for Tivo's return to High Definition DirecTV.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 8th 2008 11:38AM]

My HR20's Channel Up/Down button STILL doesn't work after 4 reboots! I got the email yesterday, but of course that doesn't help replace the programs that were missed Monday night. Thanks, DirecTV. I'm replacing both DirecTV HD DVRs I have with Tivo models when they become available. Never had a day of problems with my old HR10-250.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 8th 2008 11:43AM]

I guess I don't understand why this was important enough for DirecTV to issue a press release since this is a common problem that many people have endured for years. DirecTV boxes will freeze up from time to time. For some people it can be more frequent and for others like myself, I rarely had to reboot more than once per month and all my shows and scheduled recordings remained in tact. This is standard operating procedure for DirecTV equipment. It's not ideal and in fact it's a pain but it's just the way that it is and it must be weighed in with all the other good and bad trade offs for this service vs the others that are available to you.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 8th 2008 4:29PM]

This happened to about 90-95% of HR-20/HR-21 customers all at the same time. It's definitely a bigger deal than some isolated lockups.

In six months, I haven't ever reset my HR20 until this.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 8th 2008 12:43PM]

Awwww, poor DirecTV customers. At least you dont have time warner. Not only do I have their crappy new dvr software, but I got one of their "new" dvr's as well, so the software is even more glitchy. Half the time the box doesn't respond to my remote control, which can be a real pain when fast-forwarding, and not being able to stop it, and the other night, instead of recording fox from 8-10, it recorded PBS! It still says it recorded Simpsons-American Dad on Fox, but nope, each half hour "show" was 30 mins of PBS.

Thank you time warner.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 8th 2008 8:02PM]

Boo hoo. I had to press my reset button. Whatever will I do?

DirecTV has been AWESOME to me. I got a phone call right before I went to San Francisco on Friday informing me that one of my boxes (the plain HD silver box, I think H-20) had been recalled because of problems I had been experiencing with it (constant rebooting) and after watching my Patriots beat the 49ers on Sunday, I had a brand new H-21 sitting on my doorstep when I got home from the airport Monday night. I never even called about the issue because I thought it was my fault and it was overheating (I had DVD player and RF Modulator stacked on top of it) and since I had a fan blowing on it every so often, I wasn't having as much of a problem.

I've had nothing but positive experiences with DTV. Love it.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 9th 2008 1:07PM]

Hey Guys,

If you still have problems after a re-boot. Try unplugging the DVR from power for about 2 minutes. Then plug back in and see if your system has full functionallity again. Worked for me. Although I had to re-select all my "custom 1" channels.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 10th 2008 2:24PM]

DirecTV Device Programmers take heed! (Yeah, you guys over there in India):

There is a bug in the device programming for the R-15 DVR causing it to fail to change the channel to record a program.

Issue: if two shows are scheduled simultaneously, if, just ahead of their scheduled start time, you are watching one of the tuners live with a buffer (meaning you have paused it at some time and then resumed), the R-15 DVR fails to change the channel of that tuner in order to record the two shows.

The result: one of the two scheduled shows is not recorded. This is repeatable and is a serious bug. It happens every time. The issue is a failure on the part of the developers to handle what is known as an "event exception" in the code. Currently, the only workaround is for the viewer to dump any live buffer ahead of the start times in the above scenario by changing the channel.

The programming for the R-15 DVR needs to be corrected and updated as of Oct. 10, 2008.