Nothing but trouble

[farbar1]

I have had nothing but trouble since buying a Beyonwiz and subscribing to ICE. I have to ring ICE support so often I have programmed it into a speed dial. Programs get constantly missed, the EPG doesn't get downloaded, the record list doesn't get downloaded. I have to check every day to see that it is still working as it should. Whenever I ring ICE support, I always get told to check that I have the latest firmware and to do a factory reset. You can never contact Beyonwiz - they're worse than Telstra. My advice - don't get involved.

[tonymy01]

Yet the majority of us (Beyonwiz owners) have no problems at all... (or only small probs come daylight savings changeover time).
Have you tried posting on the Beyonwiz forums, and read thru some of the troubleshooting messages on teh Beyonwiz forums and here?
Do you have a working network?
Do you have duplicate LCN channels?
How can you expect to get help when you don't post any info about your troubles.   Your post comes across as trolling (I know you aren't as I do recall you posted a couple of messages the other day) but this kind of rant does nothing to get you help.
Regards

[bodogbodog]

As an interesting balance to the OP's experience - I bought a Beyonwiz DP-P2 last week, set it up including channel scan and IceTV setup and have been recording series and individual programmes without issues since then.
I now have 3 devices working off my IceTV subscription  - two Windows Media Centers and the one Beyonwiz
If life is as bad as the OP suggests maybe its time for them to do a factory reset on their Beyonwiz and set it up and the IceTV subscription as well and see how it goes

[farbar1]

I have fiddled around with a lot of things and it now seems to be working correctly. The only thing I now notice is occasionally a show is recorded that I haven't asked for (I can live with that though). I am not sure what the problems were (but they were bloody annoying). Hopefully it will continue to work as it should.

[grampus]

I have fiddled around with a lot of things and it now seems to be working correctly. The only thing I now notice is occasionally a show is recorded that I haven't asked for (I can live with that though). I am not sure what the problems were (but they were bloody annoying). Hopefully it will continue to work as it should.

That can be caused by having a recording picked up due to a keyword, and not title specific.

[mich@el]

I have had nothing but trouble since buying a Beyonwiz and subscribing to ICE. I have to ring ICE support so often I have programmed it into a speed dial. Programs get constantly missed, the EPG doesn't get downloaded, the record list doesn't get downloaded. I have to check every day to see that it is still working as it should. Whenever I ring ICE support, I always get told to check that I have the latest firmware and to do a factory reset. You can never contact Beyonwiz - they're worse than Telstra. My advice - don't get involved.

I'm with you mate.  Have a DP-Lite, works fine for a couple of weeks, then bang, craps out again. 

e.g. There is now a list of about 20 shows that is was supposed to record over the last two weeks. How many did it record? Zero!!! Can see them all in the timers list, but the dates have passed and they didn't record. Also setup a couple of new recordings over the last weekend for this week (e.g. 'Crownies' for the wife on Monday night) and went to watch it tonight, and it's not there. Look in the timers and it's not there either - Ice website has it listed for recording, but that's it.

No point in trying to call Ice, they will look at thier software, tell you that the details were sent and then blame Beyonwiz, so you call Beyonwiz and if you can get through, they will say check the firmware, reboot the box, then if that doesn't fix it, oh, must be an Ice problem, which leaves me nowhere. Don't bother calling anyone anymore, just have to suck it up and live with it

Off to do yet another factory reset, rescan everything and set it all up again. 

Man, I hate this box...

[raymondjpg]

This looks like two distinct problems.

Can see them all in the timers list, but the dates have passed and they didn't record.

If the timers are there, this doesn't look like an Ice problem. Why they didn't record I don't know. I have never seen that with a DP-P2.

Also setup a couple of new recordings over the last weekend for this week (e.g. 'Crownies' for the wife on Monday night) and went to watch it tonight, and it's not there. Look in the timers and it's not there either - Ice website has it listed for recording, but that's it.

This could be an Ice problem, or it could be internet connectivity.

Maybe you could do as tonymy01 has suggested and post a question on the Beyonwiz forums. Perhaps someone else there has had similar problems with a DP-Lite, or at least point to a series of troubleshooting steps.

FWIW I run both a BW DP-P2 and a Topfield TF7100HDPVRt without any significant problems over the past year. My strategy is to make life as simple as possible for the PVRs, starting with restricting the EPG to a single LCN for each channel on the Ice site. If you are in a region with duplicate channels, delete the duplicates from the BW after the initial scan.

