Interactive on Toppy7100

[abes]

I have an issue that my interactive 'recordings' are not recording at all.

   I have regularly pinged the www.icetv.com.au (which always seems to fail) ~ however directly after, I ping www.iinet.com.au and always get success (I use iinet because the letters are the same for both). Nothing I record via the interactive web or IceTV widget appears to get through.

   All of my recordings seem to be 'queued' (on the Interactive page and/or widget) as per the attached picture but whether they are supposed to look like that until they are transmitted to my Toppy I don't know. The only thing I do know is that no recordings are getting through, I can seemingly ping anything except IceTV (apparently). I am not sure how long 'before' the event are the directions supposed to be 'transmitted' ~ (not that I can assume that will make any difference ~ my Toppy is never off ~ especially more since I am trying to get this recording saga fixed). I have rebooted the Toppy many times before trying the ping test and the test recording ~ all of which were for a couple of hours later than the current time of setting.

   Nowhere in the Toppy menu or my router can I see anything that would prevent the presentation of commands to my Toppy. Are there any 'port' type commands that may be preventing this occurring ~ though it used to work once before that is why I have renewed the subscription.

   The IceTV guide is updating as it should do.
       
        I have been in contact with IceTV Support Staff but they cannot seem to provide an answer so I am hoping someone on this forum may have seen this issue before and know of a fix.

        My Topfield is up to date as far as firmware etc:
System ID: 32050
Loader Version: L0.48
Device version: v1.0.01
Application Version: v1.11.33
Last Update: Mar 17, 2009

Any help muchly appreciated.

Abes

[prl]

...
   I have regularly pinged the www.icetv.com.au (which always seems to fail) ~ however directly after, I ping www.iinet.com.au and always get success (I use iinet because the letters are the same for both). Nothing I record via the interactive web or IceTV widget appears to get through.
...

The Beyonwiz connection to IceTV Interactive doesn't appear to use www.icetv.com.au, but rather remote-beyonwiz.icetv.com.au. The Topfield one could be using a different DNS name and possibly a different IP address.

However, they both resolve to the same IP address (203.145.48.104).

It's possible that a router somewhere between you and www.icetv.com.au (203.145.48.104) isn't letting ICMP ECHO_REQUEST and/or ECHO_RESPONSE packets through (the protocol and packet types used by ping), since that problem doesn't seem to be stopping you get the IceTV guide.

[abes]

Just read an email from IceTV support which advises me that www.icetv.com.au doesn't allow pings ~ hence no ping return. Apparently the issue may be with the Topfield in that it only seems to perform a 'scheduler task fetch' ~ which is apparently different froma 'TV guide fetch' ~ after I first boot (or reboot) the Toppy.
They suggested contacting Topfield to see what the go is ~ so that is my next step.

Abes

[prl]

Just read an email from IceTV support which advises me that www.icetv.com.au doesn't allow pings ~ hence no ping return. Apparently the issue may be with the Topfield in that it only seems to perform a 'scheduler task fetch' ~ which is apparently different froma 'TV guide fetch' ~ after I first boot (or reboot) the Toppy.
They suggested contacting Topfield to see what the go is ~ so that is my next step.

Abes

"Scheduler task fetch" is the recording timer update part of the IceTV data exchange. If that runs, the timers on the Topfield should get updated. Have you tried a "resend all timers" in My Account>Interactive on the IceTV Web interface?

[abes]

Yes, have tried 'resend' various times ~ all to no avail. All my interactive recording are showing 'queued' however just looked at my Toppy and tonights recordings seem to have occurred and there is a Series recording scheduled for the remainder of the week (as it should be). Only difference is rebooted my Topfield this afternoon (again), so I will have to monitor and see.

Cheers
Abes

[mikeathome]

I assume that by reboot you mean going in and out of standby?

You mention that your TF is always on - by which I presume you mean powered up and not in standby. I seem to recall a lengthy discussion on the now unavailable iTopfield forum (possibly in regard to the 7000) about whether units should be left on or switched to standby. Different people had different opinions but after reading it all I recall that I could see no real reason to leave the device on, and therefore I turn mine off (into standby) when its not in use. Clearly it was designed for this type of use otherwise it wouldn't have a standby option nor the facility to wake up to record nor the sleep timer options. Also the internal HDD is not designed for 24x7 use.

I have been using the latest TF firmware with ICE since its release date and haven't experienced the issue you describe.  I am, however, still occasionally (usually on Fridays) finding the ICE EPG blank. It comes back after a while (I usually switch to FTA in the meantime to find out what's on). Despite trying everything I can think of I can't make it come back, it has to be left to do it itself.

Obviously, new or changed timer settings from ICE interactive will not be able to be affected unless the TF is on and connected to the internet. Some have apparently dealt with this when away from home etc when the TF is not being used by setting a wake up timer for, say, an hour every day.

[abes]

I assume that by reboot you mean going in and out of standby?

You mention that your TF is always on - by which I presume you mean powered up and not in standby. I seem to recall a lengthy discussion on the now unavailable iTopfield forum (possibly in regard to the 7000) about whether units should be left on or switched to standby. Different people had different opinions but after reading it all I recall that I could see no real reason to leave the device on, and therefore I turn mine off (into standby) when its not in use. Clearly it was designed for this type of use otherwise it wouldn't have a standby option nor the facility to wake up to record nor the sleep timer options. Also the internal HDD is not designed for 24x7 use.

I have been using the latest TF firmware with ICE since its release date and haven't experienced the issue you describe.  I am, however, still occasionally (usually on Fridays) finding the ICE EPG blank. It comes back after a while (I usually switch to FTA in the meantime to find out what's on). Despite trying everything I can think of I can't make it come back, it has to be left to do it itself.

Obviously, new or changed timer settings from ICE interactive will not be able to be affected unless the TF is on and connected to the internet. Some have apparently dealt with this when away from home etc when the TF is not being used by setting a wake up timer for, say, an hour every day.

Excuse my ignorance but is there a difference between 'standby' and 'off'. I can't seem to find any setting or anything in the manual that differientiates between the two. It's just that I have a Harmony One to control my various units (TV, Stereo, PVR, Fox) and I switch between PVR & Fox a bit (especially when the footy is on) and so there is a 'big' delay when powering on the PVR (good minute or so) ~ hence my decision to leave it on all the time. If there is a 'standby' mode then I would certainly look at that more closely.

Cheers

Abes

[prl]

...
Excuse my ignorance but is there a difference between 'standby' and 'off'. I can't seem to find any setting or anything in the manual that differientiates between the two. It's just that I have a Harmony One to control my various units (TV, Stereo, PVR, Fox) and I switch between PVR & Fox a bit (especially when the footy is on) and so there is a 'big' delay when powering on the PVR (good minute or so) ~ hence my decision to leave it on all the time. If there is a 'standby' mode then I would certainly look at that more closely.
...

On the Topfield 7xxx and the Beyonwiz PVRs, "standby" means that the main board, HDD and other peripherals are powered off. Main memory is cleared. The CPU isn't running. Only the front panel is powered on and running. It has a microcontroller that runs the front panel display, the restart timer and the remote control receiver. From this state, the PVR can respond to POWER commands from the remote, and be restarted by the timer (which is set to fire just before the next recording is due).

"Off," as far as I'm concerned, means "no power supply from the mains". In this state, the PVRs have some way of keeping the restart timer and clock running for a while (so that they can keep working after a power failure), but while the mains power is off, they obviously can't be started by the restart timer.

It's quite possible that the Topfield manual confuses "standby" and "off".

"Standby" on the Topfield 7xxx and the Beyonwiz PVRs is nothing like "standby" on, for example, the TiVo, where "standby" means "almost everything powered up and running".

[jaspa]

From the original image, it shows that all except the last 2 series are scheduled.

having said that I had an issue where all my schedulers were erroring and it was due to the Chanel mapping I had set(or hadn't set up).

ICE Support gave me the followign which fixed my problem.


this could be due to the channel not being mapped properly to the correct LCN.

To fix this, open the setup screen by pressing the "Menu" button and then "System Setting" on the remote control.
Scroll down and select "EPG Setting" by pressing "OK".
Scroll down and select "Channel Map" by pressing "OK".
With the chanel highlighted, use the Left/Right buttons to change the LCN value to match the channel number that you watch the station on.

Once this has been fixed, the recordings that had errors will need to be re-scheduled, as recordings with errors are not sent, even when using the "re-send all recordings" function. This needs to be done manually by clicking on each program, and then selecting the "re-schedule".

Each affected program will need to be individually re-scheduled.

[abes]

...
Excuse my ignorance but is there a difference between 'standby' and 'off'. I can't seem to find any setting or anything in the manual that differientiates between the two. It's just that I have a Harmony One to control my various units (TV, Stereo, PVR, Fox) and I switch between PVR & Fox a bit (especially when the footy is on) and so there is a 'big' delay when powering on the PVR (good minute or so) ~ hence my decision to leave it on all the time. If there is a 'standby' mode then I would certainly look at that more closely.
...