Also, and this can do no harm, before all else ensure that you have the latest firmware installed on the BW. While other versions may work without problems, it makes sense for Ice to ensure that whatever routines they implement at their end are at least compatible with the latest firmware revisions for each PVR.

[prl]

...

Can see them all in the timers list, but the dates have passed and they didn't record.

If the timers are there, this doesn't look like an Ice problem. Why they didn't record I don't know. I have never seen that with a DP-P2.
...

If timers don't run to completion, then they aren't deleted from the timer list. This at least gives you a hint that there was a problem with the timers. This is unlikely to be an IceTV problem. The only thing I can think of that could relate to IceTV is if the timers were sent to the Beyonwiz after the start time for the show. That should still work (though clearly you'd miss part of the program), but perhaps it doesn't work as it should.

[prl]

... Also setup a couple of new recordings over the last weekend for this week (e.g. 'Crownies' for the wife on Monday night) and went to watch it tonight, and it's not there. Look in the timers and it's not there either - Ice website has it listed for recording, but that's it.
...

Has anyone asked you to look at the IceTV status window (in SETUP>Network>IceTV)? Do you see it counting down to when it sends tasks (timers) to the Beyonwiz? When it comes time for the timer update, is there any error message? Do the IceTV recording icons change from "queued" (hollow) to "scheduled" (filled-in)?

What firmware version are you running (SETUP>System>Firmware>Firmware Information)?

I have a DP-Lite (running 01.07.350), and I don't have anything like the problems that you are having.

[grampus]

For the first time, for well over a year, I have had a couple of timers left as "orphans" in one of my boxes.  Previous occurrences I have been able to say that they were due to power outages, but not this time.

This happened around a week ago.  Can't specify a date/time, as I put it down to just one of those things, and somehow these got lost.  The boxes I have are always in standby when I am not using them.  One explanation would be that I lost power over the time of start.  I can't say if I had lost power coincident with the errant timers, but I don't think so, as I would have had to reset a number of clocks in my abode.
I use ntp time. 
I did have another problem, that would have been related to Ice, I think.
Secret Diary of a Call Girl I have recordings set as first runs only.  This is on GEM  mondays
On monday there also was a repeat of a series 2 episode of Secret Diary on ch 9 at a later time.  This was put in my timer list as  Balls of Steel.  I don't have Balls of Steel as a keyword or title, so when I saw that in my timer list on the BW, I had a bit of a hunt around.  The Green Guide showed Ball of Steel,  I believe that Ice showed the timeslot as Secret Diary and not flagged as a repeat.  So that caused confusion.  Ice website showed one thing, the timer in my box (P2) was something else.  So I left it there to see what actually was transmitted.
It was recorded with the title Balls of Steel in my files on the HDD, but it was a repeat of Secret Diary from series 2.

Probably doesn't help anyone make any sense out of it all, but just put it out there.


Just rechecked my timers on both boxes.  No orphans.
Both my boxes are using .350.

[prl]

I've also occasionally had recordings made for the correct timeslot, but get the wrong name. The most recent was last Friday's Escape to the Country (7TWO, Fri Jul 1, 2045, ACT guide), where the recording ended up with the title To Be Advised (but, I think, the correct episode information - Nottingham to South Yorkshire). I think that this has happened before with Escape to the Country.

The timer for tomorrow (Fri 8 Jul, same details) has the correct name. I'll keep an eye on it.

[prl]

... Maybe you could do as tonymy01 has suggested and post a question on the Beyonwiz forums. Perhaps someone else there has had similar problems with a DP-Lite, or at least point to a series of troubleshooting steps.
...

Normally a good suggestion, but the Beyonwiz forum has been very flaky for the last week or so, and is currently (17:30 7 Jul) running but closed for access, presumably while Beyonwiz is working on gluing it back together.

[farbar1]

It seems that since I changed my time to be 'Auto' rather than 'Network' the problem has gone away. It seemed to me that ICE would schedule the recordings OK but the Beyonwiz would lose the current time. My diagnosis is that the connection to the time server would be lost for some period and never recover. On Auto I haven't had a problem (fingers crossed).

[prl]

It's possible to see whether the Beyonwiz has managed to get the time from NTP (the time service used by the Network setting) by looking in the status panel in the Time setup screen when Network time is enabled. It should fetch the time shortly after startup from standby, and then once every 24 hours after that.