On the Topfield 7xxx and the Beyonwiz PVRs, "standby" means that the main board, HDD and other peripherals are powered off. Main memory is cleared. The CPU isn't running. Only the front panel is powered on and running. It has a microcontroller that runs the front panel display, the restart timer and the remote control receiver. From this state, the PVR can respond to POWER commands from the remote, and be restarted by the timer (which is set to fire just before the next recording is due).

"Off," as far as I'm concerned, means "no power supply from the mains". In this state, the PVRs have some way of keeping the restart timer and clock running for a while (so that they can keep working after a power failure), but while the mains power is off, they obviously can't be started by the restart timer.

It's quite possible that the Topfield manual confuses "standby" and "off".

"Standby" on the Topfield 7xxx and the Beyonwiz PVRs is nothing like "standby" on, for example, the TiVo, where "standby" means "almost everything powered up and running".

I understand that however my Toppy takes a good minute or so from "Standby" (ie having pressed the 'Standby/Off" button with the Blue surround light on the front) to an actual picture on the TV. It goes through a 'bootup'sequence (or whatever it may be) with 'RUN' showing in the display then it shows the TV picture. If I was to programme the Harmony One to turn off the PVR each time I changed from it to Fox (just in case I wasn't using the device) then this would occur. Hence the reason for 'on' all the time. Also if I leave it on until the final OFF button press (say prior to going to bed) then I have to have it turned on sometime later to watch TV without taping something!!

Maybe I will have to research into how to control the PVR better through the Harmony One ~ maybe turn it on during the first device turn on or something like that.

Cheers
Abes

[prl]

...
I understand that however my Toppy takes a good minute or so from "Standby" (ie having pressed the 'Standby/Off" button with the Blue surround light on the front) to an actual picture on the TV. It goes through a 'bootup'sequence (or whatever it may be) with 'RUN' showing in the display then it shows the TV picture. If I was to programme the Harmony One to turn off the PVR each time I changed from it to Fox (just in case I wasn't using the device) then this would occur. Hence the reason for 'on' all the time. Also if I leave it on until the final OFF button press (say prior to going to bed) then I have to have it turned on sometime later to watch TV without taping something!!

Maybe I will have to research into how to control the PVR better through the Harmony One ~ maybe turn it on during the first device turn on or something like that.

Cheers
Abes

When you power up, and the Topfield is showing its startup messages, it is indeed rebooting.

I don't have a Topfield (any more, I used to have a TF7000HDPVRt), but Beyonwiz startup is similar, in that it takes a while to go from standby to powered up. However, it's certainly less than 60 seconds, more like 15, and I don't recall the 7000 needing anything like 60 seconds startup, either.

I also use a Harmony remote (785, rather than a One), and it's smart enough to only power things off (or on) if they need to be powered off (resp on) when I go from one activity to another. I suspect that the One would do the same. You don't need to power off on the Harmony remote to switch activities.

For example, if I go from Watch TV (Beyonwiz DP-S1 ON, TV ON, Radio/Amplifier ON) to Listen to CD (Beyonwiz DP-S1 ON, TV OFF, Radio/Amplifier ON), all the Harmony 785 does is turn the TV off. It doesn't power cycle either the DP-S1 or the Radio/Amplifier. Similarly, going from Watch TV to Listen to the Radio (Beyonwiz DP-S1 OFF, TV OFF, Radio/Amplifier ON), it doesn't power cycle the Radio/Amp.

You do need to insert enough delay in the POWER commands to make sure that any other commands sent to the device being powered up are long enough. The default power-on delays in the Harmony database were way too short for both the Beyonwiz and the Radio/Amp. It was especially important for the Radio/Amp, because I need to send PowerToggle, (delay) then change to the appropriate input for the activity.

[mikeathome]

With the latest firmware my 7100 takes 33secs to boot from standby to picture and a few more seconds checking HDD.

The reason I raised the issue or rebooting several posts ago was that I think that going in and out of standby (rebooting) might impact on the ICE EPG and the fact that I and others are not seeing the same problem as the OP might be because I turn my 7100 off when not in use whereas the OP says he does not. Just a thought.

[Dette67]

For the last couple of days I have been having problems with my recording coming through. In the EPG setting I tried pinging the IceTV server all it all worked fine, it said it downloaded 30 mins EPG and 30 mins scheduler but no schedules come through. I had resend recording about 5 times and nothing happened. After reading about rebooting and powering off, I though I would try rebooting and still nothing. Because I too leave my Toppy7100 on all the time I thought I would try powering off. I left it off for 10 sec and turned it back on and would you know it they all came through striaght away. I have now decided that it might be a good idea to turn it off at least once a week by pulling out the power cable for 10 sec to make sure it doesnt happen again. Now I will see if I can find somewhere to download Nieghbours and Home and Away as by the time I realised that they didnt record they were finished lol.  :'